Part 2

An inexplicable excitement gripped Mark. He had a sudden, unshakable conviction that he and the professor were on the verge of incredible discoveries. Discoveries that would lead him to an explanation of the strange coma that held Elaine in its grim sway.

His brown eyes fastened on the mirror. The next instant they went wide with astonishment.

The glass screen behind which he and the professor were standing was clearly reflected.

But it was merely an opaque surface! Neither he nor the scientist could be seen behind it!

As if reading his mind, Professor Duchard gave vent to a little laugh.

"'One-way' glass," he explained. "It permits vision in only one direction." Then the humor went out of his voice. "We may thank God that science developed it before we are through."

Again he leaned forward, his eyes on the mirror.

An instant later he leveled a quivering forefinger.

"_Look!_"

There, in the semi-darkness where stood the looking-glass, a weird figure was beginning to glow!

Tension flooded through Mark's veins. His fingers knotted into fists. His eyes strained to catch the thing which grew upon the mirror's surface.

Slowly, like some wizard's evil phantasmagoria, the glowing lines came together. Took form. Painted a figure--

_The figure of the woman in the mirror!_

"That's her!" he cried excitedly. "That's the woman we saw reflected instead of Elaine!"

Professor Duchard snapped off the machine beside him. He turned on the lights. Swung around to face his daughter's fiance. His face was grey. Grim lines of worry etched deep into the flesh.

"So that is it!" he said. "That is what he has done to her!"

There was fear in his voice ... living, breathing fear. That and despair. The despair of utter hopelessness. His shoulders sagged with it. The sparkle had gone out of his eyes.

Mark gripped the old man's arm. Blood lust flamed in his own brown orbs. Every muscle was taut. The cords in his neck stood out like knotted ropes.

"What is it?" he demanded savagely. "Is it Vance? What has he done to her?"

Wearily, the scientist pulled his arm away and gestured the other to a seat.

"I shall tell you," he said. "You will not believe me, but I shall tell you."

"Yes. Go on. I'll decide for myself whether I'll believe you or not."

The professor stared into Mark's eyes.

"How much do you know about time?" he demanded.

* * * * *

"Time?"

"Yes. And time travel."

The younger man shrugged.

"Practically nothing," he admitted. "Oh, I've read a few stories, of course. But that's all. I don't know what the theory of it all is, if that's what you mean."

"I thought so." Professor Duchard sighed. "That being the case, there is little use in my wasting energy trying to give you any real understanding of it.

"However, I can tell you this: time is not the immutable thing most people presume it to be. Actually, it is only another dimension. As a research physicist, I have for many years been convinced of this."

"You mean that time travel really is possible? That men can be transported into the future or the past--"

The other held up a restraining hand.

"Yes. Time travel _is_ possible, if men could break through into that other dimension." A pause. "Yet up until tonight, I never believed that man had found a way to pass that barrier."

"But professor! Think what you're saying! You're telling me that I could go back and murder my own grandfather. That I could prevent myself from being born--"

Again the elder man sighed.

"I was afraid of this," he said. "I knew you could not understand." He hesitated. Then: "At any rate, take my word for it that time travel is possible. Also, I assure you that there are any number of perfectly sound theoretical and practical reasons why you never could hope to murder your grandparents."

The other brushed the words aside.

"What about Elaine? What's all this got to do with her?"

"Everything. You see, my boy, it is _not_ possible for us to transport our material bodies across time. They cannot bridge the gap. They must remain in the period in which they are born--"

"But Elaine--"

Never had Mark seen the white-haired savant so solemn. His aged face was drawn with worry. Yet there was terrifying self-confidence in his words.

"Elaine," he said quietly, "at this moment is trapped in time!"

* * * * *

There was a moment of stunned silence, then. Mark's brain was spinning. He stared at Professor Duchard through narrowed eyes, half-convinced that the man was mad. And yet--

"I am not insane," the scientist declared, as if answering an unspoken question. "Believe me, my boy, I am not."

"Go on."

"That mirror which Adrian Vance sent to my daughter actually is a crude time machine. A device for transporting a human soul to another period. Who devised it I cannot say. I believe it is old, and that Vance came upon it only by chance."

