The Ruddigore Dichotomy
Chapter Four
Hawthorne was struggling to finish the "Guardian" crossword when there was a knock on the door. "Come in?"
It was Helena. "Ah, Dr. Smith. Nine letters, 'Dame Kiri's performance? Sounds medical!', something P, something something, A something, something something, N."
"Operation," said Helena without thinking. "Professor, I've got the information from America." Hawthorne looked blank. "You know, about the Murgatroyds. They faxed me just now. Take a look." She handed him a sheet of paper.
"The Murgatroyds faxed you?"
Helena couldn't be sure if the Professor was having one of his thick-as-a-brick days or one of his let's-wind-up-Helena-by-pretending-to-be-as-thick-as-a-brick days. She kept her voice even. "No, the Records Office. They're very efficient at tracing people, even that far back. Apparently George Murgatroyd settled in Chicago, married in 1868, had a son called Henry and was shot dead in 1876 by one of his gambling associates for non-payment of debts."
"But I thought these Lords of Ruddigore couldn't die by natural means. I mean, like being murdered."
"That's the funny thing. You see, he didn't actually die there and then. No-one could explain it, at least, not till now. He was shot six times apparently, in the chest at point-blank range. Made quite a nasty mess I imagine. It was as if he was dead, but he maintained a pulse for twenty-four hours or so after the shooting, until midnight the following night..."
The Professor stared at the paper. "According to this," he said, "his son Henry was taken by his mother to live in a small town near Boston. He seemed to live a quiet life as a schoolteacher until he died in 1900. I wonder what he did for his daily crime? None of the others seem to have done anything particularly bad, apart from this one here, Charles."
"What did he do?"
"He ran for State Governor in 1960," the Professor replied without looking up. Then he stopped, stared again at the faxsheet and went on, "So how do these dates and places match Stephen's chart?"
Dr. Smith sat in the one remaining comfy chair and looked straight at Professor Hawthorne. "They all match, up to and including Charles' death in New York in 1965."
"But the last one listed is ... oh, I don't believe this! John Paul George Ringo, son of Charles, born in New York in 1964. What happened to him? Don't tell me his mother throttled him for getting the words of 'All You Need Is Love' wrong?"
She leaned forward in her chair. "Charles was the twenty-ninth Lord of Ruddigore and his death matches the twenty-ninth and last discontinuity. This John Paul George Ringo must be alive somewhere."
Hawthorne put down the paper and stared into space. "The reigning Baronet of Ruddigore..."
Helena went on, "We have to find this John Murgatroyd. If he dies, we'd have another discontinuity on our hands, and that could be the straw that breaks the space-time continuum's back."
"Actually, I don't think we need worry about any future Murgatroyds," said Hawthorne. "I've been thinking about the nature of the paradox. You see, it rests on the fact that refusing to commit one's daily crime was itself a crime, that is, the attempt of suicide."
"But the attempt of suicide is no longer a crime," she finished for him.
"Nevertheless, we still have twenty-nine rifts in the space-time continuum to worry about. Stephen's observations indicate that as time goes on, the rifts will continue to get wider. Who knows when the entire Universe will go - fop?"
"It may still be worth finding John Murgatroyd," Helena said. "I was thinking about what we would do if - when we get back to 1608." Hawthorne raised an eyebrow. "I mean, how we'd go about preventing the curse from taking place. I don't know, but I thought perhaps a flesh-and-blood Baronet of Ruddigore in our party might be useful."
"What do you suppose he could say? 'Excuse me, Sir Rupert, my name's Sir John, I'm the thirtieth Baronet, from nearly four hundred years in the future, I've come back in time to prevent you from getting cursed by a witch and putting our whole family, not to mention the entire Universe, in jeopardy?'"
"If it comes to that, what do you suppose we could say? 'Excuse me Sir Rupert, we're a couple of scientists from the University of North Yorkshire, we're from nearly four hundred years in the future, we've come back in time to prevent you from getting cursed by a witch and putting the entire Universe, not to mention your whole family, in jeopardy?'"
Hawthorne rubbed his eyes. God, he thought, it isn't even coffee-time yet. "All right, point taken. But why do you think we need our Beatle friend?"
"I'm not sure, but I thought he might have a better chance of saying the right thing, whatever it is, to his ancestor than we have."
"OK, fair enough. Any chance of a coffee?"
"Black, two sugars, I know," Helena called as she opened the door.
It was a few minutes before she returned. "What kept you?" asked the Professor.
