Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Spatchcock

Originally published by AE, The Canadian Science Fiction Review, March 31st 2014

You want to know about MacGuffin? Well, Mister, you sure came to the right place. Listen, I’ve told them a thousand times I’m not him. Do you think they believe me? No, sir! If it looks like MacGuffin, walks like MacGuffin and talks like MacGuffin, then it’s MacGuffin. And MacGuffin has to die.

Do you know how these savages execute people? They inject a chemical that dissolves bone; all of it, clean away! You end up flat as a spatchcock chicken and crushed under your own weight. Then they drag out all your innards and tan your hide for a rug. That’s gonna be me in six hours. And MacGuffin? That bastard will be sitting on some tropical paradise planet knocking back gin and tonic and laughing at the whole thing. Son of a bitch!

Me? I’m Mario Massimo. Yeah, that Mario Massimo. Is there more than one? I’ve won every golf major for the last two years. I know, Massimo doesn’t look like MacGuffin. That was the whole point. You can’t make money betting on a guy that never loses. These days they only make book on who’s gonna come second.

So MacGuffin comes up to me one day in the departure lounge at Cary Grant Spaceport and tells me he has this infallible scheme. I’m sitting in that cavernous waiting area, twiddling my thumbs and moping at the boards that tell me all flights are delayed because of solar flares. I didn’t know then he was MacGuffin of course. He asks me if I’m entering the inaugural Paradine Open.

Well of course I am; the prize money ain’t great but I’m short of cash as usual. I don’t know where it all goes. So he says to me he’s not a bad golfer himself; three handicap. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Well done you.” I get this sort of crap all the time.

“Hold on a minute,” he says. “What I’m saying to you is that my body is capable but I don’t have the talent. Now suppose you were in my body, you could win a tournament like always, only no one would be expecting it, see, so we could clean up in the betting.”

Well, I start looking around for port security, don’t I? Here’s this lunatic on the loose.

“Don’t panic!” says MacGuffin. “I’m not crazy. Tell me you don’t need the money; I’ll disappear.”

“So what if I need the money?” I say. “I’m not inside your body. Mister, you got a screw loose in the brain compartment.”

“I can see how you’d think that,” he says. “Anyone would think that, Mario. That’s why this scheme will never be so much as suspected. What would you say if I told you I had access to top-secret government research into identity transference?”

“I’d say garbage!”

“I’m serious, Mario. Uncle Sam tried to develop a scheme where an agent could take over as head of a foreign government. Only they gave it up because they couldn’t stabilize the transfer for more than five days.”

“What happened after five days?”

“They automatically re-exchanged, didn’t they? Left you with a foreign president who’d been in US custody for just long enough to make him madder ’n Hell. No good for them, but for us it’s perfect, don’t you see? Five days gives you a practice round and four days of the tournament. Then it’s back to normal and nobody any the wiser.”

“And you expect me to believe this bullshit?”

“I don’t expect you to take my word for it. I can show you. We don’t have to wait five days. We can switch back as soon as I prove to you that it works.”

Well, I reckon I don’t exactly have a lot to lose, right? He can’t rob me, because I spent my last dime on the ticket. I’m all expenses paid after arrival or I’d be sleeping in the clubhouse.

So, we follow the signs to the nearest bathroom. Usual spaceport facility: cracked tile walls, waste paper towels in the washbasins, automatic taps that don’t work, disgusting smell. There’s no one there except this balding, chubby old guy wearing a suit and tie. He gives us a strange look and then leaves. What the hell, who cares?

MacGuffin pulls this gizmo from his pocket. It’s nothing much to look at: just two plastic hand grips connected by a wire.

“That’s it?” I ask him.

“Sure,” he says. “What’d you expect? Truckloads of machinery? How d’you figure they could smuggle that close enough to a foreign president?”

So he tells me to hold one grip and he holds the other and there’s this sort of flash behind my eyes as if a bolt of lightning had zipped across inside my head. Then, just as I’m figuring that it’s all a con, I realize I’m standing there looking at myself! There I am smiling at me and saying “See, told ya!”

So I go over to a mirror and take a look. Only I’m not looking at myself, am I? I’m looking at MacGuffin. Man you could have knocked me down with an old lady’s sand wedge.

“Go on,” says MacGuffin. “Try a swing or two. I told you, my body’s in good shape; I play at least nine holes most days.”

Well, he’s around my build. I feel strangely comfortable in his body. “You know, we might just pull this off,” I say.

MacGuffin is all smiles and he hands me one of the grips again. Same flash of lightning as before and hey presto, I’m back in my own body. Soon as I get over feeling queasy I look at him and I have to admit there’s one problem.

“I got no cash for a stake,” I say.

“That’s okay,” says MacGuffin. “You do the hard work on the golf course; I stake us both with the bookies. Fair division of labour?”

Well, to cut a long story short, we handle the whole thing exactly the way he said. MacGuffin had been leading amateur in one of the minor qualifying tournaments. He’s last man in the draw, so he’s scheduled to tee off at the crack of dawn in the first round on Paradine. Not exactly what I’m used to, but at least there are no spectators that early to wonder why MacGuffin’s using Massimo’s clubs.

By the time Massimo tees off four hours later MacGuffin’s already back in the clubhouse, in a three way tie for fourth place with a nice quiet two under par. Nothing suspicious there; we’ve all seen one round wonders before. They always fall back when the pressure’s on.

You know I’m sure that clock’s fast. I don’t believe we’ve been talking for an hour. Do you mind if we speed this up? You will speak to the Governor for me, won’t you? You’re my only hope, Mr. Latour; persuade him to grant a stay of execution until we can trace MacGuffin—that’s Massimo, I mean, or the guy who looks like Massimo. I can’t die this way, Mr. Latour. Say—you wanna come a little closer to the bars? My voice is getting kinda hoarse.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the first round. Well Massimo cards one over. That’s my worst opening round for five years, or would be if it was actually me, see? MacGuffin handles the press conference well; gracious congratulations to the surprise leaders; blames spaceship lag and tells them to watch his smoke the next day.

Only the next day he’s bunkered twice and takes a double bogey sticking him in the sorry half of the pack. Big news! Rumours go around that he’s sneaking drinks between holes. Meanwhile I’ve edged my way into second. I’m playing like crap by my standards, but you’d be surprised how long it takes to get used to driving another man’s skin. It’s not all bad though; less suspicious this way. By the time I’m standing on the eighteenth tee for the fourth time, two days later, I could take a bogey and still win.

So I collect the trophy and hundreds of photographers take my picture and then I head for the hotel room so that the identity switch back won’t occur in public, see? Only there ain’t no switch back, is there? And there ain’t no MacGuffin neither.

