To Say Nothing of the Dog

I gri

“It’s not a solar, is it?” I called down to her.

“No,” she said. “It’s a hearse.”

“Does it have the coffin in it?”

“No.”

“Good. Then it should be large enough,” I said, and carried out the chest.

It was an ancient fossil-fueled hearse which looked like it had been used in the Pandemic, but it was at least large and opened at the back. The driver was staring at the heap of treasures. “Having a jumble sale, are you?”

“Yes,” I said, and put the chest in the back.

“It’ll never all fit,” he said.

I shoved the chest as far forward as it would go and took the silver candelabrum Verity handed me. “It’ll fit,” I said. “I am an old hand at packing. Give me that.”

It all fit, though the only way we could make it work was by putting the statue of St. Michael in the front seat. “Mrs. Bittner can sit up front,” I told Verity, “but you and I will have to sit in the back.”

“What about the bishop’s bird stump?” she said.

“It can sit on my lap.”

I went back inside to the parlor. “We’ve got the car loaded,” I said to Mrs. Bittner, “are you ready?” even though it was obvious she wasn’t. She was still sitting quietly in the chintz-covered chair.

She shook her head. “I will not be going with you after all,” she said. “My bronchitis—”

“Not going?” Verity said from the door. “But you’re the one who saved the treasures. You should go and see them in the cathedral.”

“I have already seen them in the cathedral,” she said. “They ca

“Your husband would want you there,” Verity said. “He loved the cathedral.”

“It is only an outward symbol of a larger reality,” she said. “Like the continuum.”

The driver stuck his head in the door. “I thought you said you were in a hurry.”

“We’re coming,” I said over my shoulder.

“Please come,” Verity said, kneeling beside the chair. “You should be there.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Bittner said. “You don’t see the guilty party accompanying Harriet and Lord Peter on their honeymoon, do you? No. The guilty party is left alone to contemplate his sins and consider the consequences of his actions, which is what I intend to do. Although in my case, the consequences are not quite what one would have expected. They take a bit of getting used to. I have been wearing sackcloth and ashes so long.”

She flashed us a sudden smile, and I saw all at once what Jim Dunworthy and Shoji Fujisaki and Bitty Bittner had all fallen in love with.

“You’re certain you won’t come?” Verity said, fighting back tears.

“Next week. When my bronchitis is better,” she said. “I’ll let you two give me a personal tour.”

“You said you had to be in Oxford by eleven,” the driver said. “You’ll never make it.”

“We’ll make it,” I said, and helped Mrs. Bittner to her feet so she could walk us out to the car.

“You’re certain you’ll be all right?” Verity said.

Mrs. Bittner patted Verity’s hand. “Perfectly all right. Everything has turned out far better than could have been expected. The Allies have won World War II,” she smiled that Zuleika Dobson smile again, “and I have got that hideous bishop’s bird stump out of my attic. What could be better?”

“I couldn’t see over the cross, so I put it up front,” the driver said. “You two will have to sit in the back.”

I kissed Mrs. Bittner on the cheek. “Thank you,” I said and crawled in. The driver handed me the bishop’s bird stump. I set it on my lap. Verity crawled in across from me, waving to Mrs. Bittner, and we were off and ru

I turned the handheld back on and rang up Mr. Dunworthy. “We’re on our way,” I said. “We should be there in about forty minutes. Tell Finch he needs to keep stalling. Have you arranged to have a crew there to meet us?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good. Is the archbishop there yet?”

“No, but Lady Schrapnell is, and she’s having a fit. She wants to know where you found the bishop’s bird stump and what sort of flowers are supposed to go in it. For the order of service.”

“Tell her yellow chrysanthemums,” I said.

I rang off. “All taken care of,” I said to Verity.

“Not quite, Sherlock,” she said, sitting against the side of the hearse with her knees hunched up. “There are still a few things that need explaining.”

“I agree,” I said. “You said you knew what Finch’s related mission was. What is it?”

“Bringing back nonsignificant objects,” she said.

“Nonsignificant objects? But we’ve only just found out that’s possible,” I said. “And nonsignificant objects didn’t have anything to do with our incongruity.”

“True,” she said, “but for over a week, T.J. and Mr. Dunworthy thought they did and were trying all sorts of things.”

“But nothing burned down in Muchings End or Iffley while we were there. What did Finch bring through? Cabbages?”

The handheld rang. “Ned,” Lady Schrapnell said. “Where are you?”

“On our way,” I said. “Between—” I leaned forward to our driver. “Where are we?”

“Between Banbury and Adderbury,” he said.

“Between Banbury and Adderbury,” I said. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“I still don’t see why we couldn’t have shipped it back to the past,” Lady Schrapnell said. “It would have been so much simpler. Is the bishop’s bird stump in good shape?”

There was no answer to that. “We’ll be there as soon as we can,” I said again, and rang off.

“All right, it’s my turn to ask the questions,” Verity said. “There’s still something I don’t understand. How did getting Tossie to Coventry on the fifteenth of June to see the bishop’s bird stump and fall in love with Baine fix the incongruity?”

“It didn’t,” I said. “That isn’t why Tossie was there.”

“But her seeing the bishop’s bird stump inspired Lady Schrapnell to rebuild Coventry and send me back to read the diary, which led me to rescue Princess Arjumand—”

“Which was all part of the self-correction. But the principal reason Tossie had to be there on the fifteenth was so she could be caught flirting with the Reverend Mr. Doult.”

“Oh!” she said. “By the girl with the penwipers.”

“Very good, Harriet,” I said. “The girl with the penwipers. Whose name was Miss Delphinium Sharpe.”

“The woman in charge of the Flower Committee.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “When she saw Tossie flirting with the Reverend Mr. Doult, she was, you may remember, extremely upset. She flounced off with her penwipers, and as we were leaving the church, she was walking up Bayley Lane, her long nose in the air. I saw the Reverend Mr. Doult hurrying after her to placate her. And, now this is the part I’m not certain of, but my guess is, in the course of the argument that followed, she burst into tears, and he ended up proposing. Which meant that the Reverend Mr. Doult didn’t stay in the cathedral position, but obtained a church living in some rural vicarage.”

“That’s why you wanted the list of church livings.”

“Very good, Harriet. He was much quicker off the mark than I expected. He married her in 1891 and got a parish the following year in Northumberland.”

“So she was nowhere near Coventry on the night of the fourteenth of November, 1940,” she said. “And, being busy with parish jumble sales and scrap metal drives, paid no attention to a certain bishop’s bird stump being missing.”

“So she didn’t write a letter to the editor,” I said, “and everyone else just assumed it had burned up in the fire.”

“And Ultra’s secret was safe.” She frowned. “And the whole thing, my rescuing Princess Arjumand and us going to Oxford to see Madame Iritosky and your preventing Terence from meeting Maud and loaning him the money for the boat and the séance and everything, it was all part of the self-correction? Everything?”