The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack

THE GATHERING FORCES

,

By heavens! What have they done to you!" gasped Burton, for though Swinburne had told him about Speke's surgery, seeing for himself the brass mechanism that had replaced the upper-left side of his former friend's head and face was quite another thing.

"Saved me," replied Speke, quietly.

"Saved you? No, John. They've manipulated you! From the very start, they've manipulated you, made you their puppet! When you sailed from Zanzibar after our expedition, you fell in with Laurence Oliphant aboard ship, didn't you? It wasn't by chance! He was there specifically to cast a spell over you! He's a master mesmerist, John! It was he who turned you against me, he who polarised our associates at the Royal Geographical Society, and he who caused you to turn a gun upon yourself. That wound was purposely inflicted! They wanted to replace half your damned brain!"

"Why?"

"I don't know-but one way or the other, I'm going to find out!"

"If you live."

"Will your betrayal run that deep? We were friends. We went through hell together. I nursed you through illnesses and injuries and you did the same for me. Are you really going to throw all that away? Think, man! Think about the way things were; the way things can be again. Help me to fight these people, John!"

Suddenly Speke's face, which thus far had been entirely emotionless, was filled with perplexity, sorrow, and yearning.

"Dick," he gasped. "I shouldn't-I can't-I didn't-didn't-"

He reached up to the key that projected from the machinery above his left ear and started to wind it.

"I have to-to-to decide," he stuttered.

"Don't do that!" hissed Burton, but Speke continued to twist the key which, when he removed his hand, began to turn, emitting a low ticking. Through the round glass panel above his eye, a mass of tiny cogs could be glimpsed. They started to revolve.

It appeared to Burton as if reality suddenly took on a sharper edge. The spinning wheels in Speke's head seemed to reel in divergent destinies until they touched right here, now, in this room, making of it a crossroads. One route led from India, Arabia, and Africa to Fernando Po, Brazil, and Damascus; the other stretched from the seeds Edward Oxford had accidentally planted in the past to an unknown future in which he, Burton, as the king's agent, would have to deal with the resultant crazy, unbalanced world.

He sensed his doppelganger standing ready; they would plunge down the same road together, as one.

He backed away toward the door.

Speke turned his head to follow the movement. His human right eye was unfocused, but the rings around the glass lens of the left eye moved slightly, some clockwise, some in the opposite direction.

The key stopped revolving.

Speke made a decision.

Burton made a decision.

The king's agent dived through the door and fled down the hallway.

Speke threw is head back and bellowed: "Oliphant! Burton is here!"

As Burton raced past the junction with the short corridor leading to the ballroom, the glass doors at the end opened and the albino stepped through. Burton kept running and was swallowed by the darkness. Behind him he heard the panther-man shout: "Brunel! Get to the ship and loose the wolves!"

Guided by nothing more than memory, stumbling over debris and banging into walls, Burton retraced his steps in the direction of the room with the open window.

From not far behind him came a mocking voice: "I can see in the dark, Sir Richard!"

Down one pitch black passageway and into another, Burton veered right, then left, then right again.

"I'm coming!" sang his pursuer.

Burton yanked his pistol from his jacket, stopped, twisted, raised it, and fired. The flash illuminated long walls with peeling paper and, at their far end, a white figure dressed in black, its pink eyes wide. The darkness snapped back and with it came a loud feline scream.

Got you, you bastard! thought Burton.

He ran on.

A light glimmered ahead.

He raised the pistol again.

"This way, Richard!" screeched a high-pitched voice.

Swinburne!

"Damnation! I told you to get back to Trounce!"

The little poet held up a guttering Lucifer and grinned.

"I half obeyed your order! Come on, in here!"

He quickly led Burton into a room and across to an open window. As they climbed out into the grounds, a shout reached them from inside the mansion: "You'll pay your debts, Burton!"

"Run as fast as you can!" snapped the famous explorer to his friend. "They're releasing loups-garous!"

"I've had enough of them!" piped Swinburne and sped away.

The king's agent followed, surprised by the smaller man's turn of speed.

A howl rose from the far side of Darkening Towers. It was joined by a second, a third, a fourth, and more.

"Faster, Algy," Burton panted.

