RobertRankin's:TheAntipope:2/3

[A.Melon]

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upon knees and chin cupped in the palms of his hands. At his feet a cup of cocoa was rapidly growing cold. His wife was up
to something back at the marital home; there was a new roll of wire netting standing ominously in the hall and a large stack
of red flettons in the back yard. She had muttered something about an aviary on the last occasion he had seen her. Also
there was the affair of the beans weighing heavily upon his narrow shoulders.

Archroy sighed tragically. Why couldn't life be the straightforward affair it had once been?

As he sat in his misery Archroy's eyes wandered idly in the direction of Omally's allotment plot. There upon the rugged
patch of earth stood the solitary stake which marked out the location of the planted bean. Archroy had diligently watered
the spot night after night. Omallv had not been down to the site once during the last coupie of weeks, and Archroy felt he
had lost interest in the whole affair. He rose from his orange box and slouched over to inspect the Irishman's dark strip of
land. The stake appeared slightly crooked so he straightened it, stooping to smooth over the earth. There were no signs of
life whatever, no pleasant green stripling or young plantoid raising its head to the sunlight. Nothing but the barren earth.
Archroy bent his head near to the ground and squinted. This was, after all, his last bean and if this failed he would have
nothing whatever to recompense him for the tragic loss of his Morris Minor.

Perhaps if he just dug it up for a moment to check that it was all right, it couldn't do any harm. Then if it showed any
signs of life he could always replace it. No, it wouldn't hurt, one quick look. He needn't mention it to Omally.

The earth was soft and damp from its daily watering. Almost at once his fingers closed about a damp and clammy object which
he hastily brought to the surface. Gently laying it upon his palm he smoothed away the dark earth which clung to it,
exposing to his horror the familiar

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outlines of a common seed potato. Archroy's expression became one of grave concern. He hurled the potato aside and flung
himself to his knees. Rooting to and fro across the plot like a demented hog in search of a truffle he delved into the
earth. Oblivious to the muddy destruction of his tweeds, Archroy covered every inch of the plot to a depth of some ten
inches.

There was nothing; the plot was as barren as a desert, although now it would be ready to yield many varieties of vegetable,
having been so thoroughly turned. Archroy rose to his feet, mud clinging to the knees and elbows of his suit; his toupet,
which the manufacturers had assured him would stand up to a channel swim, had become strangely detached from its moorings
and swung above him like a spinnaker.

Archroy turned his eyes to the potato. So it was treachery, no wonder the Irishman had not troubled to come down and water
the plot. Why should he wish to water a seed potato?

'Damn and blast,' said Archroy.

Captain Carson watched the vehicle approach the Mission. He had never seen anything quite like it before. The enormous lorry
was absolutely, unutterably black. Not a trace of colour was there upon its deathly sides, but for a single red crest
emblazoned in the likeness of a bull. The vehicle moved in total silence and seemed strangely lacking in form, like some
half-remembered version of the way a lorry should be. It bore neither headlights nor radiator grille, and the windscreen, if
such it were, was of the same night hue as the rest of the vehicle. The doors lacked any sign of handles nor even a crack or
line to signify their location. It was a thing to inspire nightmare. Soundlessly it drew up before the Mission door,
envelop­ing the Captain within its cold shadow. Shaking away his feeling of revulsion the Captain squared his shoulders and

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stalked up the short path to confront the dark vehicle.

Certainly it was a unique and striking thing. The Captain noted with interest that there was not a single sharp corner, edge
or angle to it, the surfaces flowed away from one another in curve after curve.

The Captain stretched out an inquisitive finger to touch the lorry but withdrew it at a vastly accelerated rate. It was as
if he had thrust it into a vat of liquid oxygen. 'By the gods,' he said, examining his frost-bitten digit.

As if in response to the Captain's oath there was a click near the front of the vehicle and the cab door swung slowly open.
The Captain wandered towards it upon hesitant feet. No light showed from within, it was like peering into the black void of
space.

Without warning a figure appeared from the darkness as one stepping from behind a velvet curtain. He was as black and
featureless as his conveyance. Down from the cab he climbed, bearing in his gloved hand a clipboard to which was attached a
sheaf of papers.

'Captain Horatio B. Carson?' he enquired in a voice of indeterminate accent. The Captain nodded slowly and without
enthusiasm. 'Delivery.'

'I ordered nothing!'

'There is no cause for alarm,' said a soft voice behind and slightly above the Captain.

Turning, the Captain squinted up into the face of the tramp. 'What is all this?' he demanded.

'Kindly assist this gentleman with the removal of all the old furniture from the dining-room.'

'Old furniture? You can't do that, the furniture is the property of the Mission.'

'Kindly do as I request, all will be explained to you later.'

The Captain threw up his arms in a gesture of helplessness and led the dark figure into the Mission, where under the tramp's
direction the two stripped the

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dining-room of its furnishings. When these had been heaped into an untidy pile in the yard, the tramp said, 'And now if you
will be so kind, the new furniture is to be brought in. May I beg your caution when handling it as some pieces are of great
worth and all irreplaceable.'

The Captain shook his head in bewilderment and mopped the perspiration from his brow with an over­sized red gingham
handkerchief. For the next half an hour his life was nothing short of a nightmare. The truck's dark occupant swung open the
rear doors of the mighty vehicle, exposing another fathomless void. Working with­out apparent effort and clearly oblivious
to the great weight of some of the more ornate and heavily gilded pieces of furniture he and the Captain unloaded and
installed in the Mission an entire suite, table, chairs, sideboard, cabinet, a pair of golden candelabra, velvet wall-
hangings and a crested coat of arms. All these items would clearly have been well at home amid the splendours of
Fontainebleau. Each was the work of exquisite and painstaking craftsmanship, and each bore etched into the polished woodwork
or inlaid in precious metals the motif of the bull.

When all was installed the Captain numbly put his signature to the manifest, which was printed in a language he did not
understand. The driver returned to his black cab, the door swinging closed behind him leaving no trace of its presence. The
vast black vehicle departed as silently as it had arrived. The Captain leant upon the Mission porch exhausted, breathing
heavily and clutching at his heart.

'There is one more thing to be done and you may return to your quarters,' said the tramp looming above him.

'I can do no more,' gasped the Captain, 'leave me here to die, I have seen enough of life, too much in fact.'

'Come now,' said the tramp, 'no need to be melodram­atic, this is but a simple task.' He handed the Captain a

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gallon can of petrol. 'That rubbish in the garden, dispose of it.'

'What?'

'It is offensive, put it to the torch!'

The Captain took the can. Upon giddy legs he stumbled through the Mission and out into the yard to confront the mound of
furniture which had served him these thirty long years.

'The torch,' ordered the tramp.

The Captain's fingers tightened around the petrol cap, he was powerless to resist. 'Damn you,' he mumbled beneath his
breath. 'Damn and blast you to hell.'

11

It was Thursday. The sun shone enthusiastically down through Neville's window and twinkled upon the white cowboy suit which
hung in its plastic covering upon the bedroom door. Neville raised a sleepy eyelid and yawned deeply. Today was going to be
one to remember. He cast an eye towards the suit, pristine as a bridal gown. Beside it upon the chair hung the silver
pistols in their studded holsters and the fringed white stetson. He put a hand beneath the pillow and withdrew the chromium
sheriffs star. Squinting at it through his good eye he noted well how it caught the light and how the mirrored surfaces
shone like rare jewels. Yes, he was going to look pretty dapper tonight, that was for sure.

He was still, however, harbouring some doubts regard­ing the coming festivities. It was always impossible to gauge exactly
what the locals might do. He knew some would attend, if only for a chance at the scotch and to take advantage of the cheap
drink and extended hours. But the

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dart players had already defected and the seasoned drinkers were hard upon their heels, tired of being jockeyed from their
time-honoured places at the bar by the continual stream of tourists and sensation-seekers cur­rently filling the Swan. But
still, thought Neville, if only a small percentage of the morbid canal viewers turned up, the evening would be far from dull.

Neville climbed out of bed, placing his star reverently upon the side table. He stifled another yawn, straightened his
shoulders and stepped to the window. From Neville's eyrie high in the upper eaves of the Swan he was afforded an excellent
view of the surrounding district. With the aid of his spyglass he could see out between the flatblocks as far as the
roundabout and the river. He could make out the gasometer and the piano museum and on further into the early haze where the
cars were already moving dreamily across the flyover.

It was a vista which never ceased to inspire him. Neville's spirit was essentially that of the Brentonian. From this one
window alone he could see five of Brentford's eighteen pubs, he could watch the larval inhabitants of the flatblocks
stirring in their concrete cocoons, Andy Johnson's milkfloat rattling along the Kew Road and the paperboy standing in the
shadow of the bus shelter smoking a stolen Woodbine and reading one of Norman's Fine Art Publications, destined for a
discerning connoisseur in Sprite Street.

This morning, as he drew great draughts of oxygen through his nose, an ominous and hauntingly familiar perfume filled
Neville's head. He had scented it vaguely upon the winds for many weeks, and had noted with growing apprehension that each
day it was a little stronger, a little nearer, a little more clearly defined. What it was and what it meant he knew not,
only that it was of evil portent. Neville pinched at his nostrils, shrugging away this disturbing sensation. Probably it was
only nerves. He

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stepped into his carpet slippers and down two flights of stairs to the bar.

The paperboy, seeing the bar lights snap on, abandoned his study of the female form and crossed the Ealing Road to deliver
Neville's newspaper.

Omally was stirring from his nest. Wiping the sleep away from his eyes with a soiled pyjama sleeve the man from the Emerald
Isle rose, a reluctant phoenix, from the ashes of the night before. There was little fire evident in this rare bird, and had
it not been for the urgency of the day which lay before him he would surely have returned to the arms of whatever incendiary
morpheus rekindled his combust­ible plumage. He lit a pre-cornflake Woodbine and through the fits of terrible coughing paid
his early morning respects to the statuette of Our Lady which stood noseless yet benign upon the mantelpiece.

The Irishman's suite of rooms was far from what one would describe as sumptuous. The chances of it appearing in House and
Garden, except possibly as an example of the 'Before' school of design, were pretty remote. Upon this particular morning,
however, the monotone decor was overwhelmed by an incongruous and highly coloured object which stood upon the Fablon table-
top in Omally's dining-room. It was a large and gaudy carton bearing upon its decorative sides the logo of the carnival shop.

Within this unlikely container, which Omally had smuggled home in a potato sack, was nothing less than an accurate
reproduction, correct to the smallest detail, even to the point of spurs and mask, of that well-known and much-loved mode of
range-wear affected by the Lone Ranger. It was also identical in every way to the one which Jim Pooley had hired not an hour
previous to the furtive Omally's entrance to the carnival shop.

For Mr Jeffreys, who ran the faltering business, it had been a day he would long remember. How he had come

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into the original possession of the ten identical costumes was a matter he preferred to forget. But upon this particular day
that he should, within a few short hours, not only hire out these two costumes, but the other eight to boot, was quite
beyond all expectation. Possibly the ancient series had returned to the small screen, bringing about a revival. Anyway,
whatever the cause, he didn't care; the cash register had crashed away merrily and there would soon be enough in it to pay
off the bill for the two dozen Superman costumes he had similarly ordered in error.

Neville picked up his newspaper from the welcome mat and gazed about the bar. He had been up until three in the morning
arranging the finishing touches. Little remained of the Swan's original character; the entire bar now resembled to a Model T
the interior of a western saloon. The sawdust which had for the last few days been getting into everybody's beer now
completely smothered the floor. Wanted posters, buffalo horns, leather saddles and items of cowboy paraphernalia lined the
walls.

The shorts glasses had been piled in pyramids behind the bar and the place was gaudy with advertisements promoting 'Old
Snakebelly - The Drink That Made the South Rise Again'. This doubtful beverage was the sole cause of the Swan's bizarre
transformation. It was the brainchild of the brewery owner's eldest son, who had spent two weeks on a package tour of the
States and had returned with a mid-Atlantic accent and a penchant for Randolph Scott impersonations. It was not the finest
blend of spirits ever to grace a bar optic, and would probably have been more at home removing tar from bargees' gumboots.
The old brewer, however, was not only a man indulgent of his progeny's mercurial whims but a shrewd and devious entrepreneur
who knew a tax dodge when he saw one.

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Lunchtime trade at the Flying Swan was alarmingly slack. Two sullen professional drinkers sat doggedly at the bar, glowering
into their pints and picking sawdust from their teeth. Old Pete entered the bar around twelve, took one look at the
decorations and made a remark much favoured by gentlemen of his advanced years. Young Chips lifted his furry leg at the
sawdust floor and the two departed grumbling to themselves.

When Neville cashed up at three, the till had taken less than two pounds. Neville counted the small change with nervous
fingers; he was certain that the ominous smell he had detected that morning was beginning to penetrate the beer-soaked
atmosphere of the saloon bar.

It all began in earnest when at three fifteen a van from the brewery catering division drew up outside the Swan in the
charge of a young man with advanced acne and a cowboy hat. This diminutive figure strutted to and fro in a pair of boots
which sported what the Americans humourously call 'elevator heels'. He announced himself to be Young Master Robert and said
that he would be taking over personal control of the event. Neville was horrorstruck, he'd been looking forward to it for
weeks, he'd got the sheriffs star and everything and now at the eleventh hour, this upstart . . .

To add insult to injury, the young man stepped straight behind the bar and drew himself a large scotch. Neville watched open-
jawed as a parade of supplies sufficient to cater for half the British Army passed before his eyes in a steady and constant
stream. There were packets of sausages, beefburgers, baconburgers, beans and bacon-burgers,, sausage beef and baconburgers
and something round and dubious called a steakette. There were enor­mous catering cans of beans which the porters rolled in
like beer casks. There were sacks of french rolls, jars of

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pickled onions, radishes, beetroots, cocktail cucumbers and gherkins. There were hundredweight sacks of char­coal.

'I have been light on the cooking oil,' Young Master Robert announced as the slack-jawed Neville watched two porters
manoeuvring an enormous drum in through the saloon bar door.

Young Master Robert drew himself another scotch and explained the situation. 'Now hear this,' he said, his voice a facetious
parody of Aldo Ray in some incomprehensible submarine movie, 'what we have here is an on-going situation.'

'A what?'

'We have product, that is to say Old Snakebelly.' He held up a bottle of the devil brew. 'We have location' - he indicated
the surroundings - 'and we have motivation.' Here he pointed to the banner which hung above the bar, draped over the moth-
eaten bison's head. It read: grand cowboy extravaganza prizes prizes prizes.

Neville nodded gravely.

'I have given this a lot of thought, brain-wise,' the youth continued. 'I ran a few ideas up the flagpole and they got
saluted and I mean S-A-L-U-luted!'

Neville flexed his nostrils, he didn't like the smell of this. The young man was clearly a monomaniac of the first order. A
porter in a soiled leather apron, hand-rolled cigarette dripping from his lower lip, appeared in the doorway. 'Where do you
want this mouthwash then guv?' he asked, gesturing over his right shoulder.

'Ah, yes, the Product,' said Young Master Robert, thrusting his way past Neville and following the porter into the street.
There were 108 crates of Old Snakebelly, and when stacked they covered exactly half the available space of the newly built
patio.

'There is nowhere else we can put it,' Neville explained. There's no space in the cellar, and at least if they're here

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whoever is cooking at the barbeque can keep an eye on them.'

Young Master Robert was inspecting the barbeque. 'Who constructed this?' he queried.

'Two local builders.'

The youth strutted about the red brick construction. There is something not altogether A-O-K here design-wise.'

Neville shrugged his shoulders, he knew nothing about barbeques anyway and had never even troubled to look at the plans the
brewery had sent. 'It is identical to the plan and has the Council's seal of approval, safety-wise!' Neville lied.

Young Master Robert, who also knew nothing of barbeques but was a master of gamesmanship, nodded thoughtfully and said, 'We
will see.'

'What time will the extra bar staff be getting here?' Neville asked.

'18.30,' said the Young Master, 'a couple of right bits of crumpet.' He had obviously not yet totally mastered the subtler
points of American terminology.

By half past six the Young Master had still failed to light the barbeque. The occasional fits of coughing and cries of
anguish coming from the patio told the part-time bar­man that at least the young man was by no means a quitter.

At six forty-five by the Guinness clock there was still no sign of the extra bar staff. Neville sauntered across the bar and
down the short passage to the patio door. Gingerly he edged it open. Nothing was visible of Young Master Robert; a thick
black pall of smoke utterly engulfed the yard obscuring all vision. Neville held his nose and squinted into the murk,
thinking to detect some move­ment amid the impenetrable fog. 'Everything going all right?' he called gaily.

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'Yes, fine, fine,' came a strangled voice. 'Think I've got the measure of it technique-wise.'

'Good,' said Neville. Quietly closing the door, he collapsed into a convulsion of laughter. Wiping the tears from his eyes
he returned to the saloon bar, where he found himself confronted by two young ladies of the Page Three variety, who stood
looking disdainful and ill at ease. They were clad in only the scantiest of costumes and looked like escapees from some gay
nineties Chicago brothel.

