Burton & Swinburne 1 - The Strange Affair Of Spring Heeled Jack (25 page)

By far the most remarkable thing about him, though, was his face, the jaws of which seemed to protrude unnaturally, giving the impression of a carnivorous muzzle.

Undoubtedly, this was the man who'd abducted John Speke and mesmerised Sister Raghavendra.

“I've been waiting, Sir Richard.” The voice was a seductive purr, oily and repellent.

“For how long?”

“An hour or so. Don't worry; I kept myself occupied. I've been reading your notes.”

“Is privacy a notion you find difficult to comprehend?”

“What possible advantage would I gain from respecting your privacy?”

“Perhaps the reputation of a gentleman?” said Burton, cuttingly.

The albino made a noise that might have been a laugh, though it sounded like a growl.

Burton raised the point of his rapier. “Is Lieutenant Speke alive?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why did you take him?”

“Things might go a lot better for you if you abandon such questions. You've been asking too many of late, though your investigation has amounted to little more than an extended crawl from one public house to another.”

“People gather in public houses. They're a natural source of information. You've been watching me?”

“Of course. From the moment you broke my mesmeric hold over the nurse.”

“I saw your eyes in hers.”

“And I saw you through them.”

“I've heard such things are possible, though I've never seen it done before, not even in India. And, incidentally, you can stop staring at me like that. I'm a mean mesmerist myself and I won't succumb to your magnetic influence.”

The intruder shrugged and stepped into the middle of the room. His eyes burned redly in the candlelight. He placed his top hat onto a desk.

“You don't recognise me,” he said. “I'm not surprised. I am somewhat altered.”

“So tell me who you are and what you want before you get the hell out of my house,” answered the king's agent.

In one lightning-swift movement, the albino drew a sword from his cane, touched its tip to Burton's rapier, laid the sheath on a desk, and said: “Laurence Oliphant, most definitely not at your service.”

Burton stepped back in surprise and his shoulder blades bumped the mantelpiece.

“Good Lord! What have you done to yourself?” he exclaimed.

Oliphant, who'd stepped forward to keep his blade against Burton's, applied a slight pressure to it.

“The True Libertines may rail against Technology,” he said, “but the Rakes view the work of the Eugenicists as an opportunity. What better way to transcend human limitations than by quite literally becoming something a little more than human?”

“You've been hanging around with the wrong people,” observed Burton.

Oliphant ignored the gibe and tapped his sword against the rapier, once, twice, before purring: “And to answer your earlier question, what I want is for you to stop poking your nose into matters that don't concern you. I am quite serious, Sir Richard. I will force the issue if I must. Do you care to test me?”

Burton held his blade firmly and responded: “I'm counted one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, Oliphant.”

There was a blur of motion, an instant which passed so quickly that it might never have happened.

Burton felt a sudden warmth on his cheek. He reached up and touched it. His fingers came away wet with blood.

“And I,” breathed Oliphant, “am the fastest. Don't worry; for your vanity's sake, I have merely reopened that old scar of yours rather than adding a new.”

“Most thoughtful,” muttered Burton, icily. He stepped forward and thrust at the albino's shoulder. His rapier was nonchalantly parried and ripped from his hand by his opponent's whirling blade. It hit a desk, bounced, and landed point-first in one of the bookcases.

Oliphant, whose sword tip was now touching Burton just below the left eye, gave a momentary glance backward.

“My dear fellow!” he oozed. “How unfortunate. You seem to have impaled James Tuckey's Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire.” He lowered his weapon and stepped back. “Take down another blade.”

Burton, who'd never before been disarmed in combat, reached up and slid his hand along the chimney breast until his fingers found a weapon. Without taking his eyes from the intruder, he lowered it, gripped the hilt, and raised the blade until it touched Oliphant's.

The albino smiled, revealing even, pointed teeth. “Are you sure you want to continue? There's no need. Agree to abandon your investigation, and I'll take my leave of you.”

“I don't think so,” countered Burton.

“Come now! Throw it over, Sir Richard! Why not settle down instead? Marry that girl of yours. Maybe apply for a governmental post and write your books.”

Bismillah! thought Burton. He's practically quoting Spring Heeled. Jack!

