Текст книги "The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi"

Автор книги: Mark Hodder

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

Burton looked up at him. “The numbers, Trounce! The bloody numbers!”

“Numbers?”

“On the rifle. One thousand, nine hundred and eighteen.”

“So?”

“One thousand. Nine hundred. Ten. Eight.”

Trounce threw his hands into the air. “Did you bang your head? Get up, man! What are you jabbering about?”

Burton didn’t reply.

Oliphant. He had to see Oliphant.

“To secure Damascus for us, I have to first undertake a task for the government. It is a highly confidential matter—I cannot tell even you what it involves, Isabel—and I’m afraid I must ask you to refrain from visiting. I may not be able to see you again until the first of November.”

Burton, Isabel, and Blanche were in the St. James Hotel tea room for Saturday afternoon refreshments. They’d secured an isolated corner table, but, even so, Isabel’s reaction—a quavering cry of, “Seven weeks, Dick?”—drew disapproving stares and a tut or two from the other patrons. Heedlessly, she continued, “After being parted for so long, we must be separated again? This is unendurable!”

He placed his hand over hers. “Lower your voice. The king himself has promised the consulship on this one condition. I’m confident I can complete the assignment by November, if not before. We’ve waited for so long, we can manage another few weeks, can’t we?”

“But what is the nature of this business? Why must it prevent me from visiting?”

Burton hesitated. He wasn’t certain why he was warning his fiancée away. Perhaps the suspicion that Montague Penniforth was keeping an eye on him? Or the feeling that, somehow, inexplicably, he was at the centre of the curious events that had occurred since his return?

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“I once told you how I was employed by Sir Charles Napier in India—”

Blanche interrupted with a gasp and exclaimed, “How exciting! You’re a secret agent again, Richard!”

“Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say—”

“No!” Isabel snapped. “I’ll not have that! Last time, it ruined your reputation. You’ll not risk everything you’ve achieved since.”

Burton shook his head placatingly. “This is not at all the same sort of thing.”

“Then what?”

Blanche gave a huff of disapproval. “Really, sister! If Richard has been ordered to keep his lips sealed by the king himself then you have no right to subject him to an inquisition.”

“I have every right! I’m to be his wife!”

Burton’s eyes hardened. “In all truthfulness,” he said, “if I tell you more, I will be committing treason. Where then my reputation?”

A tear trickled down Isabel’s cheek. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, covered her eyes, and emitted a quiet sob.

“Please,” Burton said. “Don’t take on so. Consider that, with this one thing, Damascus is assured, and once we have that, we shall never be parted again.”

Blanche added, “Remember how much we have to organise, Isabel. Why, we’ll be so occupied, the days will fly by.”

Burton gave her a small nod of gratitude.

Isabel dried her face. With downcast eyes, she said, in a hoarse whisper, “We should go up to our room now, Blanche. We have to pack our things.”

“You’re leaving in the morning?” Burton asked.

“Yes.”

He stood and moved her chair out of the way as she rose and arranged her crinolines.

She raised her watery eyes to his.

“This commission you’ve been given—is there any danger associated with it?”

“Not as far as I can see,” he answered. “It’s a complex matter and I don’t currently know how I should proceed with it, but one way or the other I’ll get the thing done, and will do so as quickly as possible.” He leaned forward and pecked her cheek. “We are nearly there, darling.”

She smiled, though the tears were still welling. “I have waited, Dick, and I shall continue to wait. I have faith in God that He will make things right.”

“Have faith in God, by all means, but have faith in me, too.”

“I do.”

With that, the Arundell sisters took their leave of him, carefully steered their wide skirts past the tables, and disappeared into the hotel. He watched them go and his heart sank. It dawned on him that everything he’d intended had skewed off-course and plunged into an impenetrable fog.

“O, that a man might know,” he muttered, “the end of this day’s business ere it come!”

It took until Monday to get the authorization for entry into Bedlam. Saturday and Sunday paralysed him with interminable emptiness. He found himself unable to work, research, or do anything else useful.

