So that was why Colleen/Jane had her cloak on. With Mrs. Mering’s only daughter gone, run off to elope with the butler, and her heart broken, the first thing she had done was to send Colleen/Jane over to the Chattisbournes’ to filch Finch.
“It’s a very good offer, sir,” Finch said. “There are a number of advantages to taking it.”
“And you’re thinking of staying in the Victorian era permanently?”
“Of course not, sir! Although,” he said wistfully, “there are moments when I feel I have found my true métier here. No, my dilemma is that Muchings End is much more convenient to my mission than the Chattisbournes’. If I am reading the signs correctly, I should be able to complete my mission tonight and it won’t matter, but it might turn out to take several days. And if that were the case, my mission—”
“What is your mission anyway, Finch?” I said, exasperated.
He looked pained. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. I was sworn to secrecy by Mr. Lewis, and I have also witnessed events you are not yet aware of, and have access to information you have not, and I dare not jeopardize the success of either of our missions by speaking out of turn. As you know, sir, ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ ”
I had that odd, disorienting sensation again, of things up-ending and reorienting themselves, and I tried to grab hold of it, like I had grabbed onto the pedestrian gate.
“Loose lips sink ships.” I knew who had said that. I had, thinking about Ultra and Coventry and secrets as crisis points. It was something about Ultra, and what would have happened if the Nazis had found out we had broken their code — no, it was no use. Just as things were starting to shift, it was gone again.
“If the mission should go several days,” Finch was saying, “Muchings End is much closer both to the vicarage and the drop. And it’s not as if I would be leaving Mrs. Chattisbourne in the lurch. I have already found an excellent butler for her through an agency in London. I intend to telegraph him of the vacant position just before I leave. But it doesn’t seem fair to accept the position with Mrs. Mering when I will not be staying. I suppose I could attempt to find a second but—”
“No,” I said. “Take the position. And don’t give any notice when you leave. Just disappear. Mrs. Mering needs to suffer the slings and arrows of unreliable domestic help so she can learn to appreciate her new son-in-law. Plus, it will teach her not to steal her friends’ servants.”
“Oh, good, sir,” he said. “Thank you. I shall tell her I can take the position after Mrs. Chattisbourne’s tea party.” He started up to the door again. “And don’t worry, sir. It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
He raised the knocker, and I hurried out to the gazebo. At the last minute, I remembered the coveralls and the Burberry and went back down to the wine cellar to collect them and put them in my carpetbag to take through. The coveralls had an ARP patch on them and Burberry hadn’t begun manufacturing his raincoats till 1903, fifteen years from now, and the last thing we needed was another incongruity.
I shut up the carpetbag and started out to the drop again, wondering if Verity would be there or if she would have gone on ahead to Oxford to avoid awkward goodbyes.
But she was there, in the white hat, with her bags on either side of her, as if she were on a railway platform.
I came up beside her. “Well,” I said, setting down my carpetbag.
She looked at me from behind her white veil, and I thought, it truly is too bad I didn’t singlehandedly save the universe. Since I hadn’t, I looked at the peonies behind the gazebo and said, “When’s the next train?”
“Five minutes,” she said. “If it opens.”
“It will open,” I said. “Tossie’s married Mr. C, Terence is getting engaged to Maud, their grandson will fly a night raid to Berlin, the Luftwaffe will leave off bombing aerodromes and begin bombing London, and all’s right with the continuum.”
“In spite of us,” she said.
“In spite of us.”
We stared at the peonies.
“I suppose you’re glad it’s over,” she said. “I mean, you’ll finally be able to get what you wanted.”
I looked at her.
She looked away. “Some sleep, I mean.”
“I’m not nearly so enamored of it anymore,” I said. “I’ve learned to do without.”
We stared at the peonies some more.
“I suppose you’ll go back to your mystery novels,” I said after another silence.
She shook her head. “They’re not very true-to-life. They always end by solving the mystery and righting the wrong. Miss Marple’s never shuffled off to an air raid while they clean up the mess she’s made.” She tried to smile. “What will you do now?”
“Jumble sales, probably. I should imagine Lady Schrapnell will assign me to permanent coconut shy duty when she finds out the bishop’s bird stump wasn’t there after all.”
“Wasn’t where?”
“In the cathedral,” I said. “I got a clear view of the north aisle as we were leaving. The stand was there, but no bishop’s bird stump. I hate to tell her, she had her heart so set on its having been in the cathedral. You were right. Strange as it may seem, someone must have removed it for safekeeping.”
She frowned. “Are you certain you were looking in the right place?”
I nodded. “In front of the parclose screen of the Smiths’ Chapel, between the third and fourth pillars.”
“But that’s impossible,” she said. “It was there. I saw it.”
“When?” I said. “When did you see it?”
“Just after I came through,” she said.
“Where?”
“In the north aisle. The same place it was when we were there yesterday.”
There was a faint whisper of air, and the net began to shimmer. Verity stooped to pick up her bags and stepped down onto the grass.
“Wait.” I grabbed her arm. “Tell me exactly when and where you saw it.”
She looked anxiously at the shimmering net. “Shouldn’t we—”
“We’ll catch the next one,” I said. “Tell me exactly what happened. You came through in the sanctuary—”
She nodded. “The sirens were going, but I couldn’t hear any planes, and it was dark in the church. There was a little light on the altar and another one on the rood screen. I thought I’d better stay near the drop, in case it opened again right away. So I hid in one of the vestries and waited, and after a while I saw torches over by the vestry door, and the fire watch came in, going up to the roofs, and I heard one of them say, ‘Had we better start carrying things out of the vestries?’ so I sneaked into the Mercers’ Chapel and hid. I could still see the drop from there.”
“And then the Mercers’ Chapel caught on fire?”
She nodded. “I started for the vestry door, but there was all this smoke, and I must have got turned around. I ended up in the choir. That’s when I hit my hand on the arch and cut it. I remembered that the tower hadn’t burned, so I got down on the floor and worked my way along the choir railing to the nave and then crawled down the nave till the smoke got less thick and I could stand up.”
“And when was that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking anxiously at the net. “What if it doesn’t open again? Perhaps we should discuss this in Oxford.”
“No,” I said. “When did you stand up in the nave?”
“I don’t know. A little before they started carrying things out.”
The shimmer flared into light. I ignored it. “All right. You crawled down the nave—” I prompted.
“I crawled down the nave and after I’d gone about halfway, the smoke started to thin out, and I could see the west door. I took hold of the pillar I was next to and stood up, and there it was, in front of the screen. On its stand. It had a big bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums in it.”
“You’re certain it was the bishop’s bird stump?”