The Mechanical Messiah and Other Marvels of the Modern Age

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Then I have him,’ he cried, his ghastly voice reducing those who heard it to their knees. ‘And I will have it. The thing I seek. I shall kill him and take what is mine. Take the Ring of Moses.’

  His menials quietly wet themselves.

  The Chancellor stalked from the room.

  54

  ime is different in Fairyland, or in the world of dreams. Alice took tea with the white-rabbit-kiwi-bird, whilst her kiwis bumbled around and pecked at the crumbs she threw them.

  ‘I am supposed to do something, aren’t I?’ said Alice. ‘All this toing and froing of me into magical places — this has all been for a reason that you know about and I do not.’

  The white-rabbit-kiwi-bird nodded its head. Its beak was in its cup and sipping tea.

  ‘You must use the magic that you have been given to help others, Alice, and not to help yourself.’

  ‘I am not selfish,’ said Alice, growing somewhat grumpy as she said it.

  ‘You must use your magic tonight when it is needed.’

  ‘And how will I know when it is needed?’

  ‘When it is needed you will know. And when you know you will walk through that door over there.’

  The kiwi-rabbit combination pointed with its beak.

  Alice glanced in that direction. There had been no door there formerly, but there was one there now.

  The door was enamelled most prettily, with floral panels and a central decoration depicting a country scene, with a big white rabbit right there in the middle.

  Above the rabbit was a word, picked out in copper and gold. The word was

  They had little private stalls in Whitechapel public houses. So that gentlemen of high social standing might frequent the company of willing women with a degree of privacy.

  Colonel Katterfelto inhabited one of these stalls. He and Darwin chewed at pies and sipped a bit at porter.

  ‘Jolly poor show,’ said Colonel Katterfelto. ‘All that trouble and the fellow turns out to be a damned buffoon.’

  ‘Harsh words,’ said Darwin. ‘He is perhaps a slow learner. But think, He is hardly born. Perhaps He is like an infant.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ puffed the colonel, ‘perhaps. But I had hoped for such great things. Feel rather cheated. Let down, doncha know?’

  ‘Perhaps it was just not meant to be,’ Darwin said as he pushed a piece of pie into his mouth. Swallowing with effort, he asked, ‘Are there bananas for pudding?’

  ‘Just you and me, then, my dear fellow,’ said the colonel, patting his hirsute companion.

  ‘We can live very comfortably,’ said Darwin. ‘I can play the Snap tables again. We could buy a house in Mayfair. Life will be good. And as you grow older I will look after you. I am a professional monkey butler after all. We will live happily ever after, just you wait and see.

  ‘You are a good boy, Darwin,’ said the colonel.

  ‘A good boy?’ said Darwin. ‘A good boy, do you think?’

  The man of metal sat alone within the rented chapel. Moonlight fell upon Him and the glow of gaslights, too. He nodded His beautiful head gently and diddled a tiny bit more with His toe upon the dusty chapel floor. Then He gave a little sigh, as of perhaps a cornet playing in the key of B flat.

  His glass and turquoise eyes moved towards the Bible that lay where Darwin had left it. Leaning down, He picked it up and held it out before Him.

  ‘Can I read?’ He asked the empty chapel.

  The Bible was open at the very last page.

  The Mechanical Messiah read from it.

  ‘I Jesus have sent mine angel to

  testify unto you these things in the

  churches. I am the root and off-

  spring of David and the bright

  and morning star.’

  The man of metal looked up towards the stained-glass window. Beyond and far distant shone Venus, the bright and morning star.

  The unmarked Black Maria moved through the night-time streets. Its driver stared stiffly ahead, forbidden to engage in any cheery banter upon the pain of death. In the rear of this electrically powered marvel of the modern age sat the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His hands within their black leather gloves knotted themselves into fists again and again.

  Words came from the mouth of the evil Chancellor. Words of a language quite unknown to Man. Of an ancient and forbidden tongue. Words that spelled no good at all for Mr Cameron Bell.

  ‘Can you believe the nerve of that Bell?’ asked Sergeant Case, or just plain Graham to his lovely wife.

