The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) (8 page)

The city was quieter than he’d ever heard it. There were no steam horse–drawn cabs, no pantechnicons, no steam spheres, no velocipedes, and no rotorchairs—just a few riders on mechanical horses. Disconcertingly, the steeds greeted one another as they passed:

“Evening, Orpheus.”

“How’re you doing, Flash?”

“Hallo, Orpheus.”

“What ho, Blackie.”

“All right, Orpheus?”

“Fine, thank you, Heracles.”

“Will you please stop that,” Burton complained.

“Can’t,” his horse replied. “You know full well the exchanges are necessary.”

“Necessary for what?”

“For passing route and traffic information.”

“All I’m hearing are variations of
hello
.”

“That’s because those pathetic biological ears of yours have limited sensitivity. You’re not hearing the coded tones beneath the words.”

Burton ground his teeth. He was frustrated that the dense pall blocked his view of the city. His explorer’s instinct was stimulated by what was—as his mind cleared he was becoming convinced of it—a variant London. He had no idea how he’d got here and wasn’t entirely certain where he’d come from, but he desperately wanted to observe the metropolis. Unfortunate, then, that all he could see were vague smudges of light!

How was it possible that the weather was different? It had been snowing where he came from, he was sure. Wasn’t history a matter of human affairs, rather than natural? Then he noticed soot and ash suspended in the fog, and he realised that this capital must be even more industrialised than his own, and the snow was perhaps held in abeyance by the blanket of fumes. The work of man affecting the climate! What an extraordinary thought!

At the corner of Gloucester Place and Montagu Place, a familiar voice hailed him through the gloom.

“What ho, Cap’n!”

“Is that you, Mr. Grub?” Burton called, for the greeting had come from the corner where Grub the street vendor always had his brazier or barrow.

“Aye, an’ no one else,” came the answer. “Fair solid, ain’t it?”

“The fog? It is. I can’t see you. How did you know it was me?”

“Recognised yer nag’s footsteps.”

“They
are
distinctive,” Orpheus murmured.

“One o’ the back feet drags a little. Needs—what’s the word?”

“Recalibrating?” Burton offered automatically.

How did I know that?

“Rather an impertinent suggestion,” Orpheus complained.

“Aye! Recalcifyin’!”

“What on earth are you doing out in this weather?” Burton asked.

“Toastin’ corn on the cob fer ’em what wants it.”

“Well, you’re a braver man than I. I’d rather be toasting my toes by the fire.”

“Aye, there ain’t nuffink like the comforts of ’ome.”

“Do you actually have one, Mr. Grub? I don’t think I’ve ever passed this corner without seeing you on it.”

Not that you can see him now. And be careful. What is true of your world may not be true of this. Watch what you say.

“We all ’ave our place, don’t we, Cap’n? This ’ere is my patch.”

“I suppose we do. Good afternoon to you, sir.”

Though his words and thoughts had come without volition, Burton’s mind was clearing. “My world” was starting to mean something to him—and it was most certainly something different to “this world.”

A few minutes later, he stabled Orpheus in the mews behind his house—“I’ll wait here and wind down,” the horse said grumpily—and entered Number 14 by the back door. He strode to the foot of the stairs where he found his young valet, Bram Stoker, polishing shoes and boots.

“Hello, Bram. You’re up late. Off to bed with you.”

The boy looked up. It wasn’t Stoker at all, but Oscar Wilde, who’d been Captain Lawless’s cabin boy during the African adventure and who’d recently been accepted by the flight officer’s training school.

“Bram, guv’nor?” the youngster asked.

“Sorry, I was thinking out loud.”

“How were the toffs?”

“Toffs?”

“At the palace.”

Burton struggled with confused memories. Had he been to Buckingham Palace?

He gave a safe answer, “Tedious, as usual.”

The Irish boy grinned. “Ye should never speak disrespectfully of Society, sir. Only people who can’t get into it do that.”

