“Sir!” Burke's voice was filled with urgency. “If you recall, I advised you in the strongest possible terms that coming here was a grievous miscalculation. Sir Richard and his colleagues have made themselves known to the enemy forces. They are targets. You have knowingly placed yourself in the line of fire for no good reason except to satisfy your curiosity—”

  “How dare you speak to me like th—”

  Burke continued, raising his voice and speaking over the prime minister's objection. “What I feared most is now occurring. The street outside has just filled with wraiths. They caused your guards to shoot your outriders dead then turn their rifles upon themselves. We can only assume that this house is about to be attacked, isn't that so, Mr. Hare?”

  “Quite right, Mr. Burke,” Gregory Hare answered.

  “We must barricade ourselves inside,” Burke continued. “If it becomes necessary, Mr. Hare and I will act as your last line of defence.”

  “I—” Palmerston said, but a thick arm was suddenly wrapped around his waist and Hare hoisted him off his feet, carried him past Burke and Swinburne, and plonked him into the storeroom.

  “Unhand me, sir!” came his receding protest.

  Burke turned to the poet: “I'm sorry, Mr. Swinburne, but Lord Palmerston's safety is my and Mr. Hare's primary duty. I have no choice but to leave you and your companions to defend this house as best you can. Besides which, we are somewhat hampered by our injuries. If our attackers make it past you, hopefully you will have weakened them enough for us to be able to deal with them.”

  “You mean to make of us a forlorn hope?” Swinburne asked. “Ruthless bugger, aren't you?”

  “You object?”

  Swinburne grinned. “Not at all! This is just my cup of tea! Go! Barricade yourselves in. I'll rally the troops.”

  “Thank you, sir. Um—” Burke looked at the cactus pistol in his hand “—I should keep hold of this but Mr. Hare and I are armed with revolvers and, under the circumstances—”

  He passed the strange weapon to the poet, quickly explained its use, then turned away, entered the storeroom, and closed the door.

  Swinburne let loose a breath and whispered: “Tally-ho!” He descended the stairs. As he reached the landing, he saw Mrs. Angell in the hallway below, carrying a coffee pot and cups on a tray.

  There was a knock at the front door.

  The housekeeper immediately put the tray down on the hall table and reached for the door handle.

  “Don't!” Swinburne yelled.

  It was too late. Even as she turned to look up at him, Mrs. Angell's fingers had twisted the doorknob.

  The portal swung inward, pushed by a big bloated hand.

  The old woman staggered backward and screamed.

  A bulging mass of clothing blocked the threshold. Swinburne recognised it at once: the Tichborne Claimant!

  The hideous head came ducking under the lintel and, as the hulking mass of blubbery flesh pushed through after it, Mrs. Angell dropped in a dead faint.

  Swinburne raised the cactus pistol and pressed the trigger nodule. He missed. Spines thudded into the doorframe. The Claimant raised his repulsive face, looked at the poet, and smiled sweetly.

  “You must be Algy.”

  His voice was female, with a Russian accent.

  “Forgive me for not visiting you in person, kotyonok, but I am a little stretched at the moment.” The Claimant glanced down at his corpulent belly. He looked back up at the poet and chuckled. “He he he! Horribly stretched! But as a matter of fact, I was referring to the uprising. It goes well, does it not? Your capital burns! Ha ha! How your poor King Albert must tremble!”

  “Who the hell are you?” Swinburne snarled.

  The door beside him opened and Detective Inspector Trounce stepped out.

  “What's going—Bloody hell!”

  “Ah, is that William Trounce? How gratifying. I do hope you have Herbert Spencer with you, too. It would be so convenient if my emissary can kill you all at once before he retrieves Sir Richard. Really, it was very rude of you to take him from me before I'd finished ruining that extraordinary mind of his. I would have come for him sooner but I have so much to do. I am quite dreadfully busy. Ah well, let us proceed. Time for you to die! As we say in Russia: Bare derutsya—u kholopov chuby treschat! Farewell!”

  The Claimant's eyes suddenly dulled. He emitted a loud bellow, in his own voice, and started up the stairs. His girth was such that the banister and its balusters cracked, splintered, and fell away from the staircase as he heaved himself up.