  His lovely wife was lathering sprouts as lovely wives will do.

  ‘Your name is in all the papers, dear,’ his lovely wife said as she lathered. ‘You will be a commander again tomorrow.’

  ‘I had better be.’ Sergeant Graham Case did grindings with his teeth. ‘That swine Bell had me over again. Can you believe the nerve of the fellow?’

  ‘But you have him locked up nice and safe?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Sergeant Graham rubbed his hands together before the tiny fire that burned in the tiny grate. For even though the time of year was summer, his kitchen was a cold and dismal place. ‘I have him guarded by two dozen constables. He can sit there and stew without even a cup of tea to comfort him.’

  ‘That will serve him right,’ said Mrs Case. ‘Would you look at the polish I have on this sprout?’

  ‘Are sprouts in season at this time of year?’ asked her husband.

  His lovely wife responded with a shrug. ‘The dog is in season,’ she said to him. ‘Would you like a nice cup of tea?’

  There was much tea-drinking at Scotland Yard, with some teas sparked up somewhat by generous measures of Scotch.

  Constable Gates sat once more at his desk. He had received a sound telling off for leaving it earlier in the day without permission. And there was an internal investigation ongoing regarding a report from the Ritz that he and several constables had entered one of the exclusive hotel rooms and discharged the contents of their weapons into the furniture.

  Constable Gates was in disgrace and as punishment he would work an all-night shift.

  His fellow officers were huddled around him in the entrance hall of Scotland Yard. It was far too nippy downstairs by the cells and rather depressing, too.

  They had tired early of calling abuse to Cameron Bell through the little iron grille in the big iron door of his cell and had chosen instead some ground-floor camaraderie, with whisky-flavoured tea and a game of hunt the truncheon to pass the hours of night.

  ‘Well,’ said Colonel Katterfelto, full of belly and slightly taken with drink, ‘we can’t stay here all night. Back to the Ritz in a hansom for us, I’m thinking.’

  Darwin wiped the residue of pudding from his chin and nodded his little hairy head. ‘What about the man of brass?’ he asked.

  ‘Suppose He’s my responsibility,’ said the colonel, easing himself into the vertical plane. ‘Let’s go and fetch Him, Darwin, we’ll take Him with us. What do you say to that?’

  ‘I say yes,’ said Darwin. ‘And the pie and porter are on me. My treat.’

  The colonel smiled. ‘We will live happily ever after,’ he said to his friend. ‘And think, Darwin, maybe you won’t have to be my monkey butler. Maybe we can have a big shiny brass butler to buttle away for us both.’

  Darwin the monkey grinned and said, ‘Can I have a piggyback?’

  When they returned to the rented chapel it became readily apparent that things were not exactly as they had left them. Bright lights flashed from within the building and loud sounds were to be heard.

  Darwin spoke at Colonel Katterfelto’s ear. ‘Please correct me if I am wrong,’ he said, ‘but that sounds very much to me to be the voices of harpers with their harps.’

  The electric Maria was all but soundless. The fearful speakings had ceased in the back. The driver pulled on the handbrake.

  ‘Scotland Yard,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We are here now, sir.’ And then he hastened to the rear of the vehicle and opened the doo
r for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  The tall, gaunt figure in black stepped down onto the cobbled street. Deserted but for a few newspaper reporters lounging about hoping for some kind of late-night scoop.

  The Chancellor beckoned to them and they scuttled over. Faces displaying recognition, notepads open and pencils at the ready.

  ‘Leave,’ the Chancellor hissed at them in a dark and terrible tone.

  Within the entrance hall the constables had got a bit of a party started. A constable with connections in low places had brought in a couple of willing women. Someone was playing a harmonica. Constable Gates was doing an Irish jig.

  The unannounced arrival of the Chancellor of the Exchequer came as something of a body blow. Put a bit of a dampener on the festivities.

  ‘Out!’ hissed the figure all in black.

  The constables took flight.

