THE MISSING DIMENSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21881, 17 August 1934, Page 5

THE MISSING DIMENSION

BY HARRINGTON REVF.RLKY

Yes, they've put me in a prison cell, locked me away behind stone walls and a steel door. But the mysterious robberies continue. You'll have noticed that. I have tried —Heaven only knows how I have tried!—to convince the judge, the jury, the police, the prison governor, the prison warders, everybody, that I am innocent. What annoys me most is that all this time that giggling fool Dickinson is sleeping in my bod, drinking my wines, smoking my cigars, and filling my flat with enough stolen money and jewels to keep mo in gaol for the rest of my life if the police go there and find them. They will not find Dickinson. That is the snag. You see, Dickinson is a queer fellow, when he turns sideways lie is invisible. A strange personality, Dickinson. Tall, thin, almost bald, untidily dressed, not too'scrupulous, and with a most absurd giggle. We were at 6chool together. My tastes were for the classics —Latin, Greek, and the pageantry of past ages—whereas he looked only at the present, evincing a passionato interest in science and invention.

As opposites sometimes do, Dickinson and I became friends. We corresponded for a time when school and university days were over, then gradually drifted apart. Ten years passed before I saw him again.

One night , about two months ago, I was sitting by the fire smoking a last pine and reading a final chapter of Aristophanes before bed, when I was startled by' a slight noise—the squeak of the door-handle. I looked up. The knob of the door was slowly turning. The door opened a little way. Nothing happened. " That's queer,l exclaimed alouc'l. " Queerest > thing that you'll ever gee," said a voice, so loud that it might have spoken close to my ear. My heart gave a dreadful jump. Frightened out of my wits, I darted a glance round the room. There was no one, not a living soul, to be seen. And, as I stared at that door, like a man hypnotised/-' it closed before my eyes. Then the hairs prickled on my scalp as I heard a man's laugh, a peculiar, high-pitched cachinnation; only ono man laughed like that —Dickinson I " Turn round," aaid the voice. I turned, and there he stood, as long and as thin as ever, his bald head shimng in the lamplight, and giggling at my discomfiture as though he would never stop.

I found my tongue. "You I" I wied. " What the devil does this buffoonery mean? " Dickinson stopped laughing and looked at file in a peculiar way. " Buffoonery? " he said. "Buffoonery?" He swung quickly on his heel, and was gone as completely as if tho floor, bad opened arid swallowed him I

Dickinson re-appeared as swiftly as he had gone. " Call it magic, black, white, or any other colour if you like," he said, "/but it is undoubtedly the greatest scientific discovery of all time! The incredible, the unbelievable, has happened. I have realised my life's ambition. I have shed a dimension ! "

■> " Come nearer," he invited. " Have A good look at me. You are the only man who knows my secret. I had to tell someone." Half-afraid, I stepped closer. He seemed solid enough, but there was a curious hang about his clothes. I touched him, and reeled back shuddering. His chest and stomach, his face, even his boots, did not protrude. He was as flat as a sheet of paper! " Gentlv, gently," said Dickinson. "I know* it must be rather terrifying at first. Simply explained, I have got rid of the third dimension. I have length and breadth, but no thickness. Astonishing, isn't it? Yet all perfectly simple. Watch. I am going to turii sideways."// + He turned —and was not there. I stared hard and all that I could discern was a faint, wavering line, thin as a piece of cotton, invisible unless looked for. " Now I'm turning my back to you, said Dickinson, and at once his back came into view. He completed the circuit, vanishing once more before he faced me, and—" How do you like it? " giggled Dickinson. I staggered across to the decanter on the sideboard and poured for myself a stiff glass of whiskey. I needed it. As I set the glass down — . "At le&st vou might offer me ono, murmured Dickinson reproachfully. •' Can you drink —in that condition ?" I cried. "Drink?" He grinned. I should gay so. And eat —like a horse. He poured out his own whiskey and drank it down at a gulp. " Did you see anything when 1 turned sideways. lit " Only a very faint I had to look verv closely to find it. He nodded, satisfaction written large hpon his/features. "That will be the clothes. The material causes a tinv shadow, but it is slight enough to escape notice.i' ~ . , , "How did you do it?" 3 asked. "As you know," said Dickinson, "for years in my youth I fumbled with theories, studying this, examining that *—imaginary roots —functions the Ml 'd ideas of Einstein —and only succeeded ift arriving at a thorough mental muddle. I had been revolving round tny problem like a moth round a flame, attracted by the bright glow of it, Until I singed my wings in the form of a nervous breakdown. That cured tne, and with convalescence I sought another interest to occupy my mind. All those years I Had lived the life of a recluse, neglected the outside world. Shut Up/in iny laboratory, 1 was out of touch with politics, the arts, and the everyday > life of the commonplace people. When I emerged into the World of affairs, the first tiling that attracted me was the cinema. Strange fts it may seem, 1 had never seen a film in my life. Tho fact that some genius had made them audible intrigued mo, and I went to see what they were liko. The entertainment provided was trashy, with its bludgeoning sentimentality and false emotion, but I sat through the programme twice, entranced, enraptured. Here, for tho first time, I saw flat, twodimensional creatures \vho spoke and laughed and sang, who ate and moved find loved and killed each other —doing all the things which normal, threedimensional people do, vet lacking thickness."

