course, you would not even know that this was happening. But if your
mind was concentrated on something in the past or future--as Elaine's
was upon the picture of her ancestor--, you were automatically hurtled
through time to that period."
The younger man frowned.
"Then why didn't my mind go, too, when Elaine's did? We both were
looking into the mirror."
"But from different angles," the professor reminded him. "Remember, the
actual break in the continuum was relatively small. Elaine, seated
before the mirror, must have been directly in front of the gap, so she
was sucked through. You, on the other hand--"
"Yes. I was standing up. Off center. So I didn't go." Mark nodded. "I
see."
"And now," said the scientist, "the mirror is broken. Our last chance of
saving Elaine is gone."
"No!"
"What?" The professor peered up at the other incredulously. "What do you
mean, Mark?"
Brown eyes narrowed with excitement, Elaine's sweetheart held out the
splinter of glass he had picked up. He shook it in front of the savant's
face.
"Professor, every piece of glass that went to make up that mirror is
laying over there on the floor."
"I am sorry, my boy." The elder man frowned. "I do not understand."
"Professor, if you break your glasses, all you have to do to get a new
pair is to take the pieces to an optician. He'll figure the formula of
the lens from the fragments and make you a new set."
"You mean--"
"I mean that we can put the pieces of that mirror together as if it was
a jigsaw puzzle. From it, you can figure out some kind of a formula.
Then, by experimenting, you can find what kind of energy bolt it takes
to blast through the barrier!"
* * * * *
Something of the man's intensity, his enthusiasm, communicated itself to
the professor. His blue eyes came alight.
"It is conceivable!" he declared. "Not likely. But conceivable." He
gripped the fragment of glass which Mark held. "Yes! We shall try it! If
it works, we can--"
He stopped short. His face fell.
"We can what?" he finished. "Another time mirror will not help us bring
Elaine back--"
His companion interrupted fiercely:
"How do we know? There's always a chance we'll think of something, isn't
there? And it's a cinch we won't accomplish anything just sitting here."
"But--"
"The least we can do is try!"
They worked like madmen in the hours that followed, heedless of the
wedding guests who came and went from the house in bewildered knots.
Unmindful of gashed fingers, Mark fitted the slivers of mirror together,
while Professor Duchard tested and analyzed and figured at his side.
And then--
"I have it!" shouted the savant triumphantly. "I have the formula!"
"Then we can construct another mirror?"
Some of the old man's elation dropped away. He shook his head.
"Not yet. We know only the _effect_ we want. But how to achieve it--" He
shrugged.
Experiments. More experiments. Hours of experiments, with Mark and the
professor hovering over an electric crucible bubbling with molten glass.
Hours of failure.
At last the old scientist straightened, his face haggard with weariness.
"It is no use," he said sadly. "I have exhausted my knowledge, and to no
avail."
He turned away, shoulders sagging. Stumbled toward the door.
The next instant Mark's voice rose in a scream.
"_Look out!_"
Instinctively, without so much as a backward glance, the old man lunged
forward. Even as he did so, he felt something jerk at his ankle. His leg
came out from under him. He pitched to the floor.
_Crash!_
The crucible was falling, jerked from its place atop the lab bench! The
electric cable which supplied its current was twisted about the
professor's ankle, somehow unconsciously caught by his foot as he
worked.
Molten glass burst out of the pot in a white-hot wave. Slopped over the
composition floor in a steaming river. Engulfed table legs and radiator
pipes alike.
And then, like a writhing snake, the high tension line from which the
crucible cable stemmed was whipping down, torn loose by the jar of the
professor's leap!
Down it came! Struck the floor once. Lashed against the glass-engulfed
radiator pipes, bare wires flashing.
A ball of purple fire exploded at the contact point, while the cable
jerked and twisted like a living thing. The laboratory was suddenly
permeated with ozone's peculiar odor.
"Look out!" cried Mark again.
* * * * *
But already Professor Duchard had jerked his foot free of the crucible
line. He shrank back under the long bench, away from the writhing cable.
An instant later the current went dead. The crackling ball of purple
fire evaporated into thin air.
Mark sprang across the room to where the scientist lay. He pulled him to
his feet.
"Are you all right, professor? Are you hurt?"
"Yes, yes, my boy. It was a narrow escape, but your warning saved me. I
am all right."
The savant leaned against the bench, trying to still the reflexive
trembling of his body. His face was pale. He ran his tongue over lips
suddenly gone dry as he stared down at the broken high tension line, and
thought of what would have happened had it touched him in its spasm.
