Anthony Boucher - Elsewhen.pdf - Anthony Boucher - widez2

Elsewhen

Anthony Boucher

From “The Compleat Boucher”

"My dear Agatha," Mr. Partridge announced at the breakfast table, "I have invented the world's first

successful time machine."

His sister showed no signs of being impressed. "I suppose this will run the electric bill up even higher," she

observed.

Mr. Partridge listened meekly to the inevitable lecture. When it was over, he protested, "But, my dear, you

have just listened to an announcement that no woman on earth has ever heard before. Never before in human

history has anyone pro-duced an actual working model of a time-traveling machine."

"Hm-m-m," said Agatha Partridge. "What good is it?"

"Its possibilities are untold." Mr. Partridge's pale little eyes lit up. "We can observe our pasts and perhaps

even correct their errors. We can learn the secrets of the ancients. We can plot the uncharted course of the

future—new conquista-dors invading brave new continents of unmapped time. We can—"

"Will anyone pay money for that?"

"They will flock to me to pay it," said Mr. Partridge smugly.

His sister began to look impressed. "And how far can you travel with your time machine?"

Mr. Partridge buttered a piece of toast with absorbed concentration, but it was no use. His sister repeated

the question: "How far can you go?"

"Not very far," Mr. Partridge admitted reluctantly. "In fact," he added hastily as he saw a more specific

question forming, "hardly at all. And only one way. But remember," he went on, gathering courage, "the Wright

brothers did not cross the Atlantic in their first model. Marconi did not launch radio with—"

Agatha's brief interest had completely subsided. "I thought so," she said. "You'd still better watch the

electric bill."

It would be that way, Mr. Partridge thought, wherever he went, whomever he saw. "How far can you go?"

"Hardly at all." "Good day, sir." People cannot be made to see that to move along the time line with free volitional

motion for even one fraction of a second is as great a miracle as to zoom spectacularly ahead to 5900 A.D. He

had, he could remember, felt disappointed at first himself—

The discovery had been made by accident. An experiment which he was working on—part of his long and

fruitless attempt to re-create by modern scientific method the supposed results described in ancient alchemical

works—had necessitated the setting up of a powerful magnetic field. And part of the apparatus within this field was

a chronometer.

Mr. Partridge noted the time when he began his experiment. It was exactly fourteen seconds after nine

thirty. And it was precisely at that moment that the tremor came. It was not a serious shock. To one who, like Mr.

Partridge, had spent the past twenty years in southern California it was hardly noticeable. But when he looked back

at the chronometer, the dial read ten thirteen.

Time can pass quickly when you are absorbed in your work, but not so quickly as all that. Mr. Partridge

looked at his pocket watch. It said nine thirty-one. Sud-denly, in a space of seconds, the best chronometer available

had gained forty-two minutes.

The more Mr. Partridge considered the matter, the more irresistibly one chain of logic forced itself upon

him. The chronometer was accurate; therefore it had registered those forty-two minutes correctly. It had not

registered them here and now; therefore the shock had jarred it to where it could register them. It had not moved

in any of the three dimensions of space; therefore—

The chronometer had gone back in time forty-two minutes, and had regis-tered those minutes in reaching

the present again. Or was it only a matter of minutes? The chronometer was an eight-day one. Might it have been

twelve hours and forty-two minutes? Forty-eight hours? Ninety-six? A hundred and ninety-two?

And why and how and—the dominant question in Mr. Partridge's mind—could the same device be made to

work with a living being?

It would be fruitless to relate in detail the many experiments which Mr. Partridge eagerly performed to

verify and check his discovery. They were purely empirical in nature, for Mr. Partridge was that type of inventor who

is short on theory but long on gadgetry. He did frame a very rough working hypothesis—that the sud-den shock had

caused the magnetic field to rotate into the temporal dimension, where it set up a certain—he groped for words—a

certain negative potential of entropy, which drew things backward in time. But he would leave the doubtless highly

debatable theory to the academicians. What he must do was perfect the machine, render it generally usable, and

then burst forth upon an astonished world as Harrison Partridge, the first time traveler. His dry little ego glowed and

ex-panded at the prospect.

