All Clear

“Yes.” It had suffered fourteen HEs. “But not today.”

“Oh, good. If Mike’s found Gerald and wants us to come to Bletchley, we’ll be in the elephant house. I won’t be home to supper, thank heavens. I’ll eat at Theodore’s.”

Mike didn’t phone, and Eileen was back by three. “What happened?” Polly asked. “How was the zoo?”

“Dreadful. The retrieval team wasn’t there, and neither were the animals. Nearly all of them have been moved to the country for safekeeping, including the elephants, which Theodore particularly wanted to see, and ten minutes after we got there he decided he wanted to go home. And when I got him home, his mother was just going out, so I wasn’t asked to stay to supper,” she said, looking as if she was about to burst into tears. “And now I’ll have to eat one of Mrs. Rickett’s horrid cold collations.”

“No, you won’t,” Polly said. “I can’t face it either. The play’s over, so there’s no rehearsal tonight. As soon as Mike phones, we’ll go to Holborn’s canteen and have sandwiches.”

“What if he doesn’t phone?”

“We’ll wait till seven—he’ll expect us to have left for Notting Hill Gate by then—and then go. And while you’re waiting, you can think about whether you’ll order a cheese sandwich or fish paste.”

“Both,” Eileen said happily, and went off to sit on the stairs with Murder in the Calais Coach so she could hear the phone. Polly ironed her blouse and skirt for work and worried about Mike’s failure to call. And about the retrieval team and Colin and her deadline and discrepancies.

It can’t be all of them, she told herself sternly. They’re mutually exclusive. If it’s increased slippage that’s keeping your drops from opening, then you can’t have altered events and the retrieval teams can’t come through, so they can’t be buried in the rubble at Padgett’s or your drop. And if they are, then the drops must be working again, so you didn’t lose the war, and you needn’t worry about your deadline. You can worry about one or the other, but not all of them at once.

Unless they were connected. Unless the slippage had increased because they’d altered events, and the net was ensuring that other historians didn’t make the discrepancies worse.

No, that wouldn’t work. The increase had happened before Mike rescued Hardy and before she’d come through to the Blitz. And before Gerald had gone to Bletchley Park. And it couldn’t have been anything she did before because she’d been able to go back through to Oxford after VE-Day. And Eileen had—

“It’s seven,” Eileen said, coming back upstairs.

Polly insisted they wait another half hour, and then they went off to Holborn, after first extracting a promise from Miss Laburnum to take down any messages for them and promising in turn to try to find a suitable candle for the Ghost of Christmas Past’s crown.

“And a green fur-lined cloak for the Ghost of Christmas Present,” Miss Laburnum said.

“If I had a green fur-lined cloak, I’d wear it myself,” Eileen said as they walked over to Notting Hill Gate. “My coat isn’t half warm enough for this horrid weather.

And black is so grim.”

“Everyone’s wearing black,” Polly snapped. “There’s a war on. And no one has a new coat. Everyone’s making do.”

“I didn’t…,” Eileen said, turning puzzled eyes on her. “I was joking.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Polly said. “It’s only—”

“You’re worried about Mike,” she said. “I know. He knew you were busy with the play. He probably didn’t want to distract you by phoning.”

Distract me? Polly thought bitterly.

“I’m sure he’ll ring us tomorrow.” Eileen linked her arm through Polly’s and chattered the rest of the way to Holborn about how wonderful the play had been and

“I’m sure he’ll ring us tomorrow.” Eileen linked her arm through Polly’s and chattered the rest of the way to Holborn about how wonderful the play had been and how hungry she was and about Agatha Christie.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I actually saw her? She lived in London during the war and worked as a dispenser in the hospitals. Unfortunately, she won’t be in the tube shelters. She had an irrational fear of being buried alive.”

Not all that irrational, Polly thought, remembering Marble Arch. And Marjorie.

But it was a pity they had no chance of encountering her. They could have used her help, though Polly doubted whether even Agatha Christie could solve The Mystery of the Drops Which Wouldn’t Open.

“I wonder if she took the tube to work,” Eileen said. “If she—here’s our stop—if she did, we might see her on her way home.”

They got off the train.

“I do hope the queue for the canteen isn’t very long,” Eileen said, starting through the clot of passengers getting off and on and down the platform past a band of urchins up to no good, toward a group of young women in FANY uniforms.

Polly stopped.

“Come along, I’m starving,” Eileen said, beckoning to her.