The Peculiar Disappearance of Professor Brownrigg

By T. Clement Robison

Award winning author T. Clement Robison steps out of his comfort zone to bring his readers a fascinating science fiction tale that will challenge their imaginations. Packed with actual scientific facts and a good deal of speculation, the author takes the reader on an entertaining journey with a surprising ending, leaving them with the question: could this story really be true?

Author’s photograph courtesy of Mark Dennis Photography.

Cover photograph courtesy of Guillermo Ferla on Upsplash.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664168862

T. Clement Robison

OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR W.I.A. (Wounded in Action) Enemy of My Enemy Operation Duck Hook Lost Treasure of the Grand Strand The Improbable Life of Billy T. Kettle Corpse on Cape Romain

Book preview

THE PECULIAR

DISAPPEARANCE

OF PROFESSOR

BROWNRIGG

T. CLEMENT ROBISON

Copyright © 2021 by T. Clement Robison.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/20/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Forward

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty One

Chapter Forty Two

OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

(W.I.A.) Wounded in Action

Enemy of My Enemy

Operation Duck Hook

Lost Treasure of the Grand Strand

The Improbable Life of Billy T. Kettle

Corpse on Cape Romain

Legend of Saint Boniface’s Chalice

Curse of Yamashita’s Gold

THIS STORY AND THE OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR CAN BE PURCHASED FROM HIS WEBSITE: www.tcrobison.com

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Carl Sagan

FORWARD

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There are many stories about prominent people who have gone missing, never to be heard from again. As you can tell by the title, this story is about one of them.

Many of the missing are well known, Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa, come to mind. Nonetheless, there are still many more whose names are not as familiar to the general public. Most of these disappearances are labeled as mysterious. However, there is only one disappearance which the few who know about it label as peculiar. The story of Professor Clarence Morton Brownrigg, Thirteenth Earl of Oxenshire, is that one.

Don’t let the title of nobility distract you. In modern day America, where this story takes place, no one cares about the professor’s noble ancestry. Nor could they find Oxenshire, not to be confused with Oxfordshire, on the map of England if they had to.

As to the man himself, the adjective odd was used to describe him. Peculiar could also have been used but since I have already used that term, I’ll leave it as odd. The term odd, had attached early on in Clarence’s life. It was later replaced by another term: baffling. Even later the terms, brilliant, and savant, were used to denote the person who many have described as the most intelligent person they have ever known.

What set Clarence apart, aside from his intelligence, were his mannerisms. He was a perfectionist. Not just any perfectionist, but the quintessential perfectionist. That is what makes his disappearance so peculiar.

Additionally, I have always enjoyed science fiction. From H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds and the Time Machine to Jules Verne’s, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and From the Earth to the Moon. I have also been interested in science and outer space; from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell to Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Star Talk and The Book and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

So, I have always wondered what a blending of a little bit of science and a little bit of fiction and of course, a smattering of history would turn out to be. Well you are about to find out.

T. CLEMENT ROBISON 2020

CHAPTER ONE

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The family name, Brownrigg can be traced back to the early centuries in England. There have been many notable Brownriggs throughout history. They were clergymen, statesmen, soldiers, noblemen and even a murderer. However, the one Brownrigg who is the most important to this story is William Brownrigg, who was a doctor and scientist. He won the Copley Medal for his discoveries using carbonic gas in 1766 and was the first scientist to identify platinum as an element. William is also important because it was his direct descendants who first brought the name Brownrigg to the shores of America in 1816.

Clarence was born on June 6, 1920. The only child of Albert and Angelia Brownrigg of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Albert was a professor of mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was an alumnus. His great grandfather was the Twelfth Earl of Oxenshire. Why the title of nobility skipped generations is unknown.

Having come from an affluent Boston family, Angelia was an accomplished pianist and educated at Smith College. She taught music and history at the local high school.

It was only several months after Clarence was born that odd unexplained things started to happen in the Brownrigg household.

Having engaged a maid by the name of Elsa, who was also a nanny for Clarence, it was she who first noticed.

Madame Brownrigg could you please come to the baby’s room?

What is it, Elsa? Angelia shouted up the back staircase.

Please ma’am, if you could just come upstairs for a minute, the maid replied in an agitated voice.

After climbing the staircase, Angelia walked briskly to the nursery located at the opposite end of the hallway.

What is it that required me to come upstairs? she asked.

Ma’am, when you hired me you told me I would be responsible for not only caring for the baby but also for keeping this house tidy, including keeping his room in order. Now I know it’s just a minor thing but if you are going to do my work, then what am I supposed to do?

