Time Travel Omnibus, page 116
Mr. Strenberry shut his eyes, put his hands up to them, and leaned forward on his elbows. In the quiet that followed, I could hear two fellows laughing in the bar outside. They were shouting something about a litter of pigs.
“He was a lightish greeny-blue in colour, this man,” Mr. Strenberry continued, “and the same all over. He’d no clothes on, but I got the idea that he’d a very tough skin, leathery, y’know. It shone a bit too. He’d no hair on him at all, and didn’t look as if he’d shaved it all off but as if he’d never had any. He was bigger than me, bigger than you, but no giant. I should say he was about the size and figure of one of your big heavyweight boxers—except for his head. He’d a tremendous head—and of course as bald as an egg—and a wonderful face. I can see it now. It was flattish, like some of the faces of the Egyptian statues in the British Museum, but what you noticed the minute you saw it, were the eyes. They were more like a beautiful woman’s eyes than a man’s, very big and soft, y’know, but bigger and softer than any woman’s eyes—and such a colour, a kind of dark purple. Full of intelligence too. Blazing with it, I knew that at once. In fact, I could see that this man was as far above me as I am above a Hottentot. More highly developed, y’know. I’m not saying this because of what I learned afterwards. I saw it at once. You couldn’t mistake it. This greeny-blue hairless man knew a million things we’d never heard of, and you could see it in his eyes. Well, there he was, and he stared at me and I stared at him.”
“Go on,” I said, for Mr. Strenberry had stopped and was now busy staring at me.
“This is the part you’ve got to try and understand,” he cried, excitedly. “You see, this queer revolving cylinder of air was between us, and if it had been glass two feet thick it couldn’t have separated us any better. I couldn’t get at him. I don’t say I tried very hard at first; I was too surprised and frightened. But I did try to get nearer after a minute or two, but I couldn’t, and I can’t possibly explain to you—no, not if I tried for a week—how I was stopped. Call it a transparent wall, if you like, but that doesn’t give you the idea of it. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter about me. The point is, he couldn’t get out, and he obviously knew more about it than I did and he was trying desperately hard. He’d got some sort of little instrument in each hand—I could see them flash—and he kept bringing these together. He was terribly agitated. But he couldn’t get out. He’d stopped the inside of this column revolving, as I said, but apparently he couldn’t stop the outside, which was whirling and whirling just as fast as ever.
“I’ve asked myself thousands of times,” Mr. Strenberry went on more reflectively now, “what would have happened if he had got out. Would he have ruled the whole world, knowing so much more than we do? Or would these fools have shoved him into a cage, made a show of him, and finally killed him? Though I don’t imagine they could have done that, not with this man. And then again, could he have existed at all once he had got out? I don’t mean just microbes and things, though they might easily have killed him off, because I don’t suppose his body knew anything about such a germ-ridden atmosphere as ours. No, I don’t mean that. This is the point. If he’d got out, really burst into this twentieth-century world, he might have stopped existing at all, just vanished into nothing, because after all this twentieth-century isn’t just a date, it’s also a condition, a state of things, and—you see—it doesn’t include him. Though, of course, in a sense it does—or it did—because there he was, on the Heath that day.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow all this,” I said. “But go on, perhaps it will become clearer.”
Mr. Strenberry leaned forward and fixed me with his little boiled eyes. “Don’t you see, this man had come from the future? Fellows like H.G. Wells have always been writing about us taking a jump into the future, to have a look at our distant descendants, but of course we don’t. We can’t; we don’t know enough. But what about them, taking a jump into the past, to have a look at us? That’s far more likely, when you come to think of it. But I don’t mean that is what this man was doing. He was trying to do more than that. If you ask me, they’d often taken a peep at us, and at our great-great-grandparents, and for that matter at our great-great-grandchildren too. But he wasn’t just doing that. He was trying to get out, to escape from his own time altogether.”
I drew in a long breath, then blew it out again, slowly.
“Don’t you think I’m merely guessing that,” cried Mr. Strenberry, “because I’m not. I know. And I know because he told me. I don’t mean to say we talked. As a matter of fact, I did try shouting at him—asking him who he was and where he’d come from, and all that—but I don’t think he heard me, and if he did, he certainly didn’t understand. But don’t make any mistake—he saw me all right. He looked at me just as I looked at him. He made a sign or two, and might have made more if he hadn’t been so busy with those instruments and so desperately agitated. He didn’t shout at me, never opened his lips. But he thought at me. That’s the only way I can describe it. Messages from him arrived in my head, and turned themselves into my own words, and even little pictures. And it was horrible—horrible, I tell you. Everything was finished, and he was trying to escape. The only way he could do it was to try and jump back into the past, out of the way. There wasn’t much of the world left, fit to live in. Just one biggish island, not belonging to any of the continents we know—they’d all gone, long ago. I don’t know the date. That never came through, and if it had, I don’t suppose it would have told me much. But it was a long time ahead—perhaps twenty thousand years, perhaps fifty thousand, perhaps more—I don’t know. What I do know is that this man wasn’t anybody very important, just a sort of minor assistant in some kind of laboratory where they specialized in time experiments, quite a low-class fellow among his own kind, though he would have seemed a demigod to me and you. And I knew that while he was so terrified that he was frantic in his attempt to escape, at the same time he was ashamed of himself, too—felt he was a kind of dodger, you see. But even then, what was happening was so ghastly that he’d never hesitated at all. He had run to the laboratory or whatever it was, and just had time to jump back through the ages. He was in terror. He didn’t show it as we might, but I tell you—his mind was screaming. Some place—a city, I think it was—had been entirely destroyed and everything else was going too, everything that had once been human. No words came into my mind to describe what it was that was destroying everything and terrifying him. Perhaps I hadn’t any words that would fit in. All I got were some little pictures, very blurred, just like bits of a nightmare. There were great black things rolling about, just wiping everything out. Not like anything you’ve ever seen. You couldn’t give them a shape.”
