The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends (21 page)

Mr Bell made a grumpy face, but wisely kept his own counsel.

‘And in ’is knickers and vest.’ And good King Arthur laughed, and the elves and dwarves and gnomes and trolls all took to much laughter also. Because no matter where or when you are, if the King laughs, you laugh, too.

‘Ain't so full of beans now, are ya?’ asked the King of Fairyland. ‘And you calls yerself a detective.’ And the King laughed again, and so did all and sundry around and about.

‘Where's me loyal subject who captured these two?’

A small plump gnome with a long nose and hands that almost reached the floor stepped forward.

Mr Bell cocked an eye at this apparition.

‘And where's me dancin’ children, and the two old gents on the bench and them musicians, too?’

A group of grotesques waved their hands and fluttered their butterfly wings.

‘Like lambs to the slaughter,’ said good King Arthur, ‘led ’ere by a bus ticket and the talk in a Brentford pub. Then down to a village what looked like a village and villagers what looked like villagers.’

‘The glamour,’ whispered the monkey to the man. ‘An enchantment cast, that things are perceived, or otherwise, as the enchanter wishes.’

‘I am aware of this,’ said Mr Bell, most brusquely. ‘I read up on the fairy world before we entered it. And—’

‘And then forgot yer learning when you entered.’ The good King laughed his horrible laugh. ‘There's more to this ’ere world than you'll read of in any of them scholarly books
out there. An’ I should know, as I owns most of the libraries of the Earth.’ And the King laughed again and his subjects laughed again and the man and the monkey felt very sad indeed.

‘I think it best,’ said the King, when all had done with laughter, ‘that I ’ave yer ’eads chopped off so you can cause me no more hin-con-ven-i-ence. I can't ’ave you runnin’ about on the loose, gettin’ up to all manner of shenanigans and causing me bovver and grief.’

The fairies made ominous mumbling sounds. They could not have their dear King Arthur brought to bother and grief.

‘You just don't gets it,’ continued the King. ‘I ain't no tuppeny-’apenny footpad what you can track down with yer intuitive examinations of me shirt-cuffs. I'm the Pearly Emperor, I am. The God-Pharaoh Akhenaten of ancient Egypt. Good King Arthur in the land of myth an’ legend. And other rulers in other times what I won't mention ’ere. And I'll ’ave your realm too, Mr ’igh an’ mighty Cameron Bell, what swaggers about as the world's most famous detective. I've already written you out of ’istory – and now I'll write you out of life itself.’

The fairies pointed fingers at the man and the monkey and booed and jeered and even catcalled, too.

‘Shut up!’ shouted the King. ‘But know this, Mr Bell as finks ’e's so clever. I ’as Crowley's magic stele. I was smart enough to decode it. I can travel as and when I want and I will ’ave it all – the past, the present an’ the future. I'll ’ave all the worlds that are and all the worlds that may be. So what do you say to that, Mr Dangerous Detective?’

In truth, Mr Bell appeared to be somewhat lost for words. For in truth, he appeared to have met his match.

The monkey whispered at the detective's ear. ‘Shall I blow my whistle now?’ he asked.

Cameron Bell sighed sadly. ‘I regret that blowing your whistle here will not summons the assistance of a policeman.’

‘But—’ said the monkey.

‘Stop that whisperin’,’ called the King. ‘Jailer, take ’em out to the courtyard an’ let's ’ave off their ’eads.’

And to much applause and good humour and much bouncing up and down of boggarts, and elbowings of elves, and laughings of leprechauns and hootings of hobgoblins and shoutings of sylphs and suchlike, the man was booted in the bum and encouraged towards the courtyard.

It was another sunny day in Fairyland. Though, as before, the sky of blue lacked for a sun.

The King was borne aloft upon his throne, held high upon the backs of creatures half-man and half-Hobnob.
^*
Wingéd fairies swarmed the air and those that leapt and crawled moved by whatever means they had into the castle courtyard.

