The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi (15 page)

“I appear to have adapted to it, Mr. Grub.”

He continued into Gloucester Place, waved for a cab, and as its burly driver came into view, exclaimed, “You again!”

The hansom crunched to a standstill beside him and Montague Penniforth pushed goggles up from his eyes onto his forehead, looked down, removed a pipe from his mouth, and said, “Hallo hallo! Fancy that! It's Cap'n Burton 'imself, as I live an' bloomin' well breathe!”

“Are you following me, Mr. Penniforth?”

“Not at all, guv'nor, it's blessed chance, that's what it is; another blinkin' coincidence. Hop in. Where you hoff to?”

“The British Museum.”

As he climbed into the cabin, Burton cast a searching and suspicious glance at the driver. Penniforth, though sitting, was plainly very tall and so solid he might have been carved from granite. Burton had once been described as having the physique of a bull, but even if he'd been in full health—which he certainly wasn't—he doubted he'd last long in a confrontation with this man.

Who are you, Mr. Penniforth? What are you up to?

The hansom rattled into Baker Street, navigated the traffic down to Oxford Street, then spent forty minutes traversing that hectic thoroughfare until it came to Great Russell Street. Burton passed the journey reading the newspaper. As the street Arab had proclaimed, over the course of the past week twelve mediums had been found dead, apparently from heart failure. All were discovered with a look of horror frozen on their faces, cause unknown.

The cab drew to a halt outside the famous museum.

A breeze had got up, and when Burton stepped down onto the pavement, he found the air had cleared somewhat but the temperature had risen.

He wiped sweat from his brow.

“Aye, guv'nor,” Penniforth observed as the explorer counted out his coins. “It's goin' to be another scorcher. Been the 'ottest summer I can remember. Will I wait for you?”

Burton handed over payment and said, “No, that won't be necessary, thank you. But I have it in mind that we'll meet again, Mr. Penniforth.” He flashed his eyes meaningfully at the cab driver. His gaze was met with a guileless grin.

“Could be so,” Penniforth said. “London hain't Africa, is it? Crowded, aye, guv'nor, but small enough.” He applied his teeth to one of the coins, winked, pocketed it, then took hold of his vehicle's tiller, shouted, “Gee-up, Daisy!” squeezed the accelerator lever, and went chugging away.

Burton watched him go.

He spent the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon sitting at a wide mahogany desk in the museum's circular reading room. He searched countless Arabian and Indian texts but found not a single reference to Abdu El Yezdi. Whomever the spirit had been when alive, he'd evidently made no imprint worth recording. Burton found that rather unlikely. Surely a ghost who managed to so affect the greatest Empire in history must, in life, have possessed enough influence to be noticed?

He was on the point of leaving when, acting on impulse, he returned to his seat and asked an attendant to bring him material relating to The Assassination.

It didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. On the 10th of June 1840, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had been taking a carriage ride through Green Park. Eighteen-year-old Edward Oxford had stepped out of the crowd of onlookers, shot at the queen, and missed. An unknown individual, who bore some physical resemblance to the gunman, tackled him. In the struggle, the young lunatic's second flintlock had gone off. The queen was hit in the head and died instantly. The unidentified man pushed Oxford to the ground, accidentally killing him, then took to his heels. A police constable, William Trounce, pursued him into a thicket at the northwestern corner of the park, where he'd found him inexplicably dead, his neck broken. The man, known as “the Mystery Hero,” had never been identified, his demise never explained.

Burton wondered whether the Mystery Hero and El Yezdi were one and the same. The spirit had started communicating soon after The Assassination, so may well have died around the same time. The theory had a nice symmetry to it, but unfortunately the dead man was plainly English, which made the Arabian name somewhat unlikely.

He left the museum and strolled along St. Martin's Lane to Brundleweed's. Frustratingly, the jeweller's was still closed. Burton wondered when he was going to see Isabel's engagement ring. He peered through the metal grille protecting the shop's window. All appeared in order inside—clean, with items on display and tools set out neatly on the workbenches.

