Outside the chop-house, Mr Bell and Darwin said farewell. Both of them had a tear in the eye and neither tried to hide it. It started with a polite handshake but ended with a cuddle.
‘When you have an office once more,’ said Darwin, ‘you write to me at Syon House and I will come to visit.’
‘And we will take tea at Fortnum and Mason,’ said Mr Cameron Bell. ‘And when Lord Brentford. has another social soirée, perhaps you could see to it that my name appears upon the guest list.’
‘Nothing would bring me more pleasure,’ said Darwin. And after shaking once more his ex-partner’s hand, he turned and scampered away.
Mr Bell watched as the ape vanished into the crowd.
‘Fare thee well, my one and only friend,’ said Cameron Bell.
28
he Lord of the Isles will see you now,’ said the broadly grinning policeman, pressing open the storeroom door and pushing Mr Bell into the dismal room that lay beyond.
A raddled soul looked up from a miniature desk. He wore a tam-o‘-shanter of Boleskine plaid topped by an eagle’s feather, a ginger beard that was not his own and yards and yards of tartan. In his left sock, unseen behind his tiny desk, there lurked a dinky dirk, and upon this desk there lay a mighty claymore.
‘Oh dear me,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Dear oh dear oh me.’
‘A chef!’ cried the ersatz highlander. ‘Who let a chef in here?’
‘I am not a chef,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘and you are not a Scotsman.’
‘I am Donald Ferguson, the Laird of Lasmacrae, and I’ll fight any Sassenach who dares to say I’m not.’
Cameron Bell released a sigh that came from his very soul.
The Lord of the Isles stared hard at the bearded chef.
‘I know that sigh,’ said the Lord of the Isles. ‘I’d know it anywhere.’
‘I am Cameron Bell,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘and you are the pride of Scotland Yard — the famous feted Chief Inspector Case.’
‘Bell?’ cried the famous feted one. ‘Is that really you?’
‘It is,’ said the sleuth in chefs clothing.
‘But I have been on your case for nearly a year.’ Chief Inspector Case tore off his beard. ‘Missing, presumed dead. No trace of you. We thought you had perished in the fire.’
‘What fire?’ asked Cameron Bell.
‘At the offices of Banana and Bell,’ said the chief inspector. ‘They burned to the ground on the day you went missing.’
Cameron Bell chewed on his lower lip. Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm, he presumed.
‘So where have you been?’ asked the chief inspector. ‘And why the beard and chefs get-up? Have you gone stark raving mad?’
The irony of this remark was not lost on the detective. ‘A secret undercover mission,’ he said, recalling now what a pleasure it always was to lie to the chief inspector. ‘For Queen and Empire. I wish I could tell you more.
Chief Inspector Case nodded enthusiastically. ‘I suspected that was the case,’ he said.
Cameron Bell rolled his eyes.
‘I’d shave off that beard, though,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Between you and me, what with your baldness and everything, it looks as if you are wearing your head upside down.’ And the chief inspector laughed, a shrill and most alarming laugh that set Mr Bell’s teeth all upon edge and caused his ears to ring.
‘I must ask you for the twenty-five guineas in advance,’ said Cameron Bell.
Chief Inspector Case expressed surprise.
‘I feel,’ said Mr Bell, ‘that as an old and greatly valued friend, you should take the credit for solving the mystery of my disappearance.’
‘Ah,’ said Chief Inspector Case. ‘And in return for me taking all the credit, I will be expected to secretly sign over to you twenty-five guineas from the petty-cash box.’
‘A trifling sum,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘But if you feel that more is in order—’
‘I do not,’ said the chief inspector, coldly sober now and removing his tam-o’-shanter. ‘But in truth, it is good to see you once more. London is a duller place without you around, setting it on fire.’
Mr Bell smiled. ‘I said twenty-five guineas in advance,’ said he, ‘because for the present the fact of my reappearance must remain a secret. I have a most important and uncompleted case that needs my attention and it will be far easier for me to go about my business if the villain in question does not know that I am going about it.’
‘She’s a bad ‘un, for sure,’ said Chief Inspector Case.
