Sam Beckett landed face down in the mud at the edge of the road, conscious of a car speeding away behind him and a voice calling in a decidedly British accent, "And stay away!"

For a long moment, he lay there while rain beat down upon his back, then, with a muttered groan of, "Oh, boy," he rolled over and tried to sit up.

Being tossed out of a moving car was not his favourite way to arrive in a new leap. In fact, Sam promptly decided it was his least favourite means of arrival. Looking around the twilight rural scene, he saw only fields on one side of the road and trees on the other as it twisted away out of sight beyond a stone bridge. Far beyond the fields in the distance, Sam could see lights. A village or small town. That would be his target.

Prudently moving into the trees to avoid the full force of the steady downpour, Sam catalogued his injuries from the fall. One hand was scraped and bleeding, and his knees hurt, but except for a few aches and pains, he seemed to have survived it reasonably well.

He was wearing a suit of a cut that suggested the late 60's or early 70's. He was learning to pick up on the subtle clues that might help him before Al, his guide to the past, arrived from his own time as a hologram. Sometimes it was necessary to know quickly.

His wallet was not as helpful as he'd expected. He found some pound notes and a business card that identified him as Geoffrey Randall, Private Investigator, with an office in London. A detective? In England?

Great. Geoffrey Randall had gotten himself into something dangerous - and now here I am, trying to keep track without a scorecard, just like always. At least the people in the car had considered a warning sufficient.

Thoroughly wet, Sam bent his head to escape the worst of the beating rain. Into his field of vision came a pair of white shoes, topped by a pair of white trousers. Rescue? No, for the shoes were not caked with the inevitable mud, and the trousers were not damp.

"Al, thank goodness," cried Sam, and raised his head.

It wasn't Al. It was a total stranger, a dark-haired man, younger than Al, who must be a hologram, too, because the rain didn't appear to be getting him wet. Oh, no, something was wrong with Al! He hadn't been able to come, so Gushie had sent a stranger in his place.

But that couldn't be right. Sam remembered all the work he and Al had gone through, fine-tuning the hologram process so that Sam could actually see Al. No-one else could step into it so quickly.

"Al?" the man asked, staring at him in puzzlement, "Jeff, old son, I think you've been hit on the head one too many times. Don't you remember me? It's me, Marty."

"The rain isn't getting you wet," Sam objected.

Surely Jeff Randall didn't have his own personal hologram, not unless Sam had leapt into the future. "Ghosts don't get wet, Jeff. You should know that by now."

"Ghosts!" Sam took an involuntary step backwards.

"I see it now," Marty observed to the air. "He has concussion. Lost his memory. Think, Jeff. I'm Marty. Your partner."

"My...uh...dead partner?" Sam ventured. This was insane.

"That's right. You do remember. I was hit by a car. You're the only one who can see and hear me."

"Just like Al," Sam realised. Not content with talking to one invisible man, in this leap, he'd have the opportunity of dealing with two. Jeff Randall would be lucky if he didn't end up in a rubber room.

Marty approached and peered at him as if he'd never seen him before.

"You called me Al when I first got here. What is it, Jeff? Did you learn something from Dr Kensington?"

"Dr Kensington?" Sam faltered.

"You went to see him because Mark Rayburn had an appointment with him the day he disappeared."

"I'm looking for a missing man," Sam gasped. "And somebody doesn't like it. They threw me out of the car, Marty."

"I thought you looked a touch under the weather." He glanced up at the darkening sky. "That's rather good, under the weather," he grinned to himself. "Come on, Jeff. I don't want a partner with pneumonia. Let's find you some shelter. I'll go and see, shall I?"

He made a face as if to collect himself, then popped out as if he'd never been there.

"I'm losing my mind," said Sam to the sky. "Al! Help!"

"Don't yell, Sam," Al complained, stepping out of the door to Sam's own time. "Last night Tina and I partied just a little too much." He massaged his temples. "I could sleep for a week."

"You're not wet, either," Sam objected, favouring Al with a baleful glance.

The bright blues and reds of Al's shirt stood out even in the near darkness. "It's not fair."

"Either?" That stopped Al in his stride. "I'm not wet, either? Who else did you meet who was dry?"

"Marty. He's my partner. Well, Jeff Randall's partner."

Al pulled his computer handlink from his pants pocket and pushed buttons.

"That's right, Sam, you're Geoffrey Randall. You're a private detective from the agency Randall and Hopkirk. Your partner is Marty Hopkirk, who is..." He whacked the side of the device. "Who is dead, Sam. Marty Hopkirk is dead."

"Instead of being a hologram," Sam agreed reasonably. This was all so bizarre it made perfect sense to him. Naturally, a ghost wouldn't get wet in the rain. "I know. I'm looking, or rather, Jeff is looking for a missing person, a man called Mark Rayburn."

"Exactly," Al agreed, glancing warily over his shoulder. He must have decided to ignore Sam's comments about Marty, but his shoulders hunched in a little as he looked around. Al didn't like ghosts.

"Why am I here?" Sam prompted. There was no other choice but to go with the flow.

"You're here to find Mark Rayburn," Al explained. "He's a young Elizabethan historian who did research at the British Museum. He inherited some unpublished source material and one of the papers suggested an unknown Shakespeare play."

     "There isn't any trace of anything like that, is there, Al?" Sam asked.

"You'd think if Shakespeare had written another play, there would have been contemporary references. Or would that be something a layman wouldn't know about?"

