Time Tunnel (3 page)

Now, today, Harrison finished his morning coffee and was pleased to remember that they would meet presently, secretly, because Valerie’s aunt, Madame Carroll, did not approve of her knowing young men. The prospect made Harrison feel fully capable of facing a new day.

Then Pope arrived, fuming.

“The French,” he said bitterly, “they are a noble race! I’ve been asking about this Carroll, Dubois et Cie, and it’s a monstrous thing! You saw me buy a snuffbox yesterday. I intended to send it to my grandmother. It would be just the thing for her handbag, to hold her hay-fever pills. But I examined it. And it is an outrage!”

Harrison blinked at him.

“What’s the matter with it?”

“It is a work of art!” said Pepe indignantly. “It was made by an artist! A craftsman! If it were an antique, it would be priceless! But it was one of a drawer-full of similar snuffboxes, some inferior, to be sure, but others equally good. And I bought it for peanuts!”

Harrison blinked again. “I don’t quite see…”

“Somebody made it!” said Pepe. “By hand! He is capable of magnificent work! This is magnificent! But he is turning out things to be sold by Carroll, Dubois et Cie as curios! Which is a crime! He should be found and told the facts of life! Your Valerie says that her uncle, M. Dubois, is off on a trip to secure more stock for the shop. She does not know where he went. You may remember that I was enthusiastic and asked where such things were manufactured. She does not know that, either! Don’t you see what has happened?”

Harrison shook his head. He was unreasonably pleased at having rediscovered Valerie. It was something so unlikely that he wouldn’t have dreamed of it occurring.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he admitted.

“I’ve made inquiries,” said Pepe. “I’m told that workmanship like that snuffbox would entitle a craftsman to plenty of money! If he made things of modern usefulness and iii the modern taste, he’d grow rich! But do you know what I paid for that snuffbox? Sixty-five hundred francs! Practically twenty dollars! Don’t you see?”

“No,” admitted Harrison again, “I don’t.”

“This Madame Carroll and this Monsieur Dubois have found a gifted craftsman,” said Pepe angrily, “he is capable of masterpieces, and they have him making curios! Think of the skill and labor that went into this snuffbox! Think what they must have paid him for it, to offer it for sale as a curio for twenty dollars!”

Harrison blinked yet again.

“But…”

“The stupidity of it!” insisted Pepe, hotly. “The idiocy of it! As shopkeepers, this Madame Carroll and this M’sieur Dubois think only of how much they can get from miniature works of art they don’t even recognize as works of art! They think only of a shopkeeper’s profit! They keep a craftsman of the highest order turning out gems of skill and artistry so they can sell them to ignorant tourists! Like me!”

Harrison felt a very familiar depression creeping over him.

“Naturally Dubois would not let out where he gets his stock!” said Pepe scornfully. “Someone might find his workman and let him know what his skill is really worth! It isn’t illegal to buy an artist’s work for peanuts and sell it again at any price one can get. But it is an outrage!”

“The workmanship is that good?” asked Harrison forlornly.

“I spoke to an expert in such things,” fumed Pepe, “and he said it could not be duplicated for ten times what I paid for it! But, he also said there is no large market for snuffboxes. I’ll make a bet that these shopkeepers are too stupid to realize that work like this is different from any other curio product!”

Harrison swallowed. He felt a suspicion. But it was totally unrealistic to think that because there had been wildly unlikely coincidences in the immediate past, that there would be more wildly unlikely ones turning up in orderly succession. Yet…

“Pepe,” he said unhappily, “you say it would take weeks to create that snuffbox. How many did you see, and how much time would be required to make them, by hand? And you saw the guns. They are not machine-made. They are strictly hand-craft products. How many man-years of labor do they represent? And there were some books in the shop, set in type of the Napoleonic period and printed on paper that simply is not made any more. How long to make the paper and set the type and print and bind those books? And how much investment in printing replicas of even one issue of the
Moniteur
? There are weeks of the
Moniteur
in the window, if not months! Do you think small shopkeepers could finance all this? And do you think that people who could finance such an enterprise would pick out Carroll, Dubois et Cie for their only outlet?”

Pepe swore. Then he admitted:

“I didn’t think of those angles. But what is the answer?”

