‘No,’ said Darwin, climbing down. ‘You fail to understand.’
‘A talking ape is a wonder of the world,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘Please do exhibit yourself at the Grand Exposition. Say something nice about me, if you would.’
Darwin shook his little hairy head. ‘You fail to understand,’ he said once more. ‘I know of a solution to the problem.’
‘Is there treasure buried somewhere in the grounds?’ Lord Brentford asked.
Darwin shook his head and said, ‘Now you are just being silly.’
Lord Brentford actually laughed at this. ‘Priceless,’ he said. ‘Here I am, moments from death, and a talking ape is being impertinent to me.
‘Please listen,’ said Darwin. ‘I really do have a solution.’ The three sat down in the Garden Room and his lordship poured Scotches all round. As Darwin outlined his personal plan, the silence was profound.
‘Several years ago,’ the ape began, ‘I found myself aboard a spaceship carrying a band of Jovian hunters to Venus on a most illegal hunting trip.’
Leah’s golden eyes widened.
Darwin continued his tale. ‘I travelled in the company of Colonel Katterfelto, a very brave man and a dear friend. He wished to avail himself of Magonium, the gold of Venus, to activate a Mechanical Messiah that he had fashioned.’
Lord Brentford’s eyes widened at this.
Darwin continued once more. ‘There were diamonds aplenty lying all over the soil of Venus and many of the hunters filled their pockets. However, when the remaining members of the party returned to Earth, these precious gems turned into sugar.
‘The Glamour,’ said Leah.
‘Precisely,’ said Darwin. ‘The Glamour of Fairyland, where one thing can appear to be another. Or indeed nothing at all. You performed a magical experiment upon me where you made me invisible, did you not?’
Both Leah and Lord Brentford nodded.
‘Then,’ said Darwin, ‘it is my proposal that in order to pay off the owings for the Grand Exposition, we employ a little magical subterfuge.’
‘Go on,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘I am most intrigued.’
‘If the Venusian ecclesiastic is willing, I propose we gather together a great deal of base metal and transmute it into gold — which is to say, give it the outward appearance of being gold — then pay off all the debts and all the rest to ensure that the Grand Exposition goes ahead.’
Lord Brentford’s mouth had fallen widely open. ‘Could that actually work?’ said he.
‘If the ecclesiastic is willing,’ said Darwin, ‘I certainly believe that she is capable of such a thing.’
‘Leah?’ Lord Brentford said.
‘It could be done,’ said Leah. ‘But bear in mind it will not last — whatever we change will change back.’
‘In a vault in the Bank of England,’ said Darwin. ‘Where it will no longer be our concern.
‘By God, he’s got it,’ cried Lord Brentford. ‘I think he’s got it.’
Leah’s eyes had a far-away look.
‘What is it, my dear?’ Lord Brentford asked.
‘If we were to be discovered,’ said Leah, ‘it would not go well for me.’
‘If we are discovered,’ said Lord Brentford, ‘I will take full responsibility. Your name will not be mentioned. All will rest upon my shoulders. All.’
Darwin smiled up at his lordship. ‘Did I make a good plan?’ he asked.
‘Yes, you did,’ his lordship said. ‘A very fine plan indeed.’
The scent of bananas wafted into the Garden Room upon a gentle breeze and there was a sense of serenity, a sense of peace and also one of joy.
There was little joy to be found on the streets of London. Streets heaped high with piles of rotting frogs. Within two days the stench was appalling and a grim miasma made the Empire’s capital a place to be avoided.
The only upside to all this terrible downness was that The Times newspaper’s Political Columnist had at least found the solution to the mystery.
‘The frogs were undoubtedly dropped upon London from airships under the control of anarchists. That none were witnessed in the clear blue sky offers a posthumous and grudging tribute to the ingenuity and cunning of that most evil of men, the Masked Shadow, who must surely have planned this outrage months before he met his fitting end. The airships flew very high indeed, their underbellies painted sky blue.’
