The Map of Chaos (16 page)

“I can feel his breath on my hand!” Colonel Garrick, who was closest to the materialization, declared half in terror, half in awe.

Two stark white hands then appeared on either side of the face; they seemed more solid, less ethereal, than the face, and their fingers moved with an odd grace, although at the level of the wrists they became more vaporous, merging with the luminous cloud encircling the ghostlike profile. Clayton studied the face and the hands with mounting rage. His only desire was to leap to his feet and grab hold of those nebulous forms, convinced the ingenious fraud would instantly be exposed. But he forced himself to remain seated, for Sinclair had commanded that under no circumstances should they interrupt the séance, no matter what suspicions they might have while it was going on. Their mission was limited to making sure the séance was correctly monitored, studying the medium's modus operandi, recording the séance, and analyzing the data on the various devices so as to be able to arrive at relevant conclusions, which would enable them to decide whether or not to take any further action. In short, they must be alert to everything that went on but were forbidden to intervene. That being so, Clayton had no choice but to be patient and hope that Madame Amber slipped up, or that one of the devices registered some anomaly that would allow them to bring her to justice. He sighed impatiently, focusing his attention on the wraithlike figure that had emanated from the medium, which suddenly started to dissolve. The face and hands gradually became elongated, distorting, as though the figure were melting, and in a matter of seconds it spilled onto the floor and vanished beneath the table like a gelatinous drizzle.

Everyone sat expectantly, watching Madame Amber in strained silence. She seemed to be asleep or unconscious, her head tilted slightly forward, her limp body apparently held up only by the two monitors. Doctor Ramsey and Colonel Garrick exchanged worried glances above the medium's blond locks. Just then, Madame Amber tried feebly to raise her head. Ramsey called her name gently, and she responded with a drawn-out moan, as though awakening from a deep sleep. After several attempts, she managed to sit up straight, blinking as she looked around her in bewilderment. She frowned, coughed a few times, and then slumped onto Colonel Garrick's shoulder, apparently exhausted.

“We ought to give her some water,” advised the doctor, “and I'd like to check her pulse.”

“The cords are chafing her skin,” Colonel Garrick remarked in a tone far less professional than that of Ramsey, doubtless enchanted by the sweet weight of that head nestled on his shoulder.

“I'm afraid all that will have to wait,” Clayton snapped.

“The water will have to wait,” Captain Sinclair corrected calmly, glowering at his subordinate. “No one must leave the table until Clayton and I have checked the readings on the monitors. But you can start untying her, and by all means check the young lady's pulse, Doctor Ramsey, and perhaps see about, er . . . covering her up.”

Clayton looked at the captain without responding, and at Sinclair's signal, the two men stood up at the same time, lifting their chairs so as not to drag them through the sawdust. In the meantime, Garrick and Ramsey assisted Madame Amber as the others looked on in concern. While the doctor began untying her wrists, the colonel gently patted her cheek, encouraging her in the gentlest of voices to tell them how she was feeling. The medium tried to do as he asked, opening her mouth a few times, but was unable to utter a sound. She raised a pale hand to her throat and gave a faint smile, as though apologizing to everyone for her tiresome, inopportune exhaustion. And then her expression, which Clayton had been observing closely, became transfigured: the smile froze on her lips, and a sudden terror crumpled her delicate features like paper, twisting them into an unrecognizable mass. Bewildered, the inspector turned to where Madame Amber's gaze was fixed.

In a corner of the room, shrouded in the reddish half-light, stood the motionless figure of a man. He was clad in a dark suit, torn in places, beneath which a powerful body was visible. Due to the distance, and the opaque gloom, Clayton could only just make out a coarsely featured face, crowned by a pair of wild eyes, and underscored by a powerful chin covered in an unkempt beard. But besides his appearance, there was something else about the man that startled the inspector: his figure appeared not to possess the luminous, vaporous quality attributed to spirits, but rather seemed perfectly outlined and consistent, as if he were made of the same stuff as any normal human being, except in one respect: he was transparent. The man's body, although it gave the impression of being solid flesh and blood, seemed to let the light through, or in this case the semidarkness.

