East of Ealing (16 page)

“It’s bloody rusted in. Can’t you hear what I’m saying?”

“Let me get up there then.”

“There’s no room, John.”

“Then we’ll all just have to push, that’s all. Brace yourself, lads, after three. Three!”

Soap wedged his shoulders beneath the obstruction, Jim got a purchase under his bum, with Omally straining from below.

“Heave.”

“AAAGH!”

“OOOOW.”

“Get off there.”

“My God.”

“Again, it’s giving.”

“It’s not giving, I am.”

“I felt it give.”

“That was my shoulder.”

“Put your back into it.”

“Mind where you’re holding.”

“We’re there, we’re there.”

“Who said that?”

“One more time…”

“It’s giving… It’s giving… It’s gone.”

Soap’s head and shoulders battered up through the obstruction, a thin and crumbling iron grid cemented solidly into place through the application of fifty-years pigeon guano. “You bastards!” Soap’s arms were pinned at his sides, his feet lashed out furiously. “You bastards!”

“Watch where you’re kicking,” Pooley complained.

Soap’s muffled voice screamed down at them from above. “You bloody lunatics, I’m stuck in here.”

Now, as you might reasonably expect, a heated debate occurred beneath the struggling Soap, as to what might be the best means of adding the necessary irresistible force to the currently immovable object.

“We must pull him down and give him another charge,” Jim declared.

“Down on top of us so we all fall down the hole?”

“Grease him with goose fat.”

“You wally.”

“Tickle his feet then.”

“And you a millionaire, Jim. I thought you blokes had it all sussed.”

“A hoist, a hoist, my kingdom for a hoist.”

“I’m starting to suffocate, lads,” called Soap distantly.

Pooley weighed up the situation. “Doom and desperation,” he concluded.

“Stop everything,” Omally demanded. “Enough is enough. It is a well-attested fact that the man who can get his head and shoulders through a gap can get the rest of him through also.”

Soap wriggled like a maggot on a number nine hook.

“Stick your head down here, Jim. I want to whisper.”

Soap thrashed and struggled, but his movements were becoming weaker by the moment.

“I can’t do that to Soap!”

“It only takes a second. Take my word for it, it will do the trick.”

“But it’s not decent.”

“Do it to Soap or I’ll do it to you.”

Pooley closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Reaching up he performed a quick vicious action.

“EEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW! ”

A few moments later three men lay puffing and panting in the entrance to the loading bay at Meeks Boatyard on the bank of the Grand Union Canal. A few feet away a wall of impenetrable turquoise light rose from the water and spread away to either side and ever above.

“Too much to hope that we’d come up on the other side,” sighed Pooley.

Soap Distant, red-faced and clutching at himself, looked daggers at him. “I’ll have you for that,” he said painfully.

Jim smiled sickly. “What could we do? Look on the bright side, at least we all got out alive.”

“Not all,” said John Omally.

“Eh?”

Omally gestured towards the open manhole through which they had just emerged. “And then there were three,” he said in a leaden tone.

“Holmes,” cried Pooley. “In all the excitement…” he scrabbled over to the manhole and shouted the detective’s name into the void. His voice came back to him again and again, mocking his cries.

“Leave it, Jim.” Omally put his hand to his best friend’s shoulder. “He never had a chance.”

“I didn’t think.” Pooley looked up fearfully. “I didn’t think.”

“None of us did. We only thought of ourselves and our own.”

“We left him to…”

“Yes.”

“The poor bastard.”

“The poor noble bastard. He saved our lives at the expense of his own.”

Pooley climbed slowly to his feet and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. He looked up to where the Lateinos and Romiith building rose, filling the skyline. “Oh shit!” he said, kicking at the toppled manhole cover. “Oh, that’s me finished. Those bastards are going to pay for this.”

“Oh yes,” said John Omally. “They are definitely going to do all of that.”

