Waiting for Godalming

6

Icarus Smith returned the cassette tape and address book to the relocated briefcase and departed from the Station Hotel. Following Hollywood’s example, he then placed the briefcase in a left luggage locker at the station. Put the key into an envelope, addressed this to himself, stuck a stamp upon it and popped it into the post box on the corner.

Having, of course, first assured himself that it was a real post box. Well, you never know.

“Right,” said Icarus, when all these things had been done. “First stop, Wisteria Lodge, home of Professor Partington. If I am to find this Red Head drug, or at least some clue as to its hidden location, the most logical place to begin my search would be there.”

And who could argue with that?

Wisteria Lodge was a grand old Georgian pile. It stood tall and proud with its heels dug into Brentford’s history and its head held high towards the changing of the times.

Because, as is often the case, certain additions had been made to the building over the years.

To the original Georgian pile had been added a Victorian bubo, an Edwardian boil and a nineteen-thirties cyst.

At the rear, work was currently in progress to construct a monstrous carbuncle.

Icarus stepped up to the front door and gave the knocker a knock. He waited a while and then knocked again, but answer came there none. Icarus became aware of the many keyholes in the front door and proceeded to the rear of the building.

The scaffolding was up, but the builders were absent. It was, after all, the afternoon now and builders rarely return from their lunches. Icarus tried the back door and found it to be unlocked.

To some this would be encouraging, but not to Icarus, who reasoned that an unlocked door is a likely sign of occupancy.

“Hello,” called Icarus. “Anyone at home?”

There didn’t seem to be.

Icarus entered the empty house and closed the door behind him.

He stood now in a hallway that could have done with a lick of paint, or a big French kiss of paper. Plaster had been ripped away from the walls and holes driven through the laths. Icarus stepped carefully over the rubble-strewn floor and made his way towards the front rooms.

These he found to be elegant and well proportioned. But utterly utterly trashed. Antique furniture smashed and broken, doors wrenched from hinges, marble fireplaces levered from the walls. Holes driven into the ceilings, floorboards torn from the floors.

Icarus surveyed the terrible destruction.

“It would seem”, said he, “that the men from the Ministry of Serendipity have done some pretty thorough searching here.”

Icarus now stood in what had once been a beautiful dining room. He righted an upturned Regency chair that still retained all of its legs and sat down hard upon it.

“But did they find what they were looking for?” he asked himself.

“Not if their language was anything to go by.”

Icarus turned at the sound of the voice and all but fell off the chair. In the doorless doorway stood a tiny man. He wasn’t just small, he was tiny. He had more the appearance of an animated doll than a human being. In fact, it was almost as if a ventriloquist’s dummy had been conjured into life.

Clearly this effect was one that the wee man sought to cultivate. For he had slicked back his hair and powdered his cheeks and pencilled lines from the corners of his mouth that met beneath his chin. He wore a dress suit, starched shirt with black dicky bow and patent leather shoes. And he leaned upon a slim malacca cane and eyed Icarus with suspicion.

“So what’s your game?” asked the miniature man. “What are you doing here?”

“Are you Professor Partington?” asked Icarus, rising to his feet.

“Of course I’m not. You know I’m not. I’m Johnny Boy, I am.”

“Pleased to meet you, Johnny Boy. My name is Icarus Smith.”

Johnny Boy cocked his head on one side. “Icarus Smith?” said he. “So what are you, Icarus Smith? You’re not a wrong’un, like those monsters from the Ministry.”

“Wrong’un?” said Icarus, recalling the expression from the cassette recording. “Just what exactly is a wrong’un?”

“You wouldn’t want to know and you’d better get out of that room real quick if you know what’s good for you.”

“Are you threatening me?” Icarus Smith approached the tiny man.

“No, I’m just giving you some sound advice. If you want to hang on to your sanity, I’d advise you to get out of the room before the four o’clock furore starts.”

“The four o’clock furore?” Icarus glanced down at his watch; it was almost four o’clock.

“Starts at the front door there. Goes up the stairs. Then all of that room goes all over the place.”

“What are you talking about?” Icarus peered over the small man’s head along the hallway towards the front door and then looked back into the ruined dining room. “What do you mean, it goes all over the place?”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t want to know. Just go out the way you came in and we’ll say no more about it.”

