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When he'd finished explaining, he was summarily dismissed.
Bertie Wells had taken him back outside and to the second car, in which the Tommies were waiting.
They were now on their way to a secret destination.
“We're supposed to be escorting you to Colonel Crowley,” Wells said, “but we're disobeying orders. When he finds out, if we're lucky, we'll be court marshalled and executed by firing squad.”
Burton looked at his companion and asked, “And if you're unlucky?”
“He'll use his mediumistic powers on us. I dread to think how that might turn out. One way or the other, though, this is a suicide mission.”
“Bloody hell!” Burton exclaimed. “Why didn't you tell me that before? I'd rather face this Crowley character than have you sacrifice yourself!”
“Which is exactly the reason I kept it quiet. I'm only telling you now so you'll realise the importance of what we're doing. I trust my editor implicitly, despite his eccentricities, and if he says the future depends on him meeting you, then I'm willing to bet my life that it does. Here, strap on this pistol, you shouldn't be without a weapon.”
Burton clipped the holster to his belt. He watched, amazed, as three smaller versions of the Brita
“What are those things?”
“Steam spheres. I suppose the nearest equivalent you had in your time was the velocipede.”
Burton shook his head in wonder, then said, “Eccentricities?”
Wells smiled. “The old man has a rather unconventional sense of style and his, um, ‘living arrangements’ tend to raise eyebrows.”
“Why so?”
“The gentleman he lodges with is, er, rather more than a friend, if you know what I mean.”
Burton threw up his hands in exasperation. “Good grief! It's 1918 and that's still considered unconventional? Has the human race not evolved at all since my time?”
The driver swung the motor-carriage into a narrow side street and accelerated down to the end of it, drawing to a stop outside a plain metal door.
Bertie stepped out of the vehicle. Burton and the Tommies followed. The explorer wiped perspiration from his eyes and muttered an imprecation. Tabora possessed the atmosphere of a Turkish bath.
“Keep alert,” the war correspondent said to the three soldiers. They nodded, drew pistols from their holsters, and stood guard at the door while Wells ushered Burton through it.
“Up the stairs, please, Richard.”
The king's agent passed an opening on his left and ascended. There was an oil lamp hanging from the upper landing's ceiling, and by its light he saw that the walls were painted a pale lilac and decorated with colourful theatre posters, most of them dating from the 1880s. He reached the top and stopped outside a wooden door with a glowing fanlight above it. Wells reached past him and rapped his knuckles against the portal: Knock. Knock-knock-knock. Knock-knock.
“Code?” Burton asked.
“Open sesame,” Wells replied.
Algernon Swinburne's face flashed before the explorer's mind's eye.
“Come,” a voice called from the room beyond.
They pushed the door open and stepped through into a large chamber. It was lit by four wall lamps and reminded Burton of his study in Montagu Place, for it was lined with bookshelves, had two large desks, and was decorated with all ma
A crimson rug lay between four leather armchairs in the centre of the room. A heavyset man was standing on it, and, immediately, Burton felt that he'd seen him somewhere before. He was tall, rather fat, and appeared to be in his mid-sixties. His brown hair-which had obviously been dyed, for its roots were grey-was long and fell in waves to his shoulders. It framed a jowly face, with creases and wrinkles around the grey, indolent eyes, and full-lipped mouth. He was wearing a black velvet smoking jacket, inky-blue slacks, and leather button-up boots. There was a long cigarette holder between the pudgy ringed fingers of his left hand.
After a long pause, spent staring fixedly at the king's agent, the man drawled: “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”
His voice was deep and mellow and lazy. It possessed an Irish lilt.
Burton almost collapsed.
“Quips!” he cried out. “Bismillah! It's Quips!”
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde gri
“Captain Burton!” he exclaimed. “You're alive and young again! By heavens! How have you done it? I demand to know the secret! To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable!”
Burton gave a bark of laughter. “Still the rapier-sharp wit! The war hasn't blunted that, I see, and praise be to Allah for it! It's good to see you, lad! It's bloody good to see you!”
“Sure and begorra, he's calling me lad now! And here's me a quarter of a century his senior by the looks of it!” Wilde caught Burton as the explorer suddenly sagged. “Hey now, you're trembling all over! Come and sit down. Bertie, in the drinks cabinet-there's a decanter of brandy. Fetch it over, would you? Sit, Captain. Sit here. Are you feeling faint?”
“I'm all right,” Burton croaked, but, to his horror, he suddenly found himself weeping.
“It's the shock, so it is,” Wilde said. “A dash of brandy will put you right. Pour generously, Bertie, the captain probably hasn't tasted the good stuff for a long while.”
“I haven't-I haven't tasted it at all since-since Dut'humi,” Burton said, his voice weak and quavering.
Wells passed him a glass but Burton's hand was shaking so violently that Wilde had to put his own around it and guide the drink to the explorer's mouth. Burton gulped, coughed, took a deep shuddering breath, and sat back.
“Quips,” he said. “It's really you.”
“It is, too, Captain. Are you feeling a little more steady now?”
“Yes. My apologies. I think-I never-I never expected to find a little piece of home in this hellish world.”
Wilde chuckled and looked down at himself. “Not so little any more, I fear.” He addressed Herbert Wells: “Bertie, you'd best be getting off-we don't have much time. The devil himself will be snapping at our heels soon enough, so he will.”
Wells nodded. “Richard,” he said, “I'm going to prepare our escape. All being well, I'll see you within a couple of hours.”
“Escape?”
Wilde said, “Are you fit to take a walk? I'll explain as we go.”
“Yes.” Burton drained his glass and stood up. “By ‘the devil himself,’ I assume you mean Crowley.”
The three men moved to the door and started down the stairs.
“That I do, Captain.”
They reached the lower hallway. Wells opened the street door and peered out. The three Tommies were waiting by the car. The little war correspondent nodded to Burton and Wilde and slipped out into the mist, closing the portal behind him.
Wilde gestured to the opening in the side wall. “Into the basement, if you please, Captain.”
Burton stepped through and started down the wooden stairs he found beyond. “I don't understand Crowley and all this mediumistic business, Quips. The only evidence I've seen of it is the Germans occasionally manipulating the weather.”
“When the Hun destroyed London, they killed most of our best mediums, which is horribly ironic, do you not think? Here we are. Wait a moment.”
The stairs had ended in a large basement, which was filled with old furniture and tea chests. Wilde crossed to a heavy armoire standing against the far wall.
“Ironic?” Burton asked.
“Yes, because our clairvoyants didn't predict it! As a matter of fact, we now think their opposite numbers, on the German side, may have perfected some sort of mediumistic blanket that can render things undetectable.”