“Are you all right?” Swinburne asked.
“Yes.”
“I opened the sluice gate as soon as I heard the whistle. Did I flush him away?”
“You did. And the—” Burton was interrupted by a deep detonation that resounded across the city, shaking windows and causing screams and shouts of consternation. A colossal ball of flame and black smoke rolled into the eastern sky. “Bomb,” he finished. “Damnation. I hoped the sewage would disable it.” He shrugged out of the evil-smelling suit.
“That’s the Cauldron,” Swinburne said, watching the distant smoke mushrooming over the city. “The flood must have pushed the bomb down to the intercepting sewer and all the way there.”
“The eleventh hour,” Burton murmured. “The end of Crowley. The signing of the Alliance.”
Swinburne jumped into the air and yelled, “Hurrah!”
Burton looked up at the Orpheus, drifting nearby high over Green Park. “Perhaps I should have Lawless take me back to Africa,” he muttered. “For a rest.”
They returned to Battersea Power Station and were met by Nurse Nightingale. “He has passed,” she said. “Do you want to see him, Sir Richard?”
“Look upon my own corpse? No, Nurse, I could not bear to do that.”
Sadhvi Raghavendra, Thomas Honesty, and Daniel Gooch arrived with the DOGS trailing behind. One of Gooch’s mechanical arms was swinging loosely, having been damaged by a bullet. Many of his men were clutching wounds.
“They surrendered,” he said. “Detective Inspector Trounce is rounding them up. Krishnamurthy and Bhatti are helping. Galton was among the Enochians. No doubt he’ll go back to Bedlam. Crowley?”
“Drowned and blown to pieces,” Burton replied. “I’m sorry about Brunel.”
“Oh, he’ll be fine. We’ll dredge him up and put him back together again. His consciousness will be intact, preserved in the diamonds.”
The king’s agent nodded and turned to Nightingale. “Will you see to Algy? He’s putting a brave face on it, but he’s been pretty badly knocked about.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” the poet protested, “that a swig of brandy won’t put to rights.”
Nightingale regarded his tattered form and said, “You need alcohol rubbed into your wounds, not poured down your throat.”
“Will it sting?”
“Yes, a lot.”
“Then I insist on both.”
While the nurse got to work, assisted by Raghavendra, Burton washed, borrowed clean clothes, and departed the station in a rotorchair. He flew across the river and followed it eastward. Ahead, the Cauldron was ablaze and thick plumes of smoke were curling into the air. Just when it was needed most, the rain had stopped, and with nothing to oppose the conflagration, it was spreading with alarming rapidity.
He set down in the yard at the back of the Royal Venetia Hotel and was a few minutes later knocking on the door of Suite Five. Grumbles answered and chimed, “Good morning, sir.”
Burton ignored him, pushed past, and entered his brother’s sitting room. Edward, as ever, was in his red dressing gown and creaking armchair. He looked up from a piece of paper and said, “Ah, it’s you. I’m supposed to be at the ceremony but I’ll be damned if I—Great heavens! What on earth has happened? You look positively ghastly. Grumbles, give my brother some ale.”
Burton suddenly felt so fragile that he barely made it to a chair. He collapsed into it and weakly accepted the glass from the clockwork man. He mumbled, “Unlike Swinburne, I regard it as a little early in the day for alcohol,” before downing the pint in a single, long swig.
“That was my last bottle and I don’t know when I’ll lay my hands on more,” Edward said, somewhat ruefully. He looked his sibling up and down and shook his head despairingly. “Gad! Every time you set foot in this room you look worse than the last. Has your current state anything to do with this?” He held up the note he’d been reading when Burton had entered. “It arrived a couple of minutes before you. Apparently the detonation that shook the city a little while ago was an explosion. A very large one. In the East End.”
Burton rubbed his side and winced as his ribs complained. “Yes, I know,” he said hoarsely. “It marked the end of the case. Abdu El Yezdi is dead, and I was right—you are a secret weapon, Edward, but not for the purpose I envisioned.”
The minister’s face paled. He laced his fingers together, rested his hands on his stomach, and regarded his sibling, waiting silently for further explanation.