'You the guvnor?' said one of these lovelies, giving Neville the old fisheye. 'Only we've been 'anging about 'ere, ain't we?'

Neville pulled back his shoulders and thrust out his pigeon chest. 'Good evening,' said he in his finest Ronald Coleman.
'You are, I trust, the two young ladies sent by the brewery to assist in the proceedings?'

'You what?' said one.

'To help behind the bar?'

'Oh, yeah.'

'And may I ask your names?'

'I'm Sandra,' said Sandra.

'I'm Mandy,' said her companion.

'Neville,' said Neville, extending his hand.

Sandra tittered. Mandy said, 'It's a bit of a dump 'ere, ain't it?'

Neville returned his unshaken hand to its pocket. 'You didn't come through the streets in those costumes did you?'

'Nah,' said Mandy, 'we come in the car, didn't we?'

'And you are, I trust, acquainted with the running of a bar?'

Sandra yawned and began to polish her nails. Mandy said, 'We've worked in all the top clubs, we're 'ostesses, ain't we?'

Neville was fascinated to note that the two beauties

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seemed unable to form a single sentence which did not terminate in a question mark. 'Well then, I'll leave you in charge
while I go up and get changed.' 'We can manage, can't we?' said Mandy.

The cowboy suit hung behind the bedroom door in its plastic covering. With great care Neville lifted it down and laid it
upon the bed. Carefully parting the plastic he pressed his nose to the fabric of the suit, savouring the bittersweet smell
of the dry cleaner's craft.

Gently he put his thumbs to the pearl buttons and removed the jacket from the hanger. He sighed deeply, and with the
reverence a priest accords to his ornamentum he slipped into the jacket. The material was crisp and pure, the sleeves
crackled slightly as he eased his arms into them and the starched cuffs clamped about his wrists like loving manacles.
Without further hesitation the part-time barman climbed into the trousers, clipped on the gun belt and tilted the hat on to
his head at a rakish angle. Pinning the glittering badge of office carefully to his breast he stepped to the pitted glass of
the wardrobe mirror to view the total effect.

It was, to say the least, stunning. The dazzling white of the suit made the naturally anaemic Neville appear almost
suntanned. The stetson, covering his bald patch and accentuating his dark sideburns, made his face seem ruggedly handsome,
the bulge of the gunbelt gave an added contour to his narrow hips and the cut of the trousers brought certain parts of his
anatomy into an unexpected and quite astonishing prominence.

'Mighty fine,' said Neville, easing his thumbs beneath the belt buckle and adopting a stance not unknown to the late and
legendary 'Duke' himself. But there was some­thing missing, some final touch. He looked down, and caught sight of his carpet
slippers, of course, the cowboy boots. A sudden sick feeling began to take hold of his

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stomach, he did not remember having seen any boots when the suit arrived. In fact, there were none.

Neville let out a despairing groan and slumped on to his bed, a broken man. The image in the mirror crumpled away and with
it Neville's dreams; a cowboy in carpet slippers? A tear entered Neville's good eye and crept down his cheek.

It was seven thirty. The bar was still deserted. The two hostesses were huddled at a corner of the counter, sipping shandy
and discussing the sex lives of their contemporaries in hushed and confidential tones. The gaudily dressed bar had become a
gloomy and haunted place. Once in a while a passer-by would cast a brief shadow upon the etched glass of the saloon bar
door, conversation would cease and the two beauties would look up in wary expectation.

Neville descended the stairs upon tiptoe. The Page Three girls saw Neville's slippers before they saw Neville. They should
have laughed, nudged one another, pointed and giggled and possibly on any other occasion they would have done just that, but
as the part-time barman reached the foot of the stairs he had about him such an air of desperate tragedy that the two girls
were moved beyond words.

Neville squinted around the empty bar. 'Hasn't any­body been in?' he asked.

Mandy shook her powdered head. Sandra said, 'Nah.' 'You look dead good,' said Mandy. 'Suits you.' 'Like that bloke in them
films you look,' said Sandra. Neville smiled weakly. 'Thanks,' he said. Just then the sound of a muffled explosion issued
from the direction of the patio. The yard door burst open and down the short corridor staggered the blackened figure of
Young Master Robert. He was accompanied by a gust of evil-smelling black smoke which made his entrance not unlike that of
the Demon Prince in popular panto.

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As he lurched towards the bar counter Neville stepped nimbly aside to avoid soiling his suit. The two Page Three beauties
stood dumb with astonishment. Young Master Robert stumbled behind the bar. Tearing the whisky bottle from its optic he
snatched up a half-pint mug and filled it to the brim.

'Two bloody hours,' he screeched in a tortured voice, 'two bloody hours puffing and blowing and fanning the bloody thing!
Then I see it, then I bloody see it!'

'You do?' said Neville.

'The vents man, where are the bloody vents?'

Neville shrugged. He had no idea.

'I'll tell you where the bloody vents are, I'll bloody tell you!' The line of Neville's mouth was beginning to curl itself
into an awful lopsided smirk. With great difficulty he con­trolled it. 'On the top, that's where the bloody vents are!'

Neville said, 'Surely that can't be right.'

'Can't be right? I'll say it can't be bloody right, some bastard has built the barbeque upside down!'

Neville clamped his hand over his mouth. Young Master Robert raised the half-pint pot in a charred fist and poured the
whisky down his throat.

'What shall we do then?' asked Neville fighting a losing battle against hilarity. 'Call it off, eh?'

'Call it off? Not on your bloody life, no, I've fixed it, fixed it proper I bloody have, gave it what it bloody needed.
Proper Molotov cocktail, got vents now it has, I'll tell you.'

'Oh good,' said Neville, 'no damage done then.'

Young Master Robert turned on the part-time barman a bitter glance. 'I warn you,' he stammered, 'I bloody warn you!' It was
then that he realized the bar was empty. 'Here!' he said. 'Where is everybody?'

Neville moved uneasily in his chaps. The young master fixed him with a manic stare. Mandy watched his fingers tightening
about the handle of the half-pint pot. She

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stepped between the two men. 'Come on Bobby,' she said, 'let's 'ave a look at them burns, can't 'ave you getting an
infection can we?' With a comforting but firm hand she led the blackened barbequeist away to the ladies.

Neville could contain himself no longer. He clutched at his stomach, rolled his eyes and fell into fits of laughter. Sandra
was giggling behind her hand but she leant over to the part-time barman and whispered hoarsely, 'You wanna watch that little
bastard, he can put the poison in for you.'

'Thank you,' said Neville, and the two of them collapsed into further convulsions. Suddenly there was a sound at the bar
door. The smiles froze on their lips for it was at this exact moment that the Lone Ranger chose to make his appearance.

He was quite a short Ranger as it happened, and somewhat stout. Neville immediately recognized the man in the mask to be
none other than Wally Woods, Brentford's pre-eminent purveyor of wet fish. Wally stood a moment, magnificently framed in the
doorway, considering the empty bar with a cold cod-eye of suspi­cion. For one terrible second Neville thought he was about
to change his mind and make off into the sunset in the manner much practised in the Old West. 'What'll it be, stranger?' he
said hurriedly.

Wally squared his rounded shoulders and swaggered to the bar, accompanied by the distinctive smell of halibut oil which
never left his person come rain, hail or high water. 'Give me two fingers of Old Snakebelly,' he said manfully.

During the half hour that followed, the Flying Swan began slowly to fill. In dribs and drabs they came, some looking
sheepish and muffled in heavy overcoats, despite the mildness of the season, others strutting through the doorway as if they
had been cowboys all their lives. Three Mavericks had begun an illegal-looking game of poker at a corner table, and no less
than six gunfights had already broken out.

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Neville loaded another case of old Snakebelly on to the counter. Young Master Robert returned from the Ladies, a satisfied
expression upon his face, which was a battle­ground of sticking plaster. Mandy was wearing her bustle on back to front. Two
more Rangers arrived, swelling their ranks to eight. 'What is this, a bloody convention?' asked one. Old Pete arrived
wearing a Superman costume. 'They were right out of Lone Rangers,' he explained.

A few stalwart professionals were sticking to their regular beverages, but most were taking advantage of the cut-price
liquor and tossing back large measures of Old Snakebelly, which was proving to have the effect generally expected of white
man's firewater.

The last of the Lone Rangers rounded the corners at either end of the Haling Road and strode towards the Flying Swan. One
was of Irish descent, the other a well-known local personality who had but several hours before come within one horse of
winning £250,000. The two caught sight of one another when they were but twenty yards apiece from the saloon bar door. Both
stopped. The Lone Pooley blinked in surprise. The Lone Omally's face took on a look of perplexity. Surely, he thought, this
is some trick of the light, some temperature inversion or mirror image. Possibly by the merest of chances he had stepped
through a warp in the time-space continuum and • was confronting his own doppleganger. A similar thought had entered the
Lone Pooley's mind.

They strode forward, each in perfect synchronization with his twin. The Lone Pooley made a motion towards his gunbelt, his
double did likewise. But for these two lone figures, the street was deserted. The sun was setting behind the gasometers and
the long and similar shadows of the two masked gunmen stretched out across the pave­ment and up the side walls of the tiny
terraced houses.

It was a sight to make Zane Grey reach for his ballpoint, or Sergio Leone send out for another fifty foot of standard

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eight. Closer and closer stalked the Rangers, their jaws set into attitudes of determination and their thumbs wedged into
the silver buckles of their respective gunbelts.

They stopped once more.

The street was silent but for the sounds of western jollity issuing from the saloon bar. A flock of pigeons rippled up from
their perch atop one of the flatblocks and came to rest upon the roof of the church hall. A solitary dog loped across the
street and vanished into an alleyway.

The Rangers stared at one another unblinking. 'This town ain't big enough for the both of us,' said the Lone Omally.

'Slap leather, hombre,' said the Lone Pooley, reaching for his sixguns. It would be a long reach, for they were back in his
rooms upon the kitchen table where he had been polishing them. 'Oh bugger it,' said the Lone Pooley. Guffawing, the Ranger
twins entered the Flying Swan.

'Cor look,' said Mandy, 'there's two more of 'em.'

'My god,' cried Pooley, 'ten Lone Rangers and not a Tonto between the lot of us.'

'Two shots of good Old Snakebelly please, Miss,' said Omally, ogling the extra barstaff. Mandy did the honours, and on
accepting Omally's exact coinage pocketed it away in some impossible place in her scanty costume. 'A woman after my own
heart,' smiled the man from the Emerald Isle.

Things were beginning to hot up at the Flying Swan. Old Pete was at the piano, rattling out 'I Wish I Was in Dixie' upon the
moribund instrument. Young Chips was howling off-key as usual. A fight had broken out among the Mavericks and Neville was
flourishing his knobkerry, yet seeming strangely reluctant to make a move from behind the bar.

Young Master Robert raised his hands to make an announcement. Being ill-acquainted with the manners and customs of Brentford
he was ignored to a man.

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'Ladies and gentlemen,' he bawled, the visible areas of his face turning purple, 'if I might have your attention.'

Neville brought the knobkerry down on to the polished bar counter with a resounding crash. There was a brief silence.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' roared the Young Master, his high voice echoing grotesquely about the silent bar, 'ladies and
gentlemen I ..." but it was no good, the temporary silence was over as' swiftly as it had begun and the rumblings of half-
drunken converse, the jingling chords of the complaining piano and the general rowdiness resumed with a vengeance.

'Time gentlemen please,' cried Neville, which silenced them once and for all.

Young Master Robert made his announcement. 'Ladies and gentlemen, as I was saying, as a representative of the brewery' - at
this point young Chips made a rude noise which was received with general applause - 'as a represen­tative of the brewery,
may I say how impressed I am by this turnout, enthusiasm-wise.'

'Enthusiasm-wise?' queried Omally.

'As you may know, this evening has been arranged at the brewery's expense to launch a new concept in drinking pleasure.' He
held up a bottle of Old Snakebelly. 'Which I am glad to see you are all enjoying. There will shortly be held a barbeque
where delicacies of a western nature will be served, also at the brewery's expense. There will be a free raffle, prizes for
the best dressed cowboy . . .' As he spoke, Young Master Robert became slowly aware that the assembled company of cowboys
was no longer listening; heads were beginning to turn, whispers were breaking out, elbows were nudging. The Spirit of the
Old West had entered the bar.

Norman stood in the Swan's portal, his suit glittering about him. The sequins and rhinestones gleamed and twinkled. He had
added four more sets of fairy lights to

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the arms and legs of the costume and these flashed on and off in a pulsating rhythm.

Norman came forward, his hands raised as in papal benediction. Spellbound, like the Red Sea to the wave of Moses's staff,
the crowd parted before him. Turning slowly for maximum effect, Norman flicked a switch upon his belt buckle and sent the
lights dancing in a frenzied whirl. To and fro about the golden motto the lights danced, weaving pattern upon pattern,
altering the con­tours of the suit and highlighting hitherto unnoticed embellishments.

Here they brought into prominence the woven head­dress of an indian chieftain, here the rhinestoned wheel of a covered
wagon, here a sequined cowboy crouched in the posture of one ready to shoot it out. To say that it was wondrous would be to
say that the universe is quite a big place. As the coloured lights danced and Norman turned upon his insulated brass
conductor heels the assembled company began to applaud. In ones and twos they clapped their hands together, then as the
sound grew, gaining rhythm and pace, Old Pete struck up a thunderous 'Oh Them Golden Slippers' upon the piano.

The cowboys cheered and flung their hats into the air, Lone Rangers of every colour linked arms like a chorus line and High-
Ho-Silvered till they were all uniformly blue in the face. Pooley and Omally threw themselves into an improvised and high-
stepping barn dance and the Spirit of the Old West capered about in the midst of it all like an animated lighthouse. Then a
most extraordinary thing happened.

The sawdust began to rise from the floor towards Norman's suit. First it thickened about his feet, smother­ing his polished
boots, then crept upwards like some evil parasitic fungus, gathering about his legs and then swathing his entire body.

'It's the static electricity,' gasped Omally, ceasing his

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dance in mid kick. 'He's charged himself up like a capacitor.'

Norman was so overcome by his reception that it was not until he found himself unable to move, coughing and spluttering and
wiping sawdust from his ears and eyes that an inkling dawned upon him that something was amiss. The crowd, who were
convinced that this was nothing more than another phase in a unique and original performance, roared with laughter and fired
their sixguns into the air.

Omally stepped forward. Norman's eyes were starting from their sockets and he was clutching at his throat. The sawdust was
settling thickly about him, transforming him into a kind of woodchipped snowman. Omally reached out a hand to brush the
sawdust from the struggling man's face and was rewarded by a charge of electrical energy which lifted him from his rented
cowboy boots and flung him backwards over the bar counter.

Jim Pooley snatched up a soda siphon and without thought for the consequences discharged it fully into the face of the
Spirit of the Old West. What followed was later likened by Old Pete to a firework display he had once witnessed at the
Crystal Palace when a lad. Sparks flew from Norman's hands and feet, bulbs popped from their holders and criss-crossed the
bar like tracer bullets. The crowd took shelter where they could, young Chips thrust his head into a spittoon, his elderly
master lay crouched beneath the piano saying the rosary, the Page Three girls hurriedly ducked away behind the bar counter
to where Omally lay unconscious, his face set into an idiot grin. Norman jerked about the room, smoke rising from his
shoulders, his arms flailing in the air like the sails of a demented windmill. The final bulb upon his once proud suit gave
out with an almighty crack and Norman sank to the floor, where he lay a smouldering ruin.

After a moment or two of painful silence the cowboys

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rose sheepishly from their makeshift hideouts, patting the dirt from their rented suits and squinting through the cloud of
sawdust which filled the room. Pooley came forward upon hesitant rubber-kneed legs and doused down the fallen hero with the
remaining contents of the soda siphon. 'Are you all right, Norman?' he asked inanely.

'Oh bollocks!' moaned the Spirit of the Old West, spitting out a mouthful of sawdust. 'Oh bollocksl'

12

Captain Carson lay draped across an elaborately carved Spanish chair, peeping between his fingers at the pre­posterous
display of exotic foodstuffs heaped upon the gilded tabletop. To think that any one of these rare viands might be purchased
anywhere within a mile of the Mission would be to stretch the most elastic of imaginations to its very breaking point. Yet
there they were. The Captain covered his eyes again and hoped desperately that they would go away. They did not.

Carrying the tramp's shopping-list, some of which was totally unpronounceable, he had traipsed from shop to shop. It had
been almost as if the shopkeepers were lying in wait for him. He had wandered into Uncle Ted's greengrocery to enquire in a
doomed voice as to the current availability of Bernese avocados. Uncle Ted had smiled broadly, torn a paper bag from the
nail and asked if he would prefer reds or greens. At every shop it had been the same. When the Captain had demanded an
explanation of how these gastronomic delicacies found their way on to the shelves, the shopkeepers had been extremely vague
in their replies. Some spoke of consignments arriving by

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accident, others that it was a new line they were trying out.

