The Educated Ape and Other Wonders of the Worlds

  The driver yanked levers, tugged upon enamel thingamajigs that resembled vast organ stops and drove the steam charabanc the short distance to the spaceport.

  Where further vandalism of the anarchic persuasion was plainly to be seen.

  TODAY IS THE DAY

  was heavily painted all around and about.

  The driver of the charabanc had no comment to make about any of this. Nor did Cameron Bell, although he nodded once or twice in a manner that might almost have been described as ‘approvingly’. But for that, he strictly kept his own counsel.

  Before the arrivals building stood a row of carts and carriages harnessed to curious creatures, the drivers standing idly by, smoking cigarettes and making ill-informed comments about the apparently forthcoming revolution.

  ‘We’ll ‘ave all the toffs up against the wall, come the revolution,’ Mr Bell heard one remark as he stepped down from the charabanc.

  ‘We’ll string that Septimus Grey up from a lamp post, ‘announced a cabbie with a proud moustache. ‘We all know what he has been up to.’

  Mr Bell did not know, but neither did he care. Leaving his Gladstone bag aboard the steam charabanc, he hefted his brown-paper-covered parcel, said loudly, ‘Please wait for me here, driver,’ then strode into the arrivals building, whistling merrily.

  High upon a wall a great clock, its dial advertising the virtues of a popular laxative, ticked loudly in the all but empty hall, its minute hand approaching twelve, its hour hand at the eight.

  Mr Bell halted his perambulations, drew his pocket watch from his waistcoat, flipped open its case and perused its face. Then, nodding with thought, he returned it to his waistcoat. Ahead were the left-luggage lockers — large brass cages capable of accommodating considerable bags and trunkage. Mr Bell took out the key that Lavinia Dharkstorrm had given him.

  And then, from the corner of his eye he spied a henchman draped upon a bench, but all alert. A strange henchman this time and one quite new to Mr Bell. A moment’s perusal, however, of the Campbell tartan kilt, the scuffings on the gumboots and a tidemark about this fellow’s neck told Mr Bell all he needed to be told. This was the witch’s associate who was presently on duty at the spaceport awaiting Mr Bell’s return in the company of the reliquary.

  Mr Bell half-turned towards this henchman and waggled the parcel about.

  Then took a step towards the left-luggage lockers.

  At which point—

  A mighty explosion, coming from the direction of the landing strip, rocked the building. Several tiny windows shattered and smoke began to billow over the concourse.

  Mr Bell clutched the parcel to his chest as the henchman in the Campbell plaid leapt from his seat and rushed towards him.

  Another explosion echoed and the detective did duckings of the head.

  ‘Give me that parcel!’ shouted the henchman. ‘Give me that parcel now.’

  ‘That is not what was agreed,’ said Mr Bell, his arms wrapped tightly about the parcel. ‘I demand in exchange the return of my partner, Darwin.’

  The henchman now drew out a ray gun, and quite a substantial ray gun it was, too. ‘Give me that parcel or die,’ he said in a tone which expressed that no further words needed saying.

  Another explosion nearer at hand had Mr Bell staggering sideways. The henchman snatched the parcel from him and fled at speed from the building. Mr Bell sat down on the floor and covered his face with a handkerchief.

  The henchman ran out to the carriage rank just in time to see the driverless carriages racing away at speed.

  ‘Explosions have scared the damn animals!’ he was told by a driver.

  The henchman clubbed him down.

  Sighting the New Dorchester’s steam charabanc, the henchman leapt aboard it.

  ‘Drive,’ was his command.

  The driver mumbled into his beard. ‘This vehicle is hired,’ said he. ‘If you wish to engage it at some future date, please make arrangements with the management at—’

  The henchman displayed his ray gun. ‘Drive or die,’ was all he had to say.

  The driver adjusted stopcocks, and then he drove.

  Folk were now fleeing in many directions, most of these being away from the spaceport, jamming themselves up in the doorways as folk will do in such situations and generally behaving in the manner of ‘every man for himself. When Mr Bell finally issued into the early-morning sunlight, his handkerchief over his face, he was just in time to see the steam charabanc merrily puffing away with the henchman aboard.