Professor Slocombe withdrew a goose feather quill from the inkwell, and scratched out the fifth day from the June calendar. From beyond the shuttered French windows sounds as of merriment reached him. The Brentford Festival had begun. Throughout the night, the floats had been assembling upon the Butts Estate; lumbering through the darkness, heavy and ponderous. Through a crack in the shutters he had watched their slow progress and viewed their silhouettes, stark against an almost white sky. He had presided over many Festivals past and judged many a float competition, but he had never seen anything such as this. The shapes which rolled onward through the night upon their many wheels were totally alien, even to he who had seen so much. They were the stuff of nightmare, the dreams of the delirious and dying sick. If human hand had wrought these monstrosities, then it was a hand far better stricken from the arm.

A shiver ran up the long spine of the ancient scholar and his mottled hand closed about a crystal tumbler, half-filled upon his desk. Sleep had not touched him in more than a week and could offer nothing to soothe the ache which filled his heart and the very marrow of his bones. The great clock upon the mantelshelf was even now ticking away mankind’s final hours. The prophecies were being fulfilled and the helplessness, to one who knew, but was yet unable to act, was beyond human endurance.

Professor Slocombe raked his hand across the desk and tumbled a stack of magazines to the carpeted floor.
Computer Weekly
,
Softwear Review
,
Micro Times
,
Popular Processor
: the poison fruits from the new technology’s tree of life. Mankind had finally reached its own level of super incompetence, and made itself obsolete. It had promoted itself into extinction. Uncomprehending, it had made a science out of the thing; established a new order, laid the foundation for a new culture, and ultimately created a god. Or more accurately, aided the reinstatement of one previously superseded. Computer technology had given mankind the opportunity to regress, to cease thinking and in so doing cease to be. Why bother to add? The machine can do it for us. Mankind had been subtly tricked into believing that sophistication was progress. That godhead technology could cure man’s ills at the flick of a switch, or if not that, then after a few more years of further sophistication. Man had lost sight of himself. Darkness was soon to triumph over the light, and the real means of confounding it were fading before the Professor’s eyes. It was progress. Mankind had made so much progress that it no longer had any hope of survival. The miracle of science had become a chamber of horrors.

Somewhere in the dark tower which pierced the Brentford sky, the bleak temple of technology, the dragon lay curled in its lair. Its moment of release drew nigh, and who was there to plunge the sword of truth into its black heart?

The old man drained his glass and refilled it. He watched the gilded pendulum endlessly carving its arc. Where was Holmes? He was to have returned at daybreak, having followed up certain of his own leads, but he was hours overdue. The Professor had put into his keeping certain documents which he felt might hold an ultimate solution; but where was he now? Crowds were gathering in the street and it was an invitation to disaster to venture out of doors.

The sound of rumbling wheels and wild applause drew his eyes once more towards the shuttered windows. Should they choose now to make an assault upon the house the Professor knew he would be powerless to stop them. If ever there was a time to rally the troops beneath the banner of truth, now was definitely it.

At the present time, the Legion of Light was holed up in an outside privy in Moby Dick Terrace. There was more than just a little of the Lost Patrol about these three particular stalwarts.

“Can you see anything?” asked Jim, as Omally put his eye once more to the door’s half-moon.

“I can see a good deal,” the brave Sir Knight replied, “and to be perfectly frank, I like not a bit of it.”

“Let’s have a squint,” said Soap Distant. “And you keep your hands to yourself, Pooley.”

“They’re in my pockets. Have a care where you step, it’s crowded in here.”

Soap’s pink eye rose to the carved crescent. “My God,” said he.

“Not mine,” said John Omally.

Beyond the broken trelliswork which topped the garden fence, the great Festival floats were moving in slow procession. The thin dawn light, now tinting their silhouettes, brought them form and solidity. They were vast, towering to fill the streets, extending outwards within inches of the house walls. But what were they? They had something of the look of great bloated sombre reptiles, with scaled flanks and rudimentary limbs. All gill slits and hulking slabby sides. But they were too large, too daunting, too top-heavy. They did not fit. How many of these monstrosities had already passed and how many more were yet to come? The three men skulking in the evil-smelling dunny chose not to make bets.

