The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

“There has always been a world beneath London.

There is more below than there is above.”

—JOSEPH BAZALGETTE

By nine o’clock, Sister Raghavendra had already made her excuses and left the RGS, and Burton was eager to do the same. Fighting off the many protests, he extracted himself from the reception party, collected his hat, jacket, and cane from the lobby, and stepped out into Whitehall Place. To his surprise, the fog had been completely swept away by a warm night breeze and the air was clear. Even more amazing, though it was night, he emerged into what appeared to be broad daylight. He looked up and his jaw dropped. For a second night, the aurora borealis was rippling overhead.

A large number of detectives, clerks, and secretaries had forsaken their offices in the Scotland Yard building and were standing in the street gazing at the spectacular illumination. One of them, a gaunt chap with thick spectacles, a red nose, and a straggly moustache, moved to Burton’s side and said, “Quite a sight, isn’t it? Have you ever seen the like?”

“I haven’t,” Burton confessed. He was tired, wanted to get home, and felt a little bit drunk. He’d also downed the remaining half of the Saltzmann’s Tincture and needed to walk off its effects.

You’re driving yourself to collapse. Why do you never know when to call it quits?

“Aren’t you the explorer chappie?” the man asked. “Livingstone?”

“Burton.”

“Oh, yes! That’s right. The Nile man. Congratulations! Pepperwick. That’s me. Clerk. Scotland Yard. Ordinary sort of job. Not romantic, like yours.”

Burton ran a finger around his collar, feeling the grit that had already accumulated there.

Welcome home.

“The world over, apparently,” Pepperwick went on, using a thumb to gesture upward. “The lights, I mean. Fancy that! At this precise moment, right now, there’s no night anywhere. Do you think it’ll last?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

Burton examined the crowd, his eyes roving from person to person. He noticed that one man, a thickset individual, was gazing not at the aurora borealis but at him. Burton stared back. The man’s eyes widened. He looked shocked. Then he turned and hurriedly moved away.

“I should get home, Mr. Pepperwick.”

“You’ll not have any trouble finding your way. It’s all topsy-turvy. The days are darkened by fog, the nights are lit up by whatever-it-is.”

“Indeed,” Burton agreed. “Good evening to you.” He touched the brim of his topper, strode off, and at the end of the street turned right into Charing Cross Road, heading toward Trafalgar Square.

For the first time since his return, Burton plunged into one of London’s throbbing arteries and was engulfed by the cacophony of the world’s most advanced city.

The middle of the thoroughfare was clogged with traffic. Horse-drawn wagons, carriages, and omnibuses vied with their steam-powered counterparts, the animals snorting and shying away from the hissing, growling, spluttering, iron-built competition. ‘Penny-farthing’ velocipedes clattered and bounced between the larger vehicles, their riders shouting and cursing through clacking teeth.

Burton espied one of the new steam spheres, which, he thought, was probably being condemned as a wasted expense by its owner due to it being jammed between—and completely immobilised by—a coal cart in front, a hearse to its left, a landau carriage on its right, and a massive pantechnicon behind. Amid the general hubbub, he could hear the sphere’s driver yelling, “Get out of my way, confound you! Get out of my blessed way!”

The sides of the road were lined with stalls and braziers offering jellied eels, pickled whelks, sheep’s trotters, penny pies, plum duff, meat puddings, baked potatoes, Chelsea buns, milk, tea, coffee, ale, mulled wine, second-hand clothes, old books, flowers, household goods, shoes, kitchenware, tools, and practically everything else a person could possibly eat, drink, or require for the home; as well as astrological charts, palm and tarot card readings, scrying by tea leaves, and prognostication by numbers, by bumps on the head, by marks on the tongue, and by the throw of a dice. The sing-song tones with which the traders called attention to their wares were almost, to Burton, the master linguist, an entirely unique dialect, barely comprehensible but very, very loud.

