Bhatti cheered, but his delight was short-lived. With nothing to steer it, the ornithopter slid into his bird. Metal and fleshy wings clashed and a stream of blood showered back over the constable. The swan shrieked and started to fall, the ornithopter spinning down beside it, trailing a spiral of steam.
“Good luck, Captain!” Bhatti shouted, yanking at his release strap. He disappeared behind and below Burton's kite.
Ahead, the Steam Man had gained some distance and was bearing slightly to the east.
A violent tremor ran through Burton's body. He gritted his teeth.
“All right, Brunel,” he ground out harshly. “Now it's just you and me.”
He cracked the reins.
The chase continued over the clouds and across rain-swept London. Burton struggled to keep his mind from drifting. He wondered where his onetime travelling companion John Hanning Speke was, and thought about the time they'd spent together in Africa. It turned into a hallucination; the canvas seat of the box kite became a canvas stretcher, swaying beneath him as natives bore him along. He saw Speke bending over him, sprinkling water from a flask onto his burning, fevered brow.
“Not long now, Dick,” Speke said. “We'll reach Ujiji before sundown. We can lay up there awhile and get ourselves shipshape before we explore the lake more thoroughly. It's easy going for the rest of the afternoon, old thing. Flat savannah. No more swamps. There's lots of wildlife. I shot three gazelles and five vultures this morning!”
Shooting. Always shooting! God, how Speke loved to kill!
The water continued to sprinkle onto his face.
Enough!
Speke didn't stop. The droplets fell with greater force, drenching him. He snapped awake. Bismillah! Where ' s Brunel?
Looking this way and that, furious with himself, he found that he'd dropped back into the clouds. He tugged angrily at the reins, guiding his bird back upward.
Emerging into the clear air, he spotted the ornithopter ahead and to the left. It was descending. He followed and the vapour swallowed him again. Moments later he was being tossed around by the wind and rain. Looking down at the streets below, he recognised nothing until he saw the familiar landmarks of Muswell Hill and Alexandra Park. He watched as Brunel steered his ornithopter in a wide arc and settled in Priory Park, a lesser patch of greenery to the southeast.
After flying a slow circuit around it, the king's agent swooped in low above the bordering trees and, as they fell away behind him, tugged his release strap. The world somersaulted wildly as he tumbled away from the swan, then the ground swelled up and a terrific impact knocked his senses from him.
Burton opened his eyes.
Why was he lying in the rain? Why was he tangled in material? Why-? Memory returned.
He stirred, rolled over, pushed canvas and broken spars away, got to his knees, and vomited. His whole body was shaking.
He groped around until he found the kite's pocket, pulled his silver-topped, panther-headed cane free, and, leaning heavily upon it, hauled himself to his feet.
POX JR5 fluttered onto his shoulder.
Burton fished a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth. As he pulled it away, he saw rain-diluted blood on the square of cotton. He felt his face and discovered a deep gash on the bridge of his nose. Holding the cloth to it, he stumbled across the boggy grass into a nearby thicket.
He leaned against the bole of a tree. His head ached abominably.
“Pox. Message for Detective Inspector Trounce,” he croaked. “Message begins. Brunel landed in Priory Park, Crouch End. He is inside the priory. Get here fast. Bring men. Message ends. Go.”
The parakeet blew a raspberry and departed.
Burton, concealed in the shadows beneath the huddle of trees, looked out over the lawn at the forbidding old building. The big ornithopter stood in front of its large double doors. The rain drummed loudly on the contraption's metal fuselage, and tendrils of steam coiled from the funnel.
Drawing on the remarkable reservoir of strength that had seen him through so many adventures, the king's agent took off across the lawn and skidded into cover behind the machine. He moved along its side, ducked under a folded wing, and leaned out to look past it at the front of the priory.
The front doors had opened and light shone from within. The Steam Man clanked into view. Bells chimed: Brunel's odd and almost incomprehensible mechanical voice. Burton, with his extraordinary ear for languages, was able to discern the words: “Come in out of the rain, Captain.”
“So much for concealment,” he grunted.
Straightening, he trudged across to the entrance. With a puff of exhaust fumes, Brunel stood aside.
“Do not be concerned for your safety,” the engineer rang as Burton stepped in. “Come and warm yourself by the fire. There is someone I want you to meet.”
The interior of the building had been completely refurbished to accommodate Brunel's size. Originally, it had been a three-floored property. Now only the upper level survived. The bottom two had been knocked into one enormous space, punctuated by tall iron braces that replaced the supporting walls. A narrow staircase, lacking a banister, ran up the wall to Burton's left.
Off to his right, behind wooden screens of Indian design, he could see items of ornate furniture standing on patterned rugs, and a big inglenook fireplace in which flames flickered invitingly. It was to this area that one of the Steam Man's multijointed arms gestured.
“Where are the diamonds, Brunel?” Burton demanded.
There came a whir of gears and another arm lifted. The clamp at its end held a number of flat jewel cases.
“Here. An explanation awaits you by the fire. I insist that you go and dry yourself, Sir Richard. If you refuse, you'll catch your death.”
The threat was unmistakable.
Burton turned and walked unsteadily to the furnished area, passing benches strewn with small items of machinery, tools, drills, brass fittings, gears, and springs. He stepped around the screens and looked down at an elderly man seated in a leather armchair. Bald, shrunken, hollow-eyed, and with pale liver-spotted skin, he was unmistakably Sir Charles Babbage.
“By the Lord Harry!” the old inventor exclaimed in a cracked and raspy voice. “Are you ill? You look all in! And you're sopping wet, man! For heaven's sake, sit down! Pull the chair closer to the fire. Brunel! Brunel! Come here!”
Burton placed his cane to the side of the hearth and collapsed into an armchair.
The Steam Man thudded over and lifted a couple of the screens away. He loomed above the two men.
“Where are your manners?” said Babbage. “Get Sir Richard a brandy!”
Brunel moved to a cabinet and, with astonishing delicacy considering his great bulk, withdrew from it two glasses and a crystal decanter. He poured generous measures, returned, and held them out-one to each man. Burton and Babbage accepted them, and Brunel took a few paces back. With a hiss of escaping steam, he lowered into a squat and became entirely motionless but for the rhythmic wheezing of his bellows.
“Creak creak! Creak creak!” Babbage observed. “Abysmal racket! On and on it goes. And all evening, the rain on the windows! Pitter-patter! Pitter-patter! How is a man supposed to think? I say, drink up, Burton! What on earth's the matter with you?”
Burton gulped at his brandy. The edge of the glass rattled against his teeth. He pulled the stained handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe the blood from his face, dabbing at the cut on his nose.
He sighed, threw the reddened square of cotton into the fire, and muttered: “Malaria.”
“My dear fellow, I'm so sorry! Is there anything I can do?” Babbage asked.
“You could explain, sir.”