“Rest!” Mrs. Angell insisted. “Eat! Get some colour back into your cheeks. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re driving yourself too hard, that much is plain to see.”

He didn’t rest. He paced. One thousand, nine hundred, ten, and eight were etched into the front of his mind. He couldn’t stop fretting over them. He scribbled them down again and again.

One thousand. Nine hundred. Ten. Eight.

One thousand, nine hundred, and eighteen.

They connected Stroyan’s murder with The Assassination. They cut a swathe through time and unfathomable events to tie Queen Victoria’s death, the recognition of the Great Amnesia, the advent of Abdu El Yezdi, and the beginning of the New Renaissance to what he himself had witnessed on the Orpheus; him, Burton, who two people claimed—impossibly!—to have seen on that terrible day in 1840.

But how were the numbers connected—if they were at all—to the abductions? Was Burton looking at a jumble of disparate events or was there a pattern in there somewhere?

He didn’t know—and if there was one thing he despised, it was not knowing.

The governmental papers arrived in the week’s first post. Sir Richard Francis Burton was now, officially, a medical inspector named Gilbert Cribbins, with a specialism in institutions for the insane.

He disguised himself with a brown wig, false beard, and cosmetic paint to conceal his facial scar, and by means of two omnibuses and a hansom cab travelled southeastward through the city, crossing Waterloo Bridge into Southwark. The district was crowded with tanneries, and in the hot weather the reek was so intense that it was all he could do to keep his breakfast down. By the time he arrived at Bethlem Royal Hospital, his eyes were stinging and his nose felt clogged.

He knocked on the front gate—an imposing edifice of solid wood into which a smaller door was set—and jumped slightly when a letterbox-sized hatch slid open with a bang and a voice snapped, “What?”

“Inspection.” He held his papers up to the small slot. “Government Medical Board. Let me in.”

“Pass that to me.”

Burton folded the papers in half and pushed them through to the guard. He waited, heard a muted expletive, then bolts scraped and clunked and the door swung a little way open.

“Step in. Be quick about it.”

Burton passed into the grounds of the asylum. He faced the guard. “My good man, as one of His Majesty’s medical inspectors, I require a little more respect, if you please.”

The guard touched the peak of his cap. “Sorry, sir. Just bein’ thorough. The escape has us all on edge.”

“Escape?”

“That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it?”

Burton lied. “Of course it is.”

“If you’ll follow me, there’s a horse and trap by the guardhouse. I’ll take you to the warden.”

The man guided Burton to a nearby outbuilding, gave him a hand up into a small carriage, then took the driver’s seat and set the vehicle moving. The hospital grounds were extensive and well tended, and as they passed along a winding gravel path toward the imposing asylum, Burton mused that, under normal circumstances, the wide lawns would probably be dotted with patients. Now, they were empty, the inmates confined to their cells.

The trap ground to a halt in front of the entrance steps and Burton alighted. Without a word, the guard put his switch to the horse and set off back the way he’d come.

The explorer checked that his beard was properly affixed, then climbed the steps, entered through the doors, and stopped a male attendant who was hurrying through the vestibule. The man stared at him in surprise and said, “I’m sorry, sir, you should have been turned away at the gate. We aren’t allowing visitors today.”

“I’m not a visitor. I’m a medical inspector. Cribbins. And you?”

“Nurse Bracegirdle. How can I help you, Mr. Cribbins?”

“By fetching the warden. At once, please.”

The attendant dithered. “Um. Um. Um. Er. Yes, of course. Would you, um, wait here?”

He raced away, and, as he went, whispered to himself a little too loudly, “Oh no! Today of all days!”

Burton was left alone. He looked around at the walls and saw stained paintwork, cracked plaster, and cobwebby corners. Rat droppings dotted the edges of the floor. The pervasive odour of unwashed bodies hung in the air.

