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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Amazing Stories, March 1941, with "The Man Who Lived Next Week"
An eerie tingling engulfed Percival Piff, and for an instant he seemed to be two men.
"IT'S not that I'm afraid. It's just, I well—"
Percival Piff choked off the remainder of his sentence, shuffling his feet uneasily and attempting to avoid his wife's cold stare.
"A coward, afraid of the dark!" his spouse Matilda stormed contemptuously. She placed her large red hands on her wide hips and glared balefully at him. "Afraid to go down in the basement just because it's dark down there!"
Mr. Piff winced, his frail body instinctively tensing in defense from her scorn, his mild blue eyes regarding the packages lying on the floor. The packages Matilda wanted him to take down to the cellar. He tried a last appeal.
"I don't like this house, Matilda," he protested. "I'm sorry we ever moved here. The place gives me the creeps, especially the basement."
"We haven't even been living here a week," Matilda's voice was growing shriller. "And you haven't done a thing to help us get settled."
Matilda paused to point dramatically to the disarranged furniture.
"If you'd help straighten things, carry packages, and make yourself generally useful, we could settle down and enjoy this splendid home. After all, this bungalow once belonged to a very noted scientist. We should feel honored to live here. But instead, you have to grouse about everything."
Mr. Piff opened his mouth to protest, but his wife continued before he could get a word out.
"Here it is the third day of September," she threw her paw wide in a gesture to include a desk calendar, "and we aren't even near to being settled!"
Matilda paused to point dramatically.
Mr. Piff's features didn't have to register resignation. He was born with that emotion already stamped there. But the expressive shrug of his shoulders admitted defeat, and he stooped to pick up the packages Matilda wanted removed to the basement.
Grimly triumphant, Matilda pushed a lank, moist strand of hair from her flushed fat face and assisted her husband, piling package after package into his arms until he was scarcely able to stand beneath their weight.
Mr. Piff made his way unsteadily to the door leading to the cellar, and proceeded cautiously down the steps. At the first landing he paused, feeling the damp air of the stygian pit rushing up to his nostrils. Damp air with an exceedingly peculiar odor, like that of old chemicals.
Mr. Piff could never be described as a rugged individual. His general appearance was that of a very small, very drab and terribly weary beanpole. He was as frail as Matilda was fat. The packages were heavy, and the cellar beneath him was dismally dark.
"Dark and dank," thought Mr. Piff, who had read a few mystery stories. "I don't like it."
The cellar was where the obscure chemico-physicist—the poor chap Matilda had referred to as the "distinguished scientist"—had kept his laboratories when he'd lived in the bungalow. Mr. Piff decided that the peculiar odor must be the memory of those chemicals lingering on.
"Percival!" Matilda's sharp voice came ringing to his ears. "Have you taken those bundles down yet?"
MR. PIFF gazed apprehensively at the darkness waiting at
the bottom of those steps. He sighed again.
"Taking them down now, dear," he shouted in reply.
Bracing his slight shoulders, Mr. Piff moved cautiously down the steps, wishing that there was some light to guide him as the darkness folded over him like a heavy black cloak.
He shuddered. The dampness was chilling. He moved slowly down four more steps. Then he was standing at the bottom, on the cellar floor.
The odor of old chemicals was even stronger now. Mr. Piff waited, giving his eyes time to accustom themselves to the darkness, recalling that Matilda wanted the packages placed in the farthest corner from the stairs.
Even when he was able to half discern objects in the murky gray light, Mr. Piff hesitated about moving toward that corner. For it was darker, far darker than any other spot in the cellar. It was totally, terrifyingly black.
"As if," Mr. Piff told himself, remembering his mystery tales again, "something lurked there, waiting!"
Mr. Piff struggled with the temptation to chuck the packages immediately and get the hell out of there as quickly as his quaking knees would permit him. But the memory of Matilda, waiting sternly up there, stopped him.
He shuddered, stepping across the damp stone floor. Now he was less than five feet from that darkened nook. It was still hidden in ebony gloom. He inched a few steps closer to it. Closer.
Closer, and sweat stood out on his brow. He wanted to faint, to scream; in the reverse order, of course. But he did neither. He advanced even closer.
He took a deep breath and stepped into the blackness.
Dropping packages right and left in a veritable frenzy to be gone, Mr. Piff was at first unaware of anything but the blackness that surrounded him. But in less than four more seconds, he was aware of something else. He was conscious of an odd, eerie tingling that seemed to have taken control of his entire body.
Tingling—like electric vibrations running through his tissues. It was enough to startle the upper plate out of a stronger man; and Percival Piff, being a mouse, screamed once and ran hellbent for the stairs.
He gained the first landing in what almost amounted to a leap, and in another six seconds was back in his living room, slamming the door behind him, leaning breathlessly against it and opening and closing his eyes.
The strange electric tingling was almost gone, but he could still feel it by proxy. He gave way to spasms of long, violent shudders. Tremulously, he sucked in his breath and looked around for Matilda.
Matilda was nowhere to be seen.
Then he thought again of that tingling. It was horrible. Something—Mr. Piff was now certain—lurked there in the darkened corner. Something beside the packages he'd dropped!
Weakly, Mr. Piff staggered from the living room into the kitchen. There was still no sign of Matilda. She must have stepped out to a neighbor's, or into the yard. Gratefully, he slumped into a kitchen chair.
"I don't like this house," he moaned sorrowfully. "There's something awful about it. I knew it all along. I know it now!"
Then, clasping his hand to his brow, Mr. Piff got his first shock.
ABSTRACTEDLY, his gaze had included his cuff.
Subconsciously, his mind had registered its appearance. With a
start he leaped to his feet, gazing wildly up and down his
body.
He was clothed in his blue serge suit—which was not incredible. But when he had entered the cellar, he had been wearing his gray tweed suit—which was impossible!
Mr. Piff fought for a grip on himself. His memory must have slipped from his scare. Yes. That was it. He laughed aloud, weakly, and without conviction. His memory had slipped.
"Ha, ha," said Mr. Piff uneasily, "what a joke on myself!"
He had no sooner finished his sentence when the doorbell rang. Thankful for its interruption, Mr. Piff dashed to the living room and opened the door—to admit Matilda, arms full of groceries.
For the first time in twelve years, Mr. Piff was glad to see his wife. He said so.
"Gosh, dear," said Mr. Piff. "I'm glad you came back. You didn't tell me you were going shopping. Must have done it in a rush."
Matilda, depositing the bundles on the telephone table, gave him a long, searching gaze.
"What are you babbling about?" she inquired coldly. "I've been out all day, and you know it."
It came to Mr. Piff at that moment that Matilda couldn't possibly have changed her clothes—she had been wearing a housecoat when he'd seen her last—and gone out shopping in the short time since she'd shouted down the basement steps at him!
And, besides, didn't she just say that she'd been out all day?
"What are you babbling about?" Matilda repeated sharply.
"N-n-n-nothing," stammered Mr. Piff in confusion. "Just wanted to tell you that I took those packages down as you asked me."
"Down where?"
"Down," said Mr. Piff, "in the cellar. In the corner, as you asked me."
Matilda placed her paws on her ample hips, a favorite gesture of hers.
"What," she demanded, "is wrong with you? If you weren't such a sissy, I'd swear you'd been drinking. You took those packages downstairs last week!"
