To Say Nothing of the Dog

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My second night at Muchings End was just as restful as the first. Terence came in to ask me what Tossie had said about him while we were at the Chattisbournes’ and didn’t I think her eyes were like “stars of twilight fair,” Cyril had to be carried down the stairs, and Baine brought me cocoa and asked me if it was true that everyone in America carried a firearm.

I told him no.

“I have also heard that Americans are less concerned with ideas of class, and that societal barriers are less rigid there.”

I wondered what class had to do with guns and if he was considering taking up a life of crime.

“It is certainly a place where everyone is free to seek his fortune,” I said. “And does.”

“Is it true the industrialist Andrew Carnegie was the son of a coal miner?” he asked, and when I said I thought so, poured my cocoa and thanked me again for finding Princess Arjumand. “It is a delight to see how happy Miss Mering is now that her pet is back.”

I thought she was happy because she’d trounced everyone at croquet, but I didn’t say so.

“If there is ever anything I can do, sir, to return the favor—”

You wouldn’t be willing to fly a bombing mission to Berlin, would you? I thought.

At the end of the croquet game, while Tossie was busy committing mayhem on Terence’s ball, Verity had whispered to me to be certain I destroyed Maud’s letter, that we were in no position to risk another incongruity. So as soon as Baine had left, I locked the door, opened the window, and held it over the flame of the kerosene lamp.

The paper flared up, curling at the edges. A fragment of it flew rapidly up, still burning, and over to the bouquet of dried flowers on the bureau. I leaped after it, crashing into the chair and making a wild grab that only sent it closer to the dried flowers.

Wonderful. In trying not to cause an incongruity, I was going to set the house on fire.

I made another slashing grab, and the burning paper twirled lightly out of my reach and settled slowly toward the floor. I dived under it, hands cupped to catch it, but it had already burnt up completely before it reached them, turned to ash and nonsignificance.

There was a scratching at the door, and I opened it to find Princess Arjumand and Verity. The cat promptly jumped up on the pillows and draped herself decoratively over them, and Verity perched on the end of the bed.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t think you have any business going through again. You’ve already made two trips in twenty-four hours, and—”

“I’ve already been,” she said, smiling happily. “And I’ve got good news.”

“Is it actually good news,” I said skeptically, “or are you just happy because of the time-lag?”

“It’s good news,” she said, and then frowned. “At least they say it is. I wanted to see what they’d found out about the grandson and the bombing raid. T.J. says the raid on Berlin isn’t a crisis point. He says there’s no increased slippage either at the airfield or in Berlin, and he ran sims on the bombing raid, and the absence of Terence’s grandson had no long-term effect in any of them. Can I have your cocoa?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why didn’t it?”

She scrambled off the bed and went over to the nightstand. “Because there were eighty-one planes involved and twenty-nine of them dropped bombs on Berlin,” she said, pouring cocoa. “One pilot wouldn’t have made a difference to the outcome, particularly since it wasn’t the amount of damage done that made Hitler retaliate, but the idea of bombs falling on the Fatherland. And there were three more raids after that.” She brought the cup and saucer over to the bed and sat down.

I had forgotten that there had been four raids. Good. That meant redundancy.

“And that’s not all,” she said, sipping cocoa. “Mr. Dunworthy says there’s every indication that Goering had already decided to bomb London, and the bombing raid was simply an excuse. So he said not to worry, he can’t see any way it would have changed the course of the war, but—”

I had known there was a “but.”

“—there is a crisis point associated with the bombing that we should know about. It’s August the twenty-fourth, the night the two German planes accidentally bombed London.”

I knew about that. It was one of Professor Peddick’s instances of individual action. And of accident and chance. The two German planes had been part of a big bombing raid on an aircraft factory at Rochester and the oil storage tanks at Thames Haven. The lead planes had been equipped with pathfinders, but the others hadn’t, and two of the planes had got separated from the others, run into flak, and decided to jettison their bombs and run for home. Unfortunately, they had been over London at the time, and their bombs had destroyed the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and killed civilians.

In retaliation, Churchill had ordered the raid on Berlin, and in retaliation for that, Hitler had ordered the bombing of London in retaliation for the raid on Berlin. This is the cat that killed the rat that—

“Mr. Dunworthy and T.J. can’t find any connection between Terence’s grandson and the two German planes,” Verity said, sipping cocoa, “but they’re checking on it. And there’s the possibility, since he was an RAF pilot, that he did something — shot down a Luftwaffe plane or something — that was pivotal. They’re checking on that, too.”

“And in the meantime, what are we supposed to do?”

“Everything we can to contain the situation and, if possible, get Terence back to Oxford to meet Maud. So tomorrow I want you to talk to Professor Peddick and convince him he needs to return to Oxford to see his sister and his niece. I’ll work on Terence and make another stab at the diary.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I said. “I’ve been thinking, this is a chaotic system, which means cause and effect aren’t linear. Perhaps we’re just making things worse by trying to fix them. Look at the Titanic. If they hadn’t done anything to try to avoid the iceberg, they’d have—”

“Hit it head-on,” Verity said.

“Yes, and the ship would have been damaged, but it wouldn’t have sunk. It was their trying to turn it that made the iceberg scrape along the watertight compartments so that she went down like a stone.”

“So you think we should just let Tossie and Terence get engaged?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps if we stop trying to keep them apart, Terence will realize what Tossie’s really like and get over his infatuation.”