"Well, yes and no, Sam. Ziggy's on it and hasn't found anything so far. Rayburn was on his way to visit a renowned Shakespearean scholar, a Dr. Paul Kensington. He never arrived. When the police failed to turn up anything, Rayburn's sister, Brenda, hired Jeff Randall to find him, or at least to find out what happened to him."

"And did I...did he?" Sam asked.

"No. In fact, Jeff vanished, too. Today's October 17, 1969. He was last seen by his secretary, Jean Hopkirk..."

"Marty's widow?"

"Exactly. He was last seen on October 18, Sam. You don't have much time to work with."

"I already know somebody's mad at me. A couple of thugs tossed me out of a car and warned me to stay away. But stay away from where? I don't even know where I am."

"You're half a mile from Shamley Green," Marty remarked, popping in again. "Come on, Jeff. There's a decent pub there and you can get warm before you ring Jeannie to come for you."

"Sam, that's a ghost!" Al exclaimed, backpedalling frantically away from Marty, right through a tree.

"Al. Come back. Marty won't hurt you. Will you, Marty?"

"What is that?" Marty asked. "He's no ghost. How can he walk through trees?" He backed away from Al, looking as if he wanted to make hex signs against him.

"I'm a hologram," Al defended himself in a voice that wanted to, but did not quite shake.

"What's that?" Marty eyed Al suspiciously. "He must be Al."

He turned to Sam. "But that means -- you're not Jeff!" He charged at Sam and glared at him.

"What have you done with Jeff Randall? Give him back!"

"Or you'll do what?" Al challenged defiantly from a safe distance.

"Where's Jeff?" Marty insisted.

"He's, uh, in the future," Sam ventured.

Evidently, it was the wrong answer. Marty drew back, appeared to suck in a breath of air, and blew for all he was worth at Sam, who felt himself flung backwards. Unlike the other two, he couldn't pass through trees with impunity. He hit one, slid down its solid trunk and sat down in the mud again. Sam decided he hated mud.

"Leave him alone!"

Al's fear of ghosts was overcome by the danger to Sam. He flung himself at Marty in a fierce tackle, forgetting that he was not solid in this time.

But neither was Marty solid. They should have passed right through each other, but they didn't. Al hit Marty around the hips and bore him to the ground.

"Yikes!" Al jumped up, brushing signs at his body as if to rid himself of any traces of ghost, while Marty picked himself up with dignity and did the same. They both retreated several feet and studied each other uneasily.

Their mutual distaste was so comic that Sam burst out laughing. He was pinned in a double glare. Both ghost and hologram looked affronted at his temerity. Sam laughed all the louder.

"That doesn't help, Sam," Al told him in annoyance.

"It doesn't bring Jeff back, either," insisted Marty.

"Jeff will come back," Sam reassured the worried ghost. "He and I have switched places. I'm part of a time travel experiment. I leap in to take someone's place and I can't leap out again until I help someone or solve a problem. In this case, Jeff would have died tomorrow if I hadn't come. I'm here to save his life."

     "Assuming I believe you," Marty returned. "does that mean he has to stick around?" He gestured at Al with his thumb.

"I'm not leaving Sam alone with you," Al returned fiercely.

"But I'm a ghost," Marty told him in an eerie voice, leering at Al and making an abortive lunge at him.

"Sam..." Al backed up. "Keep him away from me, Sam."

"How? He's a ghost! I can't keep him away from you any more than I can keep you away from him. I'm the only one who can see either of you."

"Either of whom?"

All three of them turned to the teenager on a motorbike who had pulled up beside them. "Do you, um, want a ride?" the boy asked uneasily, as if he wasn't sure someone who talked to folks who weren't there was a safe companion.

"I can take you to Shamley Green."

"You can call Jeannie from there, Je--Sam," Marty began, "And if you lay one hand on my wife, so help me..."

"I'd love a ride," Sam said thankfully. "I want to get out of this rain."

---

Al and Marty reappeared after Sam had telephoned Jean Hopkirk and asked her to pick him up. The ghost and the hologram found him in the pub, sitting before a roaring fire, his suit jacket draped over a chair beside him, his shoes propped on the hearth. He was starting to steam a little as he sipped a hot buttered rum. He'd be lucky if he didn't give Jeff Randall a severe case of pneumonia.

"Is Jeannie coming?" Marty asked.

Sam lifted the glass and hoped no-one else in the room noticed his lips moving.

"On her way. I won't hurt her, Marty. I'm here to help Jeff, not cause trouble for other people."

"See that you remember that."

"Or what?" Al asked. "You leave Sam alone or, ghost or no, I'll have to stop you!"

Marty must have remembered that Al had been able to tackle him, because he looked at Al consideringly.

"Truce?"

Al hesitated.

"Al," murmured Sam warningly.

"Truce," Al returned truculently, his eyes narrowed in a fierce glare. "Just keep away from me."

"Marty?" Sam distracted the ghost from the glaring contest. "I think I'm here to find Mark Rayburn. Did Jeff tell you anything about this Professor Kensington he was going to see?"

"Nothing much. He lives in Guildford."

"You're only a few miles from Guildford, Sam," put in Al.

"But I don't know if Jeff Randall saw him or not," Sam reminded his invisible companions, relieved when the other two patrons of the pub strolled away into the public bar. "If I show up there and Jeff already saw him, he'll think Jeff's losing it."

