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Lady Henriette-Felicite immediately placed advertisements in theEmpire and a number of Australian newspapers.
A month ago, she'd received a response in the form of a badlywritten and misspelled letter.
It was from Roger.
He was alive.
He told her he'd been living under the name “Tomas Castro,” andwas working as a butcher in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, abouthalfway between Sydney and Melbourne.
He asked his mother to send him money so he could come home,and, as evidence that he-the author of the letter-truly was herson, he referred to a brown birthmark upon his side. The dowagerremembered the blemish and sent the money.
Now, it seemed, the man the newspapers had dubbed “the Claimant”had met the old woman and she'd confirmed his identity.
The long-lost Roger Tichborne had returned!
As Oscar explained to Burton, the upper classes were delightedthat an ancient family was restored, while the lower classes werecelebrating the fact that an aristocrat had been living as a commonlabourer.
Dowager Lady Henriette-Felicite was bursting with joy. The restof the Tichborne family-the cousins and assorted relatives, most ofwhom bore the surnames Doughty or Arundell-were not.
They didn't believe a word of it.
“He'll be over to assert ownership of the estate soon!” Oscarshouted, as the barrel organ screamed and belched.
Burton nodded thoughtfully, pulled a sixpence from his pocket,and pushed it into the urchin's palm.
“I'll see you later, Quips,” he said. “Here's a coin for a pie.You can't live on sweets alone!”
“I can get plump trying! Thank you, Captain!”
Oscar disappeared into the shop, and Burton walked on, relievedto hear the organ music fading into the background.
On the corner of Baker Street, he waved down a hansom, which,pulled by a puffing steam-horse-like a smaller version of thefamous Stevenson's Rocket-took him along Wigmore Street and halfwaydown Regent Street before jolting to a halt when its crankshaftsnapped and punched a hole in the boiler. Dismissing the driver'sapologies, he hailed another and continued on through Haymarket toWhitehall and Scotland Yard.
Mounting the steps of the forbidding old edifice, he wasencountered going up by Detective Inspector Trounce, who happenedto be on his way down.
“Well met!” the policeman declared.
“I was just coming to pick your brains,” said Burton, shakinghis friend's hand.
“I'm off to put the wind up Freddy Blue, the pawnbroker. Care totag along?”
“Rightio. Why? What's he done?”
They descended the steps and set off toward TrafalgarSquare.
“A little bird told me he's started to fence stolen propertyagain.”
“A parakeet?”
Trounce shook his head. “No, Cock Sparrow, the child pickpocket.What was it you wanted to jiggle my grey matter about?”
They skirted around the edge of the square and enteredNorthumberland Avenue, which was clogged with traffic as deliverywagons trundled up from riverside, heading into the centre of thecapital.
“I was wondering what you might know about the TichborneClaimant.”
“Only what I've read in the papers.”
“That's all? You mean Scotland Yard isn't looking into it?”
“Why should we? No charges have been brought against anyone.What's your interest, Captain?”
“To be frank, I haven't any. It's little more than newspapersensationalism, as far as I can see. Pam, unfortunately, has otherideas.”
“Palmerston? Why would it concern the prime minister?”
“Who knows? The man's brain is as unfathomable as one of thosebabbage devices.”
Trounce made a sound of agreement. “Incidentally,” he said, “youshould have seen the men he sent to collect the babbage we found atthe priory on the night of the Brundleweed raid. They were like acouple of blessed morticians!”
“Ah. That'll be Damien Burke and Gregory Hare. They're hisodd-job men.”
“ Odd is right. I've never seen odder. And speaking of oddities,how's young Swinburne?”
“He's working on a new batch of poems. And pursuing his hobby,of course.”
Trounce snorted. Both men knew that Swinburne's “hobby” involvedfrequent visits to brothels where he enjoyed being flogged bywilling madams.
“He has strange tastes, that one,” the detective muttered. “Whyanyone would enjoy being birched, I can't imagine. I suffered therod once or twice at school, and didn't like it one littlebit!”
“The more I learn about him,” Burton replied, “the more Ibelieve Swinburne has a genuine physiological condition that causeshim to feel pain as pleasure. He's a fascinating study!”
“And a thorough pervert. Though a damned courageous one, I'llgive him that. Absolutely fearless! Here's Mr. Blue's shop. I'll dothis alone, if you don't mind. Will you wait here?”
“Certainly. Don't pummel him too hard.”
“A verbal dressing-down, that's all, Captain!” Trounce smiled.He cracked his knuckles and vanished into the pawnbroker's.
Sir Richard Francis Burton leaned on his cane and watched thetraffic pass by. The traders’ vehicles were mostly horse-drawn.There weren't many who could afford a steam-horse. The men on thecarts were tough and wiry individuals. Their shirtsleeves wererolled up to their elbows and Burton could see the knotted musclesof their forearms, the thickness of their bones, and the leatheryquality of their skin. There wasn't an ounce of fat on any of them,nor was there even a hint of pretension-nary a whiff ofself-consciousness. They were stripped down to the basics ofexistence. They toiled, they ate, they slept, they toiled again,and they never imagined anything different. He admired them, and,in a strange way, he envied them.
A couple of minutes later, he heard a footstep behind him andturned.
Detective Inspector Trounce had emerged from the shop.
“He started blubbing like a baby before I'd said more than twowords,” the policeman a
“Good idea.”
They set off.
“Has there been no clue to the Choir Stones’ whereabouts?”Burton asked.
“Not a whisper, unless Brundleweed's heard something through thegrapevine since I last spoke to him. He maintains that he lockedthe genuine articles in the safe that evening. Yet we know thatIsambard Kingdom Brunel removed fakes. So either Brundleweed islying-which I find hard to believe; his reputation is absolutelyspotless-or an extremely accomplished cracksman got there first andleft no trace.”
They passed back into Trafalgar Square, weaving through thecrowds, and on into Charing Cross Road, heading toward SaintMartin's.
“Do you have a suspect?”
Trounce removed his bowler, slapped it, and placed it back onhis head.
“The obvious man would be-” he began, then interrupted himself:“By Jove! Look at that!”
A bizarre vehicle had snaked into view from around the nextcorner and was thundering toward them at high speed. It was amillipede-an actual insect-grown to stupendous proportions by theEugenicists. When it had reached the required size, they'd killedit and handed the carcass over to their Engineering colleagues,who'd sliced off the top half of its long, segmented, tubular body.They'd removed the i
It was a new type of omnibus, and it was packed solid withpassengers, with three people to every seat and a fair numberstanding and hanging on for dear life as it hurtled along. Theycheered and hooted with delight as hansoms and growlers, carts andvelocipedes, horses and pedestrians hurriedly moved to the side ofthe road, out of the oncoming vehicle's path. Dense clouds of steamboiled from pipes along its sides and, as it came alongside Burtonand Trounce and careened into the narrow gap that opened up throughthe centre of the traffic, hot vapour rolled over the two men,obscuring the scene. Impassioned curses and profanities came fromwithin the cloud; there was a crash, a scream, and the shudderywhi