“Same applies to him, then,” Trounce said, indicating the valet.
“No,” Burton replied.
“No? But he's chock-a-block full of springs!”
“Yes.”
“So our opponent will stop him with ease.”
“I'm counting on it.”
“What? By Jove, what the blazes are you up to?”
“All in due course, Trounce, old man. All in due course.”
Algernon Swinburne came down the stairs. His eyes were hooded and his jaw set hard. Herbert Spencer's death had affected the poet greatly.
“I've locked the Choir Stones in the safe in your library, Richard. They were giving us headaches.”
“Thank you, Algy.”
The three of them entered the seldom-used dining room. Lord Palmerston, Burke and Hare, and the prime minister's driver were seated around the large table.
“Gentlemen, we have very little time to spare,” Burton announced. He, Swinburne, and Trounce sat down. “Our riposte must be immediate and devastating. Before we put the wheels into motion, though, I feel I should apologise to you all. Our enemy incapacitated me. She exploited a certain flaw in my character, causing it to echo back on itself over and over until it became amplified beyond all endurance. Fortunately, I retained enough of my wits to put myself through the Dervish meditation ritual. It enabled me to transfer my mind's focus from guilt, disappointments, and regrets to something I said to Charles Babbage right at the start of this whole affair, to wit: ‘ The mistakes we make give us the impetus to change, to improve, to evolve. ’ I should have been regarding my own errors of judgement in that light all along, but I wasn't. Now I am. It's a statement, I believe, that can be applied not only to individuals but also to wider society, and is the philosophy that must guide us now, for whatever the rights or wrongs of a workers’ revolution, the crisis currently afflicting London does not have its origin in lessons we, as a nation, have learned. Rather, it has been forced upon us by an external agency, and in relation to a mediumistic divination. We cannot allow it. The woman must be stopped.”
“Our enemy is female?” Palmerston asked.
“Yes. Her name is Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. She is a Russian, and she intends nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the British Empire.”
“The devil she does!” the prime minister exclaimed. “What's her motive? What's this about divination?”
“She claims to be clairvoyant. She has seen a future where Britain engages in a great war against a united German Empire allied with Russia.”
He went on to describe the prophecy Blavatsky had shared with him. As he talked, Palmerston's pale, inexpressive face seemed to grow even whiter, his manicured fingers gripped the edge of the table, and his eyes became fixed, as if he'd gone into shock.
“Her intention,” Burton finished, “is to cause such internal strife that Britain is severely weakened in the lead-up to the war. She wants Germany to defeat us without Russia's assistance, so that, once the victory is won, Russia might swoop upon the conquering nation.”
“But why make us the target?” Palmerston protested. “Why doesn't she work her voodoo against the Germans directly?”
“If she does that, she will ensure the continuation of the British Empire. She wants all the Western powers on their knees so that Russia might subjugate them in their entirety.”
“Gad!” Trounce murmured. “Another lunatic interfering with time! Only on this occasion, instead of someone from the future interfering with the present, it's the reverse!”
“Perhaps,” Burton murmured, noncommittally.
Trounce looked at him quizzically. “Is there something you're not telling us?”
Burton ignored the question and lit one of his Manila cheroots. He glanced at Palmerston. The prime minister was sitting stock-still, staring straight ahead.
“We came into this affair, gentlemen,” the king's agent continued, “at the point when Blavatsky gained possession of the Choir Stones, which are fragments of a larger diamond, one of the three legendary Eyes of Naga. She then took advantage of the Tichbornes, both to wrest control of a second, unbroken diamond from them, and to use them as a means to disseminate her call to insurrection.”
Detective Inspector Trounce frowned and scratched his head. “Theft and impersonation I can understand,” he said, “but this black diamond business has me flummoxed. What's the connection between the stones and the public disorder?”
“The Eyes project a subtle electrical field that can influence a person's mind, causing, in certain types, a profound sense of dissatisfaction. They can also magnify a mesmeric directive. Blavatsky used the Choir Stones to control Arthur Orton, to enhance his natural ability to sway opinion, and to entrance people into believing that he was Roger Tichborne. Once the crowds who came to see him were captivated, she used the greater power of the unbroken diamond to incite them to riot.”
“And the wraiths?” asked Trounce.
“A stroke of genius on her part. You know how obsessed the Rakes are with spiritualism and the occult. With her credentials, there was no difficulty in gaining leadership of the faction. She took control and soon had them all walking abroad in their etheric bodies.”
Palmerston took a deep breath, as if coming out of a trance, and said: “Their what?”
“The etheric body, Prime Minister, is that part of you which exactly matches your physical dimensions and characteristics but is comprised of rarefied matter. It connects your corporeal self to the spiritual realm.”
“The soul?”
“No, it is more a component of material existence. It exactly duplicates your bodily self-perception, even down to the clothes you are wearing.”
“Twaddle!”
“Many, especially those of a scientific bent, believe so. Nevertheless, there are wraiths roaming London, and they are doing so because through them Blavatsky can amplify the black diamond's emanations.”
There came a knock at the door and Constable Bhatti stepped in. He gaped when he saw Palmerston, and gave a clumsy salute.
“I-I understand you requested my presence, sir?” he stuttered, looking first at Trounce, then at the famous explorer.
“Yes, come in, Constable,” Burton said.
“Thank you, but-um-there's a rather extraordinary-looking chap outside. A Technologist. He says he's here on behalf of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”
“Ah, good! That was quick! Would you usher him in, please?”
Bhatti nodded, stepped out of sight, and returned moments later with a short, plump, blond-haired individual who introduced himself as Daniel Gooch.
“Ah ha!” Bhatti cried. “I thought I recognised you! You're the rotorship engineer!”
Gooch bowed his head in acknowledgment. Though dressed conservatively in pale-brown trousers, white shirt, dark waistcoat, and a top hat-which he'd removed and was holding-he was also wearing a bizarre contraption slung around his shoulders and buckled over his chest and around his waist. It was nothing less than an extra pair of arms, mechanical and intricate, multijointed and with a number of different tools arranged at their ends-very similar, in fact, to Brunel's limbs. Two thin cables ran from the harness up to either side of Gooch's neck and were plugged directly into his skull, just behind his ears.
The metal arms moved as naturally as his fleshy ones.
“Mr. Brunel sends his regards, gentlemen,” he said. His voice was deep and gravelly. “He apologises for not attending in person, but his size rather limits his access to dwellings such as this. Besides, he's overseeing the manufacture of the item you requested, so felt it best to send me as his lieutenant.”
“You're very welcome, Mr. Gooch,” the king's agent said. “And thank you for getting here so swiftly. Please, pull up a chair and join us. You too, Constable.”
As the new arrivals settled, Burton gave a brief recap.
Palmerston then said: “So our enemy's motive is to change the course of the future war, and she shared with you a vision of the conflict. Just how clear was the-er-hallucination, Captain Burton?”