The velocity of the Special Branch vehicle contributed in no small part to Oliphant’s general sense of unease. Paternoster himself could have asked for nothing faster, or more radically line-streamed. They flew past St. James’s Park with the speed of dream, the bare black branches of the lime-trees flashing by like wind-driven smoke. The driver wore leather goggles with round lenses, and plainly relished their headlong flight, periodically sounding a deep-throated whistle that sent horses rearing and pedestrians scurrying. The stoker, a burly young Irishman, was grinning maniacally as he shoveled coke into the burner. Oliphant had no idea of their destination. Now, as they neared Trafalgar, the traffic caused the driver to yank the whistle-cord continually, steadily, setting up a mournful bellowing ululation, like the grief of some marine behemoth. The traffic, at this sound, parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Helmeted policemen saluted smartly as they sped past. Urchins and crossing-sweepers turned cartwheels of delight, at the sight of a sleek tin fish racketing down the Strand. The evening had grown quite dark. As they entered Fleet Street, the driver applied the brake and worked a lever that released a mighty gout of uprushing steam. The line-streamed gurney bumped to a halt. “Well, sir,” the driver commented, raising his goggles to peer through the fretted glass of the vehicle’s prow, “would you look at that.” Traffic, Oliphant saw, had been halted completely by the erection of wooden barricades hung with lanterns. Behind these stood grim-faced soldiers in combat drab, Cutts-Maudslay carbines unslung and at the ready. Beyond them, he saw sheets of canvas, loosely hung from raw timber uprights, as though someone were attempting to erect stage-scenery in the middle of Fleet Street. The stoker swabbed his face with a polka-dot kingsman. “Something here the press aren’t meant to see.” “They’ve put it in the wrong street, then,” the driver said, “haven’t they?” As Oliphant climbed from the gurney, Fraser came walking quickly toward him. “We’ve found her,” Fraser said glumly. “And seem to have attracted considerable publicity in the process. Perhaps a few less infantry would be in order?” “It isn’t a matter for levity, Mr. Oliphant. You’d best come with me.” “Is Betteredge here?” “Haven’t seen him. This way, please.” Fraser led the way between a pair of barricades. A soldier curtly nodded them past. Oliphant glimpsed a mustachioed gentleman in urgent conversation with two Metropolitans. “That’s Halliday,” he said, “chief of Criminal Anthropometry.” “Yes, sir,” Fraser said. “They’re all over this one. The Museum of Practical Geology has been broken into. The Royal Society is angry as a nest of hornets, and bloody Egremont will be in every first-edition, calling it a Luddite outrage. Our only bit of luck would seem to be that Dr. Mallory is well away in China.” “Mallory? Why is that?” “The Land Leviathan. Mrs. Bartlett and her cohorts attempted to make away with the thing’s skull.” They rounded one of the makeshift barriers, its coarse fabric stamped at intervals with the broad-arrow mark of the Army Ordnance Department. A cab-horse lay on its side in a great pool of darkening blood. The cab, a common one-horse fly, was overturned nearby, its dull black-lacquered panels stitched with bullet-holes. “She was with two men,” Fraser said. “Three if you count a corpse they left behind in the Museum. The hack was driven by a Yankee exile called Russell, a bully-rock bruiser living in Seven Dials. The other man was Henry Dease of Liverpool, quite the accomplished cracksman. I’d our Henry in dock ten times, when I was on the force, but no more. They’re laid out there, sir.” He pointed. “Russell, the driver, evidently got into a shouting match with a real cabman, over who should give way. A Metropolitan on traffic-duty attempted to intervene, at which point Russell produced a pistol.” Oliphant was staring at the overturned cab. “The traffic officer was unarmed, but a pair of Bow Street detectives happened to be passing . . . ” “But this cab, Fraser . . .” “That’s the work of an Army-gurney, sir. The last of the temporary garrisons is just by the Holborn viaduct.” He paused. “Dease had a Russian shotgun . . . ” Oliphant shook his head in disbelief. “Eight civilians taken to hospital,” Fraser said. “One detective dead. But come along, sir — best we get this done with.” “What is the meaning of these canvas screens?” “Criminal Anthropometry ordered them.” Oliphant felt as though he were moving through a dream, his limbs numb and without volition. He allowed himself to be led to where three canvas-draped bodies were arranged upon stretchers. The face of Florence Bartlett was a hideous ruin. “Vitriol,” Fraser said. “A bullet shattered whatever container she employed.” Oliphant turned quickly away, retching into his handkerchief. “Sorry, sir,” Fraser said. “No point in you seeing the other two.” “Betteredge, Fraser — have you seen him?” “No, sir. Here’s the skull, sir, or what remains of it.” “The skull?” Perhaps half-a-dozen massive fragments of petrified bone and ivory-tinted plaster were neatly arranged atop a varnished trestle-table. “There’s a Mr. Reeks here, from the Museum, come to take it back,” Fraser said. “Says it isn’t as badly damaged as we might think. Would you like to sit down, sir? I could find you a folding-stool –” “No. Why does there seem to be fully half of Criminal Anthropometry about, Fraser?” “Well, sir, you’re in a better position to determine that than I,” Fraser said, lowering his voice, “though I’ve heard it said that Mr. Egremont and Lord Galton have recently discovered they’ve much in common.” “Lord Galton? The eugenics theorist?” “Lord Darwin’s cousin, that is. He’s Anthropometry’s man in the House of Lords. Has a deal of influence in the Royal Society.” Fraser brought out his notebook. “You’d best see why I thought it urgent you come here, sir.” He led Oliphant back around the ruin of the cab. Glancing about for possible observers, he passed Oliphant a fold of blue flimsy. “I took it from the Bartlett woman’s reticule.” The note was undated, unsigned: