The Mechanical Messiah and Other Marvels of the Modern Age

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Ah,’ said Cameron Bell, suddenly aware that he had been distractedly tapping at the pocket throughout the conversation. He brought the ring into the smoky light and handed it to Crowley.

  The Beast of Revelation perused it on his palm. And Cameron Bell observed a most intense expression momentarily cloud the young man’s features. It was an expression that could justly be described as ‘covetous.

  ‘Humph,’ went Crowley. ‘A trinket, a gewgaw.

  ‘As I suspected,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Hand it back, if you will.’

  ‘It has a certain garish charm,’ said Crowley. ‘I have a young nephew it might amuse. How much do you want for it?’

  ‘I was hoping you might give me a valuation.’

  ‘Perhaps five shillings,’ said Aleister Crowley. ‘I have a ten-shilling note, if you have change.’

  ‘Return the ring,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I will waste no more of your valuable time.’

  ‘A pound, then,’ said Crowley. ‘Two pounds, three. Five pounds, then. Guineas rather than pounds.’

  ‘You would appear to be bidding against yourself,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I suspect that you have imbibed too freely of your pipe. I feel certain that this gewgaw, as you describe it, could not possibly be worth, how much did you say?’

  ‘Six guineas,’ Crowley suggested. ‘Seven if you will.’

  ‘Seven guineas?’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I would be stealing your money. But I will tell you what. I have a close friend, a Yiddisher jeweller at Hatton Garden. I will have him appraise the ring. It might well prove to your advantage.’

  ‘Oh no!’ cried Aleister Crowley, clawing his way up from his chair. ‘You must not do that.’

  Cameron Bell smiled up at his host. ‘I will be back within the hour,’ he said.

  ‘Certainly you will not,’ said Aleister Crowley.

  ‘Your magic enables you to predict the future?’

  ‘On this occasion absolutely yes.’ The magician now jigged from one foot to the other. After the manner of Lord Andrew Ditchfield, whom Cameron Bell had observed performing similar nervous jiggings the previous evening.

  ‘The ring,’ said Cameron, stretching out his hand.

  ‘Not as you value your life.’

  ‘And what of this?’

  ‘Should you take this ring into the Jewish quarter and display it to a jeweller there,’ said Aleister Crowley in the gravest of tones, ‘you will not return alive.’

  ‘Come now,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I have many friends in that neighbourhood.’

  ‘Friends or no,’ the mystic said, ‘they will murder you where you stand.’

  9

  eturn the ring,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘or I will shoot you dead.’

  The young magician looked perplexed, then stared at his friend. Cameron Bell displayed a small but deadly looking revolver, aimed at the heart of Aleister Crowley.

  ‘The ring,’ he said. ‘And now.’

  The mystic grudgingly parted with the ring, which Cameron returned to his waistcoast pocket.

  ‘And now reseat yourself and we will discuss the matter in the manner of gentlemen.’

  ‘With a gun held upon me?’ Aleister Crowley made the fiercest of faces.

  ‘And replace the poker,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘The poker that you surreptitiously took up when you rose from your chair. The one you meant to strike me down with in order to steal this ring.’

  A poker dropped from the sleeve of Crowley’s red velvet smoking jacket. Crowley now made a guilty face and returned once more to his chair.

  ‘I will do a deal with you,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘A deal to be struck between gentlemen. You will tell me everything you know about this ring and in return I will give it to you as a present.’

  ‘A present?’ The mystic’s eyes widened.

  ‘Once the case I am working on is satisfactorily concluded. But only if you are completely honest with me.

  ‘You swear that you will give the ring to me?’ Crowley was once more on his feet.

  ‘I swear and we can shake hands upon it.’

  Cameron Bell transferred his gun to his left hand and with his right hand shook that of Aleister Crowley. It was a significant handshake. And both men were aware of its significance.

  Crowley once more seated himself and stared at Cameron Bell.

  ‘Tell me all,’ said the private detective.

  ‘It is a valuable ring.’

