The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

“Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.”

—FRANCIS GALTON

A little after three o’clock the next afternoon, at the end of the ceremony in Buckingham Palace, King George V of Great Britain and Hanover leaned close to Sir Richard Francis Burton and said, “I congratulate you. It was my pleasure to award you this knighthood. You deserve it. Are you drunk?”

Burton shook his head. “No, Your Majesty, but I may have dosed myself up rather too liberally with Saltzmann’s Tincture this morning. I’m still battling the remnants of malaria. It was a choice between the medicine or my teeth chattering throughout the formalities.”

“And this medicine has made you so clumsy?”

Burton glanced at the stain on the monarch’s trouser-leg. “Again, my apologies. My coordination is all shot through.”

“Which, I venture, is also how you came by the black eye my aide mentioned.”

The explorer nodded and silently cursed Macallister Fogg.

The king grinned, revealing his cracked and uneven teeth. “You are a man of firsts, Captain. The first East India Company officer to pass all his language exams at the first try; the first non-Muslim to enter the holy city of Mecca; the first European to look upon the source of the River Nile; and the first freshly knighted man to spill wine on the royal bloomers.”

Burton shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other and looked into the king’s filmy white eyes. It was said that blind men develop a sixth sense. Did the monarch somehow know that Burton had been drinking until the small hours and was still hung-over?

“I suppose I’ll be remembered, at least,” he mumbled.

“You can be sure of that, Captain. Now, tell me, how many stragglers remain?”

Glancing around the presentation room, Burton saw five Yeomen of the Guard, three ushers, the Lord Chamberlain, and six of the Orpheus’s crew, the latter proudly wearing their medals. Isabel—soon to be Lady Burton—was loitering at the door and just managed a wave before she was politely guided out into the reception chamber.

“There are a few by the entrance,” Burton said. “They are departing.”

“Good. I have no objection to the post-ceremonial shaking of hands and uttering of niceties, but today there happens to be important business to attend to, and I would rather get on with it.”

Reflexively, Burton gave a short bow, even though the king couldn’t see it. “Then I apologise again, and shall make myself scarce.”

“No! No! This business concerns you. Do you see a door off to my right? I understand it’s painted yellow.”

“Yes, I see it.”

“Then please oblige me by leading me to it. You and I and a few others have much to discuss.”

“We do?”

Damascus. There must be a situation developing in Damascus. They want to send me there post-haste.

Burton moved his left forearm up into the grip of the king’s outstretched hand and escorted him to the door.

“Open it,” the monarch said. “Down to the end of the corridor, then turn right.”

“I wasn’t informed,” Burton said, carefully steering the sovereign through the portal and around a plinth that stood against the wall to the left. His host reached out and brushed his fingers against the bust of King George III that stood upon it.

“My grandfather. The longest reigning British monarch. With him it was all war, war, war. He was mad as a hatter. Some say he was poisoned.”

“Was he?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, and if he was, he probably deserved it.”

After a moment’s silence, Burton said, “May I ask you a question?”

“By all means.”

“Aside from the Royal Geographical Society, what royal charters have you issued this year?”

The king gave a chuckle. “My goodness! That’s not an enquiry I could have predicted! Let’s see. There was the University of Melbourne in March; the Benevolent Institution for the Relief of Aged and Infirm Journeymen Tailors in July; and I plan to issue one to the National Benevolent Institution in September. Why, Sir Richard?”

Burton started slightly at the use of his new title. He said, “The words royal charter were a part of an incomprehensible telegraph message received by the Orpheus during the aurora borealis phenomenon.”

“I see. And you are curious as to the significance?”

“I am.”

“Has my answer cast any light on the subject?”

“None at all.”

They reached the end of the passage and turned right into another.

“Fifth door on your left,” the king said. “So you weren’t informed of this meeting? That’s not entirely surprising. Events have been moving rapidly. Decisions were made overnight.”

They came to the door.

“In we go, Captain.”

Burton turned the handle and pushed. King George stepped past him into the chamber and was immediately met by one of the palace’s beautiful clockwork footmen—a thing of polished brass and tiny cogwheels with a babbage probability calculator supplying its simulated intelligence. It led him to the head of a heavy table in the middle of the room. Five men, who’d been sitting around it, rose as the monarch entered. Having heard the scrape of their chairs, the king waved at them to resume their seats. “Come, Sir Richard. Settle here beside me, please.”

As he moved to the table, Burton examined the room. Its panelled walls were hung with royal portraits, heavy velvet drapes had been drawn across the two windows, and bright illumination shone from a huge crystal chandelier.

