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The TIME MIRROR
By CLARK SOUTH
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December
1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: Here was a strange mirror indeed! It reflected an image all
right, but not an image from the same era in history!]
Pale moonlight spilled through the window and over the wedding gifts
that crowded the little room.
"And this mirror, darling?" Mark Carter asked. "Who sent it?"
A sudden flicker of worry flashed across Elaine Duchard's lovely face.
She bit her lower lip nervously. Pretended to inspect a great silver
punchbowl that stood on a nearby table.
"Who did you say sent the mirror?" her sweetheart repeated.
Still another moment of taut hesitation. At last:
"It's from Adrian Vance, Mark."
"Adrian Vance!"
Mark spat the name as if it were an epithet.
"Sshhh! Not so loud!" A pause. "He's an old friend, dear. I can't forbid
him to send us a present. After all he's just trying to be polite."
The man's brown eyes were smouldering. "Those were fine company manners
he showed off the night you told him you were going to marry me instead
of him!"
Then, savagely:
"I should have knocked out a mouthful of that damned antique dealer's
teeth right then! Of all the gall--threatening you; saying you'd regret
turning him down--"
Again the girl silenced him.
"Adrian always expected to marry me," she reminded. "My refusal broke
him up terribly. He was disappointed. Angry. So he said a lot of things
he didn't really mean. Now he's trying to make up for it."
"I still don't like that damned Vance! He's just the kind of snake who'd
figure out a way to get revenge. Something hideous--"
Elaine laid her hand gently across her fiance's mouth.
"You're acting jealous, Mark, and there's no need to," she said softly.
"You won. Remember? I'm marrying you tomorrow!"
Mark's hands stole around her slim, supple waist and drew her to him.
Her thinly-clad body was warm and fragrant in his arms.
"I guess I keep forgetting," he said huskily. "Part of me still can't
quite seem to believe it's true. That we're going to be together
always."
The girl's ripe lips curved in a little smile. Slender fingers caressed
her sweetheart's tanned cheek.
"You can believe it now, Mark," she whispered. "I'm yours. All yours.
Forever."
And then, ever so gently, she drew his head down. Their lips met. Clung
with young love's ardor.
At last Mark straightened. He drew a deep breath.
"You'd better go to bed now, dear," he advised. "Tomorrow's going to be
a hard day."
Another pause. Then a wry smile crossed his lips.
"Besides, your father might not understand why you're wandering around
the house with me in the middle of the night, even though we are going
to be married tomorrow. That outfit you're wearing is subject to a lot
of misinterpretation."
* * * * *
Elaine matched his smile with one of her own. She smoothed the
diaphanous, curve-revealing negligee that displayed her charms to such
advantage.
"Oh, he'd understand, all right," she retorted. "Only I'm afraid he'd
understand a lot of things that aren't true." She gave vent to a
dolorous sigh that the merriment sparkling in her blue eyes denied.
"Father's all French, you know. He's quick to understand situations
where young ladies appear _en deshabille_."
They turned to go. But again the Vance mirror caught Mark's eye.
"Strange-looking affair, isn't it?" he commented.
Elaine nodded. Drawing a comb from some place of concealment about her,
she seated herself on a bench before the glass.
A unique creation, that mirror. Circular and fully three feet in
diameter, it now stood propped on top of a boudoir table. At first
glance its surface somehow gave an impression of queer, concentric waves
rippling through it. Yet the reflections it threw back were true;
perfect.
The frame was just as paradoxical. It looked as if it once had been
garishly ornate. Now, however, age had transmuted gaudiness to an
indefinable antique charm.
"Isn't it lovely?" breathed Elaine. She drew the comb through her hair.
Watched the mirror and the moonlight transform its golden beauty to a
rippling cascade of silver. Mark stared, fascinated, over her shoulder.
"The moonlight's beautiful tonight, Mark!" the girl murmured. "It makes
my hair dance in the glass like the waves of the sea." Her voice faded
to nothingness. Her eyes were half-closed.
"Your hair is always beautiful, Elaine," her lover whispered, "and it's
no lovelier than all the rest of you, every inch." A moment's
hesitation. "But we've got to get to bed, darling. There'll be so much
running around tomorrow--"
"_Mark!_"
Shock was in that sudden exclamation. Shock, and a little lilt of panic.
It burst from Elaine's half-parted lips like the _thunk_ of a bullet
slamming into a hardwood board.
The man jerked to attention. Caught the girl's smooth shoulders in his
big hands.
"Elaine! What is it?"
"Look! The mirror!"
"The mirror?" Mark Carter's puzzled brown eyes sought the gleaming
surface of the glass. "What--?"
"The reflection! Look!"
Mark stared. Went suddenly tense in stark amazement, eyes wide.
* * * * *
For there, gazing back at him out of the mirror, was a new Elaine. An
Elaine who stood beside a great black coach, the like of which had never
rolled American highways.
[Illustration: There in the mirror was an image that was NOT a
reflection!]
This woman's face was Elaine's. Yet there the resemblance ended. The
filmy negligee of his own fiancee was replaced by the rich warmth of a
scarlet satin gown and endless yards of white lace ruffles. The creamy
skin of his own Elaine's bare arms came back as covered with long white
gloves to above the elbows. A perky little hat, of scarlet satin to
match the dress, and topped with a huge aigrette plume, rode proudly
upon the elaborate coiffure of golden hair.
Nor was it only in superficials that the reflection differed.