‘She?’ said Cameron Bell. ‘You know of whom I speak?’
‘If you are speaking of this vigilante strumpet Lady Ray-gun, then yes, I do,’ said Chief Inspector Case.
‘Ah,’ said Mr Bell. ‘There have been more of her comings and goings while I have been away?’
‘Do you recall the Kray Triplets?’ asked Chief Inspector Case.
‘Ronald, Reginald and Dorothy,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Dorothy is the most dangerous of the three, I surely recall.’
‘Done to death most horribly,’ said Chief Inspector Case, ‘with the words LADY RAYGUN WAS HERE scrawled in their blood across the paving stones.’
‘Nasty,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘But no great loss to the world, if truth be told.’
‘Do you remember Professor Moriarty?’ the chief inspector asked.
‘The Napoleon of Crime,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I gave him that title, you know.’
‘I did know,’ said the chief inspector. ‘You have mentioned it before, many times.’
‘He retired, did he not?’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I heard he makes a living now by signing photographs of himself for enthusiasts of the Sherlock Holmes stories.’
‘Dead,’ said Chief Inspector Case. ‘She stuck his head on the railings of Buckingham Palace.’
‘She appears to be a rather angry woman,’ said Cameron Bell.
‘The file on her grows daily.’ The chief inspector mimed a growing file. ‘Crime rates are dropping, however.’
‘Ah,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Well, it is the matter of crime rates that has brought me here today.’
And indeed it was, because Mr Bell needed to know whether there had been a growing number of evil deeds committed during the time he had been all boxed up in suspended animation. Evil deeds precipitated as a result of the four reliquaries being brought together in an ‘unhallowed place’, as sacred texts predicted. Mr Bell just had to know.
‘It is only really her,’ said the chief inspector. ‘She has had a sobering effect on the criminal population — they rarely venture out after dark nowadays. I cannot recall the last time anyone was brutally slain in a Whitechapel alley. Sometimes I miss the good old days, don’t you?’
Cameron Bell agreed that sometimes he did. ‘I am very glad to hear this,’ he said. ‘Very glad indeed.’
‘Then I am very glad indeed that you are glad to hear it.’
‘I am glad of that,’ said Cameron Bell.
‘Then I am sure you will be utterly delighted to know that I would be pleased to engage your services, in order that you may track down this rogue female and bring her to justice.’
‘That might prove to be something of a challenge,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.
‘Would a fifty-guinea retainer and an open expense account nudge your elbow in the direction of such a challenge?’ asked the chief inspector.
Cameron Bell tugged at his beard. His most pressing unfinished business lay with Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm. But fifty guineas was fifty guineas and although the mysterious Lady Raygun was clearly a most violent creature, at least she was not possessed of supernatural powers. Such an adversary, although clearly most dangerous, he could surely deal with.
‘I will accept the challenge,’ said Cameron Bell.
Chief Inspector Case stuck out his hand and Mr Bell shook it. A deal was a deal, as both men understood.
‘Did I mention,’ asked the chief inspector, a rather sly look creeping onto his face, ‘that not only is this m
urderous woman now able to fly, but she is, so it would appear, also invulnerable to bullets?’
Lord Brentford looked particularly vulnerable as he lay in his hospital bed. He had much of the Egyptian mummy about him, swathed as he was from head to toe in bandages of white. Many much-prized parts of his lordship were broken, but the noble man maintained his stiff upper lip. He was presently engaged in a private conference with a Venusian ecclesiastic and although his mouth was moving, the rest of him stayed still.
‘The Wonders of the Worlds,’ said his lordship. ‘The TriPlanetary Exposition. It would open upon the stroke of midnight on the thirty-first of December, to welcome in the new century in a manner most fitting — do you not agree?’
The Venusian ecclesiastic stood before his lordship’s bed of pain, an enchanting creature, tall and slender, high of cheekbone, broad of mouth and large of golden eyes. She, for surely such was her gender, wore a gown that seemed as wisps of smoke and walked upon shoes with dizzying heels whose soles were specifically sanctified to permit her to step upon a planet that Venusians deemed unholy.
