The Lark of the Lansdowne Lioness The Lansdowne Lioness
I really did enjoy my time with Hugo Rune. It was certainly a dangerous time, but it was also thrilling. It was exciting.
He annoyed me greatly, however, because although he always said much, he taught me so very little. He hinted at many amazing things – impossible things, so it seemed at the time. That he had lived for several thousand years, for instance. Ludicrous, I know, but he said it, and said it with sincerity. Also that he walked with Christ, as the thirteenth and unchronicled disciple. And that during the Victorian age, something had happened, something big, in which he had somehow been involved. That there was a great secret hidden away from Mankind, and that history had been somehow changed.
And all this had to do with Mr Rune's quest to find the Chronovision, this television-set jobbie invented by a Benedictine monk that allowed its viewer to tune in to the past.
And of course there was the sinister Count Otto Black, who similarly sought this miraculous device for his own nefarious purposes.
Mr Rune had lent me a copy of what he described as his 'Magnum Opus' and 'probably the most important book ever written'. It was called The Book of Ultimate Truths and Mr Rune suggested that I should read it from cover to cover and learn its contents by heart. It would explain everything and change my life, he told me. After all, it had been written by the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived.
Well, I did give it a quick skim through, but it was not an easy read and I did happen to have the new Lazlo Woodbine thriller, Blood On My Trenchcoat, on the go, so I put it aside.
Mr Rune's book seemed to me to consist mostly of conspiracy theories, or cases proven, as he preferred to call them. Most centred on his conviction that A-Z road-map books of towns and cities concealed more than they revealed. It was Mr Rune's contention that there were Forbidden Zones, which were not on the maps, and that 'A-Z' really meant 'Allocated Zones', the zones that were allocated for the 'rest of us' to inhabit, whilst those who controlled us – the mysterious Ministry of Serendipity, or God knows who else – hid within the Forbidden Zones, running everything. I got almost halfway through the first chapter before I stuck the bookmark in. The bookmark, I noticed, was an unpaid printer's bill for the private printing of three hundred leather-bound copies of The Book of Ultimate Truths.
*
'What think you of miracles?' asked Hugo Rune upon a fine June morning as sunlight gushed in through the windows of our study/sitting/dining/drinking room at forty-nine Grand Parade.
I looked up from the breakfasting table. 'Miracles?' I said. 'Miracles, young Rizla. What do you think of them?'
'I have never thought much about them at all,' I said, as I poured myself coffee. 'I do not think I understand exactly what a miracle might be.'
'Then look up the definition.' And Hugo Rune hurled his Webster's Dictionary* at my head.
I ducked the flying tome and availed myself of the last of the toast.
'I shall quote from memory,' said the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived. 'A miracle is a marvellous event attributed to a supernatural cause.'
'I think,' I said, as I buttered the last piece of toast, 'that it is somewhat marvellous that we are still in these rooms. I see another rent demand from your landlord in the morning post.'
'Perhaps you should chip in towards the rent,' Mr Rune suggested. 'From the wages you have been promising to pay me?'
'Take a look at this.' And the Hokus Bloke flung me a copy of the morning's Argus.
As I caught the paper, Mr Rune deftly snaffled away my piece of buttered toast. I sighed and read out the morning's headline: ' "PIRATES PILLAGE WORTHING" ' 'Not that.' said Mr Rune, munching my toast. * It was Morocco bound. As in the theme song of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's now-legendary Road to Morocco. Never heard of it? Well, please yourselves, then. ' "TINY SPANIEL PLAGUE TROUBLES TOWN COUNCILLORS"?' 'Nor that,' he said, now downing my coffee.
'How about "CRAB-SUITED DOCTOR FOUND DEAD ON DOWNS"?'
