‘Put completely out of service,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘I was going to say “killed”,’ I said.

‘You cannot kill what has never lived,’ said Mr Hugo Rune.

‘And that is a statement I would really like explained.’

‘And so it shall be, Rizla. You performed sterling work today and you will have the nation’s thanks for it.’

‘I could do with a beer,’ I said. ‘And a great deal of explanation.’

‘Then let us return to Brentford and I will buy you a beer. But not I think in The Purple Princess. Brentford, please, Rizla, and don’t spare the horsepower.’

THE MOON

‘You really will have to explain,’ I said, ‘for I am most confused.’

‘Energy fools the magician,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘As an explanation, that fails on so many levels,’ I told the magician, but raised my glass to him all the same as I did so.

We were in the saloon bar of The Four Horsemen, which was under new new management. Jack Lane, former Brentford team captain and centre forward, and the man who hammered in three goals when Brentford won the FA Cup in nineteen twenty-seven, now stood behind the bar. Bald and bandy-legged, he had hardly changed at all since that famous day of glory.

‘My suspicions were originally aroused by the healthsome state of the ghastly Mr McMurdo,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Believe me, Rizla, it would take more than any Harley Street quack has to offer to set that fellow to rights. And then all that nonsense about putting me out to pasture. Me out to pasture? Me?’

‘Quite so,’ I said. ‘Go on,’ I also said.

‘The second exploding cab confirmed my suspicions that something untoward was occurring. One cab, fair enough, Spontaneous Cab Combustion does happen once in a while. But two, I think not. You will note that I repaired to the Gents. Did you not think that was strange?’

‘Well, I thought-Well, never mind,’ I said.

‘I felt that I needed to check the contents of the briefcase and so I slit the bottom and took a little peep inside.’

‘Oh yes?’ I said, intrigued.

‘A bomb, Rizla. Small and of advanced design and timed to go off precisely at three.’

‘To kill you and George Cole, oh no!’

‘Oh yes.’ And Hugo Rune drank ale. ‘It is not altogether unpleasing, this,’ he said. ‘What did you say it was called?’

‘Apple Chancery,’ I said. ‘But as a running gag, having all the beers named after typefaces never really gained its legs at all, did it?’

‘There may be a bit of life left in it. But, as I was saying, a bomb of advanced design. I disarmed it, of course.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘So what about the speech for the prime minister to read out?’

‘I will get to that,’ said the Magus. ‘I had you drive me at speed to Mornington Crescent. There I found what I expected to find: dead and dying, precious files destroyed, computers wrecked, all lost. The Ministry had been infiltrated. My worst fears were founded.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

‘Quite so.’

‘And then you had me chase after that cab because Count Otto was kidnapping Mr McMurdo.’

‘Count Otto was not kidnapping him. Because that was not McMurdo. I found McMurdo’s body at the Ministry – by the looks of him he had been dead for several days.’

‘You did an awful lot of looking around down there in a very few minutes,’ I said. ‘But tell me please, for I do not understand – the McMurdo who tried to blow you up with a bomb in a briefcase was not the real McMurdo? So was he an actor like the one who plays Winston Churchill?’

‘He was not a man, Rizla. Which was why he would not shake my hand. He was a robot, a construct, a mandroid, call it whatever you like.’

‘Oh come on,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘I saw the robot at Bletchley Park, a proper nineteen-forties robot, all rivets and eye slits and clockwork. Nothing like what we saw in that office – a robot that can look and sound so convincingly like a human being – is likely to exist for hundreds of years yet, surely.’

‘It is as I said,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘A great inhuman force is at work here, Rizla. A force far greater than Hitler or the horrible Count Otto Black. And now at last I know what it is. And it is a thing to fear.’

‘Oh come on now,’ I said. ‘ “You ain’t afraid of no man.” ’

‘ “There’s something out there,” ’ said Hugo Rune, ‘ “and it ain’t no man.” ’ [11]

‘A robot?’ I said. ‘A great big robot, just like our Colossus?’

‘A computer,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And one possessed by the spirit of a God.’

I whistled and said, ‘You mean Wotan.’

‘That is entirely correct.’

‘Pardon me for saying this-’ and I took sup at my ale ‘-but this is a very big leap of logic. Do you have any definite proof? Is this not just a theory?’

‘Just a theory?’ Hugo Rune did risings in his seat. ‘When Rune has a theory, it is a theory proven. Am I not Rune, whose eye is in the triangle? Whose nose cleaves the etheric continuum? Whose ears take in the Music of the Spheres?’

‘You are indeed,’ I said and I raised my glass to him. ‘And it is a joy to see you once more on top form. For indeed you are THE MAGICIAN.’

We did not take too many beers. In fact we were quite restrained. I drove the taxi back to the manse, picking up fish and chips on the way that we might enjoy for some dinner.

And fish and chips in the paper, on your knee in a cosy chair, by the wireless set, is as English as English can be. And I switched on the wireless set to listen to the news. And perhaps catch some popular dance band music of the day. But probably not one led by Liam Proven.

‘This is the voice of Free Radio Brentford,’ came a crackling voice. And that voice seemed to me to be the voice of my friend Lad Nicholson.

‘I did not know that Free Radio Brentford was about during the Second World War,’ I said to Hugo Rune. The Magus leaned over and filched away one of my chips.

‘And on the world stage today,’ continued the voice that seemed to be that of Lad Nicholson, ‘the long-awaited three-fifteen speech from the prime minister turned out to be something of a surprise. It stated, and I quote: “That for his services to the British Nation, Hugo Rune be awarded its highest honour and a state pension. And that from this day forth he must be addressed as either ‘sir’ or ‘your lordship’ by all and sundry and-” ’

‘And?’ I said. And I turned to Mr Rune.

The Magus continued to munch on his dinner. ‘It was all I had time to write on that piece of toilet paper in the Gents at Broadcasting House,’ he explained. ‘After I had disabled the bomb that was meant to kill myself and the mighty George Cole. I expect it is what the real Mr McMurdo would have wanted, don’t you?’

And I just nodded my head.

Having dined, we then got down to work. We packed our clothes into steamer trunks and loaded them into the cab.

Then Mr Rune put out the rubbish, switched off the lights and closed up the manse.

‘I really liked living there,’ I told him. ‘I think I will quite miss it. Along with the mysterious unnamed and unmentioned cook who always provided our breakfasts.’

‘We have more adventures lying ahead,’ said the Perfect Master. ‘Now drive us to the allotments – I have items to collect from my workshop.’

At Mr Rune’s behest I loaded all manner of interesting things into more steamer trunks, swung each aboard the Gravitite disc and nudged them into the lift. Once topside, all went into the cab and then we upped and left.

‘I wonder how far we can get in this cab before it runs out of fuel,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘Because neither of us has a ration book, so I do not see how we will buy petrol.’