“Perhaps,” Verity said, eating cake seriously. “On the other hand, if somebody’d put enough lifeboats on the Titanic to begin with, nobody would have drowned.”

She finished her cocoa and took the cup and saucer back over to the nightstand.

“What about the slippage in 2018? Have they found out what’s causing that?” I said.

She shook her head. “Mrs. Bittner couldn’t remember anything. 2018 was the year Fujisaki did his first work on the possibility of incongruities occurring, and they made modifications to the net so it would shut down automatically if the slippage became too great, but that was in September. The area of increased slippage was in April.”

She opened the door and peered out. “Perhaps tomorrow morning Mr. C will come to help set up for the fête, and we won’t have to do anything,” she whispered.

“Or we’ll hit an iceberg,” I whispered back.

I realized as soon as I’d shut the door behind her that I hadn’t asked her about Finch.

I waited five minutes to make sure Verity had made it safely back to her room and then put on my bathrobe and tiptoed carefully down the corridor, carefully avoiding the obstacles in the dark: Laocoön, whose situation I could empathize with; fern; bust of Darwin; umbrella stand.

I tapped softly on Verity’s door.

She opened it immediately, looking upset. “You’re not supposed to rap,” she whispered, looking anxiously down the corridor to Mrs. Mering’s room.

“Sorry,” I whispered, sidling in the door.

Verity shut the door carefully. It made a soft snick. “What do you want?” she whispered.

“I forgot to ask you if you found out what Finch was doing here,” I whispered back.

“Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t tell me,” she said, looking worried. “He told me the same thing Finch told you, that it was a ‘related project.’ I think he was sent to drown Princess Arjumand.”

“What?” I said, forgetting I was supposed to whisper. “Finch? You’re joking.”

She shook her head. “The forensics expert translated part of one of the references to Princess Arjumand. It said ‘. . . poor drowned Princess Arjumand.’ ”

“But how do they know that wasn’t written while they were still looking for her? And why would they send Finch? He wouldn’t harm a fly.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps they don’t trust us to do it, and Finch was the only person available to send.”

I could believe that, given Lady Schrapnell’s penchant for recruiting anyone who wasn’t nailed down. “But Finch?” I said, unconvinced. “And if that’s what he’s supposed to be doing, why would they send him to Mrs. Chattisbourne’s instead of here?”

“They probably think Mrs. Mering will steal him away.”

“You have had too many drops. We will talk about this in the morning,” I said, looked out into the pitch-black hall, and slid out the door.

Verity shut the door silently behind me and I started back. Umbrella stand—

“Mesiel!” Mrs. Mering’s voice cried. The corridor sprang into light. “I knew it!” Mrs. Mering said, and advanced on me holding a kerosene lamp.

The top of the stairs was too far away to make a run for it, and anyway, Baine was coming up them, carrying a candle. There wasn’t even time to move away from my incriminating location in front of Verity’s door. This was hardly what Mr. Dunworthy meant by “containing the situation.”

I wondered if I could get away with saying I had just been downstairs to get a book. Without a candle. And where was said book? For a fantastic moment, I wondered if I could claim I was sleepwalking, like the hero in The Moonstone.

“I was—” I said, and was cut off by Mrs. Mering.

“I knew it!” she said. “You heard it, too, Mr. Henry, didn’t you?”

Tossie’s door opened and she peeked out, her hair in rag curlers. “Mama, what is it?”

“A spirit!” Mrs. Mering said. “Mr. Henry heard it, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I had just come out to investigate. I thought it was an intruder, but there was no one here.”

“Did you hear it, Baine?” Mrs. Mering demanded. “A rapping sound, very faint, and then a sort of whispering sound?”

“No, madam,” Baine said. “I was in the breakfast room, setting out the silver for breakfast.”

“But you heard it, Mr. Henry,” Mrs. Mering said. “I know you did. You were white as a sheet when I came out in the corridor. There was a rapping and then whispers and a sort of—”

“Ethereal moan,” I said.

“Exactly!” Mrs. Mering said. “I think there must be more than one spirit and they are speaking to one another. Did you see anything, Mr. Henry?”

“A sort of glimmer in white,” I said, in case she’d seen Verity shutting the door, “just for a moment, and then it vanished.”

“O!” Mrs. Mering said excitedly. “Mesiel! Come here! Mr. Henry has seen a spirit!”

Colonel Mering did not respond, and in the little silence before she called to him again, the faint sound of Cyril’s snoring wafted down the corridor. We weren’t out of the woods yet.

“There!” I said, pointing to the wall above Lady Schrapnell’s portrait. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes!” Mrs. Mering said, mashing her hand to her bosom. “What did it sound like?”

“The sound of bells,” I said, improvising, “and then a sort of sob—”

“Exactly,” Mrs. Mering said. “The attic. Baine, open the attic door. We must go up.”

At this point Verity finally made an appearance, clutching her wrapper and blinking sleepily. “What is it, Aunt Malvinia?”

“The spirit I saw two nights ago out by the gazebo,” Mrs. Mering said. “It is in the attic.”

Just then Cyril gave an enormous snuffling snort from the unmistakable direction of my room.

Verity instantly looked up at the ceiling. “I hear them!” she said. “Ghostly footsteps overhead!”

