The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (49 page)

THE OLD
SCREW-SCRIVER

— with which the
crowd sang along. Making sure to lay a heavy emphasis upon any word that could
possibly be considered suggestive.

Now I’ve known many kinds of
tool,

But not in the biblical sense.

They’ve helped with my
erection

Of my grandmother’s fence.

I’ve worn my wrist out
doing it,

I tell you I’m no skiver.

For a nail will fail

What a
screw
can do

When you
do it
with your old
screw-scriver.

Chorus:

I did it with my old screw-scriver

Did it with my old screw-scriver

You hold it in your fist

Do it with your wrist

It goes in straight

Or it will go in p**sed.

I didn’t drown

When the ship went down,

I was the sole survivor.

For I’m not daft

I built myself a raft

And I did it with my old screw-scriver.

The
applause was truly deafening and numerous young ladies carried away upon the
moment tossed their bloomers onto the stage. Sammy ‘the Screw-Scriver’
Scrivener had once again made it another night to remember.

Cameron Bell upended
the champagne bottle.

‘Another
dead soldier,’ he said. ‘What a most pleasurable evening.’

Aleister
Crowley hiccupped loudly, for he was far-gone with the drink.

‘Bit
squiffy?’ asked Cameron Bell, still surprisingly chipper. ‘Drink is never the
master of me,’ slurred the Beast, sliding sideways on his chair. ‘We should go
on to a club.’

‘We
should,’ agreed Mr Bell, and he brought from his waistcoat pocket a pillbox.

‘What
have you there?’ asked Crowley. viewing several pillboxes.

‘A
rather splendid pick-me-up my pharmacist put together for me, part laudanum,
part heroin, part—’

‘Share
them out,’ called Crowley. ‘I want two.’

‘They
are
very
strong.’

‘I
have slipped things down my throat that you would not believe,’ said Aleister
Crowley.

Cameron
Bell added no comment to
that.

But
generously offered Mr Crowley a pill.

‘Give
me
two,’
said Crowley.

Cameron
gave him two.

‘Now
let us go down and hail a cab,’ said Mr Bell. ‘First my club and then yours —
we will make a night of it.’

‘We
will,’ said Aleister Crowley, rising, tumbling back, then rising once again.
Cameron Bell helped up the Beast, who put his arm about the detective’s
shoulders.

‘You
are my friend,’ mumbled Aleister Crowley. ‘My bestest friend.’

‘Of
course I am,’ said Cameron Bell, aiding the stumbling Beast. ‘Of course I am.

By the time any
transport could be found, Mr Crowley was no longer able to stand. Nor indeed
open his eyes. Cameron Bell and the driver bundled the unconscious Logos of the
Aeon into the hansom cab.

‘You
want I should drop him home, then, guv’nor?’ enquired the driver.

‘No,‘
said Cameron Bell. ‘Take him please to Saint Pancras Station and put him on the
night train to Edinburgh. Here is his ticket. And here a guinea for your
trouble. I doubt if he can be woken, but treat him very gently nonetheless.

‘Certainly,
guv’nor,’ said the driver. ‘And might I say that this young chap here should be
grateful to have such a caring friend as you.

‘I am
more of a friend to him than he knows,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

The
hansom departed with Crowley aboard.

Mr
Bell perused his pocket watch.

He
was still extremely chipper. For after all, he had consumed but a single glass
of champagne.

‘One
down and one to go,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘And unless I am very much mistaken —
and I do
not
believe myself to be so — the fun will begin at the Palace
of Magic upon the stroke of midnight.’

47

ing’s
Road, driver,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘And smartly, if you will.’

The
driver of the electric-wheeler, whom Mr Bell had engaged for the evening and
who had been looking on in puzzlement as his fare helped load an unconscious
fellow into a hansom cab, said, ‘Certainly, sir.’

The
driver climbed into his cockpit and Mr Bell settled down onto the purple
leather seating within. He really
did
love it when a plan came together,
and he had worked hard upon this particular one. He had successfully lured
Aleister Crowley to the Electric Alhambra and gleaned from him the required
information that the only people within the Palace of Magic were Lavinia
Dharkstorrm and her mistress Princess Pamela, aka Madam Glory. Then
administered sufficient champagne and sleeping pills to Mr Crowley to render
him unconscious and dispatched him as far away as possible so that he might
come to no harm in the ensuing holocaust.

A
holocaust he felt confident would shortly be brought into being by Lady Raygun.
Mr Bell had reasoned that if he informed the vengeful woman where Lavinia
Dharkstorrm lurked and arranged to meet her there the following evening, she
would surely ignore the proposed arrangement and attack Miss Dharkstorrm on
this very night.

‘Or
at least I certainly
hope
she will,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘Did
you ask me something, guv’nor?’ asked the driver of the electric-wheeler.

‘No,’
said Cameron Bell.

‘Only
if there’s anythink you wants to know, I’s be happy to be supplying you with
answers.

‘I just
need to get to the corner of Eaton Place before midnight,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘And
so you shall, guv’nor. What do you make of this ‘ere business with falling
frogs and likewise?’

