The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends Read Online Free Page A

at the time of my visit, it was a thing of great splendour.
    In those days it also housed what would come to be known as the British Library, a collection of some twenty thousand, two hundred and forty volumes bequeathed by Sir Thomas Grenville. Exactly how a single individual had managed to acquire so vast a collection of books within a single lifetime was at that time quite a mystery to me.
    Later, all would become very clear.
    The sky above was not at all clear. Thunder rattled chimney-pots and lightning flung brightness and stark shadows about in a manner that was most alarming. The rain poured down and down and down and I grew quite afraid.
    Mr Bell, being the kindly man that he was, brought what comfort he could to me with light but caring pats upon the shoulder. Then, when the hansom had departed and we were left in an otherwise deserted street before the big locked gates, he drew a stick of dynamite from his pocket.
    ‘Surely not yet ?’ I cried upon sighting it.
    ‘But we must open the gates,’ said he, ‘to gain entry. My portly form will not permit me to shin over them.’
    ‘My slight and nimble one will, however, permit me to do so,’ said I. ‘I assume that keys might be found within that little brick house there marked Gatekeeper's Lodge?’ For the lightning periodically illuminated such a building.
    Mr Bell nodded, and as I swarmed up the rain-drenched iron gates, I swear I heard his distinctive chuckle momentarily made audible amongst the thrashings of the storm.
    I returned at length in the company of keys.
    ‘The gatekeeper slept?’ asked Mr Bell.
    ‘The sleep of the inebriate,’ I said.
    ‘Or possibly the drugged .’ Mr Bell availed himself of the keys.
    ‘Please hurry now,’ I said. ‘I am growing most chilly.’
    Within minutes, we had entered both gates and building. The museum, a pleasant enough place by daylight, looked far from pleasing now, lit only by periodic flashes of lightning. The statues and ancient artefacts became fearful in this untender and uncertain illumination and I trembled from more than just cold.
    Mr Bell perused his pocket watch, a gift from a grateful Jovian plutocrat for sorting out a delicate business that involved an actress, a bishop and a kiwi bird called Cuddles. ‘It nears the hour of one,’ he whispered to me, though his whispered words echoed terribly within the great atrium. ‘We must set ourselves to hiding in the Egyptian Gallery. Follow me.’
    I did as I was bid and followed Mr Bell through deserted galleries and up a broad flight of marble steps. I tugged at my friend's trouser leg and asked him what, precisely, was the nature of the crime that was about to be committed.
    ‘Ah,’ said he, with a certain lightness of whisper. ‘The sarcophagus of the God-Pharaoh Akhenaten will be stolen tonight from its unlocked cabinet.’
    ‘Having acquired a set of keys to this museum myself with very little bother,’ I said, ‘I cannot imagine unlocking a cabinet would present much of a problem to a determined thief.’
    ‘No key unlocked that cabinet,’ said Mr Bell.
    I shrugged.
    ‘And anyway,’ he went on, ‘it was not merely the sarcophagus that was stolen – which alone weighs several tons and was removed without leaving a single trace of how it was removed. It was something more than that .’
    ‘Something more than that ?’ I whispered. Thoughtfully.
    ‘Something more indeed,’ said Mr Bell. ‘All at once and all in a single night. Gone without trace and never seen again.’
    I raised my eyes and said, ‘What?’
    ‘The entirety of the British Library,’ said Mr Cameron Bell. ‘All twenty thousand, two hundred and forty volumes.’
    ‘All in a single night?’ said I. ‘Now surely you are having a gi-raffe.’

4
    e were making a cautious passage through the Etruscan Gallery when first we heard the chanting. I looked up at Mr Bell, and in the uncertain light I saw him put his finger to his lips. Together we crept forward until,