Three minutes passed, then a door burst open and a pale-faced, anxious-looking man hurried in. He had closely cropped grey hair, a small clipped moustache, and very widely set brown eyes. He strode over and shook Burton’s hand. “I’m Doctor Henry Monroe, the director of this establishment.”

“Cribbins,” Burton responded.

A nervous tic suddenly distorted Monroe’s mouth and pulled his head down to the right. He grunted, “Ugh!” then said, “I’m surprised to see you here, sir. My report into Mr. Galton’s escape was posted less than four hours ago.”

“Galton, you say?” Burton exclaimed. “Francis Galton? The scientist?”

Monroe stammered, “Y-you’re not here about the—the—ugh!—escape?”

“I’m here to interview one of your patients, Laurence Oliphant.”

“Con—concerning his part in the affair?”

Burton held up a hand. “One moment. What? You’re telling me that Oliphant helped Galton to break out?”

Monroe licked his lips nervously. A nurse entered the foyer. As she passed, the doctor glanced at her and, in a low voice, said, “Mr.—Mr.—ugh!—Cribbins, we should talk in my—my office.”

“Very well.”

Monroe ushered Burton out of the lobby, along a corridor, and into a somewhat shabby and disorganised room. He strode to a desk and, as if taking refuge, flung himself into the chair behind it. Immediately, he gained a little composure, and indicating the seat opposite said, “Please, sit. I’ll explain to you the events of last night.”

Burton sat.

“Oliphant!” the doctor said with mock cheerfulness. “An interesting patient. Morbidly excitable with periods of gloom. He has moments of such lucidity that one might consider him as sane as you or—ugh!—I. Certainly, his mind is organised. He keeps a little notebook, the pages of which he fills with masses of figures—numbers—added up in batches, then the totals added again, as though he were focusing some account, as an auditor would say. Then, without any obvious trigger, he’s suddenly completely delusional. Rats, Mr. Cribbins.”

“Rats?” Burton repeated.

“Rats. Periodically, in the week and a half that he’s been here, Oliphant has been overcome by an obsessive desire to hunt and capture them. I have indulged him to see what would come of it. Unfortunately, the vermin infest every floor of this building, so he’s not been starved of opportunity. You must understand that in the treatment of a lunatic one must first seek to understand the nature of the—ugh!—deep problem—ugh!—in the mind. Whatever preoccupation dominates gives a clue to it, and more often than not, it is some—ugh!—trauma experienced in the past. Discover what, and one might perhaps help the patient to overcome the damage done to them.”

Burton considered this for a moment. “You propose that madness springs from an inability to cope with a mental shock?”

“In cases of monomania, yes. There are, of course, a great many instances where the cause can be traced to a physical imbalance, but with Mr. Oliphant—he was an opium addict, you know?”

“Yes, I’m aware of that.”

“Well then, I suspect he was so petrified by a nightmarish vision induced by the drug that he lost his—ugh!—mind in order to escape it. It is my supposition that the hallucination involved rats, and he is now trying to recreate it. You see, there is method in his madness.”

“To what end, Doctor?”

“If he manages, independently, to reproduce his hallucination, he will achieve mastery over it. Or, to put it another way, if he can knowingly reconstruct what he experienced, he can also knowingly destroy it, thus breaking the shackles of terror that—ugh!—bind him.”

Burton brushed dust from his trouser leg, nodded slowly, and said, “Very well, your theory sounds eminently plausible, but how does this relate to Galton’s escape?”

Monroe’s face spasmed again and his right arm jerked outward. He pulled the errant limb back to his side and held it there with his left hand.

“About fifteen years ago, Galton suffered a severe nervous breakdown and was brought here to recover. He never did. Instead, he developed an idée fixe concerning the transmutability of the flesh.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning he believes animals can be artificially raised to a human standard of intelligence, and that humans can, through scientific means, be made into something akin to—ugh!—gods.”

“Again—this concerns Oliphant how?”

“I’m coming to that, Mr. Cribbins. You see, Oliphant’s delusion involves the conviction that a god of some sort is seeking incarnation in the flesh.”

