X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard Read online

  DOCUMENT LVI

  Quotation from Page 473 of “A New Model of the Universe” by P. D. Ouspensky.

  “The idea of time as the fourth dimension does not contradict the ordinary views of life, so long as we take time as a straight line. This idea only brings with it a sensation of greater preordination, of greater inevitability. But the idea of time as a curve of the fourth dimension entirely changes our conception of life. If we clearly understand the meaning of this curvature and especially when we begin to see how the curve of the fourth dimension is transformed into the curves of the fifth and sixth dimensions, our views of things and of ourselves cannot remain any longer what they were.”

  DOCUMENT LVII

  Letter, of date November 13, 1936, from Michael O’Halleran, laborer, of 6226 Harrison Street, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A., to X. Jones, addressed just “X. Jones, London, Ingland,” but successfully routed to Jones by the London postoffice.

  Deer Sur:

  I plowghed through all that their stuff that was printted about you and yure methods today in the Kansas City Blade an if you ast me I think its all the godamed bunkalorum. One (1) ordnary good American detektiv with a pare of hancufs and brane ful of commin cents and a chant to be on the ground their in London could run rings arownd you and bring home the bacon. Sum day sum bunch of good correspondents school detektives from America is going to form a busness there in London and leev you homegroan Sherlocks setting on your behins with nothing to do.

  Yours very trully,

  Michael O’Halleran.

  DOCUMENT LVIII

  Letter, of date November 13, 1936, from Simon Eggersby, President of the Pressed Steel Railway Car Wheel Company, at Hammond, Indiana, to X. Jones, Scotland Yard, London, England.

  Dear Sir:

  According to my understanding, space-time is a four-dimensional theory, and the 4th Dimension is pure metaphysics. And when, my dear sir—as is set forth in the Indiana Times-Eagle of this morning—you blatantly propose to apply metaphysical principles to cold hard matters of crime solution—a purely 3-dimensional phenomenon if ever there was such—you are a fool.

  Not merely a fool, my dear sir, but a damned fool.

  Very truly yours,

  Simon Eggersby.

  DOCUMENT LIX

  Letter, of date November 13, 1936, from Adolf Schuster, 838 South Citrus Avenue, Los Angeles, California, to the Publishers of the “Los Angeles Sun,” Los Angeles, California.

  Gentlemens:

  Please to stop at once my paper. There iss plenty other papers in this city for to read. When you fill full your paper with the doingses and sayinges of some fool beef-eating Inglander seven dousand miles away, me I go oud from the picture ass a reader. Not long will it be again befor you vill be adwocating dot we become again a British colony.

  I dont want anything about any Inglander to hear.

  If I catch after tomorrow your paper boy delifering by my yard a paper will I horsewhip dot young schweinhund from my yard oud.

  Adolf Schuster.

  DOCUMENT LX

  “Daily Observation” of Professor Ephraim Tulleyday, Head of the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology of Northern Oklahoma College of Agriculture and Arts at Cherokee, Oklahoma, written upon his teaching blackboard on November 13, 1936.

  “DAILY OBSERVATION OF PROFESSOR

  TULLEYDAY”

  The possibility of the existence of a fourth perpendicular in what we know as “space” (as brought to mind by a certain British criminological investigation story published this morning in the Oklahoma City Times-Gazette) can no more be proven than, for instance, can be disproven the famous enunciation of Sir Isaac Newton, first discoverer of gravity, wherein he stated that two bodies attract one another with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance apart.

  E. T.

  DOCUMENT LXI

  Inscription, found written upon a blackboard, in a space usually devoted to “Professor Tulleyday’s ‘Daily Observation’” in the classroom of Ephraim Tulleyday, D.A., Ph.D., Northern Oklahoma College of Agriculture and Arts, at roll-call of the class in Philosophy, at 9 a.m. November 14, 1936.

  Dear Prof:

  Then the old “fourth perpendicular” must surely exist, because:

  (a) Newton didn’t discover gravity. At least he certainly wasn’t the “first discoverer.” For the pure principle of gravity was known to the first stone-age man who jumped for his life as his enemy, on a cliff above his own head, shoved a boulder down on him.

