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“What will happen when the Circle is complete?”
“Then the secret will be revealed,” said Lucas solemnly.
“Oh, no, not you too!” I shook my head angrily. “Isn’t there any more concrete information available, just for once?”
“Well, the prophesies speak of the rise of the eagle, the victory of mankind over disease and death, and the dawn of a new age.”
“Oh,” I said, no wiser than before. “So it’s a good thing, is it?”
“A very good thing. Something of benefit to the entire human race. That’s why Count Saint-Germain founded the Society of the Guardians. That’s why the most brilliant and powerful men in the world joined our ranks. We all want to keep the secret so that it can be revealed at the right time and save the world.”
Okay. A clear statement for once. Or at least the clearest anyone had yet given me since I got mixed up in all this mysterious secret stuff. “But why don’t Lucy and Paul want the Circle to be closed?”
Lucas sighed. “I’ve no idea. When did you say you met them?”
“In the year 1912,” I said. “June. June the twenty-second, I think. Or the twenty-fourth. I didn’t notice exactly.” The more I tried to remember, the less certain I was. “Or maybe the twelfth? It was an even number, I do remember that. The eighteenth? Anyway, sometime in the afternoon. Lady Tilney had the table laid for tea.” Then it dawned on me what I’d just said, and I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oh, no!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Now I’ve gone and told you, and you’ll tell Lucy and Paul, and that’s why they can lie in wait for us there. So really you are the one who gives us away, not me. Mind you, I suppose it all comes to the same thing in the end.”
“What? No, no!” Lucas shook his head energetically. “I won’t do that. I won’t tell them anything at all about you—that would be crazy! If I tell them tomorrow that they’re going to steal the chronograph someday and disappear into the past with it, they’ll fall down dead of shock on the spot. You have to think very, very carefully what you’re going to tell anyone about the future, understand?”
“Well, no, maybe you won’t tell them tomorrow, but there are years and years ahead when you could do it.” I thoughtfully munched my banana. “On the other hand, what time did they travel back to with the chronograph? Why not this period? They’d always have a friend here in you. Maybe you’re lying to me and they’ve been waiting right outside that door for ages to get a few drops of my blood.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea where they could have gone.” Lucas sighed. “I can’t even imagine them ever doing anything so crazy. Or why they’d do it!” He added, sounding discouraged, “I’ve no idea of anything at all!”
“So neither of us has any idea at this moment,” I said, just as discouraged.
Lucas wrote down Green Rider, second chronograph, and Lady Tilney on his notepad, and added large question marks to all of them. “What we need is to meet again later. By then I could find out a good deal.…”
I had a bright idea. “Originally I was supposed to be sent to the year 1956 to elapse. Maybe we could meet again tomorrow evening.”
“Ha, ha!” said Lucas. “1956 may be tomorrow to you—for me it’s— But yes, let’s think. If you get sent to elapse to a time after this, will it be to this room?”
I nodded. “I think so. But you can’t wait for me day and night down here. What’s more, Gideon could turn up anytime. After all, he has to elapse as well.”
“I know what to do,” said Lucas, with growing enthusiasm. “If you land in this room next time, just come up to me! My office is on the second floor. You’ll only have to pass two guards, but that’s no problem if you say you’ve lost your way. You’re my cousin. My cousin Hazel from the country. I’ll start telling everyone about you this very day.”
“But Mr. Whitman says this room is always kept locked, and anyway I don’t know exactly where we are.”
“You’ll need a key, of course. And the password for the day.” Lucas looked around him. “I’ll get a key made for you and leave it somewhere here. Same with the password. I’ll write it on a note and leave it in our hiding place. Somewhere in the brickwork would be best. The bricks are coming a bit loose just there, see? Maybe we can make a hollow space behind them.” He got to his feet, made his way through the junk in the cellar, and knelt down in front of the wall. “Look, here. I’ll come back with tools and make a perfect hiding place. When you come back next, you just have to pull out this brick, and then you’ll find the key and the password.”
“But there are a lot of bricks,” I said.
“Just remember this one, fifth row from the bottom, roughly in the middle of the room. Damn, that was my fingernail! Never mind, that’s my plan, and I think it’s a good one.”
“But then you’d have to come down here every day from now on to change the password,” I said. “How are you going to fix that? Aren’t you studying at Oxford?”
“The password isn’t changed daily,” replied Lucas. “Sometimes we use the same one for weeks on end. Anyway, this is our only chance to fix another meeting. Remember that brick. I’ll draw a plan as well, so that you can find your way up. There are secret passages from here that go over half of London.” He looked at his watch. “Now, let’s sit down again and make notes. Systematically. You wait, we’ll both know more in the end.”
“Or alternatively we’ll still be two people without the faintest idea down in a musty cellar.”
Lucas put his head to one side and grinned at me. “Maybe, just in passing, you could tell me whether your grandmother’s name begins with an A or a C?”
I had to smile. “Which would you rather?”
FOUR
