The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (23 page)

‘Not
like Earth, lad. Thou canst do what thou wilt ‘pon Mars. Well, not thee, but
me. I can chop off thy head and eat thy meat and toss thy bones into Grand
Canal and none will care nowt. How’s that to be goin’ on with?’

‘I am
confident that you will have no cause to employ such extreme measures,’ said
the dining detective.

‘Extreme?’
The princess fell about in mirth. ‘That’s not extreme. I’ll tell you what’s
extreme.’

‘Perhaps
not while I’m eating,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘Dost
thou choose to argue with a princess?’

‘Perish
the thought,’ said Mr Bell. ‘It is simply that I am eager to begin my quest and
solve for you the case of the purloined reliquary.’

‘Dear
Lavinia tells me that the Sherlock Holmes stories are actually based upon thy
exploits.’

Mr
Bell nodded as he once more ate.

‘And
that Dickens based the looks of Mr Pickwick upon thine?’

Mr
Bell nodded dismally this time. ‘It did sound like a good idea at the time,’
said he.

‘I
like my men plump,’ said Princess Pamela, a—patting at her belly. ‘Holmes is
slim as a whippet. Thou wouldst not get a sandwich out of he.’

Mr
Bell took up a napkin and gave his chops a good wiping over with it. ‘Well, I
must be up and about my business,’ he said. ‘Could someone show me to the scene
of the crime, as it were?’

‘Thou’ll
not be staying for pudding?’ The princess made a kittenish expression. ‘Topped
off with a Martian coffee.’

‘A
Martian coffee?’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘It
is like an Irish coffee, only red.’

Mr
Bell laughed politely.

‘Why
dost thou laugh?’ asked the princess. ‘Dost thou mock the royal person?’

‘Oh,
on the contrary,’ said Mr Bell. ‘I laugh at myself for being so ill-informed as
to know nothing of a Martian coffee.’

‘Two
days,’ said Princess Pamela.

‘Two
days?’ queried Mr Bell. ‘What two days might these be?’

‘The
two days it will take thee to solve the case of the purloined reliquary and
return it to me, before my floating palace sets sail.’ The princess smiled a
greasy smile and drew a lacy cuff across her mouth. ‘In the meanwhile, in fact
from early this morning, t’spaceport is closed to thee. And a bounty be upon
thy baldy bonce, if thou comest not back with my treasure.’

‘You
will have no need for that,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘If the perpetrator is on this
planet, I will find him, have no fear, sweet lady.’

‘Fear?’
the princess chuckled. Then, ‘Belmont!’ she cried out in a bellowing tone. ‘I
am firm but fair,’ she told Mr Bell, whilst she waited impatiently. ‘Thou
playest fair with me and I’ll play fair with thee. Return my treasure and
thee’ll get a big reward. Fail and it’ll be the worse for thee.’

Away
beyond the confusion of furniture, the tiny bearded man poked his tiny bearded
face between the curtains.

‘At
your service, ma’am,’ he called in his tinkly little voice.

‘Take
Bell to t’chapel and let him search for clues. Then send him on his way and
‘appen back ‘ere to serve my pudding.’

‘Yes,
ma’am, yes.’ The manikin beckoned Mr Bell, who backed from the room, a-bowing
as he did so.

Belmont
scuttled forward and Cameron Bell fell in behind. ‘How far away is the
chapel?’ he asked the scuttling figure ahead.

‘We’re
not going to the chapel,’ said Belmont, casting his beard scarf-like over his
left shoulder. ‘We’re going to the machine room.

‘And
why might we be going there?’ asked Mr Cameron Bell.

‘You
want to solve the case, don’t you?’

The
scuttler did not turn, but Mr Bell still nodded.

‘And
so do we all. She’s a regular horror since the burglary. She had my brother
poached last week and munched him up for supper.

‘Oh
my dear dead mother,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘So
we’ll all be happier when she gets her blessed reliquary back.’

‘And
the solution lies in the machine room?’ said Mr Bell.

‘Absolutely,’
said Belmont. ‘I could have sorted all this out for the princess, but oh no,
she has to listen to that harpy Dharkstorrm. “Bring in the famous detective,
Cameron Bell, let him take on the case.’

‘Is
this
the chapel?’ asked the detective. ‘This looks very much to be a chapel
door.’

‘It
is,’ said Belmont, turning and hunching up his shoulders. ‘But it is the
machine room you want — believe me on this, you surely must.’

‘I
have no cause to doubt you,’ said Mr Bell. ‘But as we
are
at the chapel,
what harm would there be in letting me take a swift look around before we visit
the machine room and all is revealed?’ Mr Bell did grinnings down towards the
tiny man.

‘Oh,
as you wish — it’s your rump she’ll have served on a silver platter.’

‘Key?’
asked Mr Bell.

‘Isn’t
locked any more,’ said Belmont. ‘No point now the reliquary is gone.’

Mr
Bell made a thoughtful face. ‘Who held the key at the time of the robbery?’ he
asked.

‘My
brother,’ said Belmont. ‘The Keeper of the Keys. Those keys never left his
hands. He swore to that throughout the long, slow poaching.’

‘How
many other entrances to the chapel?’ asked Mr Bell.

‘None,
and no windows.’

‘Then
please wait here while I examine the interior of the chapel alone.’

‘As
you wish.’ Belmont folded his arms in a huff and made a grumpy face. ‘But
before you do, let me warn you — it isn’t nice in there.’

