Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

  “Poems the poet cannot quite grasp. Dreams the dreamer cannot decipher. Mystery upon mystery. And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man. Weaving the unpatterned dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.”

  An hour passed, during which time he stood, motionless, lost in thought.

  “Sir Richard,” came a voice from behind him. He turned and saw Captain Lawless. “Do you feel a vibration beneath your feet?”

  “I do,” Burton answered. “Something to do with the stern engines?”

  “Ah, you've heard. They're operating out of alignment with the forward engines and pushing us too hard. If we can't regulate our speed, we'll complete our voyage considerably ahead of schedule but in doing so the ship will have shaken herself half to pieces and won't be fit for the return journey. I don't much fancy being stuck in Zanzibar. I'm on my way down to engineering to see whether Mr. Gooch can cast some light on the matter. Would you care to accompany me?”

  Burton nodded, and, minutes later, they found Daniel Gooch in an engineering compartment behind the furnace room. He'd removed a large metal panel from the floor and was on his knees, peering into the exposed machinery beneath. When he heard the two men approaching, he looked up and said, “There's a bearing cradle missing.”

  “A what?” Burton asked.

  “A bearing cradle. It's a metal ring, twelve inches in diameter, housing a cog mechanism and greased ball bearings. It's an essential component in the system that synchronises the engines. There are four bearing cradles on the ship, each governing four of the flight shafts. The one for the stern engines has gone. Someone has removed it.”

  “Are you suggesting we've been sabotaged, Mr. Gooch?” Lawless asked.

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  “By someone on board?”

  “That's very likely the case, sir.”

  Nathaniel Lawless's pale-grey eyes narrowed. He clenched his fists and addressed Burton. “I don't like the idea that one of my crew is a rogue, Sir Richard. Nor do I understand it. Why would anyone wish to interfere with your expedition?”

  Burton clicked his teeth together. He glanced at Gooch, who got to his feet and stood with his metal arms poised over his shoulders, then turned back to Lawless. “How much do you know about my mission, Captain?”

  “Only that you intend to discover the source of the River Nile. I've been instructed by Mr. Brunel to deliver you and your supplies to Zanzibar. I understand that the government has funded the entire undertaking. Is there something more?”

  “There is.”

  “Then I ask you to tell me. You can count on my discretion. Mr. Gooch, would you leave us, please?”

  “It's all right, Captain,” Gooch said. “You have authority over me on this ship but, as a Technologist, I hold a more senior position and happen to know the details. I apologise for having kept them from you, but our superiors felt that certain aspects of this expedition should remain hush-hush.”

  Lawless looked from one man to the other. “That's all well and good, but if the Orpheus is in danger, I have the right to know why.”

  “Agreed,” Burton said. “The truth, sir, is that while I hope to finally identify the source of the Nile, it is only a secondary consideration. The priority is to locate and retrieve a black diamond, known as the Eye of Nāga. In this endeavour, I am almost certainly opposed by a Prussian spy named Zeppelin.”

  Lawless's eyes widened. “Are you telling me that our saboteur is a Prussian agent?”

  “In all probability, yes. I should say he was commissioned by Zeppelin to interfere with the ship.”

  Lawless raised a hand and ran it over his closely cropped white beard. His eyes flashed. “I'll keelhaul the bastard!”

  “I'm not sure that's possible in a rotorship,” Gooch muttered.

  “I'll bloody well make it possible!”

  “We have to catch him first,” Burton observed.

  “It's puzzling, though,” said Gooch. “If the saboteur intends to delay your expedition, don't you think it rather peculiar that he's committed an act which causes the ship to fly faster—albeit destructively so; an act that'll cause you to arrive at Zanzibar considerably earlier than planned?”

  Burton frowned. “That, Mr. Gooch, is a very good point. A very good point indeed!”

  Burton spoke to Swinburne, Trounce, Honesty, Krishnamurthy, Bhatti, Spencer, Miss Mayson, and Sister Raghavendra, and arranged for them to patrol the ship, keeping a close watch on the crew and their eyes peeled for suspicious behaviour. He then returned to his quarters, intending to update his journal. Pulling a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, pushed it open, and stopped in his tracks.