After six such encounters in tiny corner shops which normally complained that they were out of sugar, that the cornflakes
were late in again and that they couldn't get tomato sauce for love nor money, the Captain, his head reeling, had staggered
into the High Street off-licence.

'Your usual?' said Tommy Finch, the manager. The Captain sighed gratefully. Could it be possible that here was sanctuary,
that this one place had remained free from the tramp's contamination?

'Or,' said Tommy suddenly, 'could I interest you in a half a dozen bottles of a magnificent vintage claret which arrived
here in error this very morning and which is most moderately priced?'

The Captain had cast a fatalistic eye down his list. 'That wouldn't by any chance be Chateau Lafite 1822?'

'That's the one,' Tommy had replied with no hint of surprise.

The Captain rose stiffly from his chair, picked up a can of pickled quails' eggs and gave the label some perusal. As with
all the other items he had purchased, and as with everything else which surrounded the mystery tramp, there was something
not quite right about it. The label appeared at first sight normal enough, an illustration of the contained foodstuffs, a
brand name, a list of ingredi­ents and a maker's mark; yet the more one looked at it the more indistinct its features
became. The colours seemed to run into one another, the letters were not letters at all but merely rudimentary symbols
suggestive of lettering.

The Captain returned the can to the table and shook his head as one in a dream. None of it made any sense. What could the
tramp be planning? What had been his motive in inviting the hated Crowley to the Mission? Certainly on his past record alone
it could be expected that his motives were nothing if not thoroughly evil. None of it made any

sense.

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'Is all correct?' said a voice, jarring the Captain from his thoughts. 'There must be no mistake.'

Turning, the Captain peered up at the red-eyed man towering above him. Never had he looked more imposing or more terrible,
dressed in an evening suit of the deepest black, a dark cravat about his neck secured at the throat by a sapphire pin. His
fingers weighed heavy with rings of gold and his face wore an unreadable expression.

'All is as you ordered,' said the Captain in a querulous voice, 'though as to how I do not know, nor do I wish to.'

'Good, our guests will arrive sharp at seven thirty. They must be received in a manner befitting.'

The Captain chewed ruefully upon his knuckles. 'What would you have me wear for this distinguished gathering?'

The tramp smiled, his mouth a cruel line. 'You may wear the Royal Navy dress uniform which hangs in your wardrobe, the hire
company's label cut out from its lining. Pray remember to remove the camphor bags from its pockets.'

The Captain hunched his shoulders and slouched from the room.

When he returned an hour later, duly clad, the Captain discovered to his further bewilderment that the food had been laid
out in the most exquisite and skilful manner, the claret twinkled in cut-glass decanters and the delicious smell of cooking
filled the air. The Captain shook his befuddled head and consulted his half-hunter. There was just time for a little drop of
short. He had lately taken to carrying a hipflask which he refilled with half bottles of rum purchased from the off licence.
This seemed the only defence against the tramp, whose intuition of the location of hidden bottles seemed nothing short of
telepathic. The two red eyes burned into his every thought, hovering in his consciousness and eating away at his brain like a

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hideous cancer. The Captain drew deeply upon his flask and drained it to its pewter bottom.

At seven thirty precisely a black cab drew up outside the Mission. The Captain heard the sound of footsteps crackling up the
short path to the Mission door. There were two sharp raps. The Captain rose with difficulty, buttoned up his dress jacket
and shuffled unwillingly towards the front door.

Upon the step stood Councillor Wormwood, wrapped in a threadbare black overcoat, a stained white silk scarf slung about his
scrawny neck. He was tall, gaunt and angular, his skin the colour of a nicotine-stained finger and his eyes deeply sunk into
cavernous black pits. Never had the Captain seen a man who wore the look of death more plainly upon his features. He
withdrew a febrile and blue-veined hand from his worn coat pocket and offered the Captain a gilt-edged invitation card.
'Wormwood,' he said in a broken voice, 'I am expected.'

'Please come in,' the Captain replied making a cour­teous gesture. The jaundiced spectre allowed himself to be ushered down
the corridor and into the dining-room.

The Captain took out the bottle of cheap sherry he kept in reserve for Jehovah's Witnesses.

'I see that I am the first,' said Wormwood, accepting the thimble-sized glass the Captain offered him. 'You have a cosy
little nest for yourself here.'

The sound of taxi wheels upon the gravel drew the Captain's attention. 'If you will excuse me,' he said, 'I think I hear the
arrival of another guest.' The Councillor inclined his turtle neck and the Captain left the room.

Before the Mission stood Brian Crowley. He was dressed in a deep-blue velvet suit, which caught the evening light to
perfection. A hand-stitched silk dress-shirt with lace ruffles smothered him to the neck, where a large black bow-tie clung
to his throat like a vampire bat. His shoes, also hand-made, were of the finest leather; he

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carried in his hands a pair of kid gloves and an ivory-tipped malacca cane. He raised a limp and manicured hand to the
Mission's knocker, which receded before his grasp as the Captain swung open the door.

'Mr Crowley,' said the Captain.

'Good evening, Carson,' said the young man, stepping forward. The Captain barred his way. 'Your card, sir?' said the Captain
politely.

'Damn you Carson, you know who I am.'

'We must observe protocol.'

Muttering under his breath Crowley reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a monogrammed moroco wallet. From this he
produced the invitation card which he held to the old man's face. 'All right?'

The Captain took the card and bowed graciously. 'Pray come in.' As he followed the effeminate young man down the corridor
the Captain smiled to himself; he had quite enjoyed that little confrontation.

Crowley met Councillor Wormwood in the dining room. The Councillor took the pale white fingers in his yellow claw and shook
them without enthusiasm. 'Wormwood,' he said.

Crowley's suspicions had been alerted. Surely this was a dinner exclusively for members of the Mission Trust to celebrate
the centenary and the Captain's retirement? Why invite that withered cretin?

It was only now that Crowley became fully aware of the room in which he was standing. Lit only by the two magnificent
candelabra upon the loaded table, the rich gildings and embossings upon the furniture glittered like treasure in the tomb of
a Pharaoh. Crowley's gaze swept ravenously about the room. He became drawn towards an oil painting which hung in a frame of
golden cherubim above a rococo commode. Surely this was a genuine Pinturicchio of his finest period? How could an elderly
sea captain have come by it? Crowley had never credited the

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grizzled salt with any intelligence whatever, yet recalling his surprise upon receiving the invitation cards, he felt that
he had truly misjudged this elder. The young man's eyes glittered with greed.

'Will you take sherry?' the Captain asked. Roused from his covetous reverie Crowley replied, 'Yes indeed, thank you.'

He accepted his sherry with a display of extraordinary politeness and wondered just how he might avail himself of the
Captain's valuable possessions. 'I have been admiring this painting,' he said at length. 'Surely it is a Pinturicchio of the
Romanesque school?'

The Captain fiddled nervously with the top of a cut-crystal decanter. 'I believe so,' he replied matter-of-factly.

'And the furniture.' Crowley made a sweeping gesture. 'Surely fifteenth-century Spanish Baroque. You have some most
exquisite examples.'

'It serves,' said the Captain, studying his broken fingernails. 'Please be seated gentlemen, place cards have been set out.'

Crowley made a slow perambulation about the table, sherry glass held delicately in his pampered fingers. His eyes wandered
over the display of food. 'Why, Captain,' he said in an insinuating voice, 'this is haute cuisine to numb the brain of a
gourmet. I must confess complete astonishment, I had no idea, I mean, well, most worthy, most worthy.'

The Captain watched Crowley's every movement. While his expression remained bland and self-effacing, his brain boiled with
hatred for the effeminate young man. Crowley dipped a hand forward and took up a sweetmeat, pecking it to his nose to savour
its fragrance. With a foppish flurry he popped it into his mouth, his small pink tongue darting about his lips. Almost at
once his face took on an expression both quizzical and perplexed.

'Extraordinary,' he said, smacking his lips, 'the taste, so

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subtle, hardly distinguishable upon the palate. It is almost as if one had placed a cube of cold air into one's mouth, most
curious.'

'It is an acquired taste,' sneered the Captain.

Wormwood had found his place at the bottom of the table and had seated himself without ceremony. Crowley shrugged his
shoulders, licked the ends of his fingers and sought his seat. 'If you will pardon me, Captain,' he said, 'it would seem
that but for our own, the other seven place cards are unlabelled.'

'Possibly an oversight on the part of the caterers,' grumbled the Captain, 'don't let it concern you.' He took his place
between the two men and three sat in silence.

Crowley took out a cocktail cigarette from a gold case and tapped it upon the table. Wormwood wheezed asthmatically into his
hand. Drawing a shabby handker­chief from his pocket he dabbed at his sinewy nose.

The Captain sat immobile, wondering what, if any­thing, was going to happen. Crowley lit his cigarette and looked down at
his platinum wristwatch. 'It would seem that your other guests are a trifle late,' said he.

The Captain sniffed and said nothing. Wormwood turned his empty sherry glass between his fingers and shuffled his ill-
polished shoes uneasily. Long minutes passed and no sound came to the Captain's ears but for the regular tock tock of the
gilded mantelclock. There was no rumble of an approaching vehicle and no footstep upon the stairs that might herald the
arrival of the red-eyed man. Surely it was not his intention to have the Captain sit here between these two hated
individuals all evening? He had nothing to say to them.

Without warning, and silently upon its never-oiled hinge, the hall door swung open. White light streamed into the candlelit
room, brighter and brighter it grew as if a searchlight had been turned upon the opening. The Captain blinked and shielded
his eyes, Crowley squinted

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into the glare. 'Here,' he shouted, 'what's all this?'

In the midst of the now blinding light the silhouette of a tall and boldly proportioned man gradually became apparent. Well
over six foot he stood, and finely muscled as an Olympic athlete. His garb was of the richest crimson, trousers cut
impeccably yet without a crease, a waisted and collarless jacket, lavishly embellished with stitched bro­cade, a lace cravat
about the neck. Upon his head the figure wore a small crimson skullcap.

The face might have been that of a Spanish grandee, tanned and imposing, the nose aquiline and the mouth a hard and bitter
line. The chin was prominent and firmly set. Beneath thick dark eyebrows two blood-red eyes gleamed menacingly. The room
became impossibly cold, the hairs rose upon the Captain's hands and his breath streamed from his mouth as clouds of steam
which hovered in the frozen air.

Crowley found his voice. 'Dammit,' he spluttered, his teeth chattering and his face a grey mask of fear, 'what's going on,
who the devil are you?'

Wormwood clutched at his heart with quivering hands and gasped for air.

The crimson figure stood in total silence, his eyes fixed upon the effeminate young man. The Captain had seen that look
before and thanked his maritime gods that it was not directed towards him. 'So you would be Crowley?'

An icy hand clasped about the young man's heart. His head nodded up and down like that of an automaton and his lips mouthed
the syllables of his own name although no sound came.

'And this is Councillor Wormwood?' The eyes turned upon the unhappy creature who cowered at the table-end.

'Horace Wormwood,' came the trembling reply. 'I was invited.'

'Good.' A broad if sinister smile broke out upon the tall

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man's face. 'Then all is as it should be. Please be seated, gentlemen.'

The three men, who had risen unconsciously to their feet, reseated themselves, and the warmth of the summer's evening
returned to the room. The tall man stepped forward and took his place at the head of the table. To the further horror of
those already seated, the hall door swung silently shut and closed into its frame with a resounding crash.

'I hope you will enjoy this modest spread,' said the crimson figure. 'It is but local fare.'

Crowley finally found his voice. He was by nature a predator, and not one to be intimidated by such a theatrical display no
matter how convincing it might appear. It would take more than a few bright lights and a bit of cold air to make him deviate
from his calculated scheme. It was clear that the Captain had hired this man, possibly a local actor; there was definitely
something familiar about him, and those eyes, certainly tinted contact lenses, no body could have eyes that colour surely?

'Local fare you say,' said Crowley merrily. 'It would seem that you have plundered the finest food halls of Christendom and
employed one of the world's master chefs to prepare this magnificent feast.'

The tall man in crimson smiled his thinnest of smiles and said, 'I fear that the other guests have declined their
invitations and we shall be forced to dine alone, as it were. I also fear that by an unforgivable oversight the caterers
have omitted to supply us with either cutlery or serving staff and you will be forced to serve yourselves. Captain, if you
would be so kind as to bring in the fish.'

The Captain did as he was bid without hesitation. At the arrival of the fish Crowley clapped his hands together in glee and
shouted, 'Magnificent! Magnificent!'

The four men sat about the enormous gilded dining table, the golden glow of candleflame eerily illuminating their faces
whilst casting their shadows about the richly

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hung walls in a ragged, wavering dame macabre. Each man was occupied with his own thoughts. Crowley's brain was bursting
with a thousand unanswered questions, everything here demanded explanation. His eyes cast about from face to face, and
devious plots began to hatch inside his skull. Councillor Wormwood, although a man greatly in favour of connivance and
double-dealing, was capable upon this occasion of no such premeditation. He was an old man and felt himself to be pretty
well versed in the ways of the world, but here in this room he knew there was something 'different' going on. There was a
dark aura of evil here, and it was evil of the most hideous and malignant variety.

Captain Carson glowered morosely about the table, he really didn't know much about anything any more. All he knew was that
he was seated here in a room, which had been exclusively his for the past thirty years, with three men who out of the entire
world's population he loathed and hated to a point well starboard of all sanity.

At a gesture from the red-eyed man the three set about the mouthwatering dishes. Crowley was amazed to find that the
sweetmeat he had sampled minutes before had now taken on the most delicious and satisfying of tastes. He gurgled his delight
and thrust large helpings into his mouth.

Councillor Wormwood pecked at his choosings like the ragged vulture he was, his claws fastened about the leg of some
tropical fowl and his hideous yellow teeth tearing the soft white flesh away from the pinkly cooked bones. The Captain
sampled this and that and found all equally to his liking.

As no cutlery had been supplied the three men dug into the finely dressed displays with their greasy fingers reducing each
dish to a ruination suggestive of the march of soldier ants. The crimson figure at the head of the table left most of the
dishes untouched. He dined upon bread,

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which he broke delicately between his muscular fingers, and drank occasionally from the decanter of claret set at his right
elbow.

The hours passed and the gluttony of the three men was slowly satisfied. The Captain loosened the lower buttons of his
jacket and broke wind in a loud and embarrassing manner. At length, when it seemed that the undignified destruction of the
table was at an end, the crimson figure spoke. Sweeping his burning eyes over the three men he said, 'Is all to your liking,
gentlemen?'

Crowley looked up, his mouth still bulging with food. 'It is all ambrosia,' he mumbled, wiping cream away with the cuff of
his lace shirt.

'Mr Wormwood?'

The creature raised its yellow eyes. There was grease upon his cleft chin and he had spilt white sauce on his jacket lapel.
'Most palatable,' said he.

'And Captain?'

The Captain chewed ruefully upon a jellied lark's wing and grunted assent in a surly manner.

Crowley was growing bolder by the minute, and felt it high time that he put one or two of the questions he had stewing in
his head. 'Dear sir,' said he, 'may I say how much I have enjoyed this dinner, never in my days have I tasted such claret.'
He held up the short crystal glass to the candle-flame and contemplated the ruby-red liquid as it ran about the rim. 'To
think that anything so exquisite could exist here in Brentford, that such a sanctuary dedicated to life's finer things could
be here, it is a veritable joy to the soul.'

The red-eyed man nodded thoughtfully. 'Then you approve?'

'I do, I do, but I must also confess to some puzzlement.'

'Indeed?'

'Well,' and here Crowley paused that he might compose inquisitiveness into a form which might give no offence.

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'Well, as to yourself for instance, you are clearly a man of extreme refinement, such is obvious from your carriage, bearing
and manner of speech. If you will pardon my enquiry might I ask to which part of our sceptred isle you owe your born
allegiance?'

'I am broadly travelled and may call no place truly my home.'

'Then as to your presence in these parts?'

'I am at present a guest of the good Captain.'

'I see.' Crowley turned his eyes briefly towards the elder. His glance was sufficient however to register the look of
extreme distaste on the Captain's face.

'Then, sir, as you have the advantage of us might I enquire your name?'

The red-eyed man sat back in his chair. He took from a golden casket a long green cigar which he held to his ear and turned
between thumb and forefinger. Taking up an onyx-handled cigar cutter he sliced away at one end. Satisfied with his handiwork
he placed the cigar between his cruel lips and drew life into it from the candle-flame.

'Mr Crowley,' said he, blowing a perfect cube of smoke which hovered in the air a second or two before dissolving into
nothingness. 'Mr Crowley, you would not wish to know my name.'

The young man sipped at his wine and smiled coyly. 'Come now,' he crooned, 'you have supplied us with a dinner fit for
royalty, yet you decline to identify yourself. It is unfair that we are not permitted to know the name of our most generous
and worthy host.'

