Chapter Thirty One
The Search for the Whore's Crutch

They ascended the stairs to the second floor. It was silent and gloomy. Ro remembered he had a torch, and pulled it out. The shadows fled as he trained its keen eye on the scene revealed before him. Now he could see well enough. Room 212 was indicated to the left, through some double swing doors, which emitted an alarming crack as they closed behind Ro. The two stopped dead, listening, but there was no sound to hear. They were potentially listening.

Eventually, Hapless stood before the door to Rowling’s office and tried the handle. It was unlocked.
‘Strange’, thought Hapless.
“I don’t rightly trust this, seemingly, beggin’ yer pardon sir”, stuttered Ro.
“Pardon?” asked Hapless, but Ro did not answer. Seconds passed.
“I need a slash”, said Ro.
“Well, you’ll have to wait!”, said Hapless, sharply.
“I’m going to need a crap before long too. I haven’t been since yesterday morning.”
“Tough shit!”, said Hapless.
“Well, it certainly will be getting harder all afternoon”, said Ro.

As quietly as mice they entered the room. They sniffed. There was a vague smell of the sea. The room was dark, large, book-lined, with what looked in the gloom to be ugly green velvet curtains. Hapless drew them back. They covered a metal-framed window dating from the 1960s.
‘Not very energy efficient’, thought Hapless grimly, wiping a line in the condensation, ‘Hypocrites'.

Suddenly, through the open doorway of an adjoining chamber, a voice cracked, and started to startle them!
“Come in Mr Potts. I’ve been expecting you.”. Startled, Hapless turned quickly to face the direction of the voice, only to see the naked figure of Drake Murphy sitting, erect penis in hand, in the richly upholstered leather chair behind Rowling’s oak desk. “You!”, exclaimed Ro, startled, “What’re you doing here?”
“Waiting for you, I guess”, came the reply, “since I got here first”.
“And making good use of the time I see”, sneered Ro.
“Never mind that!”, commanded Murphy. “Bring that doughnut over here immediately, I want to see if it still fits. I think I might have got bigger in the last few years”, he announced, with an air of pride in his voice.
“What! What the devil are you thinking of, man?”, demanded Hapless, reflecting with disgust on all the times he had handled the torus without wearing gloves. “Put your clothes on, and put that away, you filthy little pervert”, he reprimanded, “and go and have a bath while you’re at it. You stink”, he added.
“No!”, yelled Murphy, “you give me back my knob ring right now”, he demanded, standing up.
“Ugh! No! get dressed, you creep. You’re a disgrace!”, yelled Hapless.
“Very, very foolish words, man”, said Murphy, with more than a sense of something dangerous.
As Hapless observed Murphy’s thin, wiry, emaciated frame, speckled with occasional fish scales, advancing towards him, glans glistening and fully revolting, he finally understood his complete desperation. Pity and loathing combined in his mind. “Stop right there!”, he commanded. “This is not some sexual toy for your gratification. It is a powerful and sophisticated scientific instrument.”
Murphy looked surprised. His erection began to subside. It became a little lower, and then started to nod up and down in a kind of bounce as it continued to descend, losing volume as it went.
“What do you mean?”, he demanded forlornly, “Scientific …..? Course it isn’t …. is it? What is it then?”
“If you must know, it’s, it’s a sort of, a, er, it’s, it can control your mind”, replied Hapless falteringly, before regaining his confidence. He turned to face the repulsive, but still pitiable form. “It is a mind controlling device. If I, holding it, were to command you to stand on one leg, or to put your clothes on, you would obey without question”, he said firmly, and added for dramatic effect, “and such would be my command, Drake Murphy”.
“Oh bollocks!”, came the reply. “You’re talking out of your arse as usual. Prove it if you’re so sure!”
“Well, I don’t need to prove it”, came Hapless’s retort. “We’ve come here to find the field generator”.
“The what?”, asked Murphy, “What field? What are you generating?”
“It’s not us who’s generating”, said Ro irritably. “Put your clothes on”.
“What are you here for then?”, said Murphy.
“We’ve come to find a whore’s crutch.”
“Nice”, said Murphy. “And that neatly brings you down to my level. Greetings”.
“It’s not a real whore’s crutch. It’s a machine disguised as a whore’s crutch, that hides a generator that powers Vol-au-vent’s mind-control device.”, answered Ro.
“Really?”, said Murphy, suddenly interested. He grabbed his shirt.
“Do you think it could be this thing?”, he asked, helpfully, pointing to a corner of the room. “I was wondering what it was myself. It doesn’t seem to do anything except glow and buzz”.