Angelia stood with a questioning look on her face and scanned the room. Everything was neat and orderly. Clarence stood at the end of his crib with his hands on the rails slowly bouncing, with a big smile on his face.

I don’t understand, Elsa. Everything looks fine to me.

Of course, it does. After you came in here and cleaned up before I had a chance.

What are you talking about? I didn’t clean up the room. I thought you did.

"No ma’am. When I put the baby down for his nap this afternoon, I gave him a bottle, read a short story to him, and laid him down and covered him with his blanket. I left the book on the chair when I left the room and turned off the lamp on the corner of the dresser. When I just came in to get him up from his nap, I found him awake, the book back on the shelf, his bottle on the corner of the dresser, and the blanket neatly folded and laying at the foot of his crib, and the lamp was on.

Now you and I are the only ones in the house. So, if you didn’t straighten things up and I didn’t straighten things up, explain to me how things got straightened up.

I can’t answer that because I had just walked in the house ten minutes before you called me upstairs. I’m been teaching classes all morning so how could it have been me. I think you just forgot you cleaned up, Angelia replied and left the room.

That wasn’t the end of the strangeness. Elsa began noticing little things which were not quite right. The shelf in the baby’s room held several books used by both parents and Elsa to read stories to Clarence just before his bedtime.

Normally when the books were re-shelved, they were not returned in any particular order. One morning when Elsa entered the room the books were neatly arranged, the first time in order of size; largest to the smallest. The second time she noticed, about a week later, the books were arranged alphabetically by title. The third time they were arranged alphabetically by author.

Each time the nanny accused the parents of rearranging the books and each time both Albert and Angelia denied it.

Then, there was the time when Angelia entered the room only to find Clarence sitting in the center of the bed with the side rail lowered. Immediately she called for Elsa to come to the nursery. When the maid arrived, Angelia confronted her with the lowered railing and lectured her on the dangers of leaving the baby unattended with the railing in that position. This time it was Elsa who denied the accusation by explaining when she left the room to secure fresh diapers from the bathroom the rail was in the upright position.

When Albert came home both women asked him to closely examine the railing to see if the latches were faulty. After a thorough investigation he deemed the latches to be operating perfectly. In fact, the railing contained a safety device which required the operator to use both outstretched arms to, first release the safety device and then release the latch on each end of the railing.

It was a Sunday morning in late December when Albert and Angelia heard a scream coming from the upstairs nursery. They quickly climbed the stairs, with Albert leading the way and racing down the hallway and into the room. There they found Elsa with a startled expression on her face and Clarence sitting in his crib fully dressed except for shoes.

What is it, Elsa? Why did you scream? Albert wanted to know.

You two are trying to drive me crazy. Why would you want to do that? she demanded.

What are you talking about? Albert replied.

You know what I’m talking about. Which one of you did this? Elsa again demanded; her expression now changed to one of confusion.

Did what? For God’s sake get ahold of yourself and tell us what in the world you are talking about, Albert demanded.

Before I left this room to draw the baby’s bath water, I laid out his Sunday clothes on the dresser to put on him after he was cleaned up. I was gone for no more than twenty minutes and when I returned to fetch him, there he was, sitting in his bed fully clothed.

Well, Elsa, neither Angelia nor I dressed Clarence. We were downstairs the entire time. You must have done it and just forgot, Albert explained.

No sir, I did no such thing, of that I’m sure.

I think Elsa has been working too hard, Albert remarked as he descended the staircase.

Angelia silently walked beside her husband with a grin on her face.

It was Clarence’s first Christmas when things really became odd. The decorated tree stood in one corner of the living room. Beneath the tree several brightly wrapped packages sat in no particular order.

Early in the morning Albert poured himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen and slowly walked into the living room with the intention of turning on the tree’s lights. As soon as he saw the tree, his mouth dropped open and he nearly spilled his drink.

There on the floor next to the tree slept young Clarence. But even more odd was what Albert observed when he looked closely under the tree. The colorful packages were no longer haphazardly arranged; they were now placed in order of size from the largest to the smallest in a perfectly symmetrical circle around the base of the tree.

When Angelia entered the room, also holding a cup of coffee, Albert placed his finger to his mouth indicating she was not to make a sound. He pointed to the presents and made a circular motion with his hand. When she looked at the arrangement and then the baby soundly sleeping an approving expression crept over her face.

Albert motioned for her to follow him back into the kitchen. What is going on with the baby sleeping on the floor? he asked. I have no idea how he got there but what I want to know is who arranged the presents so perfectly around the tree? They weren’t that way last evening when we went to bed, he concluded.