He lowered himself into the seat on the king’s left and struggled to maintain his composure as he recognised the other men. Opposite him, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli leaned back and tapped his fingernails on what looked to be Burton’s African reports. Lord Stanley, sitting on the premier’s right, reached for a jug of water, poured a glass, and slid it across to the explorer. Beside him, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the minister of arts and culture, long-haired and foppishly dressed, watched Burton with curiosity.

The far end of the table was occupied by His Royal Highness Prince Albert, who’d been present at the knighting ceremony. Next to him, on the same side as Burton, the home secretary, Spencer Walpole, fidgeted restlessly.

King George turned to the footman and said, “Are we all here?”

“No, Your Majesty,” the contraption responded in a clanging voice. It bent over the king until its canister-shaped head was close to his ear then chimed so softly that Burton couldn’t make out a single word.

“Indisposed?” the king said. “I rather think indolent would be a more appropriate word. Stand outside the door, please, and ensure we’re not interrupted.”

The footman bowed, ding-donged, “Yes, Your Majesty,” and left the room.

“Disgraceful!” Disraeli muttered. “The minister’s lack of respect plummets to yet greater depths.”

“We must indulge him,” the king answered, with a slight smile. “His eccentricities don’t undermine his value.”

“Just as long as that value remains intact,” Disraeli said. “Which, under the circumstances, remains to be seen.”

“Forgive me,” Burton said, glancing at the vacant chair between himself and Walpole, “but to whom are you referring?”

The king turned his blank eyes and answered, “The minister of mediumistic affairs.”

“Ah,” Burton replied. “I should have known.”

A dull pain throbbed just behind his ears. His mouth felt dry, his eyes hot. The acidic aftertaste of brandy still lingered at the back of his throat. He reached for the water and drained the glass in a single swallow.

I have discomfort enough. I don’t need the bloody minister of mediumistic mumbo-jumbo, too.

The king said quietly, “Well then, let us proceed. Mr. Disraeli, would you explain, please?”

Disraeli rapped his knuckles lightly against the tabletop, looked at Burton, and said, “Sir Richard, last Thursday evening, shortly after the Orpheus landed and while you were, I understand, at the Royal Geographical Society, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the head of the Department of Guided Science, walked into Penfold Private Sanatorium—you know the place?”

Burton nodded. “It’s where my colleague, Sister Raghavendra, worked before I commissioned her to join my expedition.”

“I see,” Disraeli said. “Well, Brunel walked into it and announced that, in two days’ time—that is to say, this Saturday past—he was going to have a stroke.”

“How could he possibly know that?”

“He received a warning from the Afterlife. The information was correct. At three o’clock on Saturday morning, he did, indeed, suffer an attack.”

“Is he all right?”

“We don’t know. At eleven o’clock that night, two men entered the sanatorium and attempted to kidnap him. They were prevented from doing so by two police constables. The men escaped. The constables removed Brunel from the building, telling the nurses they were taking him to a place of safety. He hasn’t been seen since. We haven’t been able to find or identify the policemen, and Scotland Yard’s Chief Commissioner Mayne says he knew of no threat to Brunel and issued no orders to protect him.” Disraeli paused, then continued, “It’s not the first unexplained disappearance involving persons of significance. Two years ago, as everyone knows, Charles Babbage mysteriously vanished. In March of this year, the engineer Daniel Gooch went missing. And, last night, a man witnessed two policemen forcibly removing Nurse Florence Nightingale from outside the Theatre Royal. She did not attend her morning appointments today and her whereabouts are currently unknown.”

“Nightingale!” Burton exclaimed. “She was there with Richard Monckton Milnes!”

“That fact has come to light. Commissioner Mayne has assigned a Detective Inspector Slaughter to the case. I understand he’s questioning Mr. Monckton Milnes even as we speak.”

“He’ll not learn much. My friend thinks she ran out on him halfway through the show.”

The prime minister grunted, leaned his elbows on the table, and steepled his fingers together. “Which brings us to Abdu El Yezdi.”

Burton looked around the table, from one man to the next. Their eyes met his but gave nothing away.

Sudden comprehension sent prickles up his spine.

Bismillah! This has nothing to do with the consulship of Damascus! Why am I here?

He said, “Who is he?”

No one answered.

After what felt like a minute’s silence, Disraeli said, in a very low voice, “We are about to discuss state secrets, Sir Richard. Is your confidence assured? I do not, at any point in the future, want to have to charge you with treason.”

Burton slowly nodded.

Prince Albert spoke. “Your Majesty, Prime Minister, gentlemen—already we haff chosen to trust Sir Richard, haff we not? We must proceed. I am sure that, once all the facts before him haff been laid, the need for secrecy he will recognise.”

