An Eyeful of Evil from the Devil of St Ivel!

Volume II, Chapter 2: An Eyeful of Evil from the Devil of St Ivel!

Professor Donald McQueen (the nation’s favourite Bibliographer) sets out from Timor Mortis College, Noxford, to seek his apparently-kidnapped pussy-cat. He is distracted from his course by Oskar the Busker (a lascar), and his dog Tosca, and by a disturbing encounter with Johnny Rotten and The Bibliography Pistols. What does the egregious Cornelius Bunce keep in the dungeon beneath his rooms at St Ivel College? How can Gruberschickle’s tomato ketchup be used to break through a locked iron grille? Was the appalling American (or perhaps Canadian) disc-jockey Paul Cheese strangled by his agent or by his own internal organs? Who is the greatest lyricist the English-speaking world has ever know? The answers to some of these questions will be found in this here thrilling episode of The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer!

Written and performed by Paul W. Nash

With special guests

Elizabeth Crowley
William Hale
Rebecca Howard
Lucy Matheson
Georgina Shomroni
Iona Spark
David Stumpp
Stewart Tiley

Transcript

The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer!

Volume II, Chapter 2

Announcer: The adventures of Donald McQueen, bibliographer … Volume II, Chapter 2. An eyeful of evil from the devil of Saint Ivel!

Donald McQueen: At the end of the previous chapter of these, The adventures of Donald McQueen, bibliographer, your hero, myself, Donald McQueen in the flesh, or represented in words upon the finely-printed page you are holding, and perhaps visible in your mind’s eye too, as a tall, handsome scholar in his bibliographer’s smock and academic gown, his silver locks flowing and his snowy beard abristle, that is to say I, was relating the terrible story of the kidnapping of my beloved cat, Doggerel, as I believed by the Napoleon of Bibliographical Crime, Cornelius Bunce … Bunce, Bunce … my great rival and nemesis (as I am his) in bibliography, in life and in matters of the heart … But more of that anon. For now I must return to my terrible story and remember what happened following the murder of Bunce’s manservant Little Dave Wilkins who had been involved in the catnapping plot. 

DM (after a pause): Where is that harp music coming from? I was here in my rooms, here at Timor Mortis, and the strains of the harp appeared to be entering by the window on the street side – co-incidentally the same window at which Bunce’s trained woodpecker had tapped last year, in the reminiscence I am intending shortly to complete.

DM: There it is again. It is definitely coming from the street … I crossed to the street-side of my capacious study and peered through the casement, down into the bustling Broadish Street of Noxford town. There, on the pavement three storeys below sat a well-known Noxford character, Oskar the busker, a bewhiskered lascar, with his dog Tosca. I opened the window and hailed the busker … Oskar! I have something for you … the old man looked up and, even at my great distance above him, and his great distance below me, I could see the piercing blue of his eyes, and the cuteness of his shrewd smile.

Oskar: Hey, your lordship. A very good morning to you, Sir! I trust you are well, and your little dog too!

DM: It’s a cat, Oskar, a cat!

Oskar: Quite so, a little cat. I trust you are well, and your little cat too, Sir!

DM: He’s rather a large cat actually – too much applaws, I fear – but that is by the way. He is well, and so am I, thank you, Oskar.

Oskar: It does this old soldier’s, and sailor’s, heart good to hear you say it Sir … Did I tell you I was an old soldier, and sailor?

DM: Oskar was famous for his obsession with his former military career, which I suspected to be wholly fictitious, and told everyone he ever spoke to that he was an old soldier and an old sailor. But I decided to humour him and called out … No, I don’t think you ever did mention that.

O: Oh yes, sir I am old soldier, and an old sailor. That’s how I lost this leg …

DM: He indicated his lower limbs, where he sat cross-legged on the pavement. I squinted. It was quite clear that he had two complete legs … You appear to have two complete legs …

O: Quite right, Sir, but I used to have more. This is all I have left.

DM: I see. Now, I wonder, what regiment were you in?

O: The Oskars, sir!

DM: Is that a regiment? I thought it was some sort of degree-ceremony they hold in the United States for those universities which offer degrees in film-studies.

O: No Sir, the Oskars is an ancient and noble regiment of the Cornish Pasties.

DM: The Cornish Pasties?

O: The Cornish Pasties, Sir, the force assembled from the best soldiers of the Cornish peninsula … You know, Sir, from Truro, the Cornish Pasties … Of which the Oskars is a regiment … Entirely made up of people called Oskar.

DM: Entirely made up, I would say. And how many men were in your regiment? 

O: Seven, sir. Seven Oskars, the bravest, noblest fighting men the Cornish peninsula had ever seen. But your question is a very clever one, sir, for you use the word ‘men’. The whole idea, militarily, was to create regiments which could only be joined by men, thus excluding all the women, and indeed non-humans, who had tried to enlist for the military since universal suffrage was introduced. Only men are ever called Oskar …

DM: I felt he was wrong about this, recalling a muppet of the name, who had once stood for the Presidency of the United States of America – one of several muppets with that ambition – but he had failed to achieve the White House when it was revealed by the press that he had been born in a dustbin, or a ‘trashcan’ as they called it, and not an American trashcan, but one in Canada, so that he was not eligible to stand for the Presidency. In any case, the citizens of the USA were not at that time ready for a President who was green! It was later alleged that Oskar had murdered Cookie Monster because he suspected the latter of having an affaire du coeur with his lady-friend, Grundgetta … But it could never be proven, and the disappearance of Cookie Monster remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of … Sesame Street. However, I decided not to stop Oskar the Busker in his flight just to make this point, and let him continue.

