“When?”
“Well…” Vanderdecker shrugged. “Forget it,” he said. “What have you done with the cat, by the way?”
“What cat?”
“Montalban’s cat.”
“Oh,” said Sebastian, “that cat. It’s over there, on the life-jackets, having forty winks. I spilt some whisky, and it lapped it up.”
“Fine,” Vanderdecker said. He rubbed his face with both hands, and tried to think of what he should do next. For over four hundred years he had been doing all the thinking, and he was just starting to get a tiny bit tired of it. Another day, new problems, more of the same old rubbish; and Captain Vanderdecker standing on the quarter-deck trying to cope with it, with his usual flair. Let Julius do it—that was what his mother used to say, all those many, many years ago: “Don’t trouble yourself with that, dear; let Julius do it. Julius, put that away and…”
The helicopter had stopped flying and was just whirring, hovering tentatively above the grass. Then, with a rather talentless lurch, it pitched down. Suddenly, Vanderdecker didn’t want to leave; he wanted to stay right here and let someone else do the coping with things for a change. No chance of that.
“Hey, skip.” Not you again, Antonius; go away, I died en route, somewhere in the clouds over Smethwick, go ask Danny Bennett or someone. “Is this where we get out?”
“That’s right,” Vanderdecker said wearily. “Right, lads, show a leg, we’re here. Sebastian, bring the cat.”
“Why do I always have to…” The rest of the complaint was drowned out with noise as the helicopter door opened, and Vanderdecker (lead-from-the-front Vanderdecker) dropped out onto the grass. Perhaps he was just feeling tired, but he forgot to duck and the rotor-blade hit him just below the ear. Danny, who happened to be watching, started to scream, but there was nothing to scream about; the Dutchman staggered, swore loudly in Dutch, rubbed his neck and went on his way.
“Well,” he said to Sebastian, “that’s one thing proved anyway.”
“What?” said Sebastian. “You never look where you’re going.” Vanderdecker laughed mirthlessly, shrugged and walked towards the house. Then he noticed a smallish human figure racing across the grass towards him. He narrowed his brows and wondered what was going on.
“Julius!” said the small human figure, and crashed into him like a dodgem car, jolting him almost as much as the rotor-blade.
“Sorry,” he said automatically, and helped the small figure to its feet. The small figure was Jane, and Jane had wrapped her arms around him. He remembered.
“Hello, Jane,” he said.
“Julius, you’re safe!” Jane gasped; but there was already a tiny note of doubt, an inflection so slight you would need high-quality scientific apparatus or ears like a bat to register it, but there nevertheless.
“I think we should have a quiet talk,” Vanderdecker said, prising her off gently. “There’s just a few things I’ve got to do first, and then…”
“Julius?” The inflection was rather more obvious now. Vanderdecker closed off certain parts of his mind, which were getting in the way, and nodded.
“Won’t be long,” he said. “I’ve just got a couple of things to see to first, then I’m all yours.” There was something in his voice which belied the words he uttered, and Jane let go of him. She felt all hollow, like an egg with its yolk blown out.
“Such as,” Vanderdecker went on, “booting a certain professor up the backside. Did you get the policy?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “I did. Thank you.”
“What for? Oh, I see, yes, well. Where is it now?”
“I gave it to the pilot who brought the Professor back,” Jane said. “He’s going to post it to my father as soon as he gets to…”
“Very sensible.” Vanderdecker said, nodding. “Perhaps you could just phone your father and ask him to send it to my place in Bridport.”
“
“Yes,” Vanderdecker said, “the fallen-down old dump where you said you found all the bank statements. It’ll be safe there.”
Jane was about to say something, but she had forgotten what it was. Couldn’t have been important. “Right,” she said. “I’ll just go and do that, then.”
“Thanks,” Vanderdecker said. “Now, then.” He walked off quickly towards the house.
The Flying Dutchman was, when circumstances permitted, a man of his word; and when he said he was going to boot a professor up the backside, he stood by it.
“Ouch!” said Montalban, startled. “My dear fellow, what…” Vanderdecker kicked him again, harder. One of his better ideas, he said to himself. He tried it again, but missed this time and put his foot through a complex piece of scientific equipment disguised as a glass-fronted cabinet full of netsuke. Although he didn’t know it, lights flickered in Montreal, Jodrell Bank and Geneva.
“Captain,” said the Professor, backing away while still trying to remain dignified, “what has come over you?”
“Getting me into this mess,” said Vanderdecker, “I can put up with. Causing me to sail round the world for nearly five hundred years I can take in my stride. Pissing off and leaving me under a ceiling and coming back here and stuffing yourself with macaroons is a bit too much, don’t you think?” He aimed another kick at the Professor; it glanced off the bunch of keys in his trouser pocket and wasted its force in empty air, making Vanderdecker totter slightly. He regained his balance and his composure at about the same moment.
“Well,” he said, “anyway, there we are. You will be delighted to know that that gimcrack Friday-afternoon job of a power station of yours is now safe again, absolutely no thanks to you. And you owe me and my lads for a complete set of clothes each. All right?”
“Yes, most certainly,” said Montalban. “My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you all in one piece. I…”
“I bet you are,” Vanderdecker said furiously. “Because if I hadn’t been, it’d have cost you plenty. Well, let me tell you that…”
“And even more delighted,” said the Professor, with all the smoothness he could manage, “to note that the treatment worked.”
Vanderdecker started. “
“Indeed,” said the Professor. “Just as I had hoped. The radiation charge has eliminated the smell entirely. My experiments are vindicated. You must be very pleased.”
And grateful, his tone implied. So grateful, in fact, that you really ought to do me a little favour in return. Vanderdecker caught the implication like Rodney Marsh fielding a large, slow football. “If you think,” he said, “I’m going to sign over that bloody policy after what you just did to me…”
“And what was that?”
“Leaving me There,” Vanderdecker roared. “Other things too, but just now, mostly that.”
“My dear fellow,” Montalban said. “I imagined you were—well, dead, to put it bluntly. I could see no sign of you; I feared that you and your companions had been simply atomised by the force of the blast. There was nothing I could do, I came away; my presence was needed here…”
Vanderdecker growled softly, but his indignation was leaking away like oil from a fractured sump. The Professor smiled kindly.
“And so,” he said, “everything has worked out for the best. You have no idea how much pleasure this moment gives me. The unpleasant side-effect of my elixir has successfully been counteracted. My work is over…”
The words froze on his lips, and Vanderdecker stared at him as he quietly repeated the words.
“Montalban?” Vanderdecker asked. “Are you all right?”
The Professor stood there like a dead Christmas tree for a moment and then grabbed Vanderdecker fiercely by the shoulders. “Vanderdecker,” he shouted, “did you hear what I just said? My work is
Vanderdecker stepped back, wondering if the kick had affected the Professor’s brain. “Well,” he said, “that’s wonderful for you, I’m sure. Maybe now you can have a lie-in at weekends, read the paper, that sort of…”
Montalban filled his lungs and let out the loudest, least dignified whoop ever heard outside a Navajo
