The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (22 page)

Stopping in front of number 14, the explorer regarded the front door with a sense of unfamiliarity that made no sense to him. He slipped his finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket, only to find that he'd somehow misplaced his key. Before he could step to the door and knock on it, it opened. A boy, about fifteen years old, emerged, saw Burton, stopped, and gaped.

“Ye've come home, so ye have!”

Bram Stoker.

A child! Of course. Why would he be otherwise?

“Yes, I've come home, Bram. You look different.”

The boy straightened and squared his shoulders. “I've grown six inches! It's Mrs. Angell's dinners!”

“Good lad. Are you on your way out?”

“To buy Sangappa polish. Mrs. A wants to give the leather chairs in the dining room a going over, so she does.”

Burton retrieved a few coins from his pocket and handed them over. “Here. Treat yourself to the latest issue of that penny dreadful you like so much.”

“
The Baker Street Detective
! Crikey! Thank you, guv'nor! By the way, did Mr. Fogg come back with you?”

It took a moment for Burton to remember that Fogg—Macallister Fogg—was the fictional detective featured in
The Baker Street Detective
and that Bram persistently confused him with William Trounce.

“Yes, he did. Safe and sound.”

Something else came to mind. The boy belonged to an organisation called the Whispering Web, formed by young waifs and strays, through which messages could be sent and information received at the cost of just a coin or two. From orphan to urchin, passing from mouth to ear the length and breadth of the empire, what communiqués lost in accuracy—the phenomenon known as “Chinese whispers” was an inevitable problem—was made up for by the astonishing speed at which they travelled. It was a fine, though not widely known, alternative to the Post Office.

“I say, Bram, may I add an errand to that which you already have? It'll earn you some toffees to suck on while you're immersed in Mr. Fogg's latest.”

“Ask and I'll obey!” the boy answered with a wide grin.

“Put word out on the web. A rotorship named
Orpheus
has been stolen. I'd like to know where it was taken. Also, Miss Raghavendra and Mr. Krishnamurthy—you remember them?—were forced aboard an ornithopter crewed by Babbage mechanisms. Perhaps it was seen landing.”

“Cripes! A new adventure, sir?”

“I sincerely hope not. How are things here?”

“All quiet, 'cept—” Bram stepped out onto the pavement and pointed up to a window. “That's been a-tapping at your study window for the past hour or so.”

Burton looked up and saw Pox on the sill. He drew the last of his coins from his pocket.

“Then we'd better let it in and give it somewhere to sit. Task number three: visit a pet shop and buy a perch of the tall, free-standing variety.”

“Do ye intend to keep the thing?”

“I do. The bird and I are already acquainted.”

Bram took the money, saluted, and scampered off, whistling merrily as he went.

Burton entered the house and closed the front door. He placed his cane in an elephant-foot holder, put his topper on the rack, and hung up his overcoat. He lifted a small handbell from the hall table and jiggled it. At the end of the hallway, a grandfather clock countered the tinkling with a chime to mark the half hour.

He examined the pictures on the wall. One was a daguerreotype of a young man in an early police uniform. Mrs. Angell's late husband. Another, a tiny oil painting, portrayed Edward Burton at the age of about twenty-five, unrecognisably handsome and slim.

A voice rose from the stairs that led down to the basement. “Who's that what rung the bell? Is that you Elsie Carpenter? That there bell ain't for the likes of you. I'm the mistress o' this house, so there'll be no summoning by bell 'less it's me what does the summoning!”

Elsie Carpenter. The maid. Comes in three times a week.

“It's only me, Mother Angell,” Burton called.

There came a loud screech. “Lord have mercy! The master's come home!”

From the door to the left of the grandfather clock, an elderly, white-haired, and wide-hipped woman appeared, saw Burton, threw her apron up over her face, and shrieked, “Home and healthy! Mercy me! Goodness gracious! Home and healthy! Not skinny as a skellington and yellow as a Chinaman like last time!” She lowered her apron and peered at him. “P'raps you avoided the jungle, like what I advised?”

“It was rather a different sort of jungle, Mrs. A.”

She rushed forward and embraced him, then stood back and scrutinised his face. “Have you been eating properly?”

“Yes, but I haven't had any lunch. I'm famished.”

“There's freshly made bread, cold pork pie, cheese, and pickles. I don't 'spose you've learned how to eat at a dining table like a civilised human. Bring it up to the study, shall I, like always?”

“Yes, please.”

“Too much time in the company of savages, that's your problem.”

“You've met my brother?”

“Tish tosh, that's no way to talk about family. Up the stairs with you. The fire's already lit.”

“It is? Why?”

“I lights it every day. Don't want the damp to infect your books, do you?”

“Most assuredly not. Thank you. It's good to be home. Very good.”

“Get away with you. Stop blocking my hallway.” She flapped her apron at him. There was a tear in her eye. “I'll bring Fidget up.”

Burton climbed the stairs and, upon reaching the landing, opened a door to his right and entered the study, peering around it with such curiosity that he almost felt like an intruder in someone else's home.

“I was away for longer during the Nile expedition,” he muttered, “and didn't feel like this upon my return. What on earth has got into me?”

He saw three desks piled high with books and papers. Swords and daggers were affixed to the wall over the fireplace, with spears and guns displayed in the alcoves to either side of the chimney breast. His worn and cracked university boxing gloves hung by their laces from the corner of the mantelpiece. A bureau was positioned between the two tall sash widows, while bookcases—warped beneath the weight of books—were flush against the walls. An old saddlebag armchair stood by the fireplace, with other chairs and occasional tables scattered here and there about the chamber.

