_This tale is based on an authenticated,
documented fact. A man vanished--right
out of this world. And where he went--_
_In November 1809, an Englishman named Benjamin Bathurst vanished,
inexplicably and utterly._
_He was en route to Hamburg from Vienna, where he had been serving
as his government's envoy to the court of what Napoleon had left
of the Austrian Empire. At an inn in Perleburg, in Prussia, while
examining a change of horses for his coach, he casually stepped
out of sight of his secretary and his valet. He was not seen to
leave the inn yard. He was not seen again, ever._
_At least, not in this continuum...._
(From Baron Eugen von Krutz, Minister of Police, to His Excellency
the Count von Berchtenwald, Chancellor to His Majesty Friedrich
Wilhelm III of Prussia.)