  Trounce went to draw his police revolver. It snagged in his pocket.

  “Confound it!” he cursed.

  Swinburne raised the spine-shooter and fired again, hitting the advancing monstrosity in the chest. The spines had no effect other than to elicit another roar.

  The poet and policeman retreated into the study.

  “What's happenin’?” Herbert Spencer asked.

  “Big trouble,” Trounce grunted. “Very big indeed!”

  The Claimant blocked the doorway, wedged his vast body into it, and began to shove himself through. The door frame split.

  “Cover your ears,” Trounce muttered. Swinburne and Spencer did so. The Scotland Yard man had finally freed his revolver. He fired a shot into one of the unwelcome visitor's beefy thighs.

  The Claimant yelled incoherently, grabbed the side and top of the door, and ripped it from its hinges. He threw it at Trounce.

  The slab of wood smashed into the detective inspector and sent him stumbling backward. He fell to his knees, dazed.

  “Repulsive toad!” Pox squawked, and sought refuge on top of a bookcase.

  Herbert Spencer grabbed a brass poker from the hearth and brandished it like a sword.

  “What'll we do, lad?” he mumbled, gaping at the slowly advancing mountain of flesh.

  Swinburne, standing beside the vagrant philosopher, became conscious that the mantelpiece was at his back. No retreat. He glanced to the left. Both the study windows were closed. No escape there, not that anyone could survive the jump. He grimaced. His head had started aching and his thoughts were becoming turgid and confused. He was feeling the baleful influence of the Choir Stones, which were still embedded in the Claimant's scalp. He felt an urge to welcome Sir Roger Tichborne to the house and to help him fight his enemies.

  He gritted his teeth.

  He looked to the right and saw Admiral Lord Nelson standing immobile by the door to the dressing room.

  The faux aristocrat lumbered closer.

  A fat hand reached out.

  Swinburne, without thinking, screeched: “Nelson! Throw this obese bastard out of the house the fastest way possible! At once!”

  The clockwork man bent his upper torso forward and accelerated away from the wall, a blur of gleaming metal.

  The Claimant turned toward the movement.

  Nelson collided with the giant's belly, snapped his mechanical arms out straight, and pushed with all his spring-loaded might.

  Neither Swinburne nor Herbert Spencer had any inkling that the clockwork man possessed the power that, in a shocking instant, now became evident.

  The whalelike mass of the Tichborne Claimant was thrown into the air and right across the study. He hit the window and went out through it, taking the glass, the frame, and a considerable chunk of the wall on either side of it with him.

  The shattering crash was tremendous, and was followed by the clatter and bangs of falling masonry as the front part of 14 Montagu Place suffered his unexpected exit.

  Detective Inspector Trounce, shaking his head to clear it, staggered to his feet and peered around at the room. It looked as if a bomb had exploded in it. The Claimant's passage had wrecked furniture, brick dust swirled around, and Burton's papers were raining down like autumn leaves.

  “Bloody hell!” he gasped.

  Admiral Lord Nelson turned to the poet and saluted.

  “Yes, thank you, old chap,” Swinburne responded meekly. “Very effective, though not quite as neat as the trick they worked on Sir Alfred. My hat! Mrs. Angell is going to kill me.”

  Herbert Spencer gingerly approached the gaping hole in the wall and squinted out at the street below. It was enshrouded by steam, billowing about in a slight breeze. He saw movement in the cloud.

  “Gents,” he said quietly. “Do you happen to have a spare pistol I could borrow? That thing ain't dead.”

  “You're not serious?” Trounce exclaimed.

  “It's layin’ on the pavement but it looks to me like it's just winded.”

  The Scotland Yard man retrieved his revolver from the floor.

  Swinburne stepped up to one of Burton's desks and pulled a pistol from its drawer. He handed it to Spencer.

  Trounce growled: “Let's get out there and finish that abomination off!”

  He set his jaw and marched out of the study. Spencer and Swinburne followed. The poet looked back over his shoulder at Nelson.

  “Come on, Admiral.”

  The three men and the clockwork device descended to the hallway. Trounce quickly checked Mrs. Angell, who was sitting dazed against the wall.

