James Palmer - Shadows Through Time

“Yes, Algy?”

“’At the door of life, by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death.’”

More of the poet’s verse. Burton nodded to his old friend. “Get some rest, Algy.”

“Imust say, Captain,” said Abberline as they walked down the steps of Bedlam. “That raised far more questions than it answered.”

Burton said nothing as they exited the gate and walked slowly up the street. A mass of steel gray clouds had stacked up toward the east, giving the whole city a somber cast to match Burton’s mood. “A few things are immediately clear,” he offered as they moved away from the imposing insane asylum.

“Well, then would you kindly explain them to me?” said Abberline.

“I don’t think Algy is mad, merely affected by what happened to him two months ago, as anyone naturally would be. And I think he was trying to tell me something.”

“The shoggoths I understood,” said Abberline. “All too well. But what was that other rot about sphinxes and so forth?”

“I don’t know. Morlocks I have heard of, though, prior to our strange encounter beneath the streets last night.” Burton whistled, and a hansom clopped to stop before them. “Kew Gardens, please,” Burton told the driver as he and Abberline climbed inside.

“Yes?” said Abberline. “From whom?”

“Our mutual friend, the Time Traveler. I believe these Morlocks have something to do with his first journey through Time.”

“But what about that other stuff?” said Abberline. “Mycroft Holmes knows? I don’t like the sound of that at all. Things get downright mad when he’s involved.”

“Nor do I,” said Burton. “But I think Algy was trying to tell us something about consequences. The consequences of our actions.”

“Consequences of Time travel,” Abberline offered.

Burton nodded. “Perhaps. That’s why I must interview Herbert at once.”

They reached Kew Gardens within the hour, and Burton had the hansom’s driver take them right to Herbert’s doorstep. Paying the fare, they alighted and knocked loudly on the door. After almost a minute, Herbert’s housekeeper, Mrs. Watchett, appeared, scowling up at Burton.

“You again,” she said.

“Is your master at home?” said Burton. “I need to speak with him on an urgent matter.”

“He’s gone,” she said. “Again. Went down to his basement laboratory three days ago and, poof! Gone. Him and that queer contraption of his.”

“Did he given any indication of where he might have gone?” asked Abberline.

Ms. Watchett shrugged her hunched shoulders. “Probably to that future he’s always blabbing about. Not healthy, you ask me. Man wasn’t meant to go gallivantin’ through Time. Ain’t natural.”

Burton gave her his card. “Will you please be sure he gets this when he returns?”

She stared at the card as if it were a venomous snake before finally taking it. “Yes, sir.”

“Very good. Thank you,” said Burton. “Have a nice—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the door slammed shut in his face.

“She’s in a wee bit cross, isn’t she?” said Abberline.

“So it would appear,” said Burton. “Though based on our previous meeting I can’t say I blame her.”

“I suppose you’re right, Captain. After all, you did punch the poor man in the face, and my fellow coppers confiscated his Time Machine. Under the direct order of Mycroft Holmes, of course, but still.”

“Holmes,” said Burton as they walked back toward the street. “Algy mentioned him.”

“So?”

“So I’ve told him very little of Mycroft Holmes and my involvement with him and the Shadow Council,” said Burton. “I didn’t want to burden my fellow Cannibals with an overabundance of the strange. In any case it was all classified anyway.”

“But your friend Mr. Swinburne sounded as if he knew Mr. Holmes quite well.”

“Exactly. What if Algy’s time as a prisoner of the Great Race has given him a modicum of their abilities? What if he can see things that have occurred that he did not personally witness, or things that have yet to transpire?”

“By Jove,” said Abberline. “Are you saying he’s a bloody oracle?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s just as likely he’s gone mad, but for argument’s sake, let’s say he hasn’t.”

“He wasn’t making much sense,” offered Abberline.

“True. But perhaps he cannot make much sense of what he is seeing and experiencing. There were simply too many things he said that, while utter nonsense to anyone else, made perfect sense to us.”

Abberline shook his head. “You are right, Captain. Oh, but that most of it was the ravings of a lunatic. But what do we do about it? How do we follow any of his instructions?”

“Hopefully when the time is right, we will know,” said Burton. “In the meantime, I need an audience with Mycroft Holmes.”

“He’s been keeping us at arm’s length since the Great Race affair,” said Abberline. “I am afraid even I cannot get close to him. Though it’s been nice returning to actual normal police work.”

“That’s all right, Algy. He’ll see us. Or have his secrets published in the London Mail. Let’s go to the Diogenes Club.”

Burton and Abberline found Mycroft Holmes in his usual place, the Diogenes Club’s infamous Stranger’s Room. The elder Holmes stared up at them from his morning paper, seemingly more annoyed than surprised at seeing them there.

“I had believed our working relationship had reached its end,” he said, returning to the pages of The Daily Caller he was reading.

“So had I,” said Burton. “But something has come up. Something we believe you are involved in.”

“Oh?” Mycroft Holmes shook and folded the paper, placing it on a table beside him. “I am involved in so many things. Things to which the hoi polloi are not privy.”

“Spare me your condescension, Mycroft,” Burton countered. “I am in no mood for your foppery.”

Mycroft Holmes looked taken aback. “You are forgetting yourself, sir.”

“I forget nothing. At your urging, I have saved this city a myriad of times now. Therefore, it would behoove you to listen for once instead of turning up your nose and barking orders.”

Mycroft Holmes shook inwardly. He was not the type to be rattled easily, and it made Burton proud that he was able to discomfit him so. “Fine,” he said. “What do you want?”

Burton told him everything that had transpired in their meeting with Swinburne.

“It sounds as if your friend is quite mad,” said Mycroft Holmes when Burton was finished. “For that I am truly sorry. But I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

“You don’t?” Burton spat. “Well let me spell it out for you. Algy mentioned you by name. The two of you have never met, and I have never told him what I did on your behalf.”

“He also mentioned the Morlocks, sir,” added Abberline. “Those things we encountered in the tunnels just last night. How could he have known about that?”

Mycroft shrugged his shoulders. “They get newspapers in Bedlam, don’t they?”

“He’s been tied in a straitjacket and near catatonic,” said Burton. “I believe his time among the Great Race of Yith has imbued him with a modicum of their abilities. I think he can see all the myriad strands of Time at once.”

Mycroft Holmes shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Do you have any evidence to support this hypothesis?”

“Only what Algy told me about you, these Morlocks, whatever they are, and other things he couldn’t have otherwise known about.”