The other woman had a character all her own, too. It showed in the tilt
of her head, the way she stood, the expression on her lovely face.
But most of all it showed in her eyes.
Proud eyes, they were, and intelligent. They looked into Mark's own
brown orbs calmly and without flinching. And they were not the eyes of
his sweetheart. No. There was an indefinable _something_ lurking deep in
their cool blue depths that differentiated the reflection from Elaine.
That made the woman in the glass another personality. Similar in many
ways, yes. Fundamentally the same kind of person, yes.
But not Elaine.
Still Mark stared, mouth agape.
A feeling was growing within him. A strange conviction that he
recognized this other Elaine.
"I've seen her before, some place!" he muttered half-aloud.
And then Elaine was speaking again.
"What is it, Mark? What's happened? Why does that mirror reflect back
another woman?" The girl's voice carried a little quaver of
bewilderment; of fear, almost. Her whole body trembled as if a chill
were running through her.
Her voice jerked Mark from his paralysis. He turned sharply. His eyes
probed into every corner of the moonlit room, seeking vainly for some
clue to account for this impossible phenomenon--
"Mark, I'm afraid!"
Even in the dim light of the little chamber the man could see the color
drain from his sweetheart's face as she spoke.
"I've got the most awful feeling down inside of me, Mark. As if that
woman was in another world, and as if she was pulling me away from you
and into it. My thoughts--they're not mine; they're hers! My mind's
draining out of me. Don't let me go, Mark. Don't let me! I love you,
Mark--"
"Light! That's what we need!" Mark exploded into action. Sprang toward
the wall switch. "Hold on, Elaine. Three hundred watts will drive that
damned ghost away--"
"... I'm falling! I'm falling! Oh, Mark, I love you so! Mark, help me!
_Help!_"
* * * * *
The girl's voice rose in a scream of wild terror. It tore at Mark's
eardrums. Echoed through the stillness of the sleep-bound house like a
banshee's wail.
The man's hand knocked up the switch. Flooded the room with light. Even
as he did so he was whirling. Springing back to Elaine's side. And
barely in time, for her backbone seemed to have turned to water. Her
limp body was slipping to the floor in a nerveless heap, her muscles
slack and unresponding. By a miracle of balance, Mark's hands caught her
in time to break the force of her fall. He lifted her, unresisting, in
his arms. Her ashen lips still were moving in the faintest of whispers--
"_... je t'aime, mon cher, je t'aime...._"
Her voice trailed off. A great sigh shook her. She lay unconscious in
his arms.
Mark's brain was spinning like a top within his skull. He was breathing
hard, and he was trembling, as if he had just run a long way.
"... I love you, my dear, I love you...."
That was what she had said.
_But why had she spoken in French?_
Even as he hesitated in an agony of indecision, the door burst open. The
frail, white-haired figure of Professor Duchard, Elaine's father,
stumbled into the room. His eyes were sleep-fogged, and spindly,
pajama-clad legs showed below the dressing gown he had thrown about his
thin shoulders.
"What is it? What has happened?" he mumbled. Even in his dazed state, he
pronounced every syllable. There were no slurrings nor contractions in
Professor Duchard's punctilious vocabulary.
"Elaine's fainted."
"Then carry her to her room. I shall get smelling salts from the
medicine cabinet."
Turning, the professor scurried away. Mark followed, Elaine's soft body
still limp and yielding in his arms. Ascending the stairs to her room,
he laid her tenderly on the bed. Even as he did so, the girl's father
hurried to his side, a dark green bottle in his hand. The old man was
more fully awake now, and he looked down at his daughter with keen,
intelligent eyes. Although outwardly he appeared calm, there was a
little flicker of worry deep within those sharp blue optics.
"This should revive her!" he announced, waving the bottle. Pulling out
the glass stopper, he held the container close under the girl's nose.
Elaine drew a little breath. The fumes swirled into her nostrils. She
choked. Jerked spasmodically.
And slumped back, still unconscious!
Again the professor applied the carbonate of ammonium.
Again the results were the same.
The old man straightened.
"I do not like this," he clipped. "You had better tell me just what
happened."
Mark shifted nervously under the scrutiny of the sharp blue eyes.
"Start at the beginning," the professor commanded. "I want to know from
exactly what this 'fainting spell' resulted."
* * * * *
The younger man nodded slowly.
"It all began after you went to bed," he explained. "I said good-night
to Elaine, then decided to step outside and have a smoke before I turned
in myself.
"When I got upstairs, Elaine opened her door. She already was
undressed--had on the negligee she's wearing now. She said she wasn't
sleepy, and that she'd decided to come back down for another look at the
presents. So I came along...."
Carefully, yet concisely, Mark outlined the events which had preceded
the girl's collapse. When he had finished, Professor Duchard looked even
more worried than before.
"I do not like what you tell me," he informed the younger man. "I
believe this is a case for a doctor. A good one. I have a friend who is
a neurologist. I shall call him."
He disappeared toward the telephone.
Not once in the half-hour preceding the specialist's arrival did the
girl stir. She lay upon the big double bed like a lovely corpse,
unmoving save for the slight rise and fall of her breasts as she
breathed.
The neurologist examined her with keen interest.
"A remarkable case!" he declared. "Her pulse and respiration have slowed
to the point where they are scarcely apparent."
Professor Duchard nodded slowly.
"But what does it mean?" exploded Mark, beside him, his handsome young
face pale and haggard. "Why can't you revive her?"
The doctor frowned, pinched his chin thoughtfully.