Mr. Piff wheeled, looking wildly about the living room. He hadn't thought to notice any change in its appearance before. But now he could see—and marvel. The rugs were all carefully laid, and the furniture—which had been in disorder the last time he'd looked—was neatly arranged!
"Things have changed!" he gasped. "Everything was different ten minutes ago. You were different. I was different. The house was different!"
Fear clutching at his bosom, he staggered across the room to the desk calendar. It read—"September 10th!"
A week had passed without Percival Piff's personal knowledge!
Mr. Piff wasn't certain how, or why, or what had happened. But whatever it was, one thing was clear. Something horrible had taken place. He felt weak, giddy, watery in the knees.
"Rip Van Winkle Piff," he muttered hoarsely.
"What's that you said?" demanded Matilda.
"Nothing, nothing," Mr. Piff replied dazedly. "I just feel a little weak, that's all." He slumped down on the sofa.
"Huh!" snorted Matilda. "Weak, indeed! I'd like to know from what!" And with that burst of warm sympathy, she left the room.
After many minutes of exhausted meditation on the sofa, Mr. Piff's conscious mind arrived at an explanation for what had happened. It was simple enough. He was the victim of amnesia. He'd had a loss of memory that lasted a week.
BUT that was merely his conscious mind speaking for
him.
Deep back in the darkened corners of his brain, Mr. Piff's subsconcious was hard at work, tossing devilish speculations at him with satanic insistence.
"Amnesia!" these tiny voices scoffed. "A likely explanation! Bah!"
It was to no avail that Mr. Piff tried to silence these tiny voices.
"Go on, Piff," these subconscious demons urged, "find out the real truth. Amnesia, bunk!"
Quite suddenly, and without his will directing it, Mr. Piff found his steps taking him across the room to the door leading to the cellar. A minute later and he was once again moving cautiously across the damp darkness of the cellar floor. He hadn't wanted to come here again. It was as though some hidden power greater than his fear had led him back to the place.
If the sight of that black cellar corner had frightened Mr. Piff on his first visit, he was thoroughly terrified by it now. The odor of old chemicals was once again strong in his nostrils, and it was all he could do to force his legs to carry him across to the corner.
He was less than three feet from the stygian curtained corner, less than three feet now from its eerie blackness, and sweat stood out on his brow, trickling slowly down his sharp nose.
Breathing a prayer of supplication, he shut his eyes and stepped forward.
It happened again.
The odd, electric tingling had hit him instantly upon stepping into the ebony depths of the corner. And again it flooded his tissues, vibrating through his entire body. Forcing himself, by supreme heroics of will, to remain stationary in the corner, Mr. Piff allowed the weird current to do its damnedest.
At last, stumbling and gasping, his heart hammering with the force of a riveter's, Mr. Piff burst out from the darkened nook and groped a hasty retreat to the stairs. A moment later, and he was again inside the living room, with the door slammed tight behind him. For the second time, he leaned against the comforting support of the wall, trying to force his nerves to calm somewhat, keeping his eyes shut tight.
"Well!" the voice belonged to Matilda, and Mr. Piff opened his eyes to see her standing before him, dressed in a housecoat and glaring balefully.
"You certainly took enough time about putting those packages down there, worm," she spat contemptuously. Mr. Piff, however, wasn't paying the slightest attention to her tone of voice. It was what she said, not how she said it, that made him go weak in the knees.
He noticed her housecoat next, and a wild glance showed him that he himself was dressed once more in his gray tweed suit! Another terrified glance revealed the disordered arrangement of the furniture, the fact that the rugs were not yet laid!
Matilda was continuing her diatribe. But Mr. Piff paid no attention to it. Dazedly, he crossed the room to the desk calendar, glanced at it, and clutched a chair for support.
It was September 3rd again! Whereas before he had gone back into the cellar, it was September 10th!
Somehow, he was back a week again. It hadn't been amnesia! A week, just like that!
Mr. Piff threw a hand to his fevered brow and stood there, swaying weakly back and forth. The tiny demons, rulers of his subconscious, were gloating again.
"Ahaaaa, Piff! We told you so," said the tiny voices. "Amnesia, bunk! You traveled a week ahead, that's what you did. And now you're back in the present again!"*
[* Eddington postulates that our time-sense is based on a sensory perception of entropy; which term, although usually associated with thermodynamics, is more generically the measure of the "running-down" of the universe. By isolating a portion of space and changing the rate of entropy within that portion, we thereby change the rate of elapse of time within that portion. Undoubtedly this is what happens to Mr. Piff when he undergoes the peculiar vibration.—Ed.
Muttering angrily, Matilda strode out of the room. But Mr. Piff didn't notice her exit. He sank down on the divan, letting his head rest in his hands.
MR. PIFF did a great deal of thinking. Straight through dinner, throughout the evening, and into the early hours of the morning he struggled to find a solution to this astonishing enigma. For a few hours he had argued around the idea that he might be going mad. Might already be as nutty as a fruit cake. But the tiny voices in the back of his brain erased such notions.
"Try it again," the voices insisted. "Try it again and see!"
So Mr. Piff, armed with a flashlight, had donned his bathrobe and slippers, and descended once again to the cellar. The place had lost its terror for him; due, perhaps, to the fact that it had become a brain-racking problem. Instead of the fear he had felt on his other two visits, he now moved through the dark gloom of the place with a sort of awe.
Nevertheless, he hesitated for a few moments before playing the beam of his flashlight into the darkened corner. Mr. Piff was still very much uncertain as to what might be lurking behind that stygian veil.
He closed his eyes and shot the beam toward the corner. Nothing happened, so he opened his eyes again and looked to see what would be revealed.
There was nothing in the corner save the packages he'd dropped there—and a small, box-like object about the size of a small radio. The object was covered by a small tarpaulin.
Mr. Piff gained a certain measure of confidence from this.
"Well, well," he murmured throatily. "Well, well," and he advanced to the comer.
With a quick gesture, like a man peeling a piece of adhesive plaster from a hairy arm, Mr. Piff reached forward and jerked the tarpaulin from the radio-sized object. The resulting cloud of dust left him blinded and choking for a moment or two.
At last he fanned the dust from his eyes. The object even looked like a radio. Except that it was steel, chrome steel, and had very different dials on the front of it, Mr. Piff would have been sure it was a radio. The thing was humming, a faint sort of buzzing hum. Mr. Piff reached out and snapped off a button on the side. The humming ceased abruptly.
He stepped closer to it then, and bent over an engraved plate on the top.
The plate read, "Fleming's Futurescope."
Then Mr. Piff remembered the name. Fleming, of course! Fleming was the chemist chap who had lived here before.
"Must have belonged to Fleming," observed Mr. Piff with the air of a detective who has unearthed a damning bit of evidence. Then he knit his brows.
"Futurescope?" He gazed thoughtfully at it, thinking, while little chills held races up and down his spine, of his experiences with this machine. Thinking of how they were definitely hinged on the future.
"Gosh," he gulped throatily, "then this accounts for it all!"
Mr. Piff's brain was assembling all the facts, relegating them to their proper status, and drawing an utterly logical, though quite unbelievable, conclusion. This thing, this tiny chrome steel box, radio, or what-have-you, had transported him into the future—and had returned him to the present!
IT was preposterous. It couldn't be true. Anyone with more
brains than Percival Piff would have known it couldn't be true.