  ‘You.’ The Chancellor pointed at Constable Gates. ‘Give me the key to the cell of Cameron Bell and give me precise instructions on how to reach it.’

  Trembling as he did so, Constable Gates did both.

  ‘And now get out!’

  And willingly the constable did that also.

  The Chancellor’s shoes were soled with India rubber. They made no sound at all as the Chancellor walked.

  He walked across the entrance hall. Down a flight of steps and along a dismal passageway that led between the ranks of very dismal cells.

  Outside the one occupied by Cameron Bell, the Chancellor halted. He leaned forwards and peered through the little grille in the door.

  The private detective sat with his back to this door. Shoulders hunched. Bald head shining by gaslight.

  ‘Bell,’ hissed the Chancellor of the Exchequer. ‘Our paths cross once again.’

  Mr Bell said nothing in reply. In fact he sat without moving. Apparently ignoring every word.

  ‘Brave man, Bell,’ the Chancellor hissed. ‘For now it is all over for you. And I will treat you most cruelly. Or will I show you mercy? Perhaps. If the mood of generosity is upon me. Rise and hand the ring to me and I will let you live.’

  Mr Bell said nothing once more. Nor did he move at all.

  ‘Now!’ cried the horrible figure in black. ‘I will not be ignored. The ring and now or I enter the cell and tear you into pieces.’

  But no sound came from Cameron Bell. He made no effort to rise.

  ‘And so you die.’ The Chancellor of the Exchequer put the key into the lock, turned it and kicked the door open before him.

  ‘You will pay dearly for your ill manners,’ hissed he. In two long steps he crossed the cell and laid hands on the private detective.

  He snatched at his shoulders and turned him around.

  And then took a single step back.

  The figure before him was not Mr Cameron Bell.

  It was a waxwork figure of Mr Pickwick.

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer grabbed at this waxwork figure, hauled it up before him. It was unwontedly weighty for a waxwork. He tore the coat wide open.

  To his horror now he saw the figure’s interior. Numerous sticks of dynamite attached to some kind of electrical device.

  Outside in the carriage park hut, a ball of cotton wool in each of his ears, sat Mr Cameron Bell.

  He pressed his thumb to an electrical switch.

  Scotland Yard exploded noisily.

  55

  he front façade of Scotland Yard dated back to the time of Sir Christopher Wren. It was relatively undamaged, as Cameron hoped it would be. Within what had once been the building’s interior a fire raged savagely. But that would presently die.

  Mr Bell had reasoned, correctly enough, that once the Chancellor of the Exchequer learned of his capture, he would hasten to the detective’s cell to acquire the Ring of Moses and dispose of Mr Bell. Cameron had also reasoned that he would probably wish to do this in private and so would dismiss all the police night staff from the building.

  Cameron Bell emerged from the comparative safety of the carriage park hut, pulled the cotton wool from his ears and dusted away at himself. He wore an immaculate evening suit, black tailcoat, white tie, white gloves, silk top hat. And now, a black false moustache. He cut an impressive figure. An impressive mustachioed figure.

  He gazed upon the ruination he had wrought and made so—so gestures with his gloved hands.

  ‘Unfortunate about the building,’ said he. ‘But it had to be done. One down and one to go, methinks.’

  He took himself to the street. The driver of the electrical Maria was patting dust from himself. He was also saying, ‘Oh yes! Oh yes!’ and occasionally punching at the sky.

  Cameron Bell approached him.

  The driver ceased his ‘oh-yessings’.

  ‘I am Lord Bell,’ said Mr Cameron Bell. ‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been assassinated. I am commandeering this vehicle. Take me at once to—’

  ‘Ten Downing Street?’ asked the driver.

  ‘The Electric Alhambra,’ said Cameron Bell, adjusting his moustache.

  Colonel Katterfelto tugged upon his moustache.

  ‘Is He having a party in there?’ he asked.

  Darwin climbed down from the colonel’s back. ‘It sounds like choirs, too,’ said the awestruck monkey.

  ‘Do you think … ?’ The colonel looked down at his friend. ‘Do you think He—’ The colonel paused.