“Yes, that's one option,” he replied. “The other is that you tell me exactly what's going on. Shall we start with why you abducted John Speke, or should we go back a little further and talk about why you turned him against me after the Nile expedition? Or maybe we can discuss the werewolf creatures you had with you at the hospital?”

He took a chance: “Or would you prefer a little chat about Spring Heeled Jack?”

A muscle twitched at the corner of a pink eye and Burton knew he'd hit home. He wasn't working on two cases-he was working on one!

Oliphant's sword scraped down the rapier and made a lazy thrust at Burton's heart. The king's agent turned it aside and stepped to the left, flicking his point toward Oliphant's throat-a feint-he brought it down and stabbed at an area just below the albino's collarbone. His blade was met, turned, twisted, and almost torn from his hand again. This time, though, his riposte was fast and effective and Oliphant, not meeting resistance from the expected direction, found his point rising higher than intended. The end of Burton's rapier danced forward beneath it, pierced the sleeve of the albino's velvet frock coat, and penetrated his wrist. It was a move-the manchette- that the adventurer had developed himself in Boulogne while under the tutelage of the famed Monsieur Constantine.

Laurence Oliphant sprang back and stood clutching his wrist, his lips curled.

With feline eyes following his every move, Burton circled his opponent, walked past the bureau and windows, behind his primary desk, crossed in front of a bookcase, then stopped, blocking the door.

He used the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his cheek.

“En garde!” he snapped, and adopted the position.

Oliphant hissed poisonously and followed suit. Their weapons met.

In a flurry of motion, the duel commenced. The two blades clashed, scraped, lunged, parried, and whirled in attack and riposte, filling the room with the tink tink tink of metal against metal. Even with his wounded wrist, Burton's opponent possessed greater speed than any he'd faced before; but Oliphant had a fault: his eyes signalled every move, and the king's agent was thus able to defend against the blindingly fast onslaught. However, finding an opening in the albino's defence proved far more difficult, and, as the two men battled back and forth across the candlelit study, the competition quickly became, at least for Burton, one of endurance.

“Give it up!” gasped Oliphant.

“Where is Speke?” ground out Burton. “I demand an answer!”

“The only one you'll get,” growled his foe, “is this!”

The albino's blade accelerated to such a speed that it became almost invisible. Burton's instincts took over; his many years of study and practice in the art of swordsmanship saved him over and over as he desperately blocked and turned aside the darting point. Again and again he was forced to step back, until he was brought up against a bookcase and found himself unable to manoeuvre. Worse, he was tiring, and he saw in the pink eyes that Oliphant recognised the fact.

He feinted, avoided the counterattack, and plunged his blade forward.

A red line appeared on Oliphant's cheek and blood sprayed out behind Burton's flashing blade.

“One for one!” he barked, and, seeing his opponent momentarily disconcerted, attempted another of his own moves, the une-deux, which against any normal opponent would have sent their weapon flying out of their grip while almost breaking their wrist.

Laurence Oliphant was not a normal opponent.

With a howl of fury he slipped his blade through Burton's attack and renewed his assault.

The deadly tip of his sword flew in from every direction and Burton, with the bookcase at his back and his arm muscles burning, found his defences breached. Scratches began to materialise on his forearms; slashes appeared as if by magic in the material of his pyjamas; a puncture wound marked his neck.

He was breathing heavily and starting to feel light-headed. His left hand, held outward and downward for balance, kept knocking against something, a distraction that grew increasingly irritating as his defence continued to falter and Oliphant's weapon found its target again and again.

At the exact instant he saw in his opponent's eyes that the killing thrust was coming, his hand closed over the obstruction and yanked it. A second rapier whipped upward and James Tuckey's Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire flew from the end of it, hitting Oliphant square on the nose.

The albino stumbled backward.

As Burton's newly acquired blade came down, his other came up, and this time his une-deux succeeded. Oliphant's sword went spinning away to land near one of the windows. The king's agent immediately dropped both rapiers, sprang in close, and sent a terrific right cross cracking into his enemy's ear.

The intruder's head snapped sideways and he toppled to the floor, knocking over a table and crashing into a chair, which splintered into pieces under him.

