The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack

BEETLE AND PANTHER

Wearing loose-fitting white cotton kurta pyjamas, a saffron-coloured turban upon his head, and with his already swarthy skin darkened with walnut oil, Sir Richard Francis Burton strode purposefully along the bank of the Limehouse Cut canal. He'd made his way there through the disreputable streets of Limehouse unmolested by the rogues who inhabited London's great melting pot. The people of this district kept themselves to themselves, only mingling when there was a shady deal to be made or a dirty deed to be done.

Without a disguise, Burton appeared barbarous enough to have probably avoided trouble. He was cautious though, and felt it best to take on the character of a foreigner. The guise of a Sikh was an obvious choice, for Sikhs possessed a reputation-undeserved, as it happened-for ferocity. This, together with his forked beard and terrible, magnetic eyes, gave him such a fearsome aspect that people quickly stepped out of his path as he swung along, and he'd arrived at the bank of the canal without having been even once approached.

Late last night, after he and Swinburne made their way home from Bat tersea, Burton had slept much more deeply than usual, not waking until nine in the morning. After bolting down a grilled kipper and a round of toast, he'd gone to Scotland Yard to present Detective Inspector Trounce with the list of Battersea Brigade members.

"By Jove!" the policeman had exclaimed. "I can't believe they missed this; though I suppose it's understandable under the circumstances. The Yard didn't have a detective branch until the early forties, and I guess the fact that the Alsop attack happened near Epping tripped them up. There was no reason to look for a connection between the girls' fathers. I'll look into this, Captain Burton. In fact, I'll go down to Battersea myself today."

An hour later, back at 14 Montagu Place, Burton found a message waiting for him from Oscar Wilde. Through the "boys' network," the youngster had arranged a meeting for him with the Beetle. The appointment was for three o'clock, and the venue was strange, to say the least.

Burton was almost there.

Along the sides of Limehouse Cut-a commercial waterway that linked the lower reaches of the River Lea with the Thames-some of the city's most active factories belched black smoke into the air and gave a meagre wage to the thousands of workers who toiled within. Many of these men, women, and children had yellow, red, green, or blue skin, permanently coloured by the industrial dyes they worked with; others were disfigured by scorch marks and blisters from hours spent next to furnaces or kilns; and all had callused hands, hard bony bodies, and the haunted look of starvation in their eyes.

Burton walked past the huge, towering premises until he came to one particular building that, unlike its neighbours, had been abandoned. Standing seven storeys high, and with nearly every window either missing, broken, or cracked, it silently loomed over the busy canal-a shell, its chimneys impotent, its entrances bricked up.

He circled it by passing through an arched passageway that gave access to Broomfield Street, crossing its barren frontage with the blocked loading bays and empty stables, then returning back along a second covered alley to the narrow docks at the side of the canal.

People saw and ignored him. That was the way of things in Limehouse.

Beside the dock, on the factory's wall, in a niche down which rusting gutter pipes ran, he found what he was looking for: iron rungs set into the brickwork.

He shifted the bag that was slung across his shoulders, moving it so that it hung against the small of his back, then began to climb, testing each foothold before putting his weight on it.

There had been a second message waiting for him at home that morning when he returned from Scotland Yard. It was from Isabel, and read: You will change your mind. We are destined for one another; I knew that the moment I saw you ten years ago. I will wait. For as long as it takes, I will wait.

He'd sat considering it for some time, absently running a forefinger along the scar on his cheek. Then he'd composed and sent a terse reply:

Do not wait. Live your life.

It was brutal, he knew, but as with an amputation, a fast and clean cut is the quickest to heal.

He continued upward until he eventually reached the top of the ladder, then heaved himself over the parapet and sat for a moment to catch his breath, looking across the flat roof at the two long skylights, the cracked panes of which had been made opaque by soot. In the centre of the roof, between the two rows of glass, eight chimneys soared high into the air. It was the third from the eastern side that interested him.

