Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

“Despicable!” Burton snarled.

“Indeed. But sadly-yowch!-all too common.”

“You don't feel guilty taking advantage of their misfortune?”

“Please, Richard! I never-ow!-lay a finger on them! I pay them to apply the birch, nothing more!”

“Humph!”

“Anyway, I happen to know that Betsy is an exception. She didn't suffer that cruel fate. She's the only one of them-oy!-who was born in a brothel. She's the daughter of-yow!-a madam. In other words, she's never known anything-oof!-different and has probably never harboured any expectations beyond being a-oh!-working girl.”

“The trammelled mind.”

“Ex-ah!-actly!”

No further incidents interrupted their journey, and they arrived some fifteen minutes later at Bartoloni's Italian restaurant in Leicester Square. It was closed and the window, which had apparently been broken, was boarded up.

Bartoloni responded to Burton's knocking. His eyes widened with surprise when he saw the blood on his visitor's face but he quickly regained his composure and acted as if there was nothing untoward.

“ Vi prego di entrare, signori,” he said, with a slight bow. “ Il ristorante e’ chiuso mai vostri amici sono al piano di sopra. ”

“ Grazie, signore,” Burton responded.

Passing through the eatery, he and Swinburne entered a door marked “Private” and ascended a staircase to the rooms above.

In a large, wood-panelled chamber, comfortably furnished and with its own bar, they found fellow members of the Cannibal Club: Captain Henry Murray, Dr. James Hunt, Thomas Bendyshe, Charles Bradlaugh, and, inevitably, Richard Monckton Milnes.

Tall, handsome, enigmatic, and saturnine in aspect, Milnes was one of Sir Richard Francis Burton's best friends and staunchest supporters. Rich and influential, he'd interceded many times in the past when lesser men had tried to undermine the famous explorer. He also owned the largest collection of erotica ever gathered by a private collector. It included everything written by the Marquis de Sade-plus thousands of banned volumes concerning witchcraft and the occult. He was, of course, a Libertine. However, he was also a man who, at an emotional level, separated himself from others, preferring to conduct all his relationships on a purely intellectual basis. Some thought him cold. Others, Burton among them, realised that he was simply one of life's onlookers, a man who studied everything but who never fully engaged with anything. This included the Libertine movement, which suited his temperament but failed to draw him in too deeply. He rarely became involved with its politics or various causes.

Burton and Swinburne entered the room to find Milnes standing in its centre pontificating about the latest Technologist developments.

“-so they take the species Scarabaeus sacer,” he was saying, “more commonly known as the scarab beetle, and their Eugenicists grow them to the size of a milk wagon!”

“Be damned!” Charles Bradlaugh exclaimed.

“I'm sure the Technologists will be, for once each beetle has matured, the engineers kill the poor creatures, scrape ’em out, and insert a seat and controls in the front and a bench and steam engine in the back. Thus a man can sit in the beetle, with his family behind him, and drive the blessed thing.”

“By thunder!” Henry Murray cried. “Yet another new species of vehicle!”

“My good man!” Milnes objected. “You're missing the point entirely. It's not a species of vehicle, it's a species of insect; and not just any insect, but the one held sacred by the ancient Egyptians! They are being grown on farms and summarily executed, without so much as a by-your-leave, for the express purpose of supplying a ready-made shell. And the Technologists have the temerity to name this vehicle the Folks’ Wagon! It is not a wagon! It's a beetle! It's a living creature, which mankind is mercilessly exploiting for its own ends. It's sacrilege!”

“Interesting that you should rail against the exploitation of insects by scientists when, it seems, the greater percentage of London's population is currently up in arms over the exploitation of the working classes by the aristocracy,” Burton declared. “Are labourers no better than insects, in your view?”

“Richard!” Milnes cried, turning to face the newcomers. “How good to see you! How long have you been standing there, and-by George!-why is that bestial face of yours covered in blood? Don't tell me you've been in yet another scrap? Are you drunk? Hallo, Swinburne!”

“We're perfectly sober.”

“I'm a little hungover, actually,” the poet added.

“You poor things! Hunt, old horse, supply these good fellows with a tipple at once. Large ones! It's a medical emergency! Murray, fetch a basin of water, there's a good chap.”

Burton and Swinburne collapsed into big leather armchairs and gratefully accepted the proffered drinks.

“What happened?” Bendyshe asked. “Did you get caught up in the public disorder like Brabrooke?”

“Brabrooke? What happened to him?”

“He was hit over the head with a spade. A crossing cleaner attacked him out of the blue, for no good reason.”

“He's all right,” said Bradlaugh. “He has a mild concussion and a nasty laceration but he'll be on his feet again in a couple of days.”

“Poor old Brabrooke!” Swinburne exclaimed.

“So you were in the thick of it too, hey?” Milnes asked.

“Somewhat,” Burton answered. “We were at Speakers’ Corner when the fracas began.”

“Ah ha!” Bendyshe shouted gleefully. “So you started it, hey? Was young Swinburne giving a public performance? Is that what set them off?”

“The performance wasn't from Algernon. It was from the Tichborne Claimant.”

“Gad!” Milnes exclaimed. “That character is certainly stirring up a hornets’ nest.”

“He is. We managed to extricate ourselves, but then, on the way here, we were set upon by a prostitute.”

The men burst out laughing.

“Ha ha!” Bendyshe yelled triumphantly. “Surely beastly Burton hasn't been trounced by a terrible trollop?”

“I can assure you that it was no laughing matter. And less of the ‘beastly,’ if you don't mind.”

“She was half crazed,” Swinburne said. “And she was lashing at us with whips!” He grinned and shuddered with pleasure.

“But what on earth did you do to set her off, dear boy?” Milnes asked.

“Took his shilling's worth and the shilling as well, I'll wager!” Bendyshe guffawed.

“Not a bit of it,” Burton grumbled. “We were on our way here and got caught up in it through no fault of our own.”

“The unwashed masses have gone mad,” opined Murray, who'd just reentered the room with a basin of warm water in his hands and white towels draped over his forearms. “It's this Tichborne character.”

“Yes, Milnes was just saying,” Bradlaugh offered.

“The Claimant's become some sort of figurehead,” Murray continued. “To the lower classes, he represents everything that's bad in an aristocrat and everything that's good in a working man, all wrapped up in one extremely bulbous bundle. It's patently absurd. Here, wipe the blood off yourselves. You look perfectly horrific.”

“It occurs to me,” said Burton, “that a symbol cannot gain such potency unless there's a real desire for it. Another port, if you please, Henry. I appear to have swallowed mine in a single gulp.”

He picked up a towel, dipped a corner into the water, and began to rub it over his face. He looked up at Richard Monckton Milnes. “As a matter of fact, the Tichborne situation is what we've come to talk to you about. The Claimant seems to have acquired a bodyguard of Rakes. Do you have any idea why?”

“Has he, indeed? That seems rather peculiar!”