We spent the next two hours in the attic, tripping over cobwebs and looking for vanishing glimmers of white. Mrs. Mering didn’t find any, but she did find a ruby glass fruit compote, a lithograph of Landseer’s The Monarch of the Glen, and a moth-eaten tigerskin rug for the jumble sale.

She insisted on poor Baine carrying them down on the spot. “Amazing, simply amazing, the treasures one finds in attics,” she said rapturously. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Henry?”

“Umm,” I said, yawning.

“I am afraid the spirit has departed,” Baine said, coming back up the attic stairs. “We may only frighten it by our further presence.”

“You are quite right, Baine,” she said, and we were able, finally, to go to bed.

I was afraid Cyril might be at it again when we came down the corridor, but there was no sound from my room. Cyril and Princess Arjumand were sitting bolt upright in the middle of the bed, engaged in a nose (such as it was for Cyril) to nose staring match.

“No staring,” I said, taking off my robe and crawling into bed. “No snoring. No sprawling.”

There was none of the above. Instead, they paced round the bed, sniffing each other’s tails (such as it was for Cyril) and looking daggers at each other.

“Lie down,” I hissed, and then lay there in the dark, worrying about what to do and thinking about the accidental bombing of London.

It made sense that that was a crisis point. There had only been two planes involved, and very little would have been required to shift the course of events: they might have spotted a landmark and realized where they were, or their bombs might have fallen on a marrows field or in the Channel, or they might have been hit by flak. Or something even smaller, some tiny event that no one was aware of. It was a chaotic system.

So there was no way to tell what we should do, or not do, and how it would affect Terence’s marrying Maud.

Cyril and Princess Arjumand were still pacing over the bed. “Lie down,” I said, and, amazingly, Cyril did, flopping at my feet. Princess Arjumand walked over to him, sat down next to his head, and smacked him smartly on the nose.

Cyril sat up, looking aggrieved, and Princess Arjumand stretched out in his place.

If only it were that simple. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. But in a chaotic system, the effect wasn’t always what one intended.

Look at the letter I’d tried to burn tonight. And the battleship Nevada. It had been damaged in the first wave of attack at Pearl Harbor, but not sunk, and it had fired up its boilers and tried to get underway and out of the harbor to where it could maneuver. And as a result it had nearly sunk in the channel, where it would have blocked the entire harbor entrance for months.

On the other hand, a radar technician at Opana Station had telephoned his superior officer at 7:05 AM., nearly fifty minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and reported a large number of unidentified planes coming in from the north. His superior officer had told him to ignore it, it was nothing at all, and gone back to bed.

And then there was Wheeler Field, where, trying to protect the planes from sabotage, they had parked them all in the middle of the field. Where it had taken the Japanese Zeros exactly two and a half minutes to destroy them all.

Lady Schrapnell’s motto might be “God is in the details,” but mine was rapidly becoming, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

I was still thinking about Pearl Harbor when I went down to breakfast. Tossie was standing at the sideboard, holding Princess Arjumand and taking the lids off each of the silver serving dishes and then putting them back on with a dissatisfied expression.

It was the first time I had felt any kinship with her. Poor thing, consigned to a life of frivolousness and wretched things for breakfast. Not allowed to go to school or do anything worthwhile, and eel pie besides. I was thinking I’d been too hard on her when she slammed down the snarling wolf dtsh, picked up the silver bell sitting next to it, and rang it violently.

Baine appeared in a moment, his arms full of coconuts and a length of purple bunting draped over his shoulders. “Yes, miss?” he said.

“Why is there no fish for breakfast this morning?” Tossie said.

“Mrs. Posey is engaged in preparing the cakes and refreshments for the fxte tomorrow,” Baine said. “I told her four hot dishes were sufficient.”

“Well, they are not,” Tossie snapped.

Jane came in with an armful of antimacassars, bobbed a curtsey at Tossie, and said hurriedly, “Beggin’ your pardon, miss. Mr. Baine, the men are here with the tea tent, and Miss Stiggins’s footman is wantin’ to know where the extra chairs are to go.”

“Thank you, Jane,” Baine said. “Tell them I will be there directly.”

“Yes, sorr,” Jane said, bobbed, and ran out.

“I should like grilled trout for breakfast. Since Mrs. Posey is busy, you can prepare it,” Tossie said, and if I’d been Baine I’d have beaned her with one of the coconuts.

Baine merely looked hard at her, clearly trying to maintain a poker face, and said, “As you wish, miss.” He looked at Princess Arjumand. “If you will allow me to speak, miss, encouraging your pet to eat fish is not good for her. It only—”

“I do not allow you to speak,” Tossie said imperiously. “You’re a servant. Bring me the grilled trout immediately.”

“As you wish, miss,” he said, and started out, juggling his coconuts to keep them from falling.

“I want it served on a silver dish,” Tossie called after him. “And tie up that horrid dog of Terence’s. It tried to chase my dearums Juju this morning.”

All right, that settled it. Tossie couldn’t be allowed to marry Terence, and the hell with what our meddling might do to the continuum. A universe in which Cyril (and Baine) had to put up with that wasn’t worth having.

I ran upstairs to Professor Peddick’s room. He wasn’t there, but I found Terence in his room. He was shaving.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said, watching him brush soap on his face in fascination. “This is the third day Professor Peddick’s been away from Oxford, and we still haven’t been down to Runnymede. Perhaps we should go there today and then back to Oxford tomorrow. I mean, we’re only in the way here, what with the jumble sale and all.”

