Ulysses led the way into the gallery. The body of the night watchman had been removed by the police but dried blood still stained the floor beside the shattered display case. He stopped on reaching the ransacked office.
"This is your father's office, I believe," he said.
Genevieve gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
Allardyce's men had made little effort to secure the crime scene. The mangled door remained propped against the wall and a piece of black and yellow tape had been casually strung across the entrance. Ulysses took hold of the tape and tugged it free with a disdainful snarl.
"Should you be doing that?" Genevieve asked anxiously.
"Should the Metropolitan Police be sitting on their arses when your father has been reported missing?"
Taking out a flashlight from an inside pocket of his coat, Ulysses directed its hard white beam into the office. Light shone back at them from broken glass. Forensics must have been done with the place as some attempt had been made to clear the detritus that had littered the floor. Glass and smashed pieces of furniture had been swept into piles in either corner of the room.
Ulysses carefully stepped into Professor Galapagos' wrecked home away from home. There was still a lingering memory of an odour like aniseed and spoiled steak.
Genevieve paused at the threshold, her breathing rapid and shallow.
"It's all right," Ulysses said. "It'll be all right. Trust me."
Ulysses shone his torch into the far corner of the laboratory. He could still see where the professor's difference engine was missing from its place on the desk. It looked like someone had made some effort to tidy the papers that had been strewn across the work surface. Had any of them been taken away by the police for closer scrutiny? What secrets might they reveal?
But more importantly, what information had been stored on the Babbage machine?
"Your father used a difference engine in his work?" Ulysses asked, meticulously inspecting the walls and space around the desk.
"I believe so," Genevieve replied. "Doesn't everyone?"
"Indeed."
The sweeping beam struck upon several small, fractured display cases, each one holding a stuffed creature, preserved forever by the taxidermist's art. There was a coelacanth, a kaymen and some manner of small primate, its face frozen in either an aggressive or terrified teeth-baring shriek.
"Can you tell if my father was taken from here?" Genevieve asked.
"There are signs of a scuffle, that's for sure. But are they also signs of an abduction?"
Had the professor been abducted from this place at the same time as the thief was stealing away his difference engine? If so, there must have been more than one miscreant, and one of them prepared to kill to ensure their getaway as well as to take a hostage. What manner of men was he dealing with?
The lack of any inkling from his unerring sixth sense was informing him that there was nothing more that Galapagos' quarters could tell him. There were too many distractions there anyway; the mess of papers hinting at greater unsolved mysteries of the scientific world, the glassy-eyed specimens in their broken glass cases, Genevieve...
"Where is the answer? What am I missing here?" Ulysses was becoming frustrated. Was there really nothing more that he could deduce from this mess? The measure of a crime could always be traced back from the wreckage of evidence it left behind it. A crime always left its mark, a criminal his fingerprint even if those investigating the crime could not always see it. What was it that Ulysses was missing?
With a snarl of frustration he suddenly turned on his heel and strode out of the wrecked office again.
"Ulysses?" Genevieve's anxious voice followed him out of the room.
Then he felt it; an uncomfortable prickling sensation that made his skin goose pimple and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It was that unerring sixth sense of his. His hand tightened around his cane, his knuckles whitening.
It was the same sensation he had felt earlier when he had first visited the scene of the crime; the feeling of someone's eyes upon him, only intensified now in the silence and emptiness of the museum. Like fingernails scraping at the inside of his skull.
Was it the killer? Had he returned? Or had Ulysses' suspicions been right all along and had the killer never left?
"Ulysses, what is it?" He was staring blankly ahead of him, his flashlight held at his side, pointing at the floor. Genevieve was at his shoulder.
"Stay close," he whispered.
"There's someone else here, isn't there?"
"I rather think there is."
Dark eyes watched as the two figures explored the gallery beyond the ruins of the ransacked room, the torch beam flicking into the darkened recesses of alcoves and behind glittering display cases. The watcher recognised the man; tall, confident, his stride purposeful, as if he owned the gallery and the museum. It remembered him from earlier that day.
It did not recognise the smaller female scurrying anxiously at his side. She smelt of fear and something else - something hidden.
The watcher pulled itself back behind a cast iron roof beam. It sensed, in its primitive way, that itself was what they were searching for, and the interloper was persistent. He would not rest until he had found what he was looking for, until he had hunted the watcher down. It was only a matter of time before the sweeping beam uncovered its hiding place.
It was getting frustrated by its confinement in the museum. It was changing all the time. It wanted to stretch its limbs, test its new body, discover what it was capable of.
And its mind was changing too. It was no longer happy to watch whilst others trespassed within its territory. The desire was growing inside it to drive the interlopers from the gallery, to show them which was the dominant species here.
Lips pulled back from clenched teeth and a low growl issued from its altered throat.
Shadows flickered and writhed against the wall. Ulysses' sweeping torch beam suddenly picked out teeth bared in an angry snarl, eyes staring in open defiance. Genevieve gasped. The face that appeared in the cold white light was barely human, the expression contorting it one of bestial rage.
Ulysses leaned closer, pointing his torch directly into the subhuman's glassy-eyed stare. The creature didn't even blink.