Front desk tells me Massimo left a message. He’s making the rounds of the bookies whilst he still remembers who they are. Well it don’t look good for Massimo to go collecting in person after betting against himself but I can hardly argue, so I go back to the room and wait. Then I have dinner and wait some more. Still no switch back and still no MacGuffin.

Just as I’m starting to get really upset, there’s this knock on the door of my room.

“Room service for MacGuffin,” a voice calls. Nice voice. Nice blonde, curved in all the right places and almost wearing a maid’s outfit. I know I didn’t order room service, or any other kind of service come to that, but I figure maybe MacGuffin did and he probably intended it for himself after the switch back.

Okay, I’m pretty pissed off with MacGuffin by this time, but I’m still expecting him to turn up full of excuses. I figure he now owes me extra for my trouble and it would be a pity to disappoint this nice young lady who’s already down to her underwear without any unnecessary preliminaries. Let’s say the next few hours do not drag like the previous few. I don’t remember worrying about MacGuffin once.

In the middle of the night I wake up, thinking I hear a prowler outside, or maybe it’s MacGuffin. The girl is still sleeping next to me. She hasn’t been disturbed; just as well because she ought to be pretty tired. I roll out of bed as quietly as I can, grab my three iron and sneak over to the door. Then I whip open the door and swing back the iron all in one movement. No one there, but I catch sight of a shadow at the far end of the corridor. I figure maybe a guy’s hiding around the corner.

So I leave the door open and I tiptoe down the corridor, ready to do damage if some creep steps out, but I don’t want to hit MacGuffin, see, on account of I still think I’ll soon be feeling the bruises myself if I do. When I reach the corner I nerve myself to jump around it in one bound. For a split second I’m gonna take a swing at this guy and then I realize it’s not a guy. It’s a life-size bronze statue; it’s all swathed in bubble wrap and the only thing I can make out is that it has my face. That’s MacGuffin’s face, right?

So I remember the winner of the inaugural Paradine Open is to have his statue set up outside the clubhouse. The thoughtful organizers seem to have brought the thing round to my hotel for approval first. Only they don’t want to disturb me during the night so they’ve left it in the corridor until morning. Nice gesture, huh?

I rub my eyes and make my way slowly back to my room. The door is still open. Inside, everything is just as I left it, if you don’t count the guys with guns pointed at me. One of them switches on the lights. I consider that me and a three iron against three guys with shooting irons is not a fair contest. I don’t put up a fight. The girl is sitting up in bed and already handcuffed. They haven’t found it necessary to let her get dressed first.

Behind the frosted glass door of the bathroom, there’s the profile silhouette of another man. The shape seems familiar. A moment later the door opens and this balding, chubby, old guy comes into the room. It’s the same guy we encountered casually, as I thought, in the Cary Grant bathroom.

“Good evening, Mr. MacGuffin,” he says. He has a lugubrious way of speaking, like a recording running slower than intended. “Such a pleasure to meet you at last. How very thoughtful of you to have your photograph beamed to every planet in the known universe. It does so speed up a manhunt for a murderer.”

“Murderer? What murder? I won a golf competition, is all. Nobody died.”

“Not on Paradine, no, Mr. MacGuffin. But two weeks ago on Tenochtitlan the Governor’s wife died. You’ll remember her perhaps? A very nice blonde lady; not unlike this young lady here in fact. Here, my dear, cover yourself up.” He hands the girl a bath towel and she tries to drape it over herself, struggling with the cuffs.

“I’ve never been to Tenochtitlan.”

“No? How strange that you were photographed there so many times. Frequently in the company of the unfortunate lady herself, in fact. By the CCTV in her bedroom, standing over her body, for example. If you hadn’t had your own spacecraft we’d have caught you back then. I was pretty sure it was you last week in Los Angeles, but I couldn’t figure out what somebody like you would be doing with Mario Massimo. Then I lost you in the crowd and I didn’t know which flight you’d taken after all the confusion with the flares.”

By this time I’m panic stricken. If MacGuffin has his own spacecraft you can bet he’s long gone, taking my body and all the loot with him. I’d been a fool to believe him when he told me the switch back was automatic. I should have made him prove it. He’s played me for a sucker. Not only am I framed for a murder that he’s committed but I’ve funded his escape and provided him with a new identity.

Of course I try to explain to the chubby guy that I’m not really MacGuffin, don’t I? He just smiles and nods his head. Then he looks at me with those sad eyes and says, “Never mind. I understand that the pain only lasts for an hour or so. Then there’s a whole new life of useful service to look forward to. Everyone appreciates a doormat.”

Nice huh? Well that’s about it, Mr. Latour. They bring me straight here to Tenochtitlan in a police cruiser. Then there’s this travesty of a trial where nobody will listen to me and nobody is willing to go find Mario Massimo and make him testify. If we can only get him here, Mr. Latour, I swear I can prove he’s not the real Mario Massimo. That guy ain’t gonna know half of the things about my life that I know; how could he?

Get my mother here. Get my girlfriend. They’ll be able to tell who I am. Only none of them will be able to help me if you let them turn me into a doormat. Truly Mr. Latour, you gotta believe me. I’m Mario Massimo; I’m not MacGuffin. I shouldn’t have to die for another man’s crime. In the name of all that’s holy Mr. Latour, you gotta help me.

What’s that? The identity transfer equipment? Yeah they found it in Massimo’s room. My room. No, I mean MacGuffin’s room, of course. He didn’t bother to come back and pick up his stuff—my stuff. Well, he didn’t come round and pick up his own stuff either. He beamed the hotel an apology and the credit as soon as he arrived back on Earth. Said he’d just been too upset and distracted after losing; hadn’t meant to leave without settling his account. Told them to donate all his clothes to charity. My clothes, the bastard!

Yeah, they let me keep the transfer equipment to humour me. They prefer it when I’m not shouting and screaming that I’m not MacGuffin. I’ve spent every hour of every day since the trial trying to figure out how to make the damn thing work. No dice. It just sits here like a useless piece of junk. The Tenochtitlans think it’s a kid’s toy. It beats me. Maybe MacGuffin disabled the power source. Maybe it’s only good for three transfers and now it’s exhausted? I don’t know; what do you think? All I know is that blasted clock is fast.

Look, you take the equipment. It’s no use to me. Take it with you to the Governor. Tell him if he gets MacGuffin here—I mean if he gets the guy who’s pretending to be Massimo here—he can force him to make it work. It’s worth a try isn’t it Mr. Latour? Here, take it. It’s gotta be worth a try.

