The Gap in the Curtain by John Buchan Read Free Book Online Page A

have faith. And I myself will help you. Time—all time—is with us
now
, but we are confined to narrow fields of presentation. With my help you will enlarge these fields. If you will give me honestly all your powers, I can supplement them.”
    Lastly he spoke of the necessary régime. Too much exercise was forbidden, for it was desirable that our health should be rather an absence of ailments than a positive, aggressive well-being. There were to be no cold baths. We might smoke, but alcohol was strictly forbidden—not much of a hardship, for we were an abstemious lot. As to diet, we had to behave like convalescents—no meat, not even fish—nothing which, in the professor’s words, “possessed automobility.” We were allowed weak tea, but not coffee. Milk, cheese, fruit, eggs and cereals were to be our staples.
    It all reminded me rather eerily of the ritual food which used to be given to human beings set apart for sacrifice to the gods.
    â€œOur gracious hostess has so arranged it that the others will not be curious,” said the professor, and Sally nodded a mystified head.
    I went to bed feeling that I should probably get a liver attack from lack of exercise, if I did not starve from lack of food. Next morning I found a
Times
on the tray which brought my morning tea. Sally must have sent ten miles to a main-line station to get it.

Chapter 5
    It is difficult to write the consecutive story of the next three days. I kept a diary, but on consulting it, I find only a bare record of my hours of meditation on that confounded newspaper, and of our conferences with the professor. I began in a mood which was less one of scepticism than of despair. I simply did not believe that I could get one step forward in this preposterous business. But I was determined to play the game to the best of my capacity, for Moe’s talk last night had brought me fairly under his spell.
    I did as I had been told. I emptied my mind of every purpose except the one. I read the arguments in the case—it was an appeal by an insurance company—and then sat down to forecast what the report of the judgement would be, as given by
The Times
next day. Of the substance of the judgement I had not much doubt, and I was pretty certain that it would be delivered by the lord chancellor, with the rest of the court concurring. I knew Boland’s style, having listened often enough to his pronouncements, and it would have been easy enough to forecast the kind of thing he would say, using some of his pet phrases. But my job was to forecast what
The Times
reporters would make him say—a very different matter. I collected a set of old copies of the paper and tried to get into their spirit. Then I made a number of jottings, but I found myself slipping into the manner of the official
Law Reports
, which was not what I wanted. I remember looking at my notes with disfavour, and reflecting that this guessing game was nothing but a deduction from existing knowledge. If I had made a close study of
The Times
reports, I should probably get a good deal right, but since I had only a superficial knowledge I would get little. Moe’s grandiose theories about time had nothing to do with it. It was not a question of casting the mind forward into a new field of presentation, but simply of a good memory from which one made the right deductions.
    After my first attempt I went for a walk, and tried to fix my mind on something different. I had been making a new rock garden at Borrowby, and I examined minutely Sally’s collection of Tibetan alpines. On my return the butler handed me a note. The professor had decided to have conferences with each of us separately, and my hour was three in the afternoon.
    Before that hour I had two other bouts of contemplation. I wrestled honourably with the incurably evasive, and filled several sheets of foolscap with notes. Then I revised them, striking out phrases which were natural enough to