But Mr. Piff was used to believing things on their face value. He
had been tossed into the future, then back into the present. This
thing was called a Futurescope. That was enough for Mr. Piff. As
far as he was concerned, that was that.
He stared long and thoughtfully at the little box as if expecting it to explain its workings verbally to him. Then he snapped on the button. The buzzing hum resumed promptly. After a moment, the same tingling sensations as before assailed him.
"Aha!" smiled Mr. Piff. "This is going to be fun."
He chuckled, feeling the tingling race through his body. Now that he knew what this was all about, now that he had some idea of what was going to happen, there was no fear attached to the process at all.
After waiting what seemed to be the right length of time, Mr. Piff stepped away from the machine. Crossing the cellar, he climbed the stairs leading to the living room. Once inside his house proper, again, he looked around expectantly.
Sure enough, the furniture was arranged and the rugs were down. He looked down to see that he was even wearing a different set of pajamas.
Just to make certain, Mr. Piff crossed the room again and looked at the desk calendar. He was once more a week into the future. He shook his head.
"Tsk, tsk, what won't they think of next?"
Mr. Piff looked at his watch. It was six o'clock. Should he go to work, when the time came to do so in another hour, here in the future, or go to work last week; which, although highly complicated, was really this week? He decided to return to the present, and turned, to descend to the cellar again, when he heard a thump on the back porch. The sound informed him that the morning paper had just been delivered.
"Next week's newspaper," thought Mr. Piff. Then, with the force of a plank swung against the base of the skull, a thought struck him. It was staggering. That newspaper contained news and knowledge that would not be known to anyone but Mr. Piff for a week!
"Gosh," gasped Mr. Piff, all a-tremble, "gosh!"
Hastily, he padded out onto the back porch and brought in the paper. Spreading it out on the kitchen table, he sat down to read it.
He had no sooner glanced at the headlines than a voice shrilled at his ears—Matilda's, of course. He cursed himself in a mild sort of way for having slammed the kitchen door on coming in from the porch. It had evidently awakened her.
"Percival Piff, what are you doing up this hour?"
Mr. Piff shuddered, lifted his head. "Nothing dear, just reading next week's news."
The words had come out before he thought. And now he bit his tongue in remorse. Matilda's reply was immediate, and seething with indignation.
"You snake!" her voice shrilled down to him. "You miserable snake! Deliberately thumping around to wake me up, and then getting smart-alecky about it!"
He could hear sounds of Matilda's, ample bulk bounding out of bed.
"You wait right there." Her voice was ominous. "I'll be right down to settle this, here and now!"
TERRIFIED, Mr. Piff clutched the newspaper and raced into
the living room. Then he plummeted down the cellar steps, paper
still clutched to his breast. In an instant he was standing
beside the Futurescope. It was still buzzing.
He felt the tingling take command of his body. Percival Piff grinned. Matilda would come down too late to catch him!
When Mr. Piff emerged from the corner again he was serene in the knowledge that he was safe, that he had returned to the present. On going upstairs, seeing the disarranged furniture, and taking a quick glance at the desk calendar, he was positive.
Mr. Piff went into the kitchen and sat down to resume his perusal of next week's news. And as he paged through the various sections of the paper, he was struck by the enormous possibilities of the thing.
Why, it was incredible! He could even find out in advance how his favorite comic strip was faring!
Eagerly, therefore, he turned to "Orphan Agnes", the adventures of this young lady having long provided sheer joy in his uneventful existence. His hands shook a little as he held the paper, for only yesterday Orphan Agnes had been left tied to a buzz-saw in a deserted mill by a one-eyed Chinaman. The comics of the week ahead would certainly show whether or not she had been saved.
She was. Mr. Piff sighed. Orphan Agnes was safe and sound, and in the middle of another adventure.
"That's good," he said gratefully. "I was left pretty darned worried yesterday."
The next moment Mr. Piff heard a thumping noise on the back steps. The paper had just been delivered for the morning. The paper of the present. Old stuff. Mr. Piff didn't bother to glance up. He concentrated instead on his exclusive future edition.
He paged rapidly through the financial sections, for they had always bored him. He had never been able to understand about stocks and bonds and margin. Too complicated.
After avidly reading the remaining comic strips, Mr. Piff turned to the sporting section of the paper. There was nothing much there. Just a summary of the past week's racing results. He would have passed the summary by, but he thought suddenly of the fellow employees in his office who played the races every day. He tore the summary out; for, although he didn't follow the ponies himself, the others might appreciate it to have the winners in advance.
"They might like it," Mr. Piff muttered vaguely, and stuffed the torn section into his pocket. Then he scanned the news section hurriedly, for he heard sounds of Matilda stirring upstairs. He didn't want her to wake up and catch him down in the kitchen.
His eyes widened at a column of type he saw.
"My goodness," Mr. Piff said in horror, "Just look at this!" Then, lips moving, he read the account silently. "District Attorney Murdered In Street!" he gasped. "Why, that's awful, mowed down by machine guns in a racing automobile!"
Sounds of Matilda stirring about in the bedroom upstairs became increasingly louder. He rose. Matilda would catch him down here if he didn't hurry. Folding the paper under his arm, Mr. Piff padded down to the basement, where he threw it into the blazing furnace and watched it burn.
"She won't be able to get her hands on it now," he said to himself.
He sighed then, and retraced his steps to the living room. Stretching out on the couch, he closed his eyes for an hour's nap before going to work. But before he dropped off to sleep, he told himself,
"Matilda mustn't know about this. I don't think she'd approve."
This was exciting. The only exciting thing that had ever entered the drab existence of Percival Piff. He smiled and closed his eyes, and in another few minutes was dozing peacefully.
FOR the next several days Percival Piff lived in an incredibly rosy world. Each day, as he went to work, his head swam with assorted information gathered on his nightly trips to the future. Of course, he had finally had to decide that he couldn't tell a soul about the discovery of the Futurescope. For it would only make trouble, and no one would believe him. Least of all Matilda.
However, he was able to find some occasional outlets for the power he possessed. There was, for example, the matter of horse playing. Mr. Piff had decided against giving his racing summary to his fellow office employees. He couldn't tell them what horses would win and expect them to believe him, without revealing his source of information. And he could hardly do that. They'd think him loony.
So Mr. Piff compromised with the situation. He played the races himself, wagering a daily quarter on a sure thing selected from the summary he'd torn from the newspaper. It gave him a feeling of bravado to play the spendthrift, the devil-may-care plunger before the rest of the office staff.
Twenty-five cents a day. On a horse. Just like that. That was Percival Piff for you. Reckless!
But, of course, he couldn't lose. And once or twice he had a twinge of guilt about it. He knew it really wasn't fair to the gentlemen who took bets down at the cigar store. But he smoothed his conscience by telling himself that they probably could afford to lose now and then. It made him feel better when he convinced himself that they could afford to sustain their losses. After all, he didn't want to break them.
And in the meantime Mr. Piff found another outlet for his power. He arrived at it quite by chance, during the half-hour lunch siesta awarded the employees of Hammer, Hammer and Tongs, for whom Mr. Piff had labored in diligent obscurity these twenty years. During this half hour for lunch, it was the habit of the workers not going out to eat to sit around the office, gossiping and conversing generally while they consumed the fare they brought with them in little paper bags.