Well, I’m glad now you see things from my point of view. Don’t look at me like that. You’re there behind bars for a heinous crime. Quite sorry about the doormat thing. You can try telling them that you’re not MacGuffin, if you like. Tell them your name’s Andre Latour. It’ll make a change from telling them you’re Mario Massimo.

Oh, you can keep the equipment. You have about four hours to figure it out. Maybe you can exchange with one of the guards.

I have to go now. There’s a private spacecraft waiting for me here on Tenochtitlan, you know? No, just the one. That’s right, MacGuffin’s. Well now that you mention it, I guess it is odd that Massimo would run to MacGuffin’s ship after all that, isn’t it? Farewell now. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. You have a nice day, Mr. Latour.

The Waiting Room

Originally published by Flame Tree Publishing in Chilling Ghost Short Stories, September 2015

To a man utterly lost, walking forward seems preferable to standing still; somehow movement gives purpose to a stateless existence.

Around Harold, the darkness was Stygian; neither moon nor star illumined the blackness. For all his eyes could tell him he might have been entombed within the bowels of the earth. Carried on the stiff breeze that flapped a long trench coat around his unsteady legs was the sweet smell of decay, suggestive of manure recently spread over the fields. He felt rather than saw tall, spiky, hawthorn hedgerows that bounded on either side the narrow country lane along which he tentatively groped his way.

Although it was bitterly cold, Harold was grateful for the wind; its buffeting helped him maintain a sense of direction as he stumbled along. All his being was focused within himself, shrinking back from an external world of which his data-deprived senses could form no coherent picture.

He walked. Therefore he was going somewhere. Strangely he could not remember where, but he supposed he would know it when he arrived. It was not the first time he had been forced to navigate by instinct.

Nevertheless, it was with relief that at length he discerned a tiny point of yellow light in the sepulchral gloom ahead. Artificial light must mean human habitation. His step became surer. He strode on determinedly through the darkness towards the light.

In due course the point grew larger, assumed a rectangular shape and revealed itself to be a window. He made out the silhouette of an isolated country railway station, distinguished from the blackness of the sky and the blackness of the ground by a feeble and diffuse glow emanating from the platform beyond. He discerned a bridge over the line and an old style semaphore signal. As Harold walked up to the dark exterior of the buildings, the light from the window spilled out across the station approach like a welcome mat, enabling him to see the ground beneath his feet for the first time.

Embossed lettering on the window panes informed him he had arrived at the improbably-named Half Way Halt. Since it offered him a haven from the cold and dark, for the moment it was enough that he had arrived somewhere. He stepped through the door, entering a room that was comfortably warm, with a real coal fire burning in an open hearth.

Closing the door quickly behind him, Harold rubbed his hands vigorously together as he glanced around. Clean, upholstered chairs, tables for waiting travelers to put down their tea, the tea itself served as it should be in proper earthenware cups with saucers.

On the walls were beautifully framed colored prints of hand-painted tourism posters. Into each the artist had introduced a picturesque steam engine puffing along ahead of three or four liveried carriages, somehow enhancing the scene.

Strangely there was no timetable on display, though a traditional round, white-faced, wooden-cased clock on the wall ticked loudly and regularly. Its black, Gothic hands indicated ten minutes to midnight. Harold was rarely out so late.

On the far side of the room was a ticket desk. A clerk sat behind it, smartly attired in a dark blue uniform, waistcoat, blue and white striped shirt and maroon tie. He was wearing a peaked cap and looking alert despite the hour.

Into the opposite corner was squeezed an open serving-hatch, giving access to a little kitchen. From this a large, florid brunette in a white pinafore, clearly well versed in the role of ministering angel, dispensed the tea.

Pleased to have gained sanctuary, Harold did not immediately question his surroundings. Had he done so it might have occurred to him to wonder how such an old fashioned station had survived to the turn of the twentieth century. He might have thought Half Way Halt stuck in a time warp.

Walking up to the ticket desk, he reflected on his good fortune to find it staffed in the middle of the night. It was not until he stood there, looking at the clerk, that he realized he had no more idea of where he was going than of what he was doing there. The clerk looked up expectantly.

"I seem to be lost," Harold said. "I suppose I couldn’t just rest here for a while?"

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"No. I’ve no one to wait for."

"Then you need to get on the train. There’s nowhere else to go from here. They’ll be expecting you."

"They will?"

“Of course. One single.” He passed a thick piece of card across the counter.

Harold studied it hesitantly. “It doesn’t say where to.”

“No. It’s a single track line, just a terminus at each end and us here in the middle.”

“But I don’t even know which direction I’m supposed to be traveling.”

“Only two directions: up and down.”

“I see. Well then, how much is the ticket, please?”

“You’ve already paid,” said the clerk.

“Have I?” Harold asked. “My memory must be worse than I thought. So, could you perhaps tell me when the next up train is?”

“That’s not how it works,” said the clerk. “You just get on the first train, whichever direction it’s going.”

Like all seasoned railway travelers, Harold was used to ignorance of when such unpredictable occurrences as the arrival of trains might be expected, but ignorance of its direction seemed preposterous. Nevertheless, the prospect of turning around and leaving was daunting. The night had been dreadfully dark and he was unsure how to get home.

“Which way was it going when it passed through here last?”

“That, I’m afraid, I couldn’t say,” replied the clerk.

“But good God man, it’s your job! You must know!”

“Please mind your language,” said the clerk sternly. “You’ll offend other passengers.”

Harold had paid little attention to the room’s other occupants. Standard equipment for waiting rooms included people waiting. He turned around and surveyed his companions. There were five, assuming you counted as two a young mother who sat gently rocking a child asleep on her knee. She wore a long coat and a cloche hat from beneath which long red hair hung down below her shoulders, screening her face from Harold’s gaze as she bent forward over the infant.

Sitting on his own was a blond young man, perhaps a motor cyclist. He wore a leather jacket, padded trousers and calf length boots. On his knees he clutched a cardboard folder. The edge of a map peeped out from one corner.

A dark-haired, middle-aged man was wearing yellow oilskins and sea-boots, for all the world as though he had stepped straight from the dockside. Under his sou’wester his eyes were red-rimmed and his face caked with salt. A faint odor of brine wafted across the room.

Lastly, sitting on his own in a corner, was a young soldier in camouflage, his head bandaged. There were stains on his uniform that might have been dried blood.

“Tea, dear?” Harold heard the large lady speaking to him from behind the hatch.

“Yes please,” he replied, “I could do with one. It’s b——, I mean, it’s very cold out there tonight. How much?”

“You’ve already paid, dear,” the tea lady replied, flipping the tap on her urn and holding a cup underneath it. “Milk and sugar?”

