“What, through the wall of Archie Karachi’s Curry Garden? I can’t see Kali’s Curry King giving us the go-ahead on that one.”
“But Archie Karachi is a member of the Swan’s darts team. I myself have seen the sign on his door, ‘Closed for Business All Day Thursday’.”
Pooley tweaked the end of a moustachio whose length would have brought a jealous glance from Salvador Dali himself. “With all the noise in the Swan,” said he, “nobody is going to pay much attention to a bit of banging next door.”
“My thoughts entirely. We will need a spy on the inside though, just to keep an eye out. Gammon will take care of that side of it. When we have broken through to the machine it will be down to you, Norman, to deal with it appropriately.”
“No problem there,” said the shopkeeper, blowing on his fingertips. “There is no machine built which I cannot get to grips with.”
“You might find a surprise or two when we open it.”
“Child’s play,” said Norman with sudden bravado. He was quite warming to the idea of all this. He had never liked Archie Karachi very much, and the thought of knocking down his kitchen wall held great appeal. Also, if this machine was everything the Professor seemed to think it was, it was bound to contain a few serviceable components. “Just lead me to it.”
Omally chuckled behind his whiskers. “Bravo, Norman,” said the Professor, smiling profusely. “Now, if you will pardon me, I suggest that we bring this meeting to a close, I have several loose ends still to tie up.”
The old man took a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it to each man in turn. “We will meet tomorrow, seven-thirty p.m. sharp at this address. Please do not speak it aloud.”
The three men committed the thing to memory. With the briefest of goodbyes and no hand-shaking, they took their leave.
Professor Slocombe closed the French windows behind them and bolted the shutters. “Now,” he said, turning upon the silent room, “will you make yourself known to me of your own accord, Mr Poe, or must I summon you into visibility?”
“I should prefer that we did it the easy way,” said Edgar Allan Poe. “We have much to speak of.”
22
Neville the part-time barman took up his mail from the mat and thrust it into his dressing-gown pocket. Amongst the bills and circulars were no less than three postcards sporting rooftop views of Brentford, but the barman did not give these even a cursory glance.
He had been up half the night trying to work out a deal with his pagan deity over his ill-considered blood oath, but was still far from certain that the matter would be allowed to rest. It was always a hairy business wheeling and dealing with the Elder Gods of Ancient Earth.
Neville drew the brass bolts and flung the door open to sniff the morning air. It smelt far from promising. He took a deep breath, scratched at his bony ribs, and gave the world a bit of first thing perusal. It had all the makings of a beautiful day but Neville could not find any joy to be had in the twinkling sunlight and precocious bird song.
Like others who had gone before him, Neville the part-time barman was a very worried man. The day he had been dreading had come to pass. All over Brentford, dartsmen were awakening, flexing their sensitive fingers, and preparing themselves for the biggest night of the year. The Swan’s team had been growing surlier by the day. Where was Norman? they asked. Why was he not practising with them? Neville’s excuses had been wearing thinner than the seat of his trousers. If Norman did not turn up for the tournament the consequences did not bear thinking about.
Neville looked thoughtfully up the road towards the corner shop. Perhaps he should just slip along now and smooth the matter over. Throw himself on Norman’s mercy if necessary, promise him anything. Omally had said that the shopkeeper would be present, but was he ever to be trusted?
Neville hovered upon his slippered toes. It would be but the work of a minute. Norman would be numbering up his papers, he could say he just called in for a box of matches, exchange a few niceties, then leave with a casual “Look forward to seeing you tonight.” Something like that.
Neville took a step forward. At that moment, in the distance, a figure appeared from the shop doorway. Neville’s heart rose; it was telepathy surely. The shopkeeper was coming to make his peace. All his troubles were over.
Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone hoisted his paperbag into the sunlight. Neville’s heart fell. “Bugger, bugger, bugger,” said the part-time barman, returning to the saloon-bar, and slamming the door behind him.
Parked close to the kerb in a side road opposite to the Swan, and lost for the most part in the shadow of one of the flatblocks, was a long sleek black automobile with high fins. In the front seat of this gleaming motor car sat a man of average height, with a slightly tanned complexion and high cheek-bones. He bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Jack Palance, as did his passenger, who lounged in a rear seat, smoking a green cheroot. The two watched the paperboy as he passed within a few feet of their highly polished front bumper and vanished into one of the flatblocks.
No words passed between these two individuals, but the driver glanced a moment into his rear-view mirror, and his passenger acknowledged the reflected eyes with a knowing nod.
The day passed in an agonizing fashion. Pooley and Omally took their lunchtime’s pleasure in a neutral drinking house at Kew, where they sat huddled in an anonymous corner, speaking in hushed tones, bitterly bewailing the exorbitant prices, and casting suspicious glances at every opening of the saloon-bar door.
Norman closed up his shop at one and busied himself in his kitchenette. What he did there was strictly his own business, and he had no intention of letting anything, no matter how alien, interfere with his afternoon’s work.
In his sewage outlet pipe, Small Dave paced up and down. His hair was combed forward across his forehead and his left hand was thrust into his shirt in a fashion much favoured by a diminutive French dictator of days gone by. As he paced he muttered, and the more he muttered the more apparent it became that he was plotting something which was to cause great ill to any camel owners in Brentford.
At intervals he ceased his frenzied pacing and peered up and down the hideous pipe, as if expecting the arrival of some fellow conspirator. None, however, made an appearance.
Professor Slocombe was not to be found at his desk that afternoon. He had pressing business elsewhere. Whilst the sun shone down upon Brentford and the Brentonians went about whatever business they had, he was conversing earnestly with a pink-eyed man of apparent albino extraction, who had given up such doubtful pleasures to dedicate himself to the search for far greater truths.
Even now, the Professor sat in what was to all appearances a normal Brentford front room, but which was, in fact, situated more than a mile beneath Penge; which I understand is a very nice place, although I have never been there myself.
At a little after three, Neville drew the bolts upon the Swan’s door and retired to his chambers. He had been anaesthetizing himself with scotch since eleven and was now feeling less concerned about what was to happen during the coming evening. He was, however, having a great deal of trouble keeping the world in focus. He falteringly set his alarm clock for five and blissfully fell asleep upon his bed.
23
At long last the Memorial Library clock struck a meaningful seven-thirty. The Swan was already a-buzz with conversation. Pints were being pulled a-plenty and team members from the half-dozen pubs competing this year were already limbering up upon the row of dartboards arranged along the saloon-bar wall. The closed sign had long been up upon the Star of Bombay Curry Garden, and within the Swan, Gammon, in the unlikely guise of an Eastern swami, engaged Archie Karachi in fervent debate.
