Текст книги "The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi"

Автор книги: Mark Hodder

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“How so?”

“Witnesses have described the two men who tried to take Brunel but were stopped by the police constables. We are certain they were Burke and Hare.”

The haze in the Strand was saturated with yellow dust. Bright sunlight penetrated it and made the air such a blinding gold that Burton had to walk with his eyes half-closed, peering through his lashes.

The thoroughfare was almost impassable. A huge channel had been dug along its complete length, and traffic and pedestrians were forced to squeeze through the narrow spaces to either side of it. Litter-crabs were in abundance, their bulky forms adding to the chaos, their attempts to clean up the dust doing more to spread it than otherwise.

The giant ditch was plainly visible from any point along the famous street, but this didn’t prevent an urchin from trying his luck. He was hollering, “A penny a look! A penny a look! See Mr. Bazalgette’s sewer afore it’s closed over! A penny a look! The greatest sight you’ll ever behold! The eighth wonder of the bloomin’ world!” and as Burton passed him, the youngster said, “How about you, sir? Won’t you spare a penny to see the DOGS’ latest creation? Last chance! They start rebuilding the road over it tomorrow!”

Burton dug a hand into his trouser pocket, retrieved a coin, and flipped it to the lad, who was standing on his right. As he did so, he felt fingers sliding into his jacket from the left. He viciously jabbed out an elbow and caught the pickpocket in the teeth. The man, hideously deformed by rickets and smallpox, let out a bleat and retreated into the crowd.

The explorer moved on, ruminating that the boy and man were probably in cahoots, the one distracting while the other dipped. He thought about the African natives who’d employed similar tactics to steal from his safari. What was considered crime in London was practically a sport in Africa. On that continent, hunger and want justified any action, and successful pilfering was more likely to be celebrated than punished. Here, the rich tried very hard to pretend that poverty didn’t exist. To acknowledge it would be to admit that the greatest Empire on Earth was deeply faulted. Better to turn a blind eye, and make illegal the only solutions the poor could find to their dilemma.

He arrived at the Royal Venetia Hotel, located just a few doors along from the Theatre Royal, entered, and allowed a concierge to brush the dust from his clothes. Then he climbed the ornate staircase to the fifth floor and passed along a corridor to Suite Five.

Burton eyed the door for a moment before reluctantly raising his cane and rapping on it. Almost immediately, the portal swung open to reveal a clockwork man.

“I’m here to see the minister.”

The mechanism bowed, moved aside, and rang, “He is expecting you, Sir Richard. This way, please. I am Grumbles, his new valet.”

Burton followed the contraption through a parlour and into a large library. The room was all books; they lined every wall from floor to ceiling, teetered in tall stacks on the deep red carpet, and were strewn haphazardly over the various tables, chairs, and sideboards. In the midst of them, by the window, a giant of a man, wrapped in a threadbare red dressing gown, occupied an enormous wing-backed armchair of scuffed and cracked leather. His hair was brown and untidy, and from it a deep scar emerged, running jaggedly down the broad forehead to bisect the left eyebrow. His eyes, which followed Burton as he entered, were intensely black. The nose, obviously once broken, had reset crookedly, and the mouth—the upper lip cleft by another scar—was permanently twisted into a superior sneer. It was a face every bit as brutal in appearance as Burton’s own, but the heavy jaw was buried beneath bulging jowls, and the neck was lost in rolls of fat which undulated down into a vast belly sagging over tree-trunk-sized legs. The man was so corpulent that, despite the two walking sticks propped against one of the tables, it was impossible to conceive of him in motion.

Grumbles moved to a corner and stood still, quietly ticking.

“So you’ve finally deigned to visit me,” the fat man said. His eyes flicked toward a chair, indicating that Burton should occupy it. “It’s been four years.”

“I’ve been busy and you’d lost your mind,” Burton responded, moving a pile of books aside before sitting.

“I was seriously injured, and my mind was being—shall we say —rearranged.”

“As was your stomach, evidently. How could you possibly have put on so much weight in such a short period? I can hardly see you beneath all that blubber.”

“Movement has been difficult for me, Dick. I never properly recovered from my paralysis, and you weren’t there to help when I needed it.”

“I was wounded, too, if you remember. I’d received a spear through my face. My palate was split. I couldn’t speak properly, and you weren’t speaking at all.”

“I was listening. Do you want a drink, or are you too hung-over after getting sozzled with Monckton Milnes? I have some rather fine Alton Ale.”

