The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

“Facts are chameleons whose tint

Varies with every accident:

Each, prism-like, hath three obvious sides,

And facets ten or more besides.

Events are like the sunny light

On mirrors falling clear and bright

Through windows of a varied hue,

Now yellow seen, now red, now blue.”

—SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON

On the way home, and for the umpteenth time, Burton tried Brundleweed’s jewellery shop. Closed again. In four days, he would be on his way to New Wardour Castle but still didn’t have the engagement ring. He wrote a request for it to be posted there and slipped the note through the letterbox.

When he arrived back at Montagu Place, he tipped his hat first at Mr. Grub, then at Constable Krishnamurthy, before stepping into number 14.

Eliphas Levi had visited the British Library while the explorer was out.

“Ranft’s De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis and Calmet’s Dissertation on the Vampires of Hungary,” the Frenchman announced, holding up two thick volumes. “Beaucoup d’aide dans la compréhension of the creature we deal with, I think. Much information!”

Burton blinked in surprise then moved to one of his desks and took up an ancient and crumbling volume. Its title was printed in Sanskrit.

“The Baital Pachisi,” he said. “A Hindu tale. I’ve been translating it under the title Vikram and the Vampire.”

“Ah, mais oui!” Levi exclaimed. “I have heard of this story. The Baital is a great bat, non? It inhabit and animate the dead.”

“Yes. But surely, monsieur, you don’t suggest that Perdurabo is such?”

“Non. But these legends of the vampire, they are everywhere, in cultures far apart. We must wonder, is there a common basis—a truth at the heart of them? That truth, I think, will tell us how to defeat our enemy.”

Burton carried the old book over to his armchair, gesturing that Levi should take the seat opposite. The occultist brought with him his two volumes, sat with them on his lap, and began to fill his prodigious pipe.

“Would you explain?” Burton asked.

Levi stuck his legs out and rested his feet on the fireplace’s fender. He leaned his head back and puffed for a few moments, then said, “You have, I expect, experience that sensation when the presence of une personne particulière, it drains you, non? You feel exhausted by them, and you want them to go away but they stay and talk and talk and talk until you feel you have no energy left.”

Burton nodded. “Many such attend the Athenaeum Club.”

“Fréquemment,” Levi went on, “these people who so fatigue others, they appear to be weak. They are indecisive and their emotions are undisciplined. Mais non! The truth is, their volonté—willpower—it is very strong, for it feed like une sangsue.”

“A leech?”

“Oui. You know, the Egyptians of long ago, they think the soul it can be stored in a pot of clay. These pots, you examine them now, you analyse the clay, which have many metals in it, and you will see they are like the Leyden jar.”

“I’m unfamiliar with that, monsieur. What is it?”

“Une batterie primitive. It hold and preserve static electricity.”

“You’re suggesting the soul has an electrical component?”

“Soul, volonté, what is the difference? I think a strong volonté can draw the energy from a weaker, like to drain une batterie, and it is from this that the legend of the vampire begin.” Levi drew on his pipe and deliberated for half a minute before continuing. “Perdurabo, only his volonté pass through history and across reality into our world, but without a body to sustain him, he will die, so he possess this man, John Judge.” Levi turned his pipe and waved its stem at Burton. “Ah! But already there is a volonté in the man, non? His own! And it, Perdurabo cannot drain completely, for it is attach to the body and keep it alive, which Perdurabo, who is not attach, cannot do. He dominate it and keep it quiet, but always struggle, struggle, struggle—John Judge, he want to be free of this parasite. It is very hard for Perdurabo, so he require much energy. He must feed on others like—how did you say? Yes—a leech.”

Burton gave a low whistle. “He extracted willpower from the Royal Charter’s crew and passengers?”

“Oui. And this way he keep his own volonté strong. Now, Sir Richard, we are at the heart of the vampire legend, for when his victims have not sufficient volonté remaining, they are like the dead. Dead but not dead. Le terme le plus approprié est ‘strigoi morti’—the un-dead.”

“As with a Haitian zombie?” Burton asked.

