The Abominable Showman

by Robert Rankin

  Happily I had thought to fasten my safety belt.

  ‘That went rather well,’ I said to Barry.

  The sprout made gasping gagging sounds.

  I switched off the engine, and removed the ignition key. ‘Job done,’ I said and I tossed the key in my hands.

  ‘Right,’ said Barry, ‘and now we are here, you can leave the rest to me.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And how so might this be?’

  ‘You stay here,’ the time sprout said. ‘Do not open the outer door and do not leave the spaceship.’

  ‘But then how –?’ I began.

  ‘I will take care of business,’ said Barry. ‘I am one of God’s vegetables and I can move freely here in the Garden.’

  ‘The Garden of Eden?’ I said.

  ‘Just trust me,’ said Barry. ‘All you have to do is sit right there and wait for me to get back, hopefully in the company of the professor and the boys.’

  ‘And I do nothing at all?’ I said, rather pleased with this turn in events.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Barry. ‘Just sit there and don’t leave the ship and you will be safe.’

  I took to shrugging my shoulders. ‘I have no problem with that.’

  ‘To even be here is an act of supreme blasphemy. But should your feet touch the sacred soil…’ Barry did not say any more but the implications were grave.

  ‘Just one thing, ‘I said. ‘You must make Professor Mandlebrot promise that in return for us rescuing him he will take us straight back to The Leviathan.’

  ‘Well,’ said Barry.

  ‘Don’t “well” me,’ I said. ‘There is no point in rescuing us if all he’s going to do when rescued is steer us into the sun.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Barry.

  ‘See what you can do?’

  But then I felt something pop in my head and suddenly Barry was gone.

  Time passes slowly when you are sitting alone in a spaceship on a planet you shouldn’t be on. I got up from the pilot’s seat and paced the cabin floor. I peered out of the windscreen, but it was obscured by foliage. I wandered from porthole to porthole, but I couldn’t see very much. And then I sat once more in the pilot’s chair. And I thought about how easy it had been to steer the spaceship. And how all alone and vulnerable I was here. And how, perhaps, Barry had even now come to grief and the professor and the silly boys had all been boiled to death in a great big pot. And so, how the wisest thing to do would probably be to take the ship back into space and set a course for Earth and The Leviathan.

  Because it now seemed quite clear to me that my plan of going for help and getting Count Rostov to strike some deal with the Venusians was a much better plan that anything Barry might have in his tiny sprout mind.

  I should simply leave and that was that.

  But then I thought what an awful idea this was.

  What a dreadful thing this would be to do.

  How utterly irresponsible indeed!

  Because, after all, I was on the planet Venus.

  And if I was on the planet Venus, I shouldn’t really go rushing off into space without first, at the very least, stretching my legs on the planet itself, and having a bit of a look around before I left.

  Possibly even picking a flower or two to take back with me as a souvenir of my visit.

  It was a once in a lifetime chance.

  It would be foolhardy not to seize the opportunity.

  Irresponsible, really.

  ‘Just a quick walk outside,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll be off.’

  For where could the harm be in that?

  22

  Time passes differently on Venus.

  Differently from time on Earth, or time on board The Leviathan.

  The lordship and the ladyship had finished their tea, both in the Tudor Tea Room and later ‘with the parson’ in Lady Agnes Rutherford’s glamorous boudoir.

  There had been a degree of ‘chasing pinky round the lady garden’ and a considerable helping of ‘buffing the landau’. All was brought to a satisfying conclusion by a frenzied bout of ‘biffing the badger’ followed by further champagne.

  Sir Jonathan was somewhat flushed. ‘Mind if I take off the tricorn, my dear?’ said he. ‘And the boots too and the frock coat?’

  ‘You might leave the boots on,’ replied Lady Agnes. ‘We can’t have your feet getting cold.’

  Yes, it was all hanky panky back in the roaring twenties. All gay abandon and cocaine-flavoured crisps. As long as you were wealthy, of course. The poor, as ever, made do.

  ‘I have two tickets for the Music Hall tonight,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford, divesting himself of his pistols. ‘Private box, I wonder whether you might care to join me.’

