He shrugged. "This is my first serious attempt to change the past. Sooner or later I will succeed." He had reached into his breast pocket again. Now he brought out something like a fat fountain pen.
"I don't know," I said uneasily. "You sure this doesn't hurt?"
He unscrewed the end of the thing. There was a short hollow needle on it, with what looked like a trigger that had swung out into position against the side.
"I've used it on myself many times," he said. He started toward me.
"Wait a minute," I said, backing up a step and holding up my hand. "This is going to take me up to the instant I'm dying?"
"That's right," he said, "and I want you to try, in that single instant you are there, to find out who did it. Think where you were when it happened, and who might have done it."
"You sure it won't kill me?" I asked.
He took another step toward me. "Of course not," he said.
"Wait a minute," I said, backing up against a bookcase to get away from him. "Why didn't you go farther ahead in time and read in the papers who did it? Wouldn't that have been the best way?"
For a brief instant his eyes flashed with what seemed to me to be madness. I thought of the three dollar bill. The guy was crazy. It had to be that. He'd been using the stuff on himself. Whatever it was it had affected his mind. He imagined he could send his mind into the future. Or maybe—