“So,” said a voice suddenly, “you are a secret Mohammedan, are you, Omally?” The Irishman rose to confront a grinning Jim Pooley. “Surely Mecca would be in the other direction?”
Omally dusted down his strides and gestured towards the gleaming symbol. “Now what would you make of that, lad?” he asked.
Pooley gave the copper coloured image a quick perusal. “Something buried in the ground?” he suggested.
Omally shook his head, although the thought had never crossed his mind.
“Is it a bench mark then? I’ve always wondered what those lads look like.”
“Not a bench mark, Jim.”
“It is then perhaps some protective amulet carelessly discarded by some wandering magician?” Although it seemed almost a possibility Omally gave that suggestion the old thumbs down. “All right, I give up, what is it?”
“There you have me, but I will show you an interesting thing.” Omally picked up Pooley’s spade, which was standing close at hand, raised it high above his head and drove it edgeways on towards the copper symbol with a murderous force. There was a sharp metallic clang as the spade’s head glanced against the image, cleared Pooley’s terrified face by the merest of inches and whistled off to land safely several plots away.
“Sorry,” said John, examining the stump of spade handle, “but you no doubt get my drift.”
“You mean you cannot dig it out?” Omally shook his head. “Right then.” Pooley spat on his palms and rubbed them briskly together.
“Before you start,” said Omally, “be advised by me that it cannot be either erased, defaced or removed.”
Pooley, who had by now removed his jacket and was rolling up his sleeves, paused a moment and cocked his head on one side. “It has a familiar look to it,” he said.
John nodded. “I thought that myself, the thing strikes a chord somewhere along the line.”
Pooley, who needed only a small excuse to avoid physical labour, slipped his jacket back on. He took out a biro and The Now Official Handbook of Allotment Golf.
“Best mark it out of bounds,” said Omally.
Pooley shook his head and handed him the book. “You’re good with your hands, John,” he said, “make a sketch of it on the back. If such a symbol has ever existed, or even does so now, there is one man in Brentford who is bound to know what it is.”
“Ah yes.” Omally smiled broadly and took both book and Biro. “And that good man is, if I recall, never to be found without a decanter of five-year-old scotch very far from his elbow.”
“Quite so,” said Jim Pooley. “And as we walk we will speak of many things, of sporting debts and broken spades.”
“And cabbages and camels,” said John Omally.
8
Professor Slocombe sat at his study desk, surrounded by the ever-present clutter of dusty tomes. Behind him twin shafts of sunlight entered the tall French windows and glittered upon his mane of pure white hair, casting a gaunt shadow across the mountain of books on to the exquisite Persian carpet which pelted the floor with clusters of golden roses.
The Professor peered through his ivory-rimmed pince-nez and painstakingly annotated the crackling yellow pages of an ancient book, the Count of St Germaine’s treatise upon the transmutation of base metals and the improvement of diamonds. The similarities between his marginal jottings and the hand-inscribed text of the now legendary Count were such as would raise the eyebrows of many a seasoned graphologist.
Had it not been for the fact that the Count of St Germaine had cast his exaggerated shadow in the fashionable places of some three hundred years past, one would have been tempted to assume that both inscriptions were the product of a single hand, the Count’s text appearing only the work of a younger and more sprightly individual. But even to suggest such a thing would be to trespass dangerously upon the shores of unreason, although it must be said that Old Pete, one of the Borough’s most notable octogenarians, was wont to recall that when he was naught but a tousle-haired sprog, with ringworm and rickets, the Professor was already a gentleman of great age.
Around and about the study, the musty showcases were crowded with a profusion of extraordinary objects, the tall bookshelves bulged with rare volumes and the carved tables stood heavily burdened with brass oraries and silver astrolabes. All these wonders hovered in the half-light, exhibits of a private museum born to the Professor’s esoteric taste. Golden, dusty motes hung in the sunlight shafts, and the room held a silence which was all its own. Beyond the French windows, the wonderful garden bloomed throughout every season with a luxuriant display of exotic flora. But beyond the walls existed a changing world for which the Professor had very little time. He trod the boundaries of the Borough each day at sunrise, attended certain local functions, principally the yearly darts tournament at the Flying Swan, and accepted his role as oracle and ornamental hermit to the folk of Brentford.
Omally’s hobnails clattered across the cobbled stones of the Butts Estate, Pooley’s blakeys offering a light accompaniment, as the two marched purposefully forward.
“No sign of the wandering camel trains then?” asked Jim.
Omally shrugged. “Something had been giving Dave’s cabbage patch quite a seeing to,” he said, “but I saw no footprints.”
“Neville put the wee lad out, shortly after you’d gone.”
“Good thing too, last thing we need is a camel hunt on the allotment.”
The two men rounded a corner and reached the Professor’s garden door. Here they paused a moment before pressing through. Neither man knew exactly why he did this; it was an unconscious action, as natural as blinking, or raising a pint glass to the lips. Omally pushed open the ever-unbolted door and he and Pooley entered the magical garden. The blooms swayed drowsily and enormous bees moved amongst them humming tunes which no man knew the words to.
The Professor turned not his head from his writing, but before his two visitors had come but a step or two towards the open French windows he called out gaily, “Good afternoon, John, Jim. You are some distance from your watering hole with yet half an hour’s drinking time left upon the Guinness clock.”
Pooley scrutinized his Piaget wristwatch, which had stopped. “We come upon business of the utmost import,” he said, knowing well the Professor’s contempt for the mundane, “and seek your counsel.”
“Enter then. You know where the decanter is.”
After a rather undignified rush and the equally tasteless spectacle of two grown men squeezing together through the open French windows Pooley and Omally availed themselves of the Professor’s hospitality. “You are looking well, sir,” said Jim, now grinning up from a brimming shot-crystal tumbler. “Are you engaged upon anything interesting in the way of research at present?”
The old man closed his book and smiled up at Pooley. “The search for the philosopher’s stone,” he said simply. “But what of you fellows? How goes the golfing?”
Omally brought his winning smile into prominence. “We pursue our sport as best we can, but the Council’s henchmen have little love for our technique.”
Professor Slocombe chuckled. “I have heard tell of your technique,” he said, “and I suspect that your chances of membership to Gleneagles are pretty slight. I myself recently followed up some reports of UFO sightings above the allotments at night and my investigation disclosed a cache of luminously painted golf balls. Although your techniques are somewhat unorthodox, your enterprise is commendable.” The old man rose from his desk and decanted himself a gold watch. “So,” he said at length, “to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”