THE THINKING MACHINE
ON THE CASE





THE THINKING MACHINE
ON THE CASE
By
JACQUES FUTRELLE
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1908


CoPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
CoPYRIGHT, 1906, 1907, BY
ASSOCIATED SUNDAY MAGAZINES, INCORPoRATED
Published March, 1968


C O N T E N T S
CHAPTER
I.—“THE THINKING MACHINE’’
II.—THE MOTOR BOAT
III.—THE WOMAN IN THE CASE .
IV.—DRESSING ROOM A
W.—FITTING A HYPOTHESIS
VI.—THE CRYSTAL GAZER
VII.—A MATTER OF LOGIC
VIII.—THE INTERRUPTED WIRELESS
IX.—THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE
X.—THE RoswFILL TIARA .
XI.—A FooL OF GOOD INTENTION
XII.—THE LOST RADIUM
XIII.—THE SUIT CASE
XIV.—THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
XV.—Two AND Two AGAIN MAKE Four .
XVI.—AN OPERA Box
XVII.—BEFORE MIDNIGHT
XVIII.—THE MISSING NECKLACE
PAGE
16
33
41
53
69
78
91
104
118
128
146
158
168
185
198
211
V


Contents
CHAPTER
XIX.—MASTER OF HIS PROFESSION
XX.—THE PHANTOM MOTOR .
XXI.—THE GAP IN THE TRAIL
XXII.—THE BROWN COAT
XXIII.—A HUMAN PROBLEM
XXIV.—HIS PERFECT ALIBI
XXV.—A QUESTION OF TIME .
XXVI.—THE SUPERFLUOUS FINGER .
XXVII.—THE CASE IS CLOSED. .
PAGE,
225
236


THE THINKING MACHINE
ON THE CASE
CHAPTER I
“THE THINKING MACHINE’’
T was absolutely impossible. Twenty-five chess
masters from the world at large, foregathered for
the annual championships, unanimously declared it
impossible, and unanimity on any given point is an
unusual mental condition for chess masters. Not one
would concede for an instant that it was within the range
of human achievement. Some grew red in the face as
they argued it, others smiled loftily and were silent;
still others dismissed the matter in a word as wholly ab-
surd.
A casual remark by the distinguished scientist and
logician, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, pro-
voked the discussion. He had, in the past, aroused
bitter disputes by some chance remark; in fact had been
once a sort of controversial center of the sciences. It
had been due to his modest announcement of a startling
and unorthodox hypothesis that he had been invited to
vacate the chair of Philosophy in a great university.


2 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Later that university had felt honored when he accepted
its degree of LL. D.
For a score of years, educational and scientific in-
stitutions of the world had amused themselves by crowd-
ing degrees upon him. He had initials that stood for
things he couldn’t pronounce; degrees from France,
England, Russia, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Spain.
These were expressed recognition of the fact that his
was the foremost brain in the sciences. The imprint
of his crabbed personality lay heavily on half a dozen of
its branches. Finally there came a time when argu-
ment was respectfully silent in the face of one of his con-
clusions. \
The remark which had arrayed the chess masters of
the world into so formidable and unanimous a dissent
was made by Professor Van Dusen in the presence of
three other gentlemen of note. One of these, Dr.
Charles Elbert, happened to be a chess enthusiast.
“Chess is a shameless perversion of the functions of
the brain,” was Professor Van Dusen’s declaration in
his perpetually irritated voice. “It is a sheer waste of
effort, greater because it is possibly the most difficult
of all abstract problems. Of course logic will solve it.
Logic will solve any problem—not most of them but any
problem. A thorough understanding of its rules would
enable anyone to defeat your greatest chess players.
It would be inevitable, just as inevitable as that two and


“The Thinking Machine” 3
two make four, not some times but all the time. I don’t
know chess because I never do useless things, but I
could take a few hours of competent instruction and
defeat a man who has devoted his life to it. His mind
is cramped; bound down to the logic of chess. Mine is
not; mine employs logic in its widest scope.”
Dr. Elbert shook his head vigorously.
“It is impossible,” he asserted.
“Nothing is impossible,” snapped the scientist.
“The human mind can do anything. It is all we have
to lift us above the brute creation. For Heaven’s sake
leave us that.”
The aggressive tone, the uncompromising egotism
brought a flush to Dr. Elbert's face. Professor Van
Dusen affected many persons that way, particularly
those fellow savants who, themselves men of distinction,
had ideas of their own.
“Do you know the purposes of chess? Its countless
combinations?” asked Dr. Elbert.
“No,” was the crabbed reply. “I know nothing
whatever of the game beyond the general purpose which,
I understand to be, to move certain pieces in certain
directions to stop an opponent from moving his King.
Is that correct?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Elbert slowly, “but I never heard it
stated just that way before.”
“Then, if that is correct, I maintain that the true


4 The Thinking Machine on the Case
logician can defeat the chess expert by the pure mechan-
ical rules of logic. I’ll take a few hours some time, ac-
quaint myself with the moves of the pieces, and defeat
you to convince you.”
Professor Van Dusen glared savagely into the eyes of
Dr. Elbert.
“Not me,” said Dr. Elbert. “You say anyone—you
for instance, might defeat the greatest chess player.
Would you be willing to meet the greatest chess player
after you acquaint yourself with the game?”
“Certainly,” said the scientist. “I have frequently
found it necessary to make a fool of myself to convince
people. I’ll do it again.”
This, then, was the acrimonious beginning of the
discussion which aroused chess masters and brought
open dissent from eminent men who had not dared for
years to dispute any assertion by the distinguished Pro-
fessor Van Dusen. It was arranged that at the con-
clusion of the championships Professor Van Dusen should
meet the winner. This happened to be Tschaikowsky,
the Russian, who had been champion for half a dozen
years.
After this expected result of the tournament Hillsbury,
a noted American master, spent a morning with Professor
Van Dusen in the latter's modest apartments on Beacon
Hill. He left there with a sadly puzzled face; that after-
noon Professor Van Dusen met the Russian champion.
. . "


“The Thinking Machine” 5
The newspapers had said a great deal about the affair
and hundreds were present to witness the game.
There was a little murmur of astonishment when
Professor Van Dusen appeared. He was slight, almost
child-like in body, and his thin shoulders seemed to droop
beneath the weight of his enormous head. He wore a
number eight hat. His brow rose straight and dome-
like and a heavy shock of long, yellow hair gave him
almost a grotesque appearance. The eyes were narrow
slits of blue squinting eternally through thick spectacles;
the face was small, clean shaven, drawn and white
with the pallor of the student. His lips made a per-
fectly straight line. His hands were remarkable for
their whiteness, their flexibility, and for the length of the
slender fingers. One glance showed that physical de-
velopment had never entered into the schedule of the
scientist's fifty years of life.
The Russian smiled as he sat down at the chess table.
He felt that he was humoring a crank. The other
masters were grouped near by, curiously expectant.
Professor Van Dusen began the game, opening with a
Queen's gambit. At his fifth move, made without the
slightest hesitation, the smile left the Russian's face. At
the tenth, the masters grew tensely eager. The Russian
champion was playing for honor now. Professor Van
Dusen’s fourteenth move was King's castle to Queen’s four.
“Check,” he announced.


6 The Thinking Machine on the Case
After a long study of the board the Russian protected
his King with a Knight. Professor Van Dusen noted
the play then leaned back in his chair with finger tips
pressed together. His eyes left the board and dreamily
studied the ceiling. For at least ten minutes there was
no sound, no movement, then:
“Mate in fifteen moves,” he said quietly.
There was a quick gasp of astonishment. It took
the practiced eyes of the masters several minutes to verify
the announcement. But the Russian champion saw
and leaned back in his chair a little white and dazed.
He was not astonished; he was helplessly floundering
in a maze of incomprehensible things. Suddenly he
arose and grasped the slender hand of his conqueror.
“You have never played chess before?” he asked.
“Never.”
“Mon Dieu! You are not a man; you are a brain-
a machine—a thinking machine.”
“It’s a child’s game,” said the scientist abruptly.
There was no note of exultation in his voice; it was still
the irritable, impersonal tone which was habitual.
This, then, was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van
Dusen, Ph. D., LL.D., F. R. S., M. D., etc., etc. This
is how he came to be known to the world at large as
The Thinking Machine. The Russian's phrase had
been applied to the scientist as a title by a newspaper
reporter, Hutchinson Hatch. It had stuck.


CHAPTER II
THE MOTOR BOAT
APTAIN Hank Barber, master mariner, gripped
C the bow-rail of the Liddy Ann and peered off
through the semi-fog of the early morning at a
dark streak slashing along through the gray-green waters.
It was a motor boat of long, graceful lines; and a single
figure, that of a man, sat upright at her helm staring un-
compromisingly ahead. She nosed through a roller,
staggered a little, righted herself and sped on as a sheet
of spray swept over her. The helmsman sat motionless,
heedless of the stinging splash of wind-driven water in
his face.
“She sure is a-goin’ some,” remarked Captain Hank,
reflectively. “By Ginger! If she keeps it up into
Boston Harbor she won’t stop this side o’ the Public
Gardens.”
Captain Hank watched the boat curiously until she
was swallowed up, lost in the mist, then turned to his
own affairs. He was a couple of miles out of Boston
Harbor, going in; it was six o'clock of a gray morning.
A few minutes after the disappearance of the motor boat
Captain Hank's attention was attracted by the hoarse
shriek of a whistle two hundred yards away. He dimly

7


8 The Thinking Machine on the Case
traced through the mist the gigantic lines of a great
vessel—it seemed to be a ship of war.
It was only a few minutes after Captain Hank lost
sight of the motor boat that she was again sighted, this
time as she flashed into Boston Harbor at full speed.
She fled past, almost under the prow of a pilot boat,
going out, and was hailed. At the mess table later the
pilot's man on watch made a remark about her.
“Goin'! Well, wasn’t she though! Never saw
one thing pass so close to another in my life without
scrubbin’ the paint offen it. She was so close up I
could spit in her, and when I spoke the feller didn’t even
look up—just kept a-goin’. I told him a few things
that was good for his soul.”
Inside Boston Harbor the motor boat performed a
miracle. Pursuing a course which was singularly erratic
and at a speed more than dangerous she reeled on through
the surge of the sea regardless alike of fog, the proximity
of other vessels and the heavy wash from larger craft.
Here she narrowly missed a tug; there she skimmed by
a slow-moving tramp and a warning shout was raised;
a fisherman swore at her as only a fisherman can. And
finally when she passed into a clear space, seemingly
headed for a dock at top speed, she was the most unan-
imously damned craft that ever came into Boston Harbor.
“Guess that's a through boat,” remarked an aged
salt, facetiously as he gazed at her from a dock. “If


The Motor Boat 9
that durned fool don’t take some o’ the speed offen her
she'll go through all right—wharf an all.”
Still the man in the boat made no motion; the whizz
of her motor, plainly heard in a sudden silence, was
undiminished. Suddenly the tumult of warning was
renewed. Only a chance would prevent a smash.
Then Big John Dawson appeared on the string piece of
the dock. Big John had a voice that was noted from
Newfoundland to Norfolk for its depth and width, and
possessed objurgatory powers which were at once the
awe and admiration of the fishing fleet.
“You ijit!” he bellowed at the impassive helmsman.
“Shut off that power an’ throw yer hellum.”
There was no response; the boat came on directly
toward the dock where Big John and his fellows were
gathered. The fishermen and loungers saw that a
crash was coming and scattered from the string piece.
“The durned fool,” said Big John, resignedly.
Then came the crash, the rending of timbers, and
silence save for the grinding whir of the motor. Big
John ran to the end of the wharf and peered down. The
speed of the motor had driven the boat half way upon a
float which careened perilously. The man had been
thrown forward and lay huddled up face downward and
motionless on the float. The dirty water lapped at him
greedily.
Big John was the first man on the float. He crept


10 The Thinking Machine on the Case
cautiously to the huddled figure and turned it face up-
ward. He gazed for an instant into wide staring eyes then
turned to the curious ones peering down from the dock.
“No wonder he didn’t stop,” he said in an awed tone.
“The durned fool is dead.”
Willing hands gave aid and after a minute the lifeless
figure lay on the dock. It was that of a man in uniform
—the uniform of a foreign navy. He was apparently
forty-five years old, large and powerful of frame with the
sun-browned face of a seaman. The jet black of mus-
tache and goatee was startling against the dead color of
the face. The hair was tinged with gray; and on the
back of the left hand was a single letter—“D”-tattooed
in blue.
“He’s French,” said Big John authoritatively, “an’
that's the uniform of a Cap'n in the French Navy.” He
looked puzzled a moment as he stared at the figure.
“An’ they ain’t been a French man-o’-war in Boston
Harbor for six months.”
After awhile the police came and with them Detective
Mallory, the big man of the Bureau of Criminal Investi-
gation; and finally Dr. Clough, Medical Examiner.
While the detective questioned the fishermen and those
who had witnessed the crash Dr. Clough examined the
body.
“An autopsy will be necessary,” he announced as he
8.I'OSe.


The Motor Boat 11
“How long has he been dead?” asked the detective.
“Eight or ten hours, I should say. The cause of
death doesn’t appear. There is no shot or knife wound
so far as I can see.”
Detective Mallory closely examined the dead man’s
clothing. There was no name or tailor mark; the linen
was new; the name of the maker of the shoes had been
ripped out with a knife. There was nothing in the pock-
ets, not a piece of paper or even a vagrant coin.
Then Detective Mallory turned his attention to the
boat. Both hull and motor were of French manufacture.
Long, deep scratches on each side showed how the name
had been removed. Inside the boat the detective saw
something white and picked it up. It was a handker-
chief—a woman’s handkerchief, with the initials “E. M.
B.” in a corner. -
“Ah, a woman’s in it!” he soliloquized.
Then the body was removed and carefully secluded
from the prying eyes of the press. Thus no picture of the
dead man appeared. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, and
others asked many questions. Detective Mallory hinted
vaguely at international questions—the dead man was a
French officer, he said, and there might be something
back of it.
“I can’t tell you all of it,” he said wisely, “but my
theory is complete. It is murder. The victim was
captain of a French man-of-war. His body was placed
2


12 The Thinking Machine on the Case
in a motor boat, possibly a part of the fittings of the war
ship and the boat set adrift. I can say no more.”
“Your theory is complete then,” Hatch remarked
casually, “except the name of the man, the manner of
death, the motive, the name of his ship, the presence of
the handkerchief and the precise reason why the body
should be disposed of in this fashion instead of being
cast into the sea P”
The detective snorted. Hatch went away to make
some inquiries on his own account. Within half a dozen
hours he had satisfied himself by telegraph that no
French war craft had been within five hundred miles
of Boston for six months. Thus the mystery grew deeper;
a thousand questions to which there seemed no answer
arOSe.
At this point, the day following the events related,
the problem of the motor boat came to the attention of
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, The Thinking
Machine. The scientist listened closely but petulantly
to the story Hatch told.
“Has there been an autopsy yet?” he asked at last.
>
“It is set for eleven o'clock today,” replied the re-
porter. “It is now after ten.”
“I shall attend it,” said the scientist.
Medical Examiner Clough welcomed the eminent
Professor Van Dusen’s proffer of assistance in his ca-
pacity of M. D., while Hatch and other reporters impa-


The Motor Boat 13
tiently cooled their toes on the curb. In two hours the
autopsy had been completed. The Thinking Machine
amused himself by studying the insignia on the dead
man’s uniform, leaving it to Dr. Clough to make a start-
ling statement to the press. The man had not been
murdered; he had died of heart failure. There was no
poison in the stomach, nor was there a knife or pistol
wound.
Then the inquisitive press poured in a flood of ques-
tions. Who had scratched off the name of the boat?
Dr. Clough didn’t know. Why had it been scratched
off? Still he didn’t know. How did it happen that
the name of the maker of the shoes had been ripped out?
He shrugged his shoulders. What did the handker-
chief have to do with it? Really he couldn’t conjecture.
Was there any inkling of the dead man’s identity? Not
so far as he knew. Any scar on the body which might
lead to identification ? No.
Hatch made a few mental comments on officials
in general and skilfully steered The Thinking Machine
away from the other reporters.
“Did that man die of heart failure?” he asked,
flatly.
“He did not,” was the curt reply. “It was poison.”
“But the Medical Examiner specifically stated that
there was no poison in the stomach,” persisted the re-
porter.


