The Map of Chaos (23 page)

And now, ten years on, Clayton seemed to be the only one making any effort to keep the memory of that case alive. He gazed distractedly around the Chamber of Marvels as the phonograph re-created once more the scene he knew by heart: the captain's monotonous voice initiating the séance, followed by a strained silence mixed with the participants' subdued breathing, then their gasps of surprise as the little bell, the handkerchief, and the gardenia came to life. Then Madame Amber's sensual groans, the loud thudding, Nurse Jones screeching that the medium was choking, Doctor Ramsey demanding she be brought some water, and finally, heralding the cacophonous sounds of the brawl, the Villain's voice, steeped in evil as though emerging from a putrid gorge.

“I've found you! At last, I've found you! And this time, you'll give me what is mine!”

What is mine . . . At least now he knew what the Villain had been referring to, reflected Clayton, stroking the book the old lady had entrusted to him. This was what the creature had been looking for, and he was not afraid to kill in order to get hold of it. Yet if he had wanted it so much, why did he not come back for it? At first, Clayton had expected they were bound to renew their half-finished duel, but as the years went by he realized the Villain could not have known that he was the one now in possession of
The Map of Chaos.
Doubtless the Villain had not gotten a proper look at him during their brief confrontation in the murky gloom at Mrs. Lansbury's house, and hadn't heard his voice either, and so was unable to recognize in that unexpected opponent the inspector who had thwarted his attempt to throttle the old lady during the séance. He must have mistaken him for a servant. And that meant he must be looking elsewhere for the book. Perhaps he believed it was still with the old lady, wherever she might be, or perhaps with the intended recipient of the message the Villain had intercepted. If so, that person was in grave danger, although there was little Clayton could do about it, as he had no clue as to who it was. He sighed with resignation and contemplated the book that Mrs. Lansbury had told him to guard with his life. And that was what he had done for the last ten years. He had hidden the book away in the Chamber of Marvels, a place that, as far as the world was concerned, did not exist, and waited for someone to come to claim it. But no one seemed to be aware that the book existed. And so, whenever he wasn't working on a case, like now, he would descend into the Chamber, turn on the phonograph, and spend hours poring over the map, wondering who had written it, what formulas those were, what extreme danger was threatening the world, and how that handful of scribbled pages could possibly save it.

Throughout those years, afraid each time that it might have fatal consequences, he had shown the book to some of England's most celebrated mathematicians, but none of them had been able to decipher the obscure formulas or the geometrical drawings, nor had they been able to tell him what the Maelstrom Coordinates to which the old lady had referred a couple of times might be, saying that they'd never heard of that expression.

Clayton cradled the book in his hand with a familiarity that had come with the years. He ran his finger over the eight-pointed star adorning the cover, and the tiny circle from which the ornate arrows sprang, then the second, concentric circle traversing them, which resembled a ship's wheel. He leafed through the pages, as always in the vague hope that this random search would reveal the meaning of it all, feeling the weight of responsibility the old lady had placed on his shoulders. Her words had become imprinted on his memory without the need for any phonograph: “The key to the salvation of the world lies within the pages of this book. Of the world as you know it, but also of all those worlds you can only imagine . . . You must guard it with your life if necessary and give it to those who come from the Other Side.” And although no one had claimed it during the ten intervening years, Clayton only needed recall the burning passion in the old lady's eyes to be sure that sooner or later someone would. That someone might be the Villain himself, he occasionally imagined with a shiver, that transparent murderer whom bullets scarcely grazed, that ruthless creature who would go on killing until he got hold of the book.

The sound of the Chamber door opening made him start. Who could it be at that hour? he wondered, glancing at the tiny window in one of the walls through which the pale dawn light was beginning to seep. But he immediately had the answer as he saw, framed against the door, a stout figure with a flashing red light in place of one of his eyes. When Captain Sinclair discovered him leaning on the desk, he gave a sigh and weaved his way through the fantastical bric-a-brac that filled the room.

I am sure any of you would wager that during the ten years that had passed, the relationship between Clayton and the captain could only have grown closer, given the dozens of cases they had worked on, the dangers they had braved together, and the secret adventures they had lived through. However, anyone placing his bets on that card would lose everything down to his socks, because some souls are only prepared to reveal so much and will not allow you to delve any deeper, and both Clayton and the captain possessed that sort of impermeable soul. And so the relationship between them had scarcely evolved from what it was at the beginning of this story.

