Burton, though painfully aware of the disaster his impulsive visit to Shudders had caused, couldn’t help himself. He addressed the potato seller.

“Good evening, sir.”

“I ain’t done nuffink, yer lordship. I swears to it,” the man exclaimed, his tiny little eyes widening with fear.

“I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“But, all the same, I ain’t done a blessed thing. I’m innocent.”

“How much for a potato?”

“What? I mean, pardon? How much?”

“For a potato.”

The fellow smiled, his mouth widening to such a degree that Burton feared everything above it would be sliced off.

“Ah! I see! It’s a test, is it, yer lordship?” The man reached behind him to a brazier and pulled from it a baked potato. He wrapped it in newspaper and, with a courteous bow, held it out to Burton. “On the ’ouse, yer lordship, as is good an’ proper. Wiv me blessing.”

Burton took it. “May I ask your name?”

The other looked up and swallowed and blinked. “Please don’t report me. I really ain’t done nuffink wrong.”

“I have no intention of reporting you, my friend. I simply want to—I want to recommend you.”

A ripple passed through the globular body, and the man again grinned. “Ah! Well! Bloomin’ ’eck! That’s bloody marvellous, if you’ll pardon me language. The name’s Grub, sir. Grub the Tater Man.”

Burton turned and looked at Swinburne. The poet raised his eyebrows.

“And—and has your family traded on this corner for long?”

“Oh, forever! Since time immem—imum—”

“Immemorial.”

“Aye, immaterial! That’s the word, guvnor! It’s our patch, yer see. We was ’ere even back when there were sky.” Grub looked startled, as if realising he’d said something wrong. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anyfink by it. I knows me place.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grub,” Burton said. “I shall enjoy my potato later.”

He slipped the hot food into his pocket and, with the others, started to move away. They were stopped by Swinburne.

“Hold on,” he said, and turned to Trounce. “Pouncer, the embassy is destroyed. No doubt the palace will transfer its functions to New Centre Point or somewhere similar, but that’ll take time. This might be the perfect opportunity.”

“Humph!” Trounce grunted thoughtfully. “The city is unmonitored. You may be right, Carrots.”

The detective inspector addressed Burton. “Richard, show Mr. Grub your face.”

Grub looked from Trounce to Burton, his eyes wide. “Steady on,” he muttered in a worried tone. “I don’t want no trouble, gents.”

“My face?” Burton asked.

“Just momentarily,” Trounce said.

Puzzled, the king’s agent turned to face the potato seller. He reached up and pulled back his hood.

Grub’s eyes practically popped from his head. His huge mouth gaped open. “Bloody ’ell! Bloody ’ell! I’m goin’ to die! Oh no! I’m goin’ to die!”

“No, Mr. Grub,” Trounce said. “You’ll be quite alright. Hood up, Richard.”

Burton complied.

“But—but—but—” Grub stammered.

“Those who watch have been blinded,” Trounce said. “The moment is upon us, Mr. Grub.”

“But—you—aren’t you—?”

“We are not. We’re with you, sir.”

“Bloomin’ ’eck! Is it—is it that—I ’eard a whisper that the roof ’as fallen in not far from ’ere, m’lord. Is that it?”

“Yes. Certain measures have been taken. Soon, you’ll feel it. A sense of release. A need to take action. Follow the impulse.”

“Blimey.”

“You’ll spread the word? You understand who the true enemy is?”

“I does. We all does. We always ’ave done, ain’t we? But I’ll—won’t I?—I’ll not—”

“You won’t be detected.”

Grub made an indecisive movement, checked himself, then stiffened and saluted. “I’ll do me bit, sir!”

“Good man.”

Trounce returned the salute and led the chrononauts away.

“What the blazes was that all about?” Burton asked.

“You’ll soon see,” Trounce replied. He stepped out into the road. The traffic jerked to a stop. A few vehicles away, a boiler detonated and a cloud of white steam expanded from it.

They crossed Gloucester Place and moved into Dorset Street. Tenements leaned precariously over them, almost forming a tunnel. The shadows felt dirty and dangerous.

From behind came a further bellow, “Hot taters! Hot taters! Hot taters! As personally recommended by the Uppers! Come and buy and hear the word! Hear the word! Hot taters an’ hear the word!”

“A Grub,” Burton said to Swinburne. “Still there, on the same corner!”

“It’s perfectly marvellous,” the poet enthused. “Time has a little consistency, after all.” He shrieked and jumped back as a mountainous cyclopean individual lumbered past, his huge leathery hands dragging along the pavement.

Behind the beast, two constables came click-clacking on their stilts. The crowd recoiled away from them. The policemen passed the chrononauts without giving them any attention. Burton saw that, as Trounce had noted, they were exactly the same as those that attacked him in 1860.

“Sent back through history,” he whispered to himself. “And who could do that but Edward Oxford?”

Sadhvi Raghavendra stopped and knocked something unspeakable from the heel of her left boot. “Are there no street-crabs in the twenty-third century, William?”

“The nanomechs are supposed to consume waste material and use it for fuel,” Trounce responded. “Unfortunately, down here it accrues faster than even they can manage.”

“I suspect,” Swinburne added, “that Spring Heeled Jack purposely allows a measure of waste matter to accumulate. Having the inhabitants of the Underground wallow in their own detritus gives them a constant reminder of their status.”

They rounded the corner and entered Baker Street.

IT IS UP TO YOU TO RESCUE HUMANITY! TOIL FOR THE ANGLO-SAXON EMPIRE! WE MUST MARCH FORTH AND LIBERATE THE WORLD FROM THE SAVAGERY OF SOCIALISM!

“Was the world similar to this in the original 2202, Richard?” Herbert Wells asked. “In the single history that existed before time bifurcated?”

“As shown to me by the sane fragment of Oxford?” Burton responded. “No, it wasn’t like this at all. Certainly, London had greatly expanded and was filled with tall towers, but I received no impression of such an atrocious divide, no sense of this inequality.”

“Hmm. Curious. Insanity aside, if the Spring Heeled Jack intelligence has its origins in a considerably more pleasant future than this, why has he created such a dreadful alternative? Whence this twisted vision?”

“Perhaps it has its roots in my time,” Burton answered. “It was in the nineteenth century that he lost his mind. He appears to have taken what he saw there and developed it along such abhorrent lines that this,” he gestured around them, “is the result.”

“Did our world really have such evil potential in it?” Raghavendra asked. “I thought us enlightened.”

“You believed what you were told,” Burton said, “but consider the Cauldron. Was it not an aspect of London that could easily be the progenitor of this?” He glanced at a thin ten-foot-tall, six-armed, four-legged figure that came tottering by like a tumbling stack of broom handles. It was wearing Army reds and an officer’s hat, which it doffed flamboyantly to him, murmuring, “My lord.”

Burton pulled his hood more tightly over his head. From its depths, he examined the crowd as it parted in front of his group, trudging past to his left and right. He saw dull, suffering eyes and gaunt faces. A great many of the Lowlies bobbed their heads or touched their foreheads in respect. All appeared disconcerted by the presence of these “Uppers.”

Stilted figures prowled among them. The crowd shied away from the constables as they approached and cast hard looks at their backs after they’d passed. The Underground, Burton felt, was a pressure cooker, ready to explode.

“William!” he said.

Trounce halted. “What is it?”

Burton pointed across to the middle of Baker Street where a tall plinth divided the thoroughfare. It bore a large statue of a young woman. A plaque, attached to the base, declared, Her Majesty Queen Victoria, of the United Kingdoms of Europe, Africa and Australia, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India.