“I promised Miss Mering I’d stay and help with the fête,” he said, scraping the lethally sharp blade along his cheek. “She wants me to be in charge of the Pony Ride.”

“We could take him to Oxford on the train this afternoon,” I said, “and be back in time for the fête. The professor’s sister and niece are no doubt missing him.”

“He sent them a telegram,” Terence said, shaving his chin.

“But they may only be visiting for a short time,” I said. “It would be a shame for him to miss them.”

He looked unconvinced.

“ ‘Time is fleeting,’ ” I said, deciding perhaps a quote was what was needed, “ ‘and opportunities once miss’d, do ne’ er return.’ ”

“True,” Terence said, complacently drawing the blade across his jugular. “But people like Professor Peddick’s relations always stay forever.” He wiped the remains of the soap off with the towel. “The bluestocking niece has probably come up to campaign for women’s colleges, or suffrage, or something, and they’ll be in Oxford all term. Modern girls! Thank goodness Miss Mering is an old-fashioned girl, shy and demure and ‘sweet as the dewy, milk-white thorn, dear as the raptured thrill of joy.’ ”

It was hopeless, but I continued to try for several more minutes, and then went to work on Professor Peddick.

I didn’t make it. Mrs. Mering waylaid me on my way to the fishpond and sent me to put up placards in the village, and it was nearly noon by the time I got back.

Verity was on a ladder on the lawn, putting up Chinese lanterns between the stalls the workmen were hammering together. “Any luck with the diary?”

“No,” she said disgustedly. “I’ve searched every ruffle and cranny of her room, and nothing.” She stepped down off the ladder. “Any luck with Terence?”

I shook my head. “Where is he?” I said, looking round at the stalls. “He’s not with Tossie, is he?”

“No,” she said. “Mrs. Mering sent Terence to Goring for prizes for the fishing stall, and Tossie’s over at the Chattisbournes’ borrowing a ribbon for her hat. She should be gone all afternoon.”

“For a ribbon?”

She nodded. “I told her she needed a special shade of lilac halfway between mauve and periwinkle, with just a hint of lavender blue. And the Chattisbourne girls will want to hear all about you. Both Tossie and Terence should be safely occupied till tea.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m going to work on Professor Peddick this afternoon.”

“That is absolutely out of the question!” Mrs. Mering said, and nearly gave me a heart attack, she sounded so much like Lady Schrapnell. “The fête is tomorrow! My crystal ball must be here by then!”

I picked up a Chinese lantern so it would look like I was working and peered round the woolen goods stall at the half-constructed fortuneteller’s booth.

A workman in a frock coat and top hat and a butcher’s apron was cringing back against his carriage. “Felpham and Muncaster’s greatly regret any inconvenience this may have caused,” he was saying humbly, “and will earnestly endeavor—”

“Inconvenience!” Mrs. Mering shouted. “We are attempting to raise money for our restoration fund!”

I went back over to Verity. “The crystal ball didn’t arrive.”

“You’d think it would have foreseen that that would happen,” she said, grinning. “If you’re going to catch Professor Peddick, you’d best hurry. He and the Colonel are going fishing.”

“It must be here by this afternoon at four,” Mrs. Mering boomed.

“But, Mrs. Mering—”

“Four on the dot!”

“Do you know where Professor Peddick is?” I asked Verity.

“In the library, I think,” she said, taking another Chinese lantern and catching up her skirt to climb the ladder. “He was looking up something about the Battle of Bannockburn. Before you go,” she came back down the ladder a step. “I’ve been thinking over what you said about Finch, and you’re right. He’s not the type to drown a cat.” She put her hand to her forehead. “I don’t always think too clearly when I’m time-lagged.”

“I know the feeling,” I said.

“I haven’t been able to think what Finch is doing here, though,” she said. “Have you?”

I shook my head.

“I’m going through to see if the forensics expert’s had any luck,” she said. “I’ll see what I can find out about Finch. Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t tell me, but perhaps I can get it out of Warder.”

I nodded and went off to find Professor Peddick, taking the long way round to make sure Mrs. Mering didn’t see me and waylay me again.

The professor wasn’t in the library or the parlor. I went out to check at the stable and then started back toward the house to ask Jane if she knew where he was.

I was halfway there when Finch came out of the servants’ door with Jane. He said something to her, and she giggled and then stood there watching him as he left, smiling and waving her apron at him.

I went over to her. “Jane,” I said. “What was Finch doing here?”

“He brought the rock cakes for the fête tomorrow,” she said, looking longingly after him. “I am wishin’ he was our butler instead of Mr. Baine. Mr. Baine’s always goin’ on at me about reading books and how I should be trying to improve myself, do I want to be a maid all my life, but Mr. Finch is ever so nice, he never criticizes, he just talks.”

“What did he talk to you about?” I said, trying to make the question casual.

“Oh, this and that. The fête tomorrow and was I going to buy any chances on the cake and Princess Arjumand’s being lost. He was particular interested in Princess Arjumand, asked me all about her.”

“Princess Arjumand?” I said sharply. “What did he say?”

“Oh, only how lucky it was she wasn’t drowned, and had she ever had kittens, Miss Stiggins was saying she was such a pretty cat, she’d like to have one of the kittens, was she always with Miss Mering or did she wander off on her own sometimes and like that.”