  Mr Bell’s face wore a placid expression as he dusted at himself then walked away.

  Fire-alarm bells were now ringing and flames licked up from the flammable parts of the arrivals building.

  ‘Faster,’ demanded the henchman. ‘Get a move on, do.’

  The driver once more mumbled into his beard. Words to the effect that with a maximum speed of five miles per hour, it would probably be to the henchman’s advantage to step down and walk if he was in such a hurry.

  The henchman hunched and shouted out directions. The charabanc rumbled on.

  Presently it rumbled down a paved track into the forest and at the henchman’s orderings drew up before a tall, narrow house of ancient aspect.

  The henchman stepped down. ‘Now sling yer hook,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll need to stoke up the boiler,’ said the driver.

  The henchman turned and slouched away.

  The driver stepped down from his perch.

  On the topmost storey of the tall, narrow house was a very nice room indeed. Nicely furnished with a nice fire in the grate, a nice chair beside that and a very nice table, upon the top of which was an exceedingly nice brass parrot’s cage which contained a sleeping monkey named Darwin. This monkey’s dreams were not very nice. Nor indeed was the woman who sat beside the nice fire in the nice chair toasting a nice-looking muffin on a rather nice toasting fork.

  The henchman pushed open the door to this room without knocking.

  Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm made the fiercest of faces.

  ‘Sorry, mistress,’ said the tartaned henchman. ‘There’s trouble at the spaceport. The revolution has begun.’

  ‘And you have abandoned your duties and brought me a present to celebrate this?’

  ‘I have brought you the stolen reliquary,’ said the henchman, puffing out his chest and doing a sort of arrogant head-wobbly thing.

  Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm grinned the wickedest of grins. ‘So quickly,’ said she, tossing her muffin and toasting fork into the fire and rubbing her slender hands together. ‘Place it upon the table, if you will, next to our slumbering friend.’

  The henchman placed the brown-paper-covered parcel onto the table, stepped back, made a proud face— Then shouted, ‘Ouch!’ and fell down onto the floor. Lavinia Dharkstorrm stared in surprise at the chap in beard and blankets who smelled somewhat of brass polish and oil. This fellow held in his hand the heavy spanner which he had just brought down upon the head of Miss Lavinia’s henchman.

  ‘What of this?’ cried the mauve-eyed witch. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

  ‘He didn’t pay me, ma’am,’ said the driver.

  ‘What?’ shrieked Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm.

  ‘In truth,’ said the driver, now removing his blankets and pulling from his face his big black beard, ‘I am not normally a driver by trade.’

  ‘Mr Bell,’ said Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘This is quite a surprise.’ The witch’s hand moved towards her corset.

  Mr Bell dropped the heavy spanner and drew his ray gun swiftly from his pocket. ‘No tricks, please,’ said he. ‘I merely wish that we transact our business and then I will take my leave — in the company of my companion, of course.

  Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm nodded her head but had nothing to say.

  Mr Bell viewed the sleeping monkey. ‘You have drugged him,’ he said.

  ‘I tired of his conversation.’

  ‘And where is your familiar today?’

  Mis
s Lavinia winked. ‘That would be telling.’

  ‘Well, no matter,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘But just one thing before I depart. I have, as you are aware, done my research regarding the four reliquaries and I know what the sacred texts foretell will occur if they are all brought together into an unhallowed place. Do you truly wish to bring destruction upon humanity? Is there nothing that I can do to persuade you from this abominable course of action?’

  Miss Lavinia’s eyes seemed to glow as she fixed them on Cameron Bell. ‘Do you love your country and your Queen, Mr Bell?’ she asked.

  ‘With certain reservations,’ said the detective.

  ‘Many consider that if left unchecked, the Empire will inevitably wage war upon the other planets. History surely informs you that this is a strong possibility.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ said Cameron Bell, in sadness. ‘But this does not give you the right to bring death to millions of innocent people.’

  ‘Innocent?’ Lavinia Dharkstorrm laughed. ‘I would kill a billion if my mistress ordered it.’

  ‘Your mistress?’ asked Cameron Bell.