  There was something on the desk.

  He stepped into the room and looked around. The cabin was rectangular and of a medium size, carpeted, wallpapered, and well furnished. One of the thick ventilation pipes ran across the ceiling and four oil lamps were suspended two to each side of it. There were two other doors, one to the small bedchamber and the other to a tiny washroom.

  The afternoon sun was sending a shaft of Mediterranean brilliance in through the porthole. Its white glare reflected brightly off the object, which hadn't been on the desk when Burton left the cabin a couple of hours earlier. He'd locked the door behind him. There were no other means of ingress.

  He picked the thing up, went back out into the corridor, closed and locked the door, then knelt and squinted at the keyhole. He stood and paced away, heading toward the prow of the rotorship. Doctor Quaint was coming the other way.

  “Doctor,” Burton said. “May I have a minute of your time?”

  “Certainly. I say! What have you there?”

  Burton held up the object. “A mystery, Doctor. It was on the desk in my quarters. Tell me—who else has a key?”

  “To your cabin? Just Sister Raghavendra and myself.” Quaint reached into his pocket and pulled out a crowded key ring. “As stewards, we have access to all the passenger rooms.” He picked through the keys one by one. “Here it is. This is yours.”

  “And have you used it today?”

  “No, sir, I have not.”

  “Could you prove that, should it be necessary?”

  Quaint bristled slightly. “Sister Raghavendra will attest that I've been working with her all morning, throughout lunch, and up until a few minutes ago, when I left her in order to report to the captain. I've just come from the bridge.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. I'm sorry to have troubled you. I'd better see the captain myself, I think.”

  “Very well.” Quaint glanced again at the object.

  Burton left the steward and proceeded along the corridor and up the metal stairs to the conning tower. He stepped onto the bridge, which was occupied by a number of crewmembers. Captain Lawless turned as he entered, saw what he was holding, and uttered an exclamation.

  “Great Scott! Where did you find that?”

  “On the desk in my cabin, Captain. Am I correct in assuming it's the missing bearing cradle?”

  “You are. Let me see.”

  Burton handed the metal ring to Lawless, who examined it closely before pronouncing it undamaged. He addressed Oscar Wilde, who was cleaning a console at the back of the room.

  “Master Wilde, would you run this down to the engine room, please? Ask Mr. Gooch to have it fitted as soon as we land at Cairo.”

  Wilde took the cradle and departed.

  “In your cabin?” Lawless said. “How did it get there?”

  “That's the question. I locked the door when I left and it was still locked when I returned. Doctor Quaint assures me that neither he nor Sister Raghavendra entered the room in my absence and I saw nothing to suggest the lock had been picked. That doesn't mean it wasn't, but in my experience there are usually tiny scratches left after that manner of break-in.”

  Lawless removed his captain's hat and rubbed his head. “Well, whatever method your intruder used, this is rather an inept way to implicate you.”

  “I
t would only implicate me if the stewards had found the bearing cradle while servicing my cabin. And you'd think it would at least be hidden under my bunk, rather than placed on top of my desk in broad daylight. Besides which, it makes no sense that I would sabotage my own expedition.”

  Lawless hissed softly, “Curse it! I won't rest until we find this bloody traitor!”

  “Nor I,” Burton whispered back. “I have my people patrolling the ship. Our villain will find it hard to cause any further damage without being caught in the act!”

  The explorer remained on the bridge for the next three hours. He kept a close eye on the men at their stations, but saw nothing suspicious.

  The Mediterranean slid beneath the big rotorship.

  A hollow whistle sounded.

  Lawless crossed to a brass panel in the wall and pulled a domed lid from it. As it came away, a segmented tube followed behind. Lawless flipped the lid open, blew into the tube, put it to his ear, and listened awhile. He then moved it to his mouth and said, “Hold him. I'll be right down.”

  He clicked the lid back into the panel and said to Burton, “Apparently your assistant is causing merry mayhem in the engine room.”

  “How so?”

