The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (7 page)

‘If I
promise you that it is for the very last time,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘that you
only have to do it until this case is concluded and then you never have to do
it again?’

‘I
don’t have to do it
this
time.’ The ape took to the folding of his arms
and the sticking out of his chin.

‘You
do if you do not want this partnership to be dissolved.’

‘I
might strike out on my own.

Cameron
Bell raised an eyebrow and sighed a little more. ‘Is that
really
likely?’
he asked. ‘Humphrey Banana the monkey detective? Specialising only in cases
that involve yellow tropical fruit, I suppose.’ Mr Bell laughed loudly.

A
wounded expression appeared on the face of the ape. His little mouth puckered
and a tear formed in his eye.

‘Oh,
I am sorry,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I did not mean it as a personal slight. Well,
perhaps I did, but not to hurt you.’ He reached out a hand to pat the ape’s
shoulder.

Humphrey
Banana bit him.

Cameron
Bell struck Humphrey Banana.

Humphrey
Banana spat.

‘Stop,
stop, stop,’ shouted Cameron Bell. ‘There is nothing to be gained by this
behaviour. I am on the verge of cracking an important case, one that will bring
a considerable amount of money into the partnership. You can either assist me
in this matter and benefit financially, or I offer you the choice of
withdrawing from the case and forfeiting your share of the money.

Humphrey
Banana bared his teeth.

‘And
that
does
not
impress me.

The
monkey made a sour face. ‘Then just for this last time only,’ he said, ‘and
never again.’

‘Never
ever again,’ said Cameron Bell as he slyly disguised a smirk. ‘We will don the
appropriate apparel, blend in with the crowds and locate and follow our suspect
to her lair. There we will place her under arrest and retrieve the stolen item.’

‘The
reliquary,’ said Humphrey Banana. ‘A very queer thing indeed, by all accounts.’

‘A
very queer thing,’ agreed Mr Bell, ‘and one of great value. We will be
handsomely rewarded for its safe return. Now, are we agreed?’

Although
still sour-faced, the monkey nodded his hairy little head. ‘We are agreed,’
said he.

‘Then
let us shake upon it, as gentlemen should.’ Cameron Bell stretched out a hand
and although he was not keen at all, Humphrey Banana shook it.

‘Splendid,’
said Cameron Bell, and he turned away to hide his spreading smile. ‘Then I will
fetch out the barrel organ while you slip off to get your fez and your little
tin cup.’

Outside the noon-day
sun shone down upon mad dogs and Englishmen. Within his office, Cameron Bell
bit down hard upon his lower lip in an attempt to stifle the chuckles that
sought to flee his mouth.

Humphrey
Banana stalked from the office. A grumpy ape was he, for although Cameron Bell
thought it something of a lark to have him wear a fez and dance about on a
barrel organ waving an old tin cup in hope of funds, Humphrey did not find it
funny at all. He hated that fez and tin cup, because they represented to him
everything that was wrong with this world: the thraldom of one race to another
— or in his case of one species to another. Man’s inhumanity to Monkey.

Certainly,
through the merits of his gift of speech, Humphrey had become an ape of means.
But he was still an ape for all that, and he knew it. Still an ape and one who
cared for his fellows.

‘One
day things will change,’ he muttered as he stalked along. ‘One day things will
change, I know they will.’

And
they would, they most certainly would. But not in any way that he could have
imagined. For sometimes change comes in a shape that no one could possibly
expect. And from a place most unexpected, too.

For
change was coming now in the shape of a woman. A shapely woman from the planet
Mars.

7

lanet
Earth, all change,’ called out the conductor. ‘Please have your passports and
travel documents ready for inspection and do remember to take all your luggage
with you. Unattended bags and baggage may be destroyed upon the landing strip.’

The
conductor called this loudly as he bustled down the central aisle of the
second-class compartment. Thirty passengers occupied this cramped space, most
of whom were employees of one big Martian mining conglomerate or another. These
were the operators of steam-driven diggers and tunnelling equipment, the medics
and mineralogists, surveyors and seismologists, navvies with a taste for
travel, men with a thirst for gold.

Upon
this homeward journey the latter category, those men with a thirst for gold’,
was represented by a single individual. A downcast fellow, this, whose thirst
for gold had gone unquenched and who was now returning to his wife, although
not expecting a particularly warm welcome.

‘Excuse
me, sir,’ said this unhappy traveller. ‘Why would unattended bags be destroyed
upon the landing strip?’

The
conductor turned and rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve been down a Martian hole too
long, mate,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you heard about the anarchists?’

‘I’ve
heard
about them, yes, but never actually seen any evidence of their
activities.’

‘They’re
everywhere,’ said the conductor, and he tapped at his nose in that manner known
as conspiratorial. ‘They’d blow up the lot of us, given half a chance.’

The
conductor turned to take his leave, but the passenger called him back. ‘Have
there been recent atrocities, then?’ he asked.

The
conductor sighed. ‘Not as such,’ he confessed. ‘Not as such. But that is
because we remain vigilant. Where do you hail from, sir?’

‘Penge,’
said the passenger.

‘I
have an uncle in Penge,’ continued the conductor, who was now proving to be a
man more enamoured with conversation than the tasks of his trade, ‘and he’s a
vigilant fellow.’