“Milk please, no sugar,” said Harold. Had he twice in the space of a couple of minutes forgotten handing over money? She handed him the cup and saucer and Harold thanked her, taking a sip as he walked over to a chair beside the young soldier.

“Anyone sitting here?” he inquired, in the arcane way the British always do in order to be polite.

The soldier shook his head and grimaced, but said nothing. He looked in pain. There was an unpleasant smell about him that Harold recognized only too well from long ago. Gangrene. Why was the young man not in hospital? Harold sat down and placed his cup and saucer on the table between them.

“Wounded?” he inquired, as the soldier still remained silent.

The soldier nodded, touching his bandage with an anguished expression. “Creased by a sniper; don’t remember anything after. Medevac, I suppose. Don’t even remember how I got here. Just need to get back to my unit.”

“You look as if you need convalescent leave, at the very least,” said Harold solicitously.

“No time. They’ll need me back as soon as I’m fit to fly out.”

“That’s the spirit!” Harold replied. He admired the young soldier’s courage. It reminded him of other young men he had known; of when he had been a young man.

“I was a pilot myself. Mosquito—night fighter—back in ‘forty-three. You wouldn’t have thought it to see me struggling to find my way in the dark outside just now!”

The image of the Dornier came unbidden to Harold’s mind. You were not supposed to enjoy killing. He recalled the triumph that had flooded through him as the machine in his sights caught fire and then exploded.

There, you swine! That’s for Margie!

“I’m hurt, not stupid,” the soldier replied, suddenly less friendly. “That was sixty years ago and you’re not a day over thirty.” He got up and went to the serving hatch for another cup of tea, limping badly.

Harold was astonished; he had always looked young for his age, but nowadays that meant looking seventy despite being nearly ninety.

There was no mirror, but he was able to make out his reflection in the glazing of one of the travel posters. It was his face, but not the face he was used to seeing of late in the shaving mirror. Gone were the wrinkles of old age. His hair was a youthful black and he sported once again the handlebar mustache that had marked him out as a fighter pilot, attracting all the girls back in those dark days.

To be honest, for Harold those days had not been so dark; the prospect of imminent death had projected him into vivid reality; every experience, every sight, every sound imprinted indelibly on his memory.

The smell of aviation spirit as you walked over to dispersal in the twilight, sheepskin lined flying boots padding softly on the newly-mowed grass. Listening to the first calls of the nightingale; trying not to think that the bird would sing again tomorrow night but you might not be around to hear it. The unique woody odor you always got inside a Mosquito; the shuddering of the whole aircraft as the nose cannon blasted shells in the direction of that half-seen Dornier, twisting and weaving as it attempted to escape.

And of course Margie, the auburn haired, freckled barmaid he’d met in the village pub, romanced and married in a whirlwind, always living in the present, never making plans for the future because a fighter pilot never did.

It should have been me. I should have died that night, not her.

Instead he’d been airborne, searching in the darkness for a hit-and-run Messerschmitt fighter-bomber that mistakenly dropped its bomb on her pub.

With a start Harold dragged himself back from the past. What he should be asking was how on earth his appearance had been rejuvenated.

Makes no sense.

He gently pinched the skin of his cheek; he was not asleep.

What had happened before he found himself walking along that dark road? For the life of him he could not recall leaving home. In fact the last few days were a bit of a blur.

He had been up to London the previous week. The final reunion dinner of the old squadron. Obvious to them all it made no sense to arrange another.

Working in the rose garden; very hot in the sun. Felt tired; went to get a lemonade; sat in the conservatory. Emily came round from next door and fussed over him. After that—a few incoherent bits and pieces, people coming and going, light and darkness, soup in someone’s hands, fed to him in bed.

And now? Had he died, was that it? Hardly surprising at his age. Yet Harold was not a believer, not since Margie. He’d never expected any conscious experience to follow death. Was it even remotely credible that Half Way Halt was a gateway to some sort of afterlife?

He needed more evidence. Neither he nor the soldier could remember how they got there; two amnesiacs in one waiting room might be a coincidence, three would be strong circumstantial evidence of the supernatural.

He went over and sat down opposite the man in oilskins, speaking softly so as not to upset the young woman and her child.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he began, “but do you know what you’re doing here?”

“Waitin’ for a train, o’ course.” The fisherman, by his voice Aberdonian, gave him a funny look. “This bein’ a railway waitin’ room, Ah’d no’ be waitin’ for a bus, would I?”

“No, you don’t understand, I mean do you know why you’re waiting for a train?”

“Because it hasnae come yet!” exclaimed the fisherman in irritation. “What’s yer game, Jimmy? Are ye anither ane o’ they pen-pushers wi’ nothin’ better tae dae than ask stupit questions?”

“Not at all,” said Harold hastily. “I was just hoping you might be able to help me sort out what’s happening here.”

“All ah ken is we was in collision somewhere off the Dogger Bank. Doon she went in two minutes. Next thing ah’m washed up on the beach—heard a train whistle—made ma way here.”

The man’s clothes were perfectly dry. There was no beach within eighty miles of Harold’s home.

“You were fortunate to survive,” he said. “I didn’t hear of any sinking. I’d have remembered, you see; I was in marine insurance for forty years after the second war.”

“Whit d’ye mean?” demanded the fisherman. “Och, mon, yon’ Hitler’s nobbut eight years deed! You’re oot o’ some loony bin, are ye no’? Awa’ wi’ ye an’ leave a man in peace the noo!”

Harold stood up. Eight years after the war. 1953. The trawler “Katarina” out of Stonehaven. The sinking resulted in multiple claims against his company and as a young loss adjuster trying to impress he worked hard to cut back the size of the awards, establishing contributory negligence on the part of the trawler’s owners. The small firm went out of business with the loss of a good many livelihoods. Harold had made suffering worse than it need have been. And why? Because that was his job.

His theory seemed confirmed. He must be dead. And just when he should at long last have been consigned to welcome oblivion there was something more. Harold was not sure how to bear it.

"Guten Abend, Herr Flugleutnant. I was told to wait here for you."

Harold turned to see the man he had taken for a biker. "You were? That’s strange, I didn’t know I was coming here myself. I’m sorry, have we met?"

"No."

"And you’re German?"

"Yes."

"And they told you to wait for me?"

"Yes."

"You’re not helping me, are you Herr…?"

Silently, the man looked Harold straight in the eye with the sort of stubborn defiance that can sometimes mask insecurity. From close up he looked not much more than a boy; maybe nineteen or twenty.

"Well are you going to tell me what this is all about? I assume the people who told you to wait for me also told you why?"

