“That vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard? Certainly not.”
Norman crawled out under the door and drew it rapidly down behind him. “Just servicing the old Morris Minor,” he said.
“Sounds a bit iffy,” said Omally.
“A bit of gear trouble, nothing more.”
“Let me have a look at it then.” Omally was all smiles. “I know the old Morris engine like the back of my hand.” He extended this very appendage towards the garage doorhandle, but Norman barred his way.
“Nothing to concern yourself about,” he said, “nothing I cannot handle.”
“Oh, no trouble, I assure you. Nothing I like better than getting to grips with a monkey wrench and a set of allan keys.”
“No, no,” said Norman, “I think not, it is growing late now and I have to be up early in the morning.”
“No problem then, I have no a.m. appointments, to me the night is yet young. Leave me the garage key and I will post it through your letter-box as soon as I am done.”
“You are kindness personified,” said Norman, “but I could not impose upon you in such a fashion. My conscience would not allow it. I will just lock up and then we shall stroll home together.” He stooped to refasten the padlock.
“You’d better switch the light off before you go,” said Jim Pooley.
Norman’s hand hovered over the padlock. A look of terrible indecision crossed his face.
“Allow me,” said John Omally, thrusting the shopkeeper aside and taking the handle firmly in two hands. “I should just like to have a look at this car of yours before we depart.”
“Please don’t,” whined the shopkeeper, but it was too late. The door flew upwards and the light from the lock-up garage flooded the street, exposing Norman’s secret to the world.
Pooley took a step backwards. “My God,” was all that he had to say.
Omally, however, was made of sterner stuff. “Now, there we have a thing,” he said, nudging the cowering shopkeeper. “Now there we have a thing indeed.”
Norman’s brain was reeling, but he did his best to affect an attitude of bland composure. “There, then,” he said, “satisfied? Now if you don’t mind, it is growing late.”
Omally stepped forward into the garage and pointed upwards. “Norman,” he said, “there is a camel asleep in your rafters.”
“Camel?” said Norman. “Camel? I don’t see any camel.”
“It is definitely a camel,” said John. “If it were a dromedary it would have but one hump.”
“You have been drinking, I believe,” said Norman. “I can assure you that there is nothing here but a Morris Minor with a tetchy gearbox. I have read of folk suffering such hallucinations when they have imbibed too freely. Come, let us depart, we shall speak no more of these things.”
“It’s definitely a camel,” said Jim.
“Dear me,” said Norman shaking his head, “another victim of Bacchus, and so young.”
“Why is it in the rafters?” Pooley asked. “I was always of the opinion that camels preferred to nest at ground level and in somewhat sunnier climes.”
“Perhaps it is a new strain?” said Omally. “Perhaps Norman has created some new strain of camel which he is attempting to keep secret from the world? Such a camel would no doubt revolutionize desert travel.”
Norman chewed upon his lip. “Please be careful where you stand, Omally,” he said. “Some of the primer on the bonnet is still wet.”
Omally put his arm about the shopkeeper’s shoulder. “Why not just make this easy on yourself?” he asked.
“Although I accept that mentally you are a fearsome adversary, surely you must realize that the game is up? Cease this folly, I beg you.”
“Don’t scuff the spare wheel with your hobnails,” said Norman.
Pooley raised his hand to speak. “If I might make a suggestion,” he said, “I think that the matter could be easily settled with a little practical demonstration.”
“Yes?” said Norman doubtfully.
“Well, you suggest that Omally and I are suffering some kind of mental aberration regarding this camel.”
“You are.”
“And we say that your Morris Minor is only notable for its complete and utter invisibility.”
“Huh!”
Pooley drew out his pocket lighter and struck fire. “You rev up your Morris,” he said, “and I shall toast the feet of my camel.”
“No, no!” Norman leapt into life. “Not toast his feet, not toast the feet of my Simon.”
“The camel has it,” said Jim Pooley.
Norman sank to his knees and began to sob piteously. Omally suggested that Jim should lower the garage door and this he did.
“Come, come,” said Omally to the crumpled shopkeeper, “there is no need for this undignified behaviour. Clearly we have intruded upon some private business. We have no wish to interfere, we are men of discretion, aren’t we, Jim?”
“Noted for it.”
“Not men to take advantage of such a situation are we, Jim?”
“Certainly not.”
“Even though this manifestation is clearly of such singularity that any newspaper reporter worthy of his salt would pay handsomely for an exclusive.”
“Say no more,” moaned Norman between sobs. “Name your price. I am a poor man but we can possibly come to some arrangement. A higher credit rating, perhaps.”
Omally held up his hand. “Sir,” he said, “are you suggesting that I would stoop to blackmail? That I would debase the quality of our long-standing friendship with vile extortion?”
“Such I believe to be the case,” said Norman dismally.
“Well then,” said Omally, rubbing his hands together, “let us get down to business, I have a proposition to put to you.”
18
After leaving Norman’s garage in the early hours of the morning, Pooley found little joy in the comforts of his cosy bed. He had listened with awe and not a little terror to the amazing revelations which Omally had skilfully wrung from the shopkeeper. Although Jim had plaintively reiterated that the Earth-balancing-pyramid theory which Norman had overheard, that lunchtime so long ago, was gleaned from the pages of an old comic book, as usual nobody had listened to him. What small, fitful periods of sleep he had managed were made frightful with dreams of great floating camels, materializing pyramids and invading spacemen.
At around six o’clock Pooley gave the whole thing up as a bad job, dragged on an overcoat, thrust a trilby hat on to his hirsute head, and trudged off round to the Professor’s house.
The old man sat as ever at his desk, studying his books, and no doubt preparing himself for the worst. He waved Pooley to an armchair without looking up and said, “I hope you are not going to tell me that during the few short hours that you have been gone you have solved the thing.”
“Partially,” said Jim without enthusiasm. “But I think John should take full-credit this time.”
The old man shook his head. “Do you ever feel that we are not altogether the masters of our own destinies?” he asked.
“No,” said Jim. “Never.”
“And so, what do you have to tell me?”
“You will not like it.”
“Do I ever?”
Pooley eyed the whisky decanter as a source of inspiration but his stomach made an unspeakable sound.
“Would you care to take breakfast with me, Jim?” the Professor asked. “I generally have a little something at about this time.”
“I would indeed,” said Jim. “Truly I am as ravenous as Ganesha’s rat.”
The Professor tinkled a small Burmese brass bell, and within a few seconds there came a knocking at the study door which announced the arrival of Professor Slocombe’s elderly retainer Gammon, bearing an overlarge butler’s tray loaded to the gunwhales with breakfast for two.
It was Pooley’s turn to shake his head. “How could he possibly know that I was here?”