"If Jeff was already there and the next thing we knew you wound up in a ditch, Kensington might have something to hide," Al pointed out. "After all, Mark was going to see him -- and he's missing. Jeff was going to see him, and next thing we know, Sam's face-down in a mud puddle."

"Al," groaned Sam. "Please. Don't mention mud any more tonight."

Al and Marty looked at the muddied clothes Sam wore. Though he'd been able to remove the worst of it, and he hoped more would cake off when he was dry, he felt like the loser in a mud wrestling contest. It was not a pleasant sensation.

"You think Kensington might have killed Mark?" asked Marty. "But why? He's a reputable scholar."

"I don't know that he's done anything of the sort. I'm not even sure what's at stake. Something to do with Shakespeare? Documentation of a lost play? It doesn't seem worth killing anyone for. It doesn't even seem worth tossing somebody into the, uh, mud for."

"Maybe Kensington's another kind of crook, Sam," suggested Al. "Maybe Mark arrived at the wrong time. Or maybe it doesn't have anything to do with Kensington at all. Maybe he gave Mark a clue that got him into trouble -- and Jeff, too."

"Maybe," agreed Sam. "But why remove Mark and just throw me in the ditch? It doesn't make sense. If there's something at stake, aren't I as big a threat as he is?"

His two 'advisors' shook their heads. They didn't know, either.

"I'll get cleaned up and pay another visit to Kensington," Sam decided. "Both of you can come with me."

"What good will that do?" Al complained worriedly. "If he's a killer, we can't stop him." He cast a sideways look at Marty, unwilling to accept him as an ally, but determined to pass up nothing which could help Sam, even if it meant getting chummy with a ghost.

"Well, Marty can knock him down," Sam reminded his friend. "All we'd need would be a good mud puddle. But with both of you there, you can check the house and keep me on my toes. Agreed?"

The other two eyed each other cautiously. They still maintained a distance, one on either side of Sam, as far away from each other as they could get. Marty beetled his brows, glaring at Al, and Al stared fiercely back. Then Al shrugged.

"Oh, what the hell. I can put up with him if I have to, Sam."

"If it gets Jeff back, I can do it, too," agreed Marty.

"Good. Then shake hands," Sam bade them.

"Shake hands?!" they chorused, then took an involuntary step away from each other. Sam couldn't help grinning.

"Oh, come on," he urged, like a parent chiding two squabbling siblings. "You aren't going to hurt each other. I need to know my backup team is united. Shake hands."

"I may never forgive you for this," griped Al. "Shake hands with a ghost! The things I do for you, Sam..." But he put out his hand. Sam could tell he was pleased to find it steady.

Marty looked as if he wanted to shove his hand behind his back like a stubborn child, but if Al could do it, so could he. The two of them looked at Sam's adamant face and heaved identical, put-upon sighs, then they shook hands for all of two seconds. The minute they let go, they backed away again, wiping their hands on their clothing as if to get rid of the touch.

"Excellent," Sam approved. "Now let's make some plans."

Jean Hopkirk arrived half an hour later. Al eyed her approvingly. Well, he'd always had an eye for blondes. Sam could remember that much. The fact that she was mini-skirted and not remotely unattractive may have had something to do with it.

"Oh, Jeff, look at you," she exclaimed in dismay. "What happened to you? And where's your car?"

"Better tell her you lost it, Sam," Marty put in.

"I ran into some trouble, and I misplaced it, Jeannie. I hope I can borrow yours tomorrow."

"Borrow my car!" burst out Marty. "I should say you can't. I remember the last time you..." He fell silent, recalled to reality. In spite of Sam's present looks, he wasn't Jeff Randall. "Can he drive?" he asked Al.

"Of course he can drive. What do you think he is?"

"Probably on the wrong side of the road," Marty complained as Sam followed Jeannie, grinning.

The two allies popped into the back seat, Al's eyes on Jeannie.

"I have to admit, you have good taste." he informed Marty.

"You leave my wife alone."

"Leave her alone? What do you think I can do? I'm a hologram. I'm not really here. All I can do is admire the view -- and a fine one it is, too. You should be flattered, not jealous. Tell him, Sam."

Sam cast a quelling look over his shoulder. He could hardly tell either of them anything with Jean sitting beside him. He had no choice but to leave them to fight it out on their own.

To Jean, he said, "I'm afraid I lost part of the night. I ran into trouble and someone hit me on the head. I can't remember if I saw Dr Kensington or not."

"Oh, no. I should take you directly to the doctor. It's a little late for his surgery, but I'm sure in a crisis... Or perhaps you should be in hospital."

"I'm fine, Jeannie. Just a little muddled about the time of the accident. Can you refresh my memory about what I did today?"

She cast him such a worried look that Marty bridled at it and favoured Sam with a fiercely irritated glare.

"He's not making time with your wife, either," Al pointed out. "He's trying to help your friend. Back off or, ghost or no, I'll..."

"Al," began Sam warningly, breaking it off to correct himself when Jeannie looked at him oddly. "All I remember is getting tossed out of a car into the mud."

"You certainly ended up in the mud," she agreed, smothering a smile. "All right, Jeff. You met with Brenda Rayburn this morning and she told you her brother was missing. He'd told her he meant to call on Dr Kensington yesterday, but he had not returned home, though his car was back. She thought it strange, but she didn't want to go to the police because of the Shakespeare manuscript."

"There's actually a manuscript?" Sam demanded, shocked and excited. "I thought there were just some references to one."

