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“Go down to your rooms, dear. We'll come and tell you when it'ssafe.”
Swinburne picked Burton's silver-handled swordstick from theelephant-foot umbrella stand by the front door. He handed it toNelson.
“Here, unsheathe it and don't hesitate to use it. If you canmanage it, slice the lumps off the fat man's head.”
The mechanical valet saluted.
“What's that?” Trounce exclaimed. “Why play silly beggars?Wouldn't it be better to run the damned beast through theheart?”
“The Francois Garnier diamonds are sewn into those lumps,Detective Inspector.”
“Brundleweed's stones!” Trounce cried. “And you've only justthought to tell me?”
“Richard had his reasons for keeping it quiet. All you need toknow for now is that if we can free the fiend from their influence,we might be able to get some information out of him.”
Trounce grunted and shook his head. “Perhaps, but I'll tell you,lad: if that brute looks to be getting the upper hand, I'll nothesitate to put a bullet through his brain!”
They went outside. Palmerston's guards were slumped in themobile castle's bartizans, their heads shattered by their ownbullets. The four cavalrymen lay dead in the road.
Wraiths moved through the haze.
As Swinburne led his companions out onto the pavement, the mistparted, and the Claimant came charging out of it like an enragedhippopotamus. Before any of them could raise a weapon, they weresent flying. Swinburne and Spencer both ended up on their backs inthe gutter, while Nelson clanged noisily against one ofPalmerston's steam-horses. Trounce was grabbed by the collar,yanked off his feet, and thrown high into the air and clear acrossthe road. He thumped down headfirst onto the opposite pavement,rolled, and lay still.
Nelson ducked under the Claimant's swinging fist and scuttledaway to retrieve the rapier, which had been knocked out of hishand. Swinburne rolled under the steam-horse and out the otherside. He jumped up then backpedalled rapidly when he found himselflooking a wraith full in the face.
“Argh!” he cried, and clutched the sides of his head. He felt aterrible pressure on his brain. “No!” he gasped. “I'll not let youinside! Not ever again!”
A gunshot echoed as Herbert Spencer put a bullet into theClaimant's side. The philosopher scrambled to his feet, turned, andran to the back of the prime minister's carriage. A ghostly handclutched at his arm. He struggled in the grip of a wraith.
The Claimant flew into a berserk rage. Stamping his feet andwaving his arms, he hollered and howled, screamed and hissed, andthrew himself into the side of the foremost of the twosteam-horses. It must have weighed well over a ton, but under hisonslaught, the machine keeled over, narrowly missed crushingSwinburne, and skidded across the cobbles on its side, showeringsparks and emitting a plume of white vapour as one of its pipestore open.
“Mother!” a muffled voice cried from inside the mobile castle'sfront cabin. “Help me!”
It was Palmerston's driver, who'd been quaking inside the boxever since the wraiths had appeared and caused the deaths of theguards.
The piggy eyes of the Claimant flicked to the source of thesound. In one stride he was beside it, grabbing the edges of thewedge-shaped compartment. He began to heave it back and forth. Theman inside wailed piteously.
Swinburne heard himself mutter: “Tichborne! The bloody toffsare-are-are trying to do away with Tichborne!”
He shook his head.
“No!” he growled. “No! No! No! That is not Sir Roger bloodyTichborne!”
He stepped straight through the drifting wraith, levelled thecactus gun, and fired. As he touched the trigger nodule, his armjerked aside, and the spines flew wide.
“Bloody conspiracy!” he gasped, fighting the words as theyforced themselves out of his mouth. As fierce as the battle in thestreet was, the fight in the poet's head was even more intense.
Admiral Lord Nelson bounded over to the Claimant and lunged in.His rapier danced. He skipped away. Wraiths swooped around him,grabbing at his arms, but they couldn't hold him.
The corpulent creature screamed as two of the lumps on its scalpdisappeared, sliced off by the sword blade. Blood gushed from thewounds. Black gems bounced into the gutter.
Swinburne felt a sudden lessening of the pressure on hisbrain.
“Herbert!” he cried. “Collect the diamonds! We mustn't losethem!”
The Claimant twisted and lumbered after Nelson, who now stood ashort distance away in the en garde pose. He reached the clockworkman and there commenced a flurry of arms and blade as Nelson jabbedand sliced at the fat behemoth, while the latter attempted todeflect or catch the flashing rapier.
Herbert Spencer tore himself away from the tormenting wraith anddarted forward. He retrieved the two fallen Choir Stones. As he didso, another one fell.
The Claimant let loose a terrific shriek and clutched hishead.
“I remember!” he shouted. “I remember!”
Nelson backed away from his opponent, who once again lurchedafter him. The sleeves of the Claimant's jacket, and the shirtbeneath, hung in tatters. When he raised his hands to grab therapier, his mismatched forearms were fully exposed. They wereterribly lacerated, but the creature appeared to be entirely immuneto pain.
The rapier danced away from the clutching fingers.
The Claimant roared with frustration.
Herbert crept up behind him and picked up the third stone, thentwo more as the fourth and fifth flew from the swollen man'shead.
Swinburne started to shoot spines into the creature's back,hoping that the accumulating venom would at least slow thejuggernaut down.
“I want meat!” the Claimant raged. His face was covered withblood. Every few moments, his tongue snaked from between his lipsand licked at the red liquid.
The sixth diamond dropped.
Admiral Lord Nelson started to duck and dodge more intently. Theremaining stone was located at the back of his opponent's head, sohe needed to somehow manoeuvre himself into a position from whichit could be extracted.
As the two combatants moved back and forth over the cobbles,Spencer followed cautiously, slipping the sixth stone into hispocket.
The clockwork man stepped in close, bent under a lashing fist,sprang forward, whirled, and sent his rapier's tip digging into theremaining fleshy protuberance on the back of his adversary's skull.A small chunk of flesh dropped away. Blood spurted. A black diamondsparkled. It landed at Spencer's feet. He snatched it up. He nowhad the complete Francois Garnier Collection in his pocket.
“Aaaaargh!” the Claimant cried. “Hurts! It hurts! Give me meat!I want meat!”
He turned to face Nelson and backed away a couple of steps,peering through the blood streaming over his eyes.
His fury seemed to leave him for a moment.
He blinked.
Swinburne felt a profound sense of release, as if he was fullyhimself again. He lowered the spine-shooter and watched.
“No,” the fat man uttered. “No. I am not-I am not-”
He lifted the larger of his two hands up to his face.
“I am not Roger-”
He dug his blunt fingernails into his forehead and cheeks.
“I am not Roger Tichborne!”
With a stomach-churning tearing noise, he ripped his face fromthe front of his skull and held it out triumphantly.
“My name is Arthur Orton! And I want meat!”
He pushed the drooping skin and tissue into his mouth andstarted to chew.
“Ah,” Swinburne whispered. “So there we have it at last.”
Arthur Orton considered Admiral Lord Nelson.
“You,” he rumbled, “are not meat.”
His gory countenance, all raw muscle and throbbing veins, turneduntil he was looking directly at Herbert Spencer.
“But you-”
With startling agility for one so gargantuan, Orton lunged atthe vagrant philosopher.
Spencer turned to run.
Admiral Lord Nelson sprang into action. He took two greatstrides, raised the rapier, sent it plunging toward the back ofOrton's spine, suddenly slowed-and froze.