by Tony Lewis
“My apologies, Vortex, but I forgot that ancient mythological history isn’t your field. I will explain it all in good time, but for now I think we need to acquire some aid in determining who perpetrated this act.”
“A fine suggestion, Mr. Curator.”
“Do you have any ideas? I wouldn’t have the foggiest notion where to begin, and I must say this has left me feeling rather disturbed.”
“Don’t you worry. I think I know the very people to contact. Very reliable so, I’m told, and they come highly recommended by Count Jocular no less.”
Mr. Curator brightened somewhat.
“Really? Well, they must be excellent. Only the best for His Royal Darkness, you know. Can I leave you to make the necessary arrangements? I think I need a lie down.”
Vortex smiled and nodded his head in deference.
“Of course. Leave it to me, I shall contact them at once.”
* * *
When they arrived back at the office, they found that Ronnie had already returned from his sojourn and was now sitting in the kitchen, stirring a pot of tea.
“Oh, pour us one of those mate, will you please,” asked Ollie as they all piled in. “I’m gasping. The water in London is horrible. It tastes like they’ve dissolved a used urinal cake in it.”
“Delightful. How was the conference?”
“Don’t ask,” said Stitches.
“That bad, huh?” said Ronnie, pouring out a cup of hot, steaming Earl Grey.
“Let’s just say I’ll never have a sex change operation. I couldn’t put up with all the male attention.”
“Well that’s not strictly true, is it?” said Ollie, popping a sweetener into his drink and giving it a stir. “It would take a suspension of disbelief of gargantuan proportions, and a potion more powerful than anything that Mrs. Ladle could make, to convince anyone that you were female. Especially an attractive one.”
Stitches looked a bit indignant and more than a tad hurt.
“Tell that to Colonel Bagshot, VC DFC and Bar. He thought I was pretty hot stuff.”
“That senile old dinosaur thought that Queen Victoria was still on the throne.”
Stitches put his hands on his hips and shot Ollie a look that would have made a Chatham chav proud. “I would have made him very happy,” he said.
“An Early Learning Centre Activity set and someone to talc his saggy backside would have made him happy.”
“That’s me,” Stitches said with a haughty air, doing his best not to look thoroughly dejected. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
“Bride of Frankenstein, maybe,” Ronnie added with a sarcastic flourish, lighting the cigarette that was clinging to his lips, puffing and sending a vast plume towards the ceiling. “Anyway,” he added, “just what on earth are you two banging on about? Sounds like you’ve been on a stag do in Amsterdam rather than London.”
Ollie grinned. “We’ll tell you about it sometime. How were your days off?”
Ronnie drained the dregs from his cup and set it back down on the table.
“Yeah, pretty good. I met up with a couple of mates in Humerus, did a bit of sightseeing and then went to that new nightclub, HG’s.”
“Very nice,” said Stitches. “That’s supposed to be rather upmarket, isn’t it?”
“Well, they do say that if you’re invisible, it’s the place to be seen.”
“My, that is exclusive! Was it any good?” asked Ollie, swallowing another mouthful of tea.
“Yeah it was okay, although I don’t think invisible strippers are going to catch on. I know that leaving something to the imagination is said to be a turn on, but not everything. And besides that, you don’t know what you’re tucking your money into. It could be the seam of some old hag’s surgical stocking, for all I know.”
Stitches experienced an involuntary shudder as some more than disturbing images flashed through his mind. It would have been worse if he could have actually seen them.
“Where, Ethan?” asked Flug, joining in the conversation, late as always but with his usual casual grace and Oscar Wilde type repartee. “He help me go poo.”
“Upstairs in the office,” Ronnie said after a double take. “He needs to see you actually, Ollie. There’s been a few calls while you were away.”
Ollie finished his tea, rinsed the cup out and put it on the draining board. “Oh, right. Let’s go and see, shall we?”
He found Ethan sitting behind his desk. The phone was cradled between his shoulder and his ear. He was in the middle of a conversation and was writing notes.
