The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (36 page)

And
in doing so, allow herself to fall into some cunning trap laid for her by Mr
Cameron Bell.

For
during the month that had passed since Mr Bell’s return to sensibility, there
had been no further outrages from the woman the gutter press referred to as the
Mistress of Mystery and the Angel of Death. In fact she had attained to a
certain celebration, with penny dreadfuls dedicated to her exploits and Lady
Raygun dolls for sale on the market stalls of Brick Lane.

At
present, Mr Bell had nothing to go on and a growing sense of unease that as the
nation appeared to have taken this murderous female to its heart, the detective
who brought her career to an end would not be a popular man.

‘Best
let Chief Inspector Case take
all
the credit for that one, then,’ said
Cameron Bell to himself.

But
there it was, and now there was simply no crime in London Town. The pages of
the news-sheet painted the prettiest picture of the metropolis, a crime—free
utopia and one, it appeared, that within several months would be treated to
something altogether superb.

THE GRAND TRI-PLANETARY

EXPOSITION

Wherein will be displayed

THE WONDERS OF THE WORLDS

The
announcement had been made this very morning. The news-sheet displayed a
detailed engraving of the planned structure within which this fabulous
exhibition would be displayed. It spoke of the concert hall at which
Beethoven’s Glorious Ninth would be performed and hinted at many marvellous
things to be seen. And the mighty edifice was to be raised literally within Her
Majesty’s front garden, in the park stretching the length of the Mall.

‘Now
that
will
be something to see,’ said Cameron Bell, and he raised his eyes
from the news-sheet and looked up at the city he loved, a thriving city and one
blessed with miraculous technologies. Around and about the power station at
Battersea arose the tall, slim Tesla towers, transmitting, without the need
for wires or cables, electricity to power the capital and those marvels of the
modern age that rose from within it. For above and swimming in the sky of blue
were great silver airships and the sleek pleasure-craft of the wealthy. And all
about in the architecture there was evidence of the new. Of the coming century.
Of hope. And all about, too, Londoners pressing on about their business as ever
they had and hopefully would ever do. As Mr Bell watched them passing him by
over the famous bridge, he found his thoughts turning unexpectedly to
Beethoven’s Ninth and its libretto drawn from Friedrich Schiller’s
Ode to
Joy:

Endure
courageously, millions!

Endure
for the better world!

O’er
the tent of stars unfurled

A
great God will reward you.

A
gentle breeze lifted Mr Bell’s news-sheet and flung it down to the crystal
waters below. The great detective marshalled his thoughts. She was out there
somewhere, that Lady Raygun. Out there somewhere and
he
would surely
find her.

The knock upon
the door of Ernest Rutherford’s house was swiftly answered. A well-dressed
troll with polished teeth greeted the lady all in black who stood upon the
step.

‘A
joy to see you once again, sweet madam,’ crooned the troll, noting well the
swing of the lady’s dark lace parasol. ‘Mr Rutherford awaits — I will lead you
to him directly.’

The
troll named Jones led Violet Wond to the door of Mr Rutherford’s study, knocked
upon it, stepped back, announced, ‘I will fetch you tea and biscuits at once,’
and made a smart departure.

Mr
Ernest Rutherford opened the door. ‘Dearest Violet,’ said he. ‘This is an
unexpected surprise and a most delightful one, too.’

‘Ernest,’
said the lady in black, inclining her head towards the chemist that he might
kiss his loved one on the veil. ‘I have come to see what progress has been made
on your grand enterprise.

Mr
Rutherford smiled. ‘Then would you care to come and see?’

‘I
would be delighted.’

‘Then
I will fetch my coat.’

As
the two approached the front door, Jones the troll descended the staircase,
tray of tea and biscuits in his horny little hands.

‘A
splendid job there, Jones,’ said the chemist, ‘but we are going out.’

Mr
Rutherford turned away to open the front door and as Jones stepped from the
staircase to the hall, an accident occurred.