Oskar: … Only men are ever called Oskar, and so the name was determined as the criterion for membership. Several other regiments were set up at the same time. Some names had to be avoided – the Daves, for instance, as occasionally women named Davina or similar are known as ‘Dave’ – but they did manage to establish regiments of Arthurs, Jonahs, Brians, Ruperts and Nathans, although the Michaels and Olivers were both disbanded for obvious reasons.

DM: Obvious reasons? Not obvious to me, I am afraid.

O: Well, sir, it is obvious! There is a Princess Michael, and then there is Oliver Coleman … Both are of the female persuasion, sir.

DM: I have never heard of Oliver Coleman.

O: Oh, you know, professor, Oliver Colemen, off the telly.

DM: I only watch a few television programmes, in a discriminating manner, and have so far failed to notice anyone by the name of Oliver Colemen, who is a woman. But I must accept, I suppose, that such a person exists … So, in relation to your career, in the Oskars, did you see much action?

O: Oh yes, sir, we was part of Her Majesty’s task force in the Cinnamon Islands, fighting Johnny Huguenot, and later I led the first wave of commandos in the illegal invasion of Legoland. That was a bloody conflict, I can tell you, Sir. I saw my comrades stand on small plastic bricks with bare feet, and worse, and could show you the scars on my breast and hips, and the scars on my mind, sir, the scars on my mind … Would you spare, perhaps, a few shillings, for an old soldier, sir?

DM: I took out my purse and drew out a shiny guinea, which I wrapped in a five-pound note, on which I wrote the following words: ‘go away’. I dropped the little package from the window, and Oskar caught it nimbly in his hat. He unwrapped the coin and read the note on the note.

O: Shall I play you a rhapsody on my harp before I go, sir? I am an old soldier, and an old sailor, you know …

DM: Yes, thank you, that would be lovely.

DM: That distraction having been dealt with, I shall return to my narrative. You may recall that I had tried and failed to use the magical Ear-trumpet of Death to locate my beloved Doggerell, who I believed to have been kidnapped by the worst bibliographer in the world, Cornelius Bunce, and was now waiting in a fever of anxiety for the miscreant to make his next move. There seemed, at this stage, no hope of the police force taking any further action, and I feared the rattattat of another green woodpecker at my casement momently. But no word came, and at last I determined to take some action myself. I reasoned thuswise. If Bunce had snatched Doggerel he must have secured him somewhere. Knowing the extreme laziness and arrogance of my foe I thought it unlikely that he would have taken him far away, and would most probably be holding him somewhere within the city of Noxford itself. Was not the most likely place Saint Ivel College, where Bunce had his rooms and had, until very recently, accommodated his Andaman-Island manservant Little Dave Wilkins? True, the police had searched the place. But they are notorious bunglers and had recently failed to apprehend the infamous Captain Birdseye, the nautical child-catcher, despite his living on a small fishing boat which was moored, at the time, directly outside Plumb Valley Police Headquarters. It was said of the Noxford police that they could not find their own arses in the dark with both hands, but I think this an unworthy criticism as experience suggests that, when searching for their own arses, they would be more likely to make use of a helicopter.

So, I determined to leave Timor Mortis college and make my way to Saint Ivel. If I was lucky, Bunce would be absent, on some unspecified but undoubtedly evil errand, and I could, with guile and dexterity, gain access to his rooms and search for my missing companion. If I was unfortunate, Bunce would be at home and I would have to face him and attempt to learn the truth from his own thin lips. I anticipated some possibility of violence in such an encounter, and determined to take my friendly revolver with me. Then I remembered that I did not possess a friendly revolver – and made a note to myself to acquire one as soon as possible. I picked up instead the bottle of Grubberschickle’s tomato ketchup which stood upon my breakfast table.

The bottle was almost full, and would make a handy cudgel. That is another of the many virtues of the condiment – in addition to its resurrectional claims, it comes now in a tall and elegant glass container, not unlike a small yard-of-ale – perhaps a foot-and-a-half-of-ale – so that it forms, when the bulb is full of ketchup – a beautifully-weighted and potentially murderous weapon. I slipped it into the side pocket of my bibliographer’s smock and threw on my academic gown ….

I will have to have a word with that bloody lascar. I gave him six pounds and five new pence to go away.

As I emerged from the rusticated portico of Timor Mortis College I noticed, parked close against the curb directly outside, a Chevrolet van painted with garish psychedelic motifs in bright green and blue, and with the words ‘Bibliographical mystery machine’ painted in lurid orange upon the side-panel. At that moment a stocky, scruffy individual in bondage trousers and a shorty kaftan emerged from the open back door of the vehicle and, catching sight of me, waved a clumsy arm and hailed me thus:

Johnny Rotten: Professor Donald McQueen, as I live and almost breathe!