There were the experiments in artificial shock which produced synthetically the earthquake effect. There

were the experiments with the white mice which proved that the journey through time was harmless to life. There

were the experiments with the chronometer which established that the time traversed varied directly as the square

of the power expended on the electromagnet.

But these experiments also established that the time elapsed had not been twelve hours nor any multiple

thereof, but simply forty-two minutes. And with the equipment at his disposal, it was impossible for Mr. Partridge to

stretch that period any further than a trifle under two hours.

This, Mr. Partridge told himself, was ridiculous. Time travel at such short range, and only to the past,

entailed no possible advantages. Oh, perhaps some piddling ones—once, after the mice had convinced him that he

could safely venture him-self, he had a lengthy piece of calculation which he wished to finish before dinner. An hour

was simply not time enough for it; so at six o'clock he moved himself back to five again, and by working two hours

in the space from five to six finished his task easily by dinner time. And one evening when, in his preoccupation, he

had forgotten his favorite radio quiz program until it was ending, it was simplicity itself to go back to the beginning

and comfortably hear it through.

But though such trifling uses as this might be an important part of the work of the time machine once it

was established—possibly the strongest commercial selling point for inexpensive home sets—they were not

spectacular or startling enough to make the reputation of the machine and—more important—the repu-tation of

Harrison Partridge.

The Great Harrison Partridge would have untold wealth. He could pension off his sister Agatha and never

have to see her again. He would have untold pres-tige and glamour, despite his fat and his baldness, and the

beautiful and aloof Faith Preston would fall into his arms like a ripe plum. He would—

It was while he was indulging in one of these dreams of power that Faith Preston herself entered his

workshop. She was wearing a white sports dress and looking so fresh and immaculate that the whole room

seemed to glow with her presence.

"I came out here before I saw your sister," she said. Her voice was as cool and bright as her dress. "I

wanted you to be the first to know. Simon and I are going to be married next month."

Mr. Partridge never remembered what was said after that. He imagined that she made her usual

comments about the shocking disarray of his shop and her usual polite inquiries as to his current researches. He

imagined that he offered the conventional good wishes and extended his congratulations, too, to that damned

young whippersnapper Simon Ash. But all his thoughts were that he wanted her and needed her and that the great,

the irresistible Harrison Partridge must come into being before next month.

Money. That was it. Money. With money he could build the tremendous ma-chinery necessary to carry a

load of power—and money was needed for that power, too—that would produce truly impressive results. To travel

back even as much as a quarter of a century would be enough to dazzle the world. To appear at the Versailles

peace conference, say, and expound to the delegates the inevitable results of their too lenient—or too

strict?—terms. Or with unlimited money to course down the centuries, down the millennia, bringing back lost arts,

forgotten secrets—

"Hm-m-m!" said Agatha. "Still mooning after that girl? Don't be an old fool."

He had not seen Agatha come in. He did not quite see her now. He saw a sort of vision of a cornucopia

that would give him money that would give him the apparatus that would give him his time machine that would

give him success that would give him Faith.

"If you must moon instead of working—if indeed you call this work—you might at least turn off a few

switches," Agatha snapped. "Do you think we're made of money?"

Mechanically he obeyed.

"It makes you sick," Agatha droned on, "when you think how some people spend their money. Cousin

Stanley! Hiring this Simon Ash as a secretary for noth-ing on earth but to look after his library and his collections. So

much money he can't do anything but waste it! And all Great-Uncle Max's money coming to him too, when we could

use it so nicely. If only it weren't for Cousin Stanley, I'd be an heiress. And then—"

Mr. Partridge was about to observe that even as an heiress Agatha would doubtless have been the same

intolerant old maid. But two thoughts checked his tongue. One was the sudden surprising revelation that even

Agatha had her inner yearnings, too. And the other was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude to her.

"Yes," Mr. Partridge repeated slowly. "If it weren't for Cousin Stanley—"

By means as simple as this, murderers are made.

