The Mechanical Messiah and Other Marvels of the Modern Age Read online

  It took six months to construct the Mechanical Messiah. It took the townsfolk of Wormcast, Arizona, less than an hour to destroy it.

  It had all been such a sad misunderstanding. It had all been the fault of Darwin the monkey butler. The colonel had not one inkling as to his servant’s skills in the field of human speech. And then, upon having made his tenth attempt to bring life to the Mechanical Messiah by drawing into it the electrical ether, in a manner which had hitherto only been attempted (with some success, it is recorded) by a certain Victor Frankenstein, the misunderstanding had occurred.

  The colonel considered that if the lightning rod had been correctly aligned by Darwin, the experiment might well have proved a success. But instead of the lightning darting down the rod to engage with the terminals upon the shoulders of the Mechanical Messiah, it jumped these terminals and bounced about the Spiritual Laboratory, striking Darwin and setting fire to his tail.

  Which caused the monkey to cry out the Name of God’s Son.

  Colonel Katterfelto had fallen back in amazement. And then rushed forwards to extinguish his burning butler.

  ‘It is a miracle,’ cried the colonel. ‘You have become a Vessel of God. The voice of the angels speaks through you.’

  Darwin, still smouldering slightly, turned a bitter, although thoughtful, eye upon the colonel.

  ‘The angels require that you should furnish this vessel with a bunch of bananas and a large gin and tonic,’ he had said. Most eloquently.

  And from thereafter all had gone terribly wrong.

  The angels made many demands of the colonel. Many demands that did not seem even remotely connected with bringing life to the Mechanical Messiah. Most seemed more directly concerned with the vessel’s welfare in the form of culinary requirements and bottles of vintage port. At times the colonel questioned these demands.

  ‘To what end,’ he enquired, ‘did the New Messiah need to have the front garden converted into a banana plantation?’

  But who was he to argue with the angels? Who would do such a thing?

  The end came swiftly and in the form of fire. Darwin, somewhat bloated of belly from an over-surfeit of bananas and far gone in drink through the imbibition of too much vintage port, had taken it into his hairy head to borrow the horse and trap (a surrey with a fringe on the top) and drive into town to purchase some chocolates from the general store.

  It had been an ill-considered move. For where Colonel Katterfelto discerned the voice of angels speaking through Darwin, the plain folk of Wormcast, Arizona, saw something altogether different. They saw a demon employed by the Antichrist. For rumours in Wormcast were rife that Colonel Katterfelto was up to something altogether unhealthy at his shack. And this, if proof were needed, was all the proof there needed to be.

  That night the God-fearing folk of Wormcast, Arizona, marched upon the Spiritual Laboratory in the company of blazing torches.

  And that was that was that.

  The man and his monkey fled Arizona. They returned to London, where Colonel Katterfelto hocked his medals and his ray gun and invested the last of his money in a set of battered clockwork minstrels.

  He was down, was the colonel, but not entirely out. He would rise again. But for now he certainly wasn’t speaking to Darwin, who had remained with the colonel for reasons of his own. And Darwin was not speaking to him.

  So the two sat wordlessly and glowered at one another, as kiwi birds flopped foolishly, and the five-minute bell rang a kind of a death knell in the crowded communal dressing room.

  3

  n evening at the Music Hall quite suited Cameron Bell. He needed something to exercise his mind. The challenge of another complex criminal case would have been the first choice of the man known by those in the know to be the world’s greatest detective. But if such was not forthcoming then an evening of frivolous entertainment. Especially if it came in the comely form of the enchanting Alice Lovell, whose acrobatic kiwi birds were presently causing some annoyance to Colonel Katterfelto.

  Cameron Bell was a most private man, and although history would remember him, it would do so under two quite separate names. And neither of these his own. Amongst Cameron’s many friends was a pair of literary types and each chose to immortalise him in print. Charles Dickens based the look of Mr Pickwick[3] upon Cameron Bell. And Arthur Conan Doyle based the skills of Sherlock Holmes upon those of this real—life detective.