"That's what Mark told her, but you thought there might be more. You said he wasn't a Shakespearean scholar and that he was too excited for it to be over some obscure reference in an old journal or letter. You thought he didn't want anyone to know until he was sure it was valid."

"I...remember." Sam replied, hoping to quell her suspicions. "But this casts a whole new light on everything. If there's actually a lost Shakespeare play in existence, I wouldn't be surprised that people might kill for it."

"Do you think they killed Mark Rayburn?" she asked in alarm. "You didn't know what a risk you might be taking."

"But they didn't warn Mark Rayburn away," Al observed from the back seat. "If they had, he'd be home now. Do you think they killed him, Sam?"

"What about Mark?" Jean asked over Al's question.

"I don't think he's dead."

If saving Mark were his reason for being here, he would surely leap again if he had failed. But, no, he was here to save Jeff Randall as well.

"If there is a lost manuscript," Sam theorized, "Mark Rayburn is the only one who knows where it is. Killing him would finish their plans."

"Unless they think he told Brenda," Jeannie cried in alarm. "Then we'll go and see her now and make sure she's all right."

Brenda Rayburn was a young woman in her middle twenties, red-haired and extremely pretty. Her skirt was as short as Jeannie's, and Al looked like he was in heaven.

"I loved this period, Sam," he remarked. "I always was a leg man."

And any other part of the female anatomy that takes your interest, thought Sam with a faint smile.

"Mr Randall," the redhead cried, staring at him in alarm. "Are you hurt? You look terrible. Have you found Mark yet?"

"No, but I have some ideas."

He allowed her to show him in and seat him on a wooden chair. The mud was dry now and had a lamentable tendency to flake off, and Brenda looked as if she wanted to fetch a newspaper and put it beneath him.

"What sort of ideas?"

Sam had taken Jean Hopkirk home before coming here, unwilling to expose her to possible danger, but he had been unable to rid himself of his two bodyguards. Al stood lusting after Brenda Rayburn, while Marty was poised impatiently by the door, ready for Sam to solve the case quickly and give Jeff Randall his body back.

"What sort of ideas?" he echoed.

"You told me Mark had inherited unpublished source material for his historical period," Sam explained, "And that among them, he found a reference to an unknown play by William Shakespeare."

She nodded, faintly puzzled.

"Yes, that's what I said. Great Aunt Hattie kept them in her box room, and when she died, they came to Mark. She said he was the only relative she had who didn't pester her to live the way he thought she should live. I saw some of them. Moldy old things. Why? You think Mark disappeared because of that?"

"I'm not quite sure. Bear with me a moment. Did you ever see the source material? Were there a lot of papers and books?"

"Several large packing crates of them," she explained. "Most of them are here. I helped him look through them, and he was fascinated. He mooned over them as if they were long lost treasures."

"Were you there when he found whatever it was that excited him?

"No, I was at work. I work in Carnaby Street, designing hats." She snatched one from a nearby table and displayed it. It resembled nothing so much as a purple stovepipe, bent in the middle like the Cat in the Hat's. Sam eyed it dubiously.

"So you never saw his great find?"

"No. He said he meant to hide it until he'd talked to Dr Kensington. I think he wanted to make sure it was valid before he made it known. Mark never liked looking the fool. He did make a photocopy of it, though, to take with him."

"Something to tempt the man," Marty remarked. "If you're right and it was really a play, he'd have started drooling right away!"

"And if he was unscrupulous, he'd want it for himself," agreed Al. "He'd probably be pissed that somebody who wasn't even in his field should make the discovery of the century."

Brenda looked at Sam shrewdly.

"You don't think it was a reference," she discovered. "You think it was an actual play. An actual Shakespeare play! Don't you?"

"I can't think of any other reason someone would make Mark disappear and warn me away."

She put a hand to her mouth in new horror. "Oh, Mr Randall. Do you think Mark is dead "

"No. Because if there really is a play, he alone knows where it is. Unless he told you where he meant to hide it, that is?"

She shook her head. "I'd tell you if I knew, I swear it."

"But whoever is behind this doesn't know that you can't tell him where it is. Is there someone you can stay with for a few days, where you'll be safe?"

"There's my friend, Pamela," she said thoughtfully. "She's gone up to Edinburgh on a buying spree. Tartans are trendy, you see. I could join her."

"Then you do that. I'll drive you to the station."

"You mean now?" she asked.

"It could be very dangerous for you to stay," Sam told her, taking her hand. "I'll feel better if you're safe, and I'll have more room to manoeuvre."

---

"So what now, Sam?" asked Al as Sam reached Jeff Randall's flat and closed the door behind him. When he looked up, Al and Marty were standing there watching him, waiting expectantly.

"First," Sam declared, "I take a bath."

"Somehow, that lacks a spirit of adventure," Marty remarked to Al.

Sam frowned at them. "I don't want to leave a mud trail through Kensington's cellars," he pointed out. "Amuse yourselves while I'm gone." He quirked an eyebrow at Marty in question. "Where is it?"

Marty pointed, and Sam allowed himself the luxury of peeling off the mud-caked clothes and soaking -- though briefly -- in a nice hot tub. When he reappeared, clean and dressed in a pair of black slacks and a matching polo-neck, he found Al and Marty conversing quietly. They jumped around when he came in and backed away from each other, but Sam grinned.

"Afraid I'll see you actually getting along?" he asked.

"Get along with a ghost! Give me a break, Sam."

Marty made a spooky moaning noise and waved his arms.