The chain of logic was so strong that moral questions hardly entered into the situation.

Great-Uncle Max was infinitely old. That he should live another year was out of the question. And if his son

Stanley were to pre-decease him, then Harrison and Agatha Partridge would be his only living relatives. And

Maxwell Harrison was as infinitely rich as he was infinitely old.

Therefore Stanley must die, and his death must be accomplished with a maxi-mum of personal safety. The

means for that safety were at hand. For the one completely practical purpose of a short-range time machine, Mr.

Partridge had suddenly realized, was to provide an alibi for murder.

The chief difficulty was in contriving a portable version of the machine which would operate over a

considerable period of time. The first model had a travel-ing range of two minutes. But by the end of the week, Mr.

Partridge had con-structed a portable time machine which was good for forty-five minutes. He needed nothing

more save a sharp knife. There was, Mr. Partridge thought, something crudely horrifying about guns.

That Friday afternoon he entered Cousin Stanley's library at five o'clock. This was an hour when the

eccentric man of wealth always devoted himself to quiet and scholarly contemplation of his treasures. The butler,

Bracket, had been reluctant to announce him, but "Tell my cousin," Mr. Partridge said, "that I have discov-ered a

new entry for his bibliography."

The most recent of Cousin Stanley's collecting manias was fiction based upon factual murders. He had

already built up the definitive library on the subject. Soon he intended to publish the definitive bibliography. And the

promise of a new item was an assured open-sesame.

The ponderous gruff joviality of Stanley Harrison's greeting took no heed of the odd apparatus he carried.

Everyone knew that Mr. Partridge was a crackpot inventor.

"Bracket tells me you've got something for me," Cousin Stanley boomed. "Glad to hear it. Have a drink?

What is it?"

"No thank you." Something in Mr. Partridge rebelled at accepting the hospitality of his victim. "A Hungarian

friend of mine was mentioning a novel about one Bela Kiss."

"Kiss?" Cousin Stanley's face lit up with a broad beam. "Splendid! Never could see why no one used him

before. Woman killer. Landru type. Always fasci-nating. Kept 'em in empty gasoline tins. Never could have been

caught if there hadn't been a gasoline shortage. Constable thought he was hoarding, checked the tins, found

corpses. Beautiful! Now if you'll give me the details—"

Cousin Stanley, pencil poised over a P-slip, leaned over the desk. And Mr. Partridge struck.

He had checked the anatomy of the blow, just as he had checked the name of an obscure but interesting

murderer. The knife went truly home, and there was a gurgle and the terrible spastic twitch of dying flesh.

Mr. Partridge was now an heir and a murderer, but he had time to be con-scious of neither fact. He went

through his carefully rehearsed motions, his mind numb and blank. He latched the windows of the library and

locked each door. This was to be an impossible crime, one that could never conceivably be proved on him or on any

innocent.

Mr. Partridge stood beside the corpse in the midst of the perfectly locked room. It was four minutes past

five. He screamed twice, very loudly, in an un-recognizably harsh voice. Then he plugged his portable instrument

into a floor outlet and turned a switch.

It was four nineteen. Mr. Partridge unplugged his machine. The room was empty and the door open.

Mr. Partridge knew his way reasonably well about his cousin's house. He got out without meeting anyone.

He tucked the machine into the rumble seat of his car and drove off to Faith Preston's. Toward the end of his long

journey across town he carefully drove through a traffic light and received a citation noting the time as four-fifty. He

reached Faith's at four fifty-four, ten minutes before the murder he had just committed.

Simon Ash had been up all Thursday night cataloging Stanley Harrison's latest acquisitions. Still he had

risen at his usual hour that Friday to get through the morning's mail before his luncheon date with Faith. By four

thirty that afternoon he was asleep on his feet.

He knew that his employer would be coming into the library in half an hour. And Stanley Harrison liked

solitude for his daily five-o'clock gloating and medi-tation. But the secretary's work desk was hidden around a

corner of the library's stacks, and no other physical hunger can be quite so dominantly compelling as the need for

sleep.