  ‘All,’ said Cameron Bell, with a sigh.

  ‘And you promise the ring will be mine?’

  ‘You have my word upon it. Now tell me all that you know.’

  Aleister Crowley put his hands together, made steeples with his fingers and spoke. ‘It is a magician’s ring,’ he said. ‘A ring of enormous power.

  ‘You have several there upon your fingers,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘What is so special about this particular one?’

  Crowley now took to sighing. ‘It is a real magician’s ring,’ he said. ‘A magic ring, do you understand?’

  ‘I will once you have explained it all to me.’

  ‘It is this way,’ said the mystic. ‘Many books of magic exist, but few of them are genuine. The original magic book, the original grimoire, dates to the time of Moses. It is said that when he descended from the holy mountain in the company of the Ten Commandments, he also brought down other tablets that God had caused to be engraved with magical texts. Heaven’s First and Best Gift to Mankind. The magic was a gift from God to his chosen people, that they might use it for good in the glory of his name. In the absence of Moses, however, the children of Israel had created a golden calf and taken to drunken revelry. Moses cast down the tablets of stone on which were engraved the Ten Commandments. As biblical history records. And also the tablets containing the magical texts. As biblical history does not record. These were gathered up and put back together by certain evil men, who sought to use them for their own advantage. The first black magicians.

  ‘When Moses returned to the Holy Mountain, God gave him a replacement set of Commandments. But not a replacement set of the magical texts. Although he did give Moses something else. Something to compensate for the loss of the magical texts.’

  ‘And so,’ said Cameron Bell, ‘it is your contention that these magical texts were the genuine article, given to Man by God. And that copies of these texts still exist and that they can be used to bring real magic into being?’

  Aleister Crowley nodded. ‘Here be wisdom.’

  ‘Here be fiction,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I read that tale in a penny dreadful, I recall.’

  ‘Because it is partly fiction,’ said Aleister Crowley. ‘And I will explain to you why in just a moment. When I reveal to you a Great Truth. I do not believe that any Englishman other than myself would know that ring of yours to be the thing it truly is. And neither do I believe that it was simply chance that brought you here today. And brought that ring to me. It was fate. It was destiny. I am not some bogus popinjay posing as a magician. I am Crowley, the Logos of the Aeon. I sensed the magic upon you the moment you entered my rooms. I could smell it on you, as could any Cabbalist. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word Cabbala as ‘an ancient Jewish mystical tradition, based on an esoteric interpretation of the Old Testament’. It is a most fashionable movement amongst the Jewish community at present.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that the Jews are black magicians?’ asked Cameron Bell.

  ‘Quite the opposite, you fool!’ Crowley’s voice was raised in pitch, but Cameron Bell did not flinch. ‘My apologies,’ said Crowley. ‘I am no enemy of the Jews. Their magic is white. It is the purest of all magic. Because it stems from the genuine source.

  ‘From God and from Moses?’

  ‘I will explain all to you, if you listen. Your jeweller friend would have had no option other than to have killed you, or had you killed, had you shown him the ring. Because even by touching that ring you commit a supreme blasphemy. What I am going to tell you now, I tell you because you have given me
your word as a gentleman that you will give me that ring and I take you at your word.’

  ‘As indeed you can,’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘The ring in your pocket is a magic ring. It is the magic ring. The ring that Cabbalists have sought for six thousand years. It is the Ring of Moses.’

  ‘The Ring of Moses?’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘That is the something that God gave Moses to compensate him for the loss of the magical texts. That is the Ring of Moses. A direct gift from God.’

  Cameron Bell now found him self speechless. This ring was a present from God?

  ‘You must pardon me,’ he said, when he could find his voice, ‘but that is a lot to take in and as a rationalist I would be forced to dismiss it as fanciful at best.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Crowley. ‘And I would expect nothing more. But as you have promised the ring to me, it is neither here nor there whatever you choose to believe.’

  ‘But you believe it to be genuine?’

