Burton & Swinburne 1 - The Strange Affair Of Spring Heeled Jack (22 page)

“It is what your reading has been worth to me. There is no greater cheiromantist in all London, of that I am certain.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Burton left and, with Swinburne, departed the premises.

It sounded like you were strangling her," noted the poet.

“I can assure you that I wasn't,” replied the king's agent. “Keep your eyes peeled for a hansom. Let's get to Battersea and the Tremors. I need a drink.”

They picked up a cab a few minutes later and, as it chugged southward, skirted around Hyde Park, and headed down Sloane Street toward Chelsea Bridge, Burton told Swinburne about his new post, about Spring Heeled Jack, and about his theory that the stilt-walker was a supernatural beingpossibly Moko of Africa's Congo region. He also told the poet about the East End werewolves.

Swinburne spent the entire journey with his wide eyes fixed on his friend.

Finally, as they crossed the Thames and rattled past the prodigious and brightly lit power station, with its four massive copper rods towering against the night sky, the poet said quietly, “You have always been an inveterate storyteller, Richard; this, though, beats any of your Arabian Nights tales!”

“It's certainly as strange as anything recounted by Scheherazade,” agreed Burton.

“So we're going to the Tremors to speak to its landlord?”

“Yes. Joseph Robinson, the man who employed Queen Victoria's assassin.”

“I'll tell you what I like about your new job, shall I?” said Swinburne.

“What's that?”

“It seems to involve a lot of public houses!”

“Too many. Listen, Algy-I want us both to cut back on the drinking. We've been going at it hammer and tongs these weeks past, letting our frustrations get the better of us. It's time we took ourselves in hand.”

“That's easy for you to say, old thing,” responded Swinburne. “You have this new job to keep you occupied. Me, though-all I have is my writing, and it's not been well received!”

The hansom steamed past Battersea Fields and stopped on Dock Leaf Lane, where its two passengers disembarked. They paid the driver, crossed the road, and entered the Tremors, a small half-timbered pub with smokeblackened oak beams pitted with the fissures and cracks of age, tilting floors, and crazily askew walls.

There were two rooms, both cosily lit and warmed by log fires, and both containing a few tables and a smattering of customers. Burton and Swinburne passed through them and sat on stools at the counter. An ancient, bald, stooped, grey-bearded man with a merry gnomelike face rounded the corner of the bar, wiping his hands on a cloth. A high collar encased his thick neck and he wore an unfashionably long jacket.

“Evening, gents,” he said, in a creaky but jovial voice. “Deerstalker? Finest ale south of the river!”

Burton nodded, and asked, “Are you Joseph Robinson?”

“Aye, sir, that's me,” responded the landlord. He held a tankard to a barrel and twisted the tap. “Has someone been talking, then?”

“I was at the Hog in the Pound yesterday. The manager mentioned you.”

“Oh ho! That old boozer! My my, what times I had there, I can tell you!” He placed the frothing tankard in front of Burton and looked at Swinburne. “Same for you, lad?”

The poet nodded.

“I was told to ask you about the name of this place,” said Burton. “The Tremors. Apparently there's a story behind it?”

Start with a straightforward question, he thought; get him talking first then move on to the subject of Edward Oxford.

“Oh aye, yes, sir, that there is!” exclaimed Robinson. “Let me serve them what's waiting then I'll come tell you all about it.”

He placed Swinburne's beer in front of the poet, glanced curiously at the little red-headed man, and left them, walking to the other end of the bar where a corpulent customer stood rattling coins in his hand.

“Will you be embarking on any more expeditions, Richard, or has this new role taken over?” asked Swinburne.

“It's very much taken over, Algy. It feels right, somehow. It's given me a purpose. Although I must admit, I'm none too keen on the confinements and hustle and bustle of London.”

“Perhaps if it offers you action enough, you'll feel less like a caged tiger. What's Isabel's opinion?”

The answer came in a flat, cold tone: “There is no longer an Isabel.”

The little poet lowered his glass, leaving white froth on his upper lip, and looked at his friend in astonishment.

“No Isabel? You mean you've parted ways?”

“This role I've taken on is not compatible with marriage.”

“Good Lord! I would never have believed it! How did she take it?”

“Not well. I don't want to discuss it, Algernon. It's a mite painful. A fresh wound, so to speak.”

“I'm sorry, Richard. Truly, I am.”

