The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(13)

After the thunderous explosion, a heavy silence fell. Murray blinked a few times and finally saw that the hole had vanished. All that was left of it were a few strands of mist hovering above the metal stand. It took several moments for him to realize he no longer had anything to trade in, and that he would never be the savior of mankind.

It seemed History wasn’t going to happen the way he had imagined either.

? ? ?

“IT SEEMED HISTORY WASN’T going to happen the way he had imagined either,” Jane read. It was a good way to end a chapter, she reflected with a satisfied smile before blowing on the paper to dry the ink. Leaning back in her chair, she observed with delight the freshly cut roses on her desk. She had picked them from the rosebush that very morning as the sky chose the colors of dawn and the cold night air still lingered on their petals.

At that moment, Wells tiptoed into her study with his habitual reverence, as though afraid his manly presence might disrupt the delicate feminine atmosphere floating in the room. He spent a few moments contemplating the charming orderliness around him, whose enchantment was so alien to him, and his eyes flashed as he caught sight of the scribbled pages on his wife’s desk.

“What are you writing, my dear?” he asked with feigned nonchalance.

Ever since his wife had told him she wanted to turn one of their unoccupied rooms into a study, Wells had resolved to spend part of his extremely limited and valuable time trying to find out what his wife was doing in there. Direct questioning had failed, because she merely replied with a shrug. Joshing hadn’t worked either. “Are you drawing pictures of animals in there?” he had once asked, but Jane hadn’t laughed the way she usually did when he said such things. Her silence was tomb-like, and since torture was not an option, Wells had been forced to resort to surprise incursions. Thus he had discovered that Jane went into her study to write, which wasn’t much of a discovery, as he could almost have worked it out without having to go in there. She was hardly likely to use the room for breeding rabbits, practicing devil worship, or dancing naked. Besides, she had half jokingly threatened him with it. Now all he had to do was find out what she was writing.

“Oh, nothing of any interest,” Jane replied, quickly hiding the sheets of paper in her desk drawer, the lock of which Wells had unsuccessfully tried to force open. “I’ll let you read it once it’s finished.”

Once it’s finished . . . That meant nothing. What if it was never finished? What if for some reason she decided not to finish it? What if the world came to an end first? If it did, he would never know what Jane had been doing during the three or four hours she spent in her study every day. Was she writing a diary? Or perhaps a recipe book? But why be so cagey about a recipe book?

“One of the things I most hate in life is couples who keep secrets from each other,” Wells said, being deliberately dramatic.

“I thought what you most hated was the fact that no one has invented an electric razor yet,” Jane chuckled. She went on talking to him as she took his arm and led him toward the door, trying not to give the impression she was getting rid of him. “But don’t be such a grouch. What does it matter what I write? Your work is the important thing, Bertie, so stop wasting your time spying on me and get writing.”

“At least you know what I’m writing,” he grumbled. “I let you see everything I do, whereas you’re . . .”

“. . . an unfathomable mystery to you, and you can’t bear it, I know. I already explained it to you once: this is the only way of keeping your interest in me alive. I have to stop you from deciphering me, dear. Because if you understood everything about me, you would soon tire of me and start looking for other mysteries, and your crowning work, your true masterpiece, would never be written . . . So go back to your study and leave me with my trivial entertainments. They’re not important. They aren’t even as good as your earlier stories.”

“Don’t you think I should be the judge of that?” Wells retorted, surprised rather than annoyed at suddenly finding himself on the other side of the door. “But I suppose you’re right, as always. I should get back to my work and—”

“Splendid, dear.”

Jane gave her husband a parting wink and withdrew into her sanctuary. After shrugging, Wells went down to the ground floor, where he hid away in his study. Ensconced in his chair, he glanced wearily around him. Despite having placed all his books and knickknacks on the shelves as carefully as Jane, his room only gave off an atmosphere of sterile sedateness. However much he changed things round, the room never felt warm. Wells sighed and contemplated the sheaf of blank pages before him. He proposed to record on them all his hard-earned wisdom, everything he had seen. And who could tell: perhaps that knowledge might change the fate of the world, although Wells couldn’t help wondering how much he was driven by altruism and how much by vanity. He reached for his pen, ready to begin his “crowning’ work, as Jane had called it, while the sounds from the street and the neighboring park seeped in through his window, noises from a world that went by immersed in the smug satisfaction of believing itself unique . . .





PART ONE


1


THERE WAS NOTHING INSPECTOR CORNELIUS Clayton would have liked more than for the dinner Valerie de Bompard had organized in honor of the successful outcome of his first case to end in a sudden attack of indigestion on the part of all her guests, himself excluded, the sooner for him to remain alone with the beautiful countess. And why should such a thing not happen? he mused, raising his fork mechanically to his mouth. After all, such unfortunate incidents fell within the bounds of the possible, especially since the castle cook already had experience in these matters, having three months earlier almost poisoned the entire domestic staff by serving them rotten food. However, the guests were already well into their second course and none of them showed signs of feeling the slightest bit queasy. And so Clayton resigned himself to having to endure the wretched dinner to the very end, telling himself he might find it more bearable if he forgot about the countess momentarily and simply enjoyed the praise lavished on him by the other guests. Did he not fully deserve it? Naturally: he was there as assistant to the legendary Captain Angus Sinclair, head of the mysterious Special Branch at Scotland Yard, but it had been his ingenious plan, and not the vain prestige of his superior, that had finally freed the town of Blackmoor from the terrible curse that had been hanging over it for months.