Between the stalls and the shops that bordered the street—many of which were currently open beyond their normal business hours—the pavements were packed with pedestrians who thought to take advantage of the peculiar light and the mild weather. There were couples and bachelors out strolling, ragamuffins playing and yelling and begging, dolly-mops touting for customers, jugglers juggling, singers warbling, musicians scraping and plucking, vagrants pleading and wheedling, and thieves as numerous and as persistent as African mosquitoes.

Burton shouldered through them, slapped away the pernicious fingers of pickpockets, and made painfully slow progress into Trafalgar Square and up St. Martin’s Lane, where he hoped to find Brundleweed’s jewellery shop open. Shortly before leaving for Africa, he’d ordered a diamond ring from old Brundleweed. The man was a craftsman of exceptional ability, and the explorer was looking forward to seeing the item in which he’d invested a considerable sum.

It was not to be. The shop was closed.

He strolled on into Cranbourn Street, followed it to Regent Circus, and traversed Regent Street up to the junction with Oxford Street.

Here, as fatigue gripped him and he realised he’d overestimated his strength, he made the decision to leave the main roads and cut diagonally through the Marylebone district to the top of Baker Street. It was more dangerous—he would have to pass through a poverty-stricken enclave of alleyways and crumbling tenements—but it would be quicker.

Keeping a firm hold of his swordstick, he entered a long side street. Shadows shifted around him as the aurora folded and glimmered overhead. A strange clicking began to echo from the walls to either side. He stopped and looked up. The clicking became a chopping. The chopping became a roar. A rotorchair skimmed over the rooftops and was gone, its noise rapidly receding, its trail of steam hanging motionless in the air, changing colour as it reflected the uncanny light.

Burton pushed on. He turned left. Right. Right again. Left. The maze of alleys narrowed around him. The stink of sewage haunted his nostrils. Mournful windows gaped from the sides of squalid houses. An inarticulate shout came from one of them. He heard a slap, a scream, a woman sobbing.

A man lurched from a dark doorway and blocked his path. He was coarse-featured, clad in canvas trousers and shirt with a brown waistcoat and a cloth cap. There were fire marks—red welts—on his face and thick forearms.

A stoker. Spends his days shovelling coal into a furnace.

Run. He’s dangerous.

I’m dangerous, too.

“Can I ’elp you, mate?” the man asked in a gravelly voice. “Maybe relieve you of wha’ever loose change is weighin’ down yer pockits?”

Burton looked at him.

The man backed away so suddenly that his heels struck the doorstep behind him and he sat down heavily.

“Sorry, fella,” he mumbled. “Mistook you fer somebody else, I did.”

The explorer snorted scornfully and moved on. His friend, Richard Monckton Milnes, had once told him he had the face of a demon. Sometimes, it was useful.

Burton continued through the labyrinth. A sense of déjà vu troubled him. Was it because the depths of London felt remarkably similar to the depths of Africa—tangled, perilous, toxic?

He came to a junction, turned left, and stumbled over a discarded crate. An exposed nail gouged into his trouser leg and ripped it. Burton spat an oath and kicked the crate away. A rat leaped from it and scuttled into a shadow.

Leaning against a lamppost, the explorer rubbed his eyes. Last night he’d been in the grip of a fever after a month-long illness and now he was walking home. Dolt!

He noticed a flier pasted to the post:

The Department of Guided Science.

A Force for Change. A Force for Good.

Developing the British Empire.

Bringing Civilisation to All.

“Whether you want it or not,” he added.

Pushing himself away, he continued along the alley and turned yet another corner—he wasn’t sure exactly where he was but he knew he was heading in the right general direction—and found himself at the end of a long, straight street bordered by high and featureless red-brick walls: the sides of warehouses. The far end opened onto what looked to be a main thoroughfare—Weymouth Street, he guessed. He could see the front of a shop, a butcher’s, but before he could read its sign, steam from a passing velocipede obscured the letters.

Burton walked on, carefully stepping over pools and rivulets of urine and filth.