"A remarkable case!" he repeated slowly. "To be frank about it, I can't
find the slightest clue as to what's wrong. She seems in a perfect state
of health. Organically I can detect no possible cause for this coma. Yet
she doesn't respond to any resuscitatory measures."
"But there must be something--"
The specialist shot Mark a disapproving glance. Without a word he opened
his bag, taking from it a smaller case of instruments. He selected a
long, slender dissecting needle. Plunged its point into a bottle of
disinfectant.
"Watch me!" he commanded.
Turning to the bed, he plunged the needle an eighth of an inch into the
unconscious girl's breast!
Mark's eyes went wide with horror. He started forward. Found himself
halted by Professor Duchard's hand.
"You asked a question, Mark!" the white-haired scientist rapped. "The
doctor merely is giving you his answer. Look at her!"
Elaine had not stirred! If anything, she lay even more still than
before, not a muscle so much as quivering. Her eyes were closed, her
face calm, her golden hair halo-like about her head.
The neurologist bared her thigh. Again plunged in the needle.
She did not move.
A dozen times the physician pricked her, moving over the white surface
of her body from one nerve center to another. At last he straightened.
* * * * *
"You see?" he demanded grimly. "Anaesthesia is complete. She feels
nothing."
Mark's eyes were horror-stricken. He was breathing hard.
"What does it mean, doctor?" he choked. "What's happened to her?"
The medical man motioned him closer.
"Touch her!" he ordered.
Half-afraid, Mark bent forward. He rested his trembling fingers against
the girl's breast. The next instant he jerked back, his face gray with
shock.
"My God!" he gasped. "She's dead! Her body's getting cold! She's dead!"
His face twisted in a grimace of emotional agony.
"No!" contradicted the neurologist.
"What!"
"No," repeated the other. "She's not dead, young man."
"Then what--"
"The closest I can come to it in language you'd understand is to say
that she's falling into a state of suspended animation," the doctor
answered. "Her bodily functions are slowing down. I believe this will
continue--that eventually her muscles will tighten into catalepsy."
"What will happen eventually?" Professor Duchard broke in.
The neurologist shrugged. "I don't know, professor. My hope is that she
simply will continue to lie in a coma. But there is always the
possibility that the thread of life will break. That she will die
without recovering consciousness--"
"You can't let her!" cried Mark hysterically, unable to restrain himself
longer. "She musn't die! She musn't! You've got to do something, doctor!
There must be a way--"
"--if it can be found!" interrupted Professor Duchard. He again gripped
the younger man's arm. "Do not let yourself go to pieces, my boy. That
will not help.
"Because you, yourself, are a man of action, you want our friend, here,
to prescribe for Elaine with the same speed and certainty that you would
go after a hot news story. Only that is not the way of science, Mark. We
must be patient and hope for the best, content in the knowledge that
everything possible is being done for Elaine."
He turned to the neurologist.
"What do you recommend, doctor?"
"There's only one thing to do, Professor Duchard. We must place the girl
in a hospital, where she can be taken care of properly and kept under
observation."
The aged scientist nodded. "Yes. I thought that would be your
suggestion."
"If you'll excuse me," the doctor continued, "I shall use your telephone
to make the necessary arrangements."
He left the room.
* * * * *
Beside the bed, Mark Carter still stared dumbly down at the girl he
loved. The girl who tomorrow--no, today, for it was nearly morning
now--was to have become his wife. He tried to speak, but his throat was
too twisted and thick with pain for words to come. His broad shoulders
were slumped. His brown eyes blurred with tears. A queer, strained sound
of awful grief tore itself from somewhere deep within his chest, like
the moan of an animal in torment.
A hand touched his shoulder.
"Come, Mark. We can do no more good here."
Mute, stumbling, broken, Mark allowed Professor Duchard to lead him from
the room. Down the hall. Into the old man's study.
"Sit down, my boy, and pull yourself together."
Mark dropped into the cool, fragrant depths of a timeworn leather chair.
The professor relaxed in another.
"I want you to tell me your story again," Elaine's father said. "Think
back carefully. Give me every detail."
Slowly, spiritlessly, Mark forced himself to concentrate on the
happenings of the evening. His voice a dull monotone, he again recounted
his story.
"This woman," probed Professor Duchard, his bright blue eyes stabbing
into the other's brown orbs. "Tell me about her. What did she look
like?"
Mark shrugged.
"She was only a reflection in a mirror, professor. It was Elaine.
Probably the lighting gave me the illusion of someone else."
"Cease thinking of her as a reflection!" the savant retorted, his voice
suddenly sharp. "You are a newspaperman by trade. You have been trained
to observe closely. I want you to use those powers now. Think of this
woman as a person. Describe her to to me as if she were one--"
"She looked like Elaine," said Mark, racking his brain for details. "She
looked just like her. Only different, the way two identical twins are
different. You know what I mean, professor? The way a person's
individual personality sticks out of him in spite of his appearance--"
"Yes. I quite understand."
"Well, that was the way it was with this woman. She was Elaine, but she
wasn't. There was something about her that didn't belong to Elaine." His
brows knitted. "It seemed as if I'd seen her before, somewhere. Just
like I'd known her, but couldn't remember just when or where."
A pause.
"It was her clothing that made us notice her, though. She wore a red
satin dress with more white ruffles than I ever saw before. She had a
red hat, too, with a big plume. Her hair was done in a different style
than I've ever seen. All fixed up. And she wore gloves that reached to
above her elbow."
