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He moved to a heavy piece of furniture to the right of the doorand opened the small, intricately carved wooden box that stood uponit. From this he extracted a few coins, before silently slippingpast Elsie and out of the room.
“What is it, Miss Elsie?” Burton asked.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said, curtseying for a second time. “Sorryto dis-disperupt your music, but a message just arrived in thethingamajig.”
“Thank you. And you mean disrupt.”
“That's right, sir. Disperupt.”
The maid bobbed again, backed out of the room, ran down thestairs, retrieved her broom, and was out of the study before Burtongot there. She descended to the basement and entered thekitchen.
“All swept clean as a whistle, ma'am,” she told Mrs. Angell.
“Did you dust the bookshelves?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“And the mantelpiece?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“And that big old African spear?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“And did you polish the swords?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“And beat the cushions?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“And what about the doorknobs?”
“You can see your face in 'em, ma'am.”
“Good girl. Take a piece of fruitcake from the tin and have arest. You've earned it.”
“Thank you, ma'am.”
Elsie took her slice of cake, put it on a plate, and settled ona stool.
“By the way, ma'am, the musical shriek has left and the master'sgot a message in the thingamajig.”
“Sheik,” the housekeeper corrected. She sighed. “Oh dear. I'mconvinced that contraption only ever delivers trouble!”
She turned to the clockwork man, who was standing at the table,peeling potatoes. “Attend Sir Richard, please, Lord Nelson.”
The valet laid down his knife and saluted, wiped his fingers ona cloth, and marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs to thestudy. He entered and moved to the bureau between the windows,standing motionless beside it, awaiting orders.
Burton was by the fireplace.
“Listen to this,” he said, absently. “It's from Palmerston.”
He read from the note in his hand:
Investigate the claimant to the Tichborne title.
The king's agent sighed. “I was hoping to avoid all that blessednonsense!”
He looked up, saw his valet, and said: “Oh, it's you. Lay out myday suit, would you? I think I'll drop in on old Pouncer Trounce,see what he knows about the affair.”
Half an hour later, Burton stepped out of 14 Montagu Place andstrolled in the direction of Whitehall. He'd not gone more thanthree paces when a voice hailed him: “What ho, Cap'n! Fit as afiddle, I see!”
It was Mr. Grub, the street vendor, who supplied chestnuts froma Dutch oven in the winter, and whelks, winkles, and jellied eelsfrom a barrow in the summer.
“Yes, Mr. Grub, I'm much improved, thank you. How'sbusiness?”
“Rotten!”
“Why so?”
“Du
“But you always pitch your barrow here. If it's so bad, why notmove?”
Grub pushed his cloth cap back from his brow. “Move? Phew! Du
“No thank you, Mr. Grub. I'm on my way to Scotland Yard.”
Burton wondered how anything from the Thames could possibly beclassified as “fresh.”
“Well, you ain't the only one what don't want nuffink.” Mr. Grubsighed. “Cheerio, Cap'n!”
“Good day, Mr. Grub!”
Burton tipped his hat at the vendor and continued on hisway.
It was a fine spring day. The sky was blue and the air still.All across the city, thin pillars of smoke rose vertically,eventually dissipating at a high altitude. Rotorchairs left trailsof steam between them, a white cross-hatching that made anirregular grid of the sky. Swans, too, swooped among the columnslike insects flying through a forest.
The king's agent swung along at a steady pace, with the hustleand bustle of the streets churning around him. Hawkers hollered,prostitutes wheedled and mocked, ragamuffins yelled, traderslaughed and argued and haggled, street performers sang and juggledand danced, pedestrians brandished their canes and parasols anddoffed their hats and bobbed their bo
He spotted a familiar face.
“Hi! Quips!” he called, waving his cane.
Oscar Wilde, nine years old, orphaned by the never-ending Irishfamine and earning his daily crust by selling newspapers, wasloitering outside a sweet shop.
“Top o’ the morning to you, Captain!” He smiled, revealingcrooked teeth. “Help me to choose, would you? Bullseyes or barleysugars? I'm after thinking barley sugars.”
“Then I agree, lad.”
Oscar pulled off his battered top hat and scratched hishead.
“Ah, well now, whenever people agree with me I always feel Imust be wrong. So I suppose it'd better be bullseyes!” He sighed.“Or maybe both. It seems to me that the only way to get rid of atemptation is to yield to it. Don't you think so, CaptainBurton?”
The explorer chuckled. Young Oscar had a remarkable way withwords-thus his nickname.
“Are you flush, young ‘un?”
“Aye, I am that. My pockets are heavy with coins, so they are. Isold out in less than an hour. It seems everyone in London is afterhaving a newspaper this morning. Have you seen the news yourself,sir?”
“Not yet. I've had my nose in books.”
“Then you must be the exception that proves the rule, for I haveit in mind that the difference between literature and journalism isthat journalism is unreadable and literature is not read!”
“I suppose the Tichborne business is still making theheadlines?”
A nearby organ grinder started to squeeze out somethingapproximating a tune on his tatty machine. Oscar winced and raisedhis voice: “I'll say! It has all the classes gossiping-from highlords to low layabouts! Everyone has an opinion!”
“What's the latest?” Burton shouted above the unmelodiousgroans, squeaks, wails, and whistles.
“The Claimant arrived in Paris and his mother has recognisedhim!”
“By James! Is that so?”
The Tichborne affair was a huge sensation-and one that touched asensitive area of Burton's life, for the family was co
The Tichbornes were one of the oldest families in the southerncounties, but the estate's fortunes had dwindled considerably overthe past two or three generations-due, it was rumoured, to anancient curse. In recent years, the continuation of the line haddepended upon two heirs. The eldest, Roger, was a fairly typicalexample of an ill-educated aristocrat, while his younger brother,Alfred, was even more vacuous, and a gambler, too. Roger hadoffered the greatest hope for the family until, disastrously, hewas lost at sea in 1854, while sailing back from South America toclaim the baronetcy after the death of his father. So it was Alfredwho became the latest in the long line of Tichborne baronets, andhe almost ran the estate-near Winchester in Hampshire-into theground. Money trickled through his fingers like water. His mother,Lady Henriette-Felicite, was French. She'd not enjoyed a happymarriage and had retreated to Paris long before her husband died.From a distance, she kept a close eye on the diminishing Tichbornecoffers, and when the situation became so dire that she feared SirAlfred would make a pauper of her, she sent a family friend,Colonel Franklin Lushington, to live at Tichborne House and takecontrol of the estate's finances. Lushington had managed to curbher son's worst excesses, but what he couldn't do was turn theyoung baronet into a good prospect for marriage.
Sir Alfred would almost certainly be the last Tichborne.
Then something totally unexpected happened.
A year ago, while the Dowager Lady Henriette-Felicite wasvisiting Tichborne House, a down-on-his-luck Russian sailor camebegging for alms. The old lady, by this time frail andfeeble-minded, asked him if he'd ever heard of La Bella, the shipthat took her eldest to the bottom of the ocean. The sailor had notonly heard of it but also knew that a small group of survivors hadbeen rescued from a longboat bearing its name. They'd been landedin Australia.