The Fourth Bear

“Not fair, is it?” said Mary.

“No,” replied Jack, deep in thought. “Just ordinary bears trying to lead a life of peaceful solitude. Ed should have spoken out when he could. Any news?”

“Ursula’s stable and out of danger, but Ed’s still critical. The surgeon told me that if he can survive the next forty-eight hours, he’s got a chance. Baby bear is staying with relatives in the Bob Southey.”

It was nearly two hours after Jack had given the order for Bartholomew’s arrest, but he wasn’t yet in custody. When the uniformed officers arrived to pick him up, Sherman Oscar Bartholomew, member of Parliament for Reading and prime suspect in a murder investigation, was gone.

The news had filtered back to everyone waiting at the cottage. Briggs blamed NS-4, something that Jack encouraged. Briggs had returned to Reading after telling Jack that the search for Bartholomew was far too important for the NCD, and the multiforce hunt could be better managed by an officer with more experience—such as himself. Clearly there were headlines to be had, and in Reading, positive headlines were in short supply.

“It’s not good,” said Mary, shaking her head sadly.

“Yes. Who’d be a bear?”

“No, I mean it’s not good that the last squad car has gone—how are we going to get back into town?”

“In the Allegro.”

“It’s a wreck.”

“Trust me.”

They walked down the grassy road to the logging track, where Jack’s car, as predicted, was as pristine as the day it had been built.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” said Mary as Jack showed her the fine oil painting in the trunk, a picture of the car that now resembled a barely recognizable heap of scrap. She looked at the Allegro suspiciously.

“Seems a bit… well, diabolical, doesn’t it?”

“Nah,” replied Jack reassuringly, “every car should be made this way.”

“I’ll write a report out for Kreeper explaining that the Allegro does heal itself. You’ll be back on the active list in a jiffy.”

“Do you think she’d believe you?”

“No,” conceded Mary.

Mary got into the car a little anxiously and glanced around at the interior as though she thought it might bite her, then took a surreptitious look at the odometer, which now read only thirty-eight miles. The car started on the first turn, and Jack drove slowly out of the forest, the approaching night changing the face of the wood from arboreal beauty to insufferable gloom. The forest was once more exclusively the domain of its children.