“Ah, you know of that! Mais non. The zombie, it is but an animated corpse and must be controlled by a bokor—a sorcerer. The un-dead, they have just enough volonté remaining to know one thing—” The Frenchman paused, drew another lungful of smoke, then, with clouds of it billowing from his mouth, said, “That they, too, must feed.”

“Vampire begets vampire,” Burton murmured.

“Non, pas exactement. Not exactly! Remember, the vampire original—the nosferatu—it is very powerful; by its nature, it feed on and is sustained by others. Its victims, the strigoi morti, they have not this type of volonté, so they must rise at night—”

Burton interrupted. “Why at night?”

“Parce que, it is at night when all is concealed by darkness. The un-dead prefer this; they have an aversion to any stimulation of the senses, for this make them remember what they are not—alive! So they hunt at night, to do to others what was done to them, for they want to live again, you see? And in day, they are like in hibernation, hiding from l’horreur of self-awareness. Also, their prey is more easy to take at night, when sleeping.”

Burton lit a cheroot, his brows furrowed as he grappled with the concept. “Can the strigoi morti be restored to proper life if they feed sufficiently on the willpower of others?”

The occultist shook his head. “Il est terrible. Blind instinct drive them to feed, but they cannot be made strong by volonté, as can the nosferatu. For the strigoi morti, there is only the agony of insatiable hunger, nothing else. It is the worst torture. Mon Dieu! The worst torture!”

They smoked in silence for five minutes, both lost in thought.

Burton murmured, “What of fangs and bloodsucking?”

“Embellissement, monsieur! People in the old times, they say the blood is the life, non? They think when the whole village is weak, it must be that their blood is taken in the night, so they dig up the dead and see the teeth.” Levi pulled his lips back and ran a forefinger over his gums. “This flesh here, it quickly grow small in death and make the teeth look very long, so the people think these are the fangs that suck the blood.”

Burton stood, went to a desk, and retrieved the logbook of the Royal Charter. He flipped through a few pages, stopped, read, and said, “So the sailor Colin McPhiel was drained of his volonté by Perdurabo, who’d taken possession of John Judge. He became a strigoi morti, and rose at night to feed on others of the crew and passengers. With Perdurabo doing the same, the un-dead would have proliferated, but for the fact that Captain Taylor ordered the corpses thrown overboard each morning.”

“Exactemente.”

“The nosferatu, is it also restricted to the night?”

“In its own body, non. But when it occupy another, the volonté of the host fight hard during the day. This exhaust the parasite. Only at night can he dominate.”

“And the garlic and mirror, monsieur?”

“Strong odour, it activate le sens de l’odorat—the sense of smell—which of all the senses is the one most connecting with memory. With strigoi morti, perhaps it wake the remaining volonté a little; perhaps make a bit of awareness; and then open the eye and hold the mirror so it see itself—a reaction of horreur and despair, and we know this corpse is dead but not dead.”

Burton reached up and massaged his temples. “How quickly are the un-dead made?”

“By a nosferatu, if he need much sustenance, many in a single night. But a strigoi morti, it must feed again and again on the same individual to make that one un-dead, too.”

“But, nevertheless, they proliferate?”

“Like the black plague.”

“That, at least, might help us to locate Perdurabo. I shall alert Scotland Yard to look out for any reports that might indicate such activity. By Allah, how am I to convince Chief Commissioner Mayne that a vampire is on the loose?”

“The police, they must see it with their own eyes, I think.”

For the rest of the weekend, the two men studied.

Monday, the last day of October, was the first cold day of the autumn; so much so that Burton had the fire lit and he and Levi sat around it, with books piled beside their chairs.

A letter arrived from Isabel. She reported that preparations were almost complete at New Wardour Castle and the first houseguests, her friends Mr. and Mrs. Beeton, had arrived.

