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“I followed that up,” Detective Inspector Trounce put in, “butit's been impossible to trace the fellow.”
Burton sipped his tea and gazed at the biscuit tin, his mindworking.
He looked up. “Is there any explanation for the sound thediamonds are reputed to make?”
“Not that I know of. The sound is real, though. I heard itmyself-the faintest of drones. I believe there's a Schuyler in theBritish Library, if you want to consult it. Maybe the author makesmention of the phenomenon.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brundleweed. One final question. You reported aghost?”
The diamond dealer looked embarrassed. He coughed and scratchedhis chin through his beard.
“Um, to be frank, Captain Burton, I think I must have nodded offand dreamed it.”
“Tell me, anyway.”
“Very well, but please bear in mind that I was strangely out ofsorts that afternoon. I don't know why. I developed a migraine andfelt oddly nervous and jumpy. For some reason, I imagined that mylot in life was very unsatisfactory and I grew rather morose. Iinherited this little business from my father and have never beforeor since considered that I might do anything else in life but runit. However, that afternoon I was suddenly filled with resentmenttoward it, feeling that it had prevented me from doing somethingmore important.”
“What, precisely?”
“That's the thing of it! I have no idea! The suggestion that Imight abandon the family business is absurd in the extreme! Anyway,I was in a thoroughly bad temper and, at four o'clock-I rememberthe time because the clock suddenly stopped ticking and I couldn'tget it started again-I decided to pack it in for the day. TheFrancois Garnier Collection was already locked in my safe but,before leaving, I went to double check it. As I passed through intothe workshop, the figure of a woman caught my eye. It made me jumpout of my skin, I can tell you. She was standing in the corner,white and transparent. Then I blinked and she was gone. Believe me,after that I had a thorough case of the jitters and left the shopin a hurry, though not before locking up carefully. On the wayhome, the fresh air seemed to do me good and the migraine left me.I began to feel more like my old self. By the time I steppedthrough my front door, I was perfectly fine. I went to bed earlyand slept heavily. I didn't awake until the police knocked the nextmorning.”
Burton looked at Trounce. “Some sort of gas?” he suggested.“Causing hallucinations?”
“That was my thought,” the detective replied. “But we checkedevery inch of the floors, walls, and ceilings and found no residueand no indication of how gas might have been introduced. Certainlyit didn't come up from the cellar. The tu
There was a long pause, then Burton said: “I apologise forimposing upon you, Mr. Brundleweed. Thank you for the tea andbiscuits. I hope the diamonds are recovered.”
“I suppose they'll surface eventually, Captain.”
“And when they do,” Trounce offered, “I'll hear about it!”
The men stood, exchanged handshakes, and Burton and Trounce tooktheir leave.
“What next?” the detective asked as they stepped out onto thestreet.
“Well, Trounce old chap, this has piqued my curiosity, so Ithink I'm going to bury my head in books for the rest of the day tosee what more I can dig up about the Naga, then on Wednesday Ishall take my rotorchair out for a spin.”
“Where to?”
“Tichborne House. Much as I'd rather pursue this diamond affair,orders are orders, so I ought to have a chat with thesoon-to-be-deposed baronet.”
Burton spent an uncomfortable afternoon at the British Libraryconsulting Matthijs Schuyler's De Mythen van VerlorenHalfedelstenen, along with a number of other books andmanuscripts.
He became increasingly ill.
Malaria is like an earthquake; after the initial devastatingattack, a series of lesser aftershocks follow, and one of themcrept over the king's agent as he studied.
It began with difficulty focusing his right eye. Then he beganto perspire. By five o'clock he was trembling and feelingnauseous.
He decided to go home to sleep it off.
Sitting in a hansom, being bumped and jerked toward MontaguPlace, he considered what he'd read.
According to the occult text consulted by Schuyler, a continentnamed Kumari Kandam once existed in the Indian Ocean. It was hometo the Naga kingdom, whose capital city spa
The Naga were reptilian, and were constantly warring with theland's human inhabitants, enslaving them, sacrificing them, and, itwas hinted, eating them.
However, the humans were growing in numbers, while the Naga werediminishing, so there came a time when the reptilian people hadlittle choice but to seek a peaceful coexistence.
The humans sent an emissary, a Brahmin named Kaundinya, and as asymbol of the peace accord, he was married to the Naga monarch'sdaughter.
However, Kaundinya was not just an ambassador, he was also aspy. He discovered that while the Naga were a multitude, they werealso one, for their minds were joined together through means of theblack diamond.
After a year living with the reptilian race, during which timehe convincingly acted the loving husband, Kaundinya was granted theright to add his own presence to the great fusion of minds.
He was taken before the gemstone, and watched without protest asa human slave was sacrificed to it. Then, with great ritual, pomp,and ceremony, he was sent into a trance and his mind was projectedinto the stone.
What a mind he possessed!
Trained since early childhood, Brahmin Kaundinya had achievedthe absolute pi
As his awareness sank into the crystalline structure of thestone, Kaundinya was able to position some aspect of himself in itsevery angle, every line, and every facet. He filled it until nopart of it was free from his consciousness. Then he turned inward,delved into the depths of his own brain, and purposely burst amajor blood vessel.
The massive haemorrhage killed him instantly, as he'd known itwould, and, because he'd infiltrated the entire stone, his deathcaused it to shatter, tearing apart the minds of every single Nagaon the continent of Kumari Kandam.
It was genocide.
Many generations later, the land itself was destroyed when theEarth gave one of its occasional cataclysmic shrugs.
Now, in 1862, little evidence remained of the prehistoric lizardrace. They were depicted in carvings in a few Cambodian temples,such as Angkor Wat, but whether these representations were accuratecould never be established.
What fascinated Sir Richard Francis Burton, though, was thatthis myth of a lost reptilian civilisation existed not only inCambodia but also in South America, where the lizard men-known asCherufe -were also overthrown by the expanding human race. Theirkingdom had been invaded, there had been mass slaughter, and just afew of them had escaped. This small group, carrying their sacredblack diamond, had been pursued almost the entire length of thecontinent, far south to Chile, where they had vanished and werenever heard of again.
In Africa, too, there were the Chitahuri of the Zulus, calledthe Shayturay by the tribes in the central Lake Regions.
It was, of course, surplus information that didn't, as far as hecould see, have much bearing on the unsolved theft of the FrancoisGarnier Collection, but Burton possessed a self-confessed “maniafor discovery” which drove him to peel away layer after layer ofwhatever subject he studied. It at least enabled him to establish awider and, to him, more interesting context.