The Map of Time (45 page)

“Take young Harrington, for example,” Murray went on, with a playful grin. “Do you remember him? If I’m not mistaken, it was a lie which saved his life. A lie in which you agreed to participate.” Wells was about to remark that there was a world of difference between the purpose behind one lie and the other, but Murray headed him off with another question.

“Are you aware that it was I who built the time machine you keep in your attic, the little toy that pleases you so much?” This time Wells was unable to conceal his amazement.

“Yes, I had it especially made for Charles Winslow, the wretched Andrew Harrington’s cousin,” Gilliam chuckled. “Mr. Winslow came on our second expedition, and a few days later he turned up at my offices asking me to organize a private trip for him and his cousin to the year 1888, the Autumn of Terror. They assured me money was no object, but unfortunately I was unable to satisfy their whim.” Murray had wandered off the main road towards a pile of debris beyond which a row of shattered rooftops was visible in the distance, darkened by a few clouds looming above.

“But Mr. Winslow’s reason for wanting to travel into the past was so romantic it moved me to help them,” said Murray sarcastically, even as, to Wells’s horror, he began scrambling up the hill of rubble. “I explained to him he could only make the journey in a time machine like the one in your novel, and together we hatched a plot, in which, as you know, you played the leading role. If Mr. Winslow managed to persuade you to pretend you had a time machine, I would not only produce a replica of the one in your novel, I would also provide him with the actors necessary to play the parts of Jack the Ripper and the whore he murdered.

You must be wondering what made me do it. I suppose devising hoaxes can become addictive. And I won’t deny, Mr. Wells, that it amused me to involve you in a pantomime similar to the one I had already orchestrated, to see whether you’d agree to take part in it or not.” Wells was scarcely able to pay attention to what Gilliam was saying. Clambering up the hill, as well as requiring a good deal of concentration, was making him feel distinctly uneasy, for the distant horizon had begun drawing nearer until it was within arm’s length. Once they reached the summit, Wells could see that what was in front of them was no more than a painted wall. Astonished, he passed his hand over the mural. Gilliam looked at him affectionately.

“Following the success of the second expedition, and although things had calmed down a lot, I couldn’t help wondering whether there was any sense in carrying on with all this now that I had more than proved my point. The only reason I could think of to justify the effort it would take to organize a third expedition,” he said, recalling with irritation Jeff Wayne’s pompous delivery of Shackleton’s lines, and how scrawny he looked brandishing his rifle on top of the rock, “was money. But I’d already made enough for a dozen lifetimes, so that was no excuse either. On the other hand, I was sure my critics would sooner or later mount a concerted attack on me that not even Conan Doyle would be able to head off.” Murray seized the door handle protruding from the wall, but made no attempt to turn it. Instead, he turned to Wells, a contrite look on his face.

“Doubtless I should have stopped then,” he said with regret, “setting in motion the plan I’d prepared even before creating the company: I would stage my own accidental death in the fourth dimension, eaten alive by one of my imaginary dragons before the eyes of a group of employees who, filled with grief, would see to it that the newspapers were informed of the tragic news. While I began my new life in America under another name, all England would mourn the passing of Gilliam Murray, the man who had revealed the mysteries of the future to them. However, despite the beauty of such an ending, something compelled me to carry on with my deception. Do you want to know what that was, Mr. Wells?” The writer merely shrugged.

“I’ll do my best to explain, although I doubt you will understand. You see, in creating all of this not only had I proved that my vision of the future was plausible, I had become a different person. I had become a character in my own story. I was no longer a simple glasshouse manufacturer. In your eyes, I’m no more than an impostor, but to everyone else I’m a time lord, an intrepid entrepreneur who has braved a thousand adventures in Africa and who sleeps every night with his magical dog in a place where time has stopped. I suppose I didn’t want to close the company down because that meant being an ordinary person again—a terribly rich but terribly ordinary person.” And with this, he turned the knob and stepped into a cloud.

Wells followed him a few seconds later, behind the magical dog, only to discover his bad-tempered face multiplied by half a dozen mirrors. He was in a cramped dressing room full of boxes and frames, hanging from which were several helmets and suits of armor. Gilliam was watching him from a corner, a serene smile on his lips.

