“A rooftop,” said Will and he smiled.

“And why are you smiling about a rooftop?”

“Remember when we were in the cell at the Brentford court house and I told you about the Lazlo Woodbine thrillers I’d read?”

Tim nodded, but his nodding was all but invisible, hidden as it was by his hair, which was wildly blowing all around.

“And how I told you that every Lazlo Woodbine thriller ends with Laz having a final rooftop confrontation with the villain. Who then takes the big fall to oblivion at the end.”

“You did,” said Tim. “Although I didn’t see the relevance at the time. Everything gets explained eventually, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” said Will. “And I’m freezing my privy parts off here, so let’s get inside.”

Inside the big top, posh folk were taking their seats. And anyone who was anyone was there.

Wilde was there, sitting upon a swansdown cushion, due to the scalding of his behind which he had received when the moonship exploded. And Beardsley was there, chatting with Richard Dadd about how well his brother Peter was doing playing for Brentford football club and about how a talent scout from Liverpool had recently spotted him. And the Duke of Wellington was there, chatting with Lord Colostomy, who was trying to sell him a bag. And Dame Nellie Melba was there, admiring the boots of Little Tich.

Lord Babbage and Mr Tesla sat next to Her Majesty the Queen (GBH), who sat next to Princess Alexandra, who had her hand once more upon Joseph Merrick’s good knee.

And Mr Sherlock Holmes was there, back from Dartmoor with another successfully solved case under his belt. And Dr Watson, who had secretly been shagging the Queen for the last five years, sat with him, sharing a joke about bedpans with the Queen’s gynaecologist Sir Frederick Treves.

The Pre-Raphaelites were all there, of course, and these shared a joke with a group of proto-surrealists.

The joke was all about fish.

And there was Montague Summers and Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley and the Pope of Rome.

But they weren’t sharing any jokes. They weren’t even speaking to each other.

There was an air of expectation breathing all around and about this salubrious crowd, an air of exaltation, of wonder and of hope. For a new century was dawning, and given the advances of the last fifty years, it was a new century that they were all very much looking forward to.

For what would happen next? What great steps would the British Empire be taking? To conquer all the world? And then the stars?

“Definitely the stars,” said The Man on the Clapham Omnibus, who was tonight A Face in the Crowd, albeit a most exclusive crowd.

Exclusive folk filed in and took their seats. Upon a high gantry Tim eased open a door.

“We’re in,” said he. “Follow me.”

“You know where we’re going then?” asked Will.

“Not as such,” said Tim.

A buzzer buzzed in the dressing room of the Lower Rank Performers. And a light flashed too. “Five minutes to curtain up,” came a voice through the public address system.

In the big top, the orchestra took their seats and took to tuning up their instruments. The smell of sawdust from the ring mingled with the perfumes of the wealthy.

“Down this way,” said Will.

“So you know where we’re going?”

“Not as such.”

The last of the aerial hansoms which had conveyed the rich and famous to the flying circus had now departed. One final cab drew up, this bearing the cabbie Will had passed his tickets to. The cabbie had brought his brother with him, the one with the broken legs. These legs were in plaster. The cabbie helped his injured brother from the cab. “This will be a real treat for you, bruv,” he said. “You deserve it.”

“Cheers,” said his brother, supporting himself on crutches.

“I’ll just switch off the engine,” said the cabbie, and he leaned inside the cab and did so.

“There,” he said, grinning back at his brother.

The aerial hansom plummeted down towards Whitechapel.

The cabbie’s plastered brother said, “You twat!”

“If we’d thought a little harder about this,” said Tim, as he and Will wandered aimlessly along a service tunnel beneath the dirigible proper, “we’d have got ourselves a plan of this craft. I’ll bet we could have got one from the Patent Office, or somewhere.”

“We’ll find our way,” said Will. “Have a little faith.”

“Oh I do. I have plenty of faith. Listen.”

Will listened.

“What is that, do you think?”

Will listened some more. “Applause,” said he. “It’s applause.”

“The show is beginning,” said Tim.

And Tim was right.

The show was indeed beginning.

42

Applause.

Tumultuous applause.

The big top was plunged in darkness, but for the starlight that twinkled through the vast glass dome. And then a spotlight pierced the black, striking the centre of the ring, and then a figure stepped into the spotlight, and there was deafening applause to greet Count Otto Black.

The Count looked magnificent. He had a huge fur hat upon his narrow head. A gorgeous cloak of gold, its high raised collar trimmed with ermine, swept the sawdust and was secured about the Count’s slender throat by a golden brooch, engraved with enigmatic symbols. His great black beard was plaited into numerous colourfully beaded braids. His eyeballs glittered and his mouth was set in a yellow-toothed grin.

The Count threw wide his cloak, to reveal a crimson tunic worked with cloth-of-gold, pantaloons of yellow silk and high top boots of black patent leather. He extended his long and scrawny arms and waggled his twig-like digits. These were weighed heavily with gorgeous rings, many engraved with the inevitable enigmatic symbols.

“Greetings one and greetings all,” cried he.

And the crowd cheered and clapped some more. And the cabbie in Will’s seat whistled.

“My lords,” cried the Count. “My lords, my ladies and gentlemen, your Holiness the Pope, artists, poets, great thinkers of the age, I bid you welcome. And to Her Majesty the Queen, Empress of India, America and the African States, I am your humble servant, Ma’am.”

The Count bowed low, and the Queen giggled foolishly.

“I do believe he’s knocking her off, too,” Dr Watson whispered to Holmes.

“Tonight,” the Count took to strutting about the circus ring, the spotlight stalking his every step, “tonight, it is my pleasure to present for you an entertainment such as has never been witnessed before. One surpassing those of ancient Rome, or anything produced before the courts of Russia. You will witness wonders. You will experience thrills that will excite your nerves and stagger your senses. And, as Big Ben tolls midnight and the dawn of the twentieth century—” But then the Count paused and put a long and bony figure to his lips. “—then we shall see what we shall see, and you will bear witness to something that is beyond your wildest imaginings.”

“That’s something I’d like to see,” whispered the lady in a straw hat to her friend called Doris, “because my imaginings are rather wild.”

“And so,” the Count flung out his arms once more, “our show begins.”

“We’ve gone the wrong way,” said Tim. “Let’s try down that staircase there.”

Will scratched at his blondy head. “Has it occurred to you Tim,” he asked, “that this flying circus is somewhat bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?”

Tim made his bestest thoughtful face. “I wasn’t going to mention that,” he said.

“Down the staircase, then,” said Will.

The lights went up in the great big top and fifty dwarves upon ostrich-back[31] trooped into the ring. They steered their mounts through a complex dance routine, to the accompaniment of the orchestra, which played a selection of popular music hall numbers, including “Don’t jump off the roof, Dad, you’ll make a hole in the yard”, and “When your grey hair turns to silver, won’t you change me half-a-quid?”, and “Get out the meatballs, mother, we’ve come to a fork in the road”, which was always a favourite, but thankfully not the Big Boot Dance.