The Coming of the Teraphiles Page 8

and although a small mystery would remain to puzzle him,

  no doubt it would be solved one day when he would be the

  true Lord of Sherwood rather than the mere proprietor of

  some woods and a big house rented at a nominal sum from

  TerraForma™. Why someone should want to own the hat

  he might never know, but only Mrs B-C would be put out

  and doubtless not for very long. Indeed, the first chance he

  got he would have her a new and equally hideous hat made

  and sent to her home back in Cygnus or wherever it was.

  Everyone would be thoroughly satisfied.

  What if - and here he found himself on the verge of choking

  on his glass of port - what if the real thief were to ransom

  the hat? Even now someone could be slicing a feather or two

  from the stolen titfer and sending a message to Mrs Banning-

  Cannon's personal V indicating where to leave dosh in used

  oncers if the apple of her eye were to be returned without

  further mutilation. He gulped. And this time Mrs Banning-

  Cannon noticed his condition, chirruping, much to Mr B-C's

  astonishment, an expression of concern in the direction of

  her host. 'My dear Lord Sherwood! You are having, I think, a

  reaction to the adventures of the evening! As brave a face as

  you are putting on things, it is clear to some of us that you are

  suffering a delayed shock. In other words, your encounter

  with the thieves, while an act of unconscious courage, has

  affected your highly tuned nerves.'

  It came as something of a surprise amongst those who knew

  him that old Bingo Lockesley had any nerves, highly tuned

  or otherwise. He babbled something about being perfectly

  all right while giving his by now celebrated performance of a

  space-beacon on full traffic-duty, blushing red and blanching

  white in a matter of seconds as his conscience swung him

  swiftly from a state of high anxiety to one of low terror.

  Then, realising that he had a perfectly legitimate excuse to

  offer, he mentioned that he had a long game ahead of him in

  the morning and maybe he'd better turn in. Happily he was

  saved from further torment by W.G. Grace strolling round the

  corner, her bow-case under her arm, shrouded in a cloud of

  smoke from her massive cigar and talking whackit averages

  to one of the centaurs. Leaving them chatting, he sloped off

  in the direction of his bedroom.

  Chapter 6

  Yellow

  BINGO HAD ONLY A few minutes to climb into his pyjamas before

  there came a tap at his door. His first impulse was to jump

  under the duvet and pretend to be asleep, but then he was

  moved by curiosity. What if this were the real thief, for whose

  dirty work he was receiving shares of praise and blame, come

  to put the squeeze on him? What if he refused to answer?

  Reluctantly, Bingo turned the handle and opened the door

  a crack. There stood Urquart Banning-Cannon all in white

  ties, still nervously puffing on his cigar and fanning himself

  with his toppers. Only then did Bingo wonder if Mr B-C had

  not insured himself against his, Bingo's, failure and possibly

  employed a back-up.

  Tssst,' said Mr Banning-Cannon.

  'Sorry?'

  'Let me in, dammit!' The tycoon hurried into the room

  and closed the door firmly behind him. 'Congratulations,' he

  pumped Bingo's still-uncertain hand. 'I can only stay a few

  minutes. What did you do with it?'

  'With -?' For a moment Bingo was blank. 'Oh! Oh! You

  mean the hat?'

  'Naturally the hat. What else? You're a positive Svengali,

  the way you made it vanish! Do I mean Svengali?'

  'Maybe Mantovani?'

  Urquart banged the side of his head. 'These nano-

  translators aren't too hot on history. Oh, I know Fellini.'

  'I'm coming up with Whodunit.'

  'Houdini?'

  'So what about him?'

  'You mentioned him.'

  'Did I? OK. The hat. How did you get it out of there?'

  'That's a bit of a trade secret,' said Bingo, admiring his

  own unexpected quickness of mind.

  'You'll let me know eventually, right.'

  Something like steel had suddenly entered Bingo

  Lockesley's soul.

  'Of course, old boy. As soon as I have it all signed, sealed

  and delivered. The contract?'

  'My word is my bond. The job's done. The planet's

  yours.'

  'I think we need something a little more concrete.'

  'Anything. Believe me. I'll write you a letter. You can

  trust me. I'll have the contract in your hands by tomorrow.'

  Urquart made to leave. 'You seem different...'

  'How do you mean, different?' Bingo felt his desperation-

  fuelled belligerence fading rapidly. He was beginning to

  blush again. Then he turned pale.

  'I don't know. Probably cost you a lot of adrenalin, eh?

  Anyway, 111 have that contract for you. But meanwhile, the

  planet's yours. To do whatever you like with.'

  Bingo cleared his throat. Urquart opened the door to his

  own room. 'I'll leave this way. OK? That's funny! Do you

  smell something? I'd better get out of here.' And he left.

  Bingo knew what he meant. It was an odd smell. Familiar,

  though. He just couldn't put his finger on it. Lavender?

  He stumbled back to bed and climbed under the quilt. He

  was beginning to worry. He felt he had received a hint of the

  future and he wasn't entirely sure if it was going to be quite

  as good as it seemed to be on the surface.