A litter-crab came clanking into view near the shop, its eight thick mechanical legs thudding against the road surface, the twenty-four thin arms on its belly darting this way and that, skittering back and forth over the cobbles, snatching up rubbish and throwing it through the machine’s maw into the furnace within.

The machine creaked and rattled past the end of the alley and, as it did so, its siren wailed a warning. A few seconds later, it let out a deafening hiss as it ejected hot cleansing steam from the two downward-pointing funnels at its rear.

The automated cleaner vanished from sight as a tumultuous wall of white vapour boiled toward Burton. He stopped and took a few steps backward, leaned on his cane, and waited patiently for the cloud to disperse. It billowed toward him, extending hot coils which slowed and became still, hanging in the air as they cooled.

Movement.

Someone was entering the alley.

Burton watched as the person’s weirdly elongated shadow angled through the mist, writ dark, skeletal, and horrific by the distortion.

He suddenly felt uneasy and waited nervously for the shadow to shrink, to be sucked into the person to whom it belonged when he—for surely it must be a man—emerged from the cloud.

It did shrink.

It was a man.

He was aiming a pistol at the explorer.

“Captain Richard Francis bloody Burton,” the individual snarled. “Drop your stick or I’ll shoot you in the arm.”

Burton dropped the stick.

“Get back against the wall. Take your hat off, put it down, and stand with your hands on your head.”

Burton did as ordered, watching the man through narrowed eyes. He recognised him. It was the individual who’d been staring at him outside Scotland Yard—a short, big-boned, and heavily muscled fellow with wide shoulders and a deep chest. He had thick fingers, a blunt nose, and, under a large outward-sweeping brown moustache, an aggressively square chin.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you,” the man said, in a slightly husky voice. His pistol didn’t waver. It was aimed steadily at a point between the explorer’s eyes. “The moment I saw your likeness in the newspaper, I knew I’d seen you before.”

“Who are you?” Burton demanded. “What do you want?”

“My name is—is Macallister Fogg. How old are you?”

“How old? Rather an impertinent question. Thirty-eight. Why?”

“Mind your own business. Where were you on the tenth of June, 1840?”

Burton frowned, puzzled. “The Assassination? I was on a ship from Italy bound for Dover, on my way to enroll at Oxford University.”

The other man muttered to himself, “Plausible. But I could swear to it! I could swear!”

“If there’s something I can—?”

“Be quiet. Let me think for a moment.”

Burton sighed in exasperation and threw out his arms. “What in blue blazes is this about, Mr. Fogg? Do you intend to rob me?”

“Stop moving! Hands on head!”

The explorer shrugged, put his right foot against the wall, and launched himself forward. He chopped his hand down onto the other’s wrist, knocking the pistol out of his grasp. As the gun went spinning over the cobbles, Burton sent an uppercut crashing into the man’s chin. Fogg’s head snapped back and he stumbled, emitting a loud grunt before steadying himself.

His pale blue eyes met Burton’s. “So, it’s to be like that, is it?”

Burton was astonished. He’d boxed at university and in fight pits in India and had never been beaten. The uppercut had been his best shot. It should have knocked the man cold. Was his strength really so diminished?

“I’ll not submit to a mugging,” he growled, and took up the fighter’s stance.

Fogg grinned, as if relishing the prospect of battle, and mirrored the explorer’s posture. “I have no interest in your valuables,” he said, and suddenly ducked in and sent a fist thudding into Burton’s ribs. The explorer doubled over. Lights exploded in his head as knuckles smashed into the side of it, then into his mouth, then into his right eye. He fell, rolled, and jumped to his feet, stumbling back, suddenly feeling completely sober, horribly weak, and utterly befuddled.

Fogg had recovered his pistol. Burton looked down its barrel and raised his hands.

“Will you please explain?” he slurred. “Has it something to do with Prince Albert?”

“Albert? Why would it concern him?”

“I was with him this morning.”

“So?”

