The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi (17 page)

So declared William Morris, the leading light of the Arts and Crafts Movement; a man at the heart of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Ministry of Arts and Culture. Without him, the machines produced by the Department of Guided Science would have been nothing but fume-breathing metal monstrosities.

“Form follows function!” the DOGS decreed.

“But form must not offend!” Morris had insisted.

So it was that the Empire's tools and various forms of transport were embellished with functionally irrelevant ornamentation; every curve and angle possessed decorative flair; every surface was engraved with patterns and cursive accents; every edge bore a pleasing trim.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in rotorchairs. From a distance, these flying vehicles resembled little more than a plush armchair affixed to a brass sled. A rigid umbrella-like hood curved over the seat; a small and complex engine was positioned at the rear; twin funnels projected backward; and six wedge-shaped wings rotated atop a tall drive-shaft above the entirety. There was something vaguely ridiculous about the contraptions until one moved closer and saw how all the disparate elements had been beautifully moulded into a unified whole by artists and designers.

Rotorchairs were elegant. They were exquisite.

Sir Richard Francis Burton hated them.

The damned things made him nervous. He had no idea how they managed to fly, couldn't fathom how they produced so much steam from so little water, and held a deep suspicion that they transcended every principle of physics. Knowing their design had been communicated to Isambard Kingdom Brunel from the Afterlife did little to reassure him.

He pushed the middle of the three control levers, following Detective Inspector Trounce's machine as it arced downward through the blue sky, leaving a curving trail of white vapour behind it. Burton pressed his heels into his footplate to slow his descent. His stomach squirmed as he rapidly lost altitude.

Below, the village of Old Ford rushed up toward him. It was a small and quaint little place, its houses and shops clumped together on one side of a shallow valley, with green fields facing it from the opposite side. Its High Street extended from a junction with a long country lane at the base of the hill and ran up to the top, where it bent to the right and went winding away to the next settlement. Trounce landed halfway along it. His machine hit the cobbles with a thump, a skid, and a shower of sparks. Burton brought his down more gingerly, clicked off the motor, waited for the wings to stop spinning, then clambered out and removed his goggles.

“It's like flying a bag of rocks,” he grumbled. “I feared greater diligence might come at any moment.”

“Diligence?” Trounce asked.

“From gravity, in the application of its own laws.”

“Humph!”

They dragged their rotorchairs to the side of the road. All along the street, windows and doors were opening as Old Ford's tiny population came out to investigate the loud paradiddle that had rattled their cottages.

Nearby, outside a small dwelling, a white-haired man was leaning on a broom, watching the new arrivals.

Trounce hailed him. “Hallo, is that you, Old Carter? By Jove! You look just the same as you did nigh on twenty years ago!”

The man stepped forward and shook Trounce's hand. “By all that's holy! It's Constable Trounce, isn't it?”

“Detective Inspector nowadays.”

“Is that so? Well, well. Good for you!” Old Carter looked the Scotland Yard man up and down. “Crikey, but haven't you filled out!”

Trounce neatened his moustache with a forefinger and looked at the man's broom. “Still sweeping?”

“Old habits die hard. I'm ending my working days as I began 'em, sir. I went from street-sweeper to rifleman in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, then retired from the Army and became a lamp-lighter, and next year I'll retire again to spend my twilight years keeping this here street spotless. So tell me, what brings you gentlemen to Old Ford?”

Trounce gestured toward Burton. “This is Sir Richard Francis Burton.”

Burton said, “I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Carter,” and shook the man's hand.

“Not Mr. Carter. Old Carter. Everyone calls me Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. I suppose they—”

He stopped and his eyes went wide.

“Do you recognise Captain Burton?” Trounce asked. “His likeness is currently all over the newspapers.”

Old Carter stuttered, “I—I—he—yes, but he looks like—”

Trounce took him by the elbow. “Could we step into your cottage, do you think?”

“Y-yes. Come. Come.”

Pushing open the gate, Old Carter led them through his neatly trimmed and flowered front garden and into his one-room home. They sat on his sofa. He took a chair beside a table.

“This is about The Assassination, then?”

“It is,” Trounce replied. “Is Captain Burton the man you saw?”

Old Carter looked searchingly at the explorer. “Spitting image. Except, perhaps, a few years younger.”

Burton said, “Would you tell me about it—what you witnessed that day?”

“I will, but it ain't no different to what I told the constable—sorry, Detective Inspector—back at the time.”

“Nevertheless.”

Old Carter blinked, scratched his chin, and said, “It was about six o'clock. The junction 'tween Piccadily and Park Lane was my patch. I was there every day from five in the morning until eleven at night. Hard work. There were no steam machines; it was all horses. For certain, the city was less crowded but there were twice as many nags as what you see now, and all of 'em doing their business in the streets. You didn't want to cross a road without a sweep to clear a path for you.” He gave a slight smile. “Lucrative is the word! Aye, I earned a pretty penny keeping the muck off the toffs' boots! Anyway, come six o'clock, I'm leaning against the wall that separates the street from Green Park, when someone on the other side puts a rifle—half-wrapped in a coat—on top of it, and then a flat case, like what jewellers use. Now, I tell you, I already wanted to be a rifleman and I knew a thing or two about guns, and I swear I ain't never seen a weapon like that one afore or since. When I heard the man start climbing the wall, I was all set to ask him about it, but then I heard screams and whistles from the park and I realised something was up, so I quickly stepped away. The bloke came over the wall with a bag slung over his shoulder, took down the gun and the case, and was just about to make off when I says hello to him.”

“Was he furtive or in a panic?” Burton asked.

