The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi (10 page)

Thomas Bendyshe raised his glass and declared, “A toast to Sir Richard Francis Burton, the man who cracked the Nile!”

“Hear hear!” Henry Murray enthused.

Burton flicked his fingers dismissively. “I'm not knighted yet.”

“Pah!” Bendyshe objected. “An insignificant detail. Your good health, sir!”

“Was it worth the hardship, Burton old boy?” Charles Bradlaugh asked. “Was your expedition a mystical and enlightening experience? I mean to say, many regard the Nile as the source of life itself, don't they?”

Bendyshe added, “Personally, I regard cognac as the source, but that doesn't mean I want to visit France. Why did you do it?”

“There was no spiritual revelation involved,” Burton responded. “Nor did I expect there to be. My motives were purely materialistic. I calculated that the discovery would make Disraeli and his cronies sit up and take notice of me—thus I would stand a better chance of securing a government post in one of the Arabian countries.”

The members of the Cannibal Club—Burton, Bendyshe, Murray, Bradlaugh, and Richard Monckton Milnes, Doctor James Hunt, and Sir Edward Brabrooke—had gathered in the function rooms above Bartolini's Italian restaurant in Leicester Square. The chamber was furnished with leather armchairs and sofas, heavy oak tables and cabinets.

It was Sunday evening.

Yesterday morning, Burton's luggage had been delivered from the
Orpheus
to Montagu Place. As it was piled in the hallway, Mrs. Angell had thrown up her arms and exclaimed, “There's ten times as much as you took! I hope you don't have tigers in those trunks!”

“There are no tigers in Africa, Mrs. Angell.”

“I'm not surprised. You've brought them all back here!”

It had taken him until midday to move all the cases upstairs and begin sorting through them. He'd then spent the afternoon relaxing, smoking cigars, catching up with his correspondence, reading voraciously, and dozing frequently. At eight in the evening, he met Isabel, Blanche, and Sadhvi Raghavendra at Jaquet's on Drury Lane, where they'd dined on the restaurant's famous à-la-mode beef.

What they'd agreed on Thursday night was agreed again: Hagar Burton's prediction must be rejected out of hand. It was patently absurd. Even Isabel, who was extremely superstitious, accepted that it would be the height of foolishness to allow such tosh to influence their wedding plans.

She and her sister were currently staying at the St. James Hotel, off Piccadilly. In a few days, they'd be returning to the family home—New Wardour Castle in Wiltshire—taking Sadhvi with them as their guest, there to engage in two months of frenzied organising and planning. November's engagement party was to be a full-blown ball such as only the country's richest Catholic family could afford.

The wedding itself was scheduled for January. Cardinal Wiseman, a friend of the Arundells', had promised that if Burton signed the Catholic pledge, a dispensation would be obtained from Rome to allow the union. As far as Burton was concerned, if ink on paper could pacify the Papists—and, more importantly, Isabel's parents—then he was happy to provide it. His atheism would be in no way sullied.

They'd left Jaquet's at eleven. The sky was clear and dark. No aurora borealis—the mysterious lights had vanished.

“Thank goodness!” Isabel had exclaimed. “Perhaps the city will quiet down now. How could anyone possibly survive a London that's active twenty-four hours a day?”

Today, Sunday, had been another of rest and recuperation. By the time Burton joined his fellow Cannibals, he was feeling considerably stronger and his skin had lost its jaundiced hue.

Now—having learned nothing from Thursday night's lesson—he was rapidly getting drunk again, only dimly aware that he was using alcohol to numb the transition from Africa to London.

“I say, old horse!” Thomas Bendyshe shouted. “This engagement party of yours—are we all invited?”

Burton refilled his brandy glass, removed the cheroot from his mouth, blew smoke into the vessel, and drank from it.

“If a horde of atheists caroused around New Wardour Castle, Isabel's mother would probably suffer an embolism,” he said. “So, no, Tom, I'm afraid that, with the exception of Monckton Milnes, who knows how to conduct himself in polite society, the Cannibal Club is most definitely not invited.”

“But surely her God will protect her from us?” Bendyshe protested.

“I'd rather not put it to the test.”

The explorer and his friends had been quaffing, smoking, and joking for three hours. Interspersed between the ribaldry, they'd exchanged news, enjoyed Burton's yarns about the more explicit aspects of his time in Africa, and had supplemented his reading of the newspapers with their own opinions of the various developments in the world—the resolution of the Austro-Sardinian War; the commencement of the construction of the Suez Canal; the American gold rush; and, most of all, the forthcoming formation of the Central German Confederation and its official Alliance with Britain.

Finally, as “Big Ben”—the bell recently installed in Westminster Palace's St. Stephen's Tower—chimed midnight, the resolute imbibing told. Bendyshe, Hunt, Murray, Brabrooke, and Bradlaugh took to armchairs, sprawled as loose as rag dolls, and produced only sporadic drunken murmurings, which ceased as Burton started to discuss Oliphant with Monckton Milnes, who—like the explorer—possessed greater immunity to the effects of alcohol than the other men. The rest listened, barely able to comprehend the account of Stroyan's murder.

Monckton Milnes was a tall and lanky individual, rather saturnine in appearance, with the brow of an intellectual, long hair, and a preference for high collars and bright cravats. He was a wielder of influence in High Society; a writer; a poet; and a dabbler in politics. He also happened to be a keen collector of erotica and occult literature. His country manor, Fryston, in Yorkshire, contained the largest library of banned material anywhere in Europe.

Burton pulled his notebook from his pocket.

“What do you make of these? As I say, the grids and numbers were scrawled on the walls of the
Orpheus
's observation room. There was a pentagram on the floor. Oliphant was standing in the middle of it when he slit Stroyan's throat.”

Monckton Milnes took the book and examined the sketches.

“The pentagram has many associations,” he muttered, “but these are magic squares, so I suspect that, in this instance, the five-pointed star represents the coalescence of spirit into flesh. The squares are employed to map the path of manifestation, the idea being that something abstract is given such a strong conceptual route into the actual that it will have the means to become as real as you or I. Hum! I must confess, they have me flummoxed. Each diagram certainly offers a sequential passage from the notional to the material, but I cannot fathom how they relate to one another. Plainly, they do, and these central numbers—ten, eight, nine hundred, and one thousand—are the key. The question is, the key to what? I have no idea, Richard.”

“Are you acquainted with anyone who might know more?”

Monckton Milnes tapped his forefinger against his lips for a moment then answered, “Um. Yes. Possibly. Do you mind if I copy these pages? I'd like to send them to a Frenchman I've shared some correspondence with.”

“Be my guest.”

“Also, my prognosticator still sits for me, despite having retired a few years ago, but I could probably persuade her to make an exception for you. Will you see her? She might throw light on recent events.”

Burton emptied his glass and shook his head.

“She's very good,” Monckton Milnes said.

“I don't care for the species,” Burton protested.

“Still the prejudice? What if she can actually contact Stroyan? Surely you'd listen to his account of Oliphant's ritual?”

“If I was certain it was Stroyan addressing me. But how could I be?”

“Because he'd tell you something only a spirit could know.”

Burton levelled his intense eyes at Monckton Milnes. “The dead communicate directly with me, you know.”

The older man looked surprised. “They do?”

“Yes, and they are telling me that you accompanied a young lady to the opening of the Theatre Royal earlier tonight, that you and she sat in the upper tier, and that you possess a romantic interest in her but did not make as much progress as you would have liked. She told you she was too preoccupied with her calling and could not at present give consideration to anything that might distract her from it.”

Monckton Milnes had raised a glass of wine to his lips as Burton started to speak. He now coughed, spluttered, and gasped, “Great heavens above! You don't mean to say the spirits were watching over me during tonight's performance?”

Burton gave a savage grin. “Do you mean the actors' performance or your own?”

Snapping out of his drunken stupor, Bendyshe guffawed. “Ha ha! Poor old Monkey Milnes! It looks to me like he was the main act tonight!”

Monckton Milnes put aside his glass and squared his shoulders. “This is quite unacceptable! I demand to know who's been spying on me from the Afterlife. Reveal your source, Burton.”

“And
that
,” the explorer said, “is how easy it is.”

“What the devil are you jabbering about?”