“Did he ask to see her?”

“He did,” Jane said, “but I couldn’t find her. I told him she was very likely out at the fishpond, trying to eat the Colonel’s goldfish.” She suddenly seemed to realize who she was talking to. “I didn’t do nothing improper, did I, sorr, talking to him? We were working the whole time.”

“No, of course not,” I said. “I only asked because I thought he might have brought the curio cabinet for the jumble sale.”

“No, sorr,” she said. “Just the rock cakes.”

“Oh,” I said and took off for the fishpond, walking till I was out of Jane’s sight and then breaking into a gallop. Verity had been right. Finch was after Princess Arjumand.

I ran across the lawn, where Mrs. Mering was still yelling at the workman, and past the spot where Verity had been hanging Chinese lanterns. The ladder was still there, but she wasn’t, and I wondered if she had gone through to Oxford already.

I sprinted past the lilacs to the gazebo and then onto the path along the riverbank. There was no sign of Princess Arjumand or of her having recently been pitched in the river, and I remembered all over again how just a few minutes could have made an enormous difference.

“Princess Arjumand!” I called, and ran down the path and across the flower garden to the rockery.

The fishpond lay in the middle of the rockery, lined with brick and covered with waterlilies. Next to the pond sat Cyril, and on the edge of the pond sat Princess Arjumand, delicately swiping her paw into the water.

“Stop that,” I said, and Cyril jumped and looked guilty.

Princess Arjumand continued to dip her paw unconcernedly in the water, as if she were trolling.

“All right, you two,” I said. “You’re under arrest. Come along.” I scooped up Princess Arjumand and started back for the house, Cyril trudging behind with his head down.

“You should be ashamed,” I said to him. “Letting her tempt you into a life of crime like that. Do you know what would have happened to you if Baine had found you?” and saw the shimmer of the net up by the gazebo.

I looked round anxiously, hoping there was no one else close enough to see it. It began to glow, and Cyril reared away from it and began to back, growling.

Verity emerged next to the gazebo and looked around. “Ned!” she said, catching sight of me, “How nice of you to come meet me!”

“What did you find out?” I said.

“And you brought Cyril,” she said, patting him on the head. “And dearum-dearums Juju,” she cooed, taking Princess Arjumand from me and cradling her in her arms. She waggled her fingers at Princess Arjumand’s paws, and Princess Arjumand batted playfully at them. “How does oo stan’ your mistwess talking ootsy-cutesy baby talk to oo?” Verity said. “Oo ought to swat her when her does it.”

“Verity,” I said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly all right,” she said, still playing with the cat’s paws. “Where’s Terence?” she said, starting toward the lawn. “I need to tell him he can’t be in love with Tossie because the fate of the free world is at stake. Also,” her voice dropped to a stage whisper, “she cheats at croquet.”

“How many drops have you had?” I demanded.

She frowned. “Sixteen. No, eight. Twelve.” She peered at me. “It isn’t fair, you know.”

“What isn’t?” I said warily.

“Your boater. It makes you look just like Lord Peter Wimsey, especially when you tilt it forward like that.” She started for the lawn.

I took Princess Arjumand away from Verity, dumped her on the ground, and grabbed Verity’s arm.

“I need to find Tossie,” she said. “I have a thing or two to tell her.”

“Not a good idea,” I said. “Let’s sit down a minute. In the gazebo.” I led her toward it.

She came docilely. “The first time I ever saw you, I thought, he looks just like Lord Peter Wimsey. You were wearing that boater and — no, that wasn’t the first time,” she said accusingly. “The first time was in Mr. Dunworthy’s office, and you were all covered in soot. You were still adorable, though, even if your mouth was hanging open.” She looked at me quizzically. “Did you have a mustache?”

“No,” I said, leading her up the gazebo steps. “Now, I want you to tell me exactly what happened in Oxford. Why did you make twelve drops?”

“Seven,” she said. “T.J. wanted to test the slippage on drops to May and August of 1888. He’s looking for surrounding areas of radically increased slippage,” she said, sounding more coherent, and I wondered if the time-lag was just a temporary effect.

“He said our incongruity doesn’t fit the pattern,” she said. “There’s supposed to be an area of moderately increased slippage surrounding the focus. Do you know why Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo? It rained. Buckets.”

Nope. Apparently not temporary.

“Why did T.J. send you on all those drops?” I asked. “Why didn’t he send Carruthers?”

“They can’t get him out.”

“No, it’s the recruit they can’t get out,” I said.

She shook her head forcefully. “Carruthers.”

I didn’t know if what she was saying was true, or if she was confused. Or if we were even talking about the same thing — between Difficulty in Distinguishing Sounds, Blurring of Vision, and the sound of the ack-ack that was doubtless thudding in her ears, she might be having a different conversation entirely.

“Verity, I need to take you—” Where? Sleep was what she needed, but there was no way I could get her through the mine field between here and the house. The Reverend Mr. Arbitage would be on the lawn supervising the servants, Mrs. Mering would be there supervising the Reverend Mr. Arbitage, and Tossie might be back early from the Chattisbournes’ and looking for a couple of suckers for a game of croquet.

The stable? No, we’d still have to cross a corner of the lawn to get there. Perhaps the best idea was to stay here in the gazebo and try to get Verity to lie down on one of the benches.