“You're a good chap, Algy. Here comes old Robinson-let's listen to his tale.”

The landlord came lumbering back and treated them to a gap-toothed smile through his bushy beard.

“It was the power station, you see,” he announced, leaning his elbows upon the counter. “When Isambard Kingdom Brunel proposed it back in '37, the local community wasn't too happy. Oh no no no, we weren't happy at all. Who'd want that blooming eyesore on their doorstep? And, on top of that, we was afraid. When they started drilling the four holes, no one knew what would happen. Right down into the crust of the Earth they was pushing them blooming great copper rods, so's they could-um-confound the German fleet-no-um-what is it?”

“Conduct the geothermal heat,” put in Burton, helpfully.

“That's the one! I remember them saying they'd be able to light the whole blooming city with electricity! What a load of cobblers that turned out to be! The only thing they've ever managed to light is the blooming power station itselfl Anyways, back in the day, folks around here was mighty afraid that the crust of the Earth would split wide open and swallow up the whole area, so me, being the young firebrand I was back then, I went and organised the Battersea Brigade.”

“A protest group?” asked Swinburne.

“Yes, laddie. I wasn't much older than you but I was doing all right for myself. I'd taken over my old pa's public house-the Hog in the Pound, where you were yesterday, sir-and, being placed slap bang in Oxford Street, it was doing fine business.”

“But you lived in Battersea?” asked Burton.

"Aye. My folks, bless 'em, had lived here all their blooming lives. Old dad used to walk-walk, mind you!-to the Hog and back every day. Three miles there; three miles back! So when he got tired of that, he made me manager, and I did the blooming foot-slog instead!

“Anyways, like I was atelling you, I recruited a bunch of locals and formed the Brigade-and I don't mind admitting that it turned into a nice little earner for me!”

“How so?” asked Burton, pushing his empty tankard forward.

The old man started refilling it.

“It struck me that if we were to stand against those Technologist devils then we'd need a spot of 'Dutch courage,' so to speak. So every Saturday, I used to ship the Brigade up to the Hog in three or four broughams, and give 'em all a drink for free. Heh! Once they got that down their necks they soon wanted more; only, of course, that weren't for free. Ha ha! Those Battersea Brigade meetings always turned into right old knees-ups, I can tell you! I made a tidy profit, thank you very much, and even more a few years later when I had the Brigade in the taproom and those Libertine rapscallions in the parlour!”

“The Libertines?” asked Burton, innocently.

“Why yes, sir, the-” He took Swinburne's empty tankard and started to refill it.

“I'll have a large brandy, too, if you please,” said the poet. “And have something for yourself on me.”

“Much obliged, sir. Most decent of you. I'll take a whisky. The Libertines-why, the whole thing started at the Hog in the Pound, ain't that right, Ted?”

This last was addressed to an ancient fellow who'd just arrived at the bar. He stood beside Swinburne, and Burton marvelled at his weather-beaten skin and bald pate, huge beaklike nose, and long pointed chin. He looked like Punchinello, and, when he spoke, he sounded like him, too, his tone sharp, snappy, and aggressive, seemingly the voice of a much younger man.

“What's that, Bob? The Libertines? Bah! Bounders and cads! 'Specially that blackguard Beresford!”

“May I buy you a drink, Mr.-?” asked Burton.

“Toppletree. Ted Toppletree. Very good of you, sir. Very good indeed. Most generous. Deerstalker. Best ale south of the river. Never mind the dog, sir.”

This last was directed at Swinburne, whose trouser leg was being pulled at by a small basset hound. The poet jerked his ankle away only to have the dog lunge forward and bite his shoe.

“I say!” he shrilled.

“He's only playing with you, sir. Do you want to buy 'im? 'E's the best tracker you'll ever find; can sniff out anything. Fidget's his name.”

“No!” squealed Swinburne. “Confound the beast! Why won't he leave me alone?”

“He's taken a right shine to you! Here, Fidget! Sit! Sit!”

The old man pulled the hound away from the poet. It sat, gazing longingly at Swinburne's ankles.

“You sure you wouldn't like to buy 'im, sir?”

“I've never been surer of anything!” Swinburne took a long gulp of ale. “I do believe you may be right about this beer! Very tasty!” he enthused, keeping a suspicious eye directed toward the dog. His upper lip was now entirely concealed behind a frothy white moustache. “Perhaps little Fidget will calm down if we offer him a bowl?”

