by Mark Hodder
Walpole, his face framed by whiskers and scored with a myriad of small wrinkles, straightened his back and said, in his characteristically terse manner, “Certainly. My diaries. Sir Richard, I’m rather a fastidious diary-keeper. It’s a discipline I’ve observed since childhood. During the hour before bed, I always record the day’s events and my opinions of them. I write in considerable detail, and have done so since 1822.”
He paused and glanced at Burton as if expecting to be challenged. The explorer, who was feeling completely bewildered, kept his mouth closed.
Walpole continued, “In the aftermath of The Assassination, I felt the need to consult what I had written during the months preceding it. I do not know why. Perhaps I was looking for some rhyme or reason for the crime. What I read in those pages made perfect sense. I remembered everything I saw reported. Yet—” He paused. “Yet something was amiss. I found myself hunting for accounts of other events—but exactly what events eluded me. What was I searching for? Why did I feel that material was missing? I looked back over three years’ worth of diaries before what I read started to feel complete.”
Walpole’s lips twitched as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t find the appropriate words.
“Thank you, Mr. Walpole,” the king said. “Yours is a typical example of what has come to be known as the Great Amnesia, which everyone inside the British Empire experienced to some degree or other. The consensus is that, during Victoria’s three-year reign, events occurred that were forgotten by everyone the instant she was killed, and which have somehow left no evidence behind them.” The king laid both hands palms down on the tabletop with his fingers spread. “It is also generally accepted that the Great Amnesia gave rise to the New Renaissance—a sensational outpouring of inventiveness by engineers and scientists throughout the length and breadth of the Empire.”
“Led by Isambard Kingdom Brunel,” Burton murmured.
“Quite right. But there is more to it than that. What very few people know is that, from its very start, the New Renaissance has been guided by a denizen of the Afterlife.”
Burton pressed his lips together. A sense of unreality crept over him. The world wasn’t making any sense.
The king sighed. “You’ll remember that, after the queen’s death, the foreign secretary of the time, Lord Palmerston, attempted to backdate the Regency Act to allow His Royal Highness—” he gestured toward Prince Albert, “—to accede to the throne. This in response to public opposition to my father, Ernest Augustus the First of Hanover, who, though the rightful heir, was believed to be as mad as his father, King George the Third.” Reaching out his right hand, the monarch groped until he touched Benjamin Disraeli’s forearm. “Prime Minister?”
Disraeli said, “Your friend Monckton Milnes, Sir Richard, has been rather more involved in affairs of state than you know. In 1840, a young prognosticator named Countess Sabina Lacusta approached him with the news that a spirit—Abdu El Yezdi—wished him to work against Lord Palmerston. Monckton Milnes should begin, the spirit advised, by talking to me.”
The prime minister reached for the jug of water, topped up his and Burton’s glasses, and took a swig.
“I was not long in politics at the time,” he continued, “and had lacked focus up until Palmerston started to play fast and loose with the constitution. I’d no objection at all to His Royal Highness—” he tipped his head respectfully toward Prince Albert, “—taking the throne, but I didn’t trust Palmerston’s motives. I felt he was manoeuvring himself into what could easily become an unassailable position of power.”
“How so?” Burton interrupted.
Prince Albert murmured, “With good health I haff never been blessed. The pressures that His Majesty bears so well would, I think, kill me.”
“And if His Royal Highness had become king,” Disraeli resumed, “then passed away before remarrying and fathering an heir—”
“Which I had, unt haff, no intention of doing,” Prince Albert added.
“—there would’ve been no one to follow him. Britain may well have slipped into republicanism with, in all probability, Palmerston as its president.”
“Ah,” Burton said.
“Ah,” the prime minister echoed. “So I founded the Young England political group through which to organise a campaign against Palmerston, and it succeeded in no small degree because Abdu El Yezdi persuaded Richard Monckton Milnes to secretly fund it.”
There came a lengthy silence.
