The Map of Chaos (30 page)

But the one thing Murray really enjoyed was conversing with the authors who would turn up from time to time. Thus he met Bob Stevenson, Robert Louis's cousin, Ford Madox Ford, and Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, a diminutive, unassuming Pole who had abbreviated his name to Joseph Conrad for the benefit of his English readers. Murray had read all of them and at the least opportunity would give them his brutally honest opinions without provoking an outcry, much to the astonishment of Wells, who had warned Murray about the fragile vanity of authors. On the contrary: many of them would smile as Murray painstakingly pulled their works apart, and some even ended up agreeing with him and asking his advice on some creative problem. Wells was never sure if his colleagues' submissive attitude toward Murray was a result of the protection of his immense fortune or the extraordinary insightfulness of his remarks. Whatever the case, Murray seemed more at ease in their company than Wells did, possibly because he had produced no body of work and so was not open to attack, unlike the unfortunate Wells, who would go on the defensive whenever there was any talk of the exact mode of expression or the most suitable word.

One of the things that most irritated Wells, for example, was Conrad's insistence on discovering what his true aims were when he set about writing a novel—a question to which Wells could give no clear or satisfactory answer. Yet it was the Pole's very stubbornness that allowed Wells to realize that during those past few months Murray had become one of his closest friends.

This was how it happened. Wells and Conrad had been lying on the beach at Sandgate one afternoon, discussing how best to describe a ship that had appeared on the horizon, and after a couple of hours during which neither had managed to convince the other, Conrad had withdrawn with the air of a swordsman who has just won a duel. Then Murray had gone over to Wells, had sat down beside him and tried to lift his spirits, telling him that Conrad only wrote about the horror of strange places and only enjoyed the favor of the critics because of the inevitable exoticism the Anglo-Saxon mind always imagined it perceived when a foreigner used the English language. Personally, he found Conrad's prose as exasperatingly elaborate as a piece of Indian carving. Murray's comparison made Wells burst out laughing, and before he knew it, he found himself admitting that more than once he had asked himself whether his own lack of attention to style didn't make him less of a writer. Murray was shocked. Surely he wasn't serious. Of course not! Wells simply wasn't like Conrad and other authors who were adept at grandiloquent prose, and why should he be? His only aim when starting a novel was to finish it, employing the simplest vocabulary possible to describe his vision of the world without too much fuss. He only sought to create entertaining stories with which to criticize what he thought was wrong with the world, in a language that didn't distract the reader's attention. Wells was astonished by Murray's accurate definition of him as a writer, and he remained silent, looking out to sea, where the contentious vessel still cleaved the waters. Then he glanced at Murray, who was still sitting beside him, smiling as he watched Emma cavorting with Jane down by the water's edge. Wells stifled a sudden urge to embrace Murray and instead heard himself saying that as soon as he could, he would introduce him to James Brand Pinker, his literary agent, who would help him publish his novel, the futuristic love story that had sparked their now-distant enmity. Wells's offer came four years too late, but Murray thanked him for his tardy gesture without alluding to that and wagged his head. He no longer had any interest in publishing that novel, nor did he intend to write another. He didn't need to. He was quite content to do nothing now except bask in Emma's love. And with that Murray stood up and strolled jauntily down toward the two women. Wells felt a slight pang of envy as he watched him. There went a man brimming with happiness who asked nothing more of life except perhaps that no one should take away what he had.

A
ND NOW PERMIT ME, AFTER
riffling through those last two years like a cardsharp shuffling his deck, to choose one from the pack and place it on the table for all to see, because it behooves our tale to describe the events that follow in greater detail. Let us then take a closer look at one frosty February afternoon in 1900, when, in an unprecedented gesture of altruism, Wells had invited one of the most celebrated authors of the day to Arnold House as a surprise for Murray, who was a keen admirer of the man's work.

