Chapter Ten
On Nadir
In the end, it proved to be extraordinarily easy to track down Professor Jensen. A few words with the Oxford constabulary, along with the judicious use of Holmes' name, showed that a man matching Jensen's description had been picked up four days ago. He had been ranting about time travel, quite clearly mad, so the police had sent him along to the doctors.
The hospital was on the outskirts of the city, right at the point where the houses and shops suddenly turned into farms and fields. Holmes seemed to be more intrigued, now that we had found someone that matched the professor's description. The evidence in my favour was rapidly accumulating.
As we stepped out of the cab, I had to suppress a snigger. After all that fuss, I had ended up at the madhouse anyway. Of course, I was walking in of my own volition, which makes a world of difference.
The Oxford Hospital for the Mentally Deranged was still standing in the Twenties, though the name had since been changed to the less ominous St. Brutus's Hospital. It had once been some baron's country home before he bequeathed it to Charitable Causes and it still looked the part of a country manor. It was only when one noticed the lack of sharp objects and the utilitarian nature of the furniture underneath the antimacassars, did one realize this was no family home. A faint smell of antiseptic permeated the air.
Psychiatry was still in its infancy, and mental health care consisted mainly of locking people up in the hopes they would get better. The quality of facilities varied widely from place to place. Some were more like hotels than hospitals, who catered to women suffering from "nervous exhaustion" and "hysteria" while others were little better than prisons. The Oxford Hospital seemed to be leaning towards the former.
Given the expression of surprise on the face of the maid who answered the door, the hospital did not get many unanticipated visitors. She showed us into the director's office, which had once been a private library, saying that she would have to track down the man. I caught a glimpse of faint sepsis scars on her fingers and mentally revised her status to nurse.
"I think perhaps it would be better for us to be familial relations rather than investigators." I said.
"Cousins looking for their poor mad uncle?" Holmes said. "That should do nicely. You should let me-" the door opened and the director of the hospital swept in, interrupting Holmes' attempt to dictate to me.
The director introduced himself as Doctor Mitchell, the title very clearly a part of his name. He seated himself behind his expansive desk with barely a glance at either of us. To further underscore the interruption our arrival had caused, Doctor Mitchell shuffled through a sheaf of papers that he had brought with him for a moment before actually looking at us.
"Can I help you?" The doctor was looking at Holmes, but I jumped in and took the advantage away from both of them.
"My name is Miss Judith Jensen. This is my cousin, Mr. John Jensen." I said, pitching my voice slightly higher than usual and speaking in a slightly breathless tone. Holmes, my Holmes that is, called it my "dithering schoolgirl" voice. I was pulling names out of the air, and I didn't realize the alliteration until it was too late. At least they had the advantage of being so silly no one would actually use them as false names.
"Our uncle has an unfortunate habit of forgetting who he is and wandering off. He's quite harmless really, but he hardly knows what he's doing sometimes. Uncle Robert disappeared a few days ago from the family home up Leeds way, and I saw in the newspaper that the police found a man wandering about Oxford, so John and I decided that we would come investigate."
I said all of it in practically one breath. Doctor Mitchell and his condescension were steamrollered by the constant stream of words. Holmes was utterly taken aback, although whether it was by was my silly-girl act or my sudden manipulation of the situation I couldn't say. Whatever he was thinking, he hid it behind the genial mask of John Jensen.
"Oh? Yes, well- That is to say-," Doctor Mitchell coughed and his professional manner returned. "Might I have your uncle's name and a physical description?" Mitchell addressed himself to Holmes, but again I gave the answer.
"His full name is Robert Jensen, although sometimes he forgets even that." I didn't think that Jensen would be cautious enough to give a pseudonym, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure.
"He is a bit shorter than me, with white hair, and he's going bald. He wears reading glasses most of the time and he's a bit, ah, rotund." I finished with an embarrassed air. Jensen was one of those individuals who are not really fat, merely very solid.
"Oh yes, Mr. Jensen. I'm afraid he seems to be suffering from delusions of grandeur." Doctor Mitchell said, placing a curiously pretentious accent on the vowels.
"Oh! He's here?" I nearly squealed and Holmes winced. "May we see him, please?"
"Of course. The nurse will show you around." Doctor Mitchell rang the bell for the nurse with palpable relief. Perhaps Jensen was a difficult patient.
"What sort of delusions?" Holmes asked. Doctor Mitchell looked startled at his sudden entrance to the conversation.
"Claimed he was a professor at Oxford. That's where he was found there, wandering the college grounds. The dons knew nothing about him of course, so the police sent him to us." Doctor Mitchell permitted himself a chuckle. "He said he would be a professor in the future, of all things. Somebody has been letting him read that speculative fiction nonsense. I should watch what he's allowed to read, if he's as susceptible to delusions as you say Miss Jensen." I gritted my teeth and let it pass.
