He put the note in his pocket and moved over to Peg-Leg's side.
''Ere, mate, I gotta get to Mews Street,' he grumbled in a low voice. 'Which way is it?'
'What's yer business there?' asked Peg-Leg, his rheumy eyes looking Burton up and down.
'My business, that's what!' responded Burton.
'All right, fella, no need to get shirty. That alley over there-take it down to the river then turn right 'n' follow the bank-side road 'til you come to a pawn shop what's closed an' boarded up. That's the corner of Mews Street. You gonna be all right on yer own? You know yer shooter got pinched?'
'Yus, the thievin' bastards. I'll manage, matey. Me bruvver is expectin' me an' I'm already a good five hours late!'
'Stopped off at a boozer, hey?'
'Yus.'
'Sorry abaht yet boy, Dad. Fucking bad way to go.'
Burton forced himself to give a heartless East End shrug and moved away, shuffling into the clouded mouth of the alley that the one-legged man had indicated. The increasing distance between himself and Penniforth strained behind him; stretched to its snapping point-but didn't snap. It, like Stroyan's death and Speke's suicide, would pull at his heart for the rest of his life; he knew that, and he realised the commission he'd received from Palmerston-to be 'king's agent'-carried with it a terribly heavy price.
The alley was cramped, almost entirely devoid of light, and ran crookedly down a slight slope toward the river. Burton kept his fingers on the right-hand wall and allowed it to guide him. He repeatedly stumbled over prone bodies. Some cursed when his foot struck them; others moaned; most remained silent.
His mouth felt sour with vomit and alcohol. The toxic fog burned his eyes and nostrils. He wanted to go home and forget this disastrous expedition. He wanted to forget all his disastrous expeditions.
Dammit, Burton! Settle down! Become consul in Fernando Po, Brazil, Damascus, and wherever the fuck else they send you! Write your damned books!
He walked on, and when a man stepped into his path and said, ''Oo do we 'ave 'ere, then?' Burton didn't reply or miss a step but simply rammed a fist as hard as he could into the man's stomach. He kept going, leaving the wretch lying in the fetal position behind him.
Every few yards, his hand fell away from the wall as he encountered junctions with other passages. Each time, he walked ahead keeping his arm outstretched until he came to the opposite corner. Eventually, instead of a corner, he found railings spanning his path, and by the intensity of the stench realised that he'd crossed the Thames-side road and was beside the river. He returned to the other side of the street, found the wall, and staggered on in a westward direction.
As he pushed on through the bilious fog, the fumes seeped into his bloodstream, starving his brain of oxygen. He began to feel a familiar sensation, a feeling which had haunted his malarial deliriums in Africa. It was the notion that he was a divided identity; that two persons existed within him, ever fighting to thwart and oppose each other.
The death of Penniforth became their battlefield. Pervading guilt struggled with a savage desire for revenge; the impulse to flee from this king's agent role wrestled with the determination to find out where the loups-garous came from and why they were, apparently, abducting children.
'Monsieur!'
The word was hissed from a doorway.
Burton stopped and fought a sudden wave of dizziness. He could just about make out a figure crouched in a rectangle of denser shadow.
'Monsieur!' came the whisper again.
'Dore?' he said, softly.
'Oui, Monsieur.'
Burton moved into the doorway and said, in French: 'How did you recognise me, Dore?'
'Pah! You think you can fool an artist's eye with a dab of stage makeup and a toupee? I have seen your picture in the newspaper, Monsieur Burton. I could not mistake you; those sullen eyes, the cheekbones, the fierce mouth. You have the brow of a god and the jaw of a devil!'
Burton grunted. 'What are you doing here, Dore? The East End is no place for a Frenchman.'
'I am not merely a Frenchman; I am an artist.'
'And you possess a cast-iron stomach if you can put up with the stink of this place.'
'I have grown used to it.'
In the absence of anything but the dimmest of lights-from three red blemishes floating over the nearby riverbank, perhaps the lights of a merchant vessel or barge-Burton could barely see the Frenchman. He had a vague impression of rags, a long beard, and wild hair.
'You look like an old vagrant.'
'Mais out! I owe my survival to that fact! They think I possess nothing, so they leave me alone, and quietly and secretly I draw them. But you, Monsieur-why are you in the Cauldron? It is because of the loups-garous, no?'
'Yes. I've been commissioned to find out where they come from and what they are doing.'
'Where they come from I do not know, but what they are doing? They are stealing the chimney sweeps.'
'They're doing what?'
'Mais je to jure que c'est vrai! These loups-garous, they are most particular. They take children but not any children-just the boys who work as sweeps.'
'Why the devil would werewolves kidnap chimney sweeps?'
'This question I cannot answer. You should see the Beetle.'
'Who-or what-is the Beetle?'
'He is the president of the League of Chimney Sweeps.'
'They have a league?'
'Out, Monsieur. I regret, though, that I know not where you should look for the boy.'
'My young friend Quips might know.'
'He is a sweep?'
'No, a newsboy.'
'Ah, out out, he will know. These children, they-what is the expres- sion?-'stick together,' no? I have heard that a word given to one is passed to the next and the next and spreads across your Empire faster than a fire through a dry forest.'
'It's true. Anything else, Monsieur Dore? You know nothing of where the loups-garous come from?'
'Mais non. I can tell you that they have been hunting here for two months and that their raids now come every night, but I can tell you no more. I must go. It is late and I am tired.'
'Very well. Thank you for your time, Monsieur. Please be careful. I understand that art is your life, but I would not like to hear that you had died for it.'
'You will not. I am nearly finished here. The sketches I have taken, Monsieur Burton-they will make me famous!'
'I'll keep an eye open for your work,' replied Burton. 'Tell me, how can I get out of the Cauldron?'
'Keep going along this road; that way-' He pointed, a vague motion in the darkness. 'It is not far. You will come to the bridge.'
'Thank you. Good-bye, Monsieur Dore. Be safe.'
'Au revoir, Monsieur Burton.'
It was past five in the morning by the time Sir Richard Francis Burton collapsed onto his bed and into a deep sleep.
After his meeting with the French artist, he'd made his way past the Tower of London, following the fog- dulled cacophony of the ever-awake London Docks until he reached London Bridge. He'd then walked northward away from the Thames. As the river receded behind him, the murk thinned somewhat and a greater number of working gas lamps enabled him to better get his bearings. He trudged all the way to Liverpool Street and there waved down a hansom of the old horse-pulled variety.
At home, under the conviction that his malaria was about to flare up again, he'd dosed himself with quinine before divesting himself of the disguise and washing the soot from his face. Then, gratefully, he slid between crisp,
