Free East of Ealing by Robert Rankin Page A

for once lost for words, and chewed ruefully upon a piece of toast.
    “And so I am prompted to ask,” Holmes continued, “your reason for stranding me in this most dismal age.”
    The toast caught in the old man’s throat and he collapsed red-faced into a violent fit of coughing.
    “Come now,” said Holmes, patting him gently upon the back, “surely you did not think to deceive me with your display of apparent surprise at my arrival? My favourite cigarettes are in your case and my tobacco in the humidor. You serve me with a Ninety-two Vamberry, by now surely a priceless vintage. I could enumerate another twenty-three such facts regarding the ‘singular case of the reanimated detective’, but I do not believe it to be necessary. Why have you called me here, Professor?”
    The scholar took a sip of coffee and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. He rose carefully from his chair and took himself over to the French windows, where he stood, his back to the detective, staring out into his wonderful garden. “It is a bad business,” he said, without turning.
    “I have no doubt of that.”
    “I am not altogether certain at present as to what steps can be taken. There is very much I have to know. I cannot face it alone.”
    Holmes took out his greasy, black clay pipe from the inner pocket of his dressing-gown and filled it from the Professor’s humidor. “So,” said he, “once more we are to work together.”
    “Let me show you something and then you can decide.” Professor Slocombe lead his gaunt visitor through the study door, along the elegant hall, and up the main staircase. Holmes followed the ancient up several more flights of stairs, noting well the narrow shoulders and fragile hands of the man. The Professor had not aged by a single day since last they met so very long ago.
    The two were now nearly amongst the gables of the great house, and the final staircase debouched into an extraordinary room, perfectly round, and some ten or twelve feet in diameter. It was bare of furniture save for a large, circular table with a white marble top which stood at its centre and an assortment of cranks and pulleys which hung above it. The walls were painted the darkest of blacks and there was not a window to be seen. Holmes nodded approvingly, and the Professor said, “Of course, a camera obscura. This simple device enables me to keep a close eye upon most of the parish without the trouble of leaving my house. Would you be so kind as to close the door?”
    Holmes did so, and the room plunged into darkness. There was a sharp click, followed by the sound of moving pulleys, and clattering chains. A blurred image appeared upon the table-top, cast down through the system of prisms linked to the uppermost lens mounted upon the Professor’s roof. Slowly the image was brought into focus: it was a bird’s-eye view of the Memorial Library. Before this, draped across the bench, lay Jim Pooley, evidently fast asleep. The Professor cranked away and the rooftop lens turned, the image upon the table swam up towards the High Street. It passed over Norman’s corner-shop and the two observers were momentarily stunned by the sight of the shopkeeper alone in his backyard, apparently breaking up paving-stones with his bare hands.
    “Most probably Dimac,” Professor Slocombe explained. “It has come to be something of the vogue in Brentford.”
    “I favour Barritso, as you well know,” said Holmes.
    “Now,” said Professor Slocombe, as he swung the lens up to its highest mounting and passed the image along the borders of the Brentford Triangle, “what do you see?”
    Holmes cradled his chin in his right hand and watched the moving picture with great interest. “Some trick of the light, surely?”
    “But what do you see?”
    Holmes plucked at a neat sideburn. “I see a faint curtain of light enclosing the parish boundaries.”
    “And what do you take it to be?”
    Holmes shook his head. “Some natural phenomenon perhaps? Something