The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (6 page)

‘Then
you will not know that the time-ship no longer exists. Lord Brentford entered
it and shot the pilot. The cockpit of that craft was perhaps not the best place
to discharge a firearm.’

‘Some
damage was done?’

‘Some
damage, yes. The time-ship exploded. It was utterly destroyed. The main reason
I came here today, aside from delivering your envelope unopened — a tribute,
may I say, to my honesty and steadfastness — was to enquire whether you might
offer myself and monkey here positions in your household. With Lord Brentford
lying upon what might well be his death-bed in hospital, we are presently
unemployed.’

Ernest
Rutherford, First Baron Rutherford of Nelson, dropped down upon a three-legged
milking stool that lacked for comfortable cushioning and made a face of
complete and utter despair. ‘The time—ship gone, lost,’ he said, and his chin
sank onto his chest. ‘And a noble lord mortally injured. Calamity.’

‘Don’t
forget the monkey,’ said the unemployed fellow.

‘Naturally
not.’ Mr Rutherford sought to affect a brave face. ‘But now we know that the
theory is sound. That the time-ship will function. That it
has
in fact
functioned. And when you are returned to the soundness of your mind, perhaps together
we can mould the future in such a way that these tragic events do not occur.
What say you to this?’

‘I
fear that I am somewhat drunk,’ came a slurred reply.

‘Myself,
too, as it happens,’ admitted Mr Rutherford. ‘But no matter.’ Champagne was
sloshed into glasses and the chemist returned once more to his rosewood
cabinet. ‘We will start with the less toxic and dangerous memory restoratives,’
he said, ‘and if these prove ineffective we will raise the bar, as it were, and
move on to the downright lethal.’

‘Your
words are pure confusion,’ said the man without the hair. ‘But I would like to
recommend myself for the position of chef I have extensive knowledge of both
Venusian and Jovian cuisine. My fillet of six-toed Nunbuck will find no equal
in London.’ Lord Brentford’s ex-chef now became loquacious regarding his
culinary skills, even recommending ‘monkey’s’ adeptness in the art of the cocktail.
‘Might I have a tad more champagne, please?’ he asked at his conclusion.

‘As
much as you like, my dear fellow.’ Mr Rutherford now approached with an
unsteady sort of a gait. ‘Just get fifty milligrams of this inside you and
we’ll see what’s what.’

‘What’s
that?’

‘What’s
what?’

Mr
Rutherford lunged forwards and rammed a hypodermic needle deep into the portly
fellow’s ample left shoulder.

‘Ouch,’
went the portly fellow. ‘What in the world have you done?’

‘It
comes from the Amazon,’ said Mr Rutherford, swaying slightly as he did so.

‘What
does?’ asked the portly fellow, rubbing at his shoulder. ‘What comes from the Amazon?’

‘Water,
mostly, I suppose. It discharges into the sea.’

‘That
isn’t what I meant and you know it.’ The portly fellow drained his glass and
stumbled over to the newest champagne bottle which was located upon an
occasional table, built from wood to serve at any occasion. ‘You’ve spiked me,’
he said.

The
monkey screamed and bared his teeth.

‘And
spiked the monkey, too.’

‘It
might work,’ said Mr Rutherford, nimbly evading the monkey’s snapping teeth.
‘After all, it
is
from the Amazon.’

‘I
feel somewhat queer,’ said the man who now held the champagne bottle in an
unsteady hand. ‘You have poisoned me, sir, and I will have satisfaction. Fetch
a brace of pistols, if you dare.’

Mr
Rutherford was swaying more than slightly now. ‘This really is
very
strong
champagne,’ he said in the tone known as ‘tipsy’. ‘Good stuff, though, don’t
you think?’

‘I
think that I am going to be sick.’

‘Please
do it in the wooden bowl,’ said Mr Rutherford.

The
portly bald and bearded ex-chef, and possibly the world’s foremost consulting
detective, staggered about clutching at his head. Something very odd was going
on inside it.

‘I
think it is starting to work,’ said Mr Rutherford.

‘The
endorsements for effectiveness on the bottle of ACME PATENT AMAZON-REMEDY
UNIVERSAL MEMORY RESTORATIVE may well prove to be all they claim.’

‘Oooh,’
and, ‘Aaah,’ went the chef of mystery.

‘Squeak,’
and, ‘Squawk,’ went the monkey and he bobbed up and down.

Within
the heads of man and monkey light pierced darkness, rushing forward, all-embracing,
flooding over everything.

‘Oh
my dear dead mother,’ cried Mr Cameron Bell. ‘It’s coming back. It’s coming
back. Oh yes, I remember it all.’ And he stared as if from the present into the
past. ‘It all began last summer,’ he said, ‘in the long, hot summer of eighteen
ninety-eight.’

1898

(During the Long, Hot Summer)

6

anana
and Bell
read the nameplate on the door. A brightly polished plate of brass
upon a painted door. Below the names were etched the words ‘Consulting
Partnership’.

The
offices beyond the door were royally appointed. Which was to say that not only
were the fixtures and fittings composed of regal stuffs, but the very
establishment itself, the ‘Consulting Partnership’, had been accorded the
official endorsement of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Empress of both India and
Mars.

The
potential client, having tugged upon a brazen bellpull that activated an
electrical buzzer within, would find the door opened to them by a boy, smartly
dressed in red livery, who would announce himself to be, ‘Jack, and at your ‘umble
service.’

