The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (33 page)

‘It
was not a very good one,’ said Mr Bell. ‘But, under the circumstances—’

‘We
are all doomed!’ declared the cleric. ‘Bell has murdered Mankind!’

‘That’s
quite enough of
that,’
said Cameron Bell. ‘Might I light for you a pipe
of kiff? Its effects can be most calming.’

Cardinal
Cox had no objection to that and looked on as the detective set about the
business with a surprisingly practised hand.

‘Your
Grace,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘A
long time since anyone’s called me
that.’
The cardinal folded his arms
and made a huffy face.

‘Your
Grace,’ said Cameron Bell once more, ‘I come to you because I believe you are
the one man in London who can help me in this matter. Your erudition in such
occult knowledge is well known to me.

‘You
smarmy toad,’ said Cardinal Cox. ‘Hurry please with the pipe.’

Cameron
Bell completed his narcotic labourings, lit the pipe, sucked upon its stem then
passed it to Cardinal Cox.

‘I
would know,’ said Mr Bell, ‘precisely what we might expect to happen if the
worst was to occur.

The
cardinal in crimson drew deeply on the pipe and plumes of smoke escaped his
ears and nostrils. ‘The Seven Plagues, of course,’ said he. ‘The Seven Plagues
of Egypt.’

‘Seven minutes
in the pan, not six, not eight, but seven.’

Darwin
the monkey butler licked his lips as Lord Brent-ford’s chef cooked up a banana
fritter.

With
the unexplained departure of the bald and bearded chef from the kitchen at Syon
House, his lordship had been forced to hire another. Geraldo was a veritable
wizard.

Although
he hailed from the Isle of Wight, where he had been raised by kiwi birds,
[18]
he was master of most of the world’s
cuisines and a chef of growing reputation who had already invented three new
gateaux, two pork pies and a parsnip in a pantry.

And
he harboured a deep love of monkeys, which suited Darwin well.

The
banana fritter danced in the sizzling butter, and the smell alone had Darwin in
a daze.

‘A
dusting of cinnamon,’ sang Geraldo, ‘and a sprinkling of crisp cane sugar. Then
hey jigger-jig.’ And he tossed the fitter onto a plate and presented it to
Darwin.

Darwin’s
eyes were wide and his mouth was smiling. He took up a knife and fork and—
‘Darwin!’
came a cry. ‘Come, Darwin, hurry.’

‘Aw.’
Geraldo snatched away the plate. ‘Lord Brentford calls. Perhaps another time.’

Darwin’s
mouth was now wide open and he waved his knife and fork.

‘Come
back tomorrow, perhaps,’ said the chef, lifting the fritter carefully, blowing
upon it and popping it into his mouth. Then, ‘Mmph mm mm mph mmph,’ which,
loosely translated meant, ‘And I will cook you another then.’

Darwin
watched in horror as the fritter vanished away.

His
lordship cried his name once more and the monkey left the kitchen.

‘Ah,
there you are, my boy.’ Lord Brentford was not quite so bandaged as he had
been. His legs were still in plaster, though, and one arm in a sling, and there
was a curious collar affair with much brass gubbinry holding the nobleman’s
head in a fixed position.

He
had attained a state of some mobility, however, inhabiting as he did a
steam-powered bath-chair. Darwin’s duties in this regard extended to
boiler-stoking, maintenance and very careful steering. Darwin greatly feared
the steam-powered bath-chair.

There
had been the occasional upset. The occasional piece of unpleasantness. There
had even once been a hurling of faeces. Darwin and the bath-chair did not get
along.

‘Time
for a morning snifter, Darwin,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘Be so good as to fix me
a gin and tonic.’

As
Darwin sloped off to the drinks cabinet, the bath-chair backfired noisily and
Darwin jumped in the air.

Chief Inspector
Case was taking the air in the company of Mr Septimus Grey. The erstwhile
Governor of the Martian Territories had lately been released from Wormwood Scrubs
through the intercession of Chief Inspector Case.

‘There
will be Hell to pay for all this,’ said Mr Septimus Grey. He was a man most put
upon, it appeared. A man who had lost a certain something. A man who had
experienced things that he dearly wished to forget.

‘I
have gone to a great deal of trouble on your behalf’ said Chief Inspector Case.
‘I hope you appreciate this.’

‘But
it was
you
who had me convicted on trumped-up charges.’

‘Hardly
trumped-up,’ the chief inspector replied. ‘You
are
the owner of the
Marie
Lloyd
and you
did
try to bribe an officer of the law.’

‘I am
not
the owner of the
Marie Lloyd.’
Septimus Grey made fists and
waved them about. ‘I gave this evidence under oath in court. I gave the
Marie
Lloyd
to a certain Miss Violet Wond. What she chose to do with it I neither
know nor care.

‘And
herein lies great interest,’ said Chief Inspector Case.

‘The
jury found against you because no trace could be uncovered of anyone by the
unlikely name of Violet Wond.’

‘Unlikely?’
asked Septimus Grey.

‘Never
mind. You were sentenced to six months for careless driving and being drunk in
charge of a spaceship.’

‘Ludicrous,’
said Septimus Grey. ‘All ludicrous.’

‘All
ludicrous indeed,’ agreed the chief inspector, ‘because by diligent police work
I uncovered something most curious. The
Marie Lloyd
docked at the Royal
London Spaceport upon the day of Lord Brentford’s party. The supposition would
be that it was then flown to Syon House and there crash—landed.’

‘And?’
asked Mr Septimus Grey.

