02 March 2010
The Bloody Baffling Buckingham Bluff
Penned by Mr. A.D Fanton & Mr. Darren Craske.
The sun had barely squeezed out its first rays into the morning sky, when I found myself once again embroiled in a titanic struggle with another rogue. Crashing through the doors of a building located on Park Lane, this fellow and I crashed to the floor, limbs flailing, my cane striking the bounder about the shoulder blades in an effort to secure my release from his filthy grasp. Finally, the fellow relented, and disentangled himself from me. He adjusted his neck-tie and pointed a large, meaty finger at my noble form.
“You are officially banned from these premises!” he snapped. “You shall never darken these doors again!”
“I fail to see what the problem is, sir,” I replied, raising myself up on my elbows. “’Tis a gentleman’s, and I was merely relieving myself as was my need.”
“It is a gentleman’s CLUB!” cried the man, emphasising his point by pointing to a sign that read ‘Strong Fellows’ Gentleman’s Club’.
“Well, if that is the case, why on earth do you have that large urinal in there?”
“THAT is an ornamental fountain, you clod!” the man yelled. “My word, we shall probably have to have it destroyed, now.”
“Pfffft,” I snorted, hurling a small, empty bottle of whisky at the retreating man’s back as he returned inside the building, only for the bottle to shatter harmlessly upon the steps. I sighed and collapsed back onto the street, staring up at the sky. It had been almost a month since my last astonishing adventure, and I was missing the thrill of a good mystery. Certainly, I had pumped my way through a parade of pretty paramours in the interim, and drunk my weight in liquor ev’ry night, but adventure was always my favourite mistress, and it was a long time since I had been deep within her.
“Milord!” exclaimed my man-servant, his face hovering into view above me. “What are you doing down there?”
“Being in a state of complete horizontality,” I replied in my most matter-of-fact-tone. “Now stop asking such ridiculous bloody questions, and help me up.”
“Pee-yoo!” Botter gasped as he helped me to my feet. “If I may say so, milord, you smell like someone has vomited in a brewery.”
“You are very astute sometimes, Botter,” I responded, swaying uneasily on my feet. “I did so not but two hours ago. Furthermore, no, you may not say that.” I added, twatting my servant about the head with my cane for his insolence.
Botter rubbed his sore head gingerly. “Milord, I do hate to see you like this! You must do something!”
“Ah, Botter, you feeble-minded fool! Were it so simple! I need an adventure! I need mystery! I need EXCITEMENT! Without all this, I fear my brain stagnates.”
“Stagnates?” mused Botter as he retrieved my topper from the floor and dusted it down. “With all the alcohol you have been knocking back, I’d have thought your brain would have been perfectly pickled by now.”
“Oh, very droll!” I snapped, grabbing my hat from my man-servant’s grubby mitts. “I am at a loss, Botter. I just do not know what to do.”
“Why don’t you go and see a magic act?” cried Botter, pointing to a poster he had just espied.
“Magicians are arse-pipes, Botter. A bunch of poncified poltroons, disguising mediocre trickery as spectacular feat. I hate them all!”
“But milord, I think you’ll be rather interested in this particular show….”
“Botter,” I sighed, teetering along to where my man-servant now stood. “How many times must I tell you, I am not in the mood for – BY THE KRACKEN’S KNACKER-SACK!” I exclaimed, as my eyes fell upon the poster in question. For this was certainly no ordinary magic-show, but a show featuring the crazed conjurer Silas Surprise.
“Egad!” I said as I continued to read. “I thought I had put an end to his twisted trickery long ago!”
“It’d seem not, milord,” Botter nodded. “He has returned, and furthermore, it seems he plans to make Buckingham Palace disappear!”
“Utter scrotum!” I snorted. “I’ll wager my own skeleton that he is up to no good! And naturally, it shall be up to me to stop him! We shall have to go to the Palace forthwith” I slapped Botter heartily on the back. “Ha-ha! I can feel the adrenalin pumping through my veins already!”
“I am surprised there is any room in them, with all the alcohol – “
Another sharp blow ensured that Botter never reached the end of that particular witticism, and we set off upon a fresh, new adventure – quite unaware that Mr. Silas Surprise’s audacious illusion was also attracting attention elsewhere…
*****
PLATFORM 9 in London’s Grosvenor Park railway station was typically abuzz with all manner of odd behaviour. Chinese acrobatic twins bounced about the place like rubber balls, garishly-attired clowns rehearsed a slapstick routine involving a ferret and a wooden mallet, and a gargantuan strongman lifted a young female knife-thrower high into the air as if she was a rag doll. This was a normal day for Dr Marvello’s Travelling Circus, but it was about to become bizarrely abnormal – even by the circus’s standards.
