Tales of the Wold Newton Universe (8 page)

Nevertheless, it was partially immobilized. We jumped into the boat and, using its sides as a bulwark, slashed at the tips of the tentacles that were still free. As the ends came over the side, we cut them off or smashed them with the pans. Then we climbed out, while it was screaming through the openings at the ends of the tentacles, and we stabbed it again and again. Greenish blood flowed from its wounds until the tentacles suddenly ceased writhing. The eyes became lightless; the greenish ichor turned black-red and congealed. A sickening odor, that of its death, rose from the wounds.

It took several days to study the controls on the panel in the vessel’s bridge. Each was marked with a strange writing which we would never be able to decipher. But Raffles, the ever redoubtable Raffles, discovered the control that would move the vessel from the bottom to the surface, and he found out how to open the port to the outside. That was all we needed to know.

Meantime, we ate and drank from the ship’s stores which had been laid in to feed the old tar. The other food looked nauseating, and even if it had been attractive, we’d not have dared to try it. Three days later, after rowing the boat out onto the sea—the mist was gone—we watched the vessel, its port still open, sink back under the waters. And it is still there on the bottom, for all I know.

We decided against telling the authorities about the thing and its ship. We had no desire to spend time in prison, no matter how patriotic we were. We might have been pardoned because of our great services. But then again we might, according to Raffles, be shut up for life because the authorities would want to keep the whole affair a secret.

Raffles also said that the vessel probably contained devices which, in Great Britain’s hands, would ensure her supremacy. But she was already the most powerful nation on Earth, and who knew what Pandora’s box we’d be opening? We did not know, of course, that in twenty-three years the Great War would slaughter the majority of our best young men and would start our nation toward second-classdom.

Once ashore, we took passage back to London. There we launched the month’s campaign that resulted in stealing and destroying every one of the sapphire-eggs. One had hatched, and the thing had taken refuge inside the walls, but Raffles burned the house down, though not until after rousing its human occupants. It broke our hearts to steal jewels worth in the neighborhood of a million pounds and then destroy them. But we did it, and so the world was saved.

Did Holmes guess some of the truth? Little escaped those gray hawk’s eyes and the keen gray brain behind them. I suspect that he knew far more than he told even Watson. That is why Watson, in writing
The Problem of Thor Bridge,
stated that there were three cases in which Holmes had completely failed.

There was the case of James Phillimore, who returned into his house to get an umbrella and was never seen again. There was the case of Isadora Persano, who was found stark mad, staring at a worm in a matchbox, a worm unknown to science. And there was the case of the cutter
Alicia,
which sailed on a bright spring morning into a small patch of mist and never emerged, neither she nor her crew ever being seen again.

It is little wonder that Philip José Farmer ended up editing the following story, keen as he was for both mysteries and puns. In his Wold Newton biography
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life,
Farmer makes it clear that Ralph von Wau Wau—the famous canine detective whose intelligence and skills rival those of Sherlock Holmes himself—is indeed a resident of the Wold Newton Universe.

Some readers new to the following tale might wonder why the name Ralph von Wau Wau seems so strangely familiar. They need look no further than Spider Robinson’s brilliantly funny and appropriately pun-filled Callahan stories, in which, by permission of the editor, Ralph has frequently appeared as a character. Similarly, Jonathan Swift Somers III might be familiar to some as the favorite author of Simon Wagstaff, the protagonist of Farmer’s novel
Venus on the Half-Shell
(Titan Books, 2013).

In “Jonathan Swift Somers III: Cosmic Traveller in a Wheelchair,” a biographical sketch on the present story’s author, Farmer writes the following:

“There is no doubt that Somers modeled his fictional dog, Ralph von Wau Wau, on his own pet. Or is there doubt? The Bellener Street Irregulars
²
insist that there is a real von Wau Wau. In fact, Somers is not the real author of the series of tales about this Hamburg police dog who became a private eye. The Irregulars maintain that Somers is only the literary agent for Johann H. Weisstein, Dr. Med., and for Cordwainer Bird, the two main narrators in the Wau Wau series. Weisstein and Bird are the real authors.