"I met Robert in the Senior Common Room," she replied. "The Music Department's being re-decorated, so they're having to come into Physics. I asked him to try and trace John Murgatroyd. I gave him the information we received from America. He said, 'I am a bit busy,' so I reminded him that the existence of the Universe depends on it. He said, 'Can't you do it?' so I said, 'I'm busy trying to invent a time machine.' Then he agreed. Here's your coffee."
"Thank you." He took a sip. "Ow, it's hot. And have you invented your time machine?"
"I'm on my way to see Stephen now. He's got all the spectral data on the discontinuities. We're working on the theory that if we duplicate very closely the conditions around a discontinuity, we may be able to set up a wormhole of our own. Then we need to make certain that it goes where and when we want it to, of course."
The Professor laughed. "Ah, so that's why you want to find this Murgatroyd chap! You want to create your own discontinuity by bumping the poor bugger off!"
For the second time in half an hour, Helena wasn't sure if Hawthorne was joking. She said, rather nonplussed, "I didn't mean that. I meant that we could duplicate the electromagnetic diffraction effects that exist in the immediate vicinity of a discontinuity at the instant it is created. It might not work, but Stephen seems hopeful."
When she arrived at his office, he looked more than hopeful. "Helena! I want to show you something." Helena half hoped that he would take her to his laboratory and present her with a fully-functional, ready-to-use time machine. Instead he merely unfolded a long computer printout, read through it quickly to find the place he wanted, and pointed. "We've tried this experiment using two identical radioactive samples, one as a control and the other went through our little process. We bombarded this one with all frequencies of electromagnetic spectra, arranged like a diffraction pattern but in reverse. After five minutes, this one showed a significantly greater radioactive count than the other sample, which seems to indicate that it had travelled forward a few seconds in time!"
"Couldn't there be another explanation for this effect?" Dr. Smith made a point of being sceptical about a theory unless there was clear evidence to back it up.
"What we're trying to do now is obtain the reverse effect, that is, produce a sample with a reduced radioactive count. That would be the result if it had travelled backwards in time. If we succeed, I think we can safely say that we're on the right track." Phillips' moustache bristled proudly.
"How are you hoping to make it go backwards in time?"
"Simply by altering the diffraction pattern. Each of the natural discontinuities, if you can call them that, produced one of two slightly different fringe patterns. One of these was the pattern we copied to produce the future effect; hopefully the other will give the opposite."
"And if it works, is it simply a matter of turning up the power to create a tunnel a person could use?"
"We can but try," Phillips replied cheerfully. "Hopefully we'll have the results of the second experiment before the end of today. If you'd like to conduct it with me, I'd be more than grateful for your help. Two heads are better than one and all that."
"Yes, of course. I've got a few things to sort out before lunch, would after lunch be OK?"
"Oh, certainly, no problem. It'll give me time to get to the post office. Well, come on, don't keep me in suspense any longer. What was it?"
"What was what?"
"You told me on the phone that you'd found out the cause of the discontinuities at Whatsitplace in Cornwall, but you said you couldn't explain it over the phone." Phillips looked at Helena eagerly, like a character from an Agatha Christie novel, waiting for Hercule Poirot to reveal the murderer's identity.
"OK, here goes," she said. "You'll never believe what we found out, though. I can hardly believe it myself." She paused for a moment, took a deep breath and continued, "Apparently, all the dates you indicated on the star chart exactly match the dates of death of the Baronets of Ruddigore, who lived in the castle you pinpointed as the source of the discontinuities. Whenever and wherever one of these fellows died, a discontinuity was created. All twenty-nine of them."
"Gosh," said Phillips.
"This family of baronets, the Murgatroyds, were put under a curse by a witch in the year 1608. If they failed to commit a crime every day of their lives they would die in horrible agony."
"Wow," said Phillips.
"When each one dies, the space-time continuum appears to split into two alternative realities, due to the paradoxical nature of the curse."
"Crikey," said Phillips.
"Robert is trying to trace the current Baronet, Number Thirty, before Fate catches up with him. Then Professor Hawthorne and I are planning to take him back to 1608 and prevent this curse from being made, so eliminating all the rifts in the space-time continuum altogether. That's why we want a tunnel a person can go through." She picked up her briefcase and turned towards the door. "I'm going to call on Robert now to see if he's found anything on John Murgatroyd. I'll be back a bit after one o'clock to help with the experiments. Oh, by the way, how's your aunt?"
"We're hoping she's on the mend," he replied, looking at the floor. "She's had a course of radiotherapy, all we can do now is keep our fingers crossed."
"Oh, I didn't realise it was as serious as that. I hope she gets better soon," Helena said with genuine feeling.
"Thanks, Helena. See you later." Phillips began folding up the computer printout again as she left the office.