14 The Thinking Machine on the Case
The scientist did not reply. Hatch struggled with
and suppressed a desire to ask more questions. On
reaching home the scientist's first act was to consult an
encyclopedia. After several minutes he turned to the
reporter with an inscrutable face.
“Of course the idea of a natural death in this case is
absurd,” he said, shortly. “Every fact is against it.
Now, Mr. Hatch, please get for me all the local and New
York newspapers of the day the body was found—not
the day after. Send or bring them to me, then come
again at five this afternoon.”
“But—but—” Hatch blurted.
“I can say nothing until I know all the facts,” inter-
rupted The Thinking Machine.
Hatch personally delivered the specified newspapers
into the hands of The Thinking Machine—this man
who never read newspapers—and went away. It was
an afternoon of agony; an agony of impatience.
Promptly at five o’clock he was ushered into Professor
Van Dusen's laboratory. He sat half smothered in
newspapers, and popped up out of the heap aggressively.
“It was murder, Mr. Hatch,” he exclaimed, suddenly.
“Murder by an extraordinary method.”
“Who—who is the man P. How was he killed ?”
asked Hatch.
“His name is—” the scientist began, then paused.
“I presume your office has the book “Who’s Who In


The Motor Boat 15
America? Please 'phone and ask them to give you the
record of Langham Dudley.”
“Is he the dead man P” Hatch demanded quickly.
“I don’t know,” was the reply.
Hatch went to the telephone. Ten minutes later he
returned to find The Thinking Machine dressed to go out.
“Langham Dudley is a ship owner, fifty-one years
old,” the reporter read from notes he had taken. “He
was once a sailor before the mast and later became a ship
owner in a small way. He was successful in his small
undertakings and for fifteen years has been a millionaire.
He has a certain social position, partly through his wife
whom he married a year and a half ago. She was
Edith Marston Belding, a daughter of the famous Belding
family. He has an estate on the North Shore.”
“Very good,” commented the scientist. “Now we
will find out something about how this man was killed.”
At North Station they took train for a small place on
the North Shore, thirty-five miles from Boston. There
The Thinking Machine made some inquiries and finally
they entered a lumbersome carry-all. After a drive
of half an hour through the dark they saw the lights
of what seemed to be a pretentious country place. Some-
where off to the right Hatch heard the roar of the rest-
less ocean.
“Wait for us,” commanded The Thinking Machine
as the carry-all stopped.


CHAPTER III
THE WOMAN IN THE CASE
HE Thinking Machine ascended the steps, followed
T by Hatch, and rang. After a minute or so the
door was opened and the light flooded out.
Standing before them was a Japanese—a man of inde-
terminate age with the graven face of his race.
“Is Mr. Dudley in P” asked The Thinking Machine.
“He has not that pleasure,” replied the Japanese,
and Hatch smiled at the queerly turned phrase.
“Mrs. Dudley?” asked the scientist.
“Mrs. Dudley is attiring herself in clothing,” replied
the Japanese. “If you will be pleased to enter.”
The Thinking Machine handed him a card and
was shown into a reception room. The Japanese placed
chairs for them with courteous precision and disappeared.
After a short pause there was a rustle of silken skirts
on the stairs, and a woman—Mrs. Dudley—entered.
She was not pretty; she was stunning rather, tall, of
superb figure and crowned with a glory of black hair.
“Mr. Van Dusen P” she asked as she glanced at the
card.
The Thinking Machine bowed low, albeit awk-
wardly. Mrs. Dudley sank down on a couch and the
16


The Woman in the Case 17
two men resumed their seats. There was a little pause;
Mrs. Dudley broke the silence at last.
“Well, Mr. Van Dusen, if you ” she began.
“You have not seen a newspaper for several days?”
asked The Thinking Machine, abruptly.
“No,” she replied, wonderingly, almost smiling.
“Why?”
“Can you tell me just where your husband is ?”
The Thinking Machine squinted at her in that
aggressive way which was habitual. A quick flush
crept into her face; and grew deeper at the sharp scrutiny.
Inquiry lay in her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she replied at last. “In Boston, I
presume.”
“You haven’t seen him since the night of the ball ?”
“No. I think it was half past one o’clock that
night.”
“Is his motor boat here?”
“Really, I don’t know. I presume it is. May I
ask the purpose of this questioning?”
The Thinking Machine squinted hard at her for
half a minute. Hatch was uncomfortable, half resentful
even, at the agitation of the woman and the sharp, cold
tone of his companion.
“On the night of the ball,” the scientist went on,
passing the question, “Mr. Dudley cut his left arm just
above the wrist. It was only a slight wound. A piece


18 The Thinking Machine on the Case
of court plaster was put on it. Do you know if he put
it on himself? If not, who did P”
“I put it on,” replied Mrs. Dudley, unhesitatingly,
wonderingly.
“And whose court plaster was it?”
“Mine—some I had in my dressing room. Why?”
The scientist arose and paced across the floor,
glancing once out the hall door. Mrs. Dudley looked
at Hatch inquiringly and was about to speak when The
Thinking Machine stopped beside her and placed his
slim fingers on her wrist. She did not resent the
action; was only curious if one might judge from her
eyes.
“Are you prepared for a shock?” the scientist
asked.
“What is it?” she demanded in sudden terror.
* >
“This suspense
“Your husband is dead—murdered—poisoned!” said
the scientist with sudden brutality. His fingers still
lay on her pulse. “The court plaster which you put on
his arm and which came from your room was covered
with a virulent poison which was instantly transfused
into his blood.”
Mrs. Dudley did not start or scream. Instead she
stared up at The Thinking Machine a moment, her
face became pallid, a little shiver passed over her. Then
she fell back on the couch in a dead faint.


The Woman in the Case 19
“Good!” remarked The Thinking Machine com-
placently. And then as Hatch started up suddenly:
“Shut that door,” he commanded.
The reporter did so. When he turned back his
companion was leaning over the unconscious woman.
After a moment he left her and went to a window where
he stood looking out. As Hatch watched he saw the
color coming back into Mrs. Dudley's face. At last
she opened her eyes.
“Don’t get hysterical,” The Thinking Machine
directed calmly. “I know you had nothing whatever
to do with your husband's death. I want only a little
assistance to find out who killed him.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Mrs. Dudley. “Dead!
Dead!”
Suddenly tears leapt from her eyes and for several
minutes the two men respected her grief. When at
last she raised her face her eyes were red, but there was
a rigid expression about the mouth.
“If I can be of any service—” she began.
“Is this the boat house I see from this window?”
asked The Thinking Machine. “That long, low build-
ing with the light over the door?”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Dudley.
“You say you don’t know if the motor boat is there
now P”
“No, I don't.”


20 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Will you ask your Japanese servant, and if he
doesn’t know let him go see, please?”
Mrs. Dudley arose and touched an electric button.
After a moment the Japanese appeared at the
door.
“Osaka, do you know if Mr. Dudley's motor boat
is in the boat house?” she asked.
“No, honorable lady.”
“Will you go yourself and see?”
Osaka bowed low and left the room, closing the door
gently behind him. The Thinking Machine again
crossed to the window and sat down staring out into the
night. Mrs. Dudley asked questions, scores of them,
and he answered them in order until she knew the details
of the finding of her husband’s body—that is, the details
the public knew. She was interrupted by the reappear-
ance of Osaka.
“I do not find the motor boat in the house, honorable
lady.”
“That is all,” said the scientist.
Again Osaka bowed and retired.
“Now, Mrs. Dudley,” resumed The Thinking
Machine almost gently, “we know your husband wore
a French naval costume at the masked ball. May I
ask what you wore?”
*
“It was a Queen Elizabeth costume,” replied Mrs.
Dudley, “very heavy with a long train.”


The Woman in the Case 21
“And if you could give me a photograph of Mr.
Dudley?”
Mrs. Dudley left the room an instant and returned
with a cabinet photograph. Hatch and the scientist
looked at it together; it was unmistakably the man in
the motor boat.
“You can do nothing yourself,” said The Thinking
Machine at last, and he moved as if to go. “Within a
few hours we will have the guilty person. You may
rest assured that your name will be in no way brought
into the matter unpleasantly.”
Hatch glanced at his companion; he thought he
detected a sinister note in the soothing voice, but the
face expressed nothing. Mrs. Dudley ushered them into
the hall; Osaka stood at the front door. They passed
out and the door closed behind them.
Hatch started down the steps but The Thinking
Machine stopped at the door and tramped up and down.
The reporter turned back in astonishment. In the dim
reflected light he saw the scientist's finger raised, enjoin-
ing silence, then saw him lean forward suddenly with
his ear pressed to the door. After a little he rapped
gently. The door was opened by Osaka who obeyed a
beckoning motion of the scientist's hand and came out.
Silently he was led off the veranda into the yard; he
appeared in no way surprised.
“Your master, Mr. Dudley, has been murdered,”


22 The Thinking Machine on the Case
declared The Thinking Machine quietly, to Osaka.
“We know that Mrs. Dudley killed him,” he went on
as Hatch stared, “but I have told her she is not suspected.
We are not officers and cannot arrest her. Can you go
with us to Boston, without the knowledge of anyone here
and tell what you know of the quarrel between husband
and wife to the police?”
Osaka looked placidly into the eager face.
“I had the honor to believe that the circumstances
would not be recognized,” he said finally. “Since you
know, I will go.”
“We will drive down a little way and wait for you.”
The Japanese disappeared into the house again.
Hatch was too astounded to speak, but followed The
Thinking Machine into the carry-all. It drove away
a hundred yards and stopped. After a few minutes an
impalpable shadow came toward them through the night.
The scientist peered out as it came up.
“Osaka?” he asked softly.
“Yes.”
An hour later the three men were on a train, Boston
bound. Once comfortably settled the scientist turned
to the Japanese.
“Now if you will please tell me just what happened
the night of the ball?” he asked, “and the incidents
leading up to the disagreement between Mr. and Mrs.
Dudley?”


The Woman in the Case 23
“He drank elaborately,” Osaka explained reluct-
antly, in his quaint English, “and when drinking he was
brutal to the honorable lady. Twice with my own eyes
I saw him strike her—once in Japan where I entered
his service while they were on a wedding journey, and
once here. On the night of the ball he was immeasurably
intoxicated, and when he danced he fell down to the
floor. The honorable lady was chagrined and angry—
she had been angry before. There was some quarrel
which I am not comprehensive of. They had been
widely divergent for several months. It was, of course,
not prominent in the presence of others.”
“And the cut on his arm where the court plaster was
applied?” asked the scientist. “Just how did he get
that ?”
“It was when he fell down,” continued the Japanese.
“He reached to embrace a carved chair and the carved
wood cut his arm. I assisted him to his feet and the
honorable lady sent me to her room to get court plaster.
I acquired it from her dressing table and she placed it
on the cut.”
“That makes the evidence against her absolutely
conclusive,” remarked The Thinking Machine, as if
finally. There was a little pause, and then: “Do you
happen to know just how Mrs. Dudley placed the body
in the boat?”
“I have not that honor,” said Osaka. “Indeed


24 The Thinking Machine on the Case
I am not comprehensive of anything that happened after
the court plaster was put on except that Mr. Dudley
was affected some way and went out of the house. Mrs.
Dudley, too, was not in the ball room for ten minutes
or so afterwards.”
Hutchinson Hatch stared frankly into the face of
The Thinking Machine; there was nothing to be read
there. Still deeply thoughtful Hatch heard the brake-
man bawl “Boston” and mechanically followed the
scientist and Osaka out of the station into a cab. They
were driven immediately to Police Headquarters. De-
tective Mallory was just about to go home when they
entered his office.
“It may enlighten you, Mr. Mallory,” announced
the scientist coldly, “to know that the man in the motor
boat was not a French naval officer who died of natural
causes—he was Langham Dudley, a millionaire ship
owner. He was murdered. It just happens that I
know the person who did it.”
The detective arose in astonishment and stared at
the slight figure before him inquiringly; he knew the
man too well to dispute any assertion he might make.
“Who is the murderer?” he asked.
The Thinking Machine closed the door and the
spring lock clicked.
“That man there,” he remarked calmly, turning on
Osaka.


