Atlantis and Other Places (50 page)

“There! D’you see, Helms?” Walton said. “Inspector La Strada’s a man of sense.”

“By which you mean nothing except that he agrees with you,” Helms said placidly. “To the nearest House we shall go.”

Hanover had several Houses of Universal Devotion, all of them in poor, even rough, neighborhoods. Devotion was not a faith that appealed to the wealthy, though more than a few Devotees had, through skill and hard work, succeeded in becoming prosperous. “Nothing but a heresy,” Dr. Walton grumbled as he and Helms approached a House. “Blacker than Pelagianism. Blacker than
Arianism
, by God, and who would have dreamt it possible?”

“Your intimate acquaintance with creeds outworn no doubt does you credit, Doctor,” Helms said. “Here, however, we face a creed emphatically not outworn, and we would do well to remember as much.”

The House of Universal Devotion seemed unprepossessing enough, without even a spire to mark it as a church. On the lintel were carved a sun, a crescent moon, several stars, and other, more obscure symbols. “Astrology?” Dr. Walton asked.

“Freemasonry,” Helms answered. “There are those who claim the two are one and inseparable, but I cannot agree.” His long legs scissored up the stairs two at a time. Walton followed more sedately.

“What do we do if they won’t let us in?” Walton inquired.

“Create a disturbance as a ruse, then effect an entrance will they or nill they.” Athelstan Helms rather seemed to look forward to the prospect. But when he worked the latch the door swung inward on silent, well-oiled hinges. With a small, half-rueful shrug, he stepped across the threshold, Dr. Walton again at his heels.

Inside, the House of Universal Devotion looked more like a church. There were rows of plain pine pews. There was an altar, with a cross on the wall behind it. If the cross was flanked by the symbols also placed above the entryway, that seemed not so remarkable. I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE was written on the south wall, EVERY MAN HATH GOD WITHIN

AND MUST LEARN TO SET HIM FREE on the north, both in the same large block capitals.

“I don’t recognize that Scriptural quotation,” Walton said, nodding toward the slogan on the north wall. In spite of himself, he spoke in the hushed tones suitable for a place of worship.

“From the Preacher’s
Book of Devotions
,” Helms said. “If you are a Devotee, you will believe the Lord inspired him to set down chapter and verse through the agency of automatic writing. If you are not, you may conceivably hold some other opinion.” Walton’s scornful sniff gave some hint as to his views of the matter.

Before he could put them into words—if, indeed, that had been his intention—a man in a somber black suit (not clerical garb in any formal sense of the word, but distinctive all the same) came out from a room off to the left of the altar. “I thought I heard voices here,” he said. “May I help you, gentlemen?”

“Yes,” Athelstan Helms said. “I should like to meet the Preacher, and as expeditiously as may be practicable.”

“As who would not?” returned the man in the black suit.

“You are the priest here?” Walton asked.

“I have the honor to be the rector, yes.” The man stressed the proper word. Bowing slightly, he continued, “Henry Praeger, sir, at your service. And you would be—?” He broke off, sudden insight lighting his features. “Are you by any chance Helms and Walton?”

“How the devil did you know that?” Walton demanded.

“I daresay he read of our arrival in this morning’s
Hanover Herald
,” Athelstan Helms said. “By now, half the capital will have done so. I did myself, at breakfast. Good to know I came here safely, what?”

Dr. Walton spluttered in embarrassment. He had glanced at the newspaper while eating a not quite tender enough beefsteak and three eggs fried hard, but had missed the story in question.

Henry Praeger nodded eagerly. “I did, Mr. Helms, and wondered if you might call at a House, not really expecting mine to be the one you chose, of course. But I am honored to make your acquaintance—and yours, too, Dr. Walton.” He could be charming when he chose.

Dr. Walton remained uncharmed. He murmured something muffled to unintelligibility by the luxuriant growth of hair above his upper lip.

“You
can
convey my desire to the Preacher?” Helms pressed. “His views on the present unfortunate situation are bound to be of considerable importance. If he believes that killing off his opponents and doubters will enhance his position or that of the House of Universal Devotion, I must tell you that I shall essay to disabuse him of this erroneous impression.”

“That has never been the policy of the House of Universal Devotion, Mr. Helms, nor of the Preacher,” Henry Praeger said earnestly. “Those who claim otherwise seek to defame our church and discredit our leader.”

“What about the men who assuredly are deceased, and as assuredly did not die of natural causes?” Dr. Walton inquired.

“What about them, sir?” Praeger returned. “Men die by violence all over the world, like. You will not claim the House of Universal Devotion is to blame for all of those unfortunate passings, I hope?”

“Er—no,” Walton said, though his tone suggested he might like to.

“When the men in question have either criticized the House or attempted to leave the embrace of its creed, I trust you will not marvel overmuch, Mr. Praeger, if some suspicion falls on the institutions you represent,” Athelstan Helms said.

“But I do marvel. I marvel very much,” Praeger said. “That suspicion may fall on individuals . . . that is one thing. That it should fall on the House of Universal Devotion is something else again. The House is renowned throughout Atlantis, and in Terranova, and indeed in England, for its charity and generosity toward the poor and downtrodden, of whom there are in this sorry world far too many.”

“The House is also renowned for its clannishness, its secrecy, and its curious, shall we say, beliefs, as well as for the vehemence with which its adherents cling to them,” Helms said.

“Jews are renowned for the same thing,” Henry Praeger retorted. “Do you believe the tales of ritual murder that come out of Russia?”