Upon a raised platform, the chopping block stood. And next to this another titanic figure, sporting the terrible axe and the big black hood that marked him out as an executioner, rather than, say, a quantity surveyor.

‘I would blow my whistle
now
!’ said the monkey to the man.

‘I am so very very sorry,’ said the man to the monkey. ‘My foolishness, my overconfidence, oh so many things, have brought this awful fate upon you, my innocent friend. I am truly sorry.’

‘I think I
will
blow it,’ said the monkey.

‘Up!’ the King shouted. ‘Onto the platform. Onto the block. Off with their ’eads as of now.’

And Mr Bell was urged up steps onto the frightful
platform and the fairies swarmed and the fairies jeered and the good King raised his hand up high . . .

And then brought down his thumb.

The huge executioner grabbed the monkey, held him high in the air by his tail.

The monkey put his whistle to his mouth and blew.

The fairy crowd broke out in applause.

The monkey blew his whistle three more times.

The good King fell about in mirth.

The executioner held the monkey to the block, raised up his axe and prepared to bring it down.

Mr Bell covered his eyes and said his prayers.

The executioner made to swing his axe.

And then the world went mad.

They seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

Screaming and screeching.

Leaping and bounding.

Viciously fighting.

Clawing and punching.

Biting and biffing.

Producing and flinging dung.

Monkeys! Hundreds of monkeys!

They fell without fear onto the fairies and the King, onto the jailer and thing that held the axe.

‘I think we should be going now,’ said Darwin.

And as monkey mayhem was given its full hairy head, Mr Bell and Darwin slipped away.

*
A type of biscuit, apparently. (R. R.)

24

‘
ell me
now
,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

He and Darwin were once more aboard the
Marie Lloyd
, this time in the company of many many monkeys.

They had all made good their escape from Fairyland and all were now in the very best of spirits.

Darwin sat in the pilot's seat, a young ape on his lap. ‘It is all rather simple,’ he said to Mr Bell. ‘You had a plan, so I thought that I should have one, too. Mine worked a little better than yours, I am thinking.’

‘Go on then,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Tell me all about it.’

‘Well,’ said Darwin, ‘it was this way. When I visited my monkeys yesterday and found them all caged up and in such a disorganised state, it upset me greatly. I asked you to leave me all alone with them, and when you did so – and when there was nobody else around – I spoke to them in both Man and Monkey. I told them who I was and that I had come to free them—’

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘And I told them that if they all behaved themselves, I would take them to a better place.’

Mr Bell ‘oh deared’ some more. Darwin told him to shush.

‘Then I unlocked their cage,’ said the educated ape, ‘and told them to quietly follow you and I when we left the
Marie Lloyd
a little before midnight yesterday.’

‘They were certainly stealthy,’ said Mr Bell. ‘I had no idea they were following us.’

Darwin grinned. ‘I am very proud of them,’ he said. ‘But let me finish. I had brought this whistle with me and I told my monkeys that if I got into any desperate trouble I would blow it four times, and I would really appreciate it if they rescued me.’

Mr Bell smiled and said, ‘Which they did.’

‘Which they did,’ agreed the ape. ‘You see, Mr Bell, it was not good that my monkeys should have to spend their lives in a cage, but it looked as though that would be their fate if they remained in the world of men. The world of fairies, however, appeared to be quite another matter, and I reasoned that here was a place that might perhaps suit my monkeys better.’

‘Hm,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Perhaps.’

‘
Perhaps
, indeed. But it was not to be. Fairyland is probably not a place for anyone other than fairies.’

‘Arthur Knapton looks quite at home there.’

‘But not my monkeys,’ Darwin said. ‘It would have been nice, but it was not to be.’

‘It was a noble idea,’ said Mr Bell, ‘and I applaud you for it. And undoubtedly your forward planning saved our lives. I shall be forever in your debt.’

Darwin reached out his little hand and Mr Bell took it and shook it.

‘But, as you said, it was not to be,’ said the great detective.
‘And so I regret we must return these monkeys to their rightful owner.’