  Cameron Bell was greatly tickled by his friends’ depictions of him. The only drawback being that folk did tend to stop him in the street to enquire whether they could join The Pickwick Club, and how was Sam Weller[4] doing these days?

  Upon this particular evening, this early summer’s evening in July of eighteen ninety-seven, Cameron Bell had chosen to fork out the full half-crown for a box seat near to the Electric Alhambra’s stage. There were others in that box upon this evening and Mr Bell doffed his silk top hat towards them as he entered and settled into his numbered seat.

  These others were Venusians. A male and a female so it seemed, although a debate still raged amongst those who were not in the know, yet wished to be, as to exactly how many sexes Venusians had. Some said three: male, female and ‘of the spirit’. Others contested that Venusians were trimaphrodite, embodying all three sexes in a single being.

  Cameron Bell knew the truth, but this truth he kept to himself From the corner of his eye he viewed his fellow patrons of this most expensive box. They were certainly magnificent creatures. Tall and stately, with skin of an ivory paleness. High snowy plumes of hair, teased into intricate spires and intriguing curlicues. Eyes of gold and angled cheekbones. Fingers delicate and fine. They exuded a subtle perfume. Artificial? Or bodily odour? Cameron Bell did not know that.

  The Venusians spoke one to another in hushed tones, and in their native tongue. The meaning of their words was lost to Cameron Bell. For although he had made numerous attempts to learn Venusian — no simple matter, as Venusians were not at all forthcoming — he had concluded that without the aid of a willing tutor, the task was nigh impossible.

  Why, it would be easier to teach a monkey to speak the Queen’s English. And such an idea as that was clearly ludicrous!

  The most private of private detectives placed his silk top hat between his feet and divested himself of his white kid gloves. Perching his pince-nez upon his nose, he gazed out across the brightly lit auditorium. And certain words which he had recently read in The Times Society column returned to him. He tended to share the columnist’s opinion: the interior of the Electric Alhambra was really much too much.

  The ceiling, so very high above, beyond the six tiers of balcony seats, was frescoed in the style of Michelangelo. With Queen Victoria, the Royal Sovereign, pictured as Empress of the Solar System, throned in glory and presiding benignly over her realm. Her subjects, of every colour, race and hue, including some that looked suspiciously Venusian in origin, knelt before her, gazing up in adoration. Cherubim and seraphim fussed and fluttered around and about, smiling with love upon Her Majesty.

  The walls that climbed to meet this travesty of Renaissance genius were of the rococo persuasion. Fussed and made fancy with a frenzy of gilded ornamentation. Fairies and phantoms, satyrs and sprites, fabulous figures and mythical heroes, scrambling over one another. As if seeking to reach, and no doubt offer praise, to the Queen Empress Goddess on high.

  But at least those who were made giddy from the gazing upwards did so in a cool and healthy climate. For the temperature and quality of the air was managed by intricate electrical systems, pneumatic, hydrostatic, magnetical and hydraulic in nature. Driven through the patent ice grotto and all linked to a self-governing nexus designed by Sir Charles Babbage.

  No matter one’s feelings for this Music Hall’s aesthetic, it truly was a marvel of the modern age.

  Mr Cameron Bell leaned back in his plush red-velvet-covered chair, delighting momentarily at simply being here and taking in the din of the restless crowd.

  Raucous cries and cockney o
aths and all over general hubbub.

  Then— The dimming of the house lights, the crowd noise gone to murmurs, now to silence.

  Then— The striking up of the band. Tonight the world-famous Titurel de Schentefleur would conduct Mazael’s Mechanical Musicians. A single tap of the baton and the overture began.

  This overture consisted of several popular Music Hall songs of the day and the crowd enthusiastically sang along with these.

  The first to have the patrons in full voice was Tommy ‘the Teapot’ Tompkinson’s famous audience-pleaser, ‘A Nice Cup of Tea for the Baby Girl’.

  Which went after this fashion:

  A nice cup of tea for the baby girl

  It don’t get better than that.

