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.“What Professor Dodson did—he had discovered, I may add parenthetically, that the basis for the discrimination to which Knight objected was physiological—was to bend his own perception of the four dimensions so that he apprehended verticality as we do duration, and duration as we do verticality.”“But that formula,” I began, “and the note itself—”“Once I understood Dodson’s plight,” Street explained, “the question was quantitative: How was vertical distance—as seen by ourselves—related to duration as perceived by Dodson? Fortunately Miss Dodson’s testimony provided the clue.You will remember that on the twelfth she had seen Dodson lying on a day bed, this being at approximately ten-thirty in the morning.On the eighteenth, six days later but at about the same time, she saw.him on her chaise longue.A moment ago I measured your position, with you posed as the missing man had appeared, but I still did not know what portion of the body governed the temporal displacement.The third apparition, however, resolved that uncertainty.It took place seven days and two hours and ten minutes after the second.Dodson’s feet were actually lower this time than they had been in his first two appearances; his center of gravity was scarcely higher than it had been when he had half reclined on the chaise; but his head was considerably higher—enough to account nicely for the time lapse.Thus I located the ‘temporal determinant’—as I have been calling it to myself—in the area of the frontal lobes of the brain.When you were lying on the day bed, Westing, this spot was fifty centimeters from the floor; when you were in the chaise, seventy-four centimeters; and when you sat in that low chair, ninety-two and one-half centimeters.From these figures an easy calculation showed that one centimeter equaled four hours of duration.Dodson himself arrived at the same figure, doubtless when he noted that the hands of that large clock on the wall appeared to jump when he moved his head.As a true scientist he expressed it in the pure cgs system: vertical displacement times fourteen thousand four hundred seconds per centimeter equals duration.”“And he wrote it on that slip of paper.”Street nodded.“At some time in our future, since if it had been in the past we could not have put the paper in motion, as we did, by setting up a fan in the present with assurances that it would remain in operation for some time.Doubtless he used one of the laboratory benches as an impromptu writing desk, and I have calculated that when he stood erect he was in November sixth.”“Where we will doubtless see him,” Wide said.“I think not.”“But, Street,” I interrupted, “why should that note have undergone the same dislocation?”“Why should other inanimate objects behave as they do? Unquestionably because they have been in contact with us, and there is, as far as we know, no natural opposing force which behaves as Dodson.There was, of course, some danger in grasping the note, but I counted on my own greater mass to wrench it from its unnatural space-time orientation.I had noted, you see, that Miss Dodson’s descriptions of her ‘father’ did not state that he was nude, something she would undoubtedly have commented on had that been the case—ergo, he could be said to bend his clothing into his own reference frame.”“But why did he vanish,” Miss Dodson demanded tearfully, “whenever he saw me?”“He did not vanish,” Street replied, “he simply stood up, and, standing, passed into November sixth, as I have already explained.The first time because he heard you call his name, the second because you startled him by dropping glassware, and the third time because, as a gentleman of the old school, he automatically rose when a woman entered the room.He doubtless realized later that he could reappear to you by taking his seat once more, but he was loath to frighten you, and hoped he could think his way out of his predicament; the hint he required for that I believe I have provided: you see, when I stood on my head just now I appeared to Dodson at about the time he suffered his unfortunate accident; the formula I have already quoted, plus the knowledge that Dodson had vanished thirteen days ago, allowed me to calculate that all I need do was to place my own ‘temporal determinant’—the area of my frontal lobes— fourteen centimeters above the floor.”“But where is he now?”Street shrugged.“I have no way of knowing, really.Obviously, he is not here.He might be at the opera or attending a seminar, but it seems most probable that he is in the apartment below us.” He raised his voice.“Professor! Professor Dodson, are you down there?”A moment later I saw a man of less than medium height, with white hair and a straggling yellow mustache, appear at the foot of the escalator.It was Professor Dodson! “What is it?” he asked testily.“Alice, who the hell are these people?”“Friends,” she sobbed.“Won’t you please come up? Mr.Street, is it all right if he comes up?”“It would be better,” Street said gently, “if you went down to him.He must pack for that trip to the seaside, you know
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