The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi (6 page)

Murchison peered past Burton, uttered a cry of pleasure, then hurried up to the airship's door—the explorer followed behind—and took Sister Raghavendra's hand. “My dear,
dear
young lady! May I be the first to congratulate you? You are absolutely the talk of the town. And I'm delighted to tell you that, as a mark of respect for your astounding contribution to Captain Burton's expedition, the Society has seen fit to lift its ban on women. You are a member, Sister! What! What! A
member
! The vote was unanimous!”

“Thank you, Sir Roderick,” she answered, with a slight bob. “That's splendid news. Simply splendid! A woman member! My goodness! I
am
honoured!”

“Captain!” Murchison said, turning his attention to Lawless. “You and your gallant crew will be granted honorary membership, of course. You are heroes to a man. The RGS holds you all in the highest regard. There will be medals issued by the palace, I guarantee it.”

Lawless smiled and gave an appreciative nod.

“Where is Lieutenant Stroyan?” Murchison asked.

Burton responded, “I'm sorry to have to tell you, sir, that he was killed last night.”

Murchison slumped. “No! By God! No! An accident?”

“Murder. Lord Elgin's private secretary, Oliphant, went insane and cut his throat.”

Murchison slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh my! Oh my! Insane, you say? Oh, poor William! He was a splendid fellow. I shall have to talk to him. I'll give him a chance to settle, obviously, but I must offer my condolences, ask whether he has any messages for those he's left behind.”

Burton couldn't help himself. His lip curled in disdain. “If you wish it, sir.”

“It's my duty, old chap. The dead must be eased into the Afterlife, and as a murder victim Stroyan is no doubt confused and disoriented. A familiar voice will soothe him during his difficult transition.”

Burton shrugged non-committally.

Murchison pondered for a moment, then perked up, clapped his hands, and announced, “Shall we be off? Captain Lawless, will you and your crew join us? Should I summon more carriages?”

Lawless shook his head. “Thank you, but we must pass up the invitation, Sir Roderick. I have to summon the police to fetch Mr. Oliphant, and there is much to do aboard ship. We'll be flying up to the RNA Service Station in Yorkshire next week for a refit and will begin preparations immediately.” He turned to the others. “Captain Burton, Sister Raghavendra, your luggage will be delivered to your homes within the next couple of days.”

Murchison said, “Very well. I shall see you on Monday, then. Medals, Captain! Medals! And well earned!”

Burton and Raghavendra said their farewells to Lawless then Murchison hustled them down the ramp, across the landing field, and into a waiting steam-horse-drawn growler.

“Back the way we came, please, driver!” Murchison called up to the massively built individual on the box seat.

“All the way to the Royal Geological Society, sir?”

“Geographical. Yes, all the way there. Fifteen Whitehall Place.”

“Right you are. Geographical, as what I said. Hall aboard? Hoff we bloomin' well go! Gee-up!”

As the conveyance lurched into motion, Murchison said to Burton and Raghavendra, “Incidentally, I have good news. Last month, the RGS was officially sanctioned. The king, in recognition of your discovery, issued us with a royal charter. We are
establishment
now.”

Burton put his hand up to his beard and slowly dragged his fingers through it. “A royal charter, you say? You didn't attempt to inform us of that by telegraph last night, did you?”

“No. Why would I when it was just a matter of hours before your arrival? Besides, as I mentioned, the whole telegraph system has been crippled since midnight.”

Burton grunted. “Hmm! Peculiar. Our own telegraph went off the rails and churned out a lot of gibberish. There were a few English words mixed in with it—‘royal charter' being two of them. Quite a coincidence.”

“Stroyan,” Murchison said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Stroyan. He was trying to get through from the Other Side. They say all past and future knowledge is available in the Afterlife. William obviously saw that the king has endorsed our organisation and, through means of the dysfunctional telegraph, tried to tell you.”

“If I may,” Sister Raghavendra interrupted, “I don't wish to diminish the significance of the royal charter, Sir Roderick, but surely where matters of life, death, and the Afterlife are concerned, it's a comparatively trivial matter? Surely, if William's spirit were to contact us, it would have something more substantial to communicate?”