They tore across the uneven ground, past the knotted trees and pools of squirming mist, toward the distant wall.

Burton glanced back and saw the albino standing by the window, his right arm cradled in his left. A pack of wolf-men were flooding around the right-hand corner of the building, running on all fours.

The two men raced on, their thigh muscles burning, their breath coming in short, rapid gasps.

A few moments later they reached the wall and Burton thrust the poet up onto it.

"Trounce, start the blasted engines!" screamed Swinburne.

Burton turned. The loups-garous were almost upon him. He fired two shots and one went down. The others swerved and leaped upon it, their jaws crunching into its bones, ripping the flesh. They'd obviously been half starved to increase their ferocity, and the slight pause gave Burton the opportunity to haul himself onto the wall, lower Swinburne down to the other side, and follow. They ran across the road that bordered Beresford's estate and into a clump of trees. Engines were chugging.

"Hold on!" came Detective Inspector Trounce's voice from the shadows. "One more!"

"Hurry, man!" cried Burton.

The last of the three penny-farthings spluttered into life. The men mounted them, steered out onto the road, and accelerated away in a cloud of steam.

Behind them, a snarling loup-garou hurtled over the wall, followed immediately by the rest of the pack.

"Bloody hell!" cried Trounce, looking back. "Open your valves! They're fast! What the heck are they?"

"Hungry!" shrilled Swinburne.

The penny-farthings clattered over the uneven surface of the road, rattling the teeth of the three riders. Yelping and growling, with spittle trailing from their distended jaws, the ravening animal-men loped along behind, gradually gaining on the machines.

Burton, Trounce, and Swinburne swept past the corner of the Darkening Towers estate and careened onto the Waterford road. Trees flashed by, stretches of fencing, hedgerows, and beyond them rolling fields, pale in the light of the thin crescent moon.

White steam boiled from the vehicles and trailed behind them all the way back to the thicket where Trounce had waited. Beneath the slowly rolling vapour, the loups-garous sprinted after their prey. They were close now. They could smell human flesh.

"Blast these machines!" Burton muttered. "They're not fast enough!"

His jaws snapped together as the big front wheel jerked over a pothole.

"Trounce!" he yelled. "Steer in next to Algy!"

The Yard man obeyed, though controlling the contraption proved difficult as it bounced over a particularly rough patch of road.

A long, drawn-out howl sounded from just behind.

"Algy!" called Burton. "Step off your velocipede onto Trounce's!"

"What?" cried his two friends.

"Just do it, man!"

Swinburne, entirely fearless, stood in his stirrups, swung a leg over the saddle so that he was balanced on one side of the main wheel, tried to keep the wildly vibrating handlebars steady with a single hand, and reached across with the other to grasp Detective Inspector Trounce's shoulder. Then, in one quick motion, he leaned over, put his foot on one of the mounting bars of Trounce's machine, and stepped across.

His own boneshaker rattled on, kept upright by its gyroscope. However, without his fingers holding the velocity valve open, it immediately slowed and started to fall to the rear.

Burton drew his pistol. He had three shots left. He looked back.

The wolf-men were streaming around the riderless velocipede. Burton raised his gun, took aim, breathed gently, and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet hit the penny-farthing's furnace. With a startlingly loud detonation, it exploded, blasting red-hot metal into the loups-garous charging along beside it. As the twisted vehicle somersaulted into the air, one of the beasts burst into flames, then a second, and a third. One by one, they erupted and fell writhing to the ground, burning fiercely.

The carnage fell away behind the three men. However, four loups-garous remained in pursuit, snapping at the small back wheels of the vehicles.

"Confound it! My pistol has jammed!" shouted Burton.

Trounce passed his Colt over his shoulder to Swinburne.

"Here you are, lad. I'll steer, you shoot!"

"Terrific!" The poet grinned happily.

He took aim, started firing, and missed with his first three shots.

"By Jove!" announced Trounce. It takes a rare talent to avoid hitting the blighters at this range!"

Swinburne's fourth bullet found its mark and, with a blinding flash, one of the werewolves spontaneously combusted, setting fire to the beasts on either side of it. They fell back, screaming in agony as they died.

