THE AFFAIR OF THE ATIL ARTIFACT
A Professor Penniweather Adventure
By Nathan Hanawalt
Copyright 2012 Nathan Hanawalt
It was a dark, foggy autumn day in late September of the year 1921 when I first met Professor Phineas F. Penniweather, the eminent and eccentric antiquarian. I was just recently returned from an archaeological expedition in the arid steppes beyond the Black Sea, where I had chanced to discover a unique and curious little artifact that had won me some minor fame in the archaeological community. Not that I was really an archaeologist, mind you. I was more of a professional gentleman, if you understand my meaning. My uncle had left me a sizeable fortune in Indian cotton when he died, and I was never the sort to seek out back-breaking labor when a cool glass of lemon fizzer beckoned.
I had been on one of my customary rambles about the world when, in Istanbul, I had fallen in with old Wheezer Jenkins, a chum from my school days at Eton. The Wheeze had got himself on to an expedition to find the legendary City of Troy, which some old professor had decided was out along the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Archaeology had always been something of an amateur interest of mine, so I begged on to the trek. There were some fairly miffed faces waggling their mutton-chops and monocles when I turned out to be the one to find my little artifact, let me tell you!
At any rate, my discovery had won me admission into the Royal Archaeological Society which, if you’re not up on your Royal Societies, is a fairly exclusive sort of club. The artifact itself was nothing more than a little ovoid medallion, somewhat bigger than a pocket-watch, and inscribed all over its smooth surface with strange markings and mysterious lines. It was made of some light-colored metal, which tended to shine when burnished, and it weighed more than its size seemed to indicate. I had taken to carrying the little thing about with me, on a chain in my pocket, as I was quite often asked for a peek.
Eventually, of course, I imagined that I should donate it to a museum, and had made inquiries at some of the museums in London. Several museums were quite interested in acquiring the artifact, but I eventually settled on the British Museum, as it was the most prominent of the institutions, and had a good record with the members of the Royal Archaeological Society. And it was in the club of that illustrious Society, in my twenty-sixth year, the week before my artifact was to go on exhibition, that I met the professor.
I had of course heard of him; everyone had. He had discovered a hither-to unknown tribe in the East Indies, had been intimately involved in the Mystery of the Vathnirash Temple, and it was said that the Emir of Bukhara had issued a 10,000 dinarii reward for his head. Apart from this he had also published a number of books and pamphlets on various antiquities, and was widely considered to be the authority on a good many things having to do with days-gone-by. He also held a position on the staff at the British Museum, as well as being an Oxford professor.
I was standing by the fireplace in the billiards room of the club, sipping my hot toddy and thinking about nothing in particular. A few other gentlemen were present as well but, as antiquarians are generally an elderly lot, they were considerably less than lively. As, I say, I sipped my drink and enjoyed the fact that I was not out in the impenetrable fog that had London wrapped up tighter than a coster on Sunday, I heard the unmistakable chugging of a motorcar approaching along the street. I paid it no mind at first, but then it spluttered and started, and finally came to a wheezing halt just outside the club.
‘I wonder if they’ve some engine trouble?’ I thought to myself. I was no nimble hand with mechanics though, and I figured whoever was out there cursing the indecipherable workings of the modern internal combustion engine would be better off without me. So I returned to my quiet musing and enjoyment of the distinctly fog-less interior of the club.
It seemed like only half a moment later when a thin, wheezy voice piped: “Michael Ian Westlake?”
“What ho!” I said, turning with some surprise toward the door.
In the doorway stood a stoutish, shortish, decidedly bookish sort of fellow. His suit was of good quality, but quite rumpled and stained. His cloak was rather old, and as rumpled and stained as the suit. His old-fashioned hat was caved in on the side, as if someone had struck the old chap with a mallet. He had a round, bright pink face with a little white goatee and the bushiest white eyebrows I had ever seen. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched precariously on his pudgy nose, and through those spectacles shone a pair of blue eyes that sparkled with a youthful wonder that belied his age. I guessed he was about fifty. In one hand he held a tatty old umbrella, which he was pointing directly at me.
“Mr. Westlake, I am Professor Phineas F. Penniweather,” the old fellow piped.
“Oh, I say, jolly good to meet you,” I said warmly. “Come along here, have a seat, and we’ll have a drink or something.”
To my surprise the old gentleman shook his head. “There is no time for that, my lad,” he said swiftly. “Come with me. I believe that bauble you found in Atil has something to do with the Voynich Manuscript.”
I hadn’t the foggiest what all that rummy nonsense was, and I was a little miffed that he’d called my significant archaeological find a “bauble.” Several questions fought for room in my head. Where and what was Atil? What was a Voynich Manuscript? Finally, my thoughts collected themselves and unanimously agreed on a question: “Er, why haven’t we got time, then?”
At this question the Professor looked a little taken aback. “Why, because…” he trailed off, and did a very good impression of a fifty-year old man in a rumpled suit who had forgotten something important.
“We haven’t got time because we’ll miss our train,” said a woman’s firm, but somehow gentle, voice and into the room stepped a quite stunningly pretty young woman of about twenty. Her short blonde hair was done up in a loose bun, and her green eyes looked me up and down in a clinically appraising sort of way. She wore a set of baggy coveralls, of the type I had seen mechanics wear, with a leather bomber jacket, and she had a pair of leather driving goggles perched atop her head. Her fair complexion was not marred in the slightest by the smear of engine grease on her cheek. I guessed that she was about four inches shorter than I.
“No, that wasn’t it,” the Professor said impatiently, waving his umbrella. “It has to do with the Thule Society and what they’ll do to get –.” He broke off suddenly. “Oh, wait, we were going to explain that later weren’t we?”