Mr. Piff was one of the paper-bag brigade, but he had never been a party to much of the noontime gossip. Somehow he never figured prominently when viewpoints were being aired. But during this particular lunch period—it was on the third morning following his discovery of the Futurescope—he pricked up his ears and listened attentively to the comments, while thoughtfully munching his lettuce sandwich.
"This city is too damned full of crime," bellowed a Mr. Boodle, from the shipping room.
The conversation had been centering around politics, and Mr. Boodle had worked his fat face into an angry crimson over the topic.
"Too full of crime," Boodle repeated, thumping his ham-like fist down on Mr. Piff's desk to emphasize the point. "And the D.A. don't do nothing about it! Nothing at all. He's as big a crook as the rest!"
Mr. Piff, who had never particularly liked Mr. Boodle, saw his chance and stepped into the argument.
"The District Attorney is doing all he can to stop crime," he observed in a loud, though squeaky voice.
Every eye in the office turned to Mr. Piff. An utterance from him had been about as unexpected as gondolas would be on the Gobi Desert. There was a tense, surprised silence while they waited for him to continue.
Mr. Piff felt a funny feeling of excitement playing up and down his spine as he phrased his next sentence.
"As a matter of fact," he declared, "the District Attorney has grown so unpopular with certain of the—er—underworld element, that they intend to kill him next week!"
THE silence held for an instant longer, then exploded.
Exploded into laughter in his face. This, from Mr. Piff, had
apparently been just about the funniest thing they'd heard in
ages.
"In on the know?" Boodle chortled sarcastically.
Mr. Piff, ears crimson, opened his mouth for an indignant protest. Didn't those fools realize he knew? But no. Of course not. They didn't know, and wouldn't believe him even if he told them everything.
Additional uncomplimentary remarks were made, and quite suddenly Mr. Piff found himself standing up to face his hecklers.
"You mark my words." he shouted squeakily before he could stop himself. "You mark my words. That is my prediction!"
Then, aghast at the emotion that had been strong enough to make him lose his temper, Mr. Piff slumped back into his seat.
"Oh my," he thought. "Now I've done it. They'll think I'm an awful fool. I'll never live this down!"
But suddenly he remembered. It would come true. Of course it would come true. And he would be vindicated. Why, he'd been silly to worry. Everything would be all right. The tiny inner voices said,
"Courage, Piff. You know what's what."
So Mr. Piff turned on the office staff again.
"You wait and see," he repeated. "It's my prediction!"
The lunch period ended on this note. But Mr. Piff, returning to sort his invoices, felt grimly triumphant. He'd show them! Smart alecks, that's what they were. But they'd find out that P. Piff was no fool. No, sir!
In less than a week his prediction would come true, and then they would begin to show a proper respect for him. Why, just that one prediction alone would be enough to establish him as a person of some importance around the office!
So when Mr. Piff rolled down his sleeves and left the office for home, late that afternoon, he walked on fleecy white columns of clouds. In his mind he had already half planned a gigantic campaign to gain the self-respect of his fellow workers. It would be easy. All he'd need would be one prediction a day. And then, when they all started coming true—He smiled in happy anticipation.
"Every day," he told himself, "I'll make a forecast of some sort." He paused. "Let's see," he frowned, "the District Attorney will be shot on the tenth. That's four days from now. That will be the first of my forecasts to come true. Then, with one a day from then on, it shouldn't be long."
Percival Piff smiled again. Already he was able to see them treating him as an equal. The sensation was enormously pleasing. He had never been considered as anything but a worm before.
DELIBERATELY then Mr. Piff went down to his Futurescope
every evening and traveled a week into the future. But it was not
haphazardly that he did so. He had a purpose, now.
On these trips to the future he gathered odd data and information concerning things that were due to happen, returning to the present with his new-found knowledge every morning—so that he could take it to work with him and show off before the office crowd.
This gave Mr. Piff great satisfaction. And further satisfaction lay in a little box in his office drawer. It was a sum amassed from almost a week of daily wagers on the horse races.
The breathtaking total of this wealth was—four dollars and eighty-five cents!
To Percival Piff this was utterly magnificent. Four eighty-five!
Better, even, than a raise in pay! He was in seventh heaven. It meant money that Matilda never need know about. Money he could actually spend on himself if he wished.
Mr. Piff was beginning to appreciate the power vested in him by the Futurescope. The thing had its advantages. Undoubtedly. And he, Percival Piff, wasn't missing a trick. No sir!
And finally Mr. Piff awoke to the morning on which his first forecast was to prove itself.
ON his way down to work, Percival Piff felt somewhat similar to that historic gentleman, Napoleon, when said gentleman was riding a gilded coach to be crowned Emperor at Nôtre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
For this, September 10th, was Mr. Piff's day.
He had made certain that the exact hour of the District Attorney's assassination would fall shortly after noon. Approximately twelve-fifteen. The afternoon editions of the papers, therefore, would carry the news, and the office staff would learn of his astounding vindication before the day was over.
Percival Piff beamed at his fellow passengers on the elevated, and almost gave in to a wild impulse to chuck the chubby chin of a runny-nosed urchin who sat beside him.
He felt very fine. Very fine indeed. And yet, somehow, he didn't feel quite as splendid as circumstances should warrant. There was something on his mind, something that gave him a vague feeling of uneasiness. But for the life of him, he couldn't fathom what it was. It was similar to a twinge of conscience. But for the life of him, again, he could think of no reason for these birth pangs of guilt.
So he smiled again and he felt almost—but not quite—perfect as he sauntered into the offices of Hammer, Hammer and Tongs. He removed his coat and proceeded to dig into his stack of invoices when the vague feeling of uneasiness returned.
Mr. Piff frowned. Mr. Boodle, wearing a truculent sneer, passed his desk, and Mr. Piff wouldn't have noticed him, except that Boodle spoke.
"What's your prediction today, Master Mind?"
Mr. Piff looked up sharply. "Eh—uh—what did you say?"
Mr. Boodle repeated his question mockingly, and Mr. Piff, staring abstractly at Boodle's beefy midriff, answered absently, giving a bit of political news. Boodle left then, laughing loudly and repeating the forecast to the other workers in the office.
The laughter nettled Mr. Piff, and he looked at his watch. In another four hours they'd know he was no fool. In another four hours the District Attorney would be—
Mr. Piff sat bolt upright, clapping his hands to his brow. That was it! Of course, that was it!
"My gosh!" he gasped. "I've been a fool, an utter inconsiderate fool."
It had suddenly dawned on him what had been plucking so insistently at his conscience. The District Attorney was going to die! The D.A. was going to be murdered; and he, P. Piff, was the only one who knew about it, who could prevent it.
Percival Piff—with that failing common to all humans—had been so wrapped up in the vindication of his predictions that he had completely forgotten that the vindication involved murder.
He felt ashamed of himself. His duty, of course, was crystal clear.
Percival rose and looked again at his watch. There was still four hours left in which, as a righteous citizen, he could save the District Attorney. He crammed his hat on his head, shrugged into his coat, and rushed for the door.
Exactly thirty minutes later, he arrived wild-eyed and breathless at the offices of the District Attorney.
AN enormous policeman was stationed before the doors of
the D.A.'s suite, and this worthy was almost startled out of his
half slumber by the little man who dashed up to him and seized
him by the arm.
