To Say Nothing of the Dog

“Everything,” I said, and then thought about what I’d said. Just how elaborate had the self-correction been and what all had been involved? Professor Peddick’s and Professor Overforce’s feud? The Psychic Research Society? The donation of the sugared-violets box to the jumble sale? The fur-bearing ladies in Blackwell’s?

“I still don’t understand,” Verity said. “If all the continuum needed to do was to keep Delphinium Sharpe from writing a letter to the editor, there had to be simpler ways to do it.”

“It’s a chaotic system,” I said. “Every event is co

But how far-reaching? I wondered. Had the Luftwaffe been involved? And Agatha Christie? And the weather?

“I know it’s a chaotic system, Ned,” Verity was saying. “But there was an air raid going on. If the self-correction’s an automatic mechanism, a direct hit would have corrected the incongruity much more simply and directly than some scheme involving cats and trips to Coventry.”

A direct hit from a high-explosive bomb would have eliminated any threat Delphinium Sharpe posed to Ultra, and there wouldn’t have been any consequences. Over five hundred people had been killed in Coventry that night.

“Perhaps Delphinium Sharpe, or one of the other people in the west door that night, had some other part to play in history,” I said, thinking of the stout ARP warden and the woman with the two children.

“I’m not talking about Delphinium Sharpe,” Verity said. “I’m talking about the bishop’s bird stump. If the Smiths’ Chapel had taken a direct hit, Miss Sharpe would have believed the bishop’s bird stump was destroyed and wouldn’t have written her letter. Or it could have taken a direct hit before Lizzie Bittner came through, so she couldn’t cause the incongruity in the first place.”

She was right. A direct hit was all it would have taken. Unless the high-explosive bomb would alter something else. Or unless the bishop’s bird stump had some other part to play in the plan. Or the continuum had some other, subtler reason for using the correction it had.

Plans, intentions, reasons. I could hear Professor Overforce now. “I knew it! This is nothing but an argument for a Grand Design!”

A Grand Design we couldn’t see because we were part of it. A Grand Design we only got occasional, fleeting glimpses of. A Grand Design involving the entire course of history and all of time and space that, for some unfathomable reason, chose to work out its designs with cats and croquet mallets and penwipers, to say nothing of the dog. And a hideous piece of Victorian artwork. And us.

“History is character,” Professor Peddick had said. And character had certainly played a part in the self-correction-Lizzie Bittner’s devotion to her husband and the Colonel’s refusal to wear a coat in rainy weather, Verity’s fondness for cats and Princess Arjumand’s fondness for fish and Hitler’s temper and Mrs. Mering’s gullibility. And my time-laggedness. If they were part of the self-correction, what did that do to the notion of free will? Or was free will part of the plan as well?

“There’s something else I don’t understand,” Verity said. “The incongruity was repaired when Tossie eloped with Baine, right?”

I nodded.

“Then why was Delphinium Sharpe there? Didn’t T.J. say the probabilities collapsed into the true course of events as soon as the incongruity was repaired?”

“But the incongruity hadn’t been repaired when we were there,” I said. “Baine had thrown Tossie in the water, but they hadn’t run off together yet. And until they did, the incongruity still wasn’t completely repaired.”

“Of course they had. They’d run off together on June eighteenth, 1888. And it was a foregone conclusion once he kissed her, so why were we sent to Coventry at all? It obviously wasn’t to make Tossie elope with Baine.”

I knew the answer to that one at least. “To find the bishop’s bird stump,” I said. “I needed to see the doors and the empty wrought-iron stand to realize what had happened.”

“But why?” she said, still frowning. “It could have fixed it without even letting us know it had.”

“Out of pity?” I said. “Because it knew Lady Schrapnell would kill me if I didn’t find it in time for the consecration?”

But she was right. The bishop’s bird stump could have continued to sit in Mrs. Bittner’s attic, gathering dust, now that the incongruity was fixed and the Nazis hadn’t found out about Ultra. So why had I been sent to the lab in 2018 and to Blackwell’s and the air raid and been given such obvious clues if it hadn’t mattered whether the bishop’s bird stump was found or not? Would its eventual discovery after Mrs. Bittner’s death have caused some other incongruity? Or was there some reason it needed to be in the cathedral for the consecration?

“We’re coming up on Oxford,” the driver said. “Where do you want me to go?”

“Just a minute,” I said and rang up Mr. Dunworthy.

Finch answered. “Thank goodness,” he said. “Take Parks Road to Holywell and Longwell and then turn south on the High and turn off onto Merton’s playing fields. Take the access road. We’ll be waiting for you at the vestry door. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes,” I said. “Did you get that?” I asked the driver.

He nodded. “You’re taking this lot to the cathedral?”

“Yes.”

“Waste of money and everybody’s time, if you ask me,” he said. “I mean, what good is a cathedral?”

“You’d be surprised,” Verity said.

“Turn in here,” I said, looking for Merton’s pedestrian gate. “Finch, we’re here,” I said into the handheld, and to the driver again, “Go round to the east end. The vestry door’s on the south side.”

He pulled up next to the vestry door, where Finch had a dozen people waiting for us. One of them opened the back door, and Verity scrambled out and started giving orders. “The altar cloth goes in the Smiths’ Chapel,” she said, “and so does this candlestick. Take care you don’t get the reconstructions mixed up with the real things. Ned, hand me the capper’s pall.”

I laid it over her outstretched arms, and she started up the steps with it.

I picked up the handheld. “Finch, where are you?”

“Right here, sir,” he said at the door of the hearse. He was still in his butler’s frock coat, though his sleeve was now dry.

I handed him the enameled pyx. “The consecration hasn’t begun yet, has it?”

“No, sir,” he said. “There was an unfortunate jam-up in St. Aldate’s. Fire engines and ambulances completely blocking the street. It turned out to have all been an unfortunate mix-up,” he said, completely poker-faced, “but it took some time to clear up. No one was able to get near Christ Church Meadow for nearly an hour. And then the bishop was delayed. His driver took a wrong turn and ended up in Iffley. And now there seems to be some mix-up over the tickets.”

I shook my head admiringly. “Jeeves would have been proud of you. To say nothing of Bunter. And the Admirable Crichton.” I lifted out the bishop’s bird stump.

“Can I take that for you, sir?”

“I want to deliver this myself.” I nodded with my head at the children’s cross. “That goes in the Girdlers’ Chapel. And the statue of St. Michael goes in the choir.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Mr. Lewis is looking for you. He has something he needs to discuss with you concerning the continuum.”

“Fine,” I said, wrestling with the misericord. “As soon as this mess is over.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “And at some point, sir, I need to speak with you about my mission.”

“Just tell me one thing,” I said, sliding the misericord out and handing it over to two first-year students. “Was your mission bringing back nonsignificant objects?”

He looked appalled. “It most certainly was not.”

I picked up the bishop’s bird stump. “Do you know where Lady Schrapnell is?”