by Mark Hodder
Burton saw madness in the man's eyes and shuddered. Faces in the crowd were turned toward the commotion. There were mutterings and curses. He snapped his head around as something seemed to flit past to his right. He had an impression of a ghostly figure but saw only steam, coiling and curling.
“Get out of here!” a voice hissed. “Scarper while you can, Boss!”
He turned and was surprised to find Herbert Spencer, with a flat cap pulled low over his forehead, standing at his side.
The young gent with the bloodied nose muttered, “Thank you,” and pushed past the onlookers to join his friends, three well-dressed young men who were standing nervously nearby. They moved away, with catcalls and hoots of derision following them.
“Be quiet!” Detective Inspector Trounce shouted angrily.
“Make us!” came a challenge.
Honesty twisted Jeb's arm up behind his back, holding it locked there with one hand. With the other, he pulled a truncheon from his belt. Trounce noticed the move and followed suit.
“It's the pri-privileged what decides the-the fate of honest folk!” came the Claimant's voice. “And I have no doubt-that-lawyers can do a great many things, yesss. They freq-freq-frequently make black appear-appear white. But I'm sorry to say, they more freq-frequently make white app-appear black!”
Burton frowned. Everything the Claimant said sounded rehearsed. They were plainly not his own words.
“There's trouble a-brewing!” Spencer whispered. “Can you see the wraiths? They're the same as what I saw down by the lake at Tichborne House. I reckons it's them what's turnin’ the crowd ugly!”
“I think you're right,” Burton replied, looking around at a sea of angry faces.
Trounce and Honesty began to force their way through the throng, dragging their prisoner after them. They were cursed and insulted as they pushed past men whose faces were contorting with fury and contempt.
“Why, hallo, Herbert!” Swinburne said, noticing the vagrant philosopher for the first time. “Exciting, isn't it? Are you resisting the influence? I am!”
“Algy!” said Burton. “What are you prattling about?”
“They're trying to make me think old flabby guts is Roger Tichborne,” his assistant replied. “I can feel them prodding at my head. But this time they can't get in!”
He raised his fists and dodged about, taking wild swipes at the air.
“Bloody spooks! You'll not get me!”
Fidget bit him again.
“Argh!”
“Stop it, you drunken ass,” Burton snapped. “Calm down. Let's make ourselves scarce before this lot get any nastier.”
Swinburne swayed. “My hat! I'm absolutely blotto,” he grumbled, fumbling for his flask.
The three of them and Fidget followed the two policemen. They weathered a worsening storm of abuse from those they passed.
One man, a big bearded fellow, stepped forward and swung a fist at Burton. The king's agent ducked beneath it and rammed his own into the man's stomach.
“Bastard!” someone yelled.
Kenealy's voice rang out over the cloth-capped heads.
“You have heard my client speak! I say again, there is a conspiracy against him! The government is attempting to prosecute a man who they know is innocent of the charges made against him! The object is clear: they wish to keep the large Tichborne estate in the hands of the Arundell and Doughty families-families that we all know possess undue influence in many sections of English society! Catholic families! Catholic, I say! Are we going to stand for it?”
“No!” the onlookers roared.
Trounce and Honesty, heaving the writhing Jeb along, broke through the edge of the crowd, with Burton, Swinburne, Spencer, and Fidget in their wake.
Burton noticed that the four young gents who'd moved away a few minutes earlier were once again enduring rough handling at the hands of thuggish men. Their hats had been knocked to the ground and stamped on, their walking canes broken. As he made to go to their aid, more men separated from the crowd and ran over to Trounce and Honesty, jumping onto them with fists flying. Trounce was struck on the back of the head by a beefily built individual. He went down. Burton ran and dived at the attacker, catching him around the waist. He lifted him clean off his feet and dashed him to the ground.
Jeb, meanwhile, his left arm still locked in Honesty's iron grip, sent his right fist arcing up toward the smaller man's chin. Honesty jerked his head back, the fist flew up past his face, and he replied by ramming his truncheon into Jeb's rib cage. The big man groaned and fell to his knees.
