Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 2 (1925-02).djvu/179

sank down behind an old lounge to think.

"I remained there till light came, when, feeling myself secure from probable intrusion and discovery, I set myself laboriously to writing this record-backward.

"Afterward with much difficulty I copied the statement. But the writing, the formation even of the letters, is strange and unlike my own hand, as you will see. I mean to seal this statement in an envelope and address it to Mrs. Burke's place. I shall drop it from the window thus addressed, in the hope that someone will find and leave it for me at the house. It will bear your name also. Do as you wish with it, as I said in my note, which I have written and will attach to this. I don't expect you to understand it—I do not myself.

"I shall stay here, stealing food if there is any to be had. I cannot go out into the street like this—and oddly enough, I do not want to leave. For I am going back!

"Something is calling—calling. I know I will heed the call and I may never return. I do not care. Somehow, life could never be the same again. . . Good-bye, Syd.

Thus ended the remarkable statement, and when the notes by Carrington, despite their brevity and disjointed character, were found to more or less corroborate the account of Parkes' adventure, the chief and the learned faculty of the university were forced to give credence to the matter. The fragments that follow lend an air of finality to the episode.

"November 10.—Someone is in the house someone besides William and myself; I mean an intruder. I am nervous, perhaps, lest something occur on this, the eve of my triumph.

"November 11.—Who says we have reached the limits of investigation in any branch of science? If anyone makes such a statement he reckons without his host. There are no limits. I have proved this to my own satisfaction. It remains to prove it to the world. We are pigmies in knowledge—even I who am head and shoulders above the average student (nor do I say it boastfully) am a child when the potentialities of experiment and investigation are considered. The span of a man's life in this plane is inadequate to carry to its fullest extent. (if there be any end) an inquiry into the great secrets of existence.

"For years have I studied the problem of the fourth dimension. It is an acknowledged fact, by some profound mathematicians, that it exists, not as an entity, perhaps, but as a point in the science of mathematics. There is nothing absurd in the conception, even if it be only hypothesis. If we can conceive of a two or three dimensional space, we cannot deny the possibility of a fourth. Suppose the investigators are baffled in attempting to define it. Who can define electricity or energy? A few have almost reached the secret. Witness the experiments of the German Von Schlegel, and even our own Paul Heyl. They have constructed solid projections of fourth dimensional structures. But I have overtaken and passed them.

"I stand at the threshold of the unknown—and I tremble. That presence in the house—who—what can it be? Perhaps—pshaw, I am growing fanciful! Why am I writing these notes—I who have always been the soul of method? Relaxation? Possibly.

"My deductions—all I have attained in knowledge of my theory—no—facts—facts—are embodied in the manuscript volume in my desk in the study. These I shall publish to the world—afterward!

"The gateway to the unknown!

". . . Someone is here—someone