Harrison listened. He looked at Valerie. She looked patient, as a girl does when talk is about something unrelated to her own personal interests.
“You were looking for items of that sort,” Carroll went on, “and you found something much more serious—someone deliberately setting out to change the course of history. If he isn’t stopped, he’ll stress the grand design of things beyond its elastic limit and things will stay changed! So something has to be done!”
Harrison was suddenly anxious about Valerie’s opinion of this talk. If she thought Carroll was out of his mind, she’d think him—Harrison—no less demented. But her expression remained placidly unconcerned.
“So, I’m going to argue with him,” said Carroll. “I’ve got to find his tunnel, too, and see that it’s collapsed. We can’t have this sort of thing going on! Dubois would be of no possible use to me in an enterprise like this! I could never make him see what it was all about. I want you to come along. The number of people I could ask—as a gifted under-statement—is strictly limited. Ybarra would be handy, but be says no. He had a great-great-grandfather—”
“In all,” said Pepe apologetically, “I had eight great-great-grandfathers. The one I’ve mentioned was one Ignacio Ybarra who spent some months in Paris in 1804. He made. acquaintances there which later, when he returned as the Ambassador from newly independent Mexico—”
“He doesn’t want anything to happen to him,” finished Carroll, “through his great-great-grandson. It’s reasonable! But I want you to go get yourself measured for an outfit befitting a well-to-do American travelling in Napoleon’s time. I’ve picked out a tailor. He thinks the outfits are to be taken to Hollywood for a television show. Do you need money?”
Harrison shook his head.
“I insisted,” said Carroll with some humor, “that I must be able to draw on the bank-account of Carroll, Dubois et Cie. My wife will burst with fury when she finds out I’ve done so! I’ve ordered books to do research on de Bassompierre, memoirs, and so on. Ybarra is sympathetic enough to dig out the forms used for laissez-passe and the identity papers we’ll need. Modern methods of forgery should take care of them. If you’ll get yourself measured for clothes, we’ll be all set. Right?”
Harrison nodded, more or less uneasily. Carroll said:
“Valerie, mon cherie, I count upon your friendship not to mention that I have come to Paris. It is agreed?”
“But of course!” said Valerie. She smiled at him.
Carroll strode away. Pepe followed. Harrison, looking after them, noticed for the first time that Carroll moved with a certain unconscious ease, so that he couldn’t have passed as a man of no importance in any period of history.
Then Valerie said anxiously:
“You are to go to—where my uncle Georges goes to buy the stock for the shop?” she asked uneasily.
“It seems to be necessary,” admitted Harrison.
“How long will you be gone?”
Harrison knew an irrational elation. That was the angle which first occurred to her!
There was no actual reason for him to seize upon such an item; to find his tongue working freely though his breathing became uncertain. He could have said the same things at any other time, and probably more effectively if he’d practised them beforehand. But he heard his mouth saying startling and impassioned things in a hoarse and quite in-adequate manner. He overheard urgent insistences that he had remembered her from their childhood and had never been able to think romantically about anybody else, and a large number of other unconvincing statements which he believed implicitly as he made them.
Valerie did not seem to be offended. She listened, though, with every appearance of astonishment. And suddenly he was struck dumb by the realization that this was very hasty, and she might not believe any of it. He regarded her miserably.
“I—I hope you don’t mind,” he protested, panicked.
“Only I—I would have had to say it sooner or later…”
Valerie rose from where she sat.
“I do not think we should stay here,” she said primly.
She moved away. He followed her miserably, not noticing that they were not headed toward the carousel or any of the other more thickly populated parts of Bonmaison. He stumbled in her wake.
She paused and looked around her. She did not seem astonished to find that they had arrived where they were not in sight of anybody else at all. But Harrison was astonished. He stared at her. She smiled very faintly.
Incredulously, he reached out his hands. She displayed no indignation.
Presently they ate ices together and Valerie was composed, though her eyes shone a little. She said:
“My aunt will be furious! But we will tell M. Carroll and he will force her to agree.”
In his then emotional state, this impressed Harrison as the most brilliant and intelligent and admirable of all possible remarks.
When he got back to his hotel, Pepe was waiting for him. Pepe frowned.
“Look here!” he said indignantly. “I’ve been thinking about my great-great-grandfather, who was here in 1804. If anything happens to him—”
“Pepe,” said Harrison raptly, “I’m going to marry Valerie! We decided on it today!”
“If Carroll goes back to 1804,” fumed Pepe, “nobody can tell what will happen! You know the theory about what if a man kills his grandfather in the past. But it doesn’t have to be him! If anybody went back in time and killed my great-great-grandfather, I wouldn’t be born! And Carroll’s going back!”
“She knew,” said Harrison blissfully, “she knew the minute she saw me again, that I was the one she wanted to marry! The very minute, Pepe! The instant she recognized me as her old playmate!”
“So I’m not going to take any chances!” said Pepe fiercely. “There’s de Bassompierre, too! I could blow up the damned time-tunnel, but de Bassompierre does seem to be doing some pretty undesirable stuff. So I’m going along! And I’m going to see that none of my ancestors get killed!”