"You're lucky I don't drift around in a tattered sheet."

"Behave, children," Sam reproved them, smiling.

Al and Marty pulled themselves up haughtily.

"Now what, Sam?" Al asked.

"Now we go after Mark Rayburn." He looked at his wristwatch. "It's only 10:45. I've still got Jeannie's car."

"That's my car," Marty insisted. "If you put one scratch on it, I'll find you in the future and haunt you."

"Not if Jeff's the only one who can see and hear you," Al put in with a grin.

"I'll make an exception in your case," Marty told Al.

They were still squabbling when Sam led the way to the car.

---

Kensington's house was a small country estate just outside Guildford. It looked deserted, but Sam wasn't so sure. Marty directed him down a side road.

"You came this way the first time, Je - Sam. Look!"

The object of his surprise proved to be a parked automobile. "Jeff's car. They must not have found it yet. Pull up beside it."

Sam did. "It looks like Kensington is the key to this. Why don't the two of you take a look at the house? Try to find Mark Rayburn. I'll get into position there," he pointed, "by that wall."

"Be careful, Sam," Al cautioned. "If they find you back, they won't be happy with you."

"I'll be okay. Go on. I've got a feeling we're running out of time."

There was a sense of loneliness as his companions vanished. Sam shook his head at his two unlikely allies and started forward as stealthily as he could manage. This was his second leap into a private detective, but the first time hadn't required him to sneak through the black countryside under a lowering sky.

At least the rain had stopped for the moment, but the moon was still hidden by the scudding clouds. Careful to avoid any possible mud holes, Sam had just reached the waist-high wall that surrounded the house when Al and Marty returned.

"He's there, Sam," cried the ghost, waving his hand at the huge Tudor house.

"They've locked him up in the cellar, the dirty dogs," confirmed Al. "You can get him out, Sam. The key's on a nail outside the door."

"Is anyone home?"

"There's an elderly butler and a couple of maids, but Kensington's gone out," explained Marty. "I heard the butler tell one of the maids that the Master had ordered them not to wait up for him. This is lucky, Sam."

"He must have gone after the play," Sam realised. "He won't get rid of Mark until he's sure it's where Mark said it was. Is there an easy way in?"

"I found an unlocked window," Al informed him. "But keep quiet, Sam. The last thing you want is to be caught house-breaking."

Sam's helpers guided him to a window that opened into the library. Creeping into the darkened room, Sam looked at three walls of floor-to-ceiling books and one wall with the door, a matching window, and a huge fireplace.

"Most of the books are about Shakespeare," Marty remarked. "Kensington's a fanatic. He's the last person Mark should have come to."

It looked that way. Excited by his discovery, Mark had not realised how an obsession could drive a man beyond the acceptable. Rather than let an outsider from another field claim the discovery, Kensington was prepared to do whatever it took to possess the play himself.

The cellars of Kensington's house were very old. Sam could feel the weight of centuries above his head, as though the Tudor house upstairs was simply a rebuilding of a much older place. Great vaulted ceilings rose into shadows overhead and the doors they passed were ribbed and heavy. Al and Marty urged him on.

"This way, Sam."

When he reached the makeshift cell, Al pointed out the key. Sam took it and unlocked the door. A young man with dark, curly hair and several unsightly bruises on his cheekbones and chin, raised his head despairingly, only to stare at Sam in surprise.

"Mark Rayburn? I'm Jeff Randall. I'm a private investigator. Your sister Brenda hired me to find you."

"Brenda!" He jumped up, his mouth dropping open in horror. "I never thought - what if they go after Brenda?"

"They won't," Sam reassured him. "I thought of that, and I sent her off to a friend in Scotland."

Mark's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What friend in Scotland?"

"Someone named Pamela?"

"But Pammie doesn't live in Scotland. Is this just another trick?"

"No, it's all right," Sam reassured the suspicious man. "Pamela went up on a buying trip, for tartan. Brenda says tartan is 'trendy.'"

Mark relaxed.

"She wouldn't have said that to Kensington, the bastard. Do you know what he tried to do?"

"Tried to get you to tell him where you'd hidden the play. You didn't tell him, did you?"

Mark shook his head. "Of course I didn't. Wait a minute! How did you know...?"

"That there was a play? I wasn't sure, but it seemed like a lot of fuss and bother if all you'd found was a contemporary reference to a lost play. Anyone would have been interested, but I don't think they'd have locked you away and beat you up or thrown me into a ditch for it. Am I right?"

Mark hesitated. Sam could see Al and Marty leaning forward eagerly, as anxious to hear about the play as he was. Then the young man nodded.

"All right. Yes, there's a play. I don't know it's really Shakespeare, mind, though it says it is. He spelled his name wrong, though."

"I don't think they worried much about spelling in Elizabethan England, Sam," Al informed him. One could always count on him to know little details like that. "I read somewhere that Shakespeare used to spell his name in more than one way. It got standardised later, I think. Of course, some people believe the plays weren't written by Shakespeare at all. Christopher Marlowe or..."

Sam shook his head. "Apparently that could vary. None of us are experts."

"Kensington is an expert. When he saw the photocopies, he became quite excited. He said he wanted to get something to compare to it, and when he came back, he had a gun. He said I was a young fool historian who didn't appreciate what I had. But I did! Maybe I'm no Shakespearean scholar, but it's still my period of history. I was fascinated. It was about Odysseus. Incredible. Kensington took the photocopy and locked me in here. I never expected..." He rubbed his bruised chin. "He surprised me."