Soap tore his eye from the hole with difficulty. Already the terrible compulsion to watch each movement of the swaying behemoths had become all but overwhelming. “What are they?” he gasped, pressing his hands across the hole that he might see no more.

“The work of the Devil.” Omally’s voice, coming from the darkness, put the wind up even himself. “We have to get out of here. At least to the Professor’s, then I don’t know what.”

“A manhole, two gardens up, leads indirectly into a tunnel to his basement.”

“Oh no.” This voice belonged to Jim Pooley. “Down again we do not go. I will take my chances above ground.”

“Well, please yourself. Whatever killed Holmes could not pursue us, it was pretty big. The tunnels hereabouts are small. I shall travel below; you do as you see fit.”

“I think we should stick together,” Omally advised.

“Are you sure it’s safe, Soap?”

“To tell the absolute truth, I’m not too sure of anything any more.”

“Oh doom, oh desolation. Oooh, ooooow!”

“Come on then.” Omally eased open the door, and the three men, one now limping a little and clutching at himself, ducked across the garden and shinned up a dividing fence. Soap’s manhole was overgrown with weeds, which seemed promising. The hollow Earther took a slim crooked tool from his belt and, scraping away the undergrowth, flipped off the cover in a professional manner. “Follow me,” he said, vanishing from sight.

Pooley looked at Omally. “It’s all up and down these days, isn’t it?”

“After you, Jim. I should hate you to have cold feet.”

Muttering and complaining, the blighted billionaire clambered into the hole, followed by Omally, who drew the lid back into place.

Three darting images vanished from the screen of the Lateinos and Romiith computer scan, but already the information had been processed and relayed. No less than three Pooleys and a brace of Omallys were already scaling the garden wall. None of them were wearing carnival hats.

“Come on, lads.” Soap’s voice urged them on from the darkness. “And get a move on, something smells a bit iffy down here.” With hands about each other’s waists, the most unmusical of all conga lines moved along a few short feet beneath the streets of Brentford. The rumble of the heavy floats and the muffled sounds of chanting, coming faintly to them as the duplicates mouthed to the holophonic images pouring into their brains through their minuscule headphones, were anything but cheering.

Soap suddenly came upon a heavy door blocking his way. “There now,” said he.

“Where now, exactly?”

“We’re there.”

“Good man, Soap. Now open up, let’s not waste anytime.”

The sounds of Soap fumbling in his pockets preceded a long and dismal groan. “My keys.”

“Where
are
your keys, Soap?”

“In my desk, I think.”

A piercing white light illuminated the narrow black corridor. It shone directly on to three terrified faces, which had turned instinctively towards it. From about the light source came the flashing of blue sparks as several lethal handsets energized.

“Get out of the way,” said Omally. “Let me at that lock.” The Irishman squeezed past the pink-eyed man and dropped to his knees. A neat roll of house-breaking implements materialized from a hidden pocket in his waistcoat and were rapidly unfurled.

“John,” said Jim, “I had no idea.”

“They were the daddy’s. Keep out of the light and keep those bastards back somehow.”

The light was moving nearer, spiralling along the wet brick-worked tube of the tunnel. The crackling of the handsets became audible.

“You’ll not break it,” gibbered Soap. “The lock is protected, it cannot be picked.”

“There is no lock which cannot be picked.” Omally flung aside a bundle of metal tags and slotted another sequence into the shaft of the skeleton key.

“You won’t open it.”

“Shut up will you?”

“Get away.” For once doing the bold thing, Pooley had crept back up the tunnel towards his attackers. Now he lashed out with his hobnail at the blinding light as it reared up in his face. His boot connected and the beam swung aside, leaving Omally to fumble in the darkness. “Nice one, Jim,” he spat. “Now I can’t see a bloody thing.”

“Get off me, leave hold.” Clawing hands reached out towards Pooley. In the coruscating blue fire his face twisted and contorted. “John, protect me for God’s sake!”