In some cases that lack of intimacy had worked in the inspector's favor. For example, it had freed him from the need to address in any depth the matter of his fainting fits, whose resolution is something you must all be wondering about, for when we left Clayton ten years ago he was sneaking out of Dr. Higgins's consulting rooms. You should know that Clayton was later informed that the tests our mysterious doctor carried out revealed no abnormalities, and although the inspector sought advice from a few other medical practitioners, he eventually gave up trying to find a solution to his problem because it ceased to be one, at least in his work, which was what most concerned him. And how was that possible? Thanks to Captain Sinclair deciding to ignore it. Yes, during those ten years, Clayton had collapsed dozens of times while on duty, mostly in full view of Sinclair. At first Clayton had explained these lapses away with a variety of excuses (lack of sleep, anxiety associated with the case they were working on, not eating properly . . .), but as soon as he realized that the captain accepted them with an impassive silence, he stopped justifying them and simply grinned idiotically when he came to, in whatever corner his boss had put him so he wouldn't be in the way. Clayton never knew if the captain had believed any of his excuses, or whether he had mentioned it to his superiors, but the fact is he was never called into anyone's office, leading him to assume that, regardless of the many problems it caused them, Sinclair had decided to overlook his eccentric habit of collapsing all over the place without prior warning. Despite the relative peace of mind this gave him, Clayton continued to be intrigued by the reasons for the captain's behavior—that is, until one afternoon when Mrs. Sinclair confessed to Clayton, during one of her frequent attacks of honesty over tea, that her husband's potent seed couldn't take root in her barren womb. In a voice dripping with melancholy, Marcia Julia Sinclair had described to him the long, arduous years during which they had struggled to produce an heir, the endless frustrations, and, above all, the enormous disappointment of discovering that, after a certain age, not even the hardest-fought battle of this kind had any chance of success. After that, the inspector was in no doubt as to why the captain had chosen to help him bear his heavy burden. Fate had decided that he filled perfectly the empty space left in his captain's marriage, and the immunity that granted him, although he had not asked for it, proved very convenient. He showed his gratitude to Sinclair every day in the only way their lack of intimacy allowed: mutely. The captain responded in kind, also using that coded language of awkward smiles, subtle nods, and significant raisings of the eyebrows, whereby each told the other he knew that the other knew. Thus Clayton's fainting fits ceased to be a problem and became something he had to learn to live with. As you will understand, he couldn't help feeling grateful that things had worked out that way, because it enabled him to go on dreaming about Valerie.

“Heaven knows why I went looking for you at your house, the club, or the Yard, when I know perfectly well you like to spend every spare moment shut away in here,” the captain grumbled, more to himself than to Clayton, panting for breath as he came to a halt near the inspector.

The ten years that had passed had flecked his hair with white and added a few more furrows to his face, but on the whole Sinclair seemed scarcely affected by the passage of time, like those soaring cliffs whose erosion by the waves is so slow as to be almost imperceptible to the human eye.

“Good morning, Captain,” Clayton said, hurriedly switching off the phonograph, like a child caught red-handed. “You're up early.”

“Likewise, Inspector,” Sinclair retorted, frowning at the book lying on the desk.

Clayton gave a shrug. Sinclair then observed his subordinate at length, nervously pursing and relaxing his lips, reluctant to speak.

“Perhaps you should stop brooding over that case . . . ,” he said at last. “Stop brooding over everything, in fact. It isn't advisable in this profession to take your work home with you.”

Clayton nodded with feigned indifference, wondering what his boss would think if he knew that the Countess de Bompard's portrait was hanging on a wall in the cellar of his home.

“You're still young. You have your whole life ahead of you,” Sinclair went on, since that morning Clayton seemed ready to exceed his habitual quota of lengthy silences. “I shall be retiring soon, and you can rest assured I shall recommend you as my replacement. So take a tip from this old-timer: Don't let any case jeopardize your private life,” he concluded, absentmindedly stroking the extraordinary monocle covering his right eye.

Clayton gave a sardonic smile.

“Thanks for the advice, Captain, but we both know you won't be recommending me and that I shan't hold it against you. My
little
difficulty will be far less trouble to everyone if you keep me in an office filling in forms instead of sending me out onto the streets with a handful of novices under my command.” Sinclair opened his mouth, about to protest, only to close it again, conceding with regret that the inspector had predicted his own future far more accurately than he. “As for my private life, you needn't worry: I don't have one.”