Miss
Wond’s parasol swung between the legs of Jones, causing him to trip, upend his
tray and fall in a heap to be painfully scalded by tea.

Mr
Rutherford turned to view this calamity.

‘You
really are a clumsy fellow, Jones,’ said he. ‘Please fetch a cloth and clear up
all that mess.

Jones
glared daggers at the lady all in black.

As,
swinging her parasol once more, she swept into the street.

‘We
are making considerable progress,’ said Mr Rutherford as he helped Miss Wond
to enter a hansom cab. ‘I have engaged the help of two of the Empire’s most
notable scientific minds.’ Mr Rutherford climbed into the cab and settled
himself next to Miss Wond. ‘Victoria Palace Theatre,’ he called out to the
driver.

‘You
are taking me to the music hall?’ asked the lady of his heart’s desire.

‘You
will see — it is my surprise.’

Clip
and
clop
went the horse’s hooves and the cab travelled over the cobbled streets of
London.

‘Did
you read the papers today?’ Mr Rutherford asked.

‘I
did,’ said Miss Violet, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘Absolutely no
crime to speak of in the capital at present.’

Mr
Rutherford raised an eyebrow. ‘You say that almost as if it is a bad thing,’ he
observed.

‘Of
course not, dear. But what was it that interested you in the morning’s press?’

‘The
Grand Exposition,’ said Ernest, ‘wherein will be displayed the Wonders of the
Worlds.’

‘And
what is this to you?’ asked Violet Wond.

‘The
greatest opportunity that ever there was,’ the chemist replied. ‘Would it not
be just the thing to unveil the timeship at the Grand Exposition?’

‘I
thought the project was to be conducted in the utmost secrecy?’

‘It
is, my dear, it is — at least until it has reached a successful completion. I
have given this very much thought and I do believe that the time-ship will be
the single most important invention in the history of Mankind, and one that
will ensure peace between the worlds in our time and for ever.

Miss
Violet Wond set free her loved one’s hand. ‘Perhaps you should give it a little
more thought,’ said she.

At
length they reached the Victoria Palace Theatre and Mr Ernest Rutherford paid
the cabbie.

A
large sign above the doors to the theatre read: CLOSED FOR RENOVATION.

‘I do
not believe,’ said Violet Wond, ‘that Little Tich will be entertaining us
today.’

‘Come,
please,’ said Ernest Rutherford, pushing open a door and ushering his
sweetheart into the darkened theatre.

They
passed through the foyer and entered the auditorium and here Miss Violet Wond
beheld a great wonder which caused her to cry aloud.

‘The
Marie
Lloyd,’
cried she.

And
indeed, there stood the battered Martian hulk, filling the interior of the
music hall. The stage, the seating, the balconies were gone and nothing was
contained within but a great big spaceship.

Miss
Wond gazed up to the frescoed ceiling, a wild rococo romp of pink-bottomed
cherubs and a five-tier chandelier, a perfect match for that which lit the
music room of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.

‘But
how,’ she asked, ‘did you get it in? The ceiling is untouched.’

‘Through
the floor,’ said Ernest Rutherford, with pride in his voice. ‘You steered it
down into a siding of the Circle Line. I had it eased through the tunnel then
raised upon hydraulic ramps into this disused theatre. No more fitting place
for Miss Marie Lloyd, surely?’

‘Very
impressive,’ said Miss Violet Wond. ‘And who are these bright fellows, might I
ask?’

For
two bright fellows had indeed issued from the open port of the
Marie Lloyd,
a
robust avuncular figure and a tall and pinch-faced man with a fine dark shock
of hair.

‘Please
allow me to make introductions,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘Lord Charles Babbage and
Lord Nikola Tesla, pleased be to meet Miss Violet Wond.’

The
avuncular fellow bowed and said, ‘Babbage.’

The
other bowed and said, ‘A pleasure to meet you.