"But it isn't a machine. It's just a mirror--"

"Yet it is the gate through which a mind may be reflected into past or future. All that is needed is a focal point. A person to receive that mind. In this case, Adrian Vance made the focal point one of my ancestors, the first Elaine Duchard."

"The first Elaine Duchard!"

"Yes. She was the woman in the picture. And the woman whose image we now find imprinted in that devil's mirror."

"But how--"

"You remember how Adrian Vance swore vengeance when Elaine refused to marry him." The aged savant's voice choked with anger. "This must be what he planned. He bought the picture Gustav Jerbette painted of my ancestor. Then, by some process, imprinted her portrait in the center of this mirror, whose secret he somehow discovered. Apparently the picture does not show except at a certain angle. Perhaps only my daughter's coloring or facial configuration would ordinarily bring it out." He shrugged. "That I do not know."

Mark nodded slowly. He was breathing hard, his eyes dark with anger.

"At any rate," the other continued, "Elaine tonight looked into the mirror. By some accident--an accident Vance had counted on taking place eventually, of course--, she happened to get exactly the right angle. She saw her ancestor. Her mind flashed back through time, into that other Elaine Duchard's brain--"

And then, all at once, the old man's iron will cracked.

"She is trapped!" he cried in a voice like the wail of a north wind through the pines. "She is trapped in the body of that first Elaine Duchard, while her own lies here, a useless, unconscious husk! She will die, as our ancestor died--"

"What do you mean? How did the first Elaine Duchard die?" Mark was on his feet, fists clenched.

Professor Duchard sat slumped forward, his face buried in his hands, white hair awry.

"She was a tragic figure," he mumbled. "You saw her picture. You know how beautiful she was.

"She came from a minor family of the French nobility, but she loved a young Jacobin--a man such as those who, a few years later, overthrew the monarchy and founded the French republic.

"She had another suitor, however. A Baron Morriere. When he learned that she was going to marry another, he kidnapped her the night before her wedding. Her lover was present at the time, and was nearly killed trying to protect her. Later he returned to help her escape from the Chateau Morriere. They succeeded in getting away.

"But the baron's guards tracked them down and murdered them both two days later. And Gustav Jerbette gained his first renown--he was then but a young student--when he immortalized them by painting his famous picture, 'Elaine Duchard's Escape'."

"And now Elaine--"

* * * * *

The old man straightened wearily.

"Our Elaine will die," he said. "Her mind will be wiped out when the Morriere pikes stab through my ancestor's body."

"There must be some way of calling her back--"

"If there is, I do not know it." He shook his head. "No. There is nothing we can do."

"We can try!"

Mark's voice rang out like the clang of a great iron bell, echoing with grim resolve. His tanned jaw jutted hard with determination. His eyes flashed brown fire.

Elaine's father let his hands fall in a hopeless gesture.

"What is there to try, my boy? Elaine's mind is gone, back a hundred and fifty years into the past. Her body lies unconscious in a hospital. What can we do?"

A savage, humorless smile played over the other's lips.

"Earlier this evening you said I was a man of action," he told the savant tautly. "You said I knew how to handle things I knew about. Well, I think it's time for action. Real action!"

"But what action can we take? What can--"

"Who's responsible for what's happened to Elaine?"

"Responsible? Adrian Vance is responsible, of course. There is too much evidence for it to be coincidence--"

"Right!" Mark's eyes were black with rage. "That snake planned this. He said he'd get revenge. This"--he gestured toward the mirror--"is his way of doing it!"

"All this is rather obvious," the scientist commented wearily. "But the fact that Vance is guilty of this atrocity does us no good. Nor does it help Elaine--"

"But it will!"

"It will? How?"

The younger man hunched forward tensely.

"We're going to catch that devil and strangle an answer out of him!" he grated. "We're going to make him tell us how to bring Elaine safely back to 1942!"

"And if he does not know how? If he cannot help us?"

"That'll be too bad. Because then we'll just keep on strangling him." He laughed harshly. "Oh, yes. Vance may win. We may not be able to save Elaine. But"--and his face was terrible to see--"Vance certainly won't live long enough to gloat much!"

A spark of hope sprang into Professor Duchard's blue eyes.