And then, suddenly, his blue eyes went wide with stark amazement.
"Mark!" he gasped.
"What's wrong, professor? What is it?"
"That glass on the floor! Look at it!"
The other stared uncomprehendingly.
"The waves, Mark! See the waves!"
A startled exclamation burst from the younger man's lips. He dropped to
his knees. Scrutinized the puddle of glass.
But the scientist pulled him erect again.
"My instruments!" he ordered in a voice that trembled. "Quick! I must
make tests--"
For half an hour he worked. And when at last he straightened, complete
confidence gleamed deep in his eyes.
"Is it--"
Professor Duchard nodded.
"It is. That was the secret, my boy. The secret we sought but could not
find. The time mirror is merely a special glass which has been subjected
to a terrific electrical discharge, then silvered. That piece on the
floor is worthless, of course; too many elements were uncontrolled.
"But knowing the formula as we do; knowing exactly what we are searching
for and how to prepare it, I would stake my reputation that we can
duplicate the mirror Adrian Vance sent to Elaine."
Mark's eyes were gleaming. His jaw hard.
"Then do it!" he commanded.
"But what good would it do? We cannot bring Elaine back--"
"Maybe not." The other's tanned face was grim. "But we can send me back
to where she is."
"Send you back!"
"Yes." A pause. "You see, I've been thinking about the things you've
told me, Professor Duchard. About time travel, and how it works.
"You say we can't save Elaine. Well, that's probably true. Maybe she's
got to die in France, back in the days before the revolution."
A tremor of emotion passed over him as he said it. He swallowed hard.
Then:
"But if she must die, she can at least die easily. Cleanly. Quickly,
with a knife through her heart. She doesn't have to go the way Adrian
Vance wants her to--tortured by a bunch of drunken scum, then cut to
pieces without a chance to fight back."
* * * * *
There was pain in the professor's face, too, when he answered.
"I wish it were as easy as that, Mark."
Mark's voice was fierce.
"What's wrong with it? What's to stop me?"
The other sighed. Brushed back white hair with a sweep of one frail
hand.
"You cannot change history, my boy," he said sadly. "A study of
cosmology would show you that such things are immutable. You can go
backward or forward through time and participate in them, but you cannot
change them."
"How do you know? Who's traveled through time and then come back to say
we can't change events?"
"You do not understand--"
"And I don't care!" the younger man flared. "I may fail--but I'm going
to try! I'm not going to sit here, waiting for Elaine to die--"
"But you would have no memory of your life in this century! Remember
what Vance said--"
"Right. That's the one thing that might stop me. I'm counting on you to
take care of it, though. Is there anything you can do?"
There was a long moment of tension-studded silence. Then:
"Perhaps there is. I have been working on equipment to prevent fighter
pilots 'blacking out' during power dives, and I believe there is a
relationship between time travel and terrific speeds in space. It is
possible that I could insulate you--"
"That's all I need, then. Make me a mirror, professor, and something to
insulate me--"
"But you have no focal point! You might go through time to a place a
thousand miles and a thousand years from where Elaine is captive--"
Mark laughed harshly.
"Wrong, professor! I've got the most accurate focal point in the world.
Or I will have--"
"The most accurate--? What do you mean?" The old man's face was
bewildered.
"I'll have the same focal point Elaine had, sir: Gustav Jerbette's
painting, 'Elaine Duchard's Escape'." Again that laugh. "I'm going now
to steal it from Adrian Vance!"
The house of Adrian Vance was one befitting a professional dealer in
antiquities. It set far back from the street, towering against the sky
like the black bulk of a medieval castle. A high iron fence surrounded
it.
At this moment Mark Carter stood surveying the estate from the shelter
of a nearby clump of trees.
"It's like a damned fortress!" he muttered to himself. "He's taking no
chances on anyone getting in."
* * * * *
Turning, then, he gripped a branch of the nearest tree. Swung up into
it. Clambered out, cat-like, until he lay beyond the fence and above the
grounds of Vance's home.
The limb bowed under his weight as he proceeded until at last he was
able to drop lightly to the ground.
One hazard passed!
"And with no worries about that fence being wired for an alarm system,
either!" he told himself triumphantly.
He hurried toward the house, thankful for the darkness of the night.
On one side of the big building lay a terrace. French windows opened
onto it.
Like a wraith in the night, taking advantage of every shrub and patch of
shadow, Mark crept close to the casements.