Cameron Bell read of this as he sipped his tea aboard the Brighton Belle. It was an explanation, that was for certain, but he doubted whether it was the explanation. And he noted, ruefully, that the third and fourth of the biblical plagues had come hard on the second.
The rotting frog corpses had soon bred an infestation of lice and of bluebottles.
If there was any encouragement to be felt, it was that Mr Winston Churchill had mobilised the Army and had sworn to have the frogs all cleared by the end of the week.
‘Good old Mr Churchill,’ said Cameron Bell, toasting with his teacup.
He was dressed today in a sober grey morning suit, with matching topper and gloves. He swung his slim malacca cane that sheathed a slender blade and whistled as he alighted from the Brighton train and went upon his way.
The cabman drove Cameron Bell through the elegant Regency streets of Brighton, all around Hove and Hangleton. At length, Mr Bell tired of the sly detours and announced that Brighton was well known to him and if he did not reach his destination at Roedean in five minutes he would shoot the cabman dead.
The cabman, who had been considering going via Shore-ham, stirred up his horse and took the cliff road towards Roe dean.
Cameron Bell recalled his holidays in Brighton.
Happy days in much more innocent times.
With less than a minute to spare, the cabman dropped Mr Bell before the gates of the famous school for young ladies and departed grumbling for his lack of a tip.
Mr Bell trudged up the very long drive and presented his card at the door. Presently he was led to the office of the headmistress, which he knocked upon before politely entering.
A lady in tweeds with a fox-fur stole and hair of turquoise blue sat behind a magnificent desk inlaid with many tropical woods, smoking a short cheroot.
She examined the card that Mr Bell presented and waved him into a chair.
‘Well, Mr Pickwick,’ she said, reading aloud from the card, ‘when you wrote to ask for an interview, I did not know whether I was to be the subject of some elaborate hoax, but my eyes do not deceive me and I can see most clearly that you are who you represent yourself to be.’
‘At your service, madam,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I am, as I told you in my letter, presently in the employ of the eminent author Mr Charles Dickens.’
The headmistress made a somewhat wistful face. ‘A fine and most handsome fellow,’ said she.
‘And one, it would appear, most anxious to make your acquaintance.’
Mr Bell had never fully understood just what it was about Mr Dickens that women found so appealing. But as his present piece of deception relied upon it, he was pleased to see that the mention of the author’s name had the required effect.
‘Mr Dickens has heard of me?’ asked the headmistress, colouring slightly at the cheeks before dragging very deeply upon her cheroot.
‘I think it must be one of the major reasons why he wishes to write the book — Roedean: A History of the World’s Most Notable Academy for Young Ladies. Would you consent to having your photograph taken with Mr Dickens, for the flyleaf?’
‘Oh yes, most certainly.’ The headmistress all but swooned.
‘He would be thrilled,’ said Cameron Bell.
‘Would you care for tea?’ asked the headmistress.
Cameron Bell said that he would.
A bell was duly rung and tea was duly brought.
Then poured.
Then drunk.
The headmistress dunked a ginger biscuit in hers. ‘So what exactly would you like me to tell you?’ she asked. ‘Your letter spoke of “ess
ential research”.’
‘Matters of a confidential nature,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Matters regarding a certain headmistress and a certain pupil.’
‘Nothing was ever proved,’ cried the headmistress. ‘I was found innocent of all charges.’
‘Naturally,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Of course, I do not allude to your good self, but rather to a former headmistress who was dismissed for “unspeakable cruelty” and a student with whom she still associates.’
‘Black sheep,’ said the headmistress. ‘I know of whom you speak.’
‘Mr Dickens asked whether you might supply me with the details, in order that he may “rework” them in a fashion that would not reflect badly on the school. It has to be “warts and all”, I’m afraid, but the warts can be made over with rouge.
‘I understand,’ said the headmistress. ‘It is a sorry tale. I can speak in complete confidence to you, can I not?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Cameron Bell, a-crossing of his heart. ‘I am Mr Dickens’s man. I have his trust and that is no small thing.’
‘Very well. She should never have been made headmistress, not with her reputation. The best thing they ever did was to shuffle her off to Mars, where she can do no harm.’
