The Strange Affair Of Spring Heeled Jack Part 44

THE BATTLE OF OLD FOLD.

AND ITS AFTERMATH.

All NO is false, all NO is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown In myriad bits; while each believes His little bit the whole to own.

-SIR RICHARD FRANc1S BURTON

M~ESFORD CONTINUES.

HIS STORY.

Tulle! the corrector when our judgements err.

CORD BYRON.

-t took him nearly three months to recover his wits," said Henry de la Poet Beresford. "Though 'recover' may be too optimistic a word, for I a.s.sure you that, by this point, the time traveller was quite demented."

Supporting himself on his knuckles, he lurched around the banqueting table as he continued his tale; and every word he uttered, in that thick, guttural voice of his, was heard by Sir Richard Francis Burton, who lay hidden overhead.

"We arranged to meet again on September 28, 1843. He did his vanishing trick, and, over the course of the next three years, I monitored the Battersea girls, their marriages, and their subsequent children. By this time, of course, my reputation was such as to make it impossible to get close to the families, and I was unable to establish which of the daughters bore the Oxford birthmark.

"I reported this to Oxford three years after he'd departed, and he flew into such a fit of temper that, had he dropped dead from apoplexy, I would not have been surprised. For an entire night, he ranted and raged. Then he demanded that I keep track of the children, and informed me that he'd not be back until eighteen years had pa.s.sed; that is to say, not until September 28 of this year, when the Battersea children would be of age; old enough for him to sire an ancestor by!"

"Yesterday was the twenty-eighth!" exclaimed Nurse Nightingale.

"Yes," confirmed Beresford. "His decision was a blow to me, for by now I was plotting to get rid of the insane fool and claim his suit for my own. I tried to persuade him to visit sooner-d.a.m.n it, I almost begged!-but he steadfastly refused, maintaining that it would be a pointless waste of his suit's dwindling resources.

"As he left this very room through those veranda doors, I ran to the morning room, took a pistol from the cabinet there, and ran back, intending to shoot him dead in the grounds. I was too late; he was gone.

"Over the ensuing years, I never lost sight of the Battersea families, but I'll admit that after the Libertines split and the newly formed Rake faction grew in influence and demanded more of my attention, the whole Oxford affair became more and more dreamlike. Had I really played host to a man from the future? Might it have been a drunken hallucination?

"Eighteen years is a long time; memory plays tricks; doubt casts the past in a different light. Frankly, I never expected to see Edward Oxford again, and, after a while, I didn't much care. He became nothing more than a symbol to me, an example of 'trans-natural' man, free from the shackles of law and morals and propriety. He was Spring Heeled Jack! A myth! A bogeyman! A fantasy!

"Then disaster struck. Two years ago, in March of 1859, I broke my neck in a riding accident. I wasn't expected to live. News of this reached you, Isambard, and you sent Miss Nightingale to my a.s.sistance. She removed me from the hospital where I lay and took me to her medical laboratories, where, with consummate skill, she managed to preserve my brain by grafting it into the body of one of her experimental animals. The result, you see before you. Ma'am, I have said it before and I'll say it again: I am forever in your debt."

Nurse Nightingale acknowledged his words with a nod.

"The accident," continued the ape, "revived my interest in Edward Oxford, for, obviously, I would much prefer life as a man than life as an ape, and with his time suit, I-or someone else-could travel back to prevent the fall that put me in this position.

"You all know what happened next: I made it known to Isambard that, with his help, I could secure a time-travel device. In the past, I had explained to him certain future technologies-such as geothermal and electrical power, rotor-winged flight, and engine-pulled vehicles-and he had been able to build machines based on these small insights, which Edward Oxford had given me. Isambard therefore had no reason to doubt me and communicated the possibility of time travel to you; you began your experimental programmes in the knowledge that the device will allow you to see the results; and here we are today-all reliant on that bizarre suit to achieve our aims!"

"And yesterday?" asked Laurence Oliphant. "Did he show up?"

"Yes. He did not, of course, expect to find me in this condition, but I would be lying if I told you he was shocked. The man is so far gone that everything seems an illusion to him now. Discovering that his friend the marquess had become Mr. Belljar the primate was no stranger to him than the fact that men in this day and age smoke pipes and cigars and are never seen outside without a hat upon their head! He didn't tarry. I handed him the list of girls and he departed."

"To find the one with the birthmark and rape her," interrupted Florence Nightingale, with distaste.