“And I suppose I’ll deserve what I get, if you refuse to help me,” he said.

There it was at last. As Wells had suspected, Gilliam had not gone to all the trouble of bringing him there simply to offer him a guided tour. No, something had happened and Gilliam had come unstuck. And now Gilliam needed his help. This was the pièce de résistance he was expecting his guest to swallow after having forcefed him with explanations. Yes, he needed his help. Alas, the fact that Murray had never stopped addressing him in that condescending, almost fatherly tone suggested he had no intention of deigning to beg him for it. He simply assumed he would get it. For Wells it only remained to be seen what kind of threat the charlatan would use to extort it.

“Yesterday, I had a visit from Inspector Colin Garrett of Scotland Yard,” Murray went on. “He is investigating the case of a tramp found murdered in Marylebone, not exactly an unusual occurrence in that neighborhood. What makes this case so special is the murder weapon. The corpse has a huge hole right through the chest, which you can look through as if it were a window. It appears to have been caused by some sort of heat ray.

According to the pathologists, no weapon capable of inflicting such a wound exists. Not in our time, anyway. All of which has led the young inspector to suspect that the wretched tramp was murdered with a weapon of the future, specifically one of the rifles used by Captain Shackleton and his men, whose devastating effects he was able to observe when he formed part of the second expedition.” He took a rifle out of a small cupboard and handed it to Wells.

The writer could see that the so-called weapon was simply a piece of wood with a few knobs and pins added for show, like the accessories on the tram.

“As you can see, it’s just a toy. The automatons” wounds are produced by tiny charges hidden under their armor. But for my customers, of course, it’s a weapon, as real as it is powerful,” Murray explained, relieving Wells of the fake rifle and returning it to the closet with the others. “In short, Inspector Garrett believes one of the soldiers of the future, possibly Captain Shackleton himself, traveled back to our own time as a stowaway on the Cronotilus, and all he can think of is to travel on the third expedition to apprehend him before he does so, and thereby prevent the crime. Yesterday he showed me a warrant signed by the prime minister authorizing him to arrest a man who from where we’re standing hasn’t even been born yet. The inspector asked me to reserve three seats on the third expedition for him and two of his men. And, as I’m sure you’ll understand, I was in no position to refuse. What excuse could I have made? And so in ten days” time the inspector will travel to the year 2000 with the intention of arresting a murderer, but what he’ll in fact do is uncover the greatest swindle of the century. Perhaps, given my lack of scruples, you think I could get out of this fix by handing one of my actors over to him. But to make that believable, not only would I have to produce another Cronotilus out of thin air, I would also have to get round the difficult problem of Garrett seeing himself as part of the second expedition. As you can appreciate, all that is far too complicated even for me. The only person who can prevent Garrett from traveling to the future as he intends is you, Mr. Wells. I need you to find the real murderer before the day of the third expedition.” “And why should I help you?” asked Wells, more resigned than threatening.

This was the question they both knew would bring everything out into the open. Gilliam walked towards Wells, an alarmingly calm smile on his face, and, placing a plump hand on his shoulder, steered him gently to the other side of the room.

“I’ve thought a great deal about how to answer that question, Mr. Wells,” he said in a soft, almost sweet-sounding voice.

“I could throw myself on your mercy. Yes, I could slump to my knees and beg for your help. Can you imagine that, Mr. Wells? Can you see me sniveling like a child, tears dripping onto your shoes, crying out loud that I don’t want my head chopped off? I’m sure that would do the trick: you think you’re better than me and are anxious to prove it.” Gilliam smiled as he opened a small door and propelled Wells through it with a gentle shove. “But I could also threaten you, by telling you that if you refuse to help me, your beloved Jane will no doubt suffer a nasty accident while out on her afternoon bicycle ride in the suburbs of Woking. I’m sure that would also do the trick. However, I’ve decided instead to appeal to your curiosity. You and I are the only ones who are aware this is all a big farce. Or, to put it another way: you and I are the only ones who are aware that time travel is impossible. And yet someone has done it. Doesn’t that make you curious? Will you just stand by and watch while young Garrett devotes all his energy to pursuing a fantasy when a real time traveler could be roaming the streets of London?” Gilliam and Wells stared silently at one another.

