by Brian Hughes
“One of our missing ’andy-persons.” Hodges lifted his eyes from his toe-caps. “Looks like we’ve got a matchin’ set now.”
“Dovecote Hall!” The memory finally came back to her. “Both of our handy-people visited there…”
Another pause for thought
“And that’s where Reginald’s gone! Superintendent? Gather your men and call an ambulance! If I’m not much mistaken, Inspector Nesbit’s heading straight into trouble!”
It was important to hear this exchange. Although most of the facts were already known, the incident itself still holds significance. Especially considering what’s going to happen in a couple of chapters time.
About quarter-of-an-hour later the ambulance left its ramshackle station on the outskirts of Greyminster. It wailed through the streets, Tobias Retinue the Third (Agatha’s favourite mongrel) barking loudly on its tail.
However, we digress. Let’s go back to where we were a few moments ago.
This is a different place. Dark and strange. It crackles and buzzes. It’s a place that won’t be found on any normal map of Lancashire. Down we head, through the wax crayon roof and along the pipes that hang from the rafters.
Benjamin Jarvis stared at the egg-headed freak. (Possibly egg-head is an understatement. This particular skull was as disproportionate to its tiny owner as a flea would be carrying the world on its back.) Jarvis’ eyes flashed like a prism.
“I don’t know what you’re looking so smug about!” The freak craned forwards. “The fellowship is destroyed! Your life work ruined. Your futile life itself is almost at an end.”
“Nghmm mffmngh mngnhm!”
Curiosity got the better of the evil villain. The cable released itself from Jarvis’ mouth. Jarvis breathed in then repeated his last few words.
“Your minion is dead, Doctor. And you’re correct, the fellowship has been destroyed. And I am here, held prisoner by your own stupidity. There is nobody left now to do your bidding. You will remain forever banished to this festering underworld.”
(Admittedly there were a few more words this time.)
“You’re wrong, Jarvis. There will be others. Other students who will foolishly stray into places best undisturbed.” The freak’s bulbous head pulled on its reins as he sat back and arched his fingers together. “In fact, there are idiots treading the boards at this moment.”
“You wouldn’t ruin the life of a scholar?” Jarvis struggled against his restraints. “Even you wouldn’t stoop that low!”
“They are not students.” The freak smirked. A periscope descended from the ceiling. With jabbing movements he swung the handles to and fro. “They are servants of the crown. A detective and a…”
His words trailed off into a grumble. With a slam the handles were upended. The periscope rose back into the roof.
“And a certain ginger-haired sergeant we’ve had dealings with before.” He slapped his palms together. “Well now, Jarvis! It’s time for us to part. You’re too late to prevent the inevitable.”
“You’re going to release me?” Jarvis looked astonished.
“Not I, you cantankerous fluke. My next little helper will see to that.”
“Quit your meddling Doctor Ba…” It was worth a try but Jarvis’ voice sounded as though it was going down a plug.
Moments later his body separated into millions of embers. As he vanished the cables toppled to the ground.
“Come to me, Sergeant Clewes.” There was a rasping noise as the freak’s grubby hands rubbed together. “Come to me and take your place amongst my task-force.”
Malcolm ducked beneath another lintel. The chamber beyond was an almost impenetrable cube of darkness.
Dim pulsing lights blinked back and forth. It put Malcolm in mind of a machine from a Fritz Lang movie.
Something brushed against his fingertips. He passed his palm around it. Then he realised it was suspended in mid-air. A bead of sweat ran down his temple. Don’t panic, Sergeant. Use the torch! With trembling fingers he dug in his pocket. Having pressed the button an effulgence glowed through the wool of his dufflecoat.
Shortly the torch beam circled the room. It lit up numerous control panels. After a slow sweep it came to rest on the helmet he’d been stroking. The sort of helmet that fighter pilots might have worn. A twisted wire appeared to be hanging from its base like some sort of dismembered spinal column.