At the agreed hour, the carriage with the pompous “G” announced its arrival with the slow clatter of hooves imposed by its old coachman. When it finally reached the entrance to Arnold House, Emma and Murray stepped out, enveloped in that happiness they had that never faded. The Wellses came out to welcome them, and after the usual polite greetings they walked toward the house. But the coachman detained Wells with a question.

“You don't happen to own a dog?” the old man asked, gesturing with his chin toward the garden gate, which stood ajar.

“I already told you I don't,” replied Wells impatiently.

The peculiar melancholy he had been experiencing recently seized him once again, confirming his suspicions that it was somehow related to the coachman's presence. The idea was so absurd he could scarcely believe it, and yet he had realized over the past few months that every time the old man came he brought that uneasiness with him.

“Of course, of course . . . It slipped my mind. The trouble is, you see, I have an irrational fear of them ever since I was bitten by one as a child,” Wells heard the coachman explain as he tried once more to engage him in conversation.

“Then it must be difficult for you to work for Gilmore, as he has a rather large one,” Wells retorted, looking at the man suspiciously.

“Er . . . yes. It is, rather. I spend all day avoiding Buzz. For some reason he insists on sniffing me all the time, as if he were inspecting me.” Wells smiled to himself at the name Murray had chosen for his old dog, Eternal. “Look, this is the scar I got from the dog that bit me when I was a child,” he said, extending his left arm.

Wells showed no interest in examining it. Instead, he used the opportunity to ask the old man what he had been burning to know since the day when, somewhat taken aback, he had noticed the coachman's other mutilated hand.

“What about the fingers missing on your right hand? Was that from a dog bite as well?”

The coachman looked at the hand Wells had referred to, and his face took on a sad, inscrutable look.

“Oh, no, that came from fighting a rather more formidable foe . . . ,” he said, before going back to the subject that he really seemed interested in. “But I already showed you my scar, didn't I? And you said you'd once been bitten by a dog, too, isn't that so?”

“No. Actually, I told you I never had,” Wells replied blankly. “Both times you asked.”

The old man looked straight at him.

“Never? Are you certain?”

“Yes,” replied Wells, no longer trying to hide his annoyance at this absurd exchange, “despite how convinced you seem to be of the contrary.”

“So you have no scar on your left hand . . . But you do have one on your chin, whereas I don't . . .” The coachman smiled, as though talking to himself.

“When I was fifteen I fell down some stairs,” Wells replied, raising his hand to touch the scar with a mixture of puzzlement and irritation.

“I see. Whereas I didn't. I was always very careful with stairs.”

Wells looked at the coachman in silence and considered asking him why, if indeed there was a reason, he insisted on having these absurd exchanges with him, but he couldn't find the right way of putting it.

“I'm very happy for you,” he said at last with a sigh, and made his way toward the house.

Murray and the two women were having an animated conversation while waiting for him in the doorway. Seeing him approach, they all smiled at him knowingly.

“What?” said Wells, trying unsuccessfully to hide his unease.

“Is it those shoes again, George?” Murray chortled. “Goodness, they've been pinching your feet for two years now. Isn't it about time you got rid of them?”

“Stop making fun of him, dear,” Emma scolded, “and tell him the good news.”

“Er, yes, dear . . . Listen, George: Emma's father has made a full recovery, and so we've finally decided on a date for the wedding. We are to be married on the first Sunday in March. Her parents will soon set sail for London and will arrive a few days before the ceremony. And, well . . .” An excited grin appeared on Murray's face as he clutched Wells's shoulder with his huge paw. “I'd be delighted if you would be my best man.”

“It will be a true honor,” replied Wells as Jane looked on, smiling.

“After all,” Murray resumed, “it is thanks to you that we are together. If in your letter you hadn't advised me to—”

“Damn it, man, I never replied to any letter!”

They all laughed quietly, nodding as if this were a private joke between them.

“But, George, aren't you tired of playing this game?”

“How many times do I have to tell you that isn't my handwriting? Anyway, let's drop the subject, shall we?” Wells said, terminating the discussion with a sigh. “Today I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?”