Mr Rune chuckled. 'Not even that,' he said, as he dabbed at his gob with my napkin. 'Then you must mean "SHE IS NOT AMUSED".' 'That's it, carry on.' And I read the column of newsprint aloud: In what some are now calling the miracle of Lansdowne, the statue of Queen Victoria is weeping tears of Earl Grey. 'Tears of Earl Grey?' I shook my head. 'Always Her Majesty's favourite cuppa, Gawd bless Her.'
'Someone is having a laugh,' I said. 'They are always having a go at that statue, sticking a traffic cone on its head or daubing it with graffiti.' 'So you don't believe it to be a miracle?'
'I have read that statues of the Virgin Mary have been known to weep,' I said, 'and the Weekly World News mentioned a statue of Elvis that occasionally coughs up cheeseburgers.'
'You should apply yourself to more substantial reading matter. I trust you are marvelling at The Book of Ultimate Truths:
'Absolutely,' I said, tucking away the Lazlo Woodbine thriller that was spread across my hp. 'But I do not believe that a statue can weep tears of Earl Grey. It is not only absurd, it is, well, it is absurd, and only that.'
'And yet I feel that a visit to this phenomenological manifestation might prove instructional. Pop outside and hail us a cab, young Rizla.' 'I will do no such thing,' I said. 'It is but a short stroll. We shall walk.' And we did.
Mr Rune gave me another badge to wear, one with the head of Queen Victoria upon it this time. He referred to her as the Lansdowne Lioness, and suggested that she was the reincarnation of Richard the Lionheart. And he went on and on about the glories of the British Empire until he could take my yawnings no more. I pinned the badge to the tie-dyed T-shirt I was wearing, the one that flattered my shoulders.
For his part, Mr Rune looked particularly dapper on this particular day. He had recently taken possession of a six-piece white linen suit – jacket, waistcoat, trousers, spats and matching Panama hat. Swinging his stout stick, he strode along, flipping the bird at a passing cleric and cocking a snook at the seagulls.
Presently, we reached the area of the statue, and here discerned a great wonder: there was a crowd of people present, and local characters abounded. I spied the now-legendary masked walker, who, despite the clemency of the season, wore his usual anorak and gloves and scarf about his face. And there were holidaymakers, too, easily distinguishable by the knotted hankies they wore upon their heads and by their braces and vests. These individuals were being looked upon sniffily by the local residents, the sauve elite of the Lansdowne area. In their shell suits and trainers.
'So many athletes,' Mr Rune declared. 'And see there,' and he pointed to where stalls had been set up, selling flags and 'I-shirts and trinketry, all adorned with printed representations of Queen Victoria.
'Time to remove the money-lenders from the temple,' quoth Mr Rune, overturning the nearest stall, to the great alarm of the vendor.
'It is a bit early for trouble, do you not think?' I asked the Hokus Bloke. 'Would it not be better simply to blend into the crowd and observe?' 'Hugo Rune never blends,' declared himself. 'But we have come to observe. Follow me.' And swinging his stout stick to the left and right, he cleared a path before us and we approached the statue.
It was not sporting its usual traffic-cone helmet, but it was heavily garlanded with flowers and there were many candles burning beneath it. And the eyes of the statue were definitely wet: liquid glistened in the sunlight and trickled down towards the plinth and from there dripped on to the ground. And here and there and all around lay many arms and legs and other body parts of broken dollies.
'Votive offerings,' Mr Rune explained, observing these. 'I think it's safe to assume that the first purported miraculous cures have already occurred.'
'That they 'ave, mister,' said a Cockney type. 'A woman tasted Her Maj's tears and her dose of baker's bosom cleared right up.'
'How fortuitous,' said Mr Rune. 'And you personally witnessed this phenomenon?'
'Not me, mister, but a mate of mine said he knows a bloke what seen it.' 'You can't argue with evidence like that,' said Mr Rune. 'Are you taking the piss?' asked the Cockney. 'No, I assumed that you were giving it away.'
Mr Rune and the Cockney eyed one another. The Cockney was short and well knit. Mr Rune was large and carried a stout stick. The Cockney muttered something dialectal with asterisks in it, turned and shuffled away.
Hugo Rune took a glass phial from his waistcoat pocket and uncorked it. 'We shall take a sample of the tears to test,' said he. 'To test for what?' I asked. 'To see whether Her Majesty weeps real Earl Grey.' 'And what will that prove?'
'Whether we are dealing with a hoax or what I fear to be in fact something I have been dreading.'
'Have a word with yourself,' I said. 'That will not prove anything.'
'It will to me.' And Hugo Rune reached out to take a sample of the anomalous tears.
But he found to his complete disgust that his way was suddenly barred by several burly members of the Sussex constabulary. 'Stand aside, there,' ordered the Perfect Master. 'Go back behind the line, please, sir,' said a constable. 'Line?' said Mr Rune. 'What line?' 'The one that the officer there is marking upon the grass.'
'I require a sample of this liquid.' Hugo Rune did squarings of his shoulders. 'I am an eminent scientist working for the Ministry of Serendipity.'
"There's no such ministry,' said the constable. 'That's just myth, like trouser imps, or the Oxford Don with the luminous nose.'
'Or the Singing Maggot of Salisbury,' said another constable. 'Or the Laughing Lamppost,' said the first constable. 'Isn't that a pub in Penge?' asked the other constable. 'No, you're thinking of The Smiling Handbag.'
'I'm always thinking about that,' said the other constable. 'But the Ministry of Serendipity is a myth, like the Battenburg cake that can breathe underwater, or-'
'Or the peanut that surpasses all understanding,' said a lady in a straw hat. 'Although my husband had one of those.' 'I'm sure he did, madam,' said the first constable, 'but I'll have to ask you to step back behind the line also, please.' 'Why?' asked the lady. 'Yes,' said Mr Rune. 'Why?' 'I asked first,' said the lady. 'Because I am telling you to, madam,' said the constable.
The other constable nodded. 'I will back the first constable on that,' he said. 'It's outrageous, I know, the way we policemen can throw our weight about these days, but you have to move with the times, I suppose. So do as the nice constable tells you, madam, or we'll employ the tear gas.'
'I love employing the tear gas,' said the first constable. 'It really makes me laugh.'
'Perhaps you're using the can the wrong way up,' said the lady. 'Which reminds me of the one about the Irish Guinness bottle.'
'The Irish Guinness bottle?' I asked, for I had said nothing in a while. 'Yes,' said the lady. 'What do you think is printed upon the bottom of an Irish Guinness bottle?' I shook my head. 'Open other end,' said the lady, and she laughed.
'That is a racist joke,' said the first constable. 'Give the lady in the straw hat a little squirt from the tear-gas canister, fellow officer.'
'Are you talking to me?' asked another constable. 'I thought I was "the other constable".'
'Now look!' said Mr Rune, in a commanding tone, 'I require a sample of the dripping liquid.'
'No, sir,' said the first constable, 'sorry, sir, please move back behind the line or I will be forced to run you in for causing a breach of the peace, or some similar trumped-up charge, such as trespass, loitering with intent-' 'Flying without a licence,' said the other constable.
'Being drunk in charge of a butcher's bicycle,' said the first constable. 'Taking coals to Newcastle,' said the other constable.
'Good one,' said the first constable. 'And bringing the good name of the regiment into disrepute by rogering the mascot.'
Now, I have said little about the crowd – the growing crowd, as it happened. The crowd that was pressing closely around us, with those at the front of it listening intently to the conversation that was being carried on between Mr Rune, the two constables and the lady in the straw hat. Who now, it appeared, had decided to side with the constables and have Mr Rune run in for indecent exposure and her husband's failure to get BBC2 on the television set. And there was still much talk from the constables of 'moving back behind the line', which had now been completed, although in a somewhat ragged fashion, by a third policeman with nothing whatever to say.
And to say that I could see what was coming is to say that only a fool wears a blue suit in Lincoln when there is an 'M' in the month. 'He did what?' asked Fangio, as I sat upon my favourite barstool in The Quail That Can See Through Concrete.
'Struck down the constable with his stout stick,' I said. 'And your pub's present name is particularly foolish.'
'I've given up caring,' said Fangio. 'And seeing, too, as it happens. What do you think of my eyebrow extensions?'
'Very fetching,' I said. 'I like the beads – although I think the ribbons are somewhat ostentatious.'
'It's the last time I barter with a gypsy,' said Fangio. Which explained everything to my satisfaction. 'So where is Rune now?'
'In police custody,' I said. 'He put up quite a struggle. I would have helped, but he instructed me to get a sample of the statue's tears while he caused a diversion. Which I did.' And I held up the phial, now filled with liquid.
'I've heard that the tears cure baker's bosom,' said Fangio 'A Cockney bloke was in here earlier.'
'The whole thing is bound to be a hoax,' I said, as I sipped my pint of Texaco. 'A stunt to attract more visitors to the town. There are already stalls there selling souvenirs to the gullible.'
'That's a bit harsh,' said Fangio. And I viewed his souvenir 'I-shirt. 'Bought it off the Cockney bloke,' the bar-lord explained. 'I thought it was a Hawaiian shirt. Curse these eyebrow extensions.' I sipped more ale and nodded as if I cared in the slightest.
'So what about Rune?' asked Fangio. 'You're not going to leave him to rot in some rat-infested cell, surely.'
'He informed me, just before he struck down a lady in a straw hat, that no lock on Earth could hold him. He taught Houdini everything he knew, apparently.'
'And the Jackson Five,' said Fangio. 'Their father was all for them going into his bicycle-repair business, but Rune suggested that they have a bit of a sing-song instead.' 'He is certainly one of a kind,' I said.
'Oh, yes,' said Fange. 'They broke the mould before they made him.'
And I drank awhile in silence and helped myself to the complimentary peanuts, while Fangio blundered about behind the bar, bumping into everything. Presently he tired of this, and so did I, as it happened.
'So when Rune escapes,' said Fangio, 'does that mean he will have to go on the run? That you will have to leave your rooms at number forty-nine? That he might pay off his enormous bar bill here?'
'Interesting questions,' I said, as I filled my pockets with peanuts. 'The answers to the first two might be "yes". But as to the last one…'
'Such I feared,' said Fangio. 'I'm seriously thinking of signing on with Bartholomew Moulsecoomb for a life of piracy. I hear he plans to pillage the aggregates depot in Portslade in the galleon that he now rents from Hugo Rune. The Saucy Spaniel, I believe it's called.' 'The Sound of Silence' was to be heard. 'I'd switch that jukebox off,' said Fangio, 'if I could find it.'
'Well, I have to go,' I said. 'Mr Rune instructed me to go to a certain address and deliver this phial to a certain Professor Nessor.' 'Would that be Professor Nessor the funambulist analyst?' 'It would,' I said. 'Do you know him?'
'Never heard of the fellow,' said Fangio. 'It was just a lucky guess.' I did not have to travel far to find the rooms of Professor Nessor. He occupied those that were above the rooms that Mr Rune and I occupied, which were below his, which were, in turn, above ours. I knocked on the door to avoid any further confusion. Professor Nessor answered my knockings. 'Aha,' he said, 'young Rizla. You have brought the phial of the statue's tears?' 'You were expecting me?' I asked. 'No, it was just a lucky guess.'
I really liked the professor. He looked just the way a professor should look, all gaunt and angular and old and clad in tweed with lots of mad white hair.
And I really liked his rooms. I had visited them before, upon many occasions, to borrow sugar. Or milk. Or coffee. Or tea. Or cocoa. Or a fill for Rune's pipe. Or…
'Step carefully,' said the professor. 'Don't trip over the wires.' I stepped very carefully. I had tripped on the wires before.
