Pooley and Omally blinked their eyes towards the gaping ceiling, towards the startled shopkeeper, and finally towards each other. Shaking their dust-covered heads in total disbelief, they followed the detective who was even now ushering the fretful Norman away into his kitchenette. Holmes suggested that Omally might bolt the front door and put up the “Closed For The Day” sign. This the Irishman did with haste, fearing that he might miss anything of what might be yet to come. When he entered the kitchenette he found Norman squatting upon his odd-legged chair in the centre of the room, surrounded by a clutter of bizarre-looking equipment which was obviously the current fruit of his prodigious scientific brain. Holmes perched behind him upon the kitchen table, a tweedy vulture hovering above his carrion lunch. Without warning he suddenly thrust a long bony finger into Norman’s right ear.
“Ooh, ouch, ow, get off me,” squealed the shopkeeper, doubling up.
Holmes examined his fingertip and waggled it beneath his nose. “I pride myself,” said he, “that, given a specimen of earwax, I can state the occupation of the donor with such an accuracy that any suggestion of there being any element of chance involved is absolutely confounded.”
“Really?” said Omally studying the ceiling and kicking his heels upon the new lino of the floor.
“Who’s your friend?” whined the persecuted shopkeeper.
“Don’t ask,” counselled Jim Pooley.
“I will ask the questions, if you don’t mind.” Holmes prodded Norman in the ribs with a patent leather toecap.
“I do, as it happens,” said Norman, flinching anew.
“Be that as it may, I believe that you have much to tell us.”
“Bugger off, will you?” Norman cowered in his seat.
“Language,” said Jim. “Mr H, our companion here, is a house-guest of the Professor’s. He can be trusted absolutely, I assure you.”
“I have nothing to say. What is all this about anyway? Can’t you see I’m busy redecorating?”
“The shop ceiling seems a bit drastic,” said John.
“Blame the wife,” Norman said sarcastically. “She said she wanted two rooms knocked into one.”
“I once heard George Robey tell that joke,” said Holmes. “It was old even then.”
“George Robey?”
“No matter. Now, sir, there are questions that must be answered. How can it be that your duplicate works in your shop yet you still exist? Show me your palms, sir.”
“Show me your palms? Jim, where do you meet these people?” A sudden clout on the back of the head sent the shopkeeper sprawling.
“Here, steady on,” cried Jim. “There’s no need for any of that. Sherlock Holmes never engaged in that kind of practice.”
“Changing times,” the detective pronounced, examining his knuckles.
“Sherlock Holmes?” sneered Norman from the desk. “Is that who he thinks he is?”
“Your servant, sir,” said Holmes, bowing slightly from the waist.
“Oh yes?” Norman cowered in the corner shielding his privy parts. “Well if you’re Sherlock Holmes then tell me, what are the thirty-nine steps?”
“This is where I came in,” said Jim.
Holmes leant forward and waggled his waxy finger towards Norman. “Spill the beans, you,” he cried. “Spill the beans!”
“He’s been watching the Basil Rathbone reruns,” Pooley whispered to Omally.
“If you don’t mind,” said John, “I think Jim and I will take our leave now. We are men of peace, and displays of gratuitous violence trouble our sensitivities. Even in the cause of justice and the quest for truth, we find them upsetting.”
Pooley nodded. “If you are now preparing to wade in with the old rubber truncheon, kindly wait until we have taken our leave.”
“Fellas,” whined the fallen shopkeeper, “fellas, don’t leave me here with this lunatic.”
“Sorry,” said Jim, “but this is none of our business.”
“If you really wish to make a fight of it, your Dimac should be a match for his Barritso.” Omally pointed to the still prominent lump upon his forehead, which bore a silent if painful testimony to his previous encounter with the martial shopman.
“That wasn’t me, John, I swear it.”
“So,” said Sherlock Holmes, “then spill the beans, buddy.”
“All right, all right, but no more hitting.”
“No more hitting,” said Sherlock Holmes.
Buddy prepared himself to spill all the beans.
19
Old Pete thrust his wrinkled hand beneath the shining plexiglass counter-shield of the sub-post office. The dark young man now serving behind the jump did not remove his minuscule headphones but merely nodded as he passed the electronic light-wand across the ancient’s palm. He punched a few details into the computer terminal and awaited the forthcoming readout. Upon its arrival he raised a quizzical eyebrow towards the pensioner and said, “There appears to be some discrepancy here, sir. I suggest that you come back next week.”
Old Pete glared daggers at the dark young fellow-me-lad behind the tinted screen. “What damned discrepancy?” he demanded.
The young man sighed tolerantly. “The computer registers a discrepancy,” he said. “It states that for the last ten years you have been receiving two pensions each week. Such a thing could not, of course, happen now under the new advanced system. But with the old Giro, well who knows? We shall just have to resubmit the data and await a decision.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Well, computer time is valuable, you are allotted six seconds weekly; we will see what happens when your turn comes around again.”
“And in the meantime?” foamed Old Pete. “Do you mean that until your filthy electronic box of tricks gives you the go-ahead I am penniless?”
“The word ‘penniless’ no longer applies. It is simply that, pending investigations, your credit is temporarily suspended. You must understand that this is for the public good. We are trying to institute the new system hereabouts in a manner that will cause minimum civil unrest.”
“You’ll get maximum civil unrest if I don’t get my damned pensions, I mean, pension!” Young Chips growled in agreement and bared his fangs.
“Next customer, please,” the dark young man said.
“Hold hard,” cried Old Pete raising his stick. “I want to speak to the manager.”
“This branch no longer has a manager, sir, but an operator, fully conversant, I hasten to add, with all current trends in new technology.”
“A pox upon your technology. Who do I see about my pension?”
“Well you might fill in a form which we will forward in due course to Head Office, requesting a manual systems over-ride, although the procedure is somewhat archaic and extremely lengthy.”
“Then I’ll go up to your Head Office and speak with them.”
The dark young man laughed malevolently. “One does not simply go up to Lateinos and Romiiths and speak to them. Whoever heard of such a thing?” He smirked towards his assistant, who tittered behind her hand and turned up her eyes.
“Oh don’t they, though?” snarled Old Pete, grinding upon his dentures and rapping his Penang-lawyer upon the plexiglass screen. “Well, we’ll see about that.” With Chips hard on his down-at-heels, the ancient departed the sub-post office, walking for once without the aid of his stick.
Ahead, where once had been only bombsite land, the Lateinos and Romiith building rose above Brentford, a dark and accusing finger pointing towards the enclosed triangle of grey-troubled sky. Sixty-six floors of black lustreless glass, swallowing up the light. Within its cruel and jagged shadow magnolias wilted in their window-boxes and synthetic gold-top became doorstep cheese. It was not a thing of beauty but there was a terrible quality of a joyless for ever about it. High upon the uppermost ramparts, amid the clouds, tiny figures came and went, moving at a furious pace, striving to increase its height. Never had there been a Babel tower more fit for the tumbling, nor a fogey more willing to take on the task.