To Say Nothing of the Dog (66 page)

She shook her head. “They’re not very true-to-life. They always end by solving the mystery and righting the wrong. Miss Marple’s never shuffled off to an air raid while they clean up the mess she’s made.” She tried to smile. “What will you do now?”

“Jumble sales, probably. I should imagine Lady Schrapnell will assign me to permanent coconut shy duty when she finds out the bishop’s bird stump wasn’t there after all.”

“Wasn’t where?”

“In the cathedral,” I said. “I got a clear view of the north aisle as we were leaving. The stand was there, but no bishop’s bird stump. I hate to tell her, she had her heart so set on its having been in the cathedral. You were right. Strange as it may seem, someone must have removed it for safekeeping.”

She frowned. “Are you certain you were looking in the right place?”

I nodded. “In front of the parclose screen of the Smiths’ Chapel, between the third and fourth pillars.”

“But that’s impossible,” she said. “It was there. I saw it.”

“When?” I said. “When did you see it?”

“Just after I came through,” she said.

“Where?”

“In the north aisle. The same place it was when we were there yesterday.”

There was a faint whisper of air, and the net began to shimmer. Verity stooped to pick up her bags and stepped down onto the grass.

“Wait.” I grabbed her arm. “Tell me exactly when and where you saw it.”

She looked anxiously at the shimmering net. “Shouldn’t we—”

“We’ll catch the next one,” I said. “Tell me exactly what happened. You came through in the sanctuary—”

She nodded. “The sirens were going, but I couldn’t hear any planes, and it was dark in the church. There was a little light on the altar and another one on the rood screen. I thought I’d better stay near the drop, in case it opened again right away. So I hid in one of the vestries and waited, and after a while I saw torches over by the vestry door, and the fire watch came in, going up to the roofs, and I heard one of them say, ‘Had we better start carrying things out of the vestries?’ so I sneaked into the Mercers’ Chapel and hid. I could still see the drop from there.”

“And then the Mercers’ Chapel caught on fire?”

She nodded. “I started for the vestry door, but there was all this smoke, and I must have got turned around. I ended up in the choir. That’s when I hit my hand on the arch and cut it. I remembered that the tower hadn’t burned, so I got down on the floor and worked my way along the choir railing to the nave and then crawled down the nave till the smoke got less thick and I could stand up.”

“And when was that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking anxiously at the net. “What if it doesn’t open again? Perhaps we should discuss this in Oxford.”

“No,” I said. “When did you stand up in the nave?”

“I don’t
know.
A little before they started carrying things out.”

The shimmer flared into light. I ignored it. “All right. You crawled down the nave—” I prompted.

“I crawled down the nave and after I’d gone about halfway, the smoke started to thin out, and I could see the west door. I took hold of the pillar I was next to and stood up, and there it was, in front of the screen. On its stand. It had a big bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums in it.”

“You’re certain it was the bishop’s bird stump?”

“It doesn’t exactly look like anything else,” she said. “Ned, what’s this all about?”

“What did you do then?”

“I thought, well, at least I’ve accomplished something. I can tell Ned it was there during the raid. If I make it out of here. And I started toward the tower door. The aisle was blocked with a pew that had got knocked over, and I had to go round it, and before I could reach the tower, the fire watch came in and started carrying things out.”

“And?” I prompted.

“I ducked across into the Cappers’ Chapel and hid.”

“How long were you in there?”

“I don’t know. A quarter of an hour or so. One of the fire watch came back in and got the altar books. I waited till he was gone, and then I went out to look for you.”

“Out the south door?” I said.

“Yes,” she said, looking at the net. It was beginning to dwindle and fade.

“Were there people outside on the steps when you went out?”

“Yes. If we’ve missed our chance to go home—”

“Did any of the fire watch go near the bishop’s bird stump?”

“No. They went into the sanctuary and the vestries and one of them ran down and got the altar cross and the candlesticks out of the Smiths’ Chapel.”

“And that’s all he got?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“I’m certain. He had to go round the back of the nave and up the south aisle with them, because of the smoke. He ran right past me.”

“Did you see any of them in the Drapers’ Chapel?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t go in the Drapers’ Chapel?”