"I wish I could believe you--"

"Forget it. We've got more important things to do than wishing. Look out that window!"

* * * * *

The white-haired scientist turned to the casement toward which the other pointed. Saw dawn reddening the eastern sky.

"It's morning already," Mark went on determinedly. "In a few hours more, we can start things rolling by having you call up Vance."

"Call up Vance? What would I say?"

The devil's bitter mirth played in the other's eyes. But it was a mirth spiked with menace.

"Simple. Just don't let on anything's wrong. Pretend that the wedding's to come off as scheduled. Then tell him that things are in a mess. All the excitement's got you tied in a knot. Because he's such a close friend of Elaine's, you thought maybe he'd be willing to lend a hand."

The spark of hope in the professor's eyes brightened to a glowing coal.

"I wonder...." he mused. "It might work--"

"Of course it'll work. It's got to. It's the only chance we have...."

It was nine fifteen precisely when Adrian Vance rang the doorbell. He stepped back. Polished the nails of his right hand on the grey suede glove which still garbed the left.

The door swung open.

"Good morning, professor."

"Good morning, Adrian." The savant stepped aside. "Please come in."

Not by the slightest vocal tremor or change of expression did the old man hint of his secret--that if necessary Adrian Vance would never leave this place alive!

"It is kind of you to come," he told the antiquarian as he led the way toward the back of the dwelling. "I never knew that a wedding could cause so much turmoil." He chuckled softly. "Of course, I have had little experience in such matters, my wife being dead and Elaine an only child. And my own nuptials were celebrated a good many years ago."

Every word, every inflection, was perfect. No actor could have matched that sinister soliloquy.

Vance smoothed the sleek black hair that at once crowned and characterized him.

"It's a great privilege to be allowed to assist in any way at Elaine's wedding," he observed unctuously. "Anything which I can do to help make this a happier occasion for her is a pleasure."

Blue fire flared in the scientist's eyes. He looked away quickly.

A moment later his composure was regained.

"There are some things in the laboratory I wish to bring to the house," he announced. "If you will come this way--" He opened the back door. Led the antique dealer down the brick walk to the laboratory.

Together, they stepped inside.

The door swung shut. In the silence its jarring slam echoed like a shot fired in a tomb.

Vance cleared his throat.

"So this is your laboratory, professor--"

* * * * *

Mark Carter stepped out of the shadows. His tanned face looked as if it had been carved from the rock of ages. His eyes were pools of sudden death.

He spoke:

"Elaine's gone, Vance. Through the mirror. We want her back."

Just that. Nothing more. But suddenly Vance was shaking.

"What are you talking about? I don't know what you mean."

Professor Duchard said:

"You are lying. I have examined the mirror. I tested with black light. It showed the picture of the first Elaine Duchard."

"You're mad," said Vance. "You don't make sense."

"I fear I make too much sense, Adrian Vance. I wish I could disbelieve my own mind. But I cannot. I know that you have found a way to pass the barrier between space and time. I know that you have projected Elaine's mind into the past, leaving her body behind in a state of suspended animation."

"And we want her back, Vance," Mark broke in. "We want her back right now!"

He was moving forward, a juggernaut of menace, clenched fists half-raised.

"Keep away from me!" the antiquarian shrilled. His greasy face was paste-colored with terror. "Keep away! Don't touch me!"

The other caught his shoulders. Shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.

"Tell us!" he thundered. "Tell us how to bring her back!"

"I don't know what you're talking about! There wasn't anything wrong with the mirror I sent Elaine!"

"Tell us--"

The professor caught Mark's arm.

"Stop!" he begged. "Do not hurt him. There is a better way."

"A better way? What do you mean?"

The scientist turned to Vance.

"I am sure you are telling the truth," he said. "I feel certain the mirror is harmless." His tone was silky. A thin smile rippled across his aged face.

He was like a cat playing with a mouse.

"Only our friend, young Mr. Carter, remains to be convinced," he went on. "However, we shall have no difficulty in proving him wrong."

Adrian Vance stared at the professor in terrified fascination. His lips moved, but no words came.

The savant hurried across to an ancient desk which stood in one corner. Rummaged through it. Came back with a big sheet of heavy paper.

