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“Only out of boredom. Why are you so suspicious, Dr. White?”
“I am not at all suspicious. I trust you implicitly. At the moment. At the moment, you are behaving reasonably well, or at the worst you are only somewhat infected by your mother’s crazy notions. But no one knows what you’ll grow into, so I would be very sorry if you knew where the chronograph was kept.”
“The cellar can’t be all that large,” I said.
“You’ve no idea,” said Dr. White. “We’ve already lost people there.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” There was a touch of laughter in his voice, so I knew he was only joking. “Others have wandered around the passages for days before they found a way out.”
“I’d like to tell him I’m sorry,” said Robert. Obviously it had taken him a long time to work out what he wanted me to say.
The poor little boy. I’d have liked to stop and give him a big hug. “But it wasn’t your fault.”
“Are you so sure?” Dr. White must still be thinking of the people lost in the cellar.
Robert was sniffling. “We had a quarrel in the morning. I told him I hated him and I wished I had a different father.”
“But he wouldn’t have taken it seriously. I’m sure he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did. And now he thinks I didn’t love him, and I can’t tell him I do.” That high little voice, audibly trembling now, almost broke my heart.
“Is that why you’re still here?” I asked.
“I don’t want to leave him on his own. I know he can’t see me or hear me, but maybe he somehow senses that I’m here.”
“Oh, darling!” I really couldn’t bear it. I had to stop. “I’m sure he knows you love him. All fathers know that children sometimes say things they don’t really mean.”
“Right you are,” said Dr. White, his voice suddenly sounding husky. “If you tell children they can’t watch TV for two days just because they left a bicycle out in the rain, I suppose it’s not surprising if they shout at you and say things they don’t mean.”
He pushed me on.
“I’m so glad to hear you say that, Dr. White.”
“Me too!” said Robert.
For the rest of the way, Robert and I were very cheerful. A heavy door was pushed open and latched again behind us.
The first thing I saw when I took the blindfold off was Gideon, with a top hat on his head. I burst out laughing. Aha! This time he was the one in the silly hat!
“She’s in an exceptionally good mood today,” said Dr. White. “Thanks to long conversations with herself.” But his voice didn’t sound quite as cutting as usual.
Mr. de Villiers joined in my laughter. “I’d call it comical myself,” he said. “Makes him look like a circus ringmaster.”
“How nice that you two are so amused,” said Gideon.
Except for the top hat, he looked good. Long dark trousers, dark coat, white shirt—a bit as if he were going to a wedding. He looked me up and down, and I held my breath, waiting in suspense for him to take revenge. In his place, I could have thought up at least ten insulting remarks about my appearance right away.
He didn’t say anything. He just smiled.
Mr. George was busy with the chronograph. “Has Gwyneth had all her instructions?”
“I think so,” said Mr. de Villiers. He had talked to me about Operation Jade for half an hour while Madame Rossini was finishing my dress. Operation Jade! I felt rather like secret service agent Emma Peel. Lesley and I loved Uma Thurman in The Avengers.
I still couldn’t follow Gideon’s firmly held theory that we could be lured into a trap. Margaret Tilney had expressly wanted to talk to me, yes, but she hadn’t specified a time. Even if she did want to trap me, she couldn’t know what day and time in her life we would turn up.
And it was really very unlikely that Lucy and Paul would be waiting for us at exactly the moment in time we chose. June 1912 was the date that had been picked. Margaret Tilney was thirty-five then, living with her husband and her three children in a house in Belgravia. And that was where we were going to call on her.
