The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

“The main thing is to make history, not to write it.”

—OTTO VON BISMARCK

“Transform the world with Beauty!”

So declared William Morris, the leading light of the Arts and Crafts Movement; a man at the heart of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Ministry of Arts and Culture. Without him, the machines produced by the Department of Guided Science would have been nothing but fume-breathing metal monstrosities.

“Form follows function!” the DOGS decreed.

“But form must not offend!” Morris had insisted.

So it was that the Empire’s tools and various forms of transport were embellished with functionally irrelevant ornamentation; every curve and angle possessed decorative flair; every surface was engraved with patterns and cursive accents; every edge bore a pleasing trim.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in rotorchairs. From a distance, these flying vehicles resembled little more than a plush armchair affixed to a brass sled. A rigid umbrella-like hood curved over the seat; a small and complex engine was positioned at the rear; twin funnels projected backward; and six wedge-shaped wings rotated atop a tall drive-shaft above the entirety. There was something vaguely ridiculous about the contraptions until one moved closer and saw how all the disparate elements had been beautifully moulded into a unified whole by artists and designers.

Rotorchairs were elegant. They were exquisite.

Sir Richard Francis Burton hated them.

The damned things made him nervous. He had no idea how they managed to fly, couldn’t fathom how they produced so much steam from so little water, and held a deep suspicion that they transcended every principle of physics. Knowing their design had been communicated to Isambard Kingdom Brunel from the Afterlife did little to reassure him.

He pushed the middle of the three control levers, following Detective Inspector Trounce’s machine as it arced downward through the blue sky, leaving a curving trail of white vapour behind it. Burton pressed his heels into his footplate to slow his descent. His stomach squirmed as he rapidly lost altitude.

Below, the village of Old Ford rushed up toward him. It was a small and quaint little place, its houses and shops clumped together on one side of a shallow valley, with green fields facing it from the opposite side. Its High Street extended from a junction with a long country lane at the base of the hill and ran up to the top, where it bent to the right and went winding away to the next settlement. Trounce landed halfway along it. His machine hit the cobbles with a thump, a skid, and a shower of sparks. Burton brought his down more gingerly, clicked off the motor, waited for the wings to stop spinning, then clambered out and removed his goggles.

“It’s like flying a bag of rocks,” he grumbled. “I feared greater diligence might come at any moment.”

“Diligence?” Trounce asked.

“From gravity, in the application of its own laws.”

“Humph!”

They dragged their rotorchairs to the side of the road. All along the street, windows and doors were opening as Old Ford’s tiny population came out to investigate the loud paradiddle that had rattled their cottages.

Nearby, outside a small dwelling, a white-haired man was leaning on a broom, watching the new arrivals.

Trounce hailed him. “Hallo, is that you, Old Carter? By Jove! You look just the same as you did nigh on twenty years ago!”

The man stepped forward and shook Trounce’s hand. “By all that’s holy! It’s Constable Trounce, isn’t it?”

“Detective Inspector nowadays.”

“Is that so? Well, well. Good for you!” Old Carter looked the Scotland Yard man up and down. “Crikey, but haven’t you filled out!”

Trounce neatened his moustache with a forefinger and looked at the man’s broom. “Still sweeping?”

“Old habits die hard. I’m ending my working days as I began ’em, sir. I went from street-sweeper to rifleman in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, then retired from the Army and became a lamp-lighter, and next year I’ll retire again to spend my twilight years keeping this here street spotless. So tell me, what brings you gentlemen to Old Ford?”

Trounce gestured toward Burton. “This is Sir Richard Francis Burton.”

Burton said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Carter,” and shook the man’s hand.

“Not Mr. Carter. Old Carter. Everyone calls me Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. I suppose they—”

He stopped and his eyes went wide.

“Do you recognise Captain Burton?” Trounce asked. “His likeness is currently all over the newspapers.”

Old Carter stuttered, “I—I—he—yes, but he looks like—”

Trounce took him by the elbow. “Could we step into your cottage, do you think?”

“Y-yes. Come. Come.”

Pushing open the gate, Old Carter led them through his neatly trimmed and flowered front garden and into his one-room home. They sat on his sofa. He took a chair beside a table.

“This is about The Assassination, then?”

“It is,” Trounce replied. “Is Captain Burton the man you saw?”

Old Carter looked searchingly at the explorer. “Spitting image. Except, perhaps, a few years younger.”

Burton said, “Would you tell me about it—what you witnessed that day?”

“I will, but it ain’t no different to what I told the constable—sorry, Detective Inspector—back at the time.”

“Nevertheless.”

Old Carter blinked, scratched his chin, and said, “It was about six o’clock. The junction ’tween Piccadily and Park Lane was my patch. I was there every day from five in the morning until eleven at night. Hard work. There were no steam machines; it was all horses. For certain, the city was less crowded but there were twice as many nags as what you see now, and all of ’em doing their business in the streets. You didn’t want to cross a road without a sweep to clear a path for you.” He gave a slight smile. “Lucrative is the word! Aye, I earned a pretty penny keeping the muck off the toffs’ boots! Anyway, come six o’clock, I’m leaning against the wall that separates the street from Green Park, when someone on the other side puts a rifle—half-wrapped in a coat—on top of it, and then a flat case, like what jewellers use. Now, I tell you, I already wanted to be a rifleman and I knew a thing or two about guns, and I swear I ain’t never seen a weapon like that one afore or since. When I heard the man start climbing the wall, I was all set to ask him about it, but then I heard screams and whistles from the park and I realised something was up, so I quickly stepped away. The bloke came over the wall with a bag slung over his shoulder, took down the gun and the case, and was just about to make off when I says hello to him.”