He gingerly picked his way across the debris-covered roof, avoiding the areas that sagged, until he reached the nearest skylight. He skirted around its edge then moved over to the chimney.

It had rungs affixed to it, running from the base all the way to the top. Once again, he climbed, marvelling at the view of London that unfurled beneath him. A cold breeze was blowing, making his loose attire flap, though he was kept warm by a thermal vest.

He stopped, hooked an arm around a rung, and rested. He was halfway up and could see, far away, through the dirty haze and angled columns of smoke that rose like a forest from the city, the magnificent dome of St. Paul's. A few specks flew between him and the cathedral; rotorchairs and swans, the divergent forms of air transport developed by those two powerful factions within the Technologist caste, the Engineers and the Eugenicists.

He sighed. It had come just too late for him, this new technology. If he'd had the advantage of the swans, as John Speke had during his second expedition, recent history would have been very different indeed.

He continued his ascent, giving silent thanks that he didn't suffer from a fear of heights.

Minutes later he reached the top and swung himself over to sit with one leg to either side of the chimney's lip. The breeze tugged at him but with a foot hooked through one of the rungs and his knees clamped tightly against the brickwork, he felt reasonably secure.

He noticed that another set of metal rungs descended into the darkness of the flue.

Burton pulled his shoulder bag around, opened it, took out a bound notebook, and started to read.

For ten minutes he sat there, outlined against broken clouds and patches of blue sky, perched a precarious three hundred and fifty feet above the ground, the book in his hand, his noble brow furrowed with concentration, his savage jaw clenched, his clothes fluttering wildly.

Eventually, there came a furtive rustle and scrape from within the chimney.

Burton listened but didn't react.

The hiss of falling soot.

The scuffing of a boot against metal.

Moments of silence.

Then a quiet, sibilant voice: "What are you reading?"

Without shifting his eyes from his notebook, Burton replied: "It's my own translation of the Behdristan, which is an imitation of the Gulistan of Sa'di, the celebrated Persian poet. It is written in prose and verse, and treats of ethics and education, though it abounds in moral anecdotes, aphorisms, and amusing stories, too."

"And the original author?" hissed the voice.

"Niir-ed-Di'n Abd-er-Rahman; the Light of Religion, Servant of the Merciful. He was born, it's believed, in 1414 in a small town called Ja'm, near Herat, the capital of Khurasin, and adopted Jami as his takhallus, or poetical name. He is considered the last of the great Persian writers."

"I want it," whispered the voice from the darkness.

"It is yours," responded the king's agent. "And I have other volumes here." He patted his shoulder bag.

"What are they?"

"My own works: Goa and the Blue Mountains, Scinde or the Unhappy Valley, and A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah."

"You are an author?"

"Among other things, yes."

"Indian?"

"No, this is a disguise I adopted in order to travel unmolested."

"Limehouse is dangerous."

"Yes."

There was a pause, then the sepulchral tones came again: "What do you ask in return for the books?"

"I ask to be permitted to help."

"To help? To help with what?"

"Not long ago, I saw wolflike creatures snatch a boy from the street. I know he isn't the first to have been taken, and I know that all the missing boys are chimney sweeps."

A long silence followed.

Burton closed his notebook, placed it in his bag, then removed the bag from his shoulders and lowered it by the strap into the darkness.

A small mottled hand, so pale it was almost blue, reached out of the shadows within the flue and took the bag. A satisfied sigh echoed up from below.

Burton said, "The books are yours, whether you give me any information or not."

"Thank you," came the response. "It is true-the League of Chimney Sweeps is under attack and we do not know why."

"How many boys have been taken?"

"Twenty-eight."

Burton whistled. "As many as that!"

"They all returned but nine. Nine are still missing. Ten if you include the latest, Aubrey Baxter, the boy you saw abducted."

"They are the ones most recently taken?"

"No, not at all. Most come back; some don't."

"And what of those who returned? What did they have to say?"

"They remember nothing."

"Really? Nothing at all?"