"The District Attorney," gasped Mr. Piff, "where is he?"
The officer of Law and Order shook Mr. Piff's paw from his arm.
"Sure now, peanut, what is it yez want to see him about?"
"A murder!" groaned Mr. Piff, a-tremble at the very thought.
The policeman looked visibly shaken. Obviously Mr. Piff did not look like the type associated with violence.
"What's that?" the delegate of Peace and Security fairly bellowed. "A murder?"
Mr. Piff nodded, signifying that that was exactly what he meant. He opened his mouth to say more, but the corpulent cop had already wheeled and dashed inside the anteroom he had been guarding. Mr. Piff leaped to his heels, following him inside.
"There's a guy outside," the cop was gasping, "who sez there wuz a murder!"
He addressed another uniformed man, smaller and more intelligent looking, who seemed to be a Police Lieutenant. The Lieutenant spotted Mr. Piff.
"Is that the gentleman?" he asked, pointing at Percival Piff incredulously.
The big cop looked at Mr. Piff.
"Yah!" he growled.
Obviously the huge Guardian of Righteousness was more familiar with doorman duty and the peddling of tickets to the Police Ball, than he was with murders. The situation seemed to have gotten away from him. But the Lieutenant was quite calm.
"What's this all about?" he asked Percival Piff.
"The District Attorney," breathed Mr. Piff. "Is the District Attorney in?"
The Lieutenant was losing patience.
"You can tell me what's on your mind," he snapped.
Mr. Piff gazed at him dubiously, then lowered his voice to a stage whisper.
"Someone," he hissed, "is going to murder the District Attorney, at twelve-fifteen." He raised his voice once more. "I thought he'd like to know about it."
The expression on the Lieutenant's face changed subtly. He was used to this sort of thing. Why was it, he wondered, that cranks were always such mousey little people. Gazing at Mr. Piff, he felt sure that this was the mousiest little crank he had ever run up against.
"Well," he said dryly. "I'm glad you let us in on that little item. You've no idea how much it will help."
Mr. Piff straightened his frail shoulders proudly.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," he said. "I thought it would."
The Lieutenant sighed under his breath and walked over to a drawer, where he took out some paper forms. If he got this little crackpot to fill out a complaint blank, the said crackpot should be satisfied. It usually made all the screwballs feel important.
"Here," said the Lieutenant, "fill in one of these. Give your name, address, place of business, et cetera. Then, just so we won't forget who to thank, you might put down the data about the District Attorney's murder."
With the dignity of a man receiving a decoration for conspicuous valor, Mr. Piff walked over to a desk and sat down. Then he carefully filled out the form, blotted it, and handed it to the Lieutenant.
"Then everything will be taken care of?" he asked in a voice of immense relief.
"Yes, surely—" the Lieutenant looked down at the form—"Mr. Piff. Everything will be taken care of. Thank you very much."
He extended his hand, and Percival Piff shook it solemnly. Then he turned and made his exit, a citizen who had done his duty. The sense of foreboding that had been hanging over him had now vanished. He was quite relieved, and left the building whistling.
When noon arrived, and the office gossips gathered again, Mr. Piff munched his lunch and held his silence. There would be no vindication today. Time enough for that with another prediction tomorrow. He felt a glow of pride in the fact that he had so nobly sacrificed his vanity to duty. Besides, what was one prediction, more or less, in the life of a man who could foretell anything!
BOODLE was making derogatory remarks and Mr. Piff was
ignoring them, when a commotion broke out in the hall outside the
office. The lunchers all turned to face the door, and in the next
instant four uniformed policemen, led by a man in a Lieutenant's
chevrons, burst into the room!
One of the office stenogs screamed. Boodle let out a hoarse gasp. But Percival Piff, of them all, remained cool. He rose, smiling, for he recognized the man at the front of the van as the Lieutenant he had left several hours ago. He had a hunch, too, as to their reasons for coming here. They were probably going to commend P. Piff personally for what he had done that morning. And with the entire office staff looking on! Mr. Piff swelled with pride.
Mr. Piff waved a cheery greeting to the Lieutenant, who was advancing across the room. Waved a cheery greeting and said with very becoming modesty,
"Well, Lieutenant, I must say that this is quite unexpected."
Stanley, when he found Dr. Livingstone, couldn't have packed more drama into his historic line than Percival Piff put into that sentence.
Mr. Piff moved to meet the Police, feeling the eyes of the entire office upon him. Nonchalantly he extended his hand to the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant grabbed it, and in the next instant Mr. Piff was flying over his head. Swift jiujitsu!
Mr. Piff didn't get the drift of things very well, but it was clear, when four patrolmen hurled themselves upon his prostrate body, that no decoration or commendation was intended.
He heard the Lieutenant's voice, harsh and realistic, clearing up the situation for him.
"Piff," the Lieutenant snarled, "I arrest you for the murder of the District Attorney!"
UNDER different circumstances, Mr. Piff might have found his ride in the screaming, sirened squad car somewhat exhilarating, perhaps even thrilling. But under the present circumstances he was utterly terrified. He crouched in the rear of the car, guarded by five policemen, with his eyes shut tight in an effort to hide, ostrich fashion, from his woe.
Twenty minutes later he was bundled limp and unprotesting into the gloomy quarters of the "sweat room" at the Detective Bureau. There he was hand-cuffed to a chair, while a thousand and one cops, plainclothes detectives and uniformed harness bulls harassed and tormented him.
Lights were blazing mercilessly into his eyes, and while he writhed there unable to escape, he was grilled for three hours. To Percival Piff, during this session of terror, the rasping voice of his spouse, Matilda, would have sounded like the singing of a lark.
The questions hurled at him by his inquisitors were as varied as they were stupid.
"Tell us how yuh done it," one questioner would rasp.
"Yeah, tell us the names of the boys yuh got to do the actual doity woik," another would follow.
"Come on, Piff, come clean! Sign this confession, or it'll be a lot worse for you later on," a third would shout.
And through it all, the blaze of lights, confusion and sweaty faces glaring at him, Percival Piff was able to make only one reply.
"Please," he repeated endlessly. "I didn't do it. I don't know who did it!"
For Mr. Piff knew that he could never, under any circumstances, tell them that he had picked up his advance knowledge of the crime from a newspaper account that hadn't then been written—in a paper that hadn't at that time been published. It would have been too preposterous an explanation, and would have served only to further increase the wrath of his tormentors. He had enough grief pressing down on his miserably bent little shoulders as it was.
Finally, utterly spent, Percival Piff was taken to the County Jail, where he was locked up for the night. This was at five o'clock, and he lay exhausted on the hard gray cot in his tiny cell until the turnkey came with his supper an hour later.
The rattling of keys in the lock of his cell door made Mr. Piff sit up on his cot.
The turnkey was short, fat, good-natured and bald. Mr. Piff perceived all this in a glance.
"Well, well," said the turnkey, in the jovial tones of a mortician during a boom season, "well, well! You don't look like no killer to me."
"Thank you," said Mr. Piff, taking a tin plate of beans from his hand. "I am glad to hear somebody say so."
The turnkey scratched his bald head.
"But yuh never kin tell, I allus say. I seen a lotta killers in my day. The brainy type allus looks like innercent peepul."
