About time, p.13
About Time, page 13
The projection-booth door opened, the projectionist came out, saying, “That all today, Inspector?” and Ihren said yeah. The projectionist glanced at me, said, “Hi, Professor,” and left.
Ihren nodded. “Yeah, he knows you, Professor. He remembers you. Last week when he ran off this stuff for me, we came to the Bobby Jones film. He remarked that he’d run that on off for someone else only a few days before. I asked who it was, and he said a professor from the university named Weygand. Professor, we must be the only two people in the world interested in that one little strip of film. So I checked on you; you were an assistant professor of physics, brilliant and with a fine reputation, but that didn’t help me. You had no criminal record, not with us, anyway, but that didn’t tell me anything either; most people have no criminal record, and at least half of them ought to. Then I checked with the newspapers, and the Chronicle had a clipping about you filed in their morgue. Come on”—Ihren stood up—“let’s get out of here.”
Outside, he turned toward the Bay, and we walked to the end of the street, then out onto a wooden pier. A big tanker, her red-painted bottom high out of the water, was sailing past, but Ihren didn’t glance at her. He sat down on a piling, motioning me to another beside him, and pulled a newspaper clipping from his breast pocket. “According to this, you gave a talk before the American-Canadian Society of Physicists in June, 1961, at the Fairmont Hotel.”
“Is that a crime?”
“Maybe; I didn’t hear it. You spoke on ‘Some Physical Aspects of Time,’ the clipping says. But I don’t claim I understood the rest.”
“It was a pretty technical talk.”
“I got the idea, though, that you thought it might actually be possible to send a man back to an earlier time.”
I smiled. “Lots of people have thought so, including Einstein. It’s a widely held theory. But that’s all, Inspector; just a theory.”
“Then let’s talk about something that’s more than a theory. For over a year San Francisco has been a very good market for old-style currency; I just found that out. Every coin and stamp dealer in town has had new customers, odd ones who didn’t give their names and who didn’t care what condition the old money was in. The more worn, dirty and creased—and therefore cheaper—the better they liked it, in fact. One of these customers, about a year ago, was a man with a remarkably long thin face. He bought bills and a few coins; any kind at all suited him just as long as they were no later than 1885. Another customer was a young, good-looking, agreeable guy who wanted bills no later than the early 1900s. And so on. Do you know why I brought you out on this dock?”
“No.”
He gestured at the long stretch of empty pier behind us. “Because there’s no one within a block of us; no witnesses. So tell me, Professor—I can’t use what you say, uncorroborated, as evidence—how the hell did you do it? I think you’d like to tell someone; it might as well be me.”
Astonishingly, he was right; I did want to tell someone, very much. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I said, “I use a little black box with knobs on it, brass knobs.” I stopped, stared for a few seconds at a white Coast Guard cutter sliding into view from behind Angel Island, then shrugged and turned back to Ihren. “But you aren’t a physicist; how can I explain? All I can tell you is that it really is possible to send a man into an earlier time. Far easier, in fact, than any of the theorists had supposed. I adjust the knobs, the dials, focusing the black box on the subject like a camera, as it were. Then”—I shrugged again—“well, I switch on a very faint specialized kind of precisely directed electric current or beam. And while my current is on—how shall I put it? He is afloat, in a manner of speaking; he is actually free of time, which moves on ahead without him. I’ve calculated that he is adrift, the past catching up with him at a rate of twenty-three years and eleven weeks for each second my current is on. Using a stopwatch, I can send a man back to whatever time he wishes with a plus or minus accuracy of three weeks. I know it works because—well, Tom Veeley is only one example. They all try to do something to show me they arrived safely, and Veeley said he’d do his best to get into the newsreel shot when Jones won the Open Golf Championship. I checked the newsreel last week to make sure he had.”
The inspector nodded. “All right; now, why did you do it? They’re criminals, you know; and you helped them escape.”
I said, “No, I didn’t know they were criminals, Inspector. And they didn’t tell me. They just seemed like nice people with more troubles than they could handle. And I did it because I needed what a doctor needs when he discovers a new serum—volunteers to try it! And I got them; you’re not the only one who ever read that news report.”
