The Map of Chaos (43 page)

“Of course he has nothing to lose, George! And much to gain!” Doyle bellowed. “The chance to speak to his beloved one last time . . . who in their right mind wouldn't attempt it? He'll accept, of course he will. Especially when I tell him I've found an authentic medium hidden in one of South Africa's lost tribes, a medium with unquestionable powers, waiting to be discovered.”

“A genuine medium, who will make all the bogus ones pale into insignificance . . . Just as you predicted that day!” said Wells excitedly.

“It's true! That conversation . . . It was fate, I'm sure of it!” agreed Doyle with equal enthusiasm. “And Murray will think so, too.”

“All we have to do now is bring your medium over to England as soon as possible!” Wood heard a festive clink suggesting a toast. “Incidentally, where the devil is your secretary?”

Behind the door, Wood gave a start. What were the two men thinking? Were they planning to send him to South Africa to fetch this medium? Well, they had another think coming if they thought that . . .

Doyle's booming voice interrupted his reverie. “Stop eavesdropping, Wood, and come in, damn it!”

“How the devil did he know . . .” Wood started to mutter, but he left his sentence unfinished as he pushed open the door, adopting his most unctuous smile.

“I beg your pardon, sir, I heard raised voices and I thought that, er . . . it might be an inopportune moment.”

“Nonsense; I sent for you, didn't I?” Doyle cut in. “Woodie, I need your services.”

“Yes, sir . . . ,” Wood replied, preparing for the worst.

“Don't pull that face, my dear fellow. I assure you I'm not going to ask you to do anything complicated. At least, nothing for which you aren't fully prepared.”

Doyle remained silent for a few moments, seeing through his secretary's nonchalant exterior and taking pleasure in prolonging the fearful anticipation it doubtless concealed.

“I think I'm going to need your wonderful penmanship again,” he said, grinning at his employee's bewilderment. Yes, there was nothing he enjoyed more than testing the limits of Woodie's courteous behavior. “I need you to write a few lines on my behalf.”

V
ERY EARLY THE NEXT MORNING
, Wells and Doyle arrived at Murray's house, keen to relay the good news. They were convinced their proposal would have an instantaneous effect on the inconsolable fiancé, sweeping away the cobwebs of his despair, or at least giving him enough hope to refrain from killing himself before the medium from South Africa arrived in a few days' time.

“But he isn't just any medium . . . He is a
genuine
medium!” exclaimed Doyle, trying to instill some enthusiasm into the limp figure sprawled in the armchair smelling of liquor and musty clothes. “His powers are beyond question. I can vouch for that myself, and I assure you the miracles I witnessed are indescribable. The man who performed them has no interest in fame or fortune. Those words mean nothing to him.”

And while Murray gazed at him listlessly through bloodshot eyes, Doyle began to pace up and down the room, narrating the tale of the extraordinary medium. Doyle had come across him in a village in Bakongo during his stay in South Africa. He was born to English parents and at the age of two or three had gotten lost in the veldt, that vast, wild southern African plain. A Bantu tribe had adopted him, and the village elders had given him the name Ankoma, which meant “the last child to be born.” As time passed, Ankoma had assimilated the customs of his Bantu parents and behaved no differently from any other tribal member, despite standing out among them like a cream pudding in a coal bunker. But with the arrival of adolescence, his powers began to awaken. These were so formidable that, by the age of twelve, he had already ousted the tribe's shaman, who only knew how to make it rain, and even then only if a storm was brewing. When Doyle passed through the village of Bakongo after the bloody battle of Brandfort and heard about the legend of the Great Ankoma, the white man who made bowls and utensils levitate and who could speak to the dead, he immediately asked the Bantu chiefs if he could witness their pale-skinned shaman's powers for himself. They agreed in exchange for a handful of baubles, and inside a miserable hovel Doyle at last saw a genuine medium in action. The scope of Ankoma's powers was so astonishing that Doyle swore he would remember it as long as he lived. So that when Wells had come to his house the day before to ask for his help, Doyle had realized that despite his and Gilmore's unfortunate first encounter, their paths had crossed so that he, Arthur Conan Doyle, could go to the aid of Gilliam Murray, the Master of Time. And, utterly convinced of the truth of this, Doyle had spent the whole night dictating a raft of letters addressed to senior members of the armed forces and the South African government, promising so many favors in return for the one he was asking that he would doubtless have to spend the rest of his days endeavoring to honor them. But he knew it would be worthwhile: the Great Ankoma would come to England and summon Emma's spirit, so that Murray could speak to her and beg her for forgiveness.