Mr. Piff, disdaining to reply to this change of sentiment, took a steaming tin cup of coffee from the fellow.
"Come, come," said the turnkey. "Don't take it so hard. It ain't as bad as it seems. Before yuh know it, they'll have fried yuh, and it won't make a bit of difference then."
PERCIVAL PIFF was not blessed with a strong constitution,
and the last remark made him put down his plate of beans
hurriedly. He let his head rest in his hands, and remained in
that position, shaking like a man with a chill.
"What's wrong?" The turnkey seemed perplexed. "Did I say somethin' to offend yuh?"
"Go away," Mr. Piff managed to groan. "Go away and leave me alone."
With the air of a fine host whose hospitality has been spurned, the turnkey rose.
"Okay, okay," he muttered. "Have it your own way. I was jest trying to be neighbor-like with yuh. If yuh feel any better in the morning, we can have us a little chat. See yuh then!"
Mr. Piff barely heard the clang of the steel door closing behind the turnkey.
He was beyond such minor sensations as hearing and seeing, for his soul was drenched in a torrent of anguish. He was utterly wrapped in his grief.
"Oh my," he groaned softly, "oh my, what will I ever be able to do?"
Subconsciously, as the cheery turnkey made his exit, Mr. Piff's eyes had caught a sheet of white paper sticking out of that gentleman's rear pocket. Subconsciously, his mind had registered and identified the paper. It was a daily racing sheet.
The realization made Mr. Piff groan again. For it had served to bring a fresh surge of remorse sweeping down on him. It had reminded him again of the future into which he had trespassed, the future which had somehow done him dirt.
For Percival Piff, the long night brought no rest. While hour after hour crawled slowly past, he paced back and forth in the narrow confinements of his tiny cell. The realization of his plight grew stronger and stronger upon him, until at last he was certain that he couldn't stand it any longer. He longed for the soothing sound of Matilda's nagging voice, the pleasant obscurity of his unimportant niche in the offices of Hammer, Hammer and Tongs.
Remorse and nostalgia, blending in a subtle pattern, were weaving a cloak of utter despair around Mr. Piff. And there was one sentence which, if repeated once, was repeated a hundred times by the miserable little man in the darkened cell.
It was simply, "I wish I'd never seen the future!"
MORNING was long in coming. But being an eventuality, it
finally arrived in the form of a bleak gray dawn that seeped in
through the bars of Mr. Piff's cell.
Red-eyed and haggard, he stood dejectedly against the bars of his coop, listening to the sounds of other prisoners waking. Then at last he heard the banging of tin cups and plates, and the odor of coffee wafted subtly to his nostrils. Breakfast was being served.
Breakfast—The thought almost broke him down completely. At that very moment, he could have been rising to coffee, bacon and eggs in his own humble little house. If only he hadn't meddled into the future.
"If," said Mr. Piff bitterly, "if!"
And then the turnkey, the same one who had brought his supper to him the night before, was before his cell. The fellow's face was split in a cherubic grin of greeting, and he carried a cup and a plate in one beefy paw, while the other hand sought for the proper key to unlock Mr. Piff's cell.
"Well," the turnkey began in his cheerful voice, "how is our best guest today?"
Mr. Piff looked at him dully and sighed.
"Fine," he said without enthusiasm, "just fine."
"They ain't gonna question yuh today," the turnkey said when he'd deposited the plate and cup on Mr, Piff's bunk. "Just thought you'd like to know."
Percival Piff felt a sudden surge of hope.
"Have they any leads on who committed the crime?"
"Naw," said the turnkey. "They know you engineered it. That's all they need."
Mr. Piff's hopes deflated like a pricked balloon. He resumed his seat on the cot.
"Oh my," he said, "oh my!"
Suddenly he felt no more resentment for the turnkey. For it occurred to him that the rotund little man was the only friend he had in the world. The only one, at any rate, who had been decent to him since the start of his troubles. Mr. Piff turned to him.
"I'm sorry about the way I acted, turnkey," he said. "You've been trying to be decent and I didn't appreciate it."
The turnkey colored a modest red.
"Shucks," he said, "just tried to cheer yuh up, that's all. Forget it."
"No," said Mr. Piff, "I appreciate it, and I only wish there was something I could do for you."
"Skip it." The turnkey, blushing, rose to leave. "I have to get around to the other cells, but I'll see you at lunch."
He made his exit, and Mr. Piff heard his heels clacking down the stone corridor before he realized that he had once more noted subconsciously that a copy of the daily racing sheet protruded from the turnkey's hip pocket. With a sudden flash of inspiration, Mr. Piff leaped to his feet. He could repay the kindness of the turnkey. He could give him racing tips for the day!
The turnkey, however, had gone on to other cells. So Mr. Piff was forced to wait until that gentleman came with lunch at noon.
"Look," said Mr. Piff eagerly, when the turnkey brought him in his beans. "Look, I said I wanted to do something to repay your kindness, but I couldn't think of anything. Now I have, and it will help to repay your kindness to me."
The turnkey blushed. "That's all right. Forget it, pal."
"But you don't understand," Mr. Piff protested. "I want to do you a favor. You're the only person who has treated me like a human being, given me a break, since all my troubles began. It's the least I can do, and it will make me feel better inside."
"Okay," said the turnkey, "you win. What is it?"
"Tips," said Mr. Piff eagerly. "I saw the racing sheet in your pocket. That means you play the horses. I can give you surefire tips. The winners of all the races."
The expectant smile slid slowly off the turnkey's face, and his expression became frigid.
"Oh," he said, "a wise guy, eh?"
"But you don't understand!" Mr. Piff fairly squealed. "I can give you the winning horses. I can give you every race in one-two-three order. I know what ones are going to win today!"
"I suppose," said the turnkey with heavy sarcasm, "that you can tell who's gonna win the Special Handicap in the fourth race at Fairmont."
"Certainly." Mr. Piff nodded in excitement.
"I oughta paste yuh one," growled the turnkey with sudden savagery. "I thought yuh was a nice little guy—in spite of the fact that yuh killed the D.A. But now it turns out that you're jest a tout!"
"No! No!" Mr. Piff was on his feet, pleading for belief. "I can give you the winners. Please believe me!" He paused, searching his memory. "At Fairmont, in the first race, the horses will be Skag, Toby and Come Quick, in that order. The second race will result in Soso, Dotell and By-me, running in that order. The third race will see Tomorrow, Again and Lash Ahead as the first, second and third horses respectively."
The turnkey was at the cell door, glaring at Mr. Piff.
"Very likely," he snarled, "very likely, indeed. So long, tout!"
Percival Piff slumped down on his cot again, tears starting to his eyes. He had lost his only friend, the only one who was even close to being a friend. No one believed him. No one trusted P. Piff. The tears ran unashamed down his cheeks. Mr. Piff was getting damned fed up with life. He had looked on it with trusting gaze, and it had given him a swift kick in the posterior quarters.
"I wish," he sobbed aloud, "that I could get out of here!"
Suddenly he took his head from his hands. Get out—Why, it was the first time that the thought of escape had occurred to him. He looked wildly about. Could he? Was there any means of breaking out?
But as he looked, his gaze encountered nothing but steel, steel and locks. It was apparently quite impossible.
"No," he began to sob once more. "No, I can't escape. I'm done for. There isn't a chance." He slumped once more on his cot, putting his hands to his face.
