Now five mud-drenched police constables on equally muddy cycles came racing round the corner and the leading officer was pointing at the disappearing pair, shouting:
"Collar 'im! It's the Mayfair Killer!"
Mr. Wells watched in silence as the squadron went past, then he crossed the road to where the delivery boy was still standing, his jaw threatening to detach itself altogether from the rest of his face. Feeling in his waistcoat pocket, Mr. Wells produced a coin. "Would you care to sell me one of your papers?" he asked.
He had begun to wonder if Bromley had not ceased to be quite as dull as he remembered it.
Jherek Carnelian, with a bemused expression on his face, watched the oar drift away through the weed-strewn waters of the river. Mrs. Underwood lay in fitful slumber at the other end of the boat (which they had requisitioned after the horse, on attempting to jump a fence a good ten miles from Bromley, had deposited them near the river).
Jherek had not had a great deal of success with the oars, anyway, and he was scarcely sorry to see the last one go. He leaned back, with one arm upon the tiller, and yawned. The day was extremely warm now and the sun was high in the sky. There came the lazy sounds of bees in the tall grass of the nearest bank and, on the other side of the river, white-clad ladies played croquet on a green and perfect lawn; the music of their tinkling laughter, the clack of mallets against balls, came faintly to Jherek's ears. This world was so rich , he thought, plucking a couple of small leaves off his battered jacket and inspecting them carefully. The texture, the detail, were all fascinating, and he wondered at the possibility of reproducing them when he and Mrs. Underwood returned home.
Mrs. Underwood stirred, rubbing at her eyes. "Ah," she said, "I feel a little better for that." She became aware of her surroundings. "Oh, dear. We are adrift!"
"I lost the oars," Jherek explained. "See — there's one. But the current seems adequate. We are moving."
She did not comment on this, but her lips curved in a smile which might have been described as philosophical rather than humorous.
"These time machines are much more common than you thought," Jherek told her. "I've seen several from the boat. People were riding them along the path beside the river. And those policemen had them, too. Probably thought they would follow us through Time."
"Those are bicycles," said Mrs. Underwood.
"It's hard to tell them apart, I suppose. They all look very similar to me, but to your eye…"
"Bicycles," she repeated, but without vehemence.
"Well," he said, "it all goes to show that your fears were groundless. We'll be back soon, you see."
"Not by this method, I trust. In which direction are we heading?" She looked around her. "Roughly westwards, I would say. We might easily be in Surrey. Ah, well, the police will find us eventually. I am reconciled."
"In a world where Time seems so important," Jherek mused, "you'd think they would have more machines for manipulating it."
"Time manipulates us in this world, Mr. Carnelian."
"As, of course, it will, according to Morphail. You see the reason I came so urgently to find you, Mrs. Underwood, was that sooner or later we shall be plunged into the future, but the difference will be that we shall not be able to control our flight — we could land anywhere — we could be separated again."
"I do not quite follow you, Mr. Carnelian." She dangled her hand in the water in a gesture which, for her, was almost abandoned.
"Once you have travelled into the future, you cannot remain for long in the past, lest a paradox result. Thus time itself ejects those whose presence in certain ages would lead to confusion, an alteration of history or something like that. How we have managed to remain so long in this period is a mystery. Presumably we have not yet begun to produce dangerous paradoxes. But I think that the moment we do, then we shall be on our way."
"Are you suggesting that we shall have no choice?"
"I am. Thus we must make all speed to get back to my time, where you'll be happy. Admittedly, if we go into a future where time machines are less scarce, we should be able to make the journey in, as it were, several hops, but some of the periods between 1896 and the End of Time were exceptionally uncongenial and we could easily land in one of those."
"You are trying to convince me, then, that I have no alternative?"
"It is the truth."
"I have never known you to lie, Mr. Carnelian." She smiled that same smile again. "I have often prayed that you would! Yet if I had remained in my own time and said nothing of what had happened to me, refused to act according to what I knew of the future, I might have remained here forever."
"I suppose so. It might explain the instinct of some time travellers to speak as little of the future as possible and never to make use of their information. I have heard of these and it could be that they are 'allowed' by Time to stay where they wish. By and large, however, few can resist talking of their adventures, making use of their information. Of course, we wouldn't really know about the ones who said nothing, would we? That could explain the flaw in the Morphail Theorem."
"So — I shall say nothing and remain in 1896," she said. "By now Harold might have recovered his senses and if I tell the police that I was kidnapped by you I might not be charged as your accomplice. Moreover, if you disappear, then they'll never be able to prove you were the Mayfair Killer, somehow escaped from death. But we shall still need help." She frowned.
There came a scraping sound from beneath them.
"Aha!" she said. "We are in luck. The boat has run aground."
They disembarked onto a narrow, sandy path. From the path ran a steep bank on which grew a variety of yellow, blue and scarlet flowers. At the top of the bank was a white fence.
While Mrs. Underwood tidied her hair, using the river as a mirror, Jherek began to pick the flowers until he had quite a large bunch. His pursuit of a particularly fine specimen forced him to climb to the top of the bank so that he could then see what lay beyond the fence.
The bank went down to fields which were of a glowing green and oddly flat; and on the other side of the fields were a group of red-brick buildings, decorated with a number of rococo motifs in iron and stone. A tributary of the river ran alongside the buildings and in some of the more distant fields there were machines at work. The machines consisted of a heavy central cylinder from which extended about ten very long rods. As Jherek watched, the cylinders turned and the rods swung with them, distributing liquid evenly over the bright green fields. They were plainly agricultural robot workers; Jherek dimly remembered hearing about them in some malfunctioning record found in one of the rotted cities. He recalled that they had existed during the time of the Multitude Cultures, but he now knew enough about his particular period to be aware that they were still a rarity. This must then be something of an experimental project, he guessed. As such the buildings he could see could quite easily comprise a scientific establishment and, if so, there would be people there who would know how to go about procuring a time machine.
He was excited as he ran back down the bank, but he did not forget his priorities. He paused to arrange the flowers and, when she stood up from her toilet, turning towards him, he presented the bunch.
"A little late, I fear," he said. "But here they are! Your flowers, Mrs. Underwood."
She hesitated for a moment and then reached out to take them. "Thank you, Mr. Carnelian." Her lips trembled.
He looked searchingly at her face. "Your eyes —" he said — "they seem wet. Did you splash some water into your face?"
She cleared her throat and put fingers first to one eye and then the other. "I suppose I did," she agreed.