The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(24)
“Well,” said Charles, glancing at his pocket watch. “We’d better have something to eat. I don’t think traveling back in time on an empty stomach is a good idea.” They left the little room and made their way over to Charles’s carriage, which was waiting by the stone archway. They followed the same routine that night as though it were no different from any other one. They dined at the Café Royal, which served Charles’s favorite steak and kidney pie, let off steam at Madame Norrell’s brothel, where Charles liked to try out the new girls while they were still fresh, and ended up drinking until dawn in the bar at Claridge’s, where Charles rated the champagne list above any other. Before their minds became too clouded by drink, Charles explained to Andrew that he had journeyed into the future on a huge tramcar, the Cronotilus, which was propelled through the centuries by an impressive steam engine. But Andrew was incapable of showing any interest in the future; his mind was taken up imagining what it would be like to travel in the exact opposite direction, into the past. There, his cousin assured him, he would be able to save Marie by confronting the Ripper. Over the past eight years, Andrew had built up feelings of intense rage towards that monster. Now he would have the chance to vent them. However, it was one thing to threaten a man who had already been executed, he thought, and quite another to confront him in the flesh, in this sort of sparring match Murray was going to set up for him. Andrew gripped the pistol, which he had kept in his pocket, as he recalled the burly man he had bumped into in Hanbury Street, and tried to cheer himself with the thought that, although he had never shot a real person before, he had practiced his aim on bottles, pigeons, and rabbits. If he remained calm, everything would go well. He would aim at the Ripper’s heart or his head, let off a few shots calmly, and watch him die a second time.
Yes, that was what he would do. Only this time, as though someone had tightened a bolt in the machinery of the universe making it function more smoothly, the Ripper’s death would bring Marie Kelly back to life.
7
Despite being early morning, Soho was already teeming with people.
Charles and Andrew had to push their way through the crowded streets full of men in bowlers and women wearing hats adorned with plumes and even the odd fake bird. Couples strolled along the pavements arm in arm, sauntered in and out of shops, or stood waiting to cross the streets. The streets were filled with a slow torrent of luxurious carriages, cabriolets, tramcars, and carts carrying barrels, fruit, or mysterious shapes covered by tarpaulins, possibly bodies robbed from the graveyard. Scruffy second-rate artists, performers, and acrobats displayed their dubious talents on street corners in the hope of attracting the attention of some passing promoter. Charles had not stopped chattering since breakfast, but Andrew could hardly hear him above the loud clatter of wheels on the cobbles and the piercing cries of vendors and would-be artists. He was content to let his cousin guide him through the gray morning, immersed in a sort of stupor, from which he was roused only by the sweet scent of violets reaching him as they passed one of the many flower sellers.
The moment they entered Greek Street, they spotted the modest building where the office of Murray’s Time Travel was situated. It was an old theater that had been remodeled by its new owner, who had not hesitated to blight the neoclassical fa?ade with a variety of ornamentations alluding to time. At the entrance, a small flight of steps flanked by two columns led up to an elegant sculpted wooden door crowned by a pediment decorated with a carving of Chronos spinning the wheel of the Zodiac. The god of time, depicted as a sinister old man with a flowing beard reaching down to his navel, was bordered by a frieze of carved hourglasses, a motif repeated on the arches above the tall windows on the second floor. Between the pediment and the lintel, ostentatious pink marble lettering announced to all who could read that this picturesque edifice was the head office of Murray’s Time Travel.
Charles and Andrew noticed passersby stepping off the section of pavement outside the unusual building. As they drew closer, they understood why. A nauseating odor made them screw up their faces in disgust and invited them to regurgitate the breakfast they had just eaten. The cause of the stench was a viscous substance which a couple of workmen, masked with neckerchiefs, were vigorously washing off part of the fa?ade with brushes and pails of water. As the brushes made contact with whatever the dark substance might be, it slopped onto the pavement, transformed into a revolting black slime.
“Sorry about the inconvenience, gents,” one of the workmen said, pulling down his neckerchief. “Some louse smeared cow dung all over the front of the building, but we’ll soon have it cleaned off.” Exchanging puzzled looks, Andrew and Charles pulled out their handkerchiefs and, covering their faces like a couple of highwaymen, hurried through the front door. In the hallway, the evil smell was being kept at bay by rows of strategically placed vases of gladioli and roses. Just as on the outside of the building, the interior was filled with a profusion of objects whose theme was time. The central area was taken up by a gigantic mechanical sculpture consisting of an enormous pedestal out of which two articulated, spiderlike arms stretched up towards the shadowy ceiling. They were clutching an hourglass the size of a calf embossed with iron rivets and bands. This contained not sand, but a sort of blue sawdust that flowed gracefully from one section to the other and even gave off a faint, evocative sparkle when caught by the light from the nearby lamps. Once the contents had emptied into the lower receptacle, the arms turned the hourglass by means of some complex hidden mechanism, so that the artificial sand never ceased to flow, like a reminder of time itself. Alongside the colossal structure enthroned in the entrance were many other remarkable objects. Although less spectacular, they were more noteworthy for having been invented many centuries before, like the bracket clocks bristling with levers and cogs that stood silently at the back of the vast room and, according to the plaques on their bases, were early efforts at mechanical timepieces. Apart from this distinguished trinket, the room was lined with hundreds of wall clocks, from the traditional Dutch stoelklok adorned with mermaids and cherubs to Austro-Hungarian ones with their seconds pendulums. The air was filled with a relentless, overwhelming ticking sound, which for the people working in that building must have become an endless accompaniment to their lives, without whose comforting presence they doubtless felt bereft on Sundays.