The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder [71]
"Reading what?"
"Anything at all, Captain, though he prefers poetry and factual to fiction."
"Very well. Thank you, Quips. Here's a shilling to be going on with."
Oscar touched his cap, winked, moved away, and yelled, "Evenin' paper! Confederate forces enter state of Kentucky! Read all about it!"
"What an extraordinary child!" exclaimed Swinburne.
"Yes, indeed. He's destined for great things, is young Oscar Wilde," answered Burton.
"But see here, my friend," shrilled the poet, "I'll be left in the dark no longer! Spring Heeled Jack, a werewolf, and the Beetle. What extraordinary affair have you got yourself involved in? It's time to tell all, Richard. I'll not move another step until you do."
Burton considered his friend for a moment, then said, "I'll tell you, but can I trust you to keep it under your hat?"
"Yes."
"Your word?"
"My word."
"In that case, once we're in a hansom and on our way to Battersea, I'll explain."
He swung around and strode out of the square, with Swinburne bouncing at his side.
"Wait!" demanded the poet. "We aren't catching a hansom now?"
"Not yet. There's a place I want to visit first."
"What place?"
"You'll see."
"Why must you be so insufferably mysterious?"
They made their way through the early evening crowd of perambulators, hawkers, labourers, buskers, beggars, vagabonds, dollymops, and thieves until they reached Vere Street. There Burton stopped outside a narrow premises which stood hunched between a hardware shop and the Museum of Anatomy. Beside its bright yellow door, a tall blue-curtained window had stuck upon its inside a sheet of paper upon which was written in a swirling hand the legend:
The astonishing COUNTESS SABINA, seventh daughter, CHEIROMANTIST PROGNOSTICATOR, tells your past, present, and future, gives full names, tells exact thought or question on your mind without one word spoken; reunites the separated,: removes evil influences; truthful predictions and satisfaction guaranteed.
Consultations f 11 AM until 2 PM and f 6 PM to 9 PM
Please enter and wait until called.
"You're joking!" said Swinburne.
"Not at all."
Burton had heard about this place from Richard Monckton Milnes. He and the older man had long shared an interest in the occult and Monckton Milnes had once told Burton there was no better palmist in all London than this one.
They entered.
Beyond the front door the adventurer and his companion found a short and none-too-clean passageway of naked floorboards and cracked plaster walls lit by an oil lamp that hung from the stained ceiling. They walked its length and pushed through a thick purple velvet curtain, entering a small rectangular room that smelled of stale sandalwood incense. Wooden chairs lined the undecorated walls. Only one was occupied. It was sat upon by a tall, skinny, and prematurely balding young man with watery eyes and bad teeth, which he bared at them in what passed for a smile.
"The wife's in there!" he said in a reedy voice, nodding toward a door beside the curtained entrance. "If you wait with me until she finishes, you can then go in."
Burton and Swinburne sat. The room's two gas lamps sent shadows snaking across their faces. Swinburne's hair took on the appearance of fire.
The man stared at Burton. "My goodness, you've been in the wars! Did you fall?"
"Yes he did. Down the stairs in a brothel," interposed Swinburne, crossing his legs.
"Great heavens!"
"They were throwing him out. Said his tastes were too exotic."
"Er-erotic?" spluttered the man.
"No. Exotic. You know what I mean, I'm sure." He made the sound of a swishing cane.
"Why, y-yes, of-of course."
Burton grinned savagely, looking like the very devil himself. "You fool, Algy!" he whispered.
The man cleared his throat once, twice, three times, before managing: "Eroti-I mean exotic, hey? What? I say! And-er-well-tallyho!"
"Are you familiar with the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana?" asked Swinburne.
"The, um, the-the K-Kama-?"
"It offers guidance in the art of lovemaking. This gentleman has just begun translating