Pooley shrugged. “Product of a high technology, runs off its own power supply and recently installed in the Swan. Can’t see anything filling that bill, it would have to be pretty well camouflaged…” Pooley ceased his discourse in mid-sentence. An image had suddenly appeared in his brain. It was so strong and crystal clear that it blotted out everything else. It was the image of a large bulky-looking object shrouded beneath a groundsheet and secured with baling wire, and it was humming and humming and humming.
“By the light of burning martyrs,” said John Omally. “It has been staring us in the face for months and we never even twigged.”
“What is it?” the Professor demanded. “You know, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jim Pooley. “We know well enough, but believe me the thing will not be easily tampered with. It will take an electronics expert with the brain of an Einstein to dismantle it, and where are we going to get one of those in Brentford?”
Norman Hartnell was not a happy man. Apart from being barred from the Swan with darts night rapidly approaching, which was the kind of thing that could easily drive a sensitive soul such as himself to the point of suicide, he also was suffering a grave amount of concern over his camel. Still wedged firmly into the eaves of his lock-up garage, and gaining bulk from its hearty consumption of cabbage leaves, the beast still showed no inclination whatever to return to Earth. On top of these two insoluble problems, Small Dave’s untimely return to Brentford and his disconcerting perceptions were causing the shopkeeper a good deal of grief. He really would have to get rid of the camel. It was damning evidence by any account, and he also had the definite feeling that Small Dave was on to him. The nasty vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard seemed to be dogging his every move. If he was ever to transfer the Great Pyramid of Cheops from its present foundations in Egypt to its planned relocation upon the turf of Brentford football ground, he really couldn’t have the dwarfish postman blundering in and spoiling everything before the project was completed.
Norman dropped into his kitchen chair and did a bit of heavy thinking. The mantelclock struck eleven, time once more to feed the camel. Norman glanced despairingly about; perhaps he should simply blow the garage up. The trouble was that he was really growing quite attached to the mouldy-looking quadruped.
He’d never been allowed to have a pet when he was a lad, and dogs didn’t exactly take to him. But Simon, well, Simon was different; he didn’t snap at your ankles or climb on your furniture. True, he didn’t exactly do anything other than sleep in the rafters and roar for food when hungry, but there was something about the brute which touched Norman. Possibly it was his helplessness, relying upon him, as it did, for his every requirement. Perhaps it was that he had Simon exclusively to himself, nobody forever patting at him and offering him biscuits. Whatever it was, there was something. Simon was all right. He was cheap to feed, living as he did upon Small Dave’s cabbages, and his droppings made excellent manure for the roses. Norman wondered for one bright moment whether a camel might be trained to eat dwarves; shouldn’t be but a mouthful or two. Pity camels were exclusively vegetarian.
Norman rose from his chair, drew on his shabby overcoat and put out the kitchen light. Stepping silently through the darkened shop, he put his eye to the door’s glass and peered out at the Ealing Road. All seemed quiet, but for the distant sound of police sirens. Small Dave was nowhere to be seen.
The shopkeeper drew the bolt upon the door and slipped out into the night. He scuttled away down Albany Road, keeping wherever possible in the shadows. Down the empty street he hurried, with many a furtive glance to assure himself that he was not being followed.
Young Chips, who was returning from some canine equivalent of a lodge meeting, had been watching the shopkeeper’s progress for some moments. Now where is Norman off to, he asked himself, and who is the character in the Victorian garb hard upon his heels? If I wasn’t half the dog I believe myself to be, I would be certain that that is none other than the famed American author, Edgar Allan Poe. Scratching distractedly at a verminous ear, the dog lifted his leg at a neighbour’s Morris Minor, and had it away for home.
Norman reached the allotment gates and peered around. He had the uncanny feeling that he was being watched, but as there was no-one visible he put the thing down to nerves and applied his skeleton key to the lock. A wan moon shone down upon the allotments, and when Norman had had his evil way with Small Dave’s already depleted cabbage crop, no living being watched him depart with his swag.
The row of lock-up garages slept in the darkness. As Norman raised the door upon its well-oiled hinges, nothing stirred in the Brentford night. “Simon,” he said in a soothing tone, “din dins.”
Having closed the door behind him, he switched on the light, illuminating the tiny lock-up. Simon looked down from his uncomfortable eyrie, and Norman sought some trace of compassion upon the brute’s grotesque visage. “Yum yums,” he said kindly. “Chow time.”
If camels are capable of displaying emotions, other than the “go for the groin if cornered” variety, Simon was strangely reticent about putting his about. As he hung in the air, the great ugly-looking beast did little other than to drool a bit and break wind. “You cheeky boy,” said Norman. “It’s your favourite.”
Behind him, Edgar Allan Poe eased himself through the closed garage door and stood in the shadows watching Norman making a holy show of himself. Simon saw Edgar at once, and Simon did not like the look of Edgar one little bit.
“WAAAAAARK!” went Simon the zero-gravity camel.
“Come, come,” said Norman, flapping his hands, “there is nothing to get upset about. It’s really only cabbage, your favourite.”
“WAAAAAARK!” the disconsolate brute continued.
“Shhh!” said the shopkeeper. “Calm yourself, please.”
“WAAAAAARK!” Simon set to wriggling vigorously amongst the eaves.
“Stop it, stop it!” Norman frantically waved the cabbage leaves about. “You’ll have the whole neighbourhood up.”
Edgar Allan Poe was fascinated. Times had certainly changed since he had shuffled off the old mortal coil. Small Dave had spent a goodly amount of time impressing upon him the importance of finding a camel. But to think that people actually kept them as pets now, and that they were no longer tethered to the planet of their birth by gravity. That was quite something. “Stone me,” said Edgar Allan Poe.
John and Jim were taking the long route home. After the incident earlier that evening at the Swan they had no wish to cross the allotment after dark. It was a brisk, cloudless night, and as they slouched along, sharing a late-night Woodbine, they were ill-prepared for the ghastly wailing cries which suddenly reached their ears.
“What is it?” Pooley halted in mid-slouch.
Omally peered up and down the deserted street and over his shoulder to where the allotment fence flanked an area of sinister blackness.
“It is the plaintive cry of the banshee,” said he, crossing himself. “Back in the old country no man would question that sound. Rather he would steal away to his own dear hovel and sleep with his head in the family Bible and his feet in the fireplace.”
“I have never fully understood the ways of the Irish,” said Jim, also crossing himself just to be on the safe side. “But I believe them to be a people not without their fair share of common sense, best we have it away on our toes then.”
Another horrific cry rose into the night, raising the small hairs on two ill-washed necks, and causing Pooley’s teeth to chatter noisily. This one, however, was followed almost at once by vile but oddly reassuring streams of invective, which could only have arisen from one local and very human throat.