Swinburne heard himself mutter: “Tichborne! The bloody toffs are-are-are trying to do away with Tichborne!”
He shook his head.
“No!” he growled. “No! No! No! That is not Sir Roger bloody Tichborne!”
He stepped straight through the drifting wraith, levelled the cactus gun, and fired. As he touched the trigger nodule, his arm jerked aside, and the spines flew wide.
“Bloody conspiracy!” he gasped, fighting the words as they forced themselves out of his mouth. As fierce as the battle in the street was, the fight in the poet's head was even more intense.
Admiral Lord Nelson bounded over to the Claimant and lunged in. His rapier danced. He skipped away. Wraiths swooped around him, grabbing at his arms, but they couldn't hold him.
The corpulent creature screamed as two of the lumps on its scalp disappeared, sliced off by the sword blade. Blood gushed from the wounds. Black gems bounced into the gutter.
Swinburne felt a sudden lessening of the pressure on his brain.
“Herbert!” he cried. “Collect the diamonds! We mustn't lose them!”
The Claimant twisted and lumbered after Nelson, who now stood a short distance away in the en garde pose. He reached the clockwork man and there commenced a flurry of arms and blade as Nelson jabbed and sliced at the fat behemoth, while the latter attempted to deflect or catch the flashing rapier.
Herbert Spencer tore himself away from the tormenting wraith and darted forward. He retrieved the two fallen Choir Stones. As he did so, another one fell.
The Claimant let loose a terrific shriek and clutched his head.
“I remember!” he shouted. “I remember!”
Nelson backed away from his opponent, who once again lurched after him. The sleeves of the Claimant's jacket, and the shirt beneath, hung in tatters. When he raised his hands to grab the rapier, his mismatched forearms were fully exposed. They were terribly lacerated, but the creature appeared to be entirely immune to pain.
The rapier danced away from the clutching fingers.
The Claimant roared with frustration.
Herbert crept up behind him and picked up the third stone, then two more as the fourth and fifth flew from the swollen man's head.
Swinburne started to shoot spines into the creature's back, hoping that the accumulating venom would at least slow the juggernaut down.
“I want meat!” the Claimant raged. His face was covered with blood. Every few moments, his tongue snaked from between his lips and licked at the red liquid.
The sixth diamond dropped.
Admiral Lord Nelson started to duck and dodge more intently. The remaining stone was located at the back of his opponent's head, so he needed to somehow manoeuvre himself into a position from which it could be extracted.
As the two combatants moved back and forth over the cobbles, Spencer followed cautiously, slipping the sixth stone into his pocket.
The clockwork man stepped in close, bent under a lashing fist, sprang forward, whirled, and sent his rapier's tip digging into the remaining fleshy protuberance on the back of his adversary's skull. A small chunk of flesh dropped away. Blood spurted. A black diamond sparkled. It landed at Spencer's feet. He snatched it up. He now had the complete Francois Garnier Collection in his pocket.
“Aaaaargh!” the Claimant cried. “Hurts! It hurts! Give me meat! I want meat!”
He turned to face Nelson and backed away a couple of steps, peering through the blood streaming over his eyes.
His fury seemed to leave him for a moment.
He blinked.
Swinburne felt a profound sense of release, as if he was fully himself again. He lowered the spine-shooter and watched.
“No,” the fat man uttered. “No. I am not-I am not-”
He lifted the larger of his two hands up to his face.
“I am not Roger-”
He dug his blunt fingernails into his forehead and cheeks.
“I am not Roger Tichborne!”
With a stomach-churning tearing noise, he ripped his face from the front of his skull and held it out triumphantly.
“My name is Arthur Orton! And I want meat!”
He pushed the drooping skin and tissue into his mouth and started to chew.
“Ah,” Swinburne whispered. “So there we have it at last.”
Arthur Orton considered Admiral Lord Nelson.
“You,” he rumbled, “are not meat.”
His gory countenance, all raw muscle and throbbing veins, turned until he was looking directly at Herbert Spencer.
“But you-”
With startling agility for one so gargantuan, Orton lunged at the vagrant philosopher.
Spencer turned to run.
Admiral Lord Nelson sprang into action. He took two great strides, raised the rapier, sent it plunging toward the back of Orton's spine, suddenly slowed-and froze.
The clockwork man had wound down.
Corpulent fingers closed around Spencer's neck.
Swinburne started shooting, pressing the trigger nodule again and again.
“Trounce!” he shrilled. “Your pistol! Your pistol!”
There was no response. The detective was either out cold or dead.
Spencer yelled as he was yanked off his feet.
“Meat!” bellowed Orton triumphantly and sank his teeth into the back of the philosopher's neck. His victim's scream of agony was cut short as vertebrae crunched and shattered, and a gobbet of pulsating flesh was wrenched free.
Orton twisted Herbert Spencer's head off and threw it to one side. It bounced away across the cobbles. Blood pumped from the severed neck, and the monstrous butcher laughed as it sprayed over his face.
“No,” Swinburne sobbed. “Oh Jesus, please no.”
Holding Spencer's twitching corpse with the larger of his hands, Orton plunged the other into the neck, pushing it deep into the body.
“Aaah,” he sighed, and when he pulled the dripping red arm back out, the philosopher's still-beating heart was gripped in his fingers. He tore it free of stretching arteries and flesh, raised it to his mouth, and licked it.
“Why won't you fucking die?” Swinburne raged, tears streaming down his cheeks.
The Claimant turned and regarded the poet. He grinned and chewed on the twitching organ.
Swinburne raised the cactus gun and, without aiming, touched the trigger nodule.
Spines sank into Orton's right eye.
The butcher flinched, shook his head, and waddled slowly toward the tiny man.
“More meat! I like meat!”
Swinburne turned to run but suddenly found himself gripped by vaporous hands. Two wraiths had swooped upon him and now, just as they had dragged Sir Alfred Tichborne through Tichborne House to his doom, so they began to pull Swinburne to his.
“Get off me! Get off me!”
Orton gave a bloody smile and said: “Come to me. I eat you up!”
Closer and closer Swinburne was drawn, until the gigantic butcher towered over him, dripping blood onto his flame-red hair.
“Yum yum,” Orton drawled, through a mouthful of Herbert Spencer's heart.
He reached out and caught the poet by the lapels. He lifted him into the air. The wraiths floated beside Swinburne, holding his arms, preventing him from using the cactus pistol.
Orton spat the lump of flesh from his mouth. His lips peeled back from the big green incisor teeth. His jaws opened. He leaned forward, his mouth approaching the poet's skinny neck.
Swinburne suddenly felt completely calm.
“Two things,” he said, looking straight into the little piggy eyes. “Firstly, I concede defeat.”
Orton stopped and regarded the small man.
“You've won. So why not rein yourself in a little? After all, London is on its knees. The Houses of Parliament are half destroyed. Buckingham Palace is under siege. The working classes are in control. My friends have been beaten into submission or killed. I mean to say, there's no need to dine on an insignificant little poet like me just to prove a point, is there?”