  Lady Agnes slipped out of the pony harness and returned the goldfish to their bowl. ‘I should be thrilled,’ she said. ‘I understand that Señor Voice the Syncopating Spaniard will be performing.’

  Sir Jonathan humphed as a gentleman might. ‘He has an eye for the English ladies,’ said he.

  ‘Really,’ Lady Agnes removed her iron spats. ‘I have never made this gentleman’s acquaintance.’

  ‘There are jugglers, I believe,’ said Sir Jonathan.

  ‘And who might be topping the bill?’

  Sir Jonathan mumbled something under his breath.

  ‘Just a tad louder, my dear,’ said Lady Agnes.

  ‘Sophia Poppette,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘Whoever she might be.’

  Lady Agnes smiled at this. ‘So your knowledge of the weird and wonderful, as evidenced by your talk yesterday, does not encompass a being that the majority of men consider the most enchanting creature in the solar system.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Sir Jonathan. ‘That Sophia Poppette.’

  ‘That indeed,’ said Lady Agnes. ‘But in truth she is a fascinating creature. Is she human? Is she Venusian? Is she something else?’

  ‘She is neither human, nor Venusian,’ said his lordship. ‘For I am both and she is not of my kind.’

  ‘An enigma then. And one, perhaps, that we might seek to solve together.’ Lady Agnes, naked but for her high-heeled slippers, seated herself at her dressing table and took to removing the marzipan with the special brush provided.

  ‘Are you suggesting a partnership?’ asked Sir Jonathan. ‘That we might have some shared interest other than in the obvious?’

  ‘In the Poppette?’ said Lady Agnes. ‘She is an enchanting little thing.’

  Sir Jonathan stroked his chin and cocked his head. ‘I feel you are suggesting something more.’

  ‘And if I was, would you be agreeable?’

  His lordship nodded and said, ‘I might well be.’

  ‘I had hoped you might say that. Because you see, Sir Jonathan, I know why you have come aboard The Leviathan.’

  ‘For COD AND CHIPS and the good Queen’s Double Sapphire celebrations.’

  ‘Something more than that, I am thinking.’

  ‘Really madam, I don’t know what you might mean.’

  ‘I will be blunt, sir. I know precisely why you have come aboard The Leviathan.’

  ‘Pray do tell,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  ‘I am an authoress and a private investigator. And I am something more than those. I have been on your case, as it were, for a number of months. I have observed how your investigations have led you from there to there to somewhere else, but finally to here. You were not the speaker originally chosen by COD AND CHIPS to be the unknowing participant in this year’s game. That speaker was Sherlock Haines, the Derivative Detective. Sherlock had an unfortunate accident, did he not?’

  Sir Jonathan nodded thoughtfully. ‘He slipped upon a banana skin and fell beneath a tram. I happened to be present when this accident occurred. I contacted his next of kin, of course.’

  ‘Well of course you did,’ said Lady Agnes, picking a length of fishing line from her teeth. ‘And Sherlock’s gold watch just happened to fall into your pocket.’

  ‘Hm,’ went Sir Jonathan Crawf
ord.

  ‘And you nobly stood in for Mr Haines. And feigned complete incomprehension regarding what your role in the game might be.’

  ‘In truth I did not know,’ said Sir Jonathan. ‘Yet as you seem to know so much, I will admit that it was extremely convenient.’

  ‘Because it gave you an opportunity to, how shall we put this, neutralise the opposition?’

  ‘Please say what you have to say,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  ‘The presence of six detectives aboard The Leviathan might seriously have compromised your plans.’ Lady Agnes glanced into the dressing table’s looking glass. She paused and studied Sir Jonathan’s reflection. ‘You wear a troubled look,’ said she.

  ‘I am, to say the very least, impressed, fair lady,’ and his lordship bowed.

  ‘You are not a detective, as such, are you Sir Jonathan?’

  ‘I have never claimed to be, your ladyship. I have helped out fellows in need and gained some reputation for so doing.’

