"Oh, Harold, how can you believe such things? If you knew the lengths to which I went to defend my —"
"Honour? Really, my dear, you must consider me a pretty poor sort of brain, if you think you can continue any further with your charade!"
"Well," said Jherek cheerfully, wishing that Mr. Underwood would make his meaning clearer, but glad that the main problem had been cleared up, "shall we be off, Mrs. Underwood?"
"I cannot, Mr. Carnelian. My husband is not himself. The shock of your appearance and of your — your language. I know that you do not mean badly, but the disruption you are causing is much worse than I feared. Mr. Carnelian — please put the gun back in your pocket!"
He slipped it into its old place. "I was going to offer it in exchange. As I understood…"
"You understand nothing at all, Mr. Carnelian. It would be best if you left…"
"Leave with him, Amelia. I insist upon it." Mr. Underwood lowered his hands, drew out his pocket handkerchief and, with a precise, thoughtful air, glancing often at the white cloth, mopped his brow. "It is what you both want, is it not? Your freedom. Oh, I gladly give it to you. You pollute the sanctity of my home!"
"Harold, I can scarcely believe the vehemence — you have always preached charity. You are normally so calm !"
"Should I be calm, now?"
"I suppose not, but…"
"All my life I have lived by certain principles — principles I understood you to share. Must I join you in throwing them aside? Your father, the Reverend Mr. Vernon, once warned me that you were overly inclined to high spirits. When we married, I found no sign of that side of your character and assumed that the sober business of being a good wife had driven it from you. Instead, it was buried. And not very deeply, either!"
"I fear, Harold, that it is you who are mad!"
He turned his back on them. "Go!"
"You will regret this, Harold. You know you will."
"Regret my wife conducting a liaison under my own roof with a convicted murderer? Yes!" He laughed without humour. "I suppose I shall!"
Jherek took Mrs. Underwood's arm. "Shall we be off?"
Her imploring eyes were still upon her husband, but she allowed Jherek to lead her to the door.
And then they were in the peace of Collins Avenue. Jherek realized that Mrs. Underwood was disturbed by the parting.
"I think Mr. Underwood accepted the situation very well, don't you? There you are, you see, all your fears, Mrs. Underwood, were groundless. The truth is always worth telling. Mr. Underwood said as much. Perhaps he did not behave as gracefully as one might have hoped, but still…"
"Mr. Carnelian, I know my husband. This behaviour is untypical, to say the least. You have been responsible for making him undergo greater strain than anyone should have to tolerate. I, too, am partly responsible…"
"Why are you speaking in a whisper, Mrs. Underwood?"
"The neighbours." She shook her head. "We might as well walk a little, I suppose. It will give Harold time to think things over. These Bible Meetings of his sometimes take rather more out of him than one might expect. He is very dedicated. His people have been missionaries for generations. It was always his regret that he could not follow in his father's footsteps. His health, while not singularly poor, is badly affected by hot climates. He has been like it from a small child, his mother was telling me." She checked her flow. "I am babbling, I fear."
"Babble on, beautiful Mrs. Underwood!" Jherek's stride was light and long. "We shall soon be where we both belong. I remember every word of the letter Mr. Griffiths read to me. Particularly the last part: '— and so I must tell you, Jherek, that I do love you, that I miss you, that I shall always remember you.' Oh, how happy I am. Now I know what happiness is!"
"Mr. Carnelian, I wrote that letter in haste." She added resentfully. "I thought you were about to die."
"I can't understand why."
A deep sigh escaped her and she did not explain further.
They walked through a number of streets very similar to Collins Avenue (Jherek wondered how the people could find their way to their individual dwellings) and after a while Jherek noticed that she was shivering. He, himself, had become conscious of an increased chill in the air. He removed his coat and put it around her shoulders. She did not resist the gesture.
"Thank you," she said. "If I were not a sensible woman, Mr. Carnelian, I might at this moment be thinking that I have been ruined. I prefer to think, however, that Harold will come to understand his error and that we may be reconciled."
"He will live with Maude Emily," Jherek told her. "He indicated as much. She will comfort him."
"Oh, dear. Oh, dear." Mrs. Underwood shook her head. The road had given way to a path which ran between first fences and then hedges. Beyond the hedges were open fields. The sky was clear and a large moon offered plenty of light.
"I think that we are probably going in the wrong direction for the Rose and Crown ."
"Why should you wish to visit a public house?"
" Public house?"
"Why do you want go to the Rose and Crown , Mr. Carnelian?"
"To see Mr. Wells, of course, Mrs. Underwood. To ask him the name of a good maker of time machines."
"In my age, there are no such things as time machines. If this acquaintance of yours told you that, he was probably having some sort of joke with you."
"Oh, no. Our conversation was most serious. He was one of the few people I have met in your world who seemed to know exactly what I was talking about."
"He was doubtless humouring you. Where did this conversation take place?"
"On the train. And what a marvellous experience that was, in its own right. I shall be making plenty of modifications as soon as we return."
"Then you have no means, as yet, of escaping to your original period?"
"Well, no, but I can't see any difficulty, really."
"There could be difficulties for both of us if Maude Emily, as I suspect, went for a policeman. If my husband has not had time to calm down he will inform the policeman, when he arrives, that an escaped murderer and his female accomplice are even now in the vicinity of Bromley — and that the man is armed. What was that thing you were waving, anyway?"
"The deceptor-gun? Would you like me to demonstrate it?"
"I think not."
From the distance the silence of the night was broken by the sound of a high-pitched whistling.
"The police!" gasped Mrs. Underwood. "It is as I feared." She clutched his arm, then removed her hand almost immediately. "If they find you, you are doomed!"
"Why so? You refer to the gentlemen with the helmets who helped me before. They will have access to a time machine. It was thanks to them, after all, that I was able to return to my own age on my previous visit."
She ignored him, pushing him through a gate and into a field. It smelled sweet and he paused to take the scent into his lungs. "There is no question," he began, "that I have much to learn. Smells, for instance, are generally missing in my reproductions, and when they do exist they lack subtlety. If there were only some way of recording…"
"Silence!" she whispered urgently. "See, they are coming this way." She pointed back to the road. A number of small, dancing lights were in evidence. "It is their bullseyes. The whole of the Bromley constabulary must be on your trail!"
Again a whistle sounded. They crouched behind the hedge, listening to the swish of bicycle tyres over the unmade road.
"They'll be making for the railway station, that's my guess," said a gruff voice. "They'd be fools to head for open countryside. We're on a wild-goose chase."
"You can never be sure about madmen," said another voice. "I was part of the lot what tracked down the Lewisham Murderer three years ago. They found 'im cool as a cucumber in a boarding 'ouse not five streets away from the scene of the crime. 'E'd bin there for a fortnight, while we raced about half of Kent night and day catching nothing but colds in the 'ead."