The red-eyed man drew once more upon his cigar, while the index finger of his left hand traced a runic symbol upon the
polished tabletop. 'It is to the Captain that you owe your gratitude,' said he. 'He is your host, I am but a guest as
yourself.'

'Ha,' the young man crowed, 'I think not. You suit all

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this a little too well. You sit at the table's head. I feel all this is your doing.'

'My doing?' the other replied. 'And what motive do you think I might have for inviting you to the Mission?'

'That is something I also wish to know. I suspect that no other guests were invited this evening and' - here Crowley leant
forward in his seat - 'I demand an explanation.'

'Demand?'

'Yes, demand! Something funny is going on here and I mean to get to the bottom of it.'

'You do?'

'Who are you?' screamed Crowley, growing red in the face. 'Who are you and what are you doing here?'

'What are you doing here, Mr Crowley?'

'Me? I was invited, I came out of respect to the Captain, to celebrate the Mission's centenary. I have a responsible
position on the board of trustees, in fact I am a man not without power. You would do well not to bandy words with me!'

'Mr Crowley,' said the crimson figure. 'You are a fool, you have no respect for the Captain, you have only contempt. It was
greed that brought you here and it will be greed that will be your ruination.'

'Oh yes?' said Crowley. 'Oh yes?'

'I will tell you why you came here tonight and I will answer your questions. You came here because you knew that not to come
would be to draw attention to yourself. It is your plan to have this Mission demolished at the first possible opportunity,
and to make your shady and treach­erous deals with this corpse here.' Wormwood cowered in his seat as the tall man
continued. 'I will never allow a stone of this Mission to be touched without my consent!'

'Your consent?' screeched Crowley. 'Who in the hell do you think you are?'

'Enough!' The red-eyed man pushed back his chair and drew himself to his full height, his eyes blazing and his

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shoulders spreading to draw out his massive chest. His hands formed two enormous fists which he brought down on to the table
with titanic force, scattering the food and shuddering the candelabra. 'Crowley,' he roared, his voice issuing from his
mouth as a gale force of icy wind, 'Crowley, you would know who I am! I am the man to whom fate has led you. From your very
birth it was ordained that our paths would finally cross, all things are preordained and no man can escape his fate. You
would know who I am? Crowley, I am your nemesis!'

Crowley hurled his chair aside and rushed for the door, his desperate movements those of a wildly flapping bird. His hands
grasped about the door-handle but found it as solid and unmoveable as if welded to the lock. 'Let me go,' he whimpered, 'I
want nothing more of this, let me out.'

The giant in crimson turned his hellish eyes once more upon the young man. 'You have no escape, Crowley,' he said, his voice
a low rumble of distant thunder. 'You have no escape, you are already dead, you were dead from the moment you entered this
room, dead from the first moment you raised a glass to your mouth, you are dead, Crowley.'

Tm not dead,' the young man cried, tears welling up in his eyes. 'I'll have the law on you for this, I'm not without
influence, I'm . . .' Suddenly he stiffened as if a strong cord had been tightly drawn about his neck. His eyes started from
their sockets and his tongue burst from his mouth. It was black and dry as the tongue of an old boot. 'You . . . you,' he
gagged, tearing at his collar and falling back against the door. The tall figure loomed above him, a crimson angel of death.
'Dead, Crowley.'

The young man sank slowly to his knees, his eyes rolling horribly until the pupils were lost in his head. A line of green
saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth and crept over his shirt. He jerked forward, his manicured nails tearing into the
parquet flooring, crackling and snapping as convulsions of raw pain coursed through his body.

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Above him, watching the young man's agony with inhuman detachment, stood the crimson giant. Crowley raised a shaking hand,
blood flowed from his wounded fingertips, his face was contorted beyond recognition. He bore the look of a grotesque, a
gargoyle, the skin grey and parched, the lips blue, bloodless. He raised himself once more to his knees and his mouth
opened, the blue lips made a hopeless attempt to shape a final word. Another convulsion tore through his body and flung him
doll-like to the floor where he lay, his limbs twisted hideously, his eyes staring at the face of his destroyer, glazed and
sightless. Brian Crowley was dead.

The red-eyed man raised his right hand and made a gesture of benediction. With terrifying suddenness he turned upon the
Captain, who sat open-mouthed, shaking with terror. 'You will dispose of this rubbish,' he said.

'Rubbish?' The Captain forced the word from his mouth.

The red-eyed man gestured at the twisted body which lay at his feet; then, raising his arm, he pointed across the table. The
Captain followed his gaze to where Councillor Wormwood sat. His hands grasped the table top in a vice-like grip, his eyes
were crossed and his head hung back upon his neck like that of a dead fowl in a butcher's window. The skin was no longer
yellow, but grey-white and almost iridescent; his mouth lolled hugely open and his upper set had slipped down to give the
impression that his teeth were clenched into a sickly grin.

The giant was speaking, issuing instructions: the bodies were to be stripped of all identification, this was to be destroyed
by fire, the table was to be cleared, the decanters to be drained and thoroughly washed out. The bodies were to be placed in
weighted sacks . . . the voice rolled over the Captain, a dark ocean of words engulfing and drowning him. He rose to his
feet, his hands cupped about his ears that he might hear no more. The words

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swept into his brain, the black tide washed over him, dragging him down. The Captain fought to breathe, fought to raise his
head above the black waters. This was the Mission, his life, the evil must be driven out while any strength remained in his
old body. His hands sought to grasp these thoughts, cling to them for dear life.

But the hands were old and the tide strong. Presently the Captain could grip no more and the poison waters swept over him,
covering him without trace.

13

The ambulance roared away from the Flying Swan, its bell ringing cheerfully. Most of the smoke had been fanned away through
the Swan's doors and windows, but an insistent smell of electrical burning still hung heavily in the air. After the
excitement was over and the ambulance had departed, the cowboys stood about, thumbs in gunbelts, wondering whether that was
the night over and they should, out of respect to Norman, saddle up and make for the sunset.

Young Master Robert, however, had other ideas. He climbed on to a chair and addressed the crowd. As nobody felt much like
talking at that particular moment he was able to make himself heard. 'Partners,' he began, 'part­ners, a sorry incident has
occurred but let us be grateful that the party concerned has not been badly injured. I am assured by the ambulance man that
he will be up and about within a couple of days.' There were some half­hearted attempts at a cheer. 'To show the brewery's
appreciation of a brave attempt, we are awarding, sadly in his absence, the Best Dressed Cowboy award, which includes an
evening out for two with one of our delightful

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young ladies here at one of the brewery's eating houses, a bottle of champagne and twenty small cigars, to our good friend
Norman, the Spirit of the Old West!'

There was some slightly more enthusiastic cheering at this point, which rose in a deafening crescendo as Young Master Robert
continued, 'The next three drinks are on the house!'

Suddenly Norman's unfortunate accident was forgot­ten, Old Pete set about the ancient piano once more and the Swan emerged
again, a phoenix from the ashes of the Old West. Young Master Robert approached Neville behind the bar. 'I am going out to
stoke up the barbeque now. I'll get the sausages on and then give you the nod to start leading them in.'

'Leave it to me,' said Neville, 'and I'll see to it that the

free drinks are only singles.' '

Omally, who had been revived by the aid of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation administered by each of the Page Three girls,
overheard this remark and hastily ordered three doubles from Mandy before the part-time barman was able to communicate his
instructions. 'Same for me,' said Jim Pooley.

Invigorated by their free drinks the cowboy patrons began to grow ever more rowdy. Old Snakebelly's qualities obviously
combined those of Irish potheen, wool alcohol and methylated spirits. Old Pete had already attempted to blow out a lighted
match only to find himself breathing fire and smoke. Small rings from glass bottoms had taken most of the polish from the
bar top.

Omally leant across the bar and spoke to Neville. 'You have put on a fine show and no mistake,' said he. 'I had my
misgivings about tonight but' - and here he took an enormous swig of Old Snakebelly, draining his glass - 'it promises to be
a most memorable occasion.'

The part-time barman smiled lopsidedly and polished away at a dazzling pint pot. 'The night is far from over,' he

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said ominously, 'and are you feeling yourself again, John?'

'Never better,' said Dublin's finest, 'never better.'

"Ere,' said Mandy suddenly, 'that Lone Ranger what stinks of fish keeps pinching my bum.' Neville went over to have words
with the unruly lawman. 'Omally,' the Page Three girl said when Neville was out of earshot.

'The same,' said himself.

'Listen.' Mandy made a secretive gesture and the man from the Emerald Isle leant further across the bar, just far enough in
fact for a good view down the young lady's cleavage. 'You wanna buy a couple of dozen bottles of this Old Snake whatsit on
the cheap?'

Omally grinned. He had not misjudged Mandy from the first moment he'd seen her pocket his pennies. 'What exactly is on the
cheap?'

'How does a ten spot sound?'

'It sounds most reasonable, and where are these bottles at present?'

'In the boot of the white M.G. out the front.'

Omally delved into his money belt, and a ten-pound note and a set of car keys changed hands. Winking lewdly, Omally left the
bar.

A strange smell of the kind one generally associates with crematorium chimneys had began to weave its way about the bar.
Some thought it was the last relics of the taint left by the Spirit of the Old West, others sensed its subtle difference and
began to fan their drinks and cough into their stetsons. Suddenly there was a mighty crash as Neville brought his knobkerry
down on the bar top. 'The barbeque is served,' said the part-time barman.

Knowing the rush that would ensue at the announce­ment of free food, and still wishing to shield his carpet slippers from
critical onlookers, Neville remained behind the bar to watch with some interest the way that one hundred or so cowboys might
fit into a six-foot-square patio. Young Master Robert, clad in lurid vinyl apron and

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tall chefs hat, was going great guns behind the barbeque. Mountains of sizzling sausages, and steakettes and bub­bling
cauldrons of beans simmered away on the grill and Sandra stood near at hand proffering paper plates and serviettes printed
with the legend, 'A Souvenir of Cowboy Night.'

The first half-dozen lucky would-be-diners squeezed their way through the Swan's rear door and found themselves jammed up
against the blazing barbeque. 'One at a bloody time,' bawled a scorched Ranger, patting at the knees of his trousers. 'Don't
push there,' screamed another as his elbow dipped into a vat of boiling beans.

Order was finally maintained by the skilful wielding of a red-hot toasting fork in the hands of the young master. A human
chain was eventually set up and paper plates bearing dollops of beans, a steakette, a sausage and a roll were passed back
along the queue of drunken cowboys.

'More charcoal,' the Young Master cried as a helpful Jim Pooley heaped stack after stack on the flames of the blazing
barbeque. 'More sausages, more beans.' Jim dutifully set about the top of a five-gallon drum with a handy garden fork.

Rammed into the corner of the patio and watching the barbeque with expressions of dire suspicion were two Rangers whose
abundance of cranial covering identified them to be none other than Hairy Dave and Jungle John, well known if largely (and
wisely) distrusted members of the local building profession.

Jim had watched these two surly individuals from the corner of his eye for the better part of the last half hour and had
wondered at their doubtful expressions and occasional bouts of elbow nudging. A sudden sharp report from the base of the
brick-built barbeque which slightly preceded their hasty departure from the patio caused Pooley to halt in his can-opening
and take stock of the situation.

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The barbeque was roaring away like a furnace and the grill had grown red hot and was slightly sagging in the middle. Young
Master Robert was perspiring freely and calling for more charcoal. Jim noticed that his vinyl apron was beginning to run and
that the paint on the Swan's rear door was blistering alarmingly. The heat had grown to such an extent that the remaining
cowboys were pressed back against the wall and were shielding their faces and privy parts with paper plates.

'More charcoal,' screamed Young Master Robert.

Pooley's eyes suddenly alighted upon a half empty bag of cement which lay among a few unused red flettons in the corner of
the patio. He recalled a time when, taking a few days' work in ordei to appease a sadistic official at the Labour Exchange,
he had installed a fireplace at a lady's house on the Butts Estate. Knowing little about what happens when bricks and mortar
grow hot, and having never heard of fireproof bricks and heat resistant cement, he had used these very same red flettons and
a bag of similarly standard cement. The fire-engine bells still rang clearly in Jim's memory.

There was another loud report from the base of the barbeque and Pooley reached out to make a grab at Young Master Robert's
shoulder. 'Come on, come on,' he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the roaring of the fire. 'Get inside.'

'Leave off, will you?' the young master shouted back. 'Open those beans.'

Jim was a man who would do most things to protect his fellow man, but he was not one to scoff at self-preservation. 'Run for
your life,' bawled Jim, thrusting his way into the suddenly stampeding herd of cowboys who had by now similarly realized
that all was not well with the barbeque, and that the all that was not well was of that kind which greatly endangers life
and limb.

The mad rush burst in through the Swan's rear door,

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carrying it from its hinges and depositing it on the cross-legged form of 'Vindaloo Vie', the manager of the Curry Garden,
who had been busily employed in the heaping of sausages and steakettes into a stack of foil containers to be later resold in
his establishment as Bombay Duck. He vanished beneath the rented soles of forty-eight trampling cowboy boots.

The merrymakers in the saloon bar were not long in discerning that something was going very wrong on the patio. As one, they
rose to their feet and took flight. Neville found himself suddenly alone in the saloon bar. 'Now what can this mean?' he
asked himself. 'The bar suddenly empty, drinks left untouched upon tables, cigarettes burning in ashtrays, had the Flying
Swan become some form of land-locked Marie Celeste? Is it the steakettes, perhaps? Is it the Old Snakebelly, stampeding them
off to the Thames like lemmings?' Neville's ears became drawn to the sound which was issuing from the direction of the patio
and which appeared to be growing second upon second. Something was building up to a deafening crescendo on the back patio
and Neville had a pretty good idea what it was. It was Old Moloch itself, the ill-constructed brick barbeque, about to burst
asunder.

Before Neville instinctively took the old 'dive for cover' beneath the Swan's counter he had the impression that a being
from another world had entered the bar from the rear passage. This vision, although fleeting and seen only through the part-
time barman's good eye, appeared to be clad in a steaming skin-tight vinyl space-suit and wearing the remnants of a chefs
hat.

The first explosion was not altogether a large one; it was by no means on the scale of Krakatoa's outburst, and it is
doubtful whether it even raised a squiggle upon the seismographs at Greenwich. It was the second one that was definitely the
most memorable. Possibly a scientist schooled in such matters could have estimated the exact

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megatonnage of the thirty cases of Old Snakebelly. However, we must accept, in the untechnical jargon of John Omally who was
returning at that moment from the allotment where he had been burying twenty-four bottles of the volatile liquid, that it
was one 'bloody big bang'.

The blast ripped through the Swan, overturning the piano, lifting the polished beer-pulls from the counter and propelling
them through the front windows like so many silver-tipped torpedoes. The Swiss cheese roof of the gents' toilet was raised
from its worm-eaten mountings and liberally distributed over half-a-dozen back gardens. The crowd of cowboys who had taken
cover behind the parked cars in the Haling Road ducked their heads and covered their ears and faces as shards of smoke-
stained glass rained down upon them.

Neville was comparatively unscathed. When he felt it safe he raised his noble head above the counter to peer through shaking
fingers at the desolation that had been his pride and joy.

The Swan was wreathed in smoke, but what Neville could see of the basic structure appeared to be intact. As for the cowboy
trapping and the pub furniture, little remained that could by any stretch of the imagination be called serviceable. The
tables and chairs had joined the patrons in making a rapid move towards the front door, but unlike those lucky personnel
their desperate bid for escape had been halted by the front wall, where they lay heaped like the barricades of revolutionary
Paris. Sawdust filled the air like a woody snowstorm, and in the middle of the floor, lacking most of his clothes but still
bearing upon his head the charred remnants of a chefs hat, lay Young Master Robert. Neville patted away the sawdust from his
shoulders and found to his amazement one lone optic full of whisky. This indeed had become a night he would long remember.

The now emboldened cowboys had risen from their

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shelters and were beating upon the Swan's door. Faces appeared at the glassless windows and inane cries of 'Are you all
right?' and 'Is anybody there?' filled the smoky air.

Neville downed his scotch and climbed over the bar to inspect the fallen figure of the Young Master, who was showing some
signs of life. The patrons finally broke into the bar and came to a crowded and silent standstill about the prone figure.

'He's all right, ain't he?' said Mandy. 'I mean he's still breathing, ain't he?' Neville nodded. 'Sandra's phoned for an
ambulance and the fire brigade.'

A great dark mushroom cloud hung over the Flying Swan. The first brigade, who arrived in record time, on hearing that it was
a pub on fire, contented themselves with half-heartedly squirting an extinguisher over the blackened yard and salvaging what
unbroken bottles of drink remained for immediate consumption. The ambu­lance driver asked sarcastically whether Neville
wanted his home number in case of further calamities that evening.

When the appliances had finally departed, dramatically ringing their bells in the hope of waking any local residents who had
slept through the blast, a grim and sorry silence descended upon the Flying Swan. The cowboys drifted away like western
ghosts and the onlookers who had been awakened by the excitement switched out their lights and returned to their beds.