  ‘But your real skills lie elsewhere.’

  Sir Jonathan smiled about at the boudoir. ‘Why thank you, madam,’ he said.

  ‘Not those skills,’ Lady Agnes smiled also. ‘I speak of course regarding your military training and your membership of the Hurlingham Rifle Club, where you have been supreme champion marksman five years running. And the card you carry in your wallet, identifies you as an active operative working for the Ministry of Serendipity –’

  Sir Jonathan patted at the place where he kept his wallet. He noted well its lack and shook his head.

  ‘The weapons secreted in the false bottom of your portmanteau are brand new government issue. The Chinaman you killed, supposedly in error, mistaking him for Mr Who. That Chinaman was Sid Manchu, son of the Hong Kong tong lord, whose name will remain unmentioned. You sent a telegram to Scotland Yard not an hour ago, claiming the bounty on him. Now, regarding –’

  ‘Please stop, please,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘I am overwhelmed by your skills in private detection. I never would have dreamed that –’

  ‘A mere woman might find you out?’

  ‘That such a beautiful woman would be in the same profession as myself.’

  ‘Ah, sir,’ said her ladyship. ‘Perhaps then you have investigated me.’

  ‘Most thoroughly and intimately,’ said Sir Jonathan. ‘And might I say that some of the places you have chosen to conceal your most highly-sophisticated armaments are both enterprising and imaginative.’

  ‘Then I think we have no secrets from each other,’ she said. ‘You are here on a single mission, a mission that is identical to my own. We are both here to assassinate Count Rostov.’

  Sir Jonathan Crawford extended his hand. ‘Agent twenty-three,’ he said. ‘Gentleman assassin for the Ministry of Serendipity.’

  Lady Agnes shook this hand. ‘Agent double-0-three,’ she said, ‘of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.’

  ‘Only one thing puzzles me,’ said Agent twenty-three. ‘When this mission was outlined to me and the importance of its success laid out in no uncertain terms, I was told that an undercover operative would contact me here on board. I confess my utter delight to discover that this contact is a beautiful woman. But I was led instead to believe that it would be a naughty little boy.’

  I turned the big stopcock affair that released the entry port and the port swung down to form a sloping ramp.

  And then I looked out upon the Garden of Eden.

  For such a biblical wonder it truly was.

  I had visited the hot houses of Kew Gardens and there was much of them here. The lush and dripping vegetation, the rich moist air, the heady and marvellous fragrances.

  But there was something else.

  I recalled a time two summers before, when the daddy had taken myself and the family for a holiday in Boscastle, Cornwall. If one did not know well the daddy’s ways one might have been puzzled by the seemingly random nature of the locations he chose for us to holiday. Within our family, however, we knew of the daddy’s love for a private ‘folk’ museum.

  Boscastle at that time held one that was unique.

  THE MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT

  AND DEMONOLOGY

  The daddy had impressed upon me at an early age that the real wonders of any private museum were not to be found in the public viewing galleries, but rather down in the bowels of the basement, hidden away in boxes.

  The daddy sought ever to gain entrance to the private collection below, and he was rarely denied. His technique was simple enough, but ingenious. He would take me along with him and soon strike up a conversation with the curator.

  The conversation would soon turn to the wonders beneath and how the boy (myself) longed to see them. How learning and the acquisition of knowledge were the very bread of life to the boy and how it would be a churlish fellow indeed that would refuse the boy the opportunity to further his education.

  I recall a museum in Norfolk where the curator took us downstairs, produced an old shoe box and placed it into my hands. Within it was a shrunken human head. I vividly recall the little face and the fact that it had pierced ears.

  But regarding THE MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY, it was within the cellar beneath that I was afforded a gaze at a magic crystal.

  The curator said that it had once belonged to Uther Pendragon and that if you held it to the light and peered long enough into it, one could see from there to eternity.

  And he held it up to a shaft of light that slid through the cellar window and I peered into it.

  And I will swear until the day I die, that I saw from there to eternity.

  And now I stood upon that sloping ramp and peered into an eternity of magic and wonder.