The
passenger nodded and wondered where exactly this was leading.

‘He’s
a shaman,’ said the conductor, to the passenger’s considerable surprise. ‘He
supplies protective charms. I have one here about me.’ And he fished this out
from under his collar. It was a dull grey stone upon a silver chain. ‘If an
anarchist’s bomb was to go off right here, this charm would turn red,’ said the
conductor.

The
passenger’s mouth opened, but no words came from it.

‘The
shaman sold my wife a charm that protects her from man-eating kiwi birds,’ the
conductor continued.

‘There
aren’t any man-eating kiwi birds in Penge,’ was the passenger’s reply to this.

‘Just
shows how well it works, then, doesn’t it.’ And upon that excruciating note the
conductor went off about his business.

The
passenger settled back in his seat and glanced towards the porthole. It was
really just a glance in the general direction of the porthole because it
mostly alighted upon the shapely form of the female seated next to him. The
passenger had sought to engage this elegant lady in conversation ever since the
spaceship had left the port on Mars, but to no avail. Even his most
well-rehearsed bons mots had received little more than a polite nod of
acknowledgement.

The
passenger had the opportunity to take one more furtive glance, so he took it.
She was indeed a most striking woman, dressed utterly in black, her waist
cinched by a silken corselet. Black gloves sheathed her delicate hands and a
thick embroidered veil depended from a night-dark fascinator, girt about with
the wings of tropical birds, wings in hues that were forever night. If black
was to be the new black this season, the passenger considered, then this
striking woman could claim to be at the very apex of fashion. She looked
somewhat out of place in the second-class compartment.

‘Well,
it has been a pleasure,’ said the passenger, but it had not. ‘Might I offer my
services as chaperone? We might take a hansom together.’ As this offer received
not even a polite nod of acknowledgement, the passenger folded his arms, closed
his eyes and thought once more of how he might compose bons mots of sufficient
suavity to temper his wife’s ill humour when she learned of his penury.

The
FASTEN SEAT BELTS PLEASE sign flashed on and off, the air brakes engaged and
the spaceship named the
Marie Lloyd
dropped down towards the landing
strip of the Royal London Spaceport. Where, with a crunch of Martian metals
onto British cobblestones, it touched terra firma and came suddenly to rest.

The
third-class passengers cheered from their cupboard and a parrot named Peter swore
in the cargo hold.

Presently
the outer ports were opened. The first-class passengers were assisted to a
waiting covered landau that would carry them off in comfort to Customs and the
arrivals lounge in Terminal One.

The
second-class passengers stood upon the sun-blasted cobbles and awaited the
arrival of the horse and cart. The third—class passengers remained in their
cupboard, hoping that someone might remember they were there.

The lady in the
veil sat primly postured next to the driver of the horse and cart, a black
parasol shielding her from sunlight.

‘Lovely
day, ain’t it?’ said the driver. ‘Is that all your baggage? You haven’t got
much.’

A
Gladstone bag of atramentous aspect rested upon the driving seat between
himself and the lady. The lady said nothing, so the driver stirred up his
horse.

High
above, on Sydenham Hill, the Crystal Palace sparkled in the sun. The heat-haze
rising from the cobbles of the landing strip made it seem as some mirage, some
vision of Fairyland viewed through crystal waters.

The
driver of the horse and cart was about to remark upon the beauty of the
building, but then considered this would probably be a waste of his breath.
Here was a hoity-toity lass, thought he, and one with ideas far above her
station.

The
arrivals building at the Royal London Spaceport was certainly not without
interest, being as it was the brainchild of Alfred Waterhouse, architect of
the Natural History Museum, and based upon Charles Barry’s neo-Gothic work of
wonder, the Houses of Parliament. A tumble of tessellated towers crowned by
complex cupolas, here was terracotta primped and teased into a plethora of
foliate adornments that pleased the eye and touched the hearts of those who
loved the Empire. To the Venusian or Jovian traveller new to the planet, the
spaceport’s buildings and the Crystal Palace rising on high to their rear
conveyed an air of gravitas and grandiosity.

‘This
is England,’ these architectural marvels seemed to say, ‘and you must show her
the respect she deserves.‘

The
horse and cart drew up before Terminal One and the sun-seared passengers
stepped down from it. Two burly constables appeared from the terminal building
and laid hands upon one of these sun-seared passengers.

‘What
of this?’ cried the man who was now being held firmly in the grip of the two
large constables. ‘I have committed no crime. This is an outrage. Let me go.

‘We
have you bang to rights, chummy boy,’ said one of the constables, grasping the
fellow by one hand whilst wiggling his truncheon with the other.
[4]

‘The
conductor from the
Marie Lloyd
has told us all about you — asking him
suspicious questions regarding anarchists and querying the efficacy of an
English shaman’s amulets. You would be one of those Bolsheviks, I am thinking.’

‘I’m
a gold prospector!’ the passenger protested. ‘Honestly, I am.’

‘Then
show us some of your gold.’

The
remaining second-class passengers passed by without comment or concern. It was
none of their business, after all, although it did bring a certain degree of
comfort to know that the British bobby could always be relied upon to protect
them when the need arose.

As
now it clearly had.