“You weren’t here in World War Two on any other assignment besides this one and the V-1s and V-2s?”

“No.”

Thank God, he thought, but the V-1s assignment was bad enough. Denys Atherton wouldn’t be here till March of 1944, which was cutting it awfully close.

If he’d come through. And to get to him, they had to survive the next three years and the rest of the Blitz, and in another few weeks they wouldn’t know when or where the bombs were going to be. And if the increase in slippage was bad enough for Dunworthy to have switched drops that were years apart, there might not be anything they could do till well after Polly …

But they didn’t know the increase was that big. And even if it was, the increase might only be on a few drops. And there might be some other reason Phipps hadn’t come. Bletchley Park was still a divergence point, and, for all they knew, so were these months of the Blitz. And the soldiers at Dunkirk had thought they were licked, and look how that had turned out.

“Don’t worry, Polly,” he said. “We’ll get you out of here. We’ve got three years to figure out something. And there’s still Denys Atherton.”

“And Historian X,” Eileen said. “The historian who’s here till the eighteenth.”

He’d hoped they’d forgotten about that. “Afraid not,” he said.

“Why not?” Eileen said.

“Because Historian X was Gerald,” Polly said. “Wasn’t it, Mike?”

“Yes.”

“Are you certain?” Eileen asked.

“Yes.” He told them about the date on the letter. “And there was a train ticket to Oxford for December eighteenth, and his departure letter was postmarked the sixteenth.”

“Oh, dear,” Eileen said.

“But we still have the drop in St. John’s Wood,” Mike said. “And on my way here, I saw that hoardings have gone up on the site in front of your drop, Polly.”

“So if the drop wouldn’t open because people could see into it,” Eileen said eagerly, “it may begin working again.”

“Exactly,” Mike said. He stood up. “What say we get out of here and give the Luftwaffe a clear shot at this atrocity?” he suggested, looking around at the Albert Memorial statuary. “I’ll take you two to lunch and we’ll plan our strategy for finding the drop. Eileen, did you hear from Lady Caroline?”

“Yes, but not from the officer at the manor.”

“Write them again, and write your vicar and see what you can find out about the training school. Maybe they’ve moved it. And I’ll write my barmaid and see if they’ve taken the beach defenses down. You said the invasion had been called off, didn’t you, Polly?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean they’ll take the defenses down.”

“You don’t know that,” Eileen said. “Or maybe Mike’s barmaid’s written to say the retrieval team’s been there, and all our problems will be solved.”

“Eileen’s right. We’ll stop by Mrs. Leary’s on our way to lunch and pick up my mail. Come on,” he said, pulling Polly and then Eileen to their feet and walking them back to Mrs. Leary’s.