"Over there," said the professor--gesturing toward the spot where the mirror still stood upon the easel, again shrouded by the tablecloth--"is the glass that has caused all the trouble."

He smiled sympathetically at Vance.

"All so unnecessary, too, Adrian!"

"Unnecessary?"

"Of course. We shall demonstrate to Mark right now that it is not a means of time travel."

"Demonstrate?" Vance was shaking again. "How?"

* * * * *

Again the professor smiled.

"Oh, very simply. I have here"--he held up the heavy paper--"a lithographed portrait of the late General George A. Custer. You will recall he was killed by Indians at the battle of Little Big Horn--popularly known as Custer's last stand."

Vance's teeth suddenly were chattering.

"We shall hang this picture on your chest, Adrian," Professor Duchard went on. "Then we shall stand you in front of that mirror and give you a chance to concentrate on the reflection." He chuckled softly. "Of course, since the mirror has nothing to do with time travel, you need have no fear of your mind leaving your body and going back to that of General Custer, and death in a Sioux massacre--"

Without warning, Vance erupted into action.

As if by magic, the panic fled his face. His features contorted with hate. His eyes suddenly were glistening pinpoints of jet.

And even faster moved his sinuous body. He snaked free of Mark's restraining grasp. Sprang back like a wounded tiger. His right hand darted under his coat to his left armpit like a Gila monster streaking for cover.

Mark Carter's lips twisted in a snarl of rage. He lunged after the antiquarian, big fists balled and deadly.

"Look out!"

It was Professor Duchard, his voice a shrill warning blast.

Mark's eyes shifted. He caught the sudden spearing movement of Vance's right hand. Lashed out in savage fury to meet the new threat.

The antiquarian shrank back. The other's fist drove by him. Missed him by a hair.

And then his right hand was back in view. Back, and gripping the butt of a long-barreled Smith & Wesson Magnum. His teeth were bared, in a grimace of hideous triumph.

Like a rattlesnake striking, he slashed out with the heavy gun. Brought it down at his adversary's head in a vicious blow.

Mark still reeled, off balance, from his own missed blow. But he saw the gun descending. Threw up his arm to ward it off.

The barrel caught him at the juncture of shoulder and collar bones. Sent screaming pain stabbing to the farthest reaches of his brain. Paralyzed his whole side. He staggered drunkenly.

Again that triumphant leer contorted Vance's hatchet face. Once more he whipped the pistol barrel down.

And this time his aim was true. This time the heavy gun slammed home square at the base of the other's brain.

The universe was exploding inside Mark's skull. A crimson universe, with planets that burst into bloody flame. His control centers went numb. The life vanished from his muscles. He felt himself falling ... falling ... falling....

* * * * *

As if in some macabre nightmare, he heard Adrian Vance laugh. Saw the antiquarian step back and bring the gun in his hand to bear on Professor Duchard.

"So you're going to force me to bring Elaine back to the twentieth century!" the rejected suitor mocked. "So you think you still have a chance to save her from death at the hands of Baron Morriere's retainers!"

The old man's eyes were like blue steel as he met the antiquarian's gaze.

"You devil!" he said. "You admit it! You have killed her!"

Vance nodded, his narrow face sinister.

"Of course I admit it. Why shouldn't I? What is there you can do about it? Or do you think the police are going to hold me on a charge of subjecting your daughter to involuntary time travel by sending her a mirror?" He laughed harshly, smoothed his sleek black hair. Then continued:

"Yes, professor. Go to the police. Tell them all about my hideous crimes." Again he laughed. "See how long it takes them to put you under psychiatric observation."

The aged scientist's lips quivered with passion and despair.

"Why do you stay?" he cried. "You have won. Why do you mock us? Go away! Let us alone!"

"Oh, no." The other shook his head. "I don't want to leave just yet, professor. There are still some things I have to tell you. Things I learned while making preparations for Elaine's little trip."

He paused to gloat.

"How thoroughly have you investigated the case of that first Elaine Duchard, in whose body your daughter now resides, Professor Duchard?" he demanded.

The white-haired savant did not even answer. He leaned weakly against a laboratory bench, a broken man.