Simon Ash's shaggy blond head sank onto the desk. His sleep-heavy hand shoved a pile of cards to the

floor, and his mind only faintly registered the thought that they would all have to be alphabetized again. He was too

sleepy to think of anything but pleasant things, like the sailboat at Balboa which brightened his week-ends, or the

hiking trip in the Sierras planned for his next vacation, or above all Faith. Faith the fresh and lovely and perfect, who

would be his next month—

There was a smile on Simon's rugged face as he slept. But he woke with a harsh scream ringing in his

head. He sprang to his feet and looked out from the stacks into the library.

The dead hulk that slumped over the desk with the hilt protruding from its back was unbelievable, but

even more incredible was the other spectacle. There was a man. His back was toward Simon, but he seemed

faintly familiar. He stood close to a complicated piece of gadgetry. There was the click of a switch.

Then there was nothing.

Nothing in the room at all but Simon Ash and an infinity of books. And their dead owner.

Ash ran to the desk. He tried to lift Stanley Harrison, tried to draw out the knife, then realized how hopeless

was any attempt to revive life in that body. He reached for the phone, then stopped as he heard the loud knocking

on the door.

Over the raps came the butler's voice. "Mr. Harrison! Are you all right, sir?" A pause, more knocking, and

then, "Mr. Harrison! Let me in, sir! Are you all right?"

Simon raced to the door. It was locked, and he wasted almost a minute grop-ing for the key at his feet,

while the butler's entreaties became more urgent. At last Simon opened the door.

Bracket stared at him—stared at his sleep-red eyes, his blood-red hands, and beyond him at what sat at

the desk. "Mr. Ash, sir," the butler gasped. "What have you done?"

Faith Preston was home, of course. No such essential element of Mr. Partridge's plan could have been left

to chance. She worked best in the late afternoons, she said, when she was getting hungry for dinner; and she was

working hard this week on some entries for a national contest in soap carving.

The late-afternoon sun was bright in her room, which you might call her stu-dio if you were politely

disposed, her garret if you were not. It picked out the few perfect touches of color in the scanty furnishings and

converted them into bright aureoles surrounding the perfect form of Faith.

The radio was playing softly. She worked best to music, and that, too, was an integral portion of Mr.

Partridge's plan.

Six minutes of unmemorable small talk—What are you working on? How lovely! And what have you been

doing lately? Pottering around as usual. And the plans for the wedding?—and then Mr. Partridge held up a pleading

hand for si-lence.

"When you hear the tone," the radio announced, "the time will be exactly five seconds before five o'clock."

"I forgot to wind my watch," Mr. Partridge observed casually. "I've been wondering all day exactly what time

it was." He set his perfectly accurate watch.

He took a long breath. And now at last he knew that he was a new man. He was at last the Great Harrison

Partridge.

"What's the matter?" Faith asked. "You look funny. Could I make you some tea?"

"No. Nothing. I'm all right." He walked around behind her and looked over her shoulder at the graceful

nude emerging from her imprisonment in a cake of soap. "Exquisite, my dear," he observed. "Exquisite."

"I'm glad you like it. I'm never happy with female nudes; I don't think women sculptors ever are. But I

wanted to try it."

Mr. Partridge ran a dry hot finger along the front of the soapen nymph. "A delightful texture," he remarked.

"Almost as delightful as—" His tongue left the speech unfinished, but his hand rounded out the thought along

Faith's cool neck and cheek.

"Why, Mr. Partridge!" She laughed.

The laugh was too much. One does not laugh at the Great Harrison Partridge, time traveler and perfect

murderer. There was nothing in his plan that called for what followed. But something outside of any plans brought

him to his knees, forced his arms around Faith's lithe body, pressed tumultuous words of incoher-ent ardor from his

unwonted lips.

