The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(38)

But Clayton couldn’t say those things to Madame Amber, for the simple reason that she was lying in a faint on the floor. Her head lay in Colonel Garrick’s lap, and one hand was clasped between those of Captain Sinclair, who was trying to bring her round by tapping her gently on the back while crying out for a hammer and chisel.





6


DESPITE NOT HAVING SLEPT A wink that night, Inspector Cornelius Clayton strode out early next morning toward number 3 Furnival Street. He hoped the chill air would clear his thoughts, or at least dislodge the niggling pain that had taken root at the base of his skull at some point during that endless night. After leaving Scotland Yard, he had decided not to take a cab and had instead made his way down to the river. The streets were shrouded in a damp fog that obliged him to turn up the collar of his coat and bury his hands in his pockets. He slowed his pace as he reached the Victoria Embankment, intending to stroll along the Thames as far as the Strand. He liked seeing the dawn lazily cast its light over the water, as though sketching it with an unsteady hand among the city’s edifices. At that hour, still obscured by swirls of mist, the river allowed the first barges to cleave its waters, like derelict floating castles with their brimming cargoes of coal, oysters, and eels. A crowd of boats, sloops, and small vessels jostled on both banks of the river, disgorging onto its quays baskets filled with squid, shellfish, and other treasures snatched from the sea, whose foul odors the wind wafted through the neighboring streets. Before reaching Waterloo Bridge, which the dawn light outlined in greyish hues in the distance, Clayton crossed the Strand and wandered into Covent Garden market. Unconsciously, he adjusted his pace to the steady rhythm of the tradespeople who had been laboriously setting up their stalls since four o’clock and disappeared among the noisy labyrinth lined with barrows brimming with cabbages and onions, flower baskets, beer barrels and fruit stalls, where, regardless of the early hour, a mob of ragged beggars, children robbed of their childhood, and picturesquely skinny cats were competing for the stall holders’ scraps. Unperturbed by these sights, Clayton soon slipped through the gap between a stall selling shiny apples and one with gladioli, clashing in the breeze like fantastical rapiers. He stepped absentmindedly through puddles, where the reflections from streetlights glinted and were then extinguished as he passed, heralding another of those cold, dreary days typical of London in autumn.

Finally he crossed the Aldwych and drew near to his destination. However, despite his resolute stride, Inspector Clayton remained far away. In fact, he was still in the interview room in Scotland Yard, where for the past few hours he had been taking statements from Madame Amber, whose real name was Sarah Willard, and from Sir Henry Blendell, architect to Her Majesty, the most honorable, trustworthy man in the realm, at least until the illfated day when the beautiful medium with platinum-blond hair and deep-blue eyes had crossed his path.

For the umpteenth time, Clayton went over in his head the lengthy confession he and Captain Sinclair had finally dragged out of them. First they had put them in different rooms and, aiming to wear them down and unsettle them, had subjected them to the same cross-examination, over and over, laying small traps for them among the torrent of questions. They had even resorted to the old trick of assuring each of them that the other, in the safety of the adjacent room, had betrayed them to save his or her own skin. Then, just before dawn, they had confronted them both in the same room, in the desperate hope one of them would break down. But it had all been in vain. All night long they had repeated the same version of events, identical down to the last detail: they acknowledged their personal relationship and their criminal association; they confessed to having carried out hundreds of deceptions during the past few years, which had made them very rich; Sarah Willard possessed none of the powers she claimed to have as Madame Amber; she had possessed them as a child (she swore on the Holy Bible) but had lost them when she reached puberty and since then had been incapable of summoning spirits of any kind whatsoever, nor had she experienced any paranormal phenomena; however, inspired by the growing vogue for spiritualism, she had fraudulently resuscitated her childhood powers, determined that the memory of those past horrors should not only give her nightmares but also line her pockets with silver; she had decided to drag herself out of poverty by posing as a medium, and not just any medium, but the greatest and most famous medium of all times; she had planned it all carefully, including her seduction of Sir Henry, since she realized her beauty and talent for acting were not enough and that she needed an accomplice who could help her with the technical aspects; despite his unimpeachable personal integrity, Sir Henry had been far easier to seduce than she had expected; the poor old man had fallen madly in love after one kiss and had instantly consented to all her proposals, driven by an inflamed passion and his lustful desire to possess her (this was the only time during the interrogation where their two confessions diverged, for Sir Henry insisted he had acted purely out of a Christian desire to help a lost soul overcome the sufferings that afflicted her); the knight of the realm had placed the extraordinary wealth of his knowledge at her service, transforming her town house, and any venue he was sent to inspect, with a maze of ingenious hidden devices designed to evade any scrutiny: trapdoors, springs, pulleys, false floors, nylon threads, powerful magnets, tubes emitting fluorescent gas, stuffed gloves that resembled floating hands, rubber masks, imprints of ghostly faces and bodies. As for Madame Amber, she confessed to being an accomplished regurgitator who could use her stomach to conceal an astonishing number of objects, thus slipping past even the most thorough examinations, even those stooping to the outrageous discourtesy of violating her most intimate cavities; the previous night, for example, disguising what she was doing with violent spasms, she had succeeded in regurgitating a rubber capsule containing hydrogen phosphide, which she had then bitten; exposed to air, the gas had created the will-o’-the-wisps and the luminous cloud. After that she had regurgitated several yards of fine gauze, onto which a face had been painted, and which gave the appearance of a ghost as it wafted above her thanks to the current of air coming from a tiny pipe under the table (the ghostly breath Colonel Garrick had felt on his hand).