Pax Britannia: Human Nature (9 page)

"I can well believe it," Ulysses said. "Can't be too careful in his line of business, I'm sure." He turned to his manservant, still a few steps behind him. "As they said in the Boy Scouts, be prepared, and all that, eh, Nimrod?" and he took out the pistol he kept holstered under his left arm and checked the chamber. On cue, Nimrod produced his own weapon and readied it.

Sidney acknowledged the presence of the guns with a widening of those puppy dog eyes of his but said nothing. From here on in, silence was key.

"Sir, if you don't mind me saying so, I don't like this," Nimrod whispered at Ulysses' shoulder.

"Don't worry, old chap," Ulysses blustered, instinctive bravado covering up the doubt he felt on his part. "This is our only lead."

"I'm just saying, sir. That's all."

"Duly noted," Ulysses hissed. "Now, can we be about our business?"

They followed their urchin guide through the doorway, their progress slowing considerably as they clambered over the web of broken beams whilst trying to keep their weapons aimed ahead of them, just in case. The underdeveloped boy had no such trouble, scurrying through the spaces between the beams at their feet, his monkey, loosed from its string-leash, bounding ahead, as if scouting a way through the tangle of fallen floorboards and roof supports.

The two men followed as best they could, as quickly and as quietly as possible, which with stealth being of the utmost importance, meant that their progress was not quick at all. And then they were past the hindering obstacles.

As they progressed, a soft orange glow grew in intensity ahead of them, the passageway they were following steadily lightening until the three of them stood huddled at the entrance to a wide open atrium within the rookery. They were on the ground floor, which was covered in rough planks, the space opening up to a height of at least three storeys above them.

Daring to peer further around the edge of the door jamb, Ulysses saw a spider's web of wooden walkways, suspended rope bridges and ladders of one sort or another. From somewhere near his waist Sidney whispered: "It's all right, they're not here."

Ulysses looked again. The web of walkways was slung with glowing hurricane lamps and guttering torches, even the occasional caged halogen light. He could see little in the dark spaces between the hazy spheres of light but still his senses told him that the situation hadn't changed and that the potential threat facing them was no different than when they had started on their journey into the rookery

"Are you sure?" he asked, just the same.

"Sure I'm sure. They'll all be out dipping the pockets of the rich."

"So where will we find the Magpie?"

"'E'll be in 'is counting house," Sidney said, his voice a breathy whisper. "Come on, it's this way."

"Feathering his nest, I suppose," Ulysses said, trying to make light of the situation, but it was a poor attempt to hide how he was really feeling.

The boy started out across the middle of the floor beneath the walkways, scampering ahead as before, only something had changed. Halfway across the void Ulysses realised what it was.

He stopped and Nimrod halted too. A moment later, realising Ulysses' footfalls over the boards behind him had come to a halt, the boy stopped and turned.

"Come on, guv'nor!" he hissed. "Whatcha waitin' for? Bleeding Christmas?"

"Where's your monkey?" Ulysses asked, his voice still quiet but nonetheless commanding for all that.

"What?" the boy asked, his face a picture of pure incomprehension.

"Where's your monkey?"

Ulysses could feel the dull throb of his hypothalamus swelling to a subconscious ache. Something wasn't right.

His head snapped back and he looked up into the glowing constellation of lamps suspended above them. There was movement at the corner of his eye. He followed it and saw another scampering shape elsewhere at the periphery of his vision.

Squinting, he began to see shapes forming amidst the contrasting shadows and sunspots.

And then, there on a walkway ten feet above his head, he saw, quite clearly, a lithe black and yellow shape run along a rope stretched taught across the void, seeming to defy gravity with its inverted aerial run. It wasn't Sidney's missing companion, but another simian altogether.

And then there were more. As if he now knew what he was looking for, Ulysses could hardly miss them. There were rhesus monkeys dangling from ropes and walkways, gnawing nuts and bits of fruit; spider monkeys by the dozen, family groups gathered on shelf-like perches attached to the walls; mandrills scaling vertically suspended ropes. He even thought he could make out the squatting shape and orange fur of an orang-utan on one of the higher levels, half-hidden in shadow behind a balcony.

"Don't bother answering that," Ulysses said coldly, his hind-brain hot with alarm, his grip on the gun in his hand tightening to knuckle white. "Where's the Magpie?"

Preternatural awareness flashed through his brain like a migraine.

"Right here!" came a cackle from the rafters above them. "As is you, Mr Quicksilver, as is you. Right where I wants ya!"

Chapter Six

One for Sorrow

"Welcome to the House of Monkeys, my fine gentlemen."

Ulysses peered up at the rows of balconies above them, shielding his eyes with one hand to try to cut out the glare from the myriad lamps hung from the network of walkways.

His whole body was tensed, ready to spring into action, although Ulysses didn't rate their chances; he and Nimrod were like sitting ducks where they stood out in the open.

"Mr Magpie, I presume," he called up to the galleries, trying to locate their welcomer, his own voice bouncing back to him from the crumbling plaster walls.

"You presume right, Mr Quicksilver," the voice confirmed. "At your service, sah."

"I highly doubt that," Ulysses muttered under his breath.

He was struggling to place the accent. The metropolis of Londinium Maximum was a melting pot of cultures and nationalities, even if outwardly it appeared to be British to the core. But in reality there wasn't a more cosmopolitan city on the planet. Off-planet, that was a different matter, but on Earth the empire of Magna Britannia ruled supreme, governed from the seat of power that was old London town.

Ulysses continued to try to penetrate the dark spaces between the swaying lights. He could see that the apes that obviously gave the place its name were everywhere, larger orders of primate, including whey-faced chimps, slouched on the higher walkways or with their over-long arms wrapped around the supporting pillars of the tiered balconies, while the smaller simians scuttled and bounded between swinging rope ladders and branch-like perches with gay abandon. None of them seemed particularly interested in the presence of the two interlopers.