Here Mr. Strenberry leaned further forward still, grasped my coat-sleeve, and lowered his voice.
“They weren’t beasts or huge insects even,” he whispered. “They weren’t anything you could put a name to. I don’t believe they belonged to this world at all. And something he thought rather suggested that too. They came from some other place, from another planet perhaps. Don’t you see, it was all finished here. They were blotting it out, great rolling black things—oh, horrible! Just imagine what he felt, this man, who had just managed to escape from them, but now couldn’t get out, into this world and time of ours. Because he couldn’t, that was the awful thing. He tried and tried, but it couldn’t be done. And he hadn’t long to try either, I knew that. Because of what was happening at the other end, you see. I tell you, I stood there, looking at him, with his thoughts buzzing round my own head, and the sweat was streaming down my face. I was terrified too, in a panic. And then he was in an agony of fear, and so was I. It was all up. The inside of that column of air began revolving again, just as it had done when it first came, and then I couldn’t see him distinctly. Only his eyes. Just those eyes, staring out of the swirl. And then, I saw something. I swear I did. Something black. Just a glimpse. That’s all. A bit of one of those things, getting hold of him—the last man left. That’s what it must have been, though how I came to see it, I don’t quite know, but I’ve worked it out this way and that way, and it seems to me——”
“A-ha, who have we here?” cried a loud, cheerful voice. “How’s things, Mr. Strenberry?”
Two red-faced men had just entered the room. They grinned at my companion, then winked at one another.
“A nasty day, Mr. Strenberry,” said the other fellow. “What do you say?”
Mr. Strenberry, who appeared to have crumpled up at their approach, merely muttered something in reply. Then, giving me a hasty glance, in which shame and despair and scorn were mingled, he suddenly rose and shuffled out of the room.
The two newcomers looked at one another, laughed, and then settled into their comer. The landlady appeared with their drinks. I stood up and looked out of the window. The downpour had dwindled to a few scattered drops, brightening in the sunlight.
“I seen you talking to Mr. Strenberry,” the landlady said to me. “Least, I seen him talking to you. Got him going, too, you did. He’s a queer one, isn’t he? Didn’t I tell you he was a queer one? Telling you one of his tales, I’ll be bound. Take no notice of him, mister. You can’t believe a single word he says. We found that out long since. That’s why he doesn’t want to talk to us any more. He knows we’ve got a pinch of salt ready, Mr. Strenberry does.”
THE THIEF OF TIME
Captain S.P. Meek
“That man never entered and stole that money as the picture shows, unless he managed to make himself invisible.”
HARVEY WINSTON, paying teller of the First National Bank of Chicago, stripped the band from a bundle of twenty dollar bills, counted out seventeen of them and added them to the pile on the counter before him.
“Twelve hundred and thirtyone tens,” he read from the payroll change slip before him. The paymaster of the Cramer Packing Company nodded an assent and Winston turned to the stacked bills in his rear currency rack. He picked up a handful of bundles and turned back to the grill. His gaze swept the counter where, a moment before, he had stacked the twenties, and his jaw dropped.
“You got those twenties, Mr. Trier?” he asked.
“Got them? Of course not, how could I?” replied the paymaster. “There they are . . .”
His voice trailed off into nothingness as he looked at the empty counter.
“I must have dropped them,” said Winston as he turned. He glanced back at the rear rack where his main stock of currency was piled. He stood paralyzed for a moment and then reached under the counter and pushed a button.
The bank resounded instantly to the clangor of gongs and huge steel grills shot into place with a clang, sealing all doors and preventing anyone from entering or leaving the bank. The guards sprang to their stations with drawn weapons and from the inner offices the bank officials came swarming out. The cashier, followed by two men, hurried to the paying teller’s cage.
“What is it, Mr. Winston?” he cried.
“I’ve been robbed!” gasped the teller.
“Who by? How?” demanded the cashier.
“I—I don’t know, sir,” stammered the teller. “I was counting out Mr. Trier’s payroll, and after I had stacked the twenties I turned to get the tens. When I turned back the twenties were gone.”
“Where had they gone?” asked the cashier.