Another nurse arrived, looking considerably more harried that Mitchell, and we stood to go.
"When do you think Uncle Robert might be released?" I asked.
"Today, if you like. He's no danger, just very confused." Dr. Mitchell said, and shooed us out of his office.
"That was a neat bit of acting." Holmes murmured as we followed in the wake of the nurse.
"I learned from the best." I whispered back, then remembered whom I was talking to. The physical blow of the realization nearly stopped me in my tracks. The only thing that saved me was our arrival at Jensen's room.
"Here we are, sir and miss," she said. "Just ring if you need anything."
"Thank you." Holmes said, with a sidelong glance at me.
Judging from the number of bare shelves set near to the ground, Jensen's room was probably the former nursery. There was a utilitarian bed, along with a table and chairs, and a bland painting of what was meant to be a cheery village scene. The curtains were flung open to catch the sun. Jensen was sitting at the table, muttering under his breath and scribbling furiously, his nose mere inches from the paper.
He certainly looked mad. Suddenly, I had doubts. Jensen was not the first man I would choose to defend my claims to sanity under normal circumstances, and it was perfectly possibly that the shock of time travel had unhinged his already scattered brain.
"Professor Jensen." It was less a statement than a query. Holmes hung back a bit, watching everything but saying nothing.
"Not now." Jensen snapped. "I'm working on my formulas. If you want to make yourself useful you can…" I never found out what I could do, because Jensen finally looked up and recognized me.
"Miss Russo?" He asked, baffled.
"Russell." I corrected automatically. For whatever reason, he was rarely able to remember the names of his students and colleagues, but he was consistently inaccurate. I had become "Russo" during our brief acquaintance.
"I've come to get you out." I began, but he interrupted me by waving his notes under my nose.
"You figured it out as well! Isn't it marvellous? The applications in the field of research are endless. I hope you brought my notes with you, I'm finding it quite impossible to get along without them. Who are you?" Jensen finally noticed Holmes.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes." Holmes said with a slight nod. I winced and braced for the inevitable.
I was known in Oxford for "The Best Lecture Never Given." My presentation of a paper on the Divine Feminine was pre-empted by my kidnapping at the hands of a suspect in an investigation and followed by my abrupt marriage to Holmes. The combination of kidnapping, lecture and nuptials conspired to make me the talk of Oxford for months. Not even Jensen and his usual blithe ignorance of social affairs could have missed the gossip.
"Pleasure." Jensen said automatically, without a hint of recognition. Holmes raised an eyebrow and even I was surprised. I must have overestimated Jensen's familiarity of the world outside of the spires of Oxford.
"Mr. Jensen, I understand you work at Oxford?" Holmes said.
"I do. Professor of Chemistry, thank you very much. This may be the past, but that's no excuse for rudeness." Holmes raised an eyebrow at the apparent non sequitur.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I invented time travel, my good sir." Jensen said with a flourish of his pencil. "And instead of hailing it as the technological breakthrough of the century, those fools throw me out on my ear."
"Do you have any proof?" Jensen reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of pennies and dashed them on the table.
"There is my proof." He said triumphantly. Holmes examined the coins. They were imprinted, not with the image of Victoria Regina, but George V. The dates ranged from 1911 through 1921.
"They could be forged." I said, before Holmes had a chance to.
"It would be extremely easy to forge these." Holmes agreed, rolling a penny over his knuckles.
"My chemistry notes are dated." Jensen said petulantly. "You can go check them. You did bring the notes with you?" I nodded. "There you are then."
"It is as easy to write one series of numbers as another." Holmes replied. His eyes were still on the penny, but his thoughts were miles away.
"Circumstantial and hearsay evidence," I said, only half-joking. "A decent lawyer would tear it all to shreds."
Jensen decided to ignore Holmes' disbelief and turned to me.
"Look here Miss Russo, we need to go to the University. If the Dean won't believe me, I'll go over his head to the Chancellor. Now that you're here to back up my statement, and now that I have the necessary formulas, I can prove that time travel is possible."
He was serious. He really believed that a witness (a female witness, no less) and a notebook of half-illegible notations would convince the Chancellor of Oxford to fund his research. I doubt that he paused once to think of the potential ramifications of this new technology.
Historical research would be only the beginning. It would be only a matter of time before people tried to change the past. It was so tempting; a slight nudge in the course of history and the Archduke would never be assassinated, Europe would never be plunged into four years of purgatory and my family would never take that last vacation to the summer house which ended in tragedy. Or perhaps it would happen all over again, just in a slightly different way.
This was perilously close to playing God for my taste. What was to stop one from manipulating time to suit their own whims? A shiver ran down my spine when I thought of the damage even a well-intentioned person could cause.
"I can't help you Professor." I said softly, trying to dismiss the uneasy feelings from my mind. "I very much doubt the Chancellor would think much of my opinions." I turned to Holmes and asked, "Are you satisfied?"
