What happened next occurred so suddenly that Swinburne found himself acting without knowing what he was doing.
Something-maybe the snap of a twig or a careless movement-attracted the cannibalistic grave robbers. As one, their heads turned, and Swinburne knew straightaway that Willy Cornish had been spotted.
The poet rose to his feet and stepped away from the mausoleum.
'Hey!' he shouted.
Seven hoods swung in his direction and seven sets of seething red eyes fixed on him. One of the figures took two steps forward and the dim lamplight angled across its face, revealing a wrinkled snout and white canines.
Loups-gdrous!
For the first time in his life, Swinburne experienced fear. He turned and started to run but went pelting into a gravestone, stumbled, lost his balance, and fell. His legs kicked franticly as he tried to crawl into the shadows but when claws dug into his ankle he knew that the creatures were upon him. He was dragged back over the wet soil, his fingers digging into it but finding no purchase.
Hands gripped and lifted him, and a dread of being torn apart and eaten alive overpowered him, pushing him to the brink of unconsciousness.
The wolf-men snarled and gripped his limbs tightly, pushed their snouts into his clothing, and sniffed at it. They grunted and began to move, the ground rushing past Swinburne's eyes as they raced across it.
In the last seconds of awareness, before he fainted, Swinburne realised that he was being borne away.
DOG, CAT, AND MOUSE
The Universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
The morning after he and Algernon Swinburne had visited Elephant and Castle, Sir Richard Francis Burton once again donned his Sikh disguise, made his way to the abandoned factory beside the Limehouse Cut, and climbed the chimney. He dropped three pebbles down the flue, one after the other, and, moments later, had his second interview with the Beetle. He and the president of the League of Chimney Sweeps, who once again remained in the darkness, arranged for Swinburne's apprenticeship with Vincent Sneed, then Burton handed over a gift of books and departed.
He made his way to the poet's lodgings and outlined the plan. Swinburne was beside himself with delight and immediately started making his preparations.
Burton then had a meeting with Detective Inspector Trounce at Scotland Yard. He told him about the latest developments, including his suspicion that Oliphant knew something about Spring Heeled Jack, and learned in turn that the two girls, Connie Fairweather and Alicia Pipkiss, had so far been going about their business as normal; there had been no sign of Spring Heeled Jack.
The king's agent arrived back at 14 Montagu Place at two thirty. As he paid the cab driver, he noticed that the roadworks had stopped outside his home, the trench had been filled in, and new cobbles covered it. A thick pipe that hadn't been there before was running up the side of the house. It disappeared into the brickwork just below one of his study windows.
'What's the new pipe?' he asked Mrs. Angell, as he wiped his feet on the doormat.
'Something to do with the gas supply,' she answered. 'I must say, they worked tremendously fast.'
He mounted the stairs and went up to his study, passed through it to his dressing room, and removed the Sikh costume and makeup. Half an hour later, he was dressed comfortably, seated at a desk, and picking at his lunch while reading the latest edition of the Empire.
There was a knock at the door and Mrs. Angell entered at his bidding.
'The two workmen wish to see you, sir.'
'Workmen?'
'The ones who put the new gas main in.'
'What do they want?'
'I don't know but they are very insistent.'
'Very well-send them up.'
'Yes, sir.'
She withdrew and moments later two men entered. They were both dressed identically in long black surtouts, with black waistcoats underneath. Their white shirts had high cheek-scraping 'Gladstone' collars, the starched points of which threatened to pierce their eyeballs at every turn of the head. Pale yellow cravats encased their necks. Their high-waisted breeches ended just below their knees, giving way to pale yellow tights. They wore buckled shoes.
All in all, their style was at least fifty years out of date.
'Good afternoon, Captain Burton,' said the tall but slightly hunchbacked man on the left. Like his companion, he was holding a stovepipe hat. Unlike his companion, he was extremely bald, with just a short fringe of hair around his ears. As if to compensate for this, he sported the variety of extremely long side whiskers known as 'Piccadilly weepers.' His face hung in a naturally maudlin expression: the mouth curved downward, the jowly cheeks drooping, the eyes woebegone. He shifted the brim of his hat through his fingers nervously.
'My name is Damien Burke.'
The second man bobbed his head. He was shorter and immensely broad, with massive shoulders and long, apelike arms. His head was crowned with an upstanding mop of pure white hair that descended before his small puffy ears in a short fringe, angling around his square jawline to a tuft beneath the heavy chin. His pale grey eyes were deeply embedded in gristly sockets; he had a splayed, many-times-broken nose and an extraordinarily wide mouth filled with large flat teeth. In his left hand, he held a big canvas bag.
'And I'm Gregory Hare,' he said, in a rumbling voice. 'Where do you want it?'
Burton, who'd risen from his desk, paced over to the men and held his hand out.
'Pleased to meet you,' he said.
Burke looked down at the proffered hand in surprise. He licked his lips then held out his own, as if unfamiliar with such niceties.
They shook.
Hare, who had his hat in one hand and the bag in the other, moved indecisively, put on his hat, quickly shook Burton's hand, then snatched the stovepipe back off his head.
'Where do I want what?' asked Burton.
'Ah, well, there now-that's a question,' replied Burke in funereal tones. 'What indeed? Perhaps you have a suggestion, Captain? Messenger pipe? Canister conveyor? Communications tube? For the life of us we've not yet come up with a suitable moniker.'
'Are you referring to the contrivance on Lord Palmerston's desk?'
'Why, of course, sir. But unlike the prime minister, you seem to be replete with desks. Is there a preferred?'
Burton indicated the desk by the windows. 'I use this one the most.'
'Very good, sir. We'll have to take the floor up but it'll all be done in a jiffy and we'll leave it as we find it. Would you mind clearing the desk? We wouldn't want to disturb your work. Incidentally, sir, I read your First Footsteps in East Africa-most fascinating; most fascinating indeed!'
The hunchback turned to his colleague. 'Come along, Mr. Hare, we don't want to inconvenience Captain Burton for longer than necessary.'
'Of course not, Mr. Burke,' replied the apelike Hare. 'That wouldn't do at all!'
While Burton shifted books and documents, his two visitors unpacked tools from their bag and started to jemmy up the floorboards by the window.