The wires, as might well be imagined considering that the professor was a funambulist analyst, were tightrope wires. They – and there were many of them – crisscrossed the room nine inches above the floor. Professor Nessor was a member of a religious cult that took its sacred texts from the works of the science-fiction writer Kilgore Sprout.
Sprout states, in The Earth Dies Belching, that it is contact with planet Earth that is the cause of man's mortality, and that if a man could remain above the surface of the planet throughout his life, if only by nine inches, he would become immortal. The planet Earth itself, according to Sprout, sucks the vital juices of humans out through the soles of their feet to reinvigorate itself as a compensation for all the ill that Mankind has wrought upon it over the ages. Sprout himself is claimed by many to be the inventor of the platform sole and throughout his remarkably long life touched the planet on as few occasions as were humanly possible. His followers believe that he would have lived for ever had he not died tragically in a freak stilt/banana-skin accident.
The professor lived upon the top floor of forty-nine Grand Parade, rarely venturing out, and only then upon two Castrol GTX tins strapped beneath his feet. And to be on the safe side, his rooms were crisscrossed with tightropes, upon which he walked with considerable skill without the assistance of a tightrope-walker's pole.
'You take your life in your hands upon those floorboards,' he told me, as he had done on many previous occasions, the last being when I had come up to borrow a half-ounce of Moroccan black and three condoms, as Mr Rune was going out clubbing. 'The boards may be above the Earth, but they are constructed of wood, which grows from the Earth.'
'I thought trees are made out of air,' I said. 'I have heard that if you grow a tree in a pot, the earth you plant it in weighs exactly the same even after the tree has grown big. So the tree must be made out of air. And water, I suppose.'
'I don't know who puts these mad ideas into your head. But let's see what this phial of tears has to tell us.'
He bounced along a wire to a raised worktable and performed raised work upon it. Work involving Petri dishes, a microscope, a Bunsen burner, some litmus paper, a retort stand, a number of test tubes and several alarm clocks of the old-fashioned sort with great big gong jobbies on the top. And a bell jar. And at length he was done with his experimentation. 'So what do you think?' I asked.
'It's real Earl Grey,' he said. 'There's no doubt about it. Crawford's of Piccadilly, by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen. The real McWindsor.' 'Well,' said I. 'Now there is a thing.'
' Where?1 cried the professor, raising the lid of his chemistry set to strike the thing down.
'Not an actual thing,' I said. 'It was just a figure of speech. But it is real Earl Grey. So what?' 'It does have some outre qualities,' said the professor. 'Oooooh,' I said. 'Go on.'
'It is not present-day Earl Grey. It is Victorian Earl Grey. The tears this statue is shedding come from the past.'
I gave the professor a suitably old-fashioned look. 'What are you telling me?' I asked.
'I have carbon dated the residues of the tea. They come from eighteen fifty-one, the year of the Great Exhibition.' 'You do not have a carbon-dating machine,' I said.
'Don't try and baffle me with science, young man. I can positively date the tea residues to eighteen fifty-one, to the very day that the Great Exhibition opened. Oh, and there are also residues of Reekie oaks. Those trees only grew in Hyde Park during that period. They were levelled by the great Reekie oak blight of eighteen fifty-two. Don't bandy words with me, silly boy. I know what I know what I know.'
I shook my head. I confess that I was quite confused. 'So you are telling me,' I said, 'that a bronze statue in Lansdowne Gardens is weeping tears of Earl Grey tea that come from eighteen fifty-one?'
'The year that the statue was erected,' said the professor. 'Suggestive, no?'
'I wish I had the vaguest idea where this is leading,' I said, 'because if I did, then when I was led to it, I would know what it was and then would not be the least surprised.'
'I couldn't have put that better myself,' said the professor. 'Unless, of course, I'd given it a moment's thought.' 'Well, I am sure that Mr Rune will be pleased.' 'Delighted,' said the voice of Hugo Rune.