Burton recalled what Monckton Milnes had told him about the magic squares.

Monroe continued, “Since Galton’s misconception concerning artificially constructed gods is—ugh!—thematically similar, I thought it might be enlightening to put the two men together. I hoped they would either cancel out each other’s delusions or hasten each other toward a conclusion to their—ugh!—ugh!—demented fantasies.”

“And what happened?”

“During their fourth encounter, last night, Oliphant flew into a rage and attacked his attendants. While they were distracted, Galton broke into a storage room and climbed out through its window.”

Burton opened his mouth to speak but was stopped by a gesture from Monroe. “No, Mr. Cribbins, the window was not left open by accident. We are—ugh!—meticulous about security here. The fact is—it was forced from the outside.”

Burton leaned forward in his seat. “By whom, Doctor?”

Monroe shrugged. “I don’t know, but a ladder was left behind on this side of the perimeter wall, which means not only that Galton had help to get away, but also that whoever assisted him knew Oliphant would provide a diversion at that—ugh!—particular moment. I can’t for the life of me think how such a thing could be arranged.” He hesitated then added, “Although suspicion must naturally fall on Mr. Darwin.”

“Darwin?”

“Charles Darwin. The Beagle fellow.”

“What has he to do with it?”

“He and Galton are half-cousins. As one of our long-term and most docile patients, Galton was allowed to send and receive letters. Darwin is the only person he has ever corresponded with, and he did so on a regular basis. It’s our policy here to monitor all incoming and outgoing post. The communication between the two men appeared purely—ugh!—scientific in nature. Darwin is apparently on the brink of publishing a theory that might alter the way we think about—ugh!—creation itself. It bears some relation to Galton’s preoccupation, and I was hoping that I might gain a better understanding of my patient’s fixations by reading their missives. Unfortunately, all I could glean from them is that both men are engrossed in disturbingly godless matters which make little—ugh!—sense to me. If any escape plans were discussed between them, then it was done in code and I didn’t detect it.”

“I should like to see those letters.”

“I’m afraid Galton took them with him.”

Pushing his chair back, Burton stood. “Then take me outside. Show me the window.”

“Is that necessary?”

“It is.”

Reluctantly, Monroe got to his feet and led Burton from the office, down the corridor, through the vestibule, and out of the building. They turned left and followed the edge of a long flower bed that skirted the foot of the hospital’s front wall.

“Here.” Monroe pointed to a small window set five feet from the ground.

Burton turned away from it and examined the terrain. He saw six trees huddled together nearby, providing shadows and cover; a long, squarely trimmed hedge beyond them, bordering a large vegetable garden; and more trees between that and the high wall, which they partially concealed.

“A good escape route,” he muttered. “Lots of concealment.”

Returning his attention to the window, he saw gouges in its frame, suggesting the application of a crowbar. He squatted and scrutinised the flower bed.

“Look at these indentations in the soil, Doctor.”

“Footprints, Mr. Cribbins?”

“Yes. Peculiar ones, at that. See how square the toes are, and how small and high the heels?”

“High?”

“Revealed by the indentation. This style has been out of fashion for half a century. It’s the variety of footwear that usually has a large buckle on top. I haven’t seen anyone shod in such a manner since my grandfather.”

“Are you suggesting that Galton’s accomplice was an—ugh!—old man, sir?”

“Two men broke the window, Doctor. And it doesn’t necessarily follow that because their footwear was old, so were they.” Burton straightened. “Two sets of prints. Both men wore the same style of footwear. One had long, narrow feet, the other, short, wide ones. The latter individual was the heavier of the pair.”

Damien Burke and Gregory Hare.

There was no doubt about it. Burton had seen plenty of newspaper illustrations of the notorious duo. Their famously old-fashioned attire, which included buckled shoes, had been the delight of Punch cartoonists. And Hare was shorter but far bulkier than Burke.

So, having failed to kidnap Isambard Kingdom Brunel, they’d got Francis Galton.

Why?