McQ: Somewhat cautiously, I approached the fellow. His face was lined and grinning, like a cheerful turnip, and his sparse hair was teased up with some sort of unguent into a series of foothills on his dome. I vaguely recognized the chap. Are you …?

JR: I am honoured to fink that you might recognize me, sir!

McQ: Is it … Johnny Rotten, the … punk.

JR: It is! But I don’t use that name no more. I prefer the monica John or Johannes, just call me John, or Johannes. And I am no longer a punk, but a respectable, butter-advertising gentleman of bibliographical bent.

McQ: I could see two further gentlemen inside the van, similarly attired in the costumes of another age, and an elderly woman with a mass of dyed-black hair piled upon her head and white pancake make-up, which made her look a little like Benito Mussolini, in a wig. If you are … John … Then these must be the Sex Pistols?

JR: You are quite correct sir. We have reformed, but have now eschewed ‘Sex’ in favour of Bibliography, so that we are now ‘The Bibliography Pistols’. And we have eschewed the music too. Now we are travelling the world in our trusty van, solving bibliographical mysteries wherever we can. Let me introduce you to the crew …

McQ: One of the gentlemen blundered from the van and into the light. Although he was now an old man, I felt I recognized him too … It is … Sid, is it not?

JR: No, sir. Sid is no longer with us. This is Glen. He’s back in the band to play the ba … actually he mostly does the collation formulae. He’s a whizz at the collation formulae.

McQ: I see … Another fellow was stumbling forth. He was dressed just like the other two gentlemen, and put his arm round Glen, with an idiotic grin. I did not recognize this one, and had to admit to myself that my memories of the music of the 1970s were not, perhaps, all they might have been.

JR: This is Steve. He used to play the guitar, but now he is mostly a paper man, you know, he does the watermarks … 

Steve (à la Shaggy): Zoiks, Johnny, it’s Donald McQueen!

JR: And this …

McQ: The elderly woman emerged from the van, and I felt certain I did recognize her. It’s Nancy Spungen, isn’t it? You invented something well-known? Nancy Spungen, inventor of the dungeon? Or was it the sponge … Or the truncheon? Or the sponge and the truncheon?

JR: No, no, no, no, no. This is not Nancy. Nancy, like Sidney, is no longer with us. This is Suzy, though she’s dropped the silly spelling and now prefers Susan Susan. She’s our expert on the history of bookbinding. There’s nothing she don’t know about corner- and centre-piece ornaments of the sixteeneeth century, and she’s pretty hot on panel-stamps too … 

McQ: So, you are the Bibliography Pistols, and you solve bibliographical mysteries?

JR: Right. We even have a talking dog!

McQ: At this an enormous, and oddly-coloured, great Dane burst from the van, and stood beside Mr Rotten on his hind legs, drooling like a village idiot ... He’s a talking dog?

JR: Oh yes, sir. We have named him, of course, after the father of modern bibliography, Henry Bradshaw.

Dog (a la Scooby Doo): Henry Bradshaw!

McQ: I see. And what are you doing here, in Noxford?

JR: We have come to see you Professor.

McQ: Me?

JR: Oh yes, sir. You are engaged in a bibliographical mystery and we are here to solve it for you. I speak of none other than the great mystery of the Codex assinorum.

McQ: At this, I bridled. What could this punk know of the Codex assinorum? What could you, I said, know of the Codex assinorum?

JR: I am but a humble disciple, seated at your feet, sir, but I know a little. Was it truly created without the use of conventional letterpress printing, by the application of a series of stencils created with punches as the brilliant Professor Pinkelman has suggested? Or was it printed in the traditional manner, from movable types, on a series of substrates of different eras, and flavours, brought together for the purpose some years after the date of colophon, as Dr Van Driver believes? Surely Kleinwald’s dancing caterpillar theory is absurd. But is there perhaps some other explanation for the mystery? And I am convinced, with advice from Mr Steve here, that some of those watermarks have been mis-identified. Surely the two whistling radishes are actually whistling turnips, which would place the manufacture of that paper-stock in northern Italy rather than in Switzerland, and in the Pythagoras watermark the great mathematician seems to me to be yawning at sight not of an equilateral triangle but of a rhombus.

McQ: I had to admit, he did know his stuff. Here was not, as I had first thought, a foolish amateur in the field, but a serious rival to my crown of solver of the great mystery. Was I now to be pursued around Noxford, and indeed the world, by Johnny Rotten and the Bibliography Pistols, and Henry Bradshaw the talking dog, in their garishly-painted bibliographical mystery machine? I had to head him off … You are a humble disciple indeed, with a good deal to be humble about. I am flattered by your interest in this mystery, but I tell you, it is solved! I know the truth, and await only the right moment to publish what I will call ‘the solution’ in the Journal of the Bibliographical Society of London. You would do better to address your talents to some other mystery … perhaps the identity of the first printer in Venice to use squirrels in the manufacture of his printing ink … I hoped that this would both deter him from pursuing my mystery, and cause him and his barely-recognisable crew to decamp to Italy.

JR: I am sorry to hear you say that, Professor, for I do not believe it to be true. The mystery remains, and we will solve it, with or without your co-operation.

