“There’s even,” thought Mr. Ellery Queen dully, “ a character named Alice.”
He looked again. The only reason he did not rub his eyes was that it would have made him feel ridiculous; besides, his sight, all his senses, had never been keener.
He simply stood there in the snow and looked and looked and looked at the empty space where a three-story stone house seventy-five years old had stood the night before.
“Why, it isn’t there,” said Alice feebly from the upper window. “It... isn’t... there.”
“Then I’m not insane.” Thorne stumbled toward them. Ellery watched the old man’s feet sloughing through the snow, leaving long tracks. A man’s weight still counted for something in the universe, then. Yes, and there was his own shadow; so material objects still cast shadows. Absurdly, the discovery brought a certain faint relief.
“It is gone!” said Thorne in a cracked voice.
“Apparently.” Ellery found his own voice thick and slow; he watched the words curl out on the air and become nothing. “Apparently, Thorne.” It was all he could find to say.
Dr. Reinach arched his fat neck, his wattles quivering like a gobbler’s. “Incredible. Incredible!”
“Incredible,” said Thorne in a whisper.
“Unscientific. It can’t be. I’m a man of sense. Of senses. My mind is clear. Things like this — damn it, they just don’t happen!”