And Mike didn’t seem dismayed by the rain. “At least there won’t be many contemps out in this,” he said, “so there’ll be less chance of the shimmer being seen.”

He was right about no one being out in the rain. The streets were deserted. Polly led Mike through the partially cleared rubble to the alley and over to the passage which led to the drop. The rain had washed away the chalked messages she’d scrawled on the walls and the barrels, but the ones on the door were still there, and she was glad to see that the overhang had largely protected the steps and the well.

“It seems fairly dry in here,” she said. But it was also untouched. The dust, leaves, and spiderwebs were all still there.

“You put this ‘For a good time, ring Polly’ here?” Mike asked, pointing at the door.

“Yes, and I put an arrow on that barrel,” she said, pointing, “and Mrs. Rickett’s address and the name of Townsend Brothers on the back, though I imagine the rain’s washed them away. I thought if the retrieval team came, it could help them find me.”

“It was a good idea,” he said. “I had one like it when I was in the hospital.”

“You were going to put messages on your gun emplacement?”

“No, in the newspapers. We could put an ad in the personal column.”

“An ad? What sort of ad? ‘Stranded travelers seek retrieval team to come and get them’?”

“Exactly. Only not in those words. They’ll have to look like all the other personal ads, but be worded so someone from Oxford would recognize them as being from us and know what they mean.”

“ ‘Wounds my heart with a monotonous languour,’ ” Polly murmured.

“What?”

“That was the coded message they sent out over the BBC to the French Resistance the day before D-Day. It’s from a Verlaine poem. It meant ‘Invasion imminent.’ ”

“Exactly,” Mike said. “Coded messages.”

“But that could be dangerous. If they decide we’re German spies—”

“I’m not talking about ‘The dog barks at midnight’ or ‘Wounds my heart with’—whatever the hell you said. I’m talking about, ‘R.T. Meet me in Trafalgar Square noon Friday, M.D.’ ”

Polly shook her head. “Meetings in public places are nearly as suspect as ‘The dog barks at midnight.’ ”

“All right, then, we’ll make it ‘R.T. Can’t wait to see you, darling. Meet me Trafalgar Square noon Friday. Love, Pollykins.’ ”

“I suppose that might work,” Polly said thoughtfully. The personal columns were full of messages to and from lovers, and from people who’d gone to the country or been bombed out, notifying their friends and relations of their new addresses. “But there are dozens of London newspapers. How will we know which one to put the message in?”

“We’ll work that out later,” he said. “In the meantime, we need to replace the messages you wrote here that have washed off.”

“They’ll only be washed off again.”