The supposed spirit did not say or do anything. His posture oozed menace, and his eyes glinted with an almost inhuman hatred. Clayton contemplated him with growing astonishment, then wheeled round to look at Madame Amber, who was quaking in her chair, her mouth open in a soundless cry of terror. Without knowing why, Clayton sensed this time that her emotion was genuine. The rest of the group was also staring toward the corner, without daring to rise from the table. They all appeared visibly alarmed by the apparition, but above all by the dense atmosphere of impending doom. Then Clayton noticed Mrs. Lansbury. Like the others, the old lady was contemplating the looming figure with terror, yet her eyes betrayed something different, something that looked like defiance.

“You! It's you!” the apparition suddenly bellowed, shaking with anger and pointing at one of the people at the table, arm outstretched.

They all looked at one another, scared and confused, trying to discover whom his words were intended for, all except Madame Amber and Mrs. Lansbury, who kept on staring intently at the stranger.

“I've found you! At last, I've found you! And this time you'll give me what is mine!” roared the apparition, his words giving way to a bloodcurdling howl.

His rage was so intense it twisted his mouth into a hideous snarl, like a ferocious gargoyle, through which, absurdly, the pattern of the wallpaper was visible. Then, to everyone's astonishment, the diminutive Mrs. Lansbury stood up from her chair and confronted the figure, with only her trembling dignity as protection.

From then on, events took place at breakneck speed. The stranger yelled a curse and instantly charged at the group, flying past Clayton, who received a sharp blow to the shoulder. Then he leapt onto the table and hurled himself at poor Mrs. Lansbury, who had no time to escape. Everyone jumped to his or her feet, no longer worried about disturbing the sawdust. Some screamed, others uttered words of disbelief. Madame Amber flung herself to the floor and began crawling toward the Japanese screen. Clayton and Sinclair grabbed hold of the stranger, who had managed to seize the old lady by the throat. However, with an astonishing display of agility, the man jerked his head back violently, hitting the captain square on the nose. Sinclair fell to the floor, tracing a bloody arc that spurted from the middle of his face and dragging Clayton along with him. No sooner had the inspector landed on the floor than he leapt back to his feet, looking around for his gun, which had slipped from his hand. But he realized instantly there was no time for that: Mrs. Lansbury's life was ebbing through her assailant's powerful fingers, and so he hurled himself once more at the apparition. He managed to grip the phantom's powerful neck in a lock, hoping to force him to release his prey. Glimpsing his own arms through the body he was trying to overpower, which felt completely normal to the touch, startled him momentarily, but he quickly tightened his hold again. However, despite straining every muscle in his body, and no doubt inflicting great pain as he dug his metal hand hard into that transparent throat, the stranger seemed to possess the invincible strength of a madman, and the inspector could not make him release his deadly grip on the old lady's throat. Her face was turning purple, and there was nothing else he could do. The man was going to kill her before Clayton's eyes.

Then he heard a voice behind him cry out: “Get down, Inspector!”

Glancing over his shoulder, Clayton saw Colonel Garrick aiming a pistol at him. He instantly flung himself to the floor. He heard a shot ring out and saw the old lady's frail, seemingly lifeless body slump in front of him.

Then someone switched on the lights. Clayton hurriedly leaned over Mrs. Lansbury. To his relief, he discovered she was still breathing and did not seem to be seriously injured. He sprang to his feet, crashing into Nurse Jones, who had come to their aid.

“Try to resuscitate her!” he commanded.

Nurse Jones nodded and called out in a quavering voice to Doctor Ramsey, who was standing quietly in a corner, furiously jotting in a tiny book. Clayton looked anxiously around for the apparition. He saw a dazed Captain Sinclair, his face caked in blood, struggling to his feet with the aid of Burke and Crookes, who were holding him by both arms. The Hollands were clasping each other, both pale faced, close to swooning, although Mrs. Holland seemed to be the one holding her husband up so that he wouldn't collapse. From the other side of the table, Count Duggan was waving his arms frantically in the air, gesturing toward the screen, in front of which Colonel Garrick was resolutely brandishing his still-smoking gun. Clayton ran over to him, catching the pistol Sinclair threw as he hurtled past. He reached the colonel, who looked at him with a frown.