McQ: So, it is to be a bibliographical duel then? Between me, Professor Donald McQueen of Timor Mortis College, Noxford … and the Sex Pistols.

JR: ‘The Bibliography Pistols’, please. And it need only be a duel if you will it so. I, and my companions, are willing to join forces with you and help you to glory. What do you say Professor?

McQ: Never! Never! Never! I turned from the presumptuous fellow, and stalked away down Broadish Street and swiftly into Churl Street, that narrow thoroughfare that links the Broadish with the High.

I would rather not have been distracted at that moment by thoughts of the Codex assinorum for I was on a mission, as the reader will recall, to scour St Ivel College for any sign of my missing feline companion. Soon enough I reached the towering walls of that great seat of learning in Knobbler Street. It is one of the medieval colleges of Noxford, though not so ancient as Timor Mortis, and is notable for the dark, almost black, granite from which it was constructed. Its great tower is naturally built at a slight angle, and bears a pointed spire which twists over to one side like a great claw scratching at the dark clouds which invariably gather above the parapets. The only birds which seem able to tolerate the skies above St Ivel are corvids, and a number of the black creatures – crows or rooks, perhaps – wheeled about the twisted tower with its crooked spire as I approached. The great door was naturally closed against me, and for a minute or so I considered using the catflap, as Little Dave Wilkins had done but a few days previously. But I was too dignified, and too fat, for such an insertion and instead knocked upon the smooth oaken panels, employing the ‘Noxford Knock’, a secret sign known only to senior members of the University. I will have to ask my readers to look away from the page while I record that sign …

You may uncover your eyes now. The great portal swung open, and I swept inside, barely noticing the tiny, insect-like custodian in his scarlet bombazine, who had actually opened the door for me. I passed into the quadrangle. Suddenly, from the college chapel came the sound of the St Ivel Organ Scholar, hard at work practising upon the great organ of the college, a mighty and sinister instrument, famous for its powerful pipes and the fact that it could only ever be played in the minor key … Some of my readers, those who fancy they may know a little about music, perhaps, may wonder how this is possible. It is achieved by the expedient of having a fifth row of stops above those for the swell organ with which a minor key has to be selected. If no key is selected the organ will not sound at all. But if D minor, for example – one of my own favourite keys – is chosen, only the notes D flat, D, E, F, G, A and B flat will sound on each of the manuals and on the pedal-board. Thus, when playing Mr Bach’s famous toccata and fugue in this key upon the instrument the result sounds lovely, until those moments when the music resolves into D major, and at that point a quite different, and dismal, effect is achieved. Some organists have been known to lose their reason while playing this piece upon the great organ of St Evil, and have rushed out after the coda and drowned themselves in the leaden waters of the River Plum.

In the centre of the quadrangle stands a black marble statue of St Ivel himself. The college does not, of course, claim the Saint as its founder. That would be absurd for, as you will know, Ivel was a monk born around the year 810 in Yellowing, which was then a hamlet of mud huts, while St Ivel College could trace its existence back only as far as 1386, when a group of Ivelites, followers of St Ivel, had come to together to create a college upon Ivelist principles, in opposition to the Knobblerites who were amassing in the same street. Since the middle ages, St Ivel – the individual – has been credited with the invention of many important compounds, elements and mechanisms which we take for granted today. He was said to have invented triangular cheese, for example, and gold, and buttermilk, and monocles, and winking, brown shoes, clockwork mice, vampiric milk and the cappuccino. But historians today poo-poo these claims, and suggest that the historical St Ivel was in reality a bit of a tosser. Nevertheless, there he stood before me, tall and thin in his monkish garb, a monocle fixed in his good eye, and winking disgustingly with his bad. I noticed, for the first time, a curious similarity between the facial features of this statue – no doubt entirely fictionalized, as no true likeness of St Ivel survives – and my arch-enemy Cornelius Bunce … Bunce, Bunce, the … well, you know what I think of Bunce. Had this representation of St Ivel possessed long hair falling down about his face like the locks of Mr Rick Wakeman, rather than the monastic tonsure he sported, he would have been the spitting image of Bunce, had Bunce been caught in the act of wearing a monocle and winking.