Neville, Pooley and John Omally were all who remained behind. Neville had brought down a couple of bottles of scotch from
the private stock in his wardrobe. The three sat where they could in the ruined bar sipping at their drinks and
contemplating the destruction.

'Heads will roll for this,' sighed Neville, 'mine in particular.'

Omally nodded thoughtfully. 'Still,' he said, 'at least we'll get that new bog roof now.'

'Thanks a lot,' said Neville.

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'It was a good old do though, wasn't it,' said, Jim. 'I don't suppose the brewery would be thinking of following it up at
all, I mean maybe Hawaiian Night or a Merrie England festival or something?'

Neville grinned painfully. 'Somehow I doubt it.'

'You must sue that Hairy Dave,' John suggested. 'Him and his hirsute brother are a danger to life and limb.'

Neville opened the second bottle of scotch. 'Come to think of it,' he said, 'I don't recall any specifications for materials
coming with that plan from the brewery.'

'Aha!' said John. 'Then all may not be lost.'

'The poor old Swan,' said Pooley, 'what a tragedy.'

'We've had fine times here,' said Omally.

'They'll ruin it you know,' said Neville, 'the brewery, probably turn it into a discotheque or a steak house or some­thing.
There's nothing they like better than getting their hands on a piece of England's heritage and thoroughly crucifying it.
It'll be fizzy beer and chicken in a basket, you wait and see.'

'We'll get up a petition,' said Jim. 'Brentonians won't stand for any of that.'

'Won't they though?' Neville nodded towards the broken front windows. 'Look there and what do you see?'

'Nothing, the lights of the flatblocks that's all.'

'Yes, the flatblocks. Fifteen years ago there was a whole community there, small pubs, corner shops, the pottery, streets
full of families that all knew each other.'

Jim nodded sadly. 'All gone now,' said he. The three men sipped silently at their drinks as the air grew heavy with
nostalgic reminiscence.

Omally, always the realist, said, 'There's little use in sobbing about the good old days. When my family came over from the
old country we moved in to one of them little dens where the flats now stand. I can remember them sure enough. No hot water,
no bath, outside toilet that froze in the winter, rats, bedbugs, the children coughing

145

with diptheria, great old times they were. I'll tell you I cheered when the bulldozer pushed our old house down. Bloody good
riddance I said.'

Jim smiled slightly. 'And if I remember rightly the bailiffs were still chasing your lot six months after for five years'
back rent.'

Omally laughed heartily. Tis true,' said he, 'tis true enough, the daddy took the lot of them back home then, sure he did.
"Back to the land John," said he, "there's a fortune to be made in the land." Mad as a hatter the daddy.'

'Is he still alive your da?' said Neville.

'Oh yes, he's that all right. I read not so long ago in the Dublin press of an old fella at eighty-six being named in a
paternity suit by a sixteen-year-old convent girl, that would be the daddy right enough.'

'The Omallys are notable womanizers, that is for certain,' said Jim. 'There is many a well-pleased widow woman hereabouts
who will testify to that.'

Omally smiled his winning smile. 'I would thank you to keep your indiscreet remarks to yourself, Jim Pooley,' said he. 'I am
a man of the highest principles.'

'Ha,' said Jim as he recalled the spectacle of Omally's moonlit bum going about its hydraulic motions in Archroy's marriage
bed. 'You are an unprincipled bounder, but I am proud to call you friend.'

'You are both good men,' said Neville, a tear unex­pectedly forming in his good eye. 'Friendship is a wonderful thing.
Whatever the future holds for the Swan, I want you to know that it has always been my pleasure to serve you.'

'Come now,' said Jim, patting the part-time barman on the shoulder. 'There are great days ahead, of this I am certain.'

'Forgive me this sentiment,' said Neville, 'I am drunk.'

'Me also,' said John.

'I am still able to stand and must thus confess my

146

sobriety,' said Jim, refilling his glass with the last of the whisky.

Some time later two thoroughly drunken Lone Rangers, now somewhat shabby and lacking in hats and masks, were to be found
wandering in the direction of the St Mary's allotment. 'I have a little crop upon my pastures which you will find most
satisfying,' the Irish Ranger told his staggering compadre. Jim was desperately hoping that the Irishman was not alluding to
some supposed narcotic sproutings from the purloined bean.

The two arrived at the iron gate and stood before that rusting edifice leaning upon one another for support. 'I've done a
little deal,' grinned Omally, pulling at his lower eyelid in an obscene manner and staggering forward into the silent
allotment. It was another fine moonlit night and the old selenic disc sailed above in a cloudless sky. Long jagged shadows
cast by bean poles, abandoned wheelbar­rows and heavily padlocked allotment sheds etched stark patterns across the strangely
whitened ground.

Omally's ambling silhouette lurched on ahead and vanished down into the dip before his plot. Jim, who had fallen to the
ground upon his companion's sudden departure, climbed shakily to his feet, tightened his bandana against the crisp night air
and stumbled after him.

When he reached Omally he found the Irishman upon all fours grubbing about in the dirt. Happily he was some way from the
spot where the magic bean had originally been buried.

'Aha,' said Omally suddenly, lifting a dusty bottle of Old Snakebelly into the moonlight. 'Ripe as ninepence.'

'Good show,' said Jim collapsing on to his behind with a dull thud. The bottle was speedily uncorked and the two sat drawing
upon it turn by turn, at peace with the world and sharing Jim's last Woodbine. 'It's a great life though,

147

isn't it?' said Jim wiping the neck of the bottle upon his rented sleeve.

'It's that to be sure.'

Pooley leant back upon his elbows and stared up wist­fully towards the moon. 'Sometimes I wonder,' said he.

'I know,' Omally broke in, 'sometimes you wonder if there are folk like us up there wondering if there are folk like them
down here.'

'Exactly,' said Jim.

Suddenly, away into the darkness and coming appar­ently from the direction of the Mission's rear garden wall, the two
wonderers heard a heavy if muffled thump.

'Now what do you wonder that might be?' asked John.

'Truly I have no idea, give me a drag of that Woody.' Omally passed Jim the cigarette and taking the bottle drained away a
large portion of its contents. 'Probably a pussycat,' said he.

'Big one though,'

'Archroy told me he once saw a giant feral torn roaming the allotment by night, the size of a tiger he said.'

'Archroy as you well know is greatly subject to flights of fancy.'

'He seemed very sincere at the time, came rushing into the Swan and ordered a large brandy.'

Pooley shifted uncomfortably on his earthy seat. 'I should not wish to end my days as a pussycat's dinner,' said he. Without
warning there was a second and slightly louder thump, which was followed almost immediately by the sound of scrambling feet.
'The monster moggy!' said Jim.

Omally threw himself down commando-fashion and crawled to the rim of the dip. Pooley snatched up a fallen farrowing fork
and, draining the last of the bottle, stealthily followed him. Sounds of grunting and panting now drifted in their direction
and were followed by a distant 'squeak-squeak'.

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'A giant mouse perhaps,' whispered Jim hoarsely.

'Don't be a damn fool,' Omally replied, 'there's only one thing around here makes a noise like that, my bloody wheelbarrow.'

'Sssh!' said Jim. 'It's coming nearer.' The two lay in silence squinting lopsidedly into the gloom.

The indistinct form of a man appeared from the shadows. As it drew nearer both Pooley and Omally recognized the dark figure
as that of the grizzle-chinned seafarer Captain Carson. He was dressed in a Royal Navy uniform and was pushing with some
difficulty Omally's wheelbarrow, which was weighed down heavily by two large and strangely swollen potato sacks.

He was now but ten yards away and the two hidden Rangers caught sight of the Captain's face. It was a thing to inspire
horror, the skin deathly white and glowing hideously in the moon's septic light, the mouth turned down into an attitude of
intense hatred and the eyes glazed and lifeless.

Pooley shuddered and drew his Irish chum down as the wheelbarrow and its zombiesque operator passed them at close quarters.
'Something's not right here,' said John, straightening up upon creaking knee-joints, 'let's follow him.'

Jim was doubtful. 'It's home for me,' he said.

Omally cuffed his cowardly companion. 'That's my damn wheelbarrow,' he said. Ducking low and scurrying from one hiding place
to another the two thoroughly besmutted Rangers followed the ghastly figure with the squeaking wheelbarrow across the
allotment.

'He's heading for the river,' said Jim breathlessly, still grasping the farrowing fork. From a little way ahead of them came
the sounds of more straining followed by two loud splashes. 'I'd say he was there,' said John.

There was a squeak or two, then another loud splash. 'He's dumped my barrow, the bastard!' wailed Omally.

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Jim said, 'If you'll pardon me, John, I'll be off about my business.' He turned and blundered into a forest of bean poles.

'Duck, you fool,' whispered John, tripping over the struggling Pooley, 'he's coming back.'

The Captain appeared suddenly from the shadows of the riverside oaks. He surely must have seen the two fallen Rangers, yet
his eyes showed no sign of recognition. Forward he came upon wooden legs, moving like a somnambulist, past the Rangers and
back off in the direction of the Mission.

'There's a bean pole stuck up my right trouser,' groaned Jim, 'help, help, fallen man here!'

'Shut up you bally fool,' said John, flapping his arms and attempting to rise, 'look there.' Pooley raised himself as best
he could and stared after John's pointing finger.

Away across the allotment a bright light shone from the Mission. Like a beacon it swept over their heads. For a fleeting
moment they saw him, the silhouette of a huge man standing upon the Mission wall, his arms folded and his legs apart.
Although the two saw him for only a brief second, the feeling of incontestable grandeur and of malevolent evil was totally
overwhelming.

Omally crossed himself with a trembling hand.

Pooley said, 'I think I am going to be sick.'

14

The Flying Swan was closed for three weeks. The sun blazed down day after day, and there were all the makings of a Long Hot
Summer. There was never a cloud in the sky, the boating pond in Gunnersbury Park was down a full six inches and the bed of
the dried-up canal cracked

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and hardened into a sun-scorched jigsaw puzzle. As each evening came the air, rather than growing blessedly cool, seemed to
boil, making sleep impossible. Windows were permanently open, butter melted upon grocers' shelves and every kind of cooling
apparatus gave up the ghost and ground to a standstill. The residents who nightly tilled their allotment patches watched
sadly as their crops shrivelled and died. No amount of daily watering could save them, and the press had announced that
water rationing was likely.

When the Swan reopened it was with little ceremony. Nothing much seemed to have changed, some portions of the bar had been
half-heartedly repainted and the gents' toilet had been rebuilt. Neville stood in his usual position polishing the glasses
and occasionally dabbing at his moist brow. It was as if Cowboy Night had never taken place.

The beer pulls had been returned to their places upon the bar, but only three of them were fully functional. 'I put it down
to vindictiveness upon the part of the brewery,' he told Omally.

'Good to see you back though,' said the Irishman, pushing the exact money across the counter and indicating his usual.

'That one's still off,' said Neville. 'And the beer's up a penny a pint.'

Omally sighed dismally. 'These are tragic times we live in,' said he. 'A half of light ale then.'

Archroy sat alone upon the sun-scorched allotment, his head gleaming like the dome of an Islamic mosque. His discarded wig
hung upon the handle of a rake in the fashion of a trophy before the lodge of a great chief. Evil thoughts were brewing in
Archroy's polished cranium. It had not been his year at all: first the loss of his cherished automobile and then the
disappearance of his magic beans, the decimation of his tomato crop and now the aviary. The

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aviary! Archroy twisted broodingly at the dried stalk of what had been a promising tomato plant and hunched his shoulders in
utter despair.

Things could not continue as they were. One of them would have to go, and the accursed aviary looked a pretty permanent
affair. Three weeks in the construction and built after the design of Lord Snowdon's famous bird house, the thing towered in
his back garden, overshadow­ing the kitchen and darkening his bedroom. Its presence had of course inspired the usual
jocularity from his workmates, who had dubbed him 'the bird man of Brentford'.

So far the monstrous cage had remained empty, but Archroy grew ever more apprehensive when he contem­plated the kind of
feathered occupants his wife was planning to house within its lofty environs. He lived in perpetual dread of that knock upon
the door which would herald the delivery of a vanload of winged parasites. 'I'll do away with myself,' said Archroy. 'That
will show them all I mean business.' He twisted the last crackling fibres from the ruined tomato stalk and threw them into
the dust. 'Something dramatic, something spectacular that all the world will take notice of, I'll show them.'

Captain Carson sat huddled under a heavy blanket in the old steamer chair on the Mission's verandah. His eyes stared into
the shimmering heat, but saw nothing. At intervals his head bobbed rhythmically as if in time to some half-forgotten sea
shanty. From inside the Mission poured the sounds of industry. For on this afternoon, and in the all-conquering heat which
none could escape, great changes were taking place. Timber was being sawn, hammers wielded and chisels manfully employed.
The metallic reports of cold chisel upon masonry rang into the superheated air, the splintering of wormy laths and the
creaking of uplifted floorboards. Major reconstruction

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work was in progress and was being performed apparently with robotic tirelessness.

Hairy Dave swung the five-pound club hammer wildly in the direction of the Victorian marble fireplace. The polished steel of
the hammer's head glanced across the polished mantel, raising a shower of sparks and burying itself in the plaster of the
wall. Normally such an event would have signalled the summary 'down tools and repair to the alehouse lads', but Dave merely
spat upon his palm and withdrew the half-submerged instrument of labour for another attempt. His thickly bearded brother
stood upon a trestle, worrying at a length of picture rail with a crowbar. Neither man spoke as he went about his desperate
business; here was none of the endless banter, cigarette swopping and merry whistling one associated with these two work-shy
reprobates, here was only hard graft, manual labour taken to an extreme and terrifying degree.

The long hot summer's day wore on, drawing itself into a red raw evening which turned to nightfall with a sunset that would
have made the most cynical of men raise his eyes in wonder. Jim Pooley stirred from his hypnotic slumbers upon the Memorial
Library bench and rose to his feet, scratching at his stomach and belching loudly. The gnawing within his torso told him
that he was in need of sustenance and the evening sky told the ever-alert Jim that day had drawn to a close.

He found his cigarette packet lodged in the lining of his aged tweed jacket. One lone Woody revealed itself. 'Times be
hard,' said Jim to no-one in particular. He lit his final cigarette and peered up at the sprinkling of stars. 'I wonder,'
said he. 'I wonder what Professor Slocombe is up to.'

With the coming of the tropical summer naught had been seen of the learned ancient upon the streets of

153

Brentford. His daily perambulation about the little com­munity's boundaries had ceased. Pooley tried to think when he had
last seen the elderly Professor and realized that it was more than a month ago, on the night of his valiant deed.

'The old fellow is probably suffering something wicked with the heat,' he told himself, 'and would be grateful for an
evening caller to relieve the tedium of the sultry hours.'

Pleased with the persuasiveness of this reasoning Pooley drew deeply upon his cigarette, blew a great gust of milk-white
smoke into the air and crossed the earless road towards the Professor's house.

The Butts estate hovered timelessly in its splendour. The tall Georgian house-fronts gleamed whitely in the moonlight, and
the streetlamps threw stark shadows into the walled courtyards and guarded alley entrances.

Hesperus, the first star of evening, winked down as Pooley, hands in pockets, rounded the corner by the Professor's house.
The garden gate was ajar and Pooley slipped silently between the ivy-hung walls. A light glowed ahead, coming from the open
French window, and Jim gravitated towards it, thoughts of the Professor's sherry spurring him on.

It was as he reached the open windows that the sounds first reached him. Pooley halted, straining his ears, suddenly alert
to a subtle unidentifiable strangeness, a curious rustling from within, a scratching clawing sound, agitated and frantic.

Pooley reached out a cautious hand towards the net curtain, and as he did so heard the scrabbling sounds increase in urgency
and agitation.

There was a sudden movement, firm fingers fastened about his wrist and he was hauled forward with one deft jerk which lifted
him from his feet and sent him bowling across the carpet in an untidy tangle of tweed. With a

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resounding thud the tumbling Pooley came to rest beneath one of the Professor's ponderous bookcases.

'Mercy,' screamed Jim, covering his head, 'James Pooley here, pacifist and friend to all.'

'Jim, my dear fellow, my apologies.'

Jim peered up warily through his fingers. 'Professor?' said he.

'I am so sorry, I was expecting someone else.'

'Some welcome,' said Jim.

The ancient helped the fallen Pooley to his feet and escorted him to one of the cosy fireside chairs. He poured a glass of
scotch which Pooley took in willing hands.

'That was a nifty blow you dealt me there,' said Jim.

'Dimac,' said the elder, 'a crash course via the mail­order tuition of the notorious Count Dante.'

'I have heard of him,' said Jim, 'deadliest man on earth they say.'

The Professor chewed at his lip. 'Would it were so,' said he in an ominous tone.

Pooley downed his scotch and cast his eyes about the Professor's study. 'A noise,' he said, 'as I stood at the windows, I
heard a noise.'

'Indeed?'