“I think it’s high time I saw Oliphant, Doctor.”

Monroe spasmed, nodded, and accompanied the explorer back the way they’d come. When they reached the lobby, he rang a bell and waited until two attendants appeared. Both were wearing stained leather aprons. Ordering them to follow, he then ushered Burton up a flight of stairs and toward the west wing of the asylum. They passed along cell-lined hallways and were assailed by shouts and screams, incoherent babbling, pleading, and curses. The odour of human sweat and excrement was worse even than the foulest-smelling of the many swamps Burton had struggled through in Africa.

More passageways, more staircases, until on the fourth floor, a door blocked their path. One of the attendants produced a bunch of keys and set about opening it.

“Ugh!” Monroe jerked. “You’ll find fewer patients in this next area, but the ones we keep here are among the most seriously—ugh!—deranged and can be exceedingly violent. They’ll watch our every move through the slots in their cell doors. Please refrain from making eye contact with them.”

The portal’s hinges squealed as the attendant pushed it open. They passed through into yet another filthy corridor. A nurse greeted them.

“This is Sister Camberwick,” the doctor said. “She oversees this section. Sister, this is Inspector Cribbins of the Government Medical Board. He wishes to interview Mr. Oliphant. Is the patient quiet?”

After bobbing to Burton, the nurse replied, “He is, Doctor.”

“Good. Good. Go about your duties. I’ll accompany Mr. Cribbins.”

She gave another bob and stood to one side to let them pass. The party moved a little farther on until it came to a cell door marked with the number 466.

Monroe addressed the two attendants. “Stay here. Come at once if I call for you.” To Burton, he said, “I’ll allow you as much time as you require providing he doesn’t become—ugh!—agitated. If he does, I’ll have to terminate the interview immediately.”

“I understand.”

Monroe held out his hand and one of the attendants placed his keys into it. After selecting the appropriate one, the warden put his mouth to the slot in the door and said, “Mr. Oliphant. I am Doctor Monroe. I have with me a visitor named Mr. Cribbins. We would like to come in and speak with you. Have you any objection?”

Burton heard Oliphant’s familiar voice answer, “None at all, sir. Please enter freely—and of your own free will.”

Monroe looked at Burton, raised an eyebrow, and whispered, “You note the inappropriate and oddly worded formality? No matter how normal a patient’s behaviour may appear, such incongruous language is always a sure sign of—ugh!—defective thinking.”

He turned the key in the lock and pulled the door open, revealing Laurence Oliphant, sitting on a bunk, smiling broadly, his fringe of hair and bushy beard dishevelled, his arms bound by a strait waistcoat.

“Come in, Doctor! Come in, Mr. Cribbins! I am delighted to have guests! Forgive me if I do not shake your hands. I am somewhat inconvenienced, as you’ll bear witness.”

They entered the cell and Monroe closed the door behind them. “I’m pleased to see that you’ve calmed down, Mr. Oliphant. Continue in this manner and the jacket will be removed, I assure you.”

“Excellent! I’m eager to get back to work.” Oliphant looked toward the window, and Burton, following his gaze, saw that what from the corner of his eye he’d presumed to be a hanging gown wasn’t a gown at all, but a great mass of dead rats, woven together by their tails—as garlic is platted by its stalks—and strung from the window bars. Unable to stop himself, he cried out, “Good God!”

Oliphant cackled. “He he he! Flesh, you see, Mr. Cribbins. Dead flesh, all ready to be re-formed and given new life. It doesn’t matter that it’s rat flesh. Any will do. Flesh is flesh. Merely a vehicle.”

“A vehicle for what?” Burton asked.

“For my master!” Oliphant suddenly checked himself. His eyes slid slyly from side to side then fixed on Burton, and he hissed, “He has the royal charter now. Drum, drum, drum! Come, come! Drum, drum, drum! They will answer the call, and then nothing will stop him. Out of Africa! Out of Africa! He’ll repair this broken world of ours, and I shall be rewarded with an entire history of my very own! Ha! What shall I make of you, Mr. Cribbins, Doctor Monroe?—Paupers? Kings? Criminals? Or perhaps madmen? Ha ha ha!”