“And what is wrong with a Grand Design, I should like to know?” Professor Peddick said from the direction of the fishpond. “Of course Overforce can’t envision a Grand Design. His idea of a plan is to train his dog to jump out of trees onto innocent bystanders.”

“Come on, Verity,” I said, raising her to her feet. “We can’t stay here.”

“Where are we going?” she said. “We’re not going to the jumble sale, are we? I hate jumble sales. I hate shells and tassels and embroidery and tatting and scrollwork and all those beads they put on everything. Why can’t they just leave well enough alone?”

“We cannot see the design because we are a part of it,” Professor Peddick’s voice, much nearer, said. “Can the thread in the loom see the pattern in the fabric? Can the soldier see the strategy of the battle he is fighting?” and I hustled Verity out of the gazebo and over behind the lilacs.

“Come on,” I said, taking her hand as if she were a child. “We’re going to go now. This way.”

I led her behind the lilacs and down the path to the river. Cyril and Princess Arjumand followed us, Princess Arjumand twining herself around our legs as we walked and impeding our progress.

“Cyril,” I whispered, “go find Terence.”

“Good idea,” Verity said. “I have a few things to say to Terence. ‘Terence,’ I’m going to say to him, ‘how can you be in love with someone who hates your dog?’ ”

We reached the towpath. “Shh,” I said, listening for Professor Peddick.

“Through art, through history, we may glimpse the Grand Design,” he said. His voice sounded farther away. “But only for a fleeting moment. ‘For His works are unsearchable and His ways past finding out,’ ” he said, his voice growing fainter. They must be going up to the house.

“I’ll bet Maud Peddick loves dogs,” Verity said. “She’s a lovely girl. She doesn’t keep a diary, she’s patriotic—”

There was no one down at the dock. I propelled Verity rapidly down the path to the river.

“She’s got a poem named after her,” Verity said. “ ‘Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone.’ By Tennyson. Terence loves quoting Tennyson. When Maud Peddick screams, I’ll bet it’s the real thing and not some little baby scream. Oh, are we going in a boat?”

“Yes,” I said, helping her in. “Sit down.”

She stood, swaying slightly, in the stern, gazing wistfully out at the river. “Lord Peter took Harriet out boating,” she said. “They fed the ducks. Are we going to feed the ducks?”

“You bet,” I said, untying the rope. “Sit down.”

“Oh, look,” she said, pointing at the shore. “They want to come. Isn’t that sweet?”

I jerked my head up and looked at the shore. Cyril and Princess Arjumand were standing side by side on the little dock.

“Can’t Cyril come?” she said.

The thought of trying to rescue two dead weights if they went overboard was not appealing. On the other hand, if we took them with us, the Black Moor would be safe. And if Finch was trying to drown Princess Arjumand, she was safer with me.

“They can come,” I said and hoisted Cyril, two legs at a time, into the boat.

Princess Arjumand promptly turned on her heel, flouncing her pretty tail in the air, and started for the fishpond.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said and snatched her up, handed her to Verity, who was still standing up, and untied the rope.

“Sit down,” I said and cast off. Verity sat down with a thump, the cat still in her arms. I jumped in, took up the oars, and started rowing out toward the current.

By going downstream, I could get her away faster, but we’d have to go past the house and a good section of the lawn, and I didn’t want anyone to see us. I swung the boat upstream and rowed out of sight of Muchings End as rapidly as I could. There were a lot of boats on the river. One of them waved gaily to us, and Verity waved back. I rowed faster, hoping it wasn’t one of the Chattisbourne girls.

I had thought we would be safe on the river, but I had forgotten how many people went boating in the afternoon, and fishing. It was obvious we weren’t safe, and I began looking for some safe side stream or backwater we could pull into.

“I thought you said we were going to feed the ducks,” Verity said accusingly. “Lord Peter and Harriet fed the ducks.”

“We will, I promise,” I said. On the far bank lay some weeping willows whose branches dipped almost down to the water. I rowed across the river toward them.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Verity said. “I didn’t. And then I saw you standing there, all covered with soot — when are we going to feed the ducks?”

I rowed in under the willows, pushing against the bank with my oar to bring us round and close to the bank. We were completely hidden from the river here. The willow branches arched over us and down into the water, enclosing us in a pale-green bower. The sun shimmered through the leaves like the net as it was about to open.

I laid down the oars and looped the rope gently over a low-hanging branch. We should be safe here.

“Verity,” I said, knowing this was probably hopeless. “What did you find out in Oxford?”

She was playing with Princess Arjumand, shaking the ribbons of her hat at her.

“Did you talk to the forensics expert?” I persisted. “Has she found out who Mr. C is?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “You know who Mr. C is?”

She frowned. “No. I mean, yes, I talked to her.” She took off her hat and began untying one of the ribbons. “She said it’s got between seven and ten letters, and the last one’s an ‘N’ or an ‘M.’ ”

It wasn’t Mr. Chips then. Or Lewis Carroll.

“I told her to stop looking for references to Princess Arjumand,” Verity said, “and to concentrate on Mr. C and the date of the trip to Coventry.” She finished untying the ribbon and dangled it at Princess Arjumand.

“Good,” I said. “You said Carruthers was stuck in Coventry. Didn’t you mean the new recruit?”

“No,” she said, playing with the ribbon. The cat reared up on her hind legs and batted at it with her white paws. “They got him out. Besides, this is different.” She danced the ribbon up and down. Cyril came over to investigate.

