that--I don't know what
happened----"

"Nor do any of us," quavered Gest. "For God's sake, Keane, give us some
idea of what has happened here, if you can!"

* * * * *

It was over an hour later when Beatrice and Keane entered the door of
his suite. It had taken that long to explain to the people in Doctor
Grays' rooms. Even then the explanation had been but partial, and most
of it had been frenziedly and stubbornly disbelieved even though proof
was there.

Keane's shoulders were bowed a little and his face wore a bitter look.
He had thwarted Doctor Satan in his attempt to extort a fortune from the
resort. But once more his deadly enemy had got away from him. He had
failed.

Beatrice shook her head.

"Don't look like that. The fact that you're here alive is a miracle that
makes up for his escape. If you could have seen yourself, and that girl,
when the police brought you back from Chichester's house! As soon as
they set you down in the doctor's rooms, you and the girl came together.
You fought again for her purse, as you say you started to do in
Chichester's house ten hours ago. But you moved with such horrible
slowness! It was like watching a slow-motion picture. It took you hours
to raise your arm, hours to take the purse from her hand. And your
expression changed with equal slowness.... I can't tell you how dreadful
it was!"

"All due, as I said, to this," Keane sighed.

He stared at the little metal cage he had taken from the purse.

"The latest product of Doctor Satan's warped genius. A time-diverter, I
suppose you might call it."

"I didn't understand your explanation in Grays' rooms, after you'd
brought those people out of their dreadful coma," said Beatrice.

"I'll try again."

Keane held up the geometric figure.

"Time has been likened to a river. We don't know precisely what it is,
but it seems that the river simile must be apt. Very well, we and all
around us float on this river at the same speed. If there were different
currents in the same river, we might have the spectacle of seeing those
nearby move with lightning rapidity or with snail-like slowness as their
time-environment differed from ours. Normally there is no such
difference, but with this fantastic thing Doctor Satan has succeeded in
producing them artificially.

"He has succeeded in working out several sets of angles which, when
opposed against each other as this geometric figure opposes them, can