“Calm yourself, please,” Monroe said. “You don’t want to get—ugh!—overexcited again, do you?”

His patient’s giggling stopped abruptly. Oliphant shook his head, grinned, and shrugged. “No need. Now I can wait. Now I can wait. Drum, drum, drum! Drum, drum, drum!”

The doctor turned to Burton. “Mr. Cribbins, have you any particular questions you’d like to ask the patient?”

“Just one,” Burton replied. “Mr. Oliphant, the numbers one thousand, nine hundred, ten, and eight—what do they signify?”

Oliphant gave a cry of surprise, then threw back his head and let loose a peal of laughter that rapidly transformed into a scream of fury.

“What do you know?” he yelled. “Are you a spy? Yes! Yes! A spy! I’ll kill you! I’ll bloody kill you, you bastard spy!”

He sprang from the bed and lunged at Burton, his mouth wide and teeth exposed. The explorer dodged, was knocked back against the wall, and felt the maniac’s jaws clench down on his collar.

“Attendants! Attendants!” Monroe bellowed.

Burton struggled but Oliphant seemed ten times stronger than a sane man.

“Get him away from me! He’s trying to bite my throat!”

The attendants crashed in and dragged Oliphant off.

“The end!” he screamed. “The numbers add up to the end of the British Empire! Ha ha ha! The end! The end! The end!”

NOTICE

Norwood Road, Herne Hill, and Denmark Hill will be closed to through traffic until further notice. This is to facilitate the construction of Mr. Bazalgette’s sewer tunnel along the course of the subterranean River Effra.

The Department of Guided Science apologises for any inconvenience caused.

The Department of Guided Science 

Making a Healthier, Cleaner, Better London.

The interview with Oliphant had been short but unsettling, and throughout the following night Burton was repeatedly shocked awake by nightmares in which he saw the lunatic’s face looming out of the darkness, feline eyes blazing and muzzle-like jaws extended, displaying elongated, blood-dripping canines.

By seven in the morning he’d given up on further sleep, so washed, dressed, and went downstairs. He stepped out into the street and located the newspaper boy a little way down Montagu Place. Passing him a few coins, he said, “I need the address of a man named Charles Darwin. He’s a member of the Royal Geographical Society, so you’ll find it in the register there.”

“Straight away, sir,” the lad said, and immediately scampered off. Burton watched him approach another urchin at the corner of Seymour Place and whisper in his ear. The second youngster raced away and the Irish boy turned, grinned, and gave Burton the thumbs-up.

The explorer returned to his study. Oliphant lingered in his thoughts and made him sullen and uncommunicative during breakfast—Mrs. Angell had witnessed such moods before and served him silently and efficiently before making a rapid withdrawal—and afterward he spent the morning with a foil in his hand, practising his fencing technique against an imaginary opponent.

He forced his mind into silence, finally driving Lord Elgin’s secretary out of it, and focused instead on the physical exertion, gauging carefully his own strength and weakness, and discovering, to his satisfaction, that no remnant of fever remained; he was close to his normal level of health and fitness.

At half-past eleven, he was flannelling the sweat from his face and neck when the doorbell jangled. He heard his housekeeper answer it then thump up the stairs.

“Yes?” he called in response to her knock.

She looked in. “There’s an unwashed guttersnipe on our doorstep. He says he has a message for you.”

“Send him up, please.”

“Up the stairs?”

“I don’t expect him to scale the outer wall, Mrs. Angell.”

“But his boots are filthy.”

Burton gave his housekeeper what she referred to as the look. She heaved a sigh and disappeared from sight. Moments later, a quiet tapping sounded on the door.

“Come in.”

The Whisperer entered, and his eyes widened as he saw the various weapons on the wall and the foil in Burton’s hand.

“You have it?” the explorer asked.