He searched his weary mind for more details. Gave it up in despair,
"I don't know, professor. I can't remember any more. She was just like a
picture of one of the women attending a Louis XVI ball in France--"
* * * * *
A sudden light sprang into his brown eyes. He stopped short in
mid-sentence.
"That's it!" he cried. "I've got it! I know where I saw her before!"
Professor Duchard leaned forward, blue eyes flashing.
"Where?" he demanded. "Hurry, man! Out with it!"
"You've got a picture of her!" Mark exclaimed excitedly. "Right here, in
this study!" He half-rose from the leather chair. Peered into the corner
behind him.
"It's gone!"
The professor's face was suddenly pale.
"That picture called 'Elaine Duchard's Escape'? The Jerbette? Is that
the one you mean?"
"That's it. That's the one. Where is it?"
"It is gone," the savant answered grimly. "A genuine painting by Gustav
Jerbette is worth a great deal of money. And I am not a wealthy man.
When Adrian Vance offered to buy it--"
"Adrian Vance! That snake! He's the one who gave Elaine the mirror--"
The white-haired scientist was on his feet, his eyes suddenly very
bright and cold. The veins stood out at his temples.
"I want to see that mirror!" he rapped. "This is the first time you have
mentioned that it was he who sent it. Come on!"
Together they hurried down the stairs to the little room where the
wedding gifts were on display. Mark started across toward the mirror.
The professor's hand shot out. Caught the younger man's arm.
"Stand back!" he cried in a terrible voice. "Do not go near that mirror.
Above all, do not pass in front of it!"
Mark stared at the savant open-mouthed. His earlier black despair was
gone, now, replaced by sudden, inexplicable hope.
"Why not? What's wrong?"
The other licked dry lips.
"Nothing, I hope. The chances are a thousand to one that I am wrong.
Yet an idea came to me, my boy. An incredible idea, and a horrible one.
And if it is right"--he shook his head slowly--"may God have mercy on
Elaine!"
Carefully, then, they approached the mirror. The professor studied it
through narrowed eyes from a vantage-point far to one side. At last he
turned to Mark.
"Do you notice any defects or flaws in the surface of that glass?" he
demanded.
His daughter's fiance nodded.
"The whole thing's out of kilter, professor."
"How would you describe it? What do you mean by 'out of kilter'?"
* * * * *
Mark considered for a moment. Then:
"The impression I get is that this mirror was _poured_ into a circular
form, instead of being cut to shape. And that while it was still molten,
something struck it in the center, so that little ripples formed in the
glass, all the way from the center to the outer edge."
It was the scientist's turn to nod.
"Precisely my own view."
Moving away, he selected a candlestick and candle from among the gifts
on display. He handed it to Mark.
"I want you to move this stick in front of that glass," he instructed.
"However, you must be careful to stand well to one side, so that you,
yourself, will not be reflected."
"What's the angle, professor? What do you expect to find? What's wrong
with this mirror?"
The elder man shook his head, moved to a point where he could watch the
surface of the glass.
"I do not know what to expect," he said. "I may be completely on the
wrong track."
But his flashing eyes denied the words.
Seething with curiosity and excitement though he was, Mark carefully
carried out his instructions. He moved the candlestick back and forth
and up and down until it had been reflected from every inch of the
mirror. And the farther he progressed, the more excited Elaine's father
became.
"The reflection is perfect!" the old man cried. "It is true! Nowhere is
there a single sign of distortion!"
"Yes. Of course it's true." Mark was a little bewildered. "Why shouldn't
it be? Isn't every looking-glass supposed to throw back a reasonably
exact image?"
"Of course, of course!" The scientist was impatient. "But can you not
see the difference?"
"The difference? What difference?"
"Mark: this is not an ordinary mirror. That is what I mean! It denies
every law of optics! Glass as full of waves and ripples as this
apparently is should return hideously distorted reflections. Yet it does
not do so!"
"But what--"
"We shall see. Come on! Bring the mirror to my laboratory."
Hesitating only long enough to throw a tablecloth across the face of the
glass, the old man hurried out. Mark strode along in his wake, the heavy
mirror in his arms. Together, they left the house and followed the
bricked path to the little laboratory structure located at the far end
of the lot.
"Set it down here, in this rack," the professor instructed, indicating
an easel-like arrangement in one corner. He himself wheeled a strange
electrical apparatus into position in front of the glass. Then took up a
position behind a large glass screen, and motioned Mark to join him.
"What are you going to do?"
"You shall see!"
* * * * *
The white-haired savant threw a switch. The laboratory's lights went
out. He pressed a button on the control board of the apparatus behind
which they stood. Leaned forward eagerly, peering through the glass
screen at the mirror. Manipulated dials and levers.
An inexplicable excitement gripped Mark. He had a sudden, unshakable
conviction that he and the professor were on the verge of incredible
discoveries. Discoveries that would lead him to an explanation of the
strange coma that held Elaine in its grim sway.
His brown eyes fastened on the mirror. The next instant they went wide
with astonishment.
The glass screen behind which he and the professor were standing was
clearly reflected.
But it was merely an opaque surface! Neither he nor the scientist could
be seen behind it!
As if reading his mind, Professor Duchard gave vent to a little laugh.
"'One-way' glass," he explained. "It permits vision in only one
direction." Then the humor went out of his voice. "We may thank God that
science developed it before we are through."
Again he leaned forward, his eyes on the mirror.
An instant later he leveled a quivering forefinger.
"_Look!_"
There, in the semi-darkness where stood the looking-glass, a weird
figure was beginning to glow!