‘And she calls herself Madam Glory,’ said Cameron Bell.
‘Not there, she doesn’t. There she calls herself by her true name.
‘Which is?’ asked Mr Bell, taking out a notebook and a pencil.
‘Princess Pamela,’ said the headmistress. ‘Twin sister to Her Majesty. But you cannot print that, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Cameron Bell, maintaining the most expressionless of faces whilst trying to control the turmoil within.
Princess Pamela was Madam Glory!
The Evil Mistress to Lavinia Dharkstorrm.
‘And the student,’ said Mr Bell, in a calm and measured tone. ‘This—’ and he made a pretence of studying his notes ‘—this Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm?’
‘A bad one indeed,’ said the headmistress. ‘So curious, though, as her sister was such a nice girl.’
‘Ah,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘There was a sister.’
‘The one to whom the terrible thing occurred. The business with the face. Quite horrible.’
Cameron Bell looked up at the headmistress. ‘This sister,’ said he. ‘Her name would not, by any chance, be Violet?’
45
iolet,’ said the headmistress. ‘What a lovely peaceable girl was Violet.’
‘The nature of the accident?’ Cameron asked.
‘It was no accident,’ said the headmistress. ‘But must we dwell on such awful matters? The Upper Fifth’s hockey team beat the girls of Hove High last week, with only two hospitalised.’
‘Would you by any chance have a class photograph showing the Dharkstorrm sisters?’ asked Mr Bell.
‘Possibly in the main hall. That would be the class of eighty-seven, I believe. So tell me please, Mr Pickwick, what is Mr Dickens really like?’
‘I have heard him described as delicate,’ said Cameron Bell, surreptitiously perusing his pocket watch.
‘Delicate, as in his health?’
‘As in his disposition, if you will.’ Cameron Bell raised a knowing eyebrow. The headmistress discerned the knowingness of it.
‘You mean … ?‘ said she.
Cameron Bell tapped his nose. ‘In popular parlance,’ said he, ‘Mr Dickens bowls from the gasworks end.’
‘No!’ cried the headmistress. ‘Outrageous.’
‘It is between you and me.’ Mr Bell now winked lewdly. ‘We wouldn’t want dear Charlie to end up in Reading Gaol like that Willy-Woofter Wilde did, would we?’
‘This interview is over!’ cried the headmistress. ‘Kindly leave my office at once.
‘But, madam.’ Cameron rose to his feet and bowed to the lady in tweed. ‘I hope this will not influence you regarding the book.’
‘I do not wish to have the school associated with such a matter. Please be gone, I want to be alone.’
‘As you wish.’ Cameron Bell bowed smartly once more, then took his leave of the office.
When the door had closed upon him, the headmistress took up the earpiece of the brass candlestick telephone and spoke into its mouthparts.
‘Operator,’ she said, ‘get me Waxlow two-nine-double-one.
There was a pause, then a voice spoke at the ear of the headmistress.
‘Ah, dear,’ said the tweedy body, ‘I felt that I should give you a call. It might be nothing, or perhaps it might be everything. I have had a fellow here representing himself as Mr Pickwick and asking questions.’
Words came to her along the telephone line.
‘Yes, I recall. You said to inform you if anybody of this description ever paid me a visit. Well, he has.’
Further words passed into the lady’s ear.
‘Yes, I answered all of his questions as you instructed me to. His interests lay with you and Madam Glory.’
A few further words.
And then …
‘I understand, mistress,’ said the headmistress, replacing the telephonic earpiece in its cradle.
In the corridor, Mr Cameron Bell removed his ear from the door and pencilled the telephone number Waxlow two-nine-double-one into his little notebook.
‘An excellent morning’s work,’ he whispered, slipping away to the hall.
‘A Mr Gilbert and a Mr George are waiting in the hall, your lordship,’ said the boy whose name was Jack. ‘Should I ask them to come through?’ And then the boy whose name was Jack cried out, ‘Lord love a duck!’ when he spied what lay beyond the chair in which Lord Brentford sat.
