“By Gad!” Bendyshe bellowed. “My bloody astrologist warned me off port—said it’d be the death of me! If it’s all chicanery, I’ve been denying myself for nothing! Open a bottle at once!”

The lull had passed. Thomas Bendyshe resumed his relentless foghorn-volume raillery; Henry Murray left the room to order a pot of coffee from Bartolini’s but returned with a fresh bottle of brandy; Charles Bradlaugh, apropos of nothing, proclaimed that the word “gorilla” was derived from the Greek “gorillai,” which meant “tribe of hairy women,” and proceeded along a course of speculation which, had the authorities been present, would doubtless have landed him in prison; Doctor James Hunt employed his medical knowledge to mix cocktails of foul taste and terrifying potency; and Sir Edward Brabrooke propped himself in a corner with a fixed grin on his face and, over the course of thirty minutes, very, very slowly slid to the floor.

Amid the uproar, Burton quietly told Monckton Milnes, “My point wasn’t to embarrass you but to demonstrate that, with a practised eye, any individual can discern a great deal about any other and pass it off as information received from the Afterlife. I suspect a little mesmerism is involved, too, just to make the victim more gullible.”

“And I suppose you, being an accomplished mesmerist yourself, cannot fall under another’s spell?”

“Correct.”

“But surely you don’t consider all spiritualists fraudulent? Why, there’s practically one on every street corner. The business has been flourishing for twenty years. If they were all duplicitous, it would be the swindle of the century.”

Burton was silent for a moment. Twenty years. Spiritualists had first claimed they could speak with the dead just weeks after The Assassination. Interesting.

“Certainly,” he said, “I accept that a few—and I emphasise, a few—practitioners might actually glimpse the future or gain unusually penetrating insight into a matter, but I attribute such occurrences to an as yet undiscovered natural function of the human organism; a ‘force of will,’ if you like, that enables a person to sense what they cannot feel, see, hear, touch, or taste. There is nothing supernatural involved. I do not hold with the soul or spirit—a self within a self; an I within an I—that continues to exist after the body has ceased to function yet still concerns itself with corporeal matters. The very notion is utter rot. The dead, my friend, are well and truly dead.”

“I cannot agree,” Monckton Milnes protested. “My prognosticator’s positive influence has been far more significant and widespread than I can possibly tell you. You should consult with her.”

“Perhaps. Let us first see what this Frenchman of yours has to say. Refill my glass, old fellow; I’m lagging behind.”

At four o’clock in the morning, having dedicated himself to catching up with the others, Burton stepped out into Leicester Square with his top hat set at such a jaunty angle that he’d taken just three paces before it fell off and rolled into the gutter. He bent to retrieve it, overbalanced, and followed it down. His panther-headed cane clattered onto the cobbles beside him.

“Now then, sir,” came a stern voice. “It’s not my place to lecture a fine gentleman like yourself, but I suspect you may be filled to the knocker, so to speak.”

The explorer looked up and saw a police constable looking down. The man had a swollen nose. It was purple and bloodied around the nostrils.

“I topped my dropper,” Burton explained.

“Dropped your topper, sir? Here it is.” The policeman retrieved Burton’s headgear and cast his eyes over it. “A very nice hat, that. A mite dusty now, but it’ll clean up with a little brushing. Here, let me help you.”

Burton gripped the outstretched hand and allowed himself to be hauled back to his feet. He bent down for his cane, stumbled, but managed to regain his footing before meeting the ground again.

“Tripped,” he said. “What happened to your nose?”

“It encountered a bunch of fives, sir. There are criminals about. And you? Your eye?”

“The same. Thwacked.”

“Are you a pugilist? I have it in mind that I’ve seen your likeness in the newspapers. Sports pages, I’ll wager. You look quite the fighter.”

Burton took his proffered top hat, pressed it firmly onto his head, and slurred, “There’ve been sketches of me in a few of the rags recently. The Nile. Africa. Orpheus.”

“The Nile? Ah, yes! You’re the explorer! Livingstone!”

Burton groaned. He squinted at the policeman’s badge. “Constable Bhatti, I would be very grateful indeed if you never, ever refer to me that way again. My name is Burton.”

“Right you are, sir. My apologies. No offence intended. Which way are you going?”

With a wave in a vaguely northwesterly direction, Burton said, “Thataway.”

“Home?”

“Yeth. I mean, yeth. That is to say—yeth.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“Good. Very wise. I’ll call you a cab.”

“No, thank you. I’ll walk. Clear my head.”

The constable raised his arm and whistled at a nearby hansom. “You’ll take a ride, sir. I insist upon it. The streets are dangerous at this time of night. Look at my nose.”

“I’d rather not. It’s an unpleasant sight.”

The carriage, drawn by a steam-horse, chugged across the square and drew to a halt beside them.

“What ho, Constable Bhatti!” its driver called.

“Hallo, Mr. Penniforth. I have a passenger for you. Take him to Montagu Place, please.”

“Rightio! In you get, guv’nor!”

Before he could protest, Burton was bundled into the carriage by the policeman.

“Wait!” he mumbled. “I don’t want—”

“You’ll be fine, Doctor Livingstone,” Bhatti said. “Straight home and into bed. That’s an order.”

“I’m not bloody Livingstone, you confounded—”

Burton toppled backward into his seat as the carriage jolted forward. His hat fell onto the floor.

“Damnation!”

He heard Constable Bhatti’s laughter receding as the hansom picked up speed.

“Penniforth!” Burton yelled, knocking on the roof with his cane. “Aren’t you the man who met the Orpheus?”

“Aye, guv’nor!” the driver called. “Small world, ain’t it?”

“Not as small as all that. Would you slow down, please?”

“’Fraid not. Orders is orders. Got to get you ’ome on the double, so to speak. You needs yer sleep. Gee-up, Daisy! I calls me steam-nag Daisy, guv’nor, on account o’ that bein’ me wife’s moniker. She has me in harness whenever I’m ’ome, so I figures it’s only fair what that I have ’er in harness when I hain’t.”

Burton grabbed at the window frame as the carriage bounced over a pothole and hurtled around a corner. “I really don’t need to hear about your domestic affairs!” he shouted. “Let me out! I demand it!”

“Sorry, yer lordship. I ’ave to do what the constable says. Wouldn’t do to cross a bobby, would it! I’ll let you hoff at Montagu Place.”

Burton gritted his teeth and hung on.

The question came unbidden. How the hell did Constable Bhatti know where he lived?

“Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.”

—FRANCIS GALTON

A little after three o’clock the next afternoon, at the end of the ceremony in Buckingham Palace, King George V of Great Britain and Hanover leaned close to Sir Richard Francis Burton and said, “I congratulate you. It was my pleasure to award you this knighthood. You deserve it. Are you drunk?”

Burton shook his head. “No, Your Majesty, but I may have dosed myself up rather too liberally with Saltzmann’s Tincture this morning. I’m still battling the remnants of malaria. It was a choice between the medicine or my teeth chattering throughout the formalities.”