‘Well,
clearly this was
not
the case for according to the flight logs at the
Royal London Spaceport, the
Marie Lloyd
was still standing on the
landing strip in plain sight at the time it was doing its crashing.’

‘I do
not understand,’ said Septimus Grey.

‘Nor
me. But apparently the
Marie Lloyd
took off from the spaceport the
following evening. A woman in a black veil boarded her in the company of a
well-dressed gentleman.’

‘A
black veil?’ said Septimus Grey. ‘That thoroughly hid her face?’

‘Such
was the description given. In order to gain access to the spaceship, she of
course had to display documents of authority.’

‘It
was
her,
was it
not?’
cried Septimus Grey.

‘Miss
Violet Wond,’ said Chief Inspector Case. ‘How can the
Marie Lloyd
crash
into an English country house one evening and then take off from the spaceport
quite unscathed upon the next?’

‘I am
most confused,’ said Septimus Grey.

‘Confusion!
Ruination! And damnation!’ cried Cardinal Cox.

‘Would
those be three of the Seven Plagues?’ asked Mr Cameron Bell.

‘Not
as such,’ said Cardinal Cox, drawing very deeply on his pipe. ‘But all will be
included when the Terrible Darkness falls.’

Cameron
Bell sniffed at the smoke. ‘Might I have a little puff of that?’ he asked.

‘Certainly
not!’ said Cardinal Cox. ‘You are an iconoclast.’

‘Speak
to me of these plagues,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘The scriptures differ regarding
this. Some say ten plagues, others merely seven. Seven is the accepted figure,
particularly when relating to the End of Days. They run as follows —‘A plague
of Blood. ‘A plague of Frogs. ‘A plague of Lice. ‘A plague of Flies, or Wild
Animals. ‘A great Pestilence. ‘The Time of Terrible Darkness. ‘The Death of the
First-Born. ‘‘All very grim,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Let us hope very much that
none of these come to be.’

‘Oh,
they’ll come to be!’ shouted Cardinal Cox. ‘They
will
come to be.’

‘Which
is why I am here,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘to ask for your help and advice.’

‘Spaceships
would be my advice.’ The cardinal hunched his shoulders. ‘Spaceships, you
blackguard, spaceships.’

‘And
that is all you can offer?’

‘What
more can there be? If the Seven Plagues come upon us, no one on Earth will be
spared.’

‘Then
let us hope for all of our sakes that they do not. ‘Cameron Bell rose from the
Persian pouffe. ‘I am sorry if I have been the bearer of bad tidings,’ he said,
‘but I remain confident that all will be well in the end.’

Mr
Bell might well have had further platitudes to offer had not his flow been
interrupted by a sudden commotion.

Cardinal
Cox’s catamite burst through the doorway and flung himself into the room. He
was all in a terrible state, be-gored from his head to his toes.

‘Sweet
baby Jesus on the cross or otherwise.’ Cardinal Cox caught the catamite, who
fell in a horrible heap upon his lap.

‘My
boy!’ cried the cardinal. ‘My dear boy. Who has done this terrible thing to
you?’

‘No
man,’ the catamite blubbered. ‘But we were having a swim in the Thames at Kew
for the good of our health, we were.’

‘And
were you struck by a steam launch or some such?’ asked Mr Cameron Bell.

‘No,
sir,’ moaned the catamite. ‘One moment all was well and good, the next the
River Thames had turned to blood.’

32

ed
ran the Thames beyond the gates of Syon. Within the great house, Darwin poured
a gin and tonic for his bandaged master.

‘Well
done there, my boy.’ Lord Brentford accepted the glass in his serviceable hand
and toasted Darwin with it. ‘Now steer me out the back and into the grounds.’

Darwin
mounted to the rear of the steam-driven bath-chair and gingerly tweaked a lever
or two. The thing took off as a bath-chair possessed. Darwin ground his teeth.

‘Slow
down, boy!’ called Lord Brentford. Darwin struggled and finally took control.

In a
manner most sedate they moved along the high-windowed gallery that led to where
the Bananary had been.

‘Must
say you look very smart today.’ Lord Brentford took a glance into the
wing-mirror. ‘Those weird clothes in the wardrobes upstairs appear to fit you
very well.’

Darwin
turned his eyes towards the ceiling. Exactly why it was that Lord Brentford had
failed to recall that he had willed Syon House to Darwin in the first place was
anyone’s guess. And how, upon returning, as from the dead, to discover the
Bananary, the banana groves and the wardrobes filled with clothes that could
only be worn by a monkey, he still had not reasoned it out was anyone’s guess
also. And the fact that he had totally failed to recognise Darwin until the ape
had visited him in his hospital room was ludicrous at best. None of this made
the vaguest sense to the monkey butler. Although, so his reasoning went, Lord
Brentford
was
a member of the aristocracy and as such did not think
quite the same way that other men were wont to think.

Darwin
today wore a grey silk morning suit with matching top hat and gloves. He
really was a very dapper Darwin.

‘Steer
me outside, if you will.’

As
the double doors were open, Darwin steered Lord Brentford out from the house
and onto the flat foundation area where the Bananary had until so recently been
standing.

Naught
was there now to be seen of the architectural anomaly, naught either of the
twisted wreckage of the
Marie Lloyd.

‘At
least they’ve done a decent job clearing up,’ Lord Brentford observed. ‘If I
ever catch the scoundrel who built that atrocity…’

Darwin
wore a downcast face. He had really truly loved that Bananary and considered it
to have been a thing of rare beauty.