In that position, Mr. Piff remained for more than two hours, not moving, a picture of utter dejection, dismal despair. He was broken, beaten, waiting only for the final crushing blow to fall.
"HEY!" A voice broke in sharply on Mr. Piff's dulled consciousness. "Hey, Piff!"
He heard a key being hastily inserted in the door to his cell. He looked up to see the turnkey, face red with wild excitement, bursting into his penal crypt.
"Piff!" The turnkey had him by the shoulder, was shaking him. "Piff!"
"Well?" Mr. Piff looked wearily up at him.
"Look, Piff. Gee, I'm sorry! I had yuh wrong, pal. I had yuh wrong an' I'm sorry."
Mr. Piff found the strength to frown.
"What do you mean?"
"Them races, the ones yuh picked," the turnkey panted in breathless urgency. "They all come in like yuh said they would."
Mr. Piff became more alert.
"Did you play them?"
The expression on the turnkey's face was one of acute, dire and devastating remorse.
"No," he confessed hoarsely, "no, I didn't." He gulped twice. "Until it was too late, until the third race was over, I didn't realize that the ones you picked came in."
"That's too bad," said Mr. Piff disinterestedly.
"No, it ain't! I mean, yes, it is—but it ain't, really," the turnkey said quickly. "What I mean is—Well—uh—about that Special Handicap at Fairmont, the fourth race. It ain't started yet. It's due to start in five minutes. That's what I run like the devil from the cigar store down at the corner for. I wanted to ask yuh what the winning horse is gonna be."
"Starts in five minutes?" asked Mr. Piff, faintly concerned.
"Yeah, please! What's the name of that horse?" The turnkey was excited, and the turnkey was in a hurry. He was obviously desperate.
Percival Piff looked at him with mild reproach.
"But you didn't believe me, when I told you before."
"Look." The turnkey almost shouted. "I know I didn't. But I had yuh wrong. I had yuh wrong and I admit it. Now, what's the name of that horse?" He looked at his watch frantically. "Cripes, hurry! There's only four minutes left until post time!"
"Four minutes," said Mr. Piff, "is not very long." An odd expression of cunning crept into his lack-lustre eyes, a gleam of unwonted shrewdness.
"Three minutes," screamed the turnkey, "is all that's left! Look, Piff, fer Gawd's sake! I'm sorry I didn't believe you before. I got a wife and kids, I got a mortgage, and bills and bills and bills!" he wailed. "If I know the name of that nag, it'll make me a fortune!"
"I don't know," said Percival Piff sadistically, "if I should tell you."
"Loooooook," screamed the turnkey, "it's only two minutes until post time! Holy catfish, I can jest make it. Pleeeeeeeeassse, Piff!"
Mr. Piff wet his lips, thinking of the fifty-fifty gamble he was counting on. It might work. Play it slow, and it might work. He sighed.
"Weeeeeellll—" he began.
"Pleeeeeeeeeassssse!" wailed the turnkey. "There's only a minute and a half until post time!"
Mr. Piff let time dangle a moment longer.
"The name," he said finally, "is—"
"Yes?" screamed the frenzied turnkey.
"Cat's Meow," said Mr. Piff. "Cat's Meow."
"Cat's Meow!" bellowed the turnkey. "And a minute left to get my bet down!"
WITH a hoarse gasp, he wheeled on his flat heels and went
flying out the cell. A rocket shot from the 1940 model of Big
Bertha couldn't have gained such explosive speed in such a short
distance.
Mr. Piff smiled. His first smile in many hours. His scheme had worked as planned. The turnkey had been in far too much of a hurry to bother locking the cell door as he left!
Taking a deep breath, and forcing himself to be casual, Mr. Piff stepped calmly from the cell and sauntered down the corridor.
With the exception of several prisoners sleeping soundly in cells farther down the tier, the corridor was deserted. Mr. Piff forced himself to continue his casual saunter. He couldn't run; didn't dare, even though every instinct clamored for him to do so, to dash pell-mell from the place.
The opportunity for escape had presented itself so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that Mr. Piff hadn't had time to debate the issue, hadn't had time to grow frightened over the prospect. But now, as he neared the door leading out to the corridors of the County Building, he breathed a fervent, semi-hysterical prayer that the turnkey had also left that door unlocked.
It was open, and Mr. Piff stepped out into freedom with a deep grateful sigh. In another moment he had slipped quickly down the side hall in which he found himself, and into the main corridor and the ever-moving stream of people. Two minutes more, and he was out on the street.
Freedom!
It was wonderful. Mr. Piff breathed deeply. Even the carbon monoxide odors from passing buses and autos seemed splendid. Suddenly he stopped. The excitement that had been flooding nectar-like through his veins vanished. Vanished to be replaced by fear at a new thought.
"Where can I go?" he asked himself. "Oh my, where can I go?"
It came to Percival Piff at that moment that he had no sanctuary, no place of refuge; and, worse, no money to find one. He was free, yes. But only for the moment. In another five or ten minutes he would be a hunted criminal!
"My house," he thought desperately, "I can hide there."
And at that minute, while he was still less than a block from the County Building, he heard a whistle's screech.
And immediately on its heels there came another, from the County Jail quarters. An utterly terrifying siren started moaning shrilly!
They had discovered his escape already!
All around him people had halted, to turn and stare in excitement at the County Building. The siren was wailing with intensified fury now, and traffic too was halting.
"And they're looking for me!" Mr. Piff thought in terror. "For me!"
"Jail break!" someone near him shouted. "Jail break at the County Building!"
Percival Piff didn't pause to plan any particular scheme of flight. He set his thin shoulders and pushed recklessly through the crowds in the street. There was one thought in his horrified brain—to put all possible distance between himself and the County Building, between himself and the police, between himself and the electric chair.
In a word, Mr. Piff ran like hell.
Which, as it developed a moment later, was not a very bright thing to do.
"Look!" someone screamed, while the siren wailed again. "That little guy, running, must be the escaped prisoner!"
"Stop him, then!" another voice shouted. "Stop that murderer!"
MR. PIFF, his breath scorching his lungs, darted down an
alleyway. He could hear footsteps behind him. Footsteps running,
gathering speed, gathering volume. The chase was increasing.
"Stop, stop the escaped prisoner! He's a fiend! He killed his mother-in-law and three aunts!"
There was a doorway open off the alley, and without hesitation, Mr. Piff plunged into it. It was a dark dank passageway, but he stumbled onward for perhaps fifty yards before he slowed down. The sound of the steps behind him was no longer audible. Staring down the far end of the passage, Mr. Piff saw that there was light waiting down there. He started out for it.
A roaring was coming from the end of that passage, where the lights were, and in several more seconds Mr. Piff paused at the entrance to a vast garage. The roaring was coming from a line of trucks less than fifty yards away from him.
At the front entrance to the garage, the doors were opened to permit the trucks to leave, and one of the vehicles was already trundling forward.
Mr. Piff set out swiftly after it, catching hold of the tailgate and swinging onto the rear platform. There were bundles on the rear platform, big white bundles, and Mr. Piff concealed himself behind them while the truck roared out of the garage and into the street.
His heart was hammering wildly against his puny ribs, but Mr. Piff was able to breathe a momentary sigh of relief.
"Gosh," he told himself, wiping the sweat from his long thin nose, "gosh, that was close!"