They were locked.
The trespasser stripped off his coat. Wrapped it around his hand, a
bulky, protective wad of cloth covering the flesh. Then, as silently as
possible, he pressed on one of the small panes of glass close beside the
lock. Harder ... harder ... harder....
With a faint tinkle of falling glass, the pane gave way.
Tense seconds crawled by on leaden feet. Mark's mouth was dry, his
throat cottony. He stood taut, his back to the wall, waiting fearfully
for some sign that Vance had been aroused.
At last he relaxed again. Reached through the broken pane and unlocked
the big window. Swung it open, ever so gently, and stepped inside,
fading swiftly into the thick blackness of the nearest corner.
Once Mark had interviewed a burglar as a feature assignment. He
remembered the man's words now.
"Gettin' in ain't the hard part," the second-story worker had explained.
"It's gettin' out that's tough. The first thing you gotta do on a job is
to line up an exit."
Now, as his eyes grew accustomed to the blackness, Mark searched for a
means of escape. There was a window at the far end of the room. He
approached it with swift, silent strides. Opened it wide.
The slightest of creakings caught his ear. Instantly he was on the
alert, every muscle tense.
The sound was not repeated. He relaxed.
Where would the picture be?
A large canvas hung above the fireplace. He tiptoed over to it.
The lovely face of the first Elaine Duchard looked down at him!
With trembling fingers he whipped a knife from his pocket. Looked about
for a chair to stand on--
"It ain't smart to work a room without fixin' the door first," the
burglar had said. "You feel lots better if you know nobody ain't gonna
stumble in on you unexpected."
Ten seconds later Mark had wedged a straight-back chair under the knob
of the only door leading into the rest of the house.
Turning, he hurried back to the Jerbette painting. With swift, deft
slashes he cut it from its frame. Started to roll it up.
"Ah! A visitor!"
* * * * *
The trespasser whirled as if he had been stabbed. He stumbled from the
chair on which he stood. As he did so, the brilliant beam of a five-cell
flashlight hit him square in the face like a physical blow. It blinded
him. Left him helpless.
"No doubt this is just a social call. Too bad that the police will call
it breaking and entering with larcenous intent!"
It was the oily, mocking voice of Adrian Vance, and it came from the
French window through which Mark had entered.
"Try to lie out of it!" Vance gloated. "Just try to explain that picture
in your hands!"
"I don't have to explain, Vance. You know why I'm here."
The wail of a siren sounded in the distance.
"Oh, of course I know." The other was laughing softly, greasily. "But
will the police understand, Carter? That siren you hear--it's coming
here, you know; I called the station before I came down to grab you."
Mark's heart jumped like a wounded stag. He looked around wildly. Was
this to be the end of it all? Was he to lie in jail while Elaine went to
her death, back there in Bourbon France?
His captor was speaking again:
"I didn't dream I could have this much luck! To see that slut Elaine
dead--that was the height of my ambition. But now--to have you sent to
the penitentiary for burglary--"
The words ended in a roar of laughter. It died, and Vance went on, his
tone grim and deadly:
"It's time you dropped that picture, Carter. Drop it--and put your hands
up!"
The picture! The one link between 1942 and 1780!
"Drop it!"
Slowly, Mark's hands relaxed. He let the picture fall to the floor.
"Now--raise your hands and walk over to the corner. Stand with your face
to the wall!"
Mark moved like one paralyzed. His hands came up as if they were
weighted with lead. His brown eyes were fixed on the shadowy finger back
of the flashlight, and impotent rage and hatred seethed within them.
Yet what could he do? Jump Vance? Try to wrest the inevitable gun from
the antiquarian's hand?
Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head. No. It was impossible. His
slug-riddled body would pitch lifeless to the floor before he could take
two steps forward.
Nor was it mere fear of death that made him halt. That he would have
faced, and gladly.
But what actually held him back was that such a suicidal attempt would
avail him nothing. It would bring him no nearer his real goal than
before: Elaine still would meet that awful doom which history had
recorded as her fate!
"Turn around, damn you! Get over to the corner! Put your face to the
wall!"
Ever so slowly, Mark turned. His brain was pounding with frantic effort
as he strove to find some flaw in the awful wall of circumstance that
rose about him.
* * * * *
And then he saw the curtain!
It was just an ordinary curtain, buff-colored and a trifle stiff with
starch.