“Was he furtive or in a panic?” Burton asked.

“Not at all. More confused. Didn’t seem to know up from down. Said he was having a bad day. ‘Don’t worry,’ I tells him, ‘you’ll forget about it tomorrow.’ Then—”

Old Carter stopped, frowned, pursed his lips, and continued, “So you know this Great Amnesia thing they talk about?”

Burton nodded.

“That’s when it hit me. Right there, in the middle of the bloomin’ road. Bang! I suddenly realised I could hardly remember a thing about what I’d been doing yesterday, or the day afore, or—not for the past three years, as it turned out.” He shook his head in bafflement. “Anyway, our fellow made off, and that’s the last I saw of him.” He looked at Trounce. “Same as I told you at the time.”

“Yes,” Trounce confirmed. “The same.”

“The rifle,” Burton said. “Why did it so catch your attention?”

Old Carter looked at him searchingly and answered, “The barrel was, as I said, wrapped in a coat. Couldn’t see much of it. But I saw the mechanism and it was much more like the weapons we have now than what we had back in ’forty. But smoother, tighter, more—um—compact, and there was a sort of tube fitted over the top of it.”

“Tube?”

“Like, if you were taking aim, you’d have to look through it.”

“Ah, I’ve seen something of the sort—it’s called a telescopic sight—but I thought it a recent invention.”

“It wasn’t the only curious thing, Captain. There was the inscription on the stock, too. I saw it as clear as day. Remember every word of it. And all these years later, I still can’t make head nor tail of it.”

“Go on.”

“Wait. I’ll write it for you, just as I saw it.”

He stood and crossed to a chest of drawers, retrieved a pencil and sheet of paper from it, used the furniture as a desk, and wrote something. He handed it to Burton. The explorer read:

Lee–Enfield MK III. Manufactured in Tabora, Africa, 1918.

Burton passed the note to Trounce, who said to the sweeper, “You didn’t tell me this before.”

Old Carter shrugged. “You didn’t ask about the rifle, and to be honest, when we last spoke, I was shocked by the queen’s murder and addled by my memory loss.”

Burton plucked the paper back out of Trounce’s hand and considered it.

“If Lee–Enfield is the manufacturer, I’ve never heard of them. Nor have I heard of Tabora, and I know Africa perhaps better than any man. It must be in the south. The only rifles made in the north are Arabian flintlocks. And this—is it an issue number?”

He pondered the words and numerals, then shrugged, folded the paper, and put it in his pocket.

“Old Carter,” he said, with a wry smile. “You’ve added bewilderment to my perplexity, but I thank you for your time.”

He stood, and the other two followed suit.

“It’s queer,” Old Carter said. “You so resemble the man I saw that I feel I know you.”

Trounce added, “I feel the same.”

“I wish I could offer an explanation,” Burton said, “but during the week since my return from Africa, I’ve encountered more mystery than I experienced in over a year travelling those unexplored lands.”

Old Carter walked his guests out, into the street, and to their rotorchairs.

“Sangappa,” he said.

Burton turned to him. “What?”

“Polish. Made in India. I was just thinking—the seat of your flying machine would benefit from it. Best in the world for preserving leather.”

“Could it preserve me while I’m flying the confounded thing?”

Old Carter grinned and regarded the contraption. “Aye, it’s a blessed miracle such a lump can get off the ground. You’ll not talk me into one, Captain. Not for all the tea in China.”

“From what I’ve heard, tea from China might become a rare commodity. If someone offers it, I advise you not to refuse.”

Burton and Trounce strapped goggles over their eyes, climbed into their vehicles, and started the engines. They gave Old Carter a wave, rose on cones of billowing steam, and soared into the sky.

Trounce set a southwesterly course and Burton followed. They were soon over the outlying districts of London, and the clear air became smudged with its smoke. Below them, factory chimneys stretched upward as if ambitious to spoil the purer, higher atmosphere.

A thought hit Burton like a punch to the head. Momentarily, he lost control of his machine.

“Bismillah!”

He grappled with the three flight rods as the rotorchair went spinning downward.

“Impossible!” he gasped, yanking at the leftmost rod until the contraption stabilised. He saw a patch of greenery below—the East London Graveyard—and made for it.

“Bloody impossible! It makes no damned sense at all!”

His vehicle angled into the ground, hit it hard, slithered over grass, slammed into the horizontal slab of a grave, and toppled onto its side. The wings broke off with a loud report and went bouncing away. Burton was catapulted out, thudded onto the grass, rolled, and came to rest on his back.

He lay still and looked up at the sky.

“How?” he whispered. “How?”

Staccato chopping cut through the air and Trounce’s rotorchair came into view. The detective must have looked back and seen him go down.

Trounce landed, threw himself out of his vehicle, and raced over to Burton.

“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!”