“Not at all. More confused. Didn't seem to know up from down. Said he was having a bad day. ‘Don't worry,' I tells him, ‘you'll forget about it tomorrow.' Then—”

Old Carter stopped, frowned, pursed his lips, and continued, “So you know this Great Amnesia thing they talk about?”

Burton nodded.

“That's when it hit me. Right there, in the middle of the bloomin' road. Bang! I suddenly realised I could hardly remember a thing about what I'd been doing yesterday, or the day afore, or—not for the past three years, as it turned out.” He shook his head in bafflement. “Anyway, our fellow made off, and that's the last I saw of him.” He looked at Trounce. “Same as I told you at the time.”

“Yes,” Trounce confirmed. “The same.”

“The rifle,” Burton said. “Why did it so catch your attention?”

Old Carter looked at him searchingly and answered, “The barrel was, as I said, wrapped in a coat. Couldn't see much of it. But I saw the mechanism and it was much more like the weapons we have now than what we had back in 'forty. But smoother, tighter, more—um—
compact
, and there was a sort of tube fitted over the top of it.”

“Tube?”

“Like, if you were taking aim, you'd have to look through it.”

“Ah, I've seen something of the sort—it's called a telescopic sight—but I thought it a recent invention.”

“It wasn't the only curious thing, Captain. There was the inscription on the stock, too. I saw it as clear as day. Remember every word of it. And all these years later, I still can't make head nor tail of it.”

“Go on.”

“Wait. I'll write it for you, just as I saw it.”

He stood and crossed to a chest of drawers, retrieved a pencil and sheet of paper from it, used the furniture as a desk, and wrote something. He handed it to Burton. The explorer read:

Lee–Enfield MK III. Manufactured in Tabora, Africa, 1918.

Burton passed the note to Trounce, who said to the sweeper, “You didn't tell me this before.”

Old Carter shrugged. “You didn't ask about the rifle, and to be honest, when we last spoke, I was shocked by the queen's murder and addled by my memory loss.”

Burton plucked the paper back out of Trounce's hand and considered it.

“If Lee–Enfield is the manufacturer, I've never heard of them. Nor have I heard of Tabora, and I know Africa perhaps better than any man. It must be in the south. The only rifles made in the north are Arabian flintlocks. And this—is it an issue number?”

He pondered the words and numerals, then shrugged, folded the paper, and put it in his pocket.

“Old Carter,” he said, with a wry smile. “You've added bewilderment to my perplexity, but I thank you for your time.”

He stood, and the other two followed suit.

“It's queer,” Old Carter said. “You so resemble the man I saw that I feel I know you.”

Trounce added, “I feel the same.”

“I wish I could offer an explanation,” Burton said, “but during the week since my return from Africa, I've encountered more mystery than I experienced in over a year travelling those unexplored lands.”

Old Carter walked his guests out, into the street, and to their rotorchairs.

“Sangappa,” he said.

Burton turned to him. “What?”

“Polish. Made in India. I was just thinking—the seat of your flying machine would benefit from it. Best in the world for preserving leather.”

“Could it preserve me while I'm flying the confounded thing?”

Old Carter grinned and regarded the contraption. “Aye, it's a blessed miracle such a lump can get off the ground. You'll not talk me into one, Captain. Not for all the tea in China.”

“From what I've heard, tea from China might become a rare commodity. If someone offers it, I advise you not to refuse.”

Burton and Trounce strapped goggles over their eyes, climbed into their vehicles, and started the engines. They gave Old Carter a wave, rose on cones of billowing steam, and soared into the sky.

Trounce set a southwesterly course and Burton followed. They were soon over the outlying districts of London, and the clear air became smudged with its smoke. Below them, factory chimneys stretched upward as if ambitious to spoil the purer, higher atmosphere.

A thought hit Burton like a punch to the head. Momentarily, he lost control of his machine.

“Bismillah!”

He grappled with the three flight rods as the rotorchair went spinning downward.

“Impossible!” he gasped, yanking at the leftmost rod until the contraption stabilised. He saw a patch of greenery below—the East London Graveyard—and made for it.

“Bloody impossible! It makes no damned sense at all!”

His vehicle angled into the ground, hit it hard, slithered over grass, slammed into the horizontal slab of a grave, and toppled onto its side. The wings broke off with a loud report and went bouncing away. Burton was catapulted out, thudded onto the grass, rolled, and came to rest on his back.

He lay still and looked up at the sky.

“How?” he whispered. “How?”

Staccato chopping cut through the air and Trounce's rotorchair came into view. The detective must have looked back and seen him go down.

Trounce landed, threw himself out of his vehicle, and raced over to Burton.

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

Burton looked up at him. “The numbers, Trounce! The bloody numbers!”

“Numbers?”

“On the rifle. One thousand, nine hundred and eighteen.”

“So?”

“One thousand. Nine hundred. Ten. Eight.”

Trounce threw his hands into the air. “Did you bang your head? Get up, man! What are you jabbering about?”

Burton didn't reply.

Oliphant. He had to see Oliphant.

“To secure Damascus for us, I have to first undertake a task for the government. It is a highly confidential matter—I cannot tell even you what it involves, Isabel—and I'm afraid I must ask you to refrain from visiting. I may not be able to see you again until the first of November.”

Burton, Isabel, and Blanche were in the St. James Hotel tea room for Saturday afternoon refreshments. They'd secured an isolated corner table, but, even so, Isabel's reaction—a quavering cry of, “Seven weeks, Dick?”—drew disapproving stares and a
tut
or two from the other patrons. Heedlessly, she continued, “After being parted for so long, we must be separated again? This is unendurable!”