"They don't even remember the wolves. There is one thing, though."

"What?" asked Burton.

"All the boys who were taken-when they reappeared, they each bore a mark upon the forehead, between the eyes, about an inch above the bridge of the nose."

"A mark?"

"A small bruise surrounding a pinprick."

"Like that made by a syringe?"

"I have never seen the mark made by a syringe, but I imagine so, yes."

"Can you arrange for me to meet one of these boys?"

"Are you the police?"

"No."

"Wait."

Burton waited. He watched a swan flying past in the near distance, a box kite trailing behind it, a man sitting in the kite, gripping the long reins.

"Here," hissed the Beetle.

The king's agent looked down and saw the worm-coloured arm reaching up out of the darkness. A piece of paper was held in the small fingers. He bent, stretched down, and took it.

Upon the paper two addresses had been written.

"Most of the boys live in the Cauldron," murmured the hidden sweep, "but that is too dangerous a place for such as you."

Don't I know it! thought Burton.

"There are some lodging houses which I rent in safer areas, such as these two. If you wait until tomorrow, I will see to it that you are expected; just say you have been sent by the Beetle. The first is where you'll find Billy Tupper, one of the fellows who returned. The second is a boarding house where three of the boys who are still missing lodged."

"Their names?"

"Jacob Spratt, Rajish Thakarta, and Benny Whymper. All these boys were taken whilst visiting fellow sweeps in the East End."

"Thank you. This is very useful. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"On the other side of the paper I've listed all the boys who were taken and the dates of their abductions. I know nothing more."

"Then I'll take my leave of you, with thanks. If I learn anything about these kidnappings, I'll return."

"Drop three stones into the chimney. I'll respond. Bring more books."

"On what subject?"

"Philosophy, travel, art, poetry, anything."

"You fascinate me," said Burton. "Won't you come out of the shadows?"

There was no reply.

"Are you still there?"

Silence.

Both his cases were at a temporary standstill, so Burton spent the rest of the day catching up with his correspondence and various writing projects. He was surprised to find, in the Empire, an article by Henry Morton Stanley that, in reviewing the status of the Nile debate, gave well-balanced consideration to both positions. Burton's theory that the great river flowed out of the as yet unexplored northern shore of Lake Tanganyika was presented as a possibility in need of further investigation. John Speke's proposal that the Nyanza was the source was deemed more probably correct but, again, further expeditions were required. As for the explorers themselves, Burton, Stanley claimed, had been a victim of severe misfortune when fever prevented him from circumnavigating Tanganyika, while Speke had lacked the skills and experience necessary for geographical surveys and had made serious mistakes. Stanley was also highly critical of Speke's "renaming" of Nyanza. There was no need, he wrote, for a "Lake Albert" in central Africa.

It was a surprising turnaround, thought Burton, for he'd considered Stanley an implacable enemy, one of the men who'd stoked the fires of Speke's misplaced resentment against him.

What was the damned Yankee up to?

The answer came a few minutes later when he opened a letter from Sir Roderick Murchison. It was many pages long and covered a range of topics, though was mainly concerned with the financial mess Burton had left behind upon his departure from Zanzibar two years ago. The explorer had denied full payment to most of the porters who'd accompanied him and Speke for seven hundred miles into unexplored territory then seven hundred miles back again. The porters had not, Burton asserted, remained true to their contract, having mutinied and deserted in droves, and therefore did not deserve full payment.

Unfortunately, the British Consul at Zanzibar, Christopher Rigby, was yet another of Burton's foes. They had known each other back in India, and Rigby had never forgiven the explorer for repeatedly beating him out of his usual first place position in language examinations. Rigby was now getting his revenge by using his official position to stir up trouble, causing the payment affair to drag on for two tedious years.