“Explain what?” I asked. “What’s this thingummy society, and what exactly will they do to get whatever-it-is that they want?”
“If you’ll come along with us, we’ll explain everything,” said the young blonde, and the Professor added “Quite, quite,” in agreement.
At this point I was totally lost, so I fixed on the one thing I could decipher from the entire strange proceeding. “You’re an American,” I said to the young blonde.
“Oh my, yes,” piped the Professor. “I haven’t introduced you! This is Rebecca Dare, my graduate assistant at the university.”
“Pleased to meet you, Rebecca,” I said happily, glad that the conversation was back on familiar grounds. “Always good to meet an American cousin!”
“Charmed,” she responded, with a quick look over her shoulder. “We should be leaving.”
As if on cue, there was a loud crash downstairs at the club’s entrance, and a faint “What the devil?!” which was immediately cut short.
“Oh dear,” said the professor.
Rebecca, in a flash,
sprang to the window beside the fireplace and threw it open wide. “This way!” she said, in a voice so authoritative and commanding that I found myself sitting on the sill with one leg over before I knew what I was doing.
“Hold hard a tick!” I began, “it’s a ten foot drop -!”
Rebecca gave me a quick shove, and I toppled out of the window, arms and legs flailing, to land on my back in the rear seat of an old Adamson motorcar. Directly after me came the Professor, and sailing neatly over my head into the driver’s seat came Rebecca Dare.
In a trice she had the motor started and we chugged off into the deepening fog, but not before I saw a cloaked and shadowy figure appear in the window of the club behind us.
“Alright, now this is a bit thick!” I cried with some indignation as I sorted myself out upright in the back of the car.
“I quite understand, my boy,” came the Professor’s muffled voice. “But have no fear, all will be explained once we are safely on the train!”
The Professor’s voice was muffled because he was still quite upside-down in the front seat, his little legs sticking out at odd angles.
“Can you help him up?” Rebecca asked me, not taking her eyes off the road. In fact, I wondered how she could see the road at all, the fog was getting so thick. But I dutifully helped the stout old professor right-side-up, and immediately demanded an explanation.
Rebecca looked over her shoulder, right past me, and said, “I don’t think this is the time.”
Sure enough, two dim lights had appeared on the road behind us. I had the distinct and eerie sensation that those lights were following us. Rebecca seemed to think the same, for she jerked us into a sharp turn down a side-street, and our fears were confirmed when the lights behind not only followed us, but seemed to be getting closer.
“Interesting,” mused the Professor, looking at the lights. “This isn’t really the sort of night for a drive. What could those people be doing out here?”
“I think they’re following us, Professor,” Rebecca told him calmly.
“But why on earth should anyone want to follow us?” the absent-minded old gentleman mused.
“That’s what I should like to know!” I shouted. Could this doddering, apparently senile old man really be the same fellow on whose head the Emir of Bukhara had placed a 10,000 dinarii reward?
“Look,” said Rebecca, her eyes fixed firmly on the road, “all you need to know about them is that they want your artifact, and they will stop at nothing to retrieve it.”
At this moment our motorcar burst out of the side street and emerged onto Kennington Road, close by Waterloo Station. Through the deepening fog I could make out the lights of both train and station. The train already had its steam up and the billows of smoke and steam coming from the engine turned the thick fog into something very like pea soup.
“We’re going to have to run for it!” shouted the Prof above the fog-muffled shriek of the engineer’s whistle.
Just then, behind us, a heavy black motorcar shot out from the side street and bore down on us, engine roaring. I hadn’t any real reason to trust either Rebecca or the professor, but somehow the ominous image of that sleek, heavy motorcar tearing toward me caused me to realize that, whatever my reservations about my companions, I should very much like to get on the train. Rebecca brought the Adamson to a screeching halt just beside the station, and we all tumbled out. “They’re right on top of us!” I shouted in alarm.
Running like madmen, we leapt the turnstiles (well, Rebecca and I leapt; the Prof sort of squeezed between them) and sprinted through the nearly-empty station, making for the nearest carriage. There was a screeching of brakes and tires behind us, and then a flurry of Germanic voices, then a loud shout, and I glanced behind to see four cloaked figures running pell-mell after us.
The train began to chug slowly out of the station, picking up speed all the while, and I peered through the fog as I ran, seeing that Rebecca was already on the last carriage, and was leaning down to help the Professor, whose stout little legs were churning like mad as he struggled to leap aboard. He got one hand on the rail, and Rebecca gave a mighty heave on his arm, getting the stout old gentleman half on to the rear platform. I put out my arm and pushed him from below as hard as I could as I ran. I heard the German voices behind me again, nearer now, and in my confused and half-mad state imagined them shouting in German: “Look! There he is, beneath that fat old archaeology professor!”
Somehow, I don’t know how, my pushing and Rebecca’s pulling were enough to cause Professor Penniweather to stagger aboard the now steadily-accelerating train. I got one hand on the rail, and leapt up safely behind (rather gracefully, I thought).
“That was a close one, what?” I said, casually leaning against the rail.
But suddenly a strong hand grabbed my foot and pulled, and I landed flat on my face, scrabbling for a hand hold as I was dragged roughly backward across the rough wooden floorboards. The Prof, with remarkable alacrity, immediately sat on my back, anchoring me firmly, and Rebecca strode forward to the edge of the little platform. I looked back just in time to see a pale, cowled face, with heavy dark eyes filled with something that looked very like hate, just before Rebecca’s heavy boot stamped down on its head. There was a yelp of pain, and my foot was free. The Prof helped me up, and Rebecca turned from the edge of the platform. “We’re safe,” she said, as the train sped up dramatically, leaving our pursuers far behind in the thick fog. “For now.”