  “Go down to your rooms, dear. We'll come and tell you when it's safe.”

  Swinburne picked Burton's silver-handled swordstick from the elephant-foot umbrella stand by the front door. He handed it to Nelson.

  “Here, unsheathe it and don't hesitate to use it. If you can manage it, slice the lumps off the fat man's head.”

  The mechanical valet saluted.

  “What's that?” Trounce exclaimed. “Why play silly beggars? Wouldn't it be better to run the damned beast through the heart?”

  “The François Garnier diamonds are sewn into those lumps, Detective Inspector.”

  “Brundleweed's stones!” Trounce cried. “And you've only just thought to tell me?”

  “Richard had his reasons for keeping it quiet. All you need to know for now is that if we can free the fiend from their influence, we might be able to get some information out of him.”

  Trounce grunted and shook his head. “Perhaps, but I'll tell you, lad: if that brute looks to be getting the upper hand, I'll not hesitate to put a bullet through his brain!”

  They went outside. Palmerston's guards were slumped in the mobile castle's bartizans, their heads shattered by their own bullets. The four cavalrymen lay dead in the road.

  Wraiths moved through the haze.

  As Swinburne led his companions out onto the pavement, the mist parted, and the Claimant came charging out of it like an enraged hippopotamus. Before any of them could raise a weapon, they were sent flying. Swinburne and Spencer both ended up on their backs in the gutter, while Nelson clanged noisily against one of Palmerston's steam-horses. Trounce was grabbed by the collar, yanked off his feet, and thrown high into the air and clear across the road. He thumped down headfirst onto the opposite pavement, rolled, and lay still.

  Nelson ducked under the Claimant's swinging fist and scuttled away to retrieve the rapier, which had been knocked out of his hand. Swinburne rolled under the steam-horse and out the other side. He jumped up then backpedalled rapidly when he found himself looking a wraith full in the face.

  “Argh!” he cried, and clutched the sides of his head. He felt a terrible pressure on his brain. “No!” he gasped. “I'll not let you inside! Not ever again!”

  A gunshot echoed as Herbert Spencer put a bullet into the Claimant's side. The philosopher scrambled to his feet, turned, and ran to the back of the prime minister's carriage. A ghostly hand clutched at his arm. He struggled in the grip of a wraith.

  The Claimant flew into a berserk rage. Stamping his feet and waving his arms, he hollered and howled, screamed and hissed, and threw himself into the side of the foremost of the two steam-horses. It must have weighed well over a ton, but under his onslaught, the machine keeled over, narrowly missed crushing Swinburne, and skidded across the cobbles on its side, showering sparks and emitting a plume of white vapour as one of its pipes tore open.

  “Mother!” a muffled voice cried from inside the mobile castle's front cabin. “Help me!”

  It was Palmerston's driver, who'd been quaking inside the box ever since the wraiths had appeared and caused the deaths of the guards.

  The piggy eyes of the Claimant flicked to the source of the sound. In one stride he was beside it, grabbing the edges of the wedge-shaped compartment. He began to heave it back and forth. The man inside wailed piteously.

  Swinburne heard himself mutter: “Tichborne! The bloody toffs are—are—are trying to do away with Tichborne!”

  He shook his head.

  “No!” he growled. “No! No! No! That is not Sir Roger bloody Tichborne!”

  He stepped straight through the drifting wraith, levelled the cactus gun, and fired. As he touched the trigger nodule, his arm jerked aside, and the spines flew wide.

  “Bloody conspiracy!” he gasped, fighting the words as they forced themselves out of his mouth. As fierce as the battle in the street was, the fight in the poet's head was even more intense.

  Admiral Lord Nelson bounded over to the Claimant and lunged in. His rapier danced. He skipped away. Wraiths swooped around him, grabbing at his arms, but they couldn't hold him.

  The corpulent creature screamed as two of the lumps on its scalp disappeared, sliced off by the sword blade. Blood gushed from the wounds. Black gems bounced into the gutter.

  Swinburne felt a sudden lessening of the pressure on his brain.

  “Herbert!” he cried. “Collect the diamonds! We mustn't lose them!”

