The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (18 page)

‘I
say,
why?’
said Cameron Bell. ‘Why such a complicated rigmarole? Why did
you not simply make good your escape last night in the company of the
reliquaries? Why, if you have acquired three, can you not acquire the fourth?
Why do you need to involve me in any of this?’

Miss
Lavinia Dharkstorrm shook her beautiful head. ‘And you call yourself a
detective,’ she said, smiling as she did so. ‘I let you have the reliquaries
last night so that you would do what I am sure you have done — take them to
some expert for authentication and to provide you with some knowledge as to
what they actually are. As for the subterfuge, I had intended all along to
capture your partner to encourage you to find the fourth reliquary. I had you
pegged all along, Mr Bell — that you substituted the real awards list at the
British Showmen’s Fellowship dinner and dance, that you might enjoy the ensuing
chaos, all smug and filled with self-satisfaction at your cleverness. Well, I
displayed a little cleverness of my own. Mine, it would appear, is superior to
yours.

And
suddenly Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm no longer sat before Mr Bell.

Instead
there was a small and grubby girl, regarding him with large, reproachful eyes.

‘Vile
creature!’ cried Cameron Bell. ‘But if you are so clever … Why have you need
of me?’

Miss
Dharkstorrm reappeared and smiled a bit more. ‘If I could have found the fourth
reliquary myself, then so would I have done. But I have
not
been able to
do so. The first three were relatively easy. I knew where they were —one in the
British Museum, one upon Venus, one upon Jupiter. Stealing from the British
Museum has never been particularly difficult — even chief inspectors of police
get up to it. As for Jupiter, the Jovians, though affable, are a godless bunch,
so I simply purchased theirs. Venus was more difficult. Theirs was kept in a
temple, so I had a replacement crafted. They are still unaware of the
exchange.’

‘And
where is the one upon Mars?’ asked Cameron Bell. ‘Is that kept in some holy
place or in some private collection?’

‘Ah,
you are showing an interest. Good for you. The fourth reliquary containing the
Anima
Mundi
of planet Earth has been stolen from its location on Mars.

‘Ha,’
said Cameron Bell, and he almost laughed. ‘By some rival coven, perchance?’

‘Who
can say?’ Miss Dharkstorrm shrugged. ‘Which is why the owner seeks to employ a
detective.’

‘And
the
rightful
owner is who?’

‘Princess
Pamela,’ said Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘Queen Victoria’s sister.’

‘The
Queen has no sister named Pamela,’ said Mr Bell.

‘Oh
yes she certainly does, and a wanton creature she is. Her existence has always
remained unknown to the public in general. She was long ago installed in a
palace on Mars where it was hoped she would not get into mischief It is a very
closely guarded secret.’

‘But
why?’ asked Mr Bell.

‘Because
she is
the spare.
If anything was ever to happen to our all-good,
all-reigning monarch — say, perhaps, the strike of an assassin’s bullet — she
would quietly be installed upon the throne in Victoria’s place. You see, Mr
Bell, she is Queen Victoria’s very special sister. She is Victoria’s identical
twin.’

17

ow
are you to refuse me?’ asked Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘An offer such as this
one does not come your way too often.’

‘I
have served many royal households,’ said Mr Cameron Bell, ‘and be assured that
when all this is done-’ And then the detective paused.

‘Oh
yes.’ The High Priestess smiled anew. ‘I know just what you are thinking — an
engagement from the Royal House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to seek a stolen reliquary
and then to keep the secret of the owner’s identity. A fine commission, that
one, you are thinking, which will bring in many pennies and endear you to Her
Majesty the Queen.’

‘The
Queen and I are already close friends,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘I
am, naturally, aware of this. Nevertheless, you are thinking, yes, I will take
this job, I will seek and find this treasure. But when I do I will trick the
wicked witch and effect my little friend’s safe return, then deliver the
treasure to its rightful owner and claim the large reward.’

It was
Cameron Bell’s turn to smile. ‘Let us not forget the reliquary stolen from
Venus and the one belonging to the British Museum. This will be well-paid work
indeed.’

‘But
of
course
that is what you would think. What you
should
think.
But step carefully, Mr Bell, for I am more than your equal. Do me wrong and an
awful death awaits your little monkey.’

‘All
right,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I am aware that you are capable of many horrors. I
will travel with you to Mars. I will take the commission from Princess Pamela.
I will deliver the reliquary to you and you will return to me my friend.’

As
Cameron Bell spoke the words
my friend,
it occurred to him that he had
had few friends to call his own throughout his adult life. He had been a man
driven by his occupation. He might well have unconsciously distanced himself
from personal friendships, perhaps fearing just such an eventuality as this.
And now the fate of his friend, his
only
friend, hung in the balance.
Darwin’s life depended upon him. But there was more to it than that and he
hated himself for thinking it. He was an educated man and he believed himself
to be an enlightened man. But he was clearly being beaten by a woman.

And,
as with most gentlemen of his era, he greatly enjoyed having a woman physically
beat him. The thought of one doing so mentally, however, was utterly appalling.

Miss
Lavinia laughed. ‘Men,’ she said. ‘Your thoughts speak so loudly to women. No
matter how well or badly you dress, you are all the same inside.’

Miss
Lavinia Dharkstorrm got up to leave.

Cameron
Bell still held his pistol, but it was an impotent gesture. He tucked it back
in his pocket.

‘What
time does our spaceship depart?’ he asked. ‘I have many affairs that must be
put in order.’

