Time Has No Boundaries (Details)
citation: The Saturday Evening Post, October 13, 1962, 235(36):60, 62-65
alias: The Face in the Photo
teaser: Tonight he could mail his letter back through 75 years into the past.
summary: Professor Bernard Weygand has been summoned to police Sergeant Martin Ihren's office, to help Ihrens locate some missing criminals.
One of them, was a waiter at a restaurant who disappeared with $5,000 in receipts. Ihrens shows Bernard the fugitive's wanted poster, then shows him an old photograph of the staff at the same restaurant. A man in the 1885 photograph resembles the fugitive. Ihrens explains there are other cases of people that should have been easily located, but were not.
William Greeson, a well-known socialite in San Francisco, is married to a rich woman. Stage-struck, Greeson invested his wife's money in a New York play. When he paid too much attention to female cast members, his wife cut-off Greeson's funds. Shortly thereafter, he disappeared with $175,000 of her money.
On a cable car ride to another location, Ihrens shows Bernard a 1906 New York playbill, listing William Spangler Greeson as a cast member. Ihrens has additional old playbills with Greeson's name on them.
They go to a TV studio where Ihrens shows Bernard three old newsreels, of Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and 1930s golfer Bobby Jones. On the third, Ihrens points out Tom Veeley, a fugitive well-known to him. Ihrens also knows Bernard watched the same film about a week ago.
Ihrens has researched Bernard's life, noting Bernard recently gave a talk titled “Some Physical Aspects of Time,” discussing the possibility of time travel. He also notes a lot of people have been purchasing old currency lately.
Ihrens accuses Bernard of sending fugitives back in time. Bernard admits that's what he has been doing: using a black box to remove people from the flow of time, Bernard allows it to flow past them, then releases the subject back into the flow at a specified time in the past. All his subjects try to do something, like appear in an old newsreel, to let Bernard know they arrived successfully. Bernard claims he never knew they were criminals.
Ihrens wants Bernard to bring the fugitives back. Bernard explains it is impossible. He asks Ihrens to forget about it, but Ihrens can't.
About a week and a half later, Ihrens takes Bernard and his black box to a mailbox that's been at the same location for almost ninety years. Ihrens has prepared letters to the San Franciscio chief of police, providing evidence against the missing criminals for crimes committed by others in their time periods. He wants Bernard to move the letters back to the times where the men escaped.
Although the men Bernard sent back to the past were criminals, Bernard does not want them convicted of crimes they did not complete. He finds a way to prevent Ihrens from sending the letters.
words: 5,127
genre: None
similar: None
people: Bernard Weygand, Sargeant Martin O. Ihren, William Spangler Greeson, Tom Veeley, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones
places: San Francisco, CA: Haring's restaurant, Powell Street, the Embarcadero, Market Street, Union Square, St. Francis Hotel, Cliff House; New York, NY; Marin County, CA: Angel Island
comments: Forthcoming