“You’ll not break it,” gibbered Soap. “The lock is protected, it cannot be picked.”
“There is no lock which cannot be picked.” Omally flung aside a bundle of metal tags and slotted another sequence into the shaft of the skeleton key.
“You won’t open it.”
“Shut up will you?”
“Get away.” For once doing the bold thing, Pooley had crept back up the tunnel towards his attackers. Now he lashed out with his hobnail at the blinding light as it reared up in his face. His boot connected and the beam swung aside, leaving Omally to fumble in the darkness. “Nice one, Jim,” he spat. “Now I can’t see a bloody thing.”
“Get off me, leave hold.” Clawing hands reached out towards Pooley. In the coruscating blue fire his face twisted and contorted. “John, protect me for God’s sake!”
“Protect me…” Omally’s brain kicked into gear. He tore his crucifix from about his neck and fumbling for the keyhole thrust it in and turned it sharply to the right. “We’re in, lads,” cried John.
“Go quickly,” said Soap. “It is up to you now.” With a brisk movement he vanished away as if by magic into the brickwork of the passage.
Omally bundled his way through the doorway.
Pooley wrenched himself away from his attackers, leaving them the right sleeve of his cashmere jacket as something to remember him by. The combined weight of two men hurtled the door back into its jambs. Fists rained upon it from without, but they could not penetrate the mantle of protection. Omally winkled out his crucifix and pressed it to his lips. “And then there were two,” said he, sinking to his bum with a dull thump.
Jim slowly removed his jacket, folding it neatly across his arm. He laid upon the floor and began to leap up and down upon it. “Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger,” he went.
Omally watched the performance without comment. They were a strange old breed these millionaire lads and that was a fact. “When you are done,” he said at length, “I suggest we go upstairs and break the sad news of Holmes to the old man.”
“Oh bugger,” said Pooley.
“So you said.”
“No, this is another quite separate bugger. I left my fags in the top pocket.”
Professor Slocombe watched the two men plod wearily up the cellar steps, slouch down the side-corridor, and halt before the study door, twin looks of indecision upon their unshaven faces. He opened his eyes. “Come in, lads,” he called. “No need to skulk about out here.” Beyond the heavy-panelled door, Omally shrugged. With evasive eyes and shuffling feet, he and Jim sheepishly entered the study. Professor Slocombe indicated the decanter, and Omally grasped it up by the neck and rattled it into a crystal tumbler.
“Easy on the glassware, John.”
Omally, his face like a smacked bottom, looked up at the ancient. “Sherlock Holmes is dead,” he blurted out.
Professor Slocombe’s face was without expression. His eyes widened until they became all but circular. The whites formed two Polo mints about the pupils. The narrow jaw slowly revolved as if he was grinding his teeth upon Omally’s words.
“That cannot be,” he said, slowly drawing himself from his desk and turning his back upon his uninvited guests. “It cannot be.”
Omally poured his drink down his neck and slung another large measure into his glass. “And mine,” complained Pooley.
The Professor turned upon them. “How did this happen? Did you see it?” A high tone of fear choked at his voice.
“Not exactly,” Jim replied nervously, “but believe us, sir, he could not have survived.”
“He saved our lives,” said Omally.
“But you did not actually see?”
“Not exactly, thank God.”
Professor Slocombe smiled ruefully. “I thought not.”
Omally opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. If the old man did not care to accept the truth, then there was no good to be gained through labouring the point. “All right,” said he carefully, “we did not actually see it.”
“No,” said the Professor. “You did not. So let us speak no more of the matter. There is little time left and much which must be done.”
“We are actually somewhat knackered,” said Jim, sinking into a chair. “We’ve had a trying day.”
“I am afraid that it is not over yet. Kindly follow me.”
The Professor strode across the room and made towards the study door. Jim shrugged towards John, who put his finger to his lips and shook his head. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve nothing left to lose have we?” Omally followed the old man into the corridor.
Jim, left alone for a moment, suddenly smiled. He drew from his trouser pocket the ormulu- trimmed Boda hip-flask he had recently purchased and not yet had the opportunity to use, and hastily filled it from the old man’s decanter. “No point in going unarmed,” said he, following up the rear.
The Professor led them up several flights of steps to the room which housed the camera obscura. When Jim had closed the door and plunged them into darkness, he winched the apparatus into action and brought the image of the surrounding area into focus upon the polished marble table-top. The sight which leapt into vision was such as to take the breath from their lungs. Omally crossed himself and took an involuntary step backwards.
The evil travesty which was the Festival procession now filled every road and side-street in view. And the tableaux wrought upon them were now becoming recognizable for the horrors they were. It was as if those earlier floats they had seen were but the blurred and ill-formed shapes of clay, awaiting the hand of the master craftsman to draw form from them. Now the lines were distinct, the contours clearly defined.
“Look there.” Jim pointed to a lighted float which passed close to the Seaman’s Mission, a stone’s throw from the Professor’s door. Depicted there was the form of a giant, clad in robes of crimson and seated upon a great throne, carved with the gilded heads of bulls. Golden banners, each emblazoned with similar motifs, fluttered above and five hooded, stunted figures cowered at his feet in attitudes of supplication. The crimson giant raised and lowered his hand in mechanical benediction, and it appeared that for a moment he raised his eyes, twin blood bowls of fire, towards the men in the rooftop bower, and stared into their very souls.
“Him,” said Omally.
“And there.” Jim pointed vigorously. “Look at that, look at that.”
As the throned float moved beyond the range of vision, another rose up behind it. Here, a legion of men climbed one upon another, pointing towards the sky. They were identical in appearance, each resembling to a tee the young Jack Palance: the Cereans.
To either side of the floats marched a legion of men, women, and children. Familiar faces, now alien and unknown; their faces wore determined expressions and each marched in step, raising his or her own banner. Each illuminated with eighteen vertical lines, placed in three rows of six. The number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. Professor Slocombe pointed towards the image. Away in the distance, far greater shapes were looming into view, things so dark and loathsome, that even there, upon the flat white marble surface, their ghost images exuded a sense of eldritch horror which stunned the senses.
“Switch it off,” Omally demanded. “There is too much madness here.”
“One more small thing you must see, John.” Professor Slocombe adjusted the apparatus and the image of the Lateinos and Romiith building drew a black shroud across the table-top. The old man cranked the mechanism and enlarged an area at the base of the building. “Now look carefully, did you see that?”
His guests blinked and squinted at the image. “I saw something,” said Jim, “but what?”
“Look harder.”
“Yes, I see it.” It was but a fleeting movement, a single figure detached himself from the throng, pressed his hand to a section of the wall and was instantly swallowed up into the building to vanish without trace.
