Atlantis and Other Places (52 page)

Halfway through the meal, the train shunted onto a siding and stopped: a less pleasant surprise. When Helms asked a waiter what had happened, the man only shrugged. “I do not know, sir,” he replied in a gluey Teutonic accent, “but I would guess an accident is in front of us.”

“Damnation!” Walton said. “We shall be late to Thetford.”

“We are already late to Thetford. We shall be later,” Helms corrected. To the waiter, he added, “Another bottle of this admirable red, if you would be so kind.”

They sat on the siding most of the night. Word filtered through the train that there had been a derailment ahead. Mr. Primrose was snoring when Helms and Walton returned to their seats. Both Englishmen soon joined him in slumber; sleep came easier when the train stood still. Dr. Walton might have wished for the comfort of a Throckmorton car, with a sofa that made up into a bed and another bunk that swung down from the wall above it, but he did not stay awake to wish for long.

Morning twilight had begun edging night’s black certainty with the ambiguity of gray when the train jerked into motion once more. Athelstan Helms’ eyes opened at once, and with reason in them. He seemed as refreshed as if he
had
passed the night in a Throckmorton car—or, for that matter, in his hotel room back in Hanover. Walton seemed confused when he first woke. At last realizing his circumstances and surroundings, he sent Helms a faintly accusing stare. “
You’re
not a beautiful woman,” he said.

“I can scarcely deny it,” Helms replied equably. “Why you should think I might be is, perhaps, a more interesting question.”

If it was, it was one that his friend, now fully returned to the mundane world, had no intention of answering.

Behind them, Mr. Primrose might have been an apprentice sawmill. They took care not to wake him when they went back to the dining car for breakfast. Walton would have preferred bloaters or bangers, but Atlantean cuisine did not run to such English delicacies. He had to make do with fried eggs and a small beefsteak, as he had back in the capital. Helms’ choice matched his. They both drank coffee; Atlantean tea had proved shockingly bad even when available.

They were still eating when the train rolled past the scene of the crash that had delayed it. Passenger and freight cars and a locomotive lay on their side not far from the track. Workmen swarmed over them, salvaging what they could. “A bad accident, very bad,” Walton murmured.

“Do you know how an Atlantean sage once defined an accident?” Helms inquired. When the good doctor shook his head, Helms continued with obvious relish: “As ‘an inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.’ Mr. Bierce, I believe his name is, is a clear-sighted man.”

“Quite,” Walton said. “Could you pass me another roll, Helms? I find I’m a peckish man myself this morning.”

Little by little, the terrain grew steeper. Stands of forest became more frequent in the distance, though most trees had been cut down closer to the railroad line. Being primarily composed of evergreen conifers, the woods bore a more somber aspect than those of England. Their timbers helped bridge several rivers rushing east out of the Green Ridge Mountains. Other rivers, the larger ones, were spanned with iron and even steel.

“Those streams helped power Atlantis’ early factories, even before she was initiated into the mysteries of the steam engine,” Helms remarked.

“Helped make her into a competitor, you mean,” Dr. Walton said. “The old-time mercantilists weren’t such fools as people make them out to be, seems to me.”

“As their policies are as dead as they are, it’s rather too late to make a fuss over either,” Helms said, a sentiment with which his colleague could scarcely quarrel regardless of his personal inclinations.

When Helms and Walton returned to their seats in the passenger car, they passed Henry David Primrose heading for the diner. “Ah, we get a bit more peace and quiet, anyhow,” Walton said, and Helms nodded.

By the time Mr. Primrose came back, the train was well up into the mountains. The peaks of the Green Ridge were neither inordinately tall nor inordinately steep, but had formed a considerable barrier to westward expansion across Atlantis because of the thick forest that had cloaked them. Even now, the slopes remained shrouded in dark, mournful green. Only the pass through which the railroad line went had been logged off.