He continued on to the RGS. By the time he arrived there, he was perspiring freely and cursing the absurd restrictions of so-called civilised clothing. Having worn nothing but a loose cotton shirt, trousers, and a straw hat throughout his time in Africa, his collar now felt like a noose, his jacket like a cage, and his topper like a crown of thorns.

He went into the club room, stood at the bar, guzzled a refreshing glass of soda water sans alcohol, chatted with a quietly spoken fellow member named Richard Spruce, then left the building, crossed the road, and entered Scotland Yard.

He approached J. D. Pepperwick's desk.

“Again?” the clerk exclaimed.

“Again,” Burton confirmed. “Is Detective Inspector Slaughter available? I'd like to speak with him, if possible.”

“Do you have an appointment, Captain Burton?”

“I have this.” Burton produced a small card—issued to him by Spencer Walpole—upon which certain words were printed, a certain seal stamped, and a certain signature scrawled.

Pepperwick took it, read it, and gaped. “I say! You're an important fellow!” He hesitated a moment, then turned, reached up to a bracket of speaking tubes, lifted the lid of the one marked
D. I. Slaughter
, and pulled the tube free.

“There's a gentleman to see you, sir,” he said into it. “Captain Richard—” He stopped, looked at the card again, and corrected himself. “I beg your pardon, Captain
Sir
Richard Burton.” He put the tube to his ear, then a few seconds later spoke into it again. “Yes, that's right, sir, the Livingstone chap. He has, um, special authorisation.” He listened, responded, “At once, sir,” replaced the device, and smiled at Burton. “The inspector will see you straight away. Second floor, office number fourteen. The stairs are through there, sir.” He pointed to the left.

Burton said, “Thank you,” made for the indicated doors, and pushed through them. The wooden staircase beyond needed brushing and creaked as he climbed it. He reached the second floor and moved along a panelled corridor, passing closed rooms until he came to the one marked 14. He knocked.

“Come!” a voice called.

Burton entered and found himself in a high-ceilinged square room, well illuminated by a very tall window. Filing cabinets lined the wall to his left. A big portrait of Sir Robert Peel hung on the chimney-breast to the right. Two armchairs were arranged in front of the fireplace. There was a heavy desk beneath the window. Detective Inspector Slaughter, a slender and narrow-faced man with a tremendously wide, black, and bushy moustache and thick eyebrows, stepped out from behind it and strode forward, his hand outstretched.

“Sir Richard! Congratulations! The Nile! Splendid! Slaughter's the name, sir. Sidney Slaughter, at your service.”

Burton, trying hard to ignore the line of white liquid that decorated the detective's moustache, handed him his authorisation, which Slaughter examined with interest before exclaiming, “Stone the crows! His Majesty's signature, hey?”

“Indeed so. I've been given special dispensation to look into the Babbage, Gooch, Brunel, and Nightingale abductions.”

“Oh ho! Have you, now! Well, to be frank, I'm utterly foxed by the whole affair and would appreciate any help you can offer. Would you care for a cigar? I smoke Lord Dandy's. They don't measure up to Havanas, but they're quite acceptable.”

“Thank you.” Burton took the proffered smoke, accepted a light, puffed, and grunted approval.

“Drink?” he was asked.

“No, thank you.”

“You don't mind if I do?” Slaughter waved the explorer into one of the armchairs before retrieving a large glass of milk from his desk. He seated himself opposite Burton and said, “I have to guzzle this blessed stuff by the gallon else my belly plays up something rotten. Acid imbalance, my doctor calls it. Stress of the job, I'd say. Who'd be a policeman in this rotten city, hey? The place is infested with villains. Anyway, the abductions.”

“Yes. What can you tell me about them?”

Slaughter leaned back in his chair. “Not a great deal, unfortunately. There's been precious little progress, not for the want of trying. How much do you know?”

“Next to nothing.”

Slaughter lifted his glass to his lips and drained it, adding to the snowy fringe on his moustache. “Well now, old Charles Babbage was the first. He vanished from his home on Devonshire Street, Portland Place, on the fifth of August, 'fifty-seven. Initially, it was thought he'd made off of his own accord. He'd been under immense pressure to further refine the mechanical brains of his clockwork men and was almost certainly losing his mind.”

“There's evidence of that?”