“So he was Victoria’s husband. He was present when she was shot.”

“It has nothing to do with Albert,” Fogg said. “Your father—do you resemble him at all?”

“What? My father? Not in the slightest bit.”

“By Jove! It has to be you! Except you’re simply too young. It’s impossible.” Fogg scowled, looked at his gun, hesitated, and lowered it. “Confound it! I suppose I should apologise. A case of mistaken identity, Burton, that’s all.”

“That’s all? I’d appreciate a rather more enlightening excuse, if you don’t mind,” Burton said, relaxing his arms.

“I do mind. You’ll not get one.”

“Then your address, please, Mr. Fogg, for the laundry bill.” Burton indicated his dust-stained overcoat and trousers.

Fogg raised his pistol again. “Enough. Get going.”

Burton gritted his teeth, picked up his hat and cane, and slowly walked to the end of the alley.

Just as he was about to turn the corner, his assailant shouted after him, “Hey!”

Burton looked back.

“If it’s any consolation,” Fogg called, “my head is still spinning from that uppercut of yours.”

The explorer’s eyes locked with the other man’s for a moment, then he turned and strode away.

By the time he reached number 14 Montagu Place, Burton was light-headed, shaking, and perspiration beaded his brow. He opened the door, entered the hallway, and saw Mrs. Iris Angell frozen in mid-step halfway along the passage. His landlady, a white-haired, broad-hipped, sprightly old dame—who also functioned as his housekeeper—was gaping at him as if he were a ghost.

He removed his topper and put it on the hat-rack, placed the cane in an elephant-foot holder, and popped open his collar button.

Mrs. Angell let loose a shriek and threw her not inconsiderable weight across the intervening space and into his arms.

“My goodness! My goodness! What has Africa done to you? You’re as thin as a broom handle! Your lip is bleeding! Your eye is black! Your trousers are torn! You look as sick as a dog! Isabel has been waiting! We knew you’d be arriving today but thought you’d be home earlier! You found the Nile, Captain Burton? Of course you did! The papers say you’re a hero! Are you hungry? What do you think of the light in the sky? Do you know what it is? I’ll get you fresh clothes! My goodness!” She raised her voice to a shrill scream. “Miss Isabel! Miss Isabel!”

Burton disentangled himself from her arms. “Slow down, Mother Angell. Calm yourself. I’m quite fine. I’ve been a little ill and I had a slight accident on the way here, but it’s nothing to be concerned about. The comforts of home will soon put me to rights.”

“Oh!” she cried out. “Thank the Lord you’ve returned to us. Such a long time away and every single day of it I worried you were being eaten by giraffes or stung by poisonous monkeys.”

“Africa wasn’t so bad,” he responded. “I’ve already encountered more danger right here in London. And to answer your earlier questions—no, I’m not hungry, and yes, fresh clothes would be most welcome. Isabel?”

A mellow voice sounded from the top of the stairs. “Dick.”

He looked up and saw Isabel Arundell, having obviously just emerged from his study, standing on the landing. She was tall, slender, and pretty—with large clear eyes, a straight Grecian nose, and thick, lustrous blonde hair.

“A pot of tea, please, Mrs. Angell!” he bellowed, and shot up the staircase and into Isabel’s embrace.

She held him tightly and sobbed onto his shoulder.

“Isabel,” he whispered. “Isabel. Isabel.”

He pushed her away a little, so he could lean in and kiss the side of her neck. His split lip left two small spots of blood on her jugular.

“Blanche is here!” she gasped.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I have to kiss you. You waited.”

“Of course I did. You’re bleeding. You look all banged-up. Have you had an accident?”

“Yes, just a mishap.” He pulled out his handkerchief, wiped the little red stains from her skin, and dabbed the square of cotton against his mouth.

“We can marry,” he said. “I’m done with Africa.”

“Come and say hello to her.”

“Isabel, have your parents given their blessing?”

“Not their blessing, but their permission. They realise I won’t accept any other man.”

