The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (40 page)

But
throughout all this toing and froing he had never known love of his own. He had
never met a lady ape with whom he could raise a family. He had been tricked by
the evil Pandora, Lavinia Dharkstorrm’s familiar, and politely rejected by
Queen Victoria’s monkey maid, Emily. Although he did have thoughts to pursue
that comely creature …

But
Darwin was a simian who still searched for love.

‘Wake
up, boy,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘Falling asleep on your feet, by the looks of
you.’

Darwin
arose from his reverie to face the world with dread.

Lord
Brentford chanted words of Venusian and waved his free hand about in a
fanatical fashion.

Darwin
considered the study door and wondered if he should make a break for it now.

‘And …
so!’
cried Lord Brentford, raising his hand in the air.

Darwin
the monkey felt very queer indeed. He felt giddy and strangely not-all-there.
He lifted a hand to clutch at his head, then gaped in horror at his hand.

And
through it!

His
hand was vanishing right in front of his eyes. ‘It is working,’ called Lord
Brentford. ‘He is fading away. And Darwin was. He was fading. And then gone.
Just gone.

‘Are
you there, boy? Can you hear me?’

Darwin
was there somewhere. Was he
here?
The now-unseeable monkey butler
stamped his feet on the floor. He
was
still here, still in the converted
study, but he was utterly transparent.

He
was the Invisible Ape.

‘Invisible, or
so they says,’ the newsboy said to Mr Cameron Bell. ‘They says the Masked
Shadow can turn himself invisible. He is in league with the Devil, so they
says.’

The
great detective paid for a paper and bore it away to a coffee house to peruse
it at his ease.

The
Masked Shadow was quite the talk of the town, it so appeared. Mr Bell overheard
heated conversation regarding this mysterious fellow all around the coffee
house.

‘They
say he’s the very last living Martian out for revenge on the human race,’ said
someone.

‘I
heard he was the victim of a dreadful medical experiment and that he has an
elbow instead of a face.’

Cameron
Bell raised his eyebrow to that one and ordered a coffee.

‘They
say that he’s a werewolf,’ said an ancient lady of Eastern European extraction.
‘The thirteenth is the night of the full moon, you know — he’ll strike upon the
thirteenth, mark my words.’

Cameron
Bell just nodded his head to that one. The Masked Shadow was certainly making
his presence felt in London. Given that none but a few had known about his
existence prior to this day, news of him and his depredations were spreading in
the manner of a plague.

The
thought of a plague distracted Cameron Bell. It had now been weeks since the
Thames had turned blood-red and most folk had now forgotten it. But if that
really
was
one of the Seven End Times Plagues, the next one would
shortly be on the way.

Although
the day was mild and the coffee shop electrically heated, a cold and icy shiver
crept the length of Cameron’s spine.

It was quite
cold, being invisible. A draught from the door crack seemed to blow right
through the unviewable ape.

Lord
Brentford clapped his hands in glee. ‘That really is most wonderful,’ he said.

‘I
know you have promised before,’ said Leah, ‘but I would ask that you promise
again that you will never demonstrate the magic I am teaching you unless your
life, or the life of someone that you love, depends upon it.’

‘You
have my most solemn vow,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘I got a bit over-joyous there,
but believe you me, I take all this stuff most seriously. Know what would
happen to you if it came out you’d been teaching me. Wouldn’t want anything
bad to happen to you. Care very much about you, as it happens.

And
then Lord Brentford screamed.

It
was a piercing scream. Almost feminine, it sounded.

The
scream of a man who had, perhaps, been head-butted hard in his private parts by
a quite unseen attacker.

‘You
scoundrel!’ cried his lordship, knees bent, eyes crossed and face grown rather
red. ‘You’ll get a thrashing for that, you saucy fellow.’

SAUCY FELLOW
WILL TAKE

A DARE FROM
GENTLEMEN

Cameron Bell was
reading the small advertisements upon the rear of his newspaper.

MISS CAINE’S ACADEMY

FOR THE TRAINING OF

PONY-GIRLS

Cameron Bell ran
a finger down the page.

ILLUSIONS
UNLIMITED

SUPPLIERS
OF FIRST-RATE

MAGICAL
ACCOUTREMENTS

FOR
THE MUSIC HALL

‘
That
is the one I am looking for,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

38

arwin
was not severely chastened by Lord Brentford. The nobleman’s humour had not
deserted him, and although it is always easy to affect a detached attitude to
the problems of others, it takes a man of character to accept a blow to the
testes and still keep a smile on his face.

‘Come
out, you scoundrel, or I’ll fetch my gun,’ Lord Brentford shouted, in a manner
that was possibly ironic.

Leah
laid a calming hand upon Lord Brentford’s head. It was more, it appeared, than
simply a calming hand, for the pain of his pummelled private parts fled the
noble lord.

‘Why,
thank you, m’dear,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘Wish I’d known that particular piece
of magic when I was playing rugger back at Winchester. Used to get biffed in
the three-piece-suite most every game.