This, however, was old news. What really caught Burton's attention was a paragraph in which Sir Roderick revealed that Henry Morton Stanley had received approval from his editor to mount an expedition of his own to settle the Nile question once and for all. Murchison continued: I have thus made available to him the f zits of your labours, which I ani certain will be of invaluable assistance in this f •esh endeavour Please rest assured. my dear Burton, that your place in histo; y is secure, and it will ever be stated that the results of Stanley's expedition, whatever they may be, would not have been possible were it not for your outstanding achievements, which. as it were. have "blazed a trail" for all who follow

Again, Sir Richard Francis Burton was suddenly aware of that peculiar sense of being divided, for he knew that this news would once have infuriated him, yet now he felt nothing. Geographical exploration now belonged, he sensed, to another version of himself; to the doppelganger.

He spent the next few hours writing up his case notes, creating a copy of the Spring Heeled Jack reports that Detective Inspector Trounce had loaned him, and designing a filing system in which to keep records of his cases.

At ten o'clock that evening, Trounce called at the house.

"You've cracked it, old chap!" he announced, dropping into an armchair and accepting a proffered glass of whisky. "I've had a right old foot slog around the Battersea district today but every twinge of my bunions is worth it! Listen to this!"

Burton sat down and sipped his port while the policeman spoke.

"Of those Brigade members on your list, seven have daughters and the rest can be ignored for now. I shall deal with the seven one by one. The first is Martin Shepherd, still living, sixty-one years old, married to Louisa Buckle. They had two sons and a daughter, Jennifer. She was born in 1822. In 1838, aged sixteen, she was molested by what she described as `a hopping demon' while crossing Battersea Fields. She was shocked but unharmed and the family never reported the incident. In 1842, she married a man named Thomas Shoemaker and they had a daughter, Sarah, who, coincidentally, is now sixteen. The whole family emigrated to South Africa soon after the girl's birth. Do you mind if I smoke my pipe?"

"Not at all," replied Burton. "You think the `hopping demon' was Spring Heeled Jack?"

"It sounds like it, doesn't it? Shame I can't interview Jennifer Shoemaker. I don't think it's necessary, though, and you'll probably agree when you hear the rest of it. Let's move on to Brigade member number two: Mr. Bartholomew Stevens."

"Mary Stevens's father."

"Yes." Trounce started pushing tobacco into the bowl of a stained meerschaum.

"Bartholomew married Elisabeth Pringle in 1821 and the following year Mary was born. As you know, she was attacked by Jack in '37, when she was fifteen years old. Five years later she married a man named Albert Fairweather and the whole family moved to Essex where they now live. The Fairweathers have four children, three boys and a girl. The daughter, Connie, is now seventeen.

"Our third chap is Carl Goodkind, who passed away five years ago. He left a widow, Emily, who still lives. They had one child, a daughter, Deborah, who, in 1838, was committed to Bedlam, having suddenly gone insane for no clear reason-at least, none that I could get Mrs. Goodkind to talk about. Deborah died in the asylum twelve years ago."

"Spring Heeled Jack again?" pondered Burton.

"You've seen the files, Captain. You know there are recorded cases of his victims losing their minds, so yes, I rather suspect that Deborah Goodkind was another such. And we shouldn't be surprised that the assault was never spoken of-even to other members of the Brigade-for you know the shame and embarrassment that attach to mental aberrations."

The king's agent nodded thoughtfully.

"The fourth man is Edwin Fraser, born 1780, died earlier this year at the grand old age of eighty-one. He married May Wells and they had a daughter, Lizzie Fraser, in 1823. Apparently she was a happy and intelligent child until the age of fourteen when, after a mental breakdown, she became morose and reclusive. Nevertheless, she found a husband in Desmond Steephill and gave birth to a daughter, Marian, in 1847. She would have turned fourteen in a couple of months."

"Would have?"

Trounce took a long draw on his pipe and blew a column of blue smoke into the air.

"Last month," he said, quietly, "Lizzie poisoned herself, her husband, and her daughter."

"By Gad!"

"According to the coroner's report, there were bruises on the young girl's arms, as if she'd been gripped tightly, and scratches on her chest. They were not made the same day as the poisoning."