'A scratching sound.' Pooley lifted himself upon his elbows and peered about. All seemed as ever, the clutter of
thaumaturgical books, bizarre relics and brass-cogged machinery. But there in the very centre of the room, set upon a low
dais which stood within a chalk-drawn pentagram, was a glass case covered with what appeared to be an altar-cloth.
'Hamsters?' said Jim. 'Or gerbils is it, nasty smelly wee things.'

Pooley rose to investigate but the Professor restrained him with a firm and unyielding hand. Jim marvelled at the ancient's
newly acquired strength. 'Do not look, Jim,' the Professor said dramatically, 'you would not care for what you saw.'

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'Hamsters hold little fear for the Pooleys,' said Jim.

'Tell me,' said the Professor. 'What unlikely adventures have befallen you since our last encounter?'

'Now you are asking,' said Jim and between frequent refillings of scotch he told the chuckling Professor of the excitements
and diversions of Cowboy Night at the Flying Swan.

The Professor wiped at his eyes. 'I heard the explosion of course.' Here the old man became suddenly sober. 'There were
other things abroad that night, things which are better not recalled or even hinted at.'

Pooley scratched at his ear. 'Omally and I saw some­thing that night, or thought we did, for we had both consumed a
preposterous amount of good old Snakebelly.'

The Professor leant forward in his chair and fixed Jim with a glittering stare. 'What did you see?' he asked in a voice of
dire urgency which quite upset the sensitive Pooley.

'Well.' Pooley paused that his glass might be refilled. 'It was a strange one, this I know.' Jim told his tale as best he
could remember, recalling with gothic intensity the squeaking wheelbarrow and its mysterious cargo and the awesome figure
upon the mission wall.

'And the bright light, had you ever seen anything like it before?'

'Never, nor wish to again.'

The Professor smiled.

'Omally crossed himself,' said Jim. 'And I was taken quite poorly.'

'Ah,' said the Professor. 'It is all becoming clearer by the hour. Now I have a more vivid idea of what we are dealing with.'

'I am glad somebody does,' said Jim, rattling his empty glass upon the arm of the chair. 'It's the wheelbarrow I feel sorry
for.'

'Jim,' said the Professor rising from his seat and crossing slowly to the French windows where he stood

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gazing into the darkness. 'Jim, if I were to confide in you my findings, could I rely on your complete discretion?'

'Of course.'

That is easily said, but this would be a serious vow, no idle chinwagging.' The Professor's tone was of such leaden
seriousness that Jim hesitated a moment, wondering whether he would be better not knowing whatever it was. But as usual his
natural curiosity got the upper hand and with the simple words 'I swear' he irrevocably sealed his fate.

'Come then, I will show you!' The Professor strode to the covered glass case and as he did so the frantic scrabbling arose
anew. Jim refilled his glass and rose unsteadily to join his host.

'I should have destroyed them, I know,' said the Professor, a trace of fear entering his voice. 'But I am a man of science,
and to feel that one might be standing upon the brink of discovery . . .' With a sudden flourish he tore the embroidered
altar cloth from the glass case, revealing to Jim's horrified eyes a sight that would haunt his sleeping hours for years to
come.

Within the case, pawing at the glazed walls, were frantically moving creatures, five hideous manlike beings, six to eight
inches in height. They were twisted as the gnarled roots of an ancient oak, yet in the 'heads' of them rudimentary mouths
opened and closed. Slime trickled from their ever-moving orifices and down over their shimmering knobbly forms.

Jim drew back in outraged horror and gagged into his hands. The Professor uttered a phrase of Latin and replaced the cloth.
The frantic scratchings ceased as rapidly as they had begun.

Pooley staggered back to his chair where he sat, head in hands, sweat running free from his forehead. 'What are they?' he
said, his voice almost a sob. 'Why do you have them here?'

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'You brought them here. They are Phaseolus Satanicus, and they await their master.'

'I will have nothing of this.' Pooley dragged himself from his seat and staggered to the window. He had come here for a bite
to eat, not to be assailed with graveyard nastiness. He would leave the Professor to his horrors. Jim halted in his flight.
A strange sensation entered his being, as if voices called to him from the dim past, strange voices speaking in archaic
accents hardly recognizable yet urgent, urgent with the fears of unthinkable horrors lurking on the very edges of darkling
oblivion.

Pooley stumbled, his hands gripping at the curtain, tearing it from its hooks. Behind him the scrabbling and scratching rose
anew to fever pitch, small mewings and whisperings interspersed with the awful sounds. As Pooley fell he saw before him
standing in the gloom of the night garden a massive, brooding figure. It was clad in crimson and glowing with a peculiar
light. The head was lost in shadows but beneath the heavy brows two bright red eyes glowed wolfishly.

When Pooley awoke he was lying sprawled across the Professor's chaise longue, an icepack upon his head and the hellish reek
of ammonia strong in his nostrils.

'Jim.' A voice came to him out of the darkness. 'Jim.' Pooley brought his eyes into focus and made out the willowy form of
the elderly Professor, screwing the cap on a bottle of smelling salts. He offered the half-conscious Jim yet another glass
of scotch, which the invalid downed with a practised flick of the wrist. Now fully alert, Pooley jerked his head in the
direction of the window. 'Where is he,' he said, tearing the icepack from his forehead. 'I saw him out there.'

The Professor sank into a high-backed Windsor chair. 'Then he did come, I knew he would.'

The first rays of sunlight were falling through the still-

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open, though now curtainless, French windows. 'Here,' said Pooley. 'What time is it?' As if in answer the ormolu mantelclock
struck five times. 'I've been out for hours,' said Jim, holding his head, 'and I do not feel at all well.'

'You had best go home to your bed,' said the Professor. 'Come again tonight and we will speak of these things.'

'No,' said Pooley taking a Turkish cigarette from the polished humidor. Through force of habit he furtively thrust several
more into his top pocket. 'I must know of these things now.'

'As you will.' The Professor smiled darkly and drew a deep breath. 'You will recall the evening when you first came to me
with that single bean. You saw my reaction when I first observed it, and when later that night you brought me the other four
I knew that my suspicions were justified.'

'Suspicions?'

'That the Dark One was already among us.'

Pooley lit his cigarette and collapsed into an immediate fit of coughing. 'The Dark One?' he spluttered between convulsions.
'Who in the name of the holies is the Dark One?'

The Professor shrugged. 'If I knew exactly who he was Jim, our task would be simpler. The Dark One has existed since the
dawn of time, he may take many forms and live many lives. We are lucky in one respect only, that we have observed his
arrival. It is our duty to precipitate his end.'

'IJoiow of no Dark Ones,' said Jim. 'Although I do remember that several months ago the arrival of a mouldy-looking tramp
caused a good degree of speculation within the saloon bar of the Flying Swan, although in truth I never saw this dismal
wanderer myself.'

The Professor nodded. 'You have seen him twice, once upon the allotments and again this very night within my own garden.'

'Nah,' said Pooley. 'That was no tramp I saw.'

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'I am certain there is a connection,' said the Professor. 'All the signs are here. I have watched them for months, gathering
like a storm about to break. The time, I fear, is close at hand.'

Jim sniffed suspiciously at his Turkish cigarette. 'Are these lads all right?' said he. 'Only they smell somewhat doubtful.'

'You are still a young man, Jim,' said the Professor. 'I cannot expect you to take altogether seriously all that I say, but
I swear to you that we are dealing with forces which will not be defeated by simply being ignored.'

Jim glanced distastefully towards the covered glass case. 'You can hardly ignore those,' said he.

'By fire and water only may they be destroyed,' said the Professor. 'By fire and water and the holy word.'

Pooley pulled at his sideburns. 'I'll put a match to the blighters,' he said valiantly.

'It is not as simple as that, it never is. These beans are the symptom, not the cause. To destroy them now would be to throw
away the only hope we have of locating the evil force which brought them here.'

'I don't like the sound of this "we" you keep referring to,' said Jim.

'I want you to tell me, Jim, everything you have heard about this tramp. Every rumour, every story, anything that might give
us a clue as to his motives, his power and his weaknesses.'

Pooley's stomach made an unmentionable sound. 'Pro­fessor,' said he, 'I would be exceedingly grateful for some breakfast, I
have not eaten for twenty-four hours. I am feeling a trifle peckish.'

'Of course.' The Professor rang the bell which sum­moned his musty servant. Presently a fine breakfast of heated rolls,
eggs, bacon, tomatoes, coffee and toast appeared and Pooley set about it with ravenous zeal.

For the next hour thereafter Jim spoke of all he had

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heard regarding the mystery tramp, from Neville's first encounter to Norman's terrifying experiences in the Plume Cafe, and
of the welter of theories, conjectures and speculations which had been rife in the Swan. He spoke of Soap Distant's talk of
.he Hollow Earth, omitting his own experiences within the mysterious subterranean world, and of Omally's faerie ramblings
and of those folk who held the belief that the tramp was the Wandering Jew.

The old Professor listened intently, occasionally raising his snowy eyebrow or shaking his head until finally Jim's tale had
run its course. 'Fascinating,' he said at length, 'quite fascinating. And you say that all those who had any personal
dealings with this tramp felt an uncanny need to cross themselves?'

'As far as I can make out, but you must understand that a lot of what I have told you was heard second-hand as it were,
nobody around here gives away much if they can possibly help it.'

'So much I know.'

'And so, what is to be done?'

'I think at present there is little we can do. We must be constantly on watch. Report to me with any intelligence, no matter
how vague, which comes to hand. I will prepare myself as best I can, both mentally and physically. Our man is close, that is
certain. You have seen him. I can sense his nearness and it is likewise with the creatures in the case. Soon he will come
for them and when he does so, we must be ready.' Pooley reached out a hand towards the humidor. 'Why don't you have one of
the ones in your top pocket?' asked the old Professor, smiling broadly.

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15

Pooley sat that lunchtime alone in a corner seat at the Flying Swan, a half of pale ale growing warm before him. He sighed
deeply. All that the Professor had said weighed heavily on his soul, and he wondered what should be done for the best. He
thought he should go around to the Mission and confront Captain Carson regarding what Holmes would have referred to as 'the
singular affair of the purloined wheelbarrow', which was something he and Omally should really have done the very next day.
But the Captain's animosity towards visitors was well known to all thereabouts, especially to Jim who had once been round
there to scrounge a bed for the night and had been run off with a gaff hook. Anyway, it was Omally's wheelbarrow and if he
chose to forget the matter then that was up to him.

Maybe, he thought, it would be better for the Professor simply to hand over the bean things to this Dark One, whoever he
might be, in the hope that he would depart with them, never to return. But that was no good, Pooley had felt the evil and he
knew that the Professor was right. It would not go away by being ignored. Pooley sighed anew. A bead of perspiration rolled
down the end of his nose and dropped into his ale.

Archroy entered the Flying Swan. Pooley had not seen him for some weeks; he had been strangely absent from the Cowboy Night
fiasco. Jim wondered in which direc­tion his suspicions pointed in the matter of the stolen beans. 'He doesn't know how
lucky he is,' he thought.

Archroy, however, looked far from lucky upon this par­ticular occasion. His shoulders drooped and his lopsided

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hairpiece clung perilously to his shining pate. Pooley watched him from the corner of his eye. He could not recall ever
having seen anybody looking so depressed, and wondered whether the sorry specimen might appreciate a few kind words. For the
life of him Jim couldn't think of any. Archroy looked up from the pouring of his ale and sighted Pooley, nodded in half-
hearted greeting and sank back into his misery.

Pooley looked up through the pub windows. The flat-blocks quivered mirage-like in the heat and a bedraggled pigeon or two
fluttered away into the shimmering haze. The heat strangled the bar-room air, everything moved in slow motion except Father
Moity, resident priest to St Joan's, Brentford, who unexpectedly entered the bar at this moment. He strode towards the bar,
oblivious to the battering heat, and ordered a small sherry. Neville poured this and noted that the priest made no motions
towards his pocket upon accepting same. 'You are far from your cool confessional upon such a hot day,' said Neville
cyni­cally.

'Now, now, Neville,' said the priest, raising his blessing finger in admonishment. 'I have come to seek out two members of
my flock who seem to have fallen upon stony ground.' Pooley much enjoyed listening to the young priest, whose endless supply
of inaccurate quotation was a joy to the ear. 'Two prodigal sons who have sold their birthrights for a mess of porridge.'
Pooley chuckled. 'You know them as Hairy Dave and Jungle John.'

'They're barred!' said Neville with a voice like thunder.

'Barred is it, and what pestilence have they visited upon you on this occasion?'

'They blew my bloody pub up.'

'Anarchists is it?'

'Bloody maniacs!' said Neville bitterly.

'Raise not thine hand in anger,' said the priest, bringing his blessing finger once more into play. 'How many times

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shall I forgive my brother, seven isn't it? I say unto you seven hundred times seven, or some such figure.'

'Well, they are barred and they stay barred!'

'Tsk, tsk!' said the priest. 'It is because of bars that I find myself here, a lamb amongst wolves.'

'And how is the bar of your Catholic Club?' asked Neville sarcastically. 'Still doing a roaring trade with its cut-price
drinks and taking the bread of life from the mouths of hardworking publicans?'

'Judge not, lest thyself be judged,' said the priest. The bars I refer to are of the gymnastical variety.'

Keeping fit was an obsession with Father Moity which verged at times upon the manic. He was forever jogging to and fro about
the parish; as Pooley watched the young priest he noted the giveaway track-suit bottoms and striped running shoes peeping
from beneath his robes of office. He did chin-ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit and had developed a system of
Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with the ritual movements of the mass. Even as Pooley observed him at the bar, the young
priest was flexing his biceps and doing the occasional kneesbend.

None of these things went unnoticed, and the hand­some, tanned and manly figure of the priest raised extraordinary feelings
within the breasts of both matronly females and young housewives alike. He had become a focus for their erotic desires.
Confession became a nightmare. Even women of well-known and obvious virginity confided to the handsome young priest their
nights of passion in the satyric embraces of demonic succubi. Father Moity marvelled at their invention, but more often he
covered his ears and allowed his mind to wander. Consequently his penances were likely to be 'three Hail Marys and a hundred
press-ups' or 'an our father and a work out on the heavy bag.'

'Gymnasium bars,' the young priest continued, 'for the church hall. I was promised that they would be

164

constructed before the Olympic trials came on the television. I wish to take a few pointers.'

'Well I haven't seen them,' sneered Neville, 'and I have no wish to.'

Father Moity said nothing but peered into his empty sherry glass and then about the bar. 'Jim Pooley,' he said, his eyes
alighting upon that very man.

'Father?'

'Jim, my lad.' The priest bounced across the bar and joined Pooley at his table. 'Would you by any chance have seen those
two local builders upon your travels?'

'I have not,' said Jim, 'but Father, I would have a few words with you if I may.'

'Certainly.' The priest seated himself, placing the empty sherry glass noisily upon the table. It vastly amused Pooley that
even a priest of such olympian leanings was not averse to a couple of free sherries. Pooley obliged and the young priest
thanked him graciously.

'Firstly,' said Jim in a confidential tone, 'I have been given to understand that Hairy Dave and Jungle John were doing a
great deal more construction work for you than a set of gymnasium bars. I heard mention of an entire chapel or the like
being built.'

'Did you now?' The young priest seemed genuinely baffled. 'Well I know nothing of that, chapel is it?'

'I took it to be R.C., because the plans were in Latin.'

The priest laughed heartily. 'Sure you are taking the rise out of me Jim Pooley, although the joke is well appreci­ated. The
Church has not drawn up its plans in Latin since the fifteenth century.'

Jim shrugged and sniffed at his steaming beer. 'Stranger and stranger,' said he.

'Strange, is it?' said the priest. 'It is indeed strange that those lads downed tools last Thursday night and never returned
to be paid for what they had so far accomplished, for those fellows that I would call strange.'

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Jim sighed once more. Something was going on in Brentford and it seemed not only he was involved. 'Father,' said Jim with a
terrible suddenness, 'what do you know of evil?'

The priest raised his fine dark eyebrows and stared at Pooley in wonder. 'That my son, is a most unexpected question.'

'I mean real evil,' said Pooley, 'not petty getting off the bus without paying evil, or the sin of pride or anger or minor
trivial forms of evil, I mean real pure dark evil, the creeping sinister evil which lurks at the corners of men's minds, the
low horrible . . .'

The priest broke in upon him. 'Come now,' said he, 'these are not fine things to talk of on a hot summer's day, all things
bright and beautiful as they are.'

Pooley studied the honest face of the young priest. What could he know of real evil? Nothing whatever Jim con­cluded.

'My son,' said Father Moity, noting well Pooley's disturbed expression, 'what is troubling you?'

Pooley smiled unconvincingly. 'Nothing,' he said, 'just musing I suppose. Of Dave and John, I have seen nothing. Possibly
they drink now at the New Inn or Jack Lane's, I should try there if I were you.'

The priest thanked Jim, wished him all of God's blessing for the balance of the day and jogged from the bar.