“No, for they are fabrications. I have looked into this matter, and know whereof I speak,” Helms answered. “Here in Hanover, however, and elsewhere in this republic, men are unquestionably dead, as Dr. Walton reminded you a moment before. Also, the Jews have the justification of following custom immemorial, which you do not.”

“You are right—we do not follow ancient usages,” Praeger said proudly. “We take for ourselves the beliefs we require, and reshape them ourselves to our hearts’ desire. That is the modern way. That is the Atlantean way. We are loyal to our country, sir, even if misguided officials persist in failing to understand us.”

“You don’t say anything about the dead ’uns,” Walton remarked.

“I don’t know anything about them. Nor do I know how to reach the Preacher.” Praeger held up a hand before either Englishman could speak. “I shall talk to certain colleagues of mine. If, through them or their associates, word of your desire reaches him, I am confident that he will in turn be able to reach you.” His shrug seemed genuinely regretful. “I can do no more.”

“Thank you for doing that much,” Helms said. “Tell me one thing more, if you would: what do the symbols flanking the cross to either side signify to you?”

“Why, the truth, of course,” Henry Praeger answered.

Dr. Walton was happy enough to play tourist in Hanover. Even if the city was young—almost infantile by Old World standards—there was a good deal to see, from the Curb Exchange Building to the Navy Yard to the cancan houses that were the scandal of Atlantis, and of much of Terranova and Europe as well (France, by all accounts, took them in stride). Walton returned from his visit happily scandalized.

Athelstan Helms went to no cancan houses. He set up a laboratory of sorts in their rooms, and paid the chambermaids not to clean it. When he wasn’t fussing there with the daggers that had greeted him or the good doctor, he was poring over files of the
Hanover Herald
he had prevailed upon Inspector La Strada to prevail upon the newspaper to let him see.

From sources unknown to Walton, Helms procured a violin, upon which he practiced at all hours until guests in the adjoining chambers pounded on the walls. Then, reluctantly, he was persuaded to desist.

“Some people,” he said with the faintest trace of petulance, “have no appreciation for—”

“Good music,” Dr. Walton said loyally.

“Well, actually, that is not what I was going to say,” Helms told him. “They have no appreciation for the fact that any musician, good, bad, or indifferent, must regularly play his instrument if he is not to become worse. In the absence of any communication from the Preacher, what shall I do with my time?”

“You might tour the city,” Walton suggested. “There is, I must admit, more to it than I would have expected.”

“It is not London,” Athelstan Helms said, as if that were all that required saying. In case it wasn’t, he added a still more devastating sidebar: “It is not even Paris.”

“Well, no,” Walton said, “but have you seen the museum? Astonishing relics of the honkers. Not just skeletons and eggshells, mind you, but skins with feathers still on ’em. The birds might almost be alive.”

“So might the men the House of Universal Devotion murdered,” Helms replied, still in that tart mood. “They might almost be, but they are not.”

“Also a fine selection of Atlantean plants,” the good doctor said. “Those are as distinctive as the avifauna, if not more so. Some merely decorative, some ingeniously insectivorous, some from which we draw spices, and also some formidably poisonous.”

That drew his particular friend’s interest; Dr. Walton had thought it might. “I have made a certain study of the noxious alkaloids to be derived from plants,” Helms admitted. “That one from southern Terranova, though a stimulant, has deleterious side effects if used for extended periods. Perhaps I should take advantage of the opportunity to observe the specimens from which the poisons are drawn.”

“Perhaps you should, Helms,” Walton said, and so it was decided.

The Atlantean Museum could not match its British counterpart in exterior grandeur. Indeed, but for the generosity of a Briton earlier in the century, there might not have been any Atlantean Museum. Living in the present and looking toward the future as they did, the inhabitants of Atlantis cared little for the past. The museum was almost deserted when Walton brought Helms back to it.

Helms sniffed at the exhibit of extinct honkers that had so pleased his associate. Nor did a close-up view of the formidable beak and talons of a stuffed red-crested eagle much impress him. What purported to be a cucumber slug climbing up a redwood got him to lean forward to examine it more closely. He drew back a moment later, shaking his head. “It’s made of plaster of Paris, and its trail is mucilage.”

“This is a museum, not a zoological garden,” Dr. Walton said reasonably. “You can hardly expect a live slug here. Suppose it crawled off to the other side of the trunk, where no one but its keeper could see it?” Helms only grunted, which went some way toward showing the cogency of Walton’s point.

Helms could not lean close to examine the poisonous plants; glass separated them from overzealous observers. The detective nodded approvingly, saying, “That is as it should be. It protects not only the plants but those who scrutinize them—assuming they are real. With mushrooms of the genus
Amanita
, even inhaling their spores is toxic.”

A folded piece of foolscap was wedged in the narrow gap between a pane of glass and the wooden framing that held it in place. “What’s that, Helms?” Dr. Walton asked, pointing to it.

“Probably nothing.” But Athelstan Helms plucked it away with long, slim fingers—a violist’s fingers, sure enough—and opened it. “I say!” he murmured.

“What?”

Wordlessly, Helms held the paper out to Walton. The doctor donned his reading glasses. “‘Be on the 4:27 train to Thetford tomorrow afternoon. It would be unfortunate for all concerned if you were to inform Inspector La Strada of your intentions.’” He read slowly; the script, though precise, was quite small. Refolding the sheet of foolscap, he glanced over to Helms. “Extraordinary! What do you make of it?”