"Yes," grunted Beresford. "It's a crazy scheme, I'll admit, though it was I who thought of it. There are six girls. Sarah Shoemaker, daughter of Jennifer Shepherd, is sixteen years old. Unfortunately, her whole family emigrated to South Africa and I've not been able to trace her. The others though are all still in or near London. They are Marian Steephill, aged thirteen, daughter of Lizzie Fraser; Angela Tew, aged fifteen, daughter of Tilly Adams; Lucy Harkness, eighteen, daughter of Sarah Lovitt; Connie Fairweather, seventeen, daughter of Mary Stevens; and Alicia Pipkiss, fifteen, daughter of Jane Alsop.

"The seventh of the original Battersea girls-by which I mean the mothers-Deborah Goodkind, went insane after Oxford examined her back in 1838. She died childless in Bedlam some years ago."

"A paradox," observed Darwin, in his weirdly harmonic voice. "For if she, in his history, had mothered his ancestor, then in approaching her he made himself doubly extinct!"

Oliphant gave a sibilant laugh: "This time-travel business seems excessively complicated!"

"More so than you imagine, my friend," croaked Beresford, "for when I gave him the list yesterday, I already possessed evidence that he's been acting upon it! Marian Steephill, Lucy Harkness, and Angela Tew had already been checked for the birthmark!"

"A further paradox," commented Darwin. "We are most intrigued!"

"My Lord Marquess," said Nightingale, "why did you not simply arrange to capture him here yesterday? You had eighteen years to organise it!"

"A good point, ma'am. As I have said, my belief in him was wavering; I was not convinced that I could trust my own memories, for the whole affair seemed utterly fantastic. Furthermore, the man who left me in 1843 was sick in mind and body, and his suit was failing. I had no guarantee that he would show up at the appointed time and since considerable resources will be required in order to capture him, I felt it best to wait until his presence was a.s.sured."

"Which is when?"

"Tomorrow evening. One of the girls, Alicia Pipkiss, lives in the family home; the very same cottage where Oxford a.s.saulted Jane Alsop back in 1838. It's on the outskirts of the village of Old Ford, not far from here. I told Oxford that she and her family are due to return there tomorrow evening after some years spent living overseas. This is a total fiction on my part-the girl is in the cottage now and has never travelled. I also told him that, for Miss Pipkiss, this is a fleeting visit to her family, for she will be moving to London the following day, though I don't know exactly where. Thus he has only one opportunity to get at her: after dark on September 30!"

"Excellent!" exclaimed Darwin. "My forces are at your disposal, Beresford!"

"As are mine!" chimed Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

"Thank you, gentlemen," responded the orangutan. "There is, however, a problem. As Oliphant can testify, for some reason that at present eludes me, the explorer and linguist Sir Richard Francis Burton has been taking an interest in the Battersea Brigade and, together with Detective Inspector Trounce, seems to be rather close to discovering the truth.

"Trounce has posted policemen in the vicinity of the Alsop cottage, so when Oxford appears and we strike, we must expect opposition."

Oliphant clenched his fists and hissed, "If Burton turns up, leave him to me. I insist upon it!"

The ape nodded. "One final thing. Isambard and I made a pact that, in return for the information I have given you tonight, I will be presented with a time suit if you manage to replicate the device. Failing that, if you can only repair Oxford's suit, then I will have access to it. Agreed?"

"Yes," came the answers.

The marquess bared his teeth, then stood and stretched his long s.h.a.ggy arms.

"Then let us organise our resources," he rasped. "I already have Libertines keeping watch on the cottage. Many more will arrive tomorrow. If a single one of them spots Oxford, he will alert me immediately. We will also need as many Technologists and wolf-men as you can muster!"

Sir Richard Francis Burton, lying flat on the gallery above the banqueting table, had heard enough. It was time to get out of Darkening Towers while he still could.

Gingerly, he eased himself backward until he crossed the threshold of the door at the top of the stairs; then, crouching low and treading softly, he descended and entered the cloakroom.

He rubbed dust from the front of his jacket and turned toward the door.

"h.e.l.lo, d.i.c.k," said a soft voice.

John Harming Speke stepped out from the shadows.

THE GATHERING FORCES.

Lieutenant Barton now said, "Don't step back, or they will think we are retiring." Chagrined by this rebuke at ray management in fighting, and imagining by the remark I was expected to defend the camp, I stepped boldly to the front, and fired at close gaar- ters into the first man before we.