Malcolm blinked. The thread vanished. With sweating palms he grabbed the helmet and gave it a yank. Benjamin Jarvis suddenly appeared. “Put it down, man! Put it down! You’ve no idea how dangerous that bloody thing is!”
His voice seemed to thunder from the darkness, having now returned to his two-dimensional form. In panic Malcolm dropped the helmet. Jarvis jabbed one sinister finger towards his chin. “Where’s the other one?”
All that Malcolm could achieve in response was a whimper. “Wha…what the bloody ’Ell are you?” He tottered backwards, bumping into a cupboard. It spluttered into life.
“Get off that console!” Jarvis expanded and shrank through Malcolm’s watery vision. He tried to brush the overwhelmed policeman to one side. Malcolm staggered, tripped with all the grace of a hippopotamus and slammed against the rug. “Answer me, Sergeant! Where is the other one? That bloody useless detective inspector?”
He frowned. “For God’s sake! Don’t tell me the fool is wandering about downstairs?”
Malcolm’s larynx and oesophagus had apparently changed places in all the confusion.
“Quickly man! We must stop him, before he gets sucked into non-existence!”
Seconds later Jarvis’ flapping coat scythed through the air with a crack as he took to his heels.
The kitchen was a cramped and mouldy affair. Not much more than an overgrown cupboard really. Having fought with a set of curtains full of dead flies, Nesbit discovered that the gorse bushes crowded against the window let in even less daylight.
For a while he stumped around, hoping that what looked like currants in the loaf he’d found weren’t presents left by mice. Eventually he found enough cutlery to prepare himself a lemon curd and pork sandwich. He might not have eaten it had he noticed the label on the jar. It read in antiquated gothic script:
Prof. Charles Augustus Milverton. Bile Sample 1869.
With a mouthful of bread he wandered back into the lounge. One particularly stubborn bit of rind wedged itself between his front teeth. He gave it a tug. Henry Jacobs’ missing ear toppled onto the floor. Fortunately he didn’t notice. Removing his oxford from his pocket he planted it firmly beneath the shrubbery of his moustache. Then he turned his attention to the darkest corner of the room. The blackness buzzed. He squinted but the more he stared, the more his eyes watered. So he gave the hole a prod with his pipe.
There was a rip. It was closely followed by the sort of shredding noise an aardvark would make if it had eaten a firework.
The pipe vanished. Nesbit examined his fingertips. Screwing his eyes up, he leaned forwards and probed the hole with his index finger.
“Stop him!” The sudden holler was accompanied by Malcolm’s hands pulling him backwards.
Suddenly Nesbit realised what he’d done. With the sort of strength that could have raised the Titanic, the invisible force-field almost tugged him off his feet.
Malcolm struggled, tears of agony welling in his eyes. Bravely he took the full brunt of the strain as Nesbit’s arm became engulfed in Professor Post’s event horizon. Bewildered he watched as his mackintosh cuff stretched out before him.
Malcolm dug his heels into the carpet, felt his fingers slip against the oily coat, gritted his teeth and summoned up the last of his strength. With a scream the two policeman flew backwards. They disappeared into the furniture. Nesbit’s trilby span on the edge of the darkness for a moment. Then it became a streak of water colour and vanished.
“Malcolm?” He patted the corkscrew of tousled hair on his head. His bald crown was all hot and stinging to the touch. “What the bloody ’Ell was all that?”<
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A sudden thought struck him. “I’ve lost me pipe. That bloody thing’s had away with me oxford.”
“You almost lost your life as well, Inspector.” Dr. Jarvis broadened into something only just recognisable as human. “If it hadn’t have been for your sergeant here, you would be dead. There is no time inside a black hole. Only gravity so dense you’d have been crushed to the size of an atom.”
Nesbit rubbed his eyes and stared. His lower jaw fell open as the apparition crossed the floor. “Clewes! What the ’Ell do you think you’re doin’? Get off your arse and arrest that…that…thing!”
Malcolm was nursing the back of his head.
“Clewes, that’s the ghost! The one I saw at Bevel’s Brook!” Wagging his finger Nesbit rose unsteadily. His nose was purple with fury.
