The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends (13 page)

‘Tell me,’ whispered Crowley. ‘Tell me how it is done.’

Mr Bell shook hard his head. ‘Whatever can you mean?’

A withered hand stretched out to the great detective. ‘You found it,’ said the ancient. ‘The Aqua Vitae – the Elixir of Life. You found it. How did you find it?’

Mr Bell shook his head once more. ‘It is not what you think,’ said he.

‘But we were at Oxford together. I recall it well.’

‘As do I,’ said Mr Bell, ‘and more besides. Recall our bootboy, Crowley?’

‘Arthur Knapton,’ said Aleister Crowley. ‘What a young scamp was he.’

Arthur Knapton! I gazed from Mr Bell to Aleister Crowley.

‘What became of Knapton?’ asked Mr Bell.

‘Gone to Hell, I hope!’ cried the Logos of the Aeon, then sank back in his chair in a fit of coughing.

‘Some bad blood between you, then?’ Mr Bell discovered what appeared to be a glass half-filled with water upon a nearby Turkish table. He offered this to our raddled host who tossed it back with some vigour.

‘Just tell me,’ he croaked. ‘What have you to lose? Just tell me how it is done.’

‘If you answer
my
questions,’ said Mr Bell, ‘I will answer
yours
. Is that a fair exchange, in your opinion?’

Aleister Crowley made grumbling sounds but nodded his old yellow head.

‘I would ask
you
a question,’ said Mr Bell, ‘because I believe that
you
might know the answer.’

‘I know the answers to most, if not all, of the questions.’

‘Quite so. Then tell me, Crowley – what became of the past?’

Aleister Crowley cackled somewhat. ‘That is a very strange question.’

‘But you have been asked far stranger.’

‘Ha!’ cried Crowley. ‘Aha!’ And his eyes grew wide as he stared at Mr Bell. ‘You wore that very suit the last time I saw you – at the Electric Alhambra in the summer of eighteen ninety-nine. You have not aged a day, it would appear, but neither has your suit.’

‘It is said,’ said Mr Bell, ‘that a well-tailored suit will see out its wearer.’

‘No! No! No! He did it!’ There was a look of enlightenment now on the face of the elderly fellow. ‘That little swine did it. He stole my papers. He worked the spell. So you and he were in it together – it all makes sense to me now.’

Mr Bell looked long and hard at Aleister Crowley. ‘Knapton,’ he said. ‘You speak of Arthur Knapton.’

‘Of course, Knapton – don't pretend you are ignorant of this matter. He stole my magical stele. The engraved tablet of Akhenaten. The Stele of Revealing.’

‘That one might travel—’

‘Through time! You know this because you have done it.’ Aleister Crowley clutched at his heart, and his breath came with terrible sounds.

Mr Bell did not appear too concerned regarding the old man's state. He cupped his chin in the palm of his hand and made a thoughtful face. ‘So it is magic,’ said he. ‘Magic is the motive force for Mr Knapton's travellings.’

At length, Mr Crowley gathered his breath and his wits. ‘Teach me the words, my old friend,’ he said in a greasy tone. ‘Let me hear the incantation. I am old and all but gone – what possible harm could it do?’

‘All in good time,’ said my friend. ‘But first I need answers to
my
questions. What became of the past? What became of
our
past? What of Tesla towers, of ray guns and of spaceships?’

‘Ray guns?’ Aleister Crowley laughed.

Mr Bell patted his pockets in search of his.

But he did not have it and so he ceased his pattings. ‘You remember well enough,’ said he. ‘I once shot you in the foot with mine at the Crystal Palace.’

This was news to me, but as I had taken an instant dislike to the repugnant Mr Crowley, I was quite tickled to think that Mr Bell had once shot him in the foot.

‘Such a long time ago,’ said Crowley. ‘Such a long time ago.’

‘And time has addled your brain,’ said Cameron Bell.

The old man's evil eyes were once more fixed upon my friend. ‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘I see more. He has tricked you, too, and you are trapped here. Now, tell me I am wrong.’

‘You are not altogether wrong,’ Mr Bell confessed. ‘It is because of Knapton that I am here. I sought to bring him to justice. I traced him to this time and intended to lie in wait and take him, one way or another.’

