Free Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney by Jack Seabrook

year's best short-story collection (Beard 183-84), and Damon  Knight wrote that Finney re-invests the theme of time travel '"with all the strangeness and wonder that properly belong to it"' (quoted in Beard 184).
    Later critics have viewed the collection as a classic. Stephen King wrote in 1981 that, in The Third Level, "Finney actually defined the boundaries of [Rod] Serling's Twilight Zone " (236), arguing that the well-known television series that premiered in 1959 owed much of its success to groundwork that had been laid by Jack Finney. Finally, Mike Resnick, writing in 1997 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, remarked that this collection was "the very best book [Finney] ever signed his name to."
    With the short stories he published between 1955 and 1957, culminating in the collection, The Third Level, Jack Finney secured for himself an honored place in the ranks of twentieth-century writers of fantasy. His next novel, however, would return to the genre of crime fiction that he had explored in 5 Against the House.

SIX
    The House of Numbers
    The cover of the July 1956 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine advertised "The House of Numbers" as a "complete novel by Jack Finney, so gripping and fascinating you can't put it down." Inside, the "complete suspense novel" spans the course of 26 pages. In May 1957, an expanded version of the story appeared as a paperback first edition (Dell First Edition A139), and the back cover told readers that it was "soon to be an M-G-M movie starring Jack Palance." The movie, reti-tled House of Numbers, was released that same year.
    The House of Numbers is told in first-person narration by Benjamin Harrison Jarvis, a 26-year-old man whose brother, Arnie, is a prisoner at San Quentin Prison. The book opens as Ben and Ruth Gehlmann, Arnie's fiancee, view the prison from the vantage point of a small boat in the San Francisco Bay. They plan to help Arnie escape, and Ben tells Ruth to "'take a good look. , because you're looking at the kind of place you'll end up in instead ... if anything at all goes wrong'" (7).
    Ben and Ruth met and rented a house together in Marin County (where Jack Finney lived) in order to plan Arnie's escape. Ruth is beautiful and from a wealthy, old San Francisco family. Arnie bought her an expensive engagement ring but paid for it with bad checks and was sent to prison for fraud. She feels guilty and Ben explains that Arnie also talked him into dropping everything to plan for the escape. Even though they agree that '"it's impossible to get a man out of there,'" (17), Ben suspects that they'll have to go through with the attempt at escape, and the thought frightens him.
    Finney uses some narrative trickery in The House of Numbers, switching points of view between different narrators. The second and third chapters are narrated in the first person by Arnie Jarvis, who is brought before a San Quentin disciplinary committee that is investigating an attack on a guard. An ex-convict who has been paroled is being brought back to the prison to identify the guard's attacker and, though Arnie feigns disinterest at the hearing, he thinks that he must escape within the next four days to avoid being identified as the culprit.
    In chapter three, Arnie grills fellow inmate Al about escape and Al recalls various failed attempts over the years. Arnie retires to his cell to think of a way out.
    Chapters four through ten are narrated by Ben. After visiting Arnie in prison, Ben returns and explains the predicament to Ruth, who has already packed her bags to go back to San Francisco. Ben explains that Section 4500 of the California Penal Code prescribes the death penalty for an assault with a deadly weapon committed by a prisoner serving a life sentence. Arnie is facing death, and Ben has a plan to help him escape. Ruth agrees to stay and help.
    In chapter five, Ben tells Ruth a good deal about Arnie's background, explaining some of the factors in his life that may have made him commit a