Their foils clicked together.

There came a knock at the door.

“Not now!”

“You have a visitor, Sir Richard.”

“I don't want to be disturbed, Mrs. Angell!”

“It's Detective Inspector Honesty!”

Burton sighed. “Disengage,” he ordered.

Admiral Lord Nelson lowered his weapon. Burton did the same and pulled off his mask.

“Oh, very well,” he called in exasperation. “Send him up!”

He took his valet's foil and placed it, and his own, in a case that lay on one of the desks.

“We'll continue later, Nelson.”

The clockwork man saluted, walked across the room, and stood at attention next to the bureau between the two windows.

Moments later, there was a short sharp rap at the door.

“Come!”

It opened and Detective Inspector Honesty stepped in. There were beads of sweat on his brow.

“Hallo! Too hot. Hellish weather.”

“Come in, old chap. Take that confounded jacket off if you don't want to cook!”

The Scotland Yard man divested himself of his outer garment, hung it on a coat hook behind the door, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and settled into a chair. He looked around the study with interest, running his eyes over the swords hanging on the walls, the heavily loaded bookcases, the teakwood chests, the pistols displayed in the alcoves on either side of the chimney breast, the huge African spear leaning in a corner, the three big desks, and the many souvenirs of Burton's travels.

Detective Inspector Honesty was a slightly built man and rather fussily dressed, but he had a wiry strength about him and Burton knew that he was a formidable opponent in hand-to-hand combat. His brown mustache was extravagantly wide, waxed, and curled upward at the ends. His hair was parted in the middle and lacquered flat. His eyes were grey. There was a monocle clenched in the right.

“Back yesterday?” he asked, in his characteristically clipped manner.

“The day before,” Burton answered. “I spent most of yesterday reporting to the prime minister.”

“Any luck in South America?”

“Yes, I know where Tomas Castro is.”

“Do you, by crikey!” Honesty exclaimed, sitting upright. “Where?”

“In the Bethlem Royal Hospital.”

“Bedlam? Lunatic asylum? Here in London?”

“Yes.”

Burton took a cheroot from a box on the mantelpiece, applied a lucifer to it, and sat opposite the detective. He gave a quick nod of permission when Honesty half pulled a pipe from his waistcoat pocket. As the policeman went through the ritual of scraping its bowl and pressing in a plug of tobacco, the king's agent explained.

“I've had rather a high old time of it these weeks past. I shan't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I got caught up in an adventure that took me from Buenos Aires across Argentina and into Chile. There, I was able to trace the Castro family to Melipilla, a town on the main road between Valparaiso and Santiago. I met Pedro Castro, the son of Tomas, who revealed that his father went missing almost a decade ago while prospecting in the mountains with a Frenchman. This individual had been staying with the family for some weeks. I showed Pedro a daguerreotype of the Claimant. He recognised the face as the lodger's but was astonished at the size of his body. The Frenchman, apparently, had been very slim.”

Honesty put a match to his pipe and muttered, “Impossible to get that fat. Even in ten years.”

Burton nodded, and continued, “So Tomas and this Frenchman spent weeks prospecting until one day they never came back. Nothing further was heard until earlier this year, when rumours reached Pedro that a person named Tomas Castro was in an asylum in Santiago. He rode there to make enquiries and was told that, around the time of his father's disappearance, a man had been delivered to the establishment in a state of near insanity. He'd later, during a moment of lucidity, given his name as Castro. Naturally, Pedro wanted to see him, but was informed that the patient had recently been transported to London to be incarcerated in the Bethlem Royal Hospital. Apparently, he'd turned out to be from a rich English family. Pedro therefore concluded that the lunatic in question was neither his father nor the Frenchman.”

“English!”

“Yes. So now we have to find out exactly who that man is.”

“Roger Tichborne?”

“It seems likely. You'll remember that he was raised by a French mother and had a French accent.”

“Which the Claimant doesn't.”

“Notably.”

Honesty asked, “Who took him from the Santiago asylum?”

“Ah, that's an interesting point.”

“It is?”

“He was removed by a rather well-known individual.”

“Who?”

“Nurse Florence Nightingale.”

“The Lady of the Lamp!”

“The very same. Which, considering I was told she's missing, intrigues me a great deal!”

“Told by whom?”

“Isambard Kingdom Brunel, at the time of the Brundleweed robbery.”

“By gum! What's she up to? We must see that man in Bedlam! A police raid, perhaps?”

“Good heavens, no! That would be far too heavy-handed! No, no, softly, softly, catchee monkey. Palmerston's men, Burke and Hare, are preparing false papers. In a couple of days, they and I will enter the asylum in the guise of government inspectors.”

Honesty grunted and sucked thoughtfully at his pipe.

Burton pulled a cord at the side of the fireplace. He and his guest sat in contemplative silence until Mrs. Angell answered the summons. Burton requested a pot of coffee. As the old lady left, he turned back to the Yard man and said: “So Commissioner Mayne sent you to Australia to find out more about our faux aristocrat? How went it?”

“Went well. I took Commander Krishnamurthy. Remember him? Fine fellow. Head of Flying Squad now!”

“Yes, so I've heard. What did you two find down there?”

Honesty bent and placed his pipe on the hearth. He licked his lips, interlaced his fingers, and rested his hands in his lap. He eschewed long sentences, but he was now in a position where they might be necessary, and he needed to prepare himself.

The study door creaked open and footsteps padded across the room.

“Hello, Fidget,” Burton muttered. He reached down to fondle his basset hound's ears. “I'm afraid you'll have to wait for your walk.”

The dog sat at his feet and regarded the man opposite.

“In Wagga Wagga,” Honesty began, “no one has heard of Tomas Castro. No one recognised the face in the daguerreotype. They did speak, however, of a man named Arthur Orton, a local butcher. Tremendously fat. Had an insatiable appetite for raw meat. Mysteriously disappeared.”

“When?”

“Four weeks before the Claimant arrived in Paris.”

“Ah!”

“Orton learned his skill as a butcher in London. He originally hailed from Wapping. Upon my return, I found the family. Interviewed his sisters. They say he moved to Australia some fifteen years ago. Never heard of again. I showed them the daguerreotype. They say it's not him.”

The study door swung open and Mrs. Angell entered with the coffee. She poured them each a cup.

“Thank you, my dear,” said Detective Inspector Honesty. The housekeeper smiled. There came an impatient hammering at the front door.

“I'll get it,” she said, and departed.

“I have the distinct impression, Inspector,” said Burton, “that a very tangled web has been woven.”

“I should say so. Who's assaulting your door?”

“I'd recognise that knock anywhere. It's our mutual friend William Trounce.”

Footsteps thundered up the stairs and the door was flung open. Trounce stamped in, ruddy-faced and puffing. He banged his bowler hat onto a desk.

“He's been released on bail!” he yelled. “Ah! Honesty! There you are! Hallo, Burton! Long time no see! The Claimant was taken to the Old Bailey at nine o'clock this morning and walked out a free man thirty minutes later. There was a crowd of cheering idiots to greet him. How the blazes has that fat monstrosity garnered so much support these past weeks, eh? Tell me that, Captain!”