The Secret Cellar | Ep. 20 | A Crime in the Fourth Dimension
A Crime in the Fourth Dimension
Letter from Adalbert Kehr to Konrad Josef
June 1882
Konrad,
I do not know if you have attempted to write me — whether you have or not, please accept my apologies. Once again my life is full of darkness, but in the shadows I see rays of hope. But the most important message I wish to convey is this: do not send any letters to me in care of the Leipzig Patent Office on Augustusplatz. I am not sure if you are the one who used that address, I don’t even know whether you know which address I mean, but if you do know, please forget it.
Do I sound disjointed? My life is disjointed. The dislocations, the tremors, the lurching of history — it began two months ago, with the death of Herr Professor Zöllner.
His sudden death was utterly unexpected. He had been ill, of course, ill for months, but the reports of his recovery had been glowing; each day we waited for him in his laboratory; each day we prepared ourselves to resume our work at his brusque and incisive command. When, instead of his voice, we heard the news, our minds leaped as one to a single conclusion: assassination. What other explanation could there be? It was clear that a powerful secret network wanted to prevent the dimensiomanometer from being perfected and produced — not in Germany, not now. As never before, we realized the significance of Herr Professor’s work. If there were a dimensiomanometer in every town, ordinary German folk would be able to look into the Fourth Dimension. And what would they see there, if not the puppet masters who are pulling our strings? We began to make inquiries. We learned that in the week before Herr Professor’s mysterious passing, a stream of shadowy visitors had oozed into the Hotel Fuerstenhof — from places like Sardinia, Warsaw, Budapest, Belgravia, and a part of New York City called “the Bronx.” Without the dimensiomanometer, we had no way to stop them, for it was obvious that they had committed their crime in the Fourth Dimension.
Little did we expect the international conspiracy of bankers and butchers to extend into the Imperial German Civil Service. But so, apparently, it has. Less than a week after Herr Professor’s death, a new manager appeared in the Leipzig Patent Office. He demanded that I give up my desk in Herr Professor’s laboratory, close the file on the dimensiomanometer, and report for work at the dreary offices on Augustusplatz. Thereafter, on a daily basis, this manager would ridicule all individuals ignorant of differential calculus (he would look at me as he did so) and then excoriate the music of Wagner and the science of Zöllner. One day he went so far as to mock the very idea of the Fourth Dimension. Did I know it was a Hebrew perversion? he asked, standing close to me, the fantasy of a Jewish geometer? Then he leaned closer and suggested, to my face, that Herr Professor Zöllner must himself have been a Jew. I felled the manager with a blow of my fist; before he recovered his senses, I had penned my resignation. Several of my colleagues shook my hand as I departed.
Do not worry about me, Konrad. I have been elected Recording Secretary of the of the International Association for the Control of Scientific Animal Torture, also known as the Anti-Vivisectionist League, which has its headquarters here in Leipzig. For this position I receive a small stipend, nothing like the civil service, of course, but adequate for my modest needs. And at the New Saxon Dining Club, my like-minded friends ensure that I am well-fed, even when I am a little short of cash. I now realize that I must use my talents to serve the German People, not the German State.
With honor and sadness,
Adalbert
Continue reading: The next episode is The Light of Day, part of The Secret Cellar, on MyWayToCanossa.com.
Originally published at www.daveomeara.com on May 24, 2018.
