The Mechanical Messiah (54 page)

The colonel hmphed once more.

‘I am sorry,’ said Darwin, ‘but I regret that one is forced to apply the verity and cliché to our golden friend. He is very pretty, but He is not very bright.’

Colonel Katterfelto hung his head. ‘This was my whole life’s work,’ he said. ‘My very reason for being, as it were.’

‘You have lived an extraordinary life,’ said Darwin. ‘Done extraordinary things. Brave things. Noble things.’

Colonel Katterfelto tousled Darwin’s head. ‘I have led a lonely life,’ said he. ‘And d’you know what? Meeting you has been one of the best things in it. Your friendship means the world to me.

‘As yours does to me,’ said Darwin. ‘Shall we leave this beautiful fellow here to fiddle in the dust and take some pie and porter at an alehouse?’

Colonel Katterfelto straightened up his shoulders. ‘Come on, then,’ he said to Darwin. ‘Pie and porter it is.’

The Chancellor of the Exchequer eschewed pie and porter, dining rather upon venison haunch, broccoli spears, courgettes and sautéed potatoes. At periods he sipped red wine from a glass that had once touched the lips of Marie Antoinette. The wine had once been laid in Louis’ cellar at Versailles.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer dined alone. In his private chambers in the Palace of Westminster. His personal valet and manservant coughed politely and announced the dessert.

The dessert was Treacle Sponge Bastard.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer beckoned this dish to his table with a languid though blackly gloved hand.

Outside Big Ben struck ten of the evening clock.

‘Time is moving forward oh so fast,’ hissed the Chancellor. His valet trembled as he served the Bastard.

But then—

‘Sir, oh, sir.’

A menial entered the private chamber, waving a sheet of paper.

‘I am
not
to be disturbed!’ hissed the voice behind the black silk veil.

‘But sir, it is the news you have been waiting for.’

‘The news?’

‘The evening’s papers were delivered late.’

‘Make sense, you fool,’ the Chancellor hissed, ‘or I will have your head.’

‘The assassin,’ said the menial, his knees now knocking together. ‘The one you had the WANTED posters issued for. Cameron James Bell. He has been captured. He is under arrest. Held in a cell at Scotland Yard.’

The Chancellor in black rose to his feet, cast aside his chair and then his table. The crystal glass shattered, the vintage wine drained away into a priceless carpet.

‘Then I have him,’ he cried, his ghastly voice reducing those who heard it to their knees. ‘And I will have
it.
The thing I seek. I shall kill him and take what is mine. Take the Ring of Moses.’

His menials quietly wet themselves.

The Chancellor stalked from the room.

ime is different in Fairyland, or in the world of dreams. Alice took tea with the white-rabbit-kiwi-bird, whilst her kiwis bumbled around and pecked at the crumbs she threw them.

‘I am supposed to do something, aren’t I?’ said Alice. ‘All this toing and froing of me into magical places — this has all been for a reason that you know about and I do not.’

The white-rabbit-kiwi-bird nodded its head. Its beak was in its cup and sipping tea.

‘You must use the magic that you have been given to help others, Alice, and not to help yourself.’

‘I am not selfish,’ said Alice, growing somewhat grumpy as she said it.

‘You must use your magic tonight when it is needed.’

‘And how will I know when it is needed?’

‘When it is needed you will know. And when you know you will walk through that door over there.’

The kiwi-rabbit combination pointed with its beak.

Alice glanced in that direction. There had been no door there formerly, but there was one there now.

The door was enamelled most prettily, with floral panels and a central decoration depicting a country scene, with a big white rabbit right there in the middle.

Above the rabbit was a word, picked out in copper and gold. The word was

They had little private stalls in Whitechapel public houses. So that gentlemen of high social standing might frequent the company of willing women with a degree of privacy.

Colonel Katterfelto inhabited one of these stalls. He and Darwin chewed at pies and sipped a bit at porter.

‘Jolly poor show,’ said Colonel Katterfelto. ‘All that trouble and the fellow turns out to be a damned buffoon.’

‘Harsh words,’ said Darwin. ‘He is perhaps a slow learner. But think, He is hardly born. Perhaps He is like an infant.’

‘Perhaps,’ puffed the colonel, ‘perhaps. But
I
had hoped for such great things. Feel rather cheated. Let down, doncha know?’

‘Perhaps it was just not meant to be,’ Darwin said as he pushed a piece of pie into his mouth. Swallowing with effort, he asked, ‘Are there bananas for pudding?’

‘Just you and me, then, my dear fellow,’ said the colonel, patting his hirsute companion.

‘We can live very comfortably,’ said Darwin. ‘I can play the Snap tables again. We could buy a house in Mayfair. Life will be good. And as you grow older I will look after you. I am a professional monkey butler after all. We will live happily ever after, just you wait and see.

