by Various
I got into the chair and read the typewritten directions. They were absurdly simple. But I read them again and then put the paper in my pocket.
Now, where would I go?
I studied the controls.
Yes. I had it. The New Year's Eve party at the Lowells. Diana had disappeared at ten-thirty and I hadn't seen her again until two A.M. of 1960. She had never given me a satisfactory explanation for her absence.
I adjusted the time control and the direction knob. I did not know the exact distance to the Lowells from this point, but I would use the fine tuner directly under the mileage dial once I got underway.
I hesitated a moment, took a deep breath, and then pressed the red button.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
I frowned and pressed the button again.
Nothing.
I took the slip out of my pocket and feverishly reviewed the directions. I had committed no errors.
And then I knew! The entire thing had been a hoax!
I leaped out of the chair and rushed to the door.
It was locked.
I pounded with my fists and called Henry's name. I cursed and shrieked until my voice was hoarse.
The door remained closed.
I managed to get some control over myself and darted to the time machine. I wrenched loose a section of the chair piping and returned to the door.
The piece of pipe was aluminum and fiendishly light and malleable. It took me more than forty-five minutes before I managed to force the pins out of the door hinges and get out of the room.
I found an envelope under the windshield wiper of my car and tore it open.
The typewritten pages were, of course, intended for me.
My dear Mr. Reeves:
Yes, you have been thoroughly hoaxed. There is no such a thing as a time machine.
I suppose I could leave it at that and allow you to go mad attempting to arrive at some reasonable explanation, but I shall not. I am quite proud of my little project and would like the attention of a truly appreciative audience.
I think you will do nicely.
How did I manage to know those interesting details of your last four murders?
I was there.
Not in the time machine, of course.
You are undoubtedly aware that it was not your urbanity, your charm, which attracted Diana to your hearth. She married you for your money - of which you gave indications of having a lot.
But you were extremely reticent about the extent and source of your wealth - an evasion which unquestionably can drive a woman to desperate curiosity. Especially a woman like Diana.
She had you followed and for the purpose employed a detective agency. Shippler, I believe the name was. They are quite thorough and I recommend them highly.
It was indeed fortunate for you - and certainly now for Diana and me - that you did not choose that particular time to commit one of your murders. But it was during one of your periods of unemployment and you were not followed for long. A week.
The reports concerning your activities were mundane, but Diana did fasten on one particular repeated detail they contained. And details are so important.
Every day you went to a rented box at the main post office.
Now why would you want a private box? Diana wondered. After all, you do have a home address and that should be sufficient for ordinary mail. Ordinary mail. That was it. This wasn't for ordinary mail.
It was child's play for Diana to get an impression of your box key while you slept and to have a duplicate made, for her use.
She made it a practice to go to your post office box each morning - you go there in the afternoon. Whenever she found a letter, she removed it, steamed it open, read the contents, and returned it to the box in plenty of time for you to pick it up the same day.
And so you see it was possible for her to know the details of your negotiations to murder, when the murders were scheduled to be committed and the places where they were to occur. And that made it possible for me to be there early, conceal myself, and watch you work.
Yes, we've known each other for some time - meeting discreetly - very discreetly. Diana remembers a Terence Reilly and his sudden disappearance. And as an added precaution - since we were on the verge of acquiring a quarter of a million dollars and wanted nothing to prevent that - we have not seen each other for almost a month.
Our original plan had been only blackmail. But again the question of danger arose. How long could I blackmail you and get away with it?
And so we determined to strike once and get all of your money.
At the moment you are reading this, Diana and I are increasing the distance between you and us. The world is a large place, Mr. Reeves, and I do not think you will find us. Not without a time machine.
And how did I manage that time machine?
It was an elaborate hoax, Mr. Reeves, but with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at stake, one can afford to be elaborate.
When you left me alone with my time machine ten days ago, Mr. Reeves, I turned on two devices concealed above the room. One created noise and the other created wind.
And then I quickly folded the time machine.
You have no doubt by now noticed that it is extremely light. And if you will look again, you will discover that there are a number of concealed hinges which allow one to fold it into a compact shape.
Then I removed the grate of one of the "ventilators," pushed the collapsed machine through into the small cubicle behind the wall, followed into the cubicle myself, and pulled the grating back into place behind me.
I watched as you re-entered the room, Mr. Reeves, and I allowed you only thirty seconds of astonishment before I turned on the noise and wind machines again. I did not want you to collect your wits and examine the room.
When you left, I simply crawled out of my hiding place and unfolded my machine.
I think that was rather ingenious, don't you?
But you say that is impossible? There is no hiding place for the time machine - even folded - and for me?
The room is absolutely solid? You have examined it yourself and you would stake your life on it?
You are right, Mr. Reeves. There is no hiding place here, The room is solid.
But you see, Mr. Reeves, there are two garages.
The first one, to which I took you blindfolded, is in reality located several miles from here. It is the same type of building - a standard brand erected by the thousands in this area - and I took great pains to make it an exact duplicate of the one you are in now - even to the position of the tools lying on the bench, the ladder against the wall.
