Sherlock in Cheyenne: The Adventure of Moonlight and the Arrow of Time

Mr. Holmes does not laugh. Nor does he chuckle. But he does have a sense of humor. He has been seen smiling. Such a sense and smile does not include Zeeglers wearing colored armbands for quick identification. Imagining a grim Zeegler with a bright yellow armband brings a smile to my face.

Mr. Holmes was not smiling as he called me over to his armchair to look over his shoulder at “our page” in the latest edition of the Cheyenne newspaper. There on that page was a picture of a Zeegler, or at least I took it to be a Zeegler. The photo had been shot with surrounding dim light, a bit fuzzy, and the Zeegler had his arm across this face. His features were not totally obscured.

Mr. Holmes read the text accompanying the photo. It seems that the Zeegler had been found at my astronomy club’s observatory. When discovered, he was pinned to the section where the dome and the wall of the observatory meet. There is a thin ledge that he was slumped against. The telescope had pushed and held him against the dome-wall. Apparently he had started the scope in motion before he got on the ledge.

I could well understand how this came about, since you detach from the wall a very long thin rod with a right angle at your end to crank the dome up above along to create the slit to the outside sky. Where the rod meets the dome can stick. Probably he was in a hurry and switched on the scope, then he was opening the slit when the action faltered. He must have thought he could quickly go up to loosen the stiffness and misjudged the speed of the scope as it swung toward him. He was found with this back to the scope so he didn’t see it coming. The scope didn’t crush him. It isn’t that big, being a 12 inch Cassegrainian, and it moves smoothly once the drive is engaged. The scope, in truth, kept him there.

He was found by a group on an impromptu tour of the observatory given by the club president, Austin De Beer. The observatory is the De Beer Observatory. The telescope is the De Beer Telescope. Luckily, the club is called the Greater Southeastern Wyoming Astronomy Club. De Beer paid for the observatory and scope and sometimes chairs the monthly meetings. (We then have guest speakers presenting slides and talks about common astronomy topics. Usually the presenters are from the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Members give updates on club activities such as their observations of the Moon, Messiers, double stars, NGC objects, and the usual Solar System big targets. Some pet projects get tolerated time to tell us what they are building or what is the latest addition to their total of every object down to X magnitude in Ursa Major or whatever. We are unusual in that we have no variable star observers.)

Once the tour members reversed the direction of the scope drive, the Zeegler fell to the floor. He was conscious and wanted to be left alone, but being on the club’s premises and having perhaps internal injuries (he looked to be OK), they drove him to Memorial. There in the ER, he “disappeared” as the newspaper had it. Before he vanished, another visitor to the ER snapped the photo of the Zeegler-with-arm-across-face. No one actually saw his departure.

I asked Mr. Holmes – Whatever could a Zeegler be up to at the Observatory?

Mr. Holmes replied – Most irregular. A Zeegler cannot persist once touched. Once that telescope arrived at his position, then the Zeegler should have departed.

Right, and there was no frozen moment for us. Can there be other moments away from us?

Who is to say? But that seems very doubtful.

Me – The Zeegler remained visible for a very long time. He finally had his opportunity to vacate in the ER. Before that, I presume he didn’t want to alarm the tour members and hospital staff by suddenly blinking away.

Hm, it could be that, but this photo is odd. He looks strange, as if he was...

Well, no doubt he was roughed up by the pin and the fall.

No doubt.

Therefore, he could not be seen at his best.

Perhaps. The newspaper article goes on to say snow had fallen before the Moon had come up and before the tour arrived. No tracks leading up to the Observatory door were seen.

Me -  Well we know they can pop into location suddenly.

Mr. Holmes – With a frozen moment.

Of course, that goes without saying. Then he did disappear, as the newspaper says.

Hm, nevertheless his activities merit suspicion.

