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employment with
The Police Gazette.
Pvt. Paul Ransome was a clerk with the Bank of England. Sgt. Anthony Rizzo was at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. Sgt. Christine Brant had found a job as a barmaid at the Cafe Royal. a hotbed of society gossip, and Pvt. Linda Craven was employed at the Haymarket Theatre, where she was an assistant to the wardrobe mistress and in excellent position to monitor the theatre district. They were temporal agents on the trail of a cross-time terrorist, a man named Nikolai Drakov.
    "The interview of H. G. Wells did not produce any leads to the whereabouts of Drakov," Steiger was saying as he paced slowly in the sitting room of the suite. The support team was seated all around him, listening attentively. "I am of the opinion that maintaining contact with Wells is too risky. Captain Delaney does not agree. Lieutenant Crass is inclined to support Captain Delaney, but she is in favor of only the most limited contact for the present. Before we go any further with this briefing, I want to hear some feedback on that question. Opinions?"
    "Is there any reason why we can't use our cover to legitimize further contact with Wells?" said Corporal Davis. "Since he's currently engaged in writing newspaper articles about everyday aspects of British life, wouldn't that support our consulting him in that capacity, as if we were asking him to help in our research?"
    "No, that's definitely out," said Delaney. "Talking to people in pubs is one thing, but consulting Wells in that capacity would involve creating an episode in his life that never happened. We couldn't risk having him be involved in an academic project that never existed. We're supposed to be writing textbooks, remember? If he was to mention it in his own writings at any point, it would create the problem of having to alter any historical records he might leave. A bigger problem is that it might also affect the direction his own writing may take, since he did write historical works, and that would involve a risk of temporal contamination. Besides, he's completely dependent on his writing for his survival at this point and he's not going to be eager to have people pestering him for help in some sort of nebulous research project.”
    "I agree," said Sergeant Brant. She glanced at Davis and shook her head. "I don't think we can take the risk of getting close to Wells ourselves. The more contact we have with him, the more chance there is of our influencing him in some way. I'm in favor of covert surveillance. If Drakov contacts him, that may change everything, but why take unnecessary chances? We still haven't found any evidence of his presence here."
    "I'm not so sure of that” said Private Neilson. "I was going to wait with this, but I think it may be important. Something unusual came up this morning at the crime lab. Late last night, a policeman was murdered at Whitechapel Station. His throat was torn open and his face was ripped to shreds. No one saw anything, but the man in charge of the case. Chief Inspector William Grayson. has issued specific orders to keep it quiet. And he's also brought in Dr. Conan Doyle to assist in the investigation in an unofficial capacity.”
    "Arthur Conan Doyle?" said Delaney.
    "Yes, the same man who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories." said Neilson, nodding. "He's very sharp. He examined the body and concluded that the wounds on the face were inflicted by a clawed hand, with four fingers and an opposed thumb, and that the wounds on the throat were probably made by animal teeth. He also checked the fingernails of the deceased and found several small hairs, which he examined under a microscope. He said the hair apparently came from a wolf. I couldn't confirm that, because Doyle took the samples with him for further study, but I was able to examine the body. There was a significant loss of blood, which could be accounted for by the severed jugular, but there were also traces of human saliva around the wound. I couldn't