Ro went over to the corner. There was a small table, on which stood what looked like an old-fashioned valve radio. It glowed a dull amber inside, but no music or speech was playing, just a steady buzzing. Ro looked doubtful.
“Why don’t you just get dressed?”, he said. “You’re making me feel damn twitchy."
“Well it doesn’t look like a whore’s crutch”, said Murphy in response to their looks, “but it doesn’t quite look like a real radio either, does it?”, he added. “I don’t think it is what it pretends to be”.
“That’s what I was thinking”, said Ro. “It looks fair but seems foul”.
“Yeah! Just like what you’d expect from a device of the enemy!”, exclaimed Murphy.
Ro looked surprised. “The enemy?”, he said.
“Yes! We hates him, I ….. I mean, I hate him”, corrected Murphy hurriedly, “What do you think this button does?”, he asked, regaining composure and pointing to a large black switch.
“What? This one marked ON-OFF?”, asked Ro with more than a hint of sarcasm. Drake Murphy winced.
“Sorry”, Ro added, seeing that he had hurt Murphy by the remark.

Suddenly, the sound of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor emerged, apparently out of nowhere, and welled up into a crescendo, filling the room. It echoed for several seconds after Ro hurriedly flicked the ‘off’ switch.
They stood there staring at it. Drake Murphy was first to speak. His pride had been dented again.
“Oh, sorry for speaking out of turn, yer chuffin lordship. My place is to obey and not get involved in clever stuff!”. His eyes were glaring now. “I’m just nuffin but a … a… a.. scruffy little pervert, sneakin around, tryin to get involved in things I doesn’t understand, I spose!”
“Well I er..”, said Ro, “I didn’t mean to …. Well, you were rather stating the obvious. I only meant it as an amusing quip.”, he said, lamely.
“A quip, precious. What’s a quip eh?”, came the reply.
“A quip? Oh, it’s a sort of .. well a small joke”, replied Ro, “That’s all”.
“Well, it wasn’t funny Colin, and you still think I’m just sneaking around, messing in other people’s business, don’t you?”
“Well I …”
“Go on, say it. That’s what you want to say. I’m sneaking about, aren’t I?”
“Not really,” said Ro.
“Say it, Colin. That’s what you want to say, isn’t it?”, Murphy said.
“Well, if you insist”, offered Ro, “but let’s just get on with looking at this machine …” Murphy’s eyes gleamed.
“A sneak? Colin, “A sneak am I?”, he screamed. “How dare you call me a sneak?”, he demanded. “You’re a sneak. A bit, fat, sneak!”
“Okey dokey”, said Ro, trying to back out of this particular cul-de-sac. “We’re both sneaks. Now let’s talk about …”
“You said it again! You sneak yourself! Sneak! Sneak sneak sneak!”, he yelled in a sort of frantic dance. He went right up to Ro’s face. “Sneak!”, he shouted.

Just then, Hapless, having tried hard and failed to come up with a cutting remark that would give him supremacy over Ro, came back in from the other room to point out that, whatever ‘lover’s tiff’ they were having, the two were making too much noise.
“Sneak”, said Murphy to Ro. At that moment, there came a polite knock at the door. It opened to reveal the janitor, or Building Manager, who looked at the two men, one wearing just a shirt and belligerently staring into the other’s face, while a third looked on, and said, “Everything alright Sir? I thought I heard raised voices."
“Yes, thank you”, replied Hapless, walking over towards him. “Everything is fine. Thanks for checking”.
“Right-ho Sir”, came the reply. “I’m just making sure everything’s locked up before I go”.
“Oh, I’ll make sure everything is secure before we leave”, said Hapless, “We’re just trying to find something that Professor Rowling needs for his meeting today. Thank you very much for checking”.
“No problem Sir”. The door closed gently behind him, and the man was gone.