“I’m not a ghost.” Jarvis reached him. “I’m just an ordinary mortal, like yourself.” He stopped and thought about that. “Well, almost like yourself.”
Then he collapsed into an armchair, burying his thin face in his bony hands.
“I demand an explanation!” Nesbit snorted. “And might I remind you that anything you say will be taken down and…”
Jarvis interrupted him curtly. “The fellowship is gone. Now the people of Greyminster must be told everything. I must warn them to stay away from this house of abomination.”
With blinking eyes he lifted his face. “This must not continue, Inspector. What happened here should be a lesson for us all. You’d better take a seat.”
It might have been Jarvis’ scowl that made Nesbit comply with his request. It might have been the pleading in his voice. Whatever it was, Nesbit propped himself up against the sideboard.
“I have a story to tell, Inspector. A story so bizarre it’ll blow your tartan socks into next week.” He rubbed the crook of his walking stick, letting his memory drift. “I have a story that’ll end this little mystery of yours. But it’s doubtful that much of it will stand up in court.”
Chapter Eighteen: The Final Problem
January 19th 1998. Just over one year before the start of our story. It was a crisp night, the sky bloated with snow. Flurries left jagged blades of white in random streaks across the town.
Tonight was the sort of night where sound carried. Distant bleats drifted down from unseen sheep in the dark blue fields.
Across the gates at Druid’s End Cemetery the frost had been at work. The hinges screamed as three apparently headless figures forced them open.
“What exactly are we doing, Jarvis?” A cabbage of breath swelled out of Oliver Post’s mouth as he spoke. “This can’t be above board?”
Post was considerably thinner back then. Still fat by normal standards but not the blubbering mass he would later become.
“It was Barclay’s final request.” Jarvis grunted as the gate swung inwards. “He said that if the machine was completed before his brain decomposed, he was willing to take part in our experiment.”
“And what exactly would that be?”
“Doctor Barclay was a b…b…brilliant mind.” Henry Jacobs brought up the rear as the three grave robbers crept between the tombs. “He was the f…f…first to ever disprove Einstein’s Inverse U…u…universe Theorem.”
Post adjusted the shovel on his shoulder and lifted his storm lantern.
“What exactly was Einstein’s Inverse Universe Theorem?”
“Fascinating t…t…topic. One that Einstein spent the last part of his life trying to prove. He reckoned the u…u…universe was an inverted sphere. A bit like taking a ball and turning it inside out, for the l…l…layman.”
Post wasn’t a layman, having majored in Quantum Physics. However, fortunately for us, he was unacquainted with this idea.
Henry noticed his confusion. “Suppose you had a ball? A rubber ball? The sort of thing you’d use in t…t…tennis.”
“Actually, Henry old fellow, tennis balls are covered in flock.”
Henry ignored the correction and continued. “If you wound a length of string, starting at the t…t…top, around its girth…” Despite Post’s attempt to ask the question, ‘Where exactly would the top of a ball be then? Henry struggled on. “Then the diameter of each loop would increase until it reached halfway down. Whereupon they would start to get smaller again.”
Post shuffled his spade onto the other shoulder, almost removing the top of his head in the process.
“Einstein’s theorem was similar. He claimed if you started a ball of string at the centre of the universe and kept on wrapping it around itself, then sooner or later the l…l…loops would start to get smaller.”
Post was obviously having difficulty with this. At length: “Where would you get a piece of string that long from then?”
“The l…l…length of the string is academic.”
They stopped. Jarvis dropped his portmanteau to the ground.
“What’s important is that Old Barclay understood where Einstein had gone w...w...wrong. Decent enough idea. But ultimately f…f…flawed.”
For several moments they peered into each other’s eyes. Growing impatient Jarvis hacked the frozen ground with his spade.
“For God’s sake, tell him where Einstein went wrong Henry and put us all out of our misery. Then perhaps we can get on!”
Henry leant forwards on his pickaxe handle.
