The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (51 page)

‘Why
so what, sir?’ asked the driver.

‘Why
will they have to stop?’ said Cameron Bell.

The
wheeler was on two wheels once again. A party of Jovian tourists fled heavily
before it.

‘There’s
a big hole in the middle,’ said the driver. ‘Sorry, pardon, sir,’ he called to
a wounded Jovian. ‘Traction engine fell through it earlier this evening, sir.
Very big hole indeed.’

The
landau continued its speedy rushing onwards.

Cameron
Bell hefted his mighty weapon into view.

‘My,
that is a big one,’ said the driver.

‘There
might be a bit of recoil,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘so best hold on tight when I
fire it.’

‘Have
no fear for me, sir.’

Lady Raygun knew
no fear at all.

Lavinia
Dharkstorrm knew nothing but hatred. The two, despite all the magic and mayhem,
were really quite evenly matched.

The
Palace of Magic was now an inferno within.

And
without, fire was spreading to several buildings.

Well-to-do
folk were out in their nightshirts and nighties.

Fire-engine
bells were ringing.

Chaos
had come to elegant Chelsea.

Chaos,
mayhem, smoke and flames and things of that nature. Generally.

Cameron Bell had
the landau in his sights and he squeezed down hard on the trigger of the Ferris
Firestorm Nineteen-Hundred Series. A bolt of energy tore from the barrel,
streaked through the night and struck home in a public house that was called
the Lucky Jim.

Late-night
drinkers rushed from the building. Several, it appeared, were rather fiercely
ablaze.

‘Ouch!’
declared the driver as they swept past the Lucky Jim. ‘Have another shot,
though, sir. And I have to admit, there’s very little recoil.’

Cameron
Bell was flat on his back. The recoil that he had taken full force had nearly
torn his right arm from its socket.

‘They’re
on the bridge,’ called the driver. ‘Typical, isn’t it, no warning signs up,
someone could come to grief when they get to the middle.’

‘Oh,
I do hope so,’ said Cameron Bell, struggling up to take another pot-shot.

‘Perhaps
you should just wait until they pull up by the hole,’ called the driver. ‘Shame
to damage any more of the bridge, don’t you think?’

But
Cameron Bell had his finger once more upon the trigger.

And
this time his aim was well and truly sound.

The
blue bolt of energy sang through the air and bore forwards directly towards the
rear of the landau that was now mounting the bridge.

The
driver watched as he steered and he shouted, ‘It’s going to … it’s going to …
it’s going to … it’s going to—

‘It’s
not!’
For the landau was rising up from the bridge. And the bolt passed
harmlessly under.

Under,
for the landau was rising higher now, over the yawning hole and up into the
sky.

The
horses’ hooves drummed onto empty air.

And a
pink-clad arm rose up from the rear.

And
waved farewell to Mr Cameron Bell.

‘Well,
I’ll be damned!’ the driver cried. Then, ‘Oh my God, the brakes have blown,
we’re heading for the hole!’

Mr Bell
made to leap from the brakeless wheeler. But found to his horror that, as if by
magic, the doors could not be opened.

49

eneath
the waters of the Thames, death did not take Mr Cameron Bell. When one is
possessed of a very large ray gun, one can extract oneself from a plunging
electricwheeler.
[21]
And, as
luck will sometimes have it, a pod of dolphins swimming upstream from their
regular haunts in the Thames Delta
[22]
pulled
Mr Bell and the driver ashore, gave a brief demonstration of backflips then
swam off into the night in search of big fat fishes.

‘Well,’
said the driver, once more on dry land. ‘Do you want to settle up now?’

Drenched, down
at heart and now without a penny to his name, Cameron Bell trudged soggily back
to his lodgings. There he discarded the ruination that had until so recently
been his evening suit, availed himself of hot water, bathed and took to his
bed.

Awaking
on the morrow with a very runny nose.

Miss Violet Wond
was not at home to callers. Mr Bell learned from her landlady that, ‘There was
an attack or some such and Miss Wond is now in the London Hospital.’

Mr
Bell hastened there on foot.

At
the door to a private room he was met by Ernest Rutherford.

‘Mr
Bell,’ said the chemist. ‘What are
you
doing here?’

‘Visiting
a friend,’ said Cameron Bell, the lie springing easily to him. ‘And I overheard
a nurse mention the name of Violet Wond.’

‘And
what is your connection to this lady?’ Mr Ernest Rutherford was very agitated.

‘Mr
Rutherford,’ said Mr Bell, ‘I am aware that Miss Wond made a gift of the
Marie
Lloyd
to you.’

Ernest
Rutherford nodded curtly. ‘This is so,’ said he.

‘Then
might I ask,’ enquired Mr Bell, ‘the condition of the patient?’

‘In
truth, not good.’ The chemist’s hands were shaking. ‘She was viciously attacked
last night. She is most severely injured.’

‘I am
so very sorry to hear that.’ And Cameron certainly was.

‘She
is being well cared for. We can only hope and pray.’

‘Indeed,’
said Cameron Bell. ‘Might I enquire what Miss Wond was wearing when she was
found?’

‘What
an impertinent question.’

‘Mr
Rutherford, I am a detective. I will do anything in my power to bring the
perpetrator of this crime to justice.’

