Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog

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.”

The light began to grow. “Hold on,” I said and stepped out of the net to get the carpetbag.

“Ned!” Verity said.

“Coming,” I said. I opened the carpetbag, took out the boater, shut the bag and carried it back into the circle. I set the bag down and put the boater on at a jaunty angle that would have made Lord Peter proud.

“Ned,” Verity said, stepping back, her greenish-brown eyes wide.

“Harriet,” I said, and pulled her back into the already shining net.

And kissed her for a hundred and sixty-nine years.

“Quick, Hastings. I have been blind, imbécile. Quick, a taxi.”

When, oh, when will I ever learn to ascertain my space-time location on arrival? Granted, I had a number of things on my mind, most particularly what I intended to say to Verity when I got the time, and what I needed to do right now, but that was no excuse.

“Where’s Mr. Dunworthy?” I said to Warder the minute we came through. I didn’t wait for the veils to rise. I grabbed Verity’s hand and fought my way through them to the console.

“Mr. Dunworthy?” Warder said blankly. She was dressed up, in a print dress and a curly hairdo that made her look almost pleasant.

“He’s in London,” Carruthers said, coming in. He was dressed up as well and had washed all the soot off. “I see you found Verity.” He smiled at her. “You didn’t happen to see if the bishop’s bird stump was there while you were in Coventry, did you?”

“Yes,” I said. “What’s Mr. Dunworthy doing in London?”

“Lady Schrapnell had a last-minute notion the bishop’s bird stump might have been stored in the same place as the treasures from the British Museum were during the Blitz, in an unused tunnel of the Underground.”

“It wasn’t,” I said. “Ring him up and tell him to come back here immediately. T.J. didn’t go with him, did he?” I said, looking at the bank of stack screens he’d run his Waterloo models on.

“No,” he said. “He’s changing his clothes. He should be back in a minute. What’s this all about?”

“Where’s Lady Schrapnell?” I said.

“Lady Schrapnell?” Warder said, as if she’d never heard of her.

“Yes. Lady Schrapnell,” I said. “Coventry Cathedral. The bane of our existence. Lady Schrapnell.”

“I thought you were trying to avoid her,” Carruthers said.

“I am trying to avoid her right now,” I said. “But in a few hours, I may want her. Do you know where she is?”

He and Warder exchanged glances. “At the cathedral, I would imagine.”

“One of you needs to find out for certain,” I said. “Ask her what her schedule for the rest of the day is.”

“Her schedule?” Carruthers said.

Warder, at the same time, said, “You go find her if you want her,” and it would obviously take more than a few curls to make her pleasant. “I’m not running the chance of her giving me something else to do! She’s already got me ironing all the altar cloths and—”

“Never mind,” I said. I didn’t need Lady Schrapnell right now, and there were other, more important things to check. “I need you to do something else for me. I need copies of the Coventry Standard and the Midlands Daily Telegraph for November fifteenth through—” I turned to Carruthers. “When did you come back from Coventry? What day?”

“Three days ago. Wednesday.”

“What day in Coventry?”

“December the twelfth.”

“From November the fifteenth through December the twelfth,” I said to Warder.

“That’s out of the question!” Warder said. “I’ve got the altar cloths to iron and three rendezvouses to bring in. And all the choir’s surplices to press. Linen! There are any number of fabrics she could have had the choir wear that wouldn’t wrinkle walking up the nave to the choir, but Lady Schrapnell had to have linen! ‘God is in the details,’ she said. And now you expect me to get copies of newspapers —”

“I’ll do it,” Verity said. “Do you want facsimiles or articles only, Ned?”

“Facsimiles,” I said.

She nodded. “I’ll do them at the Bod. I’ll be back directly,” she said, flashed me one of her naiad smiles, and was gone.

“Carruthers,” I said. “I need you to go to Coventry.”

“Coventry?” Carruthers said, backing up abruptly and crashing into Warder. “I’m not going back there. I had enough trouble getting out last time.”

“You don’t have to go to the air raid,” I said. “What I need—”

“And I’m not going anywhere in the vicinity. Remember the marrows field? And those bloody dogs? Forget it.”

“I don’t need you to go back in time,” I said. “All I need is some facts from the church archives. You can take the tube. I want you to find out—”

T.J. came in, and he was dressed up too, in a white shirt and his short academic robe. I wondered if Lady Schrapnell had imposed some sort of dress code.

“Just a minute, Carruthers,” I said. “T.J., I need you to do something. The model you did of the incongruity. I want you to change the focus.”

“Change the focus?” he said blankly.

“The site where the incongruity occurred,” I said.

“Don’t tell me there’s been another incongruity,” Warder said. “That’s all we need right now. I’ve got fifty linen surplices to press, three rendezvouses—”