Read The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds Online

Authors: Robert Rankin

Tags: #Humour

The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (5 page)

The
chef gazed about and so did the monkey.

So,
too, did the chemist. ‘I know what you are thinking,’ he said. ‘It’s all a bit
“woody”, but that’s a necessity with so much electricity bouncing about the
place at times. Dry wood is a poor conductor, you see. The chances of you
receiving a fatal voltage when you sit down are meagre.’ The chemist smiled.
Encouragingly.

The
chef sighed and the monkey shrugged and then the two of them sat down upon an
oak settle. It was not particularly comfortable, but as it lowered the chances
of a fatal voltage to meagreness, it would do for now.

Mr
Rutherford took himself over to a rosewood cabinet and drew from it a Gladstone
bag. ‘I will have to know how it was done so that I can undo it,’ he said.

‘I would
really appreciate an explanation,’ said the chef ‘And if it is not being too
nosy of me, might I know what the envelope I brought you contains?’

‘The
latter is simple,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘Well, to a degree. It is a letter. The
latter is a letter,’ said he, and smiled once more.

‘Written
by whom?’ asked the chef.

‘By
me,’ said Mr Rutherford.

‘Ah,’
said the chef ‘That does not lessen my confusion.’

‘Nor
will me telling you that the letter was written — or rather
will
be
written — six months from now. It is a letter from the future. The first of its
kind, I do believe. But not, I trust, the last.’

‘Ah,’
said the chef once more. ‘I think my companion and I should now take our
leave.’

‘Do
you know your companion’s name?’ asked Mr Rutherford.

The
chef gave his bald head a scratch. ‘I know him only as “monkey”,’ he said.

‘Indeed.’
Mr Rutherford nodded. ‘And again I say that in order to undo what has been done
to you, I must first know how it was done.’ He removed a stethoscope from the
Gladstone bag and approached the chef with it. ‘You see, my friend,’ he said,
‘and you
are
my friend, as we know each other quite well — you have been
mesmerised, or otherwise put into a state of unknowing by a person or persons
unknown. Your name is
not “Chef’,
and your partner’s name is
not
“monkey”.
Your name is Cameron Bell and you are the Empire’s foremost consulting
detective. This fellow here is your partner. His real name is Darwin, although
for professional purposes he prefers to call himself Humphrey Banana. He holds
the distinction of being the world’s first and only talking ape.’

The
chef, whose name might possibly be Bell, gawped at the chemist. ‘This is
madness,’ was what he had to say.

‘Madness?’
said Mr Rutherford. ‘Then you just wait until I free your memory and you recall
the rest.’

‘I am
a chef,’ said the portly fellow. ‘I am a chef and my duty is to serve.

‘Hold
hard,’ said Mr Rutherford, and he hung his stethoscope about his neck,
returned once more to his rosewood cabinet and plucked from it a newspaper. ‘I
kept this,’ he said. ‘I did not know why, but now perhaps I do. Here — see for
yourself’

And
with this said he handed the newspaper to the now thoroughly befuddled chef The
newspaper was a copy of
The Times
dated one year previously.

 

ANOTHER VANISHMENT

 

ran the
headline. Beneath this was a photograph of a gentleman who bore an uncanny
resemblance to the illustrator Boz’s representations of Mr Pickwick.

 

THE EMPIRE’S FOREMOST

CONSULTING DETECTIVE MISSING

POLICE BAFFLED

 

ran the copy
beneath.

‘I
have a beard,’ said the bald and bearded chef ‘Although the resemblance is—’

‘Uncanny?’
said the chemist. ‘And so it should be, for the picture is of
you.’

‘And
I am in partnership with … ?‘

‘Darwin,’
said Mr Rutherford, ‘or Humphrey Banana, as he prefers to be known.’

‘For
professional purposes?’

‘Precisely.’

‘And
he is the world’s one and only talking ape?’ Mr Rutherford nodded his head.

‘But
I’ve met another.’

Mr
Rutherford shook his head.

‘I
did,’ said the man who might be Cameron Bell. ‘You did
not,’
said Mr
Rutherford. ‘The pilot was the same ape.’

‘The
same
ape?’ The now somewhat bewildered man stared down at the monkey butler.

‘The
self-same talking ape,’ said the chemist. ‘The pilot of the world’s first time
machine.’

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

t
is always for the best if things are explained precisely. Clearly,
unambiguously, with clarity. With perspicuity. Then there cannot be the
slightest fear of confusion.

‘I
am
confused,’ said the man who might be Cameron Bell. ‘I am
very
confused.’

‘All
right,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘Then let us take this one step at a time. I feel
confident that I can restore you both to your previous selves and return to you
your memories. But first let me explain to you about the time-ship.’

‘This
would be your time machine, would it?’ The chef-or-not did rollings of the
eyes.

‘Such
a reaction is to be expected.’ Mr Rutherford returned once more to his rosewood
cabinet and this time drew from it a bottle of vintage champagne and three
fluted glasses.

‘Château
Doveston,’ said the possible—detective. ‘I recognise the label.’

‘Some
things stay forever in the memory,’ said Mr Rutherford, ‘the fragrance of a
well-loved wife and the taste of a fine champagne being two of them.’ The
chemist uncorked the bottle and poured the golden sparkly stuff into the three
fluted glasses. He handed one to the bearded man, another to the monkey.

