The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

  “Excuse me, sir. Do you know that gentleman? Is he badly hurt?”

  Burton looked up to find a young, round-faced, and sandy-haired man standing beside him. “He’s a visiting American. Thomas Lake Harris. He’s out for the count but not badly wounded, as far as I can make out. Who are you, sir?”

  “Detective Inspector Spearing.”

  “Ah, then I suppose you’ve been following us? I know you were ordered to keep an eye on this fellow. It’s all right, Spearing—I’m Burton.”

  “Oh, I see. Detective Inspector Trounce has told me all about you, of course. Can I be of assistance?”

  Swinburne piped up, “You could tell us what the blazes has happened!”

  “This is my colleague, Mr. Swinburne,” Burton explained.

  “I have no idea, sir,” Spearing said. “They’ve been making repairs in the clock tower, but I can’t credit them with using anything capable of causing such a blast. What are you going to do with Mr. Harris?”

  “We’re taking him back to the Regency Hotel.”

  “You’ll need a ride. Here, let me lend a hand. We’ll take him through to the back of the Yard. You can commandeer a police vehicle.” Spearing paused, then said, “You won’t crash it, will you?”

  “I appear to have gained a reputation,” Burton noted ruefully.

  They lifted Harris and carried him across the road, treading carefully to avoid the scattered rubble.

  “Through here,” Spearing said, leading them into a narrow alleyway.

  At the back of the police headquarters, in a large courtyard lined with stable-like buildings, Spearing left them, entered one of the structures, and a few moments later steered out a steam-horse-drawn brougham. He jumped down from the driver’s seat. “I’d take you myself, sir, but I think it’s a case of all hands on deck at the Yard.”

  “I quite understand. Help me get him into the cabin, would you?”

  They lifted Harris into the vehicle. The detective pointed to an open gate and said, “That opens onto Northumberland Street.”

  “Thank you, Spearing.”

  The policeman saluted and hastened away.

  Swinburne climbed in beside the American. Burton took the driver’s seat, gripped the tiller, and guided the machine out through the gate and to the left, in the direction of Trafalgar Square. It was slow going—there were lumps of masonry in the road and rapidly expanding crowds of people, all gathering to gaze at the destruction.

  When they reached the square, Burton made to steer into the Mall, intending to follow it westward, but Swinburne thumped on the roof and screeched, “Stop! Hey, Richard, stop, I say!”

  The explorer pulled over and the poet jumped out and scrambled up beside him.

  “I’ve been looking at his face,” Swinburne said breathlessly, “and it’s given me an idea. Let’s take him to your place.”

  “Why?” Burton asked, puzzled.

  “Because his bone structure is similar to yours. With whitened skin, a false beard, and a few other cosmetic adjustments, you could pass yourself off as him.”

  “You intend to hold Harris prisoner, Algy, while I go off to meet this Count Sobieski fellow?”

  “Yes! Why not become the twelfth messenger of God?”

  Burton considered the poet’s enthusiastic countenance.

  “Just how drunk are you?”

  “Hah! Considerably!” Swinburne smiled. “How else could I have come up with such a ridiculous scheme?”

  “It is ridiculous,” Burton agreed. “And I rather like it.”

  The sewer tunnels are constructed from brick and stone and range from six to twenty feet in diameter. The smaller of them are round in section, the larger egg-shaped, with the narrow end downward, which serves to increase the flow and prevent silt from building up. The main interceptor tunnels run from west to east. North-and-south-flowing sewers run into them, the waste being diverted away toward the mouth of the Thames, rather than flowing straight into it. Each tunnel is fitted with many iron sluice gates, some of massive proportions, which can be manually raised or lowered by means of geared mechanisms, and which are used to regulate the flow and, on occasion, to block it, so that sections of the tunnels can be inspected and, if necessary, repaired.

  —FROM MR. BAZALGETTE’S UNDERGROUND MARVEL,

  THE DAILY BUGLE

  Burton leaned on his cane and snapped open his new pocket watch. His eyes lingered on the lock of Isabel’s hair before registering the time. Ten-past eight. Count Sobieski was late.