“Where’d you do it?”
“Out on the beach not far from the Cliff House. Late at night when no one was around.”
“Why out there?”
“There’s some danger a man might appear in a time and place already occupied by something else, a stone wall or building, his molecules occupying the same space. He’d be all mixed in with the other molecules, which would be unpleasant and confining. But there’ve never been any buildings on the beach. Of course the beach might have been a little higher at one time than another, so I took no chances. I had each of them stand on the lifeguard tower, appropriately dressed for whatever time he planned to enter, and with the right kind of money for the period in his pocket. I’d focus carefully around him so as to exclude the tower, turn on the current for the proper time, and he’d drop onto the beach of fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty years ago.”
For a while the inspector sat nodding, staring absently at the rough planks of the pier. Then he looked up at me again, vigorously rubbing his palms together. “All right, Professor, and now you’re going to bring them all back!” I began shaking my head, and he smiled grimly and said, “Oh, yes, you are, or I’ll wreck your career! I can do it, you know. I’ll bring out everything I’ve told you, and I’ll show the connections. Each of the missing people visited you more than once. Undoubtedly some of them were seen. You may even have been seen on the beach. Time I’m through, you’ll never teach again.” I was still shaking my head, and he said dangerously, “You mean you won’t?”
“I mean I can’t, you idiot! How the hell can I reach them? They’re back in 1885, 1906, 1927, or whatever; it’s absolutely impossible to bring them back. They’ve escaped you, Inspector—forever.”
He actually turned white. “No!” he cried. “No; they’re criminals and they’ve got to be punished, got to be!”
I was astounded. “Why? None of them’s done any great harm. And as far as we’re concerned, they don’t exist. Forget them.”
He actually bared his teeth. “Never,” he whispered, then he roared, “I never forget a wanted man!”
“Okay, Javert.”
“Who?”
“A fictional policeman in a book called Les Misérables. He spent half his life hunting down a man no one else wanted any more.”
“Good man; like to have him in the department.”
“He’s not generally regarded too highly.”
“He is by me!” Inspector Ihren began slowly pounding his fist into his palm, muttering, “They’ve got to be punished, they’ve got to be punished,” then he looked up at me. “Get out of here,” he yelled, “fast!” and I was glad to, and did. A block away I looked back, and he was still sitting there on the dock slowly pounding his fist in his palm.
I thought I’d seen the last of him then but I hadn’t; I saw Inspector Ihren one more time. Late one evening about ten days later he phoned my apartment and asked me—ordered me—to come right over with my little black box, and I did even though I’d been getting ready for bed; he simply wasn’t a man you disobeyed lightly. When I walked up to the big dark Hall of Justice he was standing in the doorway, and without a word he nodded at a car at the curb. We got in, and drove in silence out to a quiet little residential district.
The streets were empty, the houses dark; it was close to midnight. We parked just within range of a corner street light, and Ihren said, “I’ve been doing some thinking since I saw you last, and some research.” He pointed to a mailbox beside the street lamp on the corner a dozen feet ahead. “That’s one of the three mailboxes in the city of San Francisco that has been in the same location for almost ninety years. Not that identical box, of course, but always that location. And now we’re going to mail some letters.” From his coat pocket, Inspector Ihren brought out a little sheaf of envelopes, addressed in pen and ink, and stamped for mailing. He showed me the top one, shoving the others into his pocket. “You see who this is for?”
“The chief of police.”
“That’s right; the San Francisco chief of police—in 1885! That’s his name, address, and the kind of stamp they used then. I’m going to walk to the mailbox on the corner, and hold this in the slot. You’ll focus your little black box on the envelope, turn on the current as I let it go, and it will drop into the mailbox that stood here in 1885!”
I shook my head admiringly; it was ingenious. “And what does the letter say?”