The two garages are identical - with some exceptions. The time machine room in one of them is slightly smaller - to allow for the hiding place - and the noise and wind machines are installed under the eaves. As for the ventilators, with the exception of the one I used to enter my hiding place, they are actually blowers.
After I drove you back to your apartment, I returned, packed my time machine, took the license plates off the wall, and brought them here.
Those license plates?
You are a clever man, Mr. Reeves. I grant that and I have taken advantage of that cleverness. I nailed them to a conspicuous place on the wall with the express hope that you would utilize them to track me down - but to this place.
I wanted you to examine this garage. I wanted you to be absolutely satisfied that the time machine had to be genuine. I was in a neighboring lot watching you after I had turned out the house lights.
I am, of course, not Henry Pruitt. The license plates belonged to the former tenant of the house.
Nevertheless, for the purposes of this letter, I remain, most gratefully,
Your servant,
Henry Pruitt.
I tore the letter to bits and snatched a peen hammer from the workbench.
As I smashed the time machine to smithereens, I couldn't help the horrible thought that perhaps someone, in a real time m
achine, might at that very moment be in the room watching me.
And laughing.
Unquestionably, gentlemen have a place in the mystery stories of my fine publication. For one thing, their correct behavior can be something of an irritant. And sometimes - ever mindful to do the right thing - they turn to murder.
* * *
HOMICIDE AND GENTLEMEN
BY FLETCHER FLORA
Lieutenant Joseph Marcus walked past the ninth hole, par-four, with a fine official disregard of the green. It wasn't quite disregard, however, for there was in his performance a degree of deliberate malice that expressed itself by a digging-in of the heels and a scuffing of the toes. Lieutenant Marcus, who had been a poor boy and was still a poor man, felt an unreasonable animus for the game of golf and a modest contempt, in spite of certain famous devotees, for the folk who played it. He was by nature gentle and tolerant, though, and he was faintly ashamed of his feeling and its expression of petty vandalism.
With Sergeant Bobo Fuller at his side, although a half step to the rear, he descended from the green on a gentle slope and moved rapidly across clipped grass toward a place where the ground dipped suddenly to form a rather steep bank. Sergeant Fuller, whose name was really something besides Bobo that almost everyone had forgotten, did not lag the half step because he found it impossible to stay abreast. Neither did he lag as a pretty deference to rank. Sergeant Fuller did not give a damn about rank, to tell the truth. He didn't give a damn about Lieutenant Marcus either, and that was why he maintained the half step interval. He considered Marcus a self-made snob who read books and put on airs, and the interval was subtle evidence of a dislike of which the sergeant was rather proud and the lieutenant was vaguely aware.
Going over the lip of the bank, Marcus dug in his heels again, this time with the perfectly valid purpose of retarding his descent. At the bottom he was on level ground that again tilted, after a bit, into a gentle slope. Fifty yards ahead was a small lake glittering in the morning sunlight. Between Marcus and the lake, somewhat nearer to him and almost in the shade of a distinguished and gnarled oak, was a group composed of four men and a boy. The boy was holding, in one hand, a fishing rod with a spinning reel attached; in the other, a small green tackle box. Two of the four men were uniformed policemen who had been dispatched from police headquarters to maintain the status quo for Marcus, who had not been on hand at the time, and a third was, as it turned out, a caretaker who had walked into a diversion on his way to work across the course. The fourth man was lying on his face on the grass, his head pointed in the direction of the bank behind Marcus, and Fuller, and he was, Marcus had been assured, dead. That was, in fact, why Marcus and Fuller were there. They were there because the man on the grass was dead in a manner and place considered suspicious by public authorities hired to consider such things, which included Marcus, who also secretly considered the whole development something of an imposition.
Speaking to the pair of policemen, with the air of abstraction that had contributed to his reputation for snobbishness, he knelt beside the body to make an examination that he felt certain would yield nothing of any particular significance. This pessimistic approach was natural to him, and he was always surprised when things turned out better than he had hoped or expected. Well, the man was dead, of course. He had been shot, Apparently in the heart, by what appeared to have been a small caliber gun. From the condition of the body, he judged that the shooting had occurred not many hours earlier, for rigor mortis was not advanced. These things were always hedged about by qualifications, however, and it was doubtful that the so-called estimate of the coroner, who was presumably on the way, would be much closer to the truth than Marcus's guess. Sometime between was the way Marcus expressed it somewhat bitterly to himself. Between midnight, say, and dawn.
