The Londum Omnibus Volume Two (The Londum Series Book 12)

by Tony Rattigan

  ‘Two whiskies please, Sam,’ Annie said to the barman as they leaned on the bar. Jim took out his cigarette case and offered one to Annie, then lit both of their cigarettes. As the drinks arrived she held hers up before him, ‘A toast ... to all the young ladies that Mr. Darby saves from the streets.’

  Jim smiled, held his glass up and took a swig. ‘Now careful Annie, stop trying to make me out to be some sort of a saint.’

  ‘Ain’t you a saint?’

  ‘You know perfectly well that I’m more of a sinner, actually. And I only save ladies like you from the streets, so I can have them for myself.’

  ‘Anytime, Mr. Darby.’

  ‘Jim. I keep telling you, it’s Jim.’

  Annie grabbed the whisky bottle and took it to a table, Jim joined her.

  ‘As long as you’re the major shareholder in this establishment, then it’s “Mr. Darby”. Maybe once I’ve paid you off, then I’ll call you Jim.’

  ‘Very well but be careful who you tell that I put up the money for this place. I don’t want to be known for running a brothel. As far as I’m concerned it was a straight business loan to you personally, what you’ve done with it is your business.’

  (One day Annie Parker, after one of their ‘encounters’, when they were lying there smoking, had told Jim how tired she was of seeing girls on the street, risking death at the hands of total strangers and how nice it would be to open a place where they could be well looked after and protected, and customers could be vetted.

  So, Jim had offered her a simple business proposition, he would lend her the money so she could open up such an establishment. The deeds to the building would be in her name, as he had no desire to become a brothel owner, and she would pay him back as and when she could. Annie had accepted his offer eagerly and the deal was struck.)

  ‘Now don’t you worry ducks, your secret is safe with me. Now then, what are your plans for tonight?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Well, I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, got to get up early so I thought I’d just-’ He was interrupted by the noise of a disturbance next door, in the foyer. He stood up and went to see what the shouting was all about.

  When he entered the foyer he saw the doorman pinned up against the wall by two louts, who looked familiar to Jim. Oh yes, they hung around with-

  ‘Well, if it ain’t Mr. Darby.’ came an obnoxious voice from Jim’s left.

  ‘Ah, Big Mick McGarry. I thought I recognise your sidekicks,’ he replied. ‘Are you causing trouble?’

  Big Mick had hold of one of the girls by the arm. ‘I just wanted to go upstairs with this young lady but she thinks my money ain’t good enough.’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ said the girl, ‘that’s why I won’t go with you.’

  ‘You’re a whore,’ replied Big Mick. ‘When did you get the right to pick and choose who you go with?’

  ‘When she came to work here,’ said Jim.

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘Sez who?’

  ‘Sez me! Now let go of the girl or I’ll come over there and make you reconsider some of your life choices.’

  ‘You’ll do what?’ said Big Mick, baffled by Jim’s statement.

  ‘Eloquence … it’s wasted on you peasants, isn’t it. Okay I’ll keep it simple. Put her down or I’ll put you down.’

  ‘I’d like to see you tr- Aaaagh!’

  While Big Mick was talking, Jim had taken a couple of steps towards him, grabbed his arm with one hand and bent back the fingers of Big Mick’s hand that was holding the girl, so he had to release her.

  Jim gave the girl a gentle push to get her out of the way and then turned his attention back to Big Mick. He didn’t hit him too hard as he wanted him still able to walk out the place. Jim didn’t want the trouble of having to drag an unconscious man out of there.

  First he hit him on the bicep to deaden his arm and then he punched him twice in the stomach. As he bent over Jim grabbed his other arm, twisted it up behind his back and marched him towards the door. As he reached the bouncer being held by Big Mick’s mates, Jim twisted Big Mick’s arm so he squealed until they let the bouncer go. The bouncer opened the door and between the two of them they threw Big Mick and his cronies out the door and into the street.

  ‘I’ll let you use The Golden Gryphon as that’s your local but I never want to see you in here again,’ said Jim. ‘Got that?’

