(urth) Nicholas timing and trunk, etc

[Roy C. Lackey]

Mo Holkar wrote:
> Another thing: Bax speaks with Nick on 279 while he's packing the car
> to leave for Martha and the Strip, so you'd think Nick would have
> mentioned then that there was a recaptured vampire butler in the
> trunk. He may have had sorcerous reasons for not doing so, but I
> can't think of any.

Neither can I. But he seems to be notorious within his family for staying
out of his children's disputes. In their earlier conversation, Nick told Bax
that he (Nick) was just a "thing" that had never even been born (256),
something like a living tool in the service of the master (or owner) of the
house, a thing grown in a "trough" (258). Rather than get distracted here by
the veracity or implications of Nick's claims, I will just point out that
Bax asked Nick to serve George as well. Nick agreed and said, "I shall
assist him to the best of my ability, provided that his interests do not
conflict with your own." (256)

This may explain why, in the letter addressed to George about the river
battle, Bax said that he knew that it was really their father ("as Nick, my
elderly butler" ), not George, who had found and cornered Nicholas (286). If
George had asked Nick to help him find Nicholas, Nick would probably have
done it. I can think of no reason why getting Nicholas back in the trunk
would have been contrary to Bax's interests. George might even have asked
Nick not to mention it unless asked.

> >But even if these objections could be waved away, that doesn't address
the
> >issue of *when* Nicholas was found and put in the trunk. Worse, where was
> >Bax while Doris and Orizia and George and Nick were searching his house?
> >Where was he when Nicholas was put in the trunk of the car?
>
>
> I think it would have to have been during the otherwise-event-free
> night between Bax and Kate's search for George, which ends at dinner
> time (270), and Bax's phone call with Martha, which is in the morning
> (276). This would mean Bax was incorrect to say George was still in
> jail at the point of that phone call; but that's not a problem, as he
> would have had no way of knowing.

That stinks. Not your reasoning, but the void in the narrative. We don't
know for sure that Bax had dinner with Kate; just that she offered to buy.
But it was definitely well after noon when they finished searching the house
and she learned that George had been picked up. Bax had walked to the diner
where they had lunch, so Kate must have driven there in her car. After they
searched the house they looked at his car and the trunk. If they did have
dinner somewhere, they would have taken her car. Bax would have come back
home to write the letter about the search with Kate.

Next thing we know, Bax is writing the letter about the phone call from
Martha and the river battle. That, of course, was written in the wake of the
battle. So there is really no way to tell how much time passed between
Kate's search and Martha's phone call. Even if we assume just the one night
between those events, where was Bax when Doris came to the house?

That house scared the hell out of her, as she makes plain. Bax even said
that she was willing to help search it for George, but only in his company
(260). She went to the house for just one reason -- to make up with Bax. Yet
she got drafted into searching for a vampire while Bax was out somewhere
with Kate? Or Bax was home writing the letter about their search of the
house that day? Something isn't right.

-Roy