The Educated Ape and Other Wonders of the Worlds Read online

  ‘Hide the envelope,’ whispered the pilot. But the portly chef was already doing so. ‘Now go, my friend, just go.’

  ‘Your friend?’

  Lord Brentford burst into the cockpit. He clutched his double-action twelve-bore fowling piece and this he waved about in a furious fashion.

  ‘What the devil?’ cried his lordship. ‘I gave you no permission to—’

  ‘The pilot is injured,’ said the chef ‘He needs medical assistance.’

  ‘Medical assistance?’ His lordship was fuming once more. ‘Crashes a damned spaceship into me ancient pile. Ruins me party—’

  ‘He needs our help,’ said the chef.

  ‘Get out!’ roared his lordship. ‘I shall deal with this.’

  ‘Treat him gently—’

  ‘Will you get out! Do something useful — fetch me a brandy. Out now, you, and take me butler, too.’

  The chef took the monkey butler by a hairy hand. The monkey butler gazed towards the simian space pilot and his other hand reached out to touch the ancient ape.

  ‘Best not,’ said the chef And, ‘You will be all right,’ he told the pilot. ‘Farewell for now.

  ‘Farewell for now?’ roared and fumed Lord Brentford. ‘Out!’

  The chef led the monkey butler from the spaceship. The party folk were creeping back, peeping from behind trees, whispering to one another.

  The monkey butler tugged at the hand of the chef ‘What is it?’ the chef asked. ‘You want to go back?’ A look of alarm was on the face of the monkey. And before the chef could say another word there came a terrible sound from within the spaceship.

  The sound of his lordship’s fowling piece.

  Both barrels fired and then silence.

  4

  rnest Rutherford, First Baron Rutherford of Nelson, was a man of his Age. He was also a man who was truly ahead of his time. The Victorian period cast before the world a plethora of notable geniuses: Charles Babbage, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and Mr Rutherford. Men who helped to shape their own Age and future Ages, too.

  Mr Rutherford was a chemist, New Zealand born, who had come to settle in London. Early on in his career he had discovered the concept of the radioactive half-life. He differentiated and named both alpha and beta radiation and it was for work within this field that he would later go on to win a Nobel Prize.

  The year of eighteen ninety-nine found him inhabiting a large Georgian house in South Kensington, within which he conducted a number of ground-breaking experiments, most of which involved a lot of electricity and a great deal of noise. He was not a man popular with his neighbours.

  Upon a summer’s morning of that year, with a nearby church clock chiming the hour of ten, there came a knocking upon Mr Rutherford’s front door. On his doorstep stood two figures. One was a bald and bearded chef, the other a monkey butler. Mr Rutherford’s front door swung open and something-or-other peeped out.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the chef in a cheerful fashion. ‘We wish to speak with your master.’

  ‘Go away, you beastly things.’ The something put his shoulder to the door.

  ‘I believe it to be most important.’ The chef put his foot in the door, as might a travelling salesman.

  ‘Remove your foot,’ cried the something, ‘or I will fetch a carving knife and slice it off at the ankle.’

  ‘Enough of that, Jones.’ A sound was heard as of hand striking a head and then the door swung wide. ‘My apologies,’ said a tall, distinguished personage with a luxuriant moustache and piercing grey eyes. He wore a white work apron over a well-cut morning suit and a pair of rubber gauntlets, the right one of which he was struggling to remove. ‘May I help you, sir?’ he asked. ‘I regret that if you are of the religious persuasion and here to solicit funds, I must disappoint you. My earnings are insufficient to permit largesse, but I offer you my warmest wishes. Which in their way, I feel you will agree, are quite beyond price.’

  He paused to let his words sink in.

  The portly chef just shook his head and the monkey butler gawped.

  ‘Sir,‘ said the chef, producing the envelope. ‘I was given this to hand to you. I was instructed not to open it. I believe, although I cannot be certain as to the source of my belief, that it contains something most important.’

  Mr Rutherford, for it was indeed he, gazed at the man who stood upon his doorstep. ‘I know you, sir,’ said he. ‘We have met before. I never forget a face, but—’

  The chef shook his head once more.

