TWICE IN TIME

Foreword

The document herewith given publication was placed in the hands of the editors in 1939. Whether or not it explains satisfactorily the strange disappearance of Leo Thrasher near Florence, Italy, in the spring of 1938, we do not pretend to decide.

The manuscript came to America in the luggage of Father David Sutton, an American priest, at the time of the recent outbreak of war in Europe. Father Sutton was in Rome at the time, and elected to remain, in hope of helping war sufferers if his aid should be needed. But since Italy remained neutral, he sent back most of his luggage to America by a friend. Later he sent an urgent letter, asking that this manuscript be examined and published, if possible. It came, Father Sutton said, from the strongroom of an immemorial theological library in Florence, and was in the original casket that had apparently contained it for a long period of time.

The priest's friend brought us both Father Sutton's letter and the casket with the manuscript. This casket is of tarnished silver, elaborately worked in the Renaissance manner. A plate on the lid bears this legend, in Italian, French, and Latin:

Let no man open or dispose of this casket, on peril of his soul, before the year 1939.

Father Sutton's new York friends insist that if he actually wrote this letter and sent the casket, they

may be taken at face value. If it is a hoax perpetrated in his name, it is both elaborate and senseless. In any case, it is worth the study of those who love the curious.

Therefore, while neither affirming nor denying the truth of what appears, herewith is given in full the purported statement of the vanished Leo Thrasher.