The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(137)

“The victim was no tramp this time,” the inspector said after shaking his hand, “he was the landlord of a nearby tavern, a Mr. Terry Chambers. Although he was undoubtedly killed with the same weapon.” “Did the murderer leave another message?” asked Wells in a faint voice, managing just in time to stop himself from blurting out: “for me.” Garrett nodded, unable to disguise his irritation. Clearly, the young inspector would have preferred Captain Shackleton to find a less dangerous way of amusing himself until he was able to travel to the year 2000 to arrest him. Obviously overwhelmed by the whole incident, he guided Wells to the crime scene, pushing his way through the police cordon. Chambers was propped up against a wall, drooping slightly to one side, with a smoldering hole in his chest. The bricks behind him were clearly visible.

Some words had been daubed above his head. His heart pounding, Wells tried not to step on the publican as he leaned over to read the inscription: Left Munich at 8.35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning: should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late.

When he saw the sentence was not from his novel, Wells let out a sigh of both relief and disappointment. Was the message meant for another author? It seemed logical to think so, and he felt certain the otherwise unremarkable sentence was the beginning of an as yet unpublished novel, which the author had probably just finished. It seemed the time traveler was not only trying to make contact with him, but with someone else as well.

“Do the words ring a bell, Mr. Wells?” asked Garrett, hopefully.

“No, Inspector. However, I suggest you publish it in the newspaper. Clearly, the murderer is giving us some sort of riddle, and the more people who see it the better,” he said, aware he must do all he could to make this message reach the person to whom it was addressed.

While the inspector kneeled down to examine the corpse at close quarters, Wells gazed distractedly at the crowd on the other side of the cordon. “What business could the time traveler have with two nineteenth-century writers?” he wondered. As yet he did not know, but there was no doubt he would soon find out. All he had to do was wait. For the moment, the time traveler was the one pulling the strings.

Coming out of his daydream, he suddenly found himself looking at a young woman who was staring back at him. She was about twenty, slender and pale, with reddish hair, and the intentness of her gaze struck Wells as odd. She was wearing an ordinary dress with a cloak over it, and yet there was something strange about her, something about her expression and the way she was looking at him which he was unable to define, but which marked her out from the others.

Instinctively, Wells started towards her. But to his astonishment, his bold gesture scared the girl, who turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd, her fiery tresses billowing in the breeze. By the time the writer had managed to make his way through the throng, she had slipped away. He peered in every direction but could see no trace of her. It was as though she had vanished into thin air.

“Is something the matter, Mr. Wells?” The author jumped on hearing the voice of the inspector, who had come after him, no doubt intrigued by his strange behavior.

“Did you see her, Inspector?” Wells asked, still scanning the street anxiously. “Did you see the girl?” “What girl?” the young man asked.

“She was standing in the crowd. And there was something about her …” Garrett looked at him searchingly.

“What do you mean, Mr. Wells?” The writer was about to respond but realized he did not know how to explain the strange impression the girl had made on him.

“I … never mind, Inspector,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and sighing. “She was probably an ex-pupil of mine, that’s why she looked familiar …” The inspector nodded, not very convinced. He clearly thought Wells’s behavior odd. Even so, Garrett followed his advice, and the next day the two passages from both his and the unknown author’s books appeared in all the London newspapers. And if Wells’s suspicions were well founded, the information would have ruined the breakfast of one his fellow authors. Wells did not know who at that precise moment was being seized by the same panic that had been brewing inside him for the past two days, but the realization that he was not the only person the time traveler was trying to contact brought him some relief. He no longer felt alone in all this, nor was he in any hurry to learn what the traveler wanted from them. He was certain the riddle was not yet complete.

And he was not mistaken.

The following morning, when the cab from Scotland Yard pulled up at his door, Wells was already sitting on the porch steps dressed and breakfasted. The third corpse was that of a seamstress by the name of Chantal Ellis. The sudden change in the victim’s gender unsettled Garrett, but not Wells, who knew that the corpses were unimportant; they were simple blackboards on which the time traveler scribbled his messages. The words on the wall in Weymouth Street up against which the unfortunate Miss Ellis was propped, read as follows: The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

“Does this one ring a bell, Mr. Wells?” asked Garrett, no hope in his voice.

“No,” replied the author, omitting to add that the intricate prose struck him as vaguely familiar, although he was unable to identify its author.