An excerpt from the report filed by Captain Whitter contains some enlightening information.
"What happened became obvious after the fact," the captain wrote. "The whole buildup was a phony from beginning to end. Hale had heard of the time capsule in Grosstat, so he went to Apfahl with a duplicate time capsule, which contained his note. He tunneled underneath the Museum and switched capsules. It was not until after he had made the switch that he planted the forged Dachboden note for Dr. Mier to find.
"There never had been a Dachboden carving in the capsule; that was all a figment of Leland Hale's imagination.
"Dr. Rudolf Mier couldn't understand why Hale had done it. 'Why did he make me think there was a statue in there?' he kept asking me. 'Why did he do this to me?'
"I think the answer is simple. The records show that Hale was on Kessin IV three years ago, during the war there. I believe that he actually was swindled himself; someone sold him a bogus Dachboden. Remember, the art-swindler Fenslaw was killed at that time.
"Hale, therefore, had a phony Dachboden on his hands that he had to unload to save his pride. More, he had to make a very big profit on it.
"He knew that he couldn't just try to sell it anywhere. Even if he found a sucker who would accept it as real, there wouldn't be enough money in it to make it worth Hale's time.
"He couldn't have sold it to Fonshliezen without the big buildup. If he'd just produced the carving from nowhere, Fonshliezen would have been suspicious. A few simple tests would have shown that the dynak wood was less than ten years old.
"Obviously, Hale had to get Fonshliezen into a position where he would accept the carving without testing it.
"Hale, therefore, planted an empty time capsule, with his note inside, under the Museum and took the real capsule with him. By bombarding the time lock with neutrons, he managed to increase the radioactivity enough to keep the lock closed for an additional twenty-four hours, so that he could palm the real capsule off on Fonshliezen as a phony which he had presumably set himself.