Sadhvi has been of splendid assistance, and her stories of the hardships you all endured in Africa have certainly improved your standing in my parents’ eyes. Perhaps they are beginning to understand, as I do, that your thorns function to preserve and protect the rarest of blooms: a courageous, honourable, and sensitive man; the only man I could possibly marry. Oh, Dick, if you could see how supportive Papa, in particular, has become; how much he has thrown himself into decorating the ballroom, organising the rooms to accommodate the guests, hiring the extra staff, planning the menus, and so forth. It has been quite simply wonderful. I must say, however, that of all of us, nobody has worked harder than Tom, our remarkable groundsman. As you know, Capability Brown landscaped the estate back in the late 1700s, and none is more “capable” of maintaining the gardens than good old Tom, but my goodness, what a task he faced after last week’s atrocious storm! Trees were down, there were branches, twigs, and leaves strewn all over, fences had fallen, and even bits and pieces from the nearby villages had blown onto our lawns and flowerbeds. In his typically quiet and efficient manner, our man enlisted a force of locals and had the place shipshape and Bristol fashion in the blink of an eye. He’s an absolute gem! But what a strange thing; as I sit here by the window and look out at his marvellous handiwork, I see ravens gathering by the hundreds in the trees and, in the distance, they blacken the tops of the old castle’s walls. You know what a superstitious thing I am, Dick. What with that horrible omen uttered by Hagar Burton and now these wicked-looking fiends “tapping, tapping at my chamber door,” I am overcome with uneasiness and a sense of foreboding. Bless my soul; your bride-to-be is a quivering bag of nerves! Perhaps it is normal. Dear Isabella says she felt the same way before she wed Sam Beeton. I should consider her happiness a far better indicator of our future than silly auguries and squawking birds!

To Burton, it was inconceivable that his engagement party was already just five days away and he’d be at New Wardour Castle by tomorrow afternoon. He was so engulfed by uncanny events that the mundane prospect of a social occasion felt strange and out of place.

He put Isabel’s letter aside and opened another. It was from Buckingham Palace and signed by the king’s personal secretary: The converted stables in the mews behind numbers 13 & 14 Montagu Place have been purchased in your name. Keys enclosed.

Mystified, Burton went downstairs, out into the backyard, passed through the door into Wyndham Mews, and crossed to the two buildings in question. In the first, he found two brand-new rotorchairs, in the second, a new steam sphere and two velocipedes. A note lay on the seat of the sphere. It read: With compliments, His Majesty King George V.

Burton was speechless.

At three in the afternoon, a falsetto screeching drifted up from the street below. It continued for five minutes and was followed by the jingling of the doorbell. The stairs creaked as Mrs. Angell ascended. She knocked, entered, and stood with hands on hips. “A small hobgoblin has invaded our hallway.”

“Does it have red hair?” Burton asked.

“Oh, is that what it is? I thought the creature’s head was on fire. I was going to throw a bucket of water over it before chasing it away with my broom.”

“Resist the temptation, please, and send the apparition up. He is one of our dinner guests.”

“Very well, if you think it wise.”

She departed and half a minute later Algernon Swinburne bounded in.

“Swindlers!” he shrieked. “To a man! Swindlers all! To perdition with them!”

“À qui faites-vous allusion?” Eliphas Levi asked.

“To whom do I refer? Why, to cab drivers, of course! The villains are forever altering their charges!”

“Depending on the distance travelled,” Burton explained.

“Twaddle and bosh! A cab ride is a shilling! A shilling, I tell you!” Swinburne surveyed the room. “I say! Are you planning an army or a library, Burton? Swords, pistols, a spear, and books, books, books!” He capered alongside the shelves, his eyes running over the many volumes, then let out a sudden howl of dismay—“Walt Whitman? Walt Whitman?”—and yanked a leather-bound book down. “Leaves of Grass? How can you possibly inhabit the same room as this mess of voluminous and incoherent effusions? My hat! You must be liberated at once!” With a violent swing of his arm, he hurled the book across the study. It hit the corner of a desk just above a waste-paper basket and rebounded, spinning with perfect accuracy into the fireplace.

“Oops!” the poet said. “I was aiming for the bin. But it’s for the best. Burn, foul putrescence!” then to Burton, “Are you going to stand there with your mouth open, old chap, or offer me a brandy?”