  Another knock. He was determined not to answer. He

  remained under the quilt, safe in the knowledge that he had

  locked both doors to his room.

  And then someone was standing over him.

  'Um, Lord Sherwood? It's the Doctor. I wondered if...'

  'No,' he said, then: 'Go away. I'm sleeping. I don't need a

  doctor. I'm right as rain. See you for breakfast. I recommend

  the kedgeree.'

  'The police have been called. By Mrs Banning-Cannon

  actually. She thought Mr Banning-Cannon didn't quite

  understand the urgency involved. So they're coming in the

  morning... I thought you—'

  'P-police?' The Earl of Lockesley put his nose above the

  duvet. 'M-me?'

  'Well, yes. Mrs Banning-Cannon thought the sooner the

  case, as she calls it, was put into the hands of the district

  magistrate, the better. Between you and me, the local

  constables might not be taking the theft of a hat too seriously.

  You can see that from her point of view... Well, meanwhile,

  of course, everything's being turned upside down in the hope

  there's been an oversight...'

  Reluctantly, Bingo again bade farewell to the Land of

  Nod. 'I was thinking that probably it's a bit soonish to be

  calling in the magistrates. Constables are all that are needed

  in the circumstances, surely? The hat'll probably turn up in

  the morning. Left at the hotel or something. I mean it's only

  a dashed hat!'

  'Not to Mrs B-C. Do you have any idea how much those

  things cost? And you know how much pull she has with the

  authorities. I'd guess that
between them, the Tarbuttons and

  the Banning-Cannons practically own the local law.'

  'The c-constables are c-crooked?'

  'Of course not.' The Doctor paused just long enough for

  Bingo not to believe him, before clarifying: 'They're probably

  like most police forces - they know whose property they're

  supposed to look after first and foremost. After all, they owe

  their jobs to the terraforming companies. The companies

  are the ones who make the planets and help populate them.

  Generally the officers do their best to keep the peace, enforce

  the law - and they are an honest bunch, all in all, I expect - but if it's a question of my lost archery cap, worth a few buttons,

  and a creation of Diana of Loondoon worth hundreds of

  thousands of bluebacks... Well, we both know which crime

  they'll take most seriously.'

  Bingo sat up in bed. 'I hadn't thought of that. My uncle's

  the local Investigating Magistrate. I'll talk to him.'

  The Doctor sat down on the edge of his bed. 'I understand

  that Mrs B-C also made Mr B-C call him. He said he'd be

  round in the morning. I gather he's a stickler for the letter of

  the law. And of course hell want to interview you.'

  'M-me?'

  'Well, yes, because you overheard the thieves and tried

  to catch them. Even if you didn't get a glimpse of them, the

  police will want to go over what you might have seen. They

  have trained minds, you see. They're impossible to deceive,

  even when we are accidentally deceiving ourselves.'

  'Ah, yes. N-naturally I'll do all I can. There's just that funny

  seaside smell. That's all I noticed, same as you.'

  'It will probably mean something to a sleuth. It might even

  point the finger in the direction of a felon!'

  'Yes, I can see that. Who might or not be human, eh?'

  'Well, of course, under normal circumstances the victim's

  husband would most likely be the Number One Suspect.

  'Eh?'

  'Think about it. He was known to hate the hat. He is, sadly,

  subject to some form of arachnophobia and was overheard

  begging his lady wife not to wear the thing tomorrow. He

  already asked me what I knew on the subject of fear of spiders,

  and he had referred to the hat as 'that great monstrous spider

  squatting on top of her head' to a few of his fellow travellers.

  He was thought to be preparing to take to his bed tomorrow

  rather than confront it.'

  'Really? I knew nothing of this.' (Or very little, at any rate,

  thought Bingo in some relief). 'Afraid of hats, was he?'

  'Not all hats,' said the Doctor. 'Just a certain kind of hat.

  Hats resembling spiders. And anything else resembling

  spiders. Including spiders themselves, I expect. There's a

  definite spider motif,' he added in case there was any doubt.

  'Well, you can see how he would take against the hat, then.

  Shame. For a bloke to suffer so. You'd think—'

  'That he'd do something about it. He'd tried. He saw many

  specialists all over the galaxy. He even asked my advice.'

  'Makes sense. But you couldn't help him?'

  'I'm not that sort of doctor.'

  'Of course that does rule him out as the thief,' Bingo

  pointed out.

  'Why so?' asked the Doctor.

  'Because he couldn't get within a mile of the thing without

  exploding into hives and so forth.'

  'Ah, yes. So they'll doubtless want to know if he had

  anything to do with it.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'If he commissioned someone to do the deed. Conspired.'

  'Ah, yes.' Bingo made an odd swallowing sound.

  'But they'll probably go for a different theory.'

  'Yes, let's hope so!'

  'Um... Why should we hope so?'

  'Oh, well. Ah. Because it would be jolly awful if one of

  us were to fall under the shadow of suspicion, don't you

  know!'

  'Yes. That's true. So you can't come up with any hint? I

  mean, you can't guess at who amongst your guests might

  have left the smell of hot seawater behind them?'