‘You are a good boy, Darwin,’ said the colonel.

‘A good boy?’ said Darwin. ‘A good
boy,
do you think?’

The man of metal sat alone within the rented chapel. Moonlight fell upon Him and the glow of gaslights, too. He nodded His beautiful head gently and diddled a tiny bit more with His toe upon the dusty chapel floor. Then He gave a little sigh, as of perhaps a cornet playing in the key of B flat.

His glass and turquoise eyes moved towards the Bible that lay where Darwin had left it. Leaning down, He picked it up and held it out before Him.

‘Can
I
read?’ He asked the empty chapel.

The Bible was open at the very last page.

The Mechanical Messiah read from it.

‘I Jesus have sent mine angel to

testify unto you these things in the

churches. I am the root and off-

spring of David and the bright

and morning star.’

The man of metal looked up towards the stained-glass window. Beyond and far distant shone Venus, the bright and morning star.

The unmarked Black Maria moved through the night-time streets. Its driver stared stiffly ahead, forbidden to engage in any cheery banter upon the pain of death. In the rear of this electrically powered marvel of the modern age sat the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His hands within their black leather gloves knotted themselves into fists again and again.

Words came from the mouth of the evil Chancellor. Words of a language quite unknown to Man. Of an ancient and forbidden tongue. Words that spelled no good at all for Mr Cameron Bell.

‘Can you believe the nerve of that Bell?’ asked Sergeant Case, or just plain Graham to his lovely wife.

His lovely wife was lathering sprouts as lovely wives will do.

‘Your name is in all the papers, dear,’ his lovely wife said as she lathered. ‘You will be a commander again tomorrow.’

‘I had better be.’ Sergeant Graham Case did grindings with his teeth. ‘That swine Bell had me over again. Can you believe the nerve of the fellow?’

‘But you have him locked up nice and safe?’

‘Oh yes.’ Sergeant Graham rubbed his hands together before the tiny fire that burned in the tiny grate. For even though the time of year was summer, his kitchen was a cold and dismal place. ‘I have him guarded by two dozen constables. He can sit there and stew without even a cup of tea to comfort him.’

‘That will serve him right,’ said Mrs Case. ‘Would you look at the polish I have on this sprout?’

‘Are sprouts in season at this time of year?’ asked her husband.

His lovely wife responded with a shrug. ‘The dog is in season,’ she said to him. ‘Would you like a nice cup of tea?’

There was much tea-drinking at Scotland Yard, with some teas sparked up somewhat by generous measures of Scotch.

Constable Gates sat once more at his desk. He had received a sound telling off for leaving it earlier in the day without permission. And there was an internal investigation ongoing regarding a report from the Ritz that he and several constables had entered one of the exclusive hotel rooms and discharged the contents of their weapons into the furniture.

Constable Gates was in disgrace and as punishment he would work an all-night shift.

His fellow officers were huddled around him in the entrance hall of Scotland Yard. It was far too nippy downstairs by the cells and rather depressing, too.

They had tired early of calling abuse to Cameron Bell through the little iron grille in the big iron door of his cell and had chosen instead some ground-floor camaraderie, with whisky-flavoured tea and a game of hunt the truncheon to pass the hours of night.

‘Well,’ said Colonel Katterfelto, full of belly and slightly taken with drink, ‘we can’t stay here all night. Back to the Ritz in a hansom for us, I’m thinking.’

Darwin wiped the residue of pudding from his chin and nodded his little hairy head. ‘What about the man of brass?’ he asked.

‘Suppose He’s my responsibility,’ said the colonel, easing himself into the vertical plane. ‘Let’s go and fetch Him, Darwin, we’ll take Him with us. What do you say to that?’

‘I say yes,’ said Darwin. ‘And the pie and porter are on me. My treat.’

The colonel smiled. ‘We will live happily ever after,’ he said to his friend. ‘And think, Darwin, maybe you won’t have to be my monkey butler. Maybe we can have a big shiny brass butler to buttle away for us both.’

Darwin the monkey grinned and said, ‘Can I have a piggyback?’

When they returned to the rented chapel it became readily apparent that things were not exactly as they had left them. Bright lights flashed from within the building and loud sounds were to be heard.

Darwin spoke at Colonel Katterfelto’s ear. ‘Please correct me if I am wrong,’ he said, ‘but that sounds very much to me to be the voices of harpers with their harps.’

The electric Maria was all but soundless. The fearful speakings had ceased in the back. The driver pulled on the handbrake.

‘Scotland Yard,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We are here now, sir.’ And then he hastened to the rear of the vehicle and opened the door for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The tall, gaunt figure in black stepped down onto the cobbled street. Deserted but for a few newspaper reporters lounging about hoping for some kind of late-night scoop.

The Chancellor beckoned to them and they scuttled over. Faces displaying recognition, notepads open and pencils at the ready.