Swinburne cheered. The penny-farthing jolted. He dropped the pistol.

"Curse it! Sorry, Trounce, old man! I hope that didn't have any sentimental value!"

"Only insofar as it could save us from being eaten alive, you blockhead!" replied the police detective.

Burton slowed his vehicle slightly and guided it into the path of the last remaining werewolf. With the creature snapping at his legs, he reached down to the vehicle's cane holder and withdrew his recently acquired stick. Its silver top was shaped like a panther's head. It was Oliphant's sword cane, which the king's agent had laid claim to after their fight at Battersea Power Station.

Holding it between his teeth, he drew the blade, leaned over, and with cool precision pushed its point through the wolf-man's right eye and into its brain. The loup-garou crumpled onto the road.

Burton shuddered. In his peripheral vision he could see the cane sticking out from each side of his mouth. It brought back uncomfortable memories of Berbera.

He slipped the sword back into it and returned it to the velocipede's holder.

"Waterford is just ahead, then Old Ford. Which is the village after that?" he asked Trounce.

"Pipers End, I think. Why?"

"I'll tell you when we get there! We have to rouse its innkeeper and get ourselves a room. It's almost dawn, Trounce-we haven't much time to plan our campaign!"

"Campaign?"

"Yes. This very night we're going to face off with our enemies and snatch Spring Heeled Jack from right under their noses!"

Once again, Sir Richard Francis Burton found himself in a drinking establishment: the Cat in the Custard, Pipers End. This time, though, alcohol played no part in the proceedings. Even Swinburne showed no interest in it during the day that followed.

Soon after their arrival, the three men enjoyed strong tea in silence while awaiting a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. Once this was cooked, served, and consumed, they retired to a private sitting room where Burton gave an account of his experience in Darkening Towers.

Having heard the tale of Spring Heeled Jack, Detective Inspector Trounce sat back and ran his thick fingers through his short bristly hair.

"It sounds like utter madness but I'll be damned if I don't believe it!" he exclaimed. "It explains everything! And you know, now that you've told me, I can see that the `Mystery Hero' who struggled with Victoria's assassin had the same face as Spring Heeled Jack. I simply didn't notice it because I was distracted by the bizarreness of Jack's costume! Anyway, I'll get a message to Spearing at the Yard as soon as the post office opens. We'll have Old Ford swarming with men in no time at all."

"Hold your horses!" objected Burton. "We know the Rakes and Technologists are gathering in and around the village. If we send your men in too soon, we may capture a few-but with what can we charge them? As for Beresford and Darwin and their cohorts, they won't come anywhere near until Spring Heeled Jack arrives. Surely it's best if we amass our forces here then advance on the village when the time traveller shows up and our opponents try to capture him?"

"You mean get the lot of 'em in one fell swoop? I'm not sure I'll have enough men for that, Burton."

"Don't worry. Algy here is leaving in a moment to recruit reinforcements."

"I am?" queried Swinburne.

"Yes. Listen-this is what I want you to do-"

After issuing his instructions to the poet, he turned back to Trounce.

"May I ask a favour of you, old chap?"

"Of course!" came the ready reply.

"I promised Detective Inspector Honesty that he'd be in at the final reckoning."

"That little popinjay? I'm not a great enthusiast, Captain Burton. He's never believed in Spring Heeled Jack."

"All the more reason to let him see the time traveller with his own eyes. Prove to him that you were right all along!"

"Yes." Trounce smiled. "I must admit, I'd take a deal of satisfaction in that. Very well, I'll have him bring the men here. What about the girl, Alicia Pipkiss? Shall we remove her from danger?"

"That won't be easy with the Rakes watching the cottage," mused Burton, "but I think it might be arranged. And what of Connie Fairweather, is she still guarded?"

"No need. The family sailed for Australia yesterday."

"Did they, by heavens! Perhaps she's the one, then! Algy, you'd better be off, you have a lot to organise. As for us, Trounce, let's get across to the post office and hammer on the door. We can't waste time waiting for it to open!"

At eight thirty that morning, in a house on the outskirts of Hammersmith, Detective Inspector Thomas Honesty placed his homburg upon his head and checked himself in the hall mirror. His moustache was perfectly even, its extravagant curls symmetrical. He brushed lint from his shoulder and reached for his cane.