Tension flooded through Mark's veins. His fingers knotted into fists.
His eyes strained to catch the thing which grew upon the mirror's
surface.
Slowly, like some wizard's evil phantasmagoria, the glowing lines came
together. Took form. Painted a figure--
_The figure of the woman in the mirror!_
"That's her!" he cried excitedly. "That's the woman we saw reflected
instead of Elaine!"
Professor Duchard snapped off the machine beside him. He turned on the
lights. Swung around to face his daughter's fiance. His face was grey.
Grim lines of worry etched deep into the flesh.
"So that is it!" he said. "That is what he has done to her!"
There was fear in his voice ... living, breathing fear. That and
despair. The despair of utter hopelessness. His shoulders sagged with
it. The sparkle had gone out of his eyes.
Mark gripped the old man's arm. Blood lust flamed in his own brown orbs.
Every muscle was taut. The cords in his neck stood out like knotted
ropes.
"What is it?" he demanded savagely. "Is it Vance? What has he done to
her?"
Wearily, the scientist pulled his arm away and gestured the other to a
seat.
"I shall tell you," he said. "You will not believe me, but I shall tell
you."
"Yes. Go on. I'll decide for myself whether I'll believe you or not."
The professor stared into Mark's eyes.
"How much do you know about time?" he demanded.
* * * * *
"Time?"
"Yes. And time travel."
The younger man shrugged.
"Practically nothing," he admitted. "Oh, I've read a few stories, of
course. But that's all. I don't know what the theory of it all is, if
that's what you mean."
"I thought so." Professor Duchard sighed. "That being the case, there is
little use in my wasting energy trying to give you any real
understanding of it.
"However, I can tell you this: time is not the immutable thing most
people presume it to be. Actually, it is only another dimension. As a
research physicist, I have for many years been convinced of this."
"You mean that time travel really is possible? That men can be
transported into the future or the past--"
The other held up a restraining hand.
"Yes. Time travel _is_ possible, if men could break through into that
other dimension." A pause. "Yet up until tonight, I never believed that
man had found a way to pass that barrier."
"But professor! Think what you're saying! You're telling me that I could
go back and murder my own grandfather. That I could prevent myself from
being born--"
Again the elder man sighed.
"I was afraid of this," he said. "I knew you could not understand." He
hesitated. Then: "At any rate, take my word for it that time travel is
possible. Also, I assure you that there are any number of perfectly
sound theoretical and practical reasons why you never could hope to
murder your grandparents."
The other brushed the words aside.
"What about Elaine? What's all this got to do with her?"
"Everything. You see, my boy, it is _not_ possible for us to transport
our material bodies across time. They cannot bridge the gap. They must
remain in the period in which they are born--"
"But Elaine--"
Never had Mark seen the white-haired savant so solemn. His aged face was
drawn with worry. Yet there was terrifying self-confidence in his words.
"Elaine," he said quietly, "at this moment is trapped in time!"
* * * * *
There was a moment of stunned silence, then. Mark's brain was spinning.
He stared at Professor Duchard through narrowed eyes, half-convinced
that the man was mad. And yet--
"I am not insane," the scientist declared, as if answering an unspoken
question. "Believe me, my boy, I am not."
"Go on."
"That mirror which Adrian Vance sent to my daughter actually is a crude
time machine. A device for transporting a human soul to another period.
Who devised it I cannot say. I believe it is old, and that Vance came
upon it only by chance."
"But it isn't a machine. It's just a mirror--"
"Yet it is the gate through which a mind may be reflected into past or
future. All that is needed is a focal point. A person to receive that
mind. In this case, Adrian Vance made the focal point one of my
ancestors, the first Elaine Duchard."
"The first Elaine Duchard!"
"Yes. She was the woman in the picture. And the woman whose image we now
find imprinted in that devil's mirror."
"But how--"
"You remember how Adrian Vance swore vengeance when Elaine refused to
marry him." The aged savant's voice choked with anger. "This must be
what he planned. He bought the picture Gustav Jerbette painted of my
ancestor. Then, by some process, imprinted her portrait in the center of
this mirror, whose secret he somehow discovered. Apparently the picture
does not show except at a certain angle. Perhaps only my daughter's
coloring or facial configuration would ordinarily bring it out." He
shrugged. "That I do not know."
Mark nodded slowly. He was breathing hard, his eyes dark with anger.
"At any rate," the other continued, "Elaine tonight looked into the
mirror. By some accident--an accident Vance had counted on taking place
eventually, of course--, she happened to get exactly the right angle.
She saw her ancestor. Her mind flashed back through time, into that
other Elaine Duchard's brain--"
And then, all at once, the old man's iron will cracked.
"She is trapped!" he cried in a voice like the wail of a north wind
through the pines. "She is trapped in the body of that first Elaine
Duchard, while her own lies here, a useless, unconscious husk! She will
die, as our ancestor died--"
"What do you mean? How did the first Elaine Duchard die?" Mark was on
his feet, fists clenched.
Professor Duchard sat slumped forward, his face buried in his hands,
white hair awry.
"She was a tragic figure," he mumbled. "You saw her picture. You know
how beautiful she was.
"She came from a minor family of the French nobility, but she loved a
young Jacobin--a man such as those who, a few years later, overthrew the
monarchy and founded the French republic.
"She had another suitor, however. A Baron Morriere. When he learned that
she was going to marry another, he kidnapped her the night before her
wedding. Her lover was present at the time, and was nearly killed trying
to protect her. Later he returned to help her escape from the Chateau
Morriere. They succeeded in getting away.
