Starcross (11 page)

Professor Ferny did not reply. Indeed, Professor Ferny seemed suddenly incapable of speech at all. His fronds made helpless flapping motions, stiffened briefly and then wilted. A brownish tinge spread over him, replacing his former healthful green. His
brain-bole bowed on its thick stem, and he made muddy, unintelligible noises.

‘The broth!’ cried Mother suddenly. ‘Fetch him out of it! It’s poisoned!’

Mr Titfer and the colonel leapt forward at once and drew the wilting professor from his bowl. His roots were blackened and limp, and a greenish vapour rose from them, filling the dining room with a scent like that of damp socks.

‘Oh Gawd! Is he done for?’ asked Mrs Spinnaker, who had recovered from her faint but looked ready to fall into another at any instant.

‘No, he’s alive …’ said the colonel doubtfully, as if he were about to add,
but for how long?

‘We must all pray for him!’ said Myrtle earnestly.

‘A nice tub of potting compost might be of more use,’ suggested Mother.

‘A sound notion!’ agreed Colonel Quivering. ‘I had a few of these shrub chappies serving as scouts with my regiment in the Callistan Swamp War of ’39. Tough as old boots, they are. Good rich compost and regular feeding will revive him, God willing.’

‘The plant nursery behind the greenhouse,’ cried Mr Spinnaker. ‘We will find all he needs there!’

And so they laid the poor shrub upon a table and bore him away, leaving the rest of us to wonder what evil was loose in this pleasant place, and which of us might fall victim to it next!

Chapter Seven

In Which the Mystery Deepens Yet Further!

As you may imagine, we none of us ate well that night. Mr Titfer assured us that he would send an aethergram to the Chief Constable of Modesty and Decorum as soon as the hotel was restored to the Nineteenth Century. Indeed, when that happy event occurred (at about a half past six the next morning, according to his forecast) we should all be welcome to board the train and depart for safer asteroids if we wished.
But half past six seemed a long way off, and for the moment Starcross seemed suddenly to have become a lonely and dangerous place, very far removed from chief constables and railways and all the other comforts of our own era.
Who poisoned Professor Ferny?
we were all wondering, as we sniffed suspiciously at the soup the auto-waiters set before us.
Who had transformed Sir Richard and Ulla into trees?

‘I cannot believe that it was any one of us,’ said Miss Beauregard at some point in the fish course. ‘There is no one here who looks like a murderer to me.’

‘Where is Mr Titfer?’ asked Mother, contemplating the empty seat at the head of the long dining table. ‘Does he not join his guests for dinner?’

‘Not usually,’ said Colonel Quivering. ‘He is busy in his office. Or in the boiler room …’ He frowned as he said this last part, as though the idea was one that he had stumbled upon, and it had surprised him to find it.

‘The boiler room?’ asked Mother.

‘Yes, yes, it is below the hotel; there is a door to it in the corridor near the kitchens. I believe it houses the gravity generators … I have never been down there, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Mother. ‘I cannot imagine what a gentleman would find to do in a boiler room. That is why it surprises me to hear of Mr Titfer spending time down there. Surely he has automata to tend to his gravity generators and other such oily and bothersome bits of enginery?’ She removed a few bones from her salmon and laid them neatly on a side plate. ‘Does anyone know how Mr Titfer came by all the money to build this wonderful hotel?’ she asked innocently. ‘I have never heard the name of Titfer. All Titfer means to me is the Cockney slang, “Tit for Tat”, meaning “Hat”.’

‘Aha!’ cried Colonel Quivering, as if the word ‘hat’ had opened some floodgate in his mind. ‘Well, of course, Mortimer Titfer is the maker of most excellent hats!’

‘That’s how he came by all his money, I daresay,’ ventured Mr Spinnaker.

‘The finest top hats in Known Space,’ said Jack Havock, surprisingly, for he had been silent until now and anyway, I should not have thought him the sort of fellow who
would care much about hats.

‘I own one of his hats!’ said Mr Spinnaker.

‘So do I!’ cried Colonel Quivering.

‘Every gentleman in the Solar System should own one of Titfer’s Toppers!’ declared Mrs Spinnaker.

‘Yes,’ said Mother, in the same light yet thoughtful way. ‘I recall seeing a large advertisement hoarding at Modesty, proclaiming their fine qualities. And yet, I am not sure that I recall ever hearing about Mr Titfer’s hats before we came here. How odd.’