I walked slowly round the quadrangle reading the names on the little wooden plaques at the foot of each staircase. Professor Julius Julius. Dr Penelope Brick. Sir Fancy Yesterday. Dr Regulus Snorkhandler. Professor Brian Jungletop – I know him, a rogue of the first water – Professor Joan Twococks. Dr Regulus Caltrop – I reflected that it was unusual for a Noxford college to have two dons with the forename Regulus, but then recalled that there was a special fund at St Ivel for the benefit of people named Regulus, established by an eccentric loom-merchant, one Regulus Fortune, who had made a regular fortune from his mighty looms and endowed the college in the nineteenth century. I continued my circumambulation of the quadrangle. Dr Jack ‘the hat’ McVitie – so this was where he had been hiding out! Dr Mnemosine Parsnip. Lady Scarlett Toothsome-Villain. Dr Vick Pegg. Professor Randolph Nancy-Boy. And there, at last, at the foot of staircase seventeen, was the name I had been looking for, Professor Cornelius Bunce, MPhil, CPhil, LPhil, SPhil (which stand, of course, for the bogus qualifications Phil Mitchell, Phil Collins, Phil Lynott and Phil Silvers), FRSA, FIBOUS, GIT. The sight of these abbreviations naturally made my blood boil. There is a little sliding panel on each name-board which can be moved to reveal or conceal the word ‘in’ or ‘out’, and next to Bunce’s name the word revealed was ‘out’. I was in luck. His rooms were on the ground floor too, so I would not have even to labour up the impossibly crooked staircase which rose within the archway, like something from a wood-engraving by Mr Escher or a multi-media intaglio print by Signor Piranesi. I crept into the archway and tried the door on the left at the foot of the stairs, a door which bore the initials ‘CMB’ in gothic lettering (I knew that Bunce’s middle-name was ‘Marigold’, although he has sometimes claimed it was Marcellus). The door was locked but not, I perceived with a conventional mechanism or even with a combination lock, but with an electronic device of some sort. There was a little winking green light beside a domed grille, set into a silver box beside the door-frame. I considered for a moment and then, attempting to imitate Bunce’s voice as best I could, said into the grille ‘Parchment and vellum are, essentially, the same material’. At once there was a gentle click and the door swung open. The scent of lavender and mothballs filled my nostrils and, in a moment, I was inside my enemy’s lair!

I switched on the light, and the room was bathed in a slightly greenish glow. A cheerful fire was crackling in the grate, and an emaciated dog – perhaps a large whippet or a small greyhound – was lying before it, apparently asleep. I had known even before I entered that room that Bunce was a dog-person! I crossed quietly to the fireplace, striving to let this particular sleeping dog lie, but was a little surprised to find when I drew closer that the dog was not in fact alive, but had been stuffed, and badly stuffed too. Its face was more of a hairy skull than a face as such … This called to mind Bunce’s threat to stuff my beloved Doggerel if I did not deliver the trumpet into his hands, and I felt my black bile, and my determination to rescue my companion, rising at the thought. On the mantel stood several stuffed birds, including two green woodpeckers, equally badly executed, and in opposite corners of the room I now perceived a small crocodile standing on its back legs and holding a silver-topped cane, and an immensely fat wombat wearing a fez. I inferred that another of Bunce’s infernal hobbies was taxidermy, at which art he was no more skilled than he was in his other endeavours, including the arts of love and of bibliography!

I quickly searched his rooms, which showed almost unlimited evidence of evil. His library was tidy! The books were catalogued in a card-index which stood beside the door. And the cataloguing was completely up to date. The notes upon his desk were well-ordered, in neat piles, and his handwriting was handsome and legible. At the centre of his desk was the manuscript of a paper he was evidently writing entitled ‘Whither Print Culture?’. My lips curled. To misquote Herr Goebels, when ever I hear the words ‘print culture’ I reach for my gun. Beside this lay a typed notice from the college authorities listing the new students who had matriculated at St Ivel this year, each with a short biography. In a few cases the student was evidently of no particular gender – is ‘middlesex’ the right word? – and was referred to with the pronominal forms ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘their’ etcetera. In each case Bunce had gone through with his fountain pen, altering these words to ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘he’ and ‘she’, as seemed appropriate to him … The socks in his sock-drawer were all accurately paired and in a good state of preservation. All his collars had been recently starched. I could go on and on, presenting evidence of his perfidy, but these few examples will serve to indicate what sort of man Cornelius Marigold Bunce was and is. The paintings on his walls, the sculptures in his corners, the foully-stuffed animals which denizened his rooms, the generally neat and well-ordered nature of the place all screamed that this was the lair of the worst of men, and a bogus scholar to boot.

But where was Doggerel? There was no sign of the little fellow. I fancied I knew his smell, so sniffed the air, but could catch no familiar scent, only the cloying odours of laundry and naphthalene. It occurred to me that moths really ought to wash their balls a little more often, and so prevent them smelling quite so pungent. There was another scent too, a chemical odour, sweet and dense and oddly familiar. What was it? I sniffed around in Bunce’s rooms and found the smell was strongest in his bed-chamber, where a great four-poster hung with black embroideries dominated the room. The smell, which I had now tentatively identified as that of formaldehyde, was strongest around the bed. I recalled that this chemical was often used in the processes of taxidermy and that I had, so far, found no taxidermical workshop, so that I began to suspect the existence of a secret panel somewhere in that room, which would give onto a secret portion of Bunce’s palace of evil. I began to rap upon the panelled walls and tap with the toe of my shoe upon the skirting boards. Beside the bed was a little alcove set into the wall, full of books, and two uniformly-bound volumes caught my eye. The title tooled in gold upon the red leather lettering-piece of one was ‘Pompei and Herculaneum’ and upon the other ‘Vesuvius’. This seemed a little out of keeping with what I knew of Bunce. I could see nothing inherently wicked in these books, or in a study of the subject they suggested. But then I recalled that the traditional place for a crazed recidivist who believed himself to be an evil genius to make his headquarters was beneath the bowl of an extinct volcano. I tried to draw the volume marked ‘Vesuvius’ from the alcove. But it stuck fast. I pushed at it instead, and was not entirely surprised when it moved backwards with a click and, a moment later, the great bed slid gently into the wall revealing beneath it a black chasm with a stone staircase leading down.

