Finally, as “Big Ben”—the bell recently installed in Westminster Palace’s St. Stephen’s Tower—chimed midnight, the resolute imbibing told. Bendyshe, Hunt, Murray, Brabrooke, and Bradlaugh took to armchairs, sprawled as loose as rag dolls, and produced only sporadic drunken murmurings, which ceased as Burton started to discuss Oliphant with Monckton Milnes, who—like the explorer—possessed greater immunity to the effects of alcohol than the other men. The rest listened, barely able to comprehend the account of Stroyan’s murder.
Monckton Milnes was a tall and lanky individual, rather saturnine in appearance, with the brow of an intellectual, long hair, and a preference for high collars and bright cravats. He was a wielder of influence in High Society; a writer; a poet; and a dabbler in politics. He also happened to be a keen collector of erotica and occult literature. His country manor, Fryston, in Yorkshire, contained the largest library of banned material anywhere in Europe.
Burton pulled his notebook from his pocket.
“What do you make of these? As I say, the grids and numbers were scrawled on the walls of the Orpheus’s observation room. There was a pentagram on the floor. Oliphant was standing in the middle of it when he slit Stroyan’s throat.”
Monckton Milnes took the book and examined the sketches.
“The pentagram has many associations,” he muttered, “but these are magic squares, so I suspect that, in this instance, the five-pointed star represents the coalescence of spirit into flesh. The squares are employed to map the path of manifestation, the idea being that something abstract is given such a strong conceptual route into the actual that it will have the means to become as real as you or I. Hum! I must confess, they have me flummoxed. Each diagram certainly offers a sequential passage from the notional to the material, but I cannot fathom how they relate to one another. Plainly, they do, and these central numbers—ten, eight, nine hundred, and one thousand—are the key. The question is, the key to what? I have no idea, Richard.”
“Are you acquainted with anyone who might know more?”
Monckton Milnes tapped his forefinger against his lips for a moment then answered, “Um. Yes. Possibly. Do you mind if I copy these pages? I’d like to send them to a Frenchman I’ve shared some correspondence with.”
“Be my guest.”
“Also, my prognosticator still sits for me, despite having retired a few years ago, but I could probably persuade her to make an exception for you. Will you see her? She might throw light on recent events.”
Burton emptied his glass and shook his head.
“She’s very good,” Monckton Milnes said.
“I don’t care for the species,” Burton protested.
“Still the prejudice? What if she can actually contact Stroyan? Surely you’d listen to his account of Oliphant’s ritual?”
“If I was certain it was Stroyan addressing me. But how could I be?”
“Because he’d tell you something only a spirit could know.”
Burton levelled his intense eyes at Monckton Milnes. “The dead communicate directly with me, you know.”
The older man looked surprised. “They do?”
“Yes, and they are telling me that you accompanied a young lady to the opening of the Theatre Royal earlier tonight, that you and she sat in the upper tier, and that you possess a romantic interest in her but did not make as much progress as you would have liked. She told you she was too preoccupied with her calling and could not at present give consideration to anything that might distract her from it.”
Monckton Milnes had raised a glass of wine to his lips as Burton started to speak. He now coughed, spluttered, and gasped, “Great heavens above! You don’t mean to say the spirits were watching over me during tonight’s performance?”
Burton gave a savage grin. “Do you mean the actors’ performance or your own?”
Snapping out of his drunken stupor, Bendyshe guffawed. “Ha ha! Poor old Monkey Milnes! It looks to me like he was the main act tonight!”
Monckton Milnes put aside his glass and squared his shoulders. “This is quite unacceptable! I demand to know who’s been spying on me from the Afterlife. Reveal your source, Burton.”
“And that,” the explorer said, “is how easy it is.”
“What the devil are you jabbering about?”
“Bazalgette is currently digging one of his sewers along the Strand, and I’ve read complaints in the newspapers about yellow dust spreading from the excavation.” Burton pointed at his friend’s feet. “You have such a deposit staining the edges of your boot soles, therefore you were in the area, and it must have been within the past few hours, else the dust would have been dislodged.”
Hunt and Murray roused themselves and leaned forward to hear more. Brabrooke and Bradlaugh, both flirting with the point of no return, emitted crooning rumbles and gentle whistles.
“For what reason were you in the Strand?” Burton continued. “It is Sunday, so only hotels and theatres are open. One or the other, then. Of the theatres, the Royal makes a great deal about being the only one illuminated by Stroud’s Patent Sun Lamp, an ingenious array of gas mantles that shine through a chandelier of cut glass. The arrangement has been much lauded by the press, though some reporters noted that it produces a waxy residue that drifts down onto the audience, especially those seated in the upper tiers. You have just such a residue on your jacket shoulders. Furthermore, when you arrived here, there were very slight indentations beneath your eyes, which suggested to me the prolonged use of opera glasses aimed downward at a stage.”
“Bravo, Richard!” James Hunt cheered.
Bendyshe clapped enthusiastically and cried out, “But what of the mysterious goddess?”
Burton took Monckton Milnes by the right wrist and raised his hand into the air. “Observe! A slight green stain between our friend’s forefinger and thumb signifies her presence. One can see by the hue that it is vegetable in origin, and two very slight nicks in the skin of his principal digit suggest the presence of thorns.”
“I was gardening,” Monckton Milnes objected.
“Is that so? Where, sir? Your gardens are a part of Fryston. Your town house has none. So no, you were not gardening, you were holding thorny stalks, the most obvious candidate being roses, which are the flowers of romance.”
Monckton Milnes’s shoulders slumped. “Gad! You’re a confounded sorcerer. And my rejection?”
“Simple. Had you not been spurned, you would not be here.”
Bendyshe, Hunt, and Murray let loose peals of laughter, which woke Brabrooke and Bradlaugh, who, being three sheets to the wind and not knowing what was going on, laughed along with them so as to not be unsociable.
Henry Murray said, “But—I say!—this business about the young lady’s calling?”
“That,” Burton said, “is public knowledge. In a small column in yesterday’s Daily Bugle, one of our lesser hacks took great delight in reporting that Mr. Richard Monckton Milnes, the well-known socialite, has been courting Miss Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse. She—as was also reported—is currently raising funds for her nurses’ training school at Saint Thomas’s Hospital. Knowing of her notoriously single-minded disposition, I consider it highly unlikely that she would allow the distractions of a romance to interfere with her vocation.”
Monckton Milnes slapped his hand to his forehead and groaned. “You are quite right. Florence stepped out to powder her nose during the interval and never returned. I sat through the second half of that bloody performance with her elderly chaperone huffing and puffing indignantly in my ear. I feel thoroughly humiliated.”
With renewed boisterousness, the gentlemen of the Cannibal Club toasted failed romance, then Richard Monckton Milnes, then Nurse Nightingale, then Burton, and finally each other.