"Oh, Tom!" came his wife's voice from the lounge. "Tom! There's one of those awful birds at the window!"

Honesty's carefully trimmed eyebrows rose. A messenger parakeet had never called at his house before, though plenty had tapped at his office window.

He stepped to the lounge door and passed through. The small room was an astonishing clutter of knickknacks and ornaments. His wife, a slim, pretty woman, pointed at the window.

"Look!"

"Leave the room, Vera," he advised.

"But I want to listen! I've never heard one!"

"Bad language. Not suitable. Off you go!"

"Tom, I insist on staying! A little bad language won't offend me! I tell you what-I'll listen with my hands over my ears!"

Honesty looked at his wife, blinked, shrugged, and grunted: "Very well. Warned you."

He slid the window up.

"Message from Detective Inspector nobble-thwacker Trounce and Sir Richard Francis bottom-squeezer Burton," cackled the parakeet gleefully.

Mrs. Vera Honesty gave a yelp and fled from the room.

"Gather as many cretinous constables as you possibly can," continued the bird, "and get them to the filthy-cesspit village of Letty Green at the soonest possible moment. They must be in civilian garb and should all be armed with pistols and flying goggles. Avoid the verminous village of Old Ford at all cost, you mucus-bubbler. From Letty Green, the men must proceed in groups of no more than three morons at a time to the Cat in the Custard at Pipers End. It is of crucial importance that all the nose-picking men have visited this public house before sundown. Honesty, you skunk-tickler, this is a matter of national sodding importance and you can't overestimate the number of constables required. We need a bloody army. I will take full responsibility. Get to the Cat yourself, dirt-slurper, as soon as possible. Bring with you the strumpet Sister Raghavendra of 3 Bayham Street, near Mornington Crescent. Speed is of the essence. Message ends."

"Well, I'll be blowed!" exclaimed Honesty. It was one of the longest and strangest messages he'd ever heard issue from the beak of a parakeet.

"Tosspot," squawked the bird.

"Reply," snapped the Yard man. "Message begins. Doing as you say. This better be good. Message ends. Go."

With a colourful flutter the parakeet flew from the windowsill and disappeared into the sky. Faintly, its voice floated back: "Buttock-licker!"

Slightly over an hour and a half later, five rotorchairs landed in a field to the west of Letty Green. Detective Inspector Honesty climbed out of the first, removed his goggles, and straightened his clothing. He retrieved his homburg and cane from beneath the seat, then paced over to one of the other chairs and helped its driver out.

"That was utterly wonderful!" Sister Raghavendra laughed. "Though a little tricky to begin with!"

"You did well! First woman to fly!" replied Honesty.

"Really? No, surely not! Me, the first woman to fly?"

"Perhaps, my dear. Perhaps."

Honesty turned to the three men who awaited his orders.

"Remain here, Constable Krishnamurthy," he said to one. "Instruct new arrivals."

"Yes, sir."

Then to the other two men: "Venables, Ashworth-come!"

He led the girl and the two policemen to a stile in the hedgerow that surrounded the field and climbed over it into the lane beyond. As they proceeded toward nearby Pipers End, three specks appeared in the sky behind them: more rotorchairs arriving from London.

They traipsed on until, forty minutes later, they arrived at the Cat in the Custard and were shown up to the private sitting room.

"Hello, old fellow!" said Burton, shaking Honesty's hand. "I want you to listen to what Trounce has to tell you. It will sound incredible but, believe me, every word is true. We must act fast and we're relying on you."

Honesty nodded curtly and sat in the chair to which Trounce gestured.

Burton guided Sister Raghavendra out of the room and down into the empty parlour.

"Sadhvi," he said, placing his hands on her upper arms. "You said you would like to help. You can. But I may be placing you in harm's way."

"No matter," she replied eagerly. "Tell me what I must do."

Later that morning, a flower seller, wearing a red cloak with a hood, entered Old Ford village and started calling from door to door. It was late in the season and her basket contained only magnolias, hydrangeas, geraniums, a makeup kit, and a pistol.

