He sighed. It had come just too late for him, this new technology. If he'd had the advantage of the swans, as John Speke had during his second expedition, recent history would have been very different indeed.
He continued his ascent, giving silent thanks that he didn't suffer from a fear of heights.
Minutes later he reached the top and swung himself over to sit with one leg to either side of the chimney's lip. The breeze tugged at him but with a foot hooked through one of the rungs and his knees clamped tightly against the brickwork, he felt reasonably secure.
He noticed that another set of metal rungs descended into the darkness of the flue.
Burton pulled his shoulder bag around, opened it, took out a bound notebook, and started to read.
For ten minutes he sat there, outlined against broken clouds and patches of blue sky, perched a precarious three hundred and fifty feet above the ground, the book in his hand, his noble brow furrowed with concentration, his savage jaw clenched, his clothes fluttering wildly.
Eventually, there came a furtive rustle and scrape from within the chimney.
Burton listened but didn't react.
The hiss of falling soot.
The scuffing of a boot against metal.
Moments of silence.
Then a quiet, sibilant voice: "What are you reading?"
Without shifting his eyes from his notebook, Burton replied: "It's my own translation of the Behdristan, which is an imitation of the Gulistan of Sa'di, the celebrated Persian poet. It is written in prose and verse, and treats of ethics and education, though it abounds in moral anecdotes, aphorisms, and amusing stories, too."
"And the original author?" hissed the voice.
"Niir-ed-Di'n Abd-er-Rahman; the Light of Religion, Servant of the Merciful. He was born, it's believed, in 1414 in a small town called Ja'm, near Herat, the capital of Khurasin, and adopted Jami as his takhallus, or poetical name. He is considered the last of the great Persian writers."
"I want it," whispered the voice from the darkness.
"It is yours," responded the king's agent. "And I have other volumes here." He patted his shoulder bag.
"What are they?"
"My own works: Goa and the Blue Mountains, Scinde or the Unhappy Valley, and A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah."
"You are an author?"
"Among other things, yes."
"Indian?"
"No, this is a disguise I adopted in order to travel unmolested."
"Limehouse is dangerous."
"Yes."
There was a pause, then the sepulchral tones came again: "What do you ask in return for the books?"
"I ask to be permitted to help."
"To help? To help with what?"
"Not long ago, I saw wolflike creatures snatch a boy from the street. I know he isn't the first to have been taken, and I know that all the missing boys are chimney sweeps."
A long silence followed.
Burton closed his notebook, placed it in his bag, then removed the bag from his shoulders and lowered it by the strap into the darkness.
A small mottled hand, so pale it was almost blue, reached out of the shadows within the flue and took the bag. A satisfied sigh echoed up from below.
Burton said, "The books are yours, whether you give me any information or not."
"Thank you," came the response. "It is true-the League of Chimney Sweeps is under attack and we do not know why."
"How many boys have been taken?"
"Twenty-eight."
Burton whistled. "As many as that!"
"They all returned but nine. Nine are still missing. Ten if you include the latest, Aubrey Baxter, the boy you saw abducted."
"They are the ones most recently taken?"
"No, not at all. Most come back; some don't."
"And what of those who returned? What did they have to say?"
"They remember nothing."
"Really? Nothing at all?"
"They don't even remember the wolves. There is one thing, though."
"What?" asked Burton.
"All the boys who were taken-when they reappeared, they each bore a mark upon the forehead, between the eyes, about an inch above the bridge of the nose."
"A mark?"
"A small bruise surrounding a pinprick."
"Like that made by a syringe?"
"I have never seen the mark made by a syringe, but I imagine so, yes."
"Can you arrange for me to meet one of these boys?"
"Are you the police?"
"No."
"Wait."
Burton waited. He watched a swan flying past in the near distance, a box kite trailing behind it, a man sitting in the kite, gripping the long reins.
"Here," hissed the Beetle.
The king's agent looked down and saw the worm-coloured arm reaching up out of the darkness. A piece of paper was held in the small fingers. He bent, stretched down, and took it.
Upon the paper two addresses had been written.
"Most of the boys live in the Cauldron," murmured the hidden sweep, "but that is too dangerous a place for such as you."
Don't I know it! thought Burton.
"There are some lodging houses which I rent in safer areas, such as these two. If you wait until tomorrow, I will see to it that you are expected; just say you have been sent by the Beetle. The first is where you'll find Billy Tupper, one of the fellows who returned. The second is a boarding house where three of the boys who are still missing lodged."
"Their names?"
"Jacob Spratt, Rajish Thakarta, and Benny Whymper. All these boys were taken whilst visiting fellow sweeps in the East End."
"Thank you. This is very useful. Is there anything else you can tell me?"
"On the other side of the paper I've listed all the boys who were taken and the dates of their abductions. I know nothing more."
"Then I'll take my leave of you, with thanks. If I learn anything about these kidnappings, I'll return."
"Drop three stones into the chimney. I'll respond. Bring more books."
"On what subject?"
"Philosophy, travel, art, poetry, anything."
"You fascinate me," said Burton. "Won't you come out of the shadows?"
There was no reply.
"Are you still there?"
Silence.
Both his cases were at a temporary standstill, so Burton spent the rest of the day catching up with his correspondence and various writing projects. He was surprised to find, in the Empire, an article by Henry Morton Stanley that, in reviewing the status of the Nile debate, gave well-balanced consideration to both positions. Burton's theory that the great river flowed out of the as yet unexplored northern shore of Lake Tanganyika was presented as a possibility in need of further investigation. John Speke's proposal that the Nyanza was the source was deemed more probably correct but, again, further expeditions were required. As for the explorers themselves, Burton, Stanley claimed, had been a victim of severe misfortune when fever prevented him from circumnavigating Tanganyika, while Speke had lacked the skills and experience necessary for geographical surveys and had made serious mistakes. Stanley was also highly critical of Speke's "renaming" of Nyanza. There was no need, he wrote, for a "Lake Albert" in central Africa.
It was a surprising turnaround, thought Burton, for he'd considered Stanley an implacable enemy, one of the men who'd stoked the fires of Speke's misplaced resentment against him.
What was the damned Yankee up to?
The answer came a few minutes later when he opened a letter from Sir Roderick Murchison. It was many pages long and covered a range of topics, though was mainly concerned with the financial mess Burton had left behind upon his departure from Zanzibar two years ago. The explorer had denied full payment to most of the porters who'd accompanied him and Speke for seven hundred miles into unexplored territory then seven hundred miles back again. The porters had not, Burton asserted, remained true to their contract, having mutinied and deserted in droves, and therefore did not deserve full payment.