There were murmurs of agreement.

King George nodded and addressed Disraeli. “His Royal Highness is correct. We must give Sir Richard all the facts if he is to fully appreciate the significance of what we are to ask of him. But I suggest we first review the relevant history. It will provide context.”

The prime minister bowed his acquiescence.

The monarch turned to Burton. “I understand you spent your childhood outside the Empire? Where were you on the day of The Assassination?”

The explorer was so stunned to be asked that particular question again, he could hardly respond, and stammered, “I—I—I was at sea. En route from—from Italy.”

“So you felt nothing?”

Burton shrugged and shook his head, then realised the king couldn’t see him and said, “Nothing at all.”

“Well then, um, Mr. Walpole, perhaps you would be good enough to describe your experience?”

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.”

“As conceited as ever. But is the omniscience yours, Edward, or does it belong to the spook you claim contact with? Or perhaps both are sheer fantasy.”

“The spirit and I are—or were—indivisible!” The minister tapped the side of his own head. “You don’t understand. When I first heard El Yezdi, four years ago, it was as if he immediately became an integral part of my mind. I reported his absence to Disraeli last Thursday not just because, after communicating his final message, he fell silent, but because he was quite suddenly and violently torn out of me.”

Burton put his glass aside and raised his hands. “Stop. Go back to the beginning. Tell me about when he first spoke to you.”

“It was after my accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident, Edward. You were hunting elephants in Ceylon. The Singhalese consider them holy. It’s no wonder they set upon you.”

The minister shrugged. “A misjudgment, I’ll admit. The villagers attacked me with tools, fists, and feet. My gun bearer was strangled to death. I was knocked unconscious. When I regained my wits, I was in a house in Jaffna, being nursed by two young men—Ravindra Johar and Mahakram Singh. They told me they’d stumbled upon the scene quite by chance and had dragged me away from my assailants.”

He lifted his ale and took a gulp, before continuing, “Over the course of four months, they had doctors attend me. My skull had been cracked and my brain injured. I was almost completely paralysed. I couldn’t speak.” Edward lifted a hand and traced the scar on his forehead with a forefinger. “Then I heard him one night, inside my head, as clear as a bell. He said: This time, you were saved. You’ll recover. Pay the boys to take you to England. Have them deliver you to Penfold Sanatorium. After a few days, they’ll disappear. Let them. Don’t look for them.”

“‘This time’?”

Edward nodded, his chins wobbling. “Yes. I have no idea what he meant by that.”

“And his voice—what was it like?”

“It was my voice. When Abdu El Yezdi speaks, it isn’t like someone addressing you. It’s more like having your own thoughts guided.”

“Similar to mesmerism?”

“Yes, very much so. But I wasn’t under the influence of animal magnetism. There was no one else present.”

Burton mused, “Mental domination over distance?”

Edward made a noise of disagreement. “Your own prejudice prompts you to search for an explanation that doesn’t involve the Afterlife. I’m sorry, Dick, but El Yezdi later stated quite categorically that he is not of this world, and I, having communicated so closely with him these past four years, am convinced beyond all doubt that he’s a spirit.”

Burton drew a cheroot from his pocket, contemplated it, then put it between his lips and fished for his box of lucifers.

Edward clicked his tongue impatiently and said, “Must you foul the atmosphere?”

Ignoring him, Burton lit the Manila and blew smoke into the air.

Edward sighed his exasperation, and went on, “When I was fit enough for the voyage, Ravindra and Mahakram, at my expense, accompanied me here to London. They delivered me to the sanatorium, where, as you know, Sadhvi Raghavendra nursed me back to health. As El Yezdi had warned, the boys both vanished. I never saw them again. I was unable even to thank them.”

Burton retrieved his glass, gazed into the foam of his beer, and summoned the painful recollection of Edward’s return to England. He’d also been in hospital at the time, and had suddenly been called to the sanatorium. With his own head swathed in bandages, he’d been escorted to a room where he’d found his brother in exactly the same state. However, where Burton’s injury had deprived him of a couple of molars, left him temporarily speechless, and gouged a hideous scar across his left cheek, Edward’s had threatened permanent brain damage. The two Indian lads—both gone by the time Burton arrived—had kept his brother alive, but it was Sadhvi who nursed him back to health. Having witnessed the miracles she’d worked with him, Burton immediately thought of her three years later, when he was planning his Nile expedition. He’d sought her out and, in a very unconventional move, asked her to join his team. He was surprised and delighted when she’d said yes.

“During the early days of my recovery,” Edward said, “I truly thought myself mad.”