Trounce, struggling to his feet, caught a boot that was swinging at his face and twisted it violently. The man to whose leg it was attached pitched over.
A mean-looking fellow dug his fingers into Honesty's shoulder. Burton caught him by the collar, wrenched him around, and sent him spinning into others who were coming to join the fray. They all went down in a tangled heap.
The king's agent barked a command at Herbert Spencer: “Grab Swinburne and drag him away from here!”
Spencer made a move toward the poet but was sent staggering when a small wiry man swung a metal rod into his forehead. As the vagrant philosopher stumbled into him and they both fell to the grass, Swinburne looked up and saw that the attacker possessed a perfectly enormous nose.
“Bloody hell! It's Vincent Sneed!” he cried, for it was the man who'd been his employer when he'd masqueraded as a sweep during the Spring Heeled Jack case. “It's the Conk!”
Sneed looked down at him with a vicious light in his piggy eyes.
“What didja call me?” he hissed. “The Conk, is it? The Conk? Who the heck are you to-to-” His eyes widened. “Stone me!” he breathed. “It's you! The blinkin’ whippersnapper what left me in the lurch!”
“And gladly so, you callous blackguard!” Swinburne declared as he pushed himself to his feet. “What in God's name has prompted you to set foot outside of the East End?”
Sneed stuck out his scrawny chest and said with pride, “I'm a funnel scrubber, ain't I!”
Funnel scrubbers worked on the big Technologist rotorships, cleaning out the pipes and exhausts. The job was a step up for a lowly chimney sweep, and paid enough to get a man out of the slums and into cheap lodgings.
Sneed cast his eyes over the smaller man's smart jacket, waistcoat, and trousers. “What're you a-wearin’ them gentleman's togs for?”
“Because, Mr. Conk,” Swinburne replied, “it just so happens that I am -hic!-a gentleman, and, as such, I feel honour bound to-”
Without bothering to finish his sentence, Swinburne let out a piercing scream and charged forward with his head bent low, driving it straight into Sneed's stomach. The East Ender grunted as the wind was knocked out of him, but managed to fling his arms around the poet's waist and heaved him up, head downward.
“All right, you little rat-” he began.
“Oh no you don't!” Herbert Spencer cried, and kicked Sneed's legs from under him. The sweep fell flat on his back and Swinburne's shoulder buried itself in his groin.
“Oof!” he gasped, and as the poet rolled off him, Sneed curled into a ball and vomited onto the grass.
“Ha!” Swinburne yelled. “That'll teach you, you swine!” The poet adopted what he thought might be a boxer's stance and swayed unsteadily. “Come on! Get up so I can knock you down again!”
“Beggin’ your pardin for a-sayin’ so,” Spencer interrupted, “but you ain't got no chance against the likes o’ this scoundrel.” He grabbed Swinburne by the wrist. “So just you follow me out o’ this here affray.”
“What? No! I want to punch him on the blasted nose, Herbert! The fiend treated me foully when I was-” Swinburne's words were lost in the escalating commotion as Spencer dragged him away and off toward the edge of the crowd.
Sneed took a great gulp of air and yelled after them: “I'll get you yet, you pipsqueak! This ain't finished by a long shot! By God, I'll flay you alive!”
Burton, meanwhile, was hel
ping Detective Inspector Trounce up off his knees. “Come on, Trounce. Hey! Honesty! Leave that man! Let's go!”
“He's under arrest!” Honesty protested. His dapper appearance had been considerably dishevelled.
“He's more trouble than he's worth!” Burton shouted above the noise of the angry crowd. He bent and picked up Fidget.
Herbert came abreast of him, dragging Swinburne.
“Naargh!” the poet cried, incoherently. He broke away from the philosopher, swung his fist at nothing in particular, missed, and stumbled. Spencer bent low, scooped him up, and threw him over his shoulder.
Burton and his companions backed away from the crowd.
The workers howled abuse at them and shook their fists.
“What in God's name is happening?” Trounce gasped.
“There's a riot developing,” Burton said, “and we have to get out of it immediately. Are you all right? You took a blow to the head.”