Business was not good. She made few sales, though all the villagers were friendly. One, a retired soldier who introduced himself as "Old Carter the Lamp-lighter," informed her that she was the most exotic of the blooms.

Eventually, she came to a cottage at the bottom of the hill on the western edge of the village. There were two bobbies standing guard outside and one blocked her path and refused her entry.

She whispered a few words to him.

He nodded, spoke softly to the second constable, then the two men strolled away and didn't come back.

Ignoring the bellpull beside the gate, the flower seller passed through and walked along the short path to the front door. She knocked upon it and, a few moments later, it opened.

A short conversation followed.

The flower seller entered the cottage.

The door closed.

Twenty minutes later, it opened and she stepped out. She walked down the path, out through the gate, and back through the village.

Her basket contained magnolias, hydrangeas, and geraniums.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter was sweeping the road in front of his house.

"Sold much?" he asked as she passed.

She shook her head and hurried on.

"Funny," he mumbled. "The exotic bloom seems to have faded."

As she exited Old Ford along the south road, a man detached himself from the shadow of a tree and wandered along some distance behind her.

A little while later, the flower seller arrived at the Cat in the Custard in the neighbouring village of Pipers End and sat in the parlour, waiting. The man who'd followed her entered.

"Miss Pipkiss?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered nervously.

"I'm Detective Inspector Trounce. I can assure you that you're quite safe now."

Alicia Pipkiss pulled back her hood. Her dark skin was much paler around the edges of her hairline and behind the ears and back of the neck.

"Can I wash this makeup off?" she asked.

A deep and mellow voice from across the room said, "I'll ask the landlord to heat some water for you."

A man had entered. He was big and had a fierce, scarred face that was bruised and cut.

"Hello, Alicia," he said. "I'm Captain Richard Burton. I'm working with Scotland Yard."

She nodded.

"I have to ask you a rather personal question. I hope you don't mind."

She swallowed and shook her head.

"Alicia, do you happen to have a birthmark? Something shaped like a rainbow?"

Alicia Pipkiss cleared her throat and put down the basket of flowers.

She looked up into Burton's eyes.

"Yes," she said. "As a matter of fact, I do."

Back in the cottage in Old Ford, Mrs. Jane Pipkiss nee Alsop, onetime victim of Spring Heeled Jack, handed her guest a cup of tea.

Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra accepted it with a smile and placed it on the table next to her chair.

She sat and waited, the tea at her side, a pistol in her hand.

The hundred and eleven men of Letty Green village met on the cricket field at lunchtime to discuss the strange state of the sky. It was filled with streamers of white vapour that were coming in from the south, veering to the west over the little settlement, and dropping groundward to the east.

"It's comets, that's what it is!" claimed one.

"You mean meteors!" corrected another. "And they don't turn in the sky like what these 'uns are doing!"

"Maybe these 'uns are a new sort!"

"Maybe you ain't got no brain!"

The discussion went back and forth for half an hour until it was suggested that they head out of the village to see where the trails of vapour ended. This plan was immediately approved and, arming themselves with shovels and garden forks, broom handles and walking sticks, and the occasional blunderbuss and flintlock, the mob swarmed out of Letty Green, climbed the hill to the west, and stopped dead on its brow. The field below them was filled with rotorchairs.

"What in heaven's name is going on here?" muttered the villager who'd somehow emerged as the leader of the crowd.

He led them down the lane until they came to a stile that gave access to the field. A man, standing beside it, smiled at them.

"Good day, gentlemen," he said. "I'm Constable Krishnamurthy of the Metropolitan Police-and I have just become a recruiting officer!"

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter had never seen so many strangers in the village. More particularly, he'd never seen so many well-dressed strangers. And even more particularly, he'd never seen so many well-dressed strangers carrying paper bags in one hand, canes in the other, and with small rucksacks upon their backs.

It occurred to him that the road needed sweeping again.

Five minutes later he nodded his head at a smart, paper-bag-carrying stranger and said, "Good day!"

The man nodded haughtily, flourished his cane, and walked on.

Fifteen minutes later another one appeared.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter nodded at him and said, "Good day! Fine weather, hey?"

The man looked him up and down, muttered "G'day!" and pushed past.