Harrison beamed.
“That’s fine!” be said, not really aware of what Pepe had said. “We’re not going to tell Valerie’s aunt just yet. There’d be fireworks. And anyhow it wouldn’t be fair to Valerie to get married before I’ve made that trip with Carroll. It could be dangerous. I don’t want her to be worried!”
Pepe stared at him. Hard. Then he said irritably:
“Dios mio! As if this business weren’t bad enough without having only lunatics to carry it out!”
Harrison went to bed in that state of emotional semi-narcosis which is appropriate to a newly-engaged man. He was literally unaware that any other important thing had happened in the world. The newspapers of that afternoon announced a new international crisis. He didn’t notice. It appeared that the mainland Chinese had exploded their first atomic bomb.
The significance of the fact was, of course, that the communist Chinese were now added to the nations threatening the world’s precarious peace. There were cabinet meetings all over the world, where heads were shaken and helplessness admitted. It had not been expected that the Chinese would have the bomb so soon. The individuals who seemed to know most about it guessed that they hadn’t developed it entirety by themselves. There were indefinite surmises that somebody had defected from the Russians, on the ground that they were reactionary conservatives in their politics, and had carried information to Peking which made the bomb possible. It was even guessed that the defector had originally defected to Russia from France. There were despairing speculations where he—his identity was strongly suspected—would defect to next.
To people not newly engaged, the explosion of an atomic bomb by the communist Chinese seemed a very serious matter. Certain groups dusted off their “Better Red than Dead” placards to carry in new demonstrations of reaction to the news. On the other hand, much of the world grimly prepared to live up to an exactly opposite opinion.
But Harrison slept soundly. He waked next morning with en excellent appetite
and in the most cheerful of moods. He tried to think of an excuse to visit the shop of Carroll, Dubois et Cie. and was regretfully unable to contrive one. He went to the tailors and felt remarkably idiotic while they showed him fabrics and styles and were astonished that a supposed television actor was not interested in clothes.
Later, though, M. Dubois called upon him.
“M’sieur,” said the little man agitatedly, “my sister and I wish to implore your aid! The most horrible, the most criminal thing has happened! My sister is half-mad with grief! She is distracted! We implore your assistance!”
Harrison blinked at him.
“What’s the matter? What’s happened? What can I do?”
“You know of our business and its—unusual nature,” said Dubois. His voice trembled, and Harrison found himself thinking that he must have had a very bad half-hour with Madame Carroll. “But perhaps you do not know that my brother-in-law has acknowledged that he plans a journey to the—ah—the place where I buy the stock for the shop! You did not know that? But you will see at once that it is unthinkable! It is horrible to contemplate! It would be ruinous! My sister is distracted!”
Harrison raised his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry that she feels badly,” he said as soothingly a he could, “but after all it’s not my business!”
“The arrangements for my journeying,” protested Dubois. “They are most delicate! The business connections I have made—they should be cherished with the greatest circumspection! If the nature of our operations should become known, either here or—or at the other end, the result would be disaster!”
“More likely disbelief,” said Harrison. “Nobody’s likely to credit the truth even if they hear it. They’ll never guess it!”
Dubois waved trembling hands.
“I do not argue, m’sieur. I do not dispute. But I plead with you to help us avoid ruin! M. Carroll must not make this journey!”
“But it isn’t any of my business!” protested Harrison. “There’s nothing I can do about the plans Carroll makes! I’ve no influence.”
“But you have, m’sieur! You are not being candid! He has spoken to Madame Carroll about you! He wishes her to treat you with distinction. He has commanded it! M’sieur, you do not realize the enormity M. Carroll has already committed, and who can tell what other enormity he plans?”
Harrison said nothing. Dubois mopped his forehead.
“M’sieur, he has withdrawn from the bank almost a fifth of the accumulated profits of the business! He has withdrawn money from the bank! My sister has now removed the rest and placed it where he cannot lay hands upon it, but m’sieur, it he will do this—” Dubois seemed about to strangle. “You should see my sister! She is pitiable! I almost fear for her reason! Mon Dieu, one is frightened by the violence of her suffering!”
Harrison rephrased the information in his own fashion. M. Dubois had been led by the nose through all his life by the tantrums of his sister, until he could imagine no more terrible an event than another tantrum. It was understandable that she would not want Carroll to travel where her brother had stolidly ventured. But it was certain that the worst of all possible crimes was the removal of money from where Madame Carroll controlled it, to any place or person where she did not.
“Still,” said Harrison, “I don’t see what I can do.”
M. Dubois wept. Literally, he wept. Madame Carroll must have terrified him all the way down to his toes.
“M’sieur, use your influence with him! My sister, in her despair, authorizes me to promise that it will be to your advantage. I open myself to you! I fear for my sister’s reason if M. Carroll carries out his insane plan! Therefore. I speak of Ma’mselle Valerie! It has always been my sister’s ardent desire to place her in a situation of security, with a substantial fortune so that she can live happily. M. Carroll has placed that desire in extreme danger! He has taken a fifth of the profits of the shop! He has, in effect, robbed Ma’mselle Valerie of a fifth of the fortune she should inherit from my sister! Do you comprehend my meaning?”
