“I doubt a rotorchair would survive these winds, anyway,” Burton said. He contemplated the metal globe and thought he heard something thudding at its rear. “But why make the journey? Has there been another abduction?”
“No, there’s been a shipwreck.”
Monckton Milnes, who’d walked to the back of the vehicle, said, “What have you brought with you, Detective Inspector?”
“Nothing. Not even a change of blessed clothes. Burton, the tempest grounded a ship off Anglesey at one-thirty last night. It’s called the Royal Charter!”
Burton’s hands curled into fists.
“There’s something moving in here,” Monckton Milnes said. He reached down to the latch, clicked it open, and lifted the door of the sphere’s storage compartment.
“Great heavens!”
Burton crossed to him, looked into the vehicle, and saw Abraham Stoker curled up in the confined space.
“Would ye be good enough to help me out?” the youngster moaned. “I can’t move a bloomin’ muscle.”
Trounce joined them and exclaimed, “A stowaway? What the dickens are you playing at, lad? Don’t tell me you’ve been in there all the way from London?”
Burton and Monckton Milnes lifted the boy out and held him while he tried to straighten his limbs.
“Aye, that I have, Mr. Fogg. I’m sorry, but if you’re off on one of your adventures, then you’ll need an assistant, an’ I’m just the boy for the job, so I am!”
Monckton Milnes gave the Scotland Yard man a quizzical look. “Fogg?”
Trounce groaned.
Burton told Monckton Milnes, “When he began investigating me, Trounce tried to throw me off the track by using the name Macallister Fogg, which he took from this boy’s favourite penny blood.”
“Spur of the moment,” Trounce muttered. “And damned foolish. So now I know who’s been following me. What the blazes are we going to do with the little ragamuffin?”
“We’ll have him tag along with us to Anglesey,” the explorer responded. “He might prove useful. He’s a Whisperer.”
Bram started to rub his arms and shake his legs as the blood returned to them. “Ouch! Ouch! I won’t be any trouble, Mr. Fogg. I promise. And—aye!—you’ll have the whole Whispering Web at your disposal, so you will!”
Trounce said, “Humph!”
“And Anglesey, did I hear ye say? Ain’t that in Wales, now? It’s a barren part o’ the country, so it is. There are more Whisperers there than telegraph offices, to be sure.”
The detective held up his hands in surrender and grumbled, “All right, all right!”
Burton surveyed the devastated grounds and the fast-moving clouds. “How the blazes are we going to travel? There are no trains, you say, Trounce?”
“All services cancelled.”
“The Orpheus,” Monckton Milnes offered. “You have the authority to commandeer it, Richard, and the airfield isn’t far from here. I daresay a machine of that size can manage this wind.”
A shrill voice suddenly proclaimed:
Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries,
And hardly for the storm and ruin shed
Can even thine eyes be certain of her head
Who never passed out of thy spirit’s eyes,
But stood and shone before them in such wise
As when with love her lips and hands were fed,
And with mute mouth out of the dusty dead
Strove to make answer when thou bad’st her rise.
Abraham Stoker gave a yelp of alarm. “Oy! What’s that thing?”
“That thing,” Burton answered, “is Algernon Swinburne.”
The poet—who’d descended the front doorsteps gesticulating wildly as he recited—approached them. His hair flew about his head like a tumultuous conflagration.
“Hallo, hallo, and thrice hallo!” he cried out. “And one for the nipper, too—hallo! The Orpheus? Your African airship, Richard? Surely you’re not leaving us already?”
“We have to fly to Anglesey, Algy. There’s been a shipwreck. It has some bearing on the matters we spoke of last night.”
“On El Yezdi, you mean? Then I’m coming, too!”
“There’s no need for—”
Swinburne stamped his foot and screeched, “Nonsense! Balderdash! Tosh and piffle! Rot and poppycock! A shipwreck? A shipwreck? By my Aunt Betty’s beastly blue bonnet! It’s the very stuff of poetry!”
Trounce whispered to Burton, “Who—?”
“Later,” the explorer replied. He made a snap decision. “We’re wasting time. Trounce, Bram, Algy, we’ll borrow the stagecoach and set off for the airfield at once.” He turned to Monckton Milnes. “Fryston is on the way, I believe? We’ll drop you and Monsieur Levi there. I’m afraid we’ll have to abandon our plan to travel together to New Wardour Castle.”
“I’ll go there by train. I daresay the tracks will be cleared by next week.”
“Un moment, s’il vous plaît,” Levi interrupted. “Is it an inconvenience if I accompany you, Sir Richard? If you are to fly on the Orpheus, I have the opportunity to examine the room where Oliphant make his ritual. I wish to see it, though the glass and floor are clean now, I think. Aussi, this Royal Charter affair is connected, non?”
Burton gave his consent, and an hour later, having packed and bade an apologetic farewell to Lady Pauline and her remaining guests, Burton and his companions were rattling northwestward in the stage. The driver made the best speed he could but the roads were hazardous, being littered with debris, and it took them two hours to reach Fryston—where they bid Monckton Milnes adieu—and another to get to the airfield.
Upon reaching the Orpheus, Burton hurried aboard and was greeted by a surprised Doctor Quaint, who escorted him to Captain Nathaniel Lawless’s cabin.
“By James!” the airman exclaimed, gripping Burton’s hand. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until the engagement party. Are you recovered? You look somewhat battered, if you’ll pardon the observation.”
“I’m done with the malaria, Captain, but I was involved in an unfortunate accident. No permanent damage. What’s the state of the ship? Can you get her into the air right away?”
“She’s being fitted with armaments in preparation for the signing of the British–German Alliance—we’ll be providing security at the ceremony—but I could afford to take her on a short excursion. We have no supplies aboard, though, and I’m not keen on flying in this wind. Where do you want to go?”
“Anglesey, on the west coast.”
Lawless squinted. “Hmm. About a hundred and seventy miles southwest. That’s straight into the gale, which’ll make it simpler but slower.”
“I’ll need top speed, and you can forego the paperwork.”
“I’m not sure you have—”
Burton thrust forward the card issued by the Home Secretary.
“—the authority,” Lawless finished lamely. “Oh, you do. No paperwork, then. Good! I can’t abide all the damned bureaucracy. I’ll need half an hour to get the engines warmed up then we’ll be off.”
“Thank you, Lawless.”
It was a bumpy flight, but Captain Lawless and his crew, whose loyalty to Burton was absolute, squeezed every ounce of power from the airship’s mighty engines, bullying the dirigible into the headwind and exhausting themselves as they battled to keep the ship stable. At six o’clock, having made excellent time, they landed half a mile west of Moelfre Village, in Dulas Bay, Anglesey Island, on the northwest coast of Wales.