‘Like unto the original that was worn by Tony Hancock,’ said the other Lad Himself.
I had been pacing around the town for a week in mine, savouring the envious glances of my sartorial inferiors. It certainly kept the cold out and when topped off by the black silk stovepipe hat, I cut quite a dash. The black silk stovepipe had been a present from Fangio, for as The Conjuror’s Hat was now called The Port In A Storm, the barlord had no further use for it. And I looked a regular dandy.
‘It would be good if we had a case that involved us going into the Pavilion,’ I said to Mr Rune.
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ he replied.
‘Maybe the Prince Regent built a time machine and he and Beau Brummel took it for a spin.’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Mr Rune.
‘But say he did and it crashed here and now and—’
‘Please be quiet,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I’m trying to concentrate.’
‘On what?’
‘On the fifth stair of the flight leading up to our rooms from the street. I am visualising a banana skin.’
‘Why?’
‘Ssssh!’
‘Aaaagh!’
The ‘Aaaagh!’ came up to us from the stairs. And was followed by a thud.
‘Bailiffs?’ I asked Mr Rune. ‘Should I hide the breakfasting plates?’
‘It is a member of the Brighton constabulary,’ said Mr Rune.
‘Should I hide all the drugs, then?’
Mr Rune raised his hand and leaned back in his favourite chair. ‘It is Inspector Hector,’ said he. ‘I’d know those clumsy footsteps anywhere.’
A knock came on our hall door and Mr Rune waved for me to answer this knock. I did so and there before me, all dishevelled, stood the inspector known as Hector.
‘Every single time,’ he spat. ‘Every single time I come up those stairs I trip on something or other. You want to get a light bulb fitted on that staircase, Rune.’
‘Believe me, I don’t,’ said the All-Knowing One, yawning an all-knowing yawn and adjusting the quilted lapels of his red silk smoking jacket. ‘Enter quickly, Hector, you’re letting in the draught.’
The inspector entered and I closed the door. Mr Rune waved the inspector to the other chair by the fire.
My chair!
The inspector took off his gloves, blew on his hands, removed his scarf and unbuttoned his grey topcoat. I considered fetching my new coat and parading about before him for a while, but I did not as Mr Rune called out that I should bring himself and his ‘welcome guest’ some coffee.
‘We are out of coffee,’ I said in ready reply.
‘Tea, then,’ said he.
‘No tea either, I regret.’ For that was how we worked this particular routine.
‘Perhaps something stronger?’ Mr Rune winked at the inspector.
Who winked back at Mr Rune and said, ‘Scotch, please.’
I took myself over to the drinks cabinet and drew out the decoy bottle. The one with the single measure left in it.
‘This is all we have,’ I called to Mr Rune.
‘Pour it for the inspector, then,’ he called back to me.
‘Oh, I couldn’t, if it’s your last.’ The inspector raised his chilly hands.
‘Then pour it for me,’ said Mr Rune, keeping the straightest of faces, ‘for by the gods I need it on a morning such as this.’
I poured Scotch for Mr Rune and handed it to him. And took a certain delight in the expression on Inspector Hector’s face.
‘So,’ said Mr Rune to the inspector, ‘what brings such a high-powered fellow as yourself to these humble rooms of ours?’ And he flung a bundle of parking tickets into the roaring fire.
‘You’re supposed to pay those,’ said the inspector.
‘I don’t own a car,’ said Mr Rune.
‘I see,’ said the inspector. ‘Well, no, I don’t, actually, but I have come to you upon pressing business that is best conducted in private.’
‘I have no secrets from Rizla,’ said Mr Rune. Which was anything but true. ‘Speak to us and whatever you say will not – you have my word as a gentleman – travel beyond these four walls of mine. See this wet, see this dry, et cetera.’
‘Yes,’ said the inspector, warming his hands beside the flames and wiping a tear from his nose. ‘Well, Mister Rune, it’s a veritable poser, and I confess that the Sussex constabulary are baffled.’
‘Indeed,’ said Mr Rune, cupping one of his chins in his big right hand. ‘Go on.’
‘It’s cats,’ said the inspector. ‘It’s the cats in Bevendean.’
