Norman closed up his shop at one and busied himself in his kitchenette. What he did there was strictly his own business, and he had no intention of letting anything, no matter how alien, interfere with his afternoon’s work.

In his sewage outlet pipe, Small Dave paced up and down. His hair was combed forward across his forehead and his left hand was thrust into his shirt in a fashion much favoured by a diminutive French dictator of days gone by. As he paced he muttered, and the more he muttered the more apparent it became that he was plotting something which was to cause great ill to any camel owners in Brentford.

At intervals he ceased his frenzied pacing and peered up and down the hideous pipe, as if expecting the arrival of some fellow conspirator. None, however, made an appearance.

Professor Slocombe was not to be found at his desk that afternoon. He had pressing business elsewhere. Whilst the sun shone down upon Brentford and the Brentonians went about whatever business they had, he was conversing earnestly with a pink-eyed man of apparent albino extraction, who had given up such doubtful pleasures to dedicate himself to the search for far greater truths.

Even now, the Professor sat in what was to all appearances a normal Brentford front room, but which was, in fact, situated more than a mile beneath Penge; which I understand is a very nice place, although I have never been there myself.

At a little after three, Neville drew the bolts upon the Swan’s door and retired to his chambers. He had been anaesthetizing himself with scotch since eleven and was now feeling less concerned about what was to happen during the coming evening. He was, however, having a great deal of trouble keeping the world in focus. He falteringly set his alarm clock for five and blissfully fell asleep upon his bed.

23

At long last the Memorial Library clock struck a meaningful seven-thirty. The Swan was already a-buzz with conversation. Pints were being pulled a-plenty and team members from the half-dozen pubs competing this year were already limbering up upon the row of dartboards arranged along the saloon-bar wall. The closed sign had long been up upon the Star of Bombay Curry Garden, and within the Swan, Gammon, in the unlikely guise of an Eastern swami, engaged Archie Karachi in fervent debate.

In the back room of number seven Mafeking Avenue four men held a council of war.

“The thing must be performed with all expediency,” said Professor Slocombe. “We do not want Norman to miss the match. I have, as the colonials would have it, big bucks riding upon this year’s competition.”

The shopkeeper grinned. “Have no fear, Professor,” said he.

“Omally, do you have your tools?” John patted at the bulging plumber’s bag he had commandeered during the afternoon from a dozing council worker. “Then it is off down the alley and fingers crossed.”

Without further ado, the four men passed out into a small back yard and down a dustbin-crowded alleyway towards the rear of the Star of Bombay Curry Garden.

Norman was but a moment at the lock before the four found themselves within the ghastly kitchenette, their noses assailed by the horrendous odours of stale vindaloo and mouldy madras. Kali’s face peered down from a garish wall-calendar, registering a look of some foreboding at the prospect of what was to be done to the premises of one of her followers.

“A moment please,” said Professor Slocombe. “We must be certain that all is secure.”

Within the Swan, Gammon suddenly interrupted his conversation, excused himself momentarily from Archie’s company, and thrust a handful of change into the Swan’s jukebox. As the thing roared into unstoppable action, Neville, who had taken great pains to arrange for the disabling of that particular piece of pub paraphernalia years before, and had never actually heard it play, marvelled at its sudden return to life. The Professor had left nothing to chance.

“To the wall, John,” said Professor Slocombe.

“Whereabouts?”

“Just there.”

“Fair enough.” Omally swung his seven-pound club hammer and the cold chisel penetrated the gaudy wallpaper. The mouldy plasterwork fell away in great map chunks, and within a minute or two Omally had bared an area of brickwork roughly five feet in height and two in width.

“Better penetrate from the very centre,” the Professor advised. “Take it easy and we will have a little check-about, in case the thing is booby-trapped.” Omally belted the chisel into the brickwork.

Within the Swan the jukebox was belting out a deafening selection of hits from the early sixties. The sounds of demolition were swallowed up by the cacophony.

“Stop!” said the Professor suddenly.

“What is it?” The words came simultaneously from three death-white faces.

“Changing the record, that’s all. You can go on again now.”

Pooley was skulking near to the back door. With every blow to the brickwork his nerve was taking a similar hammering. His hand wavered above the door handle.

“If it goes up, Jim,” said the Professor without looking round, “it will take most of Brentford with it. You have nowhere to run to.”

“I wasn’t running,” said Jim. “Just keeping an eye on the alleyway, that’s all.” He peered over the net curtain into a yard which was a veritable munitions dump of spent curry tins. “And not without cause. John, stop banging.”

“I’m getting nowhere with all these interruptions,” the Irishman complained. “Look, I’ve nearly got this brick out.”

“No, stop, stop!” Pooley ducked down below window level. “There’s one of them out there.”

“Ah,” said Professor Slocombe, “I had the feeling that they would not be very far from the Swan this night.”

The four men held their breath until they could do it no more. “Is he still there?” the Professor asked.

Pooley lifted the corner of the net curtain. “No, he’s gone. Be at it, John, get a move on will you?”

“Perhaps you’d rather do the work yourself, Pooley?” said Omally, proffering his tools.

“I am the lookout,” said Pooley haughtily, “you are the hammerman.”

“Oh, do get a move on,” sighed Norman. “It’s nearly a quarter to eight.”

Omally swung away with a vengeance, raising a fine cloud of brick dust, and dislodging chunks of masonry with every blow. When he had cleared a hole of sufficient size, the Professor stuck his head through and shone about with a small hand torch. “I see no sign of touch plates or sensory activators. Have it down, John.”

Omally did the business. As Gammon’s final selection came to an end and the jukebox switched itself off for another decade, the saboteurs stood before the exposed back plate of the Captain Laser Alien Attack Machine.

Norman opened his tool-box and took out a pair of rubber gloves, which he dusted with talcum powder, and drew over his sensitive digits. Taking up a long slim screwdriver, he teased out the locking screws. As the others crossed their fingers and held their breath, he gently eased away the back plate. The Professor shone his torch in through the crack and nodded. Norman yanked the plate off, exposing the machine’s inner workings.

A great gasp went up from the company. “Holy Mary,” said John Omally, “would you look at all that lot?”

Norman whistled through his teeth. “Magic,” said he. Upon the dashboard of a black Cadillac sedan parked in a nearby side-road a green light began to flash furiously.

The shopkeeper leant forward and stared into the machine’s innards. “It is wonderful,” he said. “Beyond belief.”

“But can you break it up?” Omally demanded.

“Break it up? That would be a crime against God. Look at it, the precision, the design. It is beyond belief, beyond belief.”

“Yes, yes, but can you break it up?”

Norman shook his head, “Given time, I suppose. But look here, the thing must serve at least a dozen functions. Each of these modules has a separate input and output.”