Burton cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, Algy. How pleasant to see you again. Do come in. Make yourself comfortable. Can I interest you in a drink? Perhaps a small brandy?”

Swinburne plonked himself into the armchair Eliphas Levi had occupied before standing to greet him. “Small?”

Burton rolled his eyes and moved to the bureau. He poured the poet a generous measure, and lesser ones for himself and the Frenchman. After handing his guests their drinks, he indicated that Levi should take the unoccupied armchair. “I have a question for you, Algy. If I placed you among staunch Catholics and asked you to behave yourself, would you be capable?”

“Of politely curing their delusions?”

“No. Of keeping your mouth shut. I’m inclined to invite you to accompany me to New Wardour Castle tomorrow but not unless you can do as Monckton Milnes does, and keep your paganism to yourself. Could you give recitations for the benefit of the guests without causing them offence?”

“Sir Richard, my poems are by no means confined solely to anti-Christian declamations. If we are to celebrate your engagement, then surely verses that eulogise love and affection would be more suitable?”

“Quite so, and certainly more likely to be appreciated by the audience,” Burton confirmed.

Swinburne gazed upward, his eyes taking on a dreamy expression, and chanted:

The shapely slender shoulders small,

Long arms, hands wrought in glorious wise,

Round little breasts, the hips withal

High, full of flesh, not scant of size,

Fit for all amorous masteries;

The large loins, and the flower that was

Planted above my firm round thighs

In a small garden of soft grass…

“Stop!” Burton commanded. “That sort of thing is also best avoided.”

Swinburne giggled. “Testing the boundaries, old thing! Testing the boundaries! I have a rather lengthy piece, unfinished, but I can improvise. It tells the story of the ill-fated lovers Tristan and Isolde.”

“But, mon Dieu!” Levi put in. “Such tragédie—at une célébration?”

“We English glory in the juxtaposition of opposing sentiments, Monsieur Levi. Nothing makes us more conscious of the glories of love than a tale of its obstruction, loss, or sacrifice,” Swinburne answered.

“Ah! Romeo et Juliet!”

“Indeed so.”

The poet knocked his drink back, gave a satisfied sigh, and said to Burton, “I assure you, I shall be the shoul of dishcretion, old shap!”

A loud hammering sounded at the street door.

“By thunder!” Swinburne exclaimed. “Thunder!”

“Trounce,” Burton corrected. “He appears to have a blind spot where doorbells are concerned.”

Crossing the room, he went out onto the landing and looked down the stairs in time to see Mrs. Angell admit Detective Inspectors Trounce and Slaughter.

“Come on up, gentlemen,” he called.

His housekeeper glared at their police-issue boots as the two men ascended the stairs.

“Would you bring up a glass of milk, please, Mother Angell?”

“What ho! What ho!” Swinburne cheered as the detectives entered the study.

Burton introduced Slaughter to the poet and to Levi, arranged chairs, poured drinks, lit another cigar, waited until his housekeeper had delivered Slaughter’s milk, then gave the group an account of his discussion with Levi.

The policemen reacted with blank faces.

Slaughter mumbled, “A vampire? Really, sir, I’m a martyr to indigestion and this manner of hoo-ha doesn’t help it at all.”

“I must confess,” Burton said, “I’m finding it hard to swallow, too. Have you made any progress with your side of things?”

“Not a great deal, unfortunately. No further abductions and no sign of John Judge. Wherever he went after he escaped Anglesey, he’s so far evaded the police.”

Trounce said, “We’ve kept a round-the-clock watch on the League of Enochians Gentlemen’s Club—a very odd place. The lights come on at night. We see shadows pass across the curtains. We’ve even listened at the door and heard voices within. However, no amount of knocking or shouting has solicited a response, the place remains locked, there have been no deliveries of food, drink, or anything else, and not a single soul has been observed coming or going from either the front or the back of the building.”

“Puzzling. What of Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy?”