“I have some questions to ask,” said Icarus.

“And I have no answers to give.”

“Were you a friend of the professor?”

“Oh,” said Johnny Boy. “That’s how it is, then, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

Johnny Boy looked up at Icarus. Tiny tears were forming in the small man’s eyes. “You said were. The professor’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Icarus. “The men from the Ministry tortured him and he—”

“I don’t want to know.” Johnny Boy pinched at the tears in his eyes. “Just go away, will you? You’ll find nothing here.”

Icarus placed a gentle hand upon the small man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m truly sorry.”

Johnny Boy shrugged away the hand of Icarus Smith. “Go, before it’s too late for you.”

“What do you mean? I …” Icarus paused. “There’s a child,” said he. “Standing behind you, beside the front door.”

“It’s staring. Close your eyes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just do what I tell you. Close your eyes.”

“No, I won’t. I …” Icarus stared. The child was moving towards them now. A little girl with a sweet and smiling face. She had a head of golden ringlets and wore an old-fashioned yellow taffeta dress and a pair of pink ballet shoes.

She skipped along the hallway, seeming oblivious of the rubble and the mess.

“Hello,” said Icarus. “And what’s your name, little girl?”

“You can’t talk to them.” Johnny Boy had his eyes tight shut, but he shook his cane about. “Go out of the back door, quickly.”

Icarus dodged the shaking cane. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s just a little girl. Oh, she’s gone. Where did she go?”

A flicker of movement caught his eye and Icarus looked once more into the devastated dining room. A tall man paced up and down before the vandalized fireplace. His face was slim and gaunt with a long hooked nose and a twisted lip and he wore upon his head a periwig. His costume was that of a Regency dandy, all frocked coat and lacy trims. He too appeared oblivious of the rubble and the rubbish, and just paced up and down.

“Who is he?” whispered Icarus. “How did he get past us?”

“Close your eyes, you stupid fool. Do what I tell you now.”

The woman came as a bit of a shock. She seemed suddenly to be there, sitting in a fireside chair. She wore a lavender dress and appeared to be knitting something of an indeterminate shape.

“There’s a woman now,” whispered Icarus. “Where did she come from?”

Icarus sensed, rather than saw, the next arrival. He became aware of a hulking presence, of something oversized, passing him and entering the dining room. It was a giant of a man, with long wild hair, back from the hunt, by the cut of his clothes.

He stormed about the room, ignoring its other occupants and viciously cleaving the air with his riding crop.

The gaunt man continued to pace. The lavender woman, to knit.

Two schoolboys were suddenly playing with an old-fashioned clockwork train set. A crazy-eyed woman, naked but for a speckled band about her neck, danced a lunatic jig. A one-legged soldier with a yellow face hobbled in on a crutch. And then there were more and more and more. And the more and more moved into and through one another. Merging and reforming and blurring and coming and going. And …

It was all too much for Icarus, who suddenly found himself falling into that deep dark whirling pit of oblivion normally reserved for genre detectives who are beginning their cases.

He awoke in horror and confusion to find himself in a garden shed. Lacking Woodbine’s professionalism, the best Icarus could manage was “Where am I?” followed by quite a loud “Aaaaaagh!”

“Calm yourself, lad, calm yourself.” Johnny Boy looked down upon Icarus Smith. “You fainted, lad. I dragged you out here.”

Images swam before the eyes of Icarus. “Aaaagh!” he went once more. “It was ghosts. I saw ghosts.”

“One hundred and six ghosts altogether. I told you not to look.”

Icarus struggled to his knees and glanced fearfully about.

“There’s no ghosts here,” said Johnny Boy, doing his best to help the lad up, but not faring altogether well. “You’re quite safe here in my shed.”

“Your shed?”

“Well, the professor’s shed. But he lets me live here. Let me live here, that is.”

Icarus climbed shakily to his feet. The shed at least looked normal enough. It had the usual broken tools, the usual wealth of old flowerpots, the usual sheddy smell and the traditional half a bag of solid cement that all sheds seem to have.

Upon one wall, however, there was a world map, which looked slightly out of place, but other than that it was all safe shed.

“Bottom of the professor’s garden,” said Johnny Boy. “Beyond the hedge; you have to crawl through. I dragged you through. You’re all safe here.”