  The Claimant twisted and lumbered after Nelson, who now stood a short distance away in the en garde pose. He reached the clockwork man and there commenced a flurry of arms and blade as Nelson jabbed and sliced at the fat behemoth, while the latter attempted to deflect or catch the flashing rapier.

  Herbert Spencer tore himself away from the tormenting wraith and darted forward. He retrieved the two fallen Choir Stones. As he did so, another one fell.

  The Claimant let loose a terrific shriek and clutched his head.

  “I remember!” he shouted. “I remember!”

  Nelson backed away from his opponent, who once again lurched after him. The sleeves of the Claimant's jacket, and the shirt beneath, hung in tatters. When he raised his hands to grab the rapier, his mismatched forearms were fully exposed. They were terribly lacerated, but the creature appeared to be entirely immune to pain.

  The rapier danced away from the clutching fingers.

  The Claimant roared with frustration.

  Herbert crept up behind him and picked up the third stone, then two more as the fourth and fifth flew from the swollen man's head.

  Swinburne started to shoot spines into the creature's back, hoping that the accumulating venom would at least slow the juggernaut down.

  “I want meat!” the Claimant raged. His face was covered with blood. Every few moments, his tongue snaked from between his lips and licked at the red liquid.

  The sixth diamond dropped.

  Admiral Lord Nelson started to duck and dodge more intently. The remaining stone was located at the back of his opponent's head, so he needed to somehow manoeuvre himself into a position from which it could be extracted.

  As the two combatants moved back and forth over the cobbles, Spencer followed cautiously, slipping the sixth stone into his pocket.

  The clockwork man stepped in close, bent under a lashing fist, sprang forward, whirled, and sent his rapier's tip digging into the remaining fleshy protuberance on the back of his adversary's skull. A small chunk of flesh dropped away. Blood spurted. A black diamond sparkled. It landed at Spencer's feet. He snatched it up. He now had the complete François Garnier Collection in his pocket.

  “Aaaaargh!” the Claimant cried. “Hurts! It hurts! Give me meat! I want meat!”

  He turned to face Nelson and backed away a couple of steps, peering through the blood streaming over his eyes.

  His fury seemed to leave him for a moment.

  He blinked.

  Swinburne felt a profound sense of release, as if he was fully himself again. He lowered the spine-shooter and watched.

  “No,” the fat man uttered. “No. I am not—I am not—”

  He lifted the larger of his two hands up to his face.

  “I am not Roger—”

  He dug his blunt fingernails into his forehead and cheeks.

  “I am not Roger Tichborne!”

  With a stomach-churning tearing noise, he ripped his face from the front of his skull and held it out triumphantly.

  “My name is Arthur Orton! And I want meat!”

  He pushed the drooping skin and tissue into his mouth and started to chew.

  “Ah,” Swinburne whispered. “So there we have it at last.”

  Arthur Orton considered Admiral Lord Nelson.

  “You,” he rumbled, “are not meat.”

  His gory countenance, all raw muscle and throbbing veins, turned until he was looking directly at Herbert Spencer.

  “But you—”

  With startling agility for one so gargantuan, Orton lunged at the vagrant philosopher.

  Spencer turned to run.

  Admiral Lord Nelson sprang into action. He took two great strides, raised the rapier, sent it plunging toward the back of Orton's spine, suddenly slowed—and froze.

  The clockwork man had wound down.

  Corpulent fingers closed around Spencer's neck.

  Swinburne started shooting, pressing the trigger nodule again and again.

  “Trounce!” he shrilled. “Your pistol! Your pistol!”

  There was no response. The detective was either out cold or dead.

  Spencer yelled as he was yanked off his feet.

  “Meat!” bellowed Orton triumphantly and sank his teeth into the back of the philosopher's neck. His victim's scream of agony was cut short as vertebrae crunched and shattered, and a gobbet of pulsating flesh was wrenched free.

  Orton twisted Herbert Spencer's head off and threw it to one side. It bounced away across the cobbles. Blood pumped from the severed neck, and the monstrous butcher laughed as it sprayed over his face.

  “No,” Swinburne sobbed. “Oh Jesus, please no.”

  Holding Spencer's twitching corpse with the larger of his hands, Orton plunged the other into the neck, pushing it deep into the body.