  Captain Lawless ignored the question and turned to his first officer. “Take command, please, Mr. Henson.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Playfair, how long to Cairo?”

  “Two and a half hours, sir, unless we can slow her down. All four stern engines are already overheating, according to my instruments.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Bingham, report, please.”

  The fat little meteorologist replied, “Clear sailing all the way, sir. Not a cloud in the sky. Breeze is northwesterly, currently less than five knots but building.”

  “Mr. Wenham?”

  “Steady going, sir.”

  “Good. Follow me, Sir Richard.”

  The aeronaut and explorer left the bridge, descended through the conning tower, and entered the corridor that ran the length of the rotorship.

  “Mr. Swinburne claims to have caught our saboteur,” Lawless said.

  “Ah!” Burton replied.

  They entered the lounge and descended the port-side staircase, then moved past the standard-class cabins and on into the first of the engine-room compartments. The rumble of the turbines sounded from the next chamber, muffled by thickly insulated walls.

  Peering past pipes and four wide rotating pillars, Burton saw Trounce and Honesty gripping the arms of a very small person. Engineers were gathered around them, and Swinburne was dancing in front of the police officers and their captive, shrieking at the top of his voice.

  “Tobias Threadneedle, my eye!” he screeched. “Liar! Brute! Traitor! Impostor!”

  “What are you doing down here, Algy?” Burton asked as he and Lawless joined the group. “I thought you were working?”

  “I found myself unable to write, Richard, so I came in search of inspiration, and what I found instead—” Swinburne raised his voice to a scream and pointed his finger, “—is the one and only Vincent Sneed—otherwise known as the Conk!”

  Burton looked down at the short, wiry individual held in the grip of the two Scotland Yard men. He wasn't much bigger than a child, and owned a very unprepossessing stoat-like face, dominated by a perfectly huge nose. A ragged, nicotine-stained moustache concealed his lipless mouth. His thin black hair was long, greasy, and combed back over his narrow skull. He was pockmarked and sly-looking, and his beady little eyes—positioned almost on the sides of his gargantuan proboscis rather than to either side of it in the normal way—were flicking back and forth in a panicked manner.

  “I bloody aren't!” he protested. “Me name's Threadneedle. Arsk 'im!” He nodded to a small boy standing nearby, a ragamuffin with sandy-blond hair.

  Captain Lawless said, “And who are you, my lad?”

  “Willy Cornish, sir,” the boy answered nervously.

  Daniel Gooch stepped forward, his mechanical arms slowly undulating to either side of him. “They are the ship's funnel scrubbers, Captain.”

  Willy Cornish nodded and pointed at the prisoner. “That's right, sir. And he's who he says he is—Tobias Threadneedle.”

  Swinburne let loose a tremendous howl and hopped up and down like a madman. “Willy! You know perfectly well this is Sneed!”

  Cornish shifted uncomfortably and wrung his hands. “No, Carrots,” he said, employing the nickname he'd given the poet during the time they'd spent together sweeping chimneys. “I know he looks like old Sneed, but he's Mr. Threadneedle, and he's all right, he is.”

  “All right? He's a rogue! A bully! A snake in the grass!”

  “I ain't none o' them things!” the captive cried out, struggling to free himself.

  “Here, less of that!” Trounce snapped.

  “I'll have the cuffs on you!” Honesty threatened.

  “I ain't done nuffink!” the prisoner protested.

  “You sabotaged the ship!” Swinburne shouted.

  “I bloody didn't!”

  “You bloody did!”

  “I bloody didn't!”

  “SHUT UP!” Lawless roared. “You—” he jabbed a finger at Swinburne, “—calm down and explain.”

  “The explanation,” Swinburne answered, “is that while this hound may be calling himself Tobias Threadneedle, he is actually, and without doubt, a scurrilous rogue by the name of Vincent Sneed. I worked side by side with him the year before last and he treated me abominably. I cannot be mistaken. Look at that nose of his! How many men do you think there are walking around with such a perfectly enormous beak?”

  “Oy!” the prisoner objected.

  “But you say Mr. Swinburne is mistaken?” Lawless demanded of Cornish.