“I spoke to William Grove, the King’s Counsel under whom Kenealy worked in defence of the poisoner William Palmer. Grove declared him a nightmare to deal with. Extremely erratic. Apparently he considers himself a direct descendent of Jesus Christ and Genghis Khan. He’s a complete lunatic.” Trounce glanced at Swinburne. “There’s a lot of ’em about.”

Burton smiled. He turned to Slaughter. “I want you to have a look at passenger lists for the transatlantic liners. A man named Thomas Lake Harris is due to give a talk at the club on the ninth of November. He’s either already in the country or will be arriving soon. Get on his tail.”

Slaughter nodded.

“Well, then, gentlemen,” Burton said. “Mrs. Angell will be serving dinner at seven. Until then, I suggest we relax and go through the events again. Certain aspects of this affair are beginning to make sense—if ‘sense’ is the appropriate word for such extraordinary circumstances—but we are still faced with many enigmas. Let us, as they say, chew the fat.”

Slaughter looked distraught, and Burton added, “That most definitely is not a reference to my housekeeper’s cooking.”

On Tuesday the 1st of November, Burton, Bram, Levi, and Swinburne travelled seventy miles southwest by atmospheric railway to Salisbury and from there a further ten miles by steam landau to the village of Tisbury and on to New Wardour Castle. After being dropped at the estate’s entrance gate, they tugged at the bellpull and waited. Two minutes passed, then the large wooden portal creaked open and a slightly built man greeted them. His brown moustache was flamboyantly wide, waxed, and curled upward at the ends; his lacquered hair was parted in the middle; and he possessed grey eyes with small pupils. Though dressed in tweeds, with gaiters over his calves, he somehow managed to wear the rustic outfit with a foppish air—every button being polished and every seam perfectly stitched, without fraying or wear and tear in sight.

“Sir Richard and guests?” he asked, in a clipped and precise tone.

“Yes, good afternoon,” Burton replied.

“Good afternoon, sir. Thomas Honesty, groundsman. I’ll drive you to the house.”

They entered, followed the dapper fellow to the lodge house, and waited while he stoked a steam carriage’s furnace.

“My fiancée speaks very highly of you, Mr. Honesty,” Burton said. “Your flower beds are the pride of the county. I hear you had your work cut out for you after the great storm.”

“Shambles,” Honesty replied. “Place in disarray. Bad timing. Had to work fast. Clear up. Big party and lots of guests coming.”

They mounted the conveyance.

“Are there many already arrived?” Burton asked.

Honesty climbed onto the driver’s seat. “Some, sir. Miss Raghavendra. Been here a while. Mr. and Mrs. Beeton came last week. Mr. Monckton Milnes this morning—”

“Ah, old Monckton Milnes is here already!”

“Yes, sir.” The groundsman pulled a lever on the tiller and the carriage started across the grounds, steam pluming from the funnel at its rear.

“I understand the master of the house is of the Bible-thumping variety of Catholic gentleman.” Burton made this statement with a loaded glance in Swinburne’s direction. The poet grinned happily, held his fingers up to either side of his hat like little horns, and pulled a devilish face.

“Not for me to say, sir,” Honesty answered. “Lord Gerard is a good employer. He’s not here. Called away on business. Will be back for the party.”

Their vehicle rounded a small grove of oak trees and New Wardour Castle came into view.

“Mon Dieu! Il est magnifique!” Levi exclaimed.

“Cor!” Bram Stoker added. “Would ye be a-lookin’ at that, now!”

The Palladian-style manor was, indeed, a majestic edifice. Comprised of a huge main block with flanking pavilions, it was nestled among trees in a wide expanse of parkland, meadows, and lakes—a scene of exquisite pastoral beauty—that gently sloped up southeastward to a low peak, upon which, about one and a half miles away, the ruins of the old castle stood outlined against the grey sky. Even at such a distance, Burton could see the ravens Isabel had described, but more so, he could hear them. The entire estate was filled with their cawing and croaking.

“Great heavens, Mr. Honesty, you appear to have been invaded.”

“The birds, sir? Often have them. Never before in such numbers. Displaced by the storm, I suppose.”