‘To the sound of exploding dynamite!’ crowed Crowley. ‘I know your methods well enough. But if not through magic, how came you to this time?’

‘It is my turn to ask the questions,’ said Mr Bell. ‘And do not give me any folderol about fading memories – I see the scar of my ray gun's burn upon your veiny ankle.’

‘Plah!’ said Aleister Crowley, and he indicated his humidor. ‘Let us smoke cigars and speak of the old days.’

‘Of spaceships and ray guns?’ asked Cameron Bell, drawing out cigars.

‘Of those and the stele, too.’

Cigars were lit and smoke exhaled and I took to coughing with vigour.

‘Darwin,’ said Mr Bell, ‘the atmosphere is somewhat noxious here. Why not go down to the garden for some fresh air? I will join you soon.’ And Mr Bell gave me a certain look.

I left the room and he closed the door behind me, but I did not go down to the garden. I pressed my ear to the door and peeped at times through the keyhole.

‘The Ape of Thoth,’ said Aleister Crowley. ‘How came you by
that
?’

‘It is still my turn for questions. I felt, however, that you might care to yield more knowledge when free of his presence.’

I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. What was the Ape of Thoth?

‘In truth,’ said Crowley, ‘I am very glad that you came. I do not face death with a light heart. Sometimes I hate myself.’

‘You have not exactly been a model citizen.’

‘How did you find me?’ Crowley asked. ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘Happy happenstance, as it happens. I visited the Atlantis Bookshop, where they pin upon their noticeboards certain cheques that clients have made out to them. Cheques that the banks have failed to honour. Bouncing cheques, as it were. There are several of yours on display. They told me the address and asked me to give you this.’ Mr Bell pulled something from his pocket. I assumed it was Mr Crowley's account, drawn up by the Atlantis Bookshop.

Aleister Crowley cackled at this and said, ‘Throw it into the bin.’

‘Quite so. But the day wears on and I must have answers to my questions. What became of the past we grew up in? How could it simply vanish as if it never existed?’

The wrinkled fellow sucked deeply on his cigar. ‘How so indeed?’ said he. ‘I
was
possessed of magic, you know. I could have become the greatest magician of this or any other age.’

‘And naturally you would have used your powers for good.’

‘Are you having a gi-raffe? I would have indulged myself in every vice and every pleasure known to Man.’

‘But you did
not
.’

‘Not for the want of trying.’ Aleister Crowley tapped ash onto the carpet. ‘But it went. All magic went at the turn of the twentieth century, as if a tap had been turned off, and with it the past as we recall it. The wonders of Tesla and Babbage. The matter of the Martian invasion. Damn it, Bell, the Martians blew up my aunty's house in Surbiton.’

‘But history cannot be
unmade
, surely?’

Aleister Crowley laughed once more, a most depressing sound. ‘The arrow of time is supposed to point in a single direction,’ said he, ‘but this can only be if it is not deflected, if time runs its course as it would do. Untampered with. Don't you see it, Bell? You travelled through time as did Knapton, and between the two of you, you have altered the past. All that has happened since the dawn of the twentieth century has happened because time was tampered with. This war now, this
World
War, is not the first of this century. It is the second, and you must take your share of the blame for it.’

‘No,’ said Mr Bell. ‘I have done nothing to bring about these horrors. I have only pursued a criminal. And I
will
bring him to justice and I
will
set history to right.’

‘Only if you can hunt him down and return with him to
our
past.’

‘And that I will do,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘That I will certainly do.’

‘Without a time conveyance of your own?’

Mr Bell did puff-puffings.

Aleister Crowley shook his ancient head. ‘I
could
have been the greatest magician of this century,’ he said, ‘but it was not to be and now I am old and broken. But history
will
remember me, Mr Bell, and I will enjoy celebrity in the future. As for you, you are not even a footnote. You are a
bumbling character in a children's book. You have brought this curse upon yourself. There is no future for you.’

Mr Bell rose to take his leave.

‘You have cursed yourself,’ said Mr Aleister Crowley.