The Woman in the Case Q5
For one brief instant there was a pause and silence;
then the detective advanced upon the Japanese with
hand outstretched. The agile Osaka leapt suddenly,
as a snake strikes; there was a quick, fierce struggle
and Detective Mallory sprawled on the floor. There
had been just a twist of the wrist—a trick of jiu jitsu-
and Osaka had flung himself at the locked door. As
he fumbled there Hatch, deliberately and without
compunction, raised a chair and brought it down on
his head. Osaka sank down without a sound.
It was an hour before they brought him around
again. Meanwhile the detective had patted and petted
half a dozen suddenly acquired bruises, and had then
searched Osaka. He found nothing to interest him
save a small bottle. He uncorked it and started to
smell it when The Thinking Machine snatched it away.
“You fool, that'll kill you!” he exclaimed.
sk sk sk >k sk >k sk
Osaka sat, lashed hand and foot to a chair, in Detec-
tive Mallory's office—so placed by the detective for safe
keeping. His face was no longer expressionless; there
were fear and treachery and cunning there. So he
listened, perforce, to the statement of the case by The
Thinking Machine who leaned back in his chair, squint-
ing steadily upward and with his long, slender fingers
pressed together.
“Two and two make four, not some times but all


Q6 The Thinking Machine on the Case
the time,” he began at last as if disputing some previous
assertion. “As the figure two, wholly disconnected
from any other, gives small indication of a result, so is
an isolated fact of little consequence. Yet that fact
added to another, and the resulting fact added to a
third, and so on, will give a final result. That result, if
every fact is considered, must be correct. Thus any
problem may be solved by logic; logic is inevitable.
“In this case the facts, considered singly, might
have been compatible with either a natural death,
suicide or murder—considered together they proved
murder. The climax of this proof was the removal
of the maker's name from the dead man’s shoes, and a
fact strongly contributary was the attempt to destroy
the identity of the boat. A subtle mind lay back of it
all.”
“I so regarded it,” said Detective Mallory. “I
was confident of murder until the Medical Examiner—”
“We prove a murder,” The Thinking Machine went
on serenely. “The method? I was with Dr. Clough
at the autopsy. There was no shot, or knife wound,
no poison in the stomach. Knowing there was murder
I sought further. Then I found the method in a slight,
jagged wound on the left arm. It had been covered
with court plaster. The heart showed constriction with-
out apparent cause, and while Dr. Clough examined it
I took off this court plaster. Its odor, an unusual


The Woman in the Case 27
one, told me that poison had been transfused into the
blood through the wound. So two and two had made
four.
“Then—what poison? A knowledge of botany
aided me. I recognized faintly the trace of an odor
of an herb which is not only indigenous to, but grows
exclusively in Japan. Thus a Japanese poison. Anal-
ysis later in my laboratory proved it was a Japanese
poison, virulent, and necessarily slow to act unless it is
placed directly in an artery. The poison on the court
plaster and that you took from Osaka is identical.”
The scientist uncorked the bottle and permitted a
single drop of a green liquid to fall on his handkerchief.
He allowed a minute or more for evaporation then handed
it to Detective Mallory who sniffed at it from a respectful
distance. Then The Thinking Machine produced the
bit of court plaster he had taken from the dead man’s
arm, and again the detective sniffed.
“The same,” the scientist resumed as he touched a
lighted match to the handkerchief and watched it
crumble to ashes, “and so powerful that in its pure
state mere inhalation is fatal. I permitted Dr. Clough
to make public his opinion—heart failure—after the
autopsy for obvious reasons. It would reassure the
murderer for instance if he saw it printed, and besides
Dudley did die from heart failure; the poison caused it.
“Next came identification. Mr. Hatch learned that
3


28 The Thinking Machine on the Case *
no French war ship had been within hundreds of miles
of Boston for months. The one seen by Captain Barber
might have been one of our own. This man was sup-
posed to be a French naval officer, and had been dead
less than eight hours. Obviously he did not come from
a ship of his own country. Then from where?
“I know nothing of uniforms, yet I examined the
insignia on the arms and shoulders closely after which
I consulted my encyclopedia. I learned that while the
uniform was more French than anything else it was
really the uniform of no country, because it was not
correct. The insignia were mixed.
“Then what? There were several possibilities,
among them a fancy dress ball was probable. Absolute
accuracy would not be essential there. Where had
there been a fancy dress ball? I trusted to the news-
papers to tell me that. They did. A short dispatch
from a place on the North Shore stated that on the
night before the man was found dead there had been
a fancy dress ball at the Langham Dudley estate.
“Now it is as necessary to remember every fact in
solving a problem as it is to consider every figure in
arithmetic. Dudley! Here was the “D” tattooed on
the dead man’s hand. “Who’s Who’ showed that
Langham Dudley married Edith Marston Belding.
Here was the ‘E. M. B.’ on the handkerchief in the boat.
Langham Dudley was a ship owner, had been a sailor,


The Woman in the Case 29
was a millionaire. Possibly this was his own boat built
in France.”
Detective Mallory was staring into the eyes of The
Thinking Machine in frank admiration; Osaka to whom
the narrative had thus far been impersonal, gazed, gazed
as if fascinated. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was drink-
ing in every word greedily.
“We went to the Dudley place,” the scientist resumed
after a moment. “This Japanese opened the door.
Japanese poison! Two and two were still making four.
But I was first interested in Mrs. Dudley. She showed
no agitation and told me frankly that she placed the
court plaster on her husband’s arm, and that it came
from her room. There was instantly a doubt as to her
connection with the murder; her immediate frankness
aroused it.
“Finally, with my hand on her pulse—which was
normal—I told her as brutally as I could that her husband
had been murdered. Her pulse jumped frightfully
and as I told her the cause of death it wavered, weakened
and she fainted. Now if she had known her husband
were dead—even if she had killed him—a mere state-
ment of his death would not have caused that pulse.
Further I doubt if she could have disposed of her hus-
band's body in the motor boat. He was a large man
and the manner of her dress even, was against this.
Therefore she was innocent.


30 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“And then? The Japanese, Osaka, here. I could
see the door of the boat house from the room where we
were. Mrs. Dudley asked Osaka if Mr. Dudley's
boat were in the house. He said he didn’t know. Then
she sent him to see. He returned and said the boat
was not there, yet he had not gone to the boat house at all.
Ergo, he knew the boat was not there. He may have
learned it from another servant, still it was a point
against him.”
Again the scientist paused and squinted at the
Japanese. For a moment Osaka withstood the gaze,
then his beady eyes shifted and he moved uncomfortably.
“I tricked Osaka into coming here by a ludicrously
simple expedient,” The Thinking Machine went on
steadily. “On the train I asked if he knew just how
Mrs. Dudley got the body of her husband into the boat.
Remember at this point he was not supposed to know
that the body had been in a boat at all. He said he
didn’t know and by that very answer admitted that he
knew the body had been placed in the boat. He knew
because he put it there himself. He didn’t merely
throw it in the water because he had sense enough to
know if the tide didn’t take it out it would rise, and pos-
sibly be found.
“After the slight injury Mr. Dudley evidently wan-
dered out toward the boat house. The poison was
working, and perhaps he fell. Then this man removed


32 The Thinking Machine on the Case
plained The Thinking Machine, easily. “The murder
had been a long cherished project, such a one as revenge
through love would have inspired.”
It was a day or so later that Hutchinson Hatch called
to inform The Thinking Machine that Osaka had con-
fessed and had given the motive for the murder. It was
not a nice story.
“One of the most astonishing things to me,” Hatch
added, “is the complete case of circumstantial evidence
against Mrs. Dudley, beginning with the quarrel and
leading to the application of the poison with her own
hands. I believe she would have been convicted on the
actual circumstantial evidence had you not shown con-
clusively that Osaka did it.”
“Circumstantial fiddlesticks!” snapped The Think-
ing Machine. “I wouldn’t convict a yellow dog of
stealing jam on circumstantial evidence alone, even if
he had jam all over his nose.” He squinted truculently
at Hatch for a moment. “In the first place well be-
haved dogs don’t eat jam,” he added more mildly.


CHAPTER IV
DRESSING ROOM “A.”
HAT strange, seemingly inexplicable chain of cir-
T cumstances which had to do with the mysterious
disappearance of the famous actress, Irene Wallack,
from her dressing room in a Springfield theater during
a performance, while the echo of tumultuous apprecia-
tion still rang in her ears, was one of the most fascinat-
ing problems which was not purely scientific that The
Thinking Machine was ever asked to solve. The
scientist's aid was enlisted in this singular mystery by
Hutchinson Hatch, reporter.
“There is something far beyond the ordinary in this
affair,” Hatch explained to the scientist. “A woman
has disappeared, evaporated into thin air in the hearing,
almost in sight, of her friends. The police can make
nothing of it. It is a problem for a greater mind than
theirs.”
Professor Van Dusen waved the newspaper man to a
seat and himself sank back into a great cushioned chair in
which his diminutive figure seemed even more child-like
than it really was.
“Tell me the story,” he commanded petulantly.
“All of it.”
33


34 The Thinking Machine on the Case
The enormous yellow head rested against the chair
back, the blue eyes squinted steadily upward, the slender
fingers were pressed tip to tip. The Thinking Machine
was in a receptive mood.
“Miss Wallack is thirty years old and beautiful,”
the reporter began. “As an actress she has won recog-
nition not only in this country but in England. You
may have read something of her in the daily papers,
and if >>
“I never read the papers unless I am compelled to,”
the other interrupted curtly. “Go on.”
“She is unmarried, and so far as anyone knows, had
no immediate intention of changing her condition,”
Hatch resumed, staring curiously at the thin face of the
scientist. “I presume she had admirers—all beau-
tiful women of the stage have—but she is one whose life
has been perfectly clean, whose record is an open book.
I tell you this because it might have a bearing on your
conclusion as to a possible reason for her disappearance.
“Now the actual circumstances of that disappearance.
Miss Wallack has been playing a Shakespearean reper-
toire. Last week she was in Springfield. On Saturday
night, which concluded her engagement there, she ap-
peared as Rosalind in ‘As You Like It. The house
was crowded. She played the first two acts amid great
enthusiasm, and this despite the fact that she was suf-
fering intensely from headache to which she was subject


Dressing Room “A” 35
at times. After the second act she returned to her dress-
ing room and just before the curtain went up for the
third the stage manager called her. She replied that
she would be out immediately. There seems no possible
shadow of a doubt but that it was her voice.
“Rosalind does not appear in the third act until the
curtain has been up for six minutes. When Miss Wal-
lack's cue came she did not answer it. The stage man-
ager rushed to her door and again called her. There
was no answer. Then, fearing that she might have
fainted, he went in. She was not there. A hurried
search was made without result, and the stage manager,
finally, was compelled to announce to the audience that
the sudden illness of the star would cause a slight delay;
that he hoped within ten or fifteen minutes she would be
able to resume her part.
“The curtain was lowered and the search resumed.
Every nook and corner back of the footlights was gone
over. The stage doorkeeper, William Meegan, had
seen no one go out. He and a policeman had been stand-
ing at the stage door talking for at least twenty minutes.
It is, therefore, conclusive that Miss Wallack did not
leave the theater by the stage door. The only other
way it was possible to leave the stage was over the foot-
lights. Of course she didn’t go that way. Yet no trace
of her has been found. Where is she?”
“The windows?” asked The Thinking Machine.


36 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“The stage is below the street level,” Hatch ex-
plained. “The window of her dressing room, Room A,
is small and barred with iron. It opens into an air
shaft that goes straight up for ten feet, and that is covered
with an iron grating. The other windows on the stage
are not only inaccessible but are also barred with iron.
She could not have approached either of these windows
without being seen by other members of the company
or the stage hands.”
“Under the stage?” suggested the scientist.
“Nothing,” the reporter went on. “It is a large
cemented basement which was vacant. It was searched
because there was, of course, a chance that Miss Wallack
might have become temporarily unbalanced and wan-
dered down there. There was even a search made of the
‘flies’—that is the galleries over the stage where the men
who work the drop-curtains are stationed.”
There was silence for a long time. The Thinking
Machine twiddled his fingers and continued to stare up-
ward. He had not looked at the reporter. He broke
the silence after a time.
“How was Miss Wallack dressed at the time of her
disappearance?”
“In doublet and hose—that is, tights,” the news-
paper man responded. “She wears that costume from
the second act until practically the end of the play.”
“Was all her street clothing in her room?”


Dressing Room “A” 37
“Yes, everything, spread across an unopened trunk
of costumes. It was all as if she had left the room to
answer her cue—all in order even to an open box of
candy on her table.”
“No sign of a struggle?”
“No.”
“Or trace of blood P”
“Nothing.”
“Her maid P Did she have one?”
“Oh, yes. I neglected to tell you that the maid,
Gertrude Manning, had gone home immediately after
the first act. She grew suddenly ill and was excused.”
The Thinking Machine turned his squint eyes on
the reporter for the first time.
“Ill?” he repeated. “What was the matter?”
“That I can’t say,” replied the reporter.
“Where is she now P”
“I don’t know. Everyone forgot all about her in the
excitement about Miss Wallack.”
“What kind of candy was it?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know that either.”
“Where was it bought?”
The reporter shrugged his shoulders; that was some-
thing else he didn’t know. The Thinking Machine
shot out the questions aggressively, staring meanwhile
steadily at Hatch who squirmed uncomfortably.
“Where is the candy now?” demanded the scientist.


38 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Again Hatch shrugged his shoulders.
“How much did Miss Wallack weigh P”
The reporter was willing to guess at this. He had
seen her half a dozen times.
“Between a hundred and thirty and a hundred and
forty pounds,” he ventured.
“Does there happen to be a hypnotist connected with
the company?”
“I don’t know,” Hatch replied.
The Thinking Machine waved his slender hands im-
patiently; he was annoyed.
“It is perfectly absurd, Mr. Hatch,” he expostulated,
“to come to me with only a few facts and ask advice.
If you had all the facts I might be able to do something,
but this * *
The newspaper man was nettled. In his own pro-
fession he was accredited a man of discernment and
acumen. He resented the tone, the manner, even the
seemingly trivial questions which the other asked.
“I don’t see,” he began, “that the candy even if it
had been poisoned as I imagine you think possible, or a
hypnotist could have had anything to do with Miss
Wallack's disappearance. Certainly neither poison nor
hypnotism would have made her invisible.”
“Of course you don’t see,” blazed The Thinking
Machine. “If you did you wouldn’t have come to me.
When did this thing happen?”


Dressing Room “A” 39
“Saturday night, as I said,” the reporter informed
him a little more humbly. “It closed the engagement in
Springfield. Miss Wallack was to have appeared here
tonight.”
“When did she disappear—what time by the clock,
I mean P”
“The stage manager's time slip shows that the cur-
tain for the third act went up at 9:41—he spoke to
her, say, one minute before, or at 9:40. The action of
the play before she appears in the third act takes six
* >
minutes, therefore
“In precisely seven minutes a woman, weighing more
than 130 pounds, certainly not dressed for the street,
disappeared from her dressing room. It is now 5:18
Monday afternoon. I think we may solve this crime
within a few hours.”
“Crime?” Hatch repeated eagerly. “Do you im-
agine there is a crime then ?”
Professor Van Dusen didn’t heed the question. In-
stead, he arose and paced back and forth across the
reception room half a dozen times, his hands behind
his back and his eyes cast down. At last he stopped and
faced the reporter who had also arisen.
“Miss Wallack's company, I presume, with the
baggage, is now here,” he said. “See every male mem-
ber of the company, talk to them and particularly study
their eyes. Don't overlook anyone, however humble.


40 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Also find out what became of the box of candy, and if
possible how many pieces are out of it. Then report here
to me. Miss Wallack's safety may depend upon your
speed and accuracy.”
Hatch was frankly startled.
“HOW ?” he began.
“Don’t stop to talk—hurry,” commanded The
Thinking Machine. “I will have a cab waiting when
you come back. We must get to Springfield.”