Me – OK, and what was he doing at the Observatory?  (Here and later I had suspected, as Mr. Holmes was famous for not being an astronomy buff, I needed to supply astronomical generalities.) It was a full Moon. The full Moon with its washout of the sky prevents viewing of anything else. There is the Moon itself. Nothing much of interest at full Moon except for the ray systems coming from some craters.

Mr. Holmes – Extensive?

Yes, and so They wanted to examine how projectiles could be sent skimming along a surface? Could They be imitating such trajectories in a plot to make it difficult for us after They hatch a blowup among objects of future operations?

Mr. Holmes – They have never been interested in destroying what would remain after They would be the self-chosen Few. They have wanted to inherit, so to speak, a pristine resultant.

Yes, well then I can’t imagine why a Zeegler without benefit of a frozen moment would be using our club scope for selenography.  At low magnification the lunar landscape would hurt your eyes, not harm them, but make you wince, at least it does for me.

Mr. Holmes – Very good, he was wanting the light.

Huh? Why not the Sun or arc lights or whatever?

Is there nothing distinctive about moonlight?

It is sunlight, reflected, and reflected by something, that on the whole and on average, has the albedo of coal.

Mr. Holmes – Nevertheless, he was there to be put to some purpose. Therefore, he had something with him for which the moonlight could serve that purpose. Simply to gaze upon the Moon is too trivial. Superfluous indeed. He could hardly remove it with him given the circumstances of being discovered there. A device it is, no doubt.

OK, something They are going to use?

I rather think someone brought a device there to the observatory. That it is still there and he will return to try again. I must intervene before he returns. May I have your key to the Observatory?

Well then here is the key. It is a long drive there and as you well know, I can’t forego schoolwork on a weekday. The forecast is for clear skies, and it is still near enough to a full Moon.

Thank you my dear boy. A full report I shall give you upon my return. I’m off.

When Mr. Holmes returned, he did have a “device” and a satchel. In explanation he stated he found no one there. Usually it is first come first served though at a monthly meeting someone can reserve scope time, if well in advance. No one was down for its use when Mr. Holmes showed up.

The operating instructions for the scope are on the wall near the scope’s pier that mostly supports its weight and contains the drive. Mr. Holmes had no difficulty opening the dome, that is, in getting a slit going. He placed the scope at the Moon and turned on the tracking so the Moon would remain in the view of the scope. Then he looked about to see where a device could be hidden, but he didn’t spend much time on a thorough search, who knows who might come along? He quickly decided the pier should be investigated. Its lower tall portion he found to be hollow. Only a line was scored on the surface of the pier near the base. He ran a finger along this line, pressing strongly inward. As he did so, he heard a click. A door came ajar. Inside the pier and standing on end was a long rectangular case. With much effort in tilting and wedging, Mr. Holmes brought the case out.

The case was of wood and hinged. Opening the case, Mr. Holmes found two plates, or so they looked. As if they were the old photographic plates used in astronomy, rather large. There was a small gap between them maintained by a strip of pine. They were dark brown and appeared smoky. The smoke, so it seemed, was moving, churning.

Mr. Holmes was nearly onto a momentous discovery, stunning in its implications. Still, Mr. Holmes wondered what was to be made of the very bright moonlight coming from the eyepiece already inserted in the scope? He held the plates up to the red light that provided routine nighttime illumination under the dome of the Observatory. Nothing. He couldn’t see the light. He switched on the Observatory lights for ordinary illumination. He held the plates up to one of them. Nothing.

Then Mr. Holmes, in a masterstroke of intuition, set the plates on a high metal counter on high metal legs. That counter had a clock on it set to sidereal time and some star charts and lists of common sky spectaculars plus bios of astro greats, etc. With the observatory now having had enough time to equalize its temperature with the outside temp (more of a problem on hot nights) he walked over to the eyepiece and had a look. Gazing steadily for as long as he could, with eyes beginning to ache, he then went back to the plates.

