Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (6 page)

“Nothing to tell us who the foreigner might be,” Trounce ruminated. “And no clue as to where Pimlico lived in Leeds.”

“There's this,” Burton said. He held out the tobacco pouch—the brand was Ogden's Flake—with the flap open. On the inside, an address was printed in blue ink:
Tattleworth Tobacconist, 26 Meanwood Road, Leeds.

“If this is his local supplier, perhaps the proprietor will know him.”

“Humph!” Trounce grunted. “Well, that's something, anyway. Let's wait for the constable, then we'll leg it back to Fryston. There are plenty of rotorchairs there—I'll commandeer one. It'll be close on dawn by the time I get to Leeds. No sleep for me tonight!”

“Nor for me,” Burton said. “I'm coming with you.”

“And so am I,” Swinburne added.

Some minutes later, footsteps sounded on the stairs and a young policeman appeared, looking somewhat dishevelled and unshaven. Mr. Emery lurked behind him.

“There hasn't really been murder done, has there?” the constable blurted. He saw Pimlico's body. “Blimey! In Thorpe Willoughby! And who are you gentlemen, if you'll pardon my asking?”

“I'm Detective Inspector Trounce of Scotland Yard. This is His Majesty's agent, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and his assistant, Mr. Algernon Swinburne. To whom do you report, lad?”

“To Commissioner Sheridan in Leeds.”

Trounce spoke rapidly: “Very well. I want you to wake up your local postmaster and get a message to the commissioner. Inform him that this chap—his name was Peter Pimlico—was strangled to death by an as yet unidentified foreigner. Then get the county coroner to call first at Fryston, then here to take care of business. I'll report to Commissioner Sheridan myself, later this morning.”

“Yes, sir. Fryston, sir? Why so?”

“Because this scoundrel—” Trounce gave Pimlico's corpse a disdainful glance, “—poisoned to death a guest there.”

Constable Flanagan gaped, swallowed, then saluted.

“What about me?” Emery grumbled. “Can I get back to me bleedin' bed?”

Trounce snorted. “If you think you can sleep with a corpse in the house, by all means. First, though, tell me—when did Pimlico start renting this room?”

“Five days ago.”

“Did he receive any visitors before tonight?”

“Nope.”

“What did he do while he was here?”

“Got drunk in the local boozer, mostly.”

“Did he cause you any trouble?”

“Not so much as he's bleedin' well caused since he kicked the bucket! He just thumped up an' down the stairs when he was comin' an' goin', that's all.”

“Were there any letters delivered for him?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Nope, 'cept he said he was here to get work with Howell's agency.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothin'.”

A few minutes later, Trounce, Burton, Swinburne, and Fidget were retracing their steps to Monckton Milnes's place. Glancing back at Thorpe Willoughby, Swinburne noted that the trail of steam had almost vanished.

“Which direction to Leeds?” he asked.

“West,” Trounce answered.

“Our strangler flew south. I wonder why he killed Pimlico?”

“Perhaps to stop him talking,” Burton said. “I'm certain I've never encountered him before, so I doubt he had any personal motive for doing away with me. I rather think he was hired to do it by our mysterious foreigner. He probably expected to be paid and assisted in escaping from the area tonight. Instead, he was killed.”

“Ruthless,” Swinburne muttered, “although I can't say he didn't deserve his fate, the bounder! But what of the strange growth?”

“That,” Burton said, “is a much bigger mystery. It seems unlikely that it was in his mouth earlier this evening, while he was playing waiter at Fryston. Such a rapidly growing monstrosity smells to me of the Eugenicists and the botanist Richard Spruce.”

They reached Fryston and found that a great many of the guests had already departed, despite the hour.

“I've sealed off the music room,” Monckton Milnes reported. “Poor Bendyshe will have to stay there until someone comes for him.”

“The coroner is on his way,” Burton reported. “May I ask a couple of favours of you?”

“Of course, anything I can do.”

“We need to borrow three rotorchairs. We have to fly to Leeds immediately.”

“Take mine, Jim Hunt's, and Charlie Bradlaugh's. They're on the front lawn. I'll walk you to them.”