Trounce looked directly at Burton, and through the tobacco smoke his blue eyes seemed to shine as if lit from within.

"I think," he said, "that Lizzie Fraser was the Lizzie that Spring Heeled Jack asked after when he caused the brougham to crash back in '37. Furthermore, I think he found and assaulted her, causing her subsequent mental breakdown. I also believe that, last month, he attacked her daughter, Marian, and that Lizzie, in an insane attempt to escape his attentions, poisoned herself and her family."

"Great heavens, man!" exclaimed Burton. "Are you suggesting that the fiend is specifically targeting the womenfolk of Battersea Brigade members?"

"Yes, Captain, I am. Listen to the rest, then tell me if I'm wrong! The fifth of our seven is fifty-nine-year-old Mr. Frederick Adams, who married Virginia Jones in 1821. You've met their daughter."

"I have?"

"Tilly Adams, born 1822, married Edward Tew in 1845, gave birth to Angela Tew in 1846."

"I'll be damned!"

"Exactly," agreed Trounce. "I did some poking about in Mrs. Tew's past. She was bedridden for reasons unknown for the greater part of 1839."

"So I was right about that strange look she gave me when we were leaving her cottage," mused Burton. "Sort of secretive and resentful."

"Yes. As you suggested, she was hiding something. I have no doubt that she knew her daughter's attacker," said Trounce, "because she herself had been one of his victims more than two decades ago. Can I trouble you for a refill?"

"Certainly," responded Burton, reaching for the bottle. He topped up the Yard man's glass.

"And number six?"

"Mr. David Alsop, now deceased. Married Jemma Bucklestone. Daughter: Jane Alsop. Attacked aged eighteen in 1838. Married Benton Pipkiss in 1843. Their daughter, Alicia Pipkiss, was born three years later. Like Connie Fairweather, she's in the age group that Spring Heeled Jack attacks but has not been assaulted."

"Yet," observed Burton.

"Yet," agreed Trounce. "Those are our two next possible targets. The seventh member of the Brigade we can count out. Mr. Arnold Lovitt married June Dibble and they had a daughter, Sarah. It wasn't reported at the time but Sarah admitted to me that she was sexually molested in 1839 and in describing her assailant, she gave a pretty good portrayal of our stilt-walker. A couple of years later, she married Donald Harkness and they had three children, including a girl, Lucy Harkness. Three weeks ago, Lucy fell into a coma from which she hasn't emerged. The family's doctor has labelled it an `hysterical fit caused by severe mental trauma.' A trauma which, I'll wager, was caused by you-know-who."

Burton grunted and said, "So in every case where a member of the Battersea Brigade had a daughter, that daughter was attacked by Spring Heeled Jack. And of the granddaughters, all have been attacked recently, it seems, accept Connie Fairweather and Alicia Pipkiss."

"Yes. Which begs the question: what the hell is he playing at?"

Burton stood and paced up and down. "You've posted constables at the girls' homes?"

"They are being watched every minute of the day," confirmed Trounce. "The Fairweather family won't be around for much longer, though-they're preparing to emigrate to Australia. That, at least, might put the girl out of harm's way."

"There seem to be two main elements to this mystery," Burton declared. "The man who assassinated Queen Victoria, and the female descendants of one particular group of regulars who drank at the pub where he worked. Perhaps we should count the late Marquess of Waterford as a third."

"There's another," said Trounce.

"There is? What?"

"You."

That night, he dreamed again of Isabel.

She was bent low over a blazing fire, and its orange light made her face diabolical.

In her hand, she held a bound notebook; one of his journals; a detailed chapter of his extraordinary life.

With her features contorted by a hellish fury, she threw the volume into the flames, and Burton felt a chunk of his existence melting away.

She picked up another volume, fed it to the fire, and hissed in satisfaction as another part of him was turned to ashes.

One by one, she burned his journals.