"It's all right," he said. "Homo neanderthalensis, resident of the middle Paleolithic. Thought to have died out around 29,000 years ago until that inbred colony was found in the Urals in sixty-nine."
A hand on Ulysses' shoulder, Genevieve peered past him at the motionless figure in front of them. The waxwork replica of the Neanderthal, moved from its smashed display case earlier that day to lie propped against the wall of the gallery, continued to stare back, one arm raised, an antler held threateningly in its hand.
"This one isn't going to cause us any trouble." Ulysses said.
Awareness suddenly flared in his brain like a firework. Ulysses spun round, pushing Genevieve out of the way as something large swung out of the darkness and barrelled into him.
Ulysses was sent crashing to the ground, even as he reached inside his jacket for his pistol. His torch fell from his hand and went out. The wind was knocked from his lungs as the creature landed on top of him. He twisted, trying to free himself from the weight of the thing. As he did so he tugged his pistol free and aimed it at the shadow looming over him. A club-like fist smashed into his outstretched arm. In unexpected shock the muscles in his hand spasmed, releasing the weapon which skittered away across the floor of the gallery.
The beast let out a victorious roar. Genevieve screamed.
Disarmed, Ulysses would have to try a different approach.
In the eerie moonlit glow of the gallery the creature appeared as a ragged shadow above him. Ulysses could see nothing more than the glistening points of its eyes and the gleam of its bared fangs. The stench of its rancid breath made him gag as it came in hot gusts against his face.
He was suddenly back in Tibet as recollections of his struggle with the snow beast in
the hidden monastery poured from his subconscious. He had survived that encounter and he would survive this one, thanks in part to the martial arts he had learned in the company of the Tibetan monks.
Ulysses kicked upwards sharply with his right leg. The toe of his shoe connected with the back of the creature's neck. The thing howled and arched its back, releasing Ulysses from the weight pressing down on his pelvis.
His leg swinging back down again he pendulummed his body forwards, raising his torso from the ground. As his arms came free he thrust them forwards, palms together. He struck the thing squarely in the sternum, the force of his blow pushing the creature from him.
But in a moment the creature was crouched on its haunches, ready to pounce again. Rising up on its muscular legs it towered over Ulysses, its hairy arms raised ready to pound him into the polished marble floor of the gallery. It bellowed its anger and beat its chest with its fists, declaring its claim to this place as its territory.
Without a moment's hesitation the creature sprang at Ulysses again. But this time Ulysses was ready. As the ape-like creature landed, grasping at him with leathery paws, he seized hold of the thing, grasping great tufts of hair in his fists as he let himself fall backwards beneath the creature's assault, pushing a foot into its midriff as he did so. He landed on his back again on the cold stone but this time the creature came with him, unbalanced by the change in its centre of gravity. As he felt the full weight of the thing above him Ulysses brought both his feet together and pushed upwards with all the strength in his legs, at the same time pulling the beast forward.
The creature sailed over Ulysses' head. He heard it howl in protest and then there was an almighty crash. Ulysses quickly got to his feet and turned, preparing to face his attacker again.
Shards of glass sparkled in the monochrome light bathing the hall. Unable to stop itself, the creature had smashed into one of the gallery's display cases. Snorting in annoyance the beast was trying to extricate itself from the shattered remains of the cabinet. Ulysses surmised that it must have been injured in the collision but whatever injuries it might have sustained did not seem to be slowing it down.
The creature was caught in the spotlight of his torch beam, pupils contracting against the sudden illumination. In that split second Ulysses saw his attacker clearly for the first time.
It was an apeman, dressed in a suit of ill-fitting clothes. What Ulysses could see of the creature beneath its curious garb was covered in reddish-brown hair, apart from its hands, feet and blunt-nosed face. The tweed jacket and trousers had torn where the beast's form was too large to be contained. A white shirt had popped its buttons, as had a formal paisley-patterned waistcoat.
Ulysses briefly wondered how anyone had managed to dress this savage in such a way, as he caught the glint of a silver chain hanging around its neck, until the only logical answer presented itself to him.
Ulysses pulled himself upright. Picking up his cane he took hold of the bloodstone at its end and gave it a twist. With one smooth movement Ulysses pulled a rapier thin blade from the middle of his cane. As the apeman's laboured breathing turned into a guttural growl Ulysses assumed the stance of an accomplished fencer. "En garde," he said with quiet purpose.
As the creature climbed free of the wreckage of the display case, Ulysses noted that its lumbering gait and low-slung head spoke of a kinship with the lower orders of primates. The semi-human features of the creature devolved into a bestial snarl and it knuckled forwards, using its forelimbs like another pair of legs, shrieking horribly. Rapier blade in hand, Ulysses prepared to meet its furious charge.
The shot rang out through the gallery like a cannon blast, the report of the pistol amplified by the acoustics of the hall. The apeman was suddenly hurled backwards, a welter of blood spraying from its left shoulder and a whimper of pain escaping its malformed lips. Then, as the blue pistol smoke cleared, the creature was back on its feet only now it was running to escape, rather than charging to attack.