“Then I feel at liberty. The high and the mighty don’t make me welcome at their clubs and dinner tables.”

“It’s ’cos ye have a brain in your head, so it is. What a danger for ’em! Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

Burton chuckled. He placed his cap on the stand, hung up his coat, and put his cane into its elephant foot holder. He glanced around the hallway. It was as it should be, except the pictures on the wall were arranged a little differently, and the grandfather clock at the far end was a different model.

He said to Wilde, “When you’ve finished those boots, and before you go to bed, come up to my room and put this uniform away, would you?”

“Right you are, sir. Shan’t be long.”

Burton went up to his bedroom on the third floor. There, he divested himself of the scratchy and constricting regimentals, threw them onto the bed, and donned shirt and trousers.

He checked his pocket watch. It was a quarter to eleven.

His reflection watched him from the wall mirror. He gave a start, crossed to the glass, and discovered that his hair was a little shorter, a devilishly forked beard adorned his jaw, and the scar on his left cheek had become longer and was angled a little more toward the horizontal. There were marks on his skin—cuts and bruises—but they were healing, not the fresh and painful wounds he knew he’d suffered a couple of hours ago. Or was it three hours? Four? A day?

Squaring his shoulders, he addressed his opposite. “I trust you have a good supply of brandy and cigars, Captain Burton. This is a three-Manila problem.”

The king’s agent went down to his study. Upon entering it, he was insulted by a colourful parakeet.

“Stench pool! Lard belly! Dribblesome jelly head!”

He looked in surprise at the perched bird, shook his head in wonder, and began to slowly move around the room, examining every detail of it. At a glance, it looked unchanged, but on closer inspection he found his paperwork had been reorganised and items moved, including his collection of swords, which though still affixed to the chimneybreast were displayed in a different arrangement.

He investigated his principal work desk and found that he was apparently authoring a book entitled
A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise
. After reading the first few paragraphs, he muttered, “A truly excellent idea. I shall write it myself.”

He went to the bureau, poured a drink, and crossed to the old saddlebag armchair by the fireplace. When he sat, he found it as familiar and as comfortable as his own.

“It
is
your own,” he said and, reaching down to a box on the hearth, took a cheroot from it, poked its end into the fire, and started to smoke.

“Let me see now. I met Algy for a drink. Where? The Hog in the Pound? No. The Black Toad. After which we went to meet with the Cannibals at Bartolini’s. Ah! Spring Heeled Jack. That explains this wound to my arm.” He flexed his left elbow. “Except it’s not there. But anyway, one hell of a scrap, I’m certain of that. Then young Swinburne and I headed off to consult with Babbage. Am I still at Battersea?”

“Nose-picking, mould muggling arse pot!” the parakeet cackled.

“You may be right, my brightly feathered friend,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t explain how I’ve somehow slipped into the body of a different Burton. Have you any insight into that?”

“Buttocks!” the bird responded.

There came a tap at the door.

“Enter!”

Mrs. Iris Angell, his housekeeper, stepped in. A basset hound padded beside her.

“Will you require any supper before I go to bed?” She hesitated then gave an awkward bob. “Should I address you as Sir Richard, now?”

“No, Mother Angell, no formalities and no supper. I haven’t any appetite.”

He looked down at the dog as it walked across to the hearthrug, sat, and gazed back at him with an eager thump of its tail on the floor.

“Fidget wants a walk,” Mrs. Angell observed. “The greedy little mite. He doesn’t care about the hour, nor that he’s already been exercised twice today by Quips.”

“Quips?”

“Master Wilde. Are you all right? You look a little flustered, if you’ll forgive me a-sayin’ so.”

“It’s been an odd sort of day. The dog will have to wait. I have to go out again in a moment.”

“So late? I do wish you’d take a rest for once in your life.”

Burton watched his housekeeper depart. He smiled. There was a peculiar sort of satisfaction in knowing his other self enjoyed the same comforts of home.

