The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (23 page)

‘Mustn’t
grumble.’ The Brigadier, for this was the real McCoy (not the now-deceased
impersonator)
[18]
,
plucked upon abundant mustachios, clapped hands against a bulbous belly encased
within considerable tweed and clicked his military heels together. ‘Shacked up
with the local padre and his good lady. Man’s a total loon, dips his wick in
anything with a handle on the top and a pair of straps round it.’

‘Better
keep him clear of your wife then, what.’

The
Brigadier collapsed in much humour. ‘Or your toy boy, you old poo-nudger.’

‘Snorter?’
said Rune, pouring the wine that had been brought him. ‘Stick it in the teacup
and call it black pudding.’

‘What the fig is going on
there?’ asked Thelma, settling herself down at a nearby table.

‘Looks
like he’s got a friend with him,’ said Louise. ‘I think we can sit this one out
for a while.’

Up on the top floor,
Cornelius took out his Swiss Army knife and selected the blade with the
skeleton-key attachment. Along the corridor and through a crack in the
broom-cupboard door, Tuppe kept a wary eye on the staircase and a thumb on the
‘speak’ button of his two-way radio set.

Cornelius
slotted a selection of tumbler-turners into the hollow shaft of the skeleton
key and sought the keyhole in the pinkly painted door of the KEV-LYN suite.

And
here he came up against his first major obstacle.

The
door lacked for a keyhole.

‘That
can’t be right.’ Cornelius reached out to turn the door handle.

But now
the door lacked for this also.

Cornelius
reached his hand into his hair and scratched his head with it. Most odd. He
would have to try and kick the door open. He glanced up and down the corridor.

All clear.

Cornelius
drew back, raised his foot.

But did
no more.

Because
now the wall lacked for a door.

All
gone!

‘Clever,’
said Cornelius. ‘Very clever.’ He fished the two-way radio set from his back
pocket, pressed the ‘speak’ button and said, ‘Tuppe.’

‘Aaaaagh!’
Tuppe collapsed amongst the mops and buckets. ‘What? Who? What?’

‘It’s
me — Cornelius.’

‘Use
your code name.’ Tuppe sought to extricate himself from the dustpans and
brushes.

‘Don’t
be silly, it’s me.

‘Could
be a trick.’

‘Yeah.’
Cornelius viewed the wall which had so lately been a door. ‘I suppose you’re
right.’

‘So?’

‘OK.
What code name do you want me to use?’

‘I
don’t know, make one up.’

‘How
about
Burglar
to
Lookout?’

‘No,’
said Tuppe. ‘That’s no good. Something more exciting.’

‘Look,
I can’t think of anything. You make something up.’

‘All
right, how about
Delta Force
to
Howling Commando?’

‘Fair
enough. Delta Force to Howling Commando, come in please.’

‘Howling
Commando reading you loud and clear, Delta Force. What have you to report?’

‘The
bloody door has vanished and I can’t find my way into the room, require
assistance please, over.

‘Tough titty,
Delta Force. I’m staying right here in the broom cupboard, over and out.’

‘Get
along here and give me a hand at once.

‘Not a
chance. I said over and out and I meant it. Message ends.’

‘Well,
really!’ Cornelius tucked the two-way radio back into his pocket. He screwed up
his eyes and examined the area of wall which had lately been the door. It was a
most convincing area of wall. It lacked for doorishness completely. Cornelius
turned away and turned back quickly. He nonchalantly strolled a pace or two
down the corridor and then jumped back. He even withdrew a shiny blade from his
knife and used it mirror-fashion.

No
good.

Whatever
spell of protection Rune had cast over his door was unlikely to be broken by
anyone possessed of less magic than himself.

‘Find
another way in then,’ said Cornelius Murphy. ‘Onto the roof, down a drainpipe,
in at an open window?’ The tall boy slunk off to seek a fire exit.

‘Fire!’ went Brigadier
Wilberforce, miming the blast of an elephant gun. ‘Bagged three tigers in a
single day. Remember that, Rune? Three of the blighters, man-eaters all.’

‘Bagged
a couple of native bearers also, as I recall.’ Rune poured further wine. ‘And
the mahout who was steering your elephant.’

‘Bally
fool got in the way. Those were the days though, eh? British Empire splattered
all over the globe. Darkies knew their place back then, doncha know.’

A
passing waiter of foreign extraction overheard this remark and made a mental
note to spit in the Brigadier’s soup.

‘So,’
said Brigadier Chunky. ‘Well and good to reminisce and all that. But what’s the
wheeze then, Rune? Why have you called me down to this seedy resort?
Prostitution conspicuous here, you know.’

‘Really?’
said Rune.

‘Conspicuous
by its bloody absence.’

Further
guffaws.

‘I’d
like to put a bit of business your way, Chunky. Do you still run that
scrap-metal yard?’

‘Scrap-metal
yard? How dare you, sir. Far too many unsavoury connotations. Not scrap-metal
yard any more. More politically correct title. Wilberforce Associates Nice Kind
Ecological Recycling Services.’

“Which
is an acronym, I believe.’

‘Gets a
cheap laugh at dinner parties, yes.’

‘But
you can still “acquire” items of a metallic nature?’

‘Anything
you care to mention, old man. What do you have in mind? Military hardware, Scud
missiles, stealth bomber?’

Rune
shook his head.

‘Nuclear
then? Not easy to come by, but I have contacts.’ Rune shook his head once more.
‘Pylons,’ said he. ‘Pylons? What those big eyesores that electricity board
chaps who live in the town love to plague the country Johnnies with?’

‘Correct.’

‘Humyah.
Can’t see why not. Have a few ex-Desert Storm bulldozers that I “won” off
Saddam, gathering dust in the old eco-friendly recycling yard. They’ll get the
job done. How many pylons do you want?’