  You can keep all those gents

  With their sweet-smelling scents,

  Those toffs in their toppers

  And fine opera hats

  Because my wife’s a regular diamond

  She’s pure as an emerald or pearl.

  If I’m down on my uppers

  I’m still brewing cuppas

  For my sweet baby girl.

  A time would come in the future when folk would look back upon lyrics such as these and say, ‘They don’t write songs like that any more.’ And they would clearly be right.

  Cameron Bell sang what words he knew and hummed along with the rest. He had a good view of the mechanical musicians. Scarcely manlike, more a number of mahogany cases filled with complicated gubbins that squeezed bellows to power the woodwind section, or drew complex bows across curious violins. It was said that a professor from Brentford in Middlesex was working on a more compact system, which might be installed in drinking houses for their patrons to sing along with. But whether anything would come of Professor Karaoke’s musical machine was anybody’s guess.

  The first song came to an end and the second began. A sad one, this, as could tease a tear from the eye of a potato. The plaintive ballad that was ‘Me Mammy’s Wooden Foot’. A song of maternal love and accidental amputation.

  And so it went on, but not for too long. The secret has always been knowing when to stop, and when faced with a crowd armed with rotten fruit and veg, it is better to err upon the side of caution.

  Titurel de Schentefleur turned and bowed to the audience and then he and Mazael’s Mechanical Musicians descended at speed beneath the floor of the auditorium via a system of hidden hydraulics. Doors closed over the orchestra pit. A spotlight stabbed at the stage. Struck the great curtain to form an illuminated disc.

  And into this swaggered the master of ceremonies and interlocutor for the evening, ‘Lord’ Anthony Spaloney (the King of the old Baloney). In turquoise tailcoat and topper, he cut a considerable dash. The crowd cheered as he bowed extravagantly towards them, before, as he put it, ‘enunciating the gamut of delicious delectations that would gloriously grace the stage upon this eventime’.

  And as no one as yet had thrown anything, he went on to speak of tonight’s star ‘turns’. He showered syllables of sophistry upon the skills of the Scandinavian Saxophonists. Poured paeans of praise over Peter Pinkerton, the Piebald Prestidigitator. Eloquently extolled the exceeding excellence of Elmer Ellington’s Electric Eels. Affected an amorous appassionato whilst addressing amatory attention to Actom’s Aphrodite Alice Lovell. She of the Acrobatic Kiwis. And then, for here was a man who, through long experience in his line of work, had certainly learned that the secret was in knowing when to stop, hastily introduced the first star turn and exited the stage without a single missile being thrown.

  He inclined his head towards Colonel Katterfelto, waiting stage left, made the sign of the cross and then made away to the bar.

  The chords of a hidden harmonium heralded the arrival of Colonel Katterfelto. The great curtain rose to reveal the ample stage, bare of theatrical properties, but made gay by a colourful backdrop in the form of one vast Union Jack.

  This backdrop had been hung at the instigation of Colonel Katterfelto. The old soldier reasoning, quite rightly, that this might prove a deterrent against the flinging of foul fruit and veg. For no Englishman or woman, in the rightness of their minds, would ever think of besmirching the Union Jack.

  The hidden harmonium struck up a military march and Colonel Katterfelto strutted onto the stage. Polished boots and swagger stick and goggled helmet perched upon his head.

  The crowd, recognising at once the distinctive blue and silverly braided uniform of the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers, applauded the colonel and viewed the stage with quizzical expressions. Katterfelto’s Clockwork Minstrels were still an unknown quantity.

  The old soldier gazed towards his audience. But naught could be seen of them beyond the glare of the footlights. A tactical error, the colonel considered. One should always see one’s enemy before one’s enemy sees one.

  The colonel raised his hands slowly and lowered his goggles over his eyes. This brought some mirth to the crowd, who now, entertaining the idea that this might be a mime act, readied their soft-skinned weaponry, Union Jack or no Union Jack.

  Colonel Katterfelto switched on his goggles. Night-vision mode, Martian technology back-engineered by British boffins for soldiers in service of the Crown. The crowd became visible.