Sir Richard Francis Burton was consumed, reduced to an empty shell of deeds done, the man himself removed.

He cried out desperately: "Stop!"

Isabel raised her eyes, glared at him, and lifted a thick, heavy tome.

"No!" he shouted. "Please!" For this, he knew, was his magnum opus.

"Everything you are," she said, with an air of finality, "must be rewritten."

She dropped the book into the flames.

Burton jerked awake, a sheen of sweat upon his brow.

"The deuce take it!" he cursed, pushing back the blankets and wrapping himself in his jubbah. He stood, parted the curtains-it was still dark outside-then leaned over his water basin and splashed his face.

He left his bedroom and walked down the stairs to the study, opened the door, and entered.

The coal in the hearth was glowing softly. Above, on the mantelpiece, a candle glimmered.

It was six o'clock in the morning, too early for Mrs. Angell to have lit candles, besides which, she wouldn't have done it. She'd have stoked the fire, opened the curtains, and returned to the basement to await his awakening and request for coffee.

He closed the door behind him and stood listening. Then he calmly crossed to the fireplace and took a rapier down from a bracket on the chimney breast.

He shrugged off the jubbah, threw it on a chair, and faced the room, standing in his pyjamas, holding the sword point downward.

"Show yourself," he said, softly.

A figure stepped out from the shadows to the left, from between a bookcase and the curtained windows.

The man was an albino, his skin and shoulder-length hair startlingly white, his eyes pink, with vertical pupils-the eyes of a cat. Of average height and build, he was dressed entirely in black, and held a top hat in his left hand and a silver-topped cane in his right. His pointed fingernails were also black.

By far the most remarkable thing about him, though, was his face, the jaws of which seemed to protrude unnaturally, giving the impression of a carnivorous muzzle.

Undoubtedly, this was the man who'd abducted John Speke and mesmerised Sister Raghavendra.

"I've been waiting, Sir Richard." The voice was a seductive purr, oily and repellent.

"For how long?"

"An hour or so. Don't worry; I kept myself occupied. I've been reading your notes."

"Is privacy a notion you find difficult to comprehend?"

"What possible advantage would I gain from respecting your privacy?"

"Perhaps the reputation of a gentleman?" said Burton, cuttingly.

The albino made a noise that might have been a laugh, though it sounded like a growl.

Burton raised the point of his rapier. "Is Lieutenant Speke alive?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Why did you take him?"

"Things might go a lot better for you if you abandon such questions. You've been asking too many of late, though your investigation has amounted to little more than an extended crawl from one public house to another."

"People gather in public houses. They're a natural source of information. You've been watching me?"

"Of course. From the moment you broke my mesmeric hold over the nurse."

"I saw your eyes in hers."

"And I saw you through them."

"I've heard such things are possible, though I've never seen it done before, not even in India. And, incidentally, you can stop staring at me like that. I'm a mean mesmerist myself and I won't succumb to your magnetic influence."

The intruder shrugged and stepped into the middle of the room. His eyes burned redly in the candlelight. He placed his top hat onto a desk.

"You don't recognise me," he said. "I'm not surprised. I am somewhat altered."

"So tell me who you are and what you want before you get the hell out of my house," answered the king's agent.

In one lightning-swift movement, the albino drew a sword from his cane, touched its tip to Burton's rapier, laid the sheath on a desk, and said: "Laurence Oliphant, most definitely not at your service."

Burton stepped back in surprise and his shoulder blades bumped the mantelpiece.

"Good Lord! What have you done to yourself?" he exclaimed.

Oliphant, who'd stepped forward to keep his blade against Burton's, applied a slight pressure to it.

"The True Libertines may rail against Technology," he said, "but the Rakes view the work of the Eugenicists as an opportunity. What better way to transcend human limitations than by quite literally becoming something a little more than human?"

"You've been hanging around with the wrong people," observed Burton.

