The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends (20 page)

‘What is that naked gentleman doing with that duck?’ the ape named Darwin asked of Cameron Bell.

The great detective viewed the carved columns with fastidious interest.

‘And those ladies,’ said Darwin. ‘Is that a long cucumber they are sharing?’

‘Let us move swiftly along,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘We have much to do and must not be diverted from our task.’

‘And why has that little man got such an enormous—’

But the dangerous detective took the monkey by the hand, and together they entered Fairyland.

It is well to be wary in Fairyland, for the fairy folk ofttimes play queer pranks on those who would venture within their domain. It is written that fairies are of an order halfway between Man and the angels, and that many centuries ago, the race of Mankind drove these first folk from their lands and into the forests and wastes. How long fairies live and what they dine upon are matters for scholarly debate, as is the question regarding whether or not they are possessed of a mortal soul.

Some claim they are cacodemons, bugaboos and flibbertigibbets who would hasten Man to his destruction; others that they are wood nymphs, sylphs and sprites, who, though of impish humour, mean Mankind no harm at all.

In truth, opinions remain divided and very few truths be told.

‘Are we really in Fairyland?’ asked the magnificent monkey.

The dangerous detective nodded his big bald head, which lurked beneath his oversized pith helmet, then lowered his night-vision goggles and peered all around and about. ‘This is a very strange land,’ said he, ‘for we stand in the light of day beneath a bright blue sky, but I can see no sun at all – can you?’

The monkey shrugged and said that he could not. But
that the curious smell, which had pressed upon his sensitive nostrils when first they approached the portal to the fairy world, had now intensified to a point that was almost beyond endurance. But not from malodorousness – quite the reverse. The smell was utterly delicious.

‘I smell only cinnamon,’ said Mr Bell, a-sniffing at the air.

‘I smell so much more,’ the monkey said, and composed on the spot a verse to list the fragrances that met him as he walked.

’Tis a dainty bouquet with a honeysome charm,

Sugarplum, marzipan, marmalade, myrrh.

Bewitching, beguiling, a beauteous balm,

Liquorice, lollypop, fritters and fur.

A nectarous nosegay to nuzzle the nostrils,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, parsley and pine.

Pork pies and poppadoms, pasties and pastilles,

Fruits of the forest and fruits of the vine.

A full-flavoured fancy, a savoury scent,

Tasty and toothsome and feathery-light.

Per-fum-at-ory and am-bros-i-ient,

Toffee and treacle and Turkish delight.

‘All of
that
?’ asked Mr Cameron Bell.

‘All of that and more,’ said the educated ape. ‘Which makes it rather hard for me to do anything other than just sniff and enjoy it.’

They stood in an Arcadian glade. Tall grasses whispered in a gentle breeze. A white fluffy cloud or two meandered across the sky. Curly-branched trees were adorned with strange fruits. Faint music drifted from somewhere.

‘Do you know what I am thinking?’ said the monkey to the man.

‘I believe I do,’ the man replied. ‘You are thinking that perhaps this is how our world was, so very very long ago, before the birth of Man.’

‘Precisely,’ said the monkey. ‘It looks like a perfect world and I feel that perhaps we should not be here.’

‘And nor should Arthur Knapton,’ said the man. ‘Let us seek him out and capture him and return to the world we know.’

The two walked on, the monkey ever more amazed by the smells that crowded upon him, the man overwhelmed by the beauty, but anxious to achieve his goal and capture the Pearly Emperor.

They climbed a hill and reached its brow, and then the man smiled and pointed. Planted fields led down to a picturesque village of red-tiled roofs and blue-bricked walls and bottle-glass windows and all medieval in its looks, quaint and at peace with the landscape. The sounds of music and jollity came louder to the ears of man and monkey.

‘We shall go and enquire within the alehouse,’ the man to the monkey said.

‘But you promise you will not shoot anyone dead unless it is
absolutely
necessary.’

‘You have my word. Come on.’

And so they strolled through the fields and entered the quaint little village.