And just the thought of it forced him to close his eyes and give way to a minute of violent shudders.
From his position on the back of the bouncing vehicle, Mr. Piff peered owlishly out from behind the white bundles occasionally to mark the street intersections they passed. It was a matter of sheer luck that the truck was traveling in the direction of his home. Not directly toward there, of course, but in the general vicinity.
Finally, when the truck slowed for a stop sign in a quiet little residential section, Mr. Piff climbed off and took to the alleys. It was more than an hour later when he drew up within a few blocks of his bungalow. Now he proceeded with much more caution than before.
"They might have men surrounding the house," he told himself. "They always do in detective stories."
It was still not quite clear to him why he desired to return home at all. Possibly he was acting with the instinct of a small boy running away, who must bid someone a dramatic farewell before doing so. Matilda would serve that purpose. She might even give him some money to carry him far away. He had vague ideas about the Foreign Legion, although he didn't know whether they'd been demobilized by the French now that Hitler had beaten them.
At the end of the block on which he lived, Mr. Piff paused and looked carefully up and down the street. But nothing seemed unusual. There were no men lurking suspiciously about on the lawn, so he moved on.
Choosing to enter by the rear entrance, Mr. Piff found himself on the back porch. The door, fortunately, was slightly ajar, and he pushed into his kitchen.
"Okay, boys, that's Piff!"
The shout turned Percival Piff's blood to ice water, and he wheeled in horror to see men pouring forth from the bushes around his yard. Coming forth and heading for the porch, revolvers drawn.
"Take it easy, men! He's probably armed! He's desperate!"
Percival Piff slammed the door of the kitchen shut and threw home the bolt. Then he turned and gazed wildly around his little kitchen like a cornered rabbit. There was no place he could hide, and though he tried to conceal himself beneath the sink, he had to give the idea up.
"Oh goodness," Mr. Piff wailed. "Goodness me!"
He scuttled into the living room. The sound of heavy pounding on the front door told him that the place was surrounded.
"Matilda," Mr. Piff squealed, "Matilda!"
But a mocking echo was his only answer. Matilda wasn't home. The hammering on the doors, front and rear, was growing louder, more frightening. Mr. Piff heard a window in the kitchen smash and tinkle on the floor.
He started toward the stairs leading to the upper floor of the house, then stopped. No. That wouldn't do. There was no place to hide up there. The din of hammering came again to his ears, followed by the heavy thump of footsteps landing on the kitchen floor. They were in the house!
There was no other choice open to Mr. Piff, so he dashed to the door leading down to the cellar. He slammed it shut behind him, slid the bolt, and stood there in the darkness, trembling. His hand touched something next to the door. It was his flashlight. The flash he'd nailed there for use in the cellar. He seized it, and in a moment was descending the stairs, guided by the white beam.
The odor of chemicals was once more strong in his nostrils. But it wasn't until he'd taken his second breath of the nostalgic smell that his heart suddenly soared wildly with hope. The fear that had been stamped in his eyes vanished, to be replaced by a new courage, a new determination.
For suddenly, Percival Piff realized he had a fighting chance! He was down the remaining steps in an instant.
The police were pounding on the door of the cellar now. But Mr. Piff wasn't concerned. Instead, he stood beside the Futurescope, playing his flash up and down the front of it.
"Those dials," he said: "I wonder."
Mr. Piff's mind was working at whirlwind speed. Every second was of obvious importance. The time machine had previously been able to throw him a week into the future, then a week back into the present.
Mr. Piff didn't want to get into the future this time, however. What he was concerned with was the past. He knit his brows and bent over the gadgets on the dial board.
There! He had it!
A dial reading "Ahead...Back" fell under the white rays of his flash. That was it! The dial was not set at "Ahead." That meant that he could go into the future and return to the present as long as the dial was at that point. But if it were pushed back to read "Back," the reverse should be in order. It would send him into the past and return him to the present when he wished.
The door at the top of the landing was splintering under the pounding impact of chairs wielded by the policemen. Glancing up quickly, to see that they hadn't broken through yet, Mr. Piff returned his concentration to the machine.
"Yes," said Mr. Piff. "Obviously the dial reading 'Back' can send me into the past. And if I'd ever want to, I could return to the present. But I don't think I'll want to."
His hand shoved the dial to "Back." His other hand, still holding the flash, flicked the machine on. The faint humming began immediately. Mr. Piff listened intently. Another smashing blow almost tore the cellar door from its hinges.
Mr. Piff stepped up to the machine. The tingling was suddenly all around him, flooding his tissues with that old familiar feeling. Faintly, as if from a great distance, he could hear the hammering on the door, voices shouting.
The pounding died off, the shouting subsided. The tingling continued.
PERCIVAL PIFF stepped away from the machine. Into
silence, cold and blessed silence!
He looked down at his feet. Packages were strewn all around him. The machine was still there. A lump came to his scrawny throat as a voice shrilled to his ears, splitting the silence like an ax.
"Percival Piff," the voice screamed "are you ever going to come upstairs? It shouldn't take you all night to put those packages down there!" Obviously, the voice was Matilda's.
And Mr. Piff was certain, then, that he was right back where he started from—a week in the past. September 3rd.
He gulped, snapped off the machine. His flashlight swung in a wide arc, revealing something leaning against the wall. It was a small sledgehammer.
Mr. Piff walked over to it and removed the cobwebs. He picked up the sledge, looked at the machine.
"The future," he murmured reflectively. He was thinking in a philosophical vein. He knew, as any philosopher does, that the future is predestined merely because man knows nothing of its course, and rushes blindly toward it as a consequence. But should a man be aware of the future—then, obviously, he could alter its course.
Which was exactly what Mr. Piff intended to do with his own future. He was going to alter it in his own way. Beginning with Matilda. And ending up with Hammer, Hammer and Tongs. They'd respect him after this. They'd have to. They'd give him a raise, too. A big one. Otherwise he would go across the street to Rowbottom, Rowbottom and Bilge with twenty years of business secrets in his brain.
With calm resolution, Mr. Piff raised the sledgehammer over his toothpick shoulders and let it ride. The Futurescope disintegrated into smithereens. Then Mr. Piff dropped the sledge and trod resolutely up the stairs to the kitchen.
Matilda stood over the hot stove with a potato masher. She looked angry and flushed. As her husband's small feet stepped lightly into the room, she turned to face him.
"What," demanded Matilda, "have you been up to, you miniature worm? What have you got down in that cellar—some gadget you stole from the kids next door?"
Mr. Piff gulped involuntarily. Matilda had come too close to home for comfort. Standing here in the center of the room, he drew back his pigeon-breasted shoulders.
"Matilda," he began bravely, trying to remember his lines, "your attitude for the past—er—thirty-one years has not been properly respectful. From now on—"
"Ye Gods!" Matilda shrieked. "The man is crazy! I'd better put him out of his misery before he throws a fit!"
And with a wild swing Mr. Piff's spouse flung out the potato masher and beaned Mr. Piff square on the noggin.
AN hour later: "Percival," Matilda shrieked from the
kitchen, "come to supper! If you don't come this instant, I'll
jam some castor oil down your throat!"
Mr. Piff shuddered. He removed the icebag from his swollen pate and got up groggily from his bed.
"Yes, my dear," he called back meekly. "I'm coming."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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