He fell silent, staring at them without blinking, with the serenity of a cat.
‘I don’t understand,’ Charles declared.
Gilliam Murray nodded, as though he had expected that reply. ‘Let me make a simple comparison: you can move from room to room inside a building, but you can also walk across its roof, can you not?’
Charles and Andrew nodded, somewhat put out by Murray’s seeming wish to treat them like a couple of foolish children.
‘Contrary to all appearances,’ their host went on, ‘it was not Wells’s novel that made me look into the possibilities of time travel. If you have read the book, you will understand that the author is simply throwing down the gauntlet to the scientific world by suggesting a direction for their research. Unlike Verne, he cleverly avoided any practical explanations of the workings of his invention, choosing instead to describe his machine to us using his formidable imagination – a perfectly valid approach, given the book is a work of fiction. However, until science proves such a contraption is possible, his machine will be nothing but a toy. Will that ever happen?
‘I’d like to think so: the achievements of science so far this century give me great cause for optimism. You will agree, gentlemen, we live in remarkable times. Times when man questions God daily. How many marvels has science produced over the past few years? Some, such as the calculating machine, the typewriter or the electric lift, have been invented simply to make our lives easier, but others cause us to feel powerful because they render the impossible possible. Thanks to the steam locomotive, we are now able to travel long distances without taking a single step, and soon we will be able to relay our voices to the other side of the country without having to move, like the Americans, who are already doing so with the so-called telephone.
‘There will always be people who oppose progress, who consider it a sacrilege for mankind to transcend his own limitations. Personally I believe science ennobles man, reaffirms his control over nature, in the same way that education or morality helps us overcome our primitive instincts. Take this marine chronometer, for example,’ he said, picking up a wooden box lying on the desk. ‘Today these are mass-produced and every ship in the world has one, but that wasn’t always the case. Although they may appear now always to have formed part of our lives, the Admiralty was obliged to offer a prize of twenty thousand pounds to the person who could invent a way of determining longitude at sea, because no clockmaker was capable of designing a chronometer that could withstand the rolling of a vessel without going wrong. The competition was won by a man called John Harrison, who devoted forty years of his life to solving this thorny scientific problem. He was nearly eighty when he finally received the prize money.
‘Fascinating, don’t you think? At the heart of each invention lie one man’s efforts, an entire life dedicated to solving a problem, to inventing an instrument that will outlast him, will go on forming part of the world after he is dead. So long as there are men who aren’t content to eat the fruit off the trees or to summon rain by beating a drum, but who are determined instead to use their brains in order to transcend the role of parasite in God’s creation, science will never give up trying.
‘That’s why I am sure that very soon, as well as being able to fly like birds in winged carriages, anyone will be able to get hold of a machine similar to the one Wells dreamed up, and travel anywhere they choose in time. Men of the future will lead double lives, working during the week in a bank, and on Sundays making love to the beautiful Nefertiti or helping Hannibal conquer Rome. Can you imagine how an invention like that would change society? ‘
Murray studied the two men for a moment before he replaced the box on the desk, where it sat, lid open, like an oyster or an engagement ring. Then he added, ‘But in the meantime, while science is looking for a way to make these dreams come true, we have another method of travelling in time, although unfortunately this one does not enable us to choose our destination.’
‘What method is that?’ Andrew enquired.
‘Magic,’ boomed Murray.
‘Magic?’ echoed Andrew, taken aback.
‘Yes, magic,’ repeated his host, waving his fingers in the air mysteriously and making a sound like wind whistling down a chimney, ‘but not the conjuring tricks you see in music halls or theatres, or the sort those frauds from the Golden Dawn claim to perform. I’m talking about genuine magic. Do you believe in magic, gentlemen?’
Andrew and Charles paused, a little confused by the direction the conversation was taking, but Murray needed no reply. ‘Of course not,’ he grumbled. ‘That’s why I avoid mentioning it. I prefer my clients to believe we are travelling through time by means of science. Everybody believes in science. It has become far more credible than magic. We live in modern times. But, I assure you, magic does exist.’
Then, to Andrew and Charles’s surprise, he rose deftly from his seat and gave a shrill whistle. The dog, which had been lying on the carpet all this time, stood up at once and trotted gaily over to its master. ‘Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Eternal,’ he said, as the creature circled him excitedly. ‘Do you like dogs? It’s quite safe to stroke him.’
As though this were some sort of requirement they must fulfil for Gilliam Murray to continue his discourse, Charles and Andrew stood up and ran their hands over the soft, well-brushed coat of the golden retriever.
‘Gentlemen,’ Murray declared, ‘be aware that you are stroking a miracle. For, as I told you, there is such a thing as magic. It is even tangible. How old do you think Eternal is?’
Charles had no difficulty in answering the question: he had several dogs on his country estate and had grown up with them. He examined the animal’s teeth with a knowledgeable air, and replied confidently, ‘A year, two at the most.’
‘Spot on,’ confirmed Gilliam, kneeling and scratching the dog’s neck affectionately. ‘You look a year old, don’t you? That’s your age in real time?’
Andrew took this opportunity to catch his cousin’s eye, anxious to know what he thought of all this. Charles’s tranquil smile put his mind at rest.
‘As I said,’ Murray went on, rising to his feet, ‘I didn’t decide to set up my company on account of Wells’s novel. It was a complete coincidence, although I won’t deny I have greatly benefited from the hidden longing he stirred in people. Do you know why time travel is so attractive? Because we all dream of it. It is one of man’s oldest desires. But would you have considered it possible, gentlemen, before Wells wrote his book? I don’t think so. And I assure you neither would I. What Mr Wells has done is to make an abstract craving real, to articulate this latent desire ever-present in man.’
Murray paused, giving his summary the opportunity to descend on his visitors, like dust settling on furniture after a carpet has been beaten.
‘Before setting up this company, I worked with my father,’ he resumed. ‘We financed expeditions. We were one of the hundreds of societies sending explorers to the furthest corners of the world with the aim of gathering ethnographic and archaeological data to publish in scientific journals, or finding exotic insects or flowers for the showcases of some science museum eager to display God’s wildest creations. But, regardless of the business side of things, we were driven by a desire to get to know as accurately as possible the world we lived in. We were, to coin a phrase, spatially curious. However, we never know what fate has in store for us, do we, gentlemen?’
Again without waiting for a reply, Gilliam Murray gestured for them to follow him. Eternal at his heels, he led them through the obstacle course of tables and globes towards one of the side walls. Unlike the others, which were lined with shelves crammed with atlases, geographical treatises, books on astronomy and numerous other works on obscure subjects, this wall was covered with maps, arranged according to when the regions on them had been charted.
The collection covered a journey that started with a few reproductions of Renaissance maps inspired by Ptolemy’s works, which made