A fantastic event was waiting for him. Actually three events, since he, with smarting eyes, looked through the plate at the clock and paraphernalia that was on the counter.  Mr. Holmes was quick to note a left panel of the plate nearest him showed the scene on the counter. Then he looked at the counter top without the plates. Looking again at the left panel, he realized the clock was a few minutes ahead. In the second panel, in the middle, the clock was many minutes ahead, and the right panel showed the clock hours ahead.

A great deal of wonder and appreciation came over Mr. Holmes. Also, his eyes began to lose that wincing factor, and he saw the panels losing the scene on the counter and become swirls of smoke. He went back to the scope and got another “dose” of the light. And yes! Looking through the plates again, he saw the scene again, with the three clocks having advanced for as long as he had taken at the scope.

What a device! A time machine! Utterly fantastic! With the “house lights” on and his attention away from the plates, he spotted a small satchel on the floor almost under the legs of a neighboring counter. He found inside it a racing (horse) form for the Los Alamitos track and odds for various games of football and basketball with numbers to call.

Now what would a Zeegler have need of winning at gambling? Have They entered a cash-poor era and need an infusion of greenbacks to sustain Them? Not to mention other uses of much more importance should be on tap. But OK, why the moonlight? Why the heck did he need that particular indirect sunlight? Using moonlight to beat the point spread? Like the Ten Commandments could have had more umph in Old Gothic script?

I asked Mr. Holmes if the photo of the Zeegler in the ER was placed to put us on notice that They were going to be after Their device.

Mr. Holmes – I think not. They would have been upon us by now. I do not believe they know the device exists.

Me -  This is a rogue Zeegler? Out on his own making a few bucks? Somehow that doesn’t get past first base.

Regardless of what base he operates from, I think monetary gain would be a transitory goal.

Yeah, right. What should we do with the device? As a student I could see straight A’s on all tests taken through college. And of course I’m not serious.

Of course not, I know well enough your jesting – like Zeegler armbands. (He half smiled then.) And so too readily does use of the device run to questionable outcomes. Thus, I am to endeavor to negate its usefulness.

Will doing so bring on a pack of Zeeglers?

No, the device has not been operated to any advantage. If such an advantage were to be denied Them, I would presume visitors would at once appear.

Me -  But to “negate” it?

I must study approaches. A process via quantum physics may be in order.

That leaves me out. 

Actually, upon further reflection involving many hours in the quantum mechanics book piles near the armchair, he was coming up empty. We couldn’t use it without a telescope. We tried a moonlit night and, though the smoke in the dark plate stirred, it did not have three panels on display. As Mr. Holmes pondered the possible demise of the plates, I, of all people, found out why the Moon’s light was needed. Presumably light of the full Moon enhanced the effect, but the observer required a crater, Alphonsus, in view and at low magnification so the eye ache was present. Nikolai Alexandrovich Kozyrev was the name. That name was in a brief report in our mimeographed astronomy club newsletter scheduled quarterly and actually issued irregularly. One of those irregulars had been mailed to me and I kept it because I had appeared in a group photo that includes members caught in supposedly rapt attention listening to astro news of the day or month or whatever.

Kozyrev, a Russian, had recently, it was reported, recorded a spectral signal of a gas emission from Alphonsus. He had used the 50 inch (very big) reflector at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. He had hand guided the thirty minute exposure. He was noting a brightness not normally seen. Then the brightness dimmed. He went after a 10 minute exposure of the normal state. He concluded a cloud of gas had been expelled and emission bands were seen by him. As usual some saw tints or diffuse clouds in Alphonsus in following-up Kozyrev’s work. Those follow-ups were very much in dispute. Our speaker who conveyed the news of what could be none other than volcanic activity on the Moon, offered as an aside that, in truth, not all the emission lines could be identified by Kozyrev. Some unknown lines, weak, persisted. Others “knew” this strange evidence of heretofore unknown-in the-cosmos substance or substances was or were still being outgassed in a region of the central peak of Alphonsus.