“But the ghosts.” Icarus sat down upon the half bag of solid cement. “They were real ghosts. I really saw them. I never believed in ghosts. But they were true. I did see them.”

“True as true, all hundred and six of the beggars.”

Icarus took calming breaths. “Too much,” he said. “That has to be the most badly haunted house in all the world.”

Johnny Boy shrugged. “Probably the same as any other. You just can’t see them, is all.”

Icarus shook a befuddled head. “I’m in a right state here,” he said.

“I told you not to look. But did you listen to old Johnny Boy?”

“No I didn’t,” said Icarus.

“No you didn’t. You’ve got a white face on you. White as Lady Gloria Scott. You saw her dancing nude, didn’t you?”

“You know their names?” said Icarus.

“Researched every one of them for the professor. They were all his fault, after all.”

“I don’t understand a bit of this.”

“No, of course you don’t. But I’ll tell you what. I can see that you’re not a wrong’un, so why don’t we do a deal? You tell me everything you know and I’ll tell you all about the ghosts. Oh, and by the by, I took the liberty of going through your pockets, so I saw the wallet you nicked.”

“I relocated it,” said Icarus.

“So did I,” said Johnny Boy. “But you can have it back later.”

Icarus sighed and shook his head. “All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I know.” And so he did. He told Johnny Boy everything. About relocating the briefcase and listening to the tape and about what was on the tape and about how he, Icarus Smith, sought to find the Red Head drug and take it and change the world.

Johnny Boy now sighed and shook his head. “Those filthy monsters,” he said. “I knew they’d do for the professor. They came here two days ago and carted him away. Then they came back and smashed the place up, looking for his formula. I hid in here. They didn’t find me.”

“So they never searched this shed?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, sonny, there’s nothing hidden in here.”

“And you don’t know where he hid the formula?”

“I don’t need to know,” said Johnny Boy.

“I’ll find it,” said Icarus. “If it can be found, I’ll find it.”

“I just bet you will. Would you like to know about the ghosts now?”

Icarus nodded.

“Well,” said Johnny Boy. “It happened like this. The professor was walking home one night from the station and you know that little passage you go down that leads to Abbadon Street?”

“I do,” said Icarus.

“He saw a ghost there. He didn’t know it was a ghost at first. He thought it was just a little old lady walking in front of him. It was night and there’s two street lamps about twenty yards apart. She passed into the light of one, then into the darkness beyond. And he walked on, but she didn’t appear in the light of the next street lamp, so he hurried forward, thinking she’d fallen over, or something. But she hadn’t, she’d vanished. And there’s high walls on either side, so he knew that she hadn’t climbed over.

“Then it occurred to the professor that there was something odd about the old woman. Apart from her just vanishing, of course. Something odd about her clothes. They were wrong, see? Old-fashioned. She wore a plaid shawl and a waxy Victorian bonnet. And then he realized that she was a Victorian old woman. She was a ghost.”

“So he somehow got her here?”

“Don’t be stupid, lad. The professor was a scientist. He had a scientific outlook. He reasoned that if he had seen a ghost there had to be a natural, rather than supernatural, explanation and one that science could suss out. So he applied his not inconsiderable store of wits to solving the mystery of ghosts.”

“And he solved it?”

“Shut your face, lad, and listen. People have all kinds of theories about ghosts. Lost souls. Shades doomed to wander this Earth in search of justice. Spirits being punished for crimes they had committed as men. Arbiters of doom. Et cetera and et cetera. But what the professor had seen seemed to him so mundane. It was just an old woman walking along. Probably as she had done in that passage hundreds of times. And that was the clue he needed to solve the mystery. Repetition, see. When people see ghosts, those ghosts are always seen doing a particular thing. Just walking along, mainly. So the professor reasoned that what people were actually seeing was a playback of the event.”

“Like a holographic image,” said Icarus.

“What the holy hellfire is that?”

“Something I read in a science fiction book.”

“Yeah, well it ain’t that. It’s a playback. The professor studied the location of the sighting. He tried to work it all out. Was it something about the location itself? Was it to do with atmospherics? He worked away like one possessed. He was always like that. And finally he worked it out. This world we live on is a bit like a great big capacitor. It stores up energy. You can call it psychic energy if you want, but that’s just a word. Everything that’s ever happened on this Earth leaves behind a residue. Everything. Like you leave behind a scent that a bloodhound can track. Your ghost is just a recording of an event, which can be played back if the conditions are absolutely right. Are you following this?”

