The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi by Mark Hodder Page A

behind. Amid the general hubbub, he could hear the sphere’s driver yelling, “Get out of my way, confound you! Get out of my blessed way!”
    The sides of the road were lined with stalls and braziers offering jellied eels, pickled whelks, sheep’s trotters, penny pies, plum duff, meat puddings, baked potatoes, Chelsea buns, milk, tea, coffee, ale, mulled wine, second-hand clothes, old books, flowers, household goods, shoes, kitchenware, tools, and practically everything else a person could possibly eat, drink, or require for the home; as well as astrological charts, palm and tarot card readings, scrying by tea leaves, and prognostication by numbers, by bumps on the head, by marks on the tongue, and by the throw of a dice. The sing-song tones with which the traders called attention to their wares were almost, to Burton, the master linguist, an entirely unique dialect, barely comprehensible but very, very loud.
    Between the stalls and the shops that bordered the street—many of which were currently open beyond their normal business hours—the pavements were packed with pedestrians who thought to take advantage of the peculiar light and the mild weather. There were couples and bachelors out strolling, ragamuffins playing and yelling and begging, dolly-mops touting for customers, jugglers juggling, singers warbling, musicians scraping and plucking, vagrants pleading and wheedling, and thieves as numerous and as persistent as African mosquitoes.
    Burton shouldered through them, slapped away the pernicious fingers of pickpockets, and made painfully slow progress into Trafalgar Square and up St. Martin’s Lane, where he hoped to find Brundleweed’s jewellery shop open. Shortly before leaving for Africa, he’d ordered a diamond ring from old Brundleweed. The man was a craftsman of exceptional ability, and the explorer was looking forward to seeing the item in which he’d invested a considerable sum.
    It was not to be. The shop was closed.
    He strolled on into Cranbourn Street, followed it to Regent Circus, and traversed Regent Street up to the junction with Oxford Street.
    Here, as fatigue gripped him and he realised he’d overestimated his strength, he made the decision to leave the main roads and cut diagonally through the Marylebone district to the top of Baker Street. It was more dangerous—he would have to pass through a poverty-stricken enclave of alleyways and crumbling tenements—but it would be quicker.
    Keeping a firm hold of his swordstick, he entered a long side street. Shadows shifted around him as the aurora folded and glimmered overhead. A strange clicking began to echo from the walls to either side. He stopped and looked up. The clicking became a chopping. The chopping became a roar. A rotorchair skimmed over the rooftops and was gone, its noise rapidly receding, its trail of steam hanging motionless in the air, changing colour as it reflected the uncanny light.
    Burton pushed on. He turned left. Right. Right again. Left. The maze of alleys narrowed around him. The stink of sewage haunted his nostrils. Mournful windows gaped from the sides of squalid houses. An inarticulate shout came from one of them. He heard a slap, a scream, a woman sobbing.
    A man lurched from a dark doorway and blocked his path. He was coarse-featured, clad in canvas trousers and shirt with a brown waistcoat and a cloth cap. There were fire marks—red welts—on his face and thick forearms.
    A stoker. Spends his days shovelling coal into a furnace.
    Run. He’s dangerous.
    I’m dangerous, too.
    â€œCan I ’elp you, mate?” the man asked in a gravelly voice. “Maybe relieve you of wha’ever loose change is weighin’ down yer pockits?”
    Burton looked at him.
    The man backed away so suddenly that his heels struck the doorstep behind him and he sat down heavily.
    â€œSorry, fella,” he mumbled. “Mistook you fer somebody else, I did.”
    The