“Well,” Fleming said, “down to work, eh?”
St. Ives nodded as Professor Fleming held out to him a big two-liter Mason jar full of clear brown liquid.
“A beef broth infusion of penicillium mold,” he was saying.
“Ah,” St. Ives said. “Of course.” Mold? What the hell did the man mean by that? He looked at Hasbro again, hoping to learn something from him.
“I’ve been constrained…,“ Hasbro started to say, but St. Ives ignored him. He didn’t want to hear the rest.
“I’m not certain of the result of an oral dosage,” Fleming said. “I’m a conservative man, and I hesitate to recommend this even to a scientist such as yourself. It needs time yet — months of study…”
“I appreciate that,” St. Ives said. “It’s a case of life and death, though. Literally — the life of a child who, for the sake of history, mustn’t be allowed to die.” He realized suddenly that this must sound like the statement of a lunatic, but Professor Fleming didn’t seem confused by it. What had his future-time self told the man? Did Fleming know? He couldn’t know; otherwise Hasbro wouldn’t have gone through the rigamarole with the powder. “Can you give me a rough dosage, then?”
“Pint a day, taken in two doses until it’s used up. Keep it cold, mind you.’’
“Cold,” said St. Ives, suddenly worried. He would have to have a word with the mother. They could keep the stuff outside, on the roof. The London autumn would keep it cold. He hoped that the woman wasn’t too far gone in gin to comprehend. But how could she comprehend? Here he was, a gentleman with a jar of beef broth, stepping in out of the future. He could claim to be the Angel of Mercy, perhaps show her the bathyscaphe in order to prove it. Better yet, he would show her a purse full of money, promising to come back with more if she carried out his instructions. Damn it, though; he didn’t have any money. He would have to go back after some. Suddenly he was fiercely hungry, and he realized that he hadn’t eaten in — how long? About eighty-odd years as the crow flies.
He took the jar from Fleming. He had what he came for, but this was too good an opportunity. Here he was in 1927, in the pathology lab of a man who was apparently one of the great minds in the field. Now that he looked about him, St. Ives could see that the laboratory was filled with unidentifiable odds and ends. He must at least know more about this beef broth elixir. “I’m still confused on a couple of issues,” he said to Fleming. “Tell me how it was that you came across this penicillium.’’
Fleming clasped his hands together, stretching his fingers back as if he were loosening up, warming to the idea of telling the tale thoroughly. “Well,” he began, “it was almost entirely by accident…“ At which point Hasbro pulled out a pocket watch, contorting his face with a look of dismay.
“Our train,” Hasbro said, interrupting.
“Oh, damn our train, man.” St. Ives cast him a look of thinly veiled disgust.
“I’m afraid I must insist, sir.” He put a hand into his coat, as if he had something in there to enforce his insistence.
St. Ives was filled with black thoughts. Here was an opportunity gone straight to hell. They had him on a leash, and they weren’t going to reel out any slack line. Hasbro was deadly serious; that was the only thing that kept St. Ives in check. He knew too well that one didn’t argue with Hasbro when the man was serious. Hasbro would prevail. You could chisel that legend in stone without any risk. And when Hasbro was in a prevailing mood, he generally had reason to be. It wouldn’t do to argue.
The two of them left, proceeding directly to the station, and then, after no more than five minutes’ wait, back to Harrogate where they drove once again out to the manor, St. Ives holding on to the jar of beef broth all the way home.
At last they stood awkwardly on the meadow, near the silo door. Hasbro held the keys in his hand. It was clear that they weren’t going back into the manor. St. Ives would have liked another small glass of port before toddling off to the past again, but there he wasn’t about to ask for it. Like as not, Hasbro would have complied, but there was still such a thing as dignity. Best to do what the note had instructed, leave straightaway. He had what he came for. “I’ll be setting out now,” he said.
‘‘Best of luck, sir.’’
“I’ll see you, then, when this is through.”
“That you will, sir. I’d like to buy you a drink when the time comes.”
“You can buy me two,” St. Ives said, striding away through the weeds toward the silo. “And then I’ll buy you two,” he shouted, turning to wave one last time. Hasbro stood on the lonely meadow, watching him depart, the picture of an old and trusted friend saddened at this dangerous but necessary leave-taking. Either that or he was hanging about to make damn well certain that St. Ives wouldn’t cut any last-moment capers.
Seated in the bathyscaphe at last, he wrapped the jar in his new coat and secured it beneath the seat, then turned his attention to the instruments. He had the wide world to travel through, but ultimately he left the spatial coordinates alone, returning simply to his own time, some two hours after his first departure so that he wouldn’t run into an astonished Parsons still snooping around the silo.
He was filled with relief at being back in his own time at last, and he sat back with a sigh, regarding his surroundings. Grinning, he thought all of a sudden of the bet he’d made with Fleming. All the hindsight in the world hadn’t been worth a farthing to his future-self, had it? He still couldn’t believe that he had taken to betting on cricket matches. He simply wouldn’t. He was warned now. Who the hell had that been? The Harrogate Haberdashers? He laughed out loud. What a lark! His future-self would be hearing the news from Hasbro about now: “I what…!”
He climbed out of the machine, weary as a coal miner but still smiling. There was no sign of Parsons, nothing but silence round about him. The silo was dim, but even in the gray twilight he could see clearly enough to know that something had changed — something subtle. Terror coursed through him. This wasn’t good. This was what he had feared. It was exactly what his future-time self had been desperate to avoid.
He couldn’t at first determine what it was, though. His tools lay scattered as ever…Then he saw it suddenly — the chalk marks on the wall. The message was different now. In clean block letters a new message was written out: “Harriers 6, Wolverines 2.”
There was too much danger in staying. St. Ives would have liked to sleep, to eat, to sit in his study and look at the wall. The beef broth, though, wouldn’t allow for it. Time — that commodity that he ought to have had plenty of — wouldn’t allow for it. It would insist on going on without him, piling up complications, altering everything. Never had he been so aware of the ticking of the clock.
He sneaked into the manor by way of the study window, remaining long enough to fetch out a purse containing twenty pounds in silver, and then, without so much as a parting glance, he loped back out to the silo, climbed into the machine, and sailed away in the direction of midcentury Limehouse.
He arrived a week earlier than he had on his previous visit. The child wouldn’t be so far gone this time around. It was just after midnight, and to St. Ives, looking down over Pennyfields, it seemed as if nothing had changed. There was no fog, and the moon was high in the sky. But the old woman sat as ever, smoking her pipe amid the scattered junk slopping out of the door of the general shop. Sailors came and went from public houses. The seething Limehouse night was oblivious to the tiny tragedy unfolding in the attic room above.