He turned to Landen, grasped his hand and sized him up carefully.

“How are you, my boy? Have you had a vasectomy?”

“Well, no,” replied Landen, vaguely embarrassed.

“How about a heavy tackle playing rugby?”

“No.”

“Kick from a horse in the nether regions?”

“No.”

“What about a cricket ball in the goolies?”

“No!”

“Good. Then we might get some grandchildren out of this fiasco. It’s high time little Thursday here was popping out some sprogs instead of dashing around like some wild mountain piglet—” He paused. “You’re both looking at me very oddly.”

“You were here not a minute ago.”

He frowned, raised an eyebrow and looked about furtively.

“If it was me, and if I know me, I’d be hiding somewhere close by. Oh yes, look! Look there!”

He pointed to a corner of the garden where a figure was hiding in the shadows behind the potting shed. He narrowed his eyes and thought through the most logical train of events.

“Let’s see. I must have offered to do you a favor, done it and come back but a little out of time; not uncommon in my line of work.”

“What favor would I have asked you to do?” I ventured, still confused but more than willing to play along.

“I don’t know,” said my father. “A burning question that has been much discussed over the years but has, so far, remained unanswered.”

I thought for a moment.

“How about the authorship of the Shakespeare plays?”

He smiled. “Good point. I’ll see what I can do.”

He finished his drink.

“Well, congratulations again to the two of you; I must be off. Time waits for no man, as we say.”

He smiled, wished us every happiness for the future, and departed.

“Can you explain just what is going on?” asked Landen, thoroughly confused, not so much by the events themselves as by the order in which they were happening.

“Not really.”

“Have I gone, Sweetpea?” asked my father, who had returned from his hiding place behind the shed.

“Yes.”

“Good. Well, I found out what you wanted to know. I went to London in 1610 and found that Shakespeare was only an actor with a potentially embarrassing sideline as a purveyor of bagged commodities in Stratford. No wonder he kept it quiet— wouldn’t you?”

This was interesting indeed.

“So who wrote them? Marlowe? Bacon?”

“No; there was a bit of a problem. You see, no one had even heard of the plays, much less written them.”

I didn’t understand.

“What are you saying? There aren’t any?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. They don’t exist. They were never written. Not by him, not by anyone.”

“I’m sorry,” said Landen, unwilling to take much more of this, “but we saw Richard III only six weeks ago.”