“Yes, I’m hung-over; and yes, I’ll have a glass. Have you been spying on me, Edward?”

The minister waggled his fingers at Grumbles and pointed toward a sideboard.

“It’s my job to know what people of significance are up to, though in your case, I could have guessed that it was getting drunk.”

“I’ve become significant?”

“In so far as you haggled with the king.”

“Word travels fast.”

“In my direction, yes, that’s true.”

The clockwork man moved a small table to Burton’s side and placed a glass of ale upon it. He crossed to his master and served him the same before returning to his place in the corner.

The minister raised his glass. “Enjoy it while you can. This will be a rare commodity before too long. Bazalgette will soon be digging through the East End, and the Alton Brewery’s London warehouse is right in his path. The disruption will require it to be emptied of its stock for a month or two.”

“I know it’s one of your favourite subjects, but I didn’t come here to talk about Alton Ale.”

“Of course not. Tell me, then—what bargain did you make with His Majesty?”

Burton took a swig and said, “I agreed to undertake the investigation on the condition that if I find a satisfactory explanation for the ghost’s silence—or can at least locate those who’ve gone missing—I’d be rewarded with the consulship of Damascus. My terms were accepted.”

The fat man grunted. “So you’ve come to visit your brother to find out what his role is in all of this?”

“I knew you’d become obsessed with spiritualism and I knew you were working for the government, but I had no conception that you were so intimately involved until a few hours ago.”

Edward Burton nodded. His eyes remained fixed on those of his older sibling. “Whatever you conceive, my part in it is even greater than that. For fifteen years, every government policy was passed through Countess Sabina for review by Abdu El Yezdi. It exhausted her. She retired. Now it all comes to me. I am the central exchange. The government is filled with specialists, but my specialism is omniscience. There are occasions when it would be fair to claim that I am the British government.”

“As conceited as ever. But is the omniscience yours, Edward, or does it belong to the spook you claim contact with? Or perhaps both are sheer fantasy.”

“The spirit and I are—or were—indivisible!” The minister tapped the side of his own head. “You don’t understand. When I first heard El Yezdi, four years ago, it was as if he immediately became an integral part of my mind. I reported his absence to Disraeli last Thursday not just because, after communicating his final message, he fell silent, but because he was quite suddenly and violently torn out of me.”

Burton put his glass aside and raised his hands. “Stop. Go back to the beginning. Tell me about when he first spoke to you.”

“It was after my accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident, Edward. You were hunting elephants in Ceylon. The Singhalese consider them holy. It’s no wonder they set upon you.”

The minister shrugged. “A misjudgment, I’ll admit. The villagers attacked me with tools, fists, and feet. My gun bearer was strangled to death. I was knocked unconscious. When I regained my wits, I was in a house in Jaffna, being nursed by two young men—Ravindra Johar and Mahakram Singh. They told me they’d stumbled upon the scene quite by chance and had dragged me away from my assailants.”

He lifted his ale and took a gulp, before continuing, “Over the course of four months, they had doctors attend me. My skull had been cracked and my brain injured. I was almost completely paralysed. I couldn’t speak.” Edward lifted a hand and traced the scar on his forehead with a forefinger. “Then I heard him one night, inside my head, as clear as a bell. He said: This time, you were saved. You’ll recover. Pay the boys to take you to England. Have them deliver you to Penfold Sanatorium. After a few days, they’ll disappear. Let them. Don’t look for them.”

“‘This time’?”

Edward nodded, his chins wobbling. “Yes. I have no idea what he meant by that.”

“And his voice—what was it like?”

“It was my voice. When Abdu El Yezdi speaks, it isn’t like someone addressing you. It’s more like having your own thoughts guided.”

“Similar to mesmerism?”

“Yes, very much so. But I wasn’t under the influence of animal magnetism. There was no one else present.”

Burton mused, “Mental domination over distance?”

Edward made a noise of disagreement. “Your own prejudice prompts you to search for an explanation that doesn’t involve the Afterlife. I’m sorry, Dick, but El Yezdi later stated quite categorically that he is not of this world, and I, having communicated so closely with him these past four years, am convinced beyond all doubt that he’s a spirit.”

Burton drew a cheroot from his pocket, contemplated it, then put it between his lips and fished for his box of lucifers.

Edward clicked his tongue impatiently and said, “Must you foul the atmosphere?”

Ignoring him, Burton lit the Manila and blew smoke into the air.