Murchison crossed his arms. “It was merely conjecture. Should I assume, then, Sister, that you've adopted Captain Burton's skepticism where the Afterlife is concerned?”

“I remain open-minded.”

Murchison acknowledged her statement with a hum then addressed Burton. “But you've returned from Africa with your objections intact, I suppose?”

“As before, I neither support nor denounce the idea,” Burton replied. “Whether there is an Afterlife or not, I simply do not know, and since I exist in the material world, nor do I need to know. What I oppose is the undue influence in our society of spiritualists who claim to convey messages to us from the departed. In the event that the mediums aren't all charlatans and the communiques are real, I have to ask, what motivates the dead to make the effort? Why are their messages so frequently abstruse? What is their agenda? No, Sir Roderick, I'll not have it. My life is my own and Death will come in due course, but until it does, I'll avoid the Afterlife, will make my own decisions, and will brook no meddling from Beyond.”

The three of them grabbed at hand straps to steady themselves as the growler navigated a corner.

“As a non-believer, you are in the minority,” Murchison observed.

“Quite so. The majority succumb to blind hope and allow it to compromise their intellect.”

“You have no hope?”

“I am realistic. My mind dwells on the lessons of the past and the challenges of the present, not on the unknowable future.”

“Ah ha! So you dismiss prognosticators as well as mediums?”

“Of course. They are obviously fraudsters.”

Sister Raghavendra patted Burton's arm and said to Murchison, “In expressing his views, Captain Burton is never backward in coming forward. We had many discussions of a philosophical nature during our safari. After each one, I felt as if I'd been savaged by a jungle cat.”

“I fear for Miss Arundell,” Murchison mused. “Has she any lion-taming skills, Burton?”

The explorer gave a slight smile. “Isabel believes she'll eventually beat me into submission with her ferocious Catholicism.”

Murchison shook his head despairingly. “Of all the people to marry into the country's most influential Catholic family, I'd never have predicted it to be you. How do her parents feel about welcoming a stubborn and outspoken atheist into their clan?”

“When she told them, her mother became hysterical and fainted and her father vowed to shoot me. She's had a year to work on them. Perhaps they've calmed down.” Burton coughed and moved his tongue around in his mouth. “Really, can this awful stink possibly get any worse?” He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his nose.

“We're next to the Thames,” Murchison said. “This time last year, the stench was so bad they had to abandon parliament. Thank heavens for Bazalgette!”

“Who is he?”

“Joseph Bazalgette—a freshly emerged luminary among the DOGS. His designs for an advanced sewer system were approved a few weeks after your departure and he got to work immediately. The city has been in upheaval, but there's not a single citizen who isn't happy to put up with the nuisance of it in the knowledge that, when the tunnels are completed, the air will be breathable and the roads clean. Actually, Burton, you timed your expedition well.”

“How so?”

“There's a subterranean river—the Tyburn—that flows through your part of town, under Baker Street, Marylebone, and Mayfair, beneath Buckingham Palace, on through Pimlico, and into the Thames slightly to the west of Vauxhall Bridge. Bazalgette has incorporated it into his system. It was one of the first parts to be constructed, so for many weeks the district where you live was badly disrupted. You avoided much inconvenience.”

“It's finished now?”

“That part of it, yes. The Tyburn now runs into one of the system's main arteries—the Northern Low-Level Sewer—which, when complete, will extend all the way from Hackney in the west to Beckton in the east, running parallel to the northern shore of the Thames. By God! You should see it, Burton! Such an undertaking! It's the Strand that's suffering at the moment—and its theatres and hotels are vociferous in their complaints, as you'd expect—but Bazalgette works like a demon. It won't be long before that part of the city returns to normal while he ploughs onward into the Cauldron.”

“Gracious!” Raghavendra exclaimed. “He's going into the East End? Isn't that awfully dangerous?”

