At intervals he ceased his frenzied pacing and peered up and down the hideous pipe, as if expecting the arrival of some fellow conspirator. None, however, made an appearance.
Professor Slocombe was not to be found at his desk that afternoon. He had pressing business elsewhere. Whilst the sun shone down upon Brentford and the Brentonians went about whatever business they had, he was conversing earnestly with a pink-eyed man of apparent albino extraction, who had given up such doubtful pleasures to dedicate himself to the search for far greater truths.
Even now, the Professor sat in what was to all appearances a normal Brentford front room, but which was, in fact, situated more than a mile beneath Penge; which is said to be a very nice place, even by those who have never been there themselves..
At a little after three, Neville pressed home the bolts upon the Swan’s door and retired to his chambers. He had been anaesthetizing himself with scotch since eleven and was now feeling less concerned about what was to happen during the coming evening. He was, however, having a great deal of trouble keeping the world in focus. He falteringly set his alarm clock for five and blissfully fell asleep upon his bed.
23
At long last the Memorial Library clock struck a meaningful seven-thirty. The Swan was already a-buzz with conversation. Pints were being pulled a-plenty and team members from the half-dozen pubs competing this year were already limbering up upon the row of dartboards arranged along the saloon-bar wall. The closed sign had long been up upon the Star of Bombay Curry Garden, and within the Swan, Gammon, in the unlikely guise of an Eastern swami, engaged Archie Karachi in fervent debate.
In the back room of number seven Mafeking Avenue four men held a council of war.
‘The thing must be performed with all expediency,’ said Professor Slocombe. ‘We do not want Norman to miss the match. I have, as the colonials would have it, big bucks riding upon this year’s competition.’
The shopkeeper grinned. ‘Have no fear, Professor,’ said he.
‘Omally, do you have your tools?’ John patted at the bulging plumber’s bag he had commandeered during the afternoon from a dozing council worker. ‘Then it is off down the alley and fingers crossed.’
Without further ado, the four men passed out into a small back yard and down a dustbin-crowded alleyway towards the rear of the Star of Bombay Curry Garden.
Norman was but a moment at the lock before the four found themselves within the colourfully decorated kitchenette, their nostrils tantalised by the heady fragrances of cumin, coriander, turmeric and garam masala. Kali’s face peered down from a garish wall-calendar, registering a look of some foreboding at the prospect of what was to be done to the premises of one of her followers.
‘A moment please,’ said Professor Slocombe. ‘We must be certain that all is secure.’
Within the Swan, Gammon suddenly interrupted his conversation, excused himself momentarily from Archie’s company, and thrust a handful of change into the Swan’s jukebox. As the thing roared into unstoppable action, Neville, who had taken great pains to arrange for the disabling of that particular piece of pub paraphernalia years before, and had never actually heard it play, marvelled at its sudden return to life. The Professor had left nothing to chance.
‘To the wall, John,’ said Professor Slocombe.
‘Where abouts?’
‘Just there.’
‘Fair enough.’ Omally swung his seven-pound club hammer and the cold chisel penetrated the gaudy wallpaper. The mouldy plasterwork fell away in great map chunks, and within a minute or two Omally had bared an area of brickwork roughly five feet in height and two in width. ‘Better penetrate from the very centre,’ the Professor advised. ‘Take it easy and we will have a little check-about, in case the thing is booby-trapped.’ Omally hammered the chisel into the brickwork.
Within the Swan the jukebox was belting out a deafening selection of hits from the early sixties. The sounds of demolition were swallowed up by the cacophony.
‘Stop!’ said the Professor suddenly.
‘What is it?’ The words came simultaneously from three death-white faces.
‘Changing the record, that’s all. You can go on again now.’
Pooley was skulking near to the back door. With every blow to the brickwork his nerve was taking a similar hammering. His hand wavered above the door handle.
‘If it goes up, Jim,’ said the Professor without looking round, ‘it will probably take most of Brentford with it. You have nowhere to run to.’
‘I wasn’t running,’ said Jim. ‘Just keeping an eye on the alleyway, that’s all.’ He peered over the net curtain into a yard which was a veritable munitions dump of spent curry tins. ‘And not without cause. John, stop banging.’