“Thank you. I presume Mrs. Angell has gone to bed?”

“Yes. I gave her one of my best guest rooms.”

“Would you ask Captain Lawless to accompany her and Fidget to the airfield in the morning? Trounce, Algy, and I will have to fly there directly from Leeds. We'll see to it that the rotorchairs are delivered back to you later in the day.”

“I'll take her myself, Richard. I want to see you off.”

Monckton Milnes escorted his friends out of the house and to a group of flying machines parked in the grounds. As they walked, he pulled Burton back a little from Swinburne and Trounce and whispered, “Has this any connection with your mission to Africa?”

Burton shrugged. “I don't know. It's certainly possible, maybe even probable.”

They reached the rotorchairs and Monckton Milnes watched as the three men placed their hats in the storage boxes, put goggles over their eyes, and buckled themselves into the big leather seats.

“See you later, chaps,” he said. “And best of luck!”

They started their engines, which belched out clouds of steam. Above their heads, blade-like wings unfolded from vertical shafts and began to spin, rotating faster and faster until they became invisible to the eye.

Burton gave his friend a wave, then pulled back on a lever. The runners of his machine lifted from the grass and it rose rapidly on a cone of vapour. Swinburne and Trounce followed, and the three rotorchairs arced away and vanished into the night sky, leaving silvery white trails behind them.

An orange glow lit the eastern sky as three flying machines descended onto the cobbles of Black Brewery Road. Two of them touched the ground gently; the third hit it with a thump and skewed sideways for five feet amid a shower of sparks before coming to rest.

“Ridiculous bloody contraptions!” Trounce cursed. He turned off the engine, waited for the wings to fold, then disembarked and joined Burton and Swinburne.

It was their third landing in Leeds. The first had been to ask a constable on his night beat for directions. The second had been outside the Tattleworth Tobacconist on Meanwood Road.

Mr. Tattleworth, swearing volubly at his rude awakening, had eventually confirmed that he knew Peter Pimlico.

“A bloody thief,” he'd said. “What you might call a denizen of the underworld. But a regular customer. Lives a couple o' streets away. Number seventeen Black Brewery Road.”

They could have walked, but, preferring to keep their vehicles in sight, they took off and almost immediately landed again.

“It's this one,” Swinburne said, pointing at a terrace. “Let's see how many profanities our next customer can spit at us!” He reached for the door knocker and banged it with gusto.

After a couple of minutes and a second attack on the door, a gruff and muffled voice came from behind it.

“Oo's thah?”

“Police,” Trounce barked.

“Prove 'tis!”

“I have credentials,” Trounce said impatiently. “Open up and I'll show you.”

“Ah durn't believe thee. 'Tis a trick. Thou b'ain't no trapper. A tallyman, more like!”

Swinburne squealed. “Ha-ha! Tallyman Trounce!”

“Oo were thah?” came the voice.

“Algernon Swinburne!” Swinburne called. “The poet!”

There was a moment of silence, then the voice said, “Ah durn't need owt pottery fro' thee! Be off an' durn't come bah!”

“Sir!” Trounce bellowed. “Open the blasted door this very moment or I'll kick the damned thing in!”

The rattle of a chain sounded and a key turned in the lock. The door opened a crack and a rheumy eye peered out.

“Wah durst thou want? Ah aren't dressed. Am havin' us mornin' pipe.”

“Does Peter Pimlico live here?” Trounce demanded.

“Aye. In t' flat upstairs. Ee durn't be in. Not fur'n week.”

“I know. He's dead.”

“Huh?”

“He was murdered earlier tonight.”

“Good. Ee were a dirty oik an nowt else. So?”

“So we're here to search his rooms. Let us in.”

The eye took in Trounce from his bowler hat to his police-issue boots, then flicked to Burton and examined his swarthy and scarred face and broad shoulders, then down to Swinburne, who stood with laurel leaves tangled in his long bright-red hair, which was sticking out wildly after the flight from Fryston.

“A poet wit' trappers?”

“Police pottery,” Swinburne said. “Ceramics Squad. Stand aside, please!”

Trounce put his shoulder to the door and pushed, sending the man behind it reeling backward. “What's your name?” he demanded, stepping into the house.