"But the baron's guards tracked them down and murdered them both two
days later. And Gustav Jerbette gained his first renown--he was then but
a young student--when he immortalized them by painting his famous
picture, 'Elaine Duchard's Escape'."
"And now Elaine--"
* * * * *
The old man straightened wearily.
"Our Elaine will die," he said. "Her mind will be wiped out when the
Morriere pikes stab through my ancestor's body."
"There must be some way of calling her back--"
"If there is, I do not know it." He shook his head. "No. There is
nothing we can do."
"We can try!"
Mark's voice rang out like the clang of a great iron bell, echoing with
grim resolve. His tanned jaw jutted hard with determination. His eyes
flashed brown fire.
Elaine's father let his hands fall in a hopeless gesture.
"What is there to try, my boy? Elaine's mind is gone, back a hundred and
fifty years into the past. Her body lies unconscious in a hospital. What
can we do?"
A savage, humorless smile played over the other's lips.
"Earlier this evening you said I was a man of action," he told the
savant tautly. "You said I knew how to handle things I knew about. Well,
I think it's time for action. Real action!"
"But what action can we take? What can--"
"Who's responsible for what's happened to Elaine?"
"Responsible? Adrian Vance is responsible, of course. There is too much
evidence for it to be coincidence--"
"Right!" Mark's eyes were black with rage. "That snake planned this. He
said he'd get revenge. This"--he gestured toward the mirror--"is his way
of doing it!"
"All this is rather obvious," the scientist commented wearily. "But the
fact that Vance is guilty of this atrocity does us no good. Nor does it
help Elaine--"
"But it will!"
"It will? How?"
The younger man hunched forward tensely.
"We're going to catch that devil and strangle an answer out of him!" he
grated. "We're going to make him tell us how to bring Elaine safely back
to 1942!"
"And if he does not know how? If he cannot help us?"
"That'll be too bad. Because then we'll just keep on strangling him." He
laughed harshly. "Oh, yes. Vance may win. We may not be able to save
Elaine. But"--and his face was terrible to see--"Vance certainly won't
live long enough to gloat much!"
A spark of hope sprang into Professor Duchard's blue eyes.
"I wish I could believe you--"
"Forget it. We've got more important things to do than wishing. Look out
that window!"
* * * * *
The white-haired scientist turned to the casement toward which the other
pointed. Saw dawn reddening the eastern sky.
"It's morning already," Mark went on determinedly. "In a few hours more,
we can start things rolling by having you call up Vance."
"Call up Vance? What would I say?"
The devil's bitter mirth played in the other's eyes. But it was a mirth
spiked with menace.
"Simple. Just don't let on anything's wrong. Pretend that the wedding's
to come off as scheduled. Then tell him that things are in a mess. All
the excitement's got you tied in a knot. Because he's such a close
friend of Elaine's, you thought maybe he'd be willing to lend a hand."
The spark of hope in the professor's eyes brightened to a glowing coal.
"I wonder...." he mused. "It might work--"
"Of course it'll work. It's got to. It's the only chance we have...."
It was nine fifteen precisely when Adrian Vance rang the doorbell. He
stepped back. Polished the nails of his right hand on the grey suede
glove which still garbed the left.
The door swung open.
"Good morning, professor."
"Good morning, Adrian." The savant stepped aside. "Please come in."
Not by the slightest vocal tremor or change of expression did the old
man hint of his secret--that if necessary Adrian Vance would never leave
this place alive!
"It is kind of you to come," he told the antiquarian as he led the way
toward the back of the dwelling. "I never knew that a wedding could
cause so much turmoil." He chuckled softly. "Of course, I have had
little experience in such matters, my wife being dead and Elaine an only
child. And my own nuptials were celebrated a good many years ago."
Every word, every inflection, was perfect. No actor could have matched
that sinister soliloquy.
Vance smoothed the sleek black hair that at once crowned and
characterized him.
"It's a great privilege to be allowed to assist in any way at Elaine's
wedding," he observed unctuously. "Anything which I can do to help make
this a happier occasion for her is a pleasure."
Blue fire flared in the scientist's eyes. He looked away quickly.
A moment later his composure was regained.
"There are some things in the laboratory I wish to bring to the house,"
he announced. "If you will come this way--" He opened the back door. Led
the antique dealer down the brick walk to the laboratory.
Together, they stepped inside.
The door swung shut. In the silence its jarring slam echoed like a shot
fired in a tomb.
Vance cleared his throat.
"So this is your laboratory, professor--"
* * * * *
Mark Carter stepped out of the shadows. His tanned face looked as if it
had been carved from the rock of ages. His eyes were pools of sudden
death.
He spoke:
"Elaine's gone, Vance. Through the mirror. We want her back."
Just that. Nothing more. But suddenly Vance was shaking.
"What are you talking about? I don't know what you mean."
Professor Duchard said:
"You are lying. I have examined the mirror. I tested with black light.
It showed the picture of the first Elaine Duchard."
"You're mad," said Vance. "You don't make sense."
"I fear I make too much sense, Adrian Vance. I wish I could disbelieve
my own mind. But I cannot. I know that you have found a way to pass the
barrier between space and time. I know that you have projected Elaine's
mind into the past, leaving her body behind in a state of suspended
animation."
"And we want her back, Vance," Mark broke in. "We want her back right
now!"
He was moving forward, a juggernaut of menace, clenched fists
half-raised.