Edward sighed his exasperation, and went on, “When I was fit enough for the voyage, Ravindra and Mahakram, at my expense, accompanied me here to London. They delivered me to the sanatorium, where, as you know, Sadhvi Raghavendra nursed me back to health. As El Yezdi had warned, the boys both vanished. I never saw them again. I was unable even to thank them.”

Burton retrieved his glass, gazed into the foam of his beer, and summoned the painful recollection of Edward’s return to England. He’d also been in hospital at the time, and had suddenly been called to the sanatorium. With his own head swathed in bandages, he’d been escorted to a room where he’d found his brother in exactly the same state. However, where Burton’s injury had deprived him of a couple of molars, left him temporarily speechless, and gouged a hideous scar across his left cheek, Edward’s had threatened permanent brain damage. The two Indian lads—both gone by the time Burton arrived—had kept his brother alive, but it was Sadhvi who nursed him back to health. Having witnessed the miracles she’d worked with him, Burton immediately thought of her three years later, when he was planning his Nile expedition. He’d sought her out and, in a very unconventional move, asked her to join his team. He was surprised and delighted when she’d said yes.

“During the early days of my recovery,” Edward said, “I truly thought myself mad.”

“As did I,” Burton replied. “You didn’t say a word for three months.”

“I couldn’t. It was as if two personalities existed within me. I didn’t know which was real. It took a long time to untangle them. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to were it not for the Countess Sabina. She came to visit me and explained that Abdu El Yezdi had been communicating with her since 1840. She informed me that I was to take over her role. After giving an account of what it would involve, she then, to my great astonishment, ushered in Disraeli himself, who, at her recommendation, immediately appointed me his new minister of mediumistic affairs.”

Sir Richard Francis Burton drained his glass, put it down, stood, and started to pace the room, carelessly kicking books aside to clear a path. He puffed furiously on his cigar. His brother watched, then signalled to Grumbles to open a window.

“Blast it!” Burton exploded. “Is it really true, Edward? Has this voice in your head been directing government policy for so long?”

“Yes, it has. Twenty years ago, Disraeli was more than willing to listen to El Yezdi. The spirit had, after all, helped him to defeat Palmerston by convincing Monckton Milnes to offer support. Disraeli’s subsequent creation, at the spirit’s behest, of the Department of Guided Science bore such startling fruit that it was almost impossible to doubt the spirit’s benevolence. Then Ireland happened, and it made Abdu El Yezdi the government’s most influential advisor.”

“Ireland?”

“In ’forty-four, a man named Francis Galton presented to Isambard Kingdom Brunel a new science, which he called Eugenics. At its most basic, it concerns the breeding out of inherent weaknesses in plants, animals, and even in humans, and the propagation of their strengths. Galton proposed to test his theories by planting a crop of what he termed Super Solanum tuberosum—”

“Super potatoes?” Burton interrupted, incredulously.

“In essence, yes. He wanted to plant them in Ireland, the idea being that the plants would spread their hardiness to other crops while eliminating the fragilities that had plagued the Irish strains. Brunel put the plan before Disraeli, but Abdu El Yezdi immediately warned, via the countess, that the whole undertaking would be disastrous. He recommended that Eugenics in its entirety be made illegal. Disraeli, however, met Galton in person and allowed himself to be convinced to go ahead with the plan. It was catastrophic. The potatoes caused the entire crop, across the whole of Ireland, to fail. Widespread famine followed. Galton suffered a serious nervous breakdown and has been incarcerated in Bedlam ever since. Eugenics was made illegal, and from that point on Disraeli never again disregarded El Yezdi’s advice.”

Burton flicked his cigar stub into the fireplace and blew smoke from his nostrils.

“What am I to make of all this? The more I learn, the more . . . wrong everything feels. Everything, Edward! I’m expected to track down a man who doesn’t exist!”

“But who once did,” Edward noted.

The explorer stopped his pacing and regarded his brother. “When? Where? Who was he? What did he do? When and how did he die?”

The minister of mediumistic affairs shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Burton snapped. “You’ve had him rattling about inside your bloody skull for four years and you’ve discovered nothing about him?”

“As I told you, it isn’t a discussion. I feel his presence, my thoughts are manipulated into words, and I pass those words on to Disraeli. That’s it.”

“And his final words, aside from the warning about Brunel?”

