The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(116)

“No! Damn and blast it!” cried Doyle.

He took a step forward, but Murray stopped him.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going? The house is about to fall down,” he said, pointing toward the stairwell.

Doyle swung round and saw that the fire had spread to the walls adjoining the stairs. The crashes and thuds they could hear coming from different corners of the house told them that parts of it were already collapsing.

“The hallway is in flames . . . ,” Doyle said unnecessarily.

“Getting across it is going to be difficult,” Murray added.

“But not impossible,” the other man grunted, undaunted by the situation. “Our only chance is to cover ourselves with some thick, resistant material and run through the flames.”

They looked at each other.

“The sacks of plaster!” they exclaimed as one.

The two men hurried to the storeroom, where Murray tore open a couple of the sacks and emptied the contents on the floor. He felt mildly euphoric. They might get out of there alive after all. Doyle seemed to think so, and he’d had many lucky escapes.

“Damn it, Arthur, I thought you were dead!” he cried, almost jubilantly, as he helped Doyle protect himself with one of the bags, pulling it down over his head like a medieval monk’s hood.

“The truth is I remember little of what happened to me,” Doyle said, pressing his injured hand to his chest to make Murray’s job easier. “I think I managed to grab hold of something when the floor gave way, but I must have banged my head and passed out. Your cries brought me round, and I was about to reply when I heard the creature’s voice. I realized he assumed I was dead, and I decided it was best he go on believing that, for a while at least. Then, just as I was thinking how to help you . . .” Doyle looked solemnly at Murray. “I had the impression that . . . I could hear your thoughts.”

“My thoughts?”

“Yes, as clearly as if you’d been whispering in my ear, I heard the words: ‘If only I could get to the sacks of plaster.’ That’s why I went to fetch one, Gilliam.”

Taken aback, Murray stared at him but said nothing. He took the opportunity of covering himself with the sacking to avoid Doyle’s gaze.

“That’s what you were thinking, isn’t it?” he heard Doyle say as he protected his head and as much of his exposed skin as possible.

“Yes,” Murray admitted at last. Then, after a long pause, he added: “Something similar happened to me. I thought . . . I heard you too.”

“What did you hear?” Doyle asked, increasingly excited.

“Well, I . . .” Murray faltered.

“For God’s sake, Gilliam, tell me what you heard!”

“?‘Reichenbach.’ I heard the name ‘Reichenbach,’?” Murray said at length, ashamed not to have picked up a more significant thought than a single foreign name.

Doyle burst out laughing.

“My God, it worked. It worked!” Calming down a little, he looked at Murray, who still could not believe it. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, Gilliam: that I hadn’t fallen into the abyss—that I’d escaped the way you wanted me to have Holmes escape from the Reichenbach Falls. And you heard me! My God! Do you know what this means? We have communicated telepathically!”

Murray sighed as he replaced the sacking Doyle had dislodged with all his gesticulating. When he thought they were as ready as they would ever be, he clapped Doyle on the shoulder.

“My dear Arthur, I once challenged you to make me believe in all the things I didn’t believe in,” he said, wheeling round and heading for the door. “Well, I promise I won’t ever challenge you to do anything again.”

“Well, Gilliam, perhaps one last challenge would be good . . .” Doyle grinned. “What do you reckon? Can we can get out of a burning building alive?”





22


I’M GOING IN AFTER THEM!” cried Wells.

He moved away from Jane and took two steps toward the front door, but once again the sinister fronds of flames visible behind the windows made him pause.

“Please don’t go in there, Bertie,” Jane implored. “How could you possibly help two strapping men like Arthur and Monty?”

“I don’t know! I don’t even know what’s going on in there. Perhaps the Invisible Man has killed our friends and is coming for us,” said Wells, glancing around them, a look of fear and shame on his face. “We should have done what Doyle said! If we had left fifteen minutes ago, we would have reached the village by now and help would be on its way! But by now it’s probably too late. And all because of me.”

“Don’t torment yourself for carrying out a dying man’s last wish, Bertie,” whispered Jane, looking out of the corner of her eye at the coachman, who lay sprawled on the gravel driveway. “You aren’t to blame if—”

“But if he is to blame, then I am to blame, aren’t I?” Wells interrupted, pointing at the old man and letting out a hysterical guffaw that caused his wife to recoil. “Of course I am!”

He strode over to Baskerville, but when he knelt at the old man’s side, his childish fury gave way to deep sorrow. The coachman’s eyes were closed and had sunk back into his head, which was resting on Wells’s overcoat, From his ashen-colored face, his nose, suddenly sharper, stood out, pointing up at the sky like the prow of a sinking ship. Wells lifted the rug they had covered him with, which now had a big dark stain on it, and, after peering beneath, replaced it again.