‘Of
course, Bell, of course. Forgive me. She was found upon her bed, in her night
attire.’

Thank
Heaven for that,
thought Mr Bell. ‘And might I ask one
other question? And this is a delicate matter. What is the nature of the
injuries to her face?’

Ernest
Rutherford made an outraged expression.

‘Please,’
said Cameron Bell. ‘I really need to know.’

The
chemist’s hands were making fists. ‘Years ago,’ said he, ‘she was most cruelly
treated. Some demonic surgeon worked evil upon her tender features, twisted
them into a mask of absolute horror.’

‘As
might befit such a fighting machine,’ mused Cameron Bell.

‘What
did you say?’ asked Ernest Rutherford.

‘Nothing,’
said Mr Bell. ‘But tell me this — is there nothing the surgeons here can do to
restore the lady’s beauty?’

‘Sadly,
no.’ The chemist shook his head. ‘It is beyond the skills of this present age.
But no doubt in some far and distant time—’

‘I
see,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘You
do?’
asked Ernest Rutherford.

‘It
is your intention to convey Miss Wond into the future in your time-ship, where
surgeons with skills far advanced beyond our own can right the wrong that was
done to her.’

‘Such
is my dearest wish,’ said Ernest Rutherford.

‘And
it is my duty to see that this comes to pass. Please convey to Miss Wond my
fondest regards and best wishes for a speedy recovery. I must now go off about
my business, so farewell, Mr Rutherford.’

But Cameron Bell
did
not
go off about his business, for he had no business to go off
about at all. He would have returned to the Palace of Magic, in hopeful search
of Lavinia Dharkstorrm’s corpse, but a morning newspaper informed him that the
entirety of Eaton Place and several other streets besides had burned to the
ground last night.

With
no loss of life reported, said the paper.

Mr
Bell found some consolation in learning that this outrage, along with the
wanton destruction of a public house named the Lucky Jim, had been put down to
the work of anarchists.

And
of Princess Pamela’s whereabouts?

She
had flown away into the sky. She could be anywhere.

Mr
Bell sighed dismally, then set off on foot towards Scotland Yard in the hope of
scrounging some money.

Days passed into
weeks passed into months.

And
Cameron Bell came up with nothing at all. Late in November, however, he
received a call from Chief Inspector Case. It was a rather urgent call. Mr
Bell, who was still drawing a considerable salary from the Yard’s petty-cash
tin, felt honour bound to answer this urgent call.

Chief
Inspector Case was in his kiwi cloak and paper crown. Cameron Bell gave him
very careful lookings up and down.

‘Well,
at least,’ said he, ‘your wife has left the country.’

‘Run
off to Milan with that Señor Voice.’ The chief inspector’s voice had much joy
in it. ‘And good riddance to bad—’

‘And
why have you called me here?’

‘It
is a difficult matter,’ said the chief inspector, ‘and only you can deal with
it.’

Cameron
Bell rubbed his hands together. A challenge,
any
challenge, he would
take to happily. He was resigned now to the fact that the next encounter he
would have with Madam Glory, with or without Miss Dharkstorrm, would be on New
Year’s Eve at the Grand Exposition. He had absolutely no doubt that it would be
there that the Lady Beast, the female Antichrist, would seek to usurp the
throne of Queen Victoria. True, it gave him plenty of time to plan, and he had
every hope that a plan would be coming together. But in the meantime he just
sat and stewed. And drank too much and worried about what might be.

‘So,’
said Mr Bell, ‘what is it that only I can deal with?’

‘The
Crime of the Century,’ said the chief inspector. ‘We have already dealt with
that.’ Mr Bell found the chief inspector’s Scotch and helped himself to a
glassful. ‘You single-handedly defeated the Masked Shadow and saved the Crown
Jewels and I am assured your knighthood is awaiting you.

‘Not
that Crime of the Century,’ said the chief inspector. ‘There has been another
one.’

‘Another
Crime
of the Century?’

The
chief inspector nodded his crown. ‘The Bank of England has been robbed,’ he
said.

The two men
shared a cab to the Bank of England and as the horse trotted before them, Chief
Inspector Case, in his street clothes, explained what he felt concerning the
situation.

‘You
can’t have
two
Crimes of the Century,’ he said. ‘It just isn’t done.’

The
cabbie, a professional hackney carriage driver who had recently moved from
Brighton to seek his fortune in the big city, took them by way of the Mall. Mr
Bell was most impressed by the shimmering palace of glass that now covered so
many many acres of Green Park.

‘Are
you listening to me, Bell?’ asked Chief Inspector . Case.

‘I am
all ears,’ said the detective. ‘There cannot be two Crimes of the Century, we
are both agreed upon
that.’

‘So I
want you to solve this one quietly. With absolutely
no
publicity and no
fuss. In a manner that involves no explosions whatsoever and no expense at all
to Scotland Yard.’

Cameron
Bell made a crestfallen face. That didn’t sound like much fun.

Eventually
they reached the Bank of England, where the Brightonian cabby was most miffed
to discover that he would not be paid anything at all for the journey as his
vehicle had apparently just been ‘commandeered for official police business‘.

The
Bank of England truly was a fortress. Its vaults had walls some six feet thick
and huge steel doors with mighty locks and big armed guards that none would
dare to fuss with.