"Exactly so, Alice. And in eight hours' time they will commence to rush home after finishing their day's work. They call these twin times the rush-hours."
The Zebraman had by now managed to cross the road completely. The auto-horses started up a snarling and braying, as though they wanted to eat Alice and Celia alive, and then sprang forwards in a rapid burst of metallic clankings! Celia Doll firmly grabbed hold of Alice's hand and started to walk faster than anybody had ever walked before! Alice felt she was flying, so quickly did Celia move. "Celia!" Alice cried. "Where in the future did you learn to walk so quickly?" But her words were lost to the frightening wind that Celia created in her rush to get away from the accelerating auto-horses. "Oh well," said Alice to herself, "I suppose if I were an Automated Alice I also would be able to walk as quickly." Just then the screaming drive of horsey carriages fairly pounced upon the pair of them, aiming to squash!
Alice and Celia did manage to cross the road of course, if only by the hairs on their smallest toenails. (And a good job too, otherwise this fable would be a very sorry story indeed. Why, I'm not even half-way through Alice's adventures in the future yet. No, no; it would not do to have my principal actors quite so easily squashed by metal hooves!)
Upon gaining the safety of the opposite pavement, Alice lunged forwards to grab at Whippoorwill, but all she managed to grab hold of was a single green-and-yellow tail feather, which she plucked clean from the bird! Whippoorwill himself, despite lacking a tail feather, flew off quite easily from the Zebraman's shoulder, disappearing over the roof of the Palace of Chimera and into a hive of houses. The Zebraman trotted off in the same direction, leaving Alice to clutch desperately at the parrot's lonely feather. "Do you think, Celia," Alice then asked, "that Great Aunt Ermintrude will be satisfied with a single feather from her lost parrot?"
"I think not, Alice," Celia replied. "But look at this!" Celia had bent down to pick up a little piece of something from the ground. "The Zebraman must have dropped this in his hurry to get away." It was a wooden piece from a jigsaw, portraying a rippling pattern of black-and-white stripes. Celia handed it to Alice.
"This is yet another missing piece from my jigsaw of London Zoo," Alice proclaimed. "This belongs in the zebra house." Alice took the piece and placed it in the pocket of her pinafore, with the other four she had already gathered. "Are we anywhere near Didsbury, Celia?" she then asked.
"We are," the doll replied, "but we are going in the opposite direction. Why do you ask?"
"Because that is where my Great Aunt lives, or should I say once lived, and we have to find our way back there."
"But not just now, dear Alice."
"For once, dear Celia, I entirely agree with you."
The pair of them set off in pursuit of Whippoorwill, entering the hive of houses. They very quickly found themselves lost again, of course. The trouble was this: every house was identical, and every street was identical. And every street was tightly knotted around every other street. The whole world it seemed was identically identical and twisted around itself. It was yet another knotty problem for Alice to unravel. But the lights were flashing into the glistening morning sky and the siren-calls and the whistlings came trumpeting from the hidden streets. In the end, it was only by relying on Celia's superior judgement that Alice managed to find the place where the noises and the lights were coming from.
Imagine this scene, if you will, dear reader...
A drive of police-autos (horseless carriages belonging to the police) were parked inside the centre of these all-too-identical houses. A crowd of animal-people was clogging up the street: Goatboys and Sheepgirls, Elephantmen and Batwomen. Alice nudged her way through the strange zoo of spectators. "Can you please tell me what is happening here?" she asked of the nearest policeman.
"A second Jigsaw Murder has taken place," the policeman gravely replied, his furry body full of trembles. "A Catgirl this time."
It was only when Alice noticed the policeman's fur trembling that she realized that this policeman was really a policedog; or rather a policedogman. Yet another victim of the Newmonia, of course. Alice tried to push her way past the policedogman to where a lumpy something on the ground was lying quite still and morbid, under a white bedsheet. Only a single gingery furred cat's paw and claw protruded free, to rest, lifelessly, on the pavement.
"How sad," whispered Alice, in horror. (For Alice had a pet kitten of her own, far away in the distant past. Sweet, sweet Dinah of forgotten years!)
Just then another policedogman came loping towards Alice. This dogman was growling at the other dogmen, telling them all to get a move on, and at the double-quick! He was obviously in charge. Alice could tell this, not only from his barked-out orders, but also from the fact that he wore a suit, a tailored suit at that, whilst all the other policedogmen wore blue police uniforms over their canine bodies. "And who are you?" this boss-of-all-dogs asked of Alice. He had a face of finely furred colours; a broad and brown stripe running all the way along a creamy, whiskered snout.
"I'm Alice," replied Alice.
"And I am Inspector Jack Russell of the Greater Manchester Police. What are you doing here, Alice?"
"Well, Inspector Russell... I do believe that's my parrot on your shoulder."
Inspector Jack Russell did indeed have Whippoorwill perched on his shoulder. "This parrot is guilty of hindering the police in their inquiries," Jack Russell barked, "and I want him off my shoulder right this minute!
"Whippoorwill, come fly to me," Alice sang, only to see the parrot unlodge himself from Jack Russell's shoulder and then fly away, not towards her but to the ever-brightening morning sky that flittered above the houses; the parrot was heading for the centre of Manchester.
"Pardon me, my stripy horseman!" Jack Russell growled at the Zebraman who had suddenly appeared on the scene, nudging his wet nose at the dead Catgirl's bedsheet. "Don't you realize that you're hindering my investigation of a caticide?"
"Whatever's a catty side?" asked Alice.
"The murder of a Catgirl, of course," answered the Inspector. (Which gave Alice the answer to Whippoorwill's last riddle: Why did the Catgirl cross the road? To get to the catty side, of course!)
To get to her death.
"The victim's name," Jack Russell continued, "was Whiskers MacDuff. This is the second of the Jigsaw Murders. The first victim was a young Spiderboy, name of Quentin Tarantula. He was a Chimera artiste, famous for his violent, celebratory portrayal of the criminal life. I must admit that I won't be shedding any tears at his demise. That kind of Chimera show shouldn't be allowed."
"What is a Chimera show, exactly?" Alice asked.
"What's Chimera?!" howled Jack Russell. "Where have you been for the last five years?"
"I haven't been anywhere for the last five years," Alice replied. "In fact, I haven't been anywhere for the last one-hundred-and-thirty-eight years!"
Inspector Jack Russell ignored this remark. "Chimera is where they play the flutters, of course."
"The flutters!" Alice smiled. "That sounds like fun!"
"Fun!" yowled the Inspector. "Oh no! Chimera is a blatant pandering to the sickly needs of the common herd, a fluttering of evil pictures on a wall!"
"Is Chimera a little like a lantern show?" asked Alice.
"And the newspapers dare to ask why the crime numbers are soaring!" barked Jack Russell.