‘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 di
sclosed 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.
‘And never should the four be brought together,’ warned Abu Ben Addam, ‘for then shall the End Times come to each and every world.’
Exactly how and exactly why, Abu Ben Addam did not say. But it was clear that he believed the End of the World would occur.
‘O woe unto the Sons of Adam,’ wailed Cardinal Cox. ‘And woe unto my catamite, for surely shall he receive a box about the ears for taking so long.’
Cardinal Cox laid down the Talmud and had a little cry.
Cameron Bell stood all alone upon the first-floor landing of Banana and Bell. He had said his farewells to the lad known as Jack and the maid who was spare and kempt. He had given each of them two months’ wages in advance to continue maintenance of the offices, then sent them home for the rest of the day. So all alone was he now in the building. He slouched to his office and opened the door. The office smelled of last night’s alcohol. Cameron Bell let forth a mighty sigh, crossed to the desk and lifted from its tooled-leather top a photograph in an ornate silver frame. It was a sepia print of a man and a monkey, stiffly posed beside a potted plant. The man and the monkey made stern and noble faces, but there was laughter in their eyes.
Cameron Bell peered hard at the sepia print. ‘I am putting on weight,’ he said, ‘but you, my little friend, look just the same.’
He slid the photograph from its frame, took out his wallet and placed it therein. Then he set to do what had to be done.
Mr Bell placed a Gladstone bag onto his desktop, opened up the concealed wall safe and emptied it of its contents, which he then heaped all into the Gladstone bag. He sought out his passport and papers that authorised him to carry a handgun.
He entered the tiny room where he mostly slept and filled a pigskin valise with clothes, then changed his suit for one without holed trousers.
Now clad in travelling tweeds, a sword-stick tucked beneath his arm and a Tyrolean hat upon his head, he took up the Gladstone and valise and strode towards the stairs.
But upon the landing he paused and stood once more. From beyond came the sound of the city. Within there was nothing to be heard.
A thought struck Mr Cameron Bell that he might be leaving these offices for the very last time, for although he would. certainly seek to foil the plans of Lavinia Dharkstorrm, rescue Darwin, return the reliquaries to their rightful owners and claim gold for his reward, he knew full well that the witch intended to see him dead. Once he had performed the duties she had set him, she would have no compunction in having him done to death.
In all truth, he might not survive this particular challenge.
‘I am so sorry,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘so sorry that this came about, my little monkey friend. But I will save you. Yes, I will. No matter what the cost.’
A tear welled up in Cameron’s eye, but he blinked it away. ‘I have no time for that,’ said Cameron Bell.
18
iercely the heat—haze shimmered above the landing strip. That expanse of cobbled stone at the Royal London Spaceport.
Mr Bell travelled there upon the New Electric Railway. The sleek silver train with its elegant carriages swept silently through the countryside at a speed that Mr Bell found most alarming. It was fast and it was clean and it was efficient, too, but the great detective much preferred the puff-puffs of his youth. There was just something special about a steam engine. Something almost magical.
And thoughts of things that were magical were very much on the mind of Cameron Bell.
He had not wasted the previous day. He had engaged in research. He had visited the British Library to try to make sense of this reliquary business. It all sounded so complicated, so confusing. Mr Bell had a contact there who allowed him access to the Restricted Section, wherein lurked all those books forbidden from public scrutiny — works that might upset a library-goer, works of smut and sauciness, but works of magic, too.
The Restricted Section was a closely guarded secret, although most folk suspected its existence, just as most folk suspected that it held a copy of the loathsome Necronomicon. Which, naturally, it did. Mr Bell, however, had not come to the Restricted Section to view that. He wished to consult works regarding the confusing reliquaries.
The detective’s contact, a bespectacled librarian, scoured the shelves of the dark little room. There really didn’t appear to be too many books within. ‘I know we had a copy of the Talmud here,’ he said, ‘one annotated by Abu Ben Addam, but it appears to have been mislaid.’
Mr Bell showed no surprise at this.