“When asked about this, Somers only replied, ‘I am not at liberty to discuss the matter.’”

²
A society dedicated to the study of the canine detective Ralph von Wau Wau.

Ralph von Wau Wau’s first case as a private investigator is not his most complicated or curious. It does, however, illustrate remarkably well my colleague’s peculiar talents. And it is, after all, his first case, and one should proceed chronologically in these chronicles. It is also the only case I know of in which not the painting but the painter was stolen. And it is, to me, most memorable because through it I met the woman who will always be for me The Woman.

Consider this scene. Von Wau Wau, his enemy, Detective-Lieutenant Strasse, myself, and the lovely Lisa Scarletin, all standing before a large painting in a room in a Hamburg police station. Von Wau Wau studies the painting while we wonder if he’s right in his contention that it is not only a work of art but a map. Its canvas bears, among other things, the images of Sherlock Holmes in lederhosen, Sir Francis Bacon, a green horse, a mirror, Christ coming from the tomb, Tarzan, a waistcoat, the Wizard of Oz in a balloon, an ancient king of Babylon with a dietary problem, and a banana tree.

But let me begin at the beginning.

In the year 1978 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Cologne and proceeded to Hamburg to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Autobahn Patrol. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth North-Rhine Westphalia Anti-Oiljackers as assistant surgeon. The campaign against the notorious Rottenfranzer Gang brought honors and promotions to many, but for me it was nothing but misfortune and disaster. At the fatal battle of the Emmerich Off-Ramp, I was struck, on the shoulder, by a missile which shattered the bone. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Rottenfranzer himself but for the devotion and courage shown by Morgen, my paramedic aide, who threw me across a Volkswagen and succeeded in driving safely across the Patrol lines.

At the base hospital at Hamburg (and it really is base), I seemed on the road to recovery when I was struck down with an extremely rare malady. At least, I have read of only one case similar to mine. This was, peculiarly, the affliction of another doctor, though he was an Englishman and he suffered his wounds a hundred years before on another continent. My case was written up in medical journals and then in general periodicals all over the world. The affliction itself became known popularly as “the peregrinating pain,” though the scientific name, which I prefer for understandable reasons, was “Weisstein’s Syndrome.” The popular name arose from the fact that the occasional suffering it caused me did not remain at the site of the original wound. At times, the pain traveled downward and lodged in my leg. This was a cause célèbre, scientifically speaking, nor was the mystery solved until some years later. (In
The Wonder of the Wandering Wound,
not yet published.)

However, I rallied and had improved enough to be able to walk or limp about the wards, and even to bask a little on the veranda when smog or fog permitted, when I was struck down by
Weltschmerz,
that curse of Central Europe. For months my mind was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself, six months had passed. With my health perhaps not irretrievably ruined, but all ability to wield the knife as a surgeon vanished, I was discharged by a paternal government with permission to spend the rest of my life improving it. (The health, not the life, I mean.) I had neither kith nor kin nor kinder and was therefore as free as the air, which, given my small social security and disability pension, seemed to be what I was expected to eat. Within a few months the state of my finances had become so alarming that I was forced to completely alter my lifestyle. I decided to look around for some considerably less pretentious and expensive domicile than the Hamburg Hilton.

On the very day I’d come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Kennzeichen Bar when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Wincing (it was the wounded shoulder), I turned around. I recognized young blonde Stampfert, who had been an anesthetist under me at the Neustadt Hospital. (I’ve had a broad experience of women in many nations and on three continents, so much so in fact that I’d considered entering gynecology.) Stampfert had a beautiful body but a drab personality. I was lonely, however, and I hailed her enthusiastically. She, in turn, seemed glad to see me, I suppose because she wanted to flaunt her newly acquired engagement ring. The first thing I knew, I had invited her to lunch. We took the bus to the Neu Bornholt, and on the way I outlined my adventures of the past year.