  Earlier that afternoon—it was now Wednesday the 9th of November—Trounce had called again at Montagu Place, finding Swinburne already there with Burton and Levi. The detective inspector was dishevelled and tired, and grateful for a brandy and water. “Seven killed last night and more than a hundred injured. It was a bomb. A big one, too. Three hours after it went off, a chap walked into the offices of the Daily Bugle, introduced himself to the night editor as Vincent Sneed—thirty-two years old, a chimney sweep—and made a full confession. He recently cleaned the flues at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, where Big Ben was cast, and stole a spare set of tower keys from there.”

  “But his motive?” Burton asked. “Why commit such an atrocity?”

  Trounce had pulled a notebook from his pocket, extracted a sheet of paper from it, and passed it to the explorer. “The statement he made to the newspaper man.”

  Burton read it, handed it to Swinburne, and said, “They don’t strike me as the words of a sweep.”

  “I thought the same,” Trounce muttered.

  “My hat!” Swinburne exclaimed. “What could possibly warrant such an outpouring of hatred? Smash the German Alliance? Hang Prince Albert as a traitor? Assassinate Bismarck?”

  “That last is an oddity in itself,” Burton observed. “Bismarck is out of the picture. Why include him?”

  “Why any of it at all?” Trounce asked. “According to Sneed’s apprentice—a lad named William Cornish—the man has never once before expressed a political opinion.”

  “Has he said anything more?”

  Trounce took up his bowler from beside the chair and punched it in frustration. “That’s the problem. He can’t. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Inexplicably. We put him in a cell, intending to question him this morning, but at dawn he simply stopped breathing. The coroner was unable to identify the cause.”

  Eliphas Levi exclaimed, “Mon Dieu! Où est le cadavre maintenant?”

  “Eh?”

  “The corpse,” Burton translated. “Where is it?”

  “In the mortuary.”

  The explorer and occultist exchanged a glance.

  “Trounce,” Burton said, after a momentary pause, “I have to use my authority to issue you with a direct order.”

  “On the basis of that statement, should I expect an unusual one?”

  “Yes. Take Monsieur Levi to the mortuary and do exactly as he tells you. It’s probable that Sneed is strigoi morti. He may have been acting under the spell of Perdurabo.”

  “I find it hard to believe any of this.”

  Levi murmured, “I show you. You will believe.”

  “Think of it as a disease,” Burton advised. “John Judge carried it aboard the ship from Fernando Po. If Sneed has been infected, as I suspect he has, he’ll appear to die in daylight but will rise at night. While active, he’ll be highly infectious.”

  Trounce scratched his chin. “Then Perdurabo, in the body of Thomas Honesty, is hiding out among the anti-German activists in the Cauldron? Infecting them? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  “It is. Or, at very least, he’s made of the district a hunting ground. Tonight, Levi will accompany you to the East End. Take young Bram, too, but keep him away from any trouble. The Whisperers have a strong presence in the Cauldron—there are more street Arabs there than anywhere else in the city. Use Bram to collect information from the district. Look for signs of the un-dead.” He turned to the Frenchman. “You will advise
, monsieur?”

  “Oui. We find them and do what must be done.”

  Burton said to Trounce, “Come with me.”

  They went upstairs to the room where Burton’s half-unpacked African crates were stored. Thomas Lake Harris was bound to a chair in the middle of it with his head bandaged and a gag in his mouth.

  “What the blazes?” Trounce cried out. “Who’s this? What are you playing at?”

  “It’s Mr. Harris, the American spiritualist Detective Inspector Spearing has been following. He’s due to give a lecture at the Enochians’ Club tonight. I intend to masquerade as him and go in his stead.”

  “But—but—by Jove! Is he one of them? Has he done anything wrong?”

  “Nothing, unless you count his incessant spouting of sheer nonsense.”

  “But you can’t keep him here like that! Hell’s bells! I know the king gave you special dispensation, but this is indefensible.”

  “The security of the Empire is at stake.”

  Trounce pointed at the prisoner. “From him?”

  “No.”