Having followed a path across a wide lawn, the carriage eventually drew to a halt before the manor’s entrance, a modest door beneath a very large Venetian-style arched window. Honesty jumped down and, as he did so, the door opened, a clockwork footman glanced out, ducked back in, and a moment later reappeared with another of his ilk, both following the household butler, who gestured for them to take the new arrivals’ bags.

“Good day, sirs. I am Nettles. The family and guests are currently gathered in the music room. Would you care to join them immediately or shall I have the staff escort you to your rooms first?”

“I think we’d like to splash water on our faces and change out of our travelling clothes,” Burton replied. He turned to the groundsman. “Thank you, Mr. Honesty.”

Honesty touched his finger to his temple.

Nettles led Burton and his fellows through the elegant reception hall and into a grand rotunda, dominated by a double staircase that rose some sixty feet through the entire height of the building up to a beautiful domed skylight. Gazing in admiration at the stunning architecture and decor, the three men and disoriented boy—such surroundings were totally alien to Bram—trailed after the butler past the colonnaded first floor and onward up to the third, where they were shown to their adjoining rooms.

Nettles indicated one of the clockwork footmen and said, “Clunk will wait at the top of the stairs, sirs. He’ll guide you to the music room at your convenience.”

Burton, accompanied by Bram, entered his room and found soap, flannels, towels, and a basin of water on a table beneath a mirror.

“Unpack my portmanteau and lay out the clothes, would you?” he said to the boy.

Opening an inner door, he saw a small valet’s room and said, “This is where you’ll be sleeping, lad. The lap of luxury, eh?”

“I ain’t seen nothin’ like it afore, sir, so help me, I ain’t. What’ll I do with meself?”

“You’ll attend me when I require it, which’ll be first thing in the morning and just before bed, for the most part, and for the rest of the time you’ll perform whatever duties the butler assigns to you. Don’t worry—they will be light. As my valet, you’ll be treated with the proper respect by the manor’s servants, despite your youth.”

While Bram got to work unpacking, the explorer washed his face and changed his clothes. He’d just finished buttoning his waistcoat when someone knocked on the door.

“Come.”

Swinburne pranced in, his arms flapping.

“What a place, Richard! My hat! Your fiancée’s great-uncle inhabits a palace! Are you ready? Shall we say hello to the rabid Catholics? I say, they’ll offer us a drink, won’t they?”

“We can but hope.”

Monsieur Levi joined them and Clunk led the guests down to the first floor—where Bram left them to accompany a second footman to the servants’ chambers—and along to the music room, from which the tinkle of a piano could be heard. As they stepped through the double doors, Blanche saw them first, stopped playing, and gave a cry of pleasure. Her audience turned and Isabel jumped up and ran to Burton. With her family watching, she was more restrained than usual in her greeting of him, but the explorer noticed something else, too—she was pale, seemingly tired, and had a faraway look in her eyes, as if daydreaming.

“Are you all right, darling?” he murmured.

“Yes, yes, now that you are here at last!” she replied. “I haven’t been sleeping well the past couple of nights, that is all. Come and say hello to Mama and Papa.”

The Honourable Henry Raymond Arundell—nephew to Lord Gerard, the 10th Baron of Arundell—was a small man with a boyish face supplemented by an oddly square-shaped beard growing from beneath the angle of his jaw; his cheeks, upper lip, and chin were all clean-shaven. His hair showed the same golden blondness his daughter had inherited. Henry Arundell held a grudging respect for Burton—an attitude not shared by his wife—and shook the explorer’s hand with genuine warmth.

Mrs. Eliza Arundell was tall, like Isabel, with a face too masculine and severe to qualify as beautiful, though she was certainly handsome. She greeted Burton and his friends politely but cautiously, and looked down at Swinburne with an expression of bemusement, as if her son-in-law-to-be had ushered Shakespeare’s Puck into her presence.

