Текст книги "The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi"

Автор книги: Mark Hodder

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“You mean he has no physical presence?” Monckton Milnes exclaimed.

“Exactement. Our Beast is une personne insubstantielle—a phantom—but volonté, it must have un corps physique to survive in the world. It mean he take possession.”

“Of another person?” Burton asked.

“Oui. This I must study. Possibly, it is the key to his defeat, for he has the bad intentions, non?”

Monckton Milnes jumped up and started to pace back and forth, pulling his hair. “It’s too much!” he cried out. “I feel my brain will explode! I don’t know what to think or do!”

“You don’t have to think or do anything,” Burton said. “Your help has been invaluable, but the rest is up to me.”

“Non, monsieur,” Levi said. “Not only. I will assist. I have knowledge. This Perdurabo, his nature I must better understand. I fear what he might be, so I will research, research, research!”

Burton gave a nod of gratitude.

“And you, Richard?” Monckton Milnes asked.

“I have to locate Abdu El Yezdi. I’m certain he’s an ally in all of this. The line of inquiry leads us to Wallington Hall and the poet, Swinburne.”

“That idle clock at Westminster which may well hold its hands before its face for very shame, had cost the Nation the pretty little sum of £22,057. We never knew a richer illustration of the homely truth that Time is Money.”

–PUNCH MAGAZINE ON THE CRACK IN BIG BEN, 1859

They had to wait until Monday—when they were expected at Wallington Hall—to meet Swinburne, and on that day their patience was tested further, for when they arrived they were informed that the Trevelyans and their guests were on a day trip to Tynemouth. So a steam carriage was hired, and Burton, Monckton Milnes, and Levi set off in pursuit.

They arrived at the seaside town in the middle of the afternoon, disembarked on the Grand Parade, and strolled down a sloping road to the Longsands Beach. A stiff breeze was blowing from the southwest—sultry and not at all refreshing—and the sea was agitated, bulging up and crashing noisily onto the sand.

“Strange weather,” Monckton Milnes commented. He pointed to the sky inland, where inky clouds were being ripped into ribbons, curling around themselves and looking more like a gigantic swarm of insects than vapour.

There were a few individuals on the beach, but about halfway along it, strolling slowly toward the headland that sheltered Cullercoats Village, a larger group was visible. Among them, a tiny figure with long blazing-red hair was skipping about like a child, and—as Burton and his companions hurried toward the party—it detached itself from them, divested itself of its clothes, and plunged into the sea.

“En octobre!” Levi exclaimed.

“He’ll drown for sure!” Monckton Milnes cried out.

They set off at a trot, Levi huffing and puffing, and upon drawing closer to the gathering, heard shouts and protests above the ceaseless uproar of the waters.

“Don’t be a fool, lad!”

“It’s too rough, Algy! Come back at once!”

“Swinburne, you lunatic! Give it up!”

Burton saw Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He also recognised William Bell Scott, the Scottish artist and poet who resided in London and was famous for his decorative embellishments to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s colossal transatlantic liner, the SS Titan. A small woman in capacious skirts and with a lace bonnet, he took to be Lady Pauline, and standing beside her, hook-nosed and with a moustache that swept around his jawline into sideburns, was her husband, Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan. Two other men were present, both of about thirty years in age, neither of whom he knew.

“Sir Walter,” he said, as he reached them, “I’m Burton.”

It was Lady Pauline who answered. “Sir Richard, how wonderful! And Mr. Monckton Milnes! Welcome! Welcome!”

“I do hope you don’t mind,” Burton said, “but we’ve brought an additional guest. This is Monsieur Eliphas Levi, an accomplished occultist and philosopher.”

“Not much the philosopher, I regret,” Levi corrected. He took Lady Pauline’s hand, bowed, kissed it, and said, “Enchanté.”