  ‘The beard is strange to me,’ said Mr Rutherford, and with that said he took the envelope. The man and the monkey watched him as he tore it open, removed its contents and gave these contents perusal.

  Then Mr Rutherford gasped and said, ‘Surely this cannot be!’ He then stared hard at his visitors. ‘What is your name, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘My name?’ said the chef, and he thought about this. ‘My name is Chef,’ he said.

  ‘Chef? Just Chef? Are you sure?’

  ‘I am confused,’ said the chef, and he was. ‘My name is “Chef’,’ he said once more.

  ‘Come in quickly, now,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘We must speak of this in private. No one else must know of the matters we are about to discuss.’

  The chemist ushered his visitors within and closed the door behind them. ‘Jones,’ he called, ‘come here.’

  They were standing in an elegant hallway, its walls made pleasant with framed watercolours depicting the landscapes that their owner had known in his childhood. A stuffed kiwi bird stared sightlessly from a showcase and a similarly stuffed Maori warrior served as a decorative hatstand. The chef raised his eyes to the Maori.

  Mr Rutherford sighed. ‘Rather tasteless, I agree,’ he said, ‘but a present from my mother to remind me of home. Jones — where are you, Jones?’ he called.

  The something-or-other poked its head through a banister of a broad staircase that swept up from the hall to numerous bedrooms above. ‘I’m in charge here now,’ it said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Rutherford with a smile, ‘of course you are. But please, employ the innate dignity and humility of the superior being you are and indulge this gross creature by bringing himself and his guests a pot of tea and some biscuits.’

  The something named Jones made a face of perplexity, then sloped off to the kitchen.

  ‘What exactly is that?’ asked the chef ‘I do not believe I have ever seen anything quite like it before.’

  ‘Except perhaps within the pages of fairy-tale books, ‘replied Mr Rutherford. ‘It is indeed a troll.’

  ‘A troll?’ asked the chef ‘As in a goblin or a bugaboo?’

  ‘They are all very much of a muchness, although they would have you believe otherwise. Each specimen has an inflated opinion of its own importance. One has to step warily when dealing with trolls.’

  ‘So how did you come by it?’ asked the chef ‘Another gift from your mother?’

  Mr Rutherford laughed. ‘Not a bit of it,’ he said. ‘Jones, how shall I put this, “came through” during the course of an experiment.’

  ‘I have no idea as to what you might mean by that,’ said the chef.

  ‘And nor should you. But all will shortly be revealed, and not, I fear, in a manner entirely to your liking.’

  The chef looked queerly at the chemist. ‘Strange as it may sound,’ he said, ‘I do have the odd feeling that our paths have crossed before.’

  ‘Oh, indeed they have,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘And. you, young sir,’ he said to the ape, ‘do you recall our meetings?’

  The ape looked blankly at the man.

  ‘He cannot speak,’ said the chef ‘Although—’

  ‘Although you recently encountered one who could? Which means that the experiment was a success. Where is the pilot now?’

  ‘The pilot?’ said the chef ‘Why, he is …’ And he lowered his eyes. ‘A terrible business,’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh, I am so very sorry. But come along now, do. The two of you must be “de-p
rogrammed”, as it were. Then you will understand everything. Well, not everything, but a great deal more than you do right now, which is better than knowing only a small part, or no part at all, is it not? Yes, indeed it is.’

  Mr Rutherford led the man and the monkey to a large metal-bound door adorned with many padlocks and with the words DANGER KEEP OUT posted upon it in letters large and red.

  ‘I have misinformed Jones that a dragon dwells within, ‘said Mr Rutherford, ‘and although he can get quite worked up thinking about dragons, he happily lacks the courage actually to confront one.’

  The portly chef just shook his head, for he was most confused.

  Mr Rutherford produced a ring of keys, selected one and turned it in the keyhole of the door. ‘Done,’ he said, swinging open the door. ‘The padlocks are just for show. Inside, please, if you will.’

  The chef and the monkey entered, then Mr Rutherford entered, too, locking the door behind him when he had done so.