The rest of the family was introduced; Isabel’s cousins—Rudolph, tall and somewhat bumptious in manner; Jack, short, rotund, and shy; her Uncle Renfric, white-bearded and thoroughly disapproving of, it appeared, just about everything; and Blanche’s wayward husband, John Smythe Piggott, who, though handsome, carried himself with an air of superiority that Burton found thoroughly irritating.

Next, the other guests were presented, starting with Doctor George Bird and his wife, Lallah, both of whom Isabel held in high regard. “Dear George has been teaching me to fence,” she told Burton.

“Indeed!” the explorer exclaimed as he shook the tall physician’s hand. “Have you practised the art for long, Doctor?”

“Not long enough to hold my own against you. You’re reputed one of the best in Europe.”

Burton bowed his head courteously, then said to Isabel, “But why have you taken up the foil, my dear?”

“To defend you should we be attacked in the Arabian wilderness, of course!”

Burton raised an eyebrow and shared a slight smile of amusement with Bird.

Samuel Beeton was next to be introduced. Burton already knew a little about this dark-haired and good-looking man; he was a publisher and had made a fortune from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. His wife, Isabella—heavily pregnant—was one of his authors, very beautiful, with hair thick, black, and long, and dark, soulful eyes. When Burton took her hand, he felt an immediate affinity with her, and remembered that Isabel—who’d met her at a social function five years ago, before she’d become Mrs. Beeton—had reported a similar sensation: I was presented to a fine lady by the name of Isabella Mayson who I took to my heart in an instant, feeling, after our initial exchange of pleasantries, as if I’d known her my entire life.

Sadhvi Raghavendra came forward and met Swinburne and Levi, then Richard Monckton Milnes greeted his friends.

After half an hour of polite chatter with the ladies, the men repaired to the smoking room. For a brief moment, as the gents departed, Isabel was distracted when her uncle’s gout caused him to give a cry of distress, and Sadhvi Raghavendra took the opportunity to lean close to Burton. “What have you been up to, Richard?” she said softly. “I see fresh scars.”

“It’s a long story,” he replied.

“We must talk later. I’m concerned about Isabel.”

His eyes held hers for a moment. “Is there a problem, Sadhvi?”

“Only that she’s running herself into the ground.”

He gave an acknowledging touch to her arm, then joined the men as they passed through the door, walked along the hallway, and entered the smoking room, where the usual ritual of drinks and cigars commenced.

“What is it like to be back in England’s green and pleasant land, Sir Richard?” Sam Beeton asked.

“Stranger every day.”

“Was Africa as savage as the stories have it?”

“Oh, absolutely so.”

Monckton Milnes put in, “Richard already knew what he was letting himself in for when he went after the Nile, Mr. Beeton. He’d taken a spear through the face in a pitched battle at Berbera not four years previously.”

“Ah! Now then, Burton,” Bird interrupted, “tell me how you feel when you have killed a man.”

Burton looked at him slyly and drawled, “Quite jolly, Doctor. How do you?”

Bird threw his head back and gave a great bellow of laughter. “Touché!” he hollered. “Touché!”

“Incidentally,” Monckton Milnes said, “Steinhaueser arrives tomorrow. I daresay he’ll want to give you the once-over, Richard.”

“Are you referring to Doctor John Steinhaueser?” Bird asked.

“Yes—you know him?” Monckton Milnes responded.

“By repute. A very skilled practitioner, I believe.” Bird regarded Burton. “Your personal physician?”

“And friend,” Burton replied. “He has twice put me back together; first, after the spear wound—” he touched the scar on his cheek, “and, more recently, after I was injured when a steam sphere collided with my rotorchair.” He inwardly winced, remembering that Isabel didn’t know about his most recent brush with death.

Loose tongue! Dolt!

“Hah!” Uncle Renfric shouted, as—leaning heavily on his walking stick—he cautiously lowered himself into a chair by the fireplace and rested his gouty foot upon a leather pouffe. “Just as I’ve always said! These damnable machines are a threat to life and limb. Hah, I say! Humbug and hah! Why must everything change? Old England was in perfectly good shape before that hound Disraeli inflicted the Department of Guided Science upon us. Perfectly good! Hah!”