‘Cats?’ said Mr Rune, and he said it thoughtfully.
‘Missing cats,’ the inspector said and he rubbed his now warm hands all over his still-cold face. ‘And I am not talking about one or two cats. They regularly lose one or two cats up there every month, carried away by mutant doves or run over by men in white vans.’
‘Mutant doves?’ I said.
‘They breed them up there, for the Ministry of Defence, I believe.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I see.’
‘You don’t,’ said Mr Rune, ‘but carry on, Inspector.’
‘More than fifty cats have gone missing in the last month alone, as well as dogs, canaries, tortoises, lizards and whatnots.’
‘Whatnots?’ I asked.
‘They breed them up there,’ said Mr Rune, ‘for the Ministry of Furniture.’
‘But it’s the cats that are the problem,’ said Inspector Hector. ‘Cats are always a political issue – you know how it is. I’d put my lads on to it, but we are stretched to the very limit. You must have read of that terrible business last month at Hangleton Manor.’
‘In passing,’ said Mr Rune, ‘but the solution to that case seemed so obvious to me that I assumed you would have solved it yourself before lunch, and then gone a-golfing.’
‘Most amusing,’ said the inspector. ‘But I fear in truth that it will take many months to solve, and in the unlikely event that I don’t show a result, the Met will be called in, and then there’ll be all sorts of chaos.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Rune. ‘So let us not beat around the bush here. You would really like my advice concerning the murders at Hangleton Manor, in which case—’
‘Er, no,’ said the inspector. ‘It’s the cats I’d like you to help with.’
Mr Rune bristled, which I found impressive since he lacked for visible hair.
‘Cats?’ he said once more. ‘You are asking Rune to deal with cats. Rune, whose name is Legend. Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune. The Perfect Master. The All-Knowing One. Rune, whose eye is in the triangle, whose nose cuts through the ether, whose ear takes in the music of the spheres. This is the Rune to whom you speak of lost cats?’
‘I recall that we once dealt with a case regarding a lost dog,’ I said.
Mr Rune raised a naked eyebrow at me.
‘Naturally, you would be paid a retainer and all your expenses would be covered,’ said Inspector Hector.
‘Speak to me of cats,’ said Hugo Rune.
And Inspector Hector spoke to Hugo Rune of cats. He spoke at length on the subject. Exceeding length. At more length than seemed decent, considering the subject. And then he put on his scarf and gloves, shook Mr Rune by the hand and left.
And we listened at the door as he fell down our stairs.
‘Cats,’ I said, when we had ceased our laughter. ‘You are going to take on a case concerning cats?’
Mr Rune grinned and nodded and studied his big map on the wall. I joined him and studied it, too. ‘The Bevendean Bat,’ I said, tracing the figure that was coloured on to the roads of that area. ‘That is “bat”, not “cat”. You have a cat there – the Coldean Cat, although it is not a very convincing representation.’
‘Plah!’ said Mr Rune. ‘We’ll deal with one thing at a time. This case intrigues me, and if I am not very much mistaken – and it is rare that I am – it will prove to be one of the most extraordinary cases that we have tackl
ed so far.’
‘It will have to go a bit to beat that space crab,’ I said. ‘Ahab the space crab, was it not?’
‘The Bevendean Bat,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I wonder.’
Now, nobody walks to Bevendean, but then why would they want to? It is one of those out-of-the way parts of Brighton that only those who know the place well really know it at all. There are houses up there and there are workshops.
I have always had a lot of trouble with the word ‘workshop’, which seems to crop up a lot amongst those engaged in the Arts. Poetry workshops, writers’ workshops. Vegetarian lesbian empowerment workshops. In my opinion, and not just mine alone, one should beware of anything calling itself a workshop that does not involve light engineering.
We stood on the kerbside of Grand Parade.
‘Call me a cab,’ said Mr Rune.
I did so and then hailed a passing cab, though I hated like damn to do it.
The taxi driver’s name was Sean O’Reilly and he hailed from a land across the sea. He supported a football team called Arsenal, swearing on the life of the mother who bore him that should the Blessed Virgin Mary and her only son Jaysus become manifest upon the hallowed turf of Wembley when Arsenal were playing for the cup, ‘Sure and they’d have to be waiting until half-time before I’d cross meself to them.’