A strong scent of formaldehyde wafted from the depths, and I knew I had found the next level in my enemy’s private apartments. Taking out my bibliographer’s torch – I keep it of course for examining watermarks, and printed impressions and blind-tooled bindings in a raking light – I began to descend into the darkness. 

The staircase seemed to descend for many metres, many storeys, into the earth, down, down into the black bowels of Noxford … but was probably only about twenty metres in full extent, at which point I entered a stone-lined corridor with small chambers, like prison cells, each behind a rusty iron grille, on either side. Indeed this cellar resembled nothing so much as a medieval dungeon. I walked slowly on, shining my bibliographer’s torch ahead of me, and into each of the cells as I passed it. Here was a very-badly stuffed lion, here a series of black capes and masks hung up in a row like a sinister close-harmony singing group, here was small chemical laboratory, with bubbling retorts and effervescent potions, here was the taxidermist’s workshop I had conjectured to exist where a long workbench was strewn with bloody tools, and scraps of bone and fur. A tin bucket beneath was dark with blood and entrails, and the smell of death hung heavy in the air. In the centre of the bench was a dark, fur-clad body, the size of a small dog, or a large cat, lying upon a slab with its intestines spread across the bench. My heart rose into my mouth, then into my nose, then into my brain, and out through my skull – or so it seemed. Could this be my beloved Doggerel? I raised high my torch and pushed it through the bars of the grille, better to illuminate the scene within. I drew a great sigh of relief. My heart re-entered my skull and dropped down again, through my nose and mouth and back into place within my torso, where I hoped it would remain for the foreseeable future, and would not be tempted to drop into my boots. This was not Doggerel but some other creature. The fur, though dark, was redder, and the face, though furry and whiskery, was longer and had small, naked ears, and the tail was quite different, being as thick and long as Doggerel’s but hairless and scaly. Could this be … the Giant Rat of Sumatra? 

I moved on, past further cells, each holding prisoner some aspect of Bunce’s wicked personality. Here was a gilded effigy of Noel Edmunds; here the cured pelts of half a dozen wombles were displayed upon a frame, their heads still attached, the weight of their long noses drawing their vidages downwards so that they appeared the very image of dejection; here was a small hydroponic dome beneath which giant Brussels sprouts were growing. I perceived a faint reddish light coming from the next chamber on the left and, when I reached it, found a small altar set up there beyond the bars. A low table was draped with a black velvet cloth upon which stood a silver bell and a candlestick containing a single red candle, which burned before a silver framed portrait of … could it be? Again I thrust my torch through the bars and raised it high. Yes. There was no mistaking those lovely features. The icon upon Bunce’s altar was a photographic portrait of Minerva Columba, the sweet dove, my one true and only love … It must have been taken shortly before she was taken, some fifty-five years ago … But I could not be distracted by such concerns. I had to remain focused upon the purpose of my quest … As I moved on it occurred to me that this brief episode in my life would make an excellent, dramatic section of my Adventures, and a still more effective and thrilling extended scene in the moving picture which Mr Steelbag, or whatever his name is, will no doubt insist upon making as soon as the second volume of my great work is complete …

The light of my torch began to fade. The battery was waining. I had to press on and achieve my end. I hurried along the corridor, glancing as cursorily as I dared to left and right as I advanced, until I came to the end of the stone corridor, where there was another grille which prevented me from any further progress. Beyond was a slightly larger cell, into which I shone my dwindling light. There, at last, was my precious companion. He lay curled up, apparently asleep, upon a tall black pouffe, just a metre inside the bars. I called out to him softly. ‘Doggerel’. He stirred but did not wake. I raised the torch a little and perceived that he was sleeping, not, as I had first thought, upon a tall black pouffe, but upon the lap of my enemy, Cornelius Bunce. I am sorry. That is my phone. I am slightly surprised to find that there is a signal down here. Hmmm. It’s Daniella Oz. I had better take it … Hello?

Daniella Oz (on phone): Queenie! 

DM: Daniella. How lovely to hear from you.

DO: Lovely to hear your voice too. I wanted to talk to you about the forthcoming election at the Temple …

DM: I am terribly sorry Daniella. I am just in the middle of rescuing my cat from a dungeon. May I call you back?

DO: Yes, of course. But please don’t forget. It is very important. I want to be able to rely upon your vote …

DM: My vote is between me and the ballot box! But between you, me and the bedpost, I can tell you that I will be voting for you. But please don’t tell the ballot-box!

DO: Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know … And, good luck with the cat rescue!

DM: Thank you. Now, where was I? Oh yes, I had just discovered that the black pouffe my beloved cat was sleeping upon had feet, wearing shoes, and above that the rest of the person of the egregious Cornelius Bunce … I do hope my phone is not going to ring again. Perhaps I had better switch it off. FX click That’s better. Bunce’s yellow, toad-like face stared back at me from the gloom, unmoving but seemingly malevolent, hostile, about to burst forth with a torrent of righteous abuse. I waited. Nothing happened. Bunce did not move. His face was always yellowish, sweaty and blotchy, but here he seemed more waxen and unnatural than ever. Was he dead? No. I perceived that this was not Bunce at all but some sort of dummy, a lifelike effigy of the man, a waxwork in his own museum of evil. Most men, and women, and sane beings of all sorts, do not keep dummies of themselves in their cellars. But for Bunce it seemed, when I came to think about it, perfectly natural. He had, no doubt, some duplicitous intent, to deflect some intended harm from himself to this dummy, or to use it to delay the forces of good in their pursuit of this master of evil, or perhaps just to frighten children at a party … In any case, I had nothing to fear from such an inanimate personification.

