The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder [13]
She bobbed her head and departed.
Burton considered for a moment. It was too late in the evening to visit the hospital; that would have to wait until the morning, and if Speke didn't survive the night, then so be it. It was, however, never too late to visit the Cannibal Club. A few drinks with his Libertine friends would help to lift his spirits, and maybe Algernon Swinburne would be among them. Burton hadn't known the promising young poet for long but enjoyed his company immensely.
He made up his mind, changed his clothes, took another swig of brandy, and was just leaving the room when a tapping came at one of the windows. He crossed to it, a little clumsily, and saw a colourful parakeet sitting on the sill.
He pulled up the sash. A cloud of mist rolled in. The parakeet looked at him.
"Message from the stinking prime minister's office," it cackled. "You are requested to attend that prattle-brain Lord Palmerston at 10 Downing Street at nine o'clock in the morning. Please confirm, arse-face. Message ends."
Burton's brows, which usually arched low over his eyes in what appeared to be a permanent frown, shot upward. The prime minister wanted to meet with him personally? Why?
"Reply. Message begins. Appointment confirmed. I will be there. Message ends. Go."
"Bugger off!" squawked the parakeet, and launched itself from the sill.
Burton closed the window.
He was going to meet Lord Palmerston.
Bloody hell.
The Cannibal Club was located in rooms above Bartoloni's Italian Restaurant in Leicester Square.
Burton found the enigmatic and rather saturnine Richard Monckton Milnes there, in company with the diminutive Algernon Swinburne and Captain Henry Murray, Doctor James Hunt, Sir Edward Brabrooke, Thomas Bendyshe, and Charles Bradlaugh-hellraisers all.
"Burton!" cried Milnes as the explorer entered. "Congratulations!"
"On what?"
"On shooting that bounder Speke! Surely it was you who pulled the trigger? Please say it was so!"
Burton threw himself into a chair and lit a cigar.
"It was not."
"Ah, what a shame!" exclaimed Milnes. "I was so hoping you could tell us what it feels like to murder a man. A white man, I mean!"
"Why, yes, of course!" put in Bradlaugh. "You killed that little Arab boy on the road to Mecca, didn't you?"
Burton accepted a drink from Henry Murray.
"You know damned well I didn't!" he growled. "That bastard Stanley writes nothing but scurrilous nonsense!"
"Come now, Richard!" trilled Swinburne, in his excitable, high-pitched voice. "Don't object so! Do you not agree that murder is one of the great boundaries we must cross in order to know that we, ourselves, are truly alive?"
The famous explorer sighed and shook his head. Swinburne was youngjust twenty-four-and possessed an intuitive intelligence that appealed to the older man; but he was gullible.
"Nonsense, Algy! Don't let these Libertines mesmerise you with their misguided ideas and appallingly bad logic. They are incorrigibly perverse, especially Milnes here."
"Hah!" yelled Bendyshe from across the room. "Swinburne's as perverse as they come! He has a taste for pain, don't you know! Likes the kiss of a whip, what!"
Swinburne giggled, twitched, and snapped his fingers. As always, his movements were fast, jerky, and eccentric, as if he suffered from Saint Vitus's dance.
"It's true. I'm a follower of de Sade."
"It's a common affliction," noted Burton. "Why, I once visited a brothel in Karachi-on a research mission for Napier, you understand-"
Snorts and howls of derision came from the gathering.
-and there witnessed a man flagellated to the point of unconsciousness. He enjoyed it!"
"Delicious!" Swinburne shuddered.
"Maybe so, if your tastes run to it," agreed Burton. "However, flagellation is one thing, murder is quite another!"
Milnes sat beside Burton, leaning close.
"But, I say, Richard," he murmured, "don't you ever wonder at the sense of freedom one must feel when performing the act of murder? It is, after all, the greatest taboo, is it not? Break that and you are free of the shackles imposed by