“It weren’t no gent,” Alf said. “ ’E was a boy.”

“How old?”

Alf shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Older ’n us,” Binnie said. “Maybe seventeen.”

“And where were you when he gave you the shilling?”

“By the map,” Binnie said. “ ’E was standin’ there, and we come up to look at it. There ain’t no law says we can’t look at a map, is there? ’Ow else do you find out which line to take?”

“And then what happened?”

“The guard come up,” Binnie said, sounding outraged, “and told ’im ’e’d better check ’is money and papers.”

“We didn’t do nothin’,” Alf said.

Except delay him in the tunnel for a critical few minutes. If it was him.

Binnie was frowning at her thoughtfully.

I need to change the subject before she puzzles it out, Polly thought. “It was very clever of you to think of the snake at the hospital, Binnie,” she said.

“It was my idea,” Alf said, offended.

“It was not, you slowcoach.”

“Well, it was my snake. D’you want to see ’im?” He reached for his pocket.

“No,” Polly said, bought them both a lollipop, delivered them back to the headmistress, and hurried home. Eileen wasn’t there yet, and Mr. Dunworthy’s door was still shut. Polly rapped gently on it and went in.

Mr. Dunworthy wasn’t in bed. He was sitting by the window, looking out, and she was struck all over again by how weary and defeated he seemed. “Mr. Dunworthy,” she said gently.

“Polly!” he cried and held out his hands to her. “Last night when you didn’t come home, I was afraid—”

He stopped and gave her a searching look. “What is it? Has something happened to Eileen?”

“No,” Polly said. She pulled a stool over in front of his chair and sat down facing him. “I need to ask you some questions. Mike said the night of the twenty-ninth, Mr. Bartholomew saved the life of the firewatcher who was injured. Is that right?”

“You think he contributed to what’s happened, too?”

“Yes, but not in the way you think. Did he? Save his life?”

“I don’t know. He said Langby had fallen on an incendiary and was badly burned. He might have.”

“I thought so,” Polly said. “Now, I need you to tell me exactly what happened that first time you came through to the Blitz, when you collided with the Wren. You came through into the emergency staircase and went out into the station—”

“Yes, to ascertain my temporal-spatial location, and when I found I was near St. Paul’s, I ran up to see—”

“No, before that. In the station.”

“I went to look at the Underground map, but there was nothing on it to indicate where I was, so I asked two children who’d come over, and the boy—it was a boy and a girl—said they’d only tell me if I paid them.”

Of course, Polly thought.

“So I gave them a shilling,” Mr. Dunworthy went on, “and they told me I was at St. Paul’s. And then a station guard came up and asked if they were giving me trouble and told me to check to make certain they hadn’t picked my pocket. And then he hauled them off, I think, or they ran off—I can’t remember. It was so long ago.”