“That carriage looks like Commissioner Burke’s black growler,” Conan Doyle said.
“He shan’t be needing it anymore,” Wilde noted.
The ginger minder Conan Doyle had nicknamed Dandelion opened the carriage door for Jean Leckie. Wilde picked up his little boy, hugged him extravagantly, and kissed him on both cheeks. “Vyvyan,” he said, “Daddy will take you home to Mummy soon, but first he has some grown-up business to see to. Your auntie Jean will look after you.” He handed his boy up to Burdock, who saw him settled on the carriage seat and pulled the door shut behind him. Jean Leckie quickly let down the carriage window. Conan Doyle moved forward to take her hand as she leaned out. “In spite of everything, I want you to know, Doctor Doyle, that I have greatly enjoyed making your acquaintance.” She flashed him a heart-crushing smile, and then her eyes moved to Wilde. “And you, too, Mister Wilde.”
Despite being disheveled, his mane of hair wildly mussed, his jacket marred with scorch marks and burn holes, the Irish wit straightened his posture and threw her a bow with a courtier’s flourish. “Oscar. You must call me Oscar. Only bank bailiffs and deranged madmen call me Mister Wilde. And you have my most utmost, heartfelt thanks for looking after my precious child.”
And with that, the growler rattled away.
Conan Doyle watched the carriage disappear over the top of the rise and then turned to face the others. “It just struck me. There is one rogue still unaccounted for.”
“Who is that?” Cypher asked.
Conan Doyle turned and studied the servants, who were being questioned where they sat upon the grass. Only one servant still kept the porcelain mask in place. Although it concealed his face, it could not disguise the extravagantly curled blond head of hair. The Scottish author stalked over and ripped off the mask, revealing the handsome features of Doctor Lamb. “Another one for you, Blenkinsop.”
Minutes later, Dr. Lamb and several of the surviving undertakers were hauled away in manacles. “You’re too late to stop the revolution!” Lamb shouted as he was goaded along by the prodding of nightsticks. “The people shall rise up and throw off their shack—” His final words were interrupted by a large policeman who clamped a hand over his face and shoved him into the back of a Mariah.
“Now what?” Oscar Wilde asked.
“We must return to the palace posthaste,” Cypher said. “There is still danger.”
From behind came a loud crack and the sound of shattering glass. The men looked around as a large section of the building’s façade collapsed in upon itself in a tumble of bricks and broken masonry, sending up huge tongues of crackling smoke and flame.
“Should I send for the fire boys?” Blenkinsop asked. “Seems a shame. Such a grand building. It might still be saved.”
Cypher shook his head, his lip curled in disgust. “No. Let it burn. There is nothing worth preserving here.”
Cypher rode with Conan Doyle and Wilde in the marquess’s zebra-drawn landau, which led the procession of Black Mariahs and police wagons on the trip back to London. When the strange cavalcade entered a dim and foggy Trafalgar Square, demonstrators were already massing, dozens clutching banners bearing the 13/13 symbol. As the demonstrators caught sight of them, many stopped to scream invective or hurl rocks and apple cores, but most just gawped at the spectacle of a carriage drawn by four zebras.
The mariahs and wagons turned off to take their prisoners to holding cells in nearby police stations, leaving the yellow landau to carry on unescorted. As it turned onto the Mall, the carriage was forced to a crawl by milling crowds of grim-faced men and women, all of them marching to lay siege to the royal palace. Disturbingly, many were armed with iron rods, pitchforks, and long wooden staves. Conan Doyle and Wilde shared an uneasy look. Their carriage could easily be overturned and all in it dragged out and set upon by the mob. But behind the wire-rimmed spectacles, Cypher’s bland countenance seemed unperturbed.
As the gates of Buckingham Palace came into view, Conan Doyle saw the red tunics of guardsmen ranked behind the tall iron railings, bayonets fixed to their rifles. He also noticed several hastily erected wooden towers on the palace grounds, their tops draped with tarpaulins, and his stomach churned with dread at what he guessed they might conceal.
“This will end in sorrow,” Wilde whispered.
Slowly, slowly, the landau managed to suck loose of the glutinous mass of humanity. At its approach, guardsmen threw wide the palace gates and the carriage rattled through them. The crowd surged behind, attempting to rush inside, but the gates banged shut in their faces. Conan Doyle turned and glanced back. They were safe behind the iron railings, but the restive mob was growing by the minute.
The carriage drew up in the shadow of the palace, and the three men clambered out and took up a position behind the wall of soldiers. Cypher produced a large brass pocket watch and flipped it open.
“Four minutes before one,” he blithely noted.
Conan Doyle and Wilde cast nervous glances back and forth as the minute hand ticked slowly toward the hour. And then the fateful moment arrived. The air seemed to tighten. In the ranks of soldiers standing to attention, many licked nervous lips. In the final seconds, even the crowd fell silent.
At last, the hour struck as Big Ben chimed once: CLONG.
The struck chime resonated outward across the capital… only to dissolve into silence.
Anxious glances passed around the crowd.
“It only struck once,” Conan Doyle said. “It only struck once!”
Cypher, who stood rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, allowed himself a cruel smile.
Minutes passed. The crowd grew restive and surged this way and that in a great, dark swarm. Shouts and angry voices called out as it became obvious that something had gone badly wrong. They had been lied to. Deceived. Big Ben had not chimed thirteen times as promised. A few rabble-rousers in the crowd began to shout and gesticulate, trying to jump-start the revolution without the agreed-upon signal. The mob grew restive and surged forward in a great wave of bodies. Those who were not ready were crushed up against the ironwork, pinned and helpless, while others began to scale the railings.
At that moment Cypher gave the slightest of nods to a nearby uniformed sergeant, who drew his sword and raised it high in the air. At the signal, soldiers atop the wooden towers threw aside the tarpaulins, revealing Gatling guns. The sergeant bellowed a command and the guardsmen massed in the palace yard raised their rifles, pointing out at the mob.
Conan Doyle’s stomach lurched. The British army was about to open fire on its own citizenry.
Several of the protesters had reached the top of the railings, with more scaling behind them. Cypher nodded a second time and the sergeant drew his sword down in a slashing motion.
A cry of protest started to rise from Conan Doyle’s throat, only to be drowned by a cacophonous din as the Gatling guns opened fire with a deafening, percussive CHUNKA-CHUNKA-CHUNKA, firing over the heads of the crowd, lacing the air with a deadly blur of flying lead. Hot shell casings showered down from the towers and rang metallic upon the parade ground.
Outside the railings, panic ensued. Banners toppled as the crowd turned and surged away. Many fell and were trampled in the mob’s mad, terrorized flight. Then the palace gates were thrown wide and ranks of soldiers marched out behind a thicket of bayonet points.
The revolution, which should have begun at one o’clock, had dissolved into chaos by three minutes past the hour. The army swept unopposed into the square where only a few unfortunate souls lay dead upon the ground, felled not by machine-gun fire, but trampled to death in the crowd’s panicked rush to escape. Minutes later, the only evidence, besides a scattering of corpses, were abandoned banners crumpled upon on the ground and the odd ownerless shoe.