Unearthed from the archive

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Originally written for a PBM game run by immerwahr and ysharros many moons ago. I don't think I've posted this up before.




Ready cash. The lack of it has driven many a good man to despair. Mort had never been one of these unfortunate few, but he was one of the relatively small number whose impecuniosity periodically threatened other men’s sanity. Mort took the view if you had money, fine. If not, well there’s not a lot of point complaining about it. Still, occasionally touching a friend for a few sous here and there was a way of life and handy to boot. In the past, Herbert had been able to spare the odd crown, especially after the publication of Mort’s book¹ ; but now poor old Herbert was no more. Leonora had suggested, in a decidedly acidic tone, that Sir Osbert might be able to help since he was a similar sort of chap to Herbert - albeit somewhat fatter and noticeably more English - and in the same line of business. The concept stunned Mort. He hadn’t thought of Sir Osbert as a publisher.

So it was that Mort tracked down the eccentric Englishman at Le Theatre Royale, where life took one of its frequent but still unexpected left turns.

“Damme. How can anyone be expected to write a musical with only eight notes?” Sir Osbert kicked Crow-Eye in frustration.

“Thank you, your Grace,” squeaked his manservant, “Much more accurate than my previous employer, if I may say so. Exquisitely painful”.

The Englishman grunted absentmindedly, staring at his copy of Play in a Day by Buert Ouidonne, which was not proving as helpful as he had hoped. Still, all was not lost, the unauthorised edition of Plagiarism Made Easy he’d picked up in Kent was a little more useful.

The large stage door creaked open and a hesitant, but gaudily-hatted head poked through the gap. “Evening, Osbert.” said Mort, “I wonder if I might have a word?”

Oblivious to the interruption, Sir Osbert worked on, kicking Crow-Eye periodically to ease the tension. “Thank you, your Grace, most kind.”

Mort edged forward, intrigued by the sight of English intellect at work. “Evening, Osbert. I wondered if I might have a word?” he ventured more loudly.

“Eh? Who’s that?” Osbert jumped in alarm. “The lock was already broken. Er, it looked like real money, er, it was my evil twin brother, Osmund, I er, oh, it’s you, Wartimer. Damn it all, lad. Don’tee know it’s bad form to sneak up on a body like that?”

Mort blushed. “Sorry, Osbert. I’m a bit skint. I spoke to Colaterlie in the foyer and she said that you wouldn’t mind, especially if I helped out seeing as you’re a bit pushed for time and all that, so I thought that if I came down and asked politely, you know, or whatever, that you may indeed be sort of, well, er, predisposed to er..”

Osbert looked at him, trying to work out just how it could be possible to breathe and witter so much at the same time. Mort continued, “...and anyway, taking everything into account and things being what they are, I wondered if I might touch you for a couple of hundred? You know, just until after the campaign season.” He smiled hopefully. Sir Osbert blanched and drew himself to his full and portly height. “Gad, Wartimer, Old Boy, see what ye’ve made me do!” Several well-rehearsed reasons why not evaporated as his eyes fell on the interesting shapes the spilt ink had formed on the music paper. “I er, Gad! Damme! It might work! See Colaterlie, if ye want something to do. I’m on a deadline.” He sat down again and looked with renewed interest at the musical score he was writing. “Ta very much” said Mort and wandered off to find the formidable Madame le Dede.

Colaterlie le Dede was sitting in the foyer of the theatre trying to fathom out how Osbert had got himself into the ludicrous position of having to write, direct and produce a musical without help in under a month. When Mort arrived, she guiltily hid her notes, but relaxed when she realised who it was. “I think he said yes,” said Mort, “he is rather preoccupied.” Colaterlie mused, “He’s having a little trouble with the musical accompaniment” she observed. “Amongst other things.”

“Bingo!” enthused Mort: “Music is my speciality!” Colaterlie watched him disappear back into the auditorium. She felt suddenly and unaccountably ancient.

Sir Osbert suddenly stopped writing and looked up, worry creasing his brow. Those well-honed instincts which had always warned him about impending trouble had all gone off at once but he could see no obvious reason for this sudden foreboding.

A few days later, when the orchestra² arrived for rehearsals, it was to find that the orchestra pit was inhabited by a feverishly active Mort and an odd array of wheels, pulleys, barrels and iron bars. “It’s a Xylotron” explained Mort to a bemused Sir Osbert. “A sort of automatic xylophone. I got the idea from Leonora’s musical box.” He heaved a large sheet of paper from the bottom of his satchel. “You see, if you attach the iron bars to the barrel in a predetermined sequence and spin it at the correct speed, you get a tune. It’s really quite simple.”

Osbert looked less than convinced, “It ain’t goin’ to bring the bally ceiling down like that other contraption of yours, is it?” It occurred to him that he couldn’t quite remember how Mort had got involved with the project.

“Oh, nothing like that could ever happen again,” observed Mort, “the Cacophone was definitely a one-off. It’s quite safe!”

“What about that dashed gong thing of yours a couple of months back?” queried a clearly worried Osbert.

“Er, I’d forgotten about that” muttered the diminutive inventor. “D’you think we’d better try it out first?”