  I felt wonder, I felt fear and suddenly too I felt brave.

  So, without further thought or care, I stepped from that spaceship and entered the Garden of Eden.

  23

  ‘Might I enquire,’ asked Sir Jonathan Crawford, ‘as to why Her Majesty’s Secret Service wants the rascal Rostov put in his grave?’

  The two sat now in a private box sipping more champagne. The private box was in the on-board Music Hall and it was half time in the proceedings. So far Sir Jonathan and Lady Agnes had enjoyed Little Tich doing The Big Boot Dance, Josephine Baker doing her famous Banana Dance, Salomé doing The Dance of the Seven Veils, a skeleton from Bletchley performing the Danse Macabre and a Dancing Dog from Dagenham that tripped the light fandango.

  The dancing dog gained much applause, but let itself down by doing a poo on the stage.

  ‘Why precisely must Rostov die?’ asked Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  ‘Do you know of a drug called Yage?’ asked Lady Rutherford.

  ‘A powerful narcotic, distilled from some South American cactus or root, I believe.’

  ‘A little more than that, my dear. Yage you might say, is the Venusian drug of choice.’

  ‘This is news to me,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  ‘As to most others,’ her ladyship said. ‘But such indeed is the case. It is grown upon Venus but its export to Earth is illegal. But still it comes. By the barrel-load. London has fallen under its spell you might say.’

  ‘And Count Rostov is the importer?’

  ‘If I was to tell you that there are thirty tons of refined Yage, sufficient to supply every man woman and child of the Empire for a year, stowed away in the hold of this vessel, might the knowledge surprise you?’

  ‘In truth, yes,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘But even this would be insufficient for Her Majesty’s government to pass a death sentence upon the count.’

  ‘On Earth,’ said Lady Agnes. ‘But not here.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said his lordship. ‘For here we are above the law of the Empire. And so Count Rostov must die for his sins.’

  ‘Those and many others he seeks to commit.’

  ‘Perhaps you allude to this talk that he is raising some kind of private army and would overthrow Her Majesty the Queen.’

  ‘Perhaps,�
� said Lady Agnes Rutherford. ‘But let us speak of yourself. Why does the Ministry of Serendipity seek to destroy the count?’

  ‘There is something far deadlier than Yage, your ladyship. And that thing is magic. Pure, refined and utterly deadly. And utterly illegal upon Earth. It is the Ministry’s belief that the count is being groomed in the ways of sorcery by the Venusians and that whatever horrors he seeks to unleash upon the Empire will be of a magical nature.’

  ‘And you have proof of this?’

  ‘As much as you, regarding the Yage. There is a great deal of speculation. But those in power are sure of one thing and that is, Count Rostov must die.’

  Lady Agnes nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘So I will certainly be grateful for your assistance when I accomplish the task,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  ‘When you accomplish the task?’ Lady Agnes raised a manicured eyebrow.

  ‘Why certainly madam, but I will be grateful for any help. Such as cleaning weapons, fetching cartridges, serving tea and suchlike.’

  There was a certain pause, a certain silence. But it came to an end with a certain smack.

  ‘Ouch!’ said Sir Jonathan, rubbing his cheek.

  ‘You twerp,’ said Lady Agnes.

  ‘Yes, but I –’

  ‘I will take care of the count,’ said Lady Agnes. ‘I have ways and means that you cannot conceive.’ And with that she raised a gloved hand and snapped her fingers. Steely needles sprang from her fingers’ ends. ‘Each tipped with poison,’ the lady said. ‘Be grateful that I never scratched your back while we were enjoying each other.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘Then perhaps we should make it sporting. Each to his or her own. A grand shikar with a prize for who first bags the count.’

  ‘I will drink to that,’ said Lady Agnes. ‘But see, the orchestra strikes up and now the curtain rises. Let us enjoy the entertainments and speak later of the grand shikar and the prize. Ah but see, what is this?’ and her ladyship pointed with a steely-needled finger. ‘Down there by the orchestra pit. Surely that is Dawkins the Simian Sleuth. He wears his arm in a sling, you only winged him.’