He saw fear growing in her eyes. He saw her hand dart out in instinctive de-fense and he wrested the knife

from it. Then his own eyes glinted as he looked at the knife. It was little, ridiculously little. You could never plunge it

through a man's back. But it was sharp—a throat, the artery of a wrist—

His muscles had relaxed for an instant. In that moment of non-vigilance, Faith had wrested herself free.

She did not look backward. He heard the clatter of her steps down the stairs, and for a fraction of time the Great

Harrison Partridge vanished and Mr. Partridge knew only fear. If he had aroused her hatred, if she should not swear

to his alibi—

The fear was soon over. He knew that no motives of enmity could cause Faith to swear to anything but the

truth. She was honest. And the enmity itself would vanish when she realized what manner of man had chosen her

for his own.

It was not the butler who opened the door to Faith. It was a uniformed police-man, who said, "Whaddaya

want here?"

"I've got to see Simon . . . Mr. Ash," she blurted out.

The officer's expression changed. "C'mon," and he beckoned her down the long hall.

The tall young man in plain clothes said, "My name is Jackson. Won't you sit down? Cigarette?" She waved

the pack away nervously. "Hinkle says you wanted to speak to Mr. Ash?"

"Yes, I—"

"Are you Miss Preston? His fiancée?"

"Yes." Her eyes widened. "How did you—Oh, has something happened to Simon?"

The young officer looked unhappy. "I'm afraid something has. Though he's perfectly safe at the moment.

You see, he—Damn it all, I never have been able to break such news gracefully."

The uniformed officer broke in. "They took him down to headquarters, miss. You see, it looks like he

bumped off his boss."

Faith did not quite faint, but the world was uncertain for a few minutes. She hardly heard Lieutenant

Jackson's explanations or the message of comfort that Simon had left for her. She simply held very tight to her

chair until the ordinary outlines of things came back and she could swallow again.

"Simon is innocent," she said firmly.

"I hope he is." Jackson sounded sincere. "I've never enjoyed pinning a murder on as decent-seeming a

fellow as your fiancé. But the case, I'm afraid, is too clear. If he is innocent, he'll have to tell us a more plausible

story than his first one. Murderers that turn a switch and vanish into thin air are not highly regarded by most juries."

Faith rose. The world was firm again, and one fact was clear. 'Simon is inno-cent," she repeated. "And I'm

going to prove that. Will you please tell me where I can get a detective?"

The uniformed officer laughed. Jackson started to, but hesitated. "Of course, Miss Preston, the city's

paying my salary under the impression that I'm one. But I see what you mean: You want a freer investigator, who

won't be hampered by such considerations as the official viewpoint, or even the facts of the case. Well, it's your

privilege."

"Thank you. And how do I go about finding out?"

"Acting as an employment agency's a little out of my line. But rather than see you tie up with some shyster

shamus, I'll make a recommendation, a man I've worked with, or against, on a half dozen cases. And I think this

set-up is just impossible enough to appeal to him. He likes lost causes."

"Lost?" It is a dismal word.

"And in fairness I should add they aren't always lost after he tackles them. The name's O'Breen—Fergus

O'Breen."

Mr. Partridge dined out that night. He could not face the harshness of Agatha's tongue. After dinner he

made a round of the bars on the Strip and played the pleas-ant game of "If only they knew who was sitting beside

them." He felt like Harun-al-Rashid, and liked the glow of the feeling.

On his way home he bought the next morning's Times at an intersection and pulled over to the curb to

examine it. He had expected sensational headlines on the mysterious murder which had the police completely

baffled. Instead he read:

SECRETARY SLAYS EMPLOYER

After a moment of shock the Great Harrison Partridge was himself again. He had not intended this. He

would not willingly cause unnecessary pain to anyone. But lesser individuals who obstruct the plans of the great

must take their medi-cine.

Mr. Partridge drove home, contented. He could spend the night on the cot in his workshop and thus see

that much the less of Agatha. He clicked on the work-shop light and froze.

There was a man standing by the time machine. The original large machine. Mr. Partridge's feeling of

superhuman self-confidence was enormous but easily undermined, like a vast balloon that needs only the smallest

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