He nodded, checked his handkerchief, put it away, and followed her into the study.

It felt strange to be back. Nothing had changed, but it all appeared dreamlike in the shifting multicoloured illumination that streamed in between the open curtains. His three desks were still piled high with books and papers; the swords and daggers still hung on the wall over the fireplace, with spears and guns in the alcoves to either side; his old boxing gloves still dangled from the corner of the mantelpiece; the bureau still stood between the two tall sash widows; the bookcases were still warped beneath the weight of his books; and his comfortable old saddlebag armchair was right where he’d left it.

Isabel’s petite younger sister, Blanche, rose from the chair.

He strode to her, grabbed her hand, and gave it a peck.

“Hello, Little Bird. I’m sorry I missed your wedding. How is old Smythe Piggott?”

“Hello, Richard. The sky has lit up to celebrate your return. I’m fine, but do emphasise the pig when you say my husband’s name. He already has two mistresses. But he’s a rich pig, so I can’t complain. There are women with worse husbands; the variety of man that remains at home in the evenings and insists on conversation, for instance. The fifth of November, Richard, the fifth of November.”

“What about it? Do you intend to throw him onto a bonfire? I didn’t think you Catholics celebrated Guy Fawkes Night.”

“We Catholics don’t. It’s the date my parents have set for your engagement party. They’d prefer that my sister’s marriage be founded on financial security, as mine is—I think they’re rather intimidated by such concepts as love and passion—but they’ve bowed to the inevitable. Great-Uncle Gerard has agreed to host the party at New Wardour Castle, and if you wish to bring guests, you have his leave to do so.”

Burton looked at Isabel and arched an eyebrow. “Have you been doping your parents?”

She laughed. “No, just driving them to the brink of madness by singing your praises at every opportunity. But I think it was the knighthood that finally swayed them.”

“Oh. You know about that? Good grief! Was I the last to be told?”

“I heard it from Monckton Milnes. You know what a great depository of knowledge, gossip, and secrets he is.”

“Not so much secrets, it would appear.”

Burton indicated that Blanche should resume her seat and Isabel take the other armchair. He dragged over a padded chair from beside one of the desks and sat facing them.

Isabel reached for his hand and held it. She said, “You won’t object to the party, will you?”

“I’ll concede to it,” he replied, “but we’ll keep the wedding itself a small affair, as we agreed—yes?—for a grand marriage ceremony is a barbarous and an indelicate exhibition.”

Isabel first laughed then frowned. “Your face. What was this mishap you mentioned?”

“Yes, brother-in-law-to-be,” Blanche added. “You look a hideous mess.”

He dismissed the question with a wave. “Thank you, Blanche. It’s really nothing to worry about. I tripped.”

Blanche giggled. “Months and months in dangerous Africa and as soon as you’re home, you fall flat on your face.”

“Exactly.”

“Was the safari very difficult?” Isabel asked. “Why did it take so much longer than predicted?”

“The Orpheus’s engines failed,” he replied. “Some five hundred miles north of the lakes, they simply packed up. The engineers couldn’t find a thing to explain it. What little wind there was came from the west—the dirigible couldn’t even float southward—so Sadhvi, Bill, George, and I left it and continued on foot. We followed the upper Nile through a chain of swamps and lakes until we arrived at its source—waterfalls descending from the Nyanza, which is practically an inland sea. We then skirted around its western shore, past the Mountains of the Moon, until we came to the water’s southernmost point. While we were doing all that, the breeze altered direction, allowing Captain Lawless to drift the Orpheus over the eastern shores of the Nyanza then southward to an Arabic outpost called Kazeh. He set up camp there and paid natives to spread the news of the ship’s location. The information eventually reached us and we rejoined our colleagues. A few days later, we discovered that the engines had miraculously come back to life and immediately set course for Zanzibar.”

The door opened and Mrs. Angell entered with a tea tray. She gave Blanche an approving glance, pleased to see that propriety was being observed and Isabel was correctly chaperoned, then set the tray down on a table.