“No problem, Mr. Vortex. I’m sure we can help you. As soon as Mr. Splint returns from his trip, I’ll be sure to let him know at once. Thank you. Bye now.”
“Anything interesting?” asked Ollie, parking himself in Stitches’ usual chair, waving at Ethan to stay seated.
“Could be. There’s been a break in at the Fibulan museum. That was the Curator’s assistant, Vortex. He didn’t say too much, but they would like us to go over and see what we think.”
“Excellent,” said Ollie beaming, “we’ll attend shortly. Anything else?”
Ethan leafed through several ghost-it notes.
“Uh, nothing really pressing, apart from Professor Crumble blowing up a pig and having to get the cleaners in, and Constable Gullet having to arrest a joy rider who landed on the roof the other night. Usual thing, nicked a broom, under age, no insurance.”
“Any damage?”
“A few dented bristles, a couple of loose tiles and the same for three of the young chaps’ teeth. The little fellah responsible will be up in front of the Magic State Court in the next couple of days.”
“Good, hopefully they’ll throw the spell book at him.”
Having the spell book thrown at you was as literal as it sounded. The guilty party, whilst stood in the dock, had a large, black, leather bound tome hurled at them by the prosecuting counsellor. Whichever page the book opened at, after bouncing off said naughty person, was their allotted punishment. This could cover a vast spectrum from a couple of centuries interred in a marble statue or, as in one very unfortunate case of being caught haunting without a license, the perpetrator spent the whole of August as a youth group leader at an outward bound centre in North Wales. He was still undergoing therapy. Justice in Skullenia is harsh.
“Right,” said Ollie, clapping his hands enthusiastically, “let’s have the address of the museum and we’ll find out what’s going on.”
* * *
The Fibulan museum was a vast stone-built structure, nestled at the top of a hill at the end of Digitalis Avenue in Fibular. In the four hundred years of its existence, it had amassed supernatural relics and mythological artefacts beyond number. For instance, they had on display the fabled Apron of Vomitaria, which made everything the wearer cooked taste like a Pot Noodle. They also had the hallowed Christmas Lights of Forever, which you were able to switch on for up to ten minutes at a time without one of the green bulbs blowing.
The cab pulled up outside. Ollie got out and tipped the driver a few pence. Stitches would have tipped him about his cleanliness, but seeing as he was rather a large phantasm, he thought better of it. He liked his body the way it was arranged, thank you very much.
“Impressive,” commented Stitches, craning his neck back to take in the massive grey edifice. “You ever been here before?”
“Only the once,” Ollie replied, shaking his head and wincing at the memory it conjured up. “Dad brought me here when I was about eight. He thought it would be educational for me to go on the Horror of Terrors Horribly Terrible Tour.”
“And was it?”
“It taught me how to hide a wee stain. It took me ages to get over it. I had daymares for ages afterwards.”
Ollie lifted the oversized brass knocker and slammed it home. BOOM. BOOM.
A lock slid across and the immense oak door was opened from within.
“Ah, you must be the gentlemen from the agency. Do come in, please. I’m th
e Curator’s assistant, Vortex. Please allow me to show you the way.”
“Thank you. I’m Ollie Splint, and this is Stitches.”
After seeing them into the building, Vortex closed the door and beckoned them on.
“You might be interested to know, Mr. Stitches, that we have quite an extensive reanimation section on the fourth floor. Some of our zombies date back well over six hundred years. Of course it’s only their clothes, a lot of sellotape and a daily spoonful of wishful thinking holding them together these days, but they’re still fascinating nonetheless. How old are you, may I ask? You seem to be in remarkable condition, if I may be permitted the observation.”