“He gave assurance that the new unity of Italy is secure. He urged that our government establish bases in Lagos to stop the slave trade there. And—” Edward Burton examined his glass, which was now empty, and held it out to Grumbles for a refill. “And that was it.” He looked at his fingernails and chewed his bottom lip. He glanced up at his brother. “There is something else, something he said a few months ago that might have some relevance to your investigation.”

“It being?”

“The crucial years are upon us. Soon the variations will begin to overlap.”

“What does that signify?”

The minister shrugged.

Burton threw up his hands. “Riddles, obscurities, and voices in my brother’s head!”

Edward answered, “You’ve already asked a very pertinent question—who was Abdu El Yezdi when he lived? The king selected you for this task because you have extraordinary powers of observation. I’ve never met another man who can learn so much about something merely by looking at it. Perhaps if you knew something of El Yezdi’s appearance, you could begin to trace his origins.”

Burton groaned. “Please don’t suggest that I should have a table-tapper summon him out of ectoplasm.”

“I wasn’t going to. You met Rossetti today?”

“Yes.”

“He has a friend who claims to have seen Abdu El Yezdi.”

“In a vision?”

“In the flesh.”

“But you insist that he’s dead!”

“The man I refer to thinks not, but he has a reputation for eccentricity, so it may be nothing but waffle. Nevertheless, it’s worth checking, don’t you think?”

“Who is he?”

Edward took his refilled glass from the clockwork butler.

“A young poet named Algernon Charles Swinburne.”

“The four copper rods of Battersea Power Station extend two and a half miles into the crust of the Earth. They conduct geothermal heat into the station, where it is converted into electrical energy. With this, we thought we’d be able to illuminate London from North to South, West to East. As it happens, the electricity generated is barely enough to light even the station. The project has been a grand, extravagant, ridiculous failure. I must confess, though; I like the building. It makes a good, secure headquarters.”

–FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL.

After spending the remainder of the afternoon strolling in Hyde Park with Isabel, Burton returned home and, shortly before his evening meal, sent a letter by messenger to Rossetti. By the time he’d fished eating—Mrs. Angell insisted on serving ridiculously large portions because he was “infected with Africa and needed fattening up”—a reply had come. Algernon Swinburne was currently touring the continent and wouldn’t be back until the middle of next month. Rossetti had, however, swung an invitation to Wallington Hall for Burton. This grand old manor, located in Northumberland and owned by Sir Walter Trevelyan, was a centre of artistic and intellectual endeavour due to Lady Pauline Trevelyan’s fondness for creative types, whom she collected around herself and, in many cases, generously sponsored. One of her week-long gatherings was set to begin on the 24th of October, and, according to Rossetti, Burton was most welcome to attend.

Swinburne would also be there.

The explorer sent a whispered thank you to Rossetti via the Irish ragamuffin and wrote a letter to Lady Trevelyan.

Later, he wrapped himself in his jubbah, lolled in his armchair, and contemplated the events of the day.

The British Empire was built on foundations laid by a ghost. His friend Monckton Milnes had secretly played a major role in history; and his own brother, whose belief in the Afterlife Burton had considered an aberration caused by brain damage—and whose position as the minister of mediumistic affairs he’d regarded as a joke—was sitting slap bang in the middle of it all.

He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander, hoping that, from its depths, some conception would arise to inject sense into what felt like a demented fantasy.

He waited for insight.

He fell asleep.

When he awoke at six on Tuesday morning, he was still in the armchair and his muscles were stiff and sore. He grumbled when Mrs. Angell served him a too-big breakfast but ate it all and drank the whole pot of coffee before dressing and leaving the house in a hurry.

He met Sadhvi Raghavendra and Captain Lawless at William Stroyan’s funeral where they all spoke movingly about their friend to the congregation. Burton struggled with his emotions as the coffin was lowered into the ground. He couldn’t imagine anything more horrifying than being buried.

Afterwards, they took a cab to the RGS.

The next two days were going to be filled with geographical matters, starting with this morning’s public presentation. They would, Burton hoped, be free of surprises. He’d accepted the king’s commission but, right now, didn’t want to think about it.

Isabel and Blanche took a break from their socialising to join the audience. Burton met them at the door and escorted them to seats at the front of the establishment’s auditorium. He then retired to a back room with Raghavendra and Lawless where they reviewed their notes.

By ten o’clock, when they took to the stage, the place was packed with journalists.

Sir Roderick Murchison made a brief speech before Burton moved to the podium and gave a long, detailed, and entertaining account of the expedition, the highlight of which was his description of the moment when he, Raghavendra, Stroyan, and Herne had climbed a hill and looked down on the waterfalls from which the Nile sprang. This was greeted by such wild cheering that it was heard in Scotland Yard and echoed all the way down Whitehall.