Children danced about what appeared to be a maypole whilst old gentlemen sat on a bench by an alehouse door. The dangerous detective, a man who had ever upon him a healthy thirst for alcohol, noted well the mugs of grog these gentlemen held in their fists.

‘All looks to be safe enough,’ he said to his friend the monkey.

The monkey simply nodded, for he had nothing to say.

He did, however, tinker with the police whistle that hung about his neck on a length of string.

Music was provided for the dancing children by a deuce of roguish gypsy types, one of whom played a concertina, the other an old violin.

Mr Bell tipped his helmet to all and sundry and, meeting with no ill looks, entered the alehouse. It was quaintness personified, all cobbled floor, rustic stools, a counter of oak and a chap behind this counter.

‘Good day to you, sirs,’ said the chap to the man and the monkey. ‘You look as if you have travelled far and could trouble a mug of good ale.’

‘That we could,’ said Mr Bell, removing from his head his pith helmet and placing it with care upon the counter. ‘We have come from a far country and perhaps we are lost, for I know not the name of the village.’

‘Welcome to Knapton,’ said the bar-lord, drawing a mug of ale.

‘Knapton,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Knapton, indeed?’

‘The village of Knapton, in the Shire of Knapton. The prettiest village you will find in this whole country of Knapton.’

The bar-lord pushed a filled mug towards Mr Bell and took to the filling of a lesser one.

‘Is there a city of Knapton, too?’ asked Mr Bell as he tasted ale. Tasted ale and found it pleasing, too.

‘There is no city that I know of, sir. Only the castle, wherein lives the King.’

Beckoned by the bar-lord, the monkey now swarmed up
onto the bar-counter, accepted his ale and took to similar tastings.

‘Castle Knapton, perchance?’ said the detective. ‘Where King Knapton lives?’

The bar-lord shook his head. ‘Castle Camelot,’ he said, ‘where good King Arthur lives.’

The monkey looked at Mr Bell.

And Mr Bell looked at the monkey.

‘Might I enquire,’ enquired Mr Bell, ‘as to whether good King Arthur has a round table and a legion of noble knights?’

‘Wouldn't be much of a king if he didn't,’ said the barlord, and then he lit a pipe.

The man and the monkey tasted more ale and smacked their lips with pleasure.

‘I hope you do not feel that I am being rude in asking so many questions,’ said Cameron Bell.

The bar-lord shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘No.’

‘Then might I ask you whether you have ever met good King Arthur? And if you have, what exactly he looks like in the flesh?’

‘Strange you should ask me that,’ said the bar-lord. ‘I have certainly never been granted an audience with the King, as I am a commoner, me. But I know well the looks of him, as many around here do. Here, sir, let me show you this portrait of him which arrived in the morning post.’

And the bar-lord delved beneath his counter and brought forth a sheet of paper, which he placed with a certain reverence atop the counter.

The man and the monkey peered down at the portrait.

The King wore a crown as a king will do and a robe of ermine also. And there was no doubt in the mind of man or monkey that good King Arthur's second name was Knapton.

‘Good King Arthur,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘Good King Arthur indeed, sir,’ said the bar-lord. ‘And please turn over the paper before you, if you will, to see something that may cause you some surprise.’

Mr Bell turned over the page. Then said, ‘Oh my dear dead mother.’

On the rear of the page was printed the word:

WANTED

In very large letters. And:

BIG REWARD FOR CAPTURE

And beneath these words were two portraits: one of a man and one of a monkey.

‘Uncommon likenesses, aren't they, sir?’ said the bar-lord.

‘I think we must be going now,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘No, sir,’ said the bar-lord. ‘I think not.’

Cameron Bell drew out his ray gun. Then took to wobbling slightly on his toes.

‘We were told to expect you,’ said the bar-lord. ‘Your ales have been laced with a strong soporific – I doubt you could even make three single steps towards the door.’

Cameron Bell managed almost three.

Darwin, however, did not.

*
There were several more pages of this guff, but I have removed them to spare the reader's sensitivities. (R. R.)