It was all as it should be and all terribly and unaccountably strange.

Crossing to the window, he slid up the sash. With a squawked “Flubber jockey!” the little bird flew in, perched on the back of a chair, and got to work preening its bright feathers.

Burton went to one of the desks.

“
Vikram and the Vampire
,” he said, reading the title of a manuscript to which annotations were apparently being added. “I've already written that, surely?”

Without warning, a further wave of mental exhaustion washed over him. He removed his jacket and waistcoat and threw them onto a chair, unclipped and cast aside his collar, undid the topmost buttons of his shirt, then sat, unlaced and kicked off his boots. He saw his
jubbah
—the gown he'd worn during his pilgrimage to Mecca—slung over the back of the saddle­bag armchair. He took it up, shrugged into it, and settled at one of the desks, taking a sheet of blank paper from a drawer and pulling a pen from its holder. He dipped the nib into an inkpot and began to write.

Thirty minutes later, he completed the report, an account of all that had occurred since he'd departed the Venetia, including the confession that he'd withheld
The History of the Future
from his brother. Edward would, of course, be beside himself with fury.

He folded the paper and sealed it in an envelope upon which he wrote
Burton, Suite 5
.

Stretching, the explorer rose, returned to the armchair by the fire, and dropped into it, giving a grunt of satisfaction as his hand habitually fell to a box of Manila cheroots on the hearth.

An hour later, he was smoking his third cigar, a plate containing nothing but breadcrumbs and a smear of pickle juice was on a table beside him, and next to that, there stood a bottle of port.

Fidget, his basset hound, was stretched out on the rug at his feet.

Pox, with his head folded under a wing, mumbled, “Muck snipe. Dribblewits. Twerp.”

Mrs. Angell had not been impressed with the parakeet.

The explorer raised his glass to his lips and sipped. He was unable to gather his thoughts into anything resembling coherence. His mental processes had seized up.

The afternoon eased into evening.

Mrs. Angell took the plate and delivered a pot of coffee.

The room darkened.

Burton drifted in and out of a light doze. He was half aware of the red firelight reflecting on the ceiling—twice, he'd dreamed it to be the canvas roof of a tent in Berbera—and of Mr. Grub's sing-song appeals for customers, which penetrated the windowpanes, though only faintly, being mostly drowned out by the clatter and clank of the traffic.

“Hot baked 'tators! Hot baked 'tators for 'em what wants 'em! Hear the word! Hot baked 'tators! The rapture is nigh! The rapture is nigh!”

Red ceiling. Red canvas. Red leaves. Red flowers. Red sky as the sun set over the Gulf of Trieste.

Steinhaueser. It wasn't Steinhaueser. Why do I keep thinking it was Steinhaueser? Our live-in doctor was Baker. Geoffrey—no, Grenfell—Baker. And not a pond but a water barrel.

The thought flickered briefly then died, its significance instantly lost.

A tap on the door roused him. Fidget looked up and gave a little whine.

“Come,” Burton called drowsily. He stifled a yawn.

Bram poked his head into the room. “Perch.”

The explorer waved at a corner. “Thank you, lad. Over there will do.”

The boy entered, positioned Pox's perch as indicated, then said to Burton, “Priory Park, Crouch End.”

“Hmm? What about it?”

“The
Orpheus
was found abandoned there. Spotted from the air by its own captain, so it was.”

Burton sat up. “By Lawless? Ah! Good! No doubt he'll fly her back to the power station.”

“Aye, sir, already has. No sign of Miss Raghavendra and Mr. Krishnamurthy, I'm afraid. Can I be a-doin' anything else for ye?”

“There's an envelope on the desk. Will you see that it's delivered to the Venetia Hotel?”

“Rightio.”

“Good lad. Nothing else. I'm going to turn in.”

“It's fair early, so it is.”

“I know, but I can hardly keep my eyes open. I think I must be having a reaction.”

“A reaction, is it? To coming home?”

Burton heaved himself to his feet. “To the end of a very long journey, Bram.”

“Sleep well, then, Cap'n. Goodnight to ye!”

The boy took the envelope from the desk, and withdrew.

Burton stood, crossed to Pox, prodded him with a forefinger, then continued on to the window and opened it.

“Ack!” the bird yelped. “Bollocks!”

“Message for Detective Inspector Trounce. This is Burton. Clockwork men have abducted Sadhvi and Maneesh.
The History of the Future
was also taken. I'll drop by Scotland Yard tomorrow. Message ends.”

The parakeet dived out of the window. Burton left it open enough to allow for the messenger's return then stepped out of his study and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.

“Why didn't I send that message earlier?” he mumbled. “Careless of me. I must be getting forgetful in my old age.”

Upon entering the chamber, he stood by the bed with his eyes half closed and waited for someone to come to his assistance. Thirty seconds passed before he realised what he was doing and wondered why in the name of Allah he was doing it.

He undressed, got into bed, and was asleep almost immediately.

His slumber was turbulent. He groaned and thrashed and called out Isabel's name, but he didn't wake until eight in the morning and did so feeling refreshed and with no recollection of his dreams.

Sitting up, he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead, took a glass of water from his bedside table, gulped it down, then lay back and rested for a further half hour.

He knew he'd come from a different time where he'd possessed a different body, but he identified the time as 2203 and the previous body as a brass machine.

Old age and Trieste did not occur to him.

MR. DISRAELI THROWS A SPANNER IN THE WORKS