  Ugly, thought the colonel, affecting a gap-toothed smile.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘it is my pleasure to present for you this evening an entertainment that embodies the very spirit of our age. An age of enlightenment and progress. An age—’ The colonel saw the movement, gauged the arc, watched as the turnip reached its apogee, stepped smartly aside as it swung down onto the stage.

  This evasive manoeuvre most impressed and somewhat baffled a crowd that was used to having the element of surprise on its side. A cabbage was launched towards the stage; the colonel nimbly sidestepped this. Fruit followed on and the colonel dodged this, too.

  In his box, Cameron Bell opened his umbrella. When fruit and veg were being thrown, there was a tendency for some of it to ‘accidentally’ strike home amongst the sitters in the expensive boxes. It was better to be safe than to be sorry.

  Then there came a temporary lull in the bombardment. For without warning something short and shiny-looking tottered onto the stage. It was a tinplate manikin, some three feet in height. Its face wore smiling painted features, its body a painted red suit and a painted bow tie. A large key revolved slowly in its back as it made its precarious way towards the colonel, wobbling uneasily with every metal footfall.

  The crowd applauded the tin man’s entrance and Colonel Katterfelto, with hope in his heart, twirled his swagger stick, bowed low towards the automaton, then made a number of expansive gestures that none could fathom the meaning of. Then bit upon his upper lip as the clockwork walker toppled.

  The bombardment that followed was given equal distribution between Colonel Katterfelto and the fallen tinplate figure. Two heavy swedes struck home against the latter, causing a turn towards the unexpected. Seams split and a monkey, now suddenly revealed to be the hidden operator of the clockwork minstrel, leapt out, baring his teeth.

  The crowd jeered and bellowed and flung everything it had.

  Darwin, now gibbering in the tongue of his ancestors, did as his simian forebears would have done: produced dung and heaved it in joyful retaliation at the audience.

  The curtain fell.

  4

  olonel Katterfelto returned to the communal dressing room.

  To receive a standing ovation. Somewhat taken aback and drop-jawed by this unexpected applause, the old campaigner gratefully received the penny cigar that Peter Pinkerton, the Piebald Prestidigitator, pushed into his mouth. And sucked greedily upon it, once lit. Surely these artistes had made some mistake. The colonel was rightfully bewildered.

  ‘It is this way, sir,’ said Alice Lovell, made lovelier by the white ringmaster’s uniform that hugged her where a lady should be hugged. ‘No bill-bottomer has ever before stepped from that stage utterly free of besmirchment.’

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bsp; ‘Ah,’ said the colonel. And nodded his elderly head. ‘And what is more,’ continued Alice, coquettishly cocking her head upon one side, ‘you have spared your fellow performers, having caused the mob to exhaust its supply of mouldy fruit and vegetables.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the colonel once more. And he once more sucked upon his cigar.

  ‘Sorry about your monkey, though,’ said Alice.

  Colonel Katterfelto gazed down at his erstwhile monkey butler, now bedraggled stage assistant. Darwin, with no night-vision goggles to enable him to view ‘incoming’, was a monkey greatly in need of a bath. A sad and sorry sight.

  A shadow of a smile appeared upon the colonel’s face, but sensing a retribution for such an expression that was likely to come in the form of faeces, he turned far down the corners of his mouth and said, ‘Poor fellow indeed. Perhaps, dear lady, you might assist in bathing my hirsute companion. Your hands being smaller than my own and better suited to so delicate a task.’

  ‘Well…’ went Alice Lovell.

  The colonel displayed his hands and caused these to tremble somewhat. ‘The shock of it all,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should retire this night forever from the stage.’

  It was now Alice Lovell’s turn to say, ‘Ah.’ Followed by, ‘Not a bit of it, sir. You must complete the season with the rest of your fellow performers.’ Adding that she would gladly cleanse the ape upon this occasion.

  Darwin viewed the attractive young woman, scarcely a head higher than himself Slim and sleek, with the prettiest of faces. Certain thoughts passed through the mind of Darwin the Music Hall monkey. Certain thoughts that are best left unrecorded.