“Delighted,” she responded. “Gentlemen, if you will forgive me, I shall make introductions in a moment. As you can see, my little Carrots is up to his usual tricks.” She pointed out to sea, where the small red-headed individual was plunging through the waves. “Put him next to rough waters and he invariably jumps into them.”

“By James!” Monckton Milnes exclaimed. “But he’s a strong swimmer!”

Sir Walter added, “And a remarkably accomplished horseman, too, but in both disciplines he acts like a blithering idiot and takes damned silly risks!” He raised his voice to a shout. “Algernon! Come out of there and warm your bones with a swig of cognac!” Turning back to Monckton Milnes, he grinned and said, “That’ll get him. Always does. What!”

The swimmer turned toward the beach, stretched out, and allowed a mountainous wave to drive him to shore. Once in the shallows, he stood, gave a squeal of delight, and loped through the water and onto the sand. Lady Pauline averted her face and called, “For goodness sake, put on your clothes and don’t do that again!”

“Fear not, dear lady!” the little poet answered. “For now I have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death!”

“Yes, yes,” she responded impatiently. “Sir Richard, Monsieur Levi, Mr. Monckton Milnes, forgive me. Algernon is, as ever, a terrible distraction. Allow me to present the party. Gabriel, you surely know.”

The minister of arts and culture greeted Burton and Monckton Milnes, and to Levi said, “Rossetti, monsieur. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“William Scott,” the hostess continued, and after handshakes had been exchanged, turned to a tall, slender man with curling brown hair, a somewhat asymmetrical face, and a stiff and awkward stance. “And this is Charlie Dodgson, an up-and-coming writer.”

He smiled rather shyly and said, “I’m happy to—that is, pleased to make your—to meet you.”

“Arthur Hughes,” Lady Trevelyan went on, pulling forward a dark-complexioned individual who had very long black hair. “A talented artist and illustrator. My husband, Sir Walter. And this—” she added, as the swimmer, now fully dressed, joined them, “is Algernon Charles Swinburne, who recently toured the continent having fled Oxford University where he achieved precisely nothing, and who, apparently, is destined to be a notable poet, if he manages to stay alive long enough.”

“Pah!” Swinburne screeched in a high-pitched voice. “You exaggerate wildly! About my risk-taking, I mean; not about the notability of my poetry!”

Burton looked in amazement at the little man. In aspect, the fledgling poet was extraordinary. He was in his early twenties, but tiny and childlike—barely five feet tall—with sloping shoulders that appeared far too weak to carry his huge head, the size of which was magnified by the tousled mass of red hair standing almost at right angles to it, despite being sopping wet.

Swinburne’s bright green eyes met his, and he yelled, “By my ailing Aunt Agatha’s blue feather hat! What a grand old time you’ve had of it, Burton! The riddle of the Nile solved at last! Hurrah! Hurrah! And you, Monckton Milnes! Aren’t you the man with the absolutely whopping collection of erotica? I say, have you any of de Sade’s work? Bound in human skin, no doubt! I hear he’s de rigueur among the Whippinghams, Bendovers, and Lashworthies! I must indulge! I simply must!”

“Really, Carrots,” Lady Pauline protested. “Do control yourself.”

“Incidentally,” the poet said. “Cognac. I was promised it and I demand it.”

Sir Walter handed over a silver hip flask, which the little man put to his lips and upended.

“Ah! Much better!” He passed it back. Sir Walter looked at it, shook it, found it to be empty, gave a rueful sigh, and said, “You were only meant to take a sip. What!”

“My whistle required a wetting,” Swinburne answered, “for I intend to recite my latest while we walk to the headland and back.”

The party continued along the beach, the men holding their hats as the breeze stiffened. Swinburne skipped along, his movements jerky, his gestures excessive. “Laus Veneris!” he announced, and began:

Asleep or waking is it? for her neck,

Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck

Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out;

Soft, and stung softly—fairer for a fleck.

But though my lips shut sucking on the place,

There is no vein at work upon her face;

Her eyelids are so peaceable, no doubt

Deep sleep has warmed her blood through all its ways.

