The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(146)

His novel would elevate him to a prominent position in the pantheon of present-day authors, exactly as his mother had predicted after reading his manuscript, in a note he had carried round in his pocket ever since. And did he not deserve it? he said to himself.

He had spent six long years working on the novel, ever since Dr. Arminius Vambery, lecturer in eastern languages at the University of Bucharest and an expert on the occult, had loaned him a manuscript in which the Turks spoke of the cruel practices of the Prince of Wallchia, Vlad Tepes, better known as Vlad the Impaler owing to his custom of impaling prisoners on pointed stakes and imbibing a cup of their blood as he watched them die.

“Another of Frost’s novels is entitled The Turn of the Screw,” Marcus went on, turning to the American. “Does the name ring a bell, Mr. James?” The American looked at him in mute surprise.

“Of course it does,” said Marcus. “As you can tell from his response, this is the novel Mr. James has just finished, a charming ghost story that will also become a classic.” Despite his consummate skill at dissimulating his feelings, James was unable to hide his pleasure at discovering the happy fate of his novel, the first he had chosen not to hammer out with his own fingers, preferring to hire the services of a typist instead.

And perhaps for that very reason, because of the symbolic distance created between him and the paper, he had ventured to speak of something as intimate and painful as his childhood fears.

Although he suspected it might also have had something to do with his decision to give up residing in hotels and guest houses and settle in the beautiful Georgian house he had acquired in Rye.

It was only then, when he found himself in his study, the autumn sunlight shimmering around the room, a delicate butterfly fluttering at the windowpane, and a stranger hanging on his every word, fingers poised over the keys of the monstrous machine, that James had found the courage to write a novel inspired by a story the Archbishop of Canterbury had told him long before, about two children who lived in an isolated country house where they were haunted by the evil spirits of departed servants.

Watching James smile discreetly, Wells wondered what kind of a ghost story it was where the ghosts were not really ghosts, and yet perhaps they were after all, although in all probability they were not, because you were meant to think that they were.

“And Frost’s third novel,” said Marcus, turning to address Wells, “could be none other than The Invisible Man, the work you have just finished, Mr. Wells, the hero of which will also find his place in the pantheon of modern legend, beside Mr. Stoker’s Dracula.” “Was it his turn now to swell with pride?” Wells wondered.

Perhaps, but he could find no reason to do so. All he wanted to do was to sit in a corner and weep, and to carry on weeping until not a drop of water was left in his body, because he was only able to see the future success of his novel as a failure, in the same way he considered The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau had also failed. Rattled off at the same speed as, alas, he felt obliged to write all his works, The Invisible Man was yet another novel that conformed to the guidelines set down for him by Lewis Hind: a science fiction novel intended as a cautionary tale about the dangers of misusing scientific knowledge. This was something Jules Verne had never ventured to do, always portraying science as a sort of transparent alchemy at man’s disposal. Wells, on the other hand, could not share the Frenchman’s unquestioning optimism, and had therefore produced another dark tale about the abuses of technology, in which a scientist, after managing to make himself invisible, ends up losing his mind. But it was clear no one would perceive the real message in his work, for, as Marcus had hinted, and as he had seen for himself by reading some of the horrific news items hanging from the master rope, man had ended up harnessing science for the most destructive purpose imaginable.

Marcus handed the cutting to Wells, to read and pass on to the others. The author felt too dejected to wade through the handful of tributes that appeared to make up the bulk of the article Instead, he confined himself to glancing at the accompanying photograph, in which the fellow Frost, a small, neat-looking man, was leaning absurdly over his typewriter, the prolific source from which his supposed novels had emanated. Then he passed the cutting to James, who cast a scornful eye over it before handing it to Stoker, who read it from beginning to end. The Irishman was the first to break the deathly silence that had descended on the room.

“How could this fellow have had the same ideas for his novels as we did?” he asked, completely baffled.

James gave him the contemptuous look he would give a performing monkey.

“Don’t be so na?ve, Mr. Stoker,” he chided him. “What our host is trying to tell us is that Mr. Frost didn’t write these novels.

Somehow he stole them from us before we published them.” “Precisely, Mr. James,” the time traveler affirmed.

“But how will he stop us from suing him?” the Irishman persisted.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that, Mr. Stoker,” replied Marcus.

Wells, who had managed to thrust aside his despair and take an interest in the conversation again, was suddenly struck by a ghastly thought.

“If I’m not mistaken, what Mr. Rhys is trying to tell us,” he explained, with the aim of dispelling the fog the others were in, “is that the best way to silence a person is by killing him.” “By killing him?” declared Stoker, horrified. “Are you saying this fellow Frost is going to steal our works and then … kill us?” “I’m afraid so, Mr. Stoker,” Marcus confirmed, accompanying his words with a solemn nod. “When, after arriving in your time, I came across the news item about a mysterious fellow named Melvyn Frost who had published these novels, I hastened to learn what had become of you, their real authors. And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, gentlemen, but all three of you are going to die next month. You, Mr. Wells, will break your neck in a cycling accident. You, Mr. Stoker, will fall down the stairs of your theater.