  The chef threw up his hands and said, ‘How will your troll present us with the tea?’

  ‘He won’t,’ said. Mr Rutherford. ‘He will do what he always does — go to the kitchen, think about things, then decide that he is being hard done by and that the making of tea is beneath his dignity. Then he will sit and have a good sulk. He will do that for an hour.’

  ‘So we won’t get our tea?’ asked the chef.

  ‘Nor will we be bothered by him,’ said the chemist. ‘But tea, I think, is hardly the thing. We must toast the success of the project with champagne.’

  They stood now in a cosy sitting room upon a delicately patterned Persian carpet woven from wood fibre laid over a floor of varnished beech. The walls were panelled with pitch pine and the furniture was of mahogany. A fireplace was fashioned from gopher wood and fragrant logs burned in the fireplace.

  The chef gazed about and so did the monkey.

  So, too, did the chemist. ‘I know what you are thinking,’ he said. ‘It’s all a bit “woody”, but that’s a necessity with so much electricity bouncing about the place at times. Dry wood is a poor conductor, you see. The chances of you receiving a fatal voltage when you sit down are meagre.’ The chemist smiled. Encouragingly.

  The chef sighed and the monkey shrugged and then the two of them sat down upon an oak settle. It was not particularly comfortable, but as it lowered the chances of a fatal voltage to meagreness, it would do for now.

  Mr Rutherford took himself over to a rosewood cabinet and drew from it a Gladstone bag. ‘I will have to know how it was done so that I can undo it,’ he said.

  ‘I would really appreciate an explanation,’ said the chef ‘And if it is not being too nosy of me, might I know what the envelope I brought you contains?’

  ‘The latter is simple,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘Well, to a degree. It is a letter. The latter is a letter,’ said he, and smiled once more.

  ‘Written by whom?’ asked the chef.

  ‘By me,’ said Mr Rutherford.

  ‘Ah,’ said the chef ‘That does not lessen my confusion.’

  ‘Nor will me telling you that the letter was written — or rather will be written — six months from now. It is a letter from the future. The first of its kind, I do believe. But not, I trust, the last.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the chef once more. ‘I think my companion and I should now take our leave.’

  ‘Do you know your companion’s name?’ asked Mr Rutherford.

  The chef gave his bald head a scratch. ‘I know him only as “monkey”,’ he said.

  ‘Indeed.’ Mr Rutherford nodded. ‘And again I say that in order to undo what has been done to you, I must first know how it was done.’ He removed a stethoscope from the Gladstone bag and approached the chef with it. ‘You see, my friend,’ he said, ‘and you are my friend, as we know each other quite well — you have been mesmerised, or otherwise put into a state of unknowing by a person or persons unknown. Your name is not “Chef’, and your partner’s name is not “monkey”. Your name is Cameron Bell and you are the Empire’s foremost consulting detective. This fellow here is your partner. His real name is Darwin, although for professional purposes he prefers to call himself Humphrey Banana. He holds the distinction of being the world’s first and only talking ape.’

  The chef, whose name might possibly be Bell, gawped at the chemist. ‘This is madness,’ was what he had to say.

  ‘Madness?’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘Then you just wait until I free your memory and you recall the rest.’

  ‘I am a chef,’ said the portly fellow. ‘I am a chef and my duty is to serve.

  ‘Hold hard,’ said Mr Rutherford, and he hung his stethoscope about his neck, returned once more to his rosewood cabinet and plucked from it a newspaper. ‘I kept this,’ he said. ‘I did not know why, but now perhaps I do. Here — see for yourself’

  And with this said he handed the newspaper to the now thoroughly befuddled chef The newspaper was a copy of The Times dated one year previously.

  ANOTHER VANISHMENT

  ran the headline. Beneath this was a photograph of a gentleman who bore an uncanny resemblance to the illustrator Boz’s representations of Mr Pickwick.

  THE EMPIRE’S FOREMOST

  CONSULTING DETECTIVE MISSING

  POLICE BAFFLED

  ran the copy beneath.

  ‘I have a beard,’ said the bald and bearded chef ‘Although the resemblance is—’

  ‘Uncanny?’ said the chemist. ‘And so it should be, for the picture is of you.’