"That you speak the truth? I am." Holmes paused and I think he was as startled as I. "I can find no hole in your alibi, except that it has never been done before. But then, if you are correct, it has just been done." He grinned, as if pleased by the paradox. I groaned. He wouldn't think it so funny in thirty years when…
I sat bolt upright. Holmes. My Holmes. Was time passing in the future? Was Holmes investigating my disappearance? Did he remember this very conversation, thirty years in the past? Was he only now realizing the resemblance between the Mary Russell he met in a gaol cell and the Mary Russell who nearly fell over him on Sussex Downs?
It was a good thing I was already sitting down, because I would have nearly fainted if I had been upright. I leaned forward and buried my head in my hands. I felt as if I was in another woman's body, merely observing.
"What is the matter?" Holmes asked, with real concern. Anger and embarrassment quickly burned away the disorientation. He didn't try to approach, thankfully, or else I might have lost control completely.
"I hate this." I said quietly.
"I wouldn't expect you to like it." Holmes replied in the same quiet voice. "Given the circumstances, you seem to be holding up rather well." For a woman. He didn't say it, but just barely. Some instinct caused him to bite off the last part of the sentence.
Footsteps approached the door. Holmes and I both fell silent, listening, while Jensen looked puzzled. The footsteps continued to a door down the hall and we relaxed.
"Perhaps it is time to make our exit." I said.
"I may be convinced of your sanity, but I doubt many others would believe us if they were to hear this conversation." Holmes agreed.
"You can get me out of here?" Jensen asked hopefully. I explained to Jensen that we were going to be his niece and nephew, the children of two of his brothers. Jensen started to protest that he had only one brother when realization dawned.
There was actually very little fuss involved in Jensen's release. I received few papers which I signed in a deliberately shaky hand with the name Judith J. Jensen and an admonition not to let my poor deluded uncle wander about and we were standing on the platform waiting for the train to London before dinner. Holmes found himself writing a cheque for his "uncle's" hospital stay; this week had been trying on his pocketbook. But if he was buying Sussex cottages, no doubt he had a little money to spare.
We managed to commandeer a compartment to ourselves and Holmes continued to interrogate Jensen, with only moderate success. Jensen was far more interested in lecturing on chemical minutia than giving a coherent account of himself. He corroborated my story at least. Jensen had been working in the lab when the experiment exploded. Upon waking and discovering himself approximately thirty years in the past, he had gone straight to the Dean of the College, demanding a chair and stipend in order to research his discovery of time travel. Jensen was baffled by the Dean's unenthusiastic reaction.
"After all, it only needs a bit of fine tuning." Jensen said. He was addressing himself primarily to me. Holmes seemed amused and slightly baffled by this reaction. He was used to fear, awe and suspicion, not outright dismissal. "I suspect the quantities of chemicals are directly proportional to the amount of time which is bridged. You followed my instructions exactly, I assume?"
"Yes." I said through gritted teeth. Dealing with Jensen grated on my nerves. I didn't appreciate being talked to as if I was a barely competent research assistant. "I followed the experiment in the notebook exactly."
"I can't think what went wrong." Jensen mused. "It should have crystallized into a compound capable of conducting electricity. Perhaps the catalyst interfered somehow."
"The formation energy of sodium is off by a couple of decimal places." I said. "There are a few other math errors as well."
"Oh bother. I thought it might be something like that. But it worked for you too! That means the results are repeatable." I had the sudden image of Jensen continually moving backwards in time like a demented game of leapfrog.
"I don't care about moving back in time. I want to go home."
"Oh." Jensen abruptly deflated, the joy of discovery lost in reality. "Oh yes."
"Do you think it's possible to reverse the process?"
"I don't know. Even if I did, there's no way of knowing when it would send you. One could easily go too far into the future."
"We have to try." I growled, quickly losing patience with Jensen's "absent-minded professor" mannerisms. Jensen reeled back, stunned, and Holmes raised an eyebrow. Even I was surprised by the raw emotion in my voice. "If a reaction is possible," I continued in a calmer tone, "then logically the opposite reaction is also possible."
"Theoretically. But perhaps not practically." Holmes said gently, coming to Jensen's rescue.
"No offence meant to your decade, Mr. Holmes, but I want to return home very badly."
There wasn't really anything to say after that. Holmes turned his attention to his pipe and Jensen buried himself in his formulae. I went for a walk. There wasn't really any place to go, but I couldn't stay in the compartment any longer. I walked the length of the train, and ended up in the dining car, which was empty but for a banker deeply immersed in the business section of the Times.
It was infuriating. The man responsible for my banishment in this time knew no more about the situation than I did. Moreover, he seemed to be totally unaware of the implications of his accidental discovery. My last tenuous hope had vanished.
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Yeesh, that was a long time between updates. Apologies, but real life sort of attacked there.
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.•´¨•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨•.