‘I’m getting nowhere with all these interruptions,’ the Irishman complained. ‘Look, I’ve nearly got this brick out.’
‘No, stop, stop!’ Pooley ducked down below window level. ‘There’s one of them out there.’
‘Ah,’ said Professor Slocombe, ‘I had the feeling that they would not be very far from the Swan this night.’
The four men held their breath until they could do it no more. ‘Is he still there?’ the Professor asked.
Pooley lifted the corner of the net curtain. ‘No, he’s gone. Be at it, John, get a move on will you?’
‘Perhaps you’d rather do the work yourself, Pooley?’ said Omally, proffering his tools.
‘I am the lookout,’ said Pooley haughtily, ‘you are the hammer-man.’
‘Oh, do get a move on,’ sighed Norman. ‘It’s nearly a quarter to eight.’
Omally swung away with a vengeance, raising a fine cloud of brick dust, and dislodging chunks of masonry with every blow. When he had cleared a hole of sufficient size, the Professor stuck his head through and shone about with a small hand torch. ‘I see no sign of touch plates or sensory activators. Have it down, John.’
Omally did the business. As Gammon’s final selection came to an end and the jukebox switched itself off for another decade, the saboteurs stood before the exposed back plate of the Captain Laser Alien Attack Machine.
Norman opened his tool-box and took out a pair of rubber gloves, which he dusted with talcum powder, and drew over his sensitive digits. Taking up a long slim screwdriver, he teased out the locking screws. As the others crossed their fingers and held their breath, he gently eased away the back plate. The Professor shone his torch in through the crack and nodded. Norman yanked the plate off, exposing the machine’s inner workings.
A great gasp went up from the company. ‘Holy Mary,’ said John Omally, ‘would you look at all that lot?’
Norman whistled through his teeth. ‘Magic,’ said he. Upon the dashboard of a black Cadillac sedan parked in a nearby side-road a green light began to flash furiously.
The shopkeeper leant forward and stared into the machine’s innards. ‘It is wonderful,’ he said. ‘Beyond belief.’
‘But can you break it up?’ Omally demanded.
‘Break it up? That would be a crime against God. Look at it, the precision, the design. It is beyond belief.’
‘Yes, yes, but can you break it up?’
Norman shook his head, ‘Given time, I suppose. But look here, the thing must serve at least a dozen functions. Each of these modules has a separate input and output.’
‘Let me give it a welt with my hammer.’
‘No, no, just a minute.’ Norman traced the circuitry with his screwdriver, whistling all the while. ‘Each module is fed by the main power supply, somewhere deep within the Earth, it appears. This is evidently some sort of communications apparatus. There is a signalling device here, obviously for some sort of guidance control. Here is the basic circuitry which powers the games centre. Here is a gravitational field device to draw down orbiting objects on to a pre-programmed landing site. The whole thing is here, complete tracking, guidance, communication and landing controls. There are various other subsidiary components: outward defence modifications, protec
ting the frontal circuitry, alarm systems, etcetera.’
The Professor nodded. ‘Disconnect the guidance, communications, and landing systems, if you please, Norman.’
Norman delved into the works, skilfully removing certain intricate pieces of micro-circuitry. ‘It occurs to me,’ he said, ‘speaking purely as a layman, that as a protective measure we might reverse certain sections merely by changing over their positive and negative terminals.’
Professor Slocombe scratched at his snowy head. ‘To what end?’
‘Well, if this device is guiding the craft in by means of gravitational beams locked into their computer guidance systems, if we were to reverse the polarity, then as they punch in their coordinates on board the ships, the machine will short them out, and possibly destroy the descending craft.’
‘Will it work?’
Norman tapped at his nose. ‘Take it from me, it won’t do them a lot of good. Come to think of it, it might even be possible to cross-link the guidance system with the actual games programme on the video machine. Pot the sods right out of the sky as they fly in.’
‘Can you do it?’
‘Can I do it, Professor?’ Norman unscrewed a series of terminals and reconnected them accordingly. He also removed a small unobtrusive portion of the contrivance, which appeared of importance only to himself, and secreted it within his toolbox.