“That's right. This afternoon we have a very special visitor: your pet author,” Wells announced with a mischievous grin.

Before Murray had a chance to react, Wells ushered him and the women into the sitting room, where a man was standing with his back to them, warming himself by the fire. Murray observed the fellow, increasingly intrigued: he was broad shouldered, robust, almost as tall as Murray himself, and seemed to be planted on the ground with the incontestable weightiness of a menhir. His posture, hands clasped behind his back, stooping slightly, gave the impression of a ship's captain issuing the order to steer his vessel clear of the rocks. Hearing them come in, the man swiveled round and walked over to them with an exaggerated briskness. He had a stern, soldierly face, as though chiseled in stone, and dark, twinkling eyes that betrayed his fiery nature. His hair was starting to thin at the temples, but this was compensated for by a splendid handlebar mustache that flowed over his lips and narrowed into sharp points.

Murray gasped. “Well, I never . . .”

“Clearly no introductions are necessary,” Wells said with a grin, “Even so, allow me to stick to the usual protocol. Montgomery, this is Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of your beloved detective, Sherlock Holmes. Arthur, these are my friends, Montgomery Gilmore and his charming fiancée Emma Harlow.”

With the vigor characteristic of all his gestures, Doyle bowed politely and kissed Emma's hand, then extended his arm in greeting to Murray, who first stared at him, dumbfounded. After all, it wasn't every day one ran into Britain's best-known author, and creator of one of the icons of literature, in your best friend's living room. In the days when Murray's ambition was to become a writer, he had greedily devoured all the Sherlock Holmes adventures, a captive to his charm, but he had also studied Doyle's life for clues as to his success, in a bid to understand how a young medical practitioner struggling to make a living in Portsmouth could have produced the mythical detective out of nowhere.

That had been in 1886, when the twenty-seven-year-old Doyle had already spent three years in a medical practice, had killed time between visits from his meager list of patients by writing stories and novels. He had published a few short pieces in local periodicals, but his first attempt at a novel had aroused no interest among publishers. Very well, he told himself, he would return to the drawing board. But what if, instead of writing ambitious novels no one seemed interested in, he tried to come up with something original and surprising? What would he like to discover in a bookshop? What would arouse his own interest? Recalling his early life, as though consulting the child he once was in order to discover the true preferences of the adult he had become, he dredged up a name: Auguste Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe's masterful detective. No detail was too trivial for Dupin, and the fictional sleuth was on the right track, for it was enough to read the newspapers in the real world to understand that the smallest detail contained in a piece of evidence might send a defendant to the gallows or save his life. Poe had only written three Auguste Dupin stories, but the character of the detective had continued to make discreet appearances in the novels of successive authors. For several decades Dupin seemed to have been trying tentatively to come back into the world. What if he, Doyle, gave birth to him by making him the protagonist of a novel? He only had to invent a detective whom readers would find sufficiently fascinating.

He remembered Joseph Bell, a surgeon and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh medical school for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk while he was studying there. It was his job to shepherd patients into the remarkable doctor's lecture theater, where something would take place that was more like a conjuring trick than anything Doyle had seen before: Bell would receive them, with his aquiline nose and penetrating grey eyes, seated amid his cohort of assistants, and sometimes, before proceeding to examine them using traditional methods, would play at guessing a patient's profession and character through silent, intense scrutiny. Thus he would pronounce, for example, that a fellow had served in the army, had recently been discharged, and even had been stationed in Barbados. And despite Bell's explaining to his rapt audience that he had deduced all this because the man hadn't removed his hat, suggesting that he hadn't yet adapted to the customs of civil society, and that he suffered from elephantiasis, a disease prevalent in the Antilles, for the first few minutes the effect was tremendous. Doyle told himself that if he could invent a forensic sleuth who applied Bell's methods to solve crimes using his own skills and not because of a villain's mistakes or follies, he could reduce the muddled problem of criminal investigation to something approaching an exact science.