"Yes."

"Do you expect me to guess or are you going to save us both some time and tell me?"

"You flew a pathfinder aircraft to Hamburg in July 1943?"

"Ah. Yes, I did. My squadron marked the target for the big raid."

"You dropped incendiaries along with your flares?"

"Of course. The flares wouldn’t have burned for long enough."

"My parents lived in Hamburg. Close to the docks. Your bombs hit their house. They were both killed."

"I see." Harold shook his head sadly. "I’m very sorry to hear that. I know it’s no consolation, but we weren’t aiming for civilian casualties. Bombing was not accurate in those days. I only got so close to the docks because I came in very low; wouldn’t have been doing my job if I’d put the markers into the water, you see. Had to hit something solid. I tried to put them on a big freighter. I was just traveling too fast to be accurate."

"Too fast?"

"Your flak gunners were shooting at me."

"So an accident? You are trying to say my parents died in an accident?"

"Not exactly. They were casualties of war. But you must know the house would have been destroyed a few minutes later anyway. The heavies behind us were at 10,000 feet. They flattened everything around the markers."

"The firestorm."

"Look," Harold protested, "it was war. A war we didn’t start. I’m sorry about your parents. But if you’re looking for someone to blame, you need to look closer to home, my friend. We didn’t invade Poland."

"You are sorry, but you do not apologize?"

"That’s correct."

"And the pilot who killed your wife? You would accept from him the same reasoning?"

Harold’s eyes narrowed. He looked intently at the young German. The same defiant look, but this time something else behind the eyes.

Only long after the war had it occurred to Harold that the Dornier he’d shot down had been crewed by men like himself rather than the Nazi caricatures that populated war films; that the people he’d killed with his bombs were not all fighting men. They were people, his anonymous victims in the war, with their own lives, families, hopes and dreams. And the fishermen whose livelihoods he’d destroyed in peacetime were ordinary people too.

I was only obeying orders. I was just doing my job.

He nodded. The same excuse the Nazis themselves had used at Nuremberg. He understood. The down train must go to a place where the guilty would at long last be held to account.

"The 109E was a terrible bomber," he said to the young man. "With all that weight slung under its belly it must have flown like a brick. A sitting duck for any night fighter. And you’d lost so many pilots. I can understand a nervous young fighter pilot with no experience being only too eager to get rid of that bomb."

"And so?"

"Yes," Harold sighed. "I would accept from him the same reasoning."

"Then it is good," the young man said with relief. "We can both forgive."

Harold extended his hand and the young man took it.

"We harmed each other, but without malice," Harold said. "We can forgive each other. Whether others will forgive us remains to be seen."

The defiance had gone from the young man’s eyes, but he still held himself ramrod straight as he turned back towards his seat.

Harold thought he now understood why the young German pilot was here; perhaps also the soldier. But why should the fisherman be taking the down train? And even if he too was condemned for sins of which Harold was ignorant, that still left the young mother and her child.

He was filled with righteous indignation. He would accept his own punishment like a man, but he would not accept the punishment of a child. He turned towards the ticket desk, meaning to remonstrate with the clerk. The railwayman had disappeared. The kitchen hatch had also quietly shut; there was no representative of officialdom to whom he could appeal.

Very well. He had fought for a cause before, he could fight again. These innocents would board the down train over his dead body. He smiled grimly; the irony was not lost upon him. But, for the moment at least, he was a dead man walking.

He cast a glance up at the clock. It was one minute to midnight. A subtle clunk from within the mechanism indicated it was about to strike. Even within the confines of the waiting room, he could hear a singing sound resonating along the tracks and the distant huffing of a steam exhaust heralding the approach of a train. He turned urgently towards the young mother.

“You mustn’t get on the down train!” he exclaimed. “There’s an innocent child to protect. I’ll help you!”

“Well! And hello yourself, Harold! What sort of a greeting is that after all this time?”

The young woman smiled and stood up, gathering the sleepy child in her arms. Her auburn hair shone even in the weak light from the electric bulbs; there were the freckles he knew so well, sprinkled liberally over her snub nose; her eyes were laughing.

“It’s all right. They wouldn’t let you recognize me until you passed the test, and you’ve passed it. I knew you would. That’s why I insisted on being here when you came."

"Margie?" Harold stammered.

"Yes, Harold, it’s me. And say hello to your son. You didn’t know I was pregnant when the bomb fell, did you? We both waited for you. Now we can all board the train together.”

“I can’t believe it…” Then he recollected himself. “But it will be the down train…I…I haven’t…I mean, I didn’t…”

“No one ever does, Harold,” smiled Margie. “That’s the reason for the test.”

The singing of the lines grew to a rumble, then a rushing, hissing roar. The platform lights brightened suddenly, bathing the whole scene in an electric glow as a great black steam locomotive thundered into the station drawing four liveried carriages behind it, seeming to shake the very fabric of the building in which they stood.

The platform door of the waiting room opened and the ticket clerk came in.

“Up train!” he announced. “All aboard, please. Up train!”

Harold’s eyes filled with tears.

The Man on the Church Street Omnibus

Originally published in The Sockdolager, Spring 2015

From Gloucester Road to Kensington Church Street is two stops of the dark-green-liveried public omnibus, operated by the Kensington and Hammersmith Company for the benefit of local inhabitants and the great profit of its shareholders. Tastefully appointed and having a coat of arms proudly displayed on its side, the smart four-horse vehicle daily proceeds about its duty of transporting the bankers and businessmen of our great capital’s richest borough to and from London Bridge, by way of Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, Charing Cross, The Strand and The Bank of England.

The law commands the prominent display beside the omnibus doorway of a statement of its fares. These begin at twopence for a short journey and reach the extraordinary sum of sixpence, one sixth of a workman’s weekly wage, for the whole trip. Long familiarity with this route has however taught us that the conductors are all quite incapable of noticing that any person has boarded their equipage other than at the terminus, so that the unwary are regularly charged the full fare if they are unwilling to argue their case in public and with some vigor.

On a certain day in the late autumn of the year 1863, a man in a military greatcoat, with a uniform cap pulled down to his eyebrows, boarded the omnibus at Gloucester Road as it made its way back from The City towards Hammersmith. Nothing could be seen of the man’s face, beyond a large black mustache and a thin mouth pursed in what some might call a hunted expression. He was tall, but proceeded with a remarkably light step to a vacant seat in the rear of the vehicle. Once there, he sat awkwardly, turning his head from side to side as though keeping furtive lookout for someone or some thing.

