The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (38 page)

‘Really?’
said Lord Brentford once more.

‘Absolute
secrecy.’ Leah took up her champagne glass, her golden eyes reflected in the
golden sparkled liquid. ‘It would mean death for me if I were discovered.’

‘Then
it is out of the question,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘Please forget that I ever
broached the subject.’

‘And
that
is the only answer I could have hoped for.’ Leah smiled at his lordship. ‘I
am considered by my parents to be somewhat irresponsible and skittish, for I
hold to opinions that are not strictly to their liking. One of these opinions
is that magic is a universal force that can benefit all if used correctly. I
will school you in the thaumaturgical arts, Lord Brentford, for I know that you
will use them wisely.’

‘Well,’
said his lordship. ‘Wasn’t expecting
that.
Don’t know quite what to say.

‘What
is your Christian name, Lord Brentford?’

‘Albert,’
said his lordship. ‘But folk who are close call me Berty.’

‘Well,
Berty,’ said Leah, reaching forward to touch her glass to his, ‘you can say
thank you to me, if you will.’

‘Thank
you, Leah,’ said the lord called Berty. ‘Thank you, beautiful lady, very much
indeed.’

Although history
would never record it, this intimate agreement between two beings born upon
separate worlds would set in motion a series of events that would culminate in
an event of such cosmic significance as to be considered by most historians,
had they known of it, the very turning point of humanity.

Berty and Leah
gazed at each other and shared a moment of magic.

Not
so Darwin, however, who lay in a drunken stupor on the floor.

36

avinia
Dharkstorrm was never far from the thoughts of Cameron Bell. All lines of
investigation had brought the great detective to one dead end or another. The
evil witch was nowhere to be found. It was possible, of course, that she had
gone off-world, to Mars perhaps, or even Jupiter. Mr Bell had no wish at all to
return to Mars and he knew little or nothing about Jupiter.

‘Why
cannot things just be the way they were?’ asked Cameron Bell of himself ‘I
recall a time when a criminal was a criminal and not some sorceress casting
spells and making life so difficult. This magic business has me most
perplexed.’

Ernest
Rutherford was perplexed as he gaped aghast at chickens.

‘So
many chickens,’ he said to Lord Babbage, ‘and all of them making a frightful
mess of the five-star dressing room.

‘We
didn’t know where else to put them,’ said Lord Nikola Tesla. ‘This is the only
dressing room with a lock on the door.’

Ernest
Rutherford drew the door closed as chickens, sensing a chance for escape, came
about him in a clucking horde.

‘There
is one thing that strikes me,’ said the chemist, ‘and I assume that it has
struck you, too.’

‘The
similarity between them?’ asked Lord Babbage. Mr Rutherford nodded. ‘They
appear to be identical,’ he said. ‘See the spot on the left wing there — they
all have it, do they not?’

The
pair of scientific lordships nodded harmoniously. ‘Which leads me to a
conclusion,’ said the tall one with the shock of hair.

‘And
what is that, Lord Tesla?’ asked the chemist.

‘Either
that they are all
very
closely related. Or—’ And here Lord Tesla paused.
‘That they are all, in fact, the
same
chicken.’

‘What
of this?’ asked Mr Ernest Rutherford. ‘Some temporal anomaly,’ said Lord Tesla,
‘some singularity created by the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic
anti-matter that reproduces with exactitude the self-same chicken again and
again and again no matter what time we set upon our controls.’

Ernest
Rutherford scratched at his head. Lord Babbage shrugged at his shoulders.

Miss
Violet Wond said, ‘There might be another answer. Ernest Rutherford glanced
towards the lady in the veil. ‘That before eighteen twenty,’ said Miss Violet
Wond, ‘nothing existed but chicken.
That
chicken there.’ And she
pointed. ‘And all these other chickens, too. They are all
one
and
nothing existed before them.’

Darwin the
monkey butler was perplexed. Although, had he been present at the Victoria
Palace Theatre, he might well have heeded the words of Miss Violet Wond.
Because, after all, he
had
been told about the Chicken Theory years
before by that big black cockerel Junior. But it
was
only a theory and
one articulated by
a chicken!
And Darwin greatly preferred the one put
forward by his namesake, that Mankind was descended from monkeys. That sounded
to him a
much
better theory.

The
perplexity that Darwin was presently experiencing was not in any way connected
with chickens.

It
was connected with magic.

‘Come
on in, boy, don’t be shy,’ Lord Brentford said. Out of his bath-chair and on
crutches now, but still in need of Darwin’s help when it came to the terrible
bedpan. ‘Need your assistance, hurry, do.’

Darwin
entered the study of Lord Brentford, which had undergone some recent and
drastic redecoration. All the furniture, paintings and precious carpets had
been removed. The walls, floor and ceiling had been painted the deepest of
blues and curious white sigils had been inscribed upon the floor, including a
great pentacle, and a candle burned on what appeared to be some kind of altar.
The smell of incense cloaked the air. There was a certain atmosphere and Darwin
did not like it.

Darwin
looked up at Lord Brentford. He wore a long white robe that put the monkey
butler in mind of a nightshirt.

‘You
recall this enchanting lady from the other week at the chicken restaurant, do
you not?’

Lord
Brentford directed Darwin’s gaze to Leah the Venusian.

The
lady of another world turned golden eyes upon him.

The
look of those eyes made Darwin giddy, so he looked hurriedly away.

