The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(8)
“On the second or third day, I began to notice that, from time to time, the head curator of the museum would discreetly lead groups of visitors down to the basement. And I have to tell you that among those groups I recognized a few eminent scientists and even the odd minister. As well as the head curator, two Scotland Yard inspectors always accompanied the visitors. As you can imagine, these strange and regular processions to the basement aroused my curiosity, so that one afternoon, I stopped what I was doing and took the risk of following them downstairs. The procession walked through a maze of corridors until it reached a locked door. When the group came to a halt, the older of the inspectors, a stout fellow with a conspicuous patch over one eye, gave a command to the other one, a mere stripling. The younger man assiduously removed a key from a chain around his neck, unlocked the door, and ushered the group inside, closing the door behind him. I questioned several museum employees and found out that no one was completely sure what was inside the room, which they dubbed the Chamber of Marvels. When I asked the head curator what it contained, his response took me aback. “Things people would never have thought existed,” he said with a self-satisfied grin, and then he suggested I carry on marveling at the plants and insects in the display cases, for there were some frontiers beyond which not everybody was ready to cross. As you will understand, his response angered me, as did the fact that he never extended me the courtesy of inviting me to join one of the groups that were so regularly given access to the unknown. Apparently I wasn’t as important as all those great men of science who deserved a guided tour. And so I swallowed my pride and got used to the idea of returning to the States having only discovered what a group of insensitive bureaucrats wanted me to know about the world. However, unlike the museum’s head curator, Fate must have considered it important for me to find out what was inside that chamber. Otherwise I can’t understand how I got in there so easily.”
“How did you get in?” Wells asked, astonished.
“On my last day in London, I happened to find myself in the elevator with the younger of the two Scotland Yard inspectors. I tried to persuade him to talk about the chamber he was guarding, but to no avail. The youth would give nothing away. He even refused my invitation to have a beer at a nearby pub, with the excuse that he only drank sarsaparilla. Well, who drinks sarsaparilla these days? Anyway, as we stepped out of the elevator, he said goodbye politely and began walking down the corridor toward the exit, oblivious to the deeply resentful look I was giving him. Then, to my astonishment, I saw him pause, his legs swaying beneath him as though he were suddenly unsure of where he was going, before collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. I was in shock, as you can imagine. I thought he had dropped dead before my eyes, from a massive heart attack or something. I ran over and unbuttoned his shirt collar with the idea of testing his pulse, only to find to my great relief that he was still alive. He had simply fainted like a lady whose corset is too tight. Blood was streaming down his face, but I soon realized it came from a cut on his eyebrow, which must have happened when he fell.”
“Perhaps he had a sudden drop in blood pressure. Or was suffering from heat stroke,” Wells suggested.
“Possibly, possibly,” Serviss replied distractedly. “And then—”
“Or low blood sugar. Although I am inclined to think—”
“What the hell does it matter what it was, George! He fainted and that’s that!” Serviss said, irritated, keen to go on with his story.
“I’m sorry, Garrett,” said Wells, somewhat cowed. “Do carry on.”
“Good, where was I?” muttered Serviss. “Oh, yes, I was concerned. But that concern soon gave way to something more like greed when I noticed a strange gold key decorated with a pair of pretty little angel’s wings hanging from the inspector’s neck. I immediately realized that the charming key was the one he had used to open the Chamber of Marvels.”
“And you stole it from him!” Wells said, shocked.
“Well . . .” Serviss shrugged, unbuttoning his shirt collar to reveal a delicate chain from which hung the key he had just described.
“I couldn’t resist it, George,” he explained, with theatrical remorse. “It wasn’t as if I was stealing a pair of shoes from a dead man. After all, the inspector had only fainted.”
Wells shook his head in disapproval. Considering the liberal amounts of alcohol he had imbibed, this proved a perilous gesture, as his head began to spin even more, giving him the impression he was sitting on a merry-go-round horse.
Serviss went on. “That’s how I got into the room where, for many reasons, they hide away all the things they don’t want the world to know about. And, take my word for it, George, if you saw what they’ve got hidden in there, you’d never write another fantasy novel.”
Wells looked at him skeptically, straightening in his chair.
“But that’s the least of it,” Serviss went on. “What really mattered stood in the corner of the room on a pedestal. An enormous flying machine. Very strange looking. And whether or not it could actually fly was a mere suspicion in the minds of the scientists who had been privileged to examine it, as far as I could gather from reading the notebooks and papers listing all the details of the discovery, which I found lying on a nearby table. Unlike the Albatross in Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, this machine had neither wings nor propellers. And no balloon either. In fact it looked more like a plate.”