“That I do, sir. Mr. Darwin lives at Down House, on the Luxted Road, quarter of a mile south of Downe Village in Kent.”

“What’s your name, lad?”

“Abraham, sir. Abraham Stoker. Most folks call me Bram.”

“Have you a place to call home?”

“I calls the streets me home, sir.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“Wherever I can.”

“Hmm! Well, here’s another sixpence for you, Master Bram.”

Burton took a coin from a pot on one of his workbenches and flipped it to the boy, who caught it smartly and gave a salute.

“Thank you, sir. Much obliged! Is there anything else I can be a-doin’ for ye?”

“Not for the moment, thank you.”

“Right you are, sir. You know where to find me.” Bram saluted again and departed. Half a minute later, Burton heard Mrs. Angell cry out, “Not there! Not there! I’ve just brushed it!”

The street door banged. Burton resumed his training. Five minutes passed. The doorbell clanged again. Mrs. Angell reappeared at the study door, this time with a broom in her hand.

“Mr. Monckton Milnes is here. Perhaps you’d consider moving your study to the ground floor? It would save me a lot of running up and down, not to mention sweeping. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”

Burton bellowed, “Come on up, old chap!”

Mrs. Angell grumbled, “Well! Bless me! I could have informed him in a rather more civil manner,” and withdrew.

Monckton Milnes entered and announced, “Just dropping by to tell you I’m fleeing the city, old boy. The growing stink is too much for me. Gad! Have you heard? The sewage is already rising into the streets around Saint Pancras. The sooner they release the flow, the better. Anyway, I’m off to Fryston tomorrow. Fresh Yorkshire air. I’ve bagged a berth on the jolly old Orpheus. Phew! What have you been up to?”

“Practising,” Burton replied. He returned his foil to its bracket over the fireplace. “Getting myself back into shape. Tipple?”

“No, thank you.” Monckton Milnes dropped into an armchair. “I’m swearing off the stuff for a few days. Rossetti called on me. So, the truth is out.”

“It is.” Burton sat opposite him. “All these years we’ve been friends, and you were hiding that!”

“Not just from you. I haven’t been allowed to discuss it with anyone beyond Disraeli’s inner circle. One must demonstrate an ability to keep the lips firmly buttoned if one is to be trusted with secrets.”

“Declares the most incorrigible gossip in town.”

“It is to that reputation, my dear fellow, that I owe my success. Through the ceaseless distribution of inconsequential tittle-tattle, I have earned a reputation as a man who cannot keep a confidence, thus not a single person suspects that, in fact, I harbour some of the biggest secrets in the Empire.”

“So you know the rest, I suppose?”

“The disappearances? Burke and Hare? You as king’s agent? Yes, Richard. What I wasn’t already aware of, I was briefed on last week. Now I understand why Florence didn’t return to the theatre. My manly pride is restored but, frankly, I’d gladly give it up to know what has become of her. I’m worried sick. Have you made any progress?”

Burton regarded his friend silently then said, “Before I answer that, tell me two things. First, why me?”

Monckton Milnes gave a slight shrug. “To be the king’s agent? Isn’t it obvious? You have greater skills in your little finger than a dozen men could hope to accrue in a lifetime. Your intellect is ferocious; you are as strong as an ox; you can fight like a demon; and you’re related to, and acquainted with, some of the principal dramatis personæ.”

“And the decision was made the weekend after my return?”

“Yes, in an emergency meeting on the Sunday, in response to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s abduction. You and I were at the Cannibal Club at the time.”

“Who suggested me for the role?”

“I understand your brother did.”

“I suspected as much. Without his involvement, the coincidences are too remarkable to be credible.”

“What coincidences?”

“My investigation has led again and again to The Assassination, and according to two people, I was there—except, of course, I wasn’t. One of those witnesses says I had with me a rifle upon which the number one thousand, nine hundred, and eighteen was engraved. As you already know, one thousand, nine hundred, ten, and eight were integral to Oliphant’s ritual.”