The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(100)

“Gilmore is Murray . . . Gilmore is Murray,” Doyle repeated, unable to overcome his astonishment. “Were you aware that I wrote several letters in his defense, George?”

Wells nodded quietly, allowing his friend to recover gradually from the shock before continuing.

“But . . . why stage his own death?” asked Doyle.

Wells realized Doyle had overcome his initial surprise and was now asking the appropriate questions. However, he wasn’t sure Doyle would swallow the only reply Wells could give him.

“Well,” he said calmly, as though he himself believed what he was saying, “the hole in the year 2000 suddenly closed up without any warning, and nobody knew why. But Murray suspected that people wouldn’t be satisfied with that explanation. He feared they might think he had made it up so as to avoid sharing his discovery with the world, and he decided the best thing to do was, well . . . pretend he’d been eaten by a dragon in the fourth dimension.”

Wells felt his pulse racing as for almost a whole minute Doyle contemplated him, pondering his reply.

“Carry on,” he said at last, in the tone of someone who knows he is being lied to but also understands that he has no right to dig any deeper.

Wells hurriedly changed the subject. “The fact is he met Emma as Montgomery Gilmore. And for the past two and a half years he has been debating whether or not to confess to her his true identity. The last time we discussed the subject was at Brook Manor, on the day of the accident. Monty told me he had decided not to say anything to her about it, but I, er . . . I convinced him he should.” Wells shrugged, pulling an awkward face. “And it seems he was trying to do that while driving the car. He was so nervous he lost control of the wheel. The result is that I, too, feel partly responsible for Emma’s death. In fact, I feel almost wholly to blame,” he added in a strangled voice.

“I see,” Doyle sighed, astonished by this wave of guilt that had washed over everyone.

His voice increasingly choked with sorrow, Wells began to relate everything that had happened during the six months Doyle had been away—not only to inform him, but also to vent all the frustration and remorse that had begun to engulf him, and that, with his tendency to feel victimized, he could not help exaggerating. For the first few days, Murray had seemed numb, incapable of reacting, as though unconsciously he had decided that if he refused to accept his beloved’s death it would miraculously no longer be true. But acceptance finally came, bringing with it grief—an intense grief that seemed to spill out from his insides in an inconsolable, almost inhuman weeping. Several weeks passed during which Murray was reduced to a broken creature for whom simply being alive was painful, as if someone had covered everything around him with thorns. Then, when the weeping finished, leaving his body a dried-out husk, rage rushed in, a rage directed at the world, the universe, and even at the God he did not believe in, a God who, unbeknownst to the happy couple, had plotted to snatch Emma away from him in an act of cosmic conspiracy. But his blind rage also gradually subsided, giving way to a phase of exalted promises (Wells had heard Murray propose a none-too-altruistic pact with Death, vowing to destroy everything of value in the world if only it would bring back his beloved Emma), philosophical ramblings, and macabre poetry. Sprawled on the sofa, a perennially topped-up drink in his hand, Murray would ramble on about the precariousness of existence and how impossible it was for him to accept that Emma had vanished forever, never to return, that she had left the world of the living, when he knew that she was still there, buried in Highgate Cemetery, only a few hours’ carriage ride away, her beauty wilting, silent as a rose in the darkness of her coffin. And finally, the guilt that had been stalking him all that time, and which he had perhaps not wanted to yield to until he had reflected all he could on his beloved’s death: guilt at failing to protect her, guilt at not loving her even more than he had, and above all guilt at not having confessed to her the truth about who he was. Because of the fear that had prevented him from doing so, all he had left was a handful of poisoned memories, for their love affair had been nothing but a great big lie. And Wells, who also felt guilty because of what had happened, even though Murray had never reproached him for it, realized with horror that his friend was preparing to take his own life. Wells’s suspicions were soon confirmed when Murray announced that he had gone through the obligatory mourning period, and all he had to do now was decide how he would kill himself. And kill himself he would, regardless of anything Wells might have to say on the matter, for he couldn’t go on living with the knowledge that he had deceived the person he loved most, that he would never be able to beg her for forgiveness.

“I tried to dissuade him, Arthur, I assure you. I used every argument under the sun. But it was useless. I could persuade him to confess his secret to Emma, but I can’t persuade him to go on living, doubtless because what I say no longer means anything to him,” Wells lamented. “And so Murray is liable to kill himself at any moment. Jane and I have been watching over him day and night these past few months, but we can’t go on like this forever, Arthur. We’re exhausted. At some point we’ll turn our backs and Murray will carry out his threat. I don’t know when exactly, but I assure you he will do it, unless someone can convince him not to.”

“But if you, his closest friend, haven’t been able to, then who?” said Doyle.

Wells gave what Doyle thought was a slightly demented smile.