To Burton, it was inconceivable that his engagement party was already just five days away and he’d be at New Wardour Castle by tomorrow afternoon. He was so engulfed by uncanny events that the mundane prospect of a social occasion felt strange and out of place.
He put Isabel’s letter aside and opened another. It was from Buckingham Palace and signed by the king’s personal secretary: The converted stables in the mews behind numbers 13 & 14 Montagu Place have been purchased in your name. Keys enclosed.
Mystified, Burton went downstairs, out into the backyard, passed through the door into Wyndham Mews, and crossed to the two buildings in question. In the first, he found two brand-new rotorchairs, in the second, a new steam sphere and two velocipedes. A note lay on the seat of the sphere. It read: With compliments, His Majesty King George V.
Burton was speechless.
At three in the afternoon, a falsetto screeching drifted up from the street below. It continued for five minutes and was followed by the jingling of the doorbell. The stairs creaked as Mrs. Angell ascended. She knocked, entered, and stood with hands on hips. “A small hobgoblin has invaded our hallway.”
“Does it have red hair?” Burton asked.
“Oh, is that what it is? I thought the creature’s head was on fire. I was going to throw a bucket of water over it before chasing it away with my broom.”
“Resist the temptation, please, and send the apparition up. He is one of our dinner guests.”
“Very well, if you think it wise.”
She departed and half a minute later Algernon Swinburne bounded in.
“Swindlers!” he shrieked. “To a man! Swindlers all! To perdition with them!”
“À qui faites-vous allusion?” Eliphas Levi asked.
“To whom do I refer? Why, to cab drivers, of course! The villains are forever altering their charges!”
“Depending on the distance travelled,” Burton explained.
“Twaddle and bosh! A cab ride is a shilling! A shilling, I tell you!” Swinburne surveyed the room. “I say! Are you planning an army or a library, Burton? Swords, pistols, a spear, and books, books, books!” He capered alongside the shelves, his eyes running over the many volumes, then let out a sudden howl of dismay—“Walt Whitman? Walt Whitman?”—and yanked a leather-bound book down. “Leaves of Grass? How can you possibly inhabit the same room as this mess of voluminous and incoherent effusions? My hat! You must be liberated at once!” With a violent swing of his arm, he hurled the book across the study. It hit the corner of a desk just above a waste-paper basket and rebounded, spinning with perfect accuracy into the fireplace.
“Oops!” the poet said. “I was aiming for the bin. But it’s for the best. Burn, foul putrescence!” then to Burton, “Are you going to stand there with your mouth open, old chap, or offer me a brandy?”
Burton cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, Algy. How pleasant to see you again. Do come in. Make yourself comfortable. Can I interest you in a drink? Perhaps a small brandy?”
Swinburne plonked himself into the armchair Eliphas Levi had occupied before standing to greet him. “Small?”
Burton rolled his eyes and moved to the bureau. He poured the poet a generous measure, and lesser ones for himself and the Frenchman. After handing his guests their drinks, he indicated that Levi should take the unoccupied armchair. “I have a question for you, Algy. If I placed you among staunch Catholics and asked you to behave yourself, would you be capable?”
“Of politely curing their delusions?”
“No. Of keeping your mouth shut. I’m inclined to invite you to accompany me to New Wardour Castle tomorrow but not unless you can do as Monckton Milnes does, and keep your paganism to yourself. Could you give recitations for the benefit of the guests without causing them offence?”
“Sir Richard, my poems are by no means confined solely to anti-Christian declamations. If we are to celebrate your engagement, then surely verses that eulogise love and affection would be more suitable?”
“Quite so, and certainly more likely to be appreciated by the audience,” Burton confirmed.
Swinburne gazed upward, his eyes taking on a dreamy expression, and chanted:
The shapely slender shoulders small,
Long arms, hands wrought in glorious wise,
Round little breasts, the hips withal
High, full of flesh, not scant of size,
Fit for all amorous masteries;
The large loins, and the flower that was
Planted above my firm round thighs
In a small garden of soft grass…
“Stop!” Burton commanded. “That sort of thing is also best avoided.”
Swinburne giggled. “Testing the boundaries, old thing! Testing the boundaries! I have a rather lengthy piece, unfinished, but I can improvise. It tells the story of the ill-fated lovers Tristan and Isolde.”
“But, mon Dieu!” Levi put in. “Such tragédie—at une célébration?”
“We English glory in the juxtaposition of opposing sentiments, Monsieur Levi. Nothing makes us more conscious of the glories of love than a tale of its obstruction, loss, or sacrifice,” Swinburne answered.
“Ah! Romeo et Juliet!”
“Indeed so.”
The poet knocked his drink back, gave a satisfied sigh, and said to Burton, “I assure you, I shall be the shoul of dishcretion, old shap!”
A loud hammering sounded at the street door.
“By thunder!” Swinburne exclaimed. “Thunder!”
“Trounce,” Burton corrected. “He appears to have a blind spot where doorbells are concerned.”
Crossing the room, he went out onto the landing and looked down the stairs in time to see Mrs. Angell admit Detective Inspectors Trounce and Slaughter.
“Come on up, gentlemen,” he called.
His housekeeper glared at their police-issue boots as the two men ascended the stairs.
“Would you bring up a glass of milk, please, Mother Angell?”
“What ho! What ho!” Swinburne cheered as the detectives entered the study.
Burton introduced Slaughter to the poet and to Levi, arranged chairs, poured drinks, lit another cigar, waited until his housekeeper had delivered Slaughter’s milk, then gave the group an account of his discussion with Levi.
The policemen reacted with blank faces.
Slaughter mumbled, “A vampire? Really, sir, I’m a martyr to indigestion and this manner of hoo-ha doesn’t help it at all.”
“I must confess,” Burton said, “I’m finding it hard to swallow, too. Have you made any progress with your side of things?”