Joseph Robinson placed a pint before Toppletree who took a swig, then announced: “Scum!”

Burton and Swinburne looked confused.

“Edward Oxford, I mean,” explained the old man. “It was him. That's why Beresford and his mob came to the Hog.”

Swinburne swallowed his brandy in a single gulp and pushed the glass toward Robinson, glancing ruefully at Burton and shrugging.

The king's agent, who was sipping his drink with more restraint, said, “Edward Oxford? The assassin?”

“Of course!” barked Toppletree. “Bob 'ere employed the bugger!”

Robinson handed the old man his beer and poured more brandy into Swinburne's glass. “It's true,” he said. “Oxford used to work for me at the Hog before he went potty and shot the queen dead, may she rest in peace and he rot in hell.”

“My Aunt Bessie's sacred hat!” exclaimed Swinburne. “You knew him? You actually knew the man who killed Queen Victoria?”

“Knew him!” exploded Toppletree. “This silly arse paid him!”

“I didn't pay him to blooming well assassinate the queen!” objected Robinson.

“Might as well have done. 'Twas your money he used to buy the pistols.”

Robinson bridled, sticking his chest out over his not inconsiderable paunch and raising his clenched fists. “Watch your mouth, Ted. The bastard earned his money fair and square. What he did with it weren't my responsibility.”

Toppletree, or Punchinello, as Burton couldn't help but think of him, grinned and his eyes twinkled mischievously.

“Ruffled feathers!” he exclaimed. “Guilty conscience, Bob?”

“Shut your trap!”

“Heh heh!”

Robinson suddenly relaxed. “You old git!” He chuckled.

“Easy target!”

“Stow it, old man!”

“So what was Oxford like?” interposed Swinburne, eyeing the basset hound, which gazed back with a forlorn expression.

Well done, Algy! thought Burton, pleased that his friend was steering the conversation back in the right direction. He remembered Monty doing the same, under very similar circumstances, not much less than twenty-four hours ago. Repetitive themes, just as Countess Sabina had suggested, as if time were music, presenting the same refrain.

Listen to the echoes, Captain; the points of time's rhythm, for each is a crossroads.

“Blooming heck, you can knock 'em back!” observed Robinson, noting that Swinburne's brandy glass and tankard were both empty again.

“Another round, if you please!” requested the little poet. “Include your good self.”

“Ta very much. Edward Oxford? He was barmy. Talked to himself all the time. The customers treated him like the village idiot. Laughed at him. Teased him. Mighty popular with the Brigade, though, he was; always asking after their families, befriending their kids; and he was a blooming good barman, too. Fast on his feet with a good head for figures. Never once gave the wrong change. Kept the taps clean and the ale flowing. I ask you, gentshow was I to know he was a killer?”

Burton said solemnly, “You can never tell what's at the back of a man's mind.”

“True!” snapped Punchinello. “If I'd known, I'd have killed the sod.”

They all grunted in agreement.

Burton surreptitiously checked his pocket watch. It was twenty minutes past midnight.

“So the Libertines frequented the Hog in the Pound just because Oxford had worked there?” he asked.

“Exactly so,” said Robinson, serving the fresh drinks. “And I can tell you, at first it was only the fact that they dressed like gentlemen that stopped me booting them out!”

“That and the money they spent,” snorted Punchinello.

Swinburne looked at the oldster at his side. “So you were one of the Battersea Brigade?”

“I was. And I nearly came to blows with that Beresford bastard.”

“How come?”

“You've read the evening paper? About the attack? This morning? The girl? Spring Heeled Jack?”

Sir Richard Francis Burton tensed and placed his tankard back on the bar in case they noticed his shaking hand.

“Yes,” said Swinburne. “It was fairly vague. The girl hallucinated, surely. Spring Heeled Jack is just a bogeyman.”

“Nope. That devil's real, right enough. Ain't that so, Bob?”

The old barman nodded. “Aye. Attacked a couple of our girls, he did.”

“Your girls?” asked Burton.

“The Brigade's. Bartholomew Stevens's lass and Dave Alsop's.”

Burton's eyebrows rose. Stevens! Alsop!

“The attacks happened around the time Dave moved up to a little place north of the city, on account of getting work as a blacksmith,” explained Robinson. “But though he was well away from the power station, he still used to ride down to the Hog occasionally for a drink with the old mob.”