Leah
said, ‘I feel we should restore your ape to sight.’

His
lordship made grumbling mumbling sounds, but these
were
sounds of
assent.

‘It
is known as the Glamour,’ said Leah, ‘whereby that which is seen can go unseen.
But never for too long, for fear that they be lost to us for ever.

‘Humpty-tumpty,’
said Lord Brentford. ‘Don’t want that for Darwin. Very fond of the little
fellow.’

Which
probably spared Lord Brentford a biting to the bottom.

Darwin,
who had been quite enjoying himself pulling unseen faces at his master and
pondering upon whether his dung might be invisible, should he produce some and
then hurl it, came to sudden order when Lord Brentford said, ‘Stand before me,
Darwin, if you want to reappear.

Leah
aided his lordship with the words to reverse the spell and Darwin wavily
appeared from nowhere.

‘Fetch
us up cocktails, you little blighter,’ said Lord Brentford, ‘and we’ll say no
more about it. Go on, now.’

Darwin
made off to the kitchen,
ooh-ooh-ooh-ing
in ape.

Cameron Bell
made off to ILLUSIONS UNLIMITED, a workshop housed beneath an archway near
London Bridge Station. A small and weaselly man replied to his knockings and
ushered him into the very weirdest of rooms. Within the span of bricked archway
were to be found things of a magical nature.

But
not Venusian magic, this, rather stage illusions born from the cunning of man.

Things
that might best be described as if sung as a music hall song.

There were dragons that were made of papier-mâché

That could breathe and move their little eyes about.

A contraption that would make you laugh

In which to saw your wife in half.

A box that was much bigger on the inside than the
out.

There were hats from which to pull a bunny rabbit

And a rabbit that could turn into a cow.

A clockwork Turk that would impress

By beating you each time at chess

But nobody could really tell you how.

There were oriental wonders in the corner,

A rope trick that had come from Indi-ah.

There were cups and balls and cards and rings

And many many magic things

Everything to please your heart’s desire.

(As long as you paid in guineas. And in cash.)

The
small and weaselly fellow announced himself to be Caracticus Crawford, creator
of wonders and owner of a whippet.

Cameron
Bell had once owned a wiener dog, but it had taken to chasing hansom cabs and
an irate driver had shot it.

Mr
Crawford smiled upon Cameron Bell. ‘Something for the ladies?’ he asked.

‘Excuse
me?’ said Cameron Bell.

‘Some
little card trick, perhaps, to impress the ladies of your social circle? Or
perhaps a comedic boil fashioned from gutta-percha that can be affixed to your
nose to alarm the ladies at supper? Or perhaps an India-rubber cushion which
mimics flatulence when sat upon by a lady? Or—’

Cameron
Bell raised his hands. ‘I want you to create for me an illusion,’ he said.

‘Ah,
you wish perhaps to compress a lady into a Gladstone bag. Or perhaps something
involving a very fat lady who becomes two slim ladies when literally torn in
half by a special machine which—’

Cameron
Bell stared hard at the weaselly man and observed his shirt cuffs and
trouser-buttons.

‘Yours
was
not
a happy marriage, then,’ he said.

The
weaselly man’s eyes grew wide. ‘You are a mentalist,’ said he. ‘Your act is one
of mind-reading.’

‘No,’
said Cameron Bell. ‘I need you to create for me a certain illusion. It is most
important that it works perfectly. You might say it is a matter of life and
death.’

‘I
have a guillotine effect that appears to remove a lady’s head from her body—’

‘I
will show you the plan that I have drawn up,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

Over cocktails,
in the Garden Room — a room which presently lacked for certain essentials, in
Darwin’s opinion, now that all the potted banana trees had been removed from it
— Lord Brentford sat in a wicker chair.

Next
to him sat Leah, upright, elegant, mysterious and thoroughly enticing, and the
two were studying a plan that was spread before them upon an occasional table.

‘The
hall of the Grand Exposition,’ said Lord Brentford, with no small pride in his
voice. ‘Three times the size of the Crystal Palace. A single large hall, as you
see, that extends the length of the Mall, with a hall at either end, extending
at right angles from the main hall. The concert hall in the centre of the main
building, and to either side of that, displays of the Arts and Commerce of the
British Empire. I recently received a letter from the eminent chemist Ernest
Rutherford — he has apparently created an invention of staggering implications
and has asked my permission to display it.’

Leah
raised a golden eyebrow.

‘It
will be a surprise, my dear,’ said his lordship. ‘And here—’ and he pointed
‘—in the very centre of this hall, you can place your magical sphere of
absolute nothingness. I cannot position it any further away from the Jovian
food hall, but believe me, that is as far away as it is possible to get from
it.’

Darwin
viewed the plans. He had overheard the name of Mr Ernest Rutherford being
mentioned, and also that he wished to exhibit something with staggering implications.
To Darwin it could mean nothing other than the time-ship that his elder self
had flown from the future and into the Bananary.

Eventually,
said
Darwin to himself,
I feel certain that everything will become clear.