The locomotive labored and wheezed, hauling its cars up after it to what the Atlanteans called the Great Divide. Then, descending once more, it picked up speed. Ferns and shrubs seemed more abundant on the western side of the mountains, and the weather, though still cool, no longer reminded the Englishmen of November in their homeland—or, worse, of November on the Continent.

“I have read that the Bay Stream, flowing up along Atlantis’ western coast, has a remarkable moderating effect on the climate on this side of the mountains,” Helms said. “That does indeed appear to be the case.”

A couple of hours later, the train pulled into Thetford, which had something of the look of an industrial town in the English Midlands. After a sigh of disappointment, Dr. Walton displayed his own reading: “Forty years ago, Audubon says, this was a bucolic village. No more.”

“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”
Helms replied.

As he and Walton rose to disembark, Henry David Primrose said, “Enjoyed chatting with you gents, that I did.” Helms let the remark pass in dignified, even chilly, silence; the good doctor muttered a polite unpleasantry and went on his way.

A few other people got out with them. Friends and relatives waited on the platform for some of them. Others went off to the baggage office to reclaim their chattels. A gray-bearded sweeper in overalls pottered about, pushing bits of dust about with his broom. A stalwart policeman came up to the Englishmen. Tipping his cap, he said, “You will be Dr. Helms and Mr. Walton. Hanover wired me to expect you, though I didn’t know your train would be so very late. I am Sergeant Karpinski; I am instructed to render you every possible assistance.”

“Very kind of you,” Walton said, and proceeded to enlighten the sergeant as to which title went with which man.

Athelstan Helms, meanwhile, walked over to the sweeper and extended his right hand. “Good day, sir,” he said. “Unless I am very much in error, you will be the gentleman who has attained a certain amount of worldly fame under the sobriquet of the Preacher.”

 

 

“Oh, good heavens!” Dr. Walton exclaimed to Sergeant Karpinski. “Please excuse me. Helms doesn’t make mistakes very often, but when he does he doesn’t make small ones.” He hurried over to his friend. “For God’s sake, Helms, can’t you see he’s nothing but a cleaning man?”

The sweeper turned his mild gray eyes on Walton, who suddenly realized that if anyone had made a mistake, it was he. “I
am
a cleaning man, sir,” he said, and his voice put the good doctor in mind of an organ played very softly: not only was it musical in the extreme, but it also gave the strong impression of having much more power behind it than was presently being used. The man continued, “While cleaning train-station platforms is a worthy enough occupation, in my small way I also seek to cleanse men’s souls. For your friend is correct: I am sometimes called the Preacher.” He eyed Athelstan Helms with a lively curiosity. “How did you deduce my identity, sir?”

“In the police station in Hanover, I got a look at your photograph,” the detective replied. “Armed with a knowledge of your physiognomy, it was not difficult.”

“Well done! Well done!” The Preacher had a merry laugh. “And here is Sergeant Karpinski,” he went on as the policeman trudged over. “Will you clap me in irons for what you call my crimes, Sergeant?”

“Not today, thanks,” Karpinski said in stolid tones. “I don’t much fancy touching off a new round of riots here, like. But your day will come, and you can mark my words on that.”

“Every man’s day will come,” the Preacher said, almost gaily, “but I do not think mine is destined to come at your large and capable hands.” He turned back to Helms and Walton. “You will want to recover your baggage. After that, shall we repair to someplace rather more comfortable than this drafty platform? You can tell me what brought you to the wilds of Atlantis in pursuit of a desperate character like me.”

“Murder is a good start,” Walton said.

“No, murder is a bad stop,” the Preacher said. “I shall pray for you. I shall ask that your soul be baptized in the spirit of devotion to the universal Lord, that you may be reborn a god.”

“I’ve already been baptized, thank you very much,” the doctor said stiffly.

“That is only the baptism of the body,” the Preacher replied with an indifferent wave. “The baptism of the spirit is a different and highly superior manifestation.”