  ‘Do I think that He now knows who He is?’ Darwin the monkey nodded.

  ‘Best go in then.’ The colonel put his hand to the chapel door.

  ‘I’ll follow you,’ said Darwin. ‘For I am now very afraid.’

  ‘I hope you will pardon me saying this,’ said the driver of the electric Maria, ‘but I for one was very afraid of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.’

  ‘Myself also,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘In fact, I have never known such fear in my life.’

  ‘Perhaps with him gone,’ said the driver, ‘and again no offence meant and pardon me for saying this, London might get back to normal.’

  ‘That indeed is my hope.’

  ‘And you just happened to be passing by, did you?’ asked the driver.

  ‘Just passing by,’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘You were lucky to survive.’

  ‘I trust that luck played no part in it.’

  ‘But you were lucky.’

  ‘If you insist,’ said Cameron Bell.

  ‘I do,’ said the driver. ‘After all, the blast did blow your moustache upside down.’

  ‘To the Electric Alhambra,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘And drive, if you will, like a batsman out of Hell.’

  Scenes of Heaven, scenes of Hell upon the stained-glass windows and a wonderful light of purest gold filling the rented chapel.

  The colonel edged in cautiously, Darwin the monkey clutching the colonel’s leg.

  In the middle of the chapel floor there stood the Mechanical Messiah. The colonel blinked and focused his eyes as all about the golden figure in the golden light, a swirl of other figures moved. They looked all but transparent, the stuff of dreams or fairy enchantment. Sprites and elfin creatures, surely these were angels, too.

  The colonel stood, transfixed, and as he viewed the beautiful metal man with the figures of myth and wonder and of holiness encircling Him and rising upwards and upwards, the colonel realised that he had witnessed this scene before.

  He had seen beings of wonder climbing one upon another upwards and upwards in the details of the auditorium walls of the Electric Alhambra.

  Colonel Katterfelto fell to his knees.

  Darwin the monkey did likewise and covered his head with his hands.

  ‘Brothers,’ said the Mechanical Messiah. ‘Brothers, you have come unto me.’

  Colonel Katterfelto bowed his head.

  ‘And you have brought life unto me.’

  The colonel made a silent puffing assent.

  ‘And I must wage war upon the Beast.’

  ‘The Beast is dead, but the case is far from over,’
whispered Mr Cameron Bell as the electric Maria moved onwards.

  Horse-drawn fire appliances, their bells ringing wildly, rushed towards Mr Bell, then passed him by on their way to Scotland Yard.

  A fine crowd had gathered before the façade to view the fire beyond. Several members of London’s underworld, whose criminal records had been lodged within, cheered wildly. One, whom history would only know by his nickname of ‘Jack’, smiled contentedly.

  ‘That Case chap was on the verge of proving my guilt,’ he said to one of Whitechapel’s willing women.

  ‘For what?’ this lady of the night replied.

  ‘Come to that dark alley over there,’ said ‘Jack’, ‘and we will discuss it.’

  Ring-ring-ring went the fire-engine bells, bringing further joy to the assembled crowd.

  But then a lady in a straw hat, who had been returning home after a bit of late-night cleaning that she would not be declaring for tax, pointed her finger towards what was left of the building and said, ‘Now what is that?’

  The crowd peered towards the flame-licked brickwork. For within the inferno beyond something dark was moving.

  It seemed to rise and then move forwards. Stiff-legged, but alive. Alive within the flames.

  ‘Someone lives,’ cried the lady in the straw hat.

  ‘A man,’ cried someone else. ‘A man walks from the flames.’

  And a man indeed walked from the flames.

  But only a man in semblance.

  He wore a long black cloak and a high top hat. A black veil smothered his face. He stood in the door-gone entrance and flexed his narrow shoulders.

  Although he had just emerged from fire, there was not a single mark upon him.

  ‘It is a miracle,’ someone cried.

  ‘A miracle,’ others agreed.

  ‘A miracle,’ said Colonel Katterfelto.

  ‘I feel him,’ said the man of burnished brass.