  ‘And I am in partnership with … ?‘

  ‘Darwin,’ said Mr Rutherford, ‘or Humphrey Banana, as he prefers to be known.’

  ‘For professional purposes?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘And he is the world’s one and only talking ape?’ Mr Rutherford nodded his head.

  ‘But I’ve met another.’

  Mr Rutherford shook his head.

  ‘I did,’ said the man who might be Cameron Bell. ‘You did not,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘The pilot was the same ape.’

  ‘The same ape?’ The now somewhat bewildered man stared down at the monkey butler.

  ‘The self-same talking ape,’ said the chemist. ‘The pilot of the world’s first time machine.’

  5

  t is always for the best if things are explained precisely. Clearly, unambiguously, with clarity. With perspicuity. Then there cannot be the slightest fear of confusion.

  ‘I am confused,’ said the man who might be Cameron Bell. ‘I am very confused.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘Then let us take this one step at a time. I feel confident that I can restore you both to your previous selves and return to you your memories. But first let me explain to you about the time-ship.’

  ‘This would be your time machine, would it?’ The chef-or-not did rollings of the eyes.

  ‘Such a reaction is to be expected.’ Mr Rutherford returned once more to his rosewood cabinet and this time drew from it a bottle of vintage champagne and three fluted glasses.

  ‘Château Doveston,’ said the possible—detective. ‘I recognise the label.’

  ‘Some things stay forever in the memory,’ said Mr Rutherford, ‘the fragrance of a well-loved wife and the taste of a fine champagne being two of them.’ The chemist uncorked the bottle and poured the golden sparkly stuff into the three fluted glasses. He handed one to the bearded man, another to the monkey.

  ‘Let me tell you a little story,’ said Mr Rutherford, taking up his own glass. ‘It is all about theory and putting theory into practice.’

  The bearded man sipped his champagne and considered that there were probably worse ways than this of spending a morning. ‘Go ahead, sir,’ said he.

  ‘Have you ever heard of the Large Hadron Collider?’ asked the chemist.

  A bald head took to shaking.

  ‘It is a highly technical piece of scientific equipment and I have supervised the building of one right here beneath the capital.’

  The bald h
ead nodded thoughtfully. The monkey sneezed due to bubbles up the nose.

  ‘A hadron,’ said the chemist, ‘is, simply put, a composite particle composed of quarks held together by something called “strong force”. Which is to say one of the four basic interactions of nature, the others being electromagnetism, weak interaction — which is responsible for the radioactive decay of subatomic particles — and gravitation, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ said he of the beard.

  ‘You understand such matters?’ queried the chemist.

  ‘Not in the slightest, no.

  ‘Hmm.’ Mr Rutherford sipped champagne. ‘The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator designed to enhance our understanding of some of the deepest laws of nature. Well, my understanding, at least. Imagine if you will a tunnel, fashioned into a loop. Particles are accelerated around it via a process known as the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter which results in a cross—polarisation of the beta particles and a—’

  ‘I will have to stop you there,’ said the bald and bearded fellow. ‘Your words are as of a foreign language to me. I understand only that you have supervised the construction of something called a Large Hadron Collider beneath the streets of London. Might I enquire as to whether it is safe?’

  ‘As far as we can tell,’ said the chemist, finishing his champagne and recharging his glass with more. ‘After all, people use it every day.’

  ‘The technicians who work upon it?’

  ‘The travellers who travel through it.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’ said the man of beard and baldness, holding out his glass to be refilled.

  ‘Londoners call it the Circle Line,’ said Mr Rutherford. ‘They do not know it for the thing it truly is. Our experiments are run at night, when the trains are safely in their engine sheds.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ said the bald bearder. ‘And thank you for the champagne.’

  The chemist nodded. ‘There sometimes needs to be a degree of, how shall I put this … disinformation is probably the best word. The Government and the scientific bodies involved in the funding of the project have not been informed as to the true nature of its purpose. It appears to be a tool to further our understanding of the universe, but it is of course nothing of the kind.’