CHAPTER V
FITTING A HYPOTHESIS
HE newspaper man rushed away to obey orders.
T He didn’t understand them at all-studying men's
eyes was not in his line, but he obeyed nevertheless.
An hour and a half later he returned to be thrust un-
ceremoniously into a waiting cab by The Thinking
Machine. The cab rattled away toward South Station
where the two men caught a train, just about to move
out, for Springfield. Once settled in their seats the
scientist turned to Hatch who was nearly suffocating
with suppressed information.
“Well ?” he asked.
“I found out several things,” the reporter burst out.
“First, Miss Wallack's leading man, Langdon Mason
who has been in love with her for three years, bought the
candy at Schuyler's in Springfield early Saturday evening
before he went to the theater. He told me so himself,
rather reluctantly, but I—I made him say it.”
“Ah!” exclaimed The Thinking Machine. It was
a most unequivocal ejaculation. “How many pieces of
candy are out of the box?”
“Only three,” explained Hatch. “Miss Wallack's
41


42 The Thinking Machine on the Case
things were packed into the open trunk in her dressing
**
room, the candy with them. I induced the manager
“Yes, yes, yes,” interrupted The Thinking Machine
impatiently. “What sort of eyes has Mason? What
color?”
“Blue, frank in expression, nothing unusual about
them,” said the reporter.
“And the others?” -
“I didn’t quite know what you meant by studying
their eyes, so I got a set of photographs. I thought
perhaps they might help.”
“Excellent! Excellent!” commented The Thinking
Machine. He shuffled the pictures through his fingers,
stopping now and then to study one, and to read the
names printed below. “Is that the leading man P”
he asked at last, and handed one to Hatch.
“Yes.”
Professor Van Dusen did not speak again. The train
pulled into Springfield at 9:20. Hatch followed him
out of the station and, without a word, climbed into a
cab.
“Schuyler's candy store,” commanded The Think-
ing Machine. “Hurry.”
The cab rushed off through the night. Ten minutes
later it stopped before a brilliantly lighted confectionery
shop. The Thinking Machine led the way inside and
approached the girl behind the chocolate counter.


Fitting a Hypothesis 43
“Will you please tell me if you remember this man’s
face P” he asked as he produced Mason’s photograph.
“Oh, yes, I remember him,” the girl replied. “He’s
an actor.”
“Did he buy a small box of chocolates of you Saturday
evening early P” was the next question.
“Yes. I recall it because he seemed to be in a hurry—
in fact, said he was anxious to get to the theater to pack.”
“And do you recall that this man ever bought candy
here?” asked the scientist. He produced another
photograph and handed it to the girl. She studied it a
moment while Hatch craned his neck, vainly, to see.
“I don’t recall that he ever did,” the girl answered
finally.
The Thinking Machine turned away abruptly and
disappeared into a telephone booth. He remained there
for five minutes, then rushed out to the cab again, with
Hatch following closely.
“City Hospital,” he commanded.
Again the cab dashed away. Hatch was dumb;
there seemed to be nothing to say. The Thinking
Machine was plainly pursuing some definite line of in-
quiry yet the reporter didn’t know what. The case was
getting kaleidoscopic. This impression was strengthened
when he found himself standing beside The Thinking
Machine in City Hospital conversing with the House
Surgeon, Dr. Carlton.
4


44 The Thinking Machine on the Case
-**
“Is there a Miss Gertrude Manning here?” was
the scientist's first question.
“Yes,” replied the surgeon. “She was brought
* >
here Saturday night suffering from
“Strychnine poisoning, yes I know,” interrupted the
other. “Picked up in the street, probably. I am a
physician. If she is well enough I should like to ask her
a couple of questions.”
Dr. Carlton agreed and Professor Van Dusen, still
followed faithfully by Hatch, was ushered into the ward
where Miss Wallack's maid lay, pallid and weak.
The Thinking Machine picked up her hand and his
slender finger rested for a minute on her pulse. He
nodded as if satisfied.
“Miss Manning, can you understand me?” he
asked.
“Yes,” she replied weakly.
“How many pieces of the candy did you eat?”
“Two,” said the girl. She stared into the face above
her with dull eyes.
“Did Miss Wallack eat any of it up to the time you
left the theater ?”
“No.”
If The Thinking Machine had been in a hurry pre-
viously he was racing now. Hatch trailed on dutifully
*
behind, down the stairs and into a cab, whence Professor
Van Dusen shouted a word of thanks to Dr. Carlton.


Fitting a Hypothesis 45
This time their destination was the stage door of the
theater from which Miss Wallack had disappeared.
The reporter was muddled. He didn’t know any-
thing very clearly except that three pieces of candy were
missing from the box. Of these the maid had eaten
only two. She had been poisoned. Therefore it seemed
reasonable to suppose that if Miss Wallack had eaten the
third piece she also would be poisoned. But poison
would not make her invisible. The reporter shook his
head hopelessly.
William Meegan, the stage door-keeper, was easily
found.
“Can you inform me, please,” began The Thinking
Machine, “if Mr. Mason left a box of candy with you
last Saturday night for Miss Wallack?”
“Yes,” Meegan replied good-naturedly. He was
amused at the little man. “Miss Wallack hadn’t
arrived. Mason brought a box of candy for her nearly
every night and usually left it here. I put the one Satur-
day night on the shelf here.”
“Did Mr. Mason come to the theater before or after
the others on Saturday night?”
“Before,” replied Meegan. “He was unusually
early, presumably to pack.”
“And the other members of the company coming
in stop here, I imagine, to get their mail?” and the
scientist squinted up at the mail box above the shelf.


46 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Sure, always.”
The Thinking Machine drew a long breath. Up
to this time there had been little perplexed wrinkles in
his brow. Now they disappeared.
“Now, please,” he went on, “was any package or
box of any kind taken from the stage on Saturday night
between nine and eleven o’clock?”
“No,” said Meegan positively. “Nothing at all
until the company's baggage was removed at midnight.”
“Miss Wallack had two trunks in her dressing
room?” -
“Yes. Two whacking big ones, too.”
“How do you know?’
“Because I helped put 'em in, and helped take 'em
out,” replied Meegan.
Suddenly The Thinking Machine turned and rushed
out to the cab, with Hatch, his shadow, close behind.
“Drive, drive as fast as you know how to the near-
est long distance telephone,” the scientist instructed the
cabby. “A woman’s life is at stake.”
Half an hour later Professor Van Dusen and Hutchin-
son Hatch were on a train rushing back to the city. The
Thinking Machine had been in the telephone booth for
fifteen minutes. When he came out Hatch had asked
several questions to which the scientist vouchsafed no
answer. They were perhaps thirty minutes out of
Springfield before the scientist showed any disposition


48 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“You mean you think it possible that she was hypnot-
ized and placed in that second trunk, the one that was
strapped and locked ?” he asked.
“It's the only thing that could have happened,” said
The Thinking Machine emphatically, “therefore that
is just what did happen.”
“Why it's horrible!” exclaimed Hatch. “A live
woman in a trunk for forty-eight hours? Even if she
were alive then, she must be dead now.”
The reporter shuddered a little and gazed curiously
at the inscrutable face of his companion. He saw no
pity, no horror there; there was merely the reflection
of the working of a brain.
“It does not necessarily follow that she is dead,”
explained The Thinking Machine. “If she ate that
third piece of candy before she was hypnotized she may
be dead. If it were placed in her mouth after she was in
a cataleptic condition the chances are that she is not
dead. The candy would not melt and her system could
not absorb the poison.”
“But she would be suffocated—her bones would be
broken by the rough handling of the trunk—there are a
hundred possibilities,” the reporter suggested.
“A person in a cataleptic condition is singularly im-
pervious to injury,” replied the scientist. “There is of
course, a chance of suffocation, but a great deal of air
may enter a trunk.”


Fitting a Hypothesis 49
“And the candy?” Hatch asked.
“Yes, the candy. We know that two pieces of it
nearly killed the maid. Yet Mr. Mason admitted having
bought it. This admission indicated that this poisoned
candy is not the candy he bought. Is Mr. Mason a
hypnotist? He hasn’t the eyes. His picture tells me
that. We know that Mr. Mason did buy candy for Miss
Wallack on several occasions. We know that some-
times he left it with the stage door-keeper. We know
that members of the company stopped there for mail.
We instantly see that it is possible for one to take away
that box and substitute poisoned candy. All the boxes
are alike.
“Madness and the cunning of madness lie back of all
this. It was a deliberate attempt to murder Miss
Wallack, long pondered and due, perhaps, to unrequited
or hopeless infatuation. It began with the poisoned
candy, and that failing, went to a point immediately
following the moment when the stage manager last spoke
to the actress. The hypnotist was probably in her room
then. You must remember that it would have been
possible for him to ease the headache, and at the same
time leave Miss Wallack free to play. She might have
known this from previous experience.”
Hatch was silent for a long time as he mentally re-
viewed the case. He couldn’t yet quite believe. It
seemed inconceivable that human ingenuity could devise


50 The Thinking Machine on the Case
such a crime; and it was equally inconceivable that the
brain of a man wholly disassociated with it could fathom
it by pure logic.
“Is Miss Wallack still in the trunk?” he asked at
last.
“No,” replied The Thinking Machine. “She is
out now, dead or alive—I am inclined to believe alive.”
“And the man P”
“I will turn him over to the police in half an hour
after we reach the city.”
From South Station the scientist and Hatch were
driven immediately to Police Headquarters. Detective
Mallory received them.
“We got your 'phone from Springfield ” he
began.
“Was she dead?” interrupted the scientist.
“No,” Mallory replied. “She’s unconscious but no
bones are broken, although she is badly bruised. The
doctor says she's hypnotized.” -
“Was the piece of candy taken from her mouth?”
“Sure, a chocolate cream. It hadn’t melted.”
“I’ll come back here in a few minutes and awake
her,” said The Thinking Machine. “Come along with
us now, and get the man.”
Wonderingly the detective entered the cab and the
three were driven to a big hotel a dozen blocks away.
Before they entered the lobby The Thinking Machine


Fitting a Hypothesis 51
handed a photograph to Mallory, who studied it under an
electric light.
“That man is upstairs with several others,” explained
the scientist. “Pick him out and get behind him when
we enter the room. He may attempt to shoot. Don’t
touch him until I say so.”
In a large room on the fifth floor Manager Stanfeld
of the Irene Wallack Company had assembled the men
who played in her support. This was done at the re-
quest by 'phone of The Thinking Machine. There were
no preliminaries when Professor Van Dusen entered.
He squinted comprehensively about him, then went
straight to Langdon Mason, and stared into his eyes for
a moment.
“Were you on the stage in the third act of your play
before Miss Wallack was to appear—I mean the play last
Saturday night?” he asked.
“I was,” Mason replied, “for at least three minutes.”
“Mr. Stanfeld, is that correct?”
“Yes,” replied the manager.
There was a long tense silence broken only by the
heavy footsteps of Mallory as he walked toward a distant
corner of the room. A faint flush crept into Mason’s
face as he realized that the questions had been almost
an accusation. He started to speak, but the steady, im-
passive voice of The Thinking Machine stopped him.
“Mr. Mallory, take your prisoner!”


52 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Instantly there was a fierce, frantic struggle and
those present turned to see the detective with his great
arms locked about Stanley Wightman, the melancholy
Jaques of “As You Like It.” The actor's face was
distorted, madness blazed in the eyes, and he snarled
like a beast at bay. By a sudden movement Mallory
threw Wightman and manacled the hands, then looked
up to find The Thinking Machine peering over his
shoulder into the eyes of the prostrate man.
“Yes, he's a hypnotist,” the scientist remarked in
self-satisfied conclusion. “It always tells in the pupils
of the eyes.”
An hour later Miss Wallack was aroused, told a story
almost identical with that of The Thinking Machine, and
three months later resumed her tour. And meanwhile
Stanley Wightman, whose brooding over a hopeless love
for her made a maniac of him, raves and shrieks the lines
of Jaques in the seclusion of a padded cell. Alienists
pronounce him incurable.


CHAPTER VI
THE CRYSTAL GAZER
W ) riTH hideous, goggling eyes the great god Budd
sat cross-legged on a pedestal and stared stolidly
into the semi-darkness. He saw, by the waver-
ing light of a peacock lamp which swooped down from
the ceiling with wings outstretched, what might have
been a nook in a palace of East India. Draperies hung
here, there, everywhere; richly embroidered divans
sprawled about; fierce tiger rugs glared up from the
floor; grotesque idols grinned mirthlessly in unexpected
corners; strange arms were grouped on the walls. Out-
side the trolley cars clanged blatantly.
The single human figure was a distinct contradiction
of all else. It was that of a man in evening dress, smok-
ing. He was fifty, perhaps sixty, years old with the
ruddy color of one who has lived a great deal out of
doors. There was only a touch of gray in his abund-
ant hair and mustache. His eyes were steady and
clear, and indolent.
For a long time he sat, then the draperies to his right
parted and a girl entered. She was a part of the picture
of which the man was a contradiction. Her lustrous
black hair flowed about her shoulders; lambent mysteries
53


54 The Thinking Machine on the Case
*****
lay in her eyes. Her dress was the dress of the East.
For a moment she stood looking at the man and then
entered with light tread.
“Varick Sahib,” she said, timidly, as if it were a
greeting. “Do I intrude P” Her voice was softly gut-
tural with the accent of her native tongue.
“Oh no, Jadeh. Come in,” said the man.
She smiled frankly and sat down on a hassock near
him.
“My brother?” she asked.
“He is in the cabinet.”
Varick had merely glanced at her and then continued
his thoughtful gaze into vacancy. From time to time
she looked up at him shyly, with a touch of eagerness,
but there was no answering interest in his manner. His
thoughts were far away.
“May I ask what brings you this time, Sahib P” she
inquired at last. -
“A little deal in the market,” responded Varick,
carelessly. “It seems to have puzzled Adhem as much
as it did me. He has been in the cabinet for half an
hour.”
He stared on musingly as he smoked, then dropped
his eyes to the slender, graceful figure of Jadeh. With
knees clasped in her hands she leaned back on the hassock
deeply thoughtful. Her head was tilted upward and the
flickering light fell full on her face. It crossed Varick's


The Crystal Gazer 55
mind that she was pretty, and he was about to say so as
he would have said it to any other woman, when the cur-
tains behind them were thrown apart and they both
glanced around.
Another man—an East Indian—entered. This man
was Adhem Singh, the crystal gazer, in the ostentatious
robes of a seer. He, too, was a part of the picture.
There was an expression of apprehension, mingled with
some other impalpable quality on his strong face.
“Well, Adhem?” inquired Varick.
“I have seen strange things, Sahib,” replied the seer,
solemnly. “The crystal tells me of danger.”
“Danger?” repeated Varick with a slight lifting of
his brows. “Oh well, in that case I shall keep out of it.”
“Not danger to your business, Sahib,” the crystal
gazer went on with troubled face, “but danger in an-
other way.”
The girl, Jadeh, looked at him with quick, startled
eyes and asked some question in her native tongue. He
answered in the same language, and she rose suddenly
with terror stricken face to fling herself at Varick’s feet,
weeping. Varick seemed to understand too, and looked
at the seer in apprehension.
“Death?” he exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
Adhem was silent for a moment and bowed his head
respectfully before the steady, inquiring gaze of the white
IIlan.


