The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(54)
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.”
PART TWO
ARE 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.
BUT NO READER CAN LIVE ON MYSTERIES ALONE. SO KEEP TURNING THE PAGES OF THIS DISQUIETING NOVEL AND YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IMMERSED IN A LOVE STORY THAT DEFIES DEATH ITSELF. BUT DO NOT FORGET THAT THE MOST FORMIDABLE VILLAIN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE IS SEARCHING FOR THE VERY BOOK YOU ARE HOLDING. IF NECESSARY, GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE!
10
MONTGOMERY GILMORE 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.