  (b): And Newton never, in any of his public addressees, nor in any of his writings—even his famous Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica—stated what you say he stated. About bodies attracting each other, etc., etc. Refer to such, if you wish; and also refer to his letter (now in the Yale Collection of Scientific Letters) written just before his death, to his friend Dr. Bentley, wherein he said: “That gravity should be innate and inherent in matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance, is to me so great an absurdity that I think no one who has, in philosophical matters, a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

  DOCUMENT LXII

  Letter, of date November 14, 1936, from Sylvester Epps, self-styled King of the 4-Dimensional World, Matteawan Insane Asylum, New York State, addressed to “X. Jones, Scotland Yard, London”—but sequestrated by the asylum doctors.

  Dear Brother of the Higher Knowledge:

  With great interest I read today in a copy of the New York Gazette, dated yesterday, and vouchsafed me here in my place of incarceration after all else here have read same, of your soaring forth from the mundane sphere of Dimensions I to III, into the next higher sphere over which—since no one before me ever claimed sovereignty over it—I have myself done. I welcome you to the higher knowledge of that higher sphere, but at the same time, my brother of the higher knowledge, I warn you that for merely proclaiming the existence of a universe several dimensions greater than the one commonly cognized by those with mere protoplasmic perception, I have been locked within steel and stone; locked up, my dear brother in thought, with nothing to do but write ironic poems in blue chalk upon the walls of my cell—poems which are hastily erased each morning by my corridor guards lest the subtle hidden truths therein percolate to the outside world; locked within steel and stone, my brother, by those who themselves wish to declare their sovereignty over the sphere of higher dimensions (could they only find it, the fools). Take warning, therefore, and never declare openly your belief that the Universe consists of anything more than the infinitely thin “spatial” cross-section that we daily see, of 6-dimensional All-Space.

  Yours, in understanding,

  Sylvester I, Rex, Dimensions I to IV; Emperor, Dimensions I to V; Supreme Ruler, Dimensions I to VI.

  DOCUMENT LXIII

  “Daily Observation” of Professor Ephraim Tulleyday, Head of the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology of Northern Oklahoma College of Agriculture and Arts at Cherokee, Oklahoma, written upon his teaching blackboard at the close of the class in Philosophy, at 10 a.m. November 16, 1936.

  “DAILY OBSERVATION OF PROFESSOR

  TULLEYDAY”

  I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the scientifically informed young gentleman who at last class meeting replied (though anonymously) to my ill-advised statement concerning Sir Isaac Newton. I find, upon consultation over Sunday of the records concerning, and teachings of, Sir Isaac Newton, that my anonymous informant is entirely and unqualifiedly correct. Therefore, let me change my original statement concerning “the 4th Dimension” to read as follows: “The possibility of the existence of a fourth perpendicular in what we know as ‘Space’ (as brought to mind by a certain British criminological investigation story published 3 days ago in the Oklahoma City Times-Gazette) can no more be proven than could, for instance, a technically complete short-story be written in a dozen words.”

  E. T.

  DOCUMENT LXIV

&nbs
p; Inscription, found written upon a blackboard, in a space usually devoted to “Professor Tulleyday’s ‘Daily Observation’” in the classroom of Ephraim Tulleyday, D.A., Ph.D., Northern Oklahoma College of Agriculture and Arts, at roll-call of the class in Philosophy, at 9 a.m. November 17, 1936.

  SHORT-STORY

  (in 12 [one dozen] WORDS)

  Algy met a bear.

  The bear was bulgy.

  The bulge was Algy.

  DOCUMENT LXV

  Letter, of date November 18, 1936, from G. Hyland Winners, Greenwich Village playwright, 22 Washington Square North, New York City, to Foster Beck, Manager of the Little Intelligentsia Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York.