Her concern was justified. London's East End was the city's poorest, meanest, and filthiest district. A labyrinth of narrow alleyways, bordered by decrepit and overcrowded tenements, overflowing with raw sewage and rubbish of every description, it bred disease and despair in equal measure. The destitute lived amid the squalor in vast numbers and were vicious to such a degree that the police wouldn't go near them. Disraeli had famously referred to the area as “a country within our country, and a damned wicked one at that.” When asked how to best solve the problem, he'd replied, “With fire.”

Murchison nodded. “Of course, but even criminals and ne'er-do-wells can see the advantage of having their effluence flushed away. The gangs that operate there have guaranteed that Bazalgette's people will be protected and treated well.”

“Will wonders never cease?” Burton murmured. His eyes started to water. He took slow and shallow breaths.

Murchison smiled. “You'll adjust, old boy. You'll need to. To a lesser degree, this stench currently pervades all of London north of the Thames.”

“Why so?”

“Because until the principal west-to-east artery is finished, all the smaller tunnels running into it, flowing from north to south—the Tyburn included—have had their flow tightly restricted by a sequence of sluice gates. The muck is backing up, and it may well rise into the streets before it can be released into the completed system.”

“And south of the river?” Raghavendra asked.

“Tunnels are still being constructed to carry the effluence into the Thames. When they're done, another big west-to-east intercepting tunnel will be constructed, parallel to the river's south bank.”

“Incredible,” Burton said. “A monumental task!”

“Quite so. Bazalgette is a miracle worker.”

Sister Raghavendra, who appeared less affected by the stink, asked, “And what other progress has been made by the Department of Guided Science, Sir Roderick? Its inventors are so prolific, I fully expect London to be unrecognisable to me once this fog clears.”

“Steam spheres,” the geographer answered.

“And what are they?”

“Horseless carriages—large ball-shaped machines with a moving track running vertically from front to back across the circumference, giving motive power. They are two-man vehicles. Not much good for the city streets—which are too crowded—but excellent for a run in the country.”

The growler swayed and bumped. They heard the driver shout something insulting, probably to someone who'd blocked their path.

“And submarine boats,” Murchison continued.

“Vessels that travel beneath the surface of the sea?” Raghavendra guessed.

“Exactly so.”

“My goodness. Whatever for?”

“The DOGS have but a single bark, my dear:
Because they can!
”

Burton pushed aside the curtain and peered out of the window. Vaguely, he saw gasworks looming out of the fog, and deduced that the growler had by now traversed the complete length of Nine Elms and was proceeding north through Lambeth.

“Not much traffic,” he observed.

“You haven't noticed,” Murchison said, “no doubt because you're acclimatised to Africa, but it's very warm for the time of year. We've had the hottest summer in living memory and it's brought with it regular London particulars. In such murk, people fear to set foot in the streets lest they get lost or mugged.”

“Or suffocate.”

“Indeed.”

“Our driver appears to know where he's going.”

“He's a reliable cove. Montague Penniforth. I use him a lot. He normally drives a hansom but hires a growler when he has occasion to. I'm convinced he can see in the dark.”

Burton let the curtain fall back into place. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief then pressed it again to his nose. He'd spent most of the day sleeping aboard the
Orpheus
, but although he felt much recovered, his hands were still trembling and his throat was dry. Dropping his left hand to his pocket, he surreptitiously felt the outline of a bottle of Saltzmann's Tincture.

During the course of the next half-hour, Murchison and his companions discussed various incidents that had occurred during the expedition, while the growler took them along Palace Road to Westminster Bridge, crossed the reeking Thames, turned right at the Houses of Parliament, and trundled along King Street and Whitehall to Whitehall Place. Finally, it drew to a stop outside number 15, a many-windowed building situated opposite Scotland Yard.

The passengers disembarked. Murchison paid Penniforth and the carriage departed, its wheels grinding over the cobbles, its engine panting smoke.

“Two or three hours, my friends,” Murchison said. “That's all we ask of you. Just time enough to take a drink with your fellows and entertain them with a few tales of derring-do. Then you'll have three days to recuperate before the ceremonies at the palace.”