'That's not what I ... Oh, forget it.' Cornelius grinned. 'It's good here, isn't it?'

'Splendid.' Bone pa.s.sed the cider flagon round.

'Pity Rosie's not here.' Tuppe took a big sip and pa.s.sed it on to the tall boy.

'Tell me, Bone,' said Cornelius, 'what do you think about corn circles?'

'I love 'em. This one's a Thoroughgood, isn't it? Big centre, plenty of room for the art lovers to mill about. But I reckon it's a right st.i.tch-up, the artists only getting ten per cent of the take. Don't you?'

'Outrageous.' Cornelius took a great big swig of cider. 'Outrageous.'

Inspectre Hovis sat alone in his garret. He was reading a copy of The Book of Ultimate Truths and he was making copious notes. Again and again he referred to the big fat file on Hugo Rune. And again and again he made notes. Occasionally he delved into certain books of occult lore, which had been in his family for twenty-three generations. And then he made more notes.

Once in a while he drank from a Thermos flask containing iced ether, and having so done he uttered things such as 'I feel that I am nearing a solution' or 'The Crime of the Century right in the bag' and sometimes 'I am a little grey Bakelite tram and my name is Barnacle Bill'.

And every so often he fell off his chair and struck the floor with a bang. And when he did this, the lady who lived downstairs whacked her ceiling with a broom handle and threatened to call the police.

'Enjoying the cake?' asked the king.

Arthur Kobold was up to his elbows in it. 'Very much,' he said with his mouth full.

They were seated in great big ornate chairs at the great big banquet table in the king's great big hail.

The king was drunk.

'We don't get out as much as we used to,' he said. 'Not as much?' Arthur wiped his mouth on his sleeve. 'Not at all, in fact.'

The king poured something potent into Arthur's gla.s.s. 'And we don't laugh any more. Know what I mean?'

Arthur pushed more cake into his mouth. 'You're drunk,' said he.

The king looked crookedly at the generous array of unbunged barrels. 'I hardly touch the stuff.

You're the one who's drunk, Arthur.'

'I have every excuse to be drunk. Pressures of work. You only work once a year, or, you're supposed to. You don't even do that any more.

'Would you want to work on your birthday?'

'I wouldn't mind if I had the rest of the year off, like you do.'

'Kings are not supposed to work. Especially on their birthdays. Kings delegate, that's what kings do.'

'If you let me delegate a bit, we could get out once in a while.''Where's my friend Hugo?' asked the king. 'Gone,' said Arthur. 'We went through all that last night.

Remember all the fuss about...' Arthur paused and studied the king's blank expression. He didn't remember. About his favourite car getting stolen and Rune escaping and the other cars getting blown up and the special birthday spell getting broken.

'Well?' said the king.

'Nothing,' said Arthur.

'Hugo and I used to go out together and have big laughs.'

'That was nearly twenty years ago, before you and he fell out.'

'Did we fall out, Arthur? Did we?'

'You did. A little matter of him getting your daughter pregnant, in the hope that you'd make him marry 'her and he could then become Prince Hugo the First of Fairyland.'

'Cad!' said the king. 'And did he marry her?' Arthur shook his head. 'Your daughter refused. But she had the child. The weird one. The deviant. Called himself the Campbell and ran away to become a Scotsman. Then tried to get back here and a.s.sa.s.sinate you.

'Cad! Whatever happened to him, do you think?'

'We blew him up. With The Train of Tris-megistus.'

'My poor dear grandchild.' The king put his face in his hands and wept tears of ale.

'You told me to do it. You called it being "firm but fair". You hated him.'

'I did not.'

'You did too.'

'Well, he was half human, and the only thing I hate more than a half-human is a whole human. Have some more cake, Arthur, do.'

'Thanks.' Arthur Kobold carved himself another slice.

'So,' said the king. 'At least you're here. I can rely on you.

'You can rely on me,' said Arthur cakely.

'That's good,' said the king. 'That's very good.'

'Good cake.'

'Good cake and good company and I can rely on my good friend Arthur.'

'You certainly can.'

'I can rely on him to get back my favourite car, make good all the damage done to the other four, fix my special birthday spell that he broke and bring in Hugo Rune before he wreaks chaos on the lot of us.

More cake?'

Arthur was choking on the piece he already had. 'Not for me,' he spluttered.

'Not for me, what?'

'Not for me, sire.'

'Not for me, thank you.' Polly put her hand over her winegla.s.s. She was dining with Prince Charles at a most exclusive restaurant. 'It's getting very late.'

'I do so appreciate you coming out to dinner with me,' said the prince, dropping the royal 'one'.

'It's been really interesting talking to you about trains and everything.'