When Burton finished, Lawless took centre stage and gave a well-received account of his flight over the eastern shore of the great lake. He was followed by Sister Raghavendra, who told of her experiences and was rewarded with a standing ovation and cries of, “Hurrah for the Lady of the Nile!”

Burton came forward to take questions. Inevitably, the journalists, ever hungry for sensation, were more interested in the murder of Stroyan than in the geography of Africa. Having learned from them that Oliphant was at present locked up in Bedlam, Burton said it was the best place for him, and concurred with the prevalent theory that Lord Elgin’s private secretary had been driven mad by his opium addiction. Stroyan’s death was, unfortunately, needless and meaningless.

The presentation finished at three o’clock, but the explorer spent the rest of the day with his fellow geographers going over maps and measurements, notes and specimens, and didn’t leave the building until nightfall, by which time he was thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed.

There had been one significant moment.

Halfway through his speech, Burton had spotted in the audience the man who called himself Macallister Fogg. A minute later, when he looked again, that individual was gone.

Wednesday was also spent at the Society, this time presenting much more technical material to the senior committee—Murchison, Arthur Findley, Sir James Alexander, Colonel William Sykes, and Clement Markham. They spent considerable time matching Burton’s maps to those made by David Livingstone of the topography to the west of the Lake Region. Central Africa was beginning to make sense. Light was finally shining onto the Dark Continent.

Two busy days, during which Burton threw himself wholeheartedly into his role as the returning hero; the man who solved the riddle of the Nile; the explorer who’d braved dangerous lands and triumphed. He relished it because he knew it was the end. No more risking his life. No further need to prove himself. One preposterous hurdle remained, then Damascus.

He rose on Thursday morning with his geographical duties behind him and a plan of action in place. Foregoing breakfast—much to his housekeeper’s dismay—he left the house and plunged into the day’s fog, which, though not terribly thick, more resembled soot-speckled smoke and was corrosive to the throat and eyes.

The little urchin was on the opposite side of the road with newspapers draped over his arm and piled at his feet. He was yelling, “Death of mediums! Read all about it! Twelve mediums die in a single day! Cause unknown!”

Burton crossed and purchased a Daily Bugle. “What’s happened?”

“A great mystery, so it is, sir. Fortune tellers a-droppin’ dead, an’ there be no explanation for it at all.”

The explorer muttered, “Odd!” He pushed the paper under his arm, bade the lad farewell, and walked on, swinging his cane.

At the corner of Montagu Place, a vendor of hot chestnuts hailed him. “Mornin’, Cap’n! Glad to see you out o’ the jungle!”

“Good morning to you, Mr. Grub,” Burton called. “How’s business?”

“Can’t complain, an’ if I did, it wouldn’t make half a penny’s worth o’ difference! How you copin’ with the ’orrible pong, sir?”

“Pong?”

Grub pointed downward. “Of all that muck what’s swillin’ below!”

Burton remembered that, beneath his feet, sewage was rising in the new tunnels, its flow constricted by sluice gates. Incredibly, after just one week, his nose had already adjusted.

“I appear to have adapted to it, Mr. Grub.”

He continued into Gloucester Place, waved for a cab, and as its burly driver came into view, exclaimed, “You again!”

The hansom crunched to a standstill beside him and Montague Penniforth pushed goggles up from his eyes onto his forehead, looked down, removed a pipe from his mouth, and said, “Hallo hallo! Fancy that! It’s Cap’n Burton ’imself, as I live an’ bloomin’ well breathe!”

“Are you following me, Mr. Penniforth?”

“Not at all, guv’nor, it’s blessed chance, that’s what it is; another blinkin’ coincidence. Hop in. Where you hoff to?”

“The British Museum.”

As he climbed into the cabin, Burton cast a searching and suspicious glance at the driver. Penniforth, though sitting, was plainly very tall and so solid he might have been carved from granite. Burton had once been described as having the physique of a bull, but even if he’d been in full health—which he certainly wasn’t—he doubted he’d last long in a confrontation with this man.

Who are you, Mr. Penniforth? What are you up to?

The hansom rattled into Baker Street, navigated the traffic down to Oxford Street, then spent forty minutes traversing that hectic thoroughfare until it came to Great Russell Street. Burton passed the journey reading the newspaper. As the street Arab had proclaimed, over the course of the past week twelve mediums had been found dead, apparently from heart failure. All were discovered with a look of horror frozen on their faces, cause unknown.

