along the inside edge of this opening. Maybe they adjust the machine's behaviour in some manner? Each one has an up or down position, so how many combinations would-?”
“Never mind that!” the king's agent snapped. “Tell me the route of your beat, Constable!”
“My beat?” Bhatti looked puzzled.
“What's happening?” Trounce asked.
Burton ignored the detective inspector. His eyes blazed intently.
“Your beat, man! Spit it out!”
The constable pushed his helmet back from his eyes. Rainwater trickled down the back of his uniform. “All right,” he said. “From here I proceed along Cockspur Street and around into Whitcomb Street. I walk up as far as the junction with Orange Street then turn right and keep on until I reach Mildew Street. I turn right again, at the works where they're shoring up the underground river, enter Saint Martin's, and foot-slog it back down to the square.”
“And that takes fifty minutes?” Burton demanded.
“When you figure in all the alleyways that I poke my nose into, the shop doors that need checking, and so forth, yes.”
“And places of note on the route? Places you check with the greatest diligence?”
“What's this about, Captain Burton?”
“Just answer the confounded question, man!”
“Do as he says, lad,” Trounce ordered.
“Very well. There's the main branch of the Bright Empire Bank on the corner of Cockspur; the Satyagraha Bank is on Whitcomb; Treadwell's Post Office is on Orange Street, with SPARTA just opposite-”
“Sparta?”
“The Swan, Parakeet, and Runner Training Academy.”
“Ah. Continue, please.”
“The League of Enochians Gentlemen's Club is at the corner of Mildew, with the works on the other side; then going down Saint Martin's, there's Scrannington Bank, Brundleweed the diamond dealer's, the Pride-Manushi velocipede shop, Boyd's Antiques, and Goddard the art dealer. That's it. There are plenty of other places, of course, but those are the ones I make a special point of checking.”
“Trounce, take Bhatti and follow the route from the Cockspur end,” Burton directed. “Algy and I will take the opposite direction, along Saint Martin's.”
Trounce frowned, held out his hands in a shrug, and asked: “But why? What are we looking for?”
“Can't you see?” Burton cried. “This bloody thing-” he struck the brass figure with his cane and it clanged loudly “-is nothing but a decoy! Whoever dropped it off in the square knew it would fascinate Bhatti, knew he'd pore over it obsessively before summoning help from the Yard, and knew that a fair amount of time would pass before he returned to his beat!”
“Hell's bells!” Trounce shouted. “You mean there's a crime in progress? Come on, Constable!”
He shoved bystanders aside, ordered a nearby police sergeant to guard the metal man, and raced away with Bhatti toward the end of Cockspur Street.
Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Swinburne made their way to the edge of the square and pressed on through the rain to Saint Martin's.
Adrenalin had sobered them but Burton's headache was intensifying and a familiar ague-a remnant of Africa-was beginning to grip his limbs. It was an oncoming attack of malaria, and if he didn't get back to his apartment soon to quell it with a dose of quinine, he'd be immobilised for days to come.
They passed the police station and nodded to Constable Hoare, who was at the side of the road hitching a miserable-looking police horse to a wagon.
All along the street, gas lamps had fizzled out, their covers inadequate against the downpour. Only a few remained alight, and the deep shadows and streaming rain reduced visibility to just a few yards.
A little farther on, the two men came to Goddard's and peered through the night grille at the window behind.
“Good gracious!” Swinburne blurted excitedly. “There's a Rossetti in there and I modelled for it! I must tell Dante. He'll be over the moon!”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a founding member of the True Libertines-the most idealistic faction of the Libertine caste and a counterbalance to the notorious Rakes. He was also one of the “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,” a community of artists whose stated aim was to produce works that communicated at a “spiritual” level with the common man; a direct challenge to the current trend in propaganda. Few people admired them. Rossetti and his cohorts were mocked and ridiculed by the press, which claimed the artists were appealing to a void, since common men-the working classes-lacked anything resembling a well-developed sense of their own spirituality.
Swinburne often socialised with the group and had posed for their paintings on a number of occasions. He was surprised that Goddard dared display the small, medieval-themed canvas, which depicted the poet as a flame- haired knight with lance in hand, mounted on a sturdy horse. Admittedly, the picture was half hidden behind a more commercial portrait of the late Francis Galton, who was shown wielding a syringe and smiling broadly beneath the words: Self-improvement! It doesn't hurt a bit!
The premises was quiet and dark, its door secure, the windows intact.
“Let's move on,” Burton said. “No one's going to steal a Rossetti.”
An old-fashioned horse-drawn brougham-they were still common-came clattering alongside, splashed water onto their trouser legs, and disappeared into the gloom. Oddly, the sound of its horse's hooves thundered on, seeming quite out of proportion to the size of the animal.
“A mega-dray,” Swinburne commented, and Burton realised that his assistant was right; the heavy clopping wasn't from the brougham's animal at all, it was from one of the huge dray horses developed by the Eugenicists, the biological branch of the Technologist caste. Obviously there was one nearby, though even as Burton thought this, the sound faded into the distance.
Boyd's Antiques, which was on the other side of the road, was, like Goddard's, locked up and undisturbed.
“Nothing happening here,” Swinburne said as they walked on. “Great heavens, Richard, we're in desperate straits-we're both soaked, and not with alcohol!”
“Good!” Burton replied. “I thought I'd weaned you off the bottle.”
“You had, but then you tempted me back! You've not been sober for more than two days since the Spring Heeled Jack hoo-ha!”
“For which I apologise. I think my frustrations over the Nile situation have been getting the better of me.”
“Give it up, Richard. Africa's no longer your concern.”
“I know, I know. It's just that… I regret the mistakes I made during my expedition. I wish I could go back and make amends.”
A man hurried past them, spitting expletives as the strengthening wind turned his umbrella inside out.
Swinburne gave his friend a sideways glance. “Do you mean physically return to Africa or go back in time? What on earth's got into you? You've been like a bear with a sore head lately.”
Burton pursed his lips, thrust his cane into the crook of his elbow, and pushed his hands into his pockets.
“Montague Penniforth.”
“Who?”
“He was a cab driver-a salt-of-the-earth type. He knew his position in society, and despite it being tough and the rewards slight, he just got on with it, uncomplainingly.”
“So?”
“So I dragged him out of his world and into mine. He got killed, and it was my fault.” Burton looked at his companion, his eyes hard and his expression grim. “William Stroyan, 1854, Berbera. I underestimated the natives. I didn't think they'd attack our camp. They did. He was killed. John Hanning Speke. Last year, he shot himself in the head rather than confront me in a debate. Now half his brain is a machine and his thoughts aren't his own. Edward Oxford-”
“The man who leaped here from the future.”