Doyle ended his speech persuaded that tears of gratitude would soon start to flow from Murray's bloodshot eyes, and he even got ready for a possible embrace from that malodorous ruin of a man. But Murray simply contemplated him in silence for a few moments; then he stood up, grabbed the bottle of whisky he carried around with him everywhere, and, stumbling but dignified, left the room before the astonished eyes of his friends and went back to the bed they had dragged him from at dawn.

Both Doyle and Wells realized that it was not going to be as easy as they had thought to persuade Murray to attend a séance given by the Great Ankoma. Over the next few days, they discovered that Murray's views on spiritualism hadn't changed, despite his brokenhearted, semi-alcoholic state. Each time they tried to persuade him, he would refuse, doing so in various imaginative ways: he would laugh in their faces, or hurl drunken insults at them before vomiting on their shoes, or he would order them to leave the house with a dismissive gesture, even though most of the time they were at Wells's residence. There were even occasions when he would hurl whatever object was at hand at them, in general an empty whisky bottle . . . Nothing could breach Murray's stubborn refusal: not Wells's entreaties, nor Doyle's threats, nor even the gentle cajoling of Jane, who went as far as to remind Murray that he had once saved her life and that she could not bear to be unable to save his in return. Until the eve of the Great Ankoma's arrival in England.

Doyle, Wells, and Jane turned up at Murray's town house to announce the news, only to find Baskerville in a state of extreme agitation. It seemed his master had spent all day locked in his room, drinking, sobbing, and hurling a stream of blasphemous abuse at his servants. Even more alarmingly, for the past hour or so he had gone quiet. Wells and Doyle exchanged nervous glances and ran upstairs to Murray's room. His door was locked, but that didn't stop Doyle. After several attempts, he managed to break it down, splintering the frame and almost tearing the door off its hinges. Much to their relief, Murray had not hanged himself from the rafters, nor had he taken his life by any other means. He had simply passed out. A couple of jugs and a bowlful of water later, he was sitting in an armchair, listening to what they had to say.

“Tomorrow the Great Ankoma arrives, Gilmore,” Doyle announced curtly. “And I don't need to remind you that in order for that to happen I have had to pledge my word and use all my influence, so that I hope all my efforts won't have been in vain.”

Murray merely shrugged. “I didn't ask him to come.”

“Well, he's coming!” Doyle lost his temper. “What the devil do expect me to do, send him back with a thank-you note hanging round his neck?”

“All I ask is that you pay for the damage to my bedroom door.”

Doyle gave a bull-like snort, walked over to one of the windows, and looked out, trying to calm down.

“You are pigheaded and selfish, Monty,” Wells said crossly. “You couldn't care less about the misery you're putting us through, could you? What skin is it off your nose if you attend a séance? What in heaven's name do you have to lose?”

“Please, Monty,” Jane implored for the umpteenth time. “All we're asking is that you give it a try.”

Murray looked at her with a pained expression.

“I can't do it, Jane,” he murmured. “I won't allow Emma's spirit to be defiled now that she is dead. Every day when I lied to her while she was alive was an act of disrespect, and I refuse to let that happen again by agreeing to some stupid
sideshow.

“But no one is going to defile her!” Wells cried, exasperated. “I assure you again, the Great Ankoma is a
genuine
medium.”

“What are you scared of, Gilmore?” Doyle asked, wheeling round, hands clasped behind his back.

“Scared?” Murray looked puzzled. “I'm not scared of anything.”