Still with the irrational feeling of being imposed upon, Marcus made other observations and guesses. Age, thirty to thirty-five. Height, about five-eleven. Weight, give or take ten pounds on either side of one-seventy. Hair, light brown and crew cut. Eyes, open and blind and blue. White shirt, blood stained. Narrow tie, striped with two shades of brown, and summer worsted trousers, also brown. Brown socks, brown shoes. Lying on the grass, about five paces away, a jacket to match the pants. In the right side pocket of the pants, coins amounting to the sum of one dollar and twenty-three cents. Also a tiny gold pen knife. In the left hip pocket, buttoned in, a wallet. In the wallet, besides eighteen dollars in bills, several identifying items, including a driver's license and a membership card in Blue Cross-Blue Shield. Well, Marcus thought, they won't have to pay off on this one. According to both the license and the membership card, the dead man was someone named Alexander Gray. With all items officially appropriated and in his own jacket pocket, Marcus walked over to the brown jacket on the grass and found nothing in it. Nothing at all.
"Who found the body?" he asked of whoever wanted to answer.
"The kid found him," one of the policemen said.
Marcus turned to the boy, about twelve from the looks of him, who still held the rod and reel and tackle box as if he feared that they, too, might be appropriated. Marcus had no such intention, of course, but he wished he could borrow them and spend the day using them instead of doing what he had to do. Marcus liked kids, but he seldom showed it. It was his misfortune that he seldom showed anything, and much of the little he did show was a kind of characteristic distortion of what he actually thought and felt.
"What's your name, sonny?" he said.
"William Peyton Hausler," the boy said.
It was obvious that he was stating his name fully in an attempt to secure a status, however limited by his minority, that would establish his innocence and insure the respectful treatment to which he was entitled.
"You live around here?"
"On the street over there, the other side of the golf course." He gestured with the hand holding the rod and reel to indicate the direction.
"Looks like you're going fishing."
"Yes, sir. In the lake."
"You fish here often?"
"Pretty often. The manager of the club said it was all right."
"It doesn't look like much of a lake. Any fish in it?"
"It's stocked. Crappie and bass, mostly. Club members fish in it. I'm not a member - my dad isn't - but the manager said it was all right for me to fish."
"What time was it when you found the body?"
"I don't know exactly. It hadn't been light long. About six-thirty, I guess. I wanted to get to the lake early because the fish bite better then."
"That's what I hear. Early morning and late evening. What'd you do when you found the body?"
"Nothing much. I walked up close to it, and I spoke a couple of times to see if there'd be any answer, but there wasn't, and I was pretty scared because I could tell something was wrong, and just then Mr. Tompkins came along."
"You touch anything at all?"
"No, sir. Not a thing."
"Who's Mr. Tompkins?"
"This is him. He's one of the caretakers."
"Okay. Thanks, sonny. You better go and see if you can still catch some fish."
The boy went on down the gentle slope to the little lake, and Marcus turned to Tompkins, who was a leathery-looking man who appeared to be in his sixties. He was dressed in faded twill pants and a blue work shirt of heavy material like the ones that Marcus had worn with roomy bib overalls as a kid.
"Is that right?" Marcus said. "What the kid told me?"
"I guess so. Far as I know. When I got here, he was just standing and staring at the body. He looked scared."
"No wonder. Kids don't find a body every day. What'd you do?"
"I looked at the body, not touching it, and I could see a little blood where it had seeped out in the grass. I told the kid to stay and watch things while I hustled up to the Club House to call the police."
"The Club House open that early in the morning?"
"No. There's a phone booth on the back terrace. I happened to h
ave a dime."
"Lucky you did. I usually don't. After you called the police, did you come back here and wait?"
"That's right. Just came back and waited with the kid and didn't bother anything."
"Good. You did just right. I don't suppose you know this guy?"
"The dead man, you mean? I never saw him before."
"All right. You might as well go on to work." Marcus turned away to a uniform. "You go up to the Club House and bring the manager down here. You can tell him what's happened if he's curious."
The caretaker and the policeman went off in different directions, one toward the Club House and the other, presumably, toward whatever building sheltered the equipment for taking care, and Marcus began to prowl slowly the area around the body. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, just anything he could find, and he found nothing. No significant marks in the clipped grass growing from hard earth. No small item conveniently dropped that might later point to a place or person. Not even, he thought bitterly, a lousy cigarette butt.
The brown jacket bothered him. Why the hell had the dead man taken it off? Before he was dead, of course. And why had he left it lying on the ground five yards or so from where he had walked to be killed? Unless he had been moved after being killed, which didn't seem probable. And why, for that matter, had he been here on the golf course at all? A golf course did not seem to Marcus to be a likely place to be in the hours between midnight and dawn, sometime between, but then a golf course did not seem to Marcus a likely place to be at any time whatever, unless you came, like the kid, to fish in a lake or to lie on the grass under a tree and wish that you were something besides what you had become.
Fuller, watching Marcus, was tempted to ask him what he was looking for, but he resisted the temptation. Anyhow, quite correctly, he guessed that Marcus didn't know himself, and he was determined to avoid giving, in front of the uniform, the impression of a dumb cop appealing to his superior for enlightenment. Marcus was already, in Fuller's opinion, sufficiently overrated at headquarters. As it turned out, after a few minutes, the appeal went the other way, but it was no triumph for Fuller, after all, for it only forced him to admit what he had hoped to conceal.