But it hung in front of the window he had opened as an emergency exit
when he came in. At the moment, it swayed ever so slightly in the ripple
of draft.
Most important of all, that window was set in the wall against which
Adrian Vance had directed that he stand. The corner Vance had indicated
was a step to the right of where Mark now stood; the window, a step to
the left. And a grand piano half-sheltered it from the antiquarian's
line of fire!
"Hurry up! Get into that corner!"
Instinctively, the captive tensed to leap.
But the picture! What about it? He must have it! Without that painting,
the time mirror Professor Duchard was constructing would be useless!
Then, suddenly, a grim smile played across Mark's lips. There was an
angle! There was one wild chance by which he might escape alive and take
Jerbette's masterpiece with him!
"Hurry up, or I'll shoot!"
Like a stone from a sling, Mark hurled himself toward the window in a
headlong dive. The blackness of the outer night engulfed him.
In the room behind, Vance's Magnum roared a cannonade of death.
Copper-jacketed slugs splintered the sill at the fleeing man's heels.
Mark landed on one shoulder in a somersaulting roll. The next instant he
was on his feet and sprinting for the shadows at the corner of the
house.
Flashlight in hand, Vance sprang to the open window.
On Mark ran, and on. Around the house as fast as he could go. Then the
smooth plateau of the terrace loomed before him, with its wide-open
French window.
He slowed, silenced his pounding footsteps.
On the other side of the big room, still peering out the window through
which Mark had hurled himself, stood Vance. His sleek form was
silhouetted behind the flashlight's beam.
Like a wraith in the night, the other slipped inside. He crossed the
room on tiptoe. His hand darted down to snatch the rolled picture from
where it still lay on the floor.
* * * * *
And then Vance turned. His flashlight caught Mark.
But this time it was the antiquarian who was surprised. He jerked back.
Already his adversary was leaping for the cover of a heavy mahogany
table. Vance snapped a shot at him. Tried again to place him with the
light.
Mark's hand came down on a porcelain vase. He hurled it at Vance with
all his might.
Vainly, his enemy tried to dodge. But too late. The vase _thunk'd_ home
against his left shoulder. The flashlight fell to the floor.
Like a thunderbolt, Elaine's fiance lunged forward. His left hand
slashed down; pinioned the arm that held the Magnum. His right fist came
up with express-train speed. Smashed home on the point of Vance's jaw.
The antiquarian's body jerked spasmodically. Went limp. Sagged to the
floor.
But now the sound of harsh voices and running feet came to Mark's ears.
Clutching the Jerbette painting in one hand, he ducked back out the
window. Even in the gloom he could see black figures converging on the
house. A sedan stood in the driveway, its spotlight sweeping the house.
"The police!"
Cold sweat stood out on Mark's forehead as he gasped the exclamation.
But he did not hesitate. Keeping to the shadows, he headed for the
still-open gate through which the car had come.
The iron fence loomed close. He ran along it in a half-crouch.
"Hey, you! Stick 'em up or we shoot!"
For the barest fraction of a second Mark halted in mid-stride. The
spotlight was swinging toward him.
But the gate was only a dozen yards away. He made for it in a mad rush.
Bullets sang about him. Slugs ricocheted from the iron spikes. But on he
went. Lunged through the opening and into the shadowy fastnesses across
the street.
The return to Professor Duchard's laboratory was a nightmare of mad
dashes and narrow escapes. Squad cars seemed everywhere. Police always
on his heels.
And then--
He was slipping through the door, alive and unharmed, with the picture
clasped under his arm!
The professor jerked about from the task of hanging a new and bigger
time mirror on the easel. It still was shrouded with a heavy cloth.
"It's ready?"
The scientist nodded.
"Yes. I got special co-operation from an old friend who is manager of a
glass works." He paused. "And you?"
Mark waved the Jerbette.
"I got the picture," he clipped, "but we're going to have to work fast.
The police probably are on their way here now. Vance caught me in the
act of stealing the painting." He still was panting from the exertion of
his race here.
"Then clip it to this frame quickly!" The professor indicated an
arrangement like an oversize drawing board. He hurried to assist the
younger man. In a moment their work was done.
There, at last, was "Elaine Duchard's Escape." Mark for the first time
studied it carefully.
* * * * *
Four people were shown. The central figure was that of the first Elaine
Duchard. She was in the act of entering a carriage, her lovely face
alive with panic. Beside her a young man--his face in the shadows--held
a horse pistol on another man. This second man's features were twisted
with hate; Mark thought he never had seen such malevolent eyes.