  “Then you have to let him go.”

  “It would be better if you took him into police custody for the night. It’s for his own protection—he’s in danger of associating with bad people.”

  “By the looks of it, he’s already done so.”

  “I didn’t thump him over the head, Trounce, he was hit by a falling brick. As for his current incarceration, it inconveniences him, that’s all. It’s necessary.”

  “Humph! I’ll put him in a police cell, but I don’t approve of this. The law is the law. You have to realise where the boundaries lie.”

  “Need I remind you of our first encounter? You adopted a false name and assaulted me in an alleyway. Hardly legal, I’d venture.”

  “I judged it a necessary ploy.”

  “As I do this.”

  With that, Trounce had departed, accompanied by Levi and a very verbosely indignant Thomas Lake Harris, whose last words to Burton were, “You’d better pray the Lily Queen never gets her hands on you, you goddam snake in the grass!”

  Burton spent the next few hours applying makeup and false hair, transforming himself into a convincing approximation of the American. He and Swinburne then rode his velocipedes to Upper St. Martin’s Lane, where the poet was now waiting for Burton in the Queen’s Arms.

  Outside the church, Burton put away his timepiece and gazed at a litter-crab as it lumbered past. The already bad weather was worsening and rain was starting to fall again, the water steaming from the machine’s humped back.

  Trafalgar Square was congested with traffic. The din was such that he initially failed to hear the individual who stopped behind him and said, “Mr. Harris?” The man reached up and tapped him on the shoulder. “Mr. Harris?”

  Burton turned to see a short, ferrety fellow, whose lack of teeth caused his bearded chin to be much closer to his nose than was natural.

  “Yes. You are Count Sobieski?”

  The man bowed. He didn’t look like a count. His clothes were baggy and unwashed. He smelled bad. His breath reeked of stale gin.

  In a Russian-accented voice, he said, “Follow me, please.”

  He led Burton toward the Strand but turned left before reaching it and plunged into the network of narrow streets and alleys behind the eastern side of St. Martin’s Lane. They turned left, right, left, and right again, then stopped at a gate. Sobieski pushed it open, crossed a yard, and unlocked the back door of one of the shops lining the main street. Burton followed his guide inside, to the end of a short corridor, and through another door into a workshop. There was a large safe in one corner and a number of workbenches, all scattered with tools. He recognised the place instantly, and a mystery was solved. He was in Brundleweed’s jewellery shop. Plainly, the old man was either captive or done away with.

  With difficulty, Burton pushed the thought of his engagement ring aside. He couldn’t allow the pain it brought with it.

  “This way,” Sobieski murmured. He opened a door and descended a narrow staircase, emerging into a mildewed basement, empty but for broken packing crates, a rusty iron bedstead, and an old chest of drawers. The far wall had a hole cut into it. There was a dark passage beyond.

  Burton’s heart began to thud.

  Bismillah! Must I venture underground again?

  The Russian lifted an oil lamp from the chest of drawers, lit it, and stepped through the ragged gap. The explorer trailed after him and said, in an American accent, “Say, Count, this is a mighty strange tour you’re takin’ me on. What’s the game?”

  “Just a little patience, please, Mr. Harris,” Sobieski replied. “This is a secret route into the clubhouse. All will be explained when we get there. Not far to go now.”

  The passage was short. It opened into the side of a clay-walled tunnel through which one of London’s many subterranean rivers flowed, its brown surface heaving and frothing as it sped past.

  They went to the right and carefully shuffled along an outward-thrusting shelf, moving upstream. It was slippery, and Burton, using his swordstick for balance, imagined himself sliding from it into the water and being carried into darkness. His corpse, he supposed, would be ejected into the Thames, which—now that he considered it—wasn’t very far away.

  They hadn’t gone far before the damp chill permeated the explorer’s bones. His left forearm started to ache.

  The lamplight slid over the clay walls. Parts of the roof had been shored up with wooden struts. Their shadows swung disconcertingly beneath the illumination, giving the impression that the tunnel was slowly collapsing. Burton paused and closed his eyes, trying to control his shaking.