  Dear Beck:

  How’s-about my doing you a screaming one-act burlesque playlet on this Englishman and his methods—the guy at Scotland Yard—you know?—who made the papers recently? Only twenty-five bucks—cash in hand on delivery of the script! For I got to live like everybody else. And the price is “sich” only because, as you know, I have automatic acceptance of it—sight unseen—providing YOU put it on here—from the Directors of the Theatre Intellectualia at Indianapolis, the Little Hole-in-the-Wall Showplace at Denver, and the Bandbox Stage in Detroit. A total of a hundred bucks all told—which will make it worth my while.

  My idea would be to present the blighter with the popular conception of the English detective. Checkered Sherlockholmsian long-beaked cap—huge monocle—all that. But the theme of the play would be something altogether different from what is usually put on in satirical Sherloch-Holmes skits. For the skit would be called

  THE STOLEN TESSERACT

  OR

  MURDER IN THE 4th DIMENSION

  And in case YOU don’t know what a tesseract is, it’s a 4-dimensional cube: a solid that has 8 faces each of which is the cube that you actually see with your own eyes.

  Now do you grasp the connection? This guy was played up as operating, ratiocinatively at least, in space-time only—in 4 dimensions! And the bulk of a tesseract lies in the 4th dimension—you can’t even see the damn thing. I can cook up plenty of screaming odd things to take place because of the utter invisibility of the thing that is snitched—and have in mind one hilarious little scene showing the working out of the mathematical calculations necessary to make the damfool tesseract reveal itself.

  You may argue that this may be over the heads of our audiences. But don’t you kid yourself! They’re all well informed, on everything from tesseracts to dinosaurs, just as they are in those other little-theaters I mentioned. And in case you think there might be some who won’t know who the hell and what the hell Jones is—disabuse yourself of that idea, pronto! For he got at least a mention, 5 days ago, in every paper in every city in the U.S.A. And, as you know, a big write-up in at least one principal paper in every city of the U.S.A. big enough to boast a municipal ashcan. I refer, of course, to the feature story that was in the New York Gazette. That was an A-A News Service story—and you know yourself what a vast circulation story has, on that service. Moreover, I’ve a friend on the Call-Express who told me this morning on the phone that its once-a-week pictorial section, out day after tomorrow, will carry a black-and-white on Jones. The section, you know, called ALL OF THE NEWS OF THE WEEK PlCTORIALlZED. For it seems that “illustratable” news has been scarce this week—and Griston Grisbar, in making up his famous page, at midweek, has dipped back for subjects as far as last Friday, when the Jones story was published. And you know that ALL OF THE NEWS, ETC. is a syndicated affair itself—a mat-distributed feature—and appears on Fridays all over the U.S.A. in a huge raft of papers entirely different from the A-A chain, but fully as large. So there’ll be absolutely no one, I tell you, who won’t have heard about Jones. Of course, to avoid the least possibility of libel, I myself—in the playlet—will call him “Genius Moans” of “Back of the Yards”—that being the notorious district of goats and squalor in Chicago.

  Let me know if I should go ahead.

  Winners.

  DOCUMENT LXVI

  Letter, of date November 19, 1936, from Foster Beck, Manager of the Little Intelligentsia Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York, to G. Hyland Winners, Greenwich Village playwright, residing at 22 Washington Square North, New York City.

  Oke.

  DOCUMENT LXVII

  “Daily Observation” of Professor Ephraim Tulleyday, Head of the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology of Northern Oklahoma College of Agriculture and Arts, at Cherokee, Oklahoma, written upon his teaching blackboard at the close of the class in Philosophy, at 10 a.m. November 19, 1936.

  “DAILY OBSERVATION OF PROFESSOR

  TULLEYDAY”

  Replying, now that I have returned from my 2-day trip to the State Capitol at Oklahoma City, to the facetiously minded young gentleman—or gentlemen—who insisted day before yesterday upon taking absolutely literally a statement made from the professorial chair, the chair desires—and, it trusts, this will be the end of the matter!—to revise its original statement upon a certain subject to read as follows: “The possibility of the existence of a fourth perpendicular in what we know as ‘Space’ (as brought to mind by a certain British criminological investigation story published exactly one week ago in the Oklahoma City Times-Gazette) can no more be proven mathematically than can be proven, for instance, that 8 equals 16.”