Ulysses spun round. Genevieve stood behind him, the torch in one hand, his gun held rigidly in the other. "Nice shot," he said, the rumour of a smile inching itself onto his face, "but I had the situation fully under control."
Genevieve lowered the gun. "I thought that... thing was going to kill you."
"Your concern is touching, really it is," Ulysses said, sheathing his sword-cane and setting off at a run, back through the gallery, Genevieve trotting to keep up, "but I would rather we took that throwback alive."
They turned left into the main gallery of the Darwin Wing. In the dull monochrome light of the moon Ulysses could see black spots of blood speckling the polished floor, leaving them an obvious trail.
"Do you think that thing had anything to do with my father's disappearance?" Genevieve said.
They passed beneath the stone arch above which the words 'The Ascent of Man' were carved, Ulysses' shoes sliding on the polished stone floor. The slap of the ape-thing's leathery hands and feet could be heard ahead of them. "I would bet money on it. Which is why we can't let it get away."
Ulysses put on a turn of speed and, leaving Genevieve behind, sprinted onto the cloister-gallery that ran around the main entrance hall of the museum. Then he saw it, loping along on all fours like a dog. He swore sharply under his breath. He could have delivered a crippling shot to the creature, had Genevieve not still got his gun. He would have to try something else to halt the apeman's escape.
"Constable Palmerston!" he yelled at the top of his voice. "Constable Palmerston, if ever there was a time I needed your help that time is now! Palmerston!"
The apeman suddenly turned, its feet slipping momentarily on the polished stone and then it leapt onto the ledge of the colonnaded walkway. Ulysses could see the chain around its neck more clearly now. Hanging from it was what looked like a silver locket.
The beast glanced momentarily at Ulysses, its eyes burning with animal fear and malign hatred, and then the creature hurled itself into empty space.
"Palmerston!" Ulysses screamed.
The apeman landed with a rattling crash on the spine of the diplodocus skeleton as the museum doors burst open and the two Peeler-drones marched into the building.
"Stop, in the name of the law!" Ulysses heard the Palmerston unit pronounce in its synthesised voice.
But the creature had no intention of stopping, in the name of the law or anything else. The diplodocus swayed precariously as the apeman bounded across it, grabbing at ribs and vertebrae to aid its flight across the hall.
Another shot rang out through the museum and a prehistoric shoulder blade exploded in a cloud of dust and bone fragments.
"We want to take it alive!" Ulysses shouted.
The two constables were beneath the diplodocus now, the apeman scrambling across the skeleton above them. Grabbing hold of the fossil's neck with one hand it swung over the heads of the automatons and launched itself at the main doors. It hit the floor as the cables holding the relic's head and neck gave way and the dinosaur's skull crashed to the ground, its jaw shattering on the hard stone floor.
In one bound the apeman was through the doors. A moment later Ulysses barged past the bewildered droids as he hurtled through the doors after the creature, only to see it swinging away into the night, using street lamps as a monkey would have swung through a jungle canopy. With a squeal of tyres the Silver Phantom sped off after the creature, swerving to avoid a crawling omnibus as Nimrod gave chase.
"Did we get it?" Genevieve gasped. She stood with her hands on her knees, panting for breath. There was a manic gleam in her eye that was so unlike the demure young woman he had met only a matter of an hour or so earlier.
"You certainly got it," Ulysses said in an almost disapproving tone.
"Yes, but where is it now?"
"What's going on 'ere then?" The two robot policemen had joined them at the top of the steps.
"I think we just spooked your murderer," Ulysses muttered.
There was the crackle of static as the Peel
er unit used its internal radio to report the escape to its controllers back at Scotland Yard.
There was the sound of a horn and the Silver Phantom pulled up again outside the museum railings. Ulysses was halfway down the incline from the museum building by the time Nimrod had emerged from the car.
"I do apologise, sir, but I am afraid I lost the monkey."
Ulysses sighed. His first major lead in this case had just evaded him. But, he reminded himself, patting the pocket of his jacket, it wasn't his only lead.
"Don't worry, Nimrod old chap," he said. Genevieve had joined them, the drones following close on her heels. "Did you happen to see what that thing was wearing around its neck, along with the rest of its incongruous wardrobe?" Ulysses asked her.
"Why yes," she said, obviously somewhat shaken, the manic look gone from her eyes to be replaced by wide-eyed shock. "It was my locket."
"Your locket?"
"Well, I mean, it's my father's locket, but I gave it to him. It was a gift. That thing must have taken it from him. It must have had something to do with his disappearance."
Ulysses looked at Genevieve gravely and took her hands in his again. "Genevieve," he said, "I can't think of any other way to put this to you, but I don't believe that thing took the locket from your father. In fact I don't believe that your father has been abducted."
"What d-do mean? You're not saying that you think he's d..." She broke off, overcome with emotion. Her eyes were imploring him now, desperately wanting him to tell her anything that might help her make sense of what had happened.
"Don't ask me to explain how but I think that thing is - or rather, was - your father."
CHAPTER SIX
Pax Britannia: Unnatural History Page 6
