The Black Mask — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- The Man Who (A Complete Novelette) By J. Frederic Thorne CHAPTER I A man cannot be in two places at the same time. That is a law of physics—isn’t tt? But how about the other law, of evi- dence, and your own senses? If you saw and heard a man in that impossible situation or condition, which would 7 a 7 you believe, the law or your own eyes and ears? _ “But the thing is impossible!” So? Then how about this: N ONE of those fine Italian ‘ spring mornings that pass for ; i ‘summer in the Puget Sound country, there entered the Savoy Hotel, Seattle, a man who ordinarily _ would not call for specific description, but who, for the sake of this argument, we need to identify particularly. He stood out from the world about five feet eleven inches, weighed ap- proximately one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy pounds, was apparently in his late thirties or early forties, wore a neatly trimmed brown mustache and beard of the cut known as Vandyke, spectacles with large, rim- less, cee fined lenses, a soft black broad-brimmed hat, blue serge suit with = double-breasted coat, black tie, low tan ti shoes, carried a light-weight gray over- cos a black Gladstone bag and a sole- Was Seven ‘, boy, the newcomer nodded pleasantly to the clerk and registered, in a dis- tinctly legible hand, the name “Samuel Smith,” without address. This done, he set his watch by that of the clerk— it was just 10:02 a. m.—received his = key and followed the bell-boy to room 314. Tipping the boy generously but not lavishly, he asked that the hotel valet and public stenographer be SpanPS , to him. To the one he gave a suit of © clothes for pressing; to the other he dictated two short letters. Returning to the lobby, he bought a dollar’s Noe of cigars, asked to be directed to. Totem National Bank, glanced at ie watch and, commenting audibly upon the time, 10:48, walked out into the crowd on Second Avenue. Sat Nothing remarkable or unusual about that, nothing that does not occur, in a general way, in a thousand hotels all over the land every day in the year? — True. But wait a moment. eee : 3 case is not stated yet. : es On that same fine Italian spring morning of the same day, in this same city of Seattle, waar seshere en- tered the Butler ] I V \ 7: j ae ap- and oe to