"Did you tell him where you'd hidden the manuscript?" Marty asked excitedly.

Sam repeated the question. Mark shook his head.

"I thought once I told him, he'd kill me, so I didn't dare risk it. But I'm afraid he'll find it anyway. He's gone off to look at the British Museum."

"You left a lost Shakespeare play at the British Museum!" Sam exclaimed in shock.

Mark's white teeth flashed as he grinned.

"Hidden behind some books I doubt anyone has moved for at least ten years. I was going to rent a bank deposit box tomorrow. It all happened so fast."

"That's all nice, but I think we should leave now, Sam," Al observed. "Talk about it on the way back to London. Kensington might come back."

"He's right," agreed Marty. "I don't like this place. It gives me the creeps."

"Great. A place that gives a ghost the creeps," scoffed Al. He thought that over and frowned uneasily. "Maybe he's right, Sam. I don't like it here, either."

"We can make plans on the way back to London," Sam suggested. "Come on, let's get out of here."

They left the house undetected, Al and Marty scouting out the terrain and warning Sam when to wait and when to hide. Mark stared at him at Sam in some astonishment. "You're good at this sort of thing," he observed.

"Hah!" muttered Marty. "He means we're good at this sort of thing."

He exchanged a smug look with Al, who nodded.

"Sometimes I have to practically take him by the hand and lead him through a leap," Al said sententiously.

Sam grimaced. Let Al have his fun. This hadn't been an easy leap for him, and if he had finally found common ground with Marty, so much the better.

The two cars were waiting.

"That's my car," Sam explained, pointing to the second vehicle. "Are you up to driving it back to London? I borrowed my secretary's car to come back for you."

"I'm fine," Mark insisted.

Fortunately, Sam had put Jeff's keys into his pocket automatically, and now he passed them to Mark.

"Lead the way," he said, "If we get separated in traffic, we'll meet outside the museum."

"You mean we're going to break in?" Mark asked in astonishment.

"Do you think Kensington left tonight so he could be waiting for the museum to open tomorrow morning?" Sam asked him.

"Well, no, but breaking in... If I'm caught..."

"You won't be caught," Sam assured him.

"That's right, you're probably a break-in expert."

Sam nodded, but when he was in Jeannie's car with Al and Marty, he turned to them in alarm.

"I'm not a break in expert. How am I supposed to get into the British Museum? It's probably full of alarms and guards."

"Sam," said Al reassuringly. "That's what you have us for."

"That's right," Marty told him importantly. "We'll warn you about any guards."

"And remember," Al pointed out, "museum security might be top of the line today, but for me, it's twenty years out of date. I'll get you in there, see if I don't."

"And pay attention to your driving," Marty told him. "You're on the wrong side of the road!"

Properly chastened, Sam pulled back into the proper lane. He had the feeling it was going to be a long trip back to London.

---

Armed with all the tools that could be produced on fairly short notice, Sam prepared to begin his career as a burglar. Al and Marty coached him all the way there in the car and guided him to a side entrance rather than the main one in Great Russell Street.

"You can do it, Sam," Al assured him, starting in on the obligatory pep talk. "I'll guide you through the whole thing. Wait here a minute."

He vanished and was gone for nearly ten minutes. When he returned, he was grinning.

"Too easy," he announced. "A child could open it."

"And that's what we've got," Marty complained. "Look at him. He doesn't know what he's doing."

"What are you waiting for?" Mark Rayburn asked. Sam had busied himself with his tools while Al reconnoitred the security system, but now he would have to produce.

"Nothing," he said brightly, casting a helpless look at Al. "I'm ready now."

"Then follow my instructions to the letter, Sam," Al cautioned.

"I'll check the place," Marty volunteered. "Kensington might be here."

"You don't know what he looks like, do you?" asked Al suspiciously.

"No, but the odds are that he won't be wearing a guard uniform. Where should I check? The Manuscript Room?"

"Are we heading for the Manuscript Room?" Sam asked Mark.

The young man still had his suspicions, but after a reluctant moment, he nodded.

"Right." Marty popped out.

Sam started on the door security. It was harder than he expected, but in some ways it was not unfamiliar either. When Mark was standing guard, Sam whispered to Al, "Is one of my six degrees in criminology?"

"Not even close, Sam. You're just good with your hands. Now pay attention to this part. Getting in won't do you any good if you trigger an alarm."

"It might get Kensington caught."

Marty returned.

"He's in there. Kensington's in there. Well, someone who doesn't belong is in there, a dark-haired man with a Roman nose and an air of self-congratulation, sniffing about the Manuscript Room. He must have assumed it was the most logical place to look."

With Al and Marty's help, it took Sam a mere ten minutes to break into the British Museum. Marty stood guard inside the door, and when Sam opened it and joined the ghost, Marty gave him the high sign, assuring him the way was clear.

"Remember, Sam," Al said as he followed Mark into the museum, "we can talk to you because we won't register on any detectors. But you and Mark keep your mouths shut. If you get arrested, you probably won't be able to leap until it's all straightened out."

Sam nodded reluctantly. "Don't talk," he breathed to the young historian in an undertone. "We might set off detectors."

Mark nodded. "This way," he whispered back and started for his objective purposefully. Sam hung back a moment.

"Warn us of guards, Al."

"You've got it. Casper the Friendly Ghost here can check ahead of us and I'll keep an eye on where we've been."