During the stop at Gloucester Road and for some minutes thereafter, our conductor of the day had been engaged in a protracted argument with a passenger seated upon the top deck of the vehicle, who was smoking an expensive cigar and inveighing to all and sundry against the enfranchisement of potwallopers. This discussion was still in progress as the omnibus entered Kensington High Street and drew up at the foot of the Church Street hill, where the gentleman of military appearance got up to disembark.

With the innate sixth sense of all his kind for a fare about to escape, the conductor suddenly broke off his vehement discourse and rushed down the stairs, clamping a hand upon the gentleman’s shoulder as he made to step down into the road.

“‘Ere you,” he accosted the man, in high dudgeon. “There’s no gettin’ horf wivart payin’ yer fare. That’ll be sixpence, please!”

“Mistake zere is, I sink,” replied the gentleman. He spoke English slowly and with a pronounced Germanic accent. “At Glowchester Road only, I am boarding.”

“Nar then, none o’ that!” insisted the conductor. “Sixpence, I sez and sixpence I wants!”

“Wery vell, since I haf little time,” the military gentleman conceded unhappily and reached into the deep pocket of his greatcoat, whence he produced a silver coin and handed it to the conductor before turning back to the door of the omnibus.

Barely had the military gentleman alighted and gone two steps than the conductor leaped off the platform of the omnibus and made after him, again seizing him by the shoulder.

“Oy! Oh no you don’t!” the conductor exclaimed. “This ‘ere ain’t a proper sixpence. It’s some kind o’ foreign rubbish!”

“I regret no sixpences coins I haf,” the man replied. “This a silver penny of King Offa is; more than one thousand years old. Value today perhaps five pounds.” He then made as if to be on his way.

The conductor was not so easily mollified. “So you say, matey; so you say. All I knows is what I sees ‘ere. One penny, eh? So I wants five more of ‘em, don’ I? Sixpence the fare is.”

“So much value for two stops you wish?” exclaimed the man, astounded. “Wery vell, go now I must, but another time another omnibus to take I vill remember.” And reaching again into his pocket the man extracted a further five Offa pennies and handed them to the conductor.

Giving the military gentleman a surly look, the conductor put one of the silver coins between his teeth and bit it, then grunted with satisfaction and returned to his omnibus. “And remember,” he called over his shoulder, “Sixpence, the fare is. Hallways sixpence!”

Despite being very little imbued with education, our conductor was not a stupid man. It was one thing to demand six individual penny pieces of the military gentleman; it was quite another to pass up the profit that he might earn from the transaction. Five pounds each, the man had said. Six times five pounds was thirty pounds; more than the conductor could earn in a year!

By rights his employers were entitled to the correct fare of twopence. In the circumstances he decided to be both scrupulously honest and generous. He took a thruppenny piece from his pocket and added it to the quantity of coins in his cash bag. Then he placed the Offa pennies in the inside pocket of his own coat.

“And the man claimed that he received them in lieu of the proper fare for two stops on the omnibus?” Professor Ponsonby’s beetling eyebrows could hardly have been more elevated without disappearing into his untidy hair.

“Apparently so,” replied Sergeant MacAndrew. The red-haired Scot was sitting opposite the distinguished academic across the latter’s leather-topped partner’s desk. The policeman’s tweed suit and waistcoat seemed out of place inside the august portals of The British Museum, but the detective himself did not. Alert eyes took in every detail of the curator’s paper-strewn office.

“The receiver we arrested had given him ten pounds for the lot. When we tracked down the conductor, he admitted he’d substituted a few pennies of his own for what the military gentleman had given him. What he couldn’t do was give us more than a very limited description and the information that the man had got off at Kensington Church Street.”

“Well, I can assure you, Sergeant, the coins are genuine.” The professor shook his head in wonderment. “They are more than that; they are quite remarkable. I have never seen even one in this sort of condition in all my years in this place. Yet here are six, all of them looking as though they have been wrapped in velvet for a thousand years rather than buried in the ground. This is the most important archaeological find in a generation, Sergeant. It is imperative that this man is found and questioned.”

“I understand, professor.” MacAndrew’s nose twitched as though detecting a faint scent of his favorite quarry, money. “But for me to devote police time and resources to this I need evidence of a serious crime. Ten pounds—well, that justifies little more than a single constable for day or two at most.”

Ponsonby frowned, his expression suggesting that a man who understood value only in coarse monetary terms was contemptible. Nevertheless, time was clearly short and the museum had no funds with which to employ investigators of its own.

“The value of these coins at auction would be nearer ten pounds each, in such pristine condition perhaps even more, rather than ten pounds the lot. Moreover it is highly improbable that such meticulous storage would have been employed to preserve only a small number. Somewhere there is a hoard.”

“And the crime, sir?”

“Sergeant, whoever this military man is, he has access to a treasure trove that should by rights have been declared to Her Majesty’s Coroner and offered for sale to an institution such as this, not retained in private hands. In effect, this man, whoever he is, has stolen a large sum of money from the government.”

Not for nothing was Sergeant MacAndrew known as ‘The Red Fox’ of Scotland Yard. The cunning Aberdonian had apprehended more evil doers than most policemen had enjoyed hot dinners, yet this latest case seemed to have him perplexed.

“Why, Smithers,” he inquired of his assistant, a keen young detective constable of twenty-two, “would a man in possession of so many valuable coins that he thinks nothing of carrying them around carelessly in his pocket, be unprovided with a few coppers to pay his fare on the omnibus?”

“Why would he even board the omnibus, knowing that he could not pay the fare?” Smithers replied. Despite his middle class origins and keen brain, Smithers had the physique of a wrestler and a broken nose courtesy of a drunken docker resisting arrest. This lent his voice a nasal twang. “A fit military man could walk from Gloucester Road to Church Street in fifteen minutes at most. We have to assume he was in great haste and the saving of a few minutes seemed vital to him. Perhaps he had stolen the coins and was fleeing from the rightful owner?”

“Won’t do, Smithers.” MacAndrew shook his head and pulled at his lower lip reflectively. “In such a case he’d hardly be so ready to hand over sixty pounds’ worth to the conductor for a twopenny fare.”

“More likely to bash the conductor over the head and run for it,” Smithers agreed. “Giving them up so easily, sir, would seem to suggest he placed little value on them. And yet he knew they were worth at least five pounds each because that’s what he told the conductor.”

“I’ll wager the professor’s right; he has so many of them that half a dozen were not worth making a fuss about,” said MacAndrew. “And yet I agree with you he was in a hurry. I’m thinking, though, that his hurry was not connected with the coins.”

“An urgent appointment?”

“That would be my guess.” MacAndrew acknowledged the young officer’s suggestion with an appreciative smile. “Now where was he going in such a hurry in Church Street?”

