The words echoed in his mind, and he said aloud now what he'd said then: “How can I possibly
“What?” came a voice.
Burton turned. A vagrant had shuffled out of the fog.
“Was ye a-talkin' to me, mister?”
“No.”
“I thought ye said sumfink.”
“I did. I was-I was just thinking aloud.”
“Ah, rightio. I do that. They say it's the first sign o' madness, don't they? Can ye spare a copper? I ain't ‘ad nuffink to eat, not fer a couple o’ days, leastways.”
Burton fished in his pocket, pulled out a coin, and flipped it to the man. He turned to go, but then paused and said to the beggar: “How can I possibly know what I'm supposed to do?”
“Heh! Ye just carry on carryin' on, don'tcha, mate! Fate'll do the rest!”
Burton sighed, nodded, and walked out of the alley.
Burton sat up, jolted out of his sleep.
Had that been Bertie Wells's voice or Algernon Swinburne's?
He looked at the four corners of his bedroom.
Nobody's voice. A dream.
He sat up, poured a glass of water from the jug on his bedside table, then opened a drawer and took out a small vial. Its label read
It was early on Thursday morning.
Burton caught a hansom to Limehouse. When it became ensnarled in traffic halfway there, he left it and walked the rest of the distance. He made his way along Limehouse Cut until he came to an abandoned factory, climbed one of its chimneys, and dropped three pebbles into its flue. The Beetle responded to the summons. The head of the League of Chimney Sweeps, who'd been safely transported from the Arabian Desert back to his home, reported that, on Captain Lawless's recommendation, Willy Cornish had received a government grant to put him through private schooling, while Vincent Sneed had been released from the Cairo prison and was now working as a funnel scrubber at an airfield in South London.
Satisfied, the king's agent left the mysterious boy with a satchel of books and made his way homeward.
It was almost midday by the time he turned the corner of Montagu Place. He saw Mr. Grub, his local street vendor, standing in the fog with a forlorn expression on his face.
“Hallo, Mr. Grub. Where's your barrow?”
“It got knocked over by a bleedin' omnipede, Cap'n,” the man replied. “Smashed to smithereens, it was.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Burton replied. “But you have your Dutch oven, still?”
“Nope. It was crushed by one o' them lumbering great mega-dray horses.”
“But Mr. Grub, if you can't sell shellfish or hot chestnuts, what the dickens are you standing here for?”
The vendor shrugged helplessly. “It's me patch, Cap'n. Me pa stood on it, an' his pa afore him! It's where I belong, ain't it!”
Burton couldn't think how to reply to that, so he settled for a grunted response and made to move away.
“'Scusin' me askin', Cap'n-”
The explorer stopped and turned back.
“Did you ever find it?”
“Find what, Mr. Grub?”
“The source, sir. The source of the Nile.”
“Ah. Yes. As a matter of fact I did.”
“Good on you! That's bloomin' marvellous, that is! An' was it worth it?”
Burton swallowed. His heart suddenly hammered in his chest. He blinked the corrosive fog from his eyes.
“No, Mr. Grub. It wasn't worth it at all. Not in the slightest bit.”
The vendor nodded slowly, as if with deep understanding.
“Aye,” he said. “I have it in mind that the source o' things ain't never what you expect 'em to be.”
The king's agent touched the brim of his topper in farewell and walked the rest of the short distance home.
Burke and Hare were waiting for him.
“A moment, if you please, gentlemen. I'd like to change into more suitable clothing, if you don't mind.”
He left them waiting in the hallway, went upstairs, removed his patched trousers and threadbare jacket, and put on a suit. He was on his way back down when Mrs. Angell came up from the kitchen, all pinafore and indignation.
“You'll not be going out again, Sir Richard!” she protested, with a scowl at Burke and Hare. “You'll leave him be, sirs! He's not a well man! He's infected with Africa!”
Damien Burke bowed and said, “I assure you, ma'am, I have nothing but the good captain's well-being in mind, isn't that so, Mr. Hare?”
“It is absolutely the case, Mr. Burke. Ma'am, were it not the last request of a condemned man, we wouldn't dream of imposing on Captain Burton.”
“It's all right, Mrs. Angell,” Burton interrupted. “The restorative quality of your incomparable cooking has put new life into me. I'm fit as can be.”
“What condemned man?” the housekeeper asked.
“Lieutenant John Speke,” Burke answered.
“Oh,” the old dame replied. “Him.”
She threw up her chin disapprovingly and stamped back to the kitchen.
“She blames Speke for all my ills,” Burton remarked as he put on his overcoat. He lifted his topper from its hook and suddenly remembered that more than a year ago-or, from his point of view, more than five-a bullet had been fired through it. He examined it closely and saw no sign of the two holes. In his absence, Mrs. Angell had obviously paid for its repair.
He smiled, pushed the hat onto his head, and took his silver-handled sword cane from the elephant's-foot holder by the door.
“Let's go.”
Nearly two hours later, they arrived at the Tower of London after a difficult journey in a horse-drawn growler.
“It would have been quicker to walk,” the king's agent noted.
“Yes, Captain, my apologies,” Burke replied. “The new underground railway system will solve many of the capital's ills, I hope, but I fear its opening is still some way off.”
“Has Mr. Brunel encountered problems?”
“No, sir, he's still drilling the tunnels. It's a project of immense proportions. These things take time. Isn't that