Oliphant ignored the gibe and tapped his sword against the rapier, once, twice, before purring: "And to answer your earlier question, what I want is for you to stop poking your nose into matters that don't concern you. I am quite serious, Sir Richard. I will force the issue if I must. Do you care to test me?"

Burton held his blade firmly and responded: "I'm counted one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, Oliphant."

There was a blur of motion, an instant which passed so quickly that it might never have happened.

Burton felt a sudden warmth on his cheek. He reached up and touched it. His fingers came away wet with blood.

"And I," breathed Oliphant, "am the fastest. Don't worry; for your vanity's sake, I have merely reopened that old scar of yours rather than adding a new."

"Most thoughtful," muttered Burton, icily. He stepped forward and thrust at the albino's shoulder. His rapier was nonchalantly parried and ripped from his hand by his opponent's whirling blade. It hit a desk, bounced, and landed point-first in one of the bookcases.

Oliphant, whose sword tip was now touching Burton just below the left eye, gave a momentary glance backward.

"My dear fellow!" he oozed. "How unfortunate. You seem to have impaled James Tuckey's Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire." He lowered his weapon and stepped back. "Take down another blade."

Burton, who'd never before been disarmed in combat, reached up and slid his hand along the chimney breast until his fingers found a weapon. Without taking his eyes from the intruder, he lowered it, gripped the hilt, and raised the blade until it touched Oliphant's.

The albino smiled, revealing even, pointed teeth. "Are you sure you want to continue? There's no need. Agree to abandon your investigation, and I'll take my leave of you."

"I don't think so," countered Burton.

"Come now! Throw it over, Sir Richard! Why not settle down instead? Marry that girl of yours. Maybe apply for a governmental post and write your books."

Bismillah! thought Burton. He's practically quoting Spring Heeled. Jack!

"Yes, that's one option," he replied. "The other is that you tell me exactly what's going on. Shall we start with why you abducted John Speke, or should we go back a little further and talk about why you turned him against me after the Nile expedition? Or maybe we can discuss the werewolf creatures you had with you at the hospital?"

He took a chance: "Or would you prefer a little chat about Spring Heeled Jack?"

A muscle twitched at the corner of a pink eye and Burton knew he'd hit home. He wasn't working on two cases-he was working on one!

Oliphant's sword scraped down the rapier and made a lazy thrust at Burton's heart. The king's agent turned it aside and stepped to the left, flicking his point toward Oliphant's throat-a feint-he brought it down and stabbed at an area just below the albino's collarbone. His blade was met, turned, twisted, and almost torn from his hand again. This time, though, his riposte was fast and effective and Oliphant, not meeting resistance from the expected direction, found his point rising higher than intended. The end of Burton's rapier danced forward beneath it, pierced the sleeve of the albino's velvet frock coat, and penetrated his wrist. It was a move-the manchette- that the adventurer had developed himself in Boulogne while under the tutelage of the famed Monsieur Constantine.

Laurence Oliphant sprang back and stood clutching his wrist, his lips curled.

With feline eyes following his every move, Burton circled his opponent, walked past the bureau and windows, behind his primary desk, crossed in front of a bookcase, then stopped, blocking the door.

He used the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his cheek.

"En garde!" he snapped, and adopted the position.

Oliphant hissed poisonously and followed suit. Their weapons met.

In a flurry of motion, the duel commenced. The two blades clashed, scraped, lunged, parried, and whirled in attack and riposte, filling the room with the tink tink tink of metal against metal. Even with his wounded wrist, Burton's opponent possessed greater speed than any he'd faced before; but Oliphant had a fault: his eyes signalled every move, and the king's agent was thus able to defend against the blindingly fast onslaught. However, finding an opening in the albino's defence proved far more difficult, and, as the two men battled back and forth across the candlelit study, the competition quickly became, at least for Burton, one of endurance.

"Give it up!" gasped Oliphant.

"Where is Speke?" ground out Burton. "I demand an answer!"

"The only one you'll get," growled his foe, "is this!"