Master conjurer and circus proprietor, Cornelius Quaint, had seen many a spectacle in his fifty-plus years (many of which were of his making) but this day he was promised a spectacle like no other, if the poster for the forthcoming event at Buckingham Palace was to be believed.
“Have you seen this twaddle, Butter?” he growled at his Inuit squire, busily buffing the conjurer’s shoes. “This buffoon must either be clinically insane, a misguided fool, or a liar!”
Butter glanced up to see the poster that his employer referred to, and his narrow eyes scanned left to right. “This magician Silas Surprise is to make Buckingham Place disappear, yes?”
“Point of fact, Butter – this magician Silas Surprise is to make Buckingham Palace disappear, no,” corrected Quaint. “If he’s a magician then I’m a flipping Lord – which I can assure you, I am most certainly not! Pompous bunch of time-wasting fluffs, the lot of them. No, my Inuit friend, this deserves my attention. Not just out of professional curiosity but my own brand of decidedly unprofessional curiosity. Are my shoes done?”
Butter presented the brown leather brogues proudly. “Shiny shiny, boss, yes?”
“Exemplary as always, Butter,” complimented Quaint. “Now, get your coat on. We’re off to the palace to see exactly what this Silas buffoon has got to say for himself!”
Butter hovered on his heels by the door to Quaint’s office. “Boss, a thought sudden to strike my mind…this magician…we go see because we do not believe his claims, yes? And…not of in case he does perform this miracle and you are jealous?”
Quaint’s six-foot plus frame towered over the diminutive Inuit. “Jealous? Butter, do my ears deceive me? You actually believe that I’m…jealous? How dare you, I’m a professional illusionist and one of the best in the business – might I add – which is how I happen to know for a fact that making the palace disappear is impossible!”
“As opposed to impossible that you perform every day?” asked Butter.
“That’s totally different, Butter!” spat Quaint. “What I do is a stagecraft, whereas this…this is tantamount to fraud! Now stop dragging your heels. I’ve got an entire carcass of bones to pick with Mr Silas Surprise, and no one is going to stand in my way!”
*****
“I AM well aware that I am standing in your way!” I barked at the police-officer precluding me from gaining entry into Buckingham Palace. “And I shall not move until you let me pass! I am Lord Likely, Aristocratic Adventurer and Gentle-Man of Action, and I am a close acquaintance of Her Majesty! I have reason to believe that she is in great danger, so – “
“So you keep saying, sir,” the officer replied, scratching his nose. “But I don’t know what you think Her Majesty has to fear from a magician, I’m sure! Think she’ll get a playing card in the eye, do ya? Perhaps she might find herself cougin’ up a string of coloured ‘ankerchiefs, eh?”
“Oooh, I like that trick, I do,” piped up his equally cretinous colleague. “It’s amazing, and ever so pretty.”
“Look, just contact Inspector Spunkleford and he’ll – “
“Listen, sir – we ‘ave quadrupled the police presence ‘ere to-day, and we’ve got the Queen’s own Guard on high alert. This conjurin’ chap won’t be able to release so much as a dove in her majesty’s direction without us bein’ all over ‘im. I assure you, nothing can go wrong!”
“But! –“
“Sir! If you continue to make a scene we’ll have to take you into custody. Now move along, there’s a good fellah.”
I was scarlet with rage, but realised that to continue arguing with these fat-headed idiots would be a waste of my precious voice. Instead, I turned sharply on my heels, and strode back through the gathering crowd who were slowly filling assembling outside the palace in readiness for Silas’ big show.
“Absolute tit-bags!” I raged as I returned to my spot beside Botter. “They’re impossible! Impossible! I shall need a more cunning ruse to gain entry to the palace, I fear…”
“Hmmm?” said Botter, distractedly, watching the small stage that had been set up outside of the gates with considerable interest.
“You glorified gonad!” I spat. “You aren’t even paying attention, are you?”
“I was just watching the stage, milord…there’s a couple of chaps there who seem – “
“I do not give a flea’s piss-hole what is going on there! May I remind you that we are NOT here to gawk at some accursed conjuror’s stupid set-pieces! Now hand me my cane and my gloves, I believe I have formulated quite the plan…”
“You aren’t going to walk back up there and clobber the police-officers are you, milord?”