"Keep away from me!" the antiquarian shrilled. His greasy face was
paste-colored with terror. "Keep away! Don't touch me!"
The other caught his shoulders. Shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.
"Tell us!" he thundered. "Tell us how to bring her back!"
"I don't know what you're talking about! There wasn't anything wrong
with the mirror I sent Elaine!"
"Tell us--"
The professor caught Mark's arm.
"Stop!" he begged. "Do not hurt him. There is a better way."
"A better way? What do you mean?"
The scientist turned to Vance.
"I am sure you are telling the truth," he said. "I feel certain the
mirror is harmless." His tone was silky. A thin smile rippled across his
aged face.
He was like a cat playing with a mouse.
"Only our friend, young Mr. Carter, remains to be convinced," he went
on. "However, we shall have no difficulty in proving him wrong."
Adrian Vance stared at the professor in terrified fascination. His lips
moved, but no words came.
The savant hurried across to an ancient desk which stood in one corner.
Rummaged through it. Came back with a big sheet of heavy paper.
"Over there," said the professor--gesturing toward the spot where the
mirror still stood upon the easel, again shrouded by the tablecloth--"is
the glass that has caused all the trouble."
He smiled sympathetically at Vance.
"All so unnecessary, too, Adrian!"
"Unnecessary?"
"Of course. We shall demonstrate to Mark right now that it is not a
means of time travel."
"Demonstrate?" Vance was shaking again. "How?"
* * * * *
Again the professor smiled.
"Oh, very simply. I have here"--he held up the heavy paper--"a
lithographed portrait of the late General George A. Custer. You will
recall he was killed by Indians at the battle of Little Big
Horn--popularly known as Custer's last stand."
Vance's teeth suddenly were chattering.
"We shall hang this picture on your chest, Adrian," Professor Duchard
went on. "Then we shall stand you in front of that mirror and give you a
chance to concentrate on the reflection." He chuckled softly. "Of
course, since the mirror has nothing to do with time travel, you need
have no fear of your mind leaving your body and going back to that of
General Custer, and death in a Sioux massacre--"
Without warning, Vance erupted into action.
As if by magic, the panic fled his face. His features contorted with
hate. His eyes suddenly were glistening pinpoints of jet.
And even faster moved his sinuous body. He snaked free of Mark's
restraining grasp. Sprang back like a wounded tiger. His right hand
darted under his coat to his left armpit like a Gila monster streaking
for cover.
Mark Carter's lips twisted in a snarl of rage. He lunged after the
antiquarian, big fists balled and deadly.
"Look out!"
It was Professor Duchard, his voice a shrill warning blast.
Mark's eyes shifted. He caught the sudden spearing movement of Vance's
right hand. Lashed out in savage fury to meet the new threat.
The antiquarian shrank back. The other's fist drove by him. Missed him
by a hair.
And then his right hand was back in view. Back, and gripping the butt of
a long-barreled Smith & Wesson Magnum. His teeth were bared, in a
grimace of hideous triumph.
Like a rattlesnake striking, he slashed out with the heavy gun. Brought
it down at his adversary's head in a vicious blow.
Mark still reeled, off balance, from his own missed blow. But he saw the
gun descending. Threw up his arm to ward it off.
The barrel caught him at the juncture of shoulder and collar bones. Sent
screaming pain stabbing to the farthest reaches of his brain. Paralyzed
his whole side. He staggered drunkenly.
Again that triumphant leer contorted Vance's hatchet face. Once more he
whipped the pistol barrel down.
And this time his aim was true. This time the heavy gun slammed home
square at the base of the other's brain.
The universe was exploding inside Mark's skull. A crimson universe, with
planets that burst into bloody flame. His control centers went numb. The
life vanished from his muscles. He felt himself falling ... falling ...
falling....
* * * * *
As if in some macabre nightmare, he heard Adrian Vance laugh. Saw the
antiquarian step back and bring the gun in his hand to bear on Professor
Duchard.
"So you're going to force me to bring Elaine back to the twentieth
century!" the rejected suitor mocked. "So you think you still have a
chance to save her from death at the hands of Baron Morriere's
retainers!"
The old man's eyes were like blue steel as he met the antiquarian's
gaze.
"You devil!" he said. "You admit it! You have killed her!"
Vance nodded, his narrow face sinister.
"Of course I admit it. Why shouldn't I? What is there you can do about
it? Or do you think the police are going to hold me on a charge of
subjecting your daughter to involuntary time travel by sending her a
mirror?" He laughed harshly, smoothed his sleek black hair. Then
continued:
"Yes, professor. Go to the police. Tell them all about my hideous
crimes." Again he laughed. "See how long it takes them to put you under
psychiatric observation."
The aged scientist's lips quivered with passion and despair.
"Why do you stay?" he cried. "You have won. Why do you mock us? Go away!
Let us alone!"
"Oh, no." The other shook his head. "I don't want to leave just yet,
professor. There are still some things I have to tell you. Things I
learned while making preparations for Elaine's little trip."
He paused to gloat.
"How thoroughly have you investigated the case of that first Elaine
Duchard, in whose body your daughter now resides, Professor Duchard?" he
demanded.
The white-haired savant did not even answer. He leaned weakly against a
laboratory bench, a broken man.
"Did you know, for instance," Adrian Vance continued, "that Baron
Morriere's men tortured Elaine Duchard before they murdered her?"
"You fiend! Not even a savage would do a thing like that!"
Vance chuckled evilly.
