Read Online The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) by Mark Hodder - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mark Hodder
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mind. Nietzsche. Berserkers. Death. Destruction.
Please, no! I lost Isabel in this life, too! Isabel! Isabel!
Forty minutes later, Orpheus stopped outside the hotel.
Burton jumped to the pavement and crossed it. People moved past him like wraiths, quickly and silently, as if in the grip of some nameless dread.
He tipped his hat to the doorman, entered, walked across the opulent black-and-white chequer-floored reception area toward the staircase, then suddenly hesitated and changed course. He approached the front desk.
“I’m here to see Mr. Edward Burton,” he said. “The minister. Suite five, fifth floor.”
The night clerk pursed his lips, causing the ends of his waxed moustache to stick out like little horns, checked the guest register, and shook his head. “We don’t have anyone by that name, sir.”
“He’s a permanent resident.”
“I’m afraid not. Suite five, you say? Those rooms have been empty for the past three days. The last occupant was the Spanish ambassador, Signor Delgado. He was killed during the troubles. Perhaps you have the wrong hotel.”
Burton said thank you and departed. He remounted his steed. “Take me to Cheyne Walk.”
“Mr. Swinburne’s?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to get drunk?”
“Mind your own damned business.”
Orpheus trotted westward following the Thames upstream back toward Chelsea Bridge. Foghorns sent their mournful blasts into the pall. Big Ben chimed midnight.
“By God! Where am I?” Burton cried out, for St. Stephen’s Tower had been blown to smithereens last November, and, even before that, its bell had cracked and stopped working. Suddenly, he felt horribly lost, terribly alone.
A sense of urgency—near panic—overtook him. Why was he in this familiar yet alien London? What had thrown him here? How could he return to his own world?
“Go as fast as you can,” he commanded.
“Hold on tight,” the clockwork horse advised. “I might have to stop abruptly.”
With metal hooves clacking, the steed set off at a gallop.
A breeze had got up, and the blanket of fog was shredding. It parted just ahead, revealing the back of a slow-moving hansom cab. Burton had to quickly jerk the reins to steer his armadillidium around it.
He looked down.
Armadillidium?
“From what yer might call a filler-soffickle standpoint,” Herbert Spencer declared, “I ain’t averse to the idea what that time can divide into separate ’istories. An’ I must admit, I quite likes the possibility that there’s more ’n one o’ me, an’ that some o’ the others might ’ave ’ad better hopportunities than what I’ve ’ad. It’s a rum do—hey?—to fink there might be an ’Erbert Spencer somewhere what’s a bloomin’ toff with an heducation n’ all!”
Spencer was sitting behind Lieutenant Richard Francis Burton on a saddle-like seat mounted on the back of a massive woodlouse—of the genus armadillidium giganticus . Burton was steering the crustacean along Nine Elms Lane toward Battersea Castle. There were many more of the creatures on the road, some with as many as five passengers upon their plated backs.
“In your case, Herbert,” the explorer responded, “I suspect the profundity of your intelligence is probably the same in every version of the world. If, in a parallel existence, you are better educated, then perhaps it allows you to express yourself in a rather more erudite manner, with the consequence of greater attention and respect from the intelligentsia, but you’ve never struck me as a man who particularly desires to be feted.”
“Nah,” Spencer agreed. “All that attention? It ain’t fer the likes o’ me. The appeal of bein’ a toff is a full stomach, that’s all.”
Burton was suddenly hit by a vertiginous sense of falling. He tugged at the armadillidium’s reins, as if trying to avoid something that wasn’t there, and gave a cry of alarm. From behind him a voice said, “Cor blimey! Steady on! You nearly ’ad us off the
Please, no! I lost Isabel in this life, too! Isabel! Isabel!
Forty minutes later, Orpheus stopped outside the hotel.
Burton jumped to the pavement and crossed it. People moved past him like wraiths, quickly and silently, as if in the grip of some nameless dread.
He tipped his hat to the doorman, entered, walked across the opulent black-and-white chequer-floored reception area toward the staircase, then suddenly hesitated and changed course. He approached the front desk.
“I’m here to see Mr. Edward Burton,” he said. “The minister. Suite five, fifth floor.”
The night clerk pursed his lips, causing the ends of his waxed moustache to stick out like little horns, checked the guest register, and shook his head. “We don’t have anyone by that name, sir.”
“He’s a permanent resident.”
“I’m afraid not. Suite five, you say? Those rooms have been empty for the past three days. The last occupant was the Spanish ambassador, Signor Delgado. He was killed during the troubles. Perhaps you have the wrong hotel.”
Burton said thank you and departed. He remounted his steed. “Take me to Cheyne Walk.”
“Mr. Swinburne’s?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to get drunk?”
“Mind your own damned business.”
Orpheus trotted westward following the Thames upstream back toward Chelsea Bridge. Foghorns sent their mournful blasts into the pall. Big Ben chimed midnight.
“By God! Where am I?” Burton cried out, for St. Stephen’s Tower had been blown to smithereens last November, and, even before that, its bell had cracked and stopped working. Suddenly, he felt horribly lost, terribly alone.
A sense of urgency—near panic—overtook him. Why was he in this familiar yet alien London? What had thrown him here? How could he return to his own world?
“Go as fast as you can,” he commanded.
“Hold on tight,” the clockwork horse advised. “I might have to stop abruptly.”
With metal hooves clacking, the steed set off at a gallop.
A breeze had got up, and the blanket of fog was shredding. It parted just ahead, revealing the back of a slow-moving hansom cab. Burton had to quickly jerk the reins to steer his armadillidium around it.
He looked down.
Armadillidium?
“From what yer might call a filler-soffickle standpoint,” Herbert Spencer declared, “I ain’t averse to the idea what that time can divide into separate ’istories. An’ I must admit, I quite likes the possibility that there’s more ’n one o’ me, an’ that some o’ the others might ’ave ’ad better hopportunities than what I’ve ’ad. It’s a rum do—hey?—to fink there might be an ’Erbert Spencer somewhere what’s a bloomin’ toff with an heducation n’ all!”
Spencer was sitting behind Lieutenant Richard Francis Burton on a saddle-like seat mounted on the back of a massive woodlouse—of the genus armadillidium giganticus . Burton was steering the crustacean along Nine Elms Lane toward Battersea Castle. There were many more of the creatures on the road, some with as many as five passengers upon their plated backs.
“In your case, Herbert,” the explorer responded, “I suspect the profundity of your intelligence is probably the same in every version of the world. If, in a parallel existence, you are better educated, then perhaps it allows you to express yourself in a rather more erudite manner, with the consequence of greater attention and respect from the intelligentsia, but you’ve never struck me as a man who particularly desires to be feted.”
“Nah,” Spencer agreed. “All that attention? It ain’t fer the likes o’ me. The appeal of bein’ a toff is a full stomach, that’s all.”
Burton was suddenly hit by a vertiginous sense of falling. He tugged at the armadillidium’s reins, as if trying to avoid something that wasn’t there, and gave a cry of alarm. From behind him a voice said, “Cor blimey! Steady on! You nearly ’ad us off the
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