“I’m sure you won’t,” Gilliam concluded.

And with these words, he closed the door of the future and deposited Wells back on the twenty-sixth of November 1896. The writer suddenly found himself in the dank alleyway behind Murray’s Time Travel, where a few cats were foraging among the rubbish. He had the impression that his trip to the year 2000 had been no more than a dream. On impulse, he thrust his hands into his jacket pockets, but they were empty: no one had slipped a flower into them.

37

When Wells called in to see him the next day at his office, Inspector Colin Garrett gave him the impression of being a shy, delicate young lad everything appeared too big for, from the sturdy desk where he was at that moment eating his breakfast, to his brown suit, and especially the murders, burglaries, and other crimes spreading like unsightly weeds all over the city. If he had been interested in writing a detective novel, like those his fellow novelist Doyle penned, for example, he would never have described his detective as looking anything at all like the nervous, frail-looking young man in front of him, who, to judge by the excited way he shook Wells’s hand, was particularly susceptible to the reverential zeal of hero worship.

Once he was seated, Wells stoically endured with his usual modest smile the outpouring of praise for his novel The Time Machine, although, to give the young inspector his due, he ended his eulogy with a most novel observation.

“As I say, I enjoyed your novel enormously, Mr. Wells,” he said, pushing aside his breakfast plate somewhat ashamedly, as though wishing to remove the guilty evidence of his gluttony, “and I regret how hard it must be for you, and for all authors of futuristic novels, not to be able to keep on speculating about the future now that we know what it is like. Otherwise, if the future had remained unfathomable and mysterious, I imagine novels that predict tomorrow’s world would have ended up becoming a genre in themselves.” “I suppose so,” Wells agreed, surprised at the young inspector having thought of something that had never even occurred to him.

Perhaps he was wrong after all to judge him on his youthful appearance. Following this brief exchange, the two men simply smiled affably at one another for the next few moments, as the sun’s rays filtered through the window, bathing them in a golden light. Finally, Wells, seeing that no more praise was forthcoming from the inspector, decided to broach the matter that had brought him there.

“Then, as a reader of my work, I imagine it will come as no surprise if I tell you I am here about the case of the murdered tramp,” he confessed. “I’ve heard a rumor that the culprit might be a time traveler, and while I have no intention of suggesting I am an authority on the matter, I think I may be of some assistance.” Garrett raised his eyebrows, as if he had no idea what Wells was talking about.

“What I’m trying to say, Inspector, is that I came here to offer you my … support.” The inspector cast him a sympathetic glance.

“You’re very kind, Mr. Wells, but that won’t be necessary,” he said. “You see, I’ve already solved the case.” He reached into his desk drawer for an envelope and fanned the photographs it contained out on the table. They were all of the tramp’s corpse. He showed them to Wells, one by one, explaining in great detail and with visible excitement, the chain of reasoning that had led him to suspect Captain Shackleton or one of his soldiers. Wells scarcely paid any attention, as the inspector was merely reiterating what Gilliam had already told him, but became engrossed in studying the intriguing wound on the corpse. He knew nothing of guns, but it did not take an expert to see that the grisly hole could not possibly have been inflicted by any present-day weapon. As Garrett and his team of pathologists maintained, the wound looked as though it had been caused by some sort of heat ray, like a stream of molten lava directed by a human hand.

“As you can see, there is no other explanation,” concluded Garrett with a satisfied grin, placing everything back in the envelope. “To be honest, I’m simply waiting until the third expedition leaves. This morning, for example, I sent a couple of officers to the crime scene simply for appearance’s sake.” “I see,” said Wells, trying not to show his disappointment.

What could he say to convince the inspector to investigate in a different direction without revealing that Captain Shackleton was not a man from the future, and that the year 2000 was no more than a stage set built of the rubble from demolished buildings? If he failed, Jane would almost certainly die. He stifled a gasp so as not to betray his anguish to the inspector.

Just then, an officer opened the door and asked to see Garrett.