And Elsa has had the last two days off, so it couldn’t have been her, his wife added.

You don’t suppose? No, it couldn’t have been, it’s impossible, Albert questioned.

Angelia gave her husband a questioning look. You’re thinking it was Clarence?

Who else could it be. There is no one else in the house. Clarence is a baby. How would he know how to do that? he asked.

How, indeed? she smugly replied.

There was still one more surprise waiting in Clarence’s room when his mother took him upstairs to change from his night clothes. She noticed he was wearing a fresh diaper. It was secured by a safety pin but positioned in such a way that it would have required the person who pinned it to be standing at the baby’s head instead of at his feet, which was the usual way of changing a diaper. The head of the large safety pin was located to the right, not to the left, as you face the baby, the way a right-handed person would pin it. To add to the mystery, a lone, soiled diaper lay in the hamper next to the door.

It wasn’t long before Clarence was moving throughout the house using a combination of crawling and scooting from one place to another. His favorite place to be was the den. Specifically, next to the large bookcase at the far end of the room. More specifically, next to the area of the bookcase where the National Geographic Magazines could be found. He spent hours looking at the beautiful color photographs that spread out before him as he turned the pages. As always, when he had finished, the books were returned to the case in precise numeric volume order.

Seeing his interest in the series, his father conveniently stored the magazines on the two bottom shelves of the case, easily within the infant’s reach.

A second thing which interested him a great deal, and brought pleasure to his young life, was watching and listening to his mother play the piano after supper. He would sit quietly on his father’s lap or next to his mother on the bench and listen to the music and watch as her fingers lightly touched the keys combining the individual notes into a beautiful melody.

By the time he was three years old he recognized the various compositions of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms, to name a few.

Early on the morning of Clarence’s fourth birthday, his parents were awakened by the sounds of piano music softly drifting through the house. An investigation revealed the toddler kneeling on the piano bench and softly striking the keys as he had seen his mother do so many times.

What was even more amazing was the composition he was playing was recognized by both parents as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

Albert turned to his wife. When did you teach him to play the piano?

She didn’t reply but simply stood there with an amused look on her face. After a few seconds, she whispered, I didn’t teach him anything. Up until now he just struck the keys in a random order. It was just noise. I was going to begin lessons when he was a little older.

Looks to me like you have already started.

With his mother’s tutoring, Clarence quickly found he could play complete and complicated compositions with very few mistakes. By age five he was playing complete pieces from memory. The term savant was first uttered.

At that the same age, he was no longer just looking at the photographs in National Geographic, he was also reading the articles.

He soon began to write complete, compound sentences. While this was quite an accomplishment for a five-year-old, what surprised his parents the most was that he was ambidextrous. Even more surprising was he could write legibly with both hands at the same time.

In his sixth year, his parents also found he had a near- fanatical interest in mathematics. This time it was his father who was the tutor. With very basic instructions, Albert watched as his son first mastered addition, subtraction, and division. It wasn’t long before he had also mastered Algebra, Trigonometry, and moved on to Calculus, handling derivatives and integrals of functions with minimal effort. The term savant was heard once again.

By age seven another interest surfaced. On warm summer evenings Clarence and his father could be found lying on their backs on a blanket in the backyard staring up at the cosmos. In the beginning, his father did his best to point out the various stars and star clusters observable to the naked eye.

By age eight, with the help of a birthday gift of a telescope and National Geographic illustrations, Clarence was pointing out celestial objects, several light-years from earth and reciting their astronomic names and numbers.

Schooling Clarence in a normal setting quickly became problematic. He grasped the concepts being taught so quickly he soon became bored and agitated. It was decided he should be placed in an instructional system designed for gifted and talented children. It was in this setting that he mastered studies so quickly his instructors were forced to move him through the system quicker than any other previous student.

Thankfully, it was discovered Harvard University offered a program for what they called the exceptionally gifted and talented. It was reserved for children whose Intelligence Quotient was above 160. Clarence had been tested on two occasions; his average I.Q. score placed him above 200.

The program did not take place in the traditional setting of a classroom. Private tutors from the university’s faculty and visiting faculty from other institutions such as Yale, Princeton, and M.I.T. made up a team that worked with the children in laboratories, observatories, planetariums, and outside field work. Each child was allowed to learn at his own pace.

By age ten, Clarence was reading at an undergraduate level, solving math problems at a graduate level, playing chess at a master’s level, and the piano at a concert level. His interests varied from Mathematics to Physics and Astronomy. His instructors also found he had a gift for Cryptanalysis.

