Connie Willis - All Clear

He was. He stood in front of the painting, his hat in his hands, his shoulders slumped tiredly, looking up at Christ’s face under its crown of thorns.

“One sees something different each time one looks at it,” Mr. Humphreys had said, and it was true. This time Christ looked not bored, not frightened, but infinitely sorry for both of them.

Polly stepped forward and put her hand on Mr. Dunworthy’s sleeve. “It’s all right,” she said, and began to cry.

“But you do know, don’t you,” he said, “that you committed the murders?”

—AGATHA CHRISTIE, THE ABC MURDERS

London—Winter 1941

POLLY LOOKED AT MR. DUNWORTHY STANDING THERE IN front of The Light of the World, and for a moment she thought she must have been wrong, as she had been wrong that night outside St. Paul’s, and it wasn’t him after all, but only someone who resembled him.

He seemed far older than the Mr. Dunworthy she knew, and his shabby coat, his worn hat, had an authenticity Wardrobe could never have managed. And he looked so weary. Mr. Humphreys had said he was “troubled” and “not well,” but it was far worse than that. He looked exhausted, broken. Defeated. Mr. Dunworthy had never been defeated by anything in his life.

But Polly had known even before she saw him that it was him—and worse, that the man she’d seen looking up at the dome of St. Paul’s that night had been him, too. And the reason he looked so defeated, so … beaten, was that he was as trapped and helpless as she and Eileen were. He wasn’t here as a rescuer. He was a fellow castaway.

But the mere fact that he was here at least meant that Oxford still existed. They hadn’t altered history and lost the war. And Oxford hadn’t been destroyed in some catastrophe. Everyone there wasn’t dead. And even if Mr. Dunworthy was shipwrecked, too, he was here, and she was overjoyed to see him.

“I’m so glad—” she began, and he turned and looked at her, but there was no surprise, no joy in his face, and as she stepped toward him, he backed away from her till he came up hard against The Light of the World.

Oh, God, Mr. Humphreys had said he’d been injured by a bomb blast, that he’d been in hospital. Could he have suffered brain damage? Could that be why he’d stared at her without recognition that night, and why he looked so afraid now? Because he didn’t know her? “Mr. Dunworthy?” she said softly because Mr.

Humphreys would be here any moment. “It’s me …”

“Polly,” he murmured. “It’s really you, isn’t it? It isn’t a dream? There were times in hospital when I thought that all of it—Oxford and time travel and you—was only a dream.”

“It wasn’t,” Polly said, “and I’m really here. Eileen—Merope’s here as well. She’ll be so glad to see you! This is wonderful!” She moved to embrace him.

“No,” he said, and put up his hands to ward her off. “Not wonderful. Not when you—”

“It’s all right. We already know about the drops not working. Michael—” She stopped herself in time. She would have to tell him about Michael’s death, but not yet. He didn’t look strong enough to bear it.

“We know we’re stranded here,” she said instead, but he was shaking his head.

“You don’t know,” he said fiercely. “Polly,” he began, and then stopped, as if he couldn’t bear to tell her. And what could be worse than knowing they couldn’t get out? What could make him look so … Oh, God, she thought. It’s Colin. He came through with Mr. Dunworthy.

Colin had talked him into letting him come along. Or tricked him and ducked under the net at the last moment, as he had when he was twelve. Whichever, they had both been here, they’d both been hit by the bomb blast. And the fact that he was here alone, that he’d been at St. Paul’s alone on the twenty-ninth, could only mean one thing.

“Did Colin—?”

“Oh, my goodness!” Mr. Humphreys said, bustling up. “Do you two know each other? But what a happy coincidence! I knew I was right in thinking you should meet.” He beamed at both of them. “But I had no idea you were acquainted. How do you know Miss Sebastian, Mr. Hobbe?”

“He taught me at school,” Polly said so Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t have to answer.

“I told Miss Sebastian I thought you were a schoolmaster,” Mr. Humphreys said happily. “You knew so much about St. Pau—”

“And you were right, Mr. Humphreys,” she said. “Thank you so much for bringing us together and giving us this chance to visit,” she added, hoping he’d take the hint, but he took no notice.

“What was your subject, Mr. Hobbe?” he asked.

“History,” Polly said.

“I knew it! I told you he knew all about history, didn’t I, Miss Sebastian?” Mr. Dunworthy winced. “And I was right, you are an historian.”

She had to stop this, had to get Mr. Dunworthy away somehow. “Mr. Humphreys, I’m afraid we’re tiring Mr. Hobbe.”

She took Mr. Dunworthy’s arm. “You’ve only just got out of hospital. Perhaps—”

She had intended to say, “I should take him home,” but Mr. Humphreys was too quick for her. “Oh, of course, how thoughtless of me. Let me fetch you a chair.”

He bustled off toward the nave.

The instant he was out of earshot, Polly said, “Mr. Dunworthy, it’s Colin, isn’t it? He came through with you, didn’t he?”

“Colin? No, I wouldn’t let him come.”

Polly’s knees nearly buckled from the force of the relief she felt, and she had to put a hand out to the pillar to steady herself.

“I wanted to get you out as quickly as possible,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “I was afraid the slippage might spike, and you’d be trapped here past your deadline.”

“But then why didn’t you come in September?”

“I did, but the slippage sent me through to December.”

Three months’ slippage. That meant the reason their drops hadn’t opened could have been because of slippage after all, and the entire first few months of the Blitz had been a divergence point. And now that the twenty-ninth was over …

But if it was merely slippage, Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t look so utterly devoid of hope. Unless the bomb blast had destroyed his drop.

“Where’s your drop?” she asked, and then remembered what Mr. Humphreys had said about him frequenting the north transept. “It’s here, isn’t it? In St. Paul’s? Is that why you’ve been coming here every day? You’ve been waiting for it to open?”

He shook his head. “It isn’t going to open.”

“What do you mean?”

A horrible thought struck her. He’d been to the Blitz before. What if it had been in February? “Mr. Dunworthy,” she said urgently, “when were you here before?”

“Here we are,” Mr. Humphreys said, arriving with a wooden folding chair. He opened it out with a snap and set it in front of the painting. “Come, sit down.” He took Mr. Dunworthy’s arm.

Mr. Dunworthy sank down heavily onto the chair, and Polly saw with dread how painfully he moved, how frail he was. She’d assumed she’d be killed just before her deadline by a bomb or shrapnel, but there were other ways of eliminating someone who might create a paradox—complications following an injury, or pneumonia.

“I should have thought of this before,” Mr. Humphreys was saying. “There should always be chairs in this bay, so that visitors can sit and contemplate The Light of the World.” He smiled happily up at it. “It’s a painting which cannot be understood in a few moments of looking. It requires time.”

“Time,” Mr. Dunworthy said bitterly.

Oh, God, Polly thought. He does have a deadline.

“Did you tell Mr. Hobbe you were a fellow admirer of The Light of the World, Miss Sebastian?” Mr. Humphreys asked brightly. “That was why I wished the two of you to meet, Mr. Hobbe. I knew I was right to insist on its being here in St. Paul’s, even though only as a copy. ‘It belongs here,’ I told Dean Matthews. ‘Who knows what good may come from some visitor’s seeing it?’ And now look, it’s brought the two of you together. God truly does work in mysterious—”