The Antipope by Robert Rankin Page B

coupled with the intake of two pints of fine sherry was beginning to give Jim a headache. Better to forget the bean then, let the Professor do what he pleased with it.
    Pooley rose and stretched his arms. Another thought suddenly crossed his mind. “If these beans are dangerous,” the thought said, “then it would be best to inform Archroy of this fact as the four he carries with him may possibly do him harm.”
    Jim sat down again upon the bench.
    “But if you tell him,” said another thought, “then he will ask how you know all this and you will have to confess to the abduction of the bean from Omally’s allotment.”
    This thought did not please Pooley whatsoever.
    “But he is your friend,” said the first thought in an angelic voice, “and you would feel very guilty should any ill befall him that you are empowered to prevent.” Pooley nodded and rose once more to his feet.
    “Better not to get involved,” said the second thought. “Who is to say that the Professor’s suppositions are correct?” Pooley bit his lip. It was all a terrible dilemma. He let the angelic thought have the final word upon the matter.
    “If the Professor had told you that the bean was that of a plant which bears gold doubloons upon its boughs each spring you would have believed him. You went there to take advantage of his boundless knowledge, did you not?” Pooley nodded meekly. “So if the Professor says that the beans are evil and must be destroyed you would do well to follow his advice.” Pooley seemed satisfied by this and took some steps into the direction of home. Then as if jerked to a standstill by a rope he stopped.
    “But then I must somehow get those four other beans from Archroy,” he said. “And in some way that I will not implicate myself in any duplicity.” Jim Pooley wished with all his might that he had never set eyes upon any beans whatever, be they baked, curried, buttered, soya or magic to the slightest degree.
    A new thought came to Pooley, one whose voice he did not recognize but one which was so sound in logic that Pooley felt very grateful that it had chosen his head to come into. “Why don’t you go around to Archroy’s now, while he is away on the night shift, gain entrance to his house and remove the four magic beans?” The angelic thought had some doubts about this but was finally cowed into submission.
    “I do this deed for Archroy,” said Jim Pooley. “A noble venture for which I expect to receive no thanks, as by its very nature the perpetrator of the deed must remain anonymous.”
    Jim girded up his loins and strode purposefully into the direction of Archroy’s house. It was seldom indeed that a noble thought entered his head and the entry of this one filled Jim with reckless confidence. He would climb on to Archroy’s garage and pull down the aluminium ladder, then go round and try all the upper windows, one of which must surely have been left open. Once inside, if the beans were there, he would most certainly find them.
    Having checked that there were no late night revellers returning to their haunts, or policemen out upon their lonely beats, Pooley slid away down the side alley beside Archroy’s garage. His stealth and silence were there sadly impaired however, by a noisy collision with Omally’s bicycle Marchant which was resting against the garage wall lost in the shadows. Jim and Marchant crashed noisily to the ground, Marchant ringing his bell in protest at his rude awakening and Jim swearing great oaths upon every form of two-wheeled conveyance known to mankind.
    With much shooshing and hand flapping, Jim rose to his feet, flat cap cocked over one eye and trouser turnup firmly in the grip of Marchant’s back brake. Amid more cursing and the distinctive sound of tearing tweed, Jim fought his way free of the bicycle’s evil grasp and limped on up the alley.
    He stopped suddenly in his tracks and gazed up in amazement, for there propped up against the side wall and leading