‘Twenty
should be sufficient, with two miles of the heaviest duty cable. And a couple
of radio masts.’

‘Piece
of pudding, when do you want ‘em?’

‘By
next Wednesday night. Undamaged, and a team to re-erect them here.’

‘Bit
public, might raise an eyebrow from the locals.’

‘There
will be no locals. We will have this town to ourselves.’

‘What
are
you up to, Rune?’

‘Mum’s
the word on this one, Chunky.’

‘With
you there. No names, no pack-drill.’

‘Quite.’

‘And
the matter of my fee?’

‘How
does a million pounds in pure gold sound to you?’

‘It
sounds good to me,’ whispered Thelma to Louise.

And the sound of an
electric drill being carelessly applied to the chassis of the Cadillac Eldorado
awoke a sleeping sheep-suiter.

‘Oh my
head,’ went Boris, ‘Where am I?’

‘Come in, Delta Force,
where are you, over?’

Cornelius
plucked the two-way radio from his back pocket. ‘I’m up on the roof. Be quiet.’

‘What
are you doing on the roof?’

‘I’m
going to climb down a drainpipe and try to shin in through an open window.’

‘Sounds
very dangerous. Not the way I would have done it.’

‘Oh
really, and how would you have done it?’

‘Well,’
said Tuppe, ‘I would have used one of the courtesy phones, called down to
reception and asked for a bottle of champagne to be delivered at once to Mr
Runes’s room.

‘But
the door has vanished, Tuppe.’

‘Am I
right in thinking that the door only vanished when you tried to break in at
it?’

‘Yes, I
told you that.’

‘Protective
magic.’

‘Yes,
Tuppe, I reasoned that out for myself. Please get off the line.’

‘The
magic wouldn’t be directed against the hotel staff,’ said Tuppe. ‘Only against
potential intruders. So the champagne deliverer would have seen the door, used
the pass key, and you could have slipped in behind them and—’

‘Thank
you
very
much. Kindly maintain radio silence from now on. Over and
out.’

‘Glad
to be of assistance, Delta Force. Over and out.’ Cornelius stuffed the two-way
radio into his pocket once more and continued to edge along the roof, with one
foot in the gutter. He was a good way up. A single slip would be sufficient to
ensure a fatal fall.

Nice
night though.

The
stars looked down. The moon hung high. The waves kissed gently. A bat flapped
closely.

‘Get
away!’ Cornelius, flapped, slipped, tumbled and fell; he grabbed, gripped,
clung onto and hung.

By his
fingers. From the gutter.

‘Use
the courtesy phone!’ muttered the dangling tall boy. ‘Call for some champagne
to be delivered! Nice one, Tuppe. Oh
dear!’

It was
old guttering. Cast iron. Kevin was going to have it replaced with a
light-weight modern-day plastic equivalent. It was on the list of things to be
done. Quite fir down it though.

‘Oooooooh!’
went Cornelius, as the guttering came away from the wall and swung in an
outwards direction. ‘Oooooooh!’

Rusty,
the guttering was. Old and rusty. Unsafe.

Click,
click, click, it went.

Bend
and snap.

‘Ooooooh!’
Cornelius swung down with it.

Struck
the UPVC mock-Georgian window of the KEV-LYN suite.

But did
not pass through it.

Well,
you don’t, do you? Not through double glazing. You just kind of splat against
double glazing. Single glazing? Well, you’d burst through that. Like in cowboy
movies.

But
double glazing? Not a chance.

‘Ooooooh!’
The window was open at the top. Cornelius leapt at it. Clung on. The guttering
spiralled down towards the car-park. In fact, it fell directly between two
young men who were walking across it and embedded itself into the Tarmac.

Mr
Rodway and Mr Craik regained the composure they had momentarily lost and peered
up towards the roof. They just caught sight of Cornelius, as, clinging to the
window, his weight swung it inwards upon its central-pivoting jobbie and
catapulted him into Rune’s apartment.

‘Bastard,’
said Mr Rodway.

‘Enterprising
bastard,’ said Mr Craik. ‘Let us proceed inside and await further
developments.’

28

Cornelius climbed dizzily
to his feet. He was in.

And
that was something.

‘So,’
said he, clicking joints and testing for broken bones. ‘To work. Let’s see what
we can see.’

And
much there was to be seen. The suite was a confusion of maps and diagrams and
textbooks.

Cornelius
picked up one of the latter and scrutinized its cover.
The Science of
Electrolysis.
Another.
Electroplating for Fun and Profit.
Another.
Electrokinetics.
Another.
Electrostatics.

‘A lot
of electrickery,’ mused the Murphy. ‘What about the maps?’ The maps were all of
Skelington Bay and its surrounding areas. Some were partially shaded in. On
one, the twin piers had been inked, one in red and one in blue. Lines of these
colours ran from the piers and crossed the town to terminate at Druid’s Tor.

Cornelius
unearthed computer printouts. These appeared to catalogue the output of the
National Grid. The words INSUFFICIENT POWER! had been scrawled across the
bottom of them.

Then there
were pages of calculations. These seemed to be concerned with multiples of
cubic miles and factors of $93,000,000.

‘Whatever
he’s up to, it’s big,’ was the tall boy’s unenlightened conclusion. ‘So where’s
my money?’

He
peered about the room. And ‘Oh,’ he said suddenly. ‘It would appear to be
there.’

In a
corner of the room stood a four-sided glass construction, with a glass top. It
resembled a shower cubical. This rested upon a black base and in the middle of
this base, within the four clear-glass walls, stood a little plinth. And on top
of this plinth, a very large stack of high-denomination money notes.