Marty looked as if he wanted to object to the arbitrary assignment, not to mention the name, but he didn't.

"Follow me," he told Sam, passing Al with his nose in the air. "I'll take you straight there."

Sam had visited the British Museum before, but, that time, he had come into the main entrance. He knew that the Illuminated Manuscript Room was to the right of the front door and that the Reading Room was beyond that. He hadn't been in there, but he remembered that he'd entered the museum, turned left and suddenly found himself staring at the Rosetta Stone. Awed, he had stared at it a long time, then drifted around the place, sinking himself into the pageant of history displayed there. He wondered if one of his degrees might have been in history, but this was hardly the time to ask.

Mark had started after Marty as if he could see him, but it turned out he was simply heading in the right direction. Marty beckoned for them to keep coming, but he had to hurry to stay ahead of Rayburn.

They had nearly reached the Manuscript Room where, if Sam remembered correctly, two copies of the Magna Carta resided, when Marty gave his first warning. "Guards! Get out of sight, Sam!"

"Over here, Sam!" Al urged, and Sam grabbed Mark's arm and followed Al's pointing finger. It proved to be the Ladies' room. Sam quirked an eyebrow at Al, who shrugged, grinning. "You can't hold it against me this time, Sam. Come on, hurry!"

They reached the shelter moments before a couple of guards came by, talking quietly to themselves. Apparently, they had heard nothing suspicious, but were merely making rounds. Sam held his breath as they passed, aware of Mark hovering at his shoulder. The ghost and the hologram held a muttered conference just inside the door, taking turns sticking their heads through to see if the guards were gone.

When the voices of the guards had faded to silence, Marty popped out and returned quickly.

"They went upstairs, Sam. Come on. Let's grab the manuscript and take off. I don't want you to get Jeff arrested."

"I'm doing my best," murmured Sam under his breath.

Mark shot him a surprised look. "Eh?"

Sam shook his head and followed Marty.

---

They tiptoed through the Manuscript Room, though Al made a point of strolling along as if he hadn't a care in the world, and Marty started whistling a carefree tune. Sam glared at them. A pencil-thin streak of light showed them that someone was searching the next room. Sam put up his hand to stop Mark, and the younger man collided with him, peering over Sam's shoulder. They could see a middle-aged man, dressed in black like Sam, running his hand behind row after row of books. He wore an air of smug self-worth overlaid with uneasy preoccupation. He had dispensed with his hired guns, probably servants from the estate, and had come alone.

"It's Kensington. I should have known he'd try here first," whispered Mark.

"I'll see if he's got a gun."

Al strolled up to Kensington and peered at him with interest. Kensington stopped his search and glanced in Al's direction, pausing to wipe his brow. He pointed his flashlight at Al and moved it back and forth as if seeking something he couldn't see but knew was there.

"I think he knows I'm here," Al observed uneasily. "Maybe he's psychic or maybe his neurons and mesons are on a similar frequency to yours, Sam. Not close enough for him to see me, but enough to make him nervous. I'll distract him while you get the manuscript -- and look out. He has a gun in a shoulder holster." He pointed toward the man's open jacket.

"How will you distract him?" asked Marty, fascinated. He bobbed up and peered at Kensington.

"Like this."

Al planted himself full in the flashlight's beam and waved his arms like a semaphore. "Kensington!" He bellowed as loudly as he could.

Sam and Marty winced. Kensington jumped, and started to turn as if someone was coming. Sam grabbed Mark's arm and shoved him back. Marty got into the act, bending toward a chair in the opposite corner of the room and blowing with all his strength. The chair shifted with a squeak, and Kensington let out a squeak of his own, pinning the threatening piece of furniture in his flashlight beam.

Satisfied that no-one had moved it (at least no-one visible), he muttered something to himself about nerves and the building settling. Resuming his search, he walked right through Al to reach the next shelf.

But his marginal awareness of the hologram made him uncomfortable and he backed up uneasily. "Who's there?" he called in a hoarse whisper.

"Your conscience, you dirty crook," Al told him in an eerie voice.

Marty chose that moment to shift the chair again, and Kensington jumped.

"Does he know we're here?" breathed Mark, backing up a little.

"No. Not yet. But this might be our chance. Next time he distracts himself, we'll grab him."

"Grab him?!" echoed Al, who had drifted over. "Are you out of your mind, Sam? He's got a gun."

"But I'm here to stop him."

Mark looked at him warily.

"I didn't argue. Jumping him sounds good to me."

"Then we'll wait until he's distracted." Sam made shooing gestures at Al and Marty.

His two invisible allies exchanged a look and went into action. Al bounced around Kensington, talking to him, suggesting that the Shakespearean expert's days were numbered, that he'd go to prison for what he was doing now, that his reputation would be lost. He repeated himself over and over, pausing every so often for Marty to move a book or another chair.

"You're not cut out for this." Al tried another tack. "You aren't a crook. You got carried away. Maybe you should think it over."

"Maybe I should think it over," repeated Kensington, running a shaking hand through his thinning hair.

Al looked at Sam uneasily. "You don't think he really can hear me, Sam?"

"I wish he could hear me," retorted Marty, planting himself in front of the scholar and glaring at him. "I'd give him a piece of my mind. Throwing Jeff into a ditch..."

"He threw Sam into a ditch," Al corrected. "I wish I could throw him into one full of mud."

Sam heartily endorsed the sentiment.

"He would have thrown Jeff into a ditch," insisted Marty. "If you get him near a ditch, I'll see he ends up there."