"Did you know, for instance," Adrian Vance continued, "that Baron Morriere's men tortured Elaine Duchard before they murdered her?"

"You fiend! Not even a savage would do a thing like that!"

Vance chuckled evilly.

"You exaggerate," he sneered. "Besides, Elaine's sweetheart, here"--he prodded the still-prone Mark with his foot--"no doubt will protect her."

His face darkened.

"And if you did not want harm to befall her, why did you let her reject me when I asked to marry her? I gave her her chance. When she didn't take it, what else could she expect but my revenge?"

"Go away. Please go away."

* * * * *

On the floor, Mark stirred uneasily. His brain was clear now, though his head throbbed like a jungle tom-tom under the beat of a mad witch doctor. Slowly, he tried his muscles. Tensed them. Relaxed them. Tested them for complete control.

Vance said:

"In case you still have any notions of rescuing your daughter from the far reaches of time, professor, forget them now. It's impossible to call a person back. In the first place, a time mirror would be needed--and the only one in existence, the one I bought from a French sorcerer who once studied under Eliphas Levi, now stands on that easel in the corner."

Sobs racked the other's frail form. He still leaned against the bench, his face buried in his hands.

But on the floor, Mark Carter's jaw grew hard. He readied himself for a savage leap.

"Furthermore," their captor went on, "your precious Elaine remembers nothing of her life in this century. For all practical purposes she has become the first Elaine Duchard. I know this, because I tried out the mirror by sending one of my clerks three months into the past. He was possessed by a strange amnesia that left his mind a perfect blank so far as what had happened in those three months was concerned!"

The antiquarian paused, savoring the full effect of his words on Elaine's father with evil glee. His black eyes were shining with hell's own fire.

And in that tense, silent second, Mark Carter struck.

He came off the floor like a tiger springing, and the roar of a jungle beast was in his throat. His arms shot out to embrace Adrian Vance's legs and pull him down. His fingers hungered for the feel of his enemy's throat.

He was still in the air when the other moved. Like lightning, Vance leaped aside. Away from Mark's clutching hands. He landed, tense and poised, the gun in his fist sighted on young Carter's chest, a grin of triumph splitting his oily face.

"Did you think I was asleep, you fool?" he crowed. "Did you think I wasn't watching you every second out of the corner of my eye? I've been ready to kill you from the moment your eyelids first fluttered!"

Mute, his face still livid with hate, Mark staggered to his feet.

"Come on!" Vance challenged. "If you think you can jump me before I pull the trigger, come ahead! I'll be glad to take my chances before a jury when you're dead!"

Elaine's fiance glared helplessly. His fists clenched and relaxed again and again.

"You win," he said at last, his face grey beneath its tan. "Go on. Get out. You've got us licked."

But the antiquarian shook his head.

"Not quite yet," he answered. "I've still got one job to do."

Then, so fast the eye could hardly follow, his gun-hand came up.

_Bang--bang--bang!_

* * * * *

Three shots he fired. Three shots, straight toward the easel in the corner. Dead center into the mirror that stood upon it.

There was a wild tinkling of falling glass. The tablecloth slipped away. Revealed the shattered remnants of the time mirror.

"I'm taking no chances!" cried Vance. "Professor Duchard's reputation as a research physicist is too high." And then, mockingly: "However, I doubt that even he can make any good use of that mirror now!"

With that final sally, he backed away and out the door, the Magnum in his hand still grim and unwavering as he covered Mark and the old scientist.

Curtly:

"I wouldn't come out too soon if I were you."

The door slammed shut.

Mark started forward. But the professor caught his arm.

"It is useless," the savant said. "To follow him would bring death and would avail nothing, my boy. He has won."

Like men in a daze, then, they stared into each other's eyes. They saw only dull hopelessness. The last spark was gone out.

Slowly, Mark walked over to the corner where stood the shattered mirror. Looked blankly down at its fragments. Bending, he picked up a splinter. Inspected it idly.

The next instant he whirled about.

"Professor Duchard!" he rapped. "How did this devil's looking-glass work?"

The scientist looked up dispiritedly, shrugged.

"I could not make you understand. It is a complicated matter of space-time theory--"

The other strode back to him. Gripped his shoulder.