'Eureka?'

'Eureka. It was an LNER pa.s.senger train. Cla.s.sic 4-6-2 arrangement. Four-wheel bogie in front, six coupled driving wheels and a pair of trailing wheels. Eureka.'

'It's Greek to me.'

'It's a perfect match.' Mr Collins was looking quite excited. 'On the computer. The job just came up this very minute. And your qualifications match it exactly.'

Coincidence? Synchronicity? The steam-driven bogie truck of destiny?

'It's at Buckingham Palace,' said Colin. 'Personal a.s.sistant to His Royal Highness Prince Charles.'

The bogie truck has it!

16.

Hugo Rune had gone off to the toilet.

Having witnessed him single-handedly complete the breakfast that had become elevenses, then lunch, Tuppe and Cornelius were hardly surprised.

'I've never seen anyone eat like that before,' said Tuppe. 'Not even when I was travelling with the circus. Are we really going to kidnap the Queen, by the way?'

'No,' said Cornelius, 'we are not. We are going to get out of here, and fast.'

'Before pudding?'

'At once. I don't know whether that man is really my daddy. But I know one thing, he's barking mad.'

'You noticed that too?'

'He's a monomaniac. Let's get.'

'Do you think he'll let us get? He's a bit nifty with the old magickal pa.s.ses.'

'Just leave the talking to me.

Rune returned from the bog. 'Have you noticed', he asked, 'how, no matter where you go in this world, the smell in the gents is always the same?'

Cornelius put up his hand to speak.

'You have my attention.' Rune settled back into his chair.

'Tuppe and I have been discussing your stratagem.'

'And naturally you find no fault in it.'

'Naturally. But it occurred to me, as one who has studied The Book of Ultimate Truths, that you are not without friends amongst the royal household. That you used to be, in fact, a regular guest at the palace.'

'There are few in high office with whom I am not on intimate terms.'

'That's what we thought. So wouldn't it be better if you took care of the actual kidnapping part, your-self?'

Rune nodded thoughtfully. 'No,' he said.

'No?'

'No. It just wouldn't do. It is a long time since I have seen the Queen, but she would recognize me at once.

'You could wear a mask,' Tuppe suggested. 'And a cloak, if wanted.'

'No,' said Rune. 'It simply wouldn't wash. The whole point of this brilliantly conceived two-part stratagem, is to stir up the world and stir up the fairy folk, have the whole world look on, get the blighters into their great hail and squash the lot of them in the magic table. I will have much to organize. You must see that the Queen is in the great hail when the popping off begins.'

'Why must she be there?'

'Because she's one of them, of course.'

'One of them?'

'One of the fairy folk. She isn't just our queen. She's their queen as well.'

'You are saying that the Queen of England is not a real human being?'

'I never thought she was,' Tuppe said. 'After all, she doesn't go to the toilet.'

'Of course she goes to the toilet.' Cornelius sssshed Tuppe.

'Well, I've never seen her.'

'No, no, no.' Cornelius took off his cap and flapped it all about. 'This is complete and utter madness. Eighteen years in the Forbidden Zones has addled your brain.'

Rune rose once more to his feet and cast his chair aside. 'I am Rune!' he cried, his voice echoing amongst the hammerbeams. 'I am the Logos of the Aeon. The greatest thinker of this or any age. I am Babylon. Alpha and Omega. Rune, do you hear? I think, therefore I'm right!'

'And I am Cornelius Murphy,' said the tall boy, with a fearlessness that surprised even himself.

'And I am the Stuff of Epics. I am not your cat s-paw, nor your acolyte. I will not call you guru and fall atyour feet. Your stratagems bring insanity to an art form. I will have none of them.

Tuppe cowered in his seat. 'Hang on to your mouth,' he whispered.

'We have enjoyed your hospitality,' Cornelius went on, 'but not your company. You are clearly unscrupulous and prepared to further your own ends, at no matter what cost to others. I swore to reveal the truth about the beings in the Forbidden Zones for the good of all mankind.'

'And liberate some of the stolen booty for the good of us,' Tuppe put in.

'Yes, well, that too. Arthur Kobold owes us plenty.

