"Don't be ridiculous," said Sharp. "He'd faint when you mentioned the price."

"It was that much?"

"It was that much," said Sharp.

Maxwell got slowly to his feet. "One thing I will say, however," Sharp told him, "you must, somehow or other, have thrown a scare into the Wheeler. Churchill was here this morning, nervous as a cat, frothing at the mouth, to close the deal at once. I wish you could have seen me earlier. We might have been able to work something out, although I can't imagine what it might have been."

About to turn away, Maxwell hesitated, turned back to the desk behind which Sharp was sitting.

"One thing more. About time travel. Nancy Clayton has a Lambert painting..."

"I heard she had," said Sharp.

"In the background there's a hill and a stone upon it. I could swear that stone is the Artifact. Oop says the creatures in the painting are like the ones he remembers from Neanderthal days. And you did find the Artifact on a Jurassic hilltop. How could Lambert have known about it being on that hilltop? The Artifact wasn't found until centuries after he had died. I think Lambert saw the Artifact and the creatures that he painted. I think he traveled back to the Mesozoic. There is an argument, isn't there, about a man named Simonson?"

"I see what you're getting at," said Sharp. "It's just barely possible. Simonson did some temporal investigation back in the twenty-first century and claimed some measure of success, but admitted he had problems in control. There is a legend that he lost a man or two in time-sent them back and couldn't get them out. But there always has been a question as to whether he had any actual success. His notes, the ones we have, aren't too revealing, and he never published. He carried the work on secretly because he seemed to have the idea that time travel would turn out to be a gold mine, that he could rent it out to scientific expeditions, transport hunters back to the big- game fields-stuff like that, you know. One idea that he seemed to have was going back in time to South Africa and clean out the Kimberley diamond fields. So he kept it secret; no one ever knew too much about what he really did."

"But it could have been possible," Maxwell insisted.

"The time is right. Simonson and Lambert were contemporaries and there's an abrupt break in Lambert's style-- as if something had happened. That something could have been going into time."

"Sure it's possible," said Sharp. "But I wouldn't bet on

Chapter 20

When Maxwell came out of the Time building; the stars were coming out and the night wind had an edge of chill. The great elms were clumped masses of a deeper darkness, blotting out the lights of the windows in the buildings across the mall.

Maxwell shivered and turned up the collar of his jacket close about his throat, and went quickly down the stairs to the sidewalk which flanked the mall. There were few people out.

He realized that he was hungry. He had not eaten since early morning. And that he should think of hunger when the last hope he had held had been shattered seemed to be amusing. Not only hungry, he thought, but roofless as well, for if he hoped to dodge the newsmen he could not go back to Oop's. Although, he reminded himself, there was no longer any reason he should shun the newsmen. Now there'd be nothing gained or lost in the telling of his story. But he shrank from the thought of it, from the thought of the incredulous expressions their faces would assume, from the questions they would ask, and then, more than likely, the tongue-in-cheek style they would employ in the writing of the story.

He reached the sidewalk and stood for a moment, undecided as to which direction he should go. He tried, vainly, to remember where he might find a cafe or restaurant which would not be frequented by any of the faculty who might recognize him. Tonight, of all nights, he had an aversion to facing the kind of questions they would ask.

Something rustled behind him and he turned quickly to come face to face with Ghost.

"Oh, it's you," he said.

"I've been waiting for you," Ghost said. "You were a long time in there."

"I had to wait. Then we got to talking."

"Do you any good?"

"None at all. The Artifact is sold and paid for. The Wheeler hauls it away tomorrow. I'm afraid that's the end of it. I could go up and try to see Arnold tonight, but there's no point to it. Not any more, there isn't."

"Oop is holding down a table for us. I imagine you are hungry.."

"I am starved," said Maxwell.

"Then I lead the way."

They turned off the mall and with Ghost leading, wound their way for what seemed to Maxwell an unusually long time, through back streets and alleys.

"A place," Ghost explained, "where we won't be seen. But where the food is edible and the whiskey's cheap. Oop made a point of that."

They finally reached the place, walking down an iron staircase to reach the basement level. Maxwell pushed open the door. The interior was dim. From somewhere in the back came the smell of cooking.

"They serve family style here," said Ghost. "Plank it down upon the table and everyone helps himself. Oop is delighted with that way of serving."

Oop's massive figure moved out from one of the tables in the rear. He waved an arm at them. There were, Maxwell saw, only a half dozen or so other people in the place.

"Over here!" yelled Oop. "Someone for you to meet."

Followed by Ghost, Maxwell made his way across the room. From the table, Carol's face looked up at him. And another face, a bearded, shadowed face-the face of someone that Maxwell felt he should remember.

"Our guest tonight," said Oop. "Master William Shakespeare."

Shakespeare got up and held out his hand to Maxwell. A white-toothed smile flashed above the beard.

"I deem me fortunate," he said, "to have fallen in with such rough and rowdy fellows."

"The Bard is thinking of staying here," said Oop. "Of settling down among us."

"Nay, not the Bard," said Shakespeare. "I will not have you call me it. I be no more than an honest butcher and a dealer in the wool."

"A mere slip of the tongue," Oop assured him. "We have grown so accustomed."

"Aye, aye, I know," said Shakespeare. "One mistake treads hard upon the footsteps of the one it follows."

"But stay here," said Maxwell. He shot a swift glance at Oop. "Does Harlow know he's here?"

"I think not," said Oop. "We took some pains he wouldn't."

"I slipped the leash," said Shakespeare, grinning, pleased with himself. "But with assistance, for which acknowledge gratitude."

"Assistance," said Maxwell. "I just bet there was. Will you clowns ever learn."

"Pete, don't carry on," said Carol. "I think it very noble of Oop. Here was this poor fellow from another time and all he wanted was to see how the people lived and-"

"Let's sit down," said Ghost to Maxwell. "You have the look of a man who could stand a good stiff drink."

Maxwell sat down, next to Shakespeare, Ghost taking the chair on the other side of him. Oop picked up a bottle and handed it across the table to him.

"Go ahead," he urged. "Don't stand on ceremony. Don't bother with a glass. We're informal here."

Maxwell tilted the bottle to his mouth and let it gurgle. Shakespeare watched him with admiration. When he took it down, Shakespeare said, "I cannot but admire your fortitude. I essayed a drink of it and it fair to shriveled me."

"After a time you get used to it," said Maxwell.

"But this ale," said Shakespeare, touching with a finger a half-filled bottle of beer. "Now, there is stuff soft to the palate and pleasing to the stomach."

Sylvester wormed his way behind Shakespeare's chair, squeezed in beside Maxwell and laid his head in Maxwell's lap. Maxwell scratched behind his ears.