He grinned evilly. “I’ll tell you what it says! Every spare moment I’ve had since I last saw you, I’ve been reading old newspapers at the library. In December, 1884, there was a robbery, several thousand dollars missing; there isn’t a word in the paper for months afterward that it was ever solved.” He held up the envelope. “Well, this letter suggests to the chief of police that they investigate a man they’ll find working in Haring’s Restaurant, a man with an unusually long thin face. And that if they search his room, they’ll probably find several thousand dollars he can’t account for. And that he will absolutely not have an alibi for the robbery in 1884!” The Inspector smiled, if you could call it a smile. “That’s all they’ll need to send him to San Quentin, and mark the case closed; they didn’t pamper criminals in those days!”
My jaw was hanging open. “But he isn’t guilty! Not of that crime!”
“He’s guilty of another just about like it! And he’s got to be punished; I will not let him escape, not even to 1885!”
“And the other letters?”
“You can guess. There’s one for each of the men you helped get away, addressed to the police of the proper time and place. And you’re going to help me mail them all, one by one. If you don’t I’ll ruin you, and that’s a promise, Professor.” He opened his door, stepped out, and walked to the corner without even glancing back.
I suppose there are those who will say I should have refused to use my little black box no matter what the consequences to me. Well, maybe I should have, but I didn’t. The inspector meant what he said and I knew it, and I wasn’t going to have the only career I ever had or wanted be ruined. I did the best I could; I begged and pleaded. I got out of the car with my box; the inspector stood waiting at the mailbox. “Please don’t make me do this,” I said. “Please! There’s no need! You haven’t told anyone else about this, have you?”
“Of course not; I’d be laughed off the force.”
“Then forget it! Why hound these poor people? They haven’t done so much; they haven’t really hurt anyone. Be humane! Forgiving! Your ideas are at complete odds with modern conceptions of criminal rehabilitation!”
I stopped for breath, and he said, “You through, Professor? I hope so, because nothing will ever change my mind. Now, go ahead and use that damn box!” Hopelessly I shrugged, and began adjusting the dials.
I am sure that the most baffling case the San Francisco Bureau of Missing Persons ever had will never be solved. Only two people—Inspector Ihren and I—know the answer, and we’re not going to tell. For a short time there was a clue someone might have stumbled onto, but I found it. It was in the rare photographs section of the public library; they’ve got hundreds of old San Francisco pictures, and I went through them all and found this one. Then I stole it; one more crime added to the list I was guilty of hardly mattered.
Every once in a while I get it out, and look at it; it shows a row of uniformed men lined up in formation before a San Francisco police station. In a way it reminds me of an old movie comedy because each of them wears a tall helmet of felt with a broad turn-down brim, and long uniform coats to the knees. Nearly every one of them wears a drooping mustache, and each holds a long nightstick poised at the shoulder as though ready to bring it down on Chester Conklin’s head. Keystone Kops they look like at first glance, but study those faces closely and you change your mind about that. Look especially close at the face of the man at the very end of the row, wearing sergeant’s stripes. It looks positively and permanently ferocious, glaring out (or so it always seems) directly at me. It is the implacable face of Martin O. Ihren of the San Francisco police force, back where he really belongs, back where I sent him with my little black box, in the year 1893.
I’m Scared
* * *
I’m very badly scared, not so much for myself—I’m a gray-haired man of sixty-six, after all—but for you and everyone else who has not yet lived out his life. For I believe that certain dangerous things have recently begun to happen in the world. They are noticed here and there, idly discussed, then dismissed and forgotten. Yet I am convinced that unless these occurrences are recognized for what they are, the world will be plunged into a nightmare. Judge for yourself.
One evening last winter I came home from a chess club to which I belong. I’m a widower; I live alone in a small but comfortable three-room apartment overlooking lower Fifth Avenue. It was still fairly early, and I switched on a lamp beside my leather easy chair, picked up a murder mystery I’d been reading, and turned on the radio; I did not, I’m sorry to say, notice which station it was tuned to.
The tubes warmed, and the music of an accordion—faint at first, then louder—came from the loud-speaker. Since it was good music for reading, I adjusted the volume control and began to read.
