To Say Nothing of the Dog Read Online Free PDF Page B

to Manhattan General. How do you put up with her?”
    You keep a sharp eye out, I thought, following Finch into the walkway next to St. Mary the Virgin’s and keeping close to the wall.
    “She has no sense of the proper way of doing things,” he said. “Won’t go through the proper channels, won’t fill up requisition forms. She simply raids the place—paper clips, pens, handhelds.”
    And historians, I thought.
    “I never have any idea of what supplies to order, if I had time to order anything. I spend all my time trying to keep her out of Mr. Dunworthy’s office. She’s in there constantly, harping on something. Copings and brasses and lectionaries. Last week it was the Wade Tomb’s chipped corner. How did it get chipped and when did it get chipped, before the raid or during it, and what sort of edges does it have, rough or smooth? Must be completely authentic, she says. ‘God is—’ ”
    “ ‘In the details,’ ” I said.
    “She even tried to recruit me,” Finch said. “Wanted me to go back to the Blitz and look for the bishop’s bathtub.”
    “Bird stump,” I corrected.
    “That’s what I said,” he said, looking hard at me. “You’re having difficulty distinguishing sounds, aren’t you? The nurse said you were. And you’re obviously disoriented.” He shook his head. “You’re not going to be any use at all.”
    “What does Mr. Dunworthy want to see me about?”
    “There’s been an incident.”
    “Incident” was the euphemism the AFS employed to mean a high-explosive bomb, houses reduced to rubble, bodies buried, fires everywhere. But surely Finch didn’t mean that sort of incident. Or perhaps I was still having Difficulty Distinguishing Sounds.
    “An incident?” I said.
    “Calamity, actually. One of his historians. Nineteenth Century. Pinched a rat.”
    Oh, definitely Difficulty, although there had been rats in the Victorian era. But no one would have pinched one. It would pinch you back, or worse. “What did you say?” I asked cautiously.
    “I said, ‘Here we are,’ ” Finch said, and we were. There was Balliol’s gate, though not the side one, the front gate and the porter’s lodge and the front quad.
    I started through the quad and up the stairs to Mr. Dunworthy’s room, but I was apparently still disoriented because Finch took my arm again and led me across the garden quad to Beard.
    “Mr. Dunworthy’s had to turn the Senior Common Room into an office. She has no respect at all for the sported oak or the notion of knocking, so Mr. Dunworthy’s had to devise an outer and inner office, though I personally think a moat would have been more effective.”
    He opened the door to what had been the buttery. It now looked like a physician’s waiting room, with a row of cushioned chairs against the wall and a pile of fax-mags on a small side table. Finch’s desk stood next to the inner door and practically in front of it, no doubt so Finch could fling himself between it and Lady Schrapnell.
    “I’ll see if he’s in,” Finch said and started round the desk.
    “Absolutely not!” Mr. Dunworthy’s voice thundered from within. “It’s completely out of the question!”
    Oh, Lord, she was here. I shrank back against the wall, looking wildly for somewhere to hide.
    Finch grabbed my sleeve, and hissed, “It’s not her,” but I had already deduced that.
    “I don’t see why not,” a female voice had answered, and it wasn’t Lady Schrapnell, because it was sweet rather than stentorian, and I couldn’t make out what she said after “why not.”
    “Who is it?” I whispered, relaxing in Finch’s grip.
    “The calamity,” he whispered back.
    “What on earth made you think you could bring something like that through the net?” Mr. Dunworthy bellowed. “You’ve studied temporal theory!”
    Finch winced. “Shall I tell Mr. Dunworthy you’re here?” he asked hesitantly.
    “No, that’s all right,” I said, sinking down on one of the chintz-covered chairs.