‘Would
you care to elaborate?’ asked Mr Bell.

‘The
murals on the wall are horrid,’ said Belmont. ‘The princess should have them
painted over.

‘Horrid
in what way?’ asked Mr Bell.

‘Violent.
Nasty,’ said Belmont. ‘You see, many now believe that the war the Martians
waged upon Earth was a holy war. A crusade. The Martians believed themselves to
be God’s Chosen People and the folk of Earth idolaters and fallen beings,
little more than animals, fit for nothing better than enslavement or death.’

Mr
Bell nodded at this. The Martian invasion had been notable for its brutality if
nothing more.

‘After
the Martians were all put to death,’ Belmont continued, ‘scholars from Earth
gained access to the libraries of Mars. They deciphered the Martian sacred
scripts and were surprised to find that the Martian Creation stories closely
mirror our own. And they discovered that the prophets of old were not born upon
Earth but had descended from the sky. They had come from Mars. Moses, it
transpired, was a Martian and even—’ Belmont whispered ‘—Jesus, too.’

‘That
is surely blasphemous,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘For
now, perhaps,’ said Belmont, ‘but not perhaps to future generations. Who can
say what they might choose to believe? They might even incline towards a theory
that God did
not
create the universe, but rather that the universe
created itself out of nothing, in a great big bang or suchlike.’

‘I
doubt that,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘for such a theory would be laughable. But it
is all food for thought. So please wait here while I look into the chapel.’

And
with that said he left Mr Belmont, entered the chapel and closed its door
behind him.

The
smell of the chapel surprised Mr Bell, for it was the smell of any chapel on
Earth, and the interior decoration was most familiar, too: Gothic arches, pews
of pine, though broad these pews to accommodate the Martians’ beastly bottoms.
The depictions of the saints, however, came as a body blow, as did the sight of
the tentacled horror that adorned the cross above the altar.

And
as for the frescoes, they were frightful throughout. Hideous depictions of
Earth people toasting in Hell whilst Martians swanned about on the Heavenly
plains.

‘Ghastly,’
was Mr Bell’s opinion, ‘but hardly out of place in this appalling palace.’ And
without saying more he turned his attention to the job in hand and did what no
man of the Earth did better.

Mr
Bell removed from his Gladstone bag several items of scientific interest, one
of which at least had been the invention of Ernest Rutherford. Mr Bell
approached the altar and conducted certain experiments upon the area where the
reliquary, its absence accurately denoted by a bright and dustless ring, had
rested for many long years.

‘Removed
twelve days ago,’ said Mr Bell, consulting dials and employing a slide-rule.
‘So what of this thief, whom locked doors trouble not?’

Mr
Bell peeped here and there, stroked at his chin and scratched upon his head. He
dropped to his knees and examined the floor. Climbed upon pews and scrutinised
the ceiling.

And
then he began to pace about in ever-decreasing circles. ‘No,’ he said as on he
paced. ‘No, this cannot be.’

He
turned and paced the other way, a-no-ing as he did so.

And
when finally his ever-decreasing circles had reduced to only himself, slowly
rotating and shaking his head, he drew to a halt and sighed a mighty sigh.

He
then repacked his Gladstone, placed his straw boater onto his head, tucked his
sword-stick under his arm, took up his Gladstone, cast one final
all-encompassing look around and promptly left the chapel.

‘Done,
are you, then?’ asked Belmont. ‘Seen all you needed to see?’

‘I
have indeed,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘And
identified the thief?’

Cameron
Bell made noddings of the head.

‘You
have?’
piped Belmont. ‘You have
not!’

‘I
have,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘But I must confess to puzzlement.’

Belmont
twisted fingers into his beard.

‘You
see,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘there is no doubt in my mind as to who stole the
reliquary. The evidence is all there, most strikingly apparent, almost as if
the criminal was aware that I would take the case and so left, for reasons all
of his own, the clues necessary for me to identify him.’

Belmont’s
beard was all in a-tangle. ‘So who did the crime?’ he asked. ‘And do you know
the villain’s name?’

‘I
do,’ said the great detective. ‘The villain’s name is well known to me. As such
it might be, for it is
my own.

‘The
name of the villain is Cameron Bell. It would appear that
I
stole the
reliquary.’

22

ou
did it?’ Belmont laughed. ‘That is priceless,’ he said.

‘It
is ludicrous,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘but it would appear to be true. I have
recently published a monograph regarding the unique configuration of
fingerprints.’

‘What
did you call it?’ Belmont was doubled up with mirth.

‘I
called it
A Monograph Regarding the Unique Configuration of Fingerprints.’

‘Excellent
title.’ Belmont was now upon the flagstoned floor, giggling like a mad thing
and thrashing his legs in the air.

‘No
two men have identical fingerprints,’ Mr Bell continued, unabashed. ‘And I
have studied this intently. I know my own as well as … well … I know the
back of my own hand.’

‘Please
stop.’ Belmont raised a feeble hand. ‘You’ll be the death of me.’

‘This
is
no
laughing matter!’ Mr Bell did stampings of the feet.

‘Oh,
it is … it really is.’ Belmont rolled about upon the floor.

A
single swing of the foot is all it would take,
thought Cameron
Bell,
to send this laughing gnome upon his way.

‘Have
you ever seen me before?’ he asked the rolling laughster.

‘Seen
you before, what of this?’ Belmont wiped tears from his ancient eyes.

‘I
have never been here before, have I? You have never seen me in this palace
before now?’