He almost wrung his hands. Laurie picked up the huge, five-inch-thick book that had startled him before. Mannard stood four-square, doggedly unbelieving. Ghalil looked at nothing, with bright eyes, as if savoring a thought which explained much that had puzzled him.
“I’ll never believe it,” said Mannard doggedly. “Never in a million years! Even if it could happen, why should it here and now? What’s the purpose—the real purpose in the nature of things? To keep me from getting killed? That’s all it’s done! I’m not that important, for natural laws to be suspended and the one thing that could never happen again to happen just to keep Appolonius from murdering me!”
Then Ghalil nodded his head. He looked approvingly at Mannard.
“An honest man!” he said. “I can answer it, Mr. Mannard. Duval had his history-books here. Some were modern Greek and some were French. And if the preposterous is true, and Mr. Coghlan has described the fact, then the man who made this— this ‘gadget’ back in the thirteenth century was an alchemist and a scholar who believed implicitly in magic. When Duval offered to trade books, would he not agree without question because of his belief in magic? He would have no doubts! What Duval sent him would seem to him magic. It would seem prophecy—in flimsy magic form, less durable than sheepskin—but magic nonetheless. He could even fumble at the meaning of the Greek. It would be peculiar—but magic. He could read it as 'perhaps' a modern English-speaking person can read Chaucer. Not clearly, and fumblingly, but grasping the meaning dimly. And this ancient alchemist would believe what he read! It would seem to him pure prophecy. And he would be right!"
Ghalil's expression was triumphant.
"Consider! He would have not only past history but future history in his hands! He would use the information! His prophecies would be right! Perhaps he could even grasp a little of the French! And what happens when superstitious men find that a soothsayer is invariably right? They guide themselves by him! He would grow rich! He would grow powerful! His sons would be noblemen, and they would inherit his secret knowledge of the future! Always they would know what was next to come in the history of Byzantium and—perhaps even elsewhere! And men, knowing their correctness, would be guided by them! They would make the prophecies come to pass! Perhaps Nostradamus compiled his rhymes after spelling through a crumbling book of paper —they had no paper in Byzantium or later in Europe itself and startlingly foretold the facts narrated in a book our friend Duval sent back to ancient Istanbul!"
Then Ghalil sat down on the foot of the cot, almost calmly.
"Knowledge of the future, in a superstitious age, would make the future. This event, Mr. Mannard, did not come about to save your life, but to direct the history of the world through the Dark Ages to the coming of today. And that is surely significant enough to justify what has happened!"
Mannard shook his head.
"You're saying now," he said flatly, "that if Tommy doesn't write down what you showed me, all this won't happen because Duval won't find the writing. If he doesn't find the writing, the books won't go back to the past. All history will be different. Mygreat-grandfather and yours, maybe, *ill never be born and we won't be here. No! That's nonsense!"
Coghlan looked at the book in Laurie's hand. He took it from her. "This is exactly like Duval's book," he said.
"It is the same book," said Ghalil, with confidence. "And I think you know what you will do."
"I'm not sure," said Coghlan. He frowned. "I don't know." Laurie said urgently:
"If it isn't nonsense, Tommy, then—I could not be at all, and you could not be at all . . . we'd never meet each other, and you wouldn't have that research to do—and—and—"
There was silence. Coghlan looked around on the floor. He picked up the reed pen. He said, unnecessarily:
"I still don't believe this."
But he dipped the pen in the thawing ink of the ink-pot. Laurie steadied the book for him to write. He wrote:
See Thomas Coghlan, 750 Fatima, Istanbul.
He looked at her and hesitated. Then he said:
"There was something I'd say to myself . . . written down here, it was what made me believe in it enough to trail along." He wrote:
Professor, president, so what?
Ghalil said mildly: "I am sure you remember this address." "Yes," said Coghlan seriously. He wrote:
Gadget at 80 Hosain, second floor, back room.
Mannard said grimly: "It's still nonsense!" Coghlan wrote:
Make sure of Mannard. To be killed.
"That's a slight exaggeration," he observed slowly, but it's necessary, to make us act as we did."
He was smudging ink on his fingers when Ghalil said politely:
“May I help? The professional touch—”
Coghlan let him smear the smudgy black ink on his fingertips. Ghalil painstakingly rolled the four finger-prints, the thumb-print below. He said calmly:
“This is unique—to make a fingerprint record I will see again when it is seven centuries old! Now what?”
Coghlan picked up the magnet. It was much brighter than a steel one. It had the shine of aluminum, but it was heavy. He presented it to the dwindling wet spot on the wall. The wet place turned silvery. Coghlan thrust the book at the shining surface. It touched. It went into the silver. It vanished. Coghlan took the magnet away. The wet place looked, somehow, as if it were about to dry permanently. Duval breathed stertorously on the canvas cot.
“And now,” said Ghalil blandly, “we do not need to believe it any more. We do not believe it, do we?”
“Of course not!” growled Mannard. “It’s all nonsense!”
Ghalil grinned. He brushed off his fingers.
“Undoubtedly,” he said sedately, “M. Duval contrived it all. He will never admit it. He will always insist that one of us contrived it. We will all suspect each other, for always. There will be no record anywhere except a very discreet report in the archives of the Istanbul Police Department, which will assign the mystification either to M. Duval or to Appolonius the Great— after he has gone to prison, at least. It is a singular mystery, is it not?”
He laughed.
A week later, Laurie triumphantly pointed out to Coghlan that it was demonstrably all nonsense. The cut on his thumb had healed quite neatly, leaving no scar at all.