‘At
ten tomorrow morning,’ said the High Priestess. ‘She is called the
Phelamanga,
a rather pretty craft.’ Lavinia Dharkstorrm stared at the detective. ‘I
know you will seek to play me false,’ said she. ‘How could it be otherwise? It
will be sport for both of us. I wonder who will triumph.’

‘I will
triumph,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I will bring you to justice.’

‘We
shall agree to differ on that. Now kindly hand me my bag.’

Cameron
Bell looked down at the oversized reticule which contained the three
reliquaries.

‘Hand
it over,’ said Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘It really doesn’t suit you at all, you
know.’

Cameron
Bell handed it over.

Miss
Lavinia Dharkstorrm held it up and gave it a sniff. ‘Ah, we are off to a fine
start,’ she said. ‘You have tainted it with an ointment that your Rutherford
Patent Bloodhound can follow. Happily I have another with me.’ She transferred
the reliquaries from one bag to the other. ‘You will have to do far better than
that,
Mr Bell. Until tomorrow, then, farewell.’

And
she left the detective all alone to stand and grind his teeth.

Darwin the
monkey was all alone. All alone in a locked suitcase in the cargo hold of a
spaceship travelling to Mars. Darwin was a most unhappy monkey, so he stuck his
thumb into his mouth and had a little cry.

Jones the horrid
troll was all alone. He had a nest beneath the stairs, although he bethought
that he deserved a four-poster bed. That woman in the veil had treated him
roughly this morning and she had whispered such words into the ear that she
held as to make the troll very afraid.

Jones
the troll curled up in a ball and had a little cry.

Ernest
Rutherford was all alone. Alone in his laboratory. Upon a work bench before him
were the papers the veiled lady had left. Ernest studied them thoughtfully. It
was all here — literally a new branch of science, which incorporated something
described as the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti—matter, which caused
a positronic cross—polarisation within something described as a flux capacitor.
[12]
It was the missing piece in the jigsaw
puzzle of time, and it was right there before him. All he had to do in exchange
for this priceless knowledge was to formulate the curious membrane that fused
science to magic. That could enable a woman to fly and to be in a state of near
invulnerability. Why should any woman want such a thing? The chemist’s question
was swiftly answered as he recalled in terrible detail what he had seen when
she had lifted her veil.

Mr
Ernest Rutherford poured champagne and had a little cry.

Chief Inspector
Case sat upon his desk, huddled in his kiwi cloak. He rocked gently back and
forth and sang a ‘song of advancement’ in a language all of his own. She was
back in London, that terrible woman. Back after nearly ten years and back to
plague
him.
What had
he
done to deserve
her?
He was the
King of the Aztecs. People should not mess about with such a chap as he. They
should show him some respect.

Upon
his desk, next to the file he had shown to Cameron Bell, was a nice fresh
police report, freshly written up by a nice fresh policeman. It was a report of
two bodies found in a square near St Bride’s church, outside a tall and narrow
house. A late-night Gatherer of the Pure had discovered the bodies and he had
given a description of the woman, wearing an armoured corset and a black
rubber headpiece. He had seen her leaping over the rooftops, laughing as she
leapt.

Chief
Inspector Case wasn’t laughing. That brass-bound lady was a one-woman crime
wave and now she was in
his
manor. The chief inspector rocked some more
and had a little cry.

Miss Violet Wond
walked all alone towards Trafalgar Square. The sun raged down upon her parasol.
From beneath her veil she viewed the comings and goings of those who trod the
streets of the Empire’s capital. She saw the nannies in their lace, pushing at
their prams. The nurses wheeling dames in old bath-chairs. Young lovers with
their arms entwined, Jovians with large behinds, Venusian ecclesiastics
whispering their prayers. Here walked poor and ragged children. There was a
barrel organ played by a man dressed up as if a pirate. Soldiers rode proudly
by upon their beautiful mounts. Hansoms clattered, new electric-wheelers purred
upon their rubber wheels. An airship passed in glory overhead and now the young
lovers tossed coins into a fountain as jets of water flung their rainbows to
the sky.

All
was commonplace and though this was the city of her birth, still now all was
alien to Miss Wond. She was a stranger in her own land. A woman who could love
no one, nor be loved by anyone. There were things that she had to do, scores
that had to be settled before she could ever hope for absolution. Or find love
of her own.

Miss
Violet Wond strode swiftly on. But beneath her veil she had a little cry.

Cardinal Cox sat
all alone in his Bayswater residence. His catamite was out at Boots, purchasing
hashish. The cardinal quaffed thickened Turkish coffee. Thickened with hashish,
that coffee was. Seeing those three reliquaries together had quite upset the
man in the robes of red. There was much regarding them that he had not
disclosed to Mr Bell. Much regarding the prophecy.

He
had studied many religions, had the cardinal. Many faiths and many practices
and many magics, too. Upon his knee rested an annotated copy of the Talmud,
annotated by the prophet Abu Ben Addam. There were notes here regarding the
Creation and what occurred upon the evening of the very first Sabbath. It was
said that five things were given then to Man. Four bejewelled caskets, each
containing an
Anima Mundi,
one for each of the inhabited planets that
the Lord God had made. Four caskets and the rod of Moses. The staff that would
one day part the Red Sea as the old patriarch led the Chosen People from the
fleshpots of Egypt. Abu Ben Addam wrote of the four caskets. Each was a gift
from God, each containing the soul of a world and each to be kept on another
world entirely.