“As did I,” Burton replied. “You didn’t say a word for three months.”

“I couldn’t. It was as if two personalities existed within me. I didn’t know which was real. It took a long time to untangle them. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to were it not for the Countess Sabina. She came to visit me and explained that Abdu El Yezdi had been communicating with her since 1840. She informed me that I was to take over her role. After giving an account of what it would involve, she then, to my great astonishment, ushered in Disraeli himself, who, at her recommendation, immediately appointed me his new minister of mediumistic affairs.”

Sir Richard Francis Burton drained his glass, put it down, stood, and started to pace the room, carelessly kicking books aside to clear a path. He puffed furiously on his cigar. His brother watched, then signalled to Grumbles to open a window.

“Blast it!” Burton exploded. “Is it really true, Edward? Has this voice in your head been directing government policy for so long?”

“Yes, it has. Twenty years ago, Disraeli was more than willing to listen to El Yezdi. The spirit had, after all, helped him to defeat Palmerston by convincing Monckton Milnes to offer support. Disraeli’s subsequent creation, at the spirit’s behest, of the Department of Guided Science bore such startling fruit that it was almost impossible to doubt the spirit’s benevolence. Then Ireland happened, and it made Abdu El Yezdi the government’s most influential advisor.”

“Ireland?”

“In ’forty-four, a man named Francis Galton presented to Isambard Kingdom Brunel a new science, which he called Eugenics. At its most basic, it concerns the breeding out of inherent weaknesses in plants, animals, and even in humans, and the propagation of their strengths. Galton proposed to test his theories by planting a crop of what he termed Super Solanum tuberosum—”

“Super potatoes?” Burton interrupted, incredulously.

“In essence, yes. He wanted to plant them in Ireland, the idea being that the plants would spread their hardiness to other crops while eliminating the fragilities that had plagued the Irish strains. Brunel put the plan before Disraeli, but Abdu El Yezdi immediately warned, via the countess, that the whole undertaking would be disastrous. He recommended that Eugenics in its entirety be made illegal. Disraeli, however, met Galton in person and allowed himself to be convinced to go ahead with the plan. It was catastrophic. The potatoes caused the entire crop, across the whole of Ireland, to fail. Widespread famine followed. Galton suffered a serious nervous breakdown and has been incarcerated in Bedlam ever since. Eugenics was made illegal, and from that point on Disraeli never again disregarded El Yezdi’s advice.”

Burton flicked his cigar stub into the fireplace and blew smoke from his nostrils.

“What am I to make of all this? The more I learn, the more . . . wrong everything feels. Everything, Edward! I’m expected to track down a man who doesn’t exist!”

“But who once did,” Edward noted.

The explorer stopped his pacing and regarded his brother. “When? Where? Who was he? What did he do? When and how did he die?”

The minister of mediumistic affairs shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Burton snapped. “You’ve had him rattling about inside your bloody skull for four years and you’ve discovered nothing about him?”

“As I told you, it isn’t a discussion. I feel his presence, my thoughts are manipulated into words, and I pass those words on to Disraeli. That’s it.”

“And his final words, aside from the warning about Brunel?”

“He gave assurance that the new unity of Italy is secure. He urged that our government establish bases in Lagos to stop the slave trade there. And—” Edward Burton examined his glass, which was now empty, and held it out to Grumbles for a refill. “And that was it.” He looked at his fingernails and chewed his bottom lip. He glanced up at his brother. “There is something else, something he said a few months ago that might have some relevance to your investigation.”

“It being?”

“The crucial years are upon us. Soon the variations will begin to overlap.”

“What does that signify?”

The minister shrugged.

Burton threw up his hands. “Riddles, obscurities, and voices in my brother’s head!”

Edward answered, “You’ve already asked a very pertinent question—who was Abdu El Yezdi when he lived? The king selected you for this task because you have extraordinary powers of observation. I’ve never met another man who can learn so much about something merely by looking at it. Perhaps if you knew something of El Yezdi’s appearance, you could begin to trace his origins.”

Burton groaned. “Please don’t suggest that I should have a table-tapper summon him out of ectoplasm.”

“I wasn’t going to. You met Rossetti today?”

“Yes.”

“He has a friend who claims to have seen Abdu El Yezdi.”

“In a vision?”

“In the flesh.”

“But you insist that he’s dead!”

“The man I refer to thinks not, but he has a reputation for eccentricity, so it may be nothing but waffle. Nevertheless, it’s worth checking, don’t you think?”

“Who is he?”

Edward took his refilled glass from the clockwork butler.

“A young poet named Algernon Charles Swinburne.”