The Mechanical Messiah (4 page)

‘Ah,’ said the colonel. And nodded his elderly head. ‘And what is more,’ continued Alice, coquettishly cocking her head upon one side, ‘you have spared your fellow performers, having caused the mob to exhaust its supply of mouldy fruit and vegetables.’

‘Ah,’ said the colonel once more. And he once more sucked upon his cigar.

‘Sorry about your monkey, though,’ said Alice.

Colonel Katterfelto gazed down at his erstwhile monkey butler, now bedraggled stage assistant. Darwin, with no night-vision goggles to enable him to view ‘incoming’, was a monkey greatly in need of a bath. A sad and sorry sight.

A shadow of a smile appeared upon the colonel’s face, but sensing a retribution for such an expression that was likely to come in the form of faeces, he turned far down the corners of his mouth and said, ‘Poor fellow indeed. Perhaps, dear lady, you might assist in bathing my hirsute companion. Your hands being smaller than my own and better suited to so delicate a task.’

‘Well…’ went Alice Lovell.

The colonel displayed his hands and caused these to tremble somewhat. ‘The shock of it all,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should retire this night forever from the stage.’

It was now Alice Lovell’s turn to say, ‘Ah.’ Followed by, ‘Not a bit of it, sir. You must complete the season with the rest of your fellow performers.’ Adding that she would gladly cleanse the ape upon this occasion.

Darwin viewed the attractive young woman, scarcely a head higher than himself Slim and sleek, with the prettiest of faces. Certain thoughts passed through the mind of Darwin the Music Hall monkey. Certain thoughts that are best left unrecorded.

Alice Lovell took Darwin by the hairy hand and led him to the patent water closet.

Onstage, the Travelling Formbys were singing a song that extolled the virtues of a washed bottom and a clean handkerchief The crowd, most of whom owned to neither of these, sang along with vigour. Whilst making a mental note that next week they must bring
more
fruit and veg.

Cameron Bell put his finger to the servant-call button and when the liveried menial arrived at the box, ordered a bottle of champagne. ‘With three glasses, if you please.’

And then he settled back once more in his comfortable seat and longed for Alice Lovell.

Cameron Bell had scarcely known a woman’s touch since the death of his mother. For he was a man driven, a man consumed by his occupation. Not for him the pleasures of the flesh, or indeed the deeper joys of female companionship. His was a solitary and cerebral existence. To match his wits against master criminals and to succeed. To unravel the seemingly inextricable conundrums that foxed the fellows of Scotland Yard. To prove that he was the best, nay, better than the best.

Mr Carl Gustav Jung had already coined a term to describe the mental condition of subjects he examined who displayed the obsessive nature of Mr Cameron Bell. Mr Bell had no time for such nonsense. And no time for Carl Gustav Jung.

In truth there was really only one being in the whole wide world that Mr Bell had any personal time for, and that was the adorable Alice. Cameron Bell was in love with Alice Lovell.

But could this angel made flesh ever share such feelings for a young man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr Pickwick? Cameron Bell supposed it unlikely, but he could always dream.

The liveried menial brought the champagne; Cameron Bell uncorked it. What could a man such as himself offer a woman such as Alice? he wondered. He had money, if money she wanted. He was well paid at times for the exclusive and discreet services he offered to clients of the wealthy upper classes. Though somewhat portly, he dressed well and both his bottom and his hankie were clean. And beauty
was
in the eye of the beholder. The lovely Alice might take to him immediately. He might be just what she was looking for.

‘Tall and spare,’ said Alice Lovell, lathering Darwin in the water closet, ‘with a head of curly black hair. An Italian songster, perhaps. There is Señor Voice, the singing horse-tram driver of the number twenty-three to Hammersmith. He has a certain swarthy charm.’

Exactly why she was describing the man of her dreams to a monkey, Alice wasn’t certain. He just looked like a good listener.

Darwin, somewhat cross-eyed and gaga from the delicate and at times intimate bath he was receiving, picked up on the words ‘spare’, ‘curly hair’ and ‘swarthy’. A fair description of himself he supposed.

‘Five minutes, Miss Lovell,’ called a voice, as knuckles knocked at the water-closet door.

‘You’ll have to dry yourself’ said Alice to Darwin. ‘And please stop doing
that,
my dear, it really isn’t decent.’

Alice Lovell’s act could justly call itself unique.

Certainly there were many other bird and animal acts to be seen. Upon the stage and also on the streets.

But acrobatic kiwis? Not another.

There were many dancing ducks, of course, displayed along the thoroughfares. These inevitably danced upon the tops of biscuit tins. It was said, and not without good cause, that these biscuit tins generally contained a lighted candle.

Chicken baiting was, as ever, a popular sport. And women were thrilled to an excess of excitement watching a healthy young man, stripped bare to the waist and armed with nothing more than a butcher’s cleaver, matched against as many as five ferocious fowl in a backstreet chicken pit.

Ranked also high in popularity were the predictive parrots and prophesying penguins, birds so trained as to convincingly cast tarot and foretell the future. And here it has been justly stated (by those who hath the wisdom to discern trickery in the shape of the candle that heateth the biscuit tin) that a client seeking knowledge from such birds might find a far better future for five guineas than five shillings.

Acrobatic kiwis, though? Well, that was another matter.

