Honesty! Leave that man! Let's go!”
“He's under arrest!” Honesty protested. His dapper appearance had been considerably dishevelled.
“He's more trouble than he's worth!” Burton shouted above the noise of the angry crowd. He bent and picked up Fidget.
Herbert came abreast of him, dragging Swinburne.
“Naargh!” the poet cried, incoherently. He broke away from the philosopher, swung his fist at nothing in particular, missed, and stumbled. Spencer bent low, scooped him up, and threw him over his shoulder.
Burton and his companions backed away from the crowd.
The workers howled abuse at them and shook their fists.
“What in God's name is happening?” Trounce gasped.
“There's a riot developing,” Burton said, “and we have to get out of it immediately. Are you all right? You took a blow to the head.”
“I know. It's aching abominably.”
“Mine, too,” Honesty noted. “But I wasn't hit.”
“Me neither, but I have a throbbing at the back of my skull, too,” said Burton.
“I'm fine,” put in Spencer. “P'raps it's me life on the streets what's given me a stronger constitution.”
They hurried out of the crowd, pushing aside swearing, threatening individuals, and hurried away from Speakers’ Corner and into Park Lane. Men poured into the streets behind them. There came the sounds of breaking glass, screams, yells, and crashes. Burton glanced back and saw a group pushing a hansom cab onto its side. A velocipede was stopped, its rider pulled off the high saddle and punched in the face.
The king's agent and his companions jogged along the pavement until they came to the corner of Edgware Road. They hastened down the wide thoroughfare. A millipede omnibus-they were now known as “omnipedes”- thundered past and the cloud belching from its sides curled across the street. Two ghostly figures formed within the vapour then faded from sight.
“Put me down,” Swinburne groaned.
Spencer placed the poet on his feet and the little man doubled over and clutched his head.
Burton held his assistant by the arm. “Is it the same pain you felt in the labyrinth at Tichborne House?”
“Yes. Pounding at my brain! I tell you, Richard, it's like they're trying to get inside of me!”
Trounce looked at the little poet. “By James, I know what he means!”
“An invisible force of some sort is trying to influence us,” Burton answered. “It succeeded before with Algy, but this time it's met with some resistance.”
Detective Inspector Honesty turned to his fellow officer. “Better summon reinforcements. Riot in progress. Could be bad.”
Trounce ran a hand over his forehead. “Of course. I'm forgetting my duties. By Jove, I can hardly think straight! Captain Burton, Detective Inspector Honesty and I had better get to work. We'll whistle for constables, see if we can get that rabble under control.”
Burton put Fidget down, clipped on the lead, then shook the two men's hands. “Very well. Good luck! And be careful.”
The Scotland Yard men dashed away, and the king's agent turned to the vagrant philosopher.
“Thank you, Herbert, you helped us out of a tight squeeze. What were you doing there, anyway?”
“Workin’ the crowd, Boss.”
“You mean begging?”
“Yus.”
“But you're gainfully employed now!”
“More or less, but I like to keep me hand in, so to speak. Waste o’ time, though. Them what was a-givin’ were givin’ to the Claimant, not to me!” He looked down at Swinburne, who was leaning heavily on Burton for support. “How you feelin’, lad?”
“I need a brandy.”
Burton snorted. “I think you've had quite enough!”
“Bloody Vincent Sneed, of all people!” the poet moaned.
“Herbert, you'd better come home with us. I'll dress that wound on your forehead,” Burton said.
They moved along Edgware Road then turned into Seymour Place. People ran past, all going in the same direction. Velocipedes and hansoms clattered by, too, pumping steam into the already laden atmosphere as they fled from the disturbance. Burton clearly saw a well-dressed wraith materialise in the vapours and drift across the cobbles to where a chaunter was leaning against a lamppost. The man's eyes were closed and he seemed oblivious to both the approaching phantom and the panic around him as he mournfully sang “Molly Malone:” “She was a fishmonger,
But sure ‘twas no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,
And they each wheeled their barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, ‘Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o!’”
The wraith hovered around the man. For a moment the apparition became almost completely opaque, taking on the appearance of a tall, stooped bearded man, then it faded from sight. The chaunter paused, winced, shook his head, then continued singing, but his song had changed, though he didn't seem to realise it: “Give me the man of honest heart,
I like no two-faced dodger,
But one who nobly speaks his part,
Like Kenealy does for Roger!
One honest lawyer's found at last,
Who'll ne'er desert his client,
He knows right well the cause is just,
He stands up like a giant. “Then say men say,
Be you low or rich born,
And have fair play,
For Kenealy and for Tichborne.”
“Aye!” a passing costermonger cried. “Give a cheer for brave Sir Roger!”
Various voices answered his call: “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”
“Bastard upper-crust bastards!” a milk deliveryman yelled. “Bastard bloomin’ bastards!”
He bent, pulled a loose cobble from the road, and threw it through a house window.
Burton and Herbert Spencer, dragging Swinburne and Fidget along, entered Montagu Place and mounted the steps of number 14.
The front door was open. A table had been overturned in the hallway, pictures on the wall were hanging askew, and young Oscar Wilde, the newspaper seller, was picking pieces of a shattered vase up from the floor inside. His face was scratched, as if gouged by fingernails.
Muffled screams and thuds sounded from the cupboard beneath the stairs.
“What's been happening here, Quips?” Burton exclaimed, plonking Swinburne onto a hall chair.
“Oh, there you are, Captain,” said Oscar. “I was passing by and heard some sort of brouhaha from your house. As you know, my own business always bores me to death, I prefer other people's, so I poked my nose in. It seems your little maid has lost her mind. She was attacking Mrs. Angell, so she was.”
“What? Young Elsie? Is Mrs. Angell all right? Where is she?”
“Don't be worrying yourself, Captain, she's fine and dandy. She took herself downstairs to rest awhile. I said I'd clean up the mess.”
“Thank you, Quips. You're a good lad.” Burton set the table upright. “You locked Elsie in the cupboard, I take it?”
“To be sure. ‘Twas the only way to keep the young madam from wrecking the entire house. Phew! What a wildcat!”
Burton sighed. “Well, she can stay in there until she calms down. I'd ask what the devil got into her, but I suspect the answer would be Tichborne!”