‘Going
to conduct a little experiment,’ said Lord Brent-ford to his monkey butler.
‘All very hush-hush. Don’t wish to get any of the other staff involved. Know
you won’t go blabbering about it to anyone, eh?’

Darwin
said nothing and wondered, in fact, when was the last time he had spoken. More
than six weeks ago, when he had said his farewells to Mr Cameron Bell.

Darwin
looked up once more at Lord Brentford.

‘Going
to engage in a bit of magic,’ said his lordship. ‘That will be exciting for
you, won’t it, Darwin?’

Darwin
shook his head with vigour and made grumbling sounds.

‘Wonderful,
isn’t he?’ said Lord Brentford to Leah. ‘It’s as if he understands every word I
say.’

Leah
nodded, smiling as she did so.

‘Going
to speak a few words that I’ve been taught by the lovely lady here,’ said Lord
Brentford. ‘Well, chant them, really. So you just be a good boy and stand there
and we’ll see what we shall see.

Darwin
shuffled uneasily. He wore today a rather dashing military ensemble — bright
red jacket, khaki jodhpurs, high black riding boots. When a monkey of
substance, he had never skimped at his tailor’s.

‘Right,
then,’ said Lord Brentford, drawing breath. And then he called aloud a vocal
evocation in a tongue that was queer to Darwin.

‘Once
more, Berty,’ said Leah. ‘And try not to contract the vowels. Go on.’

Lord
Brentford shouted out the words with vigour.

Darwin
blinked and then felt suddenly strange.

There
was something most definitely going on with his lower regions. A certain
numbness, a lightness of limb.

Then—

‘Ooooooooooooooooh!’
wailed Darwin as he was swept from his feet, borne upward on invisible wings
and flattened against the ceiling.

Cameron Bell lay
on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. A ceiling far too close, in his
opinion. The sloping ceiling of the tiny garret room he now inhabited. Once he
had owned a beautiful house, and later a beautiful office, but now he had been
reduced to
this?
A cockroach crossed the linoleum floor, its legs most
loudly clicking. It vanished into a mouse hole from which issued the sounds of
a fight.

Cameron
Bell rolled a cigarette. Once he had smoked the finest cigars.
And
drunk
the finest champagne. This was a very sorry end to a fine career. Mr Bell lit
his cigarette and blew smoke towards the ceiling. He had an appointment shortly
with Chief Inspector Case and he knew full well why
that
was.

He
had been scraping this meagre existence at the expense of the Metropolitan
Police Force with funds from the petty-cash box of the chief inspector. But as
Mr Bell had nothing to show, even this pittance would soon be withdrawn.

‘There
has to be an answer to this,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘If I could bring Lady Raygun
to justice, that would impress the chief inspector. If I could recover the
stolen reliquaries, I could claim the rewards outstanding upon them and engage
in a far better style of life.
And
avert the End Times, which is frankly
no small matter and one that I find most troubling. But it has all become so
desperately difficult that—’

And
here Mr Cameron Bell ended his heartfelt soliloquy, for a thought had suddenly
struck him, a thought that expanded all but instantaneously into a supposition
and thence into a proposition encompassing a plan of campaign which found much
charm with Mr Cameron Bell.

He
had been going about this all the wrong way. Fire should be fought with fire.

‘Oh
yes, indeed,’ cried the garret-dweller, frightening both mouse and cockroach
and the bed-bugs, too.

‘Sorry to
frighten you, Darwin boy. We’ll have you down in a jiffy.’

Lord
Brentford looked towards the beautiful Leah. ‘How
do
we get him down?’
he asked. ‘I haven’t learned that bit.’

‘Reverse
the invocation.’

‘Ah,
indeed.’ His lordship called out words towards the ape upon the ceiling. The
ape dropped a foot or two, then swung about in a lofty arc, travelled with
speed the length of the room and buffeted into a wall.

Lord
Brentford chewed upon his bottom lip. ‘Sorry, pardon, Darwin,’ he said. ‘Let
me have another go.

Leah
laid a hand upon his lordship’s arm. ‘Let me,’ said she. ‘You would not want to
cause your servant harm.’

‘Quite
so,’ puffed his lordship.

Leah
whispered words of magic and Darwin drifted gently down to rest upon the floor.

In his office,
Chief Inspector Case paced the floor, dressed today as a Chinese Mandarin. Mr
Bell knew well enough that things generally boded ill when the chief inspector
was in costume. That the chief inspector was a troubled man.

‘Sit
down, please.’ Chief Inspector Case affected that mock-Chinese accent so
popular with second-rate music hall mimics. ‘You likee cuppa tea?’

‘Me
likee glass of Scotch,’ said Cameron Bell.

Chief
Inspector Case looked sternly upon the detective. Mr Bell observed that he had employed
a wax crayon to render a travesty of a Chinese moustache beneath his nose.

The
look was
not
appealing. Mr Bell gazed sidelong glances at the chief
inspector’s thumbnails and at a smudge upon his left ear.

‘It
is lucky indeed that I was able to come here at such short notice,’ said Mr
Bell, in a manner both chipper and confident. ‘A regrettable circumstance
regarding your wife. But things will probably work out for the best.’

‘My
wife!’ cried Chief Inspector Case. ‘She’s not
here,
is she?’

‘Happily
not,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I perceive that she left the marital home some seven
days ago.’