Pooley returned to his melancholic reverie. When Neville called time at three he left the bar, his half of light ale still
steaming in its glass, and shambled out into the glare. He wandered off down Sprite Street and crossed beside his beloved
memorial bench to enter the sweeping tree-lined drive which curved in a graceful arc towards the Butts Estate. He passed
within a few yards of the Professor's front door and crunched over the gravel footway before the Seamen's Mission to emerge
through

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the tiny passageway into the lower end of the High Street near the canal bridge.

As he leant upon the parapet, squinting along the dried-up stretch of ex-waterway into the shimmering distance, Pooley's
thoughts were as parched and lifeless as the blistered canal bed. He wondered what had become of Soap Distant. Had he been
blasted to dark and timeless oblivion by the floor tide which engulfed him, or had the rank waters carried him deep into the
inner earth where even now he swapped drinking stories with old Rigdenjyepo and the denizens of that sunless domain? He
wondered at Archroy's misery and at what urgent business might have lured Hairy Dave and his hirsute twin from their Friday
payment at St Joan's.

Pooley tried to marshal his thoughts into some plan of campaign, but the sun thrashed down relentlessly upon his curly head
and made him feel all the more dizzy and des­perate. He would repair to the Plume Cafe for a cup of char, that would
invigorate and refresh, that was the thing, the old cup that cheers. Pooley dragged his leathern elbows from the red-hot
parapet and plodded off up the High Street.

The door of the Plume was wedged back and a ghastly multi-coloured slash curtain hung across the opening. Pooley thrust the
gaudy plastic strips apart and entered the cafe. The sudden transition from dazzling sunlight to shadowy gloom left him
momentarily blind and he clung to a cheap vinyl chair for support.

Lily Marlene lurked within, fanning her abundant mammaries with a menu card and cooling her feet in a washbowl of iced
water. She noted Pooley's entrance without enthusiasm. 'We still give no credit, Jim Pooley.'

Pooley's eyes adjusted themselves, and he replied cheerfully, if unconvincingly, 'I return from foreign parts, my pockets
abulge with golden largesse of great value.'

'It's still sixpence a cup,' the dulcet voice returned, 'or eight pence for a coffee.'

, 167

'Tea will be fine,' said Pooley producing two three­penny bits from his waistcoat pocket.

The grey liquid flowed from the ever-bubbling urn into the chipped white cup and Pooley bore his steaming prize to a window
table. Other than Jim the cafe contained but a single customer. His back was turned and his shoulders hunched low over his
chosen beverage, but the outline of the closely cropped head was familiar. Jim realized that he was in close proximity to
the semi-mythical entity known as the Other Sam.

Strange rumours abounded regarding this bizarre per­sonage, who was reputed to live the life of a recluse somewhere within
an uncharted region of the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew. Exactly who he was or where he came from was uncertain. It was
said that he rowed nightly across the Thames in a coracle of ancient design to consort with Vile Tony Watkins, who ran the
yellow street-cleaning cart, a grim conveyance which moved mysteri­ously through the lamplit byways.

Vile Tony was an uncommunicative vindictive, with an ingrained distrust of all humanity and a dispassionate hatred for
anything that walked upon two legs and held its head aloft during the hours of sunlight. Being a deaf-mute he kept his own
counsel no matter what should occur.

Pooley had never spoken with the Other Sam, but felt a certain strange comfort in the knowledge of his being. The stories
which surrounded him were uniformly weird and fantastical. He was the last of a forgotten race, some said; daylight would
kill him, some said, for his eyes had never seen it. Others said that during her pregnancy his mother had observed something
which had gravely affected her and that the midwife upon seeing the child had dropped it in horror, whereupon the tiny
creature had scampered from the room and disappeared into the night.

Pooley the realist pooh-poohed such notions, but Pooley the mystic, dreamer and romantic sensed the aura of pagan

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mystery which surrounded the crop-headed man.

'Will you not join me at table, James Pooley,' said a voice which weakened Jim's bladder in a manner that formerly only
large libations of ale had been able to do. 'I would have words with you.'

Pooley rose from his chair and slowly crossed the mottled linoleum floor of the Plume, wondering whether a leg-job might be
preferable to a confrontation that most of Brentford's population would have taken great lengths to avoid.

'Be seated, James.' The face which met Jim's guarded glance was hardly one to inspire horror; it was pale, such was to be
expected of one who dwelt in darkness, but it was a face which held an indefinable grandeur, an ancient nobility. 'Your
thoughts press heavily upon me, James Pooley,' said the Other Sam.

'I do not know which way to turn,' said Jim, 'such responsibilities are beyond my scope.'

The Other Sam nodded sagely and Jim knew that he had nothing to fear from the pale blue eyes and the haunting thoughts which
dwelt behind them. 'The evil is among us,' said the Other Sam. 'I will help you as best I may, but my powers are limited and
I am no match for such an adversary.'

'Tell me what I should do.'

'The Professor is a man who may be trusted,' said the Other Sam. 'Act upon his instructions to the letter, accept no other
advice, although much will be offered, follow your own feelings. The Dark One is vulnerable, he lives a life of fear, even
Satan himself can never rest, truth will be for ever the final victor.'

'But who is he?' said Jim. 'I have been plunged into all this. Outside the sun shines, in offices clerks toil away at their
mundane duties, buses rumble towards Haling Broadway and I am expected to do battle with the powers of darkness. It all
seems a little unfair.'

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'You are not alone, James.'

'I feel rather alone.'

The Other Sam smiled wanly; wisdom shone in his ageless blue eyes. Professor Slocombe was a wise and learned man, but here
was knowledge not distilled from musty tomes, but born of natural lore. Pooley felt at peace, he was no longer alone, he
would cope with whatever lay ahead.

'I have stayed too long already,' said the Other Sam, 'and I must take my leave. I will not be far when you need me again.
Take heart, James Pooley, you have more allies than you might imagine.'

With this he rose, a pale ghost who did not belong to the hours of daylight, and drifted out into the sunlit street where he
was presently lost from view behind the gasometers.

Pooley took his teacup to his mouth, but the insipid grey liquid had grown cold. 'Cold tea and warm beer,' said Jim, 'and
they say an army marches on its stomach.'

16

As August turned into September the residents of Brent­ford stared from their open windows and marvelled at the endless
sunshine. Norman tapped at his thermometer and noted to his despair that it was up another two degrees. 'It's the end of the
world for certain,' he said for the umpteenth time. 'I am working at present on an escape ship,' he told Omally, 'I am not
going to be caught napping when the continents begin to break up.'

'I wish you luck,' replied Omally. 'I notice that there are no new Fine Arts Publications in your racks.'

'Business has fallen off of late.'

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'Oh,' said John, 'must be the heat.'

'I hear,' said Norman, 'that the rising temperatures have started something of a religious revival hereabouts.'

'Oh?' said Omally, thumbing through a dog-eared copy of Latex Babes.

'The Church of the Second Coming, or suchlike, seems to be taking the ladies' fancy, although' - and here Norman's thoughts
drifted back to his own bitter experi­ences as a married man - 'one can never expect much common sense from women.'

John's eyes rested upon the full-colour photograph of a voluptuous young female in leather corsets and thigh boots wielding
a riding crop. 'They have their uses,' he said lecherously. 'Can I borrow this magazine?'

'No,' said Norman.

'And where is this Church of the Second Coming then?'

'I've no idea,' said Norman, 'news of it apparently travels by word of mouth. The ladies I have questioned have been loud in
their praises for the place but reticent about its location.'

'Oh?' said John. 'I'll bring this back in half an hour.'

'No,' said Norman, 'it is well known that you photostat them at the library and sell the copies in the Swan.'

'Merely satisfying a need,' said John. 'Your prices are too high.'

'Get out of my shop!' said Norman, brandishing a lemonade bottle. Omally made a rapid and undignified departure.

As he tramped up the Haling Road towards the Flying Swan, John's thoughts turned back towards the Church of the Second
Coming. Hard times always brought out the religion in people, and this long hot summer with its rationed water and rising
temperatures was enough to set the nervous and susceptible legging it towards the nearest church. There was a good deal of
money to be had in that game, and after all one was serving the community by

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fulfilling a need. Any rewards could be said to be of a just nature. It was a thought, and not a bad one. By the time he
reached the Flying Swan his mind was made up. He would seek out the Church of the Second Coming and insinuate himself into a
position of responsibility. He would gain respect and prestige, might even become a pillar of the community.

Yes, Omally could feel the call of the mother church, he was by now completely certain that he had a true vocation. He
pushed wide the saloon bar door and entered the Flying Swan.

'God save all here,' he said, 'and mine's a pint of Large please, Neville.'

The part-time barman did the business and counted Omally's coinage into his hand. 'It's gone up another penny,' he told the
Irishman.

Omally smiled pleasantly and produced the coin. 'How are things with your good self, bar lord?' he said. 'It is another
beautiful day is it not?'

'It is not.'

'Makes one feel good to be alive.'

'It does not.'

'God is in his heaven and all is right . . .'

'Turn it in, Omally.'

'Just remarking upon the splendours of creation.'

'Well, do it elsewhere.'

Omally removed himself to a side table where old Pete sat leaning upon his stick, his dog, Chips, belly up before him.

'Good day to you Pete,' said John seating himself. 'It is another beautiful day is it not? I thank God to be alive.'

Old Pete spat in the direction of the cuspidor, which was the last relic of Cowboy Night, having been retained owing to its
overwhelming popularity. 'You should take to the wearing of a hat, Omally,' said he. 'The harsh sun has be­fuddled your
brain. I have an old homburg I might sell you.'

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'God is in his heaven,' said Omally.

Pete was lining up for another shot at the cuspidor. 'A pox on God,' said the surly old bastard.

It was clear, thought Omally, that the joys of the Church of the Second Coming had not yet made them­selves manifest to the
barstaff and patrons of the Flying Swan. A more direct approach was in order.

'Don't you ever go to church, Pete?' he enquired.

'Never,' said the ancient. 'I have a straw boater if you don't fancy the homburg.'

'Listen,' said Omally, who was rapidly losing his patience. 'Just because I feel the need to extol the glories of God for
once it doesn't follow that I'm heading for a padded cell in St Bernard's.'

'Glories of God?' said Pete in a sarcastic tone. 'You are an ungodly womanizer, Omally, with about as much religious
inclination as young Chips here.'

'Ah,' said Omally. 'That may have once been true but I have seen the light. I am mending my ways.'

'I have a very inexpensive cloth cap I might let you have.'

'I don't want a bloody cloth cap.'

'Go down to Father Moity's then.'

'No,' said Omally, 'I need to find a church of a new denomination, one which would offer an honest godfear­ing man a chance
to be at peace with himself and his maker.' Young Chips made one of those unholy noises he was noted for and his elderly
master chuckled maliciously.

'I can see I am wasting my time here,' said John. 'A seeker after truth is not welcome hereabouts, a prophet is without
honour in his own land so he is.'

'Listen,' said Old Pete. 'If you really feel the need for something a bit different in the religious line why don't you go
down to the Church of the Second Coming, I hear they have rare old times down there.'

Omally pricked up his ears. All this waste of breath and

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he might just as well have asked the old fellow straight out. 'Church of the Second Coming?' said he. 'I don't think I've
heard of that one.'

'Well, all I know is that two old dears were talking about the place in the supermarket. Seems that there's some sort of New
Messiah fellow started up in business, very popular with the ladies he is.'

'And where is this church to be found?'

'Search me,' said Old Pete. 'I didn't overhear that.'

What Omally said next was a phrase in Gaelic which his father had taught him when still a lad for use against the Black and
Tans.

'And you,' said Old Pete as Chips set about the Irish­man's trouser bottoms. He might not have much religious inclination,
that dog, but he did speak fluent Gaelic.

Omally shook the mutt free from his ankles and finished his drink at the bar. He began to understand how saints came to get
martyred. It wasn't all tea and crumpets with the vicar this getting into the church. And then a pleasant thought struck
him; amongst the many ladies of his acquaintance there must surely be one who had taken up within the new church, and even
if there wasn't it would be a pleasure finding out.

Omally took out his little black book and thumbed at the pages. Where to start? A for Archroy's missus. He would pay her a
visit that very night.

'Another pint please, Neville,' said the Irishman jovially, 'and to hell with the extra penny.'

Archroy stood in his back garden gazing up at the colossal mesh-covered construction which all but engulfed the entire yard.
The deafening chatter of a thousand gaily coloured birds filled his ears.

Archroy's worst fears had been realized that very morning when the dreaded lorry had arrived, bearing the exotic cargo which
now flapped and twittered before him.

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He had never seen birds quite like them before, nor had he seen such a lorry, black as death and seemingly without windows.
And the driver - Archroy shuddered, where did his wife meet these people?

There must be a thousand of them in there, thought Archroy peering into the cage. The din was appalling, the neighbours
weren't going to like this one. Mrs Murdock appeared at the garden fence, a bundle of limp washing in her arms and a
clothespeg in her mouth. 'Lovely aren't they?' she mumbled. 'Just what this neighbourhood needs to brighten it up.'

'You like them?' Archroy shouted.

Mrs M. nodded enthusiastically. 'Them's lovely.'

Archroy shook his head in wonder, the whole neigh­bourhood was going mad. It must be the heat.

'I'll bring them out some breadcrumbs,' said Mrs Murdock, oblivious to the row. 'They'll like them.'

'Better tell the bakery to staff up its night shift then,' muttered Archroy. What did they eat? He leant forward upon the
mesh and squinted at the mass of fluttering feathers. As if in answer to his question a single bird detached itself from the
ever-circling throng and swooped down upon him, removing with one deft peck a goodly lump of flesh from his right thumb.

'Damn you,' shrieked Archroy, drawing back in anguish. Blood flowed from the wound and through it he could glimpse the ivory
whiteness of exposed bone. 'Oh my God,' wailed Archroy, coming over faint. 'Oh my God.'

He staggered back into the kitchen and bound the gory thumb with a length of dishcloth. The thumb throbbed like a good 'un,
it was definitely a casualty department job. Archroy's mind, alert to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which
constantly assailed him, could see it all in advance: brentonian savaged by budgie. The lads at the wiper works would have a
field day. Archroy groaned in a manner that he had come to perfect of late. Blood

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began to ooze through the makeshift bandage. Archroy tottered off in the direction of the cottage hospital.

He had no sooner turned the corner into Sprite Street, leaving behind him the kind of trail that bloodhounds love so dearly,
when John Omally appeared pedalling slowly from the direction of the Haling Road. He dismounted from his iron stallion and
leant Marchant against Archroy's fence. With a beaming smile upon his face he strode up the short garden path and rapped
upon Archroy's gaily coloured front door. 'Helloee,' he called through the letter box.

All was silent within but for a brief rattling flutter, suggestive of a Venetian blind being noisily and rapidly drawn up.
'Helloee,' called Omally again. 'Anybody home?' Clearly there was not. 'I'll just have a look around the back,' said John
loudly to the deserted street. 'He may be asleep in his deckchair.'

Omally stealthily edged his way along the side of the house and tested the garden door. It swung soundlessly upon its oiled
hinge to reveal the mighty mesh-covered structure. 'By the light of the burning martyrs,' said John.

The cage was partly lost in the shadow of the house and appeared to be empty. Omally prodded at the wire mesh. It was
solidly constructed, surely no flock of budgies merited such security. The door was solidly framed in angle-iron and triple-
bolted. Omally slid the first bolt back. It wouldn't hurt to have a swift shufty within. The second bolt shot back with a
metallic clang. Omally looked furtively about the gardens. Mrs Murdock's washing hung in a sullen line, dripping into the
dust, but there was no sign of any human onlookers.

The third bolt went the way of its fellows and Omally swung the cage door slowly open. There was not a sound but for the
tiny muted explosions of the drips. John stepped nimbly into the cage and peered up into the shadows. All was silent.

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Without a second's warning a vast multicoloured mass of squawking violence descended upon him. He was engulfed by a
screaming, tearing oblivion of claws and beaks. Sharp horny bills tore at his tweeds and sank greedily into his flesh.
Omally howled in pain and battered away at the wildly flapping horde which bore down upon him. He tore his jacket up over
his head and blindly fought his way back to the door of the cage, the demonic creatures ripping at his shirt-tails and
sinking their razor-sharp beaks remorselessly into him.

With a superhuman effort born from his infinite re­serve of self-preservative energy Omally threw himself through the door,
driving it closed behind him and flinging one of the bolts to. He sank to his knees before the cage door, blood flowing from
countless wounds. His treasured tweed suit was in ribbons and he clutched between his fingers tufts of his own hair.
Bitterly he looked back towards his tormentors, but the feathered fiends had withdrawn once more to their lofty perches high
in the shadows. Nothing remained to signify their presence but a few prettily coloured feathers upon the cage floor.

Omally set a painful course for his rooms. His suit was in such exquisite ruin that there was no hope of resto­ration. His
face had the appearance of one recently engaged in a pitched battle with a rampaging lawnmower. 'Foul feathered bastards,'
said John through clenched teeth. He ran a tender hand over his scalp and felt to his horror several large bald patches.
'Feathering their bloody nests with my barnet.' He looked down at his hands as he steered Marchant somewhat erratically
towards its desti­nation. They were a mass of tiny v-shaped wounds. 'Carnivorous canaries, what a carve-up!' Archroy would
pay dearly for this.

