He shrugged off the jubbah, threw it on a chair, and faced the room, standing in his pyjamas, holding the sword point downward.
"Show yourself," he said, softly.
A figure stepped out from the shadows to the left, from between a bookcase and the curtained windows.
The man was an albino, his skin and shoulder-length hair startlingly white, his eyes pink, with vertical pupils-the eyes of a cat. Of average height and build, he was dressed entirely in black, and held a top hat in his left hand and a silver-topped cane in his right. His pointed fingernails were also black.
By far the most remarkable thing about him, though, was his face, the jaws of which seemed to protrude unnaturally, giving the impression of a carnivorous muzzle.
Undoubtedly, this was the man who'd abducted John Speke and mesmerised Sister Raghavendra.
"I've been waiting, Sir Richard." The voice was a seductive purr, oily and repellent.
"For how long?"
"An hour or so. Don't worry; I kept myself occupied. I've been reading your notes."
"Is privacy a notion you find difficult to comprehend?"
"What possible advantage would I gain from respecting your privacy?"
"Perhaps the reputation of a gentleman?" said Burton, cuttingly.
The albino made a noise that might have been a laugh, though it sounded like a growl.
Burton raised the point of his rapier. "Is Lieutenant Speke alive?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Why did you take him?"
"Things might go a lot better for you if you abandon such questions. You've been asking too many of late, though your investigation has amounted to little more than an extended crawl from one public house to another."
"People gather in public houses. They're a natural source of information. You've been watching me?"
"Of course. From the moment you broke my mesmeric hold over the nurse."
"I saw your eyes in hers."
"And I saw you through them."
"I've heard such things are possible, though I've never seen it done before, not even in India. And, incidentally, you can stop staring at me like that. I'm a mean mesmerist myself and I won't succumb to your magnetic influence."
The intruder shrugged and stepped into the middle of the room. His eyes burned redly in the candlelight. He placed his top hat onto a desk.
"You don't recognise me," he said. "I'm not surprised. I am somewhat altered."
"So tell me who you are and what you want before you get the hell out of my house," answered the king's agent.
In one lightning-swift movement, the albino drew a sword from his cane, touched its tip to Burton's rapier, laid the sheath on a desk, and said: "Laurence Oliphant, most definitely not at your service."
Burton stepped back in surprise and his shoulder blades bumped the mantelpiece.
"Good Lord! What have you done to yourself?" he exclaimed.
Oliphant, who'd stepped forward to keep his blade against Burton's, applied a slight pressure to it.
"The True Libertines may rail against Technology," he said, "but the Rakes view the work of the Eugenicists as an opportunity. What better way to transcend human limitations than by quite literally becoming something a little more than human?"
"You've been hanging around with the wrong people," observed Burton.
Oliphant ignored the gibe and tapped his sword against the rapier, once, twice, before purring: "And to answer your earlier question, what I want is for you to stop poking your nose into matters that don't concern you. I am quite serious, Sir Richard. I will force the issue if I must. Do you care to test me?"
Burton held his blade firmly and responded: "I'm counted one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, Oliphant."
There was a blur of motion, an instant which passed so quickly that it might never have happened.
Burton felt a sudden warmth on his cheek. He reached up and touched it. His fingers came away wet with blood.
"And I," breathed Oliphant, "am the fastest. Don't worry; for your vanity's sake, I have merely reopened that old scar of yours rather than adding a new."
"Most thoughtful," muttered Burton, icily. He stepped forward and thrust at the albino's shoulder. His rapier was nonchalantly parried and ripped from his hand by his opponent's whirling blade. It hit a desk, bounced, and landed point-first in one of the bookcases.
Oliphant, whose sword tip was now touching Burton just below the left eye, gave a momentary glance backward.
"My dear fellow!" he oozed. "How unfortunate. You seem to have impaled James Tuckey's Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire." He lowered his weapon and stepped back. "Take down another blade."
Burton, who'd never before been disarmed in combat, reached up and slid his hand along the chimney breast until his fingers found a weapon. Without taking his eyes from the intruder, he lowered it, gripped the hilt, and raised the blade until it touched Oliphant's.
The albino smiled, revealing even, pointed teeth. "Are you sure you want to continue? There's no need. Agree to abandon your investigation, and I'll take my leave of you."
"I don't think so," countered Burton.
"Come now! Throw it over, Sir Richard! Why not settle down instead? Marry that girl of yours. Maybe apply for a governmental post and write your books."
Bismillah! thought Burton. He's practically quoting Spring Heeled. Jack!
"Yes, that's one option," he replied. "The other is that you tell me exactly what's going on. Shall we start with why you abducted John Speke, or should we go back a little further and talk about why you turned him against me after the Nile expedition? Or maybe we can discuss the werewolf creatures you had with you at the hospital?"
He took a chance: "Or would you prefer a little chat about Spring Heeled Jack?"
A muscle twitched at the corner of a pink eye and Burton knew he'd hit home. He wasn't working on two cases-he was working on one!
Oliphant's sword scraped down the rapier and made a lazy thrust at Burton's heart. The king's agent turned it aside and stepped to the left, flicking his point toward Oliphant's throat-a feint-he brought it down and stabbed at an area just below the albino's collarbone. His blade was met, turned, twisted, and almost torn from his hand again. This time, though, his riposte was fast and effective and Oliphant, not meeting resistance from the expected direction, found his point rising higher than intended. The end of Burton's rapier danced forward beneath it, pierced the sleeve of the albino's velvet frock coat, and penetrated his wrist. It was a move-the manchette- that the adventurer had developed himself in Boulogne while under the tutelage of the famed Monsieur Constantine.
Laurence Oliphant sprang back and stood clutching his wrist, his lips curled.
With feline eyes following his every move, Burton circled his opponent, walked past the bureau and windows, behind his primary desk, crossed in front of a bookcase, then stopped, blocking the door.
He used the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his cheek.
"En garde!" he snapped, and adopted the position.
Oliphant hissed poisonously and followed suit. Their weapons met.
In a flurry of motion, the duel commenced. The two blades clashed, scraped, lunged, parried, and whirled in attack and riposte, filling the room with the tink tink tink of metal against metal. Even with his wounded wrist, Burton's opponent possessed greater speed than any he'd faced before; but Oliphant had a fault: his eyes signalled every move, and the king's agent was thus able to defend against the blindingly fast onslaught. However, finding an opening in the albino's defence proved far more difficult, and, as the two men battled back and forth across the candlelit study, the competition quickly became, at least for Burton, one of endurance.