The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (30 page)

“I don't think we can claim that,” Burton responded, “but they've certainly developed a mechanical fault.”

They returned to Trounce, who gestured toward the far end of the roof. “According to Malazo, there's a ladder over there. We'd better hurry. More machines are assuredly are on their way. Gad! That damnable thing nearly broke my wrist. Hurts!”

“Your face is bleeding,” Swinburne observed.

The detective inspector put fingers to a cut just beneath his left eye. “A chunk of brick caught me. I'll have a shiner by the morning.”

As they started moving, Burton said, “What's the story, William?”

“It's all gone to blazes.”

“What has?”

“The country. The government. Scotland bloody Yard. Last week, Chief Commissioner Mayne purchased two hundred and fifty of those abominations. They form a new department in the Police Force, called the Special Patrol Group, under a nasty piece of work of your acquaintance.”

Burton knew instantly to whom Trounce was referring. “Rigby?”

“The man himself.”

They reached the edge of the roof and there, after searching for a minute, found rungs bolted to the wall. There was no further conversation until they'd each descended, then Trounce said, “Let's find the rubble from that chimney. My revolver must be somewhere in amongst it. I can't do without it. Quick now! We mustn't dawdle.”

Cradling his wounded wrist, he led them rapidly around a corner to the rear of Verbena Lodge, then pulled a clockwork lantern from his pocket, shook it open, wound it, and with the light that flooded from it, revealed a wet and brick strewn alleyway. Burton saw a half-buried brass man, stepped over to it, and picked up its severed head. “I think I'll have Gooch take a look at this.”

“Be careful,” Trounce advised. “The brain might still be functioning.”

“No,” Burton countered. “Not when disconnected from the mainspring.”

Trounce started to search for his gun. “It's all gone to the devil. The police used to be a public service, there to offer protection, but there's a new order sweeping through the Yard, and Rigby's Special Patrol Group exemplifies its credo, which is to enforce and intimidate.”

Burton peered at the head but could see little in the darkness. “And tonight? Why did they come after us?”

“I've been keeping my ears peeled, working with Detective Inspector Slaughter and Constable Honesty to get a measure of Rigby.”

Burton uttered a small sound of approval. Slaughter and Honesty had both been members of the Ministry of Chronological Affairs. They were good, trustworthy men.

“I'd learned that Rigby was having you both followed. Earlier tonight, Slaughter came to me and said he'd just overheard the man issue an arrest order for Algy.” He addressed the poet. “You were going to be detained for questioning.”

Swinburne said, “Why? What have I done?”

“You've penned subversive poetry.”

“Pah! Everyone's a critic.”

“Believe me, Rigby's criticism would have stung like no other. ‘Detained for questioning' is a metaphor. It means ‘placed in a cell without charge, held for an indeterminate period, and frequently beaten.' You were lucky Slaughter was in the right place at the right time. He saw three clockwork men return to the Yard and report they'd lost track of you in this district. When he passed that information to me, I immediately suspected you'd be in the lodge. So I raced over and got here in the nick of time. Ah, here it is!” He bent, retrieved his revolver, blew dust from it, and put it in his pocket. “Let's get out of here. We're all three fugitives now. We should find somewhere to lay low.”

“I know just the place,” Burton said.

Swinburne indicated that they should follow him. “Then this way, chaps. I arranged to rendezvous with Monty after our chinwag. He should be waiting nearby.”

Leaving the alley, and moving as silently as possible, they passed through one passage after another with only Trounce's lantern lighting the way. Rats frequently scurried out of their path. Burton coughed as the corrosive fog caught in his nostrils. He could feel grit accumulating in his hair and on his skin, and the humid damp was beginning to penetrate his clothing.

Footsteps sounded from ahead. Trounce quickly extinguished the light. They pressed themselves into a doorway. Three mechanised constables ran past, their blue face lamps glowing, their batons extended, their metal feet stamping.

When the noise of them had faded, Trounce rewound his lantern. “Phew! A close call. Come on.”

“We're almost there,” Swinburne noted.