There was a terrible silence then, within the
Marie Lloyd
.

‘Well, they can't come with us,’ said Mr Bell.

‘We do not have room,’ said Mr Bell.

‘Think of all they would eat,’ said Mr Bell.

‘Think of all the poo!’ said Mr Bell.

‘They are
not
going back to the cage,’ said Darwin.

‘That is that is
that
!’

‘But they can't—’

‘They saved our lives,’ said the educated ape, ‘and I will not abandon them now.’

‘But they—’

‘Listen,’ said Darwin. ‘I have an idea. Let me explain to you what it is, and if you agree that it is a good idea, then we will translate this idea from words into a deed – are we agreed upon this?’

‘Tell me your idea,’ said Mr Bell.

Many provisions were purchased. As many as Mr Bell's limited funds would stretch to. The monkeys, in the care of Darwin, remained aboard the
Marie Lloyd
, hidden from the world, whilst the detective to-ed and fro-ed from the time-ship, looking ever more grumpy.

‘I think
now
would be the time for us to depart,’ he informed the monkey pilot. ‘There are many policemen now abroad in Syon Park, searching high and low for all these monkeys.’

‘They will not think to look in here, Mr Bell,’ said Darwin.

‘I fear that I may have aroused certain suspicions by bringing aboard such a large cargo of bananas and monkey nuts,’ declared the detective. ‘Let us leave
now
, if you please.’

Darwin called, ‘Hold tight,’ in Monkey to his monkeys, buckled his seat belt and diddled away at the dashboard.

‘The date I want isn't on here,’ he said to his friend as he studied the dials and counters.

‘Then just put the ship into reverse and we will use our discretion.’

The monkeys of Syon did not get on very well with Cameron Bell. There always appeared to be several monkeys in any particular place that he wished to be in at any particular time. And all those monkeys
did
take up an awful lot of room. And they
did
eat an awful lot of food. And as to the matter of monkey poo . . .

Awful!

Mr Bell fretted and fumed.

Darwin, however, had rarely, if ever, been happier.

Here he was in the company of his grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, too. And as the
Marie Lloyd
plied its way through quantum shifts and Doppler passages and things of a meta-temporal nature generally, he set to educating his travelling companions, offering to them the basics of ‘civilisation’.

‘You are my tribe,’ he told them, ‘and as such, you are special.’

Back and back went the ship of time.

Back and back and back.

Within the
Marie Lloyd
a week had passed.

‘I feel we should now stop the ship,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

Darwin looked towards his friend and started with surprise.

Mr Bell was no longer the Mr Bell that Darwin knew so
well, the avuncular Pickwickian figure, well dressed and bright of eye.

Here indeed was a sad shadow of that Mr Bell. Here was a fellow most put upon and, it had to be said, most
pooped
upon. A fellow unshaven and unkempt, with dark rings under his eyes.

‘In truth,’ cried Mr Cameron Bell, wading about amidst monkeys, ‘I am at the end of my tether. Either stop this ship now or I swear I will throw open the port and hurl myself into the aether.’

‘Ah,’ said Darwin, and gave himself a scratch.

‘Please,’ begged Mr Bell. ‘I can stand no more.’

A fine young monkey bit him on the bottom.

‘So be it,’ said Darwin. ‘Hold on, everyone.’

And he took the
Marie Lloyd
out of gear and tugged upon the handbrake.

The ship of time rested in a sylvan glade. A gentle breeze whispered at grasses. The sun shone down from a sky of blue. And all looked very nice.

Darwin set his key to the lock and the port swung open with a sigh.

The monkeys clustered at the door, but Darwin held them back and sniffed the air.

‘What do you think?’ asked Cameron Bell, his voice both weary and soft.

‘I think,’ said Darwin, ‘in fact, I
sense
and indeed
know
that all is well. We have travelled back to a time many many many thousands of years before the dawn of Mankind. And –’ and he sniffed once again ‘– a time that is not populated by chickens.’