56 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Pardon, Sahib,” he said at last. “I did not re-
member that you understood my language.”
“What is it?” insisted Varick, abruptly. “Tell
me.”
“I can not, Sahib.”
“You must,” declared the other. He had arisen
commandingly. “You must.”
The crystal gazer crossed to him and stood for an
instant with his hand on the white man's shoulder, and
his eyes studying the fear he found in the white man’s
face.
“The crystal, Sahib,” he began. “It tells me that—
that * >
“No, no, brother,” pleaded the girl.
“Go on,” Varick commanded.
“It grieves me to say that which will pain one whom
I love as I do you, Sahib,” said the seer, slowly. “Per-
haps you had rather see for yourself?”
“Well, let me see then,” said Varick. “Is it in the
crystal?”
“Yes, by the grace of the gods.”
“But I can’t see anything there.” Varick remembered.
“I’ve tried scores of times.”
“I believe this will be different, Sahib,” said Adhem,
quietly. “Can you stand a shock?”
Varick shook himself a little impatiently.
“Of course,” he replied. “Yes, yes.”


The Crystal Gazer 57
“A very serious shock?”
Again there was an impatient twist of Varick's
shoulders.
“Yes, I can stand anything,” he exclaimed shortly.
“What is it P Let me see.”
He strode toward that point in the draperies where
Adhem had entered while the girl on her knees, sought
with entreating hands to stop him.
” she pleaded. “No.”
“Don’t do that,” Varick expostulated in annoyance,
“No, no, no,
but gently he stooped and lifted her to her feet. “I am
not a child—or a fool.”
He threw aside the curtains. As they fell softly
behind him he heard a pitiful little cry of grief from
Jadeh and set his teeth together hard.
He stood in the crystal cabinet. It was somewhat
larger than an ordinary closet and had been made im-
penetrable to the light by hangings of black velvet.
For awhile he stood still so that his eyes might be-
come accustomed to the utter blackness, and gradually
the sinister fascinating crystal ball appeared, faintly
visible by its own mystic luminosity. It rested on a
pedestal of black velvet.
Varick was accustomed to his surroundings—he
had been in the cabinet many times. Now he dropped
down on a stool in front of the table whereon the crystal
lay and leaning forward on his arms stared into its limpid


58 The Thinking Machine on the Case
depths. Unblinkingly for one, two, three minutes he sat
there with his thoughts in a chaos.
After awhile there came a change in the ball. It
seemed to glow with a growing light other than its own.
Suddenly it darkened completely, and out of this utter
darkness grew shadowy, vague forms to which he could
give no name. Finally a veil seemed lifted for the globe
grew brighter and he leaned forward, eagerly, fearfully.
Another veil melted away and a still brighter light illum-
ined the ball.
Now Varick was able to make out objects. Here
was a table littered with books and papers, there a chair,
yonder a shadowy mantel. Gradually the light grew
until his tensely fixed eyes pained him, but he stared
steadily on. Another quick brightness came and the
objects all became clear. He studied them incredulously
for a few seconds, and then he recognized what he saw.
It was a room—his study—miles away in his apart-
ments.
A sudden numb chilliness seized him but he closed his
teeth hard and gazed on. The outlines of the crystal
were disappearing, now they were gone and he saw more.
A door opened and a man entered the room into which
he was looking. Varick gave a little gasp as he recog-
nized the man. It was—himself. He watched the
man—himself—as he moved about the study aimlessly
for a time as if deeply troubled, then as he dropped


The Crystal Gazer 61
evening dress, picked up his hat and rushed out into the
world of realities. The crystal gazer stood for a moment
while Jadeh clung to his arm, tremblingly.
“It is as the gods will,” he said sadly, at last.
>k sk >k sk sk >k sk
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Think-
ing Machine—received Howard Varick in the small
reception room and invited him to a seat. Varick's face
was ashen; there were dark lines under his eyes and
in them there was the glitter of an ungovernable terror.
Every move showed the nervousness which gripped him.
The Thinking Machine squinted at him curiously, then
dropped back into his big chair.
For several minutes Varick said nothing; he seemed to
be struggling to control himself. Suddenly he burst out:
“I’m going to die some day next week. Is there any
way to prevent it?”
The Thinking Machine turned his great yellow head
and looked at him in a manner which nearly indicated
surprise.
“Of course if you’ve made up your mind to do it,”
he said irritably, “I don’t see what can be done.” There
was a trace of irony in his voice, a coldness which brought
Varick around a little. “Just how is it going to happen?”
“I shall be murdered—stabbed in the back—by a
man whom I don’t know,” Varick rushed on desper-
ately.


62 The Thinking Machine on the Case
--> *=
“Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate,” commented
the scientist. “Tell me something about it. But here.”
He arose and went into his laboratory. After a moment
he returned and handed a glass of some effervescent
liquid to Varick, who gulped it down. “Take a minute
to pull yourself together,” instructed the scientist.
He resumed his seat and sat silent with his long,
slender fingers pressed tip to tip. Gradually Varick re-
covered. It was a fierce fight for the mastery of emotion.
“Now,” directed The Thinking Machine at last,
“tell me about it.”
Varick told just what happened lucidly enough, and
The Thinking Machine listened with polite interest.
Once or twice he turned and looked at his visitor.
“Do you believe in any psychic force?” Varick
asked once.
“I don’t disbelieve in anything until I have proven
•
that it cannot be,” was the answer. “The God who
hung a sun up there has done other things which we will
never understand.” There was a little pause, then:
“How did you meet this man, Adhem Singh?”
“I have been interested for years in the psychic, the
occult, the things we don’t understand,” Varick replied.
“I have a comfortable fortune, no occupation, no de-
pendents and made this a sort of hobby. I have studied
it superficially all over the world. I met Adhem Singh in
India ten years ago, afterwards in England where he


The Crystal Gazer 63
went through Oxford with some financial assistance from
me, and later here. Two years ago he convinced me
that there was something in crystal gazing—call it
telepathy, self hypnotism, sub-conscious mental action-
what you will. Since then the science, I can call it
nothing else, has guided me in every important act of
my life.”
“Through Adhem Singh?”
“Yes.”
“And under a pledge of secrecy, I imagine—that is
secrecy as to the nature of his revelations?”
“Yes.”
“Any taint of insanity in your family?”
Varick wondered whether the question was in the
nature of insolent reproof, or was a request for informa-
tion. He construed it as the latter.
“No,” he answered. “Never a touch of it.”
“How often have you consulted Mr. Singh?”
“Many times. There have been occasions when he
would tell me nothing because, he explained, the crystal
told him nothing. There have been other times when he
advised me correctly. He has never given me bad
advice even in intricate stock operations, therefore I have
been compelled to believe him in all things.”
“You were never able to see anything yourself in the
crystal until this vision of death, last Tuesday night you
say?”


64 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“That was the first.”
“How do you know the murder is to take place at
any given time—that is next week, as you say?”
“That is the information Adhem Singh gave me,’
was the reply. “He can read the visions—they mean
**
more to him than
“In other words he makes it a profession?” inter-
rupted the scientist.
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“The horror of the thing impressed me so—both
of us—that he has at my request twice invoked the
vision since that night. He, like you, wanted to know
when it would happen. There is a calendar by weeks
in my study; that is, only one week is shown on it at a
time. The last time the vision appeared he noted this
calendar. The week was that beginning next Sunday,
the 21st of this month. The only conclusion we could
reach was that it would happen during that week.”
The Thinking Machine arose and paced back and
forth across the room deeply thoughtful. At last he
stopped before his visitor.
“It’s perfectly amazing,” he commented emphatic-
ally. “It approaches nearer to the unbelievable than
anything I have ever heard of.”
Varick's response was a look that was almost
grateful.


The Crystal Gazer 65
“You don’t believe it impossible then?” he asked,
eagerly.
“Nothing is impossible,” declared the other aggres-
sively. “Now, Mr. Varick, you are firmly convinced
that what you saw was prophetic? That you will die in
that manner, in that place?”
“I can’t believe anything else—I can’t,” was the
response.
“And you have no idea of the identity of the mur-
derer-to-be, if I may use that phrase?”
“Not the slightest. The figure was wholly un-
familiar to me.” -
“And you know—you know—that the room you saw
in the crystal was yours?”
“I know that absolutely. Rugs, furniture, mantel,
books, everything was mine.”
The Thinking Machine was again silent for a time.
“In that event,” he said at last, “the affair is per-
fectly simple. Will you place yourself in my hands and
obey my directions implicitly?”
“Yes.” There was an eager, hopeful note in Varick's
voice now.
“I am going to try to disarrange the affairs of Fate a
little bit,” explained the scientist gravely. “I don’t
know what will happen but it will be interesting to try to
throw the inevitable, the pre-ordained I might say, out of
gear, won’t it?”


66 The Thinking Machine on the Case
With a quizzical, grim expression about his thin lips
The Thinking Machine went to the telephone in an
adjoining room and called some one. Varick heard
neither the name nor what was said, merely the mumble
of the irritable voice. He glanced up as the scientist
returned.
“Have you any servants—a valet for instance?”
asked the scientist.
“Yes, I have an aged servant, a valet, but he is now
in France, I gave him a little vacation. I really don’t
need one now as I live in an apartment house—almost a
hotel.”
“I don’t suppose you happen to have three or four
thousand dollars in your pocket?”
“No, not so much as that,” was the puzzled reply.
5 *
“If it's your fee
“I never accept fees,” interrupted the scientist. “I
interest myself in affairs like these because I like
them. They are good mental exercise. Please draw
a check for, say four thousand dollars, to Hutchinson
Hatch.”
“Who is he?” asked Varick. There was no reply.
The check was drawn and handed over without further
COmment.
It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that a cab
pulled up in front of the house. Hutchinson Hatch,
reporter, and another man whom he introduced as Philip


The Crystal Gazer 67
Byrne were ushered in. As Hatch shook hands with
Varick The Thinking Machine compared them mentally.
They were relatively of the same size and he bobbed his
head as if satisfied.
“Now, Mr. Hatch,” he instructed, “take this check
and get it cashed immediately, then return here. Not
a word to anybody.”
Hatch went out and Byrne discussed politics with
Varick until he returned with the money. The Think-
ing Machine thrust the bills into Byrne's hand and he
counted it, afterward stowing it away in a pocket.
“Now, Mr. Varick, the keys to your apartment,
please,” asked the scientist.
They were handed over and he placed them in his
pocket. Then he turned to Varick.
“From this time on,” he said, “your name is John
Smith. You are going on a trip, beginning immediately,
with Mr. Byrne here. You are not to send a letter, a
postal, a telegram or a package to anyone; you are to
buy nothing, you are to write no checks, you are not to
speak to or recognize anyone, you are not to telephone or
attempt in any manner to communicate with anyone,
not even me. You are to obey Mr. Byrne in everything
he says.”
Varick's eyes had grown wider and wider as he
listened.
“But my affairs—my business?” he protested.


68 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“It is a matter of your life or death,” said The
Thinking Machine shortly.
For a moment Varick wavered a little. He felt that
he was being treated like a child.
“As you say,” he said finally.
“Now, Mr. Byrne,” continued the scientist, “you
heard those instructions. It is your duty to enforce them.
You must lose this man and yourself. Take him away
somewhere to another place. There is enough money
there for ordinary purposes. When you learn that there
has been an arrest in connection with a certain threat
against Mr. Varick, come back to Boston—to me—and
bring him. That's all.”
Mr. Byrne arose with a business like air.
“Come on, Mr. Smith,” he commanded.
Varick followed him out of the room.
*


-** * *
CHAPTER VII
A MATTER OF LOGIC
ERE was a table littered with books and papers,
H there a chair, yonder a shadowy mantel * * * *
A door opened and a man entered the room
* * * * moved about the study aimlessly for a time
as if deeply troubled, then dropped into a chair at the
desk * * * * made some hopeless gesture with his
hands and leaned forward on the desk with his head on
his arms * * * * another figure in the room * * * *
knife in his hand * * * * creeping stealthily toward the
unconscious figure in the chair with the knife raised
* * * * the unknown crept on, on, on * * * *
There was a blinding flash, a gush of flame and
smoke, a sharp click and through the fog came the un-
excited voice of Hutchinson Hatch, reporter.
“Stay right where you are, please.”
“That ought to be a good picture,” said The Think-
ing Machine.
The smoke cleared and he saw Adhem Singh stand-
ing watching with deep concern a revolver in the hand of
Hatch, who had suddenly arisen from the desk in Wa-
*--> -- ---
69


70 The Thinking Machine on the Case
rick's room. The Thinking Machine rubbed his hands
briskly.
“Ah, I thought it was you,” he said to the crystal
gazer. “Put down the knife, please. That's right.
It seems a little bold to have interfered with what
was to be like this, but you wanted too much detail
Mr. Singh. You might have murdered your friend if
you hadn’t gone into so much trivial theatrics.”
“I suppose I am a prisoner?” asked the crystal
gazer.
“You are,” The Thinking Machine assured him
cheerfully. “You are charged with the attempted
murder of Mr. Varick. Your wife will be a prisoner
in another half hour with all those who were with you
in the conspiracy.”
He turned to Hatch, who was smiling broadly. The
reporter was thinking of that wonderful flash-light
photograph in the camera that The Thinking Machine
held,—the only photograph in the world, so far as he
knew, of a man in the act of attempting an assassination.
“Now, Mr. Hatch,” the scientist went on, “I will
'phone to Detective Mallory to come here and get this
gentleman, and also to send men and arrest every person
to be found in Mr. Singh's home. If this man tries to
run—shoot.”
The scientist went out and Hatch devoted his atten-
tion to his sullen prisoner. He asked half a dozen


A Matter of Logic 71
questions and receiving no answers he gave it up as hope-
less. After awhile Detective Mallory appeared in his
usual state of restrained astonishment and the crystal
gazer was led away.
Then Hatch and The Thinking Machine went to the
Adhem Singh house. The police had preceded them
and gone away with four prisoners, among them the girl
Jadeh. They obtained an entrance through the cour-
tesy of a policeman left in charge and sought out the
crystal cabinet. Together they bowed over the glittering
globe as Hatch held a match.
“But I still don’t see how it was done,” said the re-
porter after they had looked at the crystal.
The Thinking Machine lifted the ball and replaced
it on its pedestal half a dozen times apparently trying to
locate a slight click. Then he fumbled all around the
table, above and below. At his suggestion Hatch lifted
the ball very slowly, while the scientist slid his slender
fingers beneath it.
“Ah,” he exclaimed at last. “I thought so. It's
clever, Mr. Hatch, clever. Just stand here a few minutes
in the dark and I’ll see if I can operate it for you.”
He disappeared and Hatch stood staring at the crystal
until he was developing a severe case of the creeps him-
self. Just then a light flashed in the crystal, which had
been only dimly visible, and he found himself looking
into—the room in Howard Varick’s apartments, miles