“I haven’t the least idea,” said Harrison unhappily. “It’s ridiculous to believe in the only explanation that would explain it.”

“That someone travels from now to then?” Pepe snorted. “My dear fellow, that is nonsense! You know it is nonsense!”

“I agree with you,” said Harrison regretfully. “But I’ve never noticed that being nonsensical keeps things from happening. Don’t you ever read about politics?”

“I admit,” Pepe conceded with dignity, “that foolish things are done by governments and great men, but I cannot do anything about them! But
if
there is a genuine artist working for a pittance so that a French shopkeeper can make a shrewd profit out of his commercial innocence… That I can do something about!”

“Such as what?” asked Harrison. Internally, he struggled against an appalling tendency to think in terms of the preposterous.

“I am going to the shop again,” said Pepe sternly. “I won’t talk to your Valerie, because you saw her first. But I shall say that I want a special bit of work done, only it will be necessary for me to discuss it with the workman. These shopkeepers will see the chance to make an inordinate profit. I will pay part of it in advance. They will gloat. And I will tell this workman what an idiot he is to work for what they pay him! I will advance him money to do such work for modern millionaires! If necessary, I’ll send people to him who will pay him something adequate! Because he is an artist!”

Harrison stared at him in alarm.

“But look here!” he protested. “You can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Why, Valerie! We were children together! And I knew this Madame Carroll when she was a skinny virgin, trying desperately to get herself a suitable husband! She’s Valerie’s aunt and she was a tartar then and she’s worse now! Valerie lives with her! She doesn’t want Valerie to know anybody because if she married, her aunt would have to pay a decent wage for somebody to help in the shop!”

Pepe snorted.

“You talked to her for fifteen minutes and you have a complete picture of the difficulties to romance with her! One doesn’t learn such things unless there’s some thought of evading them!”

Harris said indignantly:

“But she’s a nice kid! I liked her when we were children! And dammit, I’ve been lonesome! I’m not interested in romance in the abstract, Pepe. You have to be a Frenchman or a Mexican to do that! But Valerie’s a nice kid! And I don’t want to make trouble for her!”

“She is not allowed to know young men,” said Pepe in a detached tone. “Have you arranged to meet her, ah, privately?”

“Well… yes,” Harrison admitted.

“And you do not want to make trouble for her!” said Pepe sardonically. “Ah, you rascal! In fifteen minutes you made her remember you, you learned about her tragic and unhappy life, and you made a date! You’re a fast worker, my friend!”

Harrison said angrily:

“Look here, Pepe! I won’t have that! I…”

Pepe waved his hand.

“Oh, I am helpless! I admit it! I’ve taken upon myself to rescue a skilled craftsman from peonage to French shopkeepers, than which there could be no worse slavery. But you can spoil things for me. You could tell Valerie of my noble purpose, and she could tell her aunt, which would spoil my altruistic scheme. So I’ll make a deal with you.”

Harrison glared at him. Pepe grinned.

“We go to the shop together. Again. Maybe Madame Carroll won’t be there. In that case you can talk to Valerie. A bribe, eh? All I’ll do is plant the idea of a specially-made article. If she or Dubois are there, I’ll set up the idea of a fine swindle of which I’m to be the victim. Then they’ll be amiable to you because you are my friend. They may even try to enlist you to help them swindle me! They…”

“It won’t work,” said Harrison.

“But I shall try it,” said Pepe, still grinning. “You can’t keep me from trying. But I’ll let you come along if you like.”

Very grudgingly, Harrison stood up. He was very far from happy. He was again unable to dismiss the completely foolish ideas stemming from dusty, elaborately shaded hand-written documents in the Bibliothèque Nationale. They were too fantastic to be credited, but he needed badly to find some excuse for dismissing them. He needed the excuse more than ever today, because he’d been trying not to think of the possibility that if the past could be visited, it could be changed, and if it were changed the present might follow and he, in person, could vanish like a puff of smoke. And Valerie could vanish too!

“I’m crazy,” he said bitterly, “but let’s go!”

Pepe walked beside him with a splendid, self-satisfied air. Presently they walked down the Rue Flamel and past the little café where they’d encountered each other the day before.