“How is it different?” I asked patiently.

Cyril sniffed the dangling ribbon. The cat smacked him smartly on the nose and went back to the batting. “The new recruit couldn’t find the net,” she said. “It was open. Now it’s not.”

“When they try to bring Carruthers through, the net won’t open?” I said, trying to get this straight, and she nodded.

T.J. had said net failure was a worsening sign of an incongruity.

“And they’ve tried more than once?”

“They’ve tried everything,” she said, pulling the ribbon up sharply. The cat leaped for it, and the boat rocked. “T.J.’s even trying the battle of Waterloo.”

She had said something about Waterloo before, but I’d assumed it was just babblings. “What exactly is T.J. doing?” I asked.

“Changing things,” she said, holding the ribbon very still. Princess Arjumand watched her, ready to pounce. “Opening the gate at Hougoumont, bringing up D’Erlon’s troops. Did you know Napoleon had terrible handwriting? It’s worse than Tossie’s diary. No one can decipher it.”

She jerked the ribbon suddenly. Princess Arjumand leaped for it. The boat rocked. “I think he lost the battle because of his hemorrhoids.”

Whatever T.J. was doing with Waterloo, it would have to wait. It was getting late, and Verity didn’t seem to be getting appreciably better. I obviously couldn’t take her back like this, and the only thing I could think of that might help was sleep.

“He couldn’t ride with hemorrhoids,” she said. “That’s why he stayed the night at Fleurus. And that’s why he lost the battle.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” I said. “I think you should lie down and rest.”

She continued to dangle the ribbon. “It’s terrible, really, how important a little thing like that can be. Like my saving Princess Arjumand. Who would have thought it would lose a whole war?”

“Verity,” I said firmly and took the ribbon away from her. “I want you to lie down and rest now.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I have to go steal Tossie’s diary and find out who Mr. C is and then I have to go tell Mr. Dunworthy. I have to repair the incongruity.”

“There’s plenty of time for that,” I said. “First you need to sleep.” I pulled a slightly mildewed cushion out from under the prow and placed it on the seat. “You lie down right here.”

She lay down obediently and put her head on the pillow. “Lord Peter took a nap,” she said. “Harriet watched him sleep, and that’s when she knew she was in love with him.”

She sat up again. “Of course I knew it from the second page of Strong Poison, but it took two more books for Harriet to figure it out. She kept telling herself it was all just detecting and deciphering codes and solving mysteries together, but I knew she was in love with him. He proposed in Latin. Under a bridge. After they solved the mystery. You can’t propose till after you’ve solved the mystery. That’s a law in detective novels.”

She sighed. “It’s too bad. ‘Placetne, magistra?’ he said when he proposed, and then she said, ‘Placet.’ That’s a fancy Oxford don way of saying yes. I had to look it up. I hate it when people use Latin and don’t tell you what they mean. Do you know what Professor Peddick said to me yesterday? ‘Raram facit misturam cum sapientia forma.’ I have no idea what he meant. Something about the Grand Design, I think. Do you believe in a Grand Design, Ned?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I said, patting the pillow. “Right now you lie down.”

She lay down again. “It was romantic, though, proposing in Latin. I think it was the boater that did it. She sat there, watching him sleep, and he looked so handsome in his boater. And his mustache. It’s a little lopsided, did you know that?”

“Yes.” I took off my blazer and put it over her shoulders. “Close your eyes and rest.”

“Will you watch me sleep?” she said.

“I will watch you sleep.”

“Good,” she said, and closed her eyes.

Several minutes went by.

“Could you take your hat off?” Verity said drowsily.

I grinned. “Certainly.”

I laid my boater beside me on the seat. She curled up on her side, her hands folded under her cheek, and closed her eyes. “It didn’t help,” she murmured.

Cyril settled into the bottom of the boat, and Princess Arjumand perched on my shoulders like a parrot and began to purr.

I looked at Verity. She had shadows under her eyes, and I realized that she hadn’t had any more sleep the last two days than I had, racing out to the drop at all hours, planning strategies, spending who knew how many hours in Oxford, researching Terence’s descendants, and talking to the forensics expert. Poor thing.

Cyril and Princess Arjumand were both asleep. I leaned forward, my elbow on my knee, and rested my cheek on my hand.

I watched Verity sleep.

It was almost as restful as sleeping myself. The boat rocked gently, and the sun through the leaves flickered softly in patterns of light and shade. She slept peacefully, quietly, her face still and untroubled in repose.

And I was going to have to face it. No matter how much sleep I got or she didn’t, she was always going to look like a naiad to me. Even lying there with her greenish-brown eyes closed and her mouth half-open, drooling gently onto a mildewed boat cushion, she was still the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

“ ‘She hath a lovely face,’ ” I murmured, and, unlike Terence, thought that that covered it very well.

At some point I fell asleep myself, and at some later point my head must have fallen sideways. My elbow slipped off my knee, and I sat up with a jerk.

On my shoulders, Princess Arjumand meowed, irritated at being disturbed, and jumped down onto the seat beside me.

Verity and Cyril were both still asleep. Princess Arjumand yawned widely and stretched, and then went over to the side of the boat and looked in the water. She stood up, her paws on the gunwale, and dipped a dainty white paw in the water.

The shadowy light of the sun through the willows was more angled than it had been, and there was a golden tinge to it. I pulled out my pocket watch and snapped it open. Half-past III. We had best be getting back before anyone missed us. If we hadn’t been missed already.