72 The Thinking Machine on the Case
away. As he looked, startled, he saw The Thinking
Machine appear in the crystal and wave his arms. The
creepiness passed instantly in the face of this obvious
attempt to attract his attention.
It was later that afternoon that The Thinking Ma-
chine turned the light of his analytical genius on the
problem for the benefit of Hatch and Detective Mallory.
“Charlatanism is a luxury which costs the peoples
of the world incredible sums,” he began. “It had it's
beginning, of course, in the dark ages when man’s mind
grasped at some tangible evidence of an Infinite Power,
and through its very eagerness was easily satisfied.
Then quacks began to prey upon man, and do to this
day under many guises and under many names. This
condition will continue until enlightenment has become
so general that man will realize the absurdity of such a
thing as Nature, or the other world’s forces, going out
of its way to tell him whether a certain stock will go up or
down. A sense of humor ought to convince him that
disembodied spirits do not come back and rap on tables
in answer to asinine questions. These things are
merely prostitutions of the Divine Revelations.”
Hatch smiled a little at the lecture platform tone, and
Detective Mallory chewed his cigar uncomfortably.
He was there to find out something about crime; this
thing was over his head.
“This is merely preliminary,” The Thinking Ma-


A Matter of Logic 73
chine went on after a moment. “Now as to this crystal
gazing affair—a little reason, a little logic. When Mr.
Varick came to me I saw he was an intelligent man who
had devoted years to a study of the so-called occult.
Being intelligent he was not easily hoodwinked, yet he
had been hoodwinked for years, therefore I could see
that the man who did it must be far beyond the blunder-
ing fool usually found in these affairs.
“Now Mr. Varick, personally, had never seen any-
thing in any crystal—remember that—until this ‘vision’
of death. When I knew this I knew that ‘vision” was
stamped as quackery; the mere fact of him seeing it
proved that, but the quackery was so circumstantial
that he was convinced. Thus we have quackery. Why?
For a fee? I can imagine successful guesses on the stock
market bringing fees to Adhem Singh, but the ‘vision’
of a man’s death is not the way to his pocket-book. If
not for a fee—then what?
“A deeper motive was instantly apparent. Mr. Va-
rick was wealthy, he had known Singh and had been
friendly with him for years, had supplied him with funds
to go through Oxford, and he had no family or depend-
ents. Therefore it seemed probable that a will, or
perhaps in another way, Singh would benefit by Mr.
Varick’s death. There was a motive for the ‘vision,”
which might have been at first an effort to scare him to
death, because he had a bad heart. I saw all these things


74 The Thinking Machine on the Case
when Mr. Varick talked to me first, several days after
he saw the vision’ but did not suggest them to him.
Had I done so he would not have believed so sordid a
thing, for he believed in Singh, and would probably
have gone his way to be murdered or to die of fright as
Singh intended.
“Knowing these things there was only the labor of
trapping a clever man. Now the Hindu mind works in
strange channels. It loves the mystic, the theatric, and
I imagined that having gone so far Singh would attempt
to bring the ‘vision’ to a reality. He presumed, of course,
that Mr. Varick would keep the matter to himself.
“The question of saving Varick's life was trifling.
If he was to die at a given time in a given room the thing
to do was to place him beyond possible reach of that
room at that time. I phoned to you, Mr. Hatch,
and asked you to bring me a private detective who
would obey orders, and you brought Mr. Byrne. You
heard my instructions to him. It was necessary to hide
Mr. Varick's identity and my elaborate directions were
to prevent anyone getting the slightest clue as to him
having gone, or as to where he was. I don't know
where he is now.
“Immediately Mr. Varick was off my hands, I had
Martha, my housekeeper, write a note to Singh explain-
ing that Mr. Varick was ill, and confined to his room,
and for the present was unable to see anyone. In this


A Matter of Logic 75
".
note a date was specified when he would call on Singh.
Martha wrote, of course, as a trained nurse who was in
attendance merely in day time. All these points were
made perfectly clear to Singh.
“That done it was only a matter of patience. Mr.
Hatch and I went to Mr. Varick's apartments each
night—I had Martha there in day time to answer ques-
tions—and waited, in hiding. Mr. Hatch is about
Varick's size and a wig helped us along. What happened
then you know. I may add that when Mr. Varick told
me the story I commented on it as being almost unbe-
lievable. He understood, as I meant he should, that I
referred to the vision.’ I really meant that the elaborate
scheme which Singh had evolved was unbelievable. He
might have killed him just as well with a drop of poison
or something equally pleasant.”
The Thinking Machine stopped as if that were all.
“But the crystal?” asked Hatch. “How did that
work? How was it I saw you?”
“That was a little ingenious and rather expensive,”
said The Thinking Machine, “so expensive that Singh
must have expected to get a large sum from success. I
can best describe the manufacture of the ‘vision’ as a
variation of the principle of the camera obscura. It was
done with len's of various sorts and a multitude of
mirrors, and required the assistance of two other men-
those who were taken from Singh's house with Jadeh.
6 -


76 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“First, the room in Mr. Varick's apartments was
duplicated in the basement of Singh's house, even to
rugs, books and wall decorations. There two men
rehearsed the murder scene that Mr. Varick saw. They
were disguised of course. You have looked through the
wrong end of a telescope of course? Well, the original
reduction of the murder scene to a size where all of it
would appear in a small mirror was accomplished that
way. From this small mirror there ran pipes with a
series of mirrors and lenses, through the house, carrying
the reflection of what was happening below, so vaguely
though that features were barely distinguishable. This
pipe ran up inside one of the legs of the table on which
the crystal rested, and then, by reflection to the pedestal.
“You, Mr. Hatch, saw me lift that crystal several
times and each time you might have noticed the click.
I was trying to find then, how the reflection reached it.
When you lifted it slowly and I put my fingers under it
I knew. There was a small trap in the pedestal, cov-
ered with velvet. This closed automatically and pre-
sented a solid surface when the crystal was lifted, and
opened when the crystal was replaced. Thus the re-
flection reached the crystal which reversed it the last
time and made it appear right side up to the watcher.
The apparent growth of the light in the crystal was
caused below. Some one simply removed several sheets
of gauze, one at a time, from in front of the first lens.”


A Matter of Logic 77
“Well!” exclaimed Detective Mallory. “That's the
most elaborate affair I ever heard of.”
“Quite right,” commented the scientist, “but we
don’t know how many victims Singh had. Of course
any ‘vision’ was possible with a change of scene in the
basement. I imagine it was a profitable investment
because there are many fools in this world.”
“What did the girl have to do with it?” asked
Hatch.
“That I don’t know,” replied the scientist. “She
was pretty. Perhaps she was used as a sort of bait to
attract a certain class of men. She was really Singh's
wife I imagine, not his sister. She was a prominent
figure in the mummery with Varick of course. With
her aid Singh was able to lend great effectiveness to the
general scheme.”
A couple of days later Howard Varick returned to
the city in tow of Philip Byrne. The Thinking Machine
asked Mr. Varick only one question of consequence.
“How much money did you intend to leave Singh?”
“About two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,”
was the reply. “It was to be used under his direction
in furthering an investigation into the psychic. He and
I had planned just how it was to be spent.”
Personally Mr. Varick is no longer interested in the
occult.


*** ... --
CHAPTER VIII
THE INTERRUPTED WIRELESS
EVEN bells sounded. The door of the wireless tele-
S graph office on the main deck of the transatlantic
liner Uranus was opened quietly, and a man thrust
his head out. One quick glance to his right, along the
narrow, carpeted passage, showed it to be deserted;
another glance to his left showed a young woman ap-
proaching, with steps made uncertain by the rolling and
pitching of the ship. In one hand she carried a slip of
paper, folded once. The man paused only to see this
much, then withdrew his head and closed the door ab-
ruptly.
The young woman paused opposite the wireless office,
and thoughtfully conned over something on the slip of
paper. Finally she leaned against the wall, erased a
word with a pencil, wrote in another, then laid a hand on
the knob of the door as if to enter. The door was locked.
She hesitated for an instant, then rapped. There was a
pause, and she rapped the second time.
“What is it?” came a man’s voice from inside.
“I wish to send a message,”
responded the young
WOInan.
“Who is that?” came another query.
78


The Interrupted Wireless 79
“It’s Miss Bellingdame,” was the impatient response.
“I desire to get a wireless to a friend on the Breslin
which has just been sighted to the north.”
Again there was a pause. “It’s impossible to send
any message now,” came the short, harsh answer at last.
“It may not be possible to send it at all.”
“Why?” demanded Miss Bellingdame. “It’s a
matter of the utmost importance. I must send it!”
“Can’t be done—it’s out of the question,” came the
positive, quick spoken answer. “There has been an—
an accident.”
Miss Bellingdame was silent for a moment, as she
seemed to ponder a note of deep concern, excitement
even, in the voice.
“Well, can’t it be sent after the accident has been
repaired?” she asked at last.
There was no answer. -
“Is that Mr. Ingraham talking?” Miss Bellingdame
demanded. -
Still there was no answer. She remained there for
a minute, perhaps, staring at the locked door, then
turned and retraced her steps. A few minutes later she
was reclining in a deck chair, gazing thoughtfully out
over the treacherous, dimpling Atlantic with a troubled
expression on her face.
At just about the moment she sat down the telephone
buzz in the Captain's cabin sounded, and Captain Deihl


80 The Thinking Machine on the Case
impatiently laid aside a remarkably promising pinochle
hand to answer it.
“Captain Deihl P” came a short, sharp query over
the wire.
“Yes.”
“This is Mr. Tennell, sir. I’m in the wireless office.
Can you come at once, and have some one send Dr.
Maher?”
“What's the matter?” demanded the Captain gruffly.
“I can’t very well tell you over the 'phone, sir,” came
the response; “but you and Dr. Maher are needed im-
mediately.”
With a slightly puzzled expression on his bronzed
face, Captain Deihl turned to Dr. Maher, the ship's
surgeon, who had been his opponent in the pinochle
game and now sat staring idly out of the window.
“Tennell wants both of us down in the wireless office
at once,” the Captain explained. “He won’t say what's
the matter.”
“Wants me?” inquired Dr. Maher. “Somebody
hurt?”
“I don’t know. Come along.”
Captain Deihl led the way along the hurricane
deck, down to the main deck, and along the narrow
passage to the wireless office. The door was still locked.
He rapped sharply, impatiently.
“Who’s there?” came from inside.


The Interrupted Wireless 81
“Captain Deihl. Open the door!”
The key turned in the lock, and First Officer Ten-
nell's white face—white even beneath the deep tan–
appeared.
“What's the matter, Mr. Tennell?” demanded the
Captain brusquely.
“Please step inside, sir,” and the first officer opened
the door. “There’s what’s the matter!”
With a gesture the first officer indicated the corner
of the cabin where the wireless operator's desk stood.
Sitting before it, as if he had dropped back utterly ex-
hausted, was the operator, Charles Ingraham. His
head had fallen forward on his breast, and the arms
hung straight down, flabbily. His back was toward
them, and against the white of his shirt, just beneath the
left arm, a heavy handled knife showed. A thin line
of scarlet dyed the shirt just below the knife handle.
Captain Deihl stood stockstill for one instant, then
turning suddenly closed and locked the door behind him.
Dr. Maher took two steps forward, wrested the knife
from the wound with a slight effort, flung it on the floor,
then dropped on his knees beside the chair.
“What is all this, Mr. Tennell?” demanded Cap-
tain Deihl at last.
“I don’t know, sir,” was the reply. “I found him
like that.”
Dr. Maher rose after a moment, with a hopeless


82 The Thinking Machine on the Case
shake of his head, and minutely examined the wound.
It was a clean cut incision; the knife had been driven in
and allowed to remain. The blade had passed between
the ribs and had reached the heart. Dr. Maher noted
these things, then stooped and picked up the knife. It was
a long, heavy, broad bladed, dangerous looking weapon.
After satisfying himself, the surgeon passed it to Captain
Deihl.
“It was murder,” he said tersely. “He could not
have stabbed himself in that position. You keep the
knife; it may be the only clue.”
“Murder!” the Captain repeated involuntarily.
“How long has—has he been dead?”
“Perhaps ten minutes—certainly not more than
5
twenty,” was the surgeon's reply. “The body is still
warm, and the blood flows.”
“Murder!” repeated Captain Deihl. “Who could
have killed him? What could have been the motive?”
He stood staring at the knife silently for a time, then
lifted two keen, inquisitive eyes to those of his first officer.
Dr. Maher too was staring straight into Tennell’s face,
and slowly, under the sharp scrutiny, the blood mounted
again to the tanned cheeks.
“What are your orders, sir?” inquired the first officer
steadily. -
“How long were you in this room, Tennell, before
you called me?” asked Captain Deihl.


The Interrupted Wireless 83
“Two or three minutes,” was the reply. “I was
in my cabin forward, preparing the dispatches which
were to go ashore, according to your order, sir. The
wireless was going then; for I could hear it. I noticed
after a time that it stopped; so, having completed my
dispatches, I brought them here directly. I found Mr.
Ingraham just as you see him.”
“H'm!” mused the Captain. He was still staring
thoughtfully into the other's face. “Was the door
locked ?”
“No, sir. It was closed.”
“And this knife, Mr. Tennell?” The Captain
examined it again and then passed it to his first officer.
“Do you know it? Have you ever seen it before?”
Without any apparent reason the first officer's face
whitened again and he dropped down on the bench,
with hands gripping each other fiercely. Dr. Maher was
staring at him; Captain Deihl seemed surprised.
“You know whose knife it is then?” asked the Cap-
tain finally.
“Yes,” and the first officer's head dropped forward.
“It’s mine!”
There was a long dead silence. The hands of the
first officer were working nervously, with heavy fingers
threading in and out. Dr. Maher turned away sud-
denly and idly fingered some papers on the operator's
desk.


