Trounce sighed. “Lord help me, am I condemned to be Macallister Fogg for the day?”
“You brought it on yourself,” Burton said. “Consider your nursemaid duty a retribution for blackening my eye.”
“Humph!” the Scotland Yard man responded. He gestured for Bram to follow, and departed.
“Why do you wish to examine the dead, Monsieur Levi?” Burton asked.
“We know the volonté of Perdurabo need a body, non? And the logbook indicate he possess John Judge.”
“That is how I understood it, yes.”
“I wish to perform an experiment. Perhaps some who lie in the church hall, they are his victims. A theory I must test. You will forgive me if I say nothing more about it? There is much to consider; much to research before I can be certain that what I think is correct.”
“Very well. May I assist?”
“Oui. I will show you what is required.”
After fortifying themselves with strong coffee, Burton, Levi, and Swinburne visited the High Street, where the Frenchman purchased two strings of garlic from a grocery shop and three pocket mirrors from an ironmonger’s. They continued on until they reached the church hall. Burton showed his authority to the county coroner and Moelfre’s rector, who were seeking to establish the identities of the many dead. “Go and rest awhile,” he told them. “There are certain facts I need to establish and I’d prefer it if my companions and I were left undisturbed until we’ve finished.”
The two men, having laboured for many hours, didn’t resist, and gratefully exited the hall to fill their lungs with fresh air.
“Now, monsieur,” Burton said. “What do we do?”
Levi approached the nearest body and pulled the shroud back from it, revealing the grey features of a middle-aged woman.
“Observez.”
Twisting a garlic bulb from its string, he crushed it in his hand and extracted one of its cloves. This he snapped in half and rubbed around the corpse’s nostrils.
“Like so,” he said. “And now this.”
He put his thumb to the woman’s eye and pulled up its lid, then held the pocket mirror in front of it. After a minute had passed, he stepped back and said, “We must the same thing do with every cadaver.”
“What a thoroughly outré operation,” Swinburne exclaimed. “What is its purpose?”
Levi looked down at his diminutive companion and answered, “We must identify any corpse that does not realise it is dead.”
The poet hopped on one leg and jabbed his elbows outward, dancing like a puppet with tangled strings. “This is beyond the bounds!” he squealed. “It’s diabolical! Give me a mirror. How can the dead not know they are dead? You’re as nutty as a fruitcake! Pass the garlic. Completely batty! What should I look for?”
“Toute réaction.”
“Any reaction? Barmy! Bonkers! Mad as a March hare!”
Having thus expressed his doubts, the poet got to work and, with silent efficiency, moved from body to body, testing each as instructed.
It took the three of them a little over two and a half hours to complete the procedure, and at the end of it Levi proclaimed himself satisfied that none of the dead harboured any doubts as to their condition.
Swinburne leaned close to Burton and whispered, “Are you absolutely positive he hasn’t a screw loose?”
“He’s as sane as you and me, Algy. Well, as me, anyway. I must admit, though, I’m intrigued to know what it was all about. No doubt he’ll explain when he’s ready.”
They left the church hall with the stench of death in their nostrils and returned to the pub where, an hour later, Trounce and Bram Stoker joined them for an early lunch.
The morning had robbed Burton and Levi of their appetites, and they picked unenthusiastically at their food. Swinburne, by contrast, ate with gusto and downed ale without restraint.
“There are no trains off the island,” Trounce reported, “and services on the mainland won’t resume, they say, until tomorrow. I’m afraid we’re going to have to kick our heels here for another day.”
Burton muttered an oath. It was the last thing he wanted to hear, but there was no other option, so he spent the afternoon impatiently reading and re-reading the log, furiously smoking cigars, and indulging in a vigorous walk along the coastline.
Levi, meanwhile, sank into such a deep contemplation that he became utterly unresponsive to conversation; Swinburne worked on his poetry and remained surprisingly sober; and Trounce and Stoker helped the local constabulary to collect the many hundreds of gold coins that were still washing ashore, and which, if the authorities accepted the rector’s suggestion, would be used to help support the many women who’d soon receive the terrible news that they’d been widowed.
After what, for all of them, proved a fitful night’s sleep, the detective inspector again visited the telegraph office and this time returned with the much more welcome news that although the island’s railway tracks remained blocked, those on the mainland had, for the most part, been cleared of debris.
“How about I commandeer police velocipedes?” he suggested. “We could cross the bridge to the closest town—Bangor, I believe—and catch a train from there.”
This was agreed, quickly arranged, and by half-past one the party was speeding eastward, with Bram balanced on Trounce’s handlebars. Just over an hour later, they arrived in Bangor and, finding that lines had been cleared, boarded a small train bound for Stoke-on-Trent. By four, they’d caught the Liverpool-to-London Atmospheric Express. The pumping stations blasted the carriages along at a tremendous velocity, and with the journey punctuated by just three stops—Birmingham, Coventry, and Northampton—they were back in London by eight in the evening.
A thick fog enshrouded the city. Flecks of soot—“the blacks”—were drifting through it.
“I shall go to Chelsea,” Swinburne announced. “I have my new digs at Rossetti’s place on Cheyne Walk. Number sixteen.”
Burton addressed Levi, who’d been unusually quiet and self-absorbed since their departure from Anglesey. “Monsieur, you are welcome to my spare bedroom, unless you’d prefer a hotel, in which case I can recommend the Saint James.”
“If it is no inconvenience,” the Frenchman said with a bow, “I stay with you. There is much to discuss.”
“Very well. And you, lad—” Burton ruffled Bram’s hair. “You’re a useful little blighter to have around. What say you to permanent employment as my button-boy?”
“A page, is it?” Bram replied. “You’ll not have me wearing a uniform!”
“That won’t be necessary. But we’ll smarten you up, and you’ll take weekly baths.”
“By all that’s holy! You’ll be a-jokin’ o’ course!”
“Not a bit of it. What do you say, nipper? Can you behave yourself and do as my housekeeper tells you? You’ll have a proper bed to sleep in, daily meals, and plenty enough pay to satisfy your craving for penny bloods.”
“Well now, since ye put it like that, I could give it a try, so I could.” The boy looked at Trounce. “That is, unless Mr. Fogg is requirin’ me services.”
Trounce muttered, “I’ll know where to find you if I need you, lad.”
“Aye, that you will. It’s set, then. A pageboy I’ll be.”
They left the station, hailed cabs, and went their separate ways.
“If Perdurabo’s volonté has occupied John Judge’s body,” Burton said to Levi as their growler advanced cautiously through the pall, “then he has no need to build one. Why, then, the taking of Darwin and Galton? Why the interest in Eugenics?”
“I must research,” Levi said. “I must read.”
Burton grunted. “And in the meantime, I have to wait for either the police to find Judge or for him to find me.”