The Map of Time

by Félix J Palma

  “I’ll do my best to explain, although I doubt you will understand. You see, in creating all of this not only had I proved that my vision of the future was plausible, I had become a different person. I had become a character in my own story. I was no longer a simple glasshouse manufacturer. In your eyes, I’m no more than an impostor, but to everyone else I’m a time lord, an intrepid entrepreneur who has braved a thousand adventures in Africa and who sleeps every night with his magical dog in a place where time has stopped. I suppose I didn’t want to close the company down because that meant being an ordinary person again—a terribly rich but terribly ordinary person.” And with this, he turned the knob and stepped into a cloud.

  Wells followed him a few seconds later, behind the magical dog, only to discover his bad-tempered face multiplied by half a dozen mirrors. He was in a cramped dressing room full of boxes and frames, hanging from which were several helmets and suits of armor. Gilliam was watching him from a corner, a serene smile on his lips.

  “And I suppose I’ll deserve what I get, if you refuse to help me,” he said.

  There it was at last. As Wells had suspected, Gilliam had not gone to all the trouble of bringing him there simply to offer him a guided tour. No, something had happened and Gilliam had come unstuck. And now Gilliam needed his help. This was the pièce de résistance he was expecting his guest to swallow after having forcefed him with explanations. Yes, he needed his help. Alas, the fact that Murray had never stopped addressing him in that condescending, almost fatherly tone suggested he had no intention of deigning to beg him for it. He simply assumed he would get it. For Wells it only remained to be seen what kind of threat the charlatan would use to extort it.

  “Yesterday, I had a visit from Inspector Colin Garrett of Scotland Yard,” Murray went on. “He is investigating the case of a tramp found murdered in Marylebone, not exactly an unusual occurrence in that neighborhood. What makes this case so special is the murder weapon. The corpse has a huge hole right through the chest, which you can look through as if it were a window. It appears to have been caused by some sort of heat ray.

  According to the pathologists, no weapon capable of inflicting such a wound exists. Not in our time, anyway. All of which has led the young inspector to suspect that the wretched tramp was murdered with a weapon of the future, specifically one of the rifles used by Captain Shackleton and his men, whose devastating effects he was able to observe when he formed part of the second expedition.” He took a rifle out of a small cupboard and handed it to Wells.

  The writer could see that the so-called weapon was simply a piece of wood with a few knobs and pins added for show, like the accessories on the tram.

  “As you can see, it’s just a toy. The automatons” wounds are produced by tiny charges hidden under their armor. But for my customers, of course, it’s a weapon, as real as it is powerful,” Murray explained, relieving Wells of the fake rifle and returning it to the closet with the others. “In short, Inspector Garrett believes one of the soldiers of the future, possibly Captain Shackleton himself, traveled back to our own time as a stowaway on the Cronotilus, and all he can think of is to travel on the third expedition to apprehend him before he does so, and thereby prevent the crime. Yesterday he showed me a warrant signed by the prime minister authorizing him to arrest a man who from where we’re standing hasn’t even been born yet. The inspector asked me to reserve three seats on the third expedition for him and two of his men. And, as I’m sure you’ll understand, I was in no position to refuse. What excuse could I have made? And so in ten days” time the inspector will travel to the year 2000 with the intention of arresting a murderer, but what he’ll in fact do is uncover the greatest swindle of the century. Perhaps, given my lack of scruples, you think I could get out of this fix by handing one of my actors over to him. But to make that believable, not only would I have to produce another Cronotilus out of thin air, I would also have to get round the difficult problem of Garrett seeing himself as part of the second expedition. As you can appreciate, all that is far too complicated even for me. The only person who can prevent Garrett from traveling to the future as he intends is you, Mr. Wells. I need you to find the real murderer before the day of the third expedition.” “And why should I help you?” asked Wells, more resigned than threatening.

  This was the question they both knew would bring everything out into the open. Gilliam walked towards Wells, an alarmingly calm smile on his face, and, placing a plump hand on his shoulder, steered him gently to the other side of the room.

  “I’ve thought a great deal about how to answer that question, Mr. Wells,” he said in a soft, almost sweet-sounding voice.