At age fourteen he was awarded a combined Bachelor and Master of Science and Mathematics degree from Harvard University. At age sixteen he was awarded his first Doctorate Degree in Science and Mathematics from Yale. He quickly became bored with his studies in the basic disciplines and turned his attention to the stars. He enrolled in Princeton’s Doctorate Degree Program in Astrophysics. It was there that his superior abilities in math and science, combined with his curiosity of the universe, propelled him to the head of his class. It was at this time Clarence was introduced to the theory of quantum mechanics, dealing with the interaction of subatomic particles and the duality of light: that light exhibits properties of both waves and particles.

However, what Clarence enjoyed the most was his time using the university’s optical reflecting telescope to survey the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond. He and his fellow students wrestled with many questions: such as, what is the age of the universe and is the universe expanding or is it static as Einstein’s equations of general relativity seem to suggest? They also wondered about the more basic questions: did the universe always exist and are humans alone in the cosmos?

It was this last question which intrigued Clarence the most. He knew the galaxy contained hundreds of billions of stars. He reasoned, like our own planet Earth which orbits the sun, there must be billions of similar planets in the cosmos orbiting other suns. Of those billions of planets there must be a few, possibly several million, which would contain an intelligent life form. Perhaps not exactly like humans but similar to some degree. He spent hours using mathematical formulas and equations in an attempt to calculate the number of probabilities of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Each time the answer he arrived at was in the millions.

He became so obsessed with the possibility of extraterrestrial life, his fellow students would tease him about being an alien himself and attached to Clarence the nickname E.T.

He went so far as to submit for publication a research paper in the Astrophysical Journal using the rules and laws of probability along with mathematic formulas of his own design which led him to the conclusion that alien life forms must exist on other planets. The paper was rejected by the editors who reasoned the conclusion was not based on sufficient scientific research. In reality some of Clarence’s formulas were beyond the editor’s comprehension.

He didn’t know it at the time but that research paper would play a major role in his celebrated career as an astrophysicist.

At age eighteen he received a second doctorate degree. This time from Princeton’s Department of Astrophysical Sciences. It was at this point in his life he decided his instructors had taught him as much as they could. He would now go it alone. He applied for several research positions which would afford him the opportunity to study the universe and attempt to answer some of the questions that had eluded astronomers since Galileo.

CHAPTER TWO

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On a Friday morning in June, he received an invitation in the mail.

His mother handed him an envelope with the return address of the University of California. He studied the envelope for several seconds. Well open it, Clarence, maybe it’s good news.

He took the envelope from her hand and stared at it for several more seconds before tearing it open. After quickly scanning the contents, he said, Mother, it’s an offer of a teaching position at the Student’s Observatory on the University’s Berkeley campus. They want me to start in the fall.

The offer further indicated if he accepted the position, he would be allowed to do research and be given access to the Lick Observatory located on top of Mount Hamilton near San Jose.

He was familiar with the Lick Observatory with its 36-inch refracting telescope. Its mountain top location, above the low hanging clouds, made for excellent viewing partly because of the low ambient light but also because the mountain air was so calm.

If you take the position it will require you to move three thousand miles away from your father and me. Is that what you want?

It’s a wonderful opportunity, I don’t see how I can pass it up. I haven’t received any better offers from any nearby schools.

Clarence could tell by the expression on his mother’s face she was concerned her teenage son might not be ready to move out of the house, especially moving to the opposite coast. She knew he was intellectually mature but not socially mature. He really didn’t have any close friends. He spent nearly his entire time in one combination of study and research or another.

His perfectionism posed even more concern. He had become responsible for himself since he was twelve, He insisted on doing his own laundry, cleaning his own room, and, in most cases, preparing his own meals. He selected his own clothing, ensuring he had no more than a fourteen-day supply of shirts, pants, socks, underwear and no more than four pairs of shoes. His room was arranged in a particular order as were his clothes in his dresser and closet. Everything had to be exactly in its place. A large bookcase sat against one wall. The books were arranged by topic and in the date order of when he had acquired them. A four-drawer filing cabinet stood next to the book case. Its drawers contained a massive amount of research material, numerous file folders and several accordion files neatly arranged by topic and date of origination.

Arrangements had been made for the university to provide a one-bedroom apartment just off the main campus for housing. A small office on campus was also provided. His employment contract required Clarence to teach one class at least one semester per school year. The rest of the time he was free to do research. Should he so desire, a teaching assistant and research assistant would also be provided. As with many of the other members of the faculty, he was expected to publish scientific papers on a regular basis. His salary wasn’t much but it was sufficient to provide what few essentials he needed. He was expected to begin faculty orientation on Tuesday, September first.

On August 25, 1939, Clarence and his father boarded