“Thank you, Styggins.”

“Don’t mention it. Frankly, now that you’re back in the land of the living, I’m happy to hightail it. You’re a God-awful patient and I’d rather not be exposed to your complaining, stubbornness, disobedience, and bad temper.”

Burton chuckled. “Am I that disagreeable?”

“You are. Mrs. Angell will be up presently. No doubt you’ll torture her horribly. I’ll see you tonight. Rest, hmmm?”

Burton nodded. Steinhaueser departed.

Over the next few days, Sir Richard Francis Burton healed and grumbled and pondered and chafed and drifted in and out of sleep, Steinhaueser came and went, and Mrs. Angell fussed and cooked and cleaned and endured.

By Wednesday, the explorer had left his bed, relocated to the study, and taken root in his dilapidated old saddlebag armchair, from which he barely moved for the remainder of the week. He read, wrote letters to Isabel, and meditated. His hair started to grow back, covering the scars on his scalp. The dull ache in his arm faded. His bruises turned a dirty yellow. A seething fury developed slowly and implacably. He couldn’t shake from his mind the picture of Darwin’s children—some unconscious, the rest terrified.

Days passed.

On the morning of Friday the 7th of October, he received a visit from Detective Inspectors Trounce and Slaughter. Upon seeing him, Trounce, who had a cardboard file holder in his hand, exclaimed, “I say! You look almost human again.”

“You mean, as much as I ever did?” Burton quipped. He pushed himself to his feet to greet his guests.

“Brandy?” he asked Trounce.

“Thank you. That would go down a treat.”

“Milk?” he enquired of Slaughter.

“God, yes! Most considerate of you. Brandy would kill me.”

After Mrs. Angell had delivered the milk and the brandy had been poured, the men settled in chairs.

“Your health,” Slaughter toasted.

Burton laughed. “What little of it remains!”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trounce said. “I found you hanging from a tree. I thought you were nothing but a bundle of bloody rags until you moved your head and whispered, ‘Get me down, there’s a good chap.’ It’s a blessed miracle you lived.”

“I recall nothing of it. There was no sign of Burke and Hare?”

“None.”

“What happened after you regained your senses in Darwin’s garden?”

“I calmed Mrs. Darwin and her brood, then took to the air and immediately saw the smoke rising from the road to the north. I landed and discovered you. Unfortunately, by then our birds had flown. Who was driving the lead sphere?”

“Hare. Burke was following with Darwin in his vehicle’s luggage compartment.”

“By Jove, Burton, it was a damned brave thing you did.”

Burton waved the observation aside, and Trounce went on, “Confound it! I took a shine to old Darwin. Whoever’s behind all this will pay, so help me, they will.”

Something occurred to the explorer. He reached for a cord hanging beside the fireplace and pulled it to summon back Mrs. Angell.

“Has there been any progress?” he asked the detectives.

Slaughter answered, “I’ve been sifting through missing-persons reports. Hundreds vanish without a trace every year, but I looked for any that involved DOGS or medical personnel. So far I’ve found just one of interest. A young surgeon named Joseph Lister, the first assistant to James Syme of the University of Edinburgh. Something of a prodigy, apparently, but he hasn’t been seen since the nineteenth of August.”

Burton sipped his brandy. “Any suggestion he was abducted?”

“None, but neither did he have any reason to take off of his own accord.”

Trounce added, “We know that Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Nurse Nightingale were seized by the two Indian chaps, while Galton and Darwin were taken by Burke and Hare—who also made an unsuccessful play for Brunel. Who abducted Charles Babbage, Samuel Gooch, and possibly this Lister chap, we don’t know—but whichever way we look at it, it appears that two opposing groups of kidnappers are at work.”

There came a knock at the door and the housekeeper poked her head in.

“Mother Angell,” Burton said. “What happened to the clothes I was wearing when I had the accident?”

“I believe the hospital burned them, sir.”

“And the contents of my pockets?”

“Here.” His housekeeper crossed to one of the desks, took a small tray from it, and handed it to him. She turned and stalked out of the room, muttering, “Right in front of his bloomin’ eyes, it was. Up and down the stairs like a blessed yo-yo and half the time for nothing.”

“Formidable woman, hey?” Slaughter murmured.

“She is,” Burton agreed. “Ah ha!” He picked something from the dish and held it up.

“A tiepin?” Trounce asked.

“Burke downed you with a very queer-looking pistol. It fired spines coated with some sort of venom. They knocked you out in an instant. I received one in the gut but for some reason it had no effect. I’ve been wondering why. This is the answer. It was in my waistcoat pocket and the spine hit it.” He stretched his arm forward and the two detectives saw the pin was topped with a small round disk of gold. There was a tiny dent in the middle of it. “I took it from Oliphant’s cabin on the Orpheus.”

“May I?” Trounce asked, reaching out.

Burton passed the pin over and the detective peered closely at the two letter-like inscriptions engraved into the metal.

“Ho! Well I never!” he said. “This is from the place Darwin mentioned—the League of Enochians Gentlemen’s Club. I’ve been investigating it. These two symbols appear on all its literature.”

“Do they, indeed?” Burton exclaimed. “So both Oliphant and Galton are members.”

Trounce handed the file over. “Here, I brought you the report. You’ll learn more about the club by reading it than from me trying to sum it up. One thing worth noting, though, is that it’s only since March, when the founder died and a gentleman named Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy became its president, that the clubhouse closed its doors and became a ‘by invite only’ affair.”

“March?” Burton mused. “Just when Oliphant joined and his behaviour took a turn for the worse. It appears we have a focus, at last. Trounce, I want you to keep a round-the-clock watch on the place. Record all the comings and goings. See if you can identify anyone who visits it.”

“I’ll rope in Spearing,” Trounce replied. “He might be the youngest detective on the Force but he’s as sharp as they come. We’ll do it in shifts. Incidentally—” He hesitated.

“What is it?”

“I can’t be certain, but since I started asking questions about the Enochians, I’ve had the conviction I’m being followed.”

Burton raised an eyebrow. He thought a moment then asked, “Do you carry a weapon?”

“Not usually.”

“It’s time you did. In fact, I recommend that all of us keep a gun handy.”

The Scotland Yard men nodded. Burton addressed Slaughter. “Your line of inquiry has been fruitful, so keep up with it. Stay focused on engineers and medical personnel. There’s a common thread to all this.”

“Which is?” Slaughter asked.

“Eugenics—a science that Galton developed. It strikes me that Burke’s weapon might be a product of it, which suggests there’s work being done in that illegal field. It would require medical knowledge and machinery.”

“I see. Rightio, sir.”

“Gentlemen, I’m likely to be out of commission for a few days longer. I rely on you to be my eyes and ears.”

“You can count on us, Sir Richard,” Slaughter said.

With that, the policemen departed and Burton settled down to read Trounce’s report. The detective’s handwriting looked like a spool of unravelling thread, undulating across the pages in a regular, quick, and fluid motion.

“Efficient mind,” Burton mused.

He read the first paragraph, blinked, and read it again.