The
first impressions of the potential client would be made favourable by a hallway
opulent with gold-leafed papers patterned by William Morris. Jardinières that
sprouted blooms which hailed from other worlds. Framed testimonials. A suave
satyr of ebony that held a gong of bronze. An eclectic collection born of
esoteric tastes, items for the eye to rest upon, yet briefly, for the potential
client would have urgent reasons to be calling upon the offices of Banana and
Bell. Reasons that would oft-times pertain to a crime.

For
these were indeed the offices of the British Empire’s foremost consulting
detective Cameron Bell and his partner Humphrey Banana.

Having
been led up a staircase carpeted in Royal Axminster, the potential client
would be shown to a private curtained waiting booth from whence their
carte
de visite
would be freighted upon a silver tray by Jack to the offices
proper. The office of Mr Bell.

Mr
Cameron Bell dwelt behind an exquisite desk that had once been the property of
Louis XIV, the Sun King himself The walls of this office were draped with pale
swagged silks. Ornate and gilded furniture weighed heavily upon the eye and
upon the lush pile carpetings. The effect was one of ostentation and
grandiloquence. The titled clients adored it.

It
was the summer of the year of eighteen ninety-eight and it was hot. Outside,
London swam in the sunlight. Electrical hansom cabs purred through the
heat—haze. Horses’ hooves raised clouds of dust and gentlemen tugged at their
collars. Those forecasters of weather tapped upon their leech prognosticators:
the glass was rising, mercury bubbling, further heat was surely on the way.

Within
the offices of Banana and Bell the temperature was moderated, cooled by
conditioned air issuing from the patent ice grotto. The atmosphere was calm.

But
for the shouting.

One
voice boomed in a basso profundo.

The
other one squealed in a shrill soprano.

Neither
voice was pleasing to the ear.

There
were no potential clients upon this summer’s day.

Jack
the boy servant, who freighted the
cartes de visite,
was in the
downstairs pantry practising his ukulele, and the upstairs maid, a woman both
spare and kempt, had gone to the market to purchase Lemon Pledge.
[3]

The
shouting that went on, went on between the partners. The shouting was quite
loud, and sometimes bitter.

Humphrey
Banana stood upon the desk of Cameron Bell. Humphrey was an ape of average
height, whatever that might be for an ape, well clad in a hand-tailored pale
linen suit of the Piccadilly persuasion that featured trousers with a
tail—snood augmentation and a triple—breasted waistcoat in the very latest
style. Humphrey was an ape of high fashion and an ape possessed of qualities
that could be considered unique.

‘I
will not do it,’ he squealed at this partner. ‘No, not again, I will not.’

His
partner, that famed detective Mr Cameron Bell, sat upon a golden chair behind
his occupied desk.

‘But
it is such a simple solution and such an effective deception.’

‘No!’
shrieked Humphrey Banana. ‘I will not do it! No indeed I will not.’

Cameron
Bell sighed sadly. ‘Our partnership has been most successful,’ said he in a
raised voice slightly less loud than a shout, but not much. ‘I am sure you will
agree.’

The
detective’s partner nodded his hairy head.

The
ape’s partner stroked at his beardless chin. The ape’s partner wore a well-cut
grey morning suit that flattered his portly form and a high wing-collared shirt
with purple cravat. Spats and coal-black Oxford brogues adorned his feet. A
pair of golden pince-nez clasped the bridge of his snobby nose.

‘You
have prospered,’ the ape’s partner continued. ‘I understand that you have
recently purchased Syon House, the country seat of the late Lord Brentford, and
have designed your own Bananary to place upon its rear.

‘I
have.’ The ape gibbered and bared his teeth. ‘And you have prospered, too.’

‘I am
the detective.’ The detective raised his voice somewhat. ‘It is I who actually
solve the cases.

‘Not
without my help, you would not.’

‘On
that I beg to differ.’

‘All
right,’ cried Humphrey, bouncing up and down. ‘Who was it that stopped Big Bill
McCrumby the Birmingham Basher dead in his tracks with a well-aimed piece of
dung?’

‘You,’
said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘And
who caught Smiling Sam Dimwiddy the Pimlico Perambulator square in the earhole
with a well-flung piece of dung?’

‘You
too,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘And
who, and I am sure you will remember this, brought down Senorita Rita the
Hampstead Husband Beater by striking her slap-dap in the forehead with—’

‘A
well-tossed piece of dung,’ said Cameron Bell. Most loudly. ‘I remember it
well.’

‘There,’
said Humphrey Banana. ‘You see.

‘I
do
see.’ Cameron Bell lowered his voice. ‘But these people were not involved
in any of the cases we were set to solving at the time. They were just casual
bystanders to whom you took a dislike.’

‘They
were looking at me in a funny way,’ cried Humphrey Banana.

‘You
were drunk,’ shouted Cameron Bell. ‘You had imbibed too freely of that banana
liqueur of which you are so fond. You were singing a Music Hall song.’

“‘Me
One-Legged Nanna Is Home from the Sea and Wants the Loan of Me Foot”,’ shrieked
the ape. ‘It is a modern classic.’

‘Could
we not conduct this discussion in less heated tones?’ asked Cameron Bell, clutching
at his heart.

‘It
is
not
a discussion. It is an argument. And they
were
looking at
me in a funny way.’

‘You
were
singing.’
Cameron Bell sighed. ‘You are the world’s one and only
talking ape. It is supposed to be a well-kept secret. Certain elements of our
partnership rely heavily upon this, as you know full well.’

‘And
one in particular.’ Humphrey Banana raised his fists and bounced about some
more.