When Ulysses said nothing else, the master of this den of thieves spoke up again instead.

"So, Mr Quicksilver, what can I do for you?"

"I thought you said you had me right where
you
wanted
me
," Ulysses pointed out, scanning for ways out, should the opportunity arise for them to make their escape.

"So I did, Mr Quicksilver. So I did." The Magpie chuckled.

And there he was. A shadow, a silhouette, no more. The Magpie had positioned himself directly in front of a bright electric light, legs apart, hands on hips, surrounded by a suffused angelic glow. It was a stance that screamed confidence. It said,
you are in my domain. I am king here. Here my word is law. Watch your step
.

The master thief's tone only served to enhance the idea that this was an individual you didn't want to mess with. Not here, not anywhere.

Nonetheless, trying to avoid making any obvious sudden movement, Ulysses slowly angled the muzzle of his gun upwards, aiming it at the silhouette.

"I should watch where you're pointing that thing, if I were you, Mr Quicksilver," Magpie warned, his intent as clear and as lethal as arsenic.

As if on cue, a myriad pairs of simian eyes turned and locked on him from out of the darkness, the flickering light of the oil lamps reflecting redly from their corneas, tiny coals in the semi-darkness. A raucous chattering and screeching swelled from every corner of the space, reverberating from the enclosing walls and setting Ulysses' nerves on edge. He took his eyes off Magpie to glance at where his manservant stood tensed behind him; he looked just as perturbed as Ulysses was feeling. There was also the unmistakeable fleshy thumping of simian fists beating their chests.

Ulysses' hand stopped moving.

Gradually the cacophony subsided, but the inhabitants of the House of Monkeys had made their feelings plain.

"Tell me, Mr Quicksilver. What did you hope to achieve by coming here?"

Ulysses realised he had been given an unprecedented opportunity to find out more, to have his theories about this puzzling case confirmed or denied, one way or the other.

"Very well, then," he began. "Word is that you were involved in the theft of the Whitby Mermaid."

"Well now, you heard right." He wasn't even going to make a show of denying it. The flagrant arrogance of the man! It also only went to show how supremely confident he felt within his own petty kingdom.

"So, how did you do it?" Ulysses went on, remaining outwardly cool, calm and collected, despite feeling riled by the man's arrogance on the inside, his words slow with cold anger.

"He can't even see it," Magpie said, as if he was speaking to someone else. "It's right before his eyes, and he can't even see it."

As if in response to his comment the apes started hooting and chattering again, only this time Ulysses could have sworn they were laughing.

It was just as Ulysses had suspected. The Magpie's mastery of his pets must have been unrivalled in all the empire, outside of the Congo.

Loosely holding the pistol in his hand by only a couple of fingers, Ulysses raised both hands and began a slow clap, each slap of palm on palm reverberating loudly, amplified by the acoustics of the strange monkey house.

"I applaud you, Magpie. An incredible example of man's mastery of the lower forms of life on this planet. The window, the picked lock, it all makes sense to me now."

The silhouette shifted as the villain bowed, luxuriating in the chance to boast of his daring exploits before someone who could appreciate his work, even if he could not condone it.

"But why?"

"Ah," the Magpie mused, obviously delighted to have someone with whom he could share the truth of his cunning, "there it is, the unanswerable question. The one for which any answer, no matter what, can still be interpreted with the same question again; why? Why, why, why?"

Trained monkeys
, Ulysses thought. Imagine all the places they could go without ever even arousing any suspicions. He wondered how many other unsolved crimes - or even as yet unnoticed thefts - were the work of Magpie and his monkeys.

"So, why?" Ulysses repeated. "What is a fake, such as the Whitby Mermaid, worth to you?"

"Oh, not to me, Mr Quicksilver, not to me," the Magpie chuckled.

"Then who?"

"Ah, Mr Quicksilver. Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?" Magpie teased.

"But what have you got to lose?" Ulysses pressed. "Who's going to know? Who am I going to tell? Something tells me you're not going to let me walk out of here Scot free."

The Magpie chuckled again. "I do have a reputation to uphold."

"And I have a desperate desire to know. To have got so close to the answer. What can it hurt? What about granting a condemned man's final wish?"

"But what would life be without a little mystery? Where would be the excitement in that?"

That was what all this was about, Ulysses realised, having a little fun. It was all for the thrill; the chase was everything.

"Indeed."

Ulysses aimed his gun, and fired.

The bulb that had been doing such a good job of silhouetting his target exploded and, as the light died, Ulysses caught a glimpse of the Magpie throwing his arms up to protect his head. And then, he was moving.

"Nimrod, duck and cover!"

At his command, his manservant went for the shelter of the doorway by which they had entered the place.

As Ulysses raced for the shadows the only sound he could hear was the mass intake of breath as the House of Monkeys recoiled at his audacity. He raised his gun and fired a second shot towards the network of aerial walkways.

There was a second explosive crack as his shot exploded a lamp, and an angry, animalistic roar as the resulting shower of oil ignited, even as it rained down on the flammable boards and bindings.

"I would appear that you missed, Mr Quicksilver," the voice came from elsewhere now.

"Did I?"

"You are a fool, Mr Quicksilver. A fool. You won't get a second chance."

The Magpie gave a shrill whistle and, with a cacophony of simian shrieks and near-human cries, it started raining monkeys.

The primates dropped from their perches or swung down from the burning boards and bridges above, all gunning for the gunman... even as, after the initial shower of monkeys, fire began to rain down within the House of Monkeys.