beginning of the novel with the passage he had scribbled on the wall, then frowned, surprised to find they were identical.
When he slipped the book into his pocket and began to walk away, Rhys decided to follow him. Unawares, the stranger guided him to a deserted-looking house in Berkeley Square, which he entered after making sure no one was watching. Seconds later, Rhys and his men forced their way inside. In no time they overpowered the stranger. It took only a few blows for him to confess how he had come to be in possession of a book that did not yet exist. This was when Rhys found out about the Library of Truth and everything else. He had travelled there in order to murder his favourite author and become his only reader, but had ended up discovering much more than he had bargained for.
The name of the fellow in front of him, with the bloody nose and two black eyes, was August Draper, the real librarian responsible for guarding the nineteenth century. He had gone there in order to repair changes made to the fabric of time when a traveller named Frost murdered the authors Bram Stoker, Henry James and H. G. Wells and published their novels in his own name. Rhys was astonished to find that Melvyn Frost was not the real author of his favourite novels, that they were the works of the three writers his hostage had mentioned. In Rhys’s reality they had died just as they were becoming famous, but in the original universe they had gone on to write many more novels.
He was almost as astonished to learn that Jack the Ripper had never been caught. He felt an almost metaphysical revulsion when he realised he had been simply travelling between parallel universes created at will by other travellers like him, but who, unlike him, had not been content merely to fornicate with Egyptian slave girls. However, he tried to put it out of his mind and concentrate on Draper’s explanations.
The stranger planned to rectify the damage, warning the three authors of what was about to happen by leaving a copy of their respective novels published under the name of Melvyn Frost in each of their letterboxes, with a map showing them where they could meet him. He was about to set his plan in motion when news of Rhys’s mysterious murders appeared in the papers, which led him to the scene of one of the crimes. You can imagine what happened next: Rhys killed him in cold blood and decided to step into his shoes and pass himself off to you as the real guardian of time.
These are the facts, and if you study them carefully, certain things become clearer. For example, did it not strike you as odd that Rhys chose such an indiscreet way to contact you: reports in the press and alerting every policeman in the city by brutally murdering three innocent people – who, by the way, I doubt very much were going to die in a few days’ time. But what you think now is irrelevant, actually: you should have thought of it then, and you did not. You cannot imagine how much it pains me to tell you this, Bertie, but you are not as intelligent as you think you are.
Where was I? Oh, yes. You will listen to Rhys’s explanation, eyes fixed on his henchmen’s weapons pointing at you, as your heart beats faster and faster, the sweat starts to pour down your back, and you even begin to feel overcome with a strange dizziness. I imagine if you had been shot as promptly as James and Stoker were, nothing would have happened. But Rhys’s lengthy explanation had enabled you to prepare yourself, so to speak, and when he had finished his little talk, and his henchmen took a step forward and aimed at your chest, all of your built-up tension exploded, and a flood of light enveloped the world.
For a split second, you became weightless, released from your own body, which felt more than ever like an unnecessary shell, a focus for pain and futile distractions. You had the impression of being a creature of the air. But a moment later the weight of your body returned, like an anchor securing you to the world, and although you were relieved to feel solid again, it also left you with a vague sense of nostalgia for the fleeting experience of being out of your body. You found yourself once more trapped inside the organic casing that contained you while blinkering your vision of the universe. A sudden surge of vomit filled your throat, and you released it with violent retching.
When your stomach stopped heaving, you dared look up, unsure if Rhys’s henchmen had already fired or were relishing drawing out the moment. But there was no weapon aimed at you. In fact, there was no one around you, no trace of Rhys, or his henchmen, or Stoker, or James. You were alone in the darkened hallway, for even the candelabra had disappeared. It was as if you had dreamed the whole thing.
But how could such a thing have happened? I’ll tell you, Bertie: simply because you were no longer you. You had become me.
So now, if you have no objection, I shall carry on narrating events in the first person. To begin with, I did not understand what had happened. I waited for a few moments in the by-now pitch-black hallway, trembling with fear and alert to the slightest sound, but all around me was silence. The house was apparently empty. Presently, as nothing happened, I ventured out into the street, which was equally deserted. I was utterly confused, although one thing was clear: the sensations I had experienced were too real to have been a dream. What had happened to me?
Then I had an intuition. With trepidation, I plucked a discarded newspaper out of a refuse bin. After verifying the date with amazement, I realised my suspicions were true: the unpleasant effects I had felt were none other than those of spontaneous time travel. Incredible though it may seem, I had travelled eight years back in time to 7 November 1888!
I stood in the middle of the square for a few moments, stunned, trying to take in what had happened, but I did not have much time. I suddenly remembered why that date seemed so familiar: it was the day Jack the Ripper had murdered young Harrington’s beloved in Whitechapel and was subsequently captured by the Vigilance Committee, who had gone to Millers Court after being alerted by a time traveller who . . . Was it me? I wasn’t sure, but there seemed to be every indication it was. Who else could have known what was going to happen that night?
I glanced at my watch. In less than half an hour the Ripper would commit his crime. I had to hurry. I ran in search of a cab, and when at last I found one I told the driver to take me to Whitechapel as fast as he could. As we crossed London towards the East End I could not help wondering whether it was I who had changed history: had I made the whole universe abandon the path it was on to take this unexpected detour represented by the blue string, moving further and further away from the white cord, as Rhys had explained to us? If so, had I done it of my own free will, or simply because it was pre-ordained, because it was something I had already done?
As you will imagine, I arrived in Whitechapel in a state of extreme agitation, and once there I did not know what to do: naturally I had no intention of going to Dorset Street alone to confront the bloodthirsty monster; my altruism had its limits. I burst into a busy tavern crying out that I had seen Jack the Ripper at the Miller’s Court flats. It was the first thing that came into my head, but I suspect whatever I had done would have been the right thing to do.
This was confirmed to me when a stocky fellow with a shock of blond hair named George husk sprang out from among the throng of customers gathered round me and, twisting my arm behind my back and pressing my face against the bar, said he would go and look, but that if I was lying I would live to regret it. After this display of strength, he released me, gathered his men together and marched towards Dorset Street in no particular haste. I went as far as the door, rubbing my arm and cursing the brute who was about to take all the
