The curious case of the Clockwork Man

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Sir Richard Francis Burton was dead.

He was lying on his back in the lobby of the Royal Geographical Society, sprawled at the bottom of the grand staircase with a diminutive red-haired poet slumped across his chest.

Algernon Charles Swinburne, tears streaming down his cheeks, his senses befuddled with alcohol, quickly composed an elegy. It was, after all, best to strike while the iron was hot.

He raised his head, his hair fiery in the flickering gas light, and, in his high-pitched voice, proclaimed: Wouldst thou not know whom England, whom the world,

Mourns? For the world whose wildest ways he trod,

And smiled their dangers down that coiled and curled

Against him, knows him now less man than god.

He hiccupped.

Beneath his hand, in Burton's jacket, he felt a flask-shaped lump. Surreptitiously, he began to wiggle his fingers into the pocket.

“Our demigod of daring, keenest-eyed,” he continued, with a sniff. “To read and deepest-”

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