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 Fran?ois 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