Time Travel Omnibus, page 560
The projection-booth door opened, the projectionist came out, saying, “That all today, sergeant?” 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 one 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. Ihren sat down on a piling, motioning me to another beside him, and pulled a newspaper dipping from his breast pocket. “According to this, you gave a talk before the American-Canadian Society of Physicists in June, 1960, 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 1900‘s. 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 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 lime, 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 hack to whatever lime 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 sergeant 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, sergeant. 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.! 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 Tor 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 sergeant 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 arc, 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, sergeant, 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!”
“O.K., Javert.”
“Who?”
“A fictional policeman in a book called Les Misérable! 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!” Sergeant Ihren began slowly pounding his fist into his palm, muttering, “They’ve got to be punished, they’ve got to be punished,” then 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 Sergeant 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 and some research since I saw you last,” 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 ID 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. Sergeant 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 docs 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 sergeant smiled, if you could call it a smile. “That’s all that they’ll need in order to send him to prison 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. This sergeant 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 sergeant 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 modem 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—Sergeant 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 tail helmet of felt with a broad, turn-down brim, and long uniform coats to the knees. Nearly every one of them wears a drooping moustache, and each holds a long night stick poised as though ready to bring it down on Chester Conklin’s head. Keystone Cops 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 ferocious, glaring out—or so it always seems—directly at me. It is the implacable face of Marlin O. Ihren of the San Francisco police force, back where he really belongs, back where I sent him with my little black box, to the year 1893. THE END
THE COIN COLLECTOR
Jack Finney
“. . . will let me know the number of the pattern,” my wife was saying, following me down the hall toward our bedroom, “and I can knit it myself if I get the blocking done.”
I think she said blocking anyway, whatever that means. And I nodded, unbuttoning my shirt as I walked. It had been hot out today and I was eager to get out of my office clothes. I began thinking about a dark-green eight-thousand-dollar sports car I’d seen during noon hour in that big showroom on Park Avenue.
“. . . kind of a ribbed pattern with a matching freggel-heggis,” my wife seemed to be saying as I stopped at my dresser. I tossed my shirt on the bed and turned to the mirror, arching my chest.
“. . . middy collar, batten-barton sleeves with sixteen rows of smeddlycup balderdashes . . .” Pretty good chest and shoulders I thought, staring in the mirror; I’m twenty-six years old, kind of thin-faced, not bad-looking, not good-looking.
“. . . dropped hem, doppelganger waist, maroon-green, and a sort of frimble-framble daisystitch . . . Probably want two or three thousand bucks down on a car like that, I thought; the payments’d be more than the rent on this whole apartment. I began emptying the change out of my pants pockets glancing at each of the coins. When I was a kid there used to be an ad in a boys’ magazine: “Coin collecting can be PROFITABLE and FUN too! Why don’t you start TODAY?” It explained that a 1913 Liberty-head nickel—“and many others!”—was worth thousands and I guess I’m still looking for one.
“So what do you think?” Marion was saying. “You think they’d go well together?”
“Sure, they’d look fine.” I nodded at her reflection in my dresser mirror. She stood leaning in the bedroom doorway, arms folded, staring at the back of my head. I brought a dime up to my eyes for a closer look; it was minted in 1958 and had a profile of Woodrow Wilson, and I turned to Marion. “Hey, look,” I said, “here’s a new kind of dime—Woodrow Wilson.” But she wouldn’t look at my hand. She just stood there with her arms folded, glaring at me, and I said, “Now what? What have I done wrong now?” Marion wouldn’t answer, and I walked to my closet and began looking for some wash pants. After a moment I said coaxingly, “Come on, Sweetfeet, what’d I do wrong?”
“Oh, Al!” she wailed. “You don’t listen to me; you really don’t! Half the time you don’t hear a word I say!”
“Why, sure I do, honey.” I was rattling the hangers, hunting for my pants. “You were talking about knitting.”
“An orange sweater, I said, Al—orange. I knew you weren’t listening and asked you how an orange sweater would go with—close your eyes.”
“What?”
“No, don’t turn around! And close your eyes.” I closed them, and Marion said, “Now, without any peeking, because I’ll see you, tell me what I’m wearing right now.”
It was ridiculous. In the last five minutes, since I’d come home from the office, I must have glanced at Marion maybe two or three times. I’d kissed her when I walked into the apartment, or I was pretty sure I had. Yet standing at my closet now, eyes closed, I couldn’t for the life of me say what she was wearing. I worked at it; I could actually hear the sound of her breathing just behind me and could picture her standing there, a small girl five feet three inches tall, weighing just over a hundred pounds, twenty-four years old, nice complexion, pretty face, honey-blond hair, and wearing . . . wearing . . .
“Well, am I wearing a dress, slacks, medieval armor, or standing here stark naked?”
“A dress.”
“What color?”
“Ah—dark green?”
“Am I wearing stockings?”
“Yes.”
“Is my hair done up, shaved off or in a pony tail?”
“Done up.”
“O.K., you can look now.”
Of course the instant I turned around to look, I remembered. There she stood, eyes blazing, her bare foot angrily tapping the floor, and she was wearing sky-blue wash slacks and a white cotton blouse. As she swung away to walk out of the room and down the hall, her pony tail was bobbing furiously.
Well, brother—and you, too, sister—unless the rice is still in your hair you know what came next—the hurt indignant silence. I got into slacks, short-sleeved shirt and hua-rachos, strolled into the living room, and there on the davenport sat Madame Defarge grimly studying the list, disguised as a magazine, of next day’s guillotine victims. I knew whose name headed the list, and I walked straight to the kitchen, mixed up some booze in tall glasses, and found a screw driver in a kitchen drawer.
In the living room, coldly ignored by what had once been my radiant laughing bride, I set the drinks on the coffee table, reached behind Marion’s magazine, and gripped her chin between thumb and forefinger. The magazine dropped and I instantly inserted the tip of the screw driver between her front teeth, pried open her mouth, picked up a glass and tried to pour in some booze. She started to laugh, spilling some down her front, and I grinned, handing her the glass, and picked up mine. Sitting down beside her, I saluted Marion with my glass, then took a delightful sip and as it hurried to my sluggish blood stream I could feel the happy corpuscles dive in, laughing and shouting, and felt able to cope with the next item on the agenda which followed immediately.
