This story is a fun one, and I remember it.
What I didn't remember is that Padgett is essentially recreating his Gallegher character from "Proud Robot" but renaming him Galloway -- they are both scientists who gain their genius from alcohol.
Interesting, he doesn't say so, but Padgett describes exactly where he got the inspiration for this story: from watching sugar cubes dissolve in water.
The middle of the tale is a clever mix of legal maneuvering and cheap-shot police tactics. This is a mystery story set in an SF format. It is set in the 1970's, but at first there isn't much feel for future in it. Once again, some word choices that have completely gone by the wayside in the last seventy years.
The writing style is fun and the characterizations are fun, and the mystery format works well.
The premise of this story is that the universe is shrinking with time. This is a pop science theory that was popular in the early 20th. It is a concept closely related to the Bohr atom model. That still popular depiction of the atom as a nucleus being orbited by electrons. The shrinking universe model came about as physicists were trying to explain electrons. In particular: How electrons could orbit around an atomic nucleus and not loose energy. When they are orbiting a nucleus they are a charged particle moving through an electric field. They should be radiating electromagnetic waves and losing energy. One real world case of this happening is synchrotron radiation coming from electrons blasting away from supernovas and black holes through the magnetic fields that also surround these. These produce observable gamma rays and X-rays and slow down the electrons.
Why this wasn't happening to electrons orbiting nuclei in atoms was a mystery in that era. One possible solution was that that's exactly what was happening and the electron orbits, and the universe, were shrinking with time. It was a klugey solution, but no klugier than quantum mechanics which was also being formulated in this era. The better solution to the electron mystery, the one that is popular nowadays, is that electrons aren't particles orbiting protons, they are standing waves. They are "around" protons, but they aren't moving, so they don't radiate.
But the shrinking universe fired imaginations, so it lingered in the SF genera for many years longer than it did in mainstream physics. The Bohr atom, with its similarity to the solar system, was useful science for about six months. But it is still a popular depiction even to this day.
...Curious. Vanning, the protagonist, does not choose to pay off the other guy with other assets. It would ruin the story, of course, but in real life it would likely make more sense.
Another slight inconsistency at the end: Vanning's hand reaching in from the past looks like Vanning's hand. It doesn't look like some odd geometrical shape like looking at the future stuff did.
All-in-all, a satisfying story.