When Burton—who’d known nothing of his friend’s involvement in Palmerston’s downfall—responded to this revelation, his voice came as a hoarse whisper. “Do you mean to tell me that the history of this country has been manipulated by a—by a—by a ghost?”
“More so than you can possibly imagine,” Disraeli answered. “As you know, when Palmerston was defeated, he attempted an armed insurrection, but he and his supporters—led by two men, Damien Burke and Gregory Hare—were forced into retreat. They holed up in secret chambers beneath the Tower of London, and on the thirtieth of October, 1841, a pitched battle ensued. It destroyed the Tower’s Grand Armoury and caused a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of damage, but Palmerston and his supporters were finally flushed out. Burke and Hare escaped. We have long assumed they fled the country. Palmerston was captured, tried as a traitor, and executed.”
Disraeli regarded Burton through hooded eyes. His right forefinger tapped three times, the fingernail going clack clack clack on the tabletop. “In the wake of those events, Melbourne’s government fell. I was elected head of the Conservative Party and, soon after, prime minister. I immediately made Countess Sabina my first minister of mediumistic affairs. Through her—and since ’fifty-six through her successor—I have received the counsel of Abdu El Yezdi. At his behest, I established the Department of Guided Science, and to counterbalance it, the Ministry of Arts and Culture. I gave Brunel access to the countess, and El Yezdi inspired him to build Battersea Power Station and the many varieties of steam transportation that our Empire so relies upon. The spirit also advised Babbage, Gooch, and Nightingale, among others. The marvellous mechanical and medical advancements we have made these past two decades are all due to his influence.”
Prince Albert interjected, “I, also, by him haff been guided. The—what is the word? Sagacity?—attributed to me as architect of the Central German Confederation, unt of the Alliance that will be formalised on November the eleventh, belongs, in fact, to our friendly phantom.”
“There’s more,” Disraeli said, “but that’s enough to demonstrate to you how crucial this inhabitant of the Afterlife has been in our political and cultural affairs; and it was he, via the minister of mediumistic affairs, who warned Mr. Brunel of his imminent stroke.”
Burton lifted his glass with a shaking hand, drank, spluttered, and said, “By God, don’t you have anything stronger?”
King George smiled. “Mr. Rossetti, there’s a small cabinet between the windows, yes?”
“There is, Your Majesty,” Rossetti replied.
“I believe there’s a bottle of port inside it. Would you fetch it, please?”
Rossetti did so, and moments later each man had emptied his glass into the water jug and refilled it with the fortified wine.
A few minutes passed while they sipped and thought and waited for Burton to regain his composure.
His heart was hammering.
It was wrong. All wrong!
Yet, he knew—instantly—that it was true. As incredible as it sounded, it made sense. It explained the unprecedented and almost supernatural progress the Empire had made during the past twenty years.
Almost supernatural?
“So,” he finally said, “you fear that someone is abducting the people the ghost has advised?”
Disraeli answered, “The situation is more serious even than that. Abdu El Yezdi has consulted with us nearly every day for twenty years. On Thursday, after giving the warning concerning Brunel, he fell silent. Every mediumistic attempt to contact him
has failed. In short, we are concerned that he, like the others, has gone missing.”
The king reached for Burton’s arm again. “I want to make you my special agent, Sir Richard. I feel you have the unique skills required for the role. I will give you authority over the police, unlimited funds to draw on, and pay far and away above what you’d receive as a consul. Say yes, then begin your first assignment—locate Abdu El Yezdi and find out why our people are being taken.”
Burton snorted his derision. “Hunt a bloody ghost? In the name of Allah, I have no idea what madness has gripped you all, but I won’t be a part of it!”
“Sir!” Disraeli barked. “Have a care—you’re speaking to the king! Remember your place and mind your language!”
“My place is Damascus.” Burton turned to address Lord Stanley. “Sir, I formally request the consulship. I am ideally suited to the post and will do the government much greater service there than I will chasing wraiths here.”
“Denied,” the foreign secretary snapped. “It’s not available. If you want a consulship, I can offer Santos at best.”