“I know. It's aching abominably.”
“Mine, too,” Honesty noted. “But I wasn't hit.”
“Me neither, but I have a throbbing at the back of my skull, too,” said Burton.
“I'm fine,” put in Spencer. “P'raps it's me life on the streets what's given me a stronger constitution.”
They hurried out of the crowd, pushing aside swearing, threatening individuals, and hurried away from Speakers’ Corner and into Park Lane. Men poured into the streets behind them. There came the sounds of breaking glass, screams, yells, and crashes. Burton glanced back and saw a group pushing a hansom cab onto its side. A velocipede was stopped, its rider pulled off the high saddle and punched in the face.
The king's agent and his companions jogged along the pavement until they came to the corner of Edgware Road. They hastened down the wide thoroughfare. A millipede omnibus-they were now known as “omnipedes”-thundered past and the cloud belching from its sides curled across the street. Two ghostly figures formed within the vapour then faded from sight.
“Put me down,” Swinburne groaned.
Spencer placed the poet on his feet and the little man doubled over and clutched his head.
Burton held his assistant by the arm. “Is it the same pain you felt in the labyrinth at Tichborne House?”
“Yes. Pounding at my brain! I tell you, Richard, it's like they're trying to get inside of me!”
Trounce looked at the little poet. “By James, I know what he means!”
“An invisible force of some sort is trying to influence us,” Burton answered. “It succeeded before with Algy, but this time it's met with some resistance.”
Detective Inspector Honesty turned to his fellow officer. “Better summon reinforcements. Riot in progress. Could be bad.”
Trounce ran a hand over his forehead. “Of course. I'm forgetting my duties. By Jove, I can hardly think straight! Captain Burton, Detective Inspector Honesty and I had better get to work. We'll whistle for constables, see if we can get that rabble under control.”
Burton put Fidget down, clipped on the lead, then shook the two men's hands. “Very well. Good luck! And be careful.”
The Scotland Yard men dashed away, and the king's agent turned to the vagrant philosopher.
“Thank you, Herbert, you helped us out of a tight squeeze. What were you doing there, anyway?”
“Workin’ the crowd, Boss.”
“You mean begging?”
“Yus.”
“But you're gainfully employed now!”
“More or less, but I like to keep me hand in, so to speak. Waste o’ time, though. Them what was a-givin’ were givin’ to the Claimant, not to me!” He looked down at Swinburne, who was leaning heavily on Burton for support. “How you feelin’, lad?”
“I need a brandy.”
Burton snorted. “I think you've had quite enough!”
“Bloody Vincent Sneed, of all people!” the poet moaned.
“Herbert, you'd better come home with us. I'll dress that wound on your forehead,” Burton said.
They moved along Edgware Road then turned into Seymour Place. People ran past, all going in the same direction. Velocipedes and hansoms clattered by, too, pumping steam into the already laden atmosphere as they fled from the disturbance. Burton clearly saw a well-dressed wraith materialise in the vapours and drift across the cobbles to where a chaunter was leaning against a lamppost. The man's eyes were closed and he seemed oblivious to both the approaching phantom and the panic around him as he mournfully sang “Molly Malone:” “She was a fishmonger,
But sure ‘twas no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,
And they each wheeled their barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, ‘Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o!’”
The wraith hovered around the man. For a moment the apparition became almost completely opaque, taking on the appearance of a tall, stooped bearded man, then it faded from sight. The chaunter paused, winced, shook his head, then continued singing, but his song had changed, though he didn't seem to realise it: “Give me the man of honest heart,
I like no two-faced dodger,
But one who nobly speaks his part,
Like Kenealy does for Roger!
One honest lawyer's found at last,
Who'll ne'er desert his client,
He knows right well the cause is just,
He stands up like a giant. “Then say men say,
Be you low or rich born,
And have fair play,
For Kenealy and for Tichborne.”
“Aye!” a passing costermonger cried. “Give a cheer for brave Sir Roger!”
Various voices answered his call: “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”
“Bastard upper-crust bastards!” a milk deliveryman yelled. “Bastard bloomin’ bastards!”