Sean went on to espouse his theories regarding what he referred to as ‘The Fillum Industry’, specifically regarding the cinemas that showed these ‘fillums’. ‘I’ve never been in one of them places meself,’ said Sean, ‘because I know what goes on inside of them: back-row mischief, virgin deflowerment and the worshipping of false Gods. Idols,’ said Sean ‘Matinée idols. And I’ve heard tell that there are plans afoot to add a few extra frames on to the end of each fillum containing a subliminal message that you can’t be after seeing, but what gets inside your brainbox. It will make you forget that you’ve seen the fillum. Then you’ll go back to the foyer and be buying yourself another ticket to see it all over again.’
I quite warmed to that idea, and wondered whether it might actually work, and if so, how I might buy myself a cinema.
Mr Rune I knew to be something of a movie buff. He claimed acquaintance with Lana Turner, Rondo Hatton, Bradford Dillman and the now-legendary Bud Cort. Not to mention Bruce Dern and Harry Dean Stanton and the young Ron Perlman as well.
Which I never did.
Mention, that is.
When we reached our destination, I thanked Sean for the ride and took myself off at a pace up the road, that I might not see the rise and fall of Mr Rune’s stout stick, nor hear the screams of he upon whom it fell.
And at length I was joined by Mr Rune.
‘I am thinking of purchasing a cinema,’ said he.
‘Not next door to mine,’ I said.
And then we surveyed the area. We strode briskly around and about it, around a crescent named The Hyde in particular. There was no shortage of light engineering here, plenty of workshops and none of these catering to would-be Yogic Flyers or Tantric foot-massagers. This was a proper industrial estate. There were carpenters’ shops, shipwrights, refiners of animal feeds, manufacturers of earth-moving equipment, not to mention a nuclear processing plant. Which I did not.
We would have strolled but for the cold, which bit at our naked faces.
‘It is exceedingly nippy up here,’ I said. ‘Positively Arctic, in fact.’
‘The Bevendean microclimate,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Whilst Hove enjoys a semi-tropical climate all the year round*, this area up here is prone to hurricanes and tornadoes and is continually sheathed by a layer of permafrost.’
I nearly slipped and fell upon my bottom. ‘I wish I had worn two pairs of socks,’ I said.
‘You should learn to think ahead,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I’m wearing three.’
I dragged my stovepipe hat down over my ears and pulled up my Astrakhan collar. ‘How much more brisk striding do you think will be necessary?’ I asked.
‘It’s a curious place, to be sure,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Note the sweeping curves of the roads, which form the distinctive shape of the great Bat – the work of the legendary Edwardian architect and engineer Isambard Kingdom-Come.’
‘Not very funny,’ I said.
‘I agree. The man lacked somewhat for a sense of humour. He is not, of course, to be confused with Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This is Kingdom-Come I speak of – have you ever heard of him?’
‘Did he play with Isaac Asimov’s Starship Jazz Quintet in the nineteen forties?’
‘No,’ said Mr Rune, ‘but that’s an easy mistake to make. This Mister Kingdom-Come was a visionary. He believed that all biblical events had actually occurred within the British Isles, but that “scholars” had transferred their locations to a more southerly area.’
‘So he was a nutcase?’ I said.
‘Not to put a finer word on it, yes. But he somehow got it into his head that Brighton was the site of the Lost Continent of Atlantis.’
‘That would be a bit of a squeeze,’ I said, giving my icy nose a rub. ‘An entire continent compressed into the size of a town?’
‘It was his belief that the Atlanteans were somewhat smaller than we are.’ Mr Rune made a teeny-weeny dimensional demonstration with his right thumb and forefinger.
‘You are wearing two pairs of gloves,’ I said. ‘Lend a pair to me.’
‘No,’ said Mr Rune. ‘But to continue, these sweeping roads were the product of his archaeological excavations in his quest to uncover the ruins of Atlantis.’