" Projection! That was the secret! Those syrttiictir images who postured on tho sheet down at the far end of the auditorium had been actual, living Hesh-and-hlood hufnafi beings., hut the.v h(id been . projected. If their images '*onld be projected to give a fralishV semblance of life, whv should not the actual people be projected, carryijicr ilv-'r life-force with them, into the two-dimensional plane?'" " My old enthusiasm came back with B rush. I plunged into the technique •I cinematography. I haunted the

A SHORT STORY.

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studios. I road all the text-books. I mastered the secrets of lighting and lenses—they were the big clues, lighting and lenses. And at last I was ready to inaugurate my experiment of complete person projection. It has taken ten years and all my money. And here I am—successful." Dickinson plunged into a whirl of technicalities, bewildering, incomprehensible, regarding his projection machine. As far as I could gather ho had made a lens that would throw his own image at life-size on to a sheet placed only a very short distance away. He had then perfected a lighting system of electrical arcs which gave the most brilliant illumination possible, as near to natural lightning as ho could make it. The light was more in the nature of a blinding explosion than anything else. " I knew that when I made the attempt I was risking death," he told mo; " but with fajlure there would bo nothing left to live for, anyway, so I did not worry. And at last came the great moment, when I stood behind the lens and depressed the switch that was to explode the arcs and either blow me and the apparatus to fragments, or—as I hoped—project my image into the sheet and hurl my soul after it. A dreadful flash! A concussion that left me shaken and breathless! A dreadful moment, when I felt myself for bruises, and realised as 1 touched my own body that I had lost my thickness! Then immense satisfaction and plans for the future." " What are your plans, by the way?" I asked. Dickinson becamo mysterious and refused to tell me. I was so fascinated by the novelty of him that I pressed him to stay as my guest—and that was my great blunder. But for that I should be a free man to-day. Living with Dickinson was like living with a magician. There was a constant thrill in the way he appeared and vanished at will. His pawkish sense of humour led him to play jokes on me, and for a time I was almost as amused as Dickinson. But gradually the glamour wore off, and hii silly pranks and absurd giggle made me irritated and morose.

About this time the newspapers began to carry stories about the mysterious robberies that still intrigue the public and harass the police. Money vanished from bank counters, from shopkeepers' tills, for no apparent reason and with no apparent thief. Jewellery disappeared into thin air under the very noses of its guardians. Newspapermen coined the title of " The Ghost " for the robber or robbers, styling him master burglar, king of crooks and a score of similar fanciful em bellishmdnts.

Dickinson had been bringing all manner of small baggage into the flat. I thought it has his luggage; until one day, when he was not visible, I had occasion to move some of them, and one, with a weak catch, opened, and the flash of diamonds greeted my eyes. The truth seared white-hot across my brain. Dickinson was "The Ghost." Ho had admitted that all his money had gone in the great experiment. I knew his ethics were somewhat elastic. And this was the way in which he was recouping his fortunes I He appeared, and I tax?d him with the charge. He did not deny it. In fact, he seemed proud of his misdemeanours. I flew into a most violent race. Snatching up the bag of diamonds, I shouted, " You will take those and replace them where you found them."

" I will do no such thing," said Dickinson.

"Very well," I said; "I'm g(>ing to the police." As I hurried through the door, the bag in my hand, I heard his voice again. " You are a damned fool. You will bo sorry for this." But I ran down the stairs, unheeding, trembling with anger. He was right. Of course he was right. Whether the police thought me insane when I gasped out the whole incredible, fantastic story, I do not know. But when I showed them the diamonds they acted with a promptitude that left me breathless. They rushed me back to the flat, and opened every one of Dickinson's bags. The proceeds of some 20 robberies came to light. Of Dickinson there was no trace.

Then Came the greatest shock of all. They handcuffed mo and led me off to prison, and said that I was " Tho Ghost," refused to believe a word of my story! And as we left the flat I distinctly heard him giggle. He must have been there all the time, standing sideways in some obscure corner, enjoying the dumb horror that came upon me as I realised my act of folly. I had provided all the proof of robbery, with no possible robber —to tho logical mind of tho law —by myself. These walls and this door are so strong. If only 1 could get out. It is all so hopeless.