“Bazalgette is currently digging one of his sewers along the Strand, and I've read complaints in the newspapers about yellow dust spreading from the excavation.” Burton pointed at his friend's feet. “You have such a deposit staining the edges of your boot soles, therefore you were in the area, and it must have been within the past few hours, else the dust would have been dislodged.”

Hunt and Murray roused themselves and leaned forward to hear more. Brabrooke and Bradlaugh, both flirting with the point of no return, emitted crooning rumbles and gentle whistles.

“For what reason were you in the Strand?” Burton continued. “It is Sunday, so only hotels and theatres are open. One or the other, then. Of the theatres, the Royal makes a great deal about being the only one illuminated by Stroud's Patent Sun Lamp, an ingenious array of gas mantles that shine through a chandelier of cut glass. The arrangement has been much lauded by the press, though some reporters noted that it produces a waxy residue that drifts down onto the audience, especially those seated in the upper tiers. You have just such a residue on your jacket shoulders. Furthermore, when you arrived here, there were very slight indentations beneath your eyes, which suggested to me the prolonged use of opera glasses aimed downward at a stage.”

“Bravo, Richard!” James Hunt cheered.

Bendyshe clapped enthusiastically and cried out, “But what of the mysterious goddess?”

Burton took Monckton Milnes by the right wrist and raised his hand into the air. “Observe! A slight green stain between our friend's forefinger and thumb signifies her presence. One can see by the hue that it is vegetable in origin, and two very slight nicks in the skin of his principal digit suggest the presence of thorns.”

“I was gardening,” Monckton Milnes objected.

“Is that so? Where, sir? Your gardens are a part of Fryston. Your town house has none. So no, you were not gardening, you were holding thorny stalks, the most obvious candidate being roses, which are the flowers of romance.”

Monckton Milnes's shoulders slumped. “Gad! You're a confounded sorcerer. And my rejection?”

“Simple. Had you not been spurned, you would not be here.”

Bendyshe, Hunt, and Murray let loose peals of laughter, which woke Brabrooke and Bradlaugh, who, being three sheets to the wind and not knowing what was going on, laughed along with them so as to not be unsociable.

Henry Murray said, “But—I say!—this business about the young lady's calling?”

“That,” Burton said, “is public knowledge. In a small column in yesterday's
Daily Bugle
, one of our lesser hacks took great delight in reporting that Mr. Richard Monckton Milnes, the well-known socialite, has been courting Miss Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse. She—as was also reported—is currently raising funds for her nurses' training school at Saint Thomas's Hospital. Knowing of her notoriously single-minded disposition, I consider it highly unlikely that she would allow the distractions of a romance to interfere with her vocation.”

Monckton Milnes slapped his hand to his forehead and groaned. “You are quite right. Florence stepped out to powder her nose during the interval and never returned. I sat through the second half of that bloody performance with her elderly chaperone huffing and puffing indignantly in my ear. I feel thoroughly humiliated.”

With renewed boisterousness, the gentlemen of the Cannibal Club toasted failed romance, then Richard Monckton Milnes, then Nurse Nightingale, then Burton, and finally each other.

“By Gad!” Bendyshe bellowed. “My bloody astrologist warned me off port—said it'd be the death of me! If it's all chicanery, I've been denying myself for nothing! Open a bottle at once!”

The lull had passed. Thomas Bendyshe resumed his relentless foghorn-volume raillery; Henry Murray left the room to order a pot of coffee from Bartolini's but returned with a fresh bottle of brandy; Charles Bradlaugh, apropos of nothing, proclaimed that the word “gorilla” was derived from the Greek “
gorillai
,” which meant “tribe of hairy women,” and proceeded along a course of speculation which, had the authorities been present, would doubtless have landed him in prison; Doctor James Hunt employed his medical knowledge to mix cocktails of foul taste and terrifying potency; and Sir Edward Brabrooke propped himself in a corner with a fixed grin on his face and, over the course of thirty minutes, very, very slowly slid to the floor.

Amid the uproar, Burton quietly told Monckton Milnes, “My point wasn't to embarrass you but to demonstrate that, with a practised eye, any individual can discern a great deal about any other and pass it off as information received from the Afterlife. I suspect a little mesmerism is involved, too, just to make the victim more gullible.”