Burton told the whole story.
For three days, the conflagration raged through the Cauldron. The bomb had exploded beneath the Alton Ale warehouse and its flames rapidly jumped from dwelling to dwelling, consuming the wooden shacks and slumping tenements, destroying everything between Whitechapel and the Limehouse Cut Canal, Stepney, and Wapping. It was the worst blaze the city had experienced since the Great Fire of 1666, and just as that disaster had rid the city of the plague, so this one cured it of the infestation of strigoi morti. The un-dead burned to ash in their hidden lairs, unable to escape in the daylight. Many innocents also perished, but the death toll was far less than it might have been due to the mass exodus of the previous days.
“I suppose it will work out for the good,” William Trounce mused. He was sharing morning coffee with Burton, Swinburne, Levi, Sister Raghavendra, and Slaughter in the study at 14 Montagu Place. Five days had passed since the death of Crowley. “The district can be rebuilt. Better housing, what!”
“Brunel has an idea for a new class of accommodation,” Burton said. “Something he calls a high-rise.”
“What is it?” Swinburne asked.
“I don’t know, but the name suggests a variation of the old rookeries.”
“Lord help us,” Trounce put in. “Are we going to pile the poor on top of one another again?” He shook his head. “Never let the DOGS run free. They have no self-control.”
“Monsieur Trounce,” Levi said, “have the police discover le cadavre of Perdurabo?”
“No, and we probably won’t. The crater where the Alton Ale warehouse stood is still smouldering—too hot to get anywhere near—and anyway there’ll be nothing left of him, I’m certain.” The detective frowned and sipped his drink. “By Jove, a strange coincidence, though. Do you know who owns the Alton breweries?”
“Non. Who?”
“The Crowley family. Three of them were killed by the blast.”
Burton raised his eyebrows. “Are you suggesting one of them might have been Perdurabo’s ancestor?”
“It’s possible. The surname isn’t particularly common.”
“So Aleister Crowley chose to invade our history because he didn’t exist in its future, and in doing so he became the reason why he didn’t exist.”
“That makes my head hurt,” Trounce groaned.
“A paradox,” Swinburne announced gleefully. “I like it. There’s poetry in it.”
“We must prepare ourselves for further such ironies and enigmas,” Burton said. “The king has approved Edward’s proposition. My brother is now the minister of chronological affairs and we, along with Brunel, Gooch, Krishnamurthy, Penniforth, Bhatti, and Babbage make up his clandestine department.”
“I suggest we add Thomas Honesty to our ranks,” Trounce said. “He’s applied to join the Force and I’ll certainly push for his acceptance. He’s a good chap.”
Sister Sadhvi added, “I suppose the poor fellow finds the prospect of groundskeeping rather tame after what he’s been through.”
Detective Inspector Slaughter gazed into his glass of milk and muttered, “He should be warned that Scotland Yard will play havoc with his innards.”
Despite the presence of the clock on the mantelpiece, the king’s agent reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out his chronometer, which had been retrieved from the Norwood catacombs when the police liberated Darwin and Lister. He opened it and looked at the lock of hair in its lid.
In some histories, Isabel was still alive.
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Somehow, there was a modicum of comfort in that.
He said, “They’ll be here at any moment.”
No sooner had he spoken than carriages were heard pulling up outside. Eliphas Levi rose and crossed to the window, peered out, and said, “Oui, ils sont arrives.”
The party put on their coats and hats and left the house. Burton carried with him a Gladstone bag. There were three steam-horse-drawn growlers outside, and a hearse. Montague Penniforth was driving the lead vehicle, which held Nurse Nightingale, Daniel Gooch, Shyamji Bhatti, and Maneesh Krishnamurthy.
Burton and his fellows climbed into the empty carriages and the procession set off. It turned into Baker Street and followed the thoroughfare down to Bayswater Road, then proceeded westward all the way to Lime Grove before steering south, crossing the river below Hammersmith, and heading west again toward Mortlake.
The journey began amid the density of the Empire’s capital—the vehicles wending their way slowly through the pandemonium of the packed streets—but ended in a quiet and quaint village on the edge of the metropolis; a place where little had changed over the past two decades.