“No, Botter! Ha! The very notion!” I chuckled, taking my cane from my man-servants hands. “I am going to RUN back up there and clobber the police officers!”
*****
“BOSS, I might you ask a question,” said the Inuit squire, peering over at the ensuing kerfuffle by Buckingham Palace’s gates.
Cornelius Quaint was on his knees at the base of the stage where Silas Surprise was to perform his illusion, his keen eyes searching the apparatus for anything out of the ordinary. “Might you, Butter? Fire away then.”
“You say we must investigate stage for trickery, yes?” asked Butter. “You say Silas Surprise plans some sort of ruse, and is impossible for him to make palace disappear.”
“Indeed so,” answered Quaint, ever mindful of Butter’s loose affiliation with the English language. “And your question is?”
“Why you say the Queen smell fishy?”
“Keep your voice down, Butter, you’ll have me hung!” roared Quaint. “I said nothing of the sort! I said there was something fishy about this Silas chap, and I feared the Queen’s life was in danger! I have it on very good authority that Her Majesty’s personal hygiene is beyond reproach. Just do what you’re supposed to do, and make sure those policemen don’t see what I’m up to!”
Butter went up on tip-toes to get a better look at the ensuing fracas. “I do not think that to be a problem anymore, boss.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“They seem busy with someone else causing trouble,” Butter replied.
“What someone else?” snapped Quaint, scrabbling to his feet. “The man’s a lunatic! A well-dressed one, if the truth be told – but a lunatic nonetheless. Why the devil is he on that policeman’s back, thrashing him with a stick like a demented jockey? Let’s take a closer look.”
They had not taken but one footstep when they heard the lunatic’s tirade.
“But you don’t understand!” yelled he. “Her Majesty is in great peril!”
“That man seems most sure of that,” pondered Quaint. “Can it be that he’s got his own suspicions about Silas Surprise? In which case, he just became interesting. Come, Butter, we must speak with that man at once! Perhaps he’s not as much of a lunatic as I thought.”
“Too late, boss!” cried Butter. “Look! Police lock him in their wagon!”
“Then we’d better go and unlock him, hadn’t we?”
“But how, boss?” asked Butter. “Man is prisoned in iron cage, and policeman guards wagon! No way to rescue him. Is impossible!”
Quaint winked. “You forget, my Inuit friend…impossible is what I do best.”
Butter slapped his forehead. “Silly me.”
“Constable Pike, isn’t it?” Quaint snatched hold of the young policeman’s hand, seemingly doing his best to separate it from the wrist. “How’s your mother getting on these days? That nasty old thing with her hip any better?”
The constable looked up, checking the vicinity from where this broad-shouldered, silver-curled man had obviously just fallen from. “The name’s Mitchum, sir. Don’t know any Pike. And me mam’s hip’s still giving her gip, yeah. Now, if you wouldn’t mind moving along, there’s been enough trouble at this shindig as it is.”
“Not at all, Constable Mitchum,” said Quaint, striding away swiftly to rejoin Butter, a triumphant grin on his face. He lifted up a long, silver chain with a key attached. “This should give our friend back his liberty…and then he can answer a few of my questions!”
“How you get key, boss?” asked Butter, keenly. “Magic, I presume?”
“Of a sort practiced by many an urchin down Langdon Lane,” replied Quaint. “Now, all we need to do is wait for the good constable to move on. Now, Butter! Move!”
Keeping as low to the ground as he could, Quaint sprinted up to the police wagon’s rear. His gut instinct was buzzing like a wasp in a jam jar, and something told him that the prisoner was important if he wanted to prevent a tragedy. He tore back the canvas flap, and hastily unlocked the heavy iron door to the cage, ready to interrogate the wagon’s occupant – who clearly had other ideas about the matter, if his striking punch to Quaint’s jaw was any indication.
*****
“HA-HA! Chinned the bugger!” I cried triumphantly as the figure fell to the floor. “That shall teach you to lay your grubby fingers upon my noble form, and – oh!” I stopped as I looked at the well-dressed, grey-haired figure lying on the ground beside the wagon. “Hmmm, you don’t look much like a police-officer, I must say.”