I did not ask him how he had escaped from the police cell. In fact, I did not broach the subject at all. Nor whether he was now on the run. Or whether we would have to quit our rooms. Or whether he would be paying off his bar bill at Fangio's. I was just glad to see him back.
'It never ceases not to amaze me,' said Mr Rune, 'the power of a Masonic handshake.'
Which no doubt explained everything. But was not going to get Fangio his owings. Back in our rooms beneath the professor's, which were above ours, Mr Rune said, 'Suggestive, no?' 'The professor said that also,' I said.
'And he knows which way up is a sixpence,' said Mr Rune. 'We will have to prepare ourselves for what is to come, both mentally and physically.'
'And what is to come?' I asked, hoping that I might be granted some small explanation.
'Bad things,' said Mr Rune. 'And when they come, as come they will, then it will be for you and me to beat them back.'
'You would not care to be a little more specific, I suppose?'
'What, and spoil the surprise? The clues are all there, Rizla. Can you make nothing of them?'
'Of course I cannot,' I said. 'And I will tell you for why. It is because there will be some metaphysical twist to all this involving something that you knew all about anyway and I could have no possible way of knowing.'
'Why don't you pop upstairs,' said Mr Rune, 'and borrow some beer from the professor?' The mental and physical preparations that Mr Rune had alluded to appeared to consist mostly of him thinking of things he needed and me running about all over Brighton trying (and for the most part, succeeding, I hasten to add) to acquire them without payment. By the end of the day, I was thoroughly exhausted.
I had acquired all manner of diverse whatnots. Mr Rune's list had been long, and it had also been specific. I viewed all the whatnots laid out all over the study/sitting/ dining/ drinking room.
'I would really appreciate it,' I said, 'if you would give me some clue as to what is going on. I would be a lot more use to you if you did.'
Mr Rune stroked at one of his chins. 'This is indeed true,' said he. 'And so, upon this particular occasion, I will tell you what we are up against. Witchcraft, young Rizla. Witchcraft.' 'Witchcraft?' I said. 'As in magic? You claim to be a magician yourself, although you have never shown me proof of these claims.'
'Magic indeed,' said he, and he opened one of the cans of beer that I had borrowed from the professor. 'In eighteen fifty-one, the Great Exhibition opened in the original Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. There, the very state of the art of all Victorian technology was exhibited. But there was technology exhibited there of which no record exists in the history books of today, technology created by a genius called Charles Babbage.' 'The father of the computer,' said I. 'I have heard of him – he invented the Difference Engine, the first computer. But it was never taken up and he died in poverty.'
'According to accepted history. But that is not true. His computer was exhibited at the Great Exhibition. I saw to that. And it was taken up, and with the aid of another genius called Nikola Tesla it revolutionised the Victorian age. Electric automobiles, the wireless transmission of electricity – even a space programme. But it was all wiped from the face of the Earth as if it had never existed at the dawn of the new century. I know, young Rizla. I was there.' 'My head is swimming,' I said. 'Is this really true?'
'All of it – and everything you may have read in science fiction of H. G. Wells's Time Machine, of the Invisible Man, and of the Nautilus of Jules Verne. All true.' 'And what has this to do with a weeping statue?'
'Time,' said Mr Rune. 'Always time – the manipulation of time, the displacement of time. The Chronovision, that technology was originally formulated by Mister H. G. Wells, with no little assistance from myself, I might humbly add. Time is not a straight line. It's bumpy and it has holes in it, holes into which things fall in and out – like those unfortunates who enter fairy mounds and tumble out centuries later, thinking that only moments have passed.'
'So that is true? I said. 'What I heard Doctor Proctor say in the hospital when I was in my coma?' 'All true,' said Mr Rune. 'Holes in the fabric of time.' 'And the weeping statue?'