Stitches edged ever so slightly to his left, putting Ollie squarely between himself and the assistant. Vortex, although not a large man, had a certain presence about him that made you take notice. He was of average build, average height, average appearance and, if you checked criminal history, looked like the average serial killer. The only really striking aspect about him were his eyes. They were a bright sky blue, but a sky that had been lightly sprinkled with diamond dust. They actually twinkled as they moved. It was quite attractive in a non-sexual, non-gender specific and non-judgemental about lifestyle choices way, and at the same time a little disconcerting. It felt like no matter in which direction he was facing, he would always be watching you.
“I’m just over two hundred, if you must know, and I do keep myself in good nick, thank you very much,” Stitches replied, a little more forcefully than was probably necessary, “so don’t go making room for me on one of your shelves just yet.”
“Oh no, perish the thought, dear boy. Here we are.”
Vortex showed them into an exhibit room. It was about fifteen feet square and moodily lit, the sort of place where you’d expect to be interrogated to reveal deep, dark secrets, or at the very least asked ‘have you been actively seeking work this last week?’
Uneven slate tiles covered the floor, and the walls looked as if molten lava were flowing down them.
“Amazing what you can do with a bit of artex these days,” observed Stitches.
In the centre of the room stood a five foot high plinth, on top of which was a glass cabinet. Inside this, on a small golden lectern, was a red, leather bound book that was closed. On top of the glass case was an arm. Attached to that arm was a tall, thin, kindly looking man with a long white beard and friendly, inviting features. He was dressed in a tweed suit and Hush Puppies, and looked like he would have been right at home either teaching A Level Geography in a Polytechnic, or advanced algebra at three in the morning on BBC2. He approached the two visitors and greeted them warmly, shaking each by the hand. As he spoke though, they could detect a note in his voice, a faint but distinct tremble that told them he was worried about something, and that all was not well.
“Gentlemen, I am Ignacious Starch, curator of the museum. Thank you for coming so quickly. I hope I haven’t put you to any trouble.”
“None at all,” said Ollie pleasantly, trying to put the old boy at ease. “What can we do for you?”
“Well, if I may be permitted to give you a bit of a history lesson, our dilemma should become clearer. This book,” he pointed towards the glass case with a shaky hand, “is the Compendium de Magicus Totallus. Basically, gentlemen, it contains within its pages every magic spell, incantation, cantrip, conjuration, charm, jinx and hex known to exist.”
“Quite the book of tricks then,” said Stitches, wondering where this was going.
“Well indeed. Now, nearly every one has been deciphered and used at some point throughout history. However, there is a section at the back that contains a language that has never been translated. Try as we might, we have failed. Some of the most eminent people in this field and others have attempted it, to no avail. No one seems to be able to make any sense of it at all. All we do know is that there are five pages of said text, and on the reverse of each there is what appears to be map, but again, the wording on the diagram is in the same code.”
“That’s all very interesting, Sir,” said Ollie questioningly, “but what exactly seems to be the problem? ATCHOO! Bless me.”
The curator looked downcast, his voice quiet.
“The pages in question have been stolen.”
“Oh, I see. ATCHOO! I’m ever so sorry; I must have a cold coming, unless it’s the dust.”
“Well, don’t look at me,” protested Stitches. “I’m all sewn up, nice and tight.”
To emphasize the point he slapped himself on the chest, which to Ollie’s everlasting disappointment produced nothing except a low, hollow thud.
MEOW. ATCHOO. ATCHOO. MEOW.
Ollie felt a soft, sinuous and very furry body slinking round his legs.
“I can’t understand why, but it appears your cat is setting me off,” Ollie said, desperately trying to stem the glutinous flow from his dripping nose.
“Ah, Carter has joined us. My apologies, Mr. Splint. I had no idea he’d snuck in. Vortex, would you please see him out?”
The assistant opened the display room door and ushered the feline out, whilst Ollie blew his nose explosively and tried to equalise the pressure in his cranium by making goldfish faces.
“Right,” he said, suitably de-snotted, “where were we? Ah yes, the missing pages.”
“Yes indeed,” continued the curator, “and we need to get them back before, well, who knows what could happen.”