When the next appeared, Old Carter the Lamp-lighter stood in his path, grinned broadly, raised his cap, and said breezily, "How do you do, sir! Welcome to Old Ford! You've picked a fine day for a stroll! What's in the bag?"

The man stopped and looked at him, taken aback. "I say!" he exclaimed.

"I do too!" agreed Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. "I say it's a lovely day to go for a walk with a paper bag under your arm! What's in it? A picnic, perhaps?"

"Why, yes, that's it-a picnic! What!" exclaimed the stranger, and made to move away.

"Up your arse!" said the bag.

The two men looked at it.

"Sandwiches?" suggested Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.

"Parakeet," mumbled the stranger, sheepishly.

"Ah, yes. Training it, perhaps?"

"Yes, that's right. Training. Seeing how fast it can fly back to London, what!"

"Gas-belcher!" announced the bag.

"Is it a convention?" asked Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.

"A con-con-a what?"

"A convention, old bean. A gathering of the Oft-Spotted Parakeet Trainers of Old London Town? I say, you're not the chaps who teach 'em how to swear, are you?"

"Blasted impertinence!" exploded the stranger. "Let me past!"

"I do apologise!" said Old Carter the Lamp-lighter, standing aside. "Incidentally, the fishing's not good in that direction. No water, you see."

"The fishing? What in blue blazes are you on about now?"

"There's a length of netting hanging out of your rucksack."

The stranger strode away, swinging his cane, his countenance flushed with anger.

"Have a splendid day!" called Old Carter the Lamp-lighter after him.

"Goat-fiddler!" called the bag.

Sneaking along from the untended land to the north, a poacher approached the field opposite the Alsop cottage and quietly slipped into the thick border of trees that surrounded it. It was a good field for rabbits but there'd been police outside the cottage these past few days and he'd been too nervous to check his traps. Were the coppers still there? He was going to have a look.

Treading softly, as was his habit, he moved furtively from bole to bole.

Suddenly, a feeling of unease gripped him.

He froze.

He was not alone.

He could sense a presence.

Moistening his lips with his tongue, he crouched, held his breath, and listened.

All he could hear was birdsong.

A lot of it.

Too much!

An absolute cacophony!

"Maggotous duffers! Cross-eyed poseurs! Scrubbers! Bounders! Dirty baggage! Dolts! Filthy blackguards! Decomposing scumbags! Poodlerubbers! Piss-heads!"

The poacher looked around him in bewilderment. What the hell? The trees seemed to have more birds in them than he'd ever known-and they were screaming insults!

"Bastards! Stink-brains! Stupid fungus-lickers! Lobotomised chumps! Tangle-tongued inbreds! Curs! Fish-faced idiots! Balloon-heads! Little shits! Witless pigstickers! Crap masters! Buffoons!"

His unease turned to superstitious dread.

The poacher was just about to turn and take to his heels when an uncomfortable feeling in his neck stopped him. He looked down and his stubbled chin bumped into a wet red blade that projected from his throat. He coughed blood onto it and watched as it slid back into his neck and out of sight.

"My apologies," said a soft voice from behind.

The poacher died and slid to the loamy earth.

The man who'd killed him sheathed his swordstick. Like all his fellow Rakes, he was well dressed, carried a bagged birdcage in one hand, and had a rucksack on his back.

Little by little, the Rakes had occupied the shadows under the trees around the field and now there were hundreds of them.

By the time twilight was descending over the village, there were no more smart, bag-carrying, cane-brandishing strangers for Old Carter the Lamplighter to accost.

He'd swept the street until it was practically shining. Now he was settling into his armchair to enjoy a cup of tea and a hot buttered crumpet.

He placed the teacup on the arm of his chair, raised the crumpet to his open mouth, and stopped.

The cup was rattling in its saucer.

"What in the name of all that's holy is happening now?" he muttered, lowering the crumpet and standing up. He crossed to the window and looked out. There was nothing to see, but he could hear an odd thrumming.

Moving to the front door, he opened it just in time to see a plush leather armchair descend from the sky.

It landed across the street from his cottage, the spinning wings above it slowing down, the paradiddle of its motor becoming lazier, steam rolling away.