“Shall I pour?” she asked.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Angell,” Isabel said. “Leave it to me.”

“I’ll lay clean clothes out in your bedchamber, Captain Burton,” the housekeeper said. “Oh, I’m so happy to have you home safe and sound. You’ll not be returning to Africa, I hope.”

“No, Mother,” Burton responded. “I have no plans to go back.”

The old woman wrung her hands in satisfaction. “You’ll have some beef broth before you go to bed. I insist upon it. You need building up. Ring when you’re ready for it. Don’t forget!” With that admonition, she left the room.

Isabel said, “Have you satisfied your craving for danger and unexplored lands, Dick? Are you ready to settle? I have petitioned Lord Stanley. I think he’s willing to hand us Damascus.”

Burton sighed. “I wish you hadn’t. The Orpheus gave him passage home from Vienna. He made it quite clear to me that your unsolicited recommendations were unwelcome and irritating. You may have done more damage than good.”

“There!” Blanche interjected. “I told you not to be so bullheaded. Really, Isabel, mother is right. You are far too brazen.”

“I was trying to help!” Isabel protested.

Burton gave her hand a squeeze. “I appreciate that, darling, but in doing so you might have given the impression that I lack the wherewithal to advance my own career.”

“It’s just that—that—Oh, Dick, I just want to be able to do something for our future together. I so regret that I’m bringing you no money, but Papa simply won’t allow it.”

“That’s no disadvantage as far as I’m concerned, for heiresses always expect to lord it over their lords. A man must be a man, Isabel. He must be in charge of his own destiny, and more importantly, he must be seen to be in charge.”

She swallowed and nodded.

“Don’t fret,” he added. “You may have riled old Stanley, but I’m confident we’ll get what we want anyway.”

“You forgive me?”

“I forgive you.”

Isabel smiled, stood, and crossed to the table. While she attended to the teapot, Burton asked Blanche, “Your parents really want me to bring guests?”

“Oh, yes!” she answered. “You should invite them for the first of the month, so we have a few days to become acquainted before the party itself. Will Styggins be among them? I so want to meet him. I hear he’s absolutely utterly!”

“Steinhaueser? Absolutely utterly what?”

“Just utterly! Isabel tells me you’ve known him forever.”

“Since India,” Burton corrected. “Utterly, hey?”

“You must admit,” Isabel said, returning with a filled cup and saucer in each hand, “that he is rather handsome and charming.”

“I can’t say I’ve noticed,” Burton said. “But, yes, I’ll invite Styggins, if only to make my Little Bird’s pet pig jealous.”

Blanche giggled and reddened.

“I’ll ask Monckton Milnes, too,” he added.

Isabel fetched the third cup and sat down. “But none of your wretched Cannibal Club, if you please. They are far too louche.”

“Agreed.”

A short silence fell over them as they sipped their tea. Blanche stared at her sister and wrinkled her forehead meaningfully. Isabel put her cup down and frowned at her sibling.

“What is it?” Burton asked. “Why are you two looking daggers at each other?”

“My sister has something to tell you,” Blanche said.

“Blanche!” Isabel hissed.

“Well?” Burton asked.

Isabel fiddled with the edge of her shawl, examined her fingernails, brushed her hands over her skirts, and said, “I met Hagar Burton again.”

“Hagar Burton?”

“You remember? The Gypsy who used to camp on the family estate when I was a girl.”

“Ah, yes.”

Burton recalled that his fiancée, when fifteen years old, had befriended the Gypsy woman, who’d predicted that she’d one day fall in love with a man who bore the Burton surname.

Isabel continued, “Last June, Blanche and I went to Ascot. She was there.”

“And?”

“And she read my palm.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked if I’d married a Burton yet. I said no, not yet. She said, Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“She predicted that, if I put on a wedding dress for a Burton, he would—would—”

“He would what?”

“He would kill me while I was still wearing it.”