  ‘With all my heart. Although I had doubts of my own regarding its existence. Might I enquire as to how you came by it?’

  ‘You may,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘But for now I would prefer not to answer you. I would ask you a question or two more, however. If this is a magical ring, what powers does it possess?’

  Aleister Crowley laughed and said, ‘Now that indeed would be telling.’

  ‘Touché. Then answer me this. You agreed that the Moses story was partly fiction. Yet you believe in the authenticity of this ring. Explain this seeming contradiction.’

  ‘Magic,’ said Aleister Crowley, ‘or magick, as I prefer it to be called, is by nature unworldly. It enters our world from another realm. It does not come willingly. It has to be persuaded. There are, however, other places where magic, it would appear, is treated as commonplace and used in an everyday manner.

  ‘Only in fairy tales,’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘On the contrary,’ said the magician. ‘There is one specific place I know of One specific world.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I speak, of course, of Venus. It is believed — and on most scientific grounds, I understand — that the denizens of that cloudy world employ magic to power their aether ships through space. Their spaceships are referred to as Holier-than-air craft — they move through the power of faith alone.’

  ‘I have read of this,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Few men have walked upon Venus. The native population there discourages tourism. They are certainly a secretive race.’

  ‘And not without good cause. You see, upon our world there are few things capable of carrying magic. Magic is almost at times like electricity. It has to be conducted along the right channels. Things are different upon Venus.’

  ‘I see,’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘Of course you do not see,’ said Aleister Crowley. ‘You do not see because you do not believe. Do you think that I would have told you all that I have told you if I had for one moment thought that you would actually believe it?’

  Cameron Bell shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Because if you actually believed it, you would hardly be likely to part with a ring that you knew God had given to Moses, now would you?’

  ‘Probably not,’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘So let us leave it at that.’

  ‘Not quite. I believe you are withholding something most pertinent. And as you do not believe that I will believe, so to speak, there can surely be no harm in you confiding in me.’

  ‘All right, fair enough,’ said Aleister Crowley. ‘But allow me to ask you a question or two. I would estimate that you have had that ring in your possession for at least eight hours.’

  Cameron Bell nodded at this.

  ‘And I would wager that you have examined it thoroughly.’

  Cameron Bell nodded once more.

  ‘And I would further wager that you tested it, when you noted just how heavy it was for its size.’

  ‘Bravo,’ said Cameron Bell and he nodded again. ‘And so you were greatly puzzled when you found that you could not identify the metal,’ said Crowley, with triumph in his voice.

  ‘Go on,’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘The Great Truth I now reveal to you is this,’ said the mystic. ‘It is difficult for Man to engage in magic because Man is far away from God. There was a time when Man was close to God. When God regularly visited the Earth. But those days are gone and God is far from Man. How far?’ Crowley laughed. ‘I gave you the answer earlier, when I gave it to you in jest. Magic exists upon Venus, because Venus is nearer to God. The Sun really is a lens that focuses the brilliance of the Almighty upon the planets. And Venus is far closer to the “Sun” than is Earth. The Great Truth, however, is this.

  ‘Moses ascended the holy mountain and there met with God, who made him a gift of that ring. But Moses and the mountain were not of this Earth. Those marvellous events did not occur on this planet. They all took place upon Venus. That ring is made of Venusian metal, handed by a Venusian God to a Venusian holy man named Moses.’

  Aleister Crowley’s eyes flashed fire and he shook from his smoking cap down to his carpet slippers.

  Cameron Bell displayed his gun once more.

  ‘I am leaving now,’ said the private detective. ‘Do not try to stop me.

  10

  agic was to Alice Lovell not a matter for doubt.

  She greatly feared it and she had good cause.

  It had all begun some years before, when she was still a child, on a visit to her jolly Uncle Charles.

  Uncle Charles was a big merry fellow who smelled strongly of tweed and tobacco smoke and Sunlight soap and who liked nothing more than to dandle tots upon his knee and coo into their ears. As he and his wife had never been blessed with children of their own, he was greatly taken with Alice and showed her much affection.