“And did you see him come out?” Smithers demanded, his eyes narrowing to slits in the way they sometimes did when interrogating a witness.

“No, I can’t say that I did.” The Reverend Sinclair, vicar of St Mary Abbots, the Renaissance church at the junction of Kensington High Street and Church Street, was a plump, round-faced, affable man who enjoyed talking to all sorts of strangers in his parish. Even policemen.

“But I wasn’t paying particular attention of course. It’s not unusual for people to take a shortcut across the churchyard on their way up to Notting Hill. And we have surveyors and their assistants coming around all the time. We’re rebuilding you know. The borough population is expanding rapidly and the present church is too small. Mr George Gilbert Scott is designing a new one for us.”

“A great man.” Smithers nodded in approval, since that was clearly expected, though he had little or no knowledge of the great man’s work. “But you are confident that this person wore a military greatcoat and cap and was looking around him all the time, as though he expected to be followed?”

“I don’t believe that I described him as expecting to be followed,” replied the vicar. “It was merely that he did a great deal of looking back and forth. He might have been lost and trying to find his bearings, or he might have been hoping to meet someone, I suppose. Unfortunately I was in a hurry myself at the time or I might have stopped to assist him. I had received a message that a parishioner was dangerously ill.”

“And this encounter was before or after you heard the disturbance in the churchyard at midnight?”

“I heard the noises that same night, though I wouldn’t exactly call it a disturbance. There was a brief argument and a sound like a door being opened and closed. Now, there is no door in the churchyard except the one in the family tomb of the Benbows. I investigated at first light and found nothing there beyond a number of footprints in the grass.”

“There was no sign of forced entry or any other damage to the tomb?”

“No, constable, none whatsoever. Had there been any, I would of course have called the police there and then.”

The night was dry and not particularly cold, yet Smithers shivered as he waited in his place of concealment amongst the dark shadows thrown by the small grove of churchyard yews. MacAndrew had repeatedly told him that he read too many penny dreadfuls. For once Smithers was inclined to agree, since tales of living corpses or man-eating phantoms are somehow more credible to one hiding amongst gravestones at night than they are in the warm light of day. In the dark a man’s sense of smell and hearing are also accentuated, and a city dweller is not always sure what to make of the musk of a fox or the hoot of an owl.

Although the four policemen who watched patiently around St Mary Abbots were out of range of the orange glow of the gaslights that lined Kensington High Street, there was a more than adequate moon in a reasonably clear sky. It would be impossible for so much as a prowling tomcat to cross the churchyard without being seen.

MacAndrew himself, naturally, had appropriated the choicest position. He was at a window high in the church tower overlooking the whole scene, and had even procured for himself a chair. The two uniformed constables, like Smithers himself, were in the open air. Each of them was in possession of a shuttered lantern for the purpose of signaling to his colleagues. Smithers’ glance roved regularly around the churchyard to check that none of their lights had been exposed.

It had been all Smithers’ idea that the Benbow tomb disturbance and the man in the military greatcoat were somehow connected. As the night dragged on, he was afraid of being made to look a fool, despite having MacAndrew’s endorsement

“A soldier,” he had said to his Sergeant, “would not have been wearing his greatcoat in such warm weather. That day there were people in business suits sitting comfortably out in the open on the top deck. What if he wore the greatcoat to conceal the fact that his clothes were somehow unsuitable? Perhaps a disguise helpful in the commission of a crime, but not in the subsequent escape.”

“A palace servant’s livery, for example, or even a police uniform?”

“Exactly. A fake policeman would hardly wish to be called to another crime as he fled.”

“In haste to meet a confederate, or to reach his lair and change.” MacAndrew nodded. “Yet he boarded the omnibus headed for Hammersmith and then set off across the churchyard towards Notting Hill on foot when he could have taken the omnibus to Notting Hill Gate in the first place.”

“He was looking about him to see that he was not followed,” Smithers added. “The tomb is locked and the Benbow family holds the key. All of them are presently away taking the waters. If a gang of coin thieves wanted a convenient base in a rich borough, and they could either lay their hands on a key to the tomb or were able to pick the lock, then they could hardly have chosen a place we were less likely to search.”

To Smithers, the logic still seemed strong, yet the excitement that had attended the beginning of their night watch had long since faded and his eyelids were becoming heavy. He wondered at what hour MacAndrew would choose to call off the vigil. His eyes strayed again to the church tower, then stopped. He was quickly alert. The light of MacAndrew’s lantern glimmered in the high window.

Briefly unshuttering his own lantern and pointing it towards the tower, Smithers crept forward to a point where he could see the door of the tomb. He inhaled sharply. The door stood open. There was a dim blue illumination inside the sepulcher itself, whilst a dark figure stood outside the door, silhouetted against the ghoulish light.

But this was no phantom. Smithers could hear voices; there was whispering between the man outside and one or more persons inside. The conversation was not loud enough for him to overhear it clearly, but he suspected that the language was not English. Had they uncovered a nest of spies? With a glance to each side to ensure the two uniformed constables were in position, Smith took out his whistle and blew a strong blast.

“Police!” he called. “Stay where you are! You are all under arrest!”

The man outside, instead of making a run for it, endeavored to slip back inside and close the door. But the constable on the right obviously had much experience in such futile defensive tactics. His size ten boot was swiftly inserted between the closing door and the jamb, whilst his colleague from the other side grappled with the would-be escaper. Surprisingly, the man did not struggle. He made no resistance even to handcuffs being slipped on him.

“Officer,” a cultivated, though strangely accented voice called from inside the tomb. “We are not criminals. There is no need to use force. We mean no harm.”

“Come out quietly and tell that to the Sergeant!” Smithers instructed, with satisfaction in his tone.

“I shall not resist, officer,” the voice replied, “but I have here something which your Sergeant must see.”

“Then bring it out.”

“Alas, officer, I cannot do that, nor can I leave it here without explaining how it may be safely handled.”

Smithers tensed. “Is it explosive?”

“All right, Smithers, I’ll deal with this.” MacAndrew had arrived, out of breath from his hasty descent of the tower and sprint across the churchyard. “I am Sergeant MacAndrew of Scotland Yard,” he announced loudly. “You are in the custody of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. Stay where you are and do not make any sudden moves. I shall come inside to see this thing.”

“Sir!” Smithers protested. “Is that wise? He might have a bomb.”

“In which case he will blow himself up along with me,” MacAndrew replied. “Does he sound to you like a madman determined on suicide?”