  E. T.

  DOCUMENT LXVIII

  Mathematical calculation found written upon a blackboard, in a space usually devoted to “Professor Tulleyday’s ‘Daily Observation,’” in the classroom of Ephraim Tulleyday, D.A., Ph.D., Northern Oklahoma College of Agriculture and Arts, at roll-call of the class in Philosophy, at 9 a.m. November 20, 1936.

  Let x = 8.

  Things being always equal to themselves,

  x = x

  Squaring both sides of equation:

  x² = x²

  Subtracting the term [x²] from both sides of the equation:

  x²—x² = x²—x²

  Factoring both sides, the left side by x, and the right by the rule that the product of the sum and difference of two terms equals the difference of the squares:

  x (x—x) = (x + x) (x—x)

  Dividing both sides by (x—x):

  x = x + x

  or

  x = 2 x

  Substituting given value of x, then:

  8 = 16

  ! ! ! !

  DOCUMENT LXIX

  Clipping from Griston Grisbar’s weekly page in the November 20, 1936, issue of “All the News of the Week Pictorialized,” a syndicated feature put out by Pictorialized News, Inc., Flatiron Building, Broadway at 23rd Street, New York, and appearing in the mid-week issues of 2603 American evening newspapers.

  DOCUMENT LXX

  Letter, of date November 21, 1936, from Christopher L. Thorne, of “Christopher L. Thorne, Chattel, Salary and Second-Mortgage Loans, Madison Street at Kedzie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois,” U.S.A., addressed to “Mr. Genius Jones, Criminologist, care Scotland Yard, London, England.”

  Dear Sir:

  As a more than interested peruser of a certain voluminous newspaper article about you, of date 8 days back, appearing on this side of the Atlantic, I found myself particularly intrigued by your statement, to the interviewer in the article, that you had never, in the course of your early evolution in India to the stage where you were able to take up the science of Criminology, met up with any puzzles which had successfully defied you. You are much to be congratulated for such keenness and acuteness. I—though I have always deemed myself something of a skillful solver of mere chess problems—have been by no means so blessed with the puzzle-solving talent. Indeed, I recently encountered a small puzzle—a mere whimsical conceit, at most—nothing more—which neither I, by the application of the principles of chess-problem solving methods, nor my daughter, by the use of mere feminine intuition, nor a young accountant who works for me, by the application of mathematical considerations, have been able to solve.

  You, doubtlessly, wit
h your specialized faculties for such things, will find the solution within a few seconds.

  I take pleasure in presenting it to you, knowing that you will find its solving an interesting—even if not important—addition to your past triumphs.

  The puzzle is as follows:

  As I shall, in a minute, roughly depict below, each of three gentlemen: Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Johnson, possesses a bungalow, as indicated by my three crudely drawn parallelograms. Three stations, supplying respectively oil, water and gas, are situated close by, and, as shown, are represented by the three rough circles I now delineate below the parallelograms. Thus:

  The three gentlemen above wish to have their bungalows supplied with oil, water and gas, from these three stations, but by a piping system in which

  No pipe will cross above another pipe; no pipe will cross beneath another pipe. (Or, stated in a more scientific manner: the center-lines of all pipes shall lie in the same horizontal plane.)

  No more than 18 holes may be drilled in walls of bungalows and stations, by which pipes may enter or leave.

  The puzzle, therefore, specifically is, my dear Mr. Jones: What piping diagram makes it possible for the three gentlemen’s wishes to be acceded to?

  This puzzle, let me say in closing, was submitted to me by one of my clients who disputed with me a certain item of interest on a loan which I had made him; and he naïvely made the interesting—though not particularly businesslike—proposition that if, after considering the matter for a couple of weeks, I would cancel the disputed item, he would render me, free of charge, the answer to his puzzle! Unfortunately, death canceled the submittor himself—before this hypothetical transaction in money and interest could even be reconsidered—and, of course, refused.