Swinburne, who was loitering near the drinks cabinet, screeched, “My hat, sir! Quite obviously you have never resided in London.”

Uncle Renfric raised a monocle to his eye and squinted through it at the little poet. “I’ve not even visited it, young lady. Den of sin. And I fail to see how my geographical position has any bearing on the matter. Nor do I understand why you are present in a gentlemen’s smoking parlour.”

“I may be young, but I’m no lady,” Swinburne replied. “And if I was, I certainly wouldn’t be.”

“Prattle! Prattle! What are you talking about?”

Swinburne hopped and gesticulated. “Bazalgette, of course!”

“There!” Uncle Renfric announced. “Again! Prattle! Nothing but noise! Take note of the Good Book, little missy, for it sayeth: Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. Hah! Yes! Hah!”

“Bazalgette!” Swinburne squealed. “His sewers!”

“A fit of feminine hysteria, is it? Must be the tobacco smoke. I told you, this is no place for a girl. Begone, at once!”

“Gah!” Swinburne cried out. “Don’t you see? Without the DOGS we’d not have him, and without him we’d not have the new sewer system. Old England may have been perfectly good, sir, but its capital stinks something rotten!”

“Ho hah! Sense out of her, at last! Of course it stinks, missy! Of fire and brimstone, no doubt! Fire and brimstone, I say!” The old man turned his monocle, surveying the room until he fixed upon Eliphas Levi. “You, sir! You have the look of a priest about you, and I see the crucifix upon your chest.”

“Oui, monsieur. I have train as a Catholic priest,” Levi said.

“Hah! Good show! Come here. I’ll have your opinion on this ungodly business of so-called scientific advancement. You are cursed with being a Frenchie, I discern, but I’ll not hold that against you. Come! Come!” The old man lifted his walking stick and prodded it in Swinburne’s direction. “And you, young lady, out! Out! Wrong room, wrong gender! Lord have mercy! In trousers, too! Whatever is the world coming to?”

The poet stood with mouth agape, then spun on his heel and demanded a large brandy from one of the clockwork footmen.

While Levi attended to the unenviable task of keeping Uncle Renfric occupied—and cousins Rudolph and Jack took to the billiard table with Smythe Piggott—Burton, Swinburne, Monckton Milnes, Doctor Bird, Sam Beeton, and Henry Arundell seated themselves upon three leather sofas positioned around a low coffee table.

“Speaking of Bazalgette—” Beeton started.

“I fervently wish I hadn’t been,” Swinburne interrupted.

“—have you heard about the adventures of the Norwood builders?”

Burton recalled reading something about it in the newspapers. “In relation to the southern part of the sewer system, I believe?”

“Yes. Bazalgette is appropriating the subterranean River Effra, as he did with the Tyburn, turning it into an outlet tunnel from Herne Hill all the way northward to Vauxhall, but his workers are in revolt due to the ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” Henry Arundell asked.

Beeton nodded. “The river has its origins about a mile south of the construction site and runs past the Norwood Cemetery catacombs. The workers are convinced the upper reaches of the waterway are haunted. The poor blighters are so terrified, old Bazalgette can hardly get a day’s work out of ’em!”

Burton grunted dismissively. “The average Englishman possesses the very same superstitious fears as an African tribesman, yet we claim ourselves a superior race.”

“What a contrast,” Monckton Milnes mused. “The irrational at one end of the river and the rational at the other.”

“Rational? How so?” Doctor Bird asked.

“The river joins the Thames at Vauxhall, very close to the DOGS’ headquarters. It flows from the funereal to the functional.”

Bird shuddered. “Thank goodness for that. Were it reversed, we should have to rename it the Styx. Brrr! I don’t like the idea of an underground river.”

Nor did Burton. He had a strong aversion to enclosed spaces.

He struggled to clarify a lurking thought. Something had just occurred to him but, like the Effra, it bubbled far beneath the surface. Having failed to drag it into his conscious mind, he was left with the irritating sense that he knew something important but couldn’t identify what.

Think, you dolt! Think!