“Poor devil!” she said. “So what’s happening now?”

“Looking for a cheap apartment,” I said. “But I doubt that it’s possible to get a decent place at a reasonable rate. The housing shortage and its partner, inflation, will be with us for a long time.”

“That’s a funny thing,” Stampfert said. “You’re the second... person... today who has said almost those exact words.”

“And who was the first?”

“Someone who’s just started a new professional career,” Stampfert said. “He’s having a hard go of it just now. He’s looking for a roommate to share not only expenses but a partnership. Someone who’s experienced in police work. You seem to fit the bill. The only thing is...”

She hesitated, and I said, “If he’s easy to get along with, I’d be delighted to share the expenses with him. And work is something I need badly.”

“Well, there’s more to it than that, though he is easy to get along with. Lovable, in fact.”

She hesitated, then said, “Are you allergic to animals?”

I stared at her and said, “Not at all. Why, does this man have pets?”

“Not exactly,” Stampfert said, looking rather strange.

“Well, then, what is it?”

“There is a dog,” she said. “A highly intelligent... police dog.”

“Don’t tell me this fellow is blind?” I said. “Not that it will matter, of course.”

“Just color-blind,” she said. “His name is Ralph.”

“Yes, go on,” I said. “What about Herr Ralph?”

“That’s his first name,” Stampfert said. “His full name is Ralph von Wau Wau.”

“What?” I said, and then I guffawed. “A man whose last name is a dog’s bark?” (In Germany “wau wau”—pronounced vau vau—corresponds to the English “bow wow.”)

Suddenly, I said, “Ach!” I had just remembered where I had heard, or rather read, of von Wau Wau.

“What you’re saying,” I said slowly, “is that the dog is also the fellow who wants to share the apartment and is looking for a partner?”

Stampfert nodded.

And so, fifteen minutes later, we entered the apartment building at 12 Bellener Street and took the elevator to the second story. Stampfert rang the bell at 2K, and a moment later the door swung in. This operation had been effected by an electrical motor controlled by an on-off button on a control panel set on the floor in a corner. This, it was obvious, had been pressed by the paw of the dog now trotting toward us. He was the largest police dog I’ve ever seen, weighing approximately one hundred and sixty pounds. He had keen eyes which were the deep lucid brown of a bottle of maple syrup at times and at other times the opaque rich brown of a frankfurter. His face was black, and his back bore a black saddlemark.

“Herr Doktor Weisstein, Herr Ralph von Wau Wau,” said Stampfert.

He grinned, or at least opened his jaws, to reveal some very long and sharp teeth.

“Come in, please, and make yourself at home,” he said.

Though I’d been warned, I was startled. His mouth did not move while the words came from his throat. The words were excellent standard High German. But the voice was that of a long-dead American movie actor. Humphrey Bogart’s, to be exact.

I would have picked Basil Rathbone’s, but
de gustibus non disputandum
. Especially someone with teeth like Ralph’s. There was no mystery or magic about the voice, though the effect, even to the prepared, was weird. The voice, like his high intelligence, was a triumph of German science. A dog (or any animal) lacks the mouth structure and vocal chords to reproduce human sounds intelligibly. This deficiency had been overcome by implanting a small nuclear-powered voder in Ralph’s throat. This was connected by an artificial-protein neural complex to the speech center of the dog’s brain. Before he could activate the voder, Ralph had to think of three code words. This was necessary, since otherwise he would be speaking whenever he thought in verbal terms. Inflection of the spoken words was automatic, responding to the emotional tone of Ralph’s thoughts.

“What about pouring us a drink, sweetheart?” he said to Stampfert. “Park it there, buddy,” he said to me, indicating with a paw a large and comfortable easy chair. I did so, unsure whether or not I should resent his familiarity. I decided not to do so. After all, what could, or should, one expect from a dog who has by his own admission seen
The Maltese Falcon
forty-nine times? Of course, I found this out later, just as I discovered later that his manner of address varied bewilderingly, often in the middle of a sentence.