“Why don’t you see to our trunks, Walton?” Helms said. “Their contents will clothe only our bodies, but without them Sergeant Karpinksi would be compelled to take a dim view of us in his professional capacity.”

Braced by such satire, Dr. Walton hurried off to reclaim the luggage. Karpinski laughed and then did his best to pretend he hadn’t. Even the Preacher smiled. After Dr. Walton returned, the Preacher led them out of the station. The spectacle of two well-dressed Englishmen and a uniformed sergeant of police following a sweeper in faded denim overalls might have seemed outlandish but for the dignity with which the Preacher carried himself: he acted the role of a man who deserved to be followed, and acted it so well that he certainly seemed to believe it himself.

So did the inhabitants of Thetford who witnessed the small procession. None of them appeared to be in the least doubt as to the Preacher’s identity. “God bless you!” one man called, lifting his derby. “Holy sir!” another said. A woman dropped a curtsy. Another rushed up, kissed the Preacher’s hand, and then hurried away again, her face aglow. Sergeant Karpinski had not been mistaken when he alluded to the devotion the older man inspired.

The Preacher did not lead them to a House of Universal Devotion, as Dr. Walton had expected he would. In fact, he walked past not one but two such houses, halting instead at the walk leading up to what seemed an ordinary home in Thetford: one-story clapboard, painted white. “I doubt we shall be disturbed here,” he murmured.

Several large, hard-looking individuals materialized as if from nowhere, no doubt to make sure the Preacher and his companions were not disturbed. None was visibly armed; the way Sergeant Karpinski’s mouth tightened suggested that a lack of appearances might be deceiving.

Inside, the home proved comfortably furnished; it might have been a model of middle-class Victorian respectability. A smiling and attractive young woman brought a tray of food into the parlor, stayed long enough to light the gas lamps and dispel the gloom, and then withdrew once more. “A handmaiden of the Spirit?” Athelstan Helms inquired.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” the Preacher said. “Those who impute any degree of licentiousness to the relationship have no personal knowledge of it.”

Dr. Walton was halfway through a roast-beef sandwich made piquant with mustard and an Atlantean spice he could not name before realizing that was not necessarily a denial of the imputation. “Why, the randy old devil!” he muttered, fortunately with his mouth full.

Helms finished his own sandwich and a glass of lager before asking, “And what of those who impute to you the instigation of a campaign of homicides against backsliders from the House of Universal Devotion and critics of its doctrine and policies?” Sergeant Karpinski raised a tawny eyebrow, perhaps in surprise at the detective’s frankness.

That frankness did not faze the Preacher. “Well, what of them?” he said. “We lack the barristers and solicitors to pursue every slanderous loudmouth and every libeler who grinds out his hate-filled broadsheets or spreads his prejudice in some weekly rag.”

“You deny any connection, then?” Helms persisted.

“I am a man of God,” the Preacher said simply.

“So was the Hebrew king who exulted, ‘Moab is my wash-pot, ’” Helms said. “So was the Prophet Mohammed. So were the Crusaders who cried, ‘God wills it!’ as they killed. Regretfully, I must point out that being a man of God does not preclude violence—on the contrary, in fact.”

“Let me make myself plainer, then: I have never murdered anyone, nor did any of the murders to which you refer take place at my instigation,” the Preacher said. “Is that clear enough to let us proceed from there?”

“Clear? Without a doubt. It is admirably clear,” Helms said, though Dr. Walton noted—and thought it likely his friend did as well—that the Preacher had not denied instigating all murders, only those the detective had mentioned. Helms continued, “You will acknowledge a distinction between clarity and truth?”

“Generally, yes. In this instance, no,” the Preacher said.

“Oh, come off it,” Sergeant Karpinski said, which came close to expressing Dr. Walton’s opinion. “Everybody knows those fellows wouldn’t be dead if you’d even lifted a finger to keep ’em breathing.”