Five minutes later, they emerged into what felt to Burton like a more open space, though initially he wasn't quite sure why he made that presumption. Trounce's light penetrated the fog sufficiently to reveal the suggestion of railings with a skeletal tree branch twisting just above them—one of the city's many little squares, with a tiny, enclosed public garden in its middle.

Swinburne put two fingers to his mouth and whistled twice.

A reply sounded from off to their left.

They walked in that direction and soon found the landau. Montague Penniforth, standing beside it, greeted them.

“Hallo, gents! Mr. Trounce, it's good to see you again. I was beginnin' to think—Blimey! What the bloomin' 'eck has 'appened to you?”

Swinburne winked at him. “The girls got a little overenthusiastic. It was perfectly splendid!”

Burton pushed the poet into the vehicle. “Can you drive us to Norwood, Monty?”

“South of the river? Aye, course I can. Long way though, 'specially in this 'souper.”

“Keep your ears peeled. Let me know if you think we're being followed.”

“Will do, guv'nor. All aboard!”

Burton and Trounce climbed in and, as they settled, the steam horse coughed itself awake. The landau set off.

It astonished the explorer that Penniforth could drive in such conditions but, as before, the cabbie was able to navigate without difficulty—albeit slowly—through the murk.

“Why suddenly order me apprehended?” Burton asked Trounce. “Followed, I can understand, but I haven't done anything untoward, even by the current overly stringent standards.”

“A new directive from the Home Office,” Trounce said. “Undesirables are to be rounded up.”

“What qualifies as an undesirable?”

“Humph! There's the rub. It's more or less anyone who, in Rigby's judgement, poses a significant threat to the stability of the empire. His remit is so broad and ill-defined that he could quite literally include any person in it. From what I've so far witnessed, he's currently preying on those people who possess the wits and resources to offer viable opposition to Disraeli's Young England. Algy has been identified as a mouthpiece for the protesters, and you—by virtue of your friendship with him, not to mention Rigby's hatred of you—were an obvious addition to the list.”

Burton pondered this, then suddenly gave a cry of alarm and, leaning forward, hastily used his cane to open the hatch in the cabin roof.

“Monty!”

“Aye, guv'nor?”

“Keep your eyes peeled for any street urchins. I need to send a message via the Whispering Web.”

“Rightio, but the nippers will all be asleep at this hour.”

Falling back into his seat with a curse, Burton said, “The Cannibal Club. I need to warn them. Should we go back to Leicester Square?”

“No,” Trounce responded. “We need to get as far away from the area as possible. You were carousing tonight? At Bartolini's?”

“Yes.” The explorer fished his pocket watch from his waistcoat and flipped open its lid. “Hmm. It's later than I thought. He'll have kicked them out by now.”

For the next few minutes, they sat in silence.

Trounce took out a handkerchief and attended to his bloodied face.

Swinburne twitched and jerked and pulled at his scorched clothing.

When the landau steered into Piccadilly, the little poet uttered an exclamation and pointed out of the window. “Hallo! What's going on there?”

Burton leaned across him and looked out at Green Park. Though obscured by rolling vapours and drifting ash, countless lamps brightly illuminated the open space, and the explorer could just make out hundreds of workmen who appeared to be erecting row upon row of wooden huts.

“Are we hosting some manner of exposition?” he enquired of Trounce.

“Not that I'm aware of,” the detective inspector responded. “And if we were, I would certainly know about it, for it would need to be policed.”

“Then what is the purpose of those cabins?”

The Scotland Yard man shrugged.

Their vehicle trundled on southward and crossed the river. On the Lambeth Road, they encountered a ragamuffin—a young lad in overlarge boots and with a battered topper placed at a cocky angle on his head. He revealed to Burton that he was on his way to a newspaper depot to pick up a bundle of early editions. “I can sell an 'undred of 'em in less 'n a bloomin' hour,” he boasted.

“Would you like to earn enough so you don't have to?” the explorer asked.

“Cor! Not 'alf!”