Slaughter nodded. “According to his wife, he was becoming increasingly and irrationally vexed by noise, especially that made by street musicians. He'd frequently fly into rages and harangue them from his bedroom window, and on three occasions he emptied his chamber pot over their heads.”

“I've often been tempted to do the same,” Burton noted.

“The point being that you didn't, hey? Also, Babbage was obsessive about his work, but apparently he was starting to apply that same mania to rather inconsequential matters. For example, he counted all the broken panes of glass in a factory, then wrote a pamphlet entitled—what was it now? Ah, yes—‘Table of the Relative Frequency of the Causes of Breakage of Plate Glass Windows.' You can see why, when he was reported missing, we were quick to conclude that he'd gone barmy and scarpered.”

Burton drew thoughtfully on his cigar. “Is there anything to suggest otherwise?”

“Nothing substantial, but an elderly neighbour, Mr. Bartholomew Knock, claimed to have seen Babbage marched into a carriage by two men. I have his written statement, which you're welcome to examine, but I'm afraid it doesn't amount to much, and Knock himself died during last year's cholera epidemic.”

The police detective jumped to his feet and crossed to the filing cabinets. He opened a drawer and withdrew a cardboard folder.

“Are you sure you won't take a drink, Sir Richard?”

“Perhaps a cup of tea, if it's not too much trouble.”

“Splendid!”

Slaughter went to his desk, pulled out a speaking tube, whistled for the person at the other end, and said, “Have a pot of tea and a couple of cups sent up, would you? Plenty of milk, please. And give my appointments to Detective Inspector Spearing until further notice.” He returned to his chair and handed the file to Burton. “I occasionally indulge in a cuppa. Plays merry havoc with the guts but it keeps the mind sharp, hey? So, where was I? Yes, Daniel Gooch, he was next to go. Like Babbage, he's one of the big DOGS. He was last seen on Friday the eighteenth of March, this year. A very odd disappearance, his. He was in charge of construction at Hydroham—you know? The undersea town off the Norfolk coast?”

“I've read a little about it.”

“He was wearing an undersea suit—”

“A what?”

“It enables a man to work for prolonged periods on the seabed. Basically, a watertight all-in-one outfit, with air tanks attached. The wearer is completely covered, but for his face, which is visible through a glass plate in the front of the helmet. Gooch was sealed into such a suit, a chain was attached to it, and he was lowered into the water. An hour later, the suit was pulled back up to the boat. It was intact but empty. Gooch had vanished from inside it.”

“How?”

“Exactly. How? And no one has seen him since.” Slaughter frowned, his shaggy eyebrows shadowing his eyes. “Frustrating. Like all detectives, I'm allergic to mysteries. They put me on edge and make me bilious.”

Burton opened the file and scanned the pages. Mostly, they contained information about the people who'd vanished rather than anything useful that might explain how or why they'd gone.

“Brunel,” he said. “His case is also rather extraordinary.”

“Indeed so.”

There came a knock at the door and a short, white-haired woman shuffled in bearing a tray.

“Tea, sir,” she said.

“Thank you, Gladys. Put it on my desk. I'll pour.”

The woman did as directed and departed. Slaughter went over to the tray.

“You'll want milk?”

“No. Just sugar. Four spoonfuls, please.”

“Phew! You have a sweet tooth!”

“A taste I picked up in Arabia.”

Slaughter served the explorer. Burton then watched with mild amusement as the detective combined just a few drops of tea with a great deal of milk and cautiously sipped the mixture.

“So,” he asked the Yard man, “what exactly happened with Brunel at Penfold Private Sanatorium?”

Slaughter returned to his chair. “I spoke with a Sister Clements. She said he went there on Thursday evening and claimed he was going to suffer a stroke. The attack occurred early on Saturday morning. It was mild, but Clements was concerned it might be the precursor to something more serious. On Saturday night, at eleven o'clock, two men entered the hospital and attempted to abduct him. The nurses who tried to stop them were pretty ruthlessly rendered unconscious—”

“By what means?” Burton interrupted.

Slaughter raised a hand with the fingers held rigidly straight and made a chopping motion. “To the side of the neck.”