“No, of course not,” Colonel Mering said, defeated. “Glad to see you home, Professor Peddick.”

While they consulted with Baine about train times, I went over to Verity and whispered, “I’ll report in in the morning when I take Cyril out to the stable.”

She nodded numbly. “All right.” She took one last look round, as if she hoped Mr. C might still appear. “Good night,” she said and went upstairs.

“Come, Cyril,” Terence said, looking meaningfully at me. “Time for you to go out to the stable,” but I wasn’t paying any attention.

I was looking at the writing table, where Tossie had left her diary.

“I’ll be up in a moment,” I said, sidling over in front of it. “I just want to find a book to read.”

“Books!” Mrs. Mering said. “Entirely too many people read books these days,” and swept from the room.

“Come along, Cyril,” Terence said. Cyril staggered to his feet. “Still raining outside, Baine?”

“I’m afraid so, sir,” Baine said and went to open the front door for them.

“Pickett’s Charge!” Professor Peddick said to Colonel Mering. “At the American battle of Gettysburg. Another excellent example of acting without thinking! How would Overforce account for Pickett’s Charge?” and they went out together.

I shut the parlor door behind them and hurried over to the writing desk. The diary was open, with the pen and the carnation penwiper covering the bottom two-thirds of the page. At the top was written, in a ruffly hand, “June the fifteenth,” and below it, “Today we went to Cov—”

I lifted the penwiper. “—entry,” it read, the “y” trailing off into blankness. Whatever she’d recorded for posterity about the great day, she hadn’t done it yet, but there might be clues to Mr. C in earlier entries.

I shut the diary, grabbed Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vols. One and Two, off the shelf behind, sandwiched the diary between them, and turned round with the books in my hands.

Baine was standing there. “I shall be glad to take Miss Mering’s diary up to her so that you are not inconvenienced, sir,” he said.

“Excellent,” I said, and extricated it from between the Gibbon. “I was just taking it up to her.”

“As you wish, sir!”

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “You take it up. I think I shall take a walk before bed.” A patently ridiculous remark with the rain beating against the French doors, and one he didn’t believe any more than he believed I was taking Tossie’s diary up to her. But he only said, “As you wish, sir,” again.

“Did anyone come to the door tonight?” I said. “Besides the Reverend Mr. Arbitage?”

“No, sir,”

“Or to the kitchen door? A peddler? Or someone seeking shelter from the storm?”

“No, sir. Will that be all, sir?”

Yes, that would be all. And in a few years, what? The Luftwaffe would finish off the RAF and commence landing at Dover, and Tossie and Terence’s grandchildren would fight them on the beaches and in the ditches and in Christ Church Meadow and at Iffley, to no avail. They would hang Nazi banners from Buckingham Palace’s balconies and goose-step through Muchings End and Oxford and Coventry. Well, at least Coventry wouldn’t burn down. Only the Houses of Parliament. And civilization.

And the space-time continuum would correct itself eventually. Unless Hitler’s scientists discovered time travel.

“Will that be all, sir?” Baine said again.

“Yes,” I said, “that will be all,” and turned to open the door.

Rain blew in, and getting wet and cold seemed somehow fitting. I started out.

“I have taken the liberty of putting Mr. St. Trewes’s friend in your room, sir,” Baine said.

“Thank you,” I said gratefully. I shut the door, turned, and started past him up the stairs.

“Mr. Henry,” he said.

“Yes?” I said, but whatever he intended to say, he must have thought better of it.

“An excellent book,” he said. “The Decline and Fall.”

“Edifying and instructive,” I said, and went up to bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I felt better in the morning. When I came down with Cyril at six, the rain had stopped, the sky was blue, and the wet grass glittered like diamonds.

And time travel is inherently hopeful. Failing to fix it once, you get innumerable other chances, or at least somebody does, and a week from now, or a year, when the forensics expert finally managed to decipher the diary, Carruthers or Warder or some addled new recruit could come back on the fifteenth and see to it that Mr. C made his entrance on cue.

We hadn’t succeeded, but at this very moment they might have solved the Mystery of Waterloo and self-correction. At this very moment T.J. and Mr. Dunworthy might be sending someone through to intercept me on my way to Oxford’s railway station and keep me from meeting Terence and mucking up his love life. Or to separate Professor Peddick and Professor Overforce. Or to stop Verity from wading into the Thames and rescuing Princess Arjumand in the first place. Or to send me to World War I to recover from my time-lag.

The cat would swim to shore, Terence would meet Maud, and the Luftwaffe would bomb London. And I would never meet Verity. Small price to pay for saving the universe. Well worth the sacrifice.

And I wouldn’t feel any loss because I wouldn’t ever have met her. I wondered suddenly if Terence did, if he knew on some level that he hadn’t met his true love. And if he did, what did he feel? Mawkish sorrow, like one of his Victorian poems? Or a gnawing of some need unsatisfied? Or just a grayness to everything?

I took Cyril out to the stable. Princess Arjumand had come down with us, and she stalked ahead across the wet grass, her tail in the air, coming back periodically to wind herself around Cyril’s hind legs and my ankles. There was a sound over by the stable, and the big doors began to creak open.

“Hide,” I said, scooping up Princess Arjumand and ducking back into the shelter of the kitchen door. The groom, looking like he’d just been awakened, pushed the doors open, and the driver led two horses, hitched to the carriage, out. The carriage to take Professor Peddick and Colonel Mering to the station.

I looked toward the house. Baine was bringing out the luggage and setting it on the front steps. Professor Peddick stood behind him in his academic gown and mortarboard, holding his kettle of fish against his stomach and talking to Terence.

“Come along,” I whispered to Cyril and started toward the side of the stable. Princess Arjumand wriggled wildly in my arms, trying to get free, and I let her down. She took off like a shot across the lawn. I led Cyril in the groom’s door.

“Make it look like you’ve been here all night,” I said, and Cyril promptly went over to his burlap sacking, turned round three times, flopped down, and began to snore loudly.

“Good boy,” I said, and let myself out of the stable. And collided with Terence.

“Have you got Cyril?” he said.

“I just brought him down,” I said. “Why? Is something wrong? Did Mrs. Mering see me?”

He shook his head. “Baine came and knocked me up this morning and said Colonel Mering was ill and would I accompany Professor Peddick to Oxford. Seems he caught a chill yesterday fishing for trout, and Mrs. Mering wants to make certain Professor Peddick makes it home. Good idea, actually. He’s likely to spot a hill that reminds him of the Battle of Hastings or something and get off the train. I thought I’d take Cyril. Thought it would be a bit of a holiday for him from—” he stopped and started again, “—especially as he didn’t get to go to Coventry yesterday. Is he in the stable?”