84 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Captain Deihl's heavy face grew set and stern.
“Did you kill him, Tennell?” he asked.
“NO!” Tennell burst out. “No!”
“But it is your knife?”
“It would be useless for me to deny it, sir,” replied
the first officer, and he rose. “It was given to me by
Mr. Forbes, the second officer, only a few weeks ago, and
he could identify it instantly. I lost the knife yesterday,
and last night—I shall ask you to corroborate this, sir–
I posted a notice in the fo'c'sle offering a reward to any-
one who should find it and return it to me.”
Dr. Maher turned suddenly upon them. “And isn’t
it true, Mr. Tennell,” he demanded, “that you and
Ingraham had some—some serious disagreement a few
days ago?”
Again the first officer's face blanched. “That is
true, yes,” he replied steadily. “It was a matter of
ship's discipline. This was Mr. Ingraham's second
trip with us, and on other ships he had been allowed
certain liberties which the discipline of this ship com-
pelled me to curtail. There was a disagreement,
yes.”
Dr. Maher nodded as if satisfied, and turned again
to the desk.
Captain Deihl stood staring straight into the eyes
of his first officer for a time, and then cleared his throat.
“I want to believe you, Tennell,” he admitted at last.


86 The Thinking Machine on the Case
officer paused and sought vainly to read the expressions
on the faces of the two men before him.
“I even went so far as to draw the knife out of the
wound, with the purpose of flinging it overboard,” the
first officer continued slowly; “then my senses came
back. I knew my duty again. I replaced the knife in
the wound, precisely as I found it, and called you. You
are a severe man, but you’re a just man, John Deihl,
and you know I am not the man to stab another in the
back; you know, John Deihl, that fourteen years with
me as shipmate and fellow officer has never shown you a
weak spot in my courage; you know me, John Deihl,
and I know you.” The voice dropped suddenly.
“That’s all.”
Captain Deihl had stood motionless, with stern,
set face and keen, cold eyes searching those of the first
officer. At last he reached out a hand and gripped the
one that met it. “I believe you, Harry,” he said quietly.
Dr. Maher turned quickly and regarded the two
with a slight cynical uplifting of his lip. “I under-
stand then,” he said unpleasantly, “that this is to be a
matter of friendship rather than of evidence?”
The first officer's face flamed, and he took one step
toward the surgeon, with clenched fists.
“Go to your cabin, Mr. Tennell!” ordered Captain
Deihl curtly. “Remain there till further orders come
from me!”


The Interrupted Wireless 87
The first officer paused, involuntarily straightened
himself, and lifted one hand to his cap. “Yes, sir,”
he said.
“And you are not to mention this matter to any-
one,” Captain Deihl directed.
“I understand, sir.”
But news travels quickly aboard ship; so that within
less than an hour the tragedy had become a matter of
general discussion. Miss Bellingdame was reclining
comfortably in a deck chair, when a casual acquaintance,
Clarke Matthews, dropped into a seat beside her, and
informed her of it. She struggled to her feet, stood
staring at him dully for an instant with whitening face,
swayed, and fell prone to the deck. It was fully half an
hour before the stewardess and her assistants saw the
eyelids flutter and open weakly; and at the end of another
half hour the stewardess sought out the Captain. She
found him at his desk in his cabin, with Second Officer
Forbes.
“We must get those despatches off, Mr. Forbes,”
the Captain was saying. “Have the ship canvassed,
first and second cabin, steerage and crew, to see if by any
chance there is a man, woman, or child aboard who can
operate the wireless. Attend to it at once!
Forbes touched his cap and went out. The Captain
turned to the stewardess inquiringly.
“Please, sir, Miss Bellingdame is almost insane from


88 The Thinking Machine on the Case
the shock of the murder,” the stewardess informed him.
“It's hard to make her keep in her state room, let alone
the berth. Dr. Maher doesn’t seem to be able to do her
any good. She insists on seeing the body.”
“Why?” asked Captain Deihl in surprise. “Was
she acquainted with Ingraham P”
“She was engaged to be married to him, sir,” re-
plied the stewardess. “Poor child! I don’t know
what to do for her.”
Captain Deihl stared at her blankly for an instant,
then rose suddenly and accompanied her to Miss Bell-
ingdame's state room. She was sitting up in her berth,
pallid as the sheets about her. One of the stewardess's
assistants sat near trying to soothe her.
“Is it true, Captain?” she demanded.
Captain Deihl nodded grimly.
She extended her hands convulsively and clutched
his arm, then her head sank forward against it and
she sobbed bitterly. “Do you know who—who did
it?” she asked at last.
“We don’t know, madam,” he replied gently. “We
are doing all we can; but—”
“Somebody told me your first officer had been ar-
rested,” she interrupted suddenly. “He is tall and
dark, with a heavy mustache, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” replied the Captain. “Why?”
For a little while she was silent as she struggled


The Interrupted Wireless 89
to regain control of her voice, and then: “May I say
something to you in private, Captain?”
“Do you know-do you suspect—?” he began.
“I must!” she insisted.
At a gesture from Captain Deihl the stewardess
and her assistant left them alone together. Fifteen
minutes later he emerged and summoned Second Officer
Forbes to his cabin.
“Mr. Forbes, proceed at once to Mr. Tennell's
cabin and formally place him under arrest,” he ordered
shortly. “You had better put him in irons, and keep
an armed guard beside him day and night until we land.
Don’t take any chances with him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Two hours later Second Officer Forbes appeared
in the cabin again. “We have canvassed the ship, sir,”
he reported. “There is not a wireless operator aboard,
or even a telegraph operator.”
“What is our speed?”
“A little better than seventeen knots, sir.”
“We should land then about five o’clock tomorrow
afternoon,” the Captain mused. “Very well, Mr.
Forbes; we shall have to do without an operator.”
Captain Deihl paced slowly, thoughtfully, back
and forth across the bridge. Above the stars glittered
coldly down upon the silent, sinister sea as it slid past the
Uranus in green, oily swells. The encompassing night


CHAPTER IX
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE
| )ROFESSOR Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen listened
to Captain Deihl's recital of the circumstances
surrounding the murder of Charles Ingraham,
with a slight frown of annoyance on his wizened face.
As he talked the man of the sea turned from time to
time to Dr. Maher for confirmation of the facts. Each
time such corroboration was given with a short nod of
the head.
“Now, there are a few other little things,” Captain
Deihl continued deliberately, “that are not known
to Dr. Maher here. For instance, I personally went
to the fo'c'sle to see if Tennell had posted a notice there
offering a reward for the knife on the night before the
murder, and found that statement correct. Here is the
notice. You will see the description fits perfectly the
knife with which the murder was committed.”
The Thinking Machine accepted a sheet of paper
which Deihl offered, glanced at it, then handed it back.
“I don’t know if Dr. Maher even knows just why
I ordered Tennell under arrest,” continued the Captain.
“Miss Bellingdame's story decided me. She was going
to the wireless office to send a message, when she saw a
7 91


92 The Thinking Machine on the Case
man—it was First Officer Tennell—thrust his head out
the door and look around, as if he contemplated escape.
She thought it rather curious that he should slam the door
when he saw her; but it meant nothing particularly.
Then, at a time when we now know Ingraham was dead,
she carried on a conversation with some one in the wire-
less office, through the locked door. Tennell had not
mentioned this to me, and coming as it did it seemed so
conclusive that I ordered his arrest.”
“It was conclusive from the first,” remarked Dr.
Maher.
“And then hearing the wireless that night after I
had taken pains to assure myself that there was no oper-
ator aboard!” Captain Deihl resumed, and his face
reflected his bewilderment. “I went straight from
the bridge to the wireless office, to find it silent, dark,
and the door locked. I called. There was no answer,
and Ismashed in the door. There was no sign of anyone
having been in there—everything was precisely as we
left it when the body was removed.”
For a long time there was silence. Dr. Maher
drummed impatiently on the arm of his chair; The
Thinking Machine sat motionless, his slender figure
all but engulfed in the huge chair.
“As I understand it,” remarked The Thinking
Machine at last, “Tennell is now in the hands of the
police, and the body is—”


The Midnight Message 93
“Ashore awaiting burial,” the Captain supplied.
“Miss Bellingdame has asked permission of the author-
ities to take charge of it.”
Dr. Maher rose and went to the window, where he
stood looking out. The Thinking Machine lowered
his squint eyes and stared steadily at the ship's surgeon.
“The case against the first officer seems perfectly
clear thus far,” said the scientist after a pause. “Why
do you come to me?”
Captain Deihl's bronzed face reddened as if he
was embarrassed, and he cleared his throat. “Because
I know Harry Tennell,” he said bluntly. “Circumstances
are compelling me to believe that he is a murderer, and
my reason won’t let me believe it. Why, man, I’ve
known him for years, and I simply can’t make myself
believe what I have to believe! The police are deaf to
the bare suggestion of his innocence, and I—I came here.”
“All of which is rather to the credit of your heart
than to your head,” interposed Dr. Maher cynically.
“Have you any cause to suspect anyone but Ten-
nell, Captain?” inquired The Thinking Machine. He
was squinting at the back of Dr. Maher's head. “Can
you imagine any other motive than the apparent one?”
“No,” replied Captain Deihl. “I can imagine
nothing; but I would gamble my right arm that Harry
Tennell didn’t kill him.”
Again there was silence. The Captain was gazing


The Midnight Message 95
The Thinking Machine glanced at Dr. Maher as if
surprised. “Therefore the message Ingraham was
sending,” he put in, “was either stolen or was being
composed as he sent it. Is that clear?”
There was a pause. Captain Deihl nodded, and
Dr. Maher began drumming on the window sill.
“That being true,” the scientist went on incisively,
“the next step is to learn who aboard the Uranus could
read the code—the Continental code too, mind you, not
the Morse—as a message was being sent. Is that clear?”
“Yes; go on,” said Captain Deihl.
“When we find the person who could read the Con-
tinental code, we also find the person who in all probabil-
ity was operating the wireless at one o’clock the night of
the murder. Is that clear?”
“Yes, yes.” -
“And when we find the person who operated the
wireless, logic shows us incontrovertibly that we have
either the murderer of Ingraham, or some one who was
in the plot. Remember, the ship had been canvassed in
a search for an operator. None came forward; therefore
we know that the operator—an operator—was aboard,
but for divers reasons preferred to remain unknown.
We know that as certainly as that two and two make
four, not sometimes but all the time.”
Dr. Maher turned and dropped back into his chair,
with a new interest evident in every line of his face.


96 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“With these facts in hand it is a simple matter,
albeit perhaps a tedious one, to find what message was
sent from the ship both by the operator and by the un-
known at night,” The Thinking Machine resumed.
He was silent for a moment, then rose and left the room.
He was gone for perhaps ten minutes. “Now, Captain
Deihl, and you, Dr. Maher, have you formed any opinion
as to the exact method of the murder? Was the mur-
derer inside the cabin with Ingraham, or was he killed by
a knife thrust through an open window? You know
the arrangement of the place better than I. What is
your opinion?”
Captain Deihl considered the matter carefully as he
sought to recall every minute detail of the cabin as he
found it. “Since you have brought up the question,”
he said slowly at last, “it seems to me that he must have
been stabbed by some one outside, through the window.
His left side was toward the window, and the window
was open, as it was warm, and he was in his shirt sleeves.
Yes, it was within easy reach, and I’m inclined to believe
– What do you think, Maher?”
“I agree with you perfectly,”
5
was the prompt re-
sponse. “The angle of the knife indicates that an arm
had been dropped inside the state room, and there was
an upward thrust, where if a person had been in the
room the natural angle would have been downward,
unless that person had been lying on the floor.”


98 The Thinking Machine on the Case
view first. He was sending a message somewhere as he
composed it. Now, anyone aboard that ship who knew
the Continental code could have read that message,
because the wireless has that fault. That being true,
we shall admit that somebody did read it, or was reading
it as it went.
“Right here we come to what may prove to be the
solution. It was necessary for the person who read
the message as it went to stop it, and perhaps to silence
the man who sent it, even at the cost of a life. Therefore,
the importance of the message to the person who read it
was life and death. A blow was struck; the message was
stopped. But the knife? Tennell says he lost it; anyone
might have found it.
“The message is stopped; the man is dead. The
next vital necessity which the murderer feels is self
protection. How? Can a message be sent which will
counteract the one which was stopped by the murder?
If this can be done, it is vitally necessary. Some one then
—the murderer—takes another tremendous chance,
enters the office, and is sending another message, possibly
a continuation of the interrupted message, when Captain
Deihl becomes aware of it. He goes to investigate,
and the probabilities are that the unknown operator
escapes by way of the window and regains a state room
unobserved.
“That's clear, isn’t it? Well, now, what possible


The Midnight Message 99
motive might lie back of it all? Well, one for instance.
Suppose the English police, after the Uranus sailed,
had reason to suspect there was some person aboard who
was wanted there; they could have reached the Uranus
by wireless. But no such report reached the Uranus,
you say, Captain? That is, no such report reached you,
you mean. The operator might have received such a
report; but for reasons of his own kept it to himself.
Do you see?
“Let us conjecture a bit. What if a big reward was
offered for some person aboard the Uranus, and a state-
ment of the fact reached it by wireless? What if the
operator was that peculiar type of man who would hold
that information to himself on the chance of discov-
ering and delivering over that person who was wanted
to the police of this country, thus holding the reward all
to himself? Do you see the possibilities? Now, what
if that person who was wanted was an operator as well,
and able to read the unwritten message the regular oper-
ator was sending, -a message, understand, which meant
capture and punishment,-is that a motive for murder?
“This is all partly conjecture, partly fact—merely a
discussion of the possibilities. Still, our murderer is
unknown. As I have said, the capture of the guilty
person may be simple; but it may be tedious. When I
hear from—”
There was a sharp ringing of the telephone bell in the


100 The Thinking Machine on the Case
next room. The scientist rose abruptly and went out.
After a few minutes he returned.
“You allowed Miss Bellingdame to leave the Uranus
on a motor boat, I understand, before you docked P”
he inquired placidly.
“Yes,” replied Captain Deihl. “She requested it,
and Dr. Maher suggested that it would perhaps be best
as she was very ill and weak from the shock following the
tragedy.”
“I shall be able to put my conjectures to a test at once
then,” said The Thinking Machine as he put on his hat.
“First, I must ask some questions of Miss Bellingdame,
however. Suppose you gentlemen wait for me at police
headquarters? I shall be there in an hour or so.”
The Thinking Machine and Hutchinson Hatch,
reporter, were sitting together in a small reception room
adjoining the telegraph office in the Hotel Teutonic.
Opposite them was Miss Bellingdame, still pale and
weary looking, with traces of grief on her face.
“Our close relationship with Mr. Ingraham prompted
us to call upon you and offer our condolences at this time,”
The Thinking Machine was saying glibly; “and at the
same time to ask if we could be of any service to you?”
“I appreciate the feeling; but hardly think there is
anything you can do,” Miss Bellingdame responded;
“unless, indeed, it is to relieve me of the painful task
of taking charge of the body, and—”


The Midnight Message 101
“Just what I was going to suggest,” interrupted the
little scientist. “With your permission I shall send a
telegram at once to friends at home and tell them to make
the preparations. If you will excuse me?” and he rose.
Miss Bellingdame nodded, and he went to the small
window of the telegraph office, wrote a despatch, and
handed it in. After a moment he resumed his seat.
“It is singular that Charlie should never have men-
5
tioned your name in his letters home,” continued The
Thinking Machine as he dropped back into his
chair.
“Well, our acquaintance was rather brief,” replied
Miss Bellingdame. “I met him abroad, and at his
suggestion came directly over with him. Now that
everything has happened, I hardly know just what I
shall do next.”
The telegraph sounder clicked sharply, and distinctly.
“And when were you to have been married?” in-
terrupted the scientist gently.
Miss Bellingdame was listening intently. “Married?”
she repeated absently. “Oh, yes, we were to have been
married, to be sure.”
Hatch strove vainly to read the expression which was
creeping into her face. She was leaning forward, grip-
ping the arms of the chair in which she sat with wide,
staring, frightened eyes, and every instant her face grew
whiter. Suddenly she rose.