‘Fetch the blighters in, Jack,’ said his lordship. ‘And don’t feel obliged to be polite to them.’
Jack saluted and marched away, soon to return in the company of Mr Gilbert and Mr George.
‘What an atrociously mannered young hobbledehoy,’ said Mr George. ‘You would not believe what he just called us.’
And then he and Mr Gilbert were heard to say, ‘Lord love a duck.’
For they too had spied out that certain something.
It rose like the hoard of Montezuma, a glittering golden heap of this and that, the other, too, and many things besides.
‘My goodness me,’ said Mr George.
Mr Gilbert nodded and said, ‘Heavens.’
Lord Brentford rose languidly from his chair. ‘Thought I’d have a bit of a clear-out of the loft,’ said he. ‘See if any of the old solid-gold family heirlooms were still boxed up in there.’ He made expansive gestures towards the ample pile, which rose to almost touch the ornate ceiling. ‘Surprising what you don’t throw away,’ said his lordship, making now a careless gesture. ‘What would you say is the current market price of gold?’
Mr George drew from his black leather case a brass Babbage, one of those ingenious little gadgets useful for adding up and taking away and multiplying and so forth.
He tapped tiny buttons and said, ‘Nine pounds, four and seven pence an ounce.
‘Must be a ton here, at least,’ said his lordship. ‘That should more than cover all the costs of the Grand Exposition’s halls, I am thinking. What say you to this?’
‘I say,’ said Mr Gilbert, ‘that these items must be assayed, to see if they are in fact real gold.’
‘Please be my guest,’ said his lordship. ‘I’ll just sit here and read the morning’s paper, if you don’t mind.’
Mr Gilbert brought out a brass contrivance of his own, this one the invention of Mr Rutherford. He gaped at the great golden pile, then selected an item at random.
‘I have never seen a solid-gold bedpan before,’ said he.
Behind his newspaper Lord Brentford grinned like a wolf.
Cameron Bell had long since ceased to grin. He had been grinning when he left Roedean, a school group photograph rolled up in his pocket. He had been grinning as he strode down the long drive and was still grinning faintly half a mile up the road where he still had failed
to find himself a cab.
By the time he reached Brighton Station, he had a fine sweat on and had worn a hole in his left shoe.
He was still grinning inwardly, though.
The journey back to London was enlivened by champagne. At Victoria, the great detective took a hansom cab.
And once more in the garret that he presently called home, he took off his gloves and took off his hat and took off his coat as well.
And applied himself to the Greater London Telephone Directory.
Waxlow he knew to be the Chelsea district, but it would be a painstaking trawl to find the address that went with the number.
When he did find it he almost kicked himself.
THE PALACE OF MAGIC
13 EATON PLACE
CHELSEA
‘Where else!’ said Cameron Bell to himself ‘Where else would a witch hide herself away but London’s most notorious Temple of the Black Arts?’
And indeed the Palace of Magic was just that. It had been a Masonic temple and later a meeting place for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Sprout and was now, to Mr Bell’s certain knowledge, under the control of the infamous black magician Mr Aleister Crowley.
Mr Bell knew Aleister Crowley of old. They had been students together at Oxford and had experienced an on-off relationship ever since. Mr Bell recalled that the last time he had seen Mr Crowley, he had been compelled to shoot the black magician in the foot.
‘I hope there will be no hard feelings,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Now I must send a telegram and attend to one or two other matters of importance, then supper and the music hall, I think.’
‘I would offer you supper,’ said Lord Brentford, ‘but I do not wish to interfere with your work. How is all that assaying coming along?’
Mr Gilbert, jacket off and sleeves rolled up, was sweating rather freely. ‘I am almost done,’ said he.
‘And all of the purest gold?’ Lord Brentford asked.
‘The purest gold that I have ever seen.’ Mr Gilbert huffed and puffed. ‘What puzzles me,’ he said between these huffs and puffs, ‘is why your forebears would choose to have had such apparently random and, in all honesty, inartistic items fashioned from gold. This small pair of trousers here, for instance, with the snood affair on the back—’