“I
told
you. I came through in the sanctuary, and I was in the Mercers’ Chapel and then the choir. And that’s all.”

“Could you see the north door from where you were hiding?”

She nodded.

“And no one went out that way?”

“It was locked,” she said. “I heard one of the fire watch tell another to unlock the north door, that the fire brigade would bring the hoses in that way, and he said they’d have to do it from the outside, because of the Smiths’ Chapel being on fire.”

“What about the west door? The tower door?”

“No. The fire watch all went out the vestry door.”

“Did you see anyone else in the cathedral?” I said. “Besides the fire watch? And the firemen?”

“In the cathedral? Ned, it was on fire.”

“What were the fire watch wearing?”

“Wearing?” she said bewilderedly. “I don’t know. Uniforms. Coveralls. I . . . the verger was wearing a tin helmet.”

“Were any of them wearing white?”

“White? No, of course not. Ned, what—?”

“Could you see the west door—the tower door—from where you were hiding?”

She nodded.

“And no one went out the west door while you were there? You didn’t see anyone in the Drapers’ Chapel?”

“No. Ned, what’s this all about?”

The north door was locked, and Verity had a clear view of the south door, and there were people—that knot of roof-watchers and the two louts by the lamp-post—outside the whole time.

The fire watch was using the vestry door, and shortly after Provost Howard made it out with the altar books, it was blocked by fire. And there were people by the vestry door, too. And the stout ARP warden making the rounds. And the dragon lady head of the Flower Committee was standing militant guard outside the west door. There was no way out of the cathedral.

There was no way out of the cathedral. There was no way out of the lab. And no place to hide. Except the net.

I grabbed both of Verity’s arms. I had hidden in the net, behind the theatrical curtains, and listened to Lizzie Bittner say, “I’d do anything for him.” In Oxford in 2018. Where T.J. had discovered a region of increased slippage.

“It’s because we don’t have the treasures Canterbury and Winchester have,” Lizzie Bittner had said. Lizzie Bittner, whose husband was a descendant of the Botoners who had built the church in 1395. Lizzie Bittner, who had lied about the lab’s being open. Who had a key.

“What you think is the first crime turns out to be the second,” the fur-bearing woman had said. “The first crime had happened years before.” Or after. This was time travel, after all. And in one of the Waterloo sims, the continuum had gone back to 1812 to correct itself.

And the clue, the little fact that didn’t fit, was the increased slippage. The increased slippage that hadn’t happened on Verity’s drop, that should have prevented her from rescuing the cat, from committing the incongruity in the first place. Five minutes either way would have done it, but instead there’d been nine minutes’ worth. Nine minutes that had put her right at the scene of the crime.

“Every one of the simulated incongruities has increased slippage at the site,” T.J. had said. Every single one of them. Even the ones in which the incongruity was too great for the continuum to correct it. Every single one. Except ours.

And all we had was a cluster of slippage in 2018, which T.J. had said was too great for being that far from the site. And Coventry. Which was a crisis point.

“Ned,” Verity said urgently. “What’s wrong?”

“Shh,” I said, holding onto her arms like I had held onto the green metal uprights of Merton’s pedestrian gate. I almost had it, and if I didn’t jar it with any sudden movements or distractions, I would see the whole thing.

The slippage was too far from the site, and discrepancies were only found in the immediate vicinity of the incongruity. And the fur-bearing lady in Blackwell’s had said, “I’m glad she married him.” She had been talking about some woman who had married a farmer. “If she hadn’t, she’d still be trapped in Oxford, serving on church committees and running jumble—”

“Ned?” Verity said.

“Shh.”

“She was convinced the bishop’s bird stump had been stolen,” Carruthers had said, talking about the “bitter old spinster sort,” Miss Sharpe, who had been in charge of the Flower Committee.

And the ARP warden had said, “Come along, Miss Sharpe,” to the gray-haired woman guarding the west door. The gray-haired woman who had reminded me of someone, and she had said, “I have no intention of going anywhere. I am the vice-chairman of the Cathedral Ladies’ Altar Guild and the head of the Flower Committee.”

“Miss Sharpe,” he had called her.

Miss Sharpe, who had been so upset she’d accused everyone of knowing about the raid in advance. Who’d even written a letter to the editor.