“Gad!” Monckton Milnes whispered to Burton. “Remarkable! Remarkable!”

It was. Swinburne, though shrill-voiced, was so eloquent and evocative in his performance that his poetry became almost mesmeric, raising such an emotive response in the listeners that every other thing they sensed appeared to fuse with his strange lilting intonation, and the crashing waves sounded as if they were eulogising the words and rhythms with far-off acclamations.

Burton strolled and listened and absolutely marvelled.

The poet’s praise of Venus continued until they reached the headland where the outlying cottages of Cullercoats overlooked the beach. He finished:

I seal myself upon thee with my might,

Abiding alway out of all men’s sight

Until God loosen over sea and land

The thunder of the trumpets of the night.

He stopped, took a deep breath, turned to face the group, and said, “Shall we convene in the local tavern before we head back?”

“That was breathtaking, Algy!” Sir Walter said.

“A masterpiece!” his wife agreed.

“Bravo!” Levi cheered.

“A work of genius!” Rossetti declared.

“I found it incred—that is, utterly extraordinary, and, um—” Dodgson added.

Monckton Milnes stepped forward. “Mr. Swinburne, I should very much like to see about getting your work into print.”

Swinburne hopped up and down and waved his arms. “Never mind that now! The tavern awaits! Come along! Come along!”

He scampered up a slope and they followed him into the village.

Eliphas Levi leaned close to Burton and murmured, “Il est un jeune homme très doué, non? But also very strange!”

A few minutes later, they found The Copper Kettle—which overlooked Cullercoats Bay—and settled in its lounge bar. The introductions made on the beach were now supplemented as—in conversations expertly guided by Lady Trevelyan—the men discussed their work and interests.

It was an exceptional gathering of singular personalities: Burton, magnetic, forceful, but somewhat troubled; Monckton Milnes, stylish, charming, and eclectic; Levi, perceptive and inquisitive; Rossetti, complex and a little pensive; Charles Dodgson, quiet, dreamy, and self-conscious; Arthur Hughes, brooding but penetrative in his comments; Sir Walter, passive but jocular; and Swinburne, whose enthusiasms and excitability increased in proportion to his consumption of alcohol, for which he displayed such an inordinate predilection that, three hours later, when the party departed the establishment, he required Rossetti and Hughes to hold him upright.

As they proceeded southward along the Grand Parade, Dodgson’s hat was snatched from his head by the wind and flung far out to sea. “My goodness!” he exclaimed. “Where’s my topper off to? It looks like—it appears that the weather is change—is taking a turn for the worse!”

Burton looked to the west and saw the dark clouds Monckton Milnes had noted earlier, now expanded dramatically and piled high into the upper atmosphere.

“Le jour tombe,” Levi observed.

“Straight back to Wallington, I think, gentlemen,” Lady Pauline announced. “There is a storm coming.”

Burton shivered at the ominous words.

At Tynemouth’s coach house, Sir Walter hired the same two steam-driven landaus his group had arrived in. He, his wife, Rossetti, Hughes, and the barely conscious Swinburne squeezed into one, while Burton, Monckton Milnes, and Levi were joined by Dodgson in the other.

The carriage lurched into motion and Dodgson, who was leaning out of the window and looking at the sky, received a faceful of steam. He dropped back into his seat, coughing. “By golly, I shall never learn my lesson. These steam transports are forever puffing—that is, blowing their fumes into my face!”

“But they make the world more small, non?” Eliphas Levi said. “We travel so much fast de nos jours!”

“I am afraid—I fear they make literature smaller, too, Monsieur Levi.”

“Oui? How is that?”

“If steam has done nothing else, it has at least contrib—added a whole new species to English literature. The booklets—the little thrilling romances, where the—the—the murder comes at page fifteen, and the wedding at page forty—surely they are due to steam?”

“Bien sûr, you speak of the publications for sale at the train stations, non?”