“It was Barclay’s c…c…contention that a scientist shouldn’t attempt to prove his own theories because, sometimes, simply to disprove them would save an awful lot of time.”
Professor Post nodded in acknowledgement.
“Barclay said that to invert the universe, all of infinity outside must somehow be compressed into an infinitely d…d…dense and infinitely s…s…small mass in the centre.”
Post nodded again, not understanding in the slightest but also not bothered.
“An inverse ball would mean that every point inside it would be the centre. And therefore every conceivable point of the universe would be infinitely d…d…dense.”
Not unlike Professor Post it would appear. Jarvis studied the Mathematical Lecturer’s empty face. Then he looked at the burial plot and wrinkled his nose.
“That was only one of his hypotheses, of course. A most logical b…b…brain.”
Post thought about matters.
“Forgive me for sounding asinine, Jacobs. But what has that got to do with digging up the principle?”
This time Jarvis broke the lull, applying pressure to his spade with the sole of his boot.
“Barclay’s mind is far too valuable to lose. All that information rotting away. A myriad libraries of the most brilliant scientific reasoning becoming nothing more than fodder for belligerent worms.”
He raised his eyes.
“He agreed to let us have his brain after death. On the grounds that we might be able to salvage some of his wisdom.”
“What exactly did he die of?”
“He had a h….h…heart attack.” Jacobs wrestled with the stubborn ground, small fissures of darkness opening up beneath his pickaxe. “The bloody photocopier exploded and burnt his bo…burnt his bo…burnt his bottom at the New Year’s party. A tragic loss.”
“You can say that again. Those things cost a fortune.” Post paused. “I know this is going to sound repetitive, but what has this got to do with digging up Barclay’s corpse?”
There was a thud as Jarvis’ spade hit something wooden. He scrabbled into the hole.
“Henry’s built a computer. For years British Telecom has been trying to download human memories into a neural net. Judging by the state of their telephones I’d be surprised if they’d connected the plug yet.”
“And will I get to see this remarkable machine?”
“If you get your cadaverous arse down here and give us a hand, yes!”
Excitedly Post avalanched into the grave. There followed the sounds of wood splintering beneath his boots.
“Excellent. I await its unveiling with bated breath.”
“I know, I can smell
it from here. Henry..?” Jarvis grunted as the coffin lid was hoisted above his head. It was hurled, sacrilegiously, into a drift of grubby snow. It came to rest upright, resembling an ice-cream wafer. “Put your foot on Barclay’s head and stop it from rocking. I’m going to ram my shovel through his neck. We don’t need to lug the whole body back to the hall. All we want is the brain.”
“As far as I can see, Sir, if it was written in ’is will that he was ’appy to go along with it, you weren’t breakin’ any laws. ’Owever, exactly ’ow does all of this fit in with the murders?”
Nesbit fumbled for his pipe, then realised he’d lost it. Jarvis raised his eyes from the rug and cracked his knuckles individually.
“I was just coming to that, Inspector.” With the hook of his thumb he traced a thoughtful pattern on the handle of his walking stick. “In the end, after much deliberation between Post and Jacobs, it was decided we should remove the body in one piece. After all was said and done we couldn’t hack the principle’s head off.”
“So, where’s the body now, Sir?” Malcolm scratched his head with his pencil.
“We burnt it, Sergeant. At least, we burnt what was left. On this very hearth.”
All six eyes flicked towards the smouldering grate.
“We removed the brain using more conventional methods, of course. A rusted scalpel and a broken hacksaw borrowed from Mr Privet the Carpentry Master. Then we put it in a pickle jar so as not to be disturbed by over-inquisitive housekeepers.”
Nesbit shuddered as the dim recollection of dipping his finger into just such a jar swam back to haunt him.
“So, presumably Sir, y’ then connected ’is brain up to your computer?”
“Only while we downloaded the information. It proved more difficult than first anticipated…” Jarvis probed at the buzzing ashes. “The brain stores its memories using chemicals. The translation was incredibly troublesome. However, Jacobs is…or rather was...a remarkable fellow.”