The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) by Mark Hodder Read Free Book Online Page A

depart.”
    One of the palace footmen gave them an uncompromising glare. They stopped their whispering.
    Burton ran his forefinger around his collar. It was too tight. He’d forgotten how uncomfortable a freshly laundered army uniform could be.
    Wearily, he endured the pomp and protocols.
    Forty minutes later, in the reception hall, the foppishly attired Lord Palmerston approached him and drawled, “My dear Sir Richard, may I be the first to congratulate you.”
    “On what, sir?”
    “Your title, man! Your title!”
    “Ah. Thank you, Prime Minister.”
    “I’ve read your report. The Mystery of the Malevolent Mediums. Do you intend to give all your accounts such lurid titles?”
    “I felt it appropriate. It was a dramatic affair.”
    “I can’t disagree with that. Is it really over?”
    “Nietzsche is dead, sir—in our time, in his own, and across all the other versions of history.”
    Burton couldn’t shake a curious sensation of unfamiliarity. The environment felt unutterably askew. Even the words that came out of his mouth felt wrong.
    “And the future war?” Palmerston asked.
    “That rests with you. Now we know it’s coming, you have the opportunity to develop policies that will steer us along another course. There’s no need for the conflict to erupt in 1914. We have fifty-four years in which to prevent it.”
    Palmerston rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. Or fifty-four years in which to prepare. Perhaps it would be better to spend that time undermining Prussia and the Germanic states rather than indulging them.”
    “That might send us into battle earlier.”
    “Nietzsche told you the conflict is inevitable. If that’s the case, better we strike hard and when least expected than not at all.”
    Burton shrugged and murmured, “As the premier, it’s your choice to make. I don’t envy you.”
    Palmerston hemmed and hawed.
    “I have to go,” Burton said. “There’s business to take care of at the Department of Guided Science.”
    “The what?”
    “The—the—I’m sorry, I meant to say, at the Federation of Mechanics.”
    “A rather unusual slip of the tongue.”
    “It’s this uniform. It’s too tight. I’m hot and uncomfortable. Can’t think straight.”
    “Hmm. So what are the Empire’s boffins up to? Anything I should be aware of?”
    “No, sir, I don’t think so.”
    The prime minister nodded distractedly and waved him away.
    Burton returned to Monckton Milnes, who was flirting—fruitlessly, as usual—with Nurse Florence Nightingale.
    “I’ll see you at Bartolini’s at eleven.”
    “The Cannibal Club convenes,” Monckton Milnes confirmed. “I’ll be there.”
    Burton made for the exit but was intercepted by Detective Inspector Krishnamurthy, a handsome young Scotland Yard man of Indian extraction who was sporting a shiny new medal on his jacket.
    “It’s done, sir.”
    “All of them?” Burton asked.
    “Yes. Countess Sabina and Isabella Mayson killed the last at two o’clock this morning. It was hunting Sergeant Honesty through the British Museum.”
    “Bismillah! Is he all right?”
    “Unharmed. The countess has confirmed that not a single berserker remains.”
    “Good show. What of Trounce?”
    “His eye can’t be saved, but he’ll pull through.”
    “Thank you, Maneesh. I’m sorry about Shyamji. Your cousin was a good man.”
    “Yes, sir, he was. A brave one, too.”
    Burton left the chamber and stepped out of the palace into thick London fog. He stopped, frowned, and tried to identify whatever it was he appeared to have forgotten. Nothing occurred to him, but the sense that something vital had been misplaced didn’t go away. He snapped his fingers irritably and walked on, passing along the edge of the parade ground to the Royal Mews.
    He came to the stables. His mechanical horse raised its head as he approached. It whirred, “You need to wind me up. My spring is slack.”
    “Hello, Orpheus. Slack? Have you been gallivanting? I told you to stay