“Oh, yes you are,” Doyle assured him harshly. “You're scared of talking to Emma and discovering that she won't forgive you, aren't you? Because what would be left then? You wouldn't even have the luxury of killing yourself . . . Why die and risk being confronted with an angry woman for all eternity? You prefer to carry on as you are, tormenting us with your asinine threats of suicide, threats you will never carry out because you're too much of a coward. And that is why you haven't already taken your life, and why you don't want to talk to Emma, and why you were incapable of telling her the truth when she was still alive.”

“What! I was going to tell her!” Murray roared, almost keeling over as he leapt from his chair. “I was going to tell her before the damned automobile veered off the road. And of course I'm going to kill myself! I don't want to go on living! I don't care what's on the Other Side, I don't care if there's only a horrible void, or if Emma is there and she is angry with me for all eternity . . . Nothing could be worse than this, nothing . . .”

“You're going to kill yourself? Then do it!” Doyle flung open the windows behind him, and a soft, cool breeze like a lover's breath invaded the room. “Go on, jump! We're at least four floors up; you'll almost certainly die . . . Jump right now and end it all!”

Wells and Jane looked at Doyle, aghast.

“Arthur, please, I don't think this is the way to . . .” Wells hesitated.

But before he could finish his sentence, Murray strode over to the window, thrusting Wells aside.

“Don't do it, Monty!” Jane exclaimed in anguish, standing in his path.

Gently but firmly, Murray also pushed her to one side.

“For heaven's sake, Arthur, stop him!” Jane cried.

But Doyle took no notice. Instead, he stepped away from the window with a grin, politely extending his arm as if to let him through. Murray gave Doyle a black look as he walked past him and leapt up onto the windowsill, holding on to the frame with both hands.

“Monty, come down from there, I implore you,” Wells said, approaching him with timid steps.

“Stay where you are, George!” Murray commanded.

Doyle, who was standing right next to Murray, signaled to Wells to do as he said. Stifling the urge to run and grab Murray, Wells stood stock-still, anxiously contemplating his bulky figure, silhouetted against the moonlight, almost filling the entire window.

His hands clasping the window frame and his feet balancing on the narrow sill, Murray took a deep breath. As they had been talking, the afternoon had faded amid glowing purples, giving way to a perfect summer's evening crowned by a full moon. A beautiful evening to die, he told himself, as the warm night breeze caressed his hair and brought with it the scent of jasmine. Why not end his suffering once and for all? Was he a coward, as Doyle maintained? He edged his right foot forward, eliciting a stifled shriek from Jane. He felt for her, and for George, and even for Doyle. He was sorry his friends would have to witness his demise, but Wells was right. He was putting them through a lot of misery. It was best to put an end once and for all to the sorry spectacle of his grief. And that was what he was going to do. He looked down. The gardens where he had so often strolled with Emma stretched out beneath him. In each of its nooks and crannies, the memory of a kiss, a caress, a joke that had made her laugh, lingered on like bits of fabric snagged on a bush. The silvery light of the moon delicately traced the outlines of the trees, made the dewdrops on the roses glisten like sequins, and shimmered on the pond where the lilies rocked gently, performing a slow waltz for themselves. At the end of the garden, rising like a new moon above the treetops of a small leafy forest, was the dome of the tiny, exquisite conservatory—in the shape of the Taj Mahal—that Murray had built with his own hands as a surprise gift for his bride-to-be. Then the yawning gap between him and the ground made him feel a sudden irrational fear, which reminded him of the day he had landed in a balloon to win Emma's heart. He had been forced to struggle against his fear of heights then, too, only it had been worth it because his beloved was waiting for him on Horsell Common. Murray closed his eyes and saw her once more as he had seen her that day, standing below him in a white dress, half-obscured by her parasol, which she twirled nervously as she waited . . . and, mustering the last of his courage, he told himself he must join her, and soon, because she liked him to be punctual, and he was already several months late . . . He opened his eyes, ready to leap into the void.

And then he saw her. On the path beside the rosebushes, where she used to pause during their strolls and delicately breathe in the scent of one of the roses. A woman was there now, her white dress gleaming in the moonlight, her face obscured by a parasol that twirled restlessly. An image as clear and terrifying as an unexpected laugh in the dead of night. Murray stood up straight and blinked several times as he felt her name tumble out of his mouth.