before it was all over. Theirletters were tender and very natural, and presently there was even timefor gossip and actual bits of choice scandal....
Haynes met Jimmy on the street one day, after about two weeks. Jimmylooked better, but he was drawn very fine. Though he greeted Hayneswithout constraint, Haynes felt awkward. After a little he said,"Er--Jimmy. That matter we were talking about the other day--Thosephotographs--"
"Yes. You were right," said Jimmy casually. "Jane agrees. There is morethan one now. In the now I'm in, Jane was killed. In the now she's in,I was killed."
Haynes fidgeted. "Would you let me see that picture of the door again?"he asked. "A trick film like that simply can't be perfect! I'd like toenlarge that picture a little more. May I?"
"You can have the film," said Jimmy. "I don't need it any more."
Haynes hesitated. Jimmy, quite matter-of-factly, told him most of whathad happened to date. But he had no idea what had started it. Haynesalmost wrung his hands.
"The thing can't be!" he said desperately. "You _have_ to be crazy,Jimmy!"
But he would not have said that to a man whose sanity he reallysuspected.
Jimmy nodded. "Jane told me something, by the way. Did you have anear-accident night before last? Somebody almost ran into you out onthe Saw Mill Road?"
Haynes started and went pale. "I went around a curve and a car plungedout of nowhere on the wrong side of the road. We both swung hard. Hesmashed my fender and almost went off the road himself. But he wentracing off without stopping to see if I'd gone in the ditch and killedmyself. If I'd been five feet nearer the curve when he came out of it--"
"Where Jane is," said Jimmy, "you were. Just about five feet nearer thecurve. It was a bad smash. Tony Shields was in the other car. It killedhim--where Jane is."
Haynes licked his lips. It was absurd, but he said, "How about me?"
"Where Jane is," Jimmy told him, "you're in the hospital."
Haynes swore in unreasonable irritation. There wasn't any way for Jimmyto know about that near-accident. He hadn't mentioned it, because he'dno idea who'd been in the other car.
"I don't believe it!" But he said pleadingly, "Jimmy, it isn't so, isit? How in hell could you account for it?"
Jimmy shrugged. "Jane and I--we're rather fond of each other." Theunderstatement was so patent that he smiled faintly. "Chance separatedus. The feeling we have for each other draws us together. There's asaying about two people becoming one flesh. If such a thing couldhappen, it would be Jane and me. After all, maybe only a tiny pebbleor a single extra drop of water made my car swerve enough to get herkilled--where I am, that is. That's a very little thing. So with such atrifle separating us, and so much pulling us together--why, sometimesthe barrier wears thin. She leaves a door closed in the house where sheis. I open that same door where I am. Sometimes I have to open the doorshe left closed, too. That's all."
* * * * *
Haynes didn't say a word, but the question he wouldn't ask was soself-evident that Jimmy answered it.
"We're hoping," he said. "It's pretty bad being separated, butthe--phenomena keep up. So we hope. Her diary is sometimes in the nowwhere she is, and sometimes in this now of mine. Cigaret butts, too.Maybe--" That was the only time he showed any sign of emotion. Hespoke as if his mouth were dry. "If ever I'm in her now or she's inmine, even for an instant, all the devils in hell couldn't separate usagain!--We hope."
Which was insanity. In fact, it was the third week of insanity. He'dtold Haynes quite calmly that Jane's diary was on her desk every night,and there was a letter to him in it, and he wrote one to her. Hesaid quite calmly that the barrier between them seemed to be growingthinner. That at least once, when he went to bed, he was sure thatthere was one more cigaret stub in the ashtray than had been thereearlier in the evening.
They were very near indeed. They were separated only by the differencebetween what was and what might have been. In one sense the differencewas a pebble or a drop of water. In another, the difference was thatbetween life and death. But they hoped. They convinced themselvesthat the barrier grew thinner. Once, it seemed to Jimmy that theytouched hands. But he was not sure. He was still sane enough not to besure. And he told all this to Haynes in a matter-of-fact fashion, andspeculated mildly on what had started it all....
