Retromancer

  Hugo Rune placed him upon his chair and then took himself over to the drinks cabinet. ‘What did the post-mortems reveal?’ he enquired as he poured out a G & T.

  Mr McMurdo fought to control his emotions. ‘Scrambled,’ he finally managed to say. ‘Their internal organs had turned to mush. The introduction of some flesh-eating virus into the music labs seems probable.’

  Hugo Rune did noddings of the head. ‘Did you have the laboratories fumigated?’ he asked.

  ‘Extensively and three times over. And all the bodies cremated. No virus could live through that, believe you me on this.’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I only regret that now we will not be able to find a sample of the virus and test it to ascertain a possible source.’

  ‘Hardly necessary,’ spat Mr McMurdo. ‘Berlin would be the obvious source, I would have thought.’

  ‘Would you now, would you?’ And Hugo Rune sipped at his drink. I made the kind of face that implied that I would not have minded a drink myself. But Hugo Rune clearly had weightier things on his mind and ignored me.

  ‘Are the technicians and musicians back at work?’ he asked.

  ‘They are,’ said Mr McMurdo.

  ‘Then I will hasten there,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Call a cab for myself and my companion, Mr McMurdo, if you will.’

  Mr McMurdo glared at Mr Rune.

  And Mr Rune was forced to make the call.

  ‘What a two-dimensional fellow, that Mr McMurdo.’ Mr Rune chuckled as he and I hurried across war-torn London in the back of a high-topped London cab. Driven by a high-topped cockney cabbie.

  ‘You ride him a little too hard,’ I said. ‘He could make life very difficult for you, I am thinking.’

  ‘Not until he is restored to full dull normality, I’m thinking.’

  ‘And I am thinking that such a restoration will not be occurring in the foreseeable future.’

  ‘If at all,’ said Hugo Rune, taking out a fine cigar and slotting it into his mouth.

  ‘I will just bet that you have not paid Mr Hartnel for that,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll just bet you’re right,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And I’ll tell you what, Rizla, if you help solve this case, I will give you one of these cigars as a reward.’

  ‘How very generous,’ I said.

  ‘So, pick a card, why don’t you?’

  And I dug into my pocket and brought out the tarot cards.

  ‘Look at the state of them,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘What a mess you’ve made.’

  ‘Shall I pick one at random, or shall I choose one?’ I asked.

  ‘I think upon this occasion that you should choose one - go on.’

  So I fanned out the cards and examined them and then I said, ‘This one, I think.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I am certain.’ And I held up THE HIGH PRIESTESS.

  ‘I was rather hoping that this particular card would not be chosen until a much later case,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘It is a very powerful card. Let us pray that we are up to the challenge.’

  ‘I do not believe you have ever explained to me the full significance of these cards,’ I said to Mr Rune.

  ‘Have I not, Rizla? Then I really should do that, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And—’

  ‘’Ere you go, guv’nor,’ called the cockney cabbie. ‘We’re ’ere.’

  I took myself a little ways up the road to avoid watching Hugo Rune deal with the matter of the fare. In no time at all, it seemed, he joined me, polishing the pommel of his stout stick on his leg and whistling the Lew Stone classic ‘East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)’.

  We were now in a crowded area of London that was new to me. Somewhere in the West End, Soho-ish, but not quite. In a street called—

  ‘Tin Pan Alley,’ I read aloud. ‘There never was really a street called Tin Pan Alley.’

  ‘Of course there never was, Rizla, that would be absurd.’

  ‘Then how?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s an alley called Tin Pan Alley, not a street.’

  ‘It is all so simple when it is explained. Would you care to lead the way?’

  ‘Do you think you would be able to find the secret establishment yourself, if I chose not to?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said and I shook my head to signal I would not.

  ‘Then follow me.’ And striking passers-by to the right and left of him, Hugo Rune forged his way into the crowd and I followed on close behind.

  ‘This would be the place,’ cried he, stopping suddenly and causing me to collide with his back and bottom parts.

  I looked up at the shopfront now before me. ‘It is a tobacconist’s,’ I said. ‘And I see they have Wild Woodbine in stock.’

