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The questioning continued through into July. During those hot,clammy weeks, the Claimant visibly swelled, growing so obese thatthe witness stand had to be rebuilt to accommodate him. His gumsbled constantly, and when three of his back teeth dropped out, hisspeech became so difficult to follow that an amplifying screen waserected beside him.
Hawkins, by contrast, had been loud, erudite, and devastatinglyeffective.
“This person who presents himself to you as a lost aristocrat,”he'd proclaimed to the jury, “is nothing but a conspirator, aperjurer, a forger, an impostor, a dastard-a villain!”
He'd then brought forth the first of his witnesses and hadbegun, piece by piece, to tear apart the Claimant's story.
By the third week of July, the jury had heard enough. Theystopped the trial and asked the judge to allow them to come to averdict. He agreed to their request.
The Claimant was found guilty of perjury. He was immediatelyarrested and incarcerated in Newgate Prison.
It was now a criminal matter.
Scotland Yard began to investigate his background.
So did Sir Richard Francis Burton.
The king's agent had travelled to New Orleans on thetroop-carrying rotorship Pegasus. There he'd boarded a steamer,which transported him down to Buenos Aires, where he'd fallen inwith an Englishman named William Maxwell, who was searching for hismissing brother. Burton had helped, and the subsequentadventure-which he intended to log under the title The Case of theWayward Wendigo -had, coincidentally, led to the completion of hismission.
He now reported the result to Lord Palmerston: “I know whereTomas Castro is.”
“The man whose name the Claimant borrowed?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Burton told him.
Lord Palmerston's eyebrows did not shoot upward, but that wasonly because they were no longer capable of such a movement.
“You need to speak to him,” he said.
The king's agent grunted his agreement.
They spoke for a further forty minutes, then the prime ministerturned his attention to a pile of parliamentary papers.
“I have to deal with matters of economy and foreign policy now,Captain. You are dismissed.”
Burton rose to leave.
“One more thing-”
“Yes, sir?”
“In your report-these Eyes of Naga stones-”
“Yes?”
“They're not the only black diamonds in existence. Am Icorrect?”
“You are, sir. There are others. However, the Eyes seem to bethe only ones possessed of the peculiar properties that Sir CharlesBabbage noted.”
“Hmm.”
Burton made to move to the door.
“Wait!” Palmerston snapped. “I have-I have a confession tomake.”
“A confession, sir?”
“I have not been entirely truthful with you. At the end of theSpring Heeled Jack case, I informed you that Edward Oxford'stime-jumping suit had been destroyed.”
“It hasn't?” asked Burton, with mock surprise. He'd neverbelieved that particular assertion.
“No, it hasn't. I wanted it examined. If you recollect, Oxfordwore a circular device attached to the front of it.”
“I remember.”
“The machinery inside it is baffling. There are no moving parts,for a start. My people have yet to identify a single component ofthe thing they can understand.”
“So?”
“So they found six small black diamonds fitted into thedevice.”
“Do they emit a low, almost inaudible hum, Prime Minister?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, they do.”
“Then in all probability, sometime in the future, they will becut from one of the Eyes of Naga.”
The rapid clicks and scrapes of a fencing match filled Burton'sstudy. It was combat a la Florentine -he and Admiral Lord Nelsonwere holding long knives in their off-hands, using them as asecondary defence.
Burton was being forced backward around one of his three desksby his valet. As he came abreast a bookcase, the clockwork man“broke time,” suddenly changing the tempo of his attack, whichcaused Burton to miscalculate his parry. It was a classic move, butexercised with such speed and precision that it completely fooledthe king's agent, whose foil flew wide. The brass man followed upwith a balestra -a forward hop-and an attaque composee, whichskipped lightly past Burton's instinctively raised knife topenetrate his defence before he could regain control.
The famous explorer grunted as the tip of his opponent's foilprodded into his right shoulder.
“Superb!” he cried enthusiastically. “Now do it again. I want toexamine your change of balance when you break time. En garde!”
The competition continued.
Burton puffed and panted with exertion as his foil met andparried the clockwork man's thrusts. He backed across thehearthrug, avoided a prise de fer, and tried to press hisopponent's foil aside. His valet responded by sliding his weaponfrom a high line to a low line, then twisted and lunged. Burtoncountered but Admiral Lord Nelson's move had been a feint; thebrass man broke time again, skipped sideways then forward, and hisattaque composee flashed past the opposing blade, his pointstabbing hard against Burton's sternum.
“Bismillah, but you're good! Again! Again! En garde!”
Their foils clicked together.
There came a knock at the door.
“Not now!”
“You have a visitor, Sir Richard.”
“I don't want to be disturbed, Mrs. Angell!”
“It's Detective Inspector Honesty!”
Burton sighed. “Disengage,” he ordered.
Admiral Lord Nelson lowered his weapon. Burton did the same andpulled off his mask.
“Oh, very well,” he called in exasperation. “Send him up!”
He took his valet's foil and placed it, and his own, in a casethat lay on one of the desks.
“We'll continue later, Nelson.”
The clockwork man saluted, walked across the room, and stood atattention next to the bureau between the two windows.
Moments later, there was a short sharp rap at the door.
“Come!”
It opened and Detective Inspector Honesty stepped in. There werebeads of sweat on his brow.
“Hallo! Too hot. Hellish weather.”
“Come in, old chap. Take that confounded jacket off if you don'twant to cook!”
The Scotland Yard man divested himself of his outer garment,hung it on a coat hook behind the door, rolled up his shirtsleeves,and settled into a chair. He looked around the study with interest,ru
Detective Inspector Honesty was a slightly built man and ratherfussily dressed, but he had a wiry strength about him and Burtonknew that he was a formidable opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Hisbrown mustache was extravagantly wide, waxed, and curled upward atthe ends. His hair was parted in the middle and lacquered flat. Hiseyes were grey. There was a monocle clenched in the right.
“Back yesterday?” he asked, in his characteristically clippedma
“The day before,” Burton answered. “I spent most of yesterdayreporting to the prime minister.”
“Any luck in South America?”
“Yes, I know where Tomas Castro is.”
“Do you, by crikey!” Honesty exclaimed, sitting upright.“Where?”
“In the Bethlem Royal Hospital.”
“Bedlam? Lunatic asylum? Here in London?”
“Yes.”
Burton took a cheroot from a box on the mantelpiece, applied alucifer to it, and sat opposite the detective. He gave a quick nodof permission when Honesty half pulled a pipe from his waistcoatpocket. As the policeman went through the ritual of scraping itsbowl and pressing in a plug of tobacco, the king's agentexplained.
“I've had rather a high old time of it these weeks past. Ishan't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I gotcaught up in an adventure that took me from Buenos Aires acrossArgentina and into Chile. There, I was able to trace the Castrofamily to Melipilla, a town on the main road between Valparaiso andSantiago. I met Pedro Castro, the son of Tomas, who revealed thathis father went missing almost a decade ago while prospecting inthe mountains with a Frenchman. This individual had been stayingwith the family for some weeks. I showed Pedro a daguerreotype ofthe Claimant. He recognised the face as the lodger's but wasastonished at the size of his body. The Frenchman, apparently, hadbeen very slim.”