'That statue was originally exhibited at the Great Exhibition. It says so on the plinth – if you'd troubled to look, you would have seen it. It was one of a pair, both of which were exhibited. You will not find them in any existing copy of the Exhibition catalogue, however, but at the time of their exhibition they were billed as "The Remarkable Sympathetic Statues". Although twenty yards apart, it was demonstrated that if you whispered into the ear of one statue, the words you whispered could be heard issuing through the mouth of the other. It was quite a parlour trick. Queen Victoria was amused.' 'How did it work?' I asked.
'Victorian supertechnology. Not the work of Babbage or Tesla, but of another.' 'This would not be Count Otto Black.'
'It would be his great-great-great-grandfather. And the statues were not a parlour trick. They were a technological marvel. A marvel of technology and magic, since alchemy is chemistry and magic. It was a cabal of witches that destroyed all memory and all existence of the Victorian supertechnology. Those twin statues were, if you like, portals – magic portals. One of them now stands in Lansdowne Gardens. Where do you suppose the other one stands?'
'I have no idea,' I said. 'Perhaps the other one does not stand anywhere. Perhaps it was destroyed in the war, or something.'
'No.' Mr Rune shook his head. 'The other one still stands, parted from its sister, which was moved here to Brighton on the second day of the Great Exhibition to its present location. The other statue is not in the present. It is still in the past in eighteen fifty-one, at the Great Exhibition.'
'That does not make any sense,' I said. 'You cannot have two things existing at the same time and then more than a century apart.'
'Take my watch,' said Mr Rune, and he drew it from his waistcoat pocket and tossed it to me. 'This watch was constructed in eighteen fifty-one. It existed then, and it exists now. It is the same watch.' 'I really do not understand this,' I said.
'It is difficult,' said Mr Rune, 'I agree. Time is a difficult concept. But the past, the present and the future all exist, all at the same time. I can tell you what is going to happen. Something is going to be dispatched. It will be, or in fact has been, dispatched into the statue in eighteen fifty-one and it will emerge through the statue in Lansdowne Gardens in our day and age. It is already on its way.' 'I am still baffled,' I said. 'What about the Earl Grey?'
'I have been waiting for the Earl Grey,' said Mr Rune. 'You see, I am responsible for its appearance.' 'Go on then.' I sighed. 'Impress me.'
'I attended that first day of the Great Exhibition, in the company of Her Majesty the Queen, Gawd bless Her, and my dear friend Lord Jeffrey Primark. And I observed the demonstration of "The Remarkable Sympathetic Statues". And I observed that their demonstrator was Count Otto Black. And I suspected that he was up to No Good, but I confess that I did not know at that time exactly what variety of No Good he was up to. And so, when the exhibition halls closed upon that night, I did a little experiment of my own. I emptied an urn of Earl Grey over one of the statues. No Earl Grey poured from the other statue. I waited, but none did. I therefore assumed that eventually it would, when it was in fact programmed for it to do so. But that would not be in the present of eighteen fifty-one. Rather, it would be at some time in the future.'
'That is an impossible assumption to make,' I said. 'You could never have deduced something like that.'
Mr Rune sighed. 'You are dealing with Rune,' said he. 'You are not dealing with you.'
'And so when you read that tea was issuing from this statue, you knew that it was the tea that you had poured on to the other statue in eighteen fifty-one.'
'Precisely,' said Mr Rune. 'And when my tea appeared, I knew that something else would not be far behind.' 'Incredible,' I said. 'Nothing less than incredible.' 'Everything is centred upon this area.' Mr Rune had finished his beer and was opening another can. 'The Brighton Zodiac – the Brightonomicon from which all this derives. This is a window area, an epicentre of psychic phenomena. It is where the holes in time open, where those who wander into fairy mounds are spewed out. It is where that which comes from the past will issue into the present.'
'What is coming?' I asked. 'What is going to follow your tea?'
'Evil,' said Mr Hugo Rune. 'Pure evil, and it's coming tonight.'