  ‘We have spoken enough. See, my henchman is starting to stir and his colleague awakens in the cupboard over there. They might wish to punish you. Best you depart at once. Our business is done — take your monkey and go.’

  Mr Bell bowed his head politely. ‘So nothing I can say will sway you from your evil ways?’

  ‘Depart now,’ said Lavinia Dharkstorrm.

  Mr Bell lifted the parrot’s cage from the table and with his ray gun still aimed at Miss Dharkstorrm backed swiftly from the room.

  Down the stairs at speed went Cameron Bell, then out through the front door and over to the steam charabanc. He placed the parrot’s cage containing his slumbering friend beside it and drew from beneath the passenger couch his Gladstone bag.

  Within the tall, narrow house, Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm kicked the stirring henchman. ‘Get up, you buffoon,’ she shouted at him.

  Cameron Bell rooted in his Gladstone. Darwin snored now in his cage.

  Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm tore the brown paper wrappings from the parcel and opened the lid of the box that lay revealed. The reliquary casket golden glittered, and Miss Lavinia smiled.

  Cameron Bell removed from his Gladstone bag a small brass box and extended from this a slim and telescopic rod of steel.

  Miss Lavinia Dharkstorrm took up the holy casket and gently eased open its lid to reveal—

  The dynamite.

  And the brass mechanism.

  Mr Cameron Bell ducked down behind the charabanc and planted his finger upon a button marked FIRE. The tall and narrow house exploded with a deafening roar that raised queer birds from roosts around and about. Mr Bell curled up in a ball as debris tumbled hither and thither.

  At the spaceport, the other Mr Bell (the one who had stolen the reliquary from Princess Pamela and delivered the bomb into the hands of the tartan-clad henchman — the Mr Bell from the future[16]) strolled across the landing strip and boarded a battered Martian hulk named the Marie Lloyd.

  At the controls and awaiting his return sat an elderly monkey. This monkey’s name was Darwin.

  ‘Did it work?’ the future monkey asked the future Mr Bell. ‘Did your former self rescue me and blow up the wicked witch and not get either of us killed?’

  ‘Apparently so,’ said the future Mr Bell, ‘for we are both still alive.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Darwin. ‘Then, as agreed, we will tamper no more with the past.’ The monkey pilot plucked up a banana from a case that rested beside his seat. ‘When shall we go to next?’ he asked. ‘Any particular time that takes your fancy?’

  Mr Bell had been giving this matter some thought. ‘I would like to travel back to the year eighteen-eighteen,’ he said. ‘I would really like to know whether the chicken’s theory about the Creation is actually correct.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Darwin, between great munchings of banana. ‘I had quite forgotten about the chickens. Let’s go travelling back and take a look.’

  25

  uietly waited the present-day Mr Bell until the flames died down. Then, ray gun in hand, he kicked amongst the wreckage. If anything had lived through the explosion, the detective had every intention of seeing that it lived no longer.

  The thought that he had actually been responsible for the death of a woman was not one that Mr Bell savoured. But he had offered her the chance to change her evil ways and she had refused him.

  But what of the mistress she claimed to serve?

  Cameron Bell did further kickings amongst the wreckage and presently uncovered the bejewelled reliquary. It sparkled unsullied, completely unmarked.

  ‘I rather suspected it would be indestructible,’ said Mr Bell, lifting it from the ashes. He delved into a pocket, took out the holy relic itself and dropped it back into its casket. Then, satisfied that all was now safe, removed the still-snoring Darwin from his imprisonment, placed him on the passenger couch and, having stoked up the boiler with only minor scaldings, drove the steam charabanc back to the New Dorchester Hotel.

  Here Mr Bell tucked Darwin into bed and paid off the lounging boys who had formed an orderly queue at his door.

  He paid each in turn according to services rendered. Two for painting anarchist graffiti upon the walls of the hotel and the arrivals hall. One for acquiring dynamite for Mr Bell and another three for setting off charges at the spaceport upon the stroke of eight. When all was done to Mr Bell’s satisfaction, he shook the hands of the lounging boys, advised them to maintain the stoniest of silences regarding their endeavours and bade them all a fond farewell.

