“Certainly not.” The expression of pain upon Tim’s face made a lie of this statement. “But the sound.”
“What sound?”
“No sound at all.” Tim kicked the staircase once more.
There was no sound at all.
“Now that is curious,” said Will.
“Yes,” Tim agreed, “and not only that. See there,” and he pointed.
“What is that?” Will asked.
“The piece of my trouser that got torn off when I fell down the other staircase.”
Will looked at Tim.
And Tim looked at Will.
“I think we’re in trouble,” said Will.
“You know what the trouble with dwarves is,” said the lady in the straw hat.
Her friend Doris shook her head.
“Nor me,” said the lady. “But someone must know.”
And the crowd almost rose to its collective feet to greet the entrance of the Brentford Snail Boy and the Cavalcade of Curiosities.
The Dog-Faced Boy juggled pussycats.
The Big Fat Lady sang.
The Man With Two Heads talked to himself.
The Bell-End Baby rang.
The Siamese Twins played saxophones.
The Pig-faced Lady juggled.
And the uniped,
With the pointed head
Bounced up and down and—
“What?” Lord Byron asked the Great McGonagall. “Nothing rhymes with ‘juggled’ and you know it.”
“Smuggled?” the Poet Laureate suggested.
The orchestra in the stand above the artists’ entrance played selections from Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, and also Armageddon: The Musical, which was having its very first run at a pub in Brentford, but which wasn’t going down to great critical acclaim.
“When will the dancing bears be on?” asked Her Majesty the Queen (blessings be upon Her).
Princess Alexandra didn’t answer. Her head was in the lap of Joseph Merrick, and it’s rude to speak with your mouth full.[32]
Time goes by very fast when you’re having a good time, which might actually mean that there’s no such thing as premature ejaculation. But time does go by very fast.
And wouldn’t you just know it, that after the dwarves on the ostriches doing their dance, and the Cavalcade of Curiosities going through their motions, the high-flyers flying and the jugglers juggling, the wirewalkers walking their wires and Mr Aquaphagus swallowing and regurgitating not only goldfish, but mackerel, salmon, sea bass, hammer-head sharks and an entire school of dolphins; the Cossack Horsemen re-enacting the siege of Leningrad, and Lord Babbage’s clockwork ballet and Big Bloke’s Little Boot Dance; the dancing bears (who were greatly applauded by Her Majesty the Queen (Da-de-da-de-dah)) and the dancing elephants (which did not amuse her), and countless clowns, many mimes and, of course, Harry the Horse, who was dancing the waltz, the midnight hour approached.
“Are you having a good time?” Count Otto Black was back in the ring.
The audience applauded.
“Let me hear you say yeah!”
“Yeah!” went the audience.
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!” said Tim.
“What?” said Will.
“Someone’s shouting ‘Yeah!’ Count Otto Black I suppose.”
“Yeah,” Will sighed. He and Tim sat upon the staircase. They’d been up and down that staircase for the last two hours. “We’re stuffed,” said Will. “We’re trapped. We can’t even find the door we came in by. We walked into a trap. It’s like a mobius strip. No beginning. No end.”
“There has to be a way out,” said Tim.
“There is,” said Will. “It’s just that I’m not too keen to employ it. I mean, I am supposed to be doing things my way.”
“Don’t quite get you,” said Tim.
Will sighed.
“Barry,” said he.
And Will and Tim materialised in the great big top to the rear of the great big crowd.
“You only had to ask, chief,” said Barry. “It would have spared you a lot of walking around in circles. And look at the time.”
“I can’t,” said Will. “My pocket watch was nicked.”
“Well, it’s nearing midnight, chief. Just five minutes to go.”
“What?”
“Always with the ‘whats?’ you schmuck.”
“Yeah!” went the crowd once more, all but deafening Will.
“And now.” Count Otto strutted some more about the circus ring. “The end is near. And we must face the final curtain.[33]
“My friends,” he continued, “I am going to make my case. Of which, as it happens, I am certain. I can tell you that I have lived a life that has been most full. And I have travelled upon each and every highway and more, in fact, a great deal more than this, I have done it all in the service of my Lord Satan.”
“That sort of spoiled the metre, didn’t it, chief?”
The audience went “Oooooooooh,” and “What?” and “Eh?” also. Some of the audience even said “Bless my soul.”
“Yes,” Count Otto Black nodded his black bearded head. “That’s what I said, Satan. That’s what you heard me say.”
There were shiftings in the audience now. Uncomfortable shiftings, movings from buttocks to buttocks, fans being wafted at increasing speeds, kid gloves being drawn on, top hats being pushed upon Macassar-oiled heads, preparatory to leaves being taken from seats.
“Still yourselves,” commanded Count Otto. “And do not think of taking leave of your seats. There is no escape for you.”
Grumblings rumbled through the audience, mutterings and utterings of outrage. And into the ring marched automata, many automata, many identical automata, terrific figures all, with the dead black eyes of demon-spawn and armpits reeking of brimstone. They drew out pistols of advanced design and waved these about in a menacing manner.
The crowd stilled to silence. The crowd was no longer such a merry crowd.
To the rear of this crowd, high up and skulking, Tim said to Will, “Now what do we do?”
“Slip away,” Will whispered back. “You slip out of the exit. Find the computer room. Sorry, Tim, but this is all fouled up.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Barry,” said Will. “Take me back in time two minutes, to the centre of the circus ring. I’ll shoot Count Otto Black.”
“No can do, chief. Sorry. If you’d listened to me earlier, I could have advised you as to where might have been a good place to hide yourself, but you just wouldn’t listen. I can’t do what you ask, it’s not in my remit. It’s really cheating. But at least you are in the right place at the right time, which is something, eh? You’ll just have to play it by ear now.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Will.
“For what?” Tim asked.
“I was talking to Barry. Slip away, Tim. I’ll see if I can shoot Count Otto from here.”
Will drew a pistol from his belt.
And Tim slipped away.
He didn’t slip too far however, for Tim found the exit considerably barred.
A terrific figure loomed before this exit. It glared at Tim and fixed him with its dead black eyes. “Return to your seat,” it said, in a deeply-timbred, rich Germanic accent.
Will took very careful aim.
Way down in the circus ring a red laser dot appeared upon the forehead of Count Otto Black. Will squinted through the telescopic sight and gently squeezed upon the trigger.
And then the gun was struck from his hand.
And Will struck from his feet.
“I know what you must be wondering,” said Count Otto Black. “You must be wondering what this is all about. Perhaps you are thinking, ‘Aha Count Otto has some very special marvel in store for us, as a conclusion to his wondrous show. He promised us something extra special, and indeed this must be it’. And indeed, to this degree, you are entirely correct, because I promise you something particularly special. I promise you the end of civilisation as you know it.”
32
Unforgiveable, I know. But hey, we are reaching the end of the story now and how many times is an opportunity like that going to come up in a single lifetime?