“I think so,” said Icarus.

“So the professor set to work to invent a machine capable of creating the right conditions. An electrical machine, because all people really are, when you get right down to it, all everything is, when you get right down to it, is energy. Electrical energy, atoms vibrating, that sort of stuff. The professor figured that all you had to do was tune into the right wavelength, create the right frequency, beam it at a particular place, create the correct conditions for the playback of a particular event to become visible to the human eye.

“He tested it out in the house. Because he was also no fool, the professor, and he could see the enormous commercial potential for such an invention. Better than theme parks. Imagine if you could go to the Tower of London and actually see all those famous kings and queens of England, played back before your eyes, getting up to all sorts of business.”

“I can imagine,” said Icarus.

“He got all his apparatus set up and we gave it a test run and Winifred appeared. That was the little girl you saw first. The professor was delighted. I was scared witless, but he knew what he was doing. Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“He tuned the machine back and forwards, up and down the scale, and they began to appear, one after another. You could tune it to Victorian times and see Winifred or Regency times and see Black Peter, the big huntsman, and so on and so forth. And even more creepy, you could tune it back to just minutes before and see yourself doing whatever you were doing then. I’d been having a root through one of his drawers and he wasn’t too keen about that.

“But the machine certainly worked and eventually we’d tuned it to every one of the people who had ever been in that front room. One hundred and six of them. Not that many really, considering how old the house is.

“We played them back one at a time and he had me research them from old paintings and photographs and we worked out pretty much who they all were. Apart from a few of them who didn’t seem to tie up anywhere. Wrong’uns they were, but we didn’t know it then.

“The professor was over the moon. He was all for patenting his machine and becoming very very wealthy. But things didn’t work out that way. Winifred kept appearing, even when the machine was switched off. And then, one by one, so did all the others, until you have the four o’clock furore that you saw today. And you can come back and see it all tomorrow if you want.”

“I don’t,” said Icarus.

“No, I’ll bet you don’t. This house will be a real stinker to sell, won’t it?”

“So you’re saying that once the ghosts had been made to appear by the use of the machine, they couldn’t be switched off.”

“Seems so. So you can just imagine what would have happened if the machine had been produced commercially. You wouldn’t be able to move for ghosts.”

“Does the machine still exist?”

Johnny Boy tapped at his nose. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I would,” said Icarus. “Because if it did, we could play back the professor and see where he hid the formula, couldn’t we?”

“We could,” said Johnny Boy, stroking away at his little pointy chin. “If the machine did still exist. If the professor hadn’t smashed it to smithereens.”

“Well, it was a thought.”

“Yes it was, and a good one too.”

“Well,” said Icarus. “It’s an incredible story and an incredible invention, but it doesn’t help much with my search. Are you absolutely sure that you don’t know where the professor might have hidden the formula?”

Johnny Boy gave his head a shake. “I wish I did,” he said. “Because if I did, I’d manufacture the drug by the tanker load and dump it into the water supply. Then we’d see some fireworks.”

Icarus eyed the tiny man. “You know what the drug does, don’t you?”

Johnny Boy nodded.

Icarus sighed again. He got to his feet and stretched out his arms. “I will find it,” he said. “And when I find it, I’ll take it and I’ll know too.”

Johnny Boy grinned. “I hope I’m around to see that,” he said. “Perhaps you will change the world, eh?”

“Change the world.” Icarus glanced over at the map. “Why do you have that in here?” he asked.

“It’s pretty. It was a present. It arrived in the post yesterday, addressed to me. I don’t know who sent it.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. The envelope was typed. Free sample probably.”

“I think not.” Icarus stepped over to the map and gave it a bit of close-up perusal. “There are lines drawn on this map in biro,” he said. “Did you draw them?”

“I didn’t notice any lines.” Johnny Boy pushed in front of Icarus. “Where are these lines?”

“There and there. All over the place. They’re faint but you can see them.”

“Well, I didn’t draw them.”

Icarus ripped the map from the wall.

“What are you doing that for?”

“Have you a pair of scissors?”

“You’re not going to cut up my map?”

“Oh yes I am,” said Icarus Smith. “I’m going to change the world.”