  Big Mick’s eyes blazed with fury but he knew when he was beaten so he nodded. As Jim stepped back inside and closed the door, Big Mick continued to stare at the closed door. ‘One day, Darby … you just wait, one day,’ he muttered under his breath.

  Back inside, the doorman said, ‘Thanks for your help, Mr. Darby. The two of them alone I could have handled but with Big Mick too, well ...’

  ‘No problem, glad to help,’ replied Jim.

  Annie was waiting for him at the bar with a glass of whisky. ‘Ail the conquerin’ ‘ero. An’ what would you like for a reward?’

  Jim slugged back the whisky in one go. ‘That kind of ruined my appetite, I think I’ll just hit the sack, got a busy day tomorrow. Do you have a spare room?’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied, ‘number twelve should be free, I’ll get you the key.’ She returned a moment later and passed him the key.

  ‘Night Annie,’ he kissed her on the cheek. ‘Night Sam.’

  The barman waved amiably and looked at Annie who was watching Jim cross the foyer and go up the stairs.

  ‘Why don’t you tell him how you feel?’ asked Sam.

  ‘What would be the point, Sam? ‘Is sort don’t take up with street girls like me, they might ‘ave some fun with us but that’s all. Besides, if I told ‘im it might scare ‘im off and I’d never see ‘im again. At least at the moment I get to ‘ave ‘im every once in a while, for a short time. It’s better than nothin’.

  ‘Anyway, I think that for a relationship, ‘is type would want somethin’ better, somethin’ more of a challenge, I guess.’

  Sam just shrugged and went back to cleaning the glasses.

  ***

  And now, if this was a film or on TV, the picture would begin to waver and the light would get dimmer … it’s all right, you’re not having a stroke …

  IT’S A FLASHBACK!!

  We go back in time to many years earlier in Jim’s life. You can tell he is much younger as his hair is longer and he wears it in a ponytail. So he is obviously younger, as men over thirty should really, … no, I mean REALLY, should never wear ponytails. Unless of course, you’re the lead singer in a Rock band, that’s the ONLY time when it’s permissible.

  (And if you disagree with that statement ask yourself this, what do real ponytails grow out of? So unless you want your head to look like a horse’s arse, think carefully my friend.)

  Jim Darby straightened up and rubbed his aching back. He stood there, knee-deep in the rice field as the rain lashed down on him.

  What am I doing here? he asked himself for the hundredth time as he watched the wizened old man sitting cross-legged in the doorway of his hut, silently watching Jim and those working alongside him.

  All around Jim were young Cantonese men all bent double, as they marched slowly backwards in line, sticking rice plants into the submerged mud in which they stood.

  Why am I doing this, I’m not a rice farmer? he asked himself again. He threw down his handful of rice plants and squelched his way to the raised ground at the edge of the field. He stood there, letting the rain wash the mud off him as he looked around at his fellow workers. Like him they were not rice farmers, they too had come to study the ancient Cantonese Martial Art of Gung-Ho, a lethal form of unarmed combat. And that is why they were here in this remote village in Canton, because this was where the school of Canton’s greatest Gung-Ho Master was situated.

  And that Master, Canton’s greatest exponent of Gung-Ho, Tie-Pin, was the wizened old man who sat, unmoving, watching them labour in the rain.

  (There was another world famous
Martial Art from Nippon which was based on the idea of using vegetables as weapons. It was called … Carroty.)

  Jim was still a young man and the wanderlust was in his veins, so he was roaming the world, trying to find his place in it. While crossing Canton, he had learnt of Tie-Pin and the method of self-defence that he was teaching and so he had made his way to this village and enrolled as a student of the Master of Gung-Ho.

  But since he’d been here, all that Tie-Pin had done was to exercise them all day, every day with stretching and running and endurance exercises, in between which he made them help out the villagers, tending the rice crop.

  I’ve had enough of this, thought Jim and made his way up the muddy, sloping road that led from the paddy fields to the village.

