The Affair of the Atil Artifact: A Professor Penniweather Adventure

  * * *

  Our stop, it turned out, was King’s Cross Station. Rebecca hailed a cab outside the station, and we three piled in. We passed the University College London Hospital, and after we turned on to Russell Square, I thought I knew our destination. “Are we going to the British Museum then?” I asked, by way of starting conversation. Neither Rebecca nor the professor had said a word since we left the train, and I was feeling a bit uncomfortable.

  “Quite,” said the Prof. “The artifact will be safe there, for now. Later we shall move it to a more secure location.”

  As the British Museum hove into sight, however, I thought that it looked quite secure enough. The strong stone walls and double-barred gates were quite imposing, and I knew that within the building itself was a force of guards, though I did not know how many. Many priceless antiquities and works of art lay within, and they were well worth protecting. I had never heard of a successful burglary of the British Museum.

  We paid the cabman and entered the museum through a side sally-port. The professor led us along large, echoing halls into the very bowels of the museum, where the halls grew smaller, with locked offices and small warehouses branching off every now and then. I briefly considered the irony that I had intended to bring the artifact to this museum in the first place, and the coincidence filled me with a sense of overpowering fate, as if everything I had ever done was in fact controlled by some nameless will, forcing me down a path not of my choosing. I shivered, and decided it must be my imagination.

  At length the professor stopped at a heavy oaken door, and opened it with a large, old-fashioned key that he took from a ribbon in his pocket. As we entered he flicked on the electric lights, and the bright glow illuminated a large, warehouse-like room littered with crates, packing straw, and row upon row of high shelves, stacked with carefully tagged but incredibly dusty artifacts, ancient and wondrous. A small area to the side was equipped with a workbench, on which sat several artifacts, apparently in the midst of some sort of restoration or classification, along with tall shelves on which sat various items and tools of the antiquarian. Next to this work-space was a large alcove piled with books: dusty old tomes, shiny new monographs, every size and description of book, all stacked here and there willy-nilly, cascading from overstuffed chairs and mounding up high on a small round table.

  Professor Penniweather went directly to his workbench, and immediately began pottering about with the Atil artifact, the hand-written diary, and a strange tool he pulled down from one of his shelves. As he worked he spoke to me. “Mr. Westlake, you seemed to express some surprise when I informed you that we were from the British Museum. Perhaps there is still some point on which you need clarification?”

  “Er, it’s just that, you see, if this Thule Society really is such a grave danger, I would have expected you to be from some clandestine government agency, perhaps with the armed might of the British Empire behind you, not from a museum.”

  The Prof paused in his work and peered back at me from over the rims of his spectacles. “Oh. Oh, I see.” Shrugging, he turned back to his task. “Never fear, young Westlake,” he said. “Knowledge can be a greater weapon than all of the tanks and machine guns you can muster, and we have knowledge in abundance. It is true that Rebecca and I may not be a clandestine, world-wide organization; nevertheless, we have had some success in frustrating the designs of this mad conspiracy.”

  I felt slightly embarrassed. “Professor Penniweather, I didn’t mean to imply any lack of confidence in your abilities,” I murmured.

  “Naturally not,” the Prof laughed. He really was a jovial type of fellow, if a little lacking in the here-and-now. “You quite naturally assumed that the government might take an interest in such nefarious goings-on, but unfortunately you are quite mistaken. Previous attempts to convince various ministries of the nature of this threat have been met with incredulity, to understate the matter.”

  I could see his point. I could easily imagine what some stolid constable on a London street would say if I ran up to him crying: “The Thule Society is trying to take over the world using magic!” I wasn’t certain that even I believed the story yet.

  I stood for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. I had received a great deal of information in a rather small amount of time, and elements of the story were only now falling into place. “If I am to believe you,” I began slowly, “this Thule Society desires my Atil artifact so as to decipher an otherwise indecipherable manuscript, and unleash an unholy horror the like of which the world has never known, correct?”

  “Precisely right!” cried Penniweather, turning around towards me and clapping his hands with glee. “You’re catching on quickly!”

  “The one is of no use without the other,” said I, warming up. “The manuscript cannot be read without the artifact, and the artifact itself does not hold the key to releasing the Horror. So we have only to destroy the artifact, or the manuscript, and we shall have confounded their plan, am I right?” I was quite excited at this point, feeling that I had hit upon the critical issue, and in one stroke solved the problem.

  But Rebecca Dare’s gentle voice dashed all of my hopes. “How do we know that there is not another artifact? Or another manuscript, for that matter? What if destroying one or the other, or both, ends any chance of our gaining the knowledge we would need if the Thule Society ever found another copy of the Voynich Manuscript and another Khazarian artifact like this one?”

  “Surely, the chances of that are quite low indeed,” I replied, somewhat lamely.

  “No, Rebecca is right,” the Prof said, shaking his head. “The destruction of knowledge is never the path to security, my good fellow. Although, as can be seen by the Thule Society’s nefarious schemes, the collection of knowledge can be equally dangerous. Is it not a strange and wondrous paradox?”

  Professor Penniweather seemed quite captivated by this paradox but I, for one, was cursing myself for not seeing the flaw in my own argument and being shown up by someone six years my junior. This Rebecca Dare was beginning to fray my nerves, despite her remarkably pretty features and calm, gentle voice. She drove like a demon, she had kicked a fellow in the face (thereby saving my own skin) and she was as sharp as a tack, despite being so young.

  “Then what are we to do?” I asked, trying very hard to keep the petulance out of my voice.

  Professor Penniweather chuckled. “Shall I assume from your use of the word ‘we’ that you are inclined to join our clandestine crusade?”

  Was that what I intended? I asked myself, in some surprise. To join these two mysterious persons and wage an unseen war against an evil in which I did not yet entirely believe? I glanced sidelong at Rebecca, and thought I caught a hint of a challenge in her earnest green eyes.

  “Well, it’s my artifact, after all,” I replied casually.

  The Prof clapped his hands. “Capital!” he cried. “Welcome to the British Museum’s Division of Curious Devices and Remarkable Artifacts!”