“It will take the two of you I am afraid.” Soap raised his palms in the gloom. “It is a simple matter. One man cannot move an object, three men can.”
“Things are rarely as simple as they at first appear,” said Pooley with a wisdom older than his years.
“Come below then.”
With that, a thin line of wan light appeared in the centre of the floor, growing to a pale square illuminating a flight of stairs. Soap led the way down. “Follow me,” he said gaily.
Pooley sucked upon a knuckle and, like the now legendary musical turn, dilly-dallied on the way. Omally nudged him in the back. “Thirty quid,” he said.
Soap’s newly-hired work-force followed him down the stairway, and above them the trapdoor slammed shut with what is referred to in condemned circles as a “death-cell finality”. The stairway, as might be imagined, led ever down, its passageway hewn from the living rock. At length it unexpectedly debouched into a pleasant looking sitting-room, furnished with a pale green Waterford settee and matching armchairs, and decorated with Laura Ashley wallpaper. “Nice, eh?” said Soap as he divested himself of his ankle-length cloak to reveal a natty line in three-piece tweed wear.
“Very,” said John. “And the Russell Flints?” He pointed to a brace of pictures which hung above the hearth. “No expense spared.”
“A gift from Professor Slocombe,” said Soap.
Pooley, who had a definite sway on, sank into a comfortable armchair.
“We have a couple of bottles of brown with us,” said John. “If you have an opener?”
“It’s a bit close down here.” Pooley fanned at his brow.
“It was a bit close down that hole today, wasn’t it Jim?” Soap popped the stoppers from the bottles and ignored Pooley’s similarly popping eyes.
“How did you know?”
“There’s not much that goes on beneath ground level that I don’t know something of. Those buggers from Lateinos and Romiith have been making my life a misery lately, sinking their damned foundations every which way about the parish.”
“Progress,” said Pooley in a doomed tone.
“Some say,” said Soap. “Listen now, let us dispense with brown ale. I have some home-brewed mushroom brandy which I think you might find interesting.”
“That would be a challenge.”
“’Tis done then.”
Something over an hour later, three very drunken men were to be found some three miles beneath the surface of planet Earth a-rowing in a leathern coracle over a stretch of ink-black subterranean water.
“Where are we?” asked an Irish surface-dweller.
“Below the very heart of London.”
“I don’t recognize it.”
The splish-splash of the oars echoed about the vast cavern, eventually losing itself in the endless silence of the pit.
“How do you know which way we’re going?”
Soap pointed to his luminous watch. “Lodestone,” he said informatively.
“Oh, that lad.”
“There,” said Soap suddenly. “Dead ahead, land ho.”
Before them in the distance an island loomed and as they drew nearer, the makings of a mausoleum wrought in marble, very much after the style of the Albert Memorial, made itself apparent.
“What is it?” Omally asked. “King Arthur’s tomb, don’t tell me.” Soap tapped at his all but transparent nose. The coracle beached upon the shoreline and Soap stepped out to secure it to a frescoed pillar. The two inebriate sub-earth travellers shrugged and followed the pale man as he strode forward. “It was never like this for Jerome K Jerome,” said Pooley.
The strange edifice was, if anything, a work of inspiration. Marble pilasters, cunningly wrought with carved tracery-work, soared upwards to dwindle into a high-domed ceiling which glittered with golden mosaic. Above, tapering gothic spires lost themselves in the darkness.
“Here it is,” said Soap. The two wonderers halted in their tracks. In the very centre of this Victorian folly stood something so totally out of place as to take the breath from their lungs. It was a cylinder of bright sparkling metal, but it was of no metal that any man of Earth had yet seen. It glistened with an oily sheen and swam through a spectrum of colours, reflecting mirror-like. A broad panel of what might have been glass, but probably was not, lay set into a section of the cylinder’s apparent lid, and it was over this that the three visitors to this sunken marvel craned their necks.
“Strike me down,” said Jim Pooley.
“By Michael and the other lads,” said John Omally.
“Good, eh?” said Soap Distant.
“But who is he?”
Beneath the glazed panel, reclining upon satin cushioning, his head upon a linen pillow, lay the body of a man. He was of indeterminate age, his hair jet-black and combed away behind his ears. He had high cheek-bones and a great hawk of a nose. The face bore an indefinable grandeur, one of ancient aristocracy. From what was immediately visible, he appeared to be wearing a high wing-collared shirt, dark tie affixed with a crested stud, and a silken dressing-gown.
“He seems, almost, well, alive,” said Omally.
Soap pointed towards the gowned chest, and it could be clearly observed that it slowly rose and fell. “Indubitably,” said he.
“But this thing? Who built it and why?”
“Best thing is to up the lid and ask him.”
Pooley had more than a few doubts upon this score. “He looks pretty peaceful to me,” he said. “Best to leave him alone. No business of ours this.”
“I think somehow that it is,” said Soap, and his tone left little doubt that he did.
“This thing doesn’t belong,” said Omally. “It is all wrong. Victorian mausoleum all well and good, but this? This is no product of our age even.”
“Herein lies the mystery,” said Soap. “Give us a hand then, thirty quid for a quick heave.”
Pooley shook his head so vigorously that it made him more dizzy than he already was. “I think not, Soap. We are tampering with something which is none of our business. Only sorrow will come out of it, mark my words. ‘He that diggeth a pit will fall…”
“I know all that,” said Soap. “Kindly take hold of the top end. I had it giving a little.”
“Not me,” said Jim, folding his arms.
“Jim,” said John. “Do you know the way back?”
“That way.” Pooley pointed variously about.
“I see. And do you think that Soap will guide us if we do not assist him?”
“Well, I…”
“Top end,” said Soap. “I had it giving a little.”
The three men applied themselves to the lid of the glistening cylinder, and amidst much grunting, puffing, and cursing, there was a sharp click, a sudden rushing of air, and a metallic clang as the object of their efforts tumbled aside to fall upon the marble flooring of the outré construction. Three faces appeared once more over the rim of the metal sarcophagus.
The gaunt man lay corpse-like but for his gently-heaving chest; his face was placid and without expression. Then suddenly the eyelids snapped wide, the lips opened to draw in a great gulp of air and the chest rose higher than before. A cry arose from his mouth and three faces ducked away to reappear as a trinity of Chads, noses crooked above the coffin’s edge. The occupant stretched up his arms and yawned loudly. His eyes flickered wildly about. He snatched at the coffin’s side, and drew himself up.
He caught sight of the three now-cowering men, and a look of perplexity clouded his face. “What year is this?” he demanded.
Omally volunteered the information.
“Too early, you have broken the seal.”
“Told you,” said Jim. “Leave well enough alone I said. But does anybody ever listen to me, do they…?”
“Shut up,” said Soap, “and kindly give me a hand.” With the aid of Omally he helped the bemused-looking man in the dressing-gown up from the steely cylinder and into the upright position. “Are you feeling yourself now?” The tall man, as now he revealed himself to be, did not reply, but simply stood stretching his limbs and shaking his head. “Come quickly now,” said Soap. “We must take him at once to Professor Slocombe.”