I hated to wake Verity up. She looked so peaceful, sleeping there, a faint smile on her lips as if she was dreaming of something pleasant. “Verity,” I said softly and leaned forward to touch her on the shoulder.

There was a splash. I lunged for the side of the boat. “Princess Arjumand!” I said, and Cyril sat up, looking surprised.

There was no sign of the cat. I leaned over the gunwale, pushing up my sleeve. “Princess Arjumand!” I reached far under the water and felt around, trying to find her. “You are not drowning! Do you hear me? Not after we’ve risked the entire universe to save you!” I said, and she bobbed up and began swimming toward the boat, her fur wet and plastered to her head.

I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and hauled her in. She looked like a drowned rat. Cyril ambled over, looking interested, and, I thought, pleased.

I pulled out my handkerchief and swabbed at her, but it obviously wasn’t going to do the job. I looked in the prow for a blanket or a rug, but there wasn’t anything. It was going to have to be my blazer.

I removed it gently from Verity’s shoulders, wrapped Princess Arjumand in it, and began to rub her dry. “Fish are going to be the death of you, you know that, don’t you?” I said, toweling her back and tail. “Cats only have nine lives, you know, and you’ve already used up six that I know of,” I rubbed her tail. “You need to switch to a safer habit, like smoking.”

Princess Arjumand began to struggle. “You’re not dry yet,” I said, and went on rubbing her.

She continued to struggle, and after a minute I unwrapped her from the blazer and let her go. She walked with rather bedraggled dignity past Cyril to the middle of the seat, sat down, and began to lick herself.

I draped my blazer over the prow to dry, and looked at my pocket watch again. A quarter to IV. I’d have to wake Verity up, even though she was obviously dead to the world if none of this had wakened her. I snapped my pocket watch shut.

Verity opened her eyes. “Ned,” she said sleepily. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yes. Do you feel better?”

“Better?” she said vaguely. “I… what happened?” She sat up. “I remember coming through and…” Her eyes widened. “I was time-lagged, wasn’t I? I did all those drops to May and August.” She put her hand to her forehead. “How awful was I?”

I grinned. “Worst case I’ve ever seen. Don’t you remember?”

“Not really,” she said. “It’s all sort of a blur, and in the background there was this sound like a siren…”

“The All-Clear,” I said.

“Yes, and a sort of wheezing, snorting—”

“Cyril,” I said.

She nodded. “Where are we?” she said, looking round at the willows and the water.

“About half a mile upstream from Muchings End,” I said. “You were in no shape to see anyone till you’d had some sleep. Do you feel better now?”

“Um hmmm,” she said, stretching. “Why is Princess Arjumand all wet?”

“She fell in while fishing,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, yawning.

“You’re certain you feel better?” I said.

“Yes. Much.”

“Good,” I said, unlooping the rope. “Then we’d better be getting back. It’s nearly time for tea.” I took the oars and maneuvered us out from under the willows and onto the river.

“Thank you,” she said. “I must have been in pretty bad shape. I didn’t say anything humiliating, did I?”

“Only that Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo because of his hemorrhoids,” I said, rowing downstream, “a theory, by the way, that I wouldn’t advise sharing with Professor Peddick and the Colonel.”

She laughed. “No wonder you had to shanghai me. Did I tell you what T.J.’s doing with the battle of Waterloo?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“He’s running incongruity simulations of the battle,” she said. “Waterloo’s a battle that’s been analyzed in microscopic detail. An elaborate comp simulation of the battle was done in the Twenties.” She leaned forward. “T.J.’s using that model and introducing incongruities that might change events. You know, like what if Napoleon had sent Ney a readable message instead of an indecipherable one? What if d’Erlon had been wounded?”

“What if Napoleon hadn’t had hemorrhoids?”

She shook her head. “Only things an historian could have done,” she said, “like switching messages or firing a musket ball. And then he’s comparing the slippage configurations to our incongruity.”

“And?”

“He just started,” she said defensively, “and it’s all just theoretical,” which meant she didn’t want to tell me.

“Did you find out from Warder how much slippage there was on your drop?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Nine minutes.”

Nine minutes.

“What about the drops you did to May and August?”

“It varied. The average was sixteen minutes. That tallied with previous drops to the Victorian era.”

We were nearly to Muchings End. I pulled out my pocket watch and looked at it. “We should be home in time for tea,” I said, “and so there may not be any questions. If there are, we rowed up to Streatley to post signs for the jumble sale.” I pulled on my damp blazer, and Verity straightened her hair and put on her hat.

Sixteen minutes, and Verity’s drop had been nine. Even if her drop had had an average amount of slippage, she would have been too late, or too early, to rescue the cat and cause the incongruity. And at nine minutes, the slippage obviously hadn’t been stretched to its limits. So why hadn’t the net increased the slippage to the average? Or slammed shut before the incongruity could happen? And why had it slammed shut now, on Carruthers?

The dock was only a few hundred yards ahead. “With luck, no one will even know we’ve been on the river,” I said, and pulled in toward the dock.

“Our luck seems to be out,” Verity said.

I turned round in my seat. Tossie and Terence were running down to the riverbank, waving to us.

“Oh, Cousin, you’ll never guess what’s happened!” Tossie cried. “Mr. St. Trewes and I are engaged!”