They had come from New Zealand, of course, conveyed to these shores by Alice’s father, Captain Horatio Lovell. The good captain brought back with him a number of natural curiosities, many of which he exhibited before paying clientele. Amongst these was a mermaid. A shrivelled leathery item, quite unlike the glamorous creature pictured upon the printed handbills the captain distributed in the East End street markets.

Those discerners of candles in biscuit tins and the dubious credibility of feathered prophets concluded that Captain Lovell’s mermaid was a skilfully constructed chimera. Its top half being that of an ape, its lower, that of a codfish.

Captain Lovell argued with conviction that this was
not
the case. Conceding that perhaps his exhibit was not actually a mermaid as the creature was popularly imagined, but was, nonetheless, the genuine article.

It was a hitherto undiscovered species of aquatic ocean-going monkey.

Aquasimius Lovelli
was the name he suggested to the curator of the Natural History Museum.

His kiwi birds met with a more sympathetic audience.

Especially when presented by his delightful daughter.

The theatre-going public, always on the lookout for unusual amusements, had warmed to the acrobatic kiwis.

Alice had patiently trained her wingless charges to ride specially constructed tricycles, tread tightropes, form avian pyramids, unfurl a Union Jack and bow their knobbly knees before a framed lithograph of Queen Victoria. They were really quite this season’s thing.

The audience that night at the Electric Alhambra adored Alice and cooed and ahhhed at her kiwis as one might at a bonny baby in its crinoline bonnet. They had naught to throw, but would not have thrown it if they had. As the kiwis were put through their entertaining paces, ladies crooned and gentlemen cheered and Cameron Bell’s heart fluttered.

The private detective toasted the trainer of kiwis. The Venusians sharing his box having declined to share his champagne, Mr Bell, somewhat flushed now of face, raised high his glass and to each acrobatic perambulation of the kiwi birds cried, ‘Bravo,’ and, ‘Well done,’ and, ‘God bless you, sweet lady.’

The performance concluded with a bijou re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo. A kiwi dressed as Wellington, the Iron Duke, engaged in beak swordplay against another clad in the uniform of Napoleon. This was a great crowd-pleaser, as was indeed anything that involved the trouncing of the unsavoury Johnny Frenchman. It was patriotism, really.

Alice Lovell left the stage to rapturous applause, her kiwis on her fine high-booted heels.

And so the evening progressed. Act followed act. Turn after turn. Each receiving a warm reception.

Then came the top of the bill.

Harry ‘Hurty-Finger’ Hamilton. Darling of the Music Hall. Harry presented himself this evening in the military trappings of that now-legendary regiment the Queen’s Own Third Foot and Mouth. The terrors of Johnny Afghan in the Khyber Pass. Pith helmet rakishly angled, regimental waistcoat firmly buttoned, kilt a-sway as he gambolled to and fro, flourishing a sporran, a dirk and puttees.

From the start to the end the audience loved him. Harry held each of them in the palm of his hand. He sang the song that had made him famous. The song that the audience loved so well, for they had part in it, too.

HARRY: I’ve got a hurty-finger and it has me feeling sad.

CROWD: He’s got a hurty-finger.

HARRY: I’ve got a hurty-finger and I think it’s rather bad.

CROWD: He’s got a very hurty-finger.

HARRY: I’ve got a hurty-finger and I think it’s getting worse. I’ve got a hurty-finger, please will someone call a nurse? It doesn’t help when folk like you sing—

CROWD: Stick him in a hearse.

ALL: I’ve got a really hurty-finger.

HARRY: I’ve got a hurty-finger and it makes me want to cry.

CROWD: He’s got a hurty-finger.

HARRY: I’ve got a hurty-finger and I think I’m going to die.

CROWD: He’s got a really hurty-finger.

HARRY: I’ve got a hurty-finger and it has me feeling glum. I’ve got a hurty-finger and I really want my mum. It doesn’t help when folk like you say—

CROWD: Stick it up your b*m.

ALL: I’ve got a really hurty-finger.

Harry bowed, the crowd cheered wildly.

Harry waggled his kilt suggestively.

Washerwomen swooned and a frog-fondler clutched at his heart.

Harry bowed once more and then, without warning of any kind whatsoever, that certain event that was not listed upon the playbill, that certain event that would rightly be described as a tragic and terrible event occurred.

All of a sudden.

And just like that.

Fire seemed to fall from the Heavens.

Or did it rise from Hell?

There was a whoosh and a ball of flame.

And Harry Hamilton exploded.

He was gone in the twinkling of an eye. In a million flaming fragments.

And naught was there left to be seen of him at all, but for a single bandaged finger.

The crowd looked on in slack-jawed amazement. Was that part of the act? they asked themselves. Some spectacular finale? Those in the front rows, spattered with blood, agreed not. In terror and panic the crowd took to a collective decision. Chaos reigned as those in the stalls made a mad rush for the exits.

In his box and with only the minimum of blood-splatter soiling the silk lapels of his evening jacket, Cameron Bell looked on. He viewed the crowd and he viewed the stage and he nodded. Thoughtfully.

‘Well now, indeed,’ said he.

n unnatural silence descended.

It all but popped the ears of Mr Cameron Bell, now all alone in the great auditorium. The private detective gazed about and cocked his ear to this silence.

Distant sounds
were
to be heard. A soft purring of revolving cogs, meshing gears, spinning ball-governors. Cameron Bell identified these sounds to be those of the Music Hall’s mighty central nexus — the advanced Difference Engine, designed by Sir Charles Babbage, which managed many aspects of the Electric Alhambra’s day-to-day running.