  ‘The door next to the shop entrance,’ said the Magus. ‘See the brass plates here?’

  I saw the brass plates there and read from them aloud.

  ‘ “Naughty Boys Get Bottom Marks, Third Floor”,’ I read from one. ‘ “The Sorority Stable of Pony Girls, Second Floor”,’ I read from another. ‘ “Hilda Baker’s Love Dungeon, Basement Floor”,’ I read from a third.

  ‘You’re not really reading from the brass plates, are you?’ asked Hugo Rune.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I am reading from these postcards that are stuck all over the wall above them. ‘What is “goldfish nipple training”, do you think?’

  ‘Not something to engage in lightly, without the aid of spats. Or perhaps that should be sprats. But read from this brass plate now, or feel the weight of my stick.’

  ‘ “Roberta Newman’s Academy of Music”,’ I read. ‘Could we not visit the pony girls first?’

  Hugo Rune shook his head and sighed. Then pressed a brass bell push.

  Roberta Newman was not your average music teacher. She had a certain burliness. A certain broadness across the shoulders. A certain stubbliness about the chin. She wore a heavily corseted Edwardianstyle black and lacy evening gown and much in the way of jet jewellery, and favoured wellington boots and long rubber gauntlets.

  And I felt sure she was wearing a wig.

  And owned to an Adam’s apple.

  And when she spoke she did it gruffly, and with a German accent. I was about to whisper to Hugo Rune that I had solved the case immediately. And that this was a German spy who had done away with the real Roberta Newman and dressed himself up in her clothes. But Mr Rune and the bogus music teacher were now having a bit of a hug and saying how good it was to meet once more and how the other did not look a day older and had the years not been kind.

  ‘But it is a bloke,’ I began. But I did not get to the ‘a bloke’ bit because Mr Rune put his hand over my mouth and told me to be polite.

  ‘Roberta and I have known each other for many years,’ he said. ‘She once actually came close to beating me in a game of chess.’

  ‘And I would have too,’ said Roberta, ‘if you hadn’t poked one of your Gentlemen up my nose and “accidentally” kicked the board over.’

  ‘Hm,’ I said. ‘Well, hello, Miss Newman, or is it Mrs Newman?’

  ‘It’s Miss, dear,’ said Roberta. ‘And you’d be the latest Rizla, I suppose. Hugo goes through them like pocket hankies at a Vera Lynn concert.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘She jests,’ said Hugo Rune.

  ‘I don’t,’ mouthed Roberta, shaking her head. ‘But welcome to my Academy.’

  And I looked all around and about at the Academy. It appeared to be a single room, small and dingy, lit by a tiny window and heavily cluttered with instruments and instrument cases and piles and piles of sheet music.

  ‘This is it?’ I enquired.

  ‘Faith, no.’ And Roberta Newman put a big hand to her chest and gave a little giggle of a laugh. ‘Follow me.’

  And she opened up a cello case that stood against a wall. And climbed into it. And then Hugo Rune climbed into it also, beckoning with his vanishing hand for me to follow.

  And though it seemed impossible that three people could
actually fit into a cello case, or even two or one, I followed on.

  And I was grateful that I did.

  For what I saw next was amazing.

  31

  ‘By Crom!’ said I, which made for a change, but quite expressed my surprise. ‘Are we in one of the Forbidden Zones, or is this NarniaTM?’

  I had emerged from the other side of the cello case into a weird world of whiteness. Mr Rune stood adjusting his tweeds while Miss Newman tinkered with her jet.

  ‘You’re in between,’ explained Himself. ‘This place is neither one thing nor the other, neither in one place nor elsewhere. It is a singularity. And as far as is known, the only one of its kind in the London area.’

  ‘How big is it, then?’ I asked, because even though all I could see was whiteness, which might have been white-painted walls, I had no way of knowing whether indeed these were walls and if they were, then just how close they were.

  It was an odd place to be sure and I took not to it.

  ‘I feel all uncomfortable,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘I do not think that people are supposed to be in a place such as this is. Or is not, as the case might be.’