“If Valerie tends the shop,” Pepe observed, “I ask if I can have a special article made, and then I’ll browse among the objects on sale while you chat. If her aunt is there, I’ll do all the talking.”

“We’re fools!” said Harrison. “Morons! Idiots!”

“If you speak of my altruism,” said Pepe cheerfully, “I agree. But if you speak of your interest in a very pretty girl, then I point out that nobody is ever as happy as while he is making a fool of himself over a woman. When, in addition, his intentions are honorable…”

They reached the corner. They came to the shop. Only Valerie was inside. She greeted Harrison with relief.

“I am so glad you came!” she said breathlessly. “Something happened, and I won’t be able to meet you as we agreed! And you forgot to tell me where you are living, so I couldn’t have sent you word!”

Pepe said benignly:

“Providence arranges that I benefit all my friends! I am responsible for your friend’s presence,
Ma’mselle!
”

Harrison found himself yearning over Valerie. The idea that anything could happen to her was intolerable. The most imaginary of dangers, if it might affect her, was appalling.

“My aunt was called to St. Jean-sur-Seine,” explained Valerie, looking at Harrison. “Her husband,
M’sieur
Carroll, was… difficult. A crisis in the business developed. He and my uncle
M’sieur
Dubois were unable to agree upon a course of action. They actually telephoned by long-distance! So she went to St. Jean-sur-Seine to decide the matter. And I cannot leave the shop. So we would have missed our appointment.”

Harrison was elated that Valerie hadn’t wanted to miss seeing him.

“Let us to business,” said Pepe profoundly. “I wish,
Ma’mselle
Valerie, to arrange for an especially designed object. The workmanship of your manufacturer is superb. Can it be arranged to have something especially made for me?”

“My aunt will tell you,” said Valerie politely. But her eyes went back to Harrison. “My uncle attends to buying the stock for the shop,
M’sieur
Ybarra, but my aunt really directs the business. You will have to consult her.”

Her manner was strictly commercial, except when she looked at Harrison. Then she seemed glad to be alive. He knew the exquisite anguish of a young man who wants to be all-important to a girl, when he cannot believe that she is just as anxious to be all-important to him.

“Then,” said Pepe, “I will look around the shop, if I may. These are very skillful reproductions.”

“But they aren’t reproductions,” said Valerie. “They are all originals. No two are exactly alike. They are all made by hand by, as you said, very skilled craftsmen.”

“But where?” demanded Pepe. “Where are they made?”

Valerie shrugged.

“My uncle, M. Dubois, keeps that information to himself. He goes away, and he comes back with the articles the shop deals in. I do not know where he goes. My aunt has never mentioned it. It was M. Carroll who determined that the business should call itself a business of import and export with the year 1804. My aunt conceded that it gave the shop individuality.”

Pepe said, “Hm.” He began to prowl about. He examined a shelf of brocades and fingered them with a knowledgeable air. Presently he was looking at the books Harrison had mentioned. There were not more than a dozen of them. He fingered the fly-leaves and muttered to himself. He looked at the guns. He tested the balance of a sporting weapon. It was a flint-lock, but it balanced as perfectly as the most modern of sporting rifles. Presently he was reading a
Moniteur
. The paper was fresh, like the paper of the books. He became absorbed.

Harrison found his tongue. It is, of course, characteristic of all people in highly emotional states that they want to talk about themselves. Harrison and Valerie had material for just such talk. They had shared memories of a reasonably happy childhood, but they did not confine themselves to that topic. Harrison listened while Valerie explained that the death of her parents had sent her to boarding-school, and when that was ended there was only her aunt left to supervise her. Her aunt was then furiously occupied in directing the affairs of her brother, M. Dubois, but very suddenly there was a romance. Her aunt married, and there was a
ménage à quatre
, with Madame Carroll firmly directing the affairs of her husband and her brother as well as Valerie. And things did not go too well. But then, abruptly, the import-export business with the year 1804 began. The shop was opened and was immediately prosperous, but Madame Carroll ruled sternly that there must be the strictest of economy until it was thoroughly established and of course Valerie must help.

“
M’mselle
,” said Pepe in a curiously muffled voice, “I take it that this issue of the
Moniteur
—”