  Darwin slept on and after lunch Mr Bell set out aboard the steam charabanc to the berth of the royal tug.

  The helmsman looked quite happy to see Mr Bell once more. ‘I have heard nothing regarding my wage rise,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you might broach the subject again when you next see the princess.

  ‘I would be pleased to do so,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Make haste now, if you will.’

  Princess Pamela was also happy to see Mr Bell once more. She was enjoying a prolonged lunch all by herself and beckoned him to join her.

  ‘I have just eaten, thank you, ma’am,’ said the detective, tapping at his belly as he did so, ‘but only to restore my energies after the protracted but successful struggle to reacquire your precious reliquary.’ And he displayed the treasure in all its glittering twinkliness.

  ‘Ey-oop, lad,’ cried the princess, laying down her eating irons and clapping pink palms together. ‘Thou art a credit to thy calling. Didst thou bring the culprit with thee? We’ll spit him oop for a roast.’

  ‘It was a struggle to the death,’ said Cameron Bell in a tone that implied that it really really was. ‘Only I survived to tell the tale.’

  ‘Well done, lad.’ The princess clapped her hands some more. ‘I won’t get up, so pat thyself on the back.’

  Mr Bell attempted this but found it quite impossible.

  ‘Regarding two matters,’ said he. ‘Firstly, I desire that the spaceport be reopened to me, as I am anxious to return to Earth. And—’

  ‘And secondly thou’d like thy pay?’ asked the princess, tucking into further lunch.

  ‘Correct,’ said the detective, eyeing tasty morsels as he did so. And noting that Château Doveston was the lunchtime choice of champagne.

  ‘In truth, lad,’ crowed the princess, ‘I never ‘ad the spaceport closed to thee.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Bell.

  ‘But then neither did I ‘ave any intention of eating thee.’

  ‘Ah, indeed,’ said Mr Bell.

  ‘But then neither did I ‘ave any intention of paying thee a reward.’

  ‘Ah, indeed, indeed,’ said Mr Bell.

  ‘So all’s well that ends well, eh?’

  Mr Bell cocked his head on one side. He was not quite sure about that.

  ‘Might I take a glass of champagne,’ he asked, ‘to celebrate the return of your precious item?’


  Princess Pamela smiled and poured the detective a glass. ‘If truth be told,’ she said as she passed it over, ‘I couldn’t give a pigeon’s doodah for that reliquary.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘It was the principle of the thing. Folk canst not steal from me. That’s not on t’cards, my lad. No, and again I tell thee, no.

  ‘I understand,’ said Cameron Bell, a-tasting of champagne.

  ‘Tell thee what,’ said Princess Pamela. ‘How’s about this, then? How’dst thou care to join me on my cruise? Six months here in t’palace, all the way round Mars on t’Grand Canal?’

  Mr Bell tasted further champagne. ‘That is a very tempting offer,’ said he.

  ‘We might get t’know each other more closely.’ The princess winked lewdly at the drinking detective.

  The drinking detective coughed champagne up his nose. ‘That,’ said he, ‘is an offer no man could refuse.’ And his eyes strayed towards the exits. ‘I shall return to the hotel and collect my baggage.’

  ‘Aye, thou doest that.’ The princess raised her glass and blew Mr Bell a kiss.

  ‘Shall I return this to the chapel?’ asked the now rather freely sweating Mr Bell, and he pointed to the casket that lay upon the table next to the sprouts.

  ‘Wouldst thou be a love?’ The princess smiled. ‘Belmont is no longer available to show thee the way, but I’m sure thou canst remember.’

  ‘No longer available?’ Mr Bell whispered these words and glanced along the table. Several dishes were loaded high with steaming roasted meat. Was that one at the far end possibly garnished with beard?

  ‘Your wish is my command, fair lady.’ Cameron Bell took the reliquary and backed from the dining room.

  Darwin the monkey stirred and yawned and then said, ‘Where am I?’

  Mr Bell gazed down upon the ape. ‘Ah,’ said he. ‘You have finally awoken. Would you care perhaps for a banana?’

  ‘Very much indeed,’ said Darwin, rubbing at his eyes in that very dear way that a kitten does. ‘But where are we?’