The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(150)
If he traveled back in time, stole one of his favorite author’s manuscripts before he published it, and then killed the writer, he would be able to build up a unique library of works no one else knew even existed. Murdering a handful of writers in order to add a private literary archive to his library did not bother him in the slightest, for Marcus had always thought of his favorite novels as originating out of nowhere, independently of their authors, who were human beings, and like all human beings, pretty despicable. Besides, it was too late for him to start having scruples, especially since he had amassed his fortune in a way conventional morality would doubtless have deemed criminal. Happily, he no longer need judge himself by others” moral codes, for he had long ago elaborated his own morality. He had been obliged to do so to be able to get rid of his stepfather in the way that he had. Still, even though he poisoned him the moment he included Marcus’s mother in his will, this did not stop him from going to put flowers on his grave every Sunday. After all, he had him to thank for who he was. Although the vast fortune he had inherited from this brutal, uncouth man was nothing compared to the legacy from his real father: the precious gene that enabled him to travel in time, placing the past at his feet.
He began dreaming of his unique library, on whose shelves Treasure Island, The Iliad, and Frankenstein, or his three favorite novels by Melvyn Aaron Frost, would sit secretly side by side. He picked up a copy of Dracula by Frost and studied his photograph carefully. Yes, the sickly little man with eyes that oozed corruption, showing he was as riddled with vices and weaknesses as any other, and only worthy of admiration when he had a pen in his hand, would be the first of a long list of writers who would meet their end in a series of freak accidents that would help Marcus amass his phantom library.
With this in mind, he traveled to our time accompanied by two of his men, arriving a few months before Frost’s rise to fame. He needed to find him, make sure he had not delivered his manuscripts to his editor, and force him at gunpoint to hand over the only thing that differentiated him from all the other wretches who gave the world a bad name.
Then he would end Frost’s ridiculous life by staging some sort of accident. But to his surprise, he could find no trace of Melvyn Frost. No one seemed to have heard of him. It was as though he had never existed. How could he possibly have guessed that Frost was also a time traveler and would only reveal his identity once he was in possession of your works? But Marcus had no intention of leaving empty-handed. This was the writer he had chosen in order to start his literary bloodbath, and he would find him come hell or high water.
His plan was not notable for its subtlety: the only thing he could think of to force Frost out into the open was to kill three innocent bystanders and write the opening sentence of each of his three novels at the scene of each crime, lifting them from the published copies he had brought with him.
This could not fail to arouse Frost’s curiosity. As Marcus had predicted, it was not long before the passages appeared in the newspapers. But still Frost did not come forward, seemingly not taking the hint.
By turns desperate and infuriated, Marcus lay in wait day and night with his men at the scenes of the crimes, but to no avail, until a man in the crowd caught his eye. It was not Frost, and yet his presence gave Marcus a similar frisson of excitement. He had been staring like any other spectator at Mrs. Ellis’s slender corpse, which hours before he himself had propped up against the wall, and at the inspector from Scotland Yard standing next to the dead woman, a young man who appeared to be trying not to vomit, when he noticed the middle-aged man on his right. He was wearing all the typical accoutrements of the period: an elegant blue suit, a top hat, a monocle, and a pipe hanging out of his mouth, all of which revealed themselves to Marcus to be part of a deliberate disguise. Then he noticed the book the man was carrying. It was Melvyn Frost’s hitherto unpublished novel The Turn of the Screw. How could this man possess a copy of it? Clearly, he was a fellow time traveler.
Scarcely able to contain his excitement, Marcus discreetly watched as the man compared the beginning of the novel with the passage Marcus had scribbled on the wall, and then frowned, surprised to find they were identical.
When he slipped the book into his pocket and began to walk away, Marcus decided to follow him. Unawares, the stranger guided him to a deserted-looking house in Berkeley Square, which he entered after making sure no one was watching. Seconds later, Marcus and his men forced their way inside. In no time they overpowered the stranger. It took only a few blows for him to confess how he came to be in possession of a book that did not yet exist. This was when Marcus found out about the Library of Truth and everything else. He had traveled there in order to murder his favorite author and become his only reader, but had ended up discovering much more than he had bargained for.
The name of the fellow in front of him with the bloody nose and two black eyes was August Draper, the real librarian responsible for guarding the nineteenth century. He had gone there in order to repair changes made to the fabric of time when a traveler named Frost murdered the authors Bram Stoker, Henry James, and H. G. Wells and published their novels in his own name. Marcus was astonished to find that Melvyn Frost was not the real author of his favorite novels, that they were the works of the three writers his hostage had mentioned, who although in Marcus’s reality had died just as they were becoming famous, in the original universe had gone on to write many more novels. Almost as astonished as he was to learn that Jack the Ripper had never been caught. He felt an almost metaphysical revulsion when he realized he had been simply traveling between parallel universes created at will by other travelers like him, but who, unlike him, had not been content merely to fornicate with Egyptian slave girls. However, he tried to put it out of his mind and concentrate on Draper’s explanations. The stranger planned to rectify the damage, warning the three authors what was about to happen by leaving a copy of their respective novels published under the name Melvyn Frost in each of their letter boxes, together with a map showing them where they could meet him. He was about to set his plan in motion when news of Marcus’s mysterious murders began appearing in the papers, and this led him to go to the scene of one of the crimes. You can imagine what happened next: Marcus killed him in cold blood and decided to step into his shoes and pass himself off to you as the real guardian of time.