It took Mort four days, six hours and twelve minutes to construct the Xylotron and set in motion an experiment in acoustics which has never been successfully (or even partially) recreated. The completed machine was a gigantic, unwieldy, metallic nightmare consisting of the ubiquitous fly wheel (the only surviving part of the Cacophone), several feet of leather strapping, a large wine cask, with iron rods inserted through its sides, twenty wooden mallets aligned with the rods and a thin, highly tensed drum head to catch and amplify the vibrations from the rods. The whole being suspended from springs which were designed to prevent the kind of reverberation which had proven so disastrous on Mort’s other excursions into instrument design. The barrel was fitted to an axle and connected to the fly wheel by the straps. A gearing mechanism allowed one operator (or as Mort insisted on the term, ‘musician’) to pedal until the fly wheel’s own momentum reached a level whereby the barrel could be turned at a more or less constant rate, striking the bars against the mallets and, hopefully, producing a recognisable pre-programmed tune. The whole structure looked like a monstrous torture device for a grossly oversized hedgehog.

Down in the orchestra pit, Mort stood ready. Sir Osbert sat about half way back in the auditorium ostensibly to check the sound level. It had occurred to him however, that at this distance he could be out on the street and preparing an alibi before the ceiling hit him should Mort’s predictions prove wrong. “Ready when you are, dear chap” he called across to Mort who, having finished limbering up, flashed the thumbs up, grinned and started pedalling. Osbert took out his insurance papers and checked the small print. Mort pedalled.

As the Xylotron picked up speed, the first tentative notes of a tune began to echo around the theatre. “Damme, it works!” thought Osbert to himself in some surprise. As Mort pedalled harder, the sound became a little clearer, ‘If I had a sou and you had a sou...’ “It’s a bit slow,” shouted Mort between breathless gasps, “maybe someone a little stronger should pedal?” Osbert looked round. “I can still see you, Crow Eye. Don’t pretend you’re hiding, you cur. I’ve got a job for you.”

Coaxed in by Osbert’s cane and not quite reassured by Mort’s guarantees, Crow Eye pedalled. He thought about Herbert and he pedalled; he thought about Osbert and he pedalled harder; he thought about Piotr and pedalled with venom. For the first time in years, Crow Eye could vent his frustration without getting a good hiding from someone. He pedalled.

...If I had a sou, and you had a sou, we'd have two sous together...

The music picked up speed. And volume. “It’s getting a bit loud.” Osbert raised his voice a little to make himself heard. “Sorry? I can’t hear you. It’s getting a bit loud,” observed Mort. “I said, It’s getting a bit loud, isn’t it!?” “Tell him to slow down a bit!” “What?” “I said, tell him to slow down a bit!” “I can’t hear you. It’s too lou..” The noise continued to build, in the background, a drone began to counterpoint the music.

The sudden silence made them both jump.

Mort turned to look at Crow Eye and found to his amazement, that he was still pedalling furiously and powerfully. It was then that Mort realised that he couldn’t hear anything at all. Not a thing: he’d gone deaf. He looked at Osbert who was busily wiping blood from his ears. Their eyes met. Osbert glared at Mort. His face reddened, and he began leaping up and down, gesticulating wildly. He was obviously trying to say, or rather, shout something, but no sound came out. He pointed at his ears, at Mort and at the Xylotron. Although he should have been alarmed, Mort instead found himself calmly thinking that Osbert’s face had an uncanny likeness to that of a sauteed bloater fish. Despite himself he grinned. It was clear that Osbert had failed to appreciate any humour in the situation; he brought his cane heavily down on one of the seats and drew two concealed pistols from under his frock coat. It occurred to Mort that it might be a good idea to evacuate the auditorium directly. He bolted.

The bullet whipped silently past Mort, missing him by a comfortable margin. It sped across the auditorium and ricocheted, with a spark, off the brass candelabrum near the steps up to the stage. It sped upwards into the ceiling, severing one of the many ropes above the stage.

When the crystal chandelier hit the Xylotron the sound came back with a crash like a tidal wave hitting the beach. Mort, Osbert and this time, Crow Eye, froze. The mortally wounded Xylotron made a noise like someone grating a blackboard and spat bits of metal and broken crystal across the theatre. There was a loud groan. The flywheel fell off and what looked like a small wisp of smoke floated to the ceiling. Mort, Osbert and Crow Eye looked at the wreckage and then at each other. “Dammit all, Wartimer, what the deuce happened? I thought I’d gone deaf, don'tcha know!”

Mort shrugged and stuck his lower lip out in bafflement.

“I believe that we may have inadvertently generated perfect white noise. That is to say a noise of multiple frequencies all produced at the same intensity. I surmise that once the pitch and wavelengths had coalesced at the correct level, all sound, from any source within the range of the Xylotron was cancelled out. Effectively we witnessed a noise so loud, generated across so many frequencies that it ceased to exist.” Mort and Osbert stood and stared at Crow Eye who was inspecting the remains of the instrument. He looked up and grinned momentarily before his face regained its customary bovine placidity. “‘Corse, it’s only a fort, innit?” he said.

¹It was odd how Herbert had managed to cover his out of pocket expenses from Mort’s otherwise loss-making book. Still, his interest rates had been a lot cheaper than the Shylocks and sometimes, after Leonora had spoken to him, he’d waived the charges entirely. Such a nice chap.

²The term ‘Orchestra’ is generally defined as a large group of instrumentalists, especially combining strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. Most educated observers would apply these terms to the instruments. Unfortunately, the wages Sir Osbert was offering ensured that they applied more aptly to the musicians themselves.