  'Not unless it's - ha, ha - some sort of half-baked fish,

  eh?'

  Bingo winced at his own appalling joke. He was beginning

  to feel rather glad that he had been unsuccessful in managing

  the great hat heist, after all. Yet what if Mr Banning-Cannon

  pointed the finger at him and he cracked under interrogation?

  As he might. Thinking that Bingo had pinched the damned

  hat, as Bingo had allowed him to believe.

  'Well,' said the Doctor rising, 'I thought I'd pop in and talk

  this over with you. Just in case you knew of anything. Or if I

  could help, perhaps?'

  'Very decent of you, Doctor. Much obliged. I'll put my

  mind to it.'

  He murmured 'Good night' to the lanky mystery man,

  who left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  But now, of course, Bingo was wide awake. He sat

  upright in bed gnawing his fingernails and trying to gather

  his thoughts. But, try as he might, the thoughts remained

  ungathered. They seemed rather determined, in fact, to

  remain at large. He slept fitfully that night, waking from time

  to time to feel what might be cold steel around his wrists. His

  dreams, when they came, generally involved him suffering

  some form of incarceration. He imagined Mrs Banning-

  Cannon pointing an accusatory finger in the direction of Mr

  B-C who, in turn, was inclined to point a similar finger at

  him.

  He awoke early the next morning muttering to himself,

  his head, neck and shoulders bathed in cold, clammy sweat

  while from dry lips came over and over again the words: 'I'm

  innocent, innocent. I'm innocent I tell you. Ask him. I never

  did it.'

  Which was perfectly true, of course, but somehow didn't

  convince him, let alone his imagined interviewers.

  Admittedly, as a local landowner, he was not likely to be

  accused of the petty theft of an over-large hat, but he knew

  that non-local owners of many planets tended to carry rather

  more weight than he did. His only hope, he told himself,

  was that his Uncle Rupoldo came in to investigate the case.

  He was the appropriate local magistrate and, since the Code

  Napoleon tended to be the legal system preferred in this

  part of the universe, he stood a better chance of receiving

  a fair trial with his uncle on the job than if Anglo-Saxon or

  Barsoomian law were to be utilised. As he shaved his face

  that morning, staring hard into the mirror to see if he looked

  anything like a criminal mastermind, he mulled over the

  chances of Sir Rupoldo de Crespigny coming up with a not-

  guilty verdict or whether that old incorruptible would insist

  on investigating every aspect of the matter. There again, with

  luck, the hat would turn up, having been delivered to the

  wrong room on its way from the Claremont to Lockesley

  Hall. But that wasn't very likely.

  Traipsing down to breakfast a few minutes later, feeling

  in better spirits after his morning ablutions, he entered the

  room to find all eyes turned on him.

  'H
ello!' he cried, rather noisily. 'What's up? Hat been

  found I take it!'

  All eyes turned back to their previous position.

  Following them he saw that they had fixed on the dark

  blue uniform and silver buttons of a man dressed in the rather

  splendid scarlet-trimmed uniform of an Inspector-Magistrate

  in the Sussex and Surrey Bacon Street Regulators, a branch

  of which kept the peace in this particular arm of the galaxy

  and had done for several millennia since the collapse of Law

  soon after the last Dark Age but one in these parts following

  the fifth, or possibly sixth, interplanetary war. Above this

  livery beamed a face of such kindliness and bucolic good

  will that Bingo was immediately reassured. He should have

  been, since it belonged to Inspector-Magistrate Sir Rupoldo

  de Crespigny, who had not only once dandled Bingo on his

  knee, but, a keen sportsman, had also taught him almost

  everything he knew about tournament re-enactments and

  their associated games. Normally, Bingo would have fallen

  on his uncle's kindly shoulder and greeted him with nothing

  but hoots of happy goodwill, but today the old chap's

  expression was of such considerable gravity that Bingo could

  tell something decidedly serious was afoot.

  'Ah,' he said. 'No hat's turned up, eh? That's a shame!'

  'That's exactly what it is, young Rob,' declared Sir

  Rupoldo. 'You're going to have to call off your game, I'm

  afraid. And nobody's going to be allowed to leave the castle

  and grounds, at least not before they can explain their actions

  of last night.'

  'You think the hat's still on the premises, do you?'

  Mr Banning-Cannon said, addressing his remarks to the

  Inspector-Magistrate but directing a look of pleading concern

  at his host. 'I'd be pretty sure that the crooks would have

  made off with it last night, wouldn't you, Lord Sherwood?'

  It became immediately clear to Bingo that he had nothing

  much to fear from being fingered by Mr B-C, since the

  terraforming tycoon had as much to lose from any revelations

  as he himself. His spirits lifted by about a mile on realising

  this.

  But then the horror at what he had just been told struck

  him. 'Did you say the match was cancelled?'

  'I'm afraid I did.'

  'So what's happening tomorrow?'

  'Tomorrow? I can't say. No doubt if the hat is discovered

  or we are sure it is no longer on these premises, then everyone