Publisher's Synopsis
Buchan's novel opens with the narrator, Sir Edward Leithen, being introduced at a house party to the brilliant physicist and mathematician professor Moe. Moe has been working on a new theory of time, and believes he has found a way of enabling people to see, as if through a 'gap in the curtain', details of a future event. He enlists several of the house party guests into an experiment. For several days, each has to apply his whole concentration to anticipate what will be printed on a chosen page of The Times newspaper exactly one year hence. The subjects' efforts are to be supported by mental and physical preparation and by the taking of an unspecified drug.