‘Anarchists,’
said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘So
you don’t think we ‘as to worry that it is the end of the world?’

Cameron
Bell offered nothing in reply.

‘Me
missus,’ said the driver, ‘ ‘as the ‘ole thing figured owt.’

‘I am
coming more and more to the conclusion,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘that women are
either in charge of, behind or to blame for almost everything.’

‘Fierce
words, guv’nor,’ said the driver, swerving to knock a passing cleric off his
bike.

‘And
why did you do
that?’
asked Cameron Bell. ‘Because I ‘olds them to
blame,’ said the driver. ‘Clerics and Godmen. Me missus ‘as come to the
conclusion that the world will end at midnight upon New Year’s Eve.’

Cameron
Bell shuddered slightly. ‘And how has she drawn this dire conclusion?’ he
asked.

‘Numerology,’
said the driver. ‘It’s all very complicated, but I think I ‘as the measure of
it. First you add the numbers in Queen Victoria’s birth date together and—’

Cameron
Bell gazed out of the window and dreamed of happier times.

‘And
you subtract the difference in days since the date of her birth and the very
last day of this year, and add the square on the hypotenuse—’

An
airship passed across the starry sky.

‘Take
away the number you first thought of—’

‘Ah,
we have arrived,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘Add
one for the pot and half a sixpence.’ The driver drew the wheeler to a halt.
‘And you ‘ave nine hundred and ninety nine,’ said he, ‘and you cannot argue
with that.’

‘Nor
would I wish to,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘But what would the significance of this
number be?’

‘It’s
the Number of the Beast,’ said the driver.

‘No,’
said Cameron Bell, ‘the number of the Beast is six hundred and sixty-six.’

‘If
it were a
man,’
said the driver. ‘But you see, it ain’t no man — the
Beast is a woman, so her number is six-six-six upside down. Nine-nine-nine is
the number of the Lady Beast. And she was born on the twenty-fourth of May,
eighteen nineteen,’ said the driver.

‘Ah,‘
said Cameron Bell. ‘Then according to your wife, Queen Victoria is the
Antichrist.’

‘Not
so loud, guv’nor, not even at night. But it all works out on paper. Not that I
would dare to suggest such a thing against our glorious monarch. But unless she
‘as a twin sister, it looks like she’s the one.’

Cameron
Bell climbed from the electric-wheeler on the corner of Cadogan Street and told
the driver to wait for him there.

Mr
Bell then slipped away into a darkened alley.

And
there, had he been of an athletic disposition with the double joints of a
contortionist, he would have kicked himself repeatedly in the behind. It was
all so obvious. It had been staring him in the face all along and he had failed
to see it. It was every bit the clichéd old scenario of
the Evil Twin.
So
clichéd that surely no one would dare to trot it out once again. And a
female
Antichrist? Well, that one wasn’t so obvious. But it
did
all fall
into place. This
was
all to do with women. It was Eve who had committed
the first sin — why not a woman to commit the final one? And a woman who was
the identical twin of the world’s most iconic monarch?

It
was prophesied that the arrival of the Antichrist would herald the End of Days,
and that only those in his — or in this case,
her
— service would remain
on Earth, after the good were gathered up to Heaven in the Rapture.

The
four reliquaries had been brought into an unhallowed place. The biblical
plagues were an announcement that the Antichrist was coming.

And
when
would the Antichrist come?

As
the Book of Sayito foretold: on the very last day of this year.

And
how
would the Antichrist manifest?

By
usurping the throne of her sister, Queen Victoria!

Cameron
Bell had a vision, and a terrible vision it was. He saw the halls of the Grand
Exposition and the thousands come to celebrate the Wonders of the Worlds on the
final day of the century. He saw the London Symphony Orchestra and the great
choir come to perform Beethoven’s Ninth. He saw Her Majesty mounting to a
throne within the concert hall. He saw fire, he saw brimstone, he saw torment.

And
he beheld Madam Glory.

Who
upon the final day of the century …

Upon
the final hour …

Would
destroy the Good Queen Victoria …

And
rule instead upon her throne.

Had
Cameron Bell not been possessed of a particularly strong stomach, he would
certainly have been sick right there and then in the darkened alleyway.

‘There
is still time,’ whispered Cameron Bell. ‘There is still time to stop this.’

‘Look at him
tremble,’ said Lavinia Dharkstorrm, ‘all alone in the alleyway.’ Lavinia wore a
gown of mauve that matched her dazzling eyes. Beside her stood a woman all in
pink.

‘Ee-oop,
chuck,’ said Princess Pamela. ‘Does wee porky lad be givin’ us bother?’

They
stood within the Palace of Magic, these evil ladies, studying the image of
Cameron Bell, which swam in a silver scrying bowl filled to the brim with dark
liquid. Lavinia Dharkstorrm passed long fingers over the surface of this liquid
and Mr Bell’s image dissolved.

‘He
is dangerous,’ she said to her mistress. ‘And I remain puzzled as to how he was
raised from the zombified stupor I placed him in. But I perceive glimpses of
the future and he will not enter this temple tonight.’