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Taking a deep breath, suppressing the instinctive urge to run,he crept to the door and put his fingers around the brass handle.He pressed his ear against the wood. It was cold.
He could hear no movement from the other side, yet the idea thatthe room was occupied persisted. With great care, he squeezed thehandle and began to turn it. Clenching his jaw, he braced himselfand applied his shoulder to the door.
He stopped.
What was that?
Had he heard something? A voice?
“Help! Help!”
Cries from outside the house! Again they came: “Help! Help!”
The voice was familiar. Surely that was Herbert Spencer!
Releasing the handle, Burton turned away and strode rapidlyacross to the patio door, drew the curtain aside, opened theportal, and stepped out of the house into the still air of aclear-skied night.
Herbert was ru
“Is that you, Boss? Help me!”
Burton hurried forward. “Herbert! What is it? What's wrong?”
The vagrant philosopher reached him and clutched his arm. Hiseyes were round, his lips drawn tightly over his teeth. He wasplainly terrified.
“There!” he cried, pointing back at the lake.
Burton looked and saw the vapour, glaringly white beneath therays of the moon, crawling languidly between the boles of thehunched willows like a living, amoebic creature.
“There's nothing there!” he exclaimed. “Herbert, why-?”
“Can't you see ’em?”
“Them? Who? What?”
“There-there was figures,” the philosopher stammered. “Not inthe mist, but of the mist!”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“They was wraiths!” Spencer whispered, his voice quavering.
The king's agent backed away, dragging the philosopher withhim.
“What are you talking about? Why are you out here at this timeof night? Have you been sleepwalking?”
“No,” Spencer croaked. “I came to-” He stopped and pointed, hiseyes wide and panicked.
“There!”
Burton stared at the lake. Was that a figure moving, or just anopaque surge of vapour billowing through the cloud?
“Let's get inside,” he said.
Spencer didn't need any further persuasion. They quickly madetheir way up to the house, crossed the patio, entered the musicroom, and closed the door behind them.
They looked at each other in terror, both suddenly overpoweredby a sense that the chamber was already occupied. They pressedtheir backs against the door and looked this way and that, peeringinto the corners, seeing nothing but shadows.
“Mother of God!” Herbert wheezed, his eyes bulging. “Is thedevil himself in here?”
Breathing was difficult. The room was frigid.
The light of Burton's lantern reeled across it and caught andlingered in the glimmering eyes of Sir Henry Tichborne. Theportrait radiated evil, and for a moment, it appeared to the king'sagent that the face in the painting had changed, that it wassomeone else entirely, someone gaunt and evil and filled withmalicious intent.
The light sank down over the surface of the picture, and for amoment the eyes blazed through the shadow, then dimmed as theillumination retreated back across the room, slithering over thefloor as if the clockwork lantern were sucking it in. It flickeredand died, plunging them into darkness. Only a silvery parallelogramof moonlight remained, stretched across the floor, framing the twomen's shadows.
Burton's heart hammered in his chest.
As his eyes adjusted, they were drawn to the door that he'd beenabout to open earlier.
Its handle began to turn.
Burton stood transfixed, unaware that Spencer, too, was staringat the door.
Agonisingly, little by little, the brass handle revolved.
From a great way off, the sound of the piano chord returned,coming closer and closer, filling the room.
The piano chimed.
The door opened.
A weird figure stepped in.
Burton and his companion yelled in fright.
“My hat! What on earth's the matter?” Swinburne shrilled, forthe bizarre figure was his: small, slope-shouldered, his headframed by a corona of fiery red hair. He looked on bemused as hiscompanions collapsed against each other, panting hard. “I say! Haveyou been drinking? And you didn't invite me? Blessedscoundrels!”
Burton let loose a peal of near hysterical laughter, turned tothe patio door, then cried out and stepped back in horror as ademonic face glared at him from the darkness outside.
It was his reflection.
“Bismillah!”
“You're as white as a sheet!” Swinburne exclaimed.
“What-what are you playing at sneaking around at this time ofnight?” Burton demanded, failing to suppress the tremor in hisvoice.
“We agreed I'd take over at three.”
“It's three already?”
“I think so. My watch has stopped.”
Burton pulled his own pocket watch from his waistcoat and lookedat it. It, too, had stopped. He shook it, wound it, and shook itagain. It refused to work.
He twisted the clockwork lantern, only to find that it was alsobroken; there was no resistance in its spring.
“Herbert,” he muttered, “what were you doing out there?”
The vagrant philosopher swallowed nervously, wiped a sleeveacross his brow, and shrugged. “I-I could-couldn't get any kip onaccount o’ Mrs. Picklethorpe's bloomin’ snoring. Her bedchamber isnext to the kitchen an’ I'm two rooms away, but sound carriesstrangely in that part of the house an’ I swear it sounded like hertrumpetin’ were a-comin’ from the walls themselves. Anyways, Icouldn't take another blasted minute of it, so I thought to go an’check on the swans. I hoped a spot o’ night air might encourage avisit from what's-’is-name-Morpheus. I was just headin’ back to thehouse when them wraiths surrounded me. Fair panicked, I did!”
“Wraiths?” Swinburne asked excitedly. “What? What?”
“Herbert thought he saw figures in the mist,” Burtonexplained.
“Of the mist,” the philosopher corrected.
“And the knocking?” the poet enquired. “Where was that comingfrom?”
“Knocking?”
“You didn't hear it? It was either from this room or the next,but it stopped when I came along the corridor.”
“Hmm,” Burton grunted. “Well, there was certainly a strangeatmosphere in here and I haven't a notion how to explain it. Itseems entirely normal now, though. Herbert, why don't you getyourself back to bed? There's no point in all of us losing sleep.Algy and I will have a poke around for a few minutes, then I thinkwe'll call it a night.”
“Right you are, Boss. Blimey! I'll take the bloomin’ snorin’over this malarkey any day o’ the week!”
An hour later, Burton was lying in his bed, trying to work outexactly what he'd experienced. Some form of mesmerism, perhaps? Ormaybe an intoxicating gas, as he'd suspected at Brundleweed's? How,though, could either of those account for the sudden loss ofelasticity in the springs of his watch and lantern?
Whatever the explanation, the room's malevolent aura hadvanished upon Swinburne's arrival, and the two of them hadencountered nothing more during their subsequent patrol.
He slept.
It wasn't until fairly late the next morning that Burton and hisassistant made an appearance downstairs. They were informed byBogle that Colonel Lushington was awaiting them in the library withthe Tichborne family lawyer. Upon entering, they saw the two menstanding near the fireplace and were immediately struck by thegravity of their host's expression.
“There's news,” the colonel a
“The cause of death?” Burton asked.
“Heart stopped. Failed. Old age, no doubt. She'd been ailing fora considerable period.”
He looked from his two guests to the other man and backagain.
“Forgive me, I should make introductions. Polite thing to do.Ahem! Forgot myself. This gentleman is Mr. Henry Hawkins. A lawyer.He'll be defending the family against the Claimant. Mr. Hawkins,may I present Sir Richard Burton and Mr.-um-um-um-”