The Japanese Devil Fish Girl (12 page)

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Authors: Robert Rankin

BOOK: The Japanese Devil Fish Girl
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And surely George did not. He smiled a bit at this, did George, and stared out at the landscape spreading beneath them.
 
The Crystal Palace diamond studding the hilltop. The sprawl of outer London edging its way into the countryside. The village of Penge in all its beauty.
 
‘It is all too beautiful,’ said George, enthralled.
 
‘It is something to be marvelled at,’ agreed the professor. ‘But all that dust raised by the hooves of the hansom cab’s horse—’
 
‘You failed to pay the driver,’ said George.
 
‘Have given me a throat most dry,’ Professor Coffin said. ‘And so I suggest we adjourn to the bar.’
 
‘There is a bar on board?’ George asked.
 
‘Two, I understand, and a billiard hall. And a gaming lounge where one might engage in card games, or chess or suchlike, with one’s fellow passengers.’
 
‘Card games?’ said George, recalling his lost gold watch.
 
‘And I have something for you,’ said Professor Coffin, producing same from his waistcoat pocket. ‘His Lordship requires a timepiece, do you not think?’
 
George received the returned timepiece with gratitude. ‘Well, thank you very much indeed,’ he said.
 
‘Think nothing of it, my boy. We are partners now, fifty-fifty all the way. Now what say you to a gin and Indian tonic water?’
 
‘I say yes to that.’
 
 
The bar for gentlemen only was on an upper deck. It lurked, and ‘lurked’ was surely the word, within the bowels of the ship. It boasted no natural light, nor outside windows, and was already filling nicely with cigar smoke.
 
Big-bellied beings in acres of tweed, with pork-chop whiskers and multiple chins, tugged upon Cuban cigars and cradled brandy balloons in pink-sausage fingers. On their heads they wore sola topis; perched on these, colourful goggles.
 
‘Tourists from Jupiter all set for a tiger hunt,’ explained Professor Coffin.
 
A strange angular personage, wearing a frock coat of the Regency period, a high violet-tinted peruke and a veritable galaxy of gemstones upon his waistcoat area, was entertaining these Jovian tourists by conjuring all manner of unlikely objects from his delicate pocket handkerchief.
 
Professor Coffin ordered drinks and, unknown to George, charged these to Lord Fox’s account. Then he joined George, who had seated himself at a Britannia-style public house table, wrought ingeniously from aluminium and balsa wood. George was giving this a good looking-over.
 
‘Everything is light of weight,’ he said. ‘This is all such a wonder to me.’
 
‘I am happy that you find it to your liking,’ the professor said.
 
And George truly did. Being here was beyond anything he could possibly have imagined. Although he rather fancied getting back to the promenade deck as soon as he and the professor had done with their drinks. It was, although lavish in its way, somewhat stuffy in this gentlemen’s bar and there was so much to be seen all over the rest of the marvellous pleasure ship.
 
‘Which includes your accommodation,’ said the professor, as if attuned to George’s thoughts. ‘You have a cabin with a view. You will not be disappointed.’
 
‘I am so grateful for it all,’ said George. ‘I only hope that I do not disappoint
you
. You have ventured all on this expedition of ours. I hope that we find what we seek. The Jap—’
 
But the professor placed his hand lightly over George’s mouth. ‘Best not to speak the name aloud,’ said he. ‘It is our sacred secret, yours and mine, fifty-fifty – do you not agree?’
 
‘Indeed,’ said George, as a waiter arrived with the drinks.
 
‘Just sign for those, if you would,’ said the professor.
 
‘Lord’ George did so.
 
 
At length the angular gentleman in the Georgian finery concluded his entertainment, bowed to his portly alien audience and, having asked whether he might do so, and having been told that he might, seated himself at George and the professor’s table.
 
‘I spy,’ said he, a-smiling at Professor Coffin, ‘a fellow traveller.’ And he reached out his hand and received a certain handshake.
 
‘Professor Cagliostro Coffin,’ said the showman. ‘Celtic Lodge Five Hundred and Sixteen.’
 
‘The Count de Saint-Germain,’ said the other. ‘Prague Four Hundred and Twenty-seven.’
 
Knowing nods came into play. George looked on, bewildered.
 
‘My young charge, Lord George Fox,’ said the professor.
 
George put out his hand in the hope of a certain shake, but received in return one of standard issue.
 
‘Whence bound?’ asked the professor of the count.
 
‘All points, all cities. So much progress has been made, so many new sights to be seen. So much to be learned.’
 
‘I am taking my charge on the Grand Tour,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘It will be an education for both of us, I am thinking.’
 
‘Are you presenting an entertainment?’ enquired the count.
 
‘Oh no,’ said the professor. ‘I am temporarily retired from the showman’s life.’
 
‘But it never leaves your blood.’ The count diddled with his hankie and produced a live chicken. This he set upon his knee and tickled at its feathered neck.
 
‘You have great skills,’ said the professor, ‘yet I do not recognise your name from any poster.’
 
‘Prestidigitation is nothing more than a hobby for me at present,’ said the count. ‘I retired from the itinerant life many years ago. I am a chemist now. I formulate perfumes.’
 
‘There would be many pennies to be made in that calling, should a man pursue it with sufficient knowledge at his fingertips.’
 
‘Which is to say,’ the count said, ‘that it is a profession guarded by much secrecy. As, though, is any other.’
 