Kensington shivered. <"I'm imagining it all," he muttered to himself. "It's all nerves. Brace up, Kensington. You'll be all right."

"No, you won't," persisted Al, waving his hands in the scholar's face. "Listen up, Kensington. You're in big trouble. You get caught here, your reputation is shot. You lose everything. You hear me? Everything!"

"No. I won't lose it." He rubbed at his ears as if he wasn't sure what he was hearing. It was better that he couldn't really see Al. This was much more unnerving.

"Yes, you will," Al snapped. "Everything. Your reputation. Your position. Your home. Everything. None of it will matter in prison."

Marty squeaked another chair and blew a book off a table. Kensington jumped as if the muffled thud had been a shot. "Now," Sam breathed, and he and Mark jumped at Kensington, pinning his arms before he could draw his gun.

"You!" the man snarled. "I should have known. Let go of me. Think how it will look if we're caught here."

"With the bruises you've inflicted all over me?" Mark threatened. "And I've got Mr Randall for corroboration. You tossed him out of a car, I believe."

"You can't prove it."

"I think we can," Sam told the struggling man. "Mark, get the manuscript."

"Then it is here?" Kensington stared around as if the room held all his dreams rolled into one. "At least let me see it. I know you don't owe me that, but to see it, to touch it... I..."

"Here, now, what's all this, then?"

The lights came on to show a security guard standing in the doorway, a second one just behind him. "A little late research?"

"No," began Sam. "You see, it's like this. I'm a private investigator."

"I'm the one who does research here," Mark defended himself. "This man is trying to steal my research. He locked me up at his home."

"And now you're here? Bert, you'd better call Scotland Yard. This looks like an all-nighter."

Mark went over to the far wall and moved some books, taking out a thick parcel. Clutching it against his chest, he said, "All right. Notify the police. I'm ready. I can prove everything."

Bert went to make the call.

"Oh, boy," Sam murmured. "Now I'm in for it."

---

While Sam, Kensington and Mark Rayburn waited in a small room to be interviewed by the police, Mark picked up his parcel, which had been searched for weapons and left for the investigating officer to study.

Kensington's eyes followed his every movement.

"Couldn't I..couldn't I look at it?"

"He may as well let him," Al said, the door sliding shut behind him as he stepped forward. "You did it, Sam. You saved Jeff Randall and Mark Rayburn."

"But we'll all go to jail," Sam moaned.

Mark and Kensington ignored him, both of them bent over the manuscript. They were talking eagerly, Mark asking questions and the older man replying and asking a few of his own, all hostility evidently forgotten.

"Don't worry about it, Sam," Al reassured him.

"He might not worry about it; he'll leap out of here back to the future and leave Jeff in gaol," Marty objected, glaring menacingly at Al. He waved his arms and made ghostly sounds.

"Cut the melodrama," Al replied calmly. "I'm used to you now."

Sam joined them, plainly not necessary to the conversation over the manuscript.

"Al? What does Ziggy say about all this?" He gestured at the erstwhile enemies.

Al pushed buttons on his handlink, and noticed Marty trying to read the results over his shoulder, and turned away so that the ghost couldn't see it.

"Ziggy says that there's an 87% chance no-one will go to jail," he explained.

"But won't those two press charges against each other?" Sam asked.

"Evidently not. Nothing was stolen from the museum, though Mark will be banned from the Reading Room. This is the funny part, Sam. Ziggy says they they were both so fascinated with the manuscript that they formed a truce and worked together to get it validated. Its provenance is a little shaky, and even in our time, scholars are squabbling over whether or not it's valid or simply a play from the same time period." He pressed another button. "Oh, this is interesting, Sam."

"What is?"

"They wrote a book about it. The Shakespeare Dilemma. It went on the best-seller list, but it didn't bring them any closer to the truth. Both of them are absolutely convinced the manuscript's genuine, but the critics only say it's a decent play. It's been acted by some of the finest actors on either side of the Atlantic and a movie was made of it."

"Then if everything works out so well, why am I still here?" Sam glanced over at the table. "So that I can read the play?" he asked hopefully.

"No, so you can coach Casper here to fill Jeff in when he comes home. He was fairly comfortable in the Waiting Room, and didn't seem particularly alarmed to be in the future, so it should be easy."

"Jeff's used to strange things," Marty praised his partner. "After all, he has me, hasn't he? I'll tell him what happened after he got thrown from the car. We can blame a head injury. I'll see that he gets to read the play." He grinned cockily.

"Take care of Jeff for me," Sam told him. The familiar prelude to leaping tugged at him. "Goodbye, Al."

He was sorry the leaping process never allowed him to meet with those whose lives he lived so briefly. He would have enjoyed encountering a man who faced ghosts with equanimity.
Then he was leaping...

---

...And the next thing he knew, he was walking a bicycle with a flat tyre along a very muddy stretch of back road. Mountains rose in the near distance, dark blue against the setting sun. The view was breathtaking, but Sam felt the mud ooze around his boots and muttered a curse. Not mud again!

The blare of an automobile horn directly behind him startled him and he half turned. The mud was slippery and, for the second time in as many leaps, he landed flat on his face in the sticky stuff. Raising a filthy face, he saw a woman staring at him from the front seat of a silver Mercedes.

"Oh, dear," she said, "I hope I didn't cause that!"

Sam ground his teeth and muttered, "Oh, boy," in total frustration.

---

Back to the FanFiction Archive
Main Page