The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends (9 page)

It was a large and cavernous room, high of ceiling, its walls frescoed in the Egyptian style. Pictorial representations of torture and death found great favour here and did not raise my spirits one little bit. I did, however, spy Mr Bell, held between chickens and facing a great administrative desk.

Behind this desk, decked out in a dark blue tunic and trousers, with his bottom parts towards my direction, sat a fellow of considerable girth who spoke in a basso profundo and appeared to be in the very grumpiest of moods.

‘Name?’ this fellow roared at Mr Bell.

‘I have told you my name,’ said the great detective. ‘I am King Cameron of Albion and you would do well to release me at once, amidst a flood of profuse apology.’

‘I said,
name
!’ roared the fellow once more.

‘And I have told you my name,’ said Mr Bell.

‘I see.’ The fellow leaned back upon his stool, his big bottom cheeks straining at his dark blue trouserings. ‘So I will find your name in the
Register of Visiting Royalty
, where each official representative from a foreign realm is to be found? Yes?’

‘I use a number of different names when travelling,’ said Mr Bell bravely. ‘Call out a few and I will tell you which is one of my own.’

‘Sir,’ said he of the prodigious bottom cheeks, ‘I would dearly have loved to be watching the coronation, but my duty dictates that I must sit here for the balance of the day.
I frankly care not whether you are Solomon or the Queen of Sheba. You caused a public nuisance, and for this the sentence is death. Do you have anything to say in your defence before I pass this sentence?’

‘Much,’ said Mr Bell.

‘I thought so,’ said the other. ‘But I am not inclined to listen. Officers, remove this condemned man to a cell. We'll have him executed first thing tomorrow.’

‘I protest,’ said Mr Bell.

‘And
I
would be surprised if you did not.’

‘Be it upon your own head, then,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Let history remember you as the man who drew down the vengeance of Albion upon Akhetaten and brought about its destruction.’

‘You will recall that we have failed to establish your credentials,’ said the chap with his rearward end to me, ‘and as such the validity of your threats remain a matter for debate. I will take my chances with the pages of history. Off to the cells with this criminal.’

And with that he waved away Mr Bell, whose further protestations were stilled by further blows.

I crept past the big-bottomed man and, keeping to the shadows, followed Mr Bell as he was thrust down stone steps to that horrid subterranean realm of cells and torture chambers.

I passed by many doors. Some were clearly those of cells, but I passed one door marked
PRIVATE RECORDS KEEP OUT
. Crudely scrawled in English, these words were, and I viewed them with some puzzlement.

At little length, Mr Bell was flung into a cell and the door closed and bolted upon him. I hid as best I could as the chicken militia hens swaggered back along the corridor and took their leave.

I watched the horrid things depart and trembled not a little.

And then I set to the task of releasing my bestest friend.

10

ow nice it was to see a smile on the face of Mr Bell.

When eventually I peeped in through the little grille in his cell door and blew a raspberry at him.

I say ‘eventually’ because I had waited for what I considered to be a respectable length of time before seeking to effect his rescue. I felt that my friend might do well to endure a solitary period during which he might engage in valuable contemplation. To dwell upon the error of his ways and, hopefully, given the mortal danger that embraced him, to abandon this wretched venture and accompany me instead to Beethoven's concert.

I counted up to one thousand, but went no further as I could abide the smell of this dismal place no longer.

‘Mr Bell,’ I called as I grinned in and waggled my fingers. ‘I have come to rescue you.’

Mr Bell smiled back at me. Although he did it with difficulty as his face displayed many a graze and a bruise.

‘You are as ever a hero, Darwin,’ he said.
^*

I put up a struggle with the bolt and finally opened the door.

Mr Bell tousled my head and thanked me for saving his life.

‘Let us return to the
Marie Lloyd
and be off upon our way,’ I said. ‘There is nothing more we can do here. When they find your cell empty they will hunt you down. It is obviously far too dangerous for us to remain here.’

‘I do so agree,’ said Mr Bell.

And I was glad for that.

‘However, there are certain things that must be done first.’

‘Lunch would be nice,’ I said, for my stomach grumbled. ‘But in a part of this city far distant from here.’

‘It is
here
that these things must be done,’ said Cameron Bell.

As we made our way back along the grim passage, Mr Bell stopped of a sudden.

‘Our investigations begin
here
,’ said he.

We stood before the door that had the words
PRIVATE RECORDS KEEP OUT
scrawled upon it in English.

I looked up at Mr Bell, who tapped his snubby nose. ‘I caught a glimpse of this as I was being bullied down the corridor,’ said he. ‘The crude lettering of my old bootboy Arthur Knapton was instantly recognisable to me.’

And Mr Bell examined the door. ‘Locked with a key, this one,’ he observed.
^*

I turned to take my leave.

‘Not quite yet, Darwin.’

And I turned back to find Mr Bell tinkering in his trouser pockets. Presently he drew out his little roll of house-breaking instruments and set to an act of lock-picking.

I glanced fearfully up and down the passageway. I had no wish at all to remain here and cared not at all for whatever
PRIVATE RECORDS
this locked room contained.

The locked room soon became an unlocked room. Mr Bell pressed open the door and entered it. I followed hard upon his heels and closed the door behind us.

We stood in darkness a moment or two, then the room came to a sudden illumination and we cried out in some surprise at all that lay before us.

Mr Bell was examining a switching arrangement upon the wall. His finger rested upon it. ‘Electrical lighting,’ said he.

‘But look.’ And I pointed. ‘See all of this.’