"You exaggerate," he sneered. "Besides, Elaine's sweetheart, here"--he
prodded the still-prone Mark with his foot--"no doubt will protect her."
His face darkened.
"And if you did not want harm to befall her, why did you let her reject
me when I asked to marry her? I gave her her chance. When she didn't
take it, what else could she expect but my revenge?"
"Go away. Please go away."
* * * * *
On the floor, Mark stirred uneasily. His brain was clear now, though his
head throbbed like a jungle tom-tom under the beat of a mad witch
doctor. Slowly, he tried his muscles. Tensed them. Relaxed them. Tested
them for complete control.
Vance said:
"In case you still have any notions of rescuing your daughter from the
far reaches of time, professor, forget them now. It's impossible to call
a person back. In the first place, a time mirror would be needed--and
the only one in existence, the one I bought from a French sorcerer who
once studied under Eliphas Levi, now stands on that easel in the
corner."
Sobs racked the other's frail form. He still leaned against the bench,
his face buried in his hands.
But on the floor, Mark Carter's jaw grew hard. He readied himself for a
savage leap.
"Furthermore," their captor went on, "your precious Elaine remembers
nothing of her life in this century. For all practical purposes she has
become the first Elaine Duchard. I know this, because I tried out the
mirror by sending one of my clerks three months into the past. He was
possessed by a strange amnesia that left his mind a perfect blank so far
as what had happened in those three months was concerned!"
The antiquarian paused, savoring the full effect of his words on
Elaine's father with evil glee. His black eyes were shining with hell's
own fire.
And in that tense, silent second, Mark Carter struck.
He came off the floor like a tiger springing, and the roar of a jungle
beast was in his throat. His arms shot out to embrace Adrian Vance's
legs and pull him down. His fingers hungered for the feel of his
enemy's throat.
He was still in the air when the other moved. Like lightning, Vance
leaped aside. Away from Mark's clutching hands. He landed, tense and
poised, the gun in his fist sighted on young Carter's chest, a grin of
triumph splitting his oily face.
"Did you think I was asleep, you fool?" he crowed. "Did you think I
wasn't watching you every second out of the corner of my eye? I've been
ready to kill you from the moment your eyelids first fluttered!"
Mute, his face still livid with hate, Mark staggered to his feet.
"Come on!" Vance challenged. "If you think you can jump me before I pull
the trigger, come ahead! I'll be glad to take my chances before a jury
when you're dead!"
Elaine's fiance glared helplessly. His fists clenched and relaxed again
and again.
"You win," he said at last, his face grey beneath its tan. "Go on. Get
out. You've got us licked."
But the antiquarian shook his head.
"Not quite yet," he answered. "I've still got one job to do."
Then, so fast the eye could hardly follow, his gun-hand came up.
_Bang--bang--bang!_
* * * * *
Three shots he fired. Three shots, straight toward the easel in the
corner. Dead center into the mirror that stood upon it.
There was a wild tinkling of falling glass. The tablecloth slipped away.
Revealed the shattered remnants of the time mirror.
"I'm taking no chances!" cried Vance. "Professor Duchard's reputation as
a research physicist is too high." And then, mockingly: "However, I
doubt that even he can make any good use of that mirror now!"
With that final sally, he backed away and out the door, the Magnum in
his hand still grim and unwavering as he covered Mark and the old
scientist.
Curtly:
"I wouldn't come out too soon if I were you."
The door slammed shut.
Mark started forward. But the professor caught his arm.
"It is useless," the savant said. "To follow him would bring death and
would avail nothing, my boy. He has won."
Like men in a daze, then, they stared into each other's eyes. They saw
only dull hopelessness. The last spark was gone out.
Slowly, Mark walked over to the corner where stood the shattered mirror.
Looked blankly down at its fragments. Bending, he picked up a splinter.
Inspected it idly.
The next instant he whirled about.
"Professor Duchard!" he rapped. "How did this devil's looking-glass
work?"
The scientist looked up dispiritedly, shrugged.
"I could not make you understand. It is a complicated matter of
space-time theory--"
The other strode back to him. Gripped his shoulder.
"I don't care about the details. Just try to give me a simplified
version of the principle."
Professor Duchard gazed into the younger man's eyes. Caught the fierce
light within them--the gleam of spirit that marks those who will not be
downed for long, no matter what the odds. The ray of struggle that only
death could take away.
For a long moment, then, the old man sat buried in thought. At last he
looked up again. Broke the silence.
"Have you ever seen the physical experiment in which a wave of sound is
used to break a glass?"
"No. But I've heard of it. I know what you're talking about."
"Very well, then. Imagine, if you can, that the barrier between space
and time is that glass. It is apparently impenetrable."
"I see." Elaine's fiance nodded eagerly.
"Then try to conceive of a terrific wave of energy being concentrated
against it, just as the sound wave is concentrated on the glass. But
this time, the wave must be so manipulated as to strike the barrier as a
pebble strikes and breaks a window. Otherwise it would be too weak to
break through. Or, if it was strong enough, it would break down the
entire space-time relationship."
* * * * *
Again Mark nodded, this time more slowly.
"You mean that the wave of energy really must be like a sword, stabbing
one small hole through the barrier?"
"Exactly." A pause. "The time mirror represented just such a hole
through the barrier. What appeared to us to be waves in the glass
actually were frozen ripples in the space-time continuum--just as if you
had dropped a stone in water, and the hole and ripples had frozen."
"Then when you looked into the mirror--"