Mr. Holmes thought this “wondrous, very much so.” He wished we had time to see the Moon without Alphonsus or to block out the central peak and check to see how the device would operate. He said too little time remained for experimentation. The device had to be altered before someone could claim it. Before “someone,” not a Zeegler? Somehow that set me to mulling over all these goings on. Meantime, Mr. Holmes succeeded in his negation.

What he did was to intuit that only two things had come with him that could never be depleted – money and tobacco. He thought, in the scheme of things, one of them could be the negating agent. From his previous studies, he knew a good deal about tobacco. Many chemicals given off in its burning had yet to be identified. He had a hunch that in the abundant hot fumes from his tobacco could be a negator or two. He constructed a metallic box and closed it with a floor of tobacco inside. Close above the tobacco were the plates. He heated the bottom of the box and dense hot fumes filled the box. In other words, he had an oven. He baked them. He poured on the heat overnight.

That next night, as the nearly full Moon was going into a gibbous phase, he again was at the eyepiece of the club scope and then observed the tableau that included the clock, as before. This time the plates had been baked. In the left panel there was seen the clock running a few seconds slow. The middle panel showed the clock a minute or so slow and the right panel showed the clock a few minutes slow. Now the plates showed the past! The arrow of time had been reversed! Mr. Holmes returned from the Observatory in a speechless state. Only after an hour could he recount what he had experienced.

Such a remarkable change could not be made known. No one could know how it had previously worked and now how it was. Mr. Holmes didn’t know what compound or combo in the fumes had done the trick. Such a fantastic technique that foretold the future could not be allowed to survive.

Mr. Holmes put an ad in the paper. It was in general terms but got across that a three panel plate was now ready for pickup if the full Moon was out. Next day there was a knock on the door. My “come in” revealed a bedraggled Zeegler who swiftly gathered up the box containing the plates. Mr. Holmes had put the box on a low bookshelf opposite my study area. Mr. H’s eyes X-rayed the Zeegler, and I was astonished at how odd the Zeegler looked. But saying nothing, he exited.

Say, wait a second, said I to Mr. Holmes, what goes on here? Odd looking is one thing, but he is too odd looking.  Mr. Holmes, with a half-smile, was watching me expectantly. What? I asked. He only sighed and turned around in his chair, pipe without tobacco in his mouth and books in his lap. He began to read but said – we will have a chat soon.

Hours went by, I was getting very sleepy as I lay on my bed, hands behind my head and looking up at the pipes and wiring that were under the flooring above. My mulling about this affair had gone on without any conscious prodding from me. The mull was about to give up or out with it.

Bam! It hit me. Wait a minute! I shouted (I later explained to those upstairs that I had cracked a particularly nutty math problem.) Mr. Holmes quickly swiveled in his chair to look at me. He then got up and sat on the bed next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. Wait just a darn minute – I almost hissed. That was not a Zeegler who got the device. In fact, I’ll bet he was also at the Observatory. He didn’t blink in, he was waiting in the Observatory before the snow fell so he was assured of scope time.  He had hours to explore the interior of the observatory and found the pier compartment. But he wasn’t familiar enough with the ops of the slit and scope and got in between. He probably had a key to the Observatory door made on the sly. And he didn’t “disappear” from the ER, that use by the journalist was biased as far as I am concerned, it fell in with my knowing how Zeeglers get gone. But, Mr. Holmes, that means you knew all along and you wouldn’t clue me in?

Now, now, dear boy, I had said I was suspicious, but that I had no alternative to then offer. I rather hoped you, my esteemed colleague, would work it out on your own. Is not such an achievement to be more savory than being spoon-fed? Is it not?

OK, OK, I admit I was troubled from the get-go, but not able to get it sorted out, until now.

Now Mr. Holmes gave me a big smile, not one of amusement, but I took it as congratulatory.

Said I – so what did They make of the ER photo in the newspaper? They know it wasn’t one of Theirs. Since only you and I know of Zeeglers, as it has now been reestablished, then, since it was a man and not a boy, it had to be you. They must not think highly of your costume creating style. Yet I know you are excellent in disguise.

