This was a quite simplified version. The fakir, with a short length of rope coiled on the ground in front of him, played over and over a few simple notes on a flageolet—and gradually, as he played, the rope began to rise into the air and stand rigid. This gave Elsie Darnell a wonderful idea—although she did not mention it to George. She returned with him to their room at the hotel and, after dinner, waited until he went to sleep—as always, at nine o’clock.
Then she quietly left the room and the hotel. She found a taxi driver and an interpreter and, with both of them, went back to the bazaar and found the fakir.
Through the interpreter she managed to buy from the fakir the flageolet which she had heard him play and paid him to teach her to play the few simple repetitious notes which had made the rope rise.
Then she returned to the hotel and to their room. Her husband George was sleeping soundly—as he always did.
Standing beside the bed Elsie very softly began to play the simple tune on the flageolet.
Over and over.
And as she played it—gradually—the sheet began to rise, over her sleeping husband.
When it had risen to a sufficient height she put down the flageolet and, with a joyful cry, threw back the sheet.
And there, standing straight in the air, was the drawstring of his pajamas!
FATAL ERROR
Mr. Walter Baxter had long been an avid reader of crime and detective stories, so when he decided to murder his uncle he knew that he must not make a single error.
And that, to avoid the possibility of making an error, simplicity must be the keynote. Utter simplicity. No arranging of an alibi that might be broken. No complicated modus operandi. No red herrings.
Well—one small herring. A very simple one. He’d have to rob his uncle’s house, too, of whatever cash it contained so the murder would appear to have been incidental to a burglary. Otherwise, as his uncle’s only heir, he himself would be too obvious a suspect.
He took his time in acquiring a small crowbar in such a manner that it could not possibly be traced to him. It would serve him both as a tool and a weapon.
He planned carefully every trifling detail, knowing he dared make no single error and certain that he would not. He chose the night and the hour with care.
The crowbar opened a window easily and without noise. He entered the living room. The door to the bedroom was ajar, but as no sound came from it he decided to get the details of burglary over with first. He knew where his uncle kept the cash, but he’d have to make it look as though a search had been made. There was enough moonlight to let him see his way; he moved silently…
At home two hours later he undressed quickly and got into bed. No chance of the police learning of the crime before tomorrow, but he was ready if they did come sooner. The money and the crowbar had been disposed of; it had hurt him to destroy several hundred dollars but it was the only safe way, and it would be nothing to the fifty thousand or more he’d inherit.
There was a knock at the door. Already? He made himself calm; he went to the door and opened it. The sheriff and a deputy pushed their way in.
«Walter Baxter? Warrant for your arrest. Dress and come with us.»
«A warrant for my arrest? What for?»
«Burglary and grand larceny. Your uncle saw and recognized you from the bedroom doorway—stayed quiet till you left and then came downtown and swore out—»
Walter Baxter’s jaw dropped. He had made an error after all.
He’d planned the perfect murder but, in his engrossment with the burglary, had forgotten to commit it.
THE SHORT HAPPY LIVES OF EUSTACE WEAVER I
When Eustace Weaver invented his time machine he was a very happy man. He knew that he had the world by the tail on a downhill pull, as long as he kept his invention a secret. He could become the richest man in the world, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. All he had to do was to take short trips into the future to learn what stocks had gone up and which horses had won races, then come back to the present and buy those stocks or bet on those horses.
The races would come first of course because he would need a lot of capital to play the market, whereas, at a track, he could start with a two-dollar bet and quickly parlay it into the thousands. But it would have to be at a track; he’d too quickly break any bookie he played with, and besides he didn’t know any bookies. Unfortunately the only tracks operating at the present were in Southern California and in Florida, about equidistant and about a hundred dollars worth of plane fare away. He didn’t have a fraction of that sum, and it would take him weeks to save that much out of his salary as stock clerk at a supermarket. It would be horrible to have to wait that long, even to start getting rich.
Suddenly he remembered the safe at the supermarket where he worked—an afternoon-evening shift from one o’clock until the market closed at nine. There’d be at least a thousand dollars in that safe, and it had a time lock. What could be better than a time machine to beat a time lock?
When he went to work that day he took his machine with him; it was quite compact and he’d designed it to fit into a camera case he already had so there was no difficulty involved in bringing it into the store, and when he put his coat and hat into his locker he put the time machine there too.
He worked his shift as usual until a few minutes before closing time. Then he hid behind a pile of cartons in the stock room. He felt sure that in the general exodus he wouldn’t be missed, and he wasn’t. Just the same he waited in his hiding place almost a full hour to make sure everyone else had left. Then he emerged, got his time machine from the locker, and went to the safe. The safe was set to unlock itself automatically in another eleven hours; he set his time machine for just that length of time.
He took a good grip on the safe’s handle—he’d learned by an experiment or two that anything he wore, carried, or hung onto traveled with him in time—and pressed the stud.
He felt no transition, but suddenly he heard the safe’s mechanism click open—but at the same moment heard gasps and excited voices behind him. And he whirled, suddenly realizing the mistake he’d made; it was nine o’clock the next morning and the store’s employees—those on the early shift—were already there, had missed the safe and had been standing in a wondering semicircle about the spot where it had stood—when the safe and Eustace Weaver had suddenly appeared.
Luckily he still had the time machine in his hand. Quickly he turned the dial to zero—which he had calibrated to be the exact moment when he had completed it—and pressed the stud.
And, of course, he was back before he had started and…
THE SHORT HAPPY LIVES OF EUSTACE WEAVER II
When Eustace Weaver invented his time machine he knew that he had the world by the tail on a downhill pull, as long as he kept his invention a secret. To become rich all he had to do was take short trips into the future to see what horses were going to win and what stocks were going up, then come back and bet the horses or buy the stocks.
The horses came first because they would require less capital—but he didn’t have even two dollars to make a bet, let alone plane fare to the nearest track where horses were running.
He thought of the safe in the supermarket where he worked as a stock clerk. That safe had at least a thousand dollars in it, and it had a time lock. A time lock should be duck soup for a time machine.
So when he went to work that day he took his time machine with him in a camera case and left it in his locker. When they closed at nine he hid out in the stock room and waited an hour till he was sure everyone else had left. Then he got the time machine from his locker and went with it to the safe.