I looked at the grille before me. It had a door set into it, with a sturdy-looking lock. I tried it but was not surprised to find it locked. I tried it again, just to make sure. I had noticed locks on the other grilles I had passed, but no keys had been left usefully, or carelessly, in the keyholes. What was I to do? Then I remembered that I had about my person a fluid which was famous for its ability to eat through metal, like a vole through a chair-leg, or a man through a Toblerone – Gruberschickle’s tomato ketchup. It can also eat through metal. Indeed so injurious is this condiment to all metals that the stopper of the bottle has to be made of vulcanized rubber. I took the heavy, elegant bottle from my pocket and removed the stopper. I fancied it might take too long to eat through enough bars of the grille to allow me to squeeze through, so I concentrated my attack upon the lock of the gate, pouring a few drops of the delicious fluid onto the portion of the bolt which I could see between the lock and the box. In no time at all the lock was breached, the gate swung open and I gained access to the cell where Doggerel had been kept a prisoner for so long. On hearing the door open, the beautiful creature awoke, and perceiving that it was I, his servant rather than his master, he roused himself and leapt into my arms with a happy noise.

Now, at this point, were this to be some implausibly plotted crime drama on the television, or a novel of suspense of the most contrived character, I would have been disturbed, probably by the unexpectedly returning figure of Cornelius Bunce himself, who would have appeared silently in the doorway at just the moment of this happy re-union. But this is no fiction. This is real life. And Bunce was still far away on some evil mission, and I escaped easily with my companion from that temple of evildoing. I slipped Doggerel into the side-pocket of my bibliographer’s smock and, closing the iron gate behind me, stole back along the corridor, using the last fading light from my professional torch to guide me. I passed up the stairs and closed up the secret door by pulling back the volume marked ‘Vesuvius’ beside Bunce’s bed. I returned to his study, writing the word ‘wanker’ beneath his name on the paper entitled ‘Whither Print Culture?’ before turning out the light and quitting his chambers. As I crossed the quadrangle of St Evil College I perceived that Doggerel was now soundly asleep – I could hear his heavy snoring and feel his great, fat body expanding and contracting against my left flank – and I reflected that in this chapter of my adventures I had not had any opportunity to use the Ear Trumpet of Death and had thus failed to advance my study of the Codex asinorum or indulged my curiosity about what might happen next in that singular Scottish radio drama Dr Thinley’s casebook. Such excitement, such thrills and jeopardy, will have to wait, I fear, for the next chapter in The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer!

Announcer: That was The adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer. Today’s chapter was sponsored by the Bibliographical Society of London, and by Gruberschickle’s tomato ketchup, the only condiment which can bring you love, cure the sick and raise the dead. It was written and performed by Paul W. Nash with special guests Elizabeth Crowley, William Hale, Rebecca Howard, Lucy Matheson, Georgina Shomroni, Iona Spark, David Stumpp and Stewart Tiley. Musical themes were stolen from Johann Sebastian Bach and Ritchie Valens.

Next time in The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer. 
 

Announcer: And now on BBC Radio Noxford another episode in the series The great lyricists, with Paul Cheese.

Cheese: Hello and welcome to another episode of The great lyricists with me, Paul Cheese, that American, or perhaps Canadian, disc-jockey who has been hanging round in the United Kingdom for the past thirty years for no very obvious reason.

And boy, oh boy, do we I have a treat for you today. In what has been called – by me – the clash of the titans of the century of all time, I am bringing you a recording of that event! Oh yes, the moment at Lyric-Con 86 when the greatest American lyricist of all time, Mr Stephen Sondheim, went head-to-head with the finest talent that the United Kingdom has to offer, yes, none other than Sir Timothy Tim Rice himself. This was the ultimate lyric-off, the zenith of the Lyric-Con in 1986, when these two titans faced each other across the green-baize table in front of nearly a million breathless musical theatre fanatics in the Royal Albert Hall. Let’s waste no more time in hyperbole, but go straight to the recording of this pivotal moment in the history of lyric-writing in the twentieth, or any other, century, when the world held its breath and waited for an answer to the question – who is the greatest writer of lyrics for light musical comedy of all time. You are about to hear history in the making. Your commentator for this once in a lifetime, never-to-be-forgotten, encounter was the one-and-only Peter O’Sullevan. Let’s go now, with him, to the Royal Albert … (he is strangled by his own intestines).