‘Let
me tell you a little story,’ said Mr Rutherford, taking up his own glass. ‘It is
all about theory and putting theory into practice.’

The
bearded man sipped his champagne and considered that there were probably worse
ways than this of spending a morning. ‘Go ahead, sir,’ said he.

‘Have
you ever heard of the Large Hadron Collider?’ asked the chemist.

A
bald head took to shaking.

‘It
is a highly technical piece of scientific equipment and I have supervised the
building of one right here beneath the capital.’

The
bald head nodded thoughtfully. The monkey sneezed due to bubbles up the nose.

‘A
hadron,’ said the chemist, ‘is, simply put, a composite particle composed of
quarks held together by something called “strong force”. Which is to say one of
the four basic interactions of nature, the others being electromagnetism, weak
interaction — which is responsible for the radioactive decay of subatomic
particles — and gravitation, of course.’

‘Of
course,’ said he of the beard.

‘You
understand such matters?’ queried the chemist.

‘Not
in the slightest, no.

‘Hmm.’
Mr Rutherford sipped champagne. ‘The Large Hadron Collider is a particle
accelerator designed to enhance our understanding of some of the deepest laws
of nature. Well,
my
understanding, at least. Imagine if you will a
tunnel, fashioned into a loop. Particles are accelerated around it via a
process known as the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter which
results in a cross—polarisation of the beta particles and a—’

‘I
will have to stop you there,’ said the bald and bearded fellow. ‘Your words are
as of a foreign language to me. I understand only that you have supervised the
construction of something called a Large Hadron Collider beneath the streets of
London. Might I enquire as to whether it is safe?’

‘As
far as we can tell,’ said the chemist, finishing his champagne and recharging
his glass with more. ‘After all, people use it every day.’

‘The
technicians who work upon it?’

‘The
travellers who travel through it.’

‘Excuse
me, sir?’ said the man of beard and baldness, holding out his glass to be
refilled.

‘Londoners
call it the Circle Line,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘They do not know it for the
thing it truly is. Our experiments are run at night, when the trains are
safely in their engine sheds.’

‘Remarkable,’
said the bald bearder. ‘And thank you for the champagne.’

The
chemist nodded. ‘There sometimes needs to be a degree of, how shall I put this …
disinformation
is probably the best word. The Government and the
scientific bodies involved in the funding of the project have not been informed
as to the true nature of its purpose. It appears to be a tool to further our
understanding of the universe, but it is of course nothing of the kind.’

‘Of
course.’ The baldy bearded one downed more champagne.

‘It
is all to do with time and the speed of light. It is believed that if one could
travel faster than light, then one would travel faster than time. Depending on
how you chose to apply this, one could travel either into the past or into the
future.’

‘So
the Large Hadron Collider is really a time machine?’

‘Part
of
a time machine. The motive power. You encountered the travelling element when
the actual time—ship crashed in Syon Park.’

‘I
did not tell you
that,’
said the champagne-supper, who could at least
remember
that
with precision.

‘It
is in the letter you delivered to me. The time-ship was aimed there because you
and I, and indeed Darwin, too—’ he gestured to the ape, who had finished his
champagne and was now wearing a foolish face ‘—knew that last night you and
Darwin would be at Syon House.’

‘I am
not sure that your explanations are actually explaining anything.’ The man who
owned to a beard and baldness held out his glass for a further topping-up and
received same.

‘Then
I will do my best to keep it as simple as I can. Regarding the time-ship, know
this. The speed of light is presently calculated to be one hundred and
eighty—six thousand, two hundred and eighty-two miles per second —a goodly
speed by anybody’s reckoning and one it would be difficult to best. The true
purpose of this Large Hadron Collider is to slow the speed of light down to a
velocity at which a conveyance designed for the purpose might outpace it in
relative safety.’

‘A
fanciful notion, but one of extreme cleverness.’ Podgy fingers toasted with the
champagne glass.

‘I
pride myself on my ability to look at things from a different perspective.’ The
chemist located further champagne and took to its uncorking.

‘Might
I ask a question?’ Podgy fingers held out the champagne glass for further
refilling. ‘If what crashed into the Bananary at Syon House was a ship of time
rather than a ship of space, why was it piloted by a monkey? And if it is one
and the same monkey as the monkey here—’ the monkey here held out his champagne
glass ‘—why was the monkey in the time-ship old? For he was an aged ape.’

‘Old?’
said Mr Rutherford. ‘Indeed?’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘I regret that I cannot
answer questions which refer to things that will happen in the future,’ said Mr
Rutherford. ‘I think the thing would be for me to examine the time-ship with
great care. You must understand that at present it is only in the first stages
of construction. If I was to see what the finished article looks like, it might
speed up the construction process considerably.’

The
man with bald and beardness made a certain kind of a face and knocked back more
champagne.

‘You
believe I might encounter a temporal anomaly by so doing? Affect a singularity
that might destabilise the atoms of the universe?’

‘Not
as such.’

‘Then
what?’

‘You
have not, I trust, read the morning papers?’

Further
champagne was danced around. The chemist shook his head.

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