Time Locker

Vanning sighed again and let himself out into the coolness of the night. Stars blazed in the sky, except toward the south, where the aurora of Lower Manhattan dimmed them. The glowing white towers of skyscrapers rose in a jagged pattern. A sky-ad announced the virtues of Vambulin—“It Peps You Up.”

His speeder was at the curb. Vanning edged the locker into the trunk compartment and drove toward the Hudson Floataway, the quickest route downtown. He was thinking about Poe.

The Purloined Letter, which had been hidden in plain sight, but re-folded and re-addressed, so that its superficial appearance was changed. Holy Hutton! What a perfect safe the locker would make! No thief could crack it, for the obvious reason that it wouldn’t be locked. No thief would want to clean it out. Vanning could fill the locker with credit coupons and instantly they’d become unrecognizable. It was the ideal cache.

How the devil did it work?

There was little use in asking Galloway. He played by ear. A primrose by the river’s rim a simple primrose was to him—not Primula vulgaris. Syllogisms were unknown to him. He reached the conclusion without the aid of either major or minor premises.

Vanning pondered. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Ergo, there was a different sort of space in the locker—

But Vanning was pumping at conclusions. There was another answer—the right one. He hadn’t guessed it yet.

Instead, he tooled the speeder downtown to the office building where he maintained a floor, and brought the locker upstairs in the freight lift. He didn’t put it in his private office; that would have been too obvious. He placed the metal cabinet in one of the store-rooms, sliding a file cabinet in front of it for partial concealment. It wouldn’t do to have the clerks using this particular locker.

Vanning stepped back and considered. Perhaps— A bell rang softly. Preoccupied, Vanning didn’t hear it at first.

When he did, he went back to his own office and pressed the acknowledgment button on the Winchell. The gray, harsh, bearded face of Counsel Hatton appeared, filling the screen.

“Hello,” Vanning said.

Hatton nodded. “I’ve been trying to reach you at your home. Thought I’d try the office—”

“I didn’t expect you to call now. The trial’s tomorrow. It’s a bit late for discussion, isn’t it?”

“Dugan Sons wanted me to speak to you. I advised against it.”

“Oh?”

Hatton’s thick gray brows drew together. “I’m prosecuting, you know. There’s plenty of evidence against MacIlson.”

“So you say. But peculation’s a difficult charge to prove.”

“Did you get an injunction against scop?”

“Naturally,” Vanning said. “You’re not using truth serum on my client!”

“That’ll prejudice the jury.”

“Not on medical grounds. Scop affects MacIlson harmfully. I’ve got a covering prognosis.”

“Harmfully is right!” Hatton’s voice was sharp. “Your client embezaled those bonds, and I can prove it.”

“Twenty-five thousand in credits, it comes to, eh? That’s a lot for Dugan Sons to lose. What about that hypothetical case I posed? Suppose twenty thousand were recovered—”

“Is this a private beam? No recordings?”

“Naturally. Here’s the cut-off.” Vanning held up a metal-tipped cord. “This is strictly sub rosa.”

“Good,” Counsel Hatton said. “Then I can ‘Call you a lousy shyster.”

“Tch!”

“Your gag’s too old. It’s moth-eaten. MacIlson swiped five grand in bonds, negotiable into credits. The auditors start checking up. MacIlson comes to you. You tell him to take twenty grand more, and offer to return that twenty if Dugan Sons refuse to prosecute. MacIlson splits with you on the five thousand, and on the plat standard, that ain’t hay.”

“I don’t admit to anything like that.”

“Naturally you don’t, not even on a closed beam. But it’s tacit. However, the gag’s moth-eaten, and my clients won’t play ball with you. They’re going to prosecute.”

“You called me up just to tell me that?”

“No, I want to settle the jury question. Will you agree to let ‘em use scop on the panel?”

“O. K.,” Vanning said. He wasn’t depending on a fixed jury tomorrow. His battle would be based on legal technicalities. With scop-tested talesmen, the odds would be even. And such an arrangement would save days or weeks of argument and challenge.

“Good,” Hatton grunted. “You’re going to get your pants licked off.”

Vanning replied with a mild obscenity and broke the connection. Reminded of the pending court fight, he forced the matter of the fourth-dimensional locker out of his mind and left the office. Later— Later would be time enough to investigate the possibilities of the remarkable cabinet more thoroughly. Just now, he didn’t want his brain cluttered with nonessentials. He went to his apartment, had the servant mix him a short highball, and dropped into bed.

And, the next day, Vanning won his case. He based it on complicated technicalities and obscure legal precedents. The crux of the matter was that the bonds had not been converted into government credits. Abstruse economic charts proved that point for Vanning. Conversion of even five thousand credits would have caused a fluctuation in the graph line, and no such break existed. Vanning’s experts went into monstrous detail.

In order to prove guilt, it would have been necessary to show, either actually or by inference, that the bonds had been in existence since last December 20th, the date of their most recent check-and-recording. The case of Donovan vs. Jones stood as a precedent.

Hatton jumped to his feet. “Jones later confessed to his defalcation, your honor!”

“Which does not affect the original decision,” Vanning said smoothly. “Retroaction is not admissible here. The verdict was not proven.”

“Counsel for the defense will continue.”

Counsel for the defense continued, building up a beautifully intricate edifice of casuistic logic.

Hatton writhed. “Your honor! I—”

“If my learned opponent can produce one bond—just one of the bonds in question—I will concede the case.”

The presiding judge looked sardonic. “Indeed! If such a piece of evidence could be produced, the defendant would be jailed as fast as I could pronounce sentence. You know that very well, Mr. Van-fling. Proceed.”

“Very well. My contention, then, is that the bonds never existed. They were the result of a clerical error in notation.”

“A clerical error in a Pederson Calculator?”

“Such errors have occurred, as I shall prove. If I may call my next witness—”

Unchallenged,. the witness, a math technician, explained how a Pederson Calculator can go haywire. He cited cases.

Hatton caught him up on one point. “I protest this proof. Rhodesia, as everyone knows, is the location of a certain important experimental industry. Witness has refrained from stating the nature of the work performed in this particular Rhodesian factory. Is it not a fact that the Henderson United Company deals largely in radioactive ores?”

“Vitness will answer.”

“I can’t. My records don’t include that information.”

“A significant omission,” Hatton snapped. “Radioactivity damages the intricate mechanism of a Pederson Calculator. There is no radium nor radium by-product in the offices of Dugan Sons.”

Vanning stood up. “May I ask if those offices have been fumigated lately?”

“They have. It is legally required.”

“A type of chlorine gas was used.”

“Yes.”