'It was kind of you to ask me. You're a really nice man.

'Thank you.' The prince did that nice smile he does. 'I'm not very good at this kind of thing, but, would you care to come back to my place and see my priceless collection of LWR sleeper-ties?'

'Not really,' said Polly. 'But if you want to come back to my place and have a s.h.a.g, I'm up for it.'

'Hey, b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.' Cornelius raised his head from the cider flagon. 'Come over here.'

'What am I missing?' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks stumbled into the corn circle, zipping himself into respectability.

'What's happening?'

Cornelius handed him the flagon. 'We were just discussing the corn-circle phenomenon.'

b.o.l.l.o.c.ks gulped cider. 'Pretty weird stuff,' said he, wiping his chin.

'So you don't know how they're done?' Cornelius made a hopeful face.'Mystery to me,' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks took further sips.

'A mystery?' Cornelius grinned.

'Complete mystery.' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks finished the cider. 'How do the Thoroughgoods get them so perfectly round?'

'Good. night,' said Cornelius Murphy lapsing from consciousness. 'And G.o.d bless you, Tubby Thoroughgood.'

19.

Tuppe was up with the larks. And the dogs. The dogs were doing a lot of barking and the farmers who owned these dogs were adding to the canine cacophony with loud barks of their own. And they weren't smiling.

Cornelius, upon whom Tuppe had curled himself up for the night, awoke in some confusion. He went immediately for the tried-and-tested 'Where am I? What's going on?' routine, with the addition of 'Get off me, Tuppe, and shut those dogs up.'

'What is happening?' he continued, when his senses had got themselves all back together.

'Dogs are barking,' said Tuppe informatively.

'But why are they barking?'

'You have me on that, I'm afraid. I can tell you why pigs grunt. But I doubt if that would be helpful right now.'

Cornelius crawled over to the open door of the happy bus and gazed out. The sun was shining bravely, but it shone down upon a scene which was sadly lacking in the rural-bliss department.

Three fierce-looking red-faced men, in tweedy caps, waxed jackets, hardy trews and Wellington boots, were remonstrating with Bone and b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. Louise and Candy stood with their backs to the bus.

The children clung to them fearfully. There were dogs all around. Big dogs and close.

'What's happening?' called Cornelius. 'b.u.g.g.e.r off, boy,' a tweed-capper called back. 'Ah,' said Cornelius. 'I think I get the picture.' 'Stay inside,' called b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. 'You're not involved in this.'

'On the contrary.' Cornelius climbed to his feet and climbed down from the bus. 'You stay here,' he told Tuppe. 'Those are very big dogs.'

'You have my moral support,' called Tuppe. 'Use it as you think fit.'

'Now,' said Cornelius smiling all around.

A big fat tweed-capper nudged a similarly pro-portioned compatriot in the padded-rib area. 'That the new scarecrow you ordered for your top field, Harry?'

'I see.' Cornelius continued to smile. 'Is there some problem here?'

'Not for us, boy, but plenty for you if you don't get your s.h.i.t heap and your scabby mates off my land.'

's.h.i.t heap and scabby mates?' Cornelius raised an eyebrow. Two large black dogs began to sniff around his slender ankles.

'Ain't much on the bone for you, fellas,' the farmer told them.

'Go back in the bus,' said b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.

'It's OK.' Cornelius raised a calming hand. 'Would you kindly call your dogs to heel?' he asked the farmer. 'They're frightening women and children. That isn't right.'

'Oh, we've got a right one, have we?' The farmer laughed hideously and fixed Cornelius with a bitter stare. 'Get your sc.u.m off my land.'

'We were leaving anyway,' said b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, ushering Louise, Candy and the children back into the bus. 'Come on, Cornelius, let's go.'

'We're not going anywhere yet,' the tall boy replied, when all were safely on board. 'We haven't had our breakfast.'

One of the farmer's colleagues rolled some un-speakable phlegm around in his mouth and spat it at Cornelius. 'There's your breakfast,' he said with a sneer.

And then Tuppe appeared in the bus doorway. 'Did someone say breakfast?' he asked.

'What?' The spitter of phlegm gaped at Tuppe. 'It's a bleeding dwarf. Got Snow White in there, have you?'

'That's enough,' said Cornelius, who was no longer smiling. 'You may spit at me if you choose. But you will not insult my friend. He is immune to such cra.s.sness, but I find it extremely offensive. Would you care to apologize?'

'Would you care for me to set my dogs on you?' the farmer asked.

Cornelius reached down and stroked the neck of the Pit Bull that was sniffing around his ankles. Itlooked up at him and lolled its tongue.

'Nice boy,' said Cornelius Murphy.

'Seize him, Prince!' ordered the farmer.