“I don’t know, sir. Mr. Trier was as surprised as I was, and then I turned back, thinking that I had knocked them off the counter, and I saw at a glance that there was a big hole in my back racks. You can see yourself, sir.”
The cashier turned to the paymaster.
“Is this a practical joke, Mr. Trier?” he demanded sharply.
“Of course not,” replied the paymaster. “Winston’s grill was closed. It still is. Granted that I might have reached the twenties he had piled up, how could I have gone through a grill and taken the rest of the missing money without his seeing me? The money disappeared almost instantly. It was there a moment before, for I noticed when Winston took the twenties from his rack that it was full.”
“But someone must have taken it,” said the bewildered cashier. “Money doesn’t walk off of its own accord or vanish into thin air—”
A bell interrupted his speech.
“There are the police,” he said with an air of relief. “I’ll let them in.”
THE smaller of the two men who had followed the cashier from his office when the alarm had sounded stepped forward and spoke quietly. His voice was low and well pitched yet it carried a note of authority and power that held his auditors’ attention while he spoke. The voice harmonized with the man. The most noticeable point about him was the inconspicuousness of his voice and manner, yet there was a glint of steel in his gray eyes that told of enormous force in him.
“I don’t believe that I would let them in for a few moments, Mr. Rogers,” he said. “I think that we are up against something a little different from the usual bank robbery.”
“But, Mr. Carnes,” protested the cashier, “we must call in the police in a case like this, and the sooner they take charge the better chance there will be of apprehending the thief.”
“Suit yourself,” replied the little man with a shrug of his shoulders. “I merely offered my advice.”
“Will you take charge, Mr. Carnes?” asked the cashier.
“I can’t supersede the local authorities in a case like this,” replied Carnes. “The secret service is primarily interested in the suppression of counterfeiting and the enforcement of certain federal statutes, but I will be glad to assist the local authorities to the best of my ability, provided they desire my help. My advice to you would be to keep out the patrolmen who are demanding admittance and get in touch with the chief of police. I would ask that his best detective together with an expert fingerprint photographer be sent here before anyone else is admitted. If the patrolmen are allowed to wipe their hands over Mr. Winston’s counter they may destroy valuable evidence.”
“You are right, Mr. Carnes,” exclaimed the cashier. “Mr. Jervis, will you tell the police that there is no violence threatening and ask them to wait for a few minutes? I’ll telephone the chief of police at once.”
AS the cashier hurried away to his telephone Carnes turned to his companion who had stood an interested, although silent spectator of the scene. His companion was a marked contrast to the secret service operator. He stood well over six feet in height, and his protruding jaw and shock of unruly black hair combined with his massive shoulders and chest to give him the appearance of a man who labored with his hands—until one looked at them. His hands were in strange contrast to the rest of him. Long, slim, mobile hands they were, with tapering nervous fingers—the hands of a thinker or of a musician. Telltale splotches of acid told of hours spent in a laboratory, a tale that was confirmed by the almost imperceptible stoop of his shoulders.
“Do you agree with my advice, Dr. Bird?” asked Carnes deferentially.
The noted scientist, who from his laboratory in the Bureau of Standards had sent forth many new things in the realms of chemistry and physics, and who, incidentally, had been instrumental in solving some of the most baffling mysteries which the secret service had been called upon to face, grunted.
“It didn’t do any harm,” he said, “but it is rather a waste of time. The thief wore gloves.”
“How in thunder do you know that?” demanded Carnes.
“It’s merely common sense. A man who can do what he did had at least some rudiments of intelligence, and even the feeblestminded crooks know enough to wear gloves nowadays.”
Carnes stepped a little closer to the doctor.
“Another reason why I didn’t want patrolmen tramping around,” he said in an undertone, “is this. If Winston gave the alarm quickly enough, the thief is probably still in the building.”
“He’s a good many miles away by now,” replied Dr. Bird with a shrug of his shoulders.
CARNES’ eyes opened widely. “Why?—how?—who?” he stammered. “Have you any idea of who did it, or how it was done?”
“Possibly I have an idea,” replied Dr. Bird with a cryptic smile. “My advice to you, Carnes, is to keep away from the local authorities as much as possible. I want to be present when Winston and Trier are questioned and I may possibly wish to ask a few questions myself. Use your authority that far, but no farther. Don’t volunteer any information and especially don’t let my name get out. We’ll drop the counterfeiting case we were summoned here on for the present and look into this a little on our own hook. I will want your aid, so don’t get tied up with the police.”
“At that, we don’t want the police crossing our trail at every turn,” protested Carnes.
“They won’t,” promised the doctor. “They will never get any evidence on this case, if I am right, and neither will we—for the present. Our stunt is to lie low and wait for the next attempt of this nature and thus accumulate some evidence and some idea of where to look.”
“Will there be another attempt?” asked Carnes.
“Surely. You don’t expect a man who got away with a crime like this to quit operations just because a few flatfeet run around and make a hullabaloo about it, do you? I may be wrong in my assumption, but if I am right, the most important thing is to keep all reference to my name or position out of the press reports.”
The cashier hastened up to them.