The young inspector made his excuses and stepped out into the corridor, beginning a conversation with his officer that reached Wells as an incomprehensible murmur. The talk lasted a couple of minutes, after which Garrett came back into the office in a visibly bad mood, waving a scrap of paper in his right hand.

“The local police are a lot of bungling fools,” he growled, to the astonishment of Wells, who had not imagined this delicate young lad capable of such an angry outburst. “One of my officers found a message painted on the wall at the scene of the crime which those imbeciles overlooked.” Wells watched him reread the note several times in silence, leaning against the edge of his desk. He shook his head in deep dismay.

“Although, as it turns out, you couldn’t have come at a better time, Mr. Wells,” he said finally, beaming at the author. “This could almost be taken from a novel.” Wells raised his eyebrows and took the scrap of paper Garrett was holding out to him. The following words were scrawled on it: The stranger came in early February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station.

After reading it, Wells looked up at the inspector, who stared back at him.

“Does it ring any bells?” he asked.

“No,” replied Wells, categorically.

Garrett took the note from him and reread it, his head swaying from side to side again, like a pendulum.

“Nor for me,” he confessed. “What is Shackleton trying to say?” After posing the rhetorical question, the inspector appeared to become lost in thought. Wells used the opportunity to rise to his feet.

“Well, Inspector,” he said, “I shan’t trouble you any longer. I’ll leave you to your riddles.” Garrett roused himself and shook Wells by the hand.

“Many thanks, Mr. Wells. I’ll call you if I need you.” Wells nodded and walked out of Garrett’s office, leaving him pondering, precariously balanced on the corner of his desk. He made his way down the corridor, descended the staircase, and walked out of the police station, hailing the first cab he saw, almost without realizing what he was doing, like a sleepwalker or someone under hypnosis, or, why not, like an automaton. During the journey back to Woking, he did not venture to look out the window even once, for fear some stranger strolling along the pavement or a navvy resting by the side of the road would give him a significant look that would fill him with dread. When he arrived home, he noticed his hands were trembling. He hurried straight along the corridor into the kitchen, without even calling out to Jane to tell her he was back. On the table were his typewriter and the manuscript of his latest novel, which he had called The Invisible Man. Pale as a ghost, Wells sat down and glanced at the first page of the manuscript he had finished the day before and which no one but he had ever read. The novel began with the following sentence: The stranger came in early February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station.

There was a real time traveler, and he was trying to communicate with him. This was what Wells thought when he finally emerged from his daze. And with good reason; why else would the traveler have written on the wall the first lines of The Invisible Man, a novel that had not yet been published in his own time, a novel whose existence no one else but he as yet knew about? It was evident that killing a tramp with an unfamiliar weapon had only one purpose: to distinguish that murder from the many others perpetrated each day in the city and to attract the police’s attention, but the fragment of his novel left at the scene of the crime could only be a message for him. And although Wells did not rule out the possibility that the tramp’s strange chest wound had been inflicted by some present-day instrument Garrett and the pathologists had not yet stumbled upon, obviously no one could have known the beginning of his novel, except a man who came from the future. This fact alone dispelled any lingering doubts Wells might have had that he was dealing with a time traveler. He felt a shudder go through his body at the thought, not only because he had suddenly discovered that time travel, which he had always considered mere fantasy, was possible, or rather, would be possible in the future, but because, for some sinister reason he preferred not to think about, this time traveler, whoever he was, was trying to get into contact with him.

He spent all night tossing and turning, unnerved by the unpleasant feeling of knowing he was being watched and wondering whether he ought to tell the inspector everything, or whether that would anger the time traveler. When dawn broke, he had still not come to any decision. Fortunately, there was no need, as almost immediately an official carriage from Scotland Yard pulled up in front of his house. Garrett had sent one of his officers to fetch him: another dead body had turned up.

Without having breakfasted and still wearing his nightshirt under his coat, the dazed Wells agreed to be driven to London.

The coach stopped in Portland Street, where a pale-faced Garrett was waiting for him, alone at the center of an impressive police presence. Wells counted more than half a dozen officers trying desperately to secure the scene of the crime against the crowd of onlookers that had flocked to the area, amongst whom he could make out a couple of journalists.

