He asked his mother to send him money so he could come home, and, as evidence that he-the author of the letter-truly was her son, he referred to a brown birthmark upon his side. The dowager remembered the blemish and sent the money.
Now, it seemed, the man the newspapers had dubbed “the Claimant” had met the old woman and she'd confirmed his identity.
The long-lost Roger Tichborne had returned!
As Oscar explained to Burton, the upper classes were delighted that an ancient family was restored, while the lower classes were celebrating the fact that an aristocrat had been living as a common labourer.
Dowager Lady Henriette-Felicite was bursting with joy. The rest of the Tichborne family-the cousins and assorted relatives, most of whom bore the surnames Doughty or Arundell-were not.
They didn't believe a word of it.
“He'll be over to assert ownership of the estate soon!” Oscar shouted, as the barrel organ screamed and belched.
Burton nodded thoughtfully, pulled a sixpence from his pocket, and pushed it into the urchin's palm.
“I'll see you later, Quips,” he said. “Here's a coin for a pie. You can't live on sweets alone!”
“I can get plump trying! Thank you, Captain!”
Oscar disappeared into the shop, and Burton walked on, relieved to hear the organ music fading into the background.
On the corner of Baker Street, he waved down a hansom, which, pulled by a puffing steam-horse-like a smaller version of the famous Stevenson's Rocket-took him along Wigmore Street and halfway down Regent Street before jolting to a halt when its crankshaft snapped and punched a hole in the boiler. Dismissing the driver's apologies, he hailed another and continued on through Haymarket to Whitehall and Scotland Yard.
Mounting the steps of the forbidding old edifice, he was encountered going up by Detective Inspector Trounce, who happened to be on his way down.
“Well met!” the policeman declared.
“I was just coming to pick your brains,” said Burton, shaking his friend's hand.
“I'm off to put the wind up Freddy Blue, the pawnbroker. Care to tag along?”
“Rightio. Why? What's he done?”
They descended the steps and set off toward Trafalgar Square.
“A little bird told me he's started to fence stolen property again.”
“A parakeet?”
Trounce shook his head. “No, Cock Sparrow, the child pickpocket. What was it you wanted to jiggle my grey matter about?”
They skirted around the edge of the square and entered Northumberland Avenue, which was clogged with traffic as delivery wagons trundled up from riverside, heading into the centre of the capital.
“I was wondering what you might know about the Tichborne Claimant.”
“Only what I've read in the papers.”
“That's all? You mean Scotland Yard isn't looking into it?”
“Why should we? No charges have been brought against anyone. What's your interest, Captain?”
“To be frank, I haven't any. It's little more than newspaper sensationalism, as far as I can see. Pam, unfortunately, has other ideas.”
“Palmerston? Why would it concern the prime minister?”
“Who knows? The man's brain is as unfathomable as one of those babbage devices.”
Trounce made a sound of agreement. “Incidentally,” he said, “you should have seen the men he sent to collect the babbage we found at the priory on the night of the Brundleweed raid. They were like a couple of blessed morticians!”
“Ah. That'll be Damien Burke and Gregory Hare. They're his odd-job men.”
“ Odd is right. I've never seen odder. And speaking of oddities, how's young Swinburne?”
“He's working on a new batch of poems. And pursuing his hobby, of course.”
Trounce snorted. Both men knew that Swinburne's “hobby” involved frequent visits to brothels where he enjoyed being flogged by willing madams.
“He has strange tastes, that one,” the detective muttered. “Why anyone would enjoy being birched, I can't imagine. I suffered the rod once or twice at school, and didn't like it one little bit!”
“The more I learn about him,” Burton replied, “the more I believe Swinburne has a genuine physiological condition that causes him to feel pain as pleasure. He's a fascinating study!”
“And a thorough pervert. Though a damned courageous one, I'll give him that. Absolutely fearless! Here's Mr. Blue's shop. I'll do this alone, if you don't mind. Will you wait here?”
“Certainly. Don't pummel him too hard.”
“A verbal dressing-down, that's all, Captain!” Trounce smiled. He cracked his knuckles and vanished into the pawnbroker's.
Sir Richard Francis Burton leaned on his cane and watched the traffic pass by. The traders’ vehicles were mostly horse-drawn. There weren't many who could afford a steam-horse. The men on the carts were tough and wiry individuals. Their shirtsleeves were rolled up to their elbows and Burton could see the knotted muscles of their forearms, the thickness of their bones, and the leathery quality of their skin. There wasn't an ounce of fat on any of them, nor was there even a hint of pretension-nary a whiff of self-consciousness. They were stripped down to the basics of existence. They toiled, they ate, they slept, they toiled again, and they never imagined anything different. He admired them, and, in a strange way, he envied them.
A couple of minutes later, he heard a footstep behind him and turned.
Detective Inspector Trounce had emerged from the shop.
“He started blubbing like a baby before I'd said more than two words,” the policeman announced. “I expect he'll stay on the straight and narrow for a while. It's his second warning. He'll not get another. I'll have the bracelets on him. What say you we drop in at Brundleweed's? It's just around the corner.”
“Good idea.”
They set off.
“Has there been no clue to the Choir Stones’ whereabouts?” Burton asked.
“Not a whisper, unless Brundleweed's heard something through the grapevine since I last spoke to him. He maintains that he locked the genuine articles in the safe that evening. Yet we know that Isambard Kingdom Brunel removed fakes. So either Brundleweed is lying-which I find hard to believe; his reputation is absolutely spotless-or an extremely accomplished cracksman got there first and left no trace.”
They passed back into Trafalgar Square, weaving through the crowds, and on into Charing Cross Road, heading toward Saint Martin's.
“Do you have a suspect?”
Trounce removed his bowler, slapped it, and placed it back on his head.
“The obvious man would be-” he began, then interrupted himself: “By Jove! Look at that!”
A bizarre vehicle had snaked into view from around the next corner and was thundering toward them at high speed. It was a millipede-an actual insect-grown to stupendous proportions by the Eugenicists. When it had reached the required size, they'd killed it and handed the carcass over to their Engineering colleagues, who'd sliced off the top half of its long, segmented, tubular body. They'd removed the innards until only the tough outer carapace remained, and into this they'd fitted steam-driven machinery via which the many legs could be operated. Platforms had been bolted across the top of each segment and upon them seats were affixed, over which canopies arched, echoing the shape of the missing top half of the body. A driver sat at the front of the vehicle in a chair carved from the shell of the head. He skillfully manipulated a set of long levers to control the astonishing machine.
It was a new type of omnibus, and it was packed solid with passengers, with three people to every seat and a fair number standing and hanging on for dear life as it hurtled along. They cheered and hooted with delight as hansoms and growlers, carts and velocipedes, horses and pedestrians hurriedly moved to the side of the road, out of the oncoming vehicle's path. Dense clouds of steam boiled from pipes along its sides and, as it came alongside Burton and Trounce and careened into the narrow gap that opened up through the centre of the traffic, hot vapour rolled over the two men, obscuring the scene. Impassioned curses and profanities came from within the cloud; there was a crash, a scream, and the shuddery whinny of a panicked horse.