He took a gulp of brandy and noticed a puckered scar across the back of his left hand. He recognised it at once. It was common in men who favoured the blade as a weapon—a mark of their earliest days of training when in attempting to sheathe their weapon they missed the scabbard and sliced the flesh, cutting it to the bone. A painful mistake, but one that Burton had never made. This was not his scar.

“And this is not my place,” he said decisively.

He stood, put his drink aside, lifted a jacket from the back of a chair, and slipped it on.

“Crapulous ninny!” the parakeet squawked.

“And up your pipe,” he replied.

He left the study and descended the stairs.

“I’m all done here,” Oscar Wilde said. “I’ll go and fold your uniform, guv’nor.”

“Thank you, lad.”

After shrugging into his coat and taking up his top hat and cane, Burton passed through the house, went out into the yard, and crossed to the mews. He entered them with the instinctive expectation that he’d see his two rotorchairs, two velocipedes, and single steam sphere, even though he knew they weren’t there.

“Again?” Orpheus said. “Can’t I enjoy a moment’s peace?”

“Earlier you complained you’d wind down,” Burton noted.

“Where do you want to go?” the contraption asked.

“To visit my brother.”

“I didn’t know you had one. You never tell me anything. Where does he live?”

“At the Royal Venetia Hotel on the Strand. He’s the minister of chronological affairs.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“You’re a horse.”

The contraption jerked its head toward the street-facing doors. “Stop dithering and open up.”

Burton crossed to the portal and slid it open. He waited while Orpheus walked out, then secured the stable, mounted the vehicle, and said, “Trot, please.”

They set off.

Again, Burton was surprised by how subdued the city felt. There was none of the hustle and bustle he was accustomed to. Vague memories—not his own—nudged at the periphery of his conscious mind. Nietzsche. Berserkers. Death. Destruction.

Please, no!
I lost Isabel in this life, too! Isabel! Isabel!

Forty minutes later, Orpheus stopped outside the hotel.

Burton jumped to the pavement and crossed it. People moved past him like wraiths, quickly and silently, as if in the grip of some nameless dread.

He tipped his hat to the doorman, entered, walked across the opulent black-and-white chequer-floored reception area toward the staircase, then suddenly hesitated and changed course. He approached the front desk.

“I’m here to see Mr. Edward Burton,” he said. “The minister. Suite five, fifth floor.”

The night clerk pursed his lips, causing the ends of his waxed moustache to stick out like little horns, checked the guest register, and shook his head. “We don’t have anyone by that name, sir.”

“He’s a permanent resident.”

“I’m afraid not. Suite five, you say? Those rooms have been empty for the past three days. The last occupant was the Spanish ambassador, Signor Delgado. He was killed during the troubles. Perhaps you have the wrong hotel.”

Burton said thank you and departed. He remounted his steed. “Take me to Cheyne Walk.”

“Mr. Swinburne’s?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to get drunk?”

“Mind your own damned business.”

Orpheus trotted westward following the Thames upstream back toward Chelsea Bridge. Foghorns sent their mournful blasts into the pall. Big Ben chimed midnight.

“By God! Where am I?” Burton cried out, for St. Stephen’s Tower had been blown to smithereens last November, and, even before that, its bell had cracked and stopped working. Suddenly, he felt horribly lost, terribly alone.

A sense of urgency—near panic—overtook him. Why was he in this familiar yet alien London? What had thrown him here? How could he return to his own world?

“Go as fast as you can,” he commanded.

“Hold on tight,” the clockwork horse advised. “I might have to stop abruptly.”

With metal hooves clacking, the steed set off at a gallop.

A breeze had got up, and the blanket of fog was shredding. It parted just ahead, revealing the back of a slow-moving hansom cab. Burton had to quickly jerk the reins to steer his armadillidium around it.

He looked down.

Armadillidium?