  Uncle Charles was an author by noble trade and at that time lived modestly from the proceeds of his labours. But he was a restless man and sought ever to know more. To find some truth. The Truth. A truth that he believed might possibly be found through the study of mystery religions and occult teachings. As such he spent what spare time he had at the British Library, leafing through ponderous tomes in the hope that some truth or another might be printed on their pages.

  His researches, however, were coming to nothing and he had almost reached the point of giving up and settling for a life of writing, interspersed with the wearing of tweed, the smoking of tobacco, the bathing of himself with Sunlight soap and the dandling of tots upon his knee, when he chanced upon a paper flyer that some previous seeker after truth had placed in one of the ponderous tomes as a page marker.

  It advertised a book entitled

  THE LATHER OF LOVE

  produced by an author named only as

  Herr Döktor

  and went on to extol the esoteric virtues of this work with such high praise as to thoroughly intrigue Uncle Charles. Having discovered that this book was out of print, he took to scouring the stalls of the Charing Cross Road until he eventually turned up a copy. It was a grubby and battered item that at first glance, or indeed at second or third, would not have appeared to be of any apparent value. In fact the stallholder was using this book to prop up the uneven leg of his stall.

  But looks can oft—times be deceptive, particularly, it would appear, in the second-hand book trade. For Uncle Charles’s cries of, ‘Heaven be praised for at last I have found the thing that I seek,’ were followed by the stallholder naming a price for the book that all but had Uncle Charles swooning away on the thoroughfare.

  The seller of books made some attempts to explain a phenomenon known as ‘the Vance Principle’ and its application to commerce. But Uncle Charles merely flung the requisite number of five-pound notes in his direction and bore away his prize with a giddy head.

  The principles propounded in The Lather of Love were an extension and expansion of those propounded by all good parents to their children. Namely, that cleanliness is next to Godliness.

 
The book explained that the way to Heaven could be found through the power of soap. And here again coincidence and curiosity pile upon coincidence and curiosity, for the book offered the same Great Truth that Aleister Crowley offered to Cameron Bell: that the Sun was not a star at all, but a lens that focused the brilliance of God onto the Earth. Mankind, it went on to explain, had fallen from the grace of God and could no longer experience God because Mankind was dirty and had taken to the wearing of clothes.

  It all began in the Garden of Eden, when our first parents ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and realised they were naked. When God expelled his errant children from Earthly paradise, they clothed themselves and no longer knew his love. And so it had continued to the present day. The Victorians, so said The Lather of Love, were particularly notable for the over-abundance of clothes that they wore, the amount of flesh that they covered. They were also notable (especially in the case of the Godless working class) for their dirtiness. As such they had lost all physical contact with the brilliance of God that shone down upon them. They were shielded from it by clothing and grime. They could no longer feel and experience his presence.

  The answer was simple, or so said the book. Cast off your clothes, scrub yourself to righteous cleanliness, step out into the radiance focused on the Earth and feel once more the power of the Almighty.

  At the time when this Great Truth was made known to Uncle Charles he was living in Tunbridge Wells. The community there was a middle-class community and not one given to tolerance of those who expressed their beliefs in a manner that lacked for a conservative ethic.

  When, upon a fine summer’s morning, Uncle Charles took a stroll to the shops sporting nothing but sandals and a smile, jaws dropped, eyebrows rose and the law took him firmly in hand. After that Uncle Charles restricted his naked commune with the Godhead to areas of his garden that could not be seen from the road.

  But, to his mind, there was certainly no doubting the efficacy of the system. Uncle Charles felt himself to be twice the man he had been before. He felt healthy. He felt free. He felt alive. And he was developing a lovely tan. His wife, it did have to be said, was a woman of sensitive disposition and modest behaviour and she resisted his attempts to convert her to what she considered to be nothing less than primitive pagan Sun worship. She also insisted that whenever tots came round for him to dandle, he should always wear his trousers.