“I do, sir—er—monsieur. And if the Department of Guided Science succeeds in its intentions—its plans, and one day we travel by electricity, then we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the murder and the wedding will be—will come on the same page!”

Burton and Monckton Milnes laughed, and the latter said, “Have you read any of Sir Richard’s accounts, Mr. Dodgson?”

“No, sir, I regret not.”

“He stuffs into them so many appended facts, qualifiers, and opinions that your observation has given me a whole new understanding of the term ‘footnote,’ for if steam shortens a journey to the extent that only a booklet may be read, then Burton’s volumes must require one to forgo the railway and take a very long walk!”

The landau, following the other, turned onto the coast road toward Newcastle upon Tyne. The wind gusted against it, causing it to rock.

“Have you known Swinburne for long, Mr. Dodgson?” Burton asked, grabbing at the edge of the bench to steady himself. He stifled a hiss as his arm gave a pang.

“Not at all, Mr. Burt—Sir Richard. I’ve not—I hadn’t ever encountered him until my arrival at Wallington Hall yesterday. It is Rossetti with whom I am—that is, who I am friends with. He strikes me as—I refer to Mr. Swinburne—as a very eccentric fellow. It’s a quite fantast—an amazing thing, but did you know that he cannot feel pain at all?”

“He can’t feel pain? How is that possible?”

“It seems his brain is arranged—is not put together in the normal manner. Indeed, there are certain forms of pain that he even senses—interprets as—as pleasure. According to Rossetti, it has resulted in him acquiring a rather—um—um—peculiar taste for—for—for—”

“Whippingham, Bendover, and Lashworthy,” Monckton Milnes offered.

“Yes.”

“You mean flagellation?” Burton asked.

Dodgson cleared his throat, went beetroot-red, and nodded.

“The English vice,” Levi declared. “You are a race très drôles!”

Monckton Milnes said, “Must I remind you that the Marquis de Sade was French, Monsieur Levi?”

“A philosopher and Utopian! In transgression, he seek to expand the mind, to allow for the establishment of Socialist thought, but you English—ha!—all you want is the whack, whack, whack of the strap!”

Dodgson crossed his arms and legs and mumbled, “Anyway, the more time I spend with—in Mr. Swinburne’s company, the more I think him curiouser and curiouser.”

By the time the two carriages reached the train station in Newcastle, the clouds had filled the sky from horizon to horizon. They were dark and billowing, suggesting gale-force winds at a high altitude. Even at ground level, the gusts were now whistling and howling with growing ferocity.

“It’s the end of our long, hot summer,” Lady Pauline commented as the party climbed aboard the Glasgow train. “And thank heavens for that. You gentlemen will never understand the infernal combination of heat and corsets. I’m certainly not the fainting type, but I came perilously close to it this season.”

The Glasgow slow train—the express didn’t stop near Wallington—halted at a succession of towns and villages until, at nine o’clock, it reached Kirkwhelpington, which was little more than a hamlet, lacking even a small station. Only the Trevelyan party was getting off here, and the guardsman brought from his van at the back of the three-carriage train a set of wooden steps, which he placed beneath the door to allow the nine passengers to alight.

Swinburne had by now recovered with no ill effects after his lunchtime indulgence. As the locomotive chugged away and heavy drops of rain began to slant down, he laughed, put his face to the sky, and hollered:

Outside the garden

The wet skies harden;

The gates are barred on

The summer side:

“Shut out the flower-time,

Sunbeam and shower-time;

Make way for our time,”

Wild winds have cried.

“You’ll catch your death,” Lady Pauline fussed, grabbing him by the elbow. The rest followed as she hurried the little poet along a path toward a large farmhouse. The wind and rain rapidly increased in fury, soaking them all.

“By God!” Rossetti shouted above the clamour. “Old England is in for a battering!”

Upon reaching the ramshackle building, they were greeted by a burly giant of a man who hustled them into a barn in which was stored one of Wallington Hall’s vehicles: a very large and ornate stagecoach.