‘I cannot be having with archaeological excavations, myself,’ I said. ‘The fellows who dig them only ever find tiny walls and a few bits of broken pottery, and then they get all excited and swear that they have just made the most important discovery of the century, the ruins of a mile-high gold-covered temple to Frogmore the God of Bike-Saddle Fixtures or some such.’
‘I think you will find,’ said Mr Rune, ‘that they do this in order to secure further government funding for their diggings and so remain in employment.’
‘That is a rather cynical view,’ I said.
‘Some of my best friends are archaeologists,’ said Mr Rune.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, this is all very interesting,’ which in truth it was not, ‘but what has it to do with lost cats?’
‘No knowledge is ever wasted,’ said Mr Rune, taking out his hip flask and tasting something to keep out the cold.
‘Give me a swig,’ I said. But Mr Rune would not.
‘You can be a terrible rotter sometimes,’ I said. Bitterly.
And Mr Rune relented this time and offered me a swig.
‘The hip flask is empty,’ I said.
‘It’s all right, I have another.’
‘Then … Oh, forget it.’
‘Consider it forgotten.’
‘I am freezing here,’ I said, my teeth all a-chatter. ‘Can we return to our rooms? I noticed another pile of local telephone directories on the step when we went out. We will get a decent blaze going with them.’
Mr Rune sniffed the air and said, ‘Shush.’
I shrugged and shushed. And I listened.
‘Nothing,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Do you hear that – nothing?’
I listened some more, and that is what I heard: absolutely nothing.
‘No birdsong,’ said Mr Rune. ‘No dog that howls in the distance.’
‘All gone south for the winter,’ I suggested.
‘Not the wolves,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Nor even the bears, or snow tigers.’
‘Wolves?’ I said. ‘Bears, snow tigers?’
‘Most suggestive.’
‘I am off,’ I said. ‘I think I will jog to stave off frostbite to my toes.’
‘You would not prefer to visit there?’ And Mr Rune pointed to the there in question. And that there was a single alehouse.
Not that they generally come in pairs.
Or indeed in sets of up to a dozen in a single building, as would the cinemas of the future. Which makes yo
u think, does it not? How many times might you have seen the same fillum?
I viewed the single alehouse. It stood there all alone in Norwich Drive, in the belly of the Bevendean Bat.
‘The Really Small Atlantean,’ I read, peering at the sign.
‘Race you,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Last to the counter buys the drinks.’
And I was the last to the counter.
I really liked The Really Small Atlantean. It was a really small pub, really dinky, really cosy, a single-storeyed bungalow of a pub. From the outside it looked a bit like a child’s drawing of a house – pitched roof, front door in the middle, windows to either side, even a chimney with curly smoke coming out. Inside it had the look of a coaching inn, with beams and daub and wattle and a big log fire in the inglenook. The walls were a-glitter with burnished horse brasses, the furniture was rustic, the lighting ambient.
Behind the bar, a barman, all bucolic, stood with leather apron and an old brown dog.* And as I puffed to his counter, at which Mr Rune now comfortably sat, this barman bade me welcome in the manner known as ‘loud’.
‘What will it be, sir?’ he shouted. ‘Something to keep out the cold?’
‘Yes,’ I said. And, ‘Not so loud.’ And then, ‘Hey, Fange, it is you.’
‘Yes, sir!’ shouted Fangio. ‘It is me. Two pints of Old Sump Lube, would it be?’
‘That is fine,’ I said. ‘Stop shouting.’
‘Please don’t shout at me to stop shouting, sir,’ shouted Fangio. ‘It only makes me shout all the louder.’
‘Why?’ I shouted, louder still.
‘To make myself heard over this din.’
‘What din?’ I bellowed.
Fangio put one finger to his lips and another to his ear hole. The fingers were on separate hands, for otherwise it would have been quite a nifty trick. Although not that nifty – you can do it with one hand fairly easily, but it makes you look a bit foolish.
‘Oh,’ shouted Fangio. ‘It’s stopped.’
I glanced all about the bar, but except for Fange and me and Mr Rune, it was quite deserted.
‘It has stopped,’ said Fangio, wiping his brow. ‘Thank God for that.’ And he pulled us our pints.
I paid for same (and grudgingly) and then asked once again, ‘What din?’