“I think the fellow's hiding behind there!” he whispered, nodding at the screen.

Clayton agreed, and, communicating their intentions to each other through gestures, the two men, weapons at the ready, proceeded with caution, each approaching one end of the screen. Then they heard muffled noise coming from behind it, like someone or something scratching a wall. As they drew closer, they made out a woman's voice repeating what sounded like a nonsensical prayer. Clayton turned to the colonel, signaling to him to pull back the screen carefully; but, judging from the violent kick he gave it, Garrick misinterpreted his gestures. There was a deafening crash as the screen toppled to the floor, and when the cloud of sawdust settled, the two men were confronted with a harmless clothes hanger, from which Madame Amber's clothes hung limply, in an empty corner. However, the mysterious noises went on, even more clearly now. There was no question about it—somebody was scratching at a surface— and Clayton thought he could hear Madame Amber's voice repeating the same desperate appeal over and over:

“Open up, let me in, open up, I beg you . . .”

The inspector went over to the corner made by the two converging walls and examined it carefully. He discovered that, thanks to a clever optical illusion, the wallpaper concealed a tiny crack—a small opening that hadn't been there during the exhaustive inspection they had carried out. But now it was. Inserting one of his metal fingers into the gap, Clayton discovered a tiny spring, which he pressed. The walls instantly parted, creaking on invisible hinges, proving they were mere partitions. And there, in the hollow concealed by that ingenious feat of carpentry, appeared Madame Amber. She was crouching, her face red from crying, scratching at the floor with bloodied fingernails as she repeated over and over the same demand: “Open up, let me in . . .”

As soon as the light revealed her hiding place, she began to scream, arms outstretched as though fending off the figure leaning over her.

“No, no, no! I didn't summon you! Why have you come back? Be off with you and never return! Go back to the hell from whence you came!”

Clayton grabbed her roughly by the arms and flung her at Colonel Garrick, whom Sinclair had now joined.

“Hold her!” the inspector commanded, his eyes flashing wildly, not realizing that he was issuing orders to his own captain.

At that moment, Clayton was only interested in the area of floor Madame Amber had been scratching moments before. He bent down, sweeping aside the remnants of sawdust, blood, and even a few bits of broken nail that the medium had torn off in the heat of her folly. He studied the parquetry closely but could find nothing odd about it. Granted, it was an exquisite piece of work. But the inspector already knew what was beneath it. He rapped on the floor with his metal fist.

“I know you can hear me!” he shouted. “This is Inspector Cornelius Clayton from Scotland Yard's Special Branch. In the name of Her Majesty, I command you to open the trapdoor and show yourself immediately. Whoever you are, come out quietly and with your hands up.”

A dense silence ensued. Clayton's fist was poised to rap on the floor again when they heard a man's faint voice reply almost meekly.

“It won't open. The catch is stuck and . . . it only opens from the inside . . . I'm trapped down here.”

“Who are you?” Clayton demanded, trying to match that timorous voice to the powerful figure he had grappled with moments before.

Silence. And then, at last, they heard from the depths: “My name is Sir Henry Blendell, architect to Her Majesty the Queen, gold medalist of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, honorary automaton creator of the Society of Watchmakers and Designers of Prague, renowned creator of the secret passageway in the castle at . . .”

Clayton was altogether too astonished to notice the growing murmur behind him.
The
Sir Henry Blendell? He conjured up the image he had of Her Majesty's architect, a corpulent man, in good shape despite his advanced years, of medium height and with white hair . . . Yes, it was possible that with the right disguise he might pass for the mysterious specter that had just terrified the wits out of them all. He glanced sideways at the phonograph, to make sure it was still working despite all hell having broken loose in the room. He placed both hands on the floor and, drawing closer, spoke in a stentorian voice.

“Sir Henry, do you confess to being Madame Amber's associate?”

“Please, I can't breathe . . .”