"Baron Morriere" the professor explained. "The younger man is Jacques
Rombeau, Elaine Duchard's lover."
Mark nodded. Turned to scrutinize a third man, unidentifiable, who was
clambering to the driver's seat of the coach.
The next instant the laboratory was re-echoing with the sound of heavy
blows upon the door.
"Open up!" roared a muffled voice. "It's the law!"
"The police!" Mark's face went pale.
Professor Duchard darted to the bench which lined one wall. Seized a
strange-looking helmet which stood there. Rushed with it to Mark.
"The insulator-helmet!" he explained hastily, his blue eyes feverish
with excitement. "Strap it on! Quickly!"
"Open up!" the alien voice roared again. "We want in!"
And then the angry accents of Adrian Vance:
"Break it down, officer! Don't let them get away!"
Mark hauled the frame on which the painting was stretched to a position
in front of the mirror. Whirled back. Gripped his companion's hand.
"Will it work, professor? Will the mirror take me back through time?"
"That I cannot tell you, my boy. But it should. You know the formula I
worked out. You understand the process by which it was constructed." A
second's pause. "Actually, I believe it should work far better than the
previous time mirror. The one Vance gave Elaine was very old, very
crude. This one is the product of modern science, modern workmanship. It
creates a tremendously larger rift in the space-time continuum--"
A shot rang out.
At the other end of the laboratory, the outside door burst open, lock
shattered. Uniformed police rushed in, Adrian Vance at their head.
"Mark! Quickly! I shall hold them!"
With a savage jerk, Elaine's fiance ripped aside the cloth that veiled
the new time mirror. The reflection of Jerbette's painting sprang across
its silver surface.
Mark's jaw went hard with tension. He glued his eyes to the figure of
Jacques Rombeau, Elaine Duchard's lover.
Behind him, Adrian Vance charged down the laboratory, struggling to
shake off the frail, tenacious figure of Professor Duchard. He brought
up his heavy Magnum.
But Mark paid him no heed. Already his brain was spinning, his senses
reeling. Yet still he concentrated on the lithe, tense figure of Jacques
Rombeau holding the fuming Baron Morriere at bay. And through his mind
the words kept ringing:
"I shall take over the brain of Jacques Rombeau! I shall save Elaine
from her fate!
"_I shall change history!_"
* * * * *
"You dog!" said Baron Morriere in a voice that trembled with passion.
"I'll see you drawn and quartered for this! You'll swing from the
highest gibbet in all France--"
"Save your breath!" snapped Mark--and then nearly dropped the horse
pistol he grasped as the sound of his voice struck his ears. For he
spoke in the French of the late eighteenth century, and the voice was
not his own, but that of Jacques Rombeau!
From behind him came another voice--faintly tremulous, the voice of a
woman:
"Jacques, _mon cher_! We are ready! Quick!"
"Right!"
Then, prodding the baron's stomach with the gun barrel:
"Why I don't kill you now I'll never know. _Le Bon Dieu_ knows I've got
cause enough. And may He have mercy on your soul if you try to follow
us!"
Turning on his heel, Mark sprang aboard the coach. From the driver's
seat came a shout and the crack of the whip. With a jerk that nearly
threw Mark to the floor, they were off!
"Oh, Jacques! I was so afraid! The baron--"
He turned in his seat. Looked into the lovely, appealing face of Elaine
Duchard. Her arms reached out to him. Instinctively he accepted the
embrace. He held her close, and his lips sought hers.
It was strange; incredible. Even as he kissed the girl, Mark realized
it. He was two people simultaneously--Mark Carter and Jacques Rombeau.
The brain of the former had traveled back through time into the body of
the latter. In so doing, it had somehow acquired all the knowledge, the
personality, the character traits of Rombeau. Yet because the mind of
Mark Carter had been protected by Professor Duchard's insulating helmet,
he still was able to think independently--almost as if his own twentieth
century being was held apart in a special brain lobe within Jacques
Rombeau's skull!
"I knew you would come, Jacques! I knew it!"
A wave of sentiment choked off Mark's reply. Again he kissed the soft
hollow of that first Elaine Duchard's throat, trying the while to fight
off the awful sense of futility that swept over him as he remembered
history's verdict as to her fate.
Then, suddenly, the coach was halting.
"Whoa, there!" came the voice of the burly man on the box. And then:
"Well, Jacques, what now? We're away from the castle, but where do we
go?"