‘Are you all done?’ the Professor asked, when the shopkeeper finally straightened up.
‘All done,’ said Norman, pulling off his gloves and tossing them into his tool-box. ‘A piece of cake.’
Professor Slocombe rose upon creaking knees and patted the brick dust from his tweeds. He put a hand upon the shopkeeper’s shoulder and said, ‘You have done very well, Norman, and we will be for ever in your debt. The night, however, is far from over. In fact it has just begun. Do you think that you might now pull off the double by winning the darts match?’
Norman nodded. He had every intention of pulling off the treble this night. But that was something he was keeping very much to himself.
The Swan was filling at a goodly pace. With seven local teams competing for the cherished shield, business was already becoming brisk. Neville had taken on extra bar staff, but these were of the finger-counting, change-confusing variety, and were already costing him money. The part-time barman was doing all he could, but his good eye wandered forever towards the Swan’s door.
When at quarter past eight it swung open to herald the arrival of Omally, Pooley, Professor Slocombe and Norman, Neville breathed an almighty sigh of relief. Omally thrust his way through the crowd and ordered the drinks. ‘As promised,’ he announced, as the Swan’s team enveloped Norman in their midst with a great cheer.
Neville pulled the pints. ‘I am grateful, Omally,’ said he, ‘these are on the house.’
‘And will be for a year, as soon as the other little matter is taken care of.’
‘The machine?’
‘You will have to bear with me just a little longer on that one. Whatever occurs tonight you must stand resolute and take no action.’
Neville’s suspicions were immediately aroused. ‘What is likely to occur?’
Omally held up his grimy hands. ‘The matter is under the control of Professor Slocombe, a man who, I am sure you will agree, can be trusted without question.’
‘If all is as you say, then I will turn a blind eye to that despoiler of my loins who has come skulking with you.’ Omally grinned handsomely beneath his whiskers. Neville loaded the drinks on to a tray and Omally bore them away to the Professor’s reserved table.
A bell rang and the darts tournament began. A hired Master of Ceremonies, acting as adjudicator and positive last word, clad in a glittering tuxedo and sporting an eyebrow-pencil moustache, announced the first game.
First on the oche were the teams from the Four Horsemen and the New Inn. Jack Lane, resident landlord at the Four Horsemen these forty-seven long years, struggled from his wheelchair and flung the very first dart of the evening.
‘Double top, Four Horsemen away,’ announced the adjudicator in a booming voice.
Outside in the street, two figures who closely resembled a pair of young Jack Palances, and who smelt strongly of creosote, were rapidly approaching the Swan. They walked with automaton precision, and their double footfalls echoed along the deserted Ealing Road.
‘Double top,’ boomed the adjudicator, ‘New Inn away.’
Pooley and Omally sat in their grandstand seats, sipping their ale. ‘Your man Jarvis there has a fine overarm swing,’ said Omally.
‘He is a little too showy for my liking,’ Pooley replied. ‘I will take five to four on the Horsemen if you’re offering it.’
Omally, who had already opened his book and was now accepting bets from all comers, spat on his palm and smacked it down into that of his companion. ‘We are away then,’ said he.
Bitow bitow bitow went the Captain Laser Alien Attack Machine, suddenly jarring the two men from their appreciation of life’s finer things, and causing them to leap from their chairs. Omally craned his neck above the crowd and peered towards the sinister contrivance. Through the swelling throng he could just make out the distinctive lime-green coiffure of Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone.
‘It is the young ninny,’ said John. ‘Five to four you have then, I will draw up a page for you.’
Neville was by now moving up and down the bar, taking orders left, right, and centre. The till jangled like a fire alarm, and Croughton the pot-bellied potman was already in a lather.
No-one noticed as two men with high cheekbones and immaculate black suits entered the Swan and lost themselves in the crowds. No-one, that is, but for a single disembodied soul who lightly tapped the Professor upon the shoulder. ‘All right,’ said the old man, without drawing his eyes from the match in play. ‘Kindly keep me informed.’
