Raiders Of The Lost Car Park Part 35

'Shoot the king?' Santa fell back in alarm. 'What are you saying? You can't shoot merry old Father Christmas. Think of all the dear little boys and girls.'

'I hate kids,' said Anna, pointing her pistol at the king.

'No, no, no.' The alarm the king fell back in, became absolute horror. 'Kobold, do something.'

'What, like offering to be shot first?'

'That might help.'

'Would it?' Arthur asked Cornelius.

'Not much. But I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll have Anna shoot you and the king, and I'll take care of the paperwork myself.'

'No,' said the king. 'No, no, no. Stop all this at once. I have no wish to be shot. Tell me what it is you want. A train set, is it? Or a radio-controlled car? You just tell Father Christmas and he'll see what he can do.'

'I want you to cease interfering with mankind. I want you to leave us to run things our way. No more tampering. No more control. It has to stop. Right here. Right now.'

'I don't understand.' The king plucked at his beard.

'Are you suggesting that I should stop ruling the world?'

'That is correct.'

'Oh no. Oh no, no, no. I cannot be hearing this. Someone tell me I'm not hearing this.'

'You're not hearing this,' said Arthur Kobold.

'Bless you, Arthur. The voice of reason. I must be having a bad dream. Plump up my pillows and wake me with a cup of tea at noon.

The king closed his eyes.

'Can I have a piece of your cake?' Cornelius asked. The king opened his eyes. 'He's still here.

Arthur, do something. He's having my cake now.'

'Leave the king's cake alone,' said Arthur.

Cornelius pushed a large piece into his mouth. 'Hey, Tuppe,' he called, 'come and have a piece of Santa's cake.'

'It will end in tears,' said Tuppe, waddling over.

'Shoes!' shrieked the king.

'Now listen,' said Cornelius. 'The way I see it, you have two options.' Arthur hid his face. 'The first is, that you surrender to me now. Abdicate and cease all further interference with the world above.

Should you choose this option, then I will do everything in my power to see that no-one from the world above interferes with you.

'The second.' As the king was quite speechless, Cornelius went straight on to the second. 'The second is that you refuse this. In which case, I will stand aside and let Hugo Rune march in here with the army behind him, take the throne from you by force and probably kill you into the bargain. Me, I'm easy.

But I'd be interested to learn your pref-erence.

'Hugo?' spluttered the king. 'Hugo? Army? Force? Kill? What? What? What?'

'There's been a bit of a situation,' said Arthur Kobold. 'Apparently Hugo Rune has kidnapped the Queen and is planning to blame it on us and lead an army down here to wipe us all out. That's why Murphy's here, you see. Sort of.'

The king groaned and buried his face in his hands.

'I'm sure this must be very distressing for you,' said Cornelius. 'And I'm sure you'd like some timeto think about it.'

'I would,' mumbled the king.

'But regrettably you can't have any. So what's it going to be? The first option, or the second option?'

'I think it will probably have to be the second option,' said the voice of Hugo Rune.

29.

Father Christmas suddenly found his throne pulled from under him, and himself sprawling in a most unregal manner on the flagstone floor.

The throne then rose into the air, moved back a few feet and settled down. And Hugo Rune material-ized upon it. He was smoking a green cigar.

'It is I, Rune,' said Rune. 'None other. So mote it be.'

'Get off my throne.' The king thrashed about on the floor. 'Help me up, Kobold. Help me up.'

Arthur Kobold hastened to oblige. 'Get off the king's throne, you blackguard,' he said.

Hugo Rune ignored the both of them. He took out his pocket watch, flipped open the golden cover and perused the hour. 'We have some time left to pa.s.s before the overthrow of this evil em-pire,' he declared. 'Now, how best might we pa.s.s it? I know, don't tell me, you would like me to entertain you with fascinating episodes from my life.'

'I wouldn't,' said Tuppe. Rune threw him the merest of withering glances. 'That would be nice,' said the small fellow, hanging onto his mouth.

'I recall a time in Brunei.' Rune settled back in the king's throne and puffed at his cigar. Arthur struggled to right the king, but wasn't making much of a job out of it. 'The sultan had taken on my services as financial adviser. He wasn't the sultan then, of course, he was a rickshaw repair man, called Kwa-Ling, that's Mandarin for Colin. Now, I 'say that he took on my services, this is not strictly true.

For he did not know it then, nor has he ever known it.'

Cornelius was fascinated. Not by the tale. But by the man.

'Allow me to set the scene,' said Hugo Rune. 'A bar, roofed in bamboo and walled in native silks. It overlooks the South China Sea. I am seated therein, looking much as you see me today. Distinguished.

Stately. In repose. The year is 1923.'

'Stop,' cried the king. 'Just you stop. Kobold, get me up.

'I'm doing my best, sire.'

'Silence.' Rune stretched out his right hand and plucked at something in the air. A table materialized.

It was a pedestal table. And this time it was not covered by a silken cloth. On top of the table was displayed a perfect representation of the great hall and all who sat, stood, or had fallen over and were being helped back up, in it.

'Oh dear,' said Cornelius Murphy.

'What's that?' asked the king. 'A present? Has Hugo brought his old friend a present?'

'Hugo has not,' said Hugo Rune. 'Now kindly do not interrupt me again. I am dining with a close chum of mine, Sigmund Freud. Our chosen fare, vichy-ssoise, Blue Point oysters, lobster tails with drawn b.u.t.ter, clam chowder and soft-sh.e.l.l crabs. Washed down with Iced Finlandia vodka and white Almaden.