Then, one night, Haynes called Jimmy on the telephone. Jimmy answered.
He sounded impatient.
"Jimmy!" said Haynes. He was almost hysterical. "I think I'm insane!You know you said Tony Shields was in the car that hit me?"
"Yes," said Jimmy politely. "What's the matter?"
"It's been driving me crazy," wailed Haynes feverishly. "You said hewas killed--there. But I hadn't told a soul about the incident. So--sojust now I broke down and phoned him. And it _was_ Tony Shields! Thatnear-crash scared him to death, and I gave him hell and--he's payingfor my fender! I didn't tell him he was killed."
Jimmy didn't answer. It didn't seem to matter to him.
"I'm coming over!" said Haynes feverishly. "I've got to talk!"
"No," said Jimmy. "Jane and I are pretty close to each other. We'vetouched each other again. We're hoping. The barrier's wearing through.We hope it's going to break."
"But it can't!" protested Haynes, shocked at the idea ofimprobabilities in the preposterous. "It--it can't! What'd happen ifyou turned up where she is, or--or if she turned up here?"
"I don't know," said Jimmy, "but we'd be together."
"You're crazy! You mustn't--"
"Goodbye," said Jimmy politely. "I'm hoping, Haynes. Something has tohappen. It has to!"
His voice stopped. There was a noise in the room behind him; Haynesheard it. Only two words, and those faintly, and over a telephone, buthe swore to himself that it was Jane's voice, throbbing with happiness.The two words Haynes thought he heard were, "_Jimmy! Darling!_"
Then the telephone crashed to the floor and Haynes heard no more. Eventhough he called back frantically again, Jimmy didn't answer.
* * * * *
Haynes sat up all that night, practically gibbering, and he tried tocall Jimmy again next morning, and then tried his office, and at lastwent to the police. He explained to them that Jimmy had been in ahighly nervous state since the death of his wife.
So finally the police broke into the house. They had to break inbecause every door and window was carefully fastened from the inside,as if Jimmy had been very careful to make sure nobody could interruptwhat he and Jane hoped would occur. But Jimmy wasn't in the house.There was no trace of him. It was exactly as if he had vanished intothe air.
Ultimately the police dragged ponds and such things for his body,but they never found any clues. Nobody ever saw Jimmy again. It wasrecorded that Jimmy simply left town, and everybody accepted thatobvious explanation.
* * * * *
The thing that really bothered Haynes was the fact that Jimmy hadtold him who'd almost crashed into him on the Saw Mill Road, and itwas true. That was, to understate, hard to take. And there was thedouble-exposure picture of Jimmy's front door, which was much moreconvincing than any other trick picture Haynes had ever seen. But onthe other hand, if it did happen, why did it happen only to Jimmy andJane? What set it off? What started it? Why, in effect, did thoseoddities start at that particular time, to those particular people, inthat particular fashion? In fact, did anything happen at all?
Now, after Jimmy's disappearance, Haynes wished he could talk with himonce more--talk sensibly, quietly, without fear and hysteria and thisnaggingly demanding wonderment.
For he had sketched to Jimmy, and Jimmy had accepted (hadn't he?) thepossibility of the _other now_--but with that acceptance came stillothers. In one, Jane was dead. In one, Jimmy was dead. It was betweenthese two that the barrier had grown so thin....
If he could talk to Jimmy about it!
There was also a now in which _both_ had died, and another in which_neither_ had died! And if it was together
ness that each wanted sodesperately ... _which was it_?
These were things that Haynes would have liked very much to know, buthe kept his mouth shut, or calm men in white coats would have come andtaken him away for treatment. As they would have taken Jimmy.
The only thing really sure was that it was all impossible. But tosomeone who liked Jimmy and Jane--and doubtless to Jimmy and to Janethemselves--no matter which barrier had been broken, it was a rathersatisfying impossibility.
Haynes' car had been repaired. He could