“Well, that was close!”, whispered Ro.
“Too close”, replied Hapless, “and we don’t know if he’ll leave it at that either. Let’s get out of here as quickly as we can”. A sudden feeling of urgency took hold of him, as if it really was now or never. He strode into action, looking behind curtains and in cupboards. “I have a sudden feeling of urgency, Ro”, he said, “as if it really is now or never!”
“Oh!, replied Ro, disinterestedly.
“Sneak!”, said Murphy.
“We found what we think could be the generator”, said Ro, interestedly.
“I found it”, interjected Murphy.
“Yes, Drake found it”, confirmed Ro. “It has what looks like an ON-OFF switch”, he added. Murphy looked at him.
“And you pressed it?”. Murphy said nothing.
“No, well, yes, well, I switched it off!”, said Ro, not wanting to accept the blame and not wanted to place it too obviously on Murphy, “…. when the music started. We were just discussing it when you came back in”, he added, “sort of.”
“Let’s see.”, began Hapless, “Do you still think that this object”, he said, pointing to the radio, “cunningly disguised as an old valve radio, and which glows convincingly old-valve-radio-like, and fills the room with loud music in response to a flick of the ‘on’ switch, is the field generator we’re looking for, which we know is hidden inside a sculpture of a whore’s crutch?”. Ro looked rather sheepish, and Drake Murphy stared at his feet, then moved to put on his pants. He caught Ro’s eye, and pointed. ‘Ha ha!’, he mouthed. Ro grinned in acknowledgement. Hapless saw an opportunity to increase his feeling of superiority further. “I really don’t know why I bother …”, he said dryly. “It’s quite obvious…..”
“Well, you’re the one who fainted at the sight of a spider!”, retorted Ro.
“He what?”, asked Murphy, incredulously. “What a complete girl!”
“Now that is sexist”, said Hapless, “and I will not stand for it!”, he said, trying to deflect things away from his earlier embarrassment.
“He’s rather sensitive, Drake”, Ro told Murphy in a mocking tone. He felt less chilly towards him now he had put some clothes on.
“Right, said Hapless. “Let’s get this job done before we get any more visitors. I don’t want The Nine turning up!”
“Good point”, responded Ro.
“The nine what, Colin?” asked Murphy.
“Oh, they’re some sinister-looking pervert monks”, Ro informed him. “They’ve been following us for days”. Murphy’s face brightened. He was a bit slow on the uptake. Ro shrugged.
“What do you make of this?”, came Hapless’ voice from through the doorway?

They went in to find him looking at a high shelf on a bookcase. A couple of busts were placed there, of Margaret Thatcher and Adolf Hitler, and next to them was a strange-looking sculpture that looked either very modern or very ancient; they couldn’t be sure. Ro fetched a chair and positioned it beneath the object. He climbed up, reaching as high as he could so as to get a firm grip of the thing. It was heavy. Lifting it carefully, he brought it down to the others and placed it gently on the table before the window. ‘It certainly is a strange-looking thing’, thought Hapless, as he studied the form of it, ‘but is it a whore’s crutch?’
“What does a whore’s crutch look like anyway?”, asked Ro.
“Well, the same as any other, only they can be a bit scabby”, offered Drake Murphy helpfully. Hapless and Ro looked at each other.
Rotating the object before them, it became apparent that it was a twisted lump of wood, probably oak. A small brass plate on one side told that it had been presented to Rowling by Oswald Mosley ‘for sterling support through trying times’.
“Lovely chap”, Ro said ironically.