“The victim was no tramp this time,” the inspector said after shaking his hand, “he was the landlord of a nearby tavern, a Mr. Terry Chambers. Although he was undoubtedly killed with the same weapon.” “Did the murderer leave another message?” asked Wells in a faint voice, managing just in time to stop himself from blurting out: “for me.” Garrett nodded, unable to disguise his irritation. Clearly, the young inspector would have preferred Captain Shackleton to find a less dangerous way of amusing himself until he was able to travel to the year 2000 to arrest him. Obviously overwhelmed by the whole incident, he guided Wells to the crime scene, pushing his way through the police cordon. Chambers was propped up against a wall, drooping slightly to one side, with a smoldering hole in his chest. The bricks behind him were clearly visible.

Some words had been daubed above his head. His heart pounding, Wells tried not to step on the publican as he leaned over to read the inscription: Left Munich at 8.35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning: should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late.

When he saw the sentence was not from his novel, Wells let out a sigh of both relief and disappointment. Was the message meant for another author? It seemed logical to think so, and he felt certain the otherwise unremarkable sentence was the beginning of an as yet unpublished novel, which the author had probably just finished. It seemed the time traveler was not only trying to make contact with him, but with someone else as well.

“Do the words ring a bell, Mr. Wells?” asked Garrett, hopefully.

“No, Inspector. However, I suggest you publish it in the newspaper. Clearly, the murderer is giving us some sort of riddle, and the more people who see it the better,” he said, aware he must do all he could to make this message reach the person to whom it was addressed.

While the inspector kneeled down to examine the corpse at close quarters, Wells gazed distractedly at the crowd on the other side of the cordon. “What business could the time traveler have with two nineteenth-century writers?” he wondered. As yet he did not know, but there was no doubt he would soon find out. All he had to do was wait. For the moment, the time traveler was the one pulling the strings.

Coming out of his daydream, he suddenly found himself looking at a young woman who was staring back at him. She was about twenty, slender and pale, with reddish hair, and the intentness of her gaze struck Wells as odd. She was wearing an ordinary dress with a cloak over it, and yet there was something strange about her, something about her expression and the way she was looking at him which he was unable to define, but which marked her out from the others.

Instinctively, Wells started towards her. But to his astonishment, his bold gesture scared the girl, who turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd, her fiery tresses billowing in the breeze. By the time the writer had managed to make his way through the throng, she had slipped away. He peered in every direction but could see no trace of her. It was as though she had vanished into thin air.

“Is something the matter, Mr. Wells?” The author jumped on hearing the voice of the inspector, who had come after him, no doubt intrigued by his strange behavior.

“Did you see her, Inspector?” Wells asked, still scanning the street anxiously. “Did you see the girl?” “What girl?” the young man asked.

“She was standing in the crowd. And there was something about her …” Garrett looked at him searchingly.

“What do you mean, Mr. Wells?” The writer was about to respond but realized he did not know how to explain the strange impression the girl had made on him.

“I … never mind, Inspector,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and sighing. “She was probably an ex-pupil of mine, that’s why she looked familiar …” The inspector nodded, not very convinced. He clearly thought Wells’s behavior odd. Even so, Garrett followed his advice, and the next day the two passages from both his and the unknown author’s books appeared in all the London newspapers. And if Wells’s suspicions were well founded, the information would have ruined the breakfast of one his fellow authors. Wells did not know who at that precise moment was being seized by the same panic that had been brewing inside him for the past two days, but the realization that he was not the only person the time traveler was trying to contact brought him some relief. He no longer felt alone in all this, nor was he in any hurry to learn what the traveler wanted from them. He was certain the riddle was not yet complete.

And he was not mistaken.

The following morning, when the cab from Scotland Yard pulled up at his door, Wells was already sitting on the porch steps dressed and breakfasted. The third corpse was that of a seamstress by the name of Chantal Ellis. The sudden change in the victim’s gender unsettled Garrett, but not Wells, who knew that the corpses were unimportant; they were simple blackboards on which the time traveler scribbled his messages. The words on the wall in Weymouth Street up against which the unfortunate Miss Ellis was propped, read as follows: The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.