George felt that perhaps he should withdraw now to the promenade deck in the company of his gin. This conversation, he felt, was not likely to become particularly interesting. A yawn escaped George’s lips and George apologised for it.
 
‘Methinks,’ said the count, ‘that your charge finds my profession dull.’
 
‘I am just tired,’ said George. Who was not.
 
‘Yet I could tell you things and show you things that would make your hair stand on end.’
 
‘Really?’ said George. Who doubted this.
 
The count smiled hugely upon George, who noted that he wore a great deal of face powder. And upon closer inspection, there was something of the museum mummy about him.
 
‘Have you ever heard of the Scent of Unknowing?’ the count asked of George.
 
George shook his head.
 
‘It is a legendary perfume,’ said Professor Coffin, who appeared to know something about most things. ‘A perfume that, once sniffed, puts the sniffer into a state of trance, making them suggestible to almost anything.’
 
‘To
absolutely
anything,’ said the count. ‘One sniff and you fall under its spell. The dream of every man is to have such a cologne, or any woman such a perfume.’
 
‘And such a thing exists?’ asked George.
 
‘I seek it,’ said the count. ‘The Holy Grail of perfumes, one might say.’
 
George almost said that he and the professor were on a likewise quest, but recalling the professor’s earlier words, he did not.
 
‘I think you would become very rich indeed if you could make such a perfume,’ said George. ‘But I find it hard to believe that such a magical thing could really exist.’
 
‘Really?’ The Count de Saint-Germain raised a powdered eyebrow. ‘So have you never heard of the Evil Breath?’
 
George shook his head and said, ‘I have had such a thing upon a morning after too much drinking, I believe.’
 
‘Not such as this,’ said the count. ‘Would you care for me to explain? And when I have done so, demonstrate?’
 
George now felt somewhat uncomfortable. ‘Perhaps I might,’ he said. ‘I do not really know.’
 
‘This boy must come to no harm,’ said Professor Coffin to the count. ‘I have heard of the Evil Breath, but I have never seen it demonstrated. I was informed that the effects can prove fatal.’
 
‘Your charge will come to no harm,’ said the count. ‘Although he might experience some mild discomfort.’
 
And then he went on to tell a tale that put the wind up George.
 
13
 
‘Y
ou must know,’ said the Count de Saint-Germain, folding his arms in their quilted sleeves across his sparkling chest, ‘that I have travelled greatly during my lifetime and fetched up upon many a foreign shore. I have wandered in the wastelands, jaunted through the jungles, mooched about the marshes, high-stepped o’er the hinterlands and tripped the light fantastic in the Garden of Earthly Delights.’
 
George Fox glanced towards the door and thought about the sunshine.
 
‘And you must know,’ the count continued, ‘that the world traveller must be capable of defending himself against footpads, pirates, brigands and sundry rap-scallions. ’
 
‘Which is why I acquired for us a brace of pistols,’ said Professor Coffin to George.
 
‘Which would be why I observed a gunsmith’s wagon tearing towards us as the airship ascended,’ said George. ‘Although I did not comment on this at the time.’
 
‘Might I continue?’ asked the count. Receiving nods in the affirmative from his companions, he continued, ‘Then it is this way. I have studied many forms of the martial arts. I have mastered samurai swordsmanship, Baritso stick fighting and Irish Knobkerrie-Knocking-All-About. I learned Kung Fu, which means literally “empty hand”, at a Shaolin temple in China. The monks there have developed a system of self-defence which involves no weaponry, for they are forbidden to carry such. Their techniques allow them to disarm even the most skilled swordsman. It is remarkable what they are capable of. Word reached me of secret techniques that did not involve strenuous punches or kicks, rather light but significant touches to the body that effected a complete collapse upon the part of the attacker. The system is known as Dimac, or the Death-Touch. One trained in Dimac can skilfully touch a person, thereby causing them to react fatally to this touch several days later.’
 
‘That would not be much good if you were actually having a fight with them,’ said George.
 
‘I am leading to my point,’ said the count. ‘I learned also that there are certain practitioners of Dimac who claim to be able to disable an opponent without actually touching him at all, so adept have they become.’
 
‘That would surely be impossible,’ said George. ‘You cannot affect someone like that without actually touching them.’
 
‘So you might think. But it is indeed the case. The professor here will probably recall how popular mesmerism became some years ago.’
 
Professor Coffin nodded. ‘It was doubted at the time,’ said he, ‘but now it has been refined into hypnotism. And, as the count says, one certainly can influence someone without actually touching them through the use of hypnotism.’
 
George nodded thoughtfully. He had watched a hypnotist’s act at one of the popular music halls. He was not altogether certain, however, as to whether he truly believed in it or not.
 
‘I see doubt once more upon your face, Your young Lordship,’ said the count. ‘But we shall see what we shall see. The Japanese masters created a martial system known as
Kiai-jutsu
or the Shout. As a soprano can shatter a champagne glass through the projection of a high-register note, so can one of these deadly fellows injure an assailant with a properly attuned cry.’
 
George’s face looked no less doubtful.
 
‘Then if you doubt
that
, Your Lordship, I have no reason to believe that you will not doubt me when I inform you that it is possible for an adept who has learned a secret technique to disable an opponent simply by breathing upon him.’
 
George sought to get up and take his leave. The professor suggested he stay.

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