“That would be because I am not one, you ignorant fool!” the man snarled, as he was helped to his feet by a small chap who seemed to be dressed in preparation of a sudden Arctic snap, or something. “I am, in fact a conjurer, sir!”
My fist flashed out and caught the bounder on the chin again, knocking him to the floor once more.
“What on EARTH was that for?” he spat.
“I think I may actually hate conjurers more than police-officers,” I replied, as Botter helped me down out of the police-wagon. “Both dress in the most absurd manner, both make shocking use of handcuffs, and both are prone to wild acts of deception. But conjurers are just so much -” I was silenced by the tall man lashing out with his own fist, sending me spinning into the back of the wagon.
“One thing you need to learn about a conjurer is they always have something up their sleeve!” growled the man, straightening up to his full six-feet of height.
“Oh, really?” said I, wiping a drop of blood from my lip. “Well, I’d wager that you also have something up your trousers, too,” I smirked, before delivering a swift boot to the conjurer’s crotch. ‘Twas a cheap shot, but worth doing, I felt, especially as I watched the cove double over in pain.
“I…I think these gentlemen were trying to help you, milord,” Botter said as I turned away from my fallen foe.
“Nonsense, Botter! The man’s a damned magician! Never trust them, you know. Probably out to steal my wallet or something.”
“It’s no doubt full of I.O.U’s from all the dirty-arsed whores in the East End of London,’ the cad retorted upon me, his fist not only brushing against yours truly’s face, but making an almighty mess of it too.
The next physical object to strike my person was my cane in my posterior as I fell upon it, the hooked end threatening to tear me a new one.
“I do not hide the fact that I make frequent use of harlots, sir,” I rose to my feet and winced slightly at the pain in my backside, whilst addressing the other pain in my backside. “Whereas I dare say the only ladies you have handled come printed on playing cards.” And with that, I cracked the bounder around the head with my cane, sending him hurtling backwards once more.
In an untoward fashion, he kicked back like a mule, sending his trajectory in my personable direction. Fists out in front, as well (the cad). Both of them connected with my chest, sending my lungs screaming for air, and then it was my turn to hurtle backwards. But I had witnessed his little trick, and I too kicked back against the wall. My interpretation of the move was slightly less synchronized with the wall’s vicinity than his though, and I unded up on my (already painful from the cane near miss) posterior.
The fiend towered over me.
“I know everything there is to know about you, Likely, and I have to say, I don’t like what I hear,” said the conjuring cadster. “You womanize and philander your way across this city like a fly seeking a turd to perch on. You squander your inheritance likes it’s going out of fashion…on nothing more than booze, birds and bacon butties! You drink like a fish, and you indulge yourself in what you in the minority refers to as ‘Astonishing Adventures‘? Really? Astonishing? They’re semi-amusing at best, and highly derivative it has to be said. If you want to truly have an ‘astonishing adventure’ then I suggest you to join me on one of my little exploits one day. Now they’re truly astonishing, let me tell you.”
“Oh,” I replied, heaving myself back up, my bones crying out in protest. “So…you HAVE heard of me then? Well, I cannot say that I am surprised, sir. I AM really rather important and well-known throughout the Empire, you know. So if that was supposed to be some sort of mystical mind-reading trick in a futile attempt to impress or awe me, then I am afraid it was all for naught. It seems you know nothing of me that millions of people do not already know.”
“Oh, really?” the magician replied, his black as coal eyes glinting with hitherto unrevealed knowledge. “I beg to differ…Ouranos.”
- To Be Furthered…
His lordship and Mr. Fanton would like to thank Mr. Craske for joining them in chronicling this most astonishing of adventures. Huzzah!
Darren Craske is the author of the Cornelius Quaint Chronicles amongst other things, and lives in Hampshire with his wife and two children. His first published work was ‘The Equivoque Principle’ to be followed by its sequel, ‘The Eleventh Plague’ on March 4th, 2010. His website can be found at www.darrencraske.com and he is on twitter as @DarrenCraske.
‘The Eleventh Plague’ (book 2 of the Cornelius Quaint Chronicles) – is released in paperback by The Friday Project, an imprint of HarperCollins on March 4th 2010 and can be bought (amongst other fine retailers) here, and ‘The Equivoque Principle’ (book 1 of the Cornelius Quaint Chronicles) can be bought here.
As well as a little sneaky peeky at ‘The Eleventh Plague’ – ‘The Equivoque Principle’ is being offered as a FREE download for a limited time via this link and also on Kindle via this link.
