To Say Nothing of the Dog (39 page)

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!”

“. . . they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive.”

Alice in wonderland

C H A P T E R S I X T E E N

Chance of Rain—Another Swan—What People Buy at Jumble Sales—Numbers Three, Seven, Thirteen, Fourteen, and Twenty-eight—I Have My Future Predicted—Things Are Not What They Seem—I Depart for the Other Side—The Battle of Waterloo—Importance of Good Penmanship—A Fateful Day—Number Fifteen—A Plan—An Unexpected Arrival