My companion now viewed the contents of the room that spread all around and about us. We stood within a vault of considerable size, in what appeared to be—

‘A library,’ said Mr Cameron Bell. ‘And if I am not entirely mistaken—’ and he plucked a book from one of the nearest shelves and examined it with interest ‘—the British Library. All twenty thousand, two hundred and forty volumes, I suspect.’

The shelves diminished into hazy perspective.

They appeared to me to go on and on for ever and ever.

‘Surely there are many more books than
that
in here,’ I said.

Mr Bell nodded at this. ‘I would hazard a guess that this vault contains some of the great lost libraries of history. The Alexandrian Library, the Library of Ephesus. Perhaps even—’

Mr Bell replaced the book, hitched up his trousers and strode forward. I followed on, a-shaking my head as Mr Bell ‘oohed’ and ‘ahed’ and pointed here and there.

Eventually he stopped and said, ‘He has acquired them all.’

I shrugged and said I did not understand.

‘He has acquired the books from
all
the lost libraries, including those that were presumed to be purely mythical – those of Mu and Lemuria and Atlantis.’

‘How can that be?’ I enquired.

Mr Bell did thoughtful head-noddings. ‘I have a theory,’ he said, ‘and I will tell you all about it. But not here.’

‘That is much to my liking,’ I said. ‘Let us depart at once.’

‘Not quite so fast.’ Mr Bell shook his head. ‘I am set upon a course. That course is to bring Mr Arthur Knapton, the Pearly Emperor, to justice. The easiest way to achieve this is to catch him unawares, some
where
and some-
when
.’

‘I am in agreement with
that
,’ I said. ‘But the
when
is not
now
, I am thinking.’

‘Myself also.
Here
and
now
are dangerous places to be. I must reason out, by the study of this collection, when certain items were stolen and from where. Then we can travel to this given time and location and catch the villain red-handed.’

‘But surely you already tried that at the British Museum.’

Mr Bell made a grunting sound.

‘In fact, though,’ I said, ‘why don't we go back there again
– to the night when he stole the British Library? This time in the company of many armed constables?’

‘Cannot be done,’ said Mr Bell.

‘Of course it can,’ I said. ‘I have but to reset the controls.’

‘No no
no
.’ And Mr Bell shook his head. ‘We dare not return to any specific time that we previously visited in the time-ship, for if we do so, then all sorts of chaos might occur.’

‘Well, we would not want
that
,’ I said.

Mr Bell raised an eyebrow. ‘If we do that, there
will
be chaos,’ he said. ‘There will be two time-ships there. Two sets of us. There is no telling what could happen.’

I gave my chin a good stroking. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You have a search about, do your detective work. But I would ask of you one favour.’

‘Which is?’

‘Find us some
where
and some-
when
that are relatively safe,’ I said. ‘Not Pompeii an hour before the volcano goes off. Or indeed Atlantis ten minutes before it sinks into the sea. Some-
where
and some-
when
where we will not be in mortal danger.’

‘Agreed,’ said Mr Bell, and set off on his way.

I was left to my own devices, nervous lest we be discovered, somewhat hungry and indeed rather cross. I was not enjoying myself at all and it all felt terribly unfair.

Here I was, the very first monkey to travel through time, and
here I was
. Right
here
! In an underground vault full of musty old tomes. It was no fun at all.

There was nothing whatsoever that I liked about this particular time. I did
not
like those gigantic chickens and I did
not
like those Martians and I hadn't liked that nasty Mr MacTurnip one little bit, either. But at least Mr Bell had shot
him
dead with his ray gun.

And
 . . . And here I peered down at myself. My lovely white linen suit was thoroughly spoiled. It was begrimed
with dust from all the shinning over rooftops I had done and stained with something horrid.

I took a sniff.

‘Oh dear,’ said I. ‘And I never washed my hands.’

I sighed a long and dismal sigh, then called to Mr Bell to hurry up. Then I mooched about the shelves and peeped at all those books. There were so many of them. All those words and all that knowledge, all those works of wonder.

From first I learned to read I have been taken with books. The earliest that I read, the one from which I was taught by Herr Döktor, was the Bible.

I greatly enjoyed the Old Testament, although there is hardly a mention of a monkey to be found. Many animals gain starring roles but not the noble ape. In fact, I was only able to find two references to my kind in the Old Testament: in 1 Kings, chapter ten, verse twenty-two, and 2 Chronicles, chapter nine, verse twenty-one. And in both instances, apes are listed as nothing more than cargo. And not only that, but the verses are all but identical. Clearly a bit of cribbery went on amongst those who penned the Old Testament. Examine these verses for yourselves if you doubt my words.

And whilst we are on the subject of the Old Testament, some of the allusions made to animals are quite absurd. Take, if you will, the fourth chapter of the Song of Solomon:

The italics are my own, but you no doubt gain the picture. Barking mad! I ask you, indeed –
As a piece of pomegranate are thy temples
?

In the fifth verse, the author goes on to add:

And we will leave it there!

‘Aha!’ I heard the cry of Mr Bell, stirring me from my biblical reverie. ‘I have it, I do, I have it!’

He was clearly in high spirits and he approached me at the trot, carrying a bundle of papers beneath his arm.

‘I have a place and a date,’ said Mr Bell, ‘and I think you will be pleased by both.’

I expressed relief at his conclusion.

‘We shall take our leave of this time and place,’ said Mr Cameron Bell. ‘Come, Darwin, let us return to the
Marie Lloyd
.’

Mr Bell put out his hand and I most gladly took it. We left the room of many books and with great care and courage stole away from the police station and the city of Akhetaten.