-JOHN HANNING SPEKE.

-,y heavens! What have they done to you!" gasped Burton, for though Swinburne had told him about Speke's surgery, seeing for himself the bra.s.s mechanism that had replaced the upper-left side of his former friend's head and face was quite another thing.

"Saved me," replied Speke, quietly.

"Saved you? No, John. They've manipulated you! From the very start, they've manipulated you, made you their puppet! When you sailed from Zanzibar after our expedition, you fell in with Laurence Oliphant aboard ship, didn't you? It wasn't by chance! He was there specifically to cast a spell over you! He's a master mesmerist, John! It was he who turned you against me, he who polarised our a.s.sociates at the Royal Geographical Society, and he who caused you to turn a gun upon yourself. That wound was purposely inflicted! They wanted to replace half your d.a.m.ned brain!"

"Why?"

"I don't know-but one way or the other, I'm going to find out!"

"If you live."

"Will your betrayal run that deep? We were friends. We went through h.e.l.l together. I nursed you through illnesses and injuries and you did the same for me. Are you really going to throw all that away? Think, man! Think about the way things were; the way things can be again. Help me to fight these people, John!"

Suddenly Speke's face, which thus far had been entirely emotionless, was filled with perplexity, sorrow, and yearning.

"d.i.c.k," he gasped. "I shouldn't-I can't-I didn't-didn't-"

He reached up to the key that projected from the machinery above his left ear and started to wind it.

"I have to-to-to decide," he stuttered.

"Don't do that!" hissed Burton, but Speke continued to twist the key which, when he removed his hand, began to turn, emitting a low ticking. Through the round gla.s.s panel above his eye, a ma.s.s of tiny cogs could be glimpsed. They started to revolve.

It appeared to Burton as if reality suddenly took on a sharper edge. The spinning wheels in Speke's head seemed to reel in divergent destinies until they touched right here, now, in this room, making of it a crossroads. One route led from India, Arabia, and Africa to Fernando Po, Brazil, and Damascus; the other stretched from the seeds Edward Oxford had accidentally planted in the past to an unknown future in which he, Burton, as the king's agent, would have to deal with the resultant crazy, unbalanced world.

He sensed his doppelganger standing ready; they would plunge down the same road together, as one.

He backed away toward the door.

Speke turned his head to follow the movement. His human right eye was unfocused, but the rings around the gla.s.s lens of the left eye moved slightly, some clockwise, some in the opposite direction.

The key stopped revolving.

Speke made a decision.

Burton made a decision.

The king's agent dived through the door and fled down the hallway.

Speke threw is head back and bellowed: "Oliphant! Burton is here!"

As Burton raced past the junction with the short corridor leading to the ballroom, the gla.s.s doors at the end opened and the albino stepped through. Burton kept running and was swallowed by the darkness. Behind him he heard the panther-man shout: "Brunel! Get to the ship and loose the wolves!"

Guided by nothing more than memory, stumbling over debris and banging into walls, Burton retraced his steps in the direction of the room with the open window.

From not far behind him came a mocking voice: "I can see in the dark, Sir Richard!"

Down one pitch black pa.s.sageway and into another, Burton veered right, then left, then right again.

"I'm coming!" sang his pursuer.

Burton yanked his pistol from his jacket, stopped, twisted, raised it, and fired. The flash illuminated long walls with peeling paper and, at their far end, a white figure dressed in black, its pink eyes wide. The darkness snapped back and with it came a loud feline scream.

Got you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! thought Burton.

He ran on.

A light glimmered ahead.

He raised the pistol again.

"This way, Richard!" screeched a high-pitched voice.

Swinburne!

"d.a.m.nation! I told you to get back to Trounce!"

The little poet held up a guttering Lucifer and grinned.

"I half obeyed your order! Come on, in here!"

He quickly led Burton into a room and across to an open window. As they climbed out into the grounds, a shout reached them from inside the mansion: "You'll pay your debts, Burton!"

"Run as fast as you can!" snapped the famous explorer to his friend. "They're releasing loups-garous!"

"I've had enough of them!" piped Swinburne and sped away.

The king's agent followed, surprised by the smaller man's turn of speed.

A howl rose from the far side of Darkening Towers. It was joined by a second, a third, a fourth, and more.

"Faster, Algy," Burton panted.

They tore across the uneven ground, past the knotted trees and pools of squirming mist, toward the distant wall.