Read Online Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) by Mark Hodder - Free Book Online Page A

mornin' pipe.”
    “Does Peter Pimlico live here?” Trounce demanded.
    “Aye. In t' flat upstairs. Ee durn't be in. Not fur'n week.”
    “I know. He's dead.”
    “Huh?”
    “He was murdered earlier tonight.”
    “Good. Ee were a dirty oik an nowt else. So?”
    “So we're here to search his rooms. Let us in.”
    The eye took in Trounce from his bowler hat to his police-issue boots, then flicked to Burton and examined his swarthy and scarred face and broad shoulders, then down to Swinburne, who stood with laurel leaves tangled in his long bright-red hair, which was sticking out wildly after the flight from Fryston.
    “A poet wit' trappers?”
    “Police pottery,” Swinburne said. “Ceramics Squad. Stand aside, please!”
    Trounce put his shoulder to the door and pushed, sending the man behind it reeling backward. “What's your name?” he demanded, stepping into the house.
    The man, who would have been tall were it not for his rickets-twisted legs, stood shivering in his striped nightshirt. He was wearing a nightcap over his straggly brown hair and bed socks on his large feet. There was a hole in the left one and his big toe was poking out. A smoking corncob pipe was clutched in his gnarled hand.
    “Ah be Matthew Keller. Thou can't barge int' us 'ouse like this!”
    “Yes, I can. It's your premises? You're the owner?”
    “Aye. Get thee out o' it!”
    “Not yet. So you rent the upstairs to Pimlico, is that right?”
    “Uh-huh, an' ah be glad t' be rid o' 'im, t' good-fer-nowt bastard.”
    “Trouble, was he?”
    “Aye! Alweez drunk n' thievin'.”
    “Any visits from foreign gentlemen?”
    “T'week past. Fat, ee were.”
    “Name?”
    “Durn't knah.”
    “Nationality?”
    “Durn't knah.”
    “Walrus moustache?”
    “Aye. Now then, ah 'ave t' get dressed fr' work.”
    “You'll do nothing without my leave. We're going up to Pimlico's rooms.”
    “They be locked.”
    “Do you have a master key?”
    “Aye.”
    “So get it!”
    Keller sighed impatiently.
    “Jump to it, man!” Trounce exploded.
    The householder flinched, then moved to the rear of the small hallway, opened a door beneath the staircase, and took a key from a hook. He returned and passed it to the detective.
    Trounce started up the stairs and Swinburne followed. As he passed Burton, who stepped up after him, the king's agent noticed that his assistant's grin had quickly faded.
    By nature, Swinburne's emotions were as fiery and wild as his hair, always changing rapidly, never consistent, and often entirely inappropriate. The poet was subject to a physiological condition that caused him to feel pain as pleasure, and, it seemed to Burton, this might be the origin of his quirky, unpredictable character. Emotional hurt, such as that caused by Bendyshe's demise, became internalised and concealed behind wayward behaviour, which, unfortunately, frequently involved the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. Swinburne's inability to judge what might harm him made him one of the bravest men Burton had ever met, but also one of the most dangerously self-destructive.
    “Follow us, Mr. Keller,” Trounce called. “I want to keep my eye on you.”
    Keller protested, “Us an't gon' t' do nowt,” but mounted the stairs behind his unwelcome visitors and struggled up, groaning at the effort. “Legs,” he complained. “Bad all us life.”
    Pimlico's flat consisted of a bed-sitting room and a kitchen. It stank of rancid lard and bacon and hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Threadbare clothes were scattered over the floor. A porcelain washbasin, containing dirty water and with a thick line of grime around its inner edge, stood on a dressing table in front of a cracked mirror. There was a cutthroat razor and a soiled bar of soap beside it. The sagging bed was unmade, a chair was piled with betting slips from the local dog track, and issues of the Leeds Enquirer were stacked beneath the window.
    Swinburne and Keller hung back while Burton and Trounce