“Protect me…” Omally’s brain kicked into gear. He tore his crucifix from about his neck and fumbling for the keyhole thrust it in and turned it sharply to the right. “We’re in, lads,” cried John.

“Go quickly,” said Soap. “It is up to you now.” With a brisk movement he vanished away as if by magic into the brickwork of the passage.

Omally bundled his way through the doorway.

Pooley wrenched himself away from his attackers, leaving them the right sleeve of his cashmere jacket as something to remember him by. The combined weight of two men hurtled the door back into its jambs. Fists rained upon it from without, but they could not penetrate the mantle of protection. Omally winkled out his crucifix and pressed it to his lips. “And then there were two,” said he, sinking to his bum with a dull thump.

Jim slowly removed his jacket, folding it neatly across his arm. He laid upon the floor and began to leap up and down upon it. “Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger,” he went.

Omally watched the performance without comment. They were a strange old breed these millionaire lads and that was a fact. “When you are done,” he said at length, “I suggest we go upstairs and break the sad news of Holmes to the old man.”

“Oh bugger,” said Pooley.

“So you said.”

“No, this is another quite separate bugger. I left my fags in the top pocket.”

Professor Slocombe watched the two men plod wearily up the cellar steps, slouch down the side-corridor, and halt before the study door, twin looks of indecision upon their unshaven faces. He opened his eyes. “Come in, lads,” he called. “No need to skulk about out here.” Beyond the heavy-panelled door, Omally shrugged. With evasive eyes and shuffling feet, he and Jim sheepishly entered the study. Professor Slocombe indicated the decanter, and Omally grasped it up by the neck and rattled it into a crystal tumbler.

“Easy on the glassware, John.”

Omally, his face like a smacked bottom, looked up at the ancient. “Sherlock Holmes is dead,” he blurted out.

Professor Slocombe’s face was without expression. His eyes widened until they became all but circular. The whites formed two Polo mints about the pupils. The narrow jaw slowly revolved as if he was grinding his teeth upon Omally’s words.

“That cannot be,” he said, slowly drawing himself from his desk and turning his back upon his uninvited guests. “It cannot be.”

Omally poured his drink down his neck and slung another large measure into his glass. “And mine,” complained Pooley.

The Professor turned upon them. “How did this happen? Did you see it?” A high tone of fear choked at his voice.

“Not exactly,” Jim replied nervously, “but believe us, sir, he could not have survived.”

“He saved our lives,” said Omally.

“But you did not actually see?”

“Not exactly, thank God.”

Professor Slocombe smiled ruefully. “I thought not.”

Omally opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. If the old man did not care to accept the truth, then there was no good to be gained through labouring the point. “All right,” said he carefully, “we did not actually see it.”

“No,” said the Professor. “You did not. So let us speak no more of the matter. There is little time left and much which must be done.”

“We are actually somewhat knackered,” said Jim, sinking into a chair. “We’ve had a trying day.”

“I am afraid that it is not over yet. Kindly follow me.”

The Professor strode across the room and made towards the study door. Jim shrugged towards John, who put his finger to his lips and shook his head. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve nothing left to lose have we?” Omally followed the old man into the corridor.

Jim, left alone for a moment, suddenly smiled. He drew from his trouser pocket the ormulu-trimmed Boda hip-flask he had recently purchased and not yet had the opportunity to use, and hastily filled it from the old man’s decanter. “No point in going unarmed,” said he, following up the rear.

The Professor led them up several flights of steps to the room which housed the camera obscura. When Jim had closed the door and plunged them into darkness, he winched the apparatus into action and brought the image of the surrounding area into focus upon the polished marble table-top. The sight which leapt into vision was such as to take the breath from their lungs. Omally crossed himself and took an involuntary step backwards.

The evil travesty which was the Festival procession now filled every road and side-street in view. And the tableaux wrought upon them were now becoming recognizable for the horrors they were. It was as if those earlier floats they had seen were but the blurred and ill-formed shapes of clay, awaiting the hand of the master craftsman to draw form from them. Now the lines were distinct, the contours clearly defined.