The Four Horsemen was faring rather badly. The lads from the New Inn had enlisted the support of one Thomas ‘Squires’ Trelawny, a flights-master from Chiswick. ‘Who brought him in?’ asked Pooley. ‘His name is not on the card.’
‘A late entry, I suppose, do I hear a change in the odds?’
‘Treacherous to the end, Omally,’ said Jim Pooley. ‘I will not shorten the odds, who is the next man up?’
‘Jack’s son, Young Jack.’
Young Jack, who was enjoying his tenth year in retirement, and looked not a day over forty, put his toe to the line and sent his feathered missile upon its unerring course into the treble twenty.
A great cheer went up from the Horsemen’s supporters. ‘He once got three hundred and one in five darts,’ Omally told Jim.
‘He is in league with the devil though but.’
‘True, that does give him an edge.’
Somehow Young Jack had already managed to score one hundred and eighty-one with three darts, and this pleased the lads from the Four Horsemen no end. To much applause, he concluded his performance by downing a pint of mild in less than four seconds.
‘He is wearing very well considering his age,’ said Omally.
‘You should see the state of his portrait in the attic.’
‘I’ll get the round in then,’ said Professor Slocombe, rising upon his cane.
‘Make sure he doesn’t charge you for mine,’ called Omally, who could see a long and happy year ahead, should the weather hold. With no words spoken the crowd parted before the old man, allowing him immediate access’ to the bar.
Beneath his table Young Jack made a satanic gesture, but he knew he was well outclassed by the great scholar.
‘Same again,’ said Professor Slocombe. Neville did the honours. ‘All is well with you, I trust, barman?’ the old gentleman asked. ‘You wear something of a hunted look.’
‘I am sorely tried, Professor,’ said Neville. ‘I can smell disaster, and this very night. The scent is souring my nostrils even now as we speak. It smells like creosote, but I know it to be disaster. If we survive to see a new day dawn I am going
to take a very long holiday.’
‘You might try Penge, then,’ said the old man brightly, ‘I understand that it is very nice, although . . . ‘ His words were suddenly swallowed up by a battery of Bitows from the nearby games machine.
Neville scowled through the crowd at the hunched back of the paperboy. ‘Perhaps I will simply slay him now and take my holiday in Dartmoor, they say the air is very healthy thereabouts.’
‘Never fear,’ said Professor Slocombe, but his eyes too had become fixed upon the green-haired youth.
Speaking rapidly into Nick’s ear was a man of average height, slightly tanned and with high cheek-bones. The Professor couldn’t help thinking that he put him in mind of a young Jack Palance. The youth, however, appeared so engrossed in his play as to be oblivious to the urgent chatter of the darkly-clad stranger.
Neville chalked the bill on to the Professor’s private account, and the old gentleman freighted his tray back to his table. ‘How goes the state of play?’ he asked Omally.
‘Squires Trelawny is disputing Young Jack’s score,’ said John, unloading the tray on to the table. ‘He is obviously not altogether au fait with Jack’s technique.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Pooley pointing towards the dispute. ‘Young Jack is not going to like that.’
Trelawny, a temperamental “friend of Dorothy” frustrated by the apparent wall of indifference his objections ran up against, had poked one of the Horsemen’s leading players in the eye with his finger.
‘Trelawny is disqualified,’ said the adjudicator.
‘You what?’ Squires turned upon the man in the rented tuxedo and stamped his feet in rage.
‘Out, finished,’ said the other. ‘We brook no violence here.’
‘You are all bloody mad,’ screamed the disgruntled player, in a high piping voice. The crowd made hooting noises and somebody pinched his bum.
‘Out of my way then!’ Flinging down his set of Asprey’s darts (the expensive ones with the roc-feather flights), he thrust his way through the guffawing crowd and departed the Swan. Young Jack, who numbered among his personal loathings a very special hatred for gentlemen who “bowl from the gasworks end”, made an unnoticeable gesture beneath table level, and as he blustered into the street Trelawny slipped upon an imaginary banana skin and fell heavily to the pavement. As he did so, the front two tyres of his Morris Minor went simultaneously flat.