"I need to meet with the Beetle, the president of the League of Chimney Sweeps."
Algernon Swinburne looked up at Burton in astonishment.
"Oofl" exclaimed Oscar. "That's a tall order! He's a secretive sort!"
Burton's reply was lost as a diligence thundered past, pulled by four horses. He waited until it had disappeared into Wigmore Street then repeated, "But you can find him? Is it possible?"
"I'll knock on your door tomorrow morning, sir. One thing: if you want to talk with the Beetle, you'll have to take him some books. He's mad for reading, so he is."
"Reading what?"
"Anything at all, Captain, though he prefers poetry and factual to fiction."
"Very well. Thank you, Quips. Here's a shilling to be going on with."
Oscar touched his cap, winked, moved away, and yelled, "Evenin' paper! Confederate forces enter state of Kentucky! Read all about it!"
"What an extraordinary child!" exclaimed Swinburne.
"Yes, indeed. He's destined for great things, is young Oscar Wilde," answered Burton.
"But see here, my friend," shrilled the poet, "I'll be left in the dark no longer! Spring Heeled Jack, a werewolf, and the Beetle. What extraordinary affair have you got yourself involved in? It's time to tell all, Richard. I'll not move another step until you do."
Burton considered his friend for a moment, then said, "I'll tell you, but can I trust you to keep it under your hat?"
"Yes."
"Your word?"
"My word."
"In that case, once we're in a hansom and on our way to Battersea, I'll explain."
He swung around and strode out of the square, with Swinburne bouncing at his side.
"Wait!" demanded the poet. "We aren't catching a hansom now?"
"Not yet. There's a place I want to visit first."
"What place?"
"You'll see."
"Why must you be so insufferably mysterious?"
They made their way through the early evening crowd of perambulators, hawkers, labourers, buskers, beggars, vagabonds, dollymops, and thieves until they reached Vere Street. There Burton stopped outside a narrow premises which stood hunched between a hardware shop and the Museum of Anatomy. Beside its bright yellow door, a tall blue-curtained window had stuck upon its inside a sheet of paper upon which was written in a swirling hand the legend:
The astonishing COUNTESS SABINA, seventh daughter, CHEIROMANTIST PROGNOSTICATOR, tells your past, present, and future, gives full names, tells exact thought or question on your mind without one word spoken; reunites the separated,: removes evil influences; truthful predictions and satisfaction guaranteed.
Consultations f 11 AM until 2 PM and f 6 PM to 9 PM
Please enter and wait until called.
"You're joking!" said Swinburne.
"Not at all."
Burton had heard about this place from Richard Monckton Milnes. He and the older man had long shared an interest in the occult and Monckton Milnes had once told Burton there was no better palmist in all London than this one.
They entered.
Beyond the front door the adventurer and his companion found a short and none-too-clean passageway of naked floorboards and cracked plaster walls lit by an oil lamp that hung from the stained ceiling. They walked its length and pushed through a thick purple velvet curtain, entering a small rectangular room that smelled of stale sandalwood incense. Wooden chairs lined the undecorated walls. Only one was occupied. It was sat upon by a tall, skinny, and prematurely balding young man with watery eyes and bad teeth, which he bared at them in what passed for a smile.
"The wife's in there!" he said in a reedy voice, nodding toward a door beside the curtained entrance. "If you wait with me until she finishes, you can then go in."
Burton and Swinburne sat. The room's two gas lamps sent shadows snaking across their faces. Swinburne's hair took on the appearance of fire.
The man stared at Burton. "My goodness, you've been in the wars! Did you fall?"
"Yes he did. Down the stairs in a brothel," interposed Swinburne, crossing his legs.
"Great heavens!"
"They were throwing him out. Said his tastes were too exotic."
"Er-erotic?" spluttered the man.
"No. Exotic. You know what I mean, I'm sure." He made the sound of a swishing cane.
"Why, y-yes, of-of course."
Burton grinned savagely, looking like the very devil himself. "You fool, Algy!" he whispered.
The man cleared his throat once, twice, three times, before managing: "Eroti-I mean exotic, hey? What? I say! And-er-well-tallyho!"
"Are you familiar with the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana?" asked Swinburne.
"The, um, the-the K-Kama-?"
"It offers guidance in the art of lovemaking. This gentleman has just begun translating it from the original Sanskrit."
"The-the-ar-ar-art of-?" The man swallowed with an audible gulp.
The door opened and a woman swept into the room. She was tall, enor mously fat, and wore the most voluminous dress Burton had ever seen. She reminded him of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's megalithic transatlantic liner, the SS Titan.
"Thank God!" exclaimed the thin man. "I mean, I say, you've finished, my little lamb!"
"Yes," she said, in a booming voice, her double chins wobbling. "We must go home at once, Reginald. There are things we must discuss!"
He stood, and Burton was sure he could see the man's knees knocking together.
"Th-things, Lammykins?"
"Things, Reginald!"
She pushed aside the curtain and squeezed her bulk into the corridor. Her husband followed, casting a last glance at Swinburne, who winked and said in a stage whisper: "The Kama Sutra!"
He chuckled as the man dived after his wife.
Another woman stepped from the doorway. She was of indeterminate age-either elderly but very well preserved or young and terribly worn, Burton couldn't decide which. Her hair was chestnut brown, shot through with grey, and hung freely to the small of her back, defying the conservative styles of the day; her face was angular and might once have been beautiful; certainly, her large, dark, slightly slanted eyes still were. The lips, though, were thin and framed by deep lines. She wore a black dress with a creamcoloured shawl. Her hands were bare, the nails bitten and unpainted.
"You wish an insight into the future?" she asked, in a musical, slightly accented voice, looking from one man to the other.
Burton stood. "I do. My friend will wait."
She nodded and stepped aside so that he might pass through to the room beyond. It was small, sparsely furnished, and dominated by a tall blue curtain, the same one he'd seen from the outside. A dim lamp hung low over a round table. Shelves lined the walls and were packed with trinkets and baubles of an esoteric nature.
The Countess Sabina closed the door and moved to a chair. She and Burton sat, facing each other across the table.
She considered him.
In the ill-lit chamber, with the flickering light shining from directly above, Burton's eyes were shadowy sockets and the deep scar on his left cheek stood out vividly.
"Your face will be known for long," the countess blurted.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm sorry. Sometimes I don't know why I say what I say. It is an aspect of my gift-of my powers. It is for you to decide the meaning. Give me your hand. The right."
He held out his hand, palm upward. She took hold of it and bent close, tracing its lines with a finger.
"Small hands," she muttered, almost inaudibly. "This-hmm-such restlessness. No roots. You have seen much. Truly seen." She looked up at him. "You are of the People, sir. I am certain of that."