When Helena arrived at Robert's office in the Music Department, he was having a rather laboured conversation with someone on the phone. "Yes... Murgatroyd... M for Mother... John Paul George Ringo, father's name Charles... Born May, 1964... Yes... No, I'm afraid I don't have a current address, all I know is he was born in New York and his parents lived at 275 Elmwood Drive, Newark, New Jersey until his father died in 1965... No, I explained, I'm a senior lecturer at the University of North Yorkshire in England... England, Great Britain, yes... and we're conducting an experiment - I mean, a study for which we need Mr. Murgatroyd's help... What, none at all? Not even... Well yes, I appreciate that... Well, thank you for your trouble. Goodbye. Oh, hi, Helena, I didn't see you come in."
"Making progress?"
He shook his head. "That was the New York Police I was speaking to just then. The sergeant there was very polite, but he said that they simply couldn't trace him with so little to go on. Apparently John and his mother simply disappeared after Charles' death. There was no forwarding address or anything. Quite a mystery."
"Charles was a politician," said Helena. "I wonder if the CIA or the FBI or people like that were mixed up with his death? Then John's mother might have had to disappear for her safety - and John's."
"Who can tell?" Robert answered. "Anyway, I think you'd be wasting your time trying to track him down now. It'd take so long, and we want to go back and sort it out as soon as we can. At least, that's what I understood. The Universe being unstable, I mean. By the way, how is the time machine coming on?"
"Stephen's experiments so far have gone very well, we'll be conducting some more this afternoon together. And no childish innuendos, please, Mr. Anderson," she added, catching the evil glint in his eye. "We may have something we can use before too long. Are you sure there's no way we can find John Murgatroyd?"
Robert looked directly at her and lowered his voice. "To be perfectly honest, Helena, if people like the FBI really were involved in his father's death, then it might be very dangerous prodding about trying to find him. Not just for him, but for us. It scares me, really. I mean, is it really that important that we find him? I think we've got as much chance of changing Sir Rupert's mind by ourselves, and anyway, you said yourself that the less people who know about what we're doing, the better."
Helena opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. At last she shrugged and said, "OK. But there is one thing."
"What's that?"
"I think it would be nice if we told the old boy at the castle, you know, the curator, what's his name, Goodheart, if we let him know what we've found out about the history of the Murgatroyds after Sir Ruthven. He did an awful lot for us, it'd mean so much to him, especially the fact that there is a living heir to the Ruddigore title somewhere."
"Yeah, I suppose so," Robert replied.
"Good grief," exclaimed Helena, "it's a quarter to twelve. I'd better get back to Physics and fill the Professor in before he goes off to lunch."
"Come here and give us a kiss first."
They didn't hear the knock. They didn't see the door open. "Helena? I was told I might find you in here..." Professor Hawthorne caught the couple in mid snog. "Whoops! Sorry," he mumbled and beat a hasty retreat.
"I'll call in at five o'clock, Robert. Bye for now."
"Bye."
Helena found Hawthorne waiting for her in the corridor. She tried to look casual. "Was, er, was there anything you wanted me for, Professor?"
"Just wondering how things were getting on, that's all. I mean, I'm only the Head of Department, but it's nice to keep in touch with things, once in a while."
"Well," she began as they made their way back to the Physics block. "Stephen's initial experiments in duplicating the diffraction patterns around a discontinuity have produced quite promising results so far. I'm going over there to help him after lunch. We should have some results by the end of the afternoon. Robert, unfortunately, hasn't been able to trace John Murgatroyd - he and his mother disappeared in mysterious circumstances when his father died. We don't know, but it could be like JFK - you know, an FBI cover-up or something." The Professor frowned. "That's all the developments so far."
"All right," Hawthorne replied, rubbing his eyes. "Fancy lunch in Sangazure College today?"
At ten to four Helena dialled Professor Hawthorne's number. "Hello, Professor? It's Helena... The second experiment worked, yes... Back in time at least twelve seconds... What's that?... Yes, we could have our tunnel very soon... I'll come straight over and show you the results... Oh, by the way, I forwarded the fax about the Murgatroyds to Mr. Goodheart at the castle, I thought he might appreciate it, I hope you don't mind... OK, see you in ten minutes... Black, two sugars, yes I know, goodbye."
George, the Physics Department porter, was in the middle of his one a.m. inspection when a light from a window in the Astronomy building caught his eye. It went out almost immediately. It was probably Dr. Phillips working late, he thought. He'd been staying very late a lot lately. But then he was sure he'd said goodbye to him earlier on this evening... Better have a look, just in case. He checked the lift; no-one was using it. He went up the stairs to Phillips' office. No-one in the corridor... There was a clatter as something fell to the floor inside the unlit office. George rushed inside and flashed his torch around. "Who's there?" he barked.
