Eddies: The Private Inquiry Agent

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

Manson Everard follows a trail back through time.

Starting Point

After graduating from the Time Patrol Academy in the American Oligocene, Everard returns to the hour of his recruitment, to be congratulated by his recruiter. Now a special consultant to Engineering Studies Co on fifteen thousand a year, he reads a dozen papers a day for indications of time travel, having been taught how to spot such indications.

The Trail

(i) A collection of Victorian and Edwardian stories mentions "...a tragedy at Addleton and the singular contents of an ancient British barrow." (p. 18)

(ii) According to the London Times of June, 1894: at Addleton in Kent, Lord Wyndham, having excavated a barrow on his Jacobean estate, fell ill and died after opening a chest found in the barrow. Scotland Yard arrested his companion and relative, James Rotherhithe, on suspicion that Rotherhithe had poisoned Wyndham. A private detective engaged by Rotherhithe's family proved by reasoning and animal tests that a "'deadly emanation'" (p. 19) from the chest had killed Wyndham.

(iii) In 1894, Mainwethering of the Patrol tells Everard and Whitcomb of "'...a private inquiry agent...'" (p. 21) who "'...operates on the principle that when one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'" (p. 22) Everard surmises that this is the man who will solve the Addleton case.

(iv) On the Wyndham estate, Everard and Whitcomb see the private agent who is "...tall, thin, hawkfaced, and accompanied by a burly, mustached fellow with a limp who seemed a kind of amanuensis." (p. 25) The amanuensis is the author of the Victorian and Edwardian stories read by Everard in 1954.

(v) Everard recognizes the ingots in the chest as radioactive but, questioned by the private detective, has to say that he has heard of a similar-looking poisonous ore in American Indian territory, thus starting the detective towards his discovery of the "deadly emanation." (p. 19) He already had three conclusive lines of proof of Rotherhithe's innocence but had yet to explain Wyndham's death.

(vi) The detective theorizes further that the Phoenicians crossed the Atlantic and "'...that there are Chaldean elements in the Cornish language...'" (p. 27) And I am fairly sure that that linguistic speculation is also present in the Victorian and Edwardian stories read by Everard.