“No,” said Harrison.
“Ma’mselle Valerie is the most charming of girls,” said Dubois imploringly. “She is virtuous, she is intelligent, she is affectionate. She will be my sister’s heiress. And my sister is convinced that with tact and gentle persuasion she could be induced to consent to a marriage which—”
Harrison started.
“Which would have the most favorable of financial prospects,” said Dubois desperately. “All that is required is that you persuade M. Carroll to abandon his mad project, return the money he has taken, and let things go on exactly as they were before! Nothing more than that, m’sieur! And you will be established for life!”
Harrison counted ten. He didn’t even bother to think of the fact that Dubois simply proposed that if he obeyed Madame Carroll implicitly in this and all other matters for the rest of his life, she might—might!—leave him some money and in addition would promote an arrangement that he and Valerie had already concluded on their own. It was almost humorous, but not quite.
“I will have to consider it,” he said. He didn’t want to send Dubois back to his sister with news that would infuriate her more. So he said, “I would have to talk to Carroll and find out how determined be is. I would have to— Let it rest for the time being, M. Dubois! We will talk of it later.”
M. Dubois argued vehemently. Presently be rose to leave.
“Let me tell you, m’sieur,” he said desperately, “My sister is distressed to distraction! I fear for her health if M. Carroll should proceed with this ill-advised action. Even more, I fear—”
But then he stopped short as if he’d clapped his own hand across his mouth. He went away, confused. And Harrison realized that he was genuinely frightened. He hadn’t the imagination to see the hair-raising possibilities that Harrison and Carroll and Pepe saw, alone among the human population of earth. But he was frightened. And Harrison suddenly realized that Dubois was actually scared by his guess of what Madame Carroll might do if her husband—Carroll—did use the money due him tor the use of his time-tunnel for his own purposes. It is commonplace among the students of homicide that murders are committed more often over money than for any other motive. It is also a commonplace that the amount of money involved may be trivial. To Madame Carroll, the money earned by Carroll, Dubois et Cie was the object of passion as genuine if not as understandable as that of a jealous woman. She was capable of a crime of passion—over money.
So Harrison distastefully prepared to make another bus-trip to St. Jean-sur-Seine. He’d have to warn Carroll. He’d have to make Valerie understand…
But still something had to be done about de Bassompierre, back in the days of Napoleon Buonaparte! Something definitely had to be done! His activities could only be allowed to go on if one believed that the cosmos did not make sense; that there was no particular point in civilization, and that the human race didn’t matter because it was only an accident, undesigned and without significance.
There have always been people believing this and earnestly laboring to create a state of things humanity could not survive. There will probably always be such people. Clearly, however, if they are wrong they won’t succeed. If people are important, it has been arranged for them to survive. If the cosmos is designed for them to live in it, there must be some safety device built into it to prevent their extermination.
It didn’t appear, though, that Harrison and Carroll and Pepe, and Madame Carroll and Valerie and M. Dubois together amounted to anything so important.
Quite the contrary.
5
The world rolled sedately upon its axis, and tides ebbed and flowed, and barometric highs produced winds flowing clockwise about their center in the Northern hemisphere, and counter-clockwise in the Southern. There were people who casually mentioned coriolis forces in connection with this subject. There were minor temblors in various places, and the people supposed to know about them explained that tectonic adjustments were their caus
e. There were forest-fires and forestry officials explained that the woodland floors had lacked humidity, and there were droughts and people spoke with exactness of water-tables and floods, when there was sure to be an authority on the subject to discourse on abnormal precipitation in terms of inches of rain-fall or acre-feet of run-off. But these were natural phenomena, about which it is always possible to speak with understanding and precision.
The Chinese, however, exploded an atomic bomb, and a spy-plane was shot down over Western Europe, and a U.S. anti-submarine force, having located a foreign submarine in Caribbean waters, zestfully practised trailing it in spite of its evasive tactics. They stayed over it—where they could have dropped depth-bombs if they’d wanted to—for seventy-two hours hand-running. Then it surfaced angrily and the squadron leader of the hunter-killer unit solicitously asked if it was in need of assistance.
It was not possible to make exact statements about happenings like that. They were things that people did. Unreasonably. Irrationally. On what seemed to different people appropriate occasions. But what seems appropriate to humans isn’t necessarily reasonable.
There was the fact, for example, that M. Dubois came gloomily to St. Jean-sur-Seine, carrying a very considerable number of very elaborate small bottles of perfume. The weather in St. Jean-sur-Seine was clear and mild. M. Dubois arrived on the last wheezing bus, nearly four hours after sunset. He trudged to the cottage in which Carroll endured the tedium of existence in a provincial small town with no alleviation whatever. Harrison and Carroll greeted him pleasantly. Tacitly, all argument was avoided. Carroll even cooked an omelet for his brother-in-law by way of refreshment. To be sure, M. Dubois took Harrison aside and asked him disturbedly if there were any chance of Carroll putting his money back in Madame Carroll’s hands and abandoning his mad project of a journey into France d’ans 1804. Harrison said that the prospects were not yet good. Dubois sighed heavily.
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