‘What do you have?’ he enquired.
‘All manner of things. I have a copy of the Chicken Kabbala which contains most extraordinary theories regarding the Creation.’
‘Perhaps another time,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I need to learn whatever I can about the four reliquaries of the elements.’
‘Then this is the book you’re looking for.’ And the librarian hefted down a mighty tome and held it on his palm. ‘This one never ceases to amaze me,’ he said. ‘Look at the size of this book, but it is as light as a feather. How would you explain that?’
‘I would not think to try.’ The great detective accepted the book, all leather-bound with clasps of gold. It certainly did not weigh any more than an ounce.
‘I will slip off for a cup of tea now,’ said the librarian. ‘Promise you won’t steal anything.’
‘Of course I promise,’ said Cameron Bell.
The librarian smiled. ‘That is one thing I really love about being in charge of this section,’ said he. ‘Everyone is so honest. Everyone makes me that promise. I just wish I knew where all the books keep vanishing to.’
Mr Bell sat himself down and studied the book. It app eared to be handwritten in a language of which he had no knowledge. But the more he stared at the pages before him, the more they appeared to be in English and very simple to read. Mr Bell closed the great tome and read aloud its title.
He returned to its text and in the simplest terms he gleaned this.
In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. He brought forth the flowers and the trees, the fish and the fowl and animals of every description. And life he gave to Adam and Eve to tend the Garden of Eden.
But in his wisdom God did not only create an Adam and Eve upon this Earth. So, too, he created such a pair of first folk upon Mars, Venus and Jupiter.
Just to be on the safe side.
To each of these worlds God sent a tempter in the shape of a serpent to test his Adam and Eve. On Earth, Eve failed the test.
Upon Mars, the Martians, who were simply born evil, apparently, worshipped the serpent. God turned their world the colour of blood.
Upon Jupiter, the Jovians, a naturally jolly bunch and hearty eaters all, cooked up the serpent for dinner and ate him. But God ejected them from the Garden because of the mess they made.
Upon Venus, it was said, their Adam and Eve resisted the serpent’s evil temptations and God rewarded them by expanding the Garden of Eden to cover all of their planet.
‘But what about those reliquaries?’ asked Mr Cameron Bell.
And he was somewhat surprised when the next page turned by itself.
It had been God’s original intention that the inhabitants of each of his four worlds would n
ever know of each other’s existence, that the folk of each planet would believe they were the chosen people of God and that no other beings existed in all of the universe.
But God gave free will to his people and as time passed they grew in knowledge and eventually conquered space.
‘But what about the reliquaries?’ asked Mr Bell once more.
The pages of the book flicked backwards and forwards, but eventually settled down.
‘“For in those days”,’ read Cameron Bell, ‘ “there were but four elements from which God created all things. And God consigned to each world an element of their own upon which they should base their meditations and their thoughts for good.
‘“For Mars he chose the element of Fire.
‘“For Jupiter, the element of Air.
‘“For Venus, the element of Water.
‘“And for Earth, the element of Earth.
‘“And God placed a little piece of each of these elements, which were little pieces of himself, into a Holy Casket, that it might be kept in the chief temple of each world and venerated as a sign that God was all-seeing, all-knowing and never too far away to notice when you got up to something naughty.
‘“God flung the Holy Caskets out into the void of space, that they might fall upon whichever planet they would.
‘“That of Earth fell upon Mars.
‘“That of Jupiter, upon Venus.
‘“That of Mars, upon Earth.
‘“That of Venus, upon Jupiter.
‘“And God in his wisdom made this decision, that he would no longer have any involvement with his creations. That they should be allowed to go about their business and do things in their own way.”
‘But that he would not allow this to go on for ever. ‘ “It was his decision that as long as his peoples paid reverence to the Holy Caskets, he would remain aloof from their ways. But should the four Holy Caskets ever leave their temples and be brought together in an unhallowed place, he would know that his creations had fallen for ever from grace and God would turn his back upon them all.”‘