The room was empty. A fountain pen rolled across the floor and hit George's boot. Surely something as small as that couldn't make such a loud noise? He picked up the pen and placed it on Dr. Phillips' desk. Then he carefully checked around the room to make sure no-one was hiding anywhere. Nothing. Funny, George thought as he left the office. It had been a sound like a heavy, solid, metal object hitting the ground. Something big. Almost like a suit of armour...
"I've drawn up a plan for when our experiments are completed," Dr. Smith said to Professor Hawthorne the next morning as he was sipping his too-hot cup of coffee. "If we carry on the way we're doing at the moment, we should have something we can use within a fortnight."
Hawthorne was impressed. He nodded. "So what's the plan?"
"The first thing is to check that we really can direct the wormhole to go exactly where and when we want it to. So I thought we could direct it to Ruddigore Castle, one day into the past. It should be easy to verify the exact time of our arrival. That should help us in our calculations when we want to go there in 1608. If anything did go wrong and we couldn't get back from one day in the past, we could still get home by conventional means and it would be as if we had never been anywhere, as far as anyone else is concerned."
"Assuming that experiment works, what then?"
"Then we go back to Sir Rupert's time."
"And?"
"Er... that's the bit I haven't worked out yet." The Professor raised a frowning eyebrow. "I had thought of us going further back to when he was a child and trying to influence him when he was more, you know, impressionable."
Hawthorne leaned forward in his chair. "No, I don't like that idea," he said. "For one thing, we know very little about his life before the curse took place. We don't even know exactly what periods he lived at Ruddigore Castle, before he became Sir Rupert. And the further back we go, the more likely it becomes that we could send Time skewing off in an entirely different direction. No, we'll have to arrive fairly soon before the curse is pronounced - I'd say a week at the outside." He took another sip of coffee; it was now cool enough to drink without burning the roof of his mouth. "How much real time - I mean, in the present, will pass while we're away?"
"It's difficult to say," Helena replied. "It can't be instantaneous, that is, we can't arrive back at the same moment we left, because there has to be a one-to-one mapping of each point in space-time at this end of the tunnel to each point at the other. But because we're tracing a curved path through space, following the orbit of the Earth over the past four hundred years, it follows that our path through time is also going to be curved to compensate. So it could be less time than we spend in the past or it could be more, we'll have to wait for the results of Stephen's calculations."
The Professor frowned again. He said, "That could be awkward. If we're away any length of time, we'll have to explain our absence to the Powers That Be here. Remember, in three weeks we'll be up to our necks in meetings to plan the teaching syllabus for the new academic year. And two weeks after that the new term actually starts. And then - "
There was a knock on the door. "Come in!" Hawthorne roared.
It was Dr. Phillips. "Oh, hello Stephen, just the man," said Hawthorne. "Helena and I were just discussing our little journey. Presumably you'll be keeping an eye on things at this end?"
Phillips was struggling to get his breath back. Helena spoke for him. "Yes, we'll need to keep the tunnel open continuously while we're away. There'll be no way of communicating - "
Phillips cut in. "I've just been having a word with George, the night porter. He says that someone broke into my office last night."
The other two froze. "Nothing appears to have been taken," he went on, "though someone's been using the computer. I've checked all my disks and there's nothing missing, and the virus checker didn't find anything, but I'm sure someone's discovered my password or cracked the encryption program. I've changed both of them now, of course."
"What makes you say that?" asked Helena.
"I checked the monitor to see who was logged in when," he answered. "After I left last night, one login was recorded, at one-fifteen this morning. According to the monitor, it was me." He looked at Helena, then at the Professor. "Only one file appears to have been edited, one of the calculation files for our time-travel project, though I can't find anything wrong with it. But it looks as if someone knows about what we're doing."
"George must have scared whoever it was off before they had chance to do anything," said Helena.
"I hope so." Phillips fingered his moustache nervously. "Anyway, I'm making sure that from now on, there's someone watching my office and laboratory twenty-four hours a day, and I'm taking my disks home with me every night. Who knows about the project, apart from ourselves?"
"Only Robert, and he wouldn't say anything to anyone," Helena declared. She felt a little angry that anyone could insinuate that her future husband could be capable of such criminal carelessness.
"What about this Baronet Murgatroyd chap?"
"We couldn't trace him," said the Professor, rubbing his eyes. "He seemed to disappear off the face of the Earth about thirty years ago."
"Anyway, anyone like that wouldn't have a clue how to get into the system, never mind which files to edit," Helena added. "For that matter, Robert wouldn't either."
"So it's one of us three, then," Professor Hawthorne said. "Will the real saboteur please stand up?"
36