He bent, pulled a loose cobble from the road, and threw it through a house window.
Burton and Herbert Spencer, dragging Swinburne and Fidget along, entered Montagu Place and mounted the steps of number 14.
The front door was open. A table had been overturned in the hallway, pictures on the wall were hanging askew, and young Oscar Wilde, the newspaper seller, was picking pieces of a shattered vase up from the floor inside. His face was scratched, as if gouged by fingernails.
Muffled screams and thuds sounded from the cupboard beneath the stairs.
“What's been happening here, Quips?” Burton exclaimed, plonking Swinburne onto a hall chair.
“Oh, there you are, Captain,” said Oscar. “I was passing by and heard some sort of brouhaha from your house. As you know, my own business always bores me to death, I prefer other people's, so I poked my nose in. It seems your little maid has lost her mind. She was attacking Mrs. Angell, so she was.”
“What? Young Elsie? Is Mrs. Angell all right? Where is she?”
“Don't be worrying yourself, Captain, she's fine and dandy. She took herself downstairs to rest awhile. I said I'd clean up the mess.”
“Thank you, Quips. You're a good lad.” Burton set the table upright. “You locked Elsie in the cupboard, I take it?”
“To be sure. ‘Twas the only way to keep the young madam from wrecking the entire house. Phew! What a wildcat!”
Burton sighed. “Well, she can stay in there until she calms down. I'd ask what the devil got into her, but I suspect the answer would be Tichborne!”
“Aye, something of the sort. She was screaming incoherently, but from what I could make out, she seems to have acquired a bee in her bonnet about the suppression of the working classes.”
“Tichborne isn't working class,” Swinburne mumbled.
“You're right there, Mr. Swinburne! But the man who says he's Sir Roger most certainly is, don't you think?”
“It seems obvious,” said Burton, “but a surprising number of people don't see it that way. If what I witnessed today is any indication, three-quarters of the population are supporting a man they know is a liar and charlatan. It's utter lunacy
!”
“Ah well, now I know you haven't been affected,” Oscar responded. “To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity!”
A lgernon Swinburne pulled his legs up onto the saddlebag armchair and crossed them. He accepted a cup of coffee-his second-from Admiral Lord Nelson, rested the saucer on his ankles, and gazed down into the liquid.
“Whatever that headache I had was, it's been replaced by a different one. A hangover. Strange to say, that's actually a relief!”
Herbert Spencer, sitting opposite, his eyes fixed on the clockwork valet, nodded distractedly, and took a sip from his own cup.
Burton, ever the observer, was standing by the window looking down at the street. He saw isolated instances of vandalism and misbehaviour but, in the main, the riot had bypassed Montagu Place, though distant shouts and crashes suggested that it was in full swing elsewhere.
“I daresay the food helped, Algy. It was good of Mrs. Angell to cook for us after her ordeal.”
“She's everything her name suggests,” Swinburne responded. “I feel much happier now that my stomach is full.”
“Here's something else to cheer you up. I meant to tell you earlier but it slipped my mind. There's a second rotorchair in my garage. A gift to you from His Majesty.”
“My hat! A present from the king! How splendid!”
“Don't get too excited. We're going to have to be cautious about using the flying machines during this Tichborne business. Our opponent has already demonstrated an uncanny ability to deprive springs of their elasticity, thus disabling clocks, wind-up lanterns, and the hammer mechanisms of gun triggers. Since rotorchair engines employ spring pistons, I think we'll stick with swans for the time being.”
“Blast! I have a new toy and I can't play with it!”
“We may have to drop our ideas about John Speke, too. Whatever is going on, it seems less and less likely to me that he's behind it.”
“Why so?”
“Because what began as the theft of diamonds has broadened into some sort of political agitation. That's not John's style at all. He's far too selfish a man to care about such matters.”
“Then who? Edward Kenealy?”
Herbert Spencer interrupted: “No, lad. Back at the house, after you left, Kenealy was a-holdin’ seances to consult with Lady Mabella. If you ask me, the ghost is the one pullin’ the strings.”