I do thank you.

Of course, should you be pressed to do so, I would not know which was a Zeegler and which was Mr. Holmes. Isn’t it possible They can only assume you have an intention of infiltrate Their Zeeglers?

I dare say they might, but I have no intention of becoming one of them – even as a ploy.

They may counter by showing up next time with armbands or headbands that you could not anticipate, yet to judge from the photo, they shouldn’t work too hard on differentiation of Their Zeeglers. Right?

If They expend a second on preparing for my “threat” to Them, then They cannot be seen as adequate adversaries.

Me – Though I have gotten this far in knowing the truth, I am without a clue as to who the Zeegler impersonator might be. I bet you can find out.

Indeed, my boy, I already know. I suspected quantum physics to be at play in this matter, and I visited with Dr. Kipowitz, liaison to the Air Base (Special Projects) over a spot of tea. He informed me that regionally only one person is listed in the Air Force dossiers that was known to him to possess a quite good knowledge of quantum physics. That would be Professor Hockensmith, retired, recently and formerly of the University of Wyoming in Laramie and a genius without parallel. He is a man who gives slight patience to separation of physics and metaphysics as, also lacking such patience, were Berkeley and Leibnitz, and with a dash of Hamilton’s quaternions in service to Kant’s intuition of pure time.

Mr. Holmes continued – I was told by Dr. Kipowitz that Professor Hockensmith had taught general physics for many years at the University. In his last years there, he was also teaching a seminar on very advanced quantum theory. On his lecture stage he had then chalkboards on wheels crammed with equations and notes. Each board could be flipped over to reveal yet more of the same dense knowledge. Therefore, that made for twenty boards. He never got beyond Board 3, such was the fascinating complexity at his command.

He lives in a block of flats in Laramie. He is regarded by one and all where he lives as being a good chap. He has a laboratory in a warehouse not far off since his residence is in a light industrial district of town. He has been struggling to secure funds to continue his research. Ergo, once the device was in his hands, and it got there with a good amount of happenstance, he was to use it to obtain those needed funds. He knew use of it might call down on him a mysterious force represented by what we call Zeeglers. I had on occasion made indirect lightly sketched reference to them in chatting up Dr. Kipowitz in exchange for assistance we needed. My description of a Zeegler was, then, perfunctory. Given that, Professor Hockensmith’s costume effort turned out rather well.

Nevertheless, had he succeeded in using his device to foretell the future of gambling enterprises, he would have provided a frozen moment, and he would have never been seen or heard of again. He was, in the event, impatient with the faulty opening of the slit, and after his fall he could not return immediately. He did have unseen injuries, but did not want a public hospital’s staff to know of them. He went painfully to a physician in Chugwater that would remain quiet about it.

I said – His not knowing the scope well enough saved him. But isn’t it sad he had to lose his windows on the future?

I rather hope he thinks his life can be now devoted to pure science. I have tried to dissuade him from resuming experiments in time at our level. If he concerns himself with quantum time, he may be rewarded with entirely fantastic data.

He didn’t resent what you had done to the plates?

No, I assured him of what his fate would have been had he persisted in using the plates for monetary gain. He has come into money quite recently, and there is a fund set up to further his foreseeable efforts.

Your bottomless money supply, I’ll bet.

Correct.

Me - Somehow it’s a comfort that frozen moments pertain only to us.

You seem a bit jealous of what never existed.

Well maybe it came out like that, but if we still have our purpose, then however it is carried out suits me.

Oh yes, we are still a going concern. Our exclusivity vis a vis Their efforts will, I trust, again tax us.

Ah well, Mr. Holmes, I carry away from this adventure a persistent image of a fierce and gritty Zeegler wearing a bright yellow headband to avoid Their acceptance of a person well disguised to fool Them, and there is a loose long end of the band hanging down like a pigtail but near an ear. Isn’t that a laugh?

What a revolting prospect.

And I had to laugh.

The End