‘Your lordship,’ she said, in a voice surely that of some echoing choir, ‘although your motives are pure, there is danger in this enterprise.’
‘Danger?’ puffed his lordship. ‘A lot of organisation, perhaps, but no danger that I can see.’
‘It is not a propitious moment for such a venture.’ The Venusian ecclesiastic swayed backwards and forwards, her long and shapely fingers drawing queer and ghostly patterns in the air. ‘If you wish, I could cast a horoscope and tell you the precise day and hour of that day which would serve you and your Empire best.’
‘I have no time for all that hocus-pocus. We did not have witch doctors rattling their bones about when the Crystal Palace opened. A fanfare and horsemen and Her Majesty the Queen was all it took.’ Lord Brentford tried to ease himself about. He hurt in places he had quite forgotten that he owned. ‘I am not asking much,’ he said, ‘only that your people play some part in it. Exhibit some of your woven carpets, your handicrafts, your famous orchids. You know the drill. Put on a bit of a show for the public. Do yourselves a bit of good. A lot of tension exists between the worlds at present, what with all that revolution business on Mars last year and the military junta taking over and all. Peace between the worlds and all that carry-on — do you catch my drift?’
The ecclesiastic’s fingers described a pentacle above the head of Lord Brentford. ‘I will see what can be done,’ said she, ‘but know that there are signs and portents in the Heavens. Omens of the Coming of Ragnarök.’
‘Just tell me that you will do your best,’ said his lordship, ‘that you and your people will cooperate. I ask no more than that.’
‘I will do what I can,’ said the Venusian ecclesiastic. ‘But now I must go — it is time for my devotions. My blessings upon you, Lord Brentford. I hope that you will soon be well once more.
The enchanting creature turned to leave.
‘Before you go,’ said his lordship.
The enchanting creature turned once more towards him.
‘What is your name?’ asked his lordship. ‘I do not know your name.
‘My name is Leah,’ said the Venusian. ‘But you may only use this name when the two of us are alone and no others are present to hear you speak it to me.
‘Leah,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘A very beautiful name.
The Venusian ecclesiastic swept away from the hospital room, leaving nothing behind but her name upon Lord Brentford’s lips and a haunting fragrance hanging in the air.
His lordship made a pained expression beneath his bandages, then gently turned his head towards the window.
‘Come in here,’ he called as best he could.
The curtains twitched and a foolish face peeped in at the bed-bound lord.
‘Darwin,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘It is you, Darwin boy.’
Darwin grinned and waved at his lordship.
‘Come on in,’ called the noble lord. ‘I have no idea how you found me but I’m damned glad that you did. Come on in and share this bowl of bananas.’
Darwin’s smile widened and he danced into the hospital room.
‘And then you can help me with my bedpan,’ said Lord Brentford.
29
h, please leave it be,’ cried Mr Ernest Rutherford, flapping his fingers at the troll named Jones. ‘We have a very busy day ahead of us and you are not helping by fiddling with that!’
Jones made the face of shame then put away the thing with which he fiddled. ‘What is it I can do for you, 0 master?’ he asked in a greasy tone. ‘Your wish is my command, as well you know.’
‘Jones,’ said Mr Rutherford, ‘you arouse mixed feelings in me — abhorrence and disgust in equal measure.
‘Master flatters me,’ said Jones, finding something else to fiddle with.
‘I feel certain,’ said Ernest Rutherford, ‘that I could reverse the process which brought you from your world to this. What say you — shall we give it a try?’
‘I would prefer not,’ said Jones. ‘Great things here will shortly be mine, of this I am most certain.
Ernest Rutherford peered into the wall mirror. His ears still smarted from the tweakings that Darwin had given them. The chemist rubbed at the left one and tugged at the right.
The doorbell rang and Mr Rutherford waved to Jones to answer it. The troll, however, stood his ground, picking at his nose.
‘Door,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘It will not answer itself’
‘It will be her,’ said Jones the troll. ‘The beast in human form.’
‘That is no way to talk about the delightful Miss Violet Wond.’ Mr Rutherford straightened his tie, took off his work coat and slipped on a velvet smoking jacket. Topping this off with a matching fez, he said, ‘She’s a charming woman.