An hour later Omally lay soaking in his bathtub, the water

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a nasty pink colour. He had affixed small strips of toilet paper to the cuts on his face, and made some attempt to comb his
hair forward and up into an extraordinary quiff to cover his bald patches. He drank frequently from a bottle of Old
Snakebelly and swore between sips. 'I will set traps upon the allotment,' he said, 'and catch the monster moggy - let's see
how those flying piranhas like that up their perches.'

When the bottle was finished Omally felt a little better, but there was still the matter of his suit. What a tragic
circumstance. The remnants of his favourite tweed hung upon the bathroom door, he had never seen anything so absolutely
destroyed. Fifteen years of constant wear had hardly impinged upon the hardy fabric, but five or so short seconds in that
cage of fluttering death had reduced it to ribbons.

'God,' said Omally, 'I bet those lads could strip down an elephant in under a minute, nothing left but four umbrella stands!'

An hour later Omally was out of his tinted bathwater and dressed. Actually he looked pretty natty but for the speckled face
and bizarre hairstyle. He had found a pair of cricketer's white flannels, a Fair Isle jumper and a clean cotton shirt. This
had evidently been a Christmas present, as it was wrapped in green paper decorated with holly and foolish fat santas. As to
footwear (the winged attackers having even played havoc with his hobnails) he chose a rather dapper pair of black patent
dancing pumps he had borrowed from Pooley for some unremembered social function. He slung an old silk cravat about his neck
and fastened it with a flourish.

Presently the clock struck seven and Omally wondered whether it might be worth chancing his arm for a swift pedal around to
Archroy's. If the bewigged one was there he could always think up some excuse for his visit. But if Archroy's insatiable
better half was home then he should

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at least be able to charm his way into a bit of compensation for the afternoon's tragic events.

Archroy, as it happened, was not on the night shift. He had suffered the horrors of a tetanus injection, adminis­tered at
the sneaky end by a sadistic nurse, and had received fourteen stitches in his thumb. The thumb was now liberally swathed in
bandages and hidden within the overlarge folds of an impressive-looking sling. This sling now rested upon the bar of the
Flying Swan.

'Caught it in the lathe,' he told Neville, but the part-time barman suspected otherwise. 'Honest,' insisted Archroy, 'nearly
took my arm off.'

'Looks pretty bad,' said Jim Pooley. 'You'll be in for compensation.'

'Could be hundreds,' said Old Pete.

'Thousands,' said Neville. 'You'll be rich.'

'Mine's a pint then,' said Pooley.

'And mine,' said Old Pete.

Archroy bought another round, there being little else he could do.

'Cut yourself shaving, John?' said Archroy's wife as she answered the unexpected knock.

'In my eagerness to look my best for you my dear.'

'Hike the strides.'

'They are all the rage in Carnaby Street.'

Omally was ushered hastily into the front room, where Archroy's wife pulled the curtains.

'And who might this be?' Omally's eyes had been drawn to a fine oil painting which hung above the fireplace in an ornate
gilded frame, looking strangely out of place amid the pink dralon and mock veneer. It was the portrait of a stern, yet
imposing figure of indeterminate years clad in crimson robes and sporting what appeared to be a skull­cap. 'Looks very
valuable.'

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'It is. Will you take tea?'

'I'd prefer something a little stronger if I may.'

'Gin then?'

'Absolutely.'

Archroy's wife poured two large gins and joined Omally upon the quilted pink sofa facing the portrait. Omally found it hard
to draw away his eyes as he received his drink. 'There is something familiar about that painting,' he said. 'But I can't
quite put my finger on it.'

'It was a present,' said Archroy's wife pleasantly. 'Drink up John, here's a toast to the future: Auspicium melioris gevi.'

Omally raised his glass and from the corner of his eye noticed that Archroy's wife held hers towards the portrait as if in
salute. 'Surely that is Latin, is it not?'

'It is?' said Archroy's wife innocently. 'I think it's just a toast or something, don't know where I heard it.'

'It's not important,' said John, sipping his gin. In vino veritas, thought he. 'Shall we have one more?' he said, springing
to his feet. As Omally decanted two large gins into the dainty glasses, he had a definite feeling that he was being watched -
not by Archroy's wife who sat demurely drawing her skirt up above her knees, but by some alien presence which lurked
unseen. It was a most uncomfort­able feeling and one which Omally threw off only with difficulty. He returned to the sofa
bearing the drinks, his a single and hers a triple.

'To us,' he said.

'Ab aeterno, Ab ante, Ab antique,' said Archroy's missus.

'Down the hatch,' said John.

After three more ill-proportioned tipples Archroy's wife began to warm to her unexpected guest in the passionate manner
Omally had come ro appreciate.

'Shall we go upstairs?' he asked as the lady of the house began to nibble at his ear and fumble with his Fair Isle.

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'Let's do it here,' she purred.

'What, on your new three-piece?'

'Why not?'

Omally kicked off his black patents with practised ease and divested himself of his cricket whites.

'Been shaving your legs as well?' said Archroy's wife, noticing the bloody scars about Omally's ankles.

'Caught myself in the briar patch.'

The pink sofa was solidly constructed and well padded with the finest foam rubber. It stood the assault upon it
uncomplainingly, but something was wrong. Omally felt himself unable to perform with his usual style and finesse, the spark
just wasn't there.

Archroy's wife noticed it almost at once. 'Come on man,' she cried, 'up and at it!'

Omally sat upright. 'Someone's watching us,' he said. 'I can feel eyes burning into me.'

'Nonsense, there's nobody here but us.'

Omally made another attempt but it was useless. 'It's that picture,' he said in sudden realization. 'Can't you feel it?'

'I can't feel anything, that's the trouble.'

'Turn its face to the wall, it's putting me off my stroke.'

'No!' Archroy's wife flung herself from the sofa and stood with her back to the portrait, her arms outspread. She appeared
ready to take on an army if necessary.

'Steady on,' said Omally. 'I am sorry if I have offended you, hang a dishcloth over it then, I won't touch it.'

'Hang a dishcloth over him'? Don't be a fool!'

Omally was hurriedly donning his trousers. There was something very wrong here. Archroy's wife looked com­pletely out of her
head, and it wasn't just the gin. The woman's possessed, he told himself. Oh damn, he had both feet down the same trouser
leg. He toppled to the floor in a struggling heap. The woman came forward and stood over him laughing hysterically.

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'You are useless,' she taunted, 'you limp fish, you can't doit!'

'I have a prior appointment,' spluttered John trying to extricate his tangled feet. 'I must be off about my business.'

'You're not a man,' the mad woman continued. '"He" is the only man in Brentford, the only man in the world.'

'Who is?' Omally ceased his vain struggling a moment, all this had a quality of mysterious intrigue. Even though he was at
an obvious disadvantage at the feet of a raving lunatic he would never forgive himself if he missed the opportunity to find
out what was going on.

'Who is "He"?'

'He? He is the born again, the second born, He ..." The woman turned away from Omally and fell to her knees before the
portrait. Omally hastily adjusted his legwear and rose shakily to his feet. Clutching his patent shoes, he made for the
door. He no longer craved an explanation, all he craved was a large double and the comparative sanity of the Flying Swan.
Phrases of broken Latin poured from the mouth of the kneeling woman and Omally fled. He flung open the front door, knocking
Archroy who stood, his key raised towards the lock, backwards into the rose bushes. He snatched up the peacefully dozing
Marchant and rode off at speed.

As he burst into the saloon bar Omally's dramatic appearance did not go unnoticed. His cricket whites were now somewhat oily
about the ankle regions and his nose had started to bleed.

'Good evening, John,' said Neville. 'Cut yourself shaving?'

'The match finished then?' asked Jim Pooley. 'Run out, were you?'

'Want to change your mind about that hat?' sniggered Old Pete, who apparently had not shifted his position since lunchtime.

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'A very large scotch,' said John, ignoring the ribaldry.

'John,' Pooley said in a voice of concern. 'John, what has happened, are we at war?'

Omally shook his head vigorously. 'Oh no,' said he, 'not war.' He shot the large scotch down in one go.

'What then, have you sighted the vanguard of the extraterrestrial strike force?'

'Not those lads.'

'What then? Out with it.'

'Look at me,' said Omally. 'What do you see?'

Jim Pooley stood back. Fingering his chin thoughtfully, he scrutinized the trembling Irishman.

'I give up,' said Jim at length. 'Tell me.'

Omally drew his breath and said, 'I am a man most sorely put upon.'

'So it would appear, but why the fancy dress? It is not cricketers' night at Jack Lane's by any chance?'

'Ha ha,' said John in a voice oddly lacking in humour. He ordered another large scotch and Pooley, who was by now in truth
genuinely concerned at his close friend's grave demeanour, actually paid for it. He led the shaken Irishman away from the
chuckling throng and the two seated themselves in a shadowy corner.

'I have seen death today,' said Omally in a low and deadly tone. 'And like a fool I went back for a second helping.'

'That would seem an ill-considered move upon your part.'

John peered into his double and then turned his eyes towards his old friend. 'I will tell you all, but this must go no
further.'

Inside Pooley groaned dismally, he had become a man of late for whom the shared confidence spelt nothing but doom and
desolation. 'Go ahead, then,' he said in a toneless voice.

Omally told his tale, omitting nothing, even his

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intention towards Archroy's wife. At first Pooley was simply stunned to hear such a candid confession of his colleague's
guilty deeds, but as the tale wore on and Omally spoke of the Church of the Second Coming and of the sinister portrait and
the Latin babblings his blood ran cold.

'Drink up,' said Jim finally. 'For there is something I must tell you, and I don't think you are going to like it very
much.' Slowly and with much hesitation Pooley made his confession. He told the Irishman everything, from his first theft of
the magic bean to his midnight observation of Omally, and on to all that the Professor had told him regarding the coming of
the Dark One and his later meeting with the Other Sam.

Omally sat throughout it all, his mouth hanging open and his glass never quite reaching his lips. When finally he found his
voice it was hollow and choked. 'Old friend,' said he. 'We are in big trouble.'

Pooley nodded. 'The biggest,' he said. 'We had better go to the Professor.'

'I agree,' said Omally. 'But we had better have one or two more of these before we go.'

17

When Neville called time at ten thirty the two men stumbled forth into the street in their accustomed manner. They had
spoken greatly during that evening and there had been much speculation and much putting together of two and two. If the
Messiah to the Church of the Second Coming was the man in the portrait and the man in the

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portrait was none other than the dreaded Dark One himself, then he was obviously gaining a very firm foothold hereabouts.

As Omally pushed Marchant forward and Pooley slouched at his side, hands in pockets, the two men began to feel wretchedly
vulnerable beneath the moon's unholy light.

'You can almost come to terms with it during the day,' said Pooley. 'But at night, that is another matter.'

'I can feel it,' said John. 'The streets seem no longer familiar, all is now foreign.'

'I know.'

If Marchant knew, he was not letting on, but out of sheer badness he developed an irritating squeak which put the two men in
mind of the now sea-going wheelbarrow, and added to their gloom and despondency.

This lad is heading for the breaker's yard,' said Omally suddenly. Marchant ceased his rear-wheel loquaciousness.

A welcoming glow showed from the Professor's open French windows when presently they arrived. From within came the sound of
crackling pages being turned upon the laden desk.

'Professor,' called Jim, tapping upon the pane.

'Come in Jim,' came the cheery reply. 'And bring Omally with you.'

The two men looked at one another, shrugged and entered the room. Pooley's eyes travelled past the old Professor and settled
upon the spot where the bean creatures had been housed. 'Where are they?' -

'They have grown somewhat, Jim,' said the Professor. 'I have been forced to lodge them in larger and more secure quarters.'
He rang his bell and Gammon appeared as if by magic, bearing a bottle of scotch upon a silver salver.

'Now then,' the Professor said, after what he felt to be a respectable pause, adequate for the settling into armchairs and
the tasting of scotch, 'I take it you have something to tell me. I take it further that you have confided all in Mr

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Omally?' Pooley hung his head. 'It is all for the best, I suppose, it was inevitable that you should. So, now that you know,
what are your thoughts on the matter, Omally?'

Omally, caught somewhat off guard, was hard pressed for a reply, so he combined a shrug, a twitch and a brief but scholarly
grin to signify that he had not yet drawn upon his considerable funds of intellect in order to deal fully with the situation.

The Professor, however, read it otherwise. 'You are at a loss,' said he.

'I am,' said John.

'So,' the Professor continued, 'what brings you here?'

Omally looked towards Jim Pooley for support. Jim shrugged. 'You'd better tell him the lot,' said he.

Omally set about the retelling of his day's experiences. When the Irishman had finished the Professor rose to his feet.
Crossing to one of the gargantuan bookcases he drew forth an old red-bound volume which he laid upon the desk.

'Tell me John,' he said. 'You would recognize the figure in the portrait were you to see his likeness again?'

'I could hardly forget it.'

'I have the theory,' said Professor Slocombe, 'that we are dealing here with some kind of recurring five-hundred-year cycle.
I would like you to go through this book and tell me if a facsimile of the portrait you saw exists within.'

Omally sat down in the Professor's chair and began to thumb through the pages. 'It is a very valuable book,' the Professor
cautioned, as John's calloused thumb bent back the corner of yet another exquisite page.

'Sorry.'

'Tell me, Professor,' said Jim, 'if we can identify him and even if we can beat on his front door and confront him face to
face, what can we do? Omally and I have both seen him, he's getting on for seven feet tall and big with it. I wouldn't fancy
taking a swing at him and anyway as far as we can swear to, he hasn't committed any crime. What do we do?'

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'You might try making a citizen's arrest,' said Omally, looking up from his page-turning.

'Back to the books, John,' said the Professor sternly.

'My wrists are beginning to ache,' Omally complained, 'and my eyes are going out of focus looking at all these pictures.'

'Were they sharp, the beaks of those birds?' asked the Professor. John's wrists received a sudden miraculous cure.

'Well,' said Jim to the Professor, 'how do we stop him?'

'If we are dealing with some form of negative theology, then the tried and trusted methods of the positive theology will
serve as ever they did.'

'Fire and water and the holy word.'

'The same, I am convinced of it.'

'Got him!' shouted John Omally suddenly, leaping up and banging his finger on the open book. 'It's him, I'm certain, you
couldn't mistake him.'

Pooley and the Professor were at Omally's side in an instant, craning over his broad shoulders. The Professor leant forward
and ran a trembling hand over the inscrip­tion below the etched reproduction of the portrait. 'Are you certain?' he asked,
turning upon Omally. 'There must be no mistake, it would be a grave matter indeed if you have identified the wrong man.'

Pooley bent towards the etching. 'No,' said he, 'there is no mistake.'

The Professor turned slowly away from the two men at the desk. 'Gentlemen,' he said solemnly, 'that is a portrait of Rodrigo
Borgia, born in Valencia January 1st, 1431, died in Rome August 18th, 1503. Rodrigo Borgia - Pope Alexander VI!'

'That is correct,' said a booming voice. 'I am Rodrigo Lenzuoli Borgia and I have come for my children!'

The French windows flew back to the sound of shattering glass and splintering woodwork and an enor­mous figure entered the
portal. He was easily seven feet in

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height and he inclined his massive head as he stepped through the casement. He was clad in the rich crimson robes of the
Papacy and was surrounded by a weirdly shimmering aura which glittered and glowed about him.

The Professor crossed himself and spoke a phrase of Latin.

'Silence!' The giant raised his hand and the old Professor slumped into his chair as if cataleptic. Pooley and Omally shrank
back against the wall and sought the lamaic secrets of invisibility. The mighty figure turned his blood-red glare upon them.
Pooley's knees were jelly, Omally's teeth rattled together like castanets.

'I should destroy you now,' said the giant, 'you are but worms that I might crush beneath my heel.'

'Worms,' said Omally, 'that's us, hardly worth the trouble.' He laughed nervously and made a foolish face.

'Ha!' The giant turned away his horrible eyes. 'I have pressing business, you may count yourselves lucky.'

The two men nodded so vigorously that it seemed that their heads would detach themselves at any minute from their trembling
bodies and topple to the floor.

'Come unto me my children,' boomed the awful voice, 'come now, there is much work to be done.'

There was a terrible silence. Nothing moved. The two men were transfixed in terror, and the giant in the crimson garb stood
motionless, his hands stretched forth towards the study door. Then it came, at first faintly, a distant rattling and
thumping upon some hidden door, then a loud report as if the obstruction had been suddenly demolished. Scratching, dragging
sounds of ghastly origin drew nearer and nearer. They stopped the other side of the study door and all became again silent.

The two men stood in quivering anticipation. A mere inch of wood stood between them and the nameless, the unspeakable.

The silence broke as a rain of blows descended upon the

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