The noise stopped. The wings became still. The man in the seat pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, lit a pipe, and began to smoke.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter sighed and stepped out of his house. He closed the front door, walked down the path, opened the gate, crossed the spotlessly clean street, stood next to the chair, and said, "Sangappa."

The man looked up, and with his pipe stem clenched between his teeth mumbled, "Beg pardon?"

"Sangappa," repeated Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. "It's the best leather softener money can buy. They send it over from India. Hard to find and a mite expensive but worth every penny. There's nothing to top it. Sangappa. It'd do that chair of yours a world of good, take my word for it."

"I do," said the man, raising a pair of binoculars to his eyes and directing them down the street.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter ate his crumpet and chewed thoughtfully while he looked to where the lenses were pointing: at the high street's junction with Bearbinder Lane, the lower end of the village, beyond which fields and woods sloped up to the next hill.

"Bird-watching?" he asked, after a pause.

"Sort of."

"Parakeets?"

The man lowered his glasses and looked at the villager. "Funny you should say that."

"It's been a funny sort of day. Police, are you?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Your boots."

"Ah. Oh dear."

"Good for boots, too, that Sangappa is. They're in the woods."

"The parakeets, you mean?"

"Yes. In cages, in bags, in the hands of men, in the woods."

"How many? Men, that is."

"An infestation, I should say. Is that one of 'em new clockwork lamps?"

He pointed to a cylindrical object resting in a coil of rope between the constable's police-issue boots.

"Yes, it is."

"Do me out of job, that would, if it weren't for the fact that I'm twice retired."

"Twice?"

"Yes. Good, is it? Bright?"

"Very bright indeed, Mr.-?"

"They call me Old Carter the Lamp-lighter, sir, on account of the fact that I used to be a lamp-lighter before I retired."

"I thought that might be their reason."

"Detective, are you?"

"No. Constable. What else are you retired from?"

"Soldiering. King's Royal Rifle Corps. They have nets too."

"As well as rifles?"

"I mean the men in the woods, sir. Nets and parakeets."

"I see. Well, thank you, Mr. Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. I'm Constable Krishnamurthy. Your information is most useful. Would you accept a little advice?"

"Only fair, sir. I advised you about Sangappa, after all."

"You did. In return, my advice is this: stay indoors this evening!"

The policemen and Letty Green villagers left Pipers End as the sun was setting. They moved in a wide, silent arc toward Old Ford and the southern, western, and northern borders of the Alsop field.

Detective Inspector Thomas Honesty led the men to the south.

Detective Inspector William Trounce led the men to the west.

Sir Richard Francis Burton led the men to the north.

Meanwhile, opposite the lower eastern end of the field, in the isolated cottage, the Alsop family hunched around a table in the candlelit cellar and played games of whist, while above them, on a chair in the hallway, Sister Raghavendra sat facing the front door. She held a revolver in her lap and kept her finger on the trigger.

Farther to the east, beyond the village, near a derelict farmhouse, six rotorchairs landed. Their drivers sat and watched Old Ford. If they saw Constable Krishnamurthy's chair rise from it, they would fire up their engines and follow him.

The forces marshalled by Sir Richard Francis Burton were ready to pounce.

However, so were the forces gathered by the opposition.

Beneath the trees surrounding the Alsop field, the Rakes slouched insouciantly and endured the insults hurled at them by the caged birds.

In Darkening Towers, on the outskirts of Waterford, three miles to the west of Old Ford, the orangutan known as Mr. Belljar, who was actually Henry de La Poer Beresford, the Mad Marquess, impatiently paced up and down the huge empty ballroom, its chandelier blazing above him. The light would attract any parakeet that happened to have a message for him.

Outside, in the grounds, two rotorships sat. The larger, which dwarfed the other, had its engines idling. It contained Charles Darwin, the automaton Francis Galton, Nurse Florence Nightingale, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, John Hanning Speke, and a great many Technologists.

Along the shadow of a hedgerow between Waterford and Old Ford, an injured albino limped eastward. At his heels, following obediently, were twenty-three robed and hooded figures who walked with a peculiar lurching gait and who occasionally emitted slavering growls, like starving dogs.

Soon these forces would meet.

It was just a matter of time.