O’Sullevan: Welcome to the Albert Hall, where a huge crowd awaits the arrival of the two protagonists in this great competition … And here they come. First Sir Tim Rice walks into the arena, resplendent in a deep purple smoking jacket and bottle-green corduroys, with a paisley cravat and waving a bright yellow handkerchief at the audience … And here comes the American challenger, Steven Sondheim himself, dressed in blue jeans, a buckskin waistcoat (what the Americans call a ‘vest’) over a Snoopy T-shirt, with a white Stetson on his head. He raises both hands above his head in the familiar gesture of defiance and triumph … and takes his seat at the green-baize table in the centre of the arena. Rice is in no hurry to join him, however. He knows the crowd is with him today, despite the huge number of American taxi-drivers flown in by Sondheim to pack the front three rows at the Albert Hall. Rice turns slowly about, acknowledging the cheers of the crowd, and finally takes his place at the table opposite his opponent and lifelong enemy. As the crowd grows hushed they stare at one another across the green-baize. Before the match the referee strangled a chicken and gave the contestants the wishbone to pull, and it was the American who got the thick end and chose to open hostilities … 

Referee: Quiet please ladies and gentlemen. Players are ready.

O: Sondheim leans in towards the microphone, narrows his eyes, and opens his mouth to speak.

Sondheim (slowly): Isn’t it rich? Aren’t we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air!

Crowd: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

O: Well, it’s a blinding opening from the American. How can the English boy possibly respond to that? … He doesn’t look perturbed, however, but takes out a tortoiseshell comb and runs it once, twice through his silver locks. Then he leans towards the microphone …

Rice (equally slowly): Wasn’t’ it good? Wasn’t he fine? Isn’t it madness he can’t be mine?

O: He’s done it! We didn’t think he could, but Rice has responded in kind, with a lyric of equal beauty, equal profundity, and the crowd are loving it.

Man in crowd: Come on Tim!

Woman in crowd: We love you Tim!

Referee: Quiet please … out of courtesy to both players, please don’t interject while play is in progress …

O: The American eyes his opponent with disdain. He pushes back his Stetson and leans in again …

S: Just when I’d stopped opening doors, finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours.

Crowd: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

O: Another masterful stroke from Sondheim. He’s not giving an inch and playing at the top of his game. Can the Englishman respond again with the same skill and power? He still looks perfectly calm as he scratches thoughtfully at his chin and closes his eyes for a moment. He takes out a meerschaum pipe and meditatively tamps tobacco into the bowl. Rice does not light it, however, but jerks his head suddenly towards the microphone. 

R: But in the end he needs a little bit more than me, more security. He needs his fantasy and freedom. I know him so well.

O: Yet another heroic return by Rice. These two titans of the musical genre are absolutely neck and neck, nip and tuck, toe to toe, and neither showing the slightest chink in his beautiful armour of poetry … The American takes a deep breath, then responds to Rice’s meerschaum by lighting up a fat cigar and puffing upon it, for all the world like an oil baron relaxing after a gigantic steak, staring into the middle distance as if he does not see his opponent at all. Again he leans nonchalantly towards the microphone.

S: Don’t you love farce? My fault, I fear. I thought that you’d want what I want. Sorry my dear. But where are the clowns. Send in the clowns. Don’t bother, they’re here.

O: Could that be a killer blow? It is certainly the greatest lyric I have ever heard, and the crowd is stunned. They think its all over … but is it? For the first time Rice looks rattled. He tries to light his pipe, but his fingers are obviously shaking and he drops the first match … and the second … But the Englishman has not reached the dizzy heights of the Bernie Taupin Prize, and the Marc Bolan Crown three years running, for nothing. No one could question that Rice is the greatest lyricist that our nation has known, living or dead, and he is not going to crumble before this onslaught, mighty as it is. He finally succeeds in lighting the pipe and pulls on it strongly for a moment, puffing out smoke like a locomotive. His face is working with emotion, and the sweat is beginning to stand out on his pasty brow as he leans forward to deliver his riposte.

Rice: Looking back I could have played it differently. Learned about the man before I fell. But I was ever so much younger then. Now at least I know I know him well.

O: Well it’s a magnificent response. But is it good enough? The crowd is willing him on …

Woman in crowd: Come on Tim!

Referee: Quiet please. Players are ready …

O: … but Rice looks haggard now, and the American is oozing confidence. Rice is fumbling with his meerschaum. Has it gone out? Certainly the smoke has cleared and there’s now no sign of light from the bowl … Sondheim is puffing away, however, seemingly without a care in the world. For the first time he looks straight at his opponent, and that look says it all. The American is the master of the genre, and he knows it. With a grim smile on his face he approaches the microphone.

S: Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career. But where are the clowns. There ought to be clowns. Well, maybe next year!

O: That’s it! The match is over and the American is victorious! You can see it in his eye, and in the crushed, defeated visage of Sir Timothy Rice as he drops his dead pipe to the floor and slumps forward onto the green baize. He has given his all, but in the end he had not the power to defeat the mighty Stephen Sondheim. At last we have the answer to the great question which has troubled philosophers and the common man since the death of Sir Ivor Novello. Who is the greatest living lyricist in the English language? Now … we know! There is no doubt. The crown is going home to America in the hands, or on the head, of Sondheim. As two officials, dressed as morticians, carry away the unconscious body of the English challenger, the American rises from his seat, acknowledges the cheers of the crowd with a jubilant air-punch followed by the finger directed at the departing form of his opponent, and, pulling his Snoopy T-shirt up over his head to reveal his rippling thorax, begins what will no doubt be the first of many exuberant victory laps of the arena …