In Mortlake Cemetery, Burton was pleased to discover that the stonemasons he’d hired had applied themselves to their commission with expertise, though he’d given them precious little time for it and the job wasn’t yet complete. Nevertheless, when finished, it would be the tomb he’d requested: an Arabian tent sculpted from sandstone with such realism that its sides appeared to be rippling in a breeze. Set in a quiet corner of the graveyard, it stood thirteen feet tall on a twelve-by-twelve base, and had a glass window in the rear of its sloping roof so the inside would always be light.
It was, he thought, rather beautiful, and most importantly of all, it was above ground.
They carried a coffin from the hearse and placed it inside the mausoleum. Burton took a string of camel bells from his bag and hung them—gently tinkling and clanking—from the front point of the structure’s roof. Swinburne recited a poem he’d composed for the occasion.
They laid Abdu El Yezdi to rest.
PRINCE ALBERT OF SAXE-COBURG AND GOTHA (1819—1861)
In the months following his marriage to Queen Victoria in February 1840, Albert was not popular with the British, who harboured a deep suspicion of Germans. However, when Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate the queen in June 1840, Albert displayed remarkable courage and coolness, which won the people over. Shortly afterward, the Regency Act was passed to ensure that he would gain the throne in the event of Victoria’s death.
ISABEL ARUNDELL (1831—1896)
Isabel and Richard Francis Burton met in 1851 and, after a ten-year courtship, married in 1861. Isabel was convinced they were destined to be together due to a prediction made during her childhood by a Gypsy named Hagar Burton.
GEORGE FREDERICK ALEXANDER CHARLES ERNEST AUGUSTUS (1819—1878)
If Queen Victoria had died in 1840, Ernest Augustus I of Hanover would have succeeded to the British throne, to be followed, upon his death in 1851, by his son, George V. Queen Victoria’s long life meant this never happened, and George V instead became King of Hanover. He was deposed when Prussia annexed the country in 1866 and spent the remainder of his life in exile.
CHARLES BABBAGE (1791—1871)
By 1859, Charles Babbage had already contributed to the world his designs for a “Difference Engine” and an “Analytical Engine” and was concerning himself more with campaigns against noise, street musicians, and children’s hoops. His increasingly erratic behaviour had perhaps been signalled in 1857 by his analysis of “The Relative Frequency of the Causes of Breakage of Plate-Glass Windows.”
THE BATTERSEA POWER STATION
The station was neither designed nor built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and did not exist during the Victorian Age. Actually comprised of two stations, it was first proposed in 1927 by the London Power Company. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (who created the iconic red telephone box) designed the building’s exterior. The first station was constructed between 1929 and 1933. The second station, a mirror image of the first, was built between 1953 and 1955. Considered a London landmark, both stations are still standing, but derelict.
SIR JOSEPH WILLIAM BAZALGETTE (1819—1891)
A civil engineer, Bazalgette designed and oversaw the building of London’s sewer network. Work commenced in 1859. The system is still fully functional in the 21st century.
ISABELLA MARY BEETON (NÈE MAYSON) (1836—1865)
Isabella Mayson married the publisher Samuel Orchart Beeton in 1856. In September 1859, they were expecting their second son (the first had died two years earlier). Mrs. Beeton became famous as the author of The Book of Household Management, published in 1861. Four years later, she died of puerperal fever, aged just 28.
BIG BEN
Big Ben is the nickname of the Great Bell in the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster. The tower—originally named St. Stephen’s, then just “the Clock Tower”—was completed in 1858. The bell is the second to be cast, the first having cracked beyond repair. The replacement was made at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It first chimed in July 1859 but cracked in September and was out of commission for three years.
HENRY BERESFORD, 3RD MARQUESS OF WATERFORD (1811—1859)
Nicknamed “the Mad Marquess,” Beresford’s drunken pranks made him the prime suspect during the Spring Heeled Jack phenomenon of the Victorian Age. He was killed in a horse-riding accident in 1859.