The man, who would have been tall were it not for his rickets-twisted legs, stood shivering in his striped nightshirt. He was wearing a nightcap over his straggly brown hair and bed socks on his large feet. There was a hole in the left one and his big toe was poking out. A smoking corncob pipe was clutched in his gnarled hand.

“Ah be Matthew Keller. Thou can't barge int' us 'ouse like this!”

“Yes, I can. It's your premises? You're the owner?”

“Aye. Get thee out o' it!”

“Not yet. So you rent the upstairs to Pimlico, is that right?”

“Uh-huh, an' ah be glad t' be rid o' 'im, t' good-fer-nowt bastard.”

“Trouble, was he?”

“Aye! Alweez drunk n' thievin'.”

“Any visits from foreign gentlemen?”

“T'week past. Fat, ee were.”

“Name?”

“Durn't knah.”

“Nationality?”

“Durn't knah.”

“Walrus moustache?”

“Aye. Now then, ah 'ave t' get dressed fr' work.”

“You'll do nothing without my leave. We're going up to Pimlico's rooms.”

“They be locked.”

“Do you have a master key?”

“Aye.”

“So get it!”

Keller sighed impatiently.

“Jump to it, man!” Trounce exploded.

The householder flinched, then moved to the rear of the small hallway, opened a door beneath the staircase, and took a key from a hook. He returned and passed it to the detective.

Trounce started up the stairs and Swinburne followed. As he passed Burton, who stepped up after him, the king's agent noticed that his assistant's grin had quickly faded.

By nature, Swinburne's emotions were as fiery and wild as his hair, always changing rapidly, never consistent, and often entirely inappropriate. The poet was subject to a physiological condition that caused him to feel pain as pleasure, and, it seemed to Burton, this might be the origin of his quirky, unpredictable character. Emotional hurt, such as that caused by Bendyshe's demise, became internalised and concealed behind wayward behaviour, which, unfortunately, frequently involved the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. Swinburne's inability to judge what might harm him made him one of the bravest men Burton had ever met, but also one of the most dangerously self-destructive.

“Follow us, Mr. Keller,” Trounce called. “I want to keep my eye on you.”

Keller protested, “Us an't gon' t' do nowt,” but mounted the stairs behind his unwelcome visitors and struggled up, groaning at the effort. “Legs,” he complained. “Bad all us life.”

Pimlico's flat consisted of a bed-sitting room and a kitchen. It stank of rancid lard and bacon and hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Threadbare clothes were scattered over the floor. A porcelain washbasin, containing dirty water and with a thick line of grime around its inner edge, stood on a dressing table in front of a cracked mirror. There was a cutthroat razor and a soiled bar of soap beside it. The sagging bed was unmade, a chair was piled with betting slips from the local dog track, and issues of the
Leeds Enquirer
were stacked beneath the window.

Swinburne and Keller hung back while Burton and Trounce went over the rooms.

“Notebook!” the Scotland Yard man exclaimed, lifting a small bound volume from the bed. He flicked through it, page by page. “Nothing but odds on dogs. He was a gambler, this Pimlico fellow.”

“Ee were a loser,” Keller said. “Lost every bleedin' penny ee earned. Nearly alweez late wit' rent.”

“How was he employed?” Burton asked.

“At t' Pride-Manushi factory, packagin' velocipede parts what they send to salesrooms o'er in Coventry. But ee was laid off a fortnight since, after ee got nabbed fr' thievin'.”

Burton's eyebrows arched. “What happened?”

“Ee climbed through t' window at Cat n' Fiddle, skanked a couple o' bottles o' whisky, an' jumped straight out int' arms o' trappers. Spent a night in clink.”

Trounce frowned. “Just one night? After breaking into a public house?”

“Aye.”

“Where was he held?”

“Farrow Lane Police Station.”

Some minutes later, the detective inspector called to Burton, who was searching the kitchen: “Captain, your opinion, please.”

Trounce pointed down at the bare floorboards near the window. Burton stepped over, looked, and saw a small glob of something blackish and fibrous. He squatted, took a pencil from his pocket, scraped its end in the dried-up substance, then raised it to his nose.