Howl and shriek and scream.
“Will you please turn off that appalling racket?” asked Professor Slocombe.
Brentford’s mayor, the worshipful Puerto Rican Don Juan Lopez Carlos de Casteneda, switched off his ghetto-blaster. “That is not a racket,” he said. “That is my favourite band, the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death.”
“And highly derivative they are too,” said the Professor. “I detect the influence of both Slayer and Deicide.”
“Huh,” said the mayor, chewing on a small cheroot.
They sat at the big table in the council chamber of Brentford Town Hall. Curtains of sunlight wavered from upper windows. Rich oak panelling shone with a mellow patina, smoke hung in the air.
John and Jim were there, with several members of the council, hastily gathered, the secretary of the late Mr Compton-Cummings (who knows why?) and Scoop Molloy with his notebook.
“This is all so much shite,” said the mayor, cuffing his copy of the Brentford Mercury. “I am woken from the arms of my lover by a march-past. Peons in the streets are hanging balloons from the lamp posts. Someone has passed word around that I have declared today a public holiday.”
John Omally, up since dawn and busy with it, rolled himself a cigarette.
“Yesterday riots and today we have dancing in the streets.” The mayor threw up his hands and made excitable gesturings. “It is all too much.”
“My dear Don Juan,” said Professor Slocombe, “I will agree that events have proceeded with some alacrity. More alacrity, in fact, than I might have wished for.” He waggled the fingers of his gloved hand beneath the table and John Omally’s roll-up fell to pieces. “But we are gathered here to discuss what may be done and how it may be done.”
“Such as this?” The mayor snatched up a piece of foolscap and took to the cuffing of it. “Proposal to construct the Hanging Gardens of Brentford on the site of the allotments, to be called the John Omally Millennial Tower.”
Professor Slocombe curled his lip. John grinned painfully.
“Beauty Pageants and Beer Festivals, a rock concert in the football ground, who the hell are Devo anyway?”
“Please remain calm.” Professor Slocombe raised a calming hand.
“And I tell you this.” The mayor screwed up the foolscap and flung it aside. “These scrolls that make all this possible. That make these two gringos here,” he shook a fist at John and Jim, “think that they can run all this. These scrolls were dug up on council property. I should take these scrolls.”
“The scrolls were located by Mr Pooley. Under the Finders Keepers law…”
“And what is that?”
“It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something. But under it, the scrolls belong to Mr Pooley.”
“He didn’t find them. A young woman dug them up.”
“Under his instruction.”
“On council property. And who will pay for a new library bench?”
“That will be included in the budget for the new library,” said John. “The John Omally Mil…”
“Shut your mouth, home boy!”
“Make a note of that, Jim,” said John. “Dock the mayor a week’s pay.”
“What?”
“Gentlemen,” said the Professor. “Nothing is ever achieved through acrimony. We must act as one or we will not succeed.”
“I’ll dock him two weeks,” said Jim. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“You think to make fun of me, huh?” The mayor smote his chest. “You think I am some stinking wet-back?”
“Surely that’s a somewhat racist remark,” said Scoop Molloy, writing it down.
“Your mother!” said the mayor, thumbing his teeth.
“Gentlemen, please.”
“I tell you this,” said the mayor, all pointing fingers now. “No one will swallow this shite. Who will swallow it, huh? The real Millennium Committee? The Prime Minister? The Queen? The world? Who?”
“I will swallow it.”
Faces turned towards the new speaker.
“And who the hell are you?” asked the mayor.
“Celia Penn. I was secretary to the late Mr Compton-Cummings.”
“And you will swallow, will you?”
“I will swallow with pleasure.”
Here we go again, thought Jim. Carry on up the Council Chamber.
“Call out the mariachi bands,” said the mayor. “The day is saved.”
“If you will just let me speak.”
“Speak on, lady. Be my guest.”
“Thank you. I represent certain interested parties who are determined that the millennial celebrations go ahead on the correct day of the correct year. The Professor knows what I am talking about.”
“I do, but how…”
“SUCK,” said Celia Penn.
“Oh dear,” went Jim Pooley.
“SUCK,” said Professor Slocombe. “The Secret Unification for the Coming King, an occult organization dating back to before the Knights Templar. Keepers of the Great Mystery.”
“Protectors of the Brentford Scrolls,” said Celia Penn. “It was I who encoded the location of the scrolls into Mr Compton-Cummings’s book. And I who sent the last remaining copy to Mr Pooley. I knew I had the right man.”
“Eh?” went Jim. “But I never…”
“Aha!” went the mayor. “Oh yeah, I get this. Another one looking for a handout. What do you want, lady? A new car, is it? Well you can SUCK my -”
Click went the Professor’s fingers. Lock went the jaw of the mayor.
And KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK came a knocking at the council chamber door. And duck for cover went John and Jim.
“Come out,” called the Professor. “It’s only the tea trolley.”
The door opened and in came the woman with the tea trolley. She was wearing a straw hat and she trundled over to the mayor. “Coffee, your holiness?” she asked.
“Grmmph mmph,” went the mayor, clutching his jaw.
“Only what you see on the trolley, I’m afraid.”
“Excuse me,” said a councillor with a mean and hungry look. “But as the mayor seems to be experiencing some difficulty in speaking, perhaps I might take the chair.”
“Certainly,” said Professor Slocombe.
The councillor got to his feet, took the chair and left the chamber.
“The old ones are always the best,” said Jim. “Although this hardly seems the time.”
“Excuse me,” said a councillor who was old and rough and dirty and tough. “But as the mayor is incapacitated and Councillor Cassius has gone off with the chair, perhaps I might put in my threepenny- worth.”
“Certainly,” said the Professor.
And the councillor placed three pennies on the table.
“Where do you think this is leading?” Jim asked.
“Excuse me,” said a third councillor, this one cool as a mountain stream, yet as corny as Kansas in August. “But as the mayor is incapacitated, Councillor Cassius has gone off with the chair and Councillor Starguard of the Galactic Brotherhood has put in his threepenny-worth, perhaps I might just ask a question.”