Jones ground yellowed teeth together. ‘I can’t stand the sight of her,’ he muttered.
‘Without her help I do not believe I could ever have come so far with the present experiment. She has been invaluable.’
‘She’s horrible,’ said Jones, examining the yield from his nose and popping it into his mouth. ‘Promise you will get rid of her as soon as the time-ship is finished.’
The doorbell rang once more and Mr Rutherford glared at the troll called Jones.
‘All right,’ said the ugly creature. ‘I shall let her in.’
Mr Rutherford watched as Jones left the work-room, slamming the door behind him. In truth the chemist had grown quite fond of the strange Miss Violet Wond. As the months had passed he had grown more and more attached to her. She had allowed him to take her to dinner on several occasions and the conversation had been polite, at times extremely interesting, but never as yet of the intimate persuasion.
Miss Wond was a woman of mystery. Mr Rutherford had so far failed to draw her out regarding the matter of what lay beneath the veil she always wore. Nor had he learned anything of her past other than that she had spent much of it upon Mars. Miss Violet Wond was a mystery wrapped up in an enigma and cinched at the waist by a very fetching corset.
The door banged open and Miss Violet Wond stood in the opening, black parasol in hand.
‘Fair lady,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘My apologies for keeping you waiting. I will chasten that Jones, have no fear.’
‘I took the liberty of doing so myself,’ said Miss Wond, lifting her parasol and waggling it about. ‘He has retired to his nest beneath the stairs. Although he will not be sitting down for quite a while.’
Mr Rutherford coughed politely. ‘So he will not be joining us upon our journey today,’ said he, and he smiled as he said it. ‘Just you and I.’
‘Just you and I,’ said Violet Wond. ‘I think we can manage by ourselves.’
‘We certainly can.’ Mr Rutherford now hastily removed his velvet jacket and matching fez and replaced these with a sober morning coat and high silk top hat.
‘If you will walk this way,’ he said to Miss Wond.
‘
If I could walk that way …’ she replied, but did not finish the sentence.
Mr Ernest Rutherford felt tiny hairs stand up in certain places. ‘To Crystal Palace,’ said he.
‘A regular palace,’ said Chief Inspector Case. ‘I am sure you will agree.’
Mr Septimus Grey gazed up at the grand façade of Syon House. ‘It is a most imposing building,’ said he. ‘But you have yet to explain to me why I have literally been dragged here from the Martian Embassy to join you in looking at a country house. I am the Governor of the Martian Territories, you know.’
‘I do, I do,’ said Chief Inspector Case, dipping into his tweed shooting jacket and drawing out his pipe. Sensibly clad now, was the chief inspector, although he had toyed with the costume of a Jovian potentate, to put Mr Grey at his ease, as it were.
‘Something occurred here last night,’ said Scotland Yard’s finest. ‘A spaceship crashed down out of the sky into the rear of this house.’
Septimus Grey fixed the chief inspector with a beady eye. ‘A spaceship?’ said he. ‘A spaceship crashed? What has this to do with me?’
‘The reports are,’ said Chief Inspector Case, ‘that it was a Martian spaceship. And as Mars is under your control—’
‘Never under my control!’ Septimus Grey spoke sharply. ‘I was the administrative head until the July Revolution of last year. A military junta now controls the planet. I inhabit the Martian Embassy in London.’
‘I’ll wager you would like to return on Mars.’
Septimus Grey gave Chief Inspector Case the full force of both beady eyes. ‘When the generals now in control are sent on their way,’ he shouted, ‘then yes, of course I would like to return! Mars is a beautiful planet. There are many op— He paused in mid-flow.
‘Opportunities?’ asked the pride of Scotland Yard. ‘Financial opportunities?’
‘I was going to say many op— Many op— Oh, what word is it that begins with “op”?’
‘Opportunities,’ said the chief inspector, lighting up his pipe, ‘and I applaud this. Heaven knows, existing upon the meagre pay of the Met, I would be grateful for a few “opportunities” myself.’