“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 hous
e 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. “J 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.”