The cab drew to a halt outside the famous museum.

A breeze had got up, and when Burton stepped down onto the pavement, he found the air had cleared somewhat but the temperature had risen.

He wiped sweat from his brow.

“Aye, guv’nor,” Penniforth observed as the explorer counted out his coins. “It’s goin’ to be another scorcher. Been the ’ottest summer I can remember. Will I wait for you?”

Burton handed over payment and said, “No, that won’t be necessary, thank you. But I have it in mind that we’ll meet again, Mr. Penniforth.” He flashed his eyes meaningfully at the cab driver. His gaze was met with a guileless grin.

“Could be so,” Penniforth said. “London hain’t Africa, is it? Crowded, aye, guv’nor, but small enough.” He applied his teeth to one of the coins, winked, pocketed it, then took hold of his vehicle’s tiller, shouted, “Gee-up, Daisy!” squeezed the accelerator lever, and went chugging away.

Burton watched him go.

He spent the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon sitting at a wide mahogany desk in the museum’s circular reading room. He searched countless Arabian and Indian texts but found not a single reference to Abdu El Yezdi. Whomever the spirit had been when alive, he’d evidently made no imprint worth recording. Burton found that rather unlikely. Surely a ghost who managed to so affect the greatest Empire in history must, in life, have possessed enough influence to be noticed?

He was on the point of leaving when, acting on impulse, he returned to his seat and asked an attendant to bring him material relating to The Assassination.

It didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. On the 10th of June 1840, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had been taking a carriage ride through Green Park. Eighteen-year-old Edward Oxford had stepped out of the crowd of onlookers, shot at the queen, and missed. An unknown individual, who bore some physical resemblance to the gunman, tackled him. In the struggle, the young lunatic’s second flintlock had gone off. The queen was hit in the head and died instantly. The unidentified man pushed Oxford to the ground, accidentally killing him, then took to his heels. A police constable, William Trounce, pursued him into a thicket at the northwestern corner of the park, where he’d found him inexplicably dead, his neck broken. The man, known as “the Mystery Hero,” had never been identified, his demise never explained.

Burton wondered whether the Mystery Hero and El Yezdi were one and the same. The spirit had started communicating soon after The Assassination, so may well have died around the same time. The theory had a nice symmetry to it, but unfortunately the dead man was plainly English, which made the Arabian name somewhat unlikely.

He left the museum and strolled along St. Martin’s Lane to Brundleweed’s. Frustratingly, the jeweller’s was still closed. Burton wondered when he was going to see Isabel’s engagement ring. He peered through the metal grille protecting the shop’s window. All appeared in order inside—clean, with items on display and tools set out neatly on the workbenches.

He continued on to the RGS. By the time he arrived there, he was perspiring freely and cursing the absurd restrictions of so-called civilised clothing. Having worn nothing but a loose cotton shirt, trousers, and a straw hat throughout his time in Africa, his collar now felt like a noose, his jacket like a cage, and his topper like a crown of thorns.

He went into the club room, stood at the bar, guzzled a refreshing glass of soda water sans alcohol, chatted with a quietly spoken fellow member named Richard Spruce, then left the building, crossed the road, and entered Scotland Yard.

He approached J. D. Pepperwick’s desk.

“Again?” the clerk exclaimed.

“Again,” Burton confirmed. “Is Detective Inspector Slaughter available? I’d like to speak with him, if possible.”

“Do you have an appointment, Captain Burton?”

“I have this.” Burton produced a small card—issued to him by Spencer Walpole—upon which certain words were printed, a certain seal stamped, and a certain signature scrawled.

Pepperwick took it, read it, and gaped. “I say! You’re an important fellow!” He hesitated a moment, then turned, reached up to a bracket of speaking tubes, lifted the lid of the one marked D. I. Slaughter, and pulled the tube free.

“There’s a gentleman to see you, sir,” he said into it. “Captain Richard—” He stopped, looked at the card again, and corrected himself. “I beg your pardon, Captain Sir Richard Burton.” He put the tube to his ear, then a few seconds later spoke into it again. “Yes, that’s right, sir, the Livingstone chap. He has, um, special authorisation.” He listened, responded, “At once, sir,” replaced the device, and smiled at Burton. “The inspector will see you straight away. Second floor, office number fourteen. The stairs are through there, sir.” He pointed to the left.