Rolling to his knees, Oliphant ducked under a second punch and swiped upward, his fingernails clawing through Burton's pyjamas and lacerating the skin beneath.

Burton grabbed for his opponent's arm, intending to pull him into a Jambuvanthee Indian wrestling hold, but his bare foot landed on a sharp fragment of wood and twisted under him. He lost his balance and staggered.

The albino kicked out, his heels thumping into Burton's hip. The king's agent fell back against the bookcase with a loud bang and volumes tumbled down around him. He slid to the floor, snatched up a chair leg, and scrambled back to his feet just in time to see his opponent leaping away.

Laurence Oliphant grabbed his cane, scooped up his blade and sheathed it, and propelled himself through the glass of the window. The loud smash was immediately followed by the tinkle of glass as the shattered pane rained onto the pavement below.

Burton raced over and looked out. No normal human could have survived that drop, yet there was Oliphant, hatless and bloodied, sprinting toward the western end of Montagu Place. He ran past roadworks, which had appeared on the street the previous evening, and vanished around the corner.

Sir Richard Francis Burton, dripping blood, his pyjamas hanging in shreds, opened his bureau and poured himself a large brandy, which he swallowed in a single gulp.

He crossed to the fireplace and fell into his armchair, let loose a deep sigh, then immediately stood again, wondering how the hell Oliphant had got into the house.

A few minutes later, he found the answer: the tradesman's entrance below the front door was open and beside it, in the hallway, dressed in her nightgown, stood Mrs. Iris Angell.

Her eyes were wide, staring blankly at the wall.

“Come on, Mother Angell,” said Burton gently, and guided her into her parlour. He sat her down and began crooning in that same ancient tongue he'd used to bring Countess Sabina out of her trance.

He knew he had to be thorough now. It wasn't merely a case of disengaging the woman from her hypnotic stupor; he had to probe the depths of her mind to remove any lingering suggestions planted by the archmesmerist, for it wouldn't do to have her spying for Oliphant, or, even worse, slipping poison into Burton's food.

“Hellfire!” he thought. “What have I got myself into?”

Pam is anti-SLAVERY

Pam is pro-CHILD LABOUR

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Vote OUT the HYPOCRITE!

Vote IN DISRAELI!

-GRAFFITI

Later that morning, after he'd arranged for a glazier to replace his broken window, Burton called at Algernon Swinburne's lodgings on Grafton Way, Fitzroy Square.

“By James!” exclaimed the poet, screeching with laughter. “You're more battered each time I see you! What happened this time? An escaped tiger?”

“More like a white panther,” muttered Burton, noticing the dark circles under his friend's eyes. Swinburne had obviously continued drinking after their visit to the Tremors and was suffering the consequences.

The poet examined the explorer's face and hands, his eyes lingering on the cuts and puncture wounds.

“They must sting deliciously,” he commented.

“That's not the word I'd choose,” replied Burton, wryly. “It was Oliphant. When was the last time you saw him?”

“Laurence Oliphant! Hmm, maybe eighteen months ago?”

“Describe him.”

“Average build; he has a bald pate with a fringe of curly brown hair around the ears, a bushy beard, rather feline features, magnetic eyes.”

“Complexion?”

“Pale. I can't remember his eye colour. Why?”

“Because the man I encountered this morning-who claimed to be him-was a pink-eyed albino, clean-shaven with a full head of hair. Get your coat and hat on, Algy-we have work to do.”

“So it wasn't Oliphant, then. Where are we going?”

“I think it was. He said he'd had work done by the Eugenicists, and you know how much they can change a man. Look at Palmerston! You told me Oliphant owned a white panther. I suspect that he's now closer than ever to his pet!”

Swinburne tied his bootlaces, slipped into his coat, and pushed a bowler hat down over his hair.

They left the flat and hailed a cab.

While they steamed southeastward, Burton told his friend about the latest developments: of his meeting with the Beetle and of Detective Inspector Trounce's discoveries; then he explained: “We're going to Elephant and Castle to question one of the boys who returned after being abducted by the loups-garous. He remembers nothing, apparently-due, I believe, to a mesmeric spell cast by the albino. Maybe I can break through it, as I did with Sister Raghavendra. After that, we'll take a look at the rooms which were occupied by boys who're still missing.”