The subsequent conversation, if it could qualify as such, was, to Spencer's ears, verging on gibberish.
Doyle, who didn't seem to care that he was drinking with a child-for that's what Swinburne, in his disguise, appeared to be-was regaling the “boy” with “facts” about fairies. His voice was thick and slurred and his eyes rolled around in a disconcerting manner.
“Sh-see, they-they fiss-fick-fixate on a person, like they've fig-fixated on me, then they play merry miz-mischief. It's peek-a-boo when ye least essexpect it; diz-distraction when ye least- urp! -need it; wizz-whisperings when ye least want ’em. Aye, aye, aye, they're not the joyful little sprites I dep-depict for the pish-picture books, ye know. Och no. I have to paint ’em that w-w-way, y'zee-shee-see, just so I can sell ma work.” He groaned, swigged from his glass, and muttered: “Damn and- urp! -blast ’em!”
“But where do they come from, Mr. Doyle? What do they want? Why are they tormenting you? What do they look like? Do they speak? Have they intelligence?”
“Och! One q-question at a time, laddie! They are eff-etheric beings, and they latched onto ma ash-ash-ass-astral body while I was shhh-sharing the eman-eman-emanations.”
Swinburne started to say something but Spencer jumped in with: “Sharin’ the emanations? What's that mean?”
Doyle belched, drained his glass, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and held the tumbler out for a refill. His hand trembled.
Swinburne took aim and poured the brandy. Half of it hit the tabletop.
“The Ray-Rakes want a better sh-sss-society but no one listens to us, do they? They do-don't take us sh-say-seriously. Ye've sheen our dec-declarations?”
“Posted on walls and lampposts.” Swinburne nodded, and quoted: “’We will not define ourselves by the ideals you enforce. We scorn the social attitudes that you perpetuate. We neither respect nor- hic! -conform with the views of our elders. We think and act against the tides of popular opinion. We sneer at your dogma. We laugh at your rules. We are anarchy. We are chaos. We are individuals. We are the Rakes.’”
“Codswallop!” Pox squawked from Spencer's shoulder.
“Aye, w-well, it was a waysh-waste of good ink and paper. Sh-so our new leader-”
His voice trailed off and his eyes lost focus. The glass slipped from his hand, spilling brandy into his lap. He slumped forward.
“Damn, blast, and botheration!” Swinburne shrilled. “The bally fool has passed out on us just as he was getting to the good bit!”
“Yus, and he's out for the count by the look of it, lad,” Spencer observed. “He won't be openin’ his eyes again until tomorrow, mark my words. What shall we do with him?”
“We'll carry the bounder upstairs and lay him out on the sofa in the spare bedroom. I'll sleep on the bed in there. You can kip here, if an armchair's not too uncomfortable for you.”
“I've slept in so many blinkin’ doorways that an armchair is the lap o’ bloomin’ luxury!”
“My sweetie pie,” Pox whispered.
Swinburne stood and swayed unsteadily. He stamped his foot.
“What the dickens is all this fairy nonsense about, Herbert?”
“It beats me.”
By midnight, Algernon Swinburne was staring at the spare bedroom's ceiling, wishing he could be rid of the sharp tang of brandy that burned at the back of his throat.
He couldn't sleep and the room seemed to be slowly revolving.
He felt strange-and it was something more than mere drunkenness.
He'd been feeling strange ever since Burton had mesmerised him.
Tonight, though, the strangeness felt… stranger.
He shifted restlessly.
Doyle, draped over the sofa, was breathing deeply and rhythmically, a sound not too far removed from that made by waves lapping at a pebble beach.
The house whispered as the day's heat dissipated, emitting soft creaks and knocks from the floorboards, a gentle tap at the window as its frame contracted, a low groan from the ceiling rafters.
“Bloody racket,” Swinburne murmured.
From afar came the paradiddle of rotors and the muffled blare of the police warning.
“And you can shut up, too!”
He wondered how much damage the riot had caused. There had been a great many acts of arson and vandalism, and beatings and murders, too.
“London,” he hissed. “The bastion of civilisation!”
He could hardly believe that the supposed return of a lost heir had developed into such mayhem.
He looked at the curtained window.
“What was that?”
Had he heard something?
It came again, a barely audible tap.
“Not a parakeet, surely! Not unless its beak is swathed in cotton wool! Good lord, what's the matter with me? I feel positively spooked!”
Tap tap tap.
“Go away!”
He experienced the horrible sensation that someone other than Doyle and himself was present in the room. It didn't frighten him-Swinburne was entirely unfamiliar with that emotion-but it certainly made him uneasy, and he knew he'd never sleep until he confronted it head-on.
“Who's there?” he called. “Are you standing behind the curtains? If so, I should warn you that I'm none too keen on cheap melodrama!”
Tap tap.
He sighed and threw the bed sheets back, sat up, and pushed his feet into the too-big Arabian slippers that he'd borrowed from Burton's room. He stood and lifted a dressing gown from the bedside chair, wrapped it around himself, and shuffled to the window. He yanked open the curtains.
Smoke and steam, illuminated by a streetlamp, were seething against the glass.
“Hasn't it cleared up yet?” the poet muttered. “What this city needs is a good blast of wind. I say! What's that?”
The fumes were thickening, forming a shape.
“A wraith? Here? What on earth is it up to?”
He pulled up the sash and leaned out of the window.
“What's the meaning of this? Bugger off, will you! I'm thoroughly fed up with phantoms! Go and haunt somebody else! I'm trying to sleep! Wait! Wait! What? My hat! Is that-is that you, Richard?”
The ghostly features forming just inches from his own were, undoubtedly, those of Sir Richard Francis Burton.
“No!” the poet cried. “You can't be dead, surely!”
His friend's faintly visible lips moved. There was no sound, but it seemed to Swinburne that the defensive walls Burton had implanted in his mind suddenly crumbled, and the noise of their destruction was like a whispered voice: Help me, Algy!
“Help you? Help you? What? I- My God!”
He stumbled backward away from the window and fell onto the bed.
The ghostly form of Burton had melted away.
He sat for a moment with his mouth hanging open, then sprang up, grabbed his clothes, and raced from the room. He thundered down the stairs and into the study.
“Herbert! Herbert! Wake up, man!”
“Eh?”
“Richard's in trouble! We have to find him!”
“Trouble? What trouble? How do you know?”
“I had a vision!”
The vagrant philosopher eyed the younger man. “Now then, lad, that brandy-”
“No, I'm suddenly sober as a judge, I swear! Get dressed! Move, man! We have to get going! I'll meet you in the backyard!
Spencer threw up his hands. “All right, all right!”
Swinburne somehow combined putting on his clothes with descending the stairs. In the main hallway, he snatched a leash from the hatstand, and continued on to the basement and out of the back door.
The poet crossed the yard and squatted down in front of Fidget's kennel.
“Wake up, old thing,” he urged, in a low voice. “I know you and I have our differences but there's work to be done. Your master needs us!”