“Precisely,” Sinclair retorted. “Don't you think we all need a bit of, er . . . feminine company come nightfall?”

Clayton smiled to himself. These brusque, clumsy assaults the captain occasionally made on his craggy heart, clearly at his wife's behest, never failed to touch him.

“I have no desire to frequent brothels, if that is what you mean,” he replied with mock indignation.

“Good heavens, no, Inspector . . . I was referring to a less, er . . . ephemeral sort of companionship. I don't know whether you've noticed that my secretary, Miss Barkin, always remembers how you take your coffee, yet she always makes mine exactly the way I most detest it.”

“Interesting. I think that needs investigating,” Clayton said, feigning thoughtfulness as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Is that the new case you came here to have me embark on?”

“I shan't deny that neither Marcia nor I would object to your brooding over that case,” the captain growled, finally betraying the fact that this was more his wife's doing than his own. He shrugged and gave a sigh. He had more than kept his side of the bargain by pointing out to the thick-skinned inspector the attentions his secretary lavished on him. It was time to move on to the real reason for his being there. “And yet something tells me that the case I came here to tell you about will interest you much more.”

“Are you sure any case could interest me more than the vagaries of Miss Barkin's coffee making, Captain?” Clayton grinned, visibly relieved that the conversation had taken a different turn.

“I have no doubt whatsoever,” Sinclair assured him, “since it involves that author you admire so much, the one who wrote the novel about the Martian invasion.”

“H. G. Wells?” Clayton gasped, starting to his feet.

The captain nodded, pleased he had at least been able to provide his subordinate with a new toy to distract him.

“He lives in Worcester Park.” Sinclair rummaged in his jacket pocket and handed Clayton a note. “Here's the address. Get there as quickly as you can.”

Clayton read the note and nodded.

“What is it about, Captain?”

Sinclair grinned. He knew that this was the part the inspector would appreciate the most.

“A Martian cylinder appeared last night on Horsell Common,” he explained. “Exactly as Mr. Wells described in his novel.”

A
RE THE MANIFOLD MYSTERIES THREATENING THE UNIVERSE CAUSING YOU TO QUAKE IN YOUR SHOES, DEAR READER? HAVE NO FEAR: AS IN ALL GOOD DETECTIVE STORIES, EVERYTHING WILL BE REVEALED.

B
UT NO READER CAN LIVE ON MYSTERIES ALONE
. S
O KEEP TURNING THE PAGES OF THIS DISQUIETING NOVEL AND YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IMMERSED IN A LOVE STORY THAT DEFIES DEATH ITSELF
. B
UT DO NOT FORGET THAT THE MOST FORMIDABLE VILLAIN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE IS SEARCHING FOR THE VERY BOOK YOU ARE HOLDING
. I
F NECESSARY, GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE
!

M
ONTGOMERY
G
ILMORE WOULD HAVE PREFERRED
not to suffer from that irrational fear of heights that made him go green around the gills. Up until then, it had remained hidden, like a stowaway, and no doubt harked back to some long-forgotten episode in childhood. A painful tumble from the garden wall at his parents' house? The angry admonishments of an overly zealous governess? Who could say? Whatever the case, that seed, which grudgingly took root in his soul at some point in his life, had continued to grow surreptitiously, only to appear at the worst possible moment: precisely when he found himself suspended at a considerable height in midair, beneath an inflated hot-air balloon. Unfortunately for him, the object was moving higher and higher, until it seemed they would touch the sun itself, or at least that is what the man in control of it seemed to wish to do. He was a taciturn fellow who responded to Gilmore's ceaseless questions (did he think they were on the right course, were they flying at the correct height, was the wind speed adequate . . . ?) with a shrug, switching the grubby toothpick he was chewing from one side of his mouth to the other. Gilmore imagined strangling the man with his bare hands, and the thought consoled him slightly, although he made no attempt to act on it, if only because that would have meant letting go of the side of the basket, and this was something he didn't have the stomach for, not even so as to wipe away the sweat pouring down his temples. He was content to remain jammed in among the crowd of acrobats filling the tiny basket and jumping around like a troop of unruly monkeys as they practiced their next routine, and to try to maintain a smile of aloof indifference as he wondered what the devil he had intended by wearing a bright purple suit, a top hat that weighed a ton, and a spinning bow tie he feared might slash his throat at any moment.