She’d sent a letter to the paper, saying someone had advance knowledge of the raid.

In Coventry, which had known about the raid in advance. Which, unlike Muchings End, wasn’t an historical backwater. Which was a crisis point. Because of Ultra.

Because if the Nazis found out we had their Enigma machine, it could change the course of the war. The course of history.

And the only instance of something being brought forward through the net was as part of a self-correction.

I was gripping Verity’s arms so hard it had to be hurting her, but I didn’t dare let go. “That young woman in the cathedral,” I said. “What was her name?”

“In the cathedral?” Verity said bewilderedly. “Ned, there wasn’t anyone in the cathedral. It was on fire.”

“Not during the raid,” I said. “The day we went there with Tossie. The young woman who came to see the curate. What was her name?”

“I don’t . . . It was a flower name,” she said. “Geranium or—”

“Delphinium,” I said. “Not her first name. Her last name.”

“I . . . it began with an ‘S.’ Sherwood, no, Sharpe,” she said, and the world shifted 180 degrees, and I wasn’t at Balliol’s gate, I was on Merton’s playing fields, and there, in Christ Church Meadow, was Coventry Cathedral, the center of it all.

“Ned,” Verity said urgently. “What is it?”

“We’ve been looking at this the wrong way round,” I said. “You didn’t cause an incongruity.”

“But—the coincidences,” she stammered, “and the increased slippage in 2018. There had to have been an incongruity.”

“There was,” I said. “And, thanks to my amazing little gray cells, I know when it happened. And what caused it.”

“What?”

“Elementary, my dear Watson. I will give you a clue. Several clues, in fact. Ultra.
The Moonstone.
The Battle of Waterloo. Loose lips.”

“Loose lips?” she said. “Ned—”

“Carruthers. The dog that didn’t bark in the night. Penwipers. Pigeons. The least likely suspect. And Field General Rommel.”

“Field General Rommel?”

“The battle of North Africa,” I said. “We were using Ultra to locate Rommel’s supply convoys and sink them, being careful to send out a reconnaissance plane to be seen by the convoy so the Nazis wouldn’t get suspicious.”

I told her about the fog and the plane being unable to find the convoy, the RAF and the Navy’s simultaneous arrival, and about what Ultra had done afterward—the telegram, the planted rumors, the messages intended to be intercepted. “If the Nazis had found out we had Ultra, it would have changed the outcome of the war, so they had to set in motion an elaborate intelligence mission to correct the slip-up.” I beamed at her. “Don’t you see? It all fits.”

It all fit. Carruthers being trapped in Coventry, my making Terence miss meeting Maud, Professor Overforce pushing Professor Peddick in the Thames, even all those bloody jumble sales.

The fur-bearing ladies in Blackwell’s, Hercule Poirot, T.J., Professor Peddick with his talk of the Grand Design, all of them had been trying to tell me, and I’d been too blind to see it.

Verity was looking worriedly at me. “Ned,” she said, “exactly how many drops have you had?”

“Four,” I said. “The second of which was to Blackwell’s, where I overheard three fur-bearing matrons having an extremely enlightening discussion of a mystery novel, and the first of which was to the lab in 2018, where I heard Lizzie Bittner say she would do anything to keep Coventry Cathedral from being sold to a gaggle of spiritualists.”

The net began to shimmer faintly.

“What if there was an incongruity?” I said. “A slip-up? And the continuum, trying to protect the course of history, set in motion a sophisticated system of secondary defenses to correct the problem? Like Ultra, sending out telegrams and false leads, implementing an elaborate plan involving the drowning of cats and séances and jumble sales and elopements. And dozens of agents, some of whom weren’t even aware of the true purpose of the mission.”

The peonies glittered brightly. “In the best detective tradition, I cannot prove any of this,” I said. “Therefore, Watson, we must go collect evidence.” I picked up Verity’s bags and deposited them next to the peonies. “ ‘Quick, Watson! A hansom cab!’ ”

“Where are we going?” she said suspiciously.

“To the lab. 2057. To check the Coventry local papers and the cathedral’s committee rosters for 1888 and 1940.”

I took her arm, and we stepped into the shimmering circle. “And then,” I said, “we will go to get the bishop’s bird stump.”