  ‘Or might not be,’ said the guru’s guru. ‘But let us face it, Rizla. It is only the man who knows where he is who knows where he should be.’

  ‘We work here because of its perfect acoustic,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Shout as loudly as you can. Go on - see what happens.’

  I did shruggings of the shoulders and then I shouted. Not perhaps quite as loudly as I could have shouted. But loudly enough, I felt.

  But to my great surprise, my shouts sounded no louder than my previous spoken words. And, having made further attempts at creating a racket with louder and louder shoutings, I was forced to give up as each showed no increase in volume.

  ‘That is very odd,’ I said.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Mr Rune.

  ‘I said, no, well, never mind. So how does it do that? Or not do that, if that is the case?’

  ‘Nobody knows,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Come with me now and I’ll show you the labs and where the evil was done.’

  She led us through whiteness and further whitenesses, passing fellows in coats of white who carried white clipboards and pens, to a room with definite walls but no windows. Here, on a number of stands, hung what looked to be some cut-off oil drum end sections. These were all burnished steel and the tops had indentations neatly pressed into them.

  ‘Behold the future of music,’ said Miss Newman, proudly.

  ‘Steel pans,’ I said. ‘Like Trinidadians play in the Notting Hill Carnival. I learned to play the tenor pan at school - would you like to hear “Yellow Bird”?’

  Mr Rune now glared me daggers.

  ‘Oh,’ I said and fell silent. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Steel pans?’ said Miss Newman. ‘Trinidadians?’ said Miss Newman. ‘Notting Hill Carnival?’ said Miss Newman also.

  ‘He daydreams, poor half-witted boy,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘The strangest things come out of his mouth. I feel it best to ignore them.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Well, although these instruments are made of steel and could be described as pans, we call them the Mark Seven fully chromatic/acoustic metallic idiophones.’

  ‘But of course,’ I said, ‘that makes it all so straightforward. Then tell me, were these instruments invented right here?’

  ‘Right here and by myself. They are, as you see, constructed from the end sections of oil drums, with an approximately eight-inch skirt. This department runs on a shoestring. In order to create new instruments we have to improvise. We reinvented the ocarina here. Hugo has our prototype and we’d really like it back.’

  ‘Soon, soon.’ And Hugo Rune did wavings-away with his hand. ‘But for now speak to us of the Mark Seven. How is it an improvement on the Mark Six, for instance?’

  ‘The Mark Seven doesn’t give you spots,’ said Miss Newman.

  Which brought confusion unto me.

  ‘Allow me to explain,’ said Miss Newman. ‘As Hugo has probably told you, we here in the music labs are seeking to create instruments that can bring about emotional and psychological change in the persons who hear them played. We have so far created a penny whistle that puts you off cornflakes, a pair of maracas that bring on an irresistible urge to run for a tram and an entirely new form of harmonica that only works when you suck it.’

  I looked at Hugo Rune.

  Hugo Rune, at me.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, this is a very interesting line of research. What exactly does the Mark Seven steel pan do?’

  ‘It makes you want to dance,’ said Miss Newman.

  And I recalled the conversation I had had earlier with Hugo Rune at The Purple Princess.

  ‘And Big Band Theory leads me to believe that the greater the number of Mark Sevens assembled in a single place and played together, the greater would be the number of people within their range of sound who would feel the urge to dance,’ continued Miss Newman.

  ‘I am beginning to understand,’ I whispered to Hugo Rune, ‘why you were not particularly keen to come here.’

  ‘It is rude to whisper,’ said Miss Newman. ‘And due to the acoustical anomaly of this singularity, I heard every word of your whisperings.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I told her. Not so loud, but clear.

  ‘Would you care for me to demonstrate the Mark Seven?’ Roberta Newman asked of Hugo Rune. ‘I am experimenting with forms of calypso. I think that I am definitely on to something.’

  ‘My dancing days are sadly at an end,’ said the Magus. ‘Though once I tripped the light fantastic with debutante divas, I am now reduced to a soft-shoe-shuffle at the butcher’s bacon counter.’