JAMES BRUCE, 8TH EARL OF ELGIN (1811—1863)
From 1857 to 1861, Lord Elgin was High Commissioner to China, during which time he organised the bombing of Canton, oversaw the end of the Second Opium War, and ordered the looting and burning of the Yuan Ming Yuan (Old Summer Palace). In 1860, he put his signature to the Convention of Beijing, which stipulated that Hong Kong would become a part of the British Empire.
In 1859, Lord Elgin and his secretary, Laurence Oliphant, were in Aden, en route to London, when Burton and Speke arrived at Zanzibar, having completed their expedition to Africa’s Central Lakes. Elgin offered to convey them home aboard his ship, HMS Furious. In the event, with Burton being too sick to travel, it was only Speke who accepted the offer.
ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL (1806—1859)
Brunel was, by 1859, the British Empire’s most celebrated civil engineer, responsible for building the bridges, tunnels, dockyards, railways, and steamships that revolutionised transport during Victoria’s reign. On 5th September 1859, he suffered a stroke and died ten days later, aged 53.
EDWARD JOSEPH BURTON (1824—1895)
Richard Francis Burton’s younger brother shared his wild youth but later settled into Army life. Extremely handsome and a talented violinist, he became an enthusiastic hunter, which proved his undoing—in 1856, his killing of elephants so enraged Singhalese villagers that they beat him senseless. The following year, still not properly recovered, he fought valiantly during the Indian Mutiny but was so severely affected by sunstroke that he suffered a psychotic reaction. He never spoke again. For much of the remaining 37 years of his life, he was a patient in the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.
CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON (1821—1890)
On 4th March 1859, Captain Richard Francis Burton and Lieutenant John Hanning Speke arrived at Zanzibar having completed their two-year expedition to the Central Lake Regions of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. While Burton recuperated, Speke sailed for London and there took the honours for the expedition’s success, thus beginning a feud that would last for five years and end with Speke’s death. Burton’s career would never recover. By 1861, he had married Isabel Arundell and accepted the consulship of the disease-ridden island of Fernando Po. He was not knighted until 1886, just four years before his death.
THE CANNIBAL CLUB
In 1863, Burton and Doctor James Hunt established The Anthropological Society, through which to publish books concerning ethnological and anthropological matters. As an offshoot of the society, the
Cannibal Club was a dining (and drinking) club for Burton and Hunt’s closest cohorts: Richard Monckton Milnes, Algernon Swinburne, Henry Murray, Sir Edward Brabrooke, Thomas Bendyshe, and Charles Bradlaugh.
ALEISTER CROWLEY (1875—1947)
Aleister Crowley, called by the press of his time “the wickedest man in the world,” was an influential occultist, author, poet, and mountaineer. He was a great admirer of Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Swinburne.
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN (1809—1882)
After decades of work researching and developing his theory of natural selection, Darwin had only partially written up his thesis when, in June 1858, he received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that outlined the same hypothesis. For the next year, Darwin, suffering from ill-health, rushed to produce an “abstract” of his work, so that he, rather than Wallace, might claim to be the theory’s architect. On the Origin of Species was finally published on 22nd November 1859. It was an instant best-seller and has become one of the most influential books in history.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1ST EARL OF BEACONSFIELD (1804—1881)
Having already succeeded as a novelist, Disraeli entered politics in the 1830s. In 1835, he outlined the principles for the Young England political group, which sought to advance an idealised version of feudalism, supported the idea of an absolute monarch, and promoted the raising of the lower classes. The group lasted until 1847. Disraeli achieved greater prominence in the mid 1840s, when, in light of the Great Irish Famine, he led opposition to the repeal of the Corn Laws. In 1852, Lord Derby appointed him chancellor of the Exchequer. His subsequent budget led to the fall of the government. Nonetheless, Disraeli occupied the post again from 1858 to the middle of 1859, before eventually becoming prime minister throughout 1868, and again from 1874 to 1880.
CHARLES DODGSON (1832—1898)
Better known as Lewis Carroll, by 1859 Dodgson was contributing stories and poetry to various magazines and had become friendly with the Pre-Raphaelite artists, including Gabriel Dante Rossetti. He’d also become acquainted with the Liddell family, whose daughter, Alice, would inspire his greatest work, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.