“What could happen?” asked Stitches.
“That’s the problem,” answered Vortex, appearing from behind the zombie when he still should have been over by the door. “Nobody knows. But it would seem logical that the pages have remained untranslated for a reason, wouldn’t you say?”
“Vortex is correct,” Starch continued. “History tells us that the only reason secrets stay undiscovered is because they were meant to stay undiscovered. I have a very bad feeling in my water about this, gentlemen, I don’t mind telling you.”
Stitches, desperately trying to banish the thought of old man’s water from his head, spoke up.
“But if a secret is a secret, and no one is meant to discover the secret, what’s the point of having a secret in the first place if the secret can never be found?”
“I see your point,” said Vortex, “but if we didn’t have secrets, whether they were secrets or not, then the world of exploration and discovery would be very dull indeed, if the secrets that we were looking for weren’t secrets at all.”
“But if all secrets were never discovered and stayed secret, what’s the difference between that and this secret, which has stayed secret for so long?”
“Stitches,” Ollie interjected.
“Yeah”.
“Can I have a word?”
“In secret?”
Starch coughed audibly and raised his hands. “I think we may be getting a little off subject.”
“Quite right to,” Ollie agreed. “Who has access to the display?”
“Just myself, Vortex here, and one other who appears to have gone missing.”
“And they would be?” Ollie enquired.
“Our caretaker, Flange. At the end of each day he does his rounds of the museum, makes sure everything is in order and locks up. Unfortunately, no one has seen or heard from him since the theft.”
“And it would seem to me that the person responsible had ready access,” observed Ollie, studying the glass case. “This hasn’t been tampered with at all, has it?”
“No,” answered Vortex, “which I’m afraid puts Flange very much in the frame, doesn’t it?”
“Potentially,” said Stitches. “The only problem that I can foresee is that without the pages, and a place to start, we’re pretty much stuck at the first hurdle.”
“Maybe not,” announced Starch, “This way, gentlemen, if you please.”
Starch and Vortex led them out of the display room and into an access passage where an iron, spiral staircase stood. At the bottom of this they traversed a short walkway to a vast steel
door. Starch stood in front of the metal barrier and waved a hand whilst muttering a few unintelligible words, after which several large bolts, the size of railway sleepers, slid back, allowing the door to swing silently open.
“The vault, gentlemen,” explained Vortex.
It was more than a mere vault. It was a vast warehouse containing aisle after aisle of industrial racking.
“I take it this is all the exhibits that you don’t have room for upstairs,” Ollie stated.
“Predominantly,” replied Starch, “but it also contains the genuine copies of some of our most prized pieces, including the Compendium.”
“Oh, I see,” said Ollie, understanding what Starch was getting at. “The one upstairs is a fake.”
“Yes.”
“Very clever,” Stitches added. “Fool the people into thinking they’re seeing the genuine article, when in fact they’re seeing a load of rubbish.”
“Precisely,” said Starch.
“Like a tribute band. Almost the same, but not quite. Like Pynk Floid or Mentallica,” said the zombie.
Surprising everybody in the room, Starch agreed with Stitches’ observation. He was the last person you would have expected to be a metal head. He seemed to be more the ‘fall asleep in front of the fire whilst listening to the easiest of easy listening music’ type.
“I wonder if there’s a James Blunt tribute act?” Starch continued.
“I don’t know,” Stitches countered, “but if they’re stuck for a name, I’ve got one for them. Sort of chooses itself, actually.”
At that point Vortex returned, not that either of the detectives had noticed that he’d gone. He was carrying an iron box and four pairs of latex gloves.
“Here we are, gentlemen,” he said. “If you’ll follow me to the examination table, we’ll have a look.”
They stopped in an open area that had a large, flat, metallic table in the centre. Vortex placed the iron box down and took a key from his pocket. He placed it into the ancient lock and turned it slowly, before lifting the lid and revealing the contents.