  ‘You jest, of course,’ said Miss Newman, making a winsome expression that put my teeth upon edge.

  ‘I certainly do,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I could out-hoof Fred Astaire, any month with an R in its name. But we must get down to business. How many died here and where did they die?’

  Miss Newman walked us around and about and pointed to here and to there.

  ‘And here,’ she said. ‘And there,’ and she pointed. ‘Four of my top technicians. I’ve been sent no replacements, you know. If I lose many more, this entire research facility will have to be closed down. And right when we are on the very verge of a breakthrough.’

  Hugo Rune and I once more exchanged glances.

  Although no words were exchanged.

  ‘Would you mind, dear lady,’ enquired Hugo Rune, ‘if my assistant and I had a little poke around by ourselves? I am sure you have much to do. Especially now, with the shortage of staff.’

  ‘You have no idea.’ And fluttering her eyelashes and diddling her jet, the burly woman left us to get on.

  ‘That is a bloke,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘And do not go telling me that it is not.’

  ‘Of course it’s a bloke, Rizla. But we must be polite and pretend not to notice. These are not the swinging sixties. I have known “Roberta” for many years. He risks a prison sentence for dressing as he does.’

  ‘Looking like that should be a criminal offence,’ I said. ‘And I come from the swinging sixties.’

  ‘Shame on you, Rizla. But pay attention now, we have a case to solve and I feel that if we are not quick about it, others will come to grief.’

  ‘You have a theory?’ I asked. ‘Then please share it with me, for I am totally in the dark.’

  ‘So, no prize cigar coming your way, then?’

  ‘I remain quietly confident,’ I said. In a manner that implied that I did, no matter how unlikely it might appear.

  ‘Let us search for clues,’ said Himself, and search for clues we did.

  There was something about the all-over whiteness of this singular singularity that fair put my teeth on edge. I had felt uncomfortable when I entered and the discomfort seemed, if anything, to be on the increase. The air here had an almost liquid quality to it and things did not diminish in size the further you were away from them.

/>   ‘I hate it here,’ I told Hugo Rune. ‘And for that matter, much as I enjoy your company, I hate this war and really wish that I was back in my right time and all of this was over.’

  ‘And the war won by the Allies?’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘And all nice and normal again?’

  ‘That is right.’

  ‘And your Aunt Edna sending you off to find a respectable job-for-life? ’

  ‘Let us search for clues,’ I said. ‘I bet I find one before you do.’

  But I lost that bet.

  ‘See here,’ said Hugo Rune, some moments later and poking around in what might have been a corner of the room we occupied, but might equally not have been. ‘Tell me what you think of this, young Rizla.’

  I ambled over through the whiteness and knelt down beside Himself. ‘You see that, Rizla?’ he said to me. ‘Grey smears upon the whiteness below - now what do you make of those?’

  ‘Aha,’ I said and I straightened up and did some feeling around. ‘I believe that to be the scuff-mark of a door that rubs upon the floor and . . . yes.’ Something clicked and a bit of a door swung open.

  ‘Very good, Rizla, you have earned yourself a cigar band.’

  I peered in through the open doorway. ‘Ah no,’ I said. ‘It is nothing special, just a big cupboard with lots of musical instruments in it.’ And I went inside and did some poking about.

  ‘What is that?’ I asked Hugo Rune.

  ‘A crumhorn,’ he replied.

  ‘And that?’

  ‘A viola d’amore.’

  ‘And what about that?’

  ‘That, as you know, is a ukulele, Rizla. And that is enough of that.’

  ‘I have noticed the severe lack of running gags in our present adventures,’ I told the Magus. ‘What is that, by the way?’

  ‘That is a girdle, Rizla. A form of ladies’ foundation garment. And a size eight. One for a little lady, methinks.’

  I rummaged about amongst instrument cases. ‘There is a pair of ladies’ shoes here,’ I said. ‘In this ukulele case.’ And I flung the ukulele case aside. ‘Small size too and a flowery frock and a lady’s straw hat also.’