Garrett’s face flushed bright red. He leaped up, disentangling himself from their unseemly embrace, then helped her to her feet. The revolver lay on the ground, but neither hurried to pick it up.
‘Are you all right?’ asked the inspector.
‘Yes,’ the girl replied, gasping with annoyance. ‘I don’t think I’ve broken any bones, at any rate.’
Lucy brushed the mud off her clothes, and let down her hair from the bun it had been wound up in – it had come loose during the fall.
‘Forgive me for charging at you like that, Miss Nelson,’ Garrett apologised, entranced by the lovely golden cascade resting on her shoulders like honey spilling from a jar. ‘I’m truly sorry, but ... if I’m not mistaken you were going to shoot Mr Ferguson.’
‘Of course I was going to shoot Mr Ferguson, Inspector! I haven’t been hiding in the bushes all evening for nothing,’ the girl replied sulkily.
She bent down to retrieve the pistol, but Garrett was quicker. ‘I think I’d better keep this,’ he said, grinning apologetically. ‘But tell me, why kill Mr Ferguson?’
Lucy stared distractedly at the ground for a few moments. ‘I’m not the shallow girl everyone thinks I am, you know,’ she said, sounding wounded. ‘I care about the world just as much as anyone else. And I intended to prove it by stopping the man responsible for the war of the future.’
‘I don’t think you’re shallow,’ said Garrett. ‘And anyone who does is an ass.’
Lucy beamed, flattered. ‘Do you really mean that?’ she said demurely.
‘Of course, Mss Nelson,’ said the inspector, smiling shyly at her. ‘But don’t you think there are better ways of proving it than by staining those lovely hands of yours with blood?’
‘I suppose you’re right, Mr Garrett,’ Lucy admitted, gazing at him admiringly.
‘I’m so glad you agree,’ said Garrett, genuinely relieved.
They stood in silence looking at each other awkwardly.
‘What now, Inspector?’ she said at length, her face a picture of innocence. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’
Garrett sighed. ‘I suppose I should, Miss Nelson,’ he acknowledged reluctantly. ‘However . . .’ He paused to weigh up the situation.
‘Yes?’ said Lucy.
‘I’m prepared to forget all about it if you promise not to try to shoot anyone again.’
‘Oh, I promise, Inspector!’ she said, overjoyed. ‘Now, kindly give me the pistol so I can put it back in my father’s drawer before he notices it’s missing.’
Garrett hesitated, but in the end he handed it to her. When she took it, their fingers touched; they lingered for a moment sharing a sense of delight. Garrett cleared his throat as Lucy slipped the gun into her coat pocket.
‘Will you allow me to walk you home, Miss Nelson?’ he asked, not daring to look her in the eye. ‘It is unwise for a young lady to be out alone at this hour, even if she does have a gun in her pocket.’
Lucy smiled, charmed by Garrett’s offer. ‘Of course I will,’ she said. ‘You’re very kind, Inspector. What’s more, I don’t live far from here and it’s a lovely evening. It’ll make a pleasant walk.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ Garrett replied.
Chapter XXXV
The next morning, in the privacy of his office, Inspector Colin Garrett ate his breakfast dreamily. Naturally, he was thinking of Lucy Nelson, her lovely eyes, her golden tresses, the way she had smiled at him when she asked whether she could write him a letter. At that moment, a constable barged in with a warrant signed by the prime minister, requesting he set off for the future to arrest a man who had not yet been born. Suffering from the effects of being in love, which, as you know, more often than not puts one in a daze, the inspector did not realise the letter’s significance until he found himself in the cab being driven to Murray’s Time Travel.
His legs had turned to jelly the first time he had crossed the threshold of Murray’s headquarters, clutching the money his father had left him, which was to be transformed into something straight out of a dream: a ticket to the future, to the year 2000. This time he did so with a resolute stride, even though he had something just as incredible in his jacket pocket: a warrant that seemed all the more extraordinary considering it was for the arrest of a phantom. And Garrett was convinced that, if time travel were to become routine, this would be the first in a long line of similar warrants enabling police officers to make arrests in different eras, provided that the crimes were committed in the same place: London.
When he had scrawled his signature on the slip of paper Garrett was carrying now in his inside pocket, the prime minister, doubtless unawares, had taken an epoch-making step – he had blazed a new trail. As Garrett had predicted, science and its amazing creations would beat the rhythm to which humanity would dance.
But this warrant would also allow Garrett certain liberties in space. Like not being forced to languish in some waiting room until that busiest of men, Gilliam Murray, deigned to see him. Invested with the power conferred on him by the paper in his inside pocket, Garrett marched straight past the secretaries guarding Murray’s privacy and, ignoring their objections, went up the stairs to the first floor, then along the corridor lined with clocks and breezed into Murray’s office, a bevy of breathless assistants in his wake.
Gilliam Murray was lying on the carpet playing with a huge dog. He frowned slightly when he saw Garrett come in without knocking, but the inspector did not allow himself to be intimidated. He knew his behaviour was more than justified.
‘Good morning, Mr Murray. Inspector Colin Garrett of Scotland Yard,’ he introduced himself. ‘Forgive me for barging in like this, but there’s an urgent matter I need to discuss with you.’
Murray rose to his feet very slowly, eyeing the inspector suspiciously before dismissing his assistants with a wave. ‘You needn’t apologise, Inspector. Any matter you deal with must by definition be urgent,’ he said, offering him an armchair as he crammed his huge frame into one opposite.
Once they were seated, Murray picked up a small wooden box from the table between their two chairs, opened