Burton gave a simple message to be delivered to Richard Monckton Milnes's town house.
You and the Cannibals are in danger of arrest. Leave the city at the earliest opportunity
.

The boy ran off, with a pocket jingling with coins, to send the warning on its way. No doubt Monckton Milnes would be roused from his bed at a horribly early hour and given something to think about other than his hangover.

The carriage continued on.

Burton examined the head of the Special Patrol Group machine. Not black but midnight blue. Heavy for its size. A badge inset into the helmet-shaped cranium bore the stylised image of an eagle and the motto:
LEX EST ABSOLUTA
.

“The Law is Absolute.”

Swinburne said, “Pardon?”

“The new police dictum, by the looks of it.”

“Rigby's justification for bully-boy tactics,” Trounce snarled. “Everything that made me proud to serve has been corrupted. To hell with it! To hell with Chief Commissioner Mayne, to hell with Colonel Rigby, to hell with Scotland Yard, and, especially, to hell with Disraeli! I'll not play his game, and I know plenty of other Yard men who feel the same way. I'm in a mind to organise them. We should found a proper resistance.”

“Hurrah!” Swinburne cheered. “Good old Pouncer! To war! To war!”

“Let's not be reckless,” Burton said. “I'd like a better idea of what the premier is up to before I turn revolutionary.”

Trounce stuck out his chest. “Whatever it is, it's wrong. I'm British! That has always stood for something and must continue to do so. I'll not stand by and see it tainted by that damn—” He gritted his teeth.

“Jew?” Burton suggested. “Listen here, William, I'll not have any of that. I've travelled the world and mixed with Hindus and Hebrews and Muslims and Christians and so-called heathens of every sort. If there's but one lesson I've learned, it is that a man is good or evil on his own account. He might employ his religion to justify his actions but, if that religion weren't there, he'd find something else to excuse his behaviour. Wickedness is wickedness, and it will twist any belief to its own end. Evil has been done in the name of every god ever imagined, and, atheist though I may be, I'll not decry an entire faith just because some who claim it are contemptible.”

“Anyway,” Swinburne added, “Dizzy converted to Anglicism when he was a child.”

Trounce muttered, “For crying out loud, I was going to say
dandy
.”

“Great Scott!” Swinburne cried out in shock. “You'd stoop so low as to condemn a man for his lacy cuffs and velvet collars?”

“Oh, shut up, both of you. You know full well what I meant. This country has led the world in the establishment of social decency and respect. The British created the very concept of freedom.”

“And reason!” Swinburne agreed.

“Tolerance!” Trounce said.

“Justice!”

“Progress!”

“Opportunity!”

“Perseverance!”

Burton waved his hands. “All right! All right! Enough evangelising. One thing at a time. There's something vitally important we must do before anything else.”

“What?” Swinburne and Trounce chorused.

“Sleep, damn it.”

Their vehicle passed through Brixton, breasted Tulse Hill, and entered Norwood Road. Penniforth, who'd played a prominent role in the case Burton had written up as
The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi
, knew the area well, and now lifted the hatch and called down. “The burial ground?”

“Yes please, Monty,” Burton responded. “Are we followed?”

“The soup is a bit thinner here, guv'nor, an' I can see some ways behind us. No one on our tail, I'm pretty sure of it.”

Five minutes later, the landau drew to a halt at the gates of West Norwood Cemetery, and the passengers disembarked.

“I'm goin' to leave it at the Coach an' Horses 'round the corner,” Penniforth told them. “Dare say you'll be in the land o' Nod by the time I join you, so I'll see you in the mornin'.”

He touched the brim of his hat and drove off.

Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce entered the cemetery and started along a path through the trees. The fog, though thick, was, as Penniforth had stated, more penetrable in this part of the city, and they soon glimpsed, through the branches, the steeple of the Episcopal Church.

They found the door to the building shut but unlocked, and upon entering through it, moved to the right, passed along the outer aisle, and paced into the right-hand transept. Stepping to an arched doorway, they descended the stone steps beyond it and arrived at a wooden door, which Burton pushed open. It creaked loudly, the sound echoing.