  “I could throw myself on your mercy. Yes, I could slump to my knees and beg for your help. Can you imagine that, Mr. Wells? Can you see me sniveling like a child, tears dripping onto your shoes, crying out loud that I don’t want my head chopped off? I’m sure that would do the trick: you think you’re better than me and are anxious to prove it.” Gilliam smiled as he opened a small door and propelled Wells through it with a gentle shove. “But I could also threaten you, by telling you that if you refuse to help me, your beloved Jane will no doubt suffer a nasty accident while out on her afternoon bicycle ride in the suburbs of Woking. I’m sure that would also do the trick. However, I’ve decided instead to appeal to your curiosity. You and I are the only ones who are aware this is all a big farce. Or, to put it another way: you and I are the only ones who are aware that time travel is impossible. And yet someone has done it. Doesn’t that make you curious? Will you just stand by and watch while young Garrett devotes all his energy to pursuing a fantasy when a real time traveler could be roaming the streets of London?” Gilliam and Wells stared silently at one another.

  “I’m sure you won’t,” Gilliam concluded.

  And with these words, he closed the door of the future and deposited Wells back on the twenty-sixth of November 1896. The writer suddenly found himself in the dank alleyway behind Murray’s Time Travel, where a few cats were foraging among the rubbish. He had the impression that his trip to the year 2000 had been no more than a dream. On impulse, he thrust his hands into his jacket pockets, but they were empty: no one had slipped a flower into them.

  37

  When Wells called in to see him the next day at his office, Inspector Colin Garrett gave him the impression of being a shy, delicate young lad everything appeared too big for, from the sturdy desk where he was at that moment eating his breakfast, to his brown suit, and especially the murders, burglaries, and other crimes spreading like unsightly weeds all over the city. If he had been interested in writing a detective novel, like those his fellow novelist Doyle penned, for example, he would never have described his detective as looking anything at all like the nervous, frail-looking young man in front of him, who, to judge by the excited way he shook Wells’s hand, was particularly susceptible to the reverential zeal of hero worship.

  Once he was seated, Wells stoically endured with his usual modest smile the outpouring of praise for his novel The Time Machine, although, to give the young inspector his due, he ended his eulogy with a most novel observation.

  “As I say, I enjoyed your novel enormously, Mr. Wells,” he said, pushing aside his breakfast plate somewhat ashamedly, as though wishing to remove the guilty evidence of his gluttony, “and I regret how hard it must be for you, and for all authors of futuristic novels, not to be able to keep on speculating about the future now that we know what it is like. Otherwise, if the future had remained unfathomable and mysterious, I imagine novels that predict tomorrow’s world would have ended up becoming a genre in themselves.” “I suppose so,” Wells agreed, surprised at the young inspector having thought of something that had never even occurred to him.

  Perhaps he was wrong after all to judge him on his youthful appearance. Following this brief exchange, the two men simply smiled affably at one another for the next few moments, as the sun’s rays filtered through the window, bathing them in a golden light. Finall
y, Wells, seeing that no more praise was forthcoming from the inspector, decided to broach the matter that had brought him there.

  “Then, as a reader of my work, I imagine it will come as no surprise if I tell you I am here about the case of the murdered tramp,” he confessed. “I’ve heard a rumor that the culprit might be a time traveler, and while I have no intention of suggesting I am an authority on the matter, I think I may be of some assistance.” Garrett raised his eyebrows, as if he had no idea what Wells was talking about.

  “What I’m trying to say, Inspector, is that I came here to offer you my … support.” The inspector cast him a sympathetic glance.

  “You’re very kind, Mr. Wells, but that won’t be necessary,” he said. “You see, I’ve already solved the case.” He reached into his desk drawer for an envelope and fanned the photographs it contained out on the table. They were all of the tramp’s corpse. He showed them to Wells, one by one, explaining in great detail and with visible excitement, the chain of reasoning that had led him to suspect Captain Shackleton or one of his soldiers. Wells scarcely paid any attention, as the inspector was merely reiterating what Gilliam had already told him, but became engrossed in studying the intriguing wound on the corpse. He knew nothing of guns, but it did not take an expert to see that the grisly hole could not possibly have been inflicted by any present-day weapon. As Garrett and his team of pathologists maintained, the wound looked as though it had been caused by some sort of heat ray, like a stream of molten lava directed by a human hand.

  “As you can see, there is no other explanation,” concluded Garrett with a satisfied grin, placing everything back in the envelope. “To be honest, I’m simply waiting until the third expedition leaves. This morning, for example, I sent a couple of officers to the crime scene simply for appearance’s sake.” “I see,” said Wells, trying not to show his disappointment.