  Tie-Pin watched Jim impassively as he squelched his way up the slope and stopped in front of Tie-Pin’s hut, standing defiantly with his feet apart, hands on his hips. ‘I’ve been here a month now and all you’ve had us do is run around or plant rice. When are you going to teach us something useful?’ he demanded.

  ‘Running around increases your endurance, bending to plant and pick rice increases your flexibility; carrying bags of rice around increases your strength,’ answered the old man dryly.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘For now.’

  ‘But I came here to learn things … aren’t you going to make me paint your fence or wax your rickshaw or something?’

  The old man slowly raised himself to a standing position then quicker than the eye could follow, shot out his foot and kicked Jim in the centre of his chest. The blow lifted Jim off his feet and deposited him in a large puddle, several feet away.

  Tie-Pin stood on his porch, careful not to get wet and told him, ‘That is your first lesson; when somebody tries to kick you ... move!

  ‘Listen Gwailoh (Foreign Devil) … The Master is not ready to teach until the pupil is ready to learn. Now go! Plant rice!’ He went into the hut and closed the door behind him.

  Jim sat in the puddle, cradling his chest as the rain came down.

  ***

  Jim did indeed have a busy day ahead of him. He arrived at the British Museum next day, bright and early, with his camera and tripod under his arm. His press credentials testified that he was Reginald Smallpiece of The Illustrated Science Weekly. No one who knew him would have recognised him either, as his handsome, clean-shaven features were hidden behind a false moustache and side-whiskers. He was also wearing tinted glasses to cover up the silver flecks in his eyes. Too much of a giveaway if someone was asked to describe him.

  He was posing as a journalist to give him access to the British Museum’s Press day for the upcoming exhibition of the Treasures of the Boy Faraoh … Tuten Kha-Hawn.

  Albion archaeologists had discovered the buried Pyramide of the Boy Faraoh that had been lost in the sands of Eejipt. These Pyramides of Eejipt had been studied for years by the archaeologists and there was much argument about their true purpose. Besides being used to hold the mummified remains and treasures of the Ancient Faraohs, did they hold the untold secrets to the mysteries of the Universe as some believed, or were they simply Ancient Eejiptian dry ski-slopes?

  Nobody knew for certain.

  (The believers in the mystical powers of the Pyramides will tell you all sorts of fantastic tales about them. Like the proportions of X times Y times Z are exactly, almost, the distance to our nearest star … if you subtract two.

  They claim that the basic Pyramide shape has amazing properties, like placing fruit in it will keep it fresh indefinitely and if you put a blunt razor blade inside, it will somehow, magickally become sharp overnight.

  It doesn’t work. I know … I’ve tried. All that happened was my banana became sharp and the razor blade was preserved forever. ((Well, it hasn’t gone rusty yet.))

  You see, the big mistake that the Pyramide designers made in attempting to build the most magnificent, magickal, physical, elemental, structures the world has ever seen, was to build them with four sides. Ha! Idiots.

  Sure, they built triangles with three sides … but they built too many.

  While the Universe is built on balance, opposing forces, Yin and Yang etc., from a mathematical and a scientific point of view, the physical Universe is based on the power of three. ((Don’t talk to me about binary.))

  Everything comes in threes. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Tom, Dick and Harry. Winking, Blinking and Nod. It’s all about three.

  The Pyramide builders should have built triangular Pyramides … with three sides! That would have given them the source of incredible power that they were seeking.

  We could have had interstellar travel, free power for all without nukes or global warming ((as well as an everlasting supply of fresh fruit and sharp razor blades.))

  They so nearly got it right and all. Ah well, that’s life.)

  Anyway, Tuten Kha-Hawn’s treasures from his hidden Pyramide had been found and were going to go on display in the British Museum. The museum had allowed all the papers and journals to come in before the Exhibition opened and freely photograph all the exhibits.