Burton curled his fingers into a fist. “Brazil? That’s ridiculous. Put me where I can be of most use!”
“We are offering to do so,” the prime minister said. “You can be of most use as His Majesty’s agent.”
“I am not—” Burton began.
The monarch interrupted. “Everyone leave. I shall speak with Sir Richard alone.”
“But—” Disraeli protested.
“Out!”
The men stood, bowed, and left the room.
The king waited until he heard the door click shut then said, “You are angry.”
“Your Majesty, I am to be married. I want only to settle down with my wife. She and I both feel an affinity for Syria. Isn’t it sufficient that I located the source of the Nile? I’m tired of adventures and danger and—blast it!—I don’t believe in bloody spooks. Enough is enough.”
“What if the cause of Abdu El Yezdi’s silence threatens everything your friend Monckton Milnes has helped to establish?”
Burton raised his hands to his head and massaged his temples. He was confused by the interconnectedness of apparently random events. Oliphant had killed Stroyan in the first seconds of Thursday. The aurora borealis had appeared on Thursday. Brunel’s stroke had been foreseen on Thursday. Abdu El Yezdi had fallen silent on Thursday.
And The Assassination.
The Great Amnesia had been recognised just after it. The dead, including El Yezdi, had—supposedly—started communicating with the living around the same time. The New Renaissance, he’d just learned, was a consequence of that. And “Macallister Fogg” had wanted to know where Burton was on that precise date!
Why? Why? What the hell has any of this got to do with me?
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he said. “A missing ghost, Your Majesty? It’s the height of absurdity.”
The monarch shrugged. “In your opinion, but nevertheless, the fact is, Sir Richard, that when I said I want to make you my special agent, I wasn’t asking. If you have an issue with the concept of the Afterlife, I suggest you make the corporeal your starting point.”
“How so?”
“Witnesses have described the two men who tried to take Brunel but were stopped by the police constables. We are certain they were Burke and Hare.”
The haze in the Strand was saturated with yellow dust. Bright sunlight penetrated it and made the air such a blinding gold that Burton had to walk with his eyes half-closed, peering through his lashes.
The thoroughfare was almost impassable. A huge channel had been dug along its complete length, and traffic and pedestrians were forced to squeeze through the narrow spaces to either side of it. Litter-crabs were in abundance, their bulky forms adding to the chaos, their attempts to clean up the dust doing more to spread it than otherwise.
The giant ditch was plainly visible from any point along the famous street, but this didn’t prevent an urchin from trying his luck. He was hollering, “A penny a look! A penny a look! See Mr. Bazalgette’s sewer afore it’s closed over! A penny a look! The greatest sight you’ll ever behold! The eighth wonder of the bloomin’ world!” and as Burton passed him, the youngster said, “How about you, sir? Won’t you spare a penny to see the DOGS’ latest creation? Last chance! They start rebuilding the road over it tomorrow!”
Burton dug a hand into his trouser pocket, retrieved a coin, and flipped it to the lad, who was standing on his right. As he did so, he felt fingers sliding into his jacket from the left. He viciously jabbed out an elbow and caught the pickpocket in the teeth. The man, hideously deformed by rickets and smallpox, let out a bleat and retreated into the crowd.
The explorer moved on, ruminating that the boy and man were probably in cahoots, the one distracting while the other dipped. He thought about the African natives who’d employed similar tactics to steal from his safari. What was considered crime in London was practically a sport in Africa. On that continent, hunger and want justified any action, and successful pilfering was more likely to be celebrated than punished. Here, the rich tried very hard to pretend that poverty didn’t exist. To acknowledge it would be to admit that the greatest Empire on Earth was deeply faulted. Better to turn a blind eye, and make illegal the only solutions the poor could find to their dilemma.
He arrived at the Royal Venetia Hotel, located just a few doors along from the Theatre Royal, entered, and allowed a concierge to brush the dust from his clothes. Then he climbed the ornate staircase to the fifth floor and passed along a corridor to Suite Five.
