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Mes yeux discernent mieux les choses que la puplart ici. Je vois a travers votre masque. Rencontrez moi vers la Thames, an bout de Mews Street dans moins dune heure.

My eyes are more discerning than most here, Burton translated rapidly. I see through your mask. Meet me at the Thames end of Mews Street within the hour.

He put the note in his pocket and moved over to Peg-Leg's side.

"'Ere, mate, I gotta get to Mews Street," he grumbled in a low voice. "Which way is it?"

"What's yer business there?" asked Peg-Leg, his rheumy eyes looking Burton up and down.

"My business, that's what!" responded Burton.

"All right, fella, no need to get shirty. That alley over there-take it down to the river then turn right 'n' follow the bank-side road 'til you come to a pawn shop what's closed an' boarded up. That's the corner of Mews Street. You gonna be all right on yer own? You know yer shooter got pinched?"

"Yus, the thievin' bastards. I'll manage, matey. Me bruvver is expectin' me an' I'm already a good five hours late!"

"Stopped off at a boozer, hey?"

"Yus."

"Sorry abaht yet boy, Dad. Fucking bad way to go."

Burton forced himself to give a heartless East End shrug and moved away, shuffling into the clouded mouth of the alley that the one-legged man had indicated. The increasing distance between himself and Penniforth strained behind him; stretched to its snapping point-but didn't snap. It, like Stroyan's death and Speke's suicide, would pull at his heart for the rest of his life; he knew that, and he realised the commission he'd received from Palmerston-to be "king's agent"-carried with it a terribly heavy price.

The alley was cramped, almost entirely devoid of light, and ran crookedly down a slight slope toward the river. Burton kept his fingers on the right-hand wall and allowed it to guide him. He repeatedly stumbled over prone bodies. Some cursed when his foot struck them; others moaned; most remained silent.

His mouth felt sour with vomit and alcohol. The toxic fog burned his eyes and nostrils. He wanted to go home and forget this disastrous expedition. He wanted to forget all his disastrous expeditions.

Dammit, Burton! Settle down! Become consul in Fernando Po, Brazil, Damascus, and wherever the fuck else they send you! Write your damned books!

He walked on, and when a man stepped into his path and said, "'Oo do we 'ave 'ere, then?" Burton didn't reply or miss a step but simply rammed a fist as hard as he could into the man's stomach. He kept going, leaving the wretch lying in the fetal position behind him.

Every few yards, his hand fell away from the wall as he encountered junctions with other passages. Each time, he walked ahead keeping his arm outstretched until he came to the opposite corner. Eventually, instead of a corner, he found railings spanning his path, and by the intensity of the stench realised that he'd crossed the Thames-side road and was beside the river. He returned to the other side of the street, found the wall, and staggered on in a westward direction.

As he pushed on through the bilious fog, the fumes seeped into his bloodstream, starving his brain of oxygen. He began to feel a familiar sensation, a feeling which had haunted his malarial deliriums in Africa. It was the notion that he was a divided identity; that two persons existed within him, ever fighting to thwart and oppose each other.

The death of Penniforth became their battlefield. Pervading guilt struggled with a savage desire for revenge; the impulse to flee from this king's agent role wrestled with the determination to find out where the loups-garous came from and why they were, apparently, abducting children.

"Monsieur!"

The word was hissed from a doorway.

Burton stopped and fought a sudden wave of dizziness. He could just about make out a figure crouched in a rectangle of denser shadow.

"Monsieur!" came the whisper again.

"Dore?" he said, softly.

"Oui, Monsieur."

Burton moved into the doorway and said,