  The photographers were able to wander around the Great Hall in perfect freedom (closely watched by security guards) and to photograph anything that took their fancy. Jim busied himself apparently taking long shots of the gallery they were in, but he was actually taking pictures of the layout of the room, where the exhibits were, how far it was to the staircases that adorned each side of the room, how many windows there were etc.

  He worked on this for some time, taking pictures of the mummy, the gold headpiece, the jewelled necklaces and all the rest of Tuten Kha-Hawn’s finery until he’d finally worked his way to the spot where he actually wanted to be.

  He casually stood his camera on its tripod in front of the display case and stood for a moment, drinking in the sight. It was a magnificent statue of a cobra’s head, standing about a foot tall, made of solid gold with large rubies for its eyes. The Snake-head was reared up with its hood flared out like it was going to attack. Jim had seen photos of it when it was first taken out of the tomb, and he thought it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen and he wanted it for himself.

  But first, he had to find out as much about it as he could. He got a tape measure and measured the distance between his camera and the display case. Then he adjusted the lens until it was properly focussed and after loading his flash unit with powder, he took his first photo. Then he proceeded to take one from every angle, carefully measuring the distance after he had moved the camera. After each photograph he noted down in his reporter’s notebook the number of the shot, the distance from the subject, the precise angle the shot was taken from based on the clock system. Every useful piece of information that could be recorded was meticulously jotted down in the notebook.

  Every one watching thought him over cautious and being too exacting and it raised a few smiles amongst the experienced journos, but what none of them knew, was that the lens of the camera had a grid pattern etched onto it. So anyone looking at the photos later, knowing the scale of the grid and the exact distance that it was taken from, could work out exactly the dimensions of the cobra head. The height, the width and the exact distances between its major features such as its eyes and its nose and so on.

  When he was satisfied that he had as much information as he could gather, he packed his kit away and, tipping his hat to the security guard, left the museum.

  ***

  Jim spent the rest of the day developing the photographic plates and producing photographs from them. Then he left them hanging to dry overnight in his bathroom.

  Next day he gathered all the photos together with his notepad and put them into a leather bag. Putting on his coat and hat he picked up the bag and his cane and left the house in search of a cab.

  Sometime later, the cab deposited him in the area of Londum known as ‘Goldsmith Alley’. Most of the artificers, the craftsmen who worked in precious metals had their wor
kshops here. He made his way to the office of one Yakob Stein. He rang the doorbell and shortly a spy hole was drawn back and he was studied carefully for many seconds. Finally it slid shut and there was a sound of bolts being withdrawn from inside.

  The door creaked open slowly and he made his way from the bright light of the street into the gloom inside. There was a young male acting as bodyguard and doorman, who closed and bolted the door again after Jim had entered the hallway.

  ‘Good morning, Mr. Darby, may I take your things?’

  ‘Morning Ari,’ replied Jim. He put down his bag and took his hat and coat off and handed them over to the young man, along with his cane. The bag he kept with him.

  ‘My father will be pleased to see you. If you’d just like to follow me,’ said the young man and led the way up the corridor to a back room.

  My father, thought Jim. Blood is the best security isn’t it?

  After knocking on the door, the guard opened it and ushered Jim into the room then closed the door behind him, from the outside.

  ‘Mr. Darby, so good to see you again, please take a seat,’ said the old man behind the desk. His white beard and his big glasses made him look like some benevolent old grandfather, which he probably was, but Jim knew he was also the finest goldsmith he had ever come across.

  ‘Morning Yakob, how are you?’

  ‘A little back pain, the damp weather makes my knees ache but you shouldn’t complain, should you?’

  That doesn’t stop you though, does it? thought Jim. But aloud he said, ‘Well, it’s better than the alternative isn’t it?’

  ‘Indeed, indeed. Now how may I be of assistance to you, Mr. Darby?’

  ‘Do you remember that little project we spoke of?’

  ‘Yes I do, rather fanciful I thought to be honest but what is life if a man’s reach doesn’t exceed his grasp? It would certainly be a challenge, one of my biggest. But you would need incredibly detailed information to accomplish such a thing.’