Burton eyed the door for a moment before reluctantly raising his cane and rapping on it. Almost immediately, the portal swung open to reveal a clockwork man.
“I’m here to see the minister.”
The mechanism bowed, moved aside, and rang, “He is expecting you, Sir Richard. This way, please. I am Grumbles, his new valet.”
Burton followed the contraption through a parlour and into a large library. The room was all books; they lined every wall from floor to ceiling, teetered in tall stacks on the deep red carpet, and were strewn haphazardly over the various tables, chairs, and sideboards. In the midst of them, by the window, a giant of a man, wrapped in a threadbare red dressing gown, occupied an enormous wing-backed armchair of scuffed and cracked leather. His hair was brown and untidy, and from it a deep scar emerged, running jaggedly down the broad forehead to bisect the left eyebrow. His eyes, which followed Burton as he entered, were intensely black. The nose, obviously once broken, had reset crookedly, and the mouth—the upper lip cleft by another scar—was permanently twisted into a superior sneer. It was a face every bit as brutal in appearance as Burton’s own, but the heavy jaw was buried beneath bulging jowls, and the neck was lost in rolls of fat which undulated down into a vast belly sagging over tree-trunk-sized legs. The man was so corpulent that, despite the two walking sticks propped against one of the tables, it was impossible to conceive of him in motion.
Grumbles moved to a corner and stood still, quietly ticking.
“So you’ve finally deigned to visit me,” the fat man said. His eyes flicked toward a chair, indicating that Burton should occupy it. “It’s been four years.”
“I’ve been busy and you’d lost your mind,” Burton responded, moving a pile of books aside before sitting.
“I was seriously injured, and my mind was being—shall we say —rearranged.”
“As was your stomach, evidently. How could you possibly have put on so much weight in such a short period? I can hardly see you beneath all that blubber.”
“Movement has been difficult for me, Dick. I never properly recovered from my paralysis, and you weren’t there to help when I needed it.”
“I was wounded, too, if you remember. I’d received a spear through my face. My palate was split. I couldn’t speak properly, and you weren’t speaking at all.”
“I was listening. Do you want a drink, or are you too hung-over after getting sozzled
with Monckton Milnes? I have some rather fine Alton Ale.”
“Yes, I’m hung-over; and yes, I’ll have a glass. Have you been spying on me, Edward?”
The minister waggled his fingers at Grumbles and pointed toward a sideboard.
“It’s my job to know what people of significance are up to, though in your case, I could have guessed that it was getting drunk.”
“I’ve become significant?”
“In so far as you haggled with the king.”
“Word travels fast.”
“In my direction, yes, that’s true.”
The clockwork man moved a small table to Burton’s side and placed a glass of ale upon it. He crossed to his master and served him the same before returning to his place in the corner.
The minister raised his glass. “Enjoy it while you can. This will be a rare commodity before too long. Bazalgette will soon be digging through the East End, and the Alton Brewery’s London warehouse is right in his path. The disruption will require it to be emptied of its stock for a month or two.”
“I know it’s one of your favourite subjects, but I didn’t come here to talk about Alton Ale.”
“Of course not. Tell me, then—what bargain did you make with His Majesty?”
Burton took a swig and said, “I agreed to undertake the investigation on the condition that if I find a satisfactory explanation for the ghost’s silence—or can at least locate those who’ve gone missing—I’d be rewarded with the consulship of Damascus. My terms were accepted.”
The fat man grunted. “So you’ve come to visit your brother to find out what his role is in all of this?”
“I knew you’d become obsessed with spiritualism and I knew you were working for the government, but I had no conception that you were so intimately involved until a few hours ago.”
Edward Burton nodded. His eyes remained fixed on those of his older sibling. “Whatever you conceive, my part in it is even greater than that. For fifteen years, every government policy was passed through Countess Sabina for review by Abdu El Yezdi. It exhausted her. She retired. Now it all comes to me. I am the central exchange. The government is filled with specialists, but my specialism is omniscience. There are occasions when it would be fair to claim that I am the British government.”