‘And so, my fine fellow,’ I heard him say, ‘even the most heinous clown of Satan is no match for a ball of ACME garden twine that has been thrice blessed by Ava, the Goddess of Gardeners.’

Ava Gardner? I thought, but I did not say a word.

‘So it is time for you to take your leave.’ And Mr Rune approached the clown.

And I now rose to cheer my friend, thinking all was won.

But Hugo Rune had stepped too close and horrible horrors occurred.

The clown, though bound from neck to ankle, opened his mouth and out shot a terrible tongue. Like an evil black snake it curled into the bar and swept about Hugo Rune. The Magus was pinned by the atramentous coils that fixed him in a hideous embrace.

And words now flowed from the vile clown’s ears, words that spelled out ill.

Your end is nigh, thou bumbling oaf. I crush your bloated body-

Then I heard the sounds of crackling bones as the black coils crushed my friend. It was surely the end and a horrible end and I felt sick to my soul.

So I leaped onto the table, threw wide my arms and shouted words of power. Words that I knew not the meaning of, but shouted all the same.

And there was a dreadful rushing roaring sound, as of a steam train bursting from a tunnel. A flash and a bang and a wallop and a whoosh and the bad clown vanished away.

Mr Rune lay prone upon the floor and I hastened to him to help. He raised himself upon his elbows and stared me full in the face.

‘How?’ he asked of me. ‘How, Rizla, did you know those words? I sought to speak those very words myself, but the creature had me in its coils. How did you know what to call?’

I helped the Magus to his feet and dusted down his robes. Picked up his mitre, dusted this and handed it to him.

‘In the toilet,’ I said, ‘I met The Hermit again. Diogenes, my guardian angel. He told me that I might find the need for words that I knew not the meaning of. And that when I did I must call them out as they entered my head or all would be lost to me. I just opened my mouth and the words you needed to speak came out of it.’

‘You have the makings of a magician, young Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And you have certainly earned yourself a free lunch.’

But, as I had said to Hugo Rune previously, I had been informed that there was no such thing as a free lunch and this day proved the point.

We had ordered, certainly, and Fangio, even viewing the ruination of his softly smoking bar, had indeed taken our order, when the saloon bar door opened and in strode Lord Jason Lark-Rising, fighter ace and all-round hero.

‘Mr Rune,’ he called to the Magus. ‘I thought I’d find you here.’

‘One more lunch for the boy in blue,’ said Mr Hugo Rune.

‘Sadly, no time for luncheon,’ said His Lordship. ‘Come with bad tidings, I regret. A break-in at your manse. I called by to say my hellos and found the front door off the hinge. The neighbours told me that they’d seen some workmen chappies earlier removing some complicated piece of futuristic-looking apparatus from there into a lorry. The neighbours said that these workmen chappies were being chivvied along by a tall thin chap with a great black beard. Ring any bells with you?’

‘Count Otto Black,’ I said, in a whisper. ‘He has stolen the field generator.’

‘And it is all my fault,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I walked right into a trap. The great wizard, whom the clown feared? The mendicant who sold the ghost to Fangio? None other than Count Otto Black – who else could it possibly have been? And I allowed myself to fall into his trap, leaving the manse unattended to perform an exorcism here. He played upon my weak point, Rizla, and that is my vanity.’

‘I am very sorry,’ I said. ‘This is all very bad.’

‘It was inevitable,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘The word of the day. The word was inevitable. I am THE FOOL.’

THE MAGICIAN

I had never seen Himself look quite so down before. On the following morn he hardly touched my breakfast.

‘Perk up,’ I said, in that well-meaning yet totally inappropriate manner that some folk use when speaking to manic depressives. ‘We might have lost the battle, but I am sure we will win the war.’

‘Are you, young Rizla? Are you?’ The Magus sank lower into his chair and seemed to be shrinking away.

‘Count Otto snatched the Chronovision [8] but you still beat him and won it back.’

‘Indeed, indeed.’ The Magus now sank lower.

‘You can steal my sausage if you want. I will look the other way.’ But even this enticement failed to rouse him.

‘I fear, Rizla,’ he said at length, ‘that I have become nothing more than an anachronism. A portly gent in out-of-date tweeds who dabbles in magic and never pays his bills.’

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘That is hardly fair. Well, some of it is, but, no.’

‘There is no room for a magician in this age. It is all machines and technology.’

‘You beat that evil clown through magic,’ I said.

‘You spoke the words, Rizla, not I.’

‘Then I am a sorcerer’s apprentice and I do not feel out of date.’

‘You fail to grasp my point, Rizla. To quote my disciple Brian Eno: “Energy fools the magician.” ’ [9]

‘Brian who?’ But I did not follow that up.

‘Think about it, Rizla. The reason why we are here. Technology, advanced technology. Atomic weapons, robots and computers. It is all to do with technology.’

‘Are you saying that the technology is evil?’ I asked.

‘Not the technology itself, but those who wield it. Although I wonder at times…’

‘You do? About what?’

‘There is a hand at work behind all the cases that we have dealt with so far. A hand far greater than the unwashed mitt of Count Otto Black. Some huge dark force. I feel it, Rizla, I do.’

‘It is Hitler,’ I said. ‘And many believe that he sold his soul to the Devil and that he himself is a black magician. Mr McMurdo said that his power comes from the dark arts. That he worships Wotan.’

‘Hitler is a buffoon,’ snarled the Magus. ‘His only gift is for oratory. He is no military strategist – brute force is all he knows. And if he really is a black magician, then I do not consider him to be much of one. Shall we say that I went along with McMurdo’s theories for reasons of my own. There is much more going on here. There is more at work than Herr Hitler. There is some vast inhuman force influencing events that I have yet to identify.’

‘And I am sure that you will,’ I said. ‘In fact, I know that you will.’

Hugo Rune smiled and rose in his chair.

And somehow was eating my sausage.

‘I need you to pick a card,’ he said, when breakfasting was done.

‘This will be our very last case here, because soon we must cross the Atlantic.’

‘I am having some doubts about that,’ I said, seating myself fireside and taking up the paper. ‘I believe I expressed them to you. I would like once more to reiterate them.’

‘Repetition does not enforce a point, Rizla, it merely belabours it. Our time is running out. Within days my other self will return here from Switzerland. I cannot come face to face with my other self-’

‘Because it might create a quantum paradox that could trigger the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter and bring about the collapse of the universe?’ I said.

‘That and the fact that I owe him money, which he will be eager to collect.’

I made whistling sounds through my teeth. ‘You even owe money to yourself,’ I said. ‘You are a first-class act.’

‘Why, thank you, Rizla.’ And Hugo Rune bowed. ‘But also I know the date when the atomic blast will devastate New York and trigger a chain reaction that will decimate the entire United States of America. And thus, allowing for our travelling time, we will need to make haste.’