  “Y-yes, sir,” the boy stuttered. “I kn-know Mr. Sneed, and this ain't him.”

  Swinburne groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead. “Why, Willy? Why are you supporting this blackguard?”

  “Stop calling me them bleedin' names, you damned rat!” the accused man cried out.

  “Algy,” Burton said. “Even if this is Mr. Sneed—”

  “It is!”

  “—What makes you think it was he who sabotaged the ship?”

  “Because he's a villain!”

  “So your allegation is based on supposition rather than evidence?”

  Swinburne sighed and muttered, “Yes, Richard. But isn't it enough that he's lying to us?”

  Burton turned to Captain Lawless. “Is there a secure room available? I'd like to keep this man under guard while we get to the bottom of this.”

  “Use the first of the class-two passenger cabins,” Lawless said, pointing toward the corridor they'd come through. “I have to get back to the bridge. I'll send the steward down with the key. Report to me when this is sorted out, please.”

  With that, the captain gave a last glance at the prisoner then marched away.

  Burton addressed his assistant: “Algy, where is Herbert?”

  “Holed up in his cabin, working on a philosophical treatise.”

  “Would you fetch him, please?”

  The poet shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glowered at the big-nosed man, frowned at Willy Cornish, then nodded and followed after Lawless.

  Burton positioned himself in front of the individual who called himself Tobias Threadneedle and said, “Did you take part in a riot at Speakers' Corner last summer?”

  “No!” the man answered. He couldn't meet Burton's eyes, and kept raising his own to the ceiling, anxiously scanning the pipes and machinery above. The way he squirmed in Trounce and Honesty's grip suggested that he wasn't telling the truth.

  “The two men holding you are police officers,” Burton revealed.

  Trounce added, “And we won't hesitate to arrest you and deliver you to a Cairo gaol if you're what Mr. Swinburne says you are!”

  “Egyptian prison,” Honesty murmured. “Very nasty. Foul places.”

  “Oh please, Mother! I
ain't done nuffink!” their captive wailed. “I'm just a bleedin' funnel scrubber!”

  “Sneed was at the riot,” Burton stated. “As were these two fellows and myself. My assistant got into a scrap with him. None of us saw it, but our colleague, Mr. Spencer, did. He's on his way down now, and he'll either endorse Mr. Swinburne's assertion, or he won't. If you're Tobias Threadneedle, you have nothing to worry about. If you're Vincent Sneed, things are about to go very badly for you.”

  The prisoner let out a keening whine of despair.

  Burton turned to Willy Cornish.

  “I've heard good things about you, young man. I hope you're not telling fibs. I would be very disappointed indeed.”

  Willy burst into tears and buried his face in the crook of his arm.

  Daniel Gooch approached Burton and said, in a low voice, “That bearing cradle, Sir Richard—I understand it appeared in your cabin under mysterious circumstances?”

  “Yes.”

  “It's this fellow's duty—” one of Gooch's mechanical arms gestured toward Threadneedle, “—to keep the pipes clear on that side of the ship. He could have opened the ventilation panel in the pipe and entered your quarters through it.”

  “I see. Thank you, Mr. Gooch.”

  A few tense minutes passed while they waited for Herbert Spencer's arrival. When the clockwork philosopher entered the room—clanking along beside Swinburne, and with Pox squatting on his head—Threadneedle's little eyes widened and he stuttered, “Wha-wha-what's that thing?”

  “Tosspot!” Pox squawked.

  “Herbert,” Burton said. “Have you seen this fellow before?”

  The brass man stepped over to Threadneedle and nodded. “Yus, Boss. He were at the riot last summer. He got into a fight with Mr. Swinburne. He's Vincent Sneed.”

  The prisoner groaned and slumped.

  Doctor Quaint walked in, glanced curiously at the scene, and handed a key to Burton. “Second-class cabin number one,” he said.

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Burton addressed the Yard men: “Let us secure Mr. Sneed, gentlemen.”

  He led the way to the cabin, followed by the policemen and their prisoner.

  Swinburne turned to Willy Cornish and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. “Why were you protecting him, Willy? Has he threatened you?”