The albino's blade accelerated to such a speed that it became almost invisible. Burton's instincts took over; his many years of study and practice in the art of swordsmanship saved him over and over as he desperately blocked and turned aside the darting point. Again and again he was forced to step back, until he was brought up against a bookcase and found himself unable to manoeuvre. Worse, he was tiring, and he saw in the pink eyes that Oliphant recognised the fact.

He feinted, avoided the counterattack, and plunged his blade forward.

A red line appeared on Oliphant's cheek and blood sprayed out behind Burton's flashing blade.

"One for one!" he barked, and, seeing his opponent momentarily disconcerted, attempted another of his own moves, the une-deux, which against any normal opponent would have sent their weapon flying out of their grip while almost breaking their wrist.

Laurence Oliphant was not a normal opponent.

With a howl of fury he slipped his blade through Burton's attack and renewed his assault.

The deadly tip of his sword flew in from every direction and Burton, with the bookcase at his back and his arm muscles burning, found his defences breached. Scratches began to materialise on his forearms; slashes appeared as if by magic in the material of his pyjamas; a puncture wound marked his neck.

He was breathing heavily and starting to feel light-headed. His left hand, held outward and downward for balance, kept knocking against something, a distraction that grew increasingly irritating as his defence continued to falter and Oliphant's weapon found its target again and again.

At the exact instant he saw in his opponent's eyes that the killing thrust was coming, his hand closed over the obstruction and yanked it. A second rapier whipped upward and James Tuckey's Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire flew from the end of it, hitting Oliphant square on the nose.

The albino stumbled backward.

As Burton's newly acquired blade came down, his other came up, and this time his une-deux succeeded. Oliphant's sword went spinning away to land near one of the windows. The king's agent immediately dropped both rapiers, sprang in close, and sent a terrific right cross cracking into his enemy's ear.

The intruder's head snapped sideways and he toppled to the floor, knocking over a table and crashing into a chair, which splintered into pieces under him.

Rolling to his knees, Oliphant ducked under a second punch and swiped upward, his fingernails clawing through Burton's pyjamas and lacerating the skin beneath.

Burton grabbed for his opponent's arm, intending to pull him into a Jambuvanthee Indian wrestling hold, but his bare foot landed on a sharp fragment of wood and twisted under him. He lost his balance and staggered.

The albino kicked out, his heels thumping into Burton's hip. The king's agent fell back against the bookcase with a loud bang and volumes tumbled down around him. He slid to the floor, snatched up a chair leg, and scrambled back to his feet just in time to see his opponent leaping away.

Laurence Oliphant grabbed his cane, scooped up his blade and sheathed it, and propelled himself through the glass of the window. The loud smash was immediately followed by the tinkle of glass as the shattered pane rained onto the pavement below.

Burton raced over and looked out. No normal human could have survived that drop, yet there was Oliphant, hatless and bloodied, sprinting toward the western end of Montagu Place. He ran past roadworks, which had appeared on the street the previous evening, and vanished around the corner.

Sir Richard Francis Burton, dripping blood, his pyjamas hanging in shreds, opened his bureau and poured himself a large brandy, which he swallowed in a single gulp.

He crossed to the fireplace and fell into his armchair, let loose a deep sigh, then immediately stood again, wondering how the hell Oliphant had got into the house.

A few minutes later, he found the answer: the tradesman's entrance below the front door was open and beside it, in the hallway, dressed in her nightgown, stood Mrs. Iris Angell.

Her eyes were wide, staring blankly at the wall.

"Come on, Mother Angell," said Burton gently, and guided her into her parlour. He sat her down and began crooning in that same ancient tongue he'd used to bring Countess Sabina out of her trance.

He knew he had to be thorough now. It wasn't merely a case of disengaging the woman from her hypnotic stupor; he had to probe the depths of her mind to remove any lingering suggestions planted by the archmesmerist, for it wouldn't do to have her spying for Oliphant, or, even worse, slipping poison into Burton's food.

"Hellfire!" he thought. "What have I got myself into?"