Sir Walter said, “Bless my soul, Mr. Scoggins, what weather! Can you drive us home in this downpour?”

“I ’ave no objection,” the farmer replied. He eyed Burton, Monckton Milnes, and Levi. “More o’ ye a-goin’ back than what come out, though. Might be a tight squeeze. Would one o’ the gents be willin’ t’ sit up top wi’ me?”

“I’ll do so,” Burton volunteered.

Scoggins set about fetching four horses and, with Burton’s help, harnessed them to the stage. He then ran to the farmhouse and returned with a set of waterproofs, which Burton donned. The passengers climbed aboard, Scoggins and Burton mounted the driver’s box, and moments later the vehicle was bouncing and swinging eastward, with rain hammering against it and wind slapping at its side. Thunder roared overhead, and the countryside was one second buried in pitch darkness and the next vividly illuminated, until it achieved a vague state of permanency in the form of an after-image etched onto Burton’s retina.

The journey was short—two miles—but tested them all. Those inside the stage were thrown about as it jolted through ruts and potholes, while the two men up top were soaked to the skin, even through their waterproofs.

To Burton’s relief, a flash of lightning finally revealed the huge Palladian-style manor.

They’d arrived at Wallington Hall.

With one foot curled up on the chair beneath him, Algernon Swinburne was declaiming verse, introducing to the gathering his latest—but incomplete—work. His consumption of alcohol—which had resumed as soon as they’d arrived at the Trevelyan residence, changed into dry clothes, and gathered in the large and lavishly appointed sitting room—appeared to have no effect on his performance; his voice was clear, the words enunciated with passion and style. His audience was entranced. They listened in rapt silence, but Wallington Hall itself was not at all quiet, and the recitation was accompanied by ghastly moans, sobs, screams, and howls from the chimney as the wind moved in the flue, sounding like a horde of tormented ghosts.

Swinburne finished:

I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep; even so.

For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span;

A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man.

So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep.

For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.

For a short period afterward, Lady Pauline and her guests spoke not a word.

There came a loud rattle and crash as a slate was dislodged from the roof and fell to the patio outside the French doors.

Burton found himself dwelling on a line from earlier in the poem: Time and the Gods are at strife, ye dwell in the midst thereof.

Charles Dodgson broke the spell. “A lament, Mr. Swinburne? You regret the passing of—the death of paganism and the rise of—of Christianity?”

“When we turned our eyes to the sky,” Swinburne replied, “and placed our faith in the unknowable, we ceased to worship the ground beneath our feet and all that springs from it to sustain us. See how our mighty machines now despoil it! My hat, Dodgson, I rue the day we became blinded by hope and repudiated responsibility for the world in which we live. I would rather we strive to understand what definitely is than place reliance on what probably isn’t.”

Arthur Hughes said, “But can you not see that the intricate beauty of this world is nothing short of miraculous? How can its creator be anything less than divine?”

“I recently met Charles Darwin,” Burton interjected. “You’ve heard of him? The Voyage of the Beagle? He’s formulated a rather astonishing and elegant hypothesis in which he proposes that a particular system of nature is enough to explain the extraordinary diversity and interconnectedness of life.” He went on to repeat, as best he could, Darwin’s summary of the theory of natural selection.

“No God need apply,” Rossetti murmured.

Sir Walter opened his mouth to speak. He was cut off by a splintering crash as the French doors suddenly flew open and wind came shrieking into the chamber, overturning glasses and small tables, sending ornaments, antimacassars, and doilies flying, and causing the guests to leap out of their chairs in panic.

Burton and Eliphas Levi dived across the room and forced the doors shut.

“The latch has broken,” Burton called to the others. “Rossetti, drag that chair over—we’ll jam it against the handles.”

This was done, and with the doors secured, they surveyed the chaos.

“I call an end to all discussions relating to God,” Sir Walter proclaimed, “for whether He exists or not, we have obviously infuriated Him! What!”