All brought in for me from Honolulu on the flying boat. In those days a gentleman was treated like a gentleman. The ma.s.ses knew their place.'

'Those were the days,' said the king.

'Shut up,' said Hugo Rune. 'Now, where was I?'

'Dining out with Clement Freud,' said Tuppe. 'You were having crab sticks and jellied eels. You didn't say who footed the bill.'

'The meal was concluded,' Rune went on. 'We drank brandy and shared a pipe of opium. Siggy, as was his way, when three sheets to the wind and stoned as a six-day camel, asked me this question, "Guru," he asked, "what's it all about then, eh?"

'Now, I am not one to sing my own praises, but I pride myself that this is one question I can answer to complete and utter satisfaction.'

Cornelius wondered whether he should ask Anna to shoot Hugo Rune. Possibly just in the foot or something.

'"There are exactly twenty-three really wonderful things in this world," I told Siggy, "and always to be in the right place at the right time is one of them." Siggy sniffed at this Ultimate Truth. He had a touch of the tropical ague.''Kobold,' said the king, 'remove Rune from my sight. He has lost the last of his marbles.'

Hugo Rune reached over to the pedestal table and gave it a little shake.

The great hall shuddered. Tabards tumbled from the walls. All those standing fell to the floor. The king, who was almost half up, collapsed on to Arthur Kobold. Cornelius clung to the king's table. Rune clung to his throne.

'Siggy sniffed,' said Rune, when some degree of normality had been restored. '"Allow me to demon-strate," I told him. "Pick the most useless individual you see in the bar." Siggy squinted all about the place, his eyesight was never up to much, but finally he pointed to the said Kwa-Ling, rickshaw repair man and town drunk. "Now," said I, viewing this speci-men, "what say you if I could make this fellow the richest man in the world?" "I would say," Siggy replied, "ask him for the lend of fifty guineas, that you might repay the loan I made you last year." Always the wag and the tight-wad, Siggy.'

The king had now manoeuvred himself to his knees and was wondering where Arthur Kobold had got to. Arthur, for his part, was now lodged firmly between the redly trousered cheeks of the king's bottom.

Tuppe considered this quite amusing.

Arthur Kobold did not.

'Will you please stop?' the king implored. 'You have told me this story before. And nonsense it all is. You uttered the words of some magic spell. The rickshaw repair man stumbled into the street and is immediately struck down by a pa.s.sing car. The driver, an American philanthropist, mortified by this, pays for his hospital bills and awards him a small sum of money. The rickshaw repair man buys himself a plot of land. The land turns out to be rich in mineral resources. He leases out the rights, buys more land, same thing happens, does it again and the same thing happens again and soon he's the richest man in the world.

It's rubbish.'

'It certainly is the way you tell it. But true, nevertheless.'

'No it's not. Because the Sultan of Brunei is not the richest man in the world, I am. And I have all the best spells and even I don't have that one.' The king found his feet (yes, they were on the ends of his legs, I know). 'Ugh!' went the king, plucking Arthur Kobold from his bottom. 'And all this is quite enough. Down to the dungeons, the lot of you. Kobold, lead them out.'

Rune's hand strayed once more towards the pedestal table.

'If I might just ask a question,' said Cornelius Murphy.

'Yes?' said Rune.

'Where is Her Majesty the Queen?'

Inspectre Hovis had been thrusting and parrying for quite some time.

'Have at you,' he cried, taking up the cla.s.sic fencer's position. Elbows on the desk, cigar in the mouth, and 'I know it's good gear, but the stuff's red hot and I can't move it on the open market, Plod would be down on me as quick as winking. I'll give you a "monkey" for it and no questions asked.'

The big green thingy scratched his head. 'Is that a misprint, or what?'

'Have at you, then.' Hovis took up the cla.s.sic fencer's pose. Knees slightly bent, left arm back and crooked at the elbow, left hand dangling, swordstick held firmly in the right, parallel to the ground and level with the tip of the nose.

'Have at you.' Slice. Twist. Cut. Thrust. 'Grab his legs, Terence,' cried the big green thingy. 'Leave me out.' Mulligan shook his head. 'I'm just a cabbie. I don't get involved in no bother.'

'What do you do if someone cuts up rough?' the other big green thingy asked him.

'Bung on the central locking and drive them straight round to the nearest nick.'

'Central locking. I'll bear that in mind.'

'It's compulsory on a black cab now. You're not allowed on the road without it.'

Hovis kicked the other big green thingy in the teeth, scattering many of these about the torture chamber.

'I know not of what you speak.' Rune flicked ash from the end of his cigar. 'The Queen? What ofthis?'

'If you've done anything to harm my wife,' roared the king.

'His wife?' said Anna.

Tuppe nodded. 'According to Rune, the Queen is one of them. She's not really a human being.'

'I never thought she was. She doesn't go to the toilet. Everyone knows that.'

'I knew it,' said Tuppe.

'The Queen is quite safe,' said Rune. 'Her exact whereabouts are known to myself alone.'

'You fiend!' cried the king.

Rune gave the pedestal table another little shake. Walls shook and the king fell over again. This time Arthur Kobold ducked well out of the way.

'As you must now be well aware,' said Hugo Rune, raising his bulk from the king's throne and positioning it behind the pedestal table, 'I am in control here. I have but to reach a finger into this microcosm and squash any one of you, as I might an ant.'

'Squash her first,' said Arthur, pointing at Anna.

'Why don't I have one of those tables?' asked the king.

'Pay attention.' Rune raised a finger. Everyone paid attention. 'You,' Rune pointed to the king. 'I would address your people. Summons them here.'