“No, sir, but…”

“Trust me,” MacAndrew replied. “It’s your excitable Latins and Slavs that go in for bombs. These men are Germans. They’re sensible chaps; just like us.” He patted the young detective on the shoulder and, opening the heavy door of the tomb, stepped into the ghostly blueness of its cave-like interior and pulled the door closed again behind him.

“I am grateful for your discretion, Sergeant.”

As MacAndrew’s eyes adjusted to the odd illumination a strange apparition took shape before him. A man clad in homespun clothing, not unlike the smock and gaitered tights in which Rosetti depicted Robin Hood, sat on a chair of glass within a shimmering translucent sphere, as though some Titan child had blown a single soap bubble and imprisoned a mortal within it. A constant succession of rainbow colors played across the surface of the orb, and from somewhere inside it came a hum like angry hive of bees.

Before MacAndrew could say a word, the man’s hand twitched and the sphere vanished, leaving nothing but two roughly carved seats on either side of a plain, brass-bound traveling trunk. One seat was empty. From the other, the man who had been within the sphere got slowly to his feet and smiled.

“Not a bomb, Sergeant,” he said. “Not any kind of weapon. But should even its existence be revealed to people of your time, the consequences would be devastating.”

“Well, I’ve heard some bonnie tales in my time,” MacAndrew laughed, “but this one takes the biscuit!” He leaned back against the old wooden settle, blew out smoke from his pipe and motioned to the landlord to bring refills for their glasses.

MacAndrew and Smithers had sent home the uniformed constables and escorted the two prisoners to the Windsor Castle pub, which lies in Camden Hill, between Church Street and Notting Hill Gate. It was not normal practice to entertain arrested persons, but MacAndrew had more than a suspicion that this was no normal pair of troublemakers. Since the men offered no resistance and seemed only too anxious to co-operate, his nose told him that the fewer persons who heard their promised explanation, the better.

Both prisoners wore greatcoats.

“Let me get this absolutely straight,” said Smithers, once again impressing his chief with his intellect. He would probe at any tale until he clearly established its truth or otherwise, worrying away at it like a terrier until he teased out every inconsistency. “You are time travelers from the distant future, whose vehicle, for want of a better word, has somehow broken down in our time whilst returning from the Dark Ages.”

“That is correct,” the older of the two men, whose English was the better, confirmed. “From the University of Köln. We are trying, as you might say, to make the Dark Ages rather less dark. Your King Offa of Mercia lived at the time of Charlemagne, and before they eventually went to war there was much trade and other exchanges between them.”

“So according to you, the reason that your Offa pennies look new is that they are new?”

“Well, yes and no. Chronologically they are over a thousand years old. In terms of their own intrinsic age, they were minted in the last five years. We posed as merchants from the Rhineland, because of course we know the archaeology of our home area very well. These coins were all paid over to us in return for our trade goods.”

“If you don’t have modern British currency because you did not expect to be here in our time,” said Smithers, “how do you explain the greatcoats and military caps?”

“Ah,” said the German shamefacedly. “I am very much afraid that we borrowed those, as you might say. Because of our clothes, at first we only dared go out in the dark. A few nights ago I came upon two soldiers in Kensington Gardens. They were busily—ah—engaged with two young ladies and had temporarily discarded their outer garments.”

“I can see that you might not have wanted to go around London dressed as eighth century merchants,” said MacAndrew, “but what I don’t understand is why you needed to go around London at all.”

“There was no choice,” the man replied. “We had to obtain materials from which we could make the replacement parts. You have seen the orb produced by our machinery; it is not a simple thing. I must also explain that we cannot just choose to travel through time whenever we wish. There are specific openings, and we must be precise.”

“Which explains the rush when you decided to take the omnibus?” Smithers looked at the other man, who nodded.

“Yes. One part I had found. My friend ze other, I hoped, but no.”

“And do you have the parts now?”

“Not quite,” The first man said. “That was the cause of the argument which unfortunately, as you told us, the priest overheard. We need a small amount of gold. We were arguing about whether we should steal it.”

“As you stole the coats?”

“Ah no! The coats we can leave behind when we go. The gold unfortunately we must take with us. There is a problem for us, you understand, of disturbing what we call the time line. In brief, we ask ourselves would something important have been done with the gold between this time and our own? Might we by taking it accidentally change history? Provided we can satisfy ourselves of this, if we have the gold we can leave this very night—in about an hour from now.”

“How much gold do you need?” MacAndrew inquired, nose twitching like a red setter once again on his favorite scent.

“Oh very small quantity. Twenty five grams, less than one of your ounces.”

“I see. And how many King Offa pennies could you spare in exchange for this gold?”

Smiling, the man patted the pocket of his greatcoat, then slipping his hand into his pocket he drew out a handful of coins and counted them. “I have eight,” he said.

“And I six,” said the other man.

“Will this do?” asked MacAndrew, taking out a gold sovereign from his own pocket and flipping it on to the table where it rattled to a stop.

“So we mustn’t talk about it, ever?” said Smithers, after they had confirmed that the men and their machine were indeed gone from within the tomb, although he and MacAndrew had watched the exterior closely after the two Germans entered.

The time travelers had warned the policemen not to open the door until five minutes had passed after they heard the humming noise intensify. Thereafter all trace of radiation, whatever that was, would be gone and the interior of the tomb as if the visitors had never been. MacAndrew and Smithers had done as they were asked. Afterwards Smithers’ flickering lantern revealed within the sepulcher only silent coffins in dark rows of burial niches. The Germans and their sphere were gone.

“You heard the man,” replied MacAndrew with a smile. “More to the point, Smithers, when I have disposed of these King Offa pennies, and you may be assured that I have far more skill in such work than did our unfortunate friend the conductor of the omnibus, you will not wish to explain publicly how you came by your share of the proceeds—fifty sovereigns.”

“That’s very generous, Sergeant, I must say. But isn’t it a little dishonest?”

“It would be dishonest if we were committing or concealing a crime,” said MacAndrew, tapping the side of his nose, “but if you can see a crime here you have keener eyes than mine, Smithers. There is no hoard, there’s been no theft; it isn’t treasure trove, since we did not find the coins, we bought them for a fair price; we shall even be able to return the greatcoats, having discovered them stuffed under a bush, as it were. I doubt the owners will wish to ask questions. No, Smithers, there’s no crime here.”

“Still and all, it’s sad to think of taking such a fantastic secret to our graves,” Smithers mused.

MacAndrew’s nose twitched and his mouth quirked into a wry smile. “I believe those penny dreadfuls of yours pay a fee to people who write stories for them. There’s nothing to stop you submitting a story to one of them, is there? No-one supposes what they publish is the truth!”