  Sobieski had stopped just ahead, at the foot of a ladder. He looked back, said, “Come,” and started up it.

  Burton’s respiration was rapid and shallow, hissing unsteadily through his teeth. He straightened, opened his eyes, cursed himself, and followed.

  The count pushed open a trapdoor and disappeared through it.

  Quickly, Burton ascended. He crawled thankfully out into a room furnished with coat-, hat-, and umbrella stands, plus rough mats and stiff-haired brushes. Taking the cue from his companion, he used the latter to clean the mud from his boots.

  “I’ll take you to Doctor Kenealy, sir.”

  Sobieski opened a door and ushered the explorer through, across a wood-panelled hallway, and into a plushly appointed sitting room.

  Two men got up from leather armchairs and faced the newcomers.

  “Thank you, Count,” one of them said. “The others are awaiting you in the temple chamber.”

  Sobieski left the room, closing the door after him.

  “We’re honoured to have you with us, Mr. Harris. Come, sit. I am Doctor Edward Hyde Kenealy, president of the League of Enochians. This is my advisor, Mr. John Dee.”

  Dee be damned! Damien Burke, more like!

  “I’m mighty glad to be here, gents,” Burton said, continuing to imitate Harris’s accent. He shook the proffered hands, sat in the indicated chair, and nodded when Burke offered him a glass of red wine.

  “I trust you’re enjoying your visit to London,” Kenealy said.

  “I’d sure like it more if the rain stopped fallin’.”

  Kenealy smiled. He had a wide face outlined by an enormous bush of dark hair which curled down into a shaggy beard. His upper lip was clean-shaven, his nose flat, his small eyes half-concealed by round pebble-like spectacles.

  “The tears of the angels, Mr. Harris. They weep for the civilised world.”

  “They lament the rise of evil men,” Burke added, “don’t you agree, Mr. Harris?”

  “Well now,” Burton drawled, “I don’t know nothin’ about that. What men do you mean?”

  “The ones who believe that Europe should cower in the face of Germanic ambition, sir,” Kenealy said. “The men who promote appeasement and cooperation, blind to the danger.”

  Burton took a sip of wine. He saw fanaticism in Kenealy’s e
yes, ruthlessness in Burke’s.

  “Danger?”

  Kenealy leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs, steepled his fingers, and said, “A discussion for later, Mr. Harris. First, I have a confession to make. We have brought you here under false pretences.”

  Burton was inclined to raise an eyebrow, but both of them being false, decided not to risk it, and instead said, “How so? You’ll still want to hear my presentation on the invoking of angels?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Kenealy responded, “we Enochians are already very proficient at summoning. We have regular communication with an angel named Perdurabo, who has taken a great interest in your work, sir, and now wishes to address you directly.”

  Burton gripped the arms of his seat, giving every indication of barely suppressed excitement. “That’s real interestin’. This Perdurabo asked specifically to speak with me, you say?”

  “Yes, Mr. Harris, which is why we’re inviting you to join us in a summoning ritual. No doubt you noticed that the person who escorted you here, Count Sobieski, is, shall we say, not the most sophisticated of men. He does, however, possess one redeeming quality, it being that when he’s under the influence of certain drugs, he becomes a powerful medium. Channelling Perdurabo is too stressful for most—it can cause the heart to burst—but in Sobieski we have a strong vessel through which the angel can speak for a prolonged period.”

  “About what?” Burton asked. “Have you received information about Lilistan?”

  “Lilistan?”

  “Sure! The interspace between the planets, sir, where the angels dwell.”

  “Ah, I see. Perhaps Perdurabo has reserved such revelations for you alone.”

  Damien Burke said, “Are you willing to join us for the ritual, Mr. Harris?”

  “Mr. Dee, I sure am. Yes, sir!”

  Burke stood and bowed, “Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and prepare the chamber.”

  Burton watched the man leave and wondered what had happened to Gregory Hare. Had he survived the collision on the outskirts of Downe Village? It was difficult to imagine so.

  “Will you tell me somethin’ about your organisation, Mr. Kenealy?” he asked. “Its history?”