15

e took a late lunch in an alehouse on the seafront. Hastings appeared to have escaped the cruel attentions of enemy aircraft so far. Which seemed a little unfair to me, as it is an unlovely seaside resort and might well have been improved by selective bombings.

That is a rather cruel thing to say, but my mood was none too jolly.

Before we had journeyed to Hastings, Mr Bell had been forced to pawn his remaining valuables to raise money for the fare. He pulled from his pocket a couple of pound notes and a tinkling of change.

‘You overhead everything that was said, I suppose,’ said he.

‘I assumed that you wanted me to. What is the Ape of Thoth?’ I asked.

Mr Bell shook hard his head. ‘That hardly matters now.’

We sat in a window seat that afforded a view of the sea-front. It was all very peaceful in Hastings, but patrons of the alehouse were looking hard at Mr Bell and me.

‘You will have to avail yourself of more suitable apparel,’ I whispered. ‘You do look very out of place indeed.’

‘And I feel the same,’ said my friend, in such a plaintive manner as to raise once more those hairs on the back of my neck.

‘Must we remain for ever in this dreadful time?’ I spoke behind my hand. ‘I really do not think that I could bear it.’

Mr Bell shrugged sadly and consulted the menu.

‘Corned beef and reconstructed egg and a single choice of bottled beer,’ said he with sadness. ‘And we who have dined at the Savoy Grill and washed down our feasts with the finest Château Doveston.’

‘We
did
really do that?’ I whispered in reply. ‘And we
did
go to Venus and Mars?’

‘We
did
.’ Mr Bell hailed what passed for a waiter. ‘Two of today's “specials”,’ he said, ‘and two of your finest ales.’

What passed for a waiter looked long and hard at me.

‘If you say “we don't serve monkeys in here”,’ said Mr Bell, ‘I shall rise from my seat and pitch you into the sea.’

‘Two specials and two ales,’ said the what-passed-for, and he scuttled away.

Folk were still glancing so we sat a while in silence. When all appeared safe, I asked Mr Bell whether he had any kind of plan.

‘I am working on one,’ he said.

‘One that will involve our swift departure from this time?’

Mr Bell made the ‘so-so’ gesture with his fingers. ‘I am thinking more of a plan to raise sufficient funds that we are not forced to sleep beneath the stars at night.’

‘Preferable beneath the stars here than beneath the ground in London.’

What passed for a waiter brought us our ales and popped the tops from the bottles. ‘Please do not take offence, sir,’ he said to Mr Bell, ‘but I wonder if you would be so good as to settle a matter for us?’

‘If I can,’ said Mr Bell. ‘What does this matter entail?’

‘Well,’ began the what-passed-for, ‘my friend Mr Walter Tomlinson over there says that you are a stage magician.’

Mr Bell sighed. ‘Go on.’

‘But my other friend, Mr Terence Lightfoot, says that you are the Great Caruso himself.’

‘The Great Caruso?’ said Mr Cameron Bell. ‘And do you have an opinion of your own?’

‘Not one that I would care to voice.’

‘Well,’ said Mr Bell, ‘I can tell you that I am neither a stage magician nor the Great Caruso himself.’

‘I suspected not Caruso, sir, as he died in nineteen twenty-one.’

‘Quite so,’ said Mr Bell. ‘But I am indeed a well-known face upon the London stage.’

I raised my eyebrows to this outrageous lie.

‘I am the celebrated Professor Thoth,’ said Mr Cameron Bell, ‘and this is the equally celebrated Darwin, known and loved from the Americas to Hindustan as the Educated Ape.’

‘Educated?’ said the man. ‘How so?’

I stared slack-jawed whilst Mr Bell explained.

‘He is a Wonder of the World,’ explained he. ‘A simian prodigy that does read and speak and prognosticate the future.’

A look of avarice appeared in the what-passed-for's eyes. A certain longing, perhaps, to leave his mundane job behind, take to the bright lights of the city and exhibit an educated ape.

Mr Bell noted well that look. ‘Naturally, he can only perform whilst in
my
company,’ he said, and he gritted his teeth and then added, ‘Gottle o’ geer.’

‘Ah,’ said the hoped-to-be-top-of-the-bill. ‘I see.’ And he winked at Mr Bell.