Lady Pauline summoned the butler and asked him to have the staff clean up. The group then divided, with the Trevelyans ushering Rossetti, Hughes, and Dodgson to Lady Pauline’s private gallery, while Burton, Monckton Milnes, Levi, and Swinburne retired to the library. There, until long past midnight while the storm raged on with ever-increasing ferocity, they discussed the merits of Darwin’s theory. Even Eliphas Levi, who’d trained as a Catholic priest, agreed that it had the potential to lead mankind to a new respect and responsibility for the world and its many wonders.

Despite his growing state of inebriation, Swinburne so impressed Burton and Monckton Milnes with his unique outlook and intuitive intelligence that, by two in the morning, they’d invited him to join the Cannibal Club. Burton had taken an instant liking to the poet. They shared a similar philosophical outlook—an aversion to physical, moral, and intellectual boundaries; a fascination with the banned, the censored, and the denunciated; and a restless dissatisfaction with the mores and manners of British society—but he also detected in Swinburne an indefinable ennui, as if a normal life couldn’t offer the poet even one jot of fulfilment. This, Burton understood.

The conversation had already touched on the Afterlife and the existence—or not—of the soul. Now, Burton—who’d already divulged state secrets to Detective Inspector Trounce, Detective Inspector Slaughter, and Eliphas Levi—decided to bring Swinburne into the fold. He knew it was a risk. The little man was wild and idiosyncratic, but Burton felt an immediate trust, and he always allowed himself to be guided by instinct.

“Algernon,” he said.

“Algy, please, Sir Richard. Brandy dissolves formalities.”

“Very well. Then drop the Sir. It still feels like an absurd trimming to me. I understand you once met an individual named Abdu El Yezdi?”

“I did, and—my hat!—what a hideous creature he was, too!”

Burton glanced first at Monckton Milnes then at Levi.

“Would you tell us about it?”

Swinburne had been sitting with one leg crossed over the other, his foot swinging spasmodically. He now tucked it under himself, adopting the position that Burton already associated with the poet taking centre stage.

“It was five years ago,” Swinburne began. “I was seventeen years old and eager to be a cavalryman—forlorn hopes and riotous charges!—but my father forbade it. I was holidaying with my family on the Isle of Wight at the time, and one day I decided to put my courage to the test by climbing Culver Cliff.”

He addressed Levi, “Monsieur, it is a sheer face of chalk and flint, averaging three hundred feet in height.”

“Très dangereux, non?” Levi muttered.

“Indeed so. Before commencing the climb, I swam in the sea, which was tremendously rough that day. It was the beginning of my love affair with storm-wracked waters—I’ve never been able to resist them since. Having survived the waves, I then made my first attempt at the rock face, but an overhanging ledge defeated me and I was forced to make my way back to the beach. I chose another route, gritted my teeth, and swore I would not come down alive again. So I climbed, and the wind, penetrating the nooks and crannies, made a sound like the Eton Chapel organ, and gulls wheeled around me and I feared they would peck out my eyes. But on I went, until, just as I came close to the top, the chalk crumbled beneath my feet and I was left dangling by my fingertips from a ledge. Thankfully, I was able to carefully gain a different foothold, and with that to secure me, hauled myself over the top and onto the edge of the Culver Downs. Gents, I was immobilised by exhaustion, on my back with eyes closed, when a voice said, ‘Roll to your left, Algy, else you might find that going down is far quicker than coming up.’”

“He knew your name?” Burton asked.

“Yes. So I shifted away from the cliff edge and saw an extraordinary figure sitting cross-legged nearby.”

“What did he look like? Hideous, you said?”

“Fat! He was dressed in white Arabian robes, with a keffiyeh covering his head. His skin was dark, his right eye blind and milky, and his teeth large, crooked, and rotten. An enormous beard flowed down over his protruding belly, and when he spoke, he moved his hands constantly. ‘As-salamu alaykum,’ he said. ‘I am Abdu El Yezdi. Are you satisfied now? Do you feel yourself courageous?’”

