“Where is Meek?”
“He’s inside, sir, but sir, frost-bitten, it’s nearly midsummer!”
“Clear everyone out and that means now!”
“Yes, sir.”
Hovis thrust his way up the garden path and between the shattered French windows, which lay driven from their hinges. “God, what’s that terrible smell? Something dead in here, is there?”
“Could be, sir, place is in a terrible mess.” Within the study, flash-bulbs popped and the lads from forensic took readings and measurements, made educated guesses and sipped coffee from Thermos flasks. Several constables, whose sole function appeared to consist of getting in everybody’s way, went about their duties with a will. The room was devastated, the precious tomes scattered, antique furniture upturned, priceless artifacts smashed beyond repair.
“Good God!” said Hovis. “He lived through this?”
“Just about, sir.”
Hovis turned upon the lookers and loafers. “Out!” he ordered. “Clear the room! Where is Meek?”
The constable was stoking up the fire, beside which sat Jim Pooley, swathed in towels and blankets, blue of face and bitter of eye. “Here, sir,” said Meek.
Hovis glared down at the kneeling constable. “This is a balls-up of the first magnitude. Meek,” he roared. “What have you to say for yourself?”
“Sir?”
“Meek, I ordered a twenty-four-hour watch put on this house, where were you when this occurred?”
“Right here, sir, I…”
“You what? What happened here? Who did this?”
“Well, sir…” the constable hung his head, “I can’t rightly remember, there was this car …”
“Car, lad?”
“A long black car, I’ve never seen one like it before.”
A loud and plaintive groan issued from the fireside blanket man.
“Ah,” said Hovis, raising a quizzical eyebrow, “and what do we have here?”
“Chap was upstairs in the bath, sir, frozen into a block of ice. The firemen had to cut him out with their axes.” Meek stifled a titter. “You should have heard him howl, sir.”
As Jim stared daggers at the young policeman, Inspectre Hovis stared hard at Jim. “Mr Pooley, is it not?”
Jim cowered nearer to the fire and did drum rolls with his teeth. “James Arbuthnot Pooley, born 27th July nineteen forty-nine, Parsons Green Maternity Hospital. No previous convictions.”
“No previous, eh?” said the Inspectre. “And what is your part in all this?”
“An innocent bystander, caught in the cosmic crossfire,” Jim declared. “One minute I’m having a bath and the next thing bejam! I’m a bloody fish-finger!”
“I think we’ll get you down to the nice warm interview room before any more misfortune befalls you,” said Hovis.
“I’m fine here, thank you.”
“Meek, kindly escort Mr Pooley to the station. Presently I will speak to you both.”
“You can’t do this to me,” Jim complained. “I’ve done nothing, it’s a frame-up whatever it is. Is there no justice, answer me someone?” Constable Meek took Jim firmly by the elbow. “Police brutality!” howled the innocent man. “I’m not without influence, you see if I’m not.”
“Take him out, Constable.”
Amid further protestations of innocence, cries of outrage, and pleas for mercy, Jim was led away. By the time he had reached the squad car, martyrdom was very much in the forefront of his mind. “Cossacks!” he cried, as the car door slammed upon him. “Wield your rubber truncheons, stick your electrodes up my bottom, I’ll never talk, the present-day Pooley refuses to die!”
Hovis surveyed the tragic room. “I wonder,” said he.
“And what do you wonder, Sherringford?”
The Inspectre’s face broke into a smile. “I wonder how you did that, Professor,” he said, turning to confront that very man, who was standing with his back to the now blazing fire.
“An extremely complicated transperambulation,” the magus replied, by way of explanation. “I should not wish to repeat it, nor expound upon its intricacies. Frankly, I am somewhat spent.” He looked about at his study. “Oh dear,” he said, “this is something of a shambles. Allow me to set it to rights.”
Hovis held up his hand, “Before you demonstrate the impossible yet again, I should care for a few words.”
“As you will.” The Professor crossed the room, stepping carefully through the debris, swept fallen papers from the chair by his desk and settled into it. Hovis scratched his head and wondered where to begin. “Begin at the beginning,” the old man suggested.
“Then, what happened here?”
“I was subject to a visitation.”
“Evidently, but by whom?”
“By whom — or by what?”
“You have lost me already.”
Professor Slocombe dug amongst the chaos of his desk top and unearthed the sherry decanter and two glasses. “I am not certain that I was visited by a ‘whom’. I spent twenty years in the Potala, Tibet, studying under the Dalai Lama. I can read men’s auras, which gives me a certain edge, shall we say. I can often tell what questions they are likely to ask, or what moves they might make, shortly in advance of them doing so. My ‘visitor’ had no aura, Inspectre, none whatsoever. This can mean only one of two things, either that he was dead, which I consider unlikely, or that he was not human.” He poured sherry and handed the baffled detective a slim glass.
“Not human?” said Hovis. “Kindly continue.”
“It was possessed of enormous power, certainly more than a mere man could contain. There was a great rage there, something primordial, atavistic, inhuman, subhuman, protohuman, call it what you will, but not human.”
“You are telling me that some ‘thing’ is abroad on the streets of Brentford?”
“It has been for several weeks now.”
“And you have destroyed this thing, whatever it might be?”
“I fear not; temporarily disabled it, perhaps. I countered its attack with ‘calling of disassociation’, of confusion. I preconceived what was about to occur and created a ‘tulpa’ or ‘doppelgänger’ of myself upon which I allowed it to spend its energy, before I struck back at it.”
“Then the you in the ambulance is not the you that is here, or is it…”
“I was in Penge during the attack, but I will not add to your confusion.”
“My thanks,” said Hovis. “But what was this creature, the devil is it, or some monster from outer space? Come now, Professor.”
“Not outer space. This thing was impossibly strong, it was almost as if it drew its power from the planet itself, from the Earth.”
“Is this connected with the business on the island?”
“Almost definitely, and by the by, I never got to see those plastercasts.”
Hovis looked shamefaced. “Yet another balls-up,” he said. “The casts were mysteriously broken. By the time they got around to taking more, rain had washed the original prints away.”
“I see,” said the Professor, in a tone which suggested that he did. “And how goes the great quest?”
“Great quest?”
“The search for gold.”
“Ah now,” said the Inspectre, “I believe the popular expression is, that police are expecting to make an early arrest.”
“Bravo, then you evidently have made significant progress.”
“I believe I know where the loot is stashed. The dawn swoop is imminent.”
“Then the case is all but wrapped up.”
“All but,” said Hovis proudly.
“Good, then I would appreciate the immediate release of my gardener.”
“Ah!” said Hovis. “The holidaymaker.”
“Yes, Sherringford. Rather unsporting of you I thought, you may use my telephone if you wish.”
“I would rather not, but I suppose …” Hovis was interrupted by the sudden arrival of two white-faced ambulance men.
“He’s … gone …” said one.
“It’s all right,” the Inspectre replied, “he’s here.” Turning towards the Professor’s desk he was surprised to discover that the old man was not. “A man of many talents,” said Inspectre Hovis. “None of which I understand.”