‘Well,
now,’ said Miss Wond. ‘Two most distinguished
members
of the scientific
community.’

Lord
Babbage glanced at Lord Tesla. There was something about the way that this
young woman had just articulated the word
‘members’
…

‘How
goes it, gentlemen?’ asked Mr Rutherford, taking a business-like approach.

‘For the
most part, well,’ said Lord Babbage. ‘We have linked the inter-rositor to
induce a cross-polarisation of beta particles which should result in a
transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter.’

‘That’s
easy for you to say,’ said Miss Wond.

‘Quite
so, madam.’ Lord Babbage shook his head. ‘But things keep coming through, as it
were, which tend to cause confusion.’

‘Things?’
asked Mr Rutherford. ‘Coming through?’ he said also, for the memory of a
certain troll named Jones, who had ‘come through’ during a previous experiment,
was ever fresh in his mind.

‘Each
time we switch on the inter-rositor, one of them comes through,’ said Lord
Tesla. ‘We did not mind the first time — Babbage had it for dinner.’

‘And
very tasty it was,’ said the famous inventor of the famous Difference Engine,
‘but the novelty has worn off. I am a scientist, not a farmer. Something must
be done.’

‘I
would appreciate it,’ said Mr Rutherford, ‘if you would explain to me clearly
and precisely exactly what you mean.

‘Step
this way,’ said Lord Tesla, ‘and we will show you.’

The
two eminent scientists led the chemist and the veiled lady in black into the
Marie
Lloyd.
Here was to be found all that electronic trickery-dickery and
brass-tubed hubbing-gubbing that had filled the
Marie Lloyd
when the
aged Darwin from the future had crashed it into the Bananary at Syon House, one
month before this day.

‘It
is all so very shiny,’ said Miss Wond, affecting the manner of the
scatter-brained female that big roughty-toughty men find so endearing. Scientists
in particular. ‘What does that big wiggly thing do?’ asked Miss Wond, pointing
to the flux capacitor for which she had drawn up the plans.

Lord
Babbage said, ‘Please allow me to demonstrate.’

‘What
are you intending to do?’ asked Mr Rutherford.

‘Create
a minor temporal anomaly within strict boundaries and lure, if you will, a
tiny piece of the past into the present.’

‘How
very exciting,’ said Miss Violet Wond. ‘But isn’t that rather dangerous? From
what location are you ensnaring this tiny piece of the past?’

‘From
our present location,’ Lord Babbage explained. ‘I assume Mr Rutherford has
explained to you the nature of this project — in a manner that a lady can
understand?’

‘He
has,’ replied Miss Wond. ‘That power here is drawn from the Large Hadron Collider
beneath our feet, which is built into the Circle Line, a particle accelerator
designed to create a situation where the speed of light is slowed to below
walking pace, in order that this vessel can overtake it and travel through
time.’

‘Yes,’
said Lord Babbage. ‘That is indeed the case. The experiment that we have been
conducting creates this effect on a limited scale, bringing a bit of yesterday
into today.’

‘But,’
said Lord Tesla, ‘we cannot take a piece of yesterday as such. This theatre was
built in eighteen twenty and folk have sat in this auditorium since then. We do
not want to snatch one of them from the past into today — that would be most
impolite.’

‘So
you have set your controls to fish for something back beyond the year of
eighteen twenty?’

‘Indeed,
madam,’ said Lord Tesla. ‘We have set it to seventeen twenty, sixteen twenty,
fifteen twenty, so on and so on and so on—’

‘And?’
said Miss Violet Wond.

‘Oh
yes,’ said Lord Babbage, ‘let us see. What do we have it set at presently, Lord
Tesla?’

‘Twenty-seven
thousand and twenty BC,’ said his scientific lordship.

‘And
I will wager it comes up the same.

‘Gentlemen,
please get on with it,’ said Mr Ernest Rutherford.