Now, I want to be absolutely factual and accurate about this, and I do not claim that I paid close attention to the radio. But I do know that presently the music stopped, and an audience applauded. Then a man’s voice, chuckling and pleased with the applause, said, “All right, all right,” but the applause continued for several more seconds. During that time the voice once more chuckled appreciatively, then firmly repeated, “All right,” and the applause died down. “That was Alec Somebody-or-other,” the radio voice said, and I went back to my book.
But I soon became aware of this middle-aged voice again; perhaps a change of tone as he turned to a new subject caught my attention. “And now, Miss Ruth Greeley,” he was saying, “of Trenton, New Jersey. Miss Greeley is a pianist; that right?” A girl’s voice, timid and barely audible, said, “That’s right, Major Bowes.” The man’s voice—and now I recognized his familiar singsong delivery—said, “And what are you going to play?” The girl replied, “La Paloma.” The man repeated it after her, as an announcement: “La Paloma.” There was a pause, then an introductory chord sounded from a piano, and I resumed my reading.
As the girl played, I was half aware that her style was mechanical, her rhythm defective; perhaps she was nervous. Then my attention was fully aroused once more by a gong which sounded suddenly. For a few notes more the girl continued to play falteringly, not sure what to do. The gong sounded jarringly again, the playing abruptly stopped, and there was a restless murmur from the audience. “All right, all right,” said the now familiar voice, and I realized I’d been expecting this, knowing it would say just that. The audience quieted, and the voice began, “Now——”
The radio went dead. For the smallest fraction of a second no sound issued from it but its own mechanical hum. Then a completely different program came from the loudspeaker; the recorded voice of Andy Williams singing, “You Butterfly,” a favorite of mine. So I returned once more to my reading, wondering vaguely what had happened to the other program, but not actually thinking about it until I finished my book and began to get ready for bed.
Then, undressing in my bedroom, I remembered that Major Bowes was dead. Years had passed, a decade, since that dry chuckle and familiar, “All right, all right,” had been heard in the nation’s living rooms.
Well, what does one do when the apparently impossible occurs? It simply made a good story to tell friends, and more than once I was asked if I’d recently heard Moran and Mack, a pair of radio comedians popular some thirty years ago, or Floyd Gibbons, an old-time news broadcaster. And there were other joking references to my crystal radio set.
But one man—this was at a lodge meeting the following Thursday—listened to my story with utter seriousness, and when I had finished he told me a queer little story of his own. He is a thoughtful, intelligent man, and as I listened I was not frightened, but puzzled at what seemed to be a connecting link, a common denominator, between this story and the odd behavior of my radio. The following day, since I am retired and have plenty of time, I took the trouble of making a two-hour train trip to Connecticut in order to verify the story at firsthand. I took detailed notes, and the story appears in my files now as follows:
Case 2. Louis Trachnor, coal and wood dealer, R.F.D. 1, Danbury, Connecticut, aged fifty-four.
On July 20, 1956, Mr. Trachnor told me, he walked out on the front porch of his house about six o’clock in the morning. Running from the eaves of his house to the floor of the porch was a streak of gray paint, still damp. “It was about the width of an eight-inch brush,” Mr. Trachnor told me, “and it looked like hell, because the house was white. I figured some kids did it in the night for a joke, but if they did, they had to get a ladder up to the eaves and you wouldn’t figure they’d go to that much trouble. It wasn’t smeared, either; it was a careful job, a nice even stripe straight down the front of the house.”
Mr. Trachnor got a ladder and cleaned off the gray paint with turpentine.
In October of that same year, Mr. Trachnor painted his house. “The white hadn’t held up so good, so I painted it gray. I got to the front last and finished about five one Saturday afternoon. Next morning when I came out, I saw a streak of white right down the front of the house. I figured it was the damned kids again, because it was the same place as before. But when I looked close, I saw it wasn’t new paint; it was the old white I’d painted over. Somebody had done a nice careful job of cleaning off the new paint in a long stripe about eight inches wide right down from the eaves! Now, who the hell would go to that trouble? I just can’t figure it out.”