Jack looked at her curiously. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I had a dream about hats last night … Or
was
it a dream?’ And he rubbed at his hair, with a most thoughtful expression.

Colonel Quivering said, ‘No doubt there is a fascinating debate to be had about fashions in gentlemen’s headgear, dear Mrs Mumby, but I would prefer to think about which of us attacked
poor Ferny and turned the Burtons into trees. For despite what dear Miss Beauregard says, I believe it must have been one of us.’

‘Unless it’s them automatons!’ whispered Mrs Spinnaker. ‘Maybe one of them’s gone wrong, just like the laundrymaid in that song of mine! Gone mad, maybe! Ready to slaughter us all!’

‘Really, Mrs S., do please calm yourself,’ Mother assured her. ‘The automata are perfectly safe. There is no room in their mechanical heads for a thought, let alone a mad one.’ But Mrs Spinnaker was far from reassured.

Still, it is a dark cloud indeed which has no silver lining, and at least her troubled mood meant we were spared her musical evening, and Myrtle’s beastly old piano playing.

After dinner Mother and Myrtle and I took a stroll along the promenade for the sake of our digestions. It all looked very lovely in the evening light, with the crags like silhouettes cut from black card and pasted to a lilac sky, and the stars just starting to come out. But the shuttered beach cafe had taken on a sinister air, and the silent bathing machines and Punch & Judy shows which stood about reminded me now more
of coffins than of sentry boxes. We stopped to peek at a fortune-telling booth, in which an automaton in the shape of a one-eyed gypsy woman sat staring into a ball of cloudy Martian crystal. Myrtle thought it a vulgar thing, and stomped off to strike wistful poses at the promenade rail, but Mother put a penny in the machine’s slot, and the gypsy clattered into life and droned, ‘I foresee a long journey. You will meet a tall, dark stranger …’

That reminded me somehow of my encounter on the balcony the night before. The shadow-thing had not been tall, but it had certainly been dark and strange.

‘Mother,’ I said, ‘what is small and inky black and goes “Moob”?’

‘I don’t know, Art,’ she replied, thinking that I was trying
to lighten the atmosphere with an amusing riddle. ‘What
is
small and inky black and goes “Moob”?’

‘It is no riddle, Mother. There was one nosing about on our balcony last night.’

I told her all about our strange nocturnal visitor, and she listened carefully. When I had finished she said, ‘Well, Art, I do not know what to make of it, I’m sure, but there is nothing in this creature’s behaviour to suggest it means us harm. Starcross has ventured out upon the ocean of Time, and I daresay as many strange fish swim there as in the oceans of Space. I am far more inclined to worry about the foul play which has befallen Professor Ferny and dear Sir Richard. I think it might be best if were to gather everyone together, and leave Starcross as soon as we can.’

I looked doubtfully towards the railway station, and the upward curve of the track which led from it, rising on its ornate iron pillars into the sky, where it suddenly ended, cut off from the rest of the railway by a hundred million years. It was like a reminder cast in steel of how very far we were from help.

We were just about to turn back to the hotel when we heard footfalls behind us and looked round to find Mr Munkulus, Nipper and Grindle hurrying to join us. I was
exceeding glad to see them again, especially as they had not been able to join us for dinner. In keeping with their roles as the Honourable Ignatius Flint’s servants, they had to eat in the servant’s quarters, and were very seldom seen in the parts of the hotel where the guests congregated.

‘Well, Mrs Mumby,’ said Mr Munkulus, when we had all greeted one another. ‘This is a strange to-do.’

‘Indeed it is, Mr M. What do you make of it?’

Mr M. looked bashful, clearly very proud that one of Mother’s great age and wisdom should wish to hear his opinion. ‘Mrs Mumby,’ he said at last, ‘there’s oddness afoot. Jack’s convinced himself that this Delphine person’s at the bottom of it, but I’m not so sure.’

‘There’s something about that Mr Titfer that I don’t like,’ confessed Nipper. ‘I know he makes very fine hats, but even so …’

‘So you, too, admire this Titfer’s Toppers?’ asked Mother.

‘Oh yes,’ they all chorused – though three beings less likely to don top hats it would be difficult to conceive of!

‘I wish we was back in our own times,’ muttered Grindle, ‘I’d send word to Ssil and have her bring the
Sophronia
here and carry us all away. I’ve had enough of this spying lark, all sneaking about and pretending to be things you ain’t. Give
me the open aether and a good clean fight any day.’