  What could he say to convince the inspector to investigate in a different direction without revealing that Captain Shackleton was not a man from the future, and that the year 2000 was no more than a stage set built of the rubble from demolished buildings? If he failed, Jane would almost certainly die. He stifled a gasp so as not to betray his anguish to the inspector.

  Just then, an officer opened the door and asked to see Garrett.

  The young inspector made his excuses and stepped out into the corridor, beginning a conversation with his officer that reached Wells as an incomprehensible murmur. The talk lasted a couple of minutes, after which Garrett came back into the office in a visibly bad mood, waving a scrap of paper in his right hand.

  “The local police are a lot of bungling fools,” he growled, to the astonishment of Wells, who had not imagined this delicate young lad capable of such an angry outburst. “One of my officers found a message painted on the wall at the scene of the crime which those imbeciles overlooked.” Wells watched him reread the note several times in silence, leaning against the edge of his desk. He shook his head in deep dismay.

  “Although, as it turns out, you couldn’t have come at a better time, Mr. Wells,” he said finally, beaming at the author. “This could almost be taken from a novel.” Wells raised his eyebrows and took the scrap of paper Garrett was holding out to him. The following words were scrawled on it: The stranger came in early February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station.

  After reading it, Wells looked up at the inspector, who stared back at him.

  “Does it ring any bells?” he asked.

  “No,” replied Wells, categorically.

  Garrett took the note from him and reread it, his head swaying from side to side again, like a pendulum.

  “Nor for me,” he confessed. “What is Shackleton trying to say?” After posing the rhetorical question, the inspector appeared to become lost in thought. Wells used the opportunity to rise to his feet.

  “Well, Inspector,” he said, “I shan’t trouble you any longer. I’ll leave you to your riddles.” Garrett roused himself and shook Wells by the hand.

  “Many thanks, Mr. Wells. I’ll call you if I need you.” Wells nodded and walked out of Garrett’s office, leaving him pondering, precariously balanced on the corner of his desk. He made his way down the corridor, descended the staircase, and walked out of the police station, hailing the first cab he saw, almost without realizing what he was doing, like a sleepwalker or someone under hypnosis, or, why not, like an automaton. During the journey back to Woking, he did not venture to look out the window even once, for fear some stranger strolling along the pavement or a navvy resting by the side of the road would give him a significant look that would fill him with dread. When he arrived home, he noticed his hands were trembling. He hurried straight along the corridor into the kitchen, without even calling out to Jane to tell her he was back. On the table were his typewriter and the manuscript of his latest novel, which he had called The Invisible Man. Pale as a ghost, Wells sat down and glanced at the first page of the manuscript he had finished the day before and which no one but he had ever read. The novel began with the following sentence: The stranger came in early February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station.

  There was a real time traveler, and he was trying to communicate with him. This was what Wells thought when he finally emerged from his daze. And with good reason; why else would the traveler have written on the wall the first lines of The Invisible Man, a novel that had not yet been published in his own time, a novel whose existence no one else but he as yet knew about? It was evident that killing a tramp with an unfamiliar weapon had only one purpose: to distinguish that murder from the many others perpetrated each day in the city and to attract the police’s attention, but the fragment of his novel left at the scene of the crime could only be a message for him. And although Wells did not rule out the possibility that the tramp’s strange chest wound had been inflicted by some present-day instrument Garrett and the pathologists had not yet stumbled upon, obviously no one could have known the beginning of his novel, except a man who came from the future. This fact alone dispelled any lingering doubts Wells might have had that he was dealing with a time traveler. He felt a shudder go through his body at the thought, not only because he had suddenly discovered that time travel, which he had always considered mere fantasy, was possible, or rather, would be possible in the future, but because, for some sinister reason he preferred not to think about, this time traveler, whoever he was, was trying to get into contact with him.

  He spent all night tossing and turning, unnerved by the unpleasant feeling of knowing he was being watched and wondering whether he ought to tell the inspector everything, or whether that would anger the time traveler. When dawn broke, he had still not come to any decision. Fortunately, there was no need, as almost immediately an official carriage from Scotland Yard pulled up in front of his house. Garrett had sent one of his officers to fetch him: another dead body had turned up.

  Without having breakfasted and still wearing his nightshirt under his coat, the dazed Wells agreed to be driven to London.

  The coach stopped in Portland Street, where a pale-faced Garrett was waiting for him, alone at the center of an impressive police presence. Wells counted more than half a dozen officers trying desperately to secure the scene of the crime against the crowd of onlookers that had flocked to the area, amongst whom he could make out a couple of journalists.

  “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.