Burton frowned. “Then he was also aware of the purpose of your climb?”

“He was. And I replied, ‘Courageous enough to ascend a cliff, anyway,’ to which he responded, ‘Courage, Algy, is not accurately measured in isolated acts of bravery, but in the ongoing ability to express your own true nature, no matter how you are judged or feted or damned.’”

“Mon Dieu! Combien vrai!” Levi exclaimed.

The poet nodded. “He then said, ‘Listen to me, young man. Soon your courage will be tested in a manner you can’t imagine. When that time comes, do not doubt yourself, for your instincts are true. Look for—’” Swinburne paused and suddenly gawped at Burton.

“What is it?” the explorer asked.

“He—he said, ‘Look for the man with a scar on his face. When he comes, your travails will begin.’”

Burton reached up and with his fingertips traced the deep scar that scored his cheek. He was conscious that the poet, Levi, and Monckton Milnes were all staring at him.

A minute passed, then Swinburne went on, “The next thing I knew, I awoke, lying there, and was alone. I couldn’t even remember falling asleep.”

Monckton Milnes murmured, “Mesmerism?”

“Undoubtedly,” Burton agreed.

“There’s one more thing,” Swinburne added. “I have a vague impression of Abdu El Yezdi leaning over me.”

“What was he doing?” Burton asked.

“He was saying, ‘Thank you.’”

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The following morning, the remnants of ruined chimneys, dislodged roof tiles, and pieces of a decimated summer house were heaped against the walls of Wallington Hall, along with a huge mass of unidentifiable debris. The grounds were strewn with leaves, twigs, branches, and fallen trees. A phaeton carriage—not belonging to the estate and probably not even from Kirkwhelpington—lay crumpled beside an ornamental pond. South-facing windows had broken and rooms were in disarray. The guests confined themselves to the inner chambers while the staff cleared the mess and started repairs.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Lady Pauline declared. “What a storm!”

No one had slept well. They’d risen late and breakfast was more of an early lunch. After it, Burton, Monckton Milnes, and Levi took a stroll to survey the damage. The winds were still high and the sky filled with scudding clouds.

“I think I’ll head back to Fryston,” Monckton Milnes said. “I’m concerned there might be nothing left of it. Will you come, Richard?”

“I’ll pass, if you don’t mind, old fellow. I want to spend a little more time with young Algernon. Perhaps he’ll allow me to mesmerise him. As you suggested, El Yezdi certainly did so, and I’d like to peel away whatever mantle he cast over the lad’s memory.”

“You think there was more to their meeting, then?”

“I suspect so. I can’t imagine how or why, but the poet is obviously connected with the business.”

“And with you, my scar-faced friend. Gad! It’s confirmed, then. The whole El Yezdi in the Afterlife idea was nonsense, and the British Empire has been manipulated for two decades by—by—”

“By a living person,” Burton said. “And you find that less acceptable than a ghost?”

“I was going to say, by a foreigner.”

Burton laughed. “By Allah’s beard! That’s far, far worse!”

“Désastreux!” Levi agreed.

They rounded a corner and saw a steam sphere tearing up the drive toward the house. It skidded to a halt in front of the main entrance, hissing forth a final plume of vapour before its engine fell silent. The vehicle’s door hinged upward and Detective Inspector Trounce stepped out. He saw them and waved them over.

“By Jove, Burton,” he cried out. “You’ve a lot to answer for!”

“What on earth are you doing here, Trounce? And what do you mean?”

“Chief Commissioner Mayne has issued a temporary ban on me flying police rotorchairs.”

“Why so?”

“Because you destroyed two of the confounded things while under my supervision. So, what with last night’s storm throwing tree trunks all over railway tracks, I had no option but to come here in this contraption. What a bloody drive! The roads are hellish!”