But, I will not aid you in some bid of your own for world domination. Nor will I be a party to ma.s.s murder. If you are my real father, then I disown you. I vowed to release you from the zones and this I did, however unknowingly. But that is an end to it. It ends here. You and I have nothing more to say.

'Come, Tuppe, we're leaving.'

Tuppe looked up at his friend. The small fellow's mouth hung hugely open.

Hugo Rune's mouth was also open. And, for possibly the first time in all his life, he was speechless.

'You might have handled that a mite better,' said Tuppe.

He and Cornelius had now reached the end of the drive and stood in the bright sunlight, facing an open road. 'Asked him for some bus fares, or some-thing.'

'The man is a stone bonker.' Cornelius stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and idly kicked stones about.

Tuppe shrugged. 'So what are we going to do now?'

'Thumb a lift?' Cornelius squinted along the country road.

'To where?' Tuppe followed his squint.

'Who cares?'

'Who cares? Whatever do you mean?'

'I mean I've had enough. I quit.'

'But you can't quit. You're the Stuff of Epics.'

'I'm having a bit of a problem with that right now.'

'Rune really got under your skin, didn't he?'

'And then some. Kidnap the Queen. What sort of plan is that?'

'An epic one?'

'No.' Cornelius shuffled his feet. 'It's madness.'

'So what about them?'

'What about them?'

'Well, we have to wipe them out, don't we?'

'Wipe them out? Think what you're saying, Tuppe. If they are some parallel race, good, bad or indifferent, do you really think genocide is a healthy option? I'll agree that Kobold needs wiping out. But what if he's got a wife and kids? Wipe them out? Get real.'

'Get real? Oh that's very good. We're talking about wiping out wicked fairies, and you tell me to get real.'

Cornelius shrugged.

'So you're just going to forget it then? Forget how they screw up mankind's progress. How they decide what's good for us to know and what isn't.'

'Well there's always someone doing that. Perhaps they do the job as well as any.'

'I can't believe I'm hearing this. "Livestock", Kobold called us, "Vermin."'

'Listen, Tuppe, when Rune was ranting on back there about retribution, it all came to me in the proverbial flash. We can't expose them. It would be disastrous. Think what they might have in there.

Kobold said that mankind would have blown itself up long ago, if it hadn't been for him and his kind.

Maybe they've got plans for superbombs? What? Imagine stuff like that all suddenly falling into govern-ment hands. And what about the people? When the people find out that their actions have been governed by some secret society in their very midst fingers will be pointed. Folk will say, "That's why so-and-so got so successful, he must have been in league with them." Society, as we know it, will grindto a halt.'

Tuppe screwed up his face. 'What you are saying is, when it comes right down to it, they are best left alone.

'Something like that.'

'It all seems to have become very complicated,' said Tuppe. 'And not a lot of laughs. All right.

Maybe it would be a bad idea to expose Kobold's mob to society. But they should still be stopped.

Think of all the good stuff they must have stolen. What about Rune's car? A thing like that could make the world a better place.'

'It could if it really worked.'

'But it does work. You've driven it.'

'I thought you said you were awake during our journey here from Brentford.'

'I might have nodded off once or twice.'

'Me too. But I woke up on two occasions. When he stopped to fill up with Four Star.

'The scoundrel. The man is a fraud.'

'The car is a fraud. That's for certain.'

'And what about the magic table? I saw that, with the little us in it.'

'Yeah. I saw it too. But whether I believe it. That's another matter.'

'Well, well, well.' Tuppe made with the bright and breeziness. 'That seems to be it all sorted. Rune is a stone bonker intent on genocide. His car is a fraud.

We don't know about the table, but we think James Randi could rubbish it, given a couple of minutes. The lads in the Forbidden Zones are not altogether to be wished, but they're probably the better of two evils, so leave them to get on with it. It's all so simple really, I don't know why I didn't think of it.'

'I expect you would have, eventually.'

'And so we just forget all about it, thumb a lift and seek our fortunes elsewhere?'

'You have a better idea?'

'Quite a few, as it happens. We should go back to the house, tell all this to Rune. He may be a stone bonker, but he's also a powerful magician, you saw what he did to my mouth. You have to reason with him, Cornelius.'