23

arwin awoke in a very bad mood indeed. His little head hurt and, to his absolute horror, he found that he had been stripped of his fine clothing and accoutrements.

All he retained was the key to the
Marie Lloyd
and the police whistle, both still hanging about his dainty neck.

The detective awoke with a shriek of pain, which gradually dimmed to groans of his own.

‘That is another fine mess you have got us both into,’ said the ape, in a tone which almost echoed that of Stan Laurel. ‘Note well that we always come unstuck in alehouses. That cries something loud that must be heard!’

‘Please do
not
cry it so loud here,’ mumbled the dismal detective. ‘I believe this must be what a hangover feels like and I like it not one small piece.’

Mr Bell now took to patting at himself, groaning at intervals and shaking his head.

‘They have taken the lot,’ he said in gloom. ‘My weapons, my adjuncts, my dynamite.’

‘Your adjuncts?’ said the ape.

‘Never mind.’

‘I am hungry,’ continued the ape. ‘And I am very upset. We have been tricked again. No, let me phrase that better –
you
have been tricked yet again.’

‘Don't rub it in.’ Mr Bell struggled to his feet. There was no doubt at all as to where they were. They were in a dungeon, and a grim and ghastly one, too.

‘My plan would be this—’ said Cameron Bell.

But Darwin shook his head. ‘I am beginning to think,’ said he, ‘that if you never have a plan, then nothing can ever be said to go wrong.’

‘You are wise beyond your years,’ said Mr Bell, dusting down his underwear. For naught had been left upon him but his long johns and his vest.

‘Why do you need elasticated garters to hold up your socks?’ asked Darwin.

And his socks!

‘Never mind.’ Mr Bell knotted his fists. ‘We must escape from here post-haste. It will be the executioner's block in the castle courtyard for us, I am thinking.’

Light shone down through a grating high above.

‘Could you swarm up there?’ asked Mr Bell.

‘I could
not
,’ said the monkey.

‘Then we must find some other way out or—’

But Mr Bell did not finish that sentence, because now there came those distinctive sounds of a great key being turned in a great lock and the shrieking of irritated hinges as the dungeon door swung open.

Something monstrous stooped and peered in at the man and the monkey.

‘Fee-fi-fo-fum,’ boomed this fearsome figure. For a fearsome figure he was, all a-bulge with muscles and sinews and terribly fierce of face. ‘Out, foul conspirators!’

Darwin's knees began to knock.

Mr Bell offered comfort.

‘Climb onto my back,’ said the man to the monkey. ‘All might not be lost.’

But all now appeared hopelessly lost, and as the giant jailer urged Mr Bell along a grim passage, with many a boot to the backside, the prospects for the Happy-Ever-After that ought to bring a fairy tale to a satisfactory conclusion looked remote at best.

‘Up them stairs,’ boomed the bemuscled monster. ‘And get a move on, do.’

Up the stairs went man and monkey, the man a-grinding his teeth, the monkey a-trembling fearfully.

And out into bright light, a banqueting hall and very much laughter indeed.

And—

‘Oh my dear dead mother,’ said Cameron Bell.

For everywhere, around and about and up and down, were fairies.

They hovered aloft upon dragonfly wings. They peeped from corners and bounced upon benches. Brownies and boggarts and bogles. Leprechauns, loireags and lobs. Goblins and things that go bump in the night. Hinkypunks, huldus and hobs.

They laughed and they chattered, they howled and they called, and such was the awful cacophony in that great hall that it might drive sanity from the mind of mortal Man.

‘Be silent!’ A voice rose up and silence fell.

Mr Bell peeped up and saw . . .

None other than Arthur Knapton.

And he did look the very picture of a king in his golden crown and his ermine cape. And he lolled upon a throne of
impressive size and wispy sylph-like ladies fed him porter and pork pies.

‘Dear oh dear oh dear,’ cried good King Arthur. ‘If it ain't me old master from Oxford, Mr Cameron Bell.’