102 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Really you must pardon me,” she gasped hurriedly.
“I am ill!”
She turned quickly and almost ran out of the room.
The Thinking Machine walked out and into the arms of
Detective Mallory in the lobby.
“Are your men placed?” demanded the scientist
abruptly.
“Yes,” was the complacent answer. “Did it work?”
“It worked,” replied The Thinking Machine enig-
matically. “Come on. Let us go to headquarters.”
The Thinking Machine's conjecture was faulty only
in one point, and that was his surmise that the message
which had been sent at night from the Uranus after the
murder had been to counteract the message which Ingra-
ham was sending when he was killed. Instead, Miss
Bellingdame, herself an operator, had picked up the
wireless station ashore and ordered a motor boat out to
meet her and take her off. Every other statement was
correct as he had stated it.
“And simple,” he told Hatch and Captain Deihl.
“Mr. Hatch, to whom I telephoned while you, Captain,
were with me, was able to find the interrupted message at
sea; in fact, it had been relayed in to the station here for
information. It stated that Miss Florence Hogarth,
wanted for poisoning in England, and for whom there
was a reward of one thousand pounds, was aboard the
Uranus as Miss Bellingdame, and that instead of having


The Midnight Message 103
dark hair her hair was straw blond, as the result of a little
peroxide. You see, therefore, the logic of the units was
correct. It is always so. She went to pieces when she
read the sounder at the hotel, which was a prearranged
affair in the hands of a Continental operator. The
message I sent was a dummy.”
Subsequent developments proved that instead of
being engaged to the murdered operator, Miss Belling-
dame, or Miss Hogarth, had never seen him until she
came aboard the Uranus. It never appeared just how
Ingraham had discovered her identity.


CHAPTER X
THE ROSWELL TIARA
AD it not been for the personal interest of a fellow
H savant in the case it is hardly likely that the prob-
lem of the Roswell tiara would ever have come
to the attention of The Thinking Machine. And had
the problem not come to his attention it would inevitably
have gone to the police. Then there would have been
a scandal in high places, a disrupted home and ever-
lasting unhappiness to at least four persons. Perhaps it
was an inkling of this latter possibility that led The
Thinking Machine—to take initial steps in the solution
of a mystery which seemed to have only an obvious
ending.
When he was first approached in the matter The
Thinking Machine was in his small laboratory from
which had gone forth truths that shocked and partially
readjusted at least three of the exact sciences. His
enormous head, with its long yellow hair, bobbed up and
down over a little world of chemical apparatus, and the
narrow, squint eyes peered with disagreeable satisfaction
at a blue flame which spouted from a brazier. Martha,
an aged woman who was the scientist's household staff,
104


The Roswell Tiara 105
entered. She was not tall yet she towered command-
ingly above the slight figure of her eminent master.
Professor Van Dusen turned to her impatiently.
“Well? Well?” he demanded shortly.
Martha handed him two cards. On one was the
name Charles Wingate Field, and on the other Mrs.
Richard Watson Roswell. Charles Wingate Field was
a name to juggle with in astronomy—The Thinking
Machine knew him well; the name of the woman was
strange to him.
“The gentleman said it was very important,” Martha
explained, “and the poor lady was crying.”
“What about?” snapped the scientist.
“Lord, sir, I didn’t ask her,” exclaimed Martha.
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
A few minutes later The Thinking Machine appeared
at the door of the little reception room, which he regarded
as a sort of useless glory, and the two persons there
arose to meet him. One was a woman apparently of
forty-five years, richly gowned, splendid of figure and
with a distinct, matured beauty. Her eyes showed
she had been weeping but now her tears were dried and
she caught herself staring curiously at the pallid face,
the keen blue eyes and the long slender hands of the
scientist. The other person was Mr. Field.
There was an introduction and the scientist motioned
them to seats. He himself dropped into a large cush-
-


106 The Thinking Machine on the Case
ioned chair, and looked from one to the other with a
question in his eyes.
“I have been telling Mrs. Roswell some of the things
you have done, Van Dusen,” began Mr. Field. “Now
I have brought her to you because here is a mystery,
a problem, an abstruse problem, and it isn’t the kind of
thing one cares to take to the police. If you—” -
“If Mrs. Roswell will tell me about it?” interrupted
the scientist. He seemed to withdraw even further into
the big chair. With head tilted back, eyes squinting
steadily upward and white fingers pressed tip to tip he
waited.
“Briefly,” said Mrs. Roswell, “it has to do with the
disappearance of a single small gem from a diamond
tiara which I had locked in a vault—a vault of which
no living person knew the combination except myself.
Because of family reasons I could not go to the police,
and—”
“Please begin at the beginning,” requested The
Thinking Machine. “Remember I know nothing what-
ever of you or your circumstances.”
It was not unnatural that Mrs. Roswell should be
surprised. Her social reign was supreme, her name
was constantly to be seen in the newspapers, her enter-
tainments were gorgeous, her social doings on an elab-
orate scale. She glanced at Mr. Field inquiringly, and he
nodded.


The Roswell Tiara 107
“My first husband was Sidney Grantham, an Eng-
lishman,” she explained. “Seven years ago he left me
a widow with one child—a son Arthur—now twenty-
two years old and just out of Harvard. Mr. Grantham
died intestate and his whole fortune together with the
family jewels, came to me and my son. The tiara was
among these jewels.
“A year ago I was married to Mr. Roswell. He, too,
is a man of wealth, with one daughter, Jeannette, now
nineteen years old. We live on Commonwealth Avenue
and while there are many servants I know it is impos-
sible—”
“Nothing is impossible, Madam,” interposed The
Thinking Machine positively. “Don’t say that please.
It annoys me exceedingly.”
Mrs. Roswell stared at him a moment then resumed:
“My bed room is on the second floor. Adjoining and
connecting with it is the bed room of my step-daughter.
This connecting door is always left unlocked because she
is timid and nervous. I keep the door from my room
into the hall bolted at night and Jeanette keeps the hall
door of her room similarly fastened. The windows, too,
are always secured at night in both rooms.
“My maid and my daughter's maid both sleep in the
servant’s quarters. I arranged for this because, as I was
about to state, I keep about half a million dollars worth of
jewels in my bed room locked in a small vault built into


108 The Thinking Machine on the Case
the wall. This little vault opens with a combination.
Not one person knows that combination except myself.
It so happens that the man who set it is dead.
“Last night, Thursday, I attended a reception and
wore the tiara. My daughter remained at home. At
four o’clock this morning I returned. The maids had
retired; Jeanette was sleeping soundly. I took off the
tiara and placed it, with my other jewels, in the vault.
I know that the small diamond now missing was in its
setting at that time. I locked the vault, shot the bolt
and turned the combination. Afterwards I tried the
vault door to make certain it was fastened. It was
then—then—”
For no apparent reason Mrs. Roswell suddenly burst
into tears. The two men were silent and The Thinking
Machine looked at her uneasily. He was not accustomed
to women anyway, and women who wept were hope-
lessly beyond him. -
“Well, well, what happened?” he asked brusquely
at last.
“It was perhaps five o'clock when I fell asleep,”
Mrs. Roswell continued after a moment. “About twenty
minutes later I was aroused by a scream of ‘Jeanette,
Jeanette, Jeanette. Instantly I was fully awake. The
screaming was that of a cockatoo which I have kept in my
room for many years. It was in its usual place on a
perch near the window, and seemed greatly disturbed.


The Roswell Tiara 109
“My first impression was that Jeanette had been in
the room. I went into her room and even shook her
gently. She was asleep so far as I could ascertain. I
returned to my own room and then was amazed to see
the vault door standing open. All the jewels and papers
from the vault were scattered over the floor. My first
thought was of burglars who had been frightened away
by the cockatoo. I tried every door and every window
in both Jeanette's room and mine. Everything was
securely fastened. - -
“When I picked up the tiara I found that a diamond
was missing. It had evidently been torn out of the
setting. I searched for it on the floor and inside the
vault. I found nothing. Then of course I could only
associate its disappearance with some act of—of my
step-daughter's. I don’t believe the cockatoo would
have called her name if she had not been in my room.
Certainly the bird could not have opened the vault.
Therefore I—I—” -
There was a fresh burst of tears and for a long time
no one spoke. -
“Do you burn a night lamp P” asked The Thinking
Machine finally.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Roswell.
“Did the bird ever disturb you at any time previous
to last night—that is I mean at night?”
“No.”


110 The Thinking Machine on the Case
* > *
“Has it any habit of speaking the word “Jeanette.
“No. I don’t think I ever heard it pronounce the
word more than three or four times before. It is stupid
and seems to dislike her.”
The Thinking Machine took down a volume of an
encyclopedia which he studied for a moment.
“Have you any record anywhere of that combina-
tion?” he inquired.
“Yes, but it would have been impossi—”
The scientist made a little impatient gesture with his
hands.
“Where is this record P.”
“The combination begins with the figure three,”
Mrs. Roswell hastened to explain. “I jotted it down in a
French copy of “Les Miserables which I keep in my
room with a few other books. The first number, three,
appears on Page 3, the second on page 33, and the third
on Page 333. The combination in full is 3–14-9 No
person could possibly associate the numbers in the book
with the combination even if they should notice them.”
Again there was the quick, impatient gesture of the
scientist's hands. Mr. Field interpreted it aright as
annoyance.
“You say your daughter is nervous,” The Thinking
Machine said. “Is it serious? Is there any somnam-
bulistic tendency that you know of ?”
Mrs. Roswell flushed a little.


The Roswell Tiara 111
“She has a nervous disorder,” she confessed at last.
“But I know of no somnambulistic tendency. She
has been treated by half a dozen specialists. Two or
three times we feared—feared—.”
She faltered and stopped. The Thinking Machine
squinted at her oddly, then turned his eyes toward the
ceiling again.
“I understand,” he said. “You feared for her sanity.
And she may have the sleep-walking habit without your
knowledge?”
“Yes, she may have,” faltered Mrs. Roswell.
“And now your son. Tell me something about him.
He has an allowance, I suppose? Is he inclined to be
studious or other wise? Has he any love affair?”
Again Mrs. Roswell flushed. Her entire manner
resented this connection of her son’s name with the
affair. She looked inquiringly at Mr. Field.
“I don’t see—” Mr. Field began, remonstratingly.
“My son could have nothing—” Mrs. Roswell in-
terrupted.
“Madam, you have presented an abstract problem,”
broke in The Thinking Machine impatiently. “I pre-
sumed you wanted a solution. Of course, if you do not
—” and he made as if to arise.
“Please pardon me,” said Mrs. Roswell quickly, al-
most tearfully. “My son has an allowance of ten thou-
sand a year; my daughter has the same. My son is


112 The Thinking Machine on the Case
inclined to be studious along political lines, while my
daughter is interested in charity. He has no love
affair except—except a deep attachment for his step-
sister. It is rather unfortunate—”
“I know, I know,” interrupted the scientist again.
“Naturally you object to any affection in that direction
because of a fear for the girl's mental condition. May
I ask if there is any further prejudice on your part to
the girl?”
“Not the slightest,” said Mrs. Roswell quickly. “I
am deeply attached to her. It is only a fear for my
son's happiness.”
“I presume your son understands your attitude in the
matter?”
“I have tried to intimate it to him without saying it
openly,” she explained. “I don’t think he knows how
serious her condition has been, and is for that matter.”
“Of your knowledge has either your son or the girl
ever handled or looked into the book where the com-
bination is written ?”
“Not that I know of, or ever heard of.”
“Or any of your servants?”
“No.”
“Does it happen that you have this tiara with you?”
Mrs. Roswell produced it from her hand bag. It was
a glittering, glistening thing, a triumph of the jeweler's
art, intricate and marvelously delicate in conception yet


The Roswell Tiara 113
wonderfully heavy with the dead weight of pure gold.
A single splendid diamond of four or five carats blazed
at its apex, and radiating from this were strings of smaller
stones. One was missing from its setting. The prongs
which had held it were almost straight from the force
used to pry out the stone. The Thinking Machine
studied the gorgeous ornament in silence.
“It is possible for you to clear up this matter without
my active interference,” he said at last. “You do not
want it to become known outside your own family, there-
fore you must watch for this thief—yourself in person.
Take no one into your confidence, least of all your son
and step-daughter. Given the same circumstances, the
A B C rules of logic—and logic is inevitable—indicates
that another may disappear.”
Mrs. Roswell was frankly startled, and Mr. Field
leaned forward with eager interest.
“If you see how this second stone disappears,”
continued The Thinking Machine musingly, without
heeding in the slightest the effect of his words on the
others, “you will know what became of the first and
will be able to recover both.”
“If another attempt is to be made,” exclaimed Mrs.
Roswell apprehensively, “would it not be better to send
the jewels to a safe deposit? Would I not be in danger
myself?”
“It is perfectly possible that if the jewels were re-


The Roswell Tiara 115
center of the mystery. Again he examined the tiara,
then studied the door of the vault. Afterwards he casu-
ally picked up and verified the record of the combination,
locked and unlocked the vault twice after which he ex-
amined the fastenings of the door and the windows.
This done he went over and peered inquisitively at the
cockatoo on its perch.
The bird was a giant of its species, pure white, with
a yellow crest which drooped in exaggerated melancholy.
The cockatoo resented the impertinence and had not
The Thinking Machine moved quickly would have torn
off his spectacles.
A door from another room opened and a girl-Jeanette
—entered. She was tall, slender and exquisitely pro-
portioned with a great cloud of ruddy gold hair. Her
face was white with the dead white of illness and infinite
weariness was in her eyes. She was startled at sight of
a stranger.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I didn’t know—”
and started to retire.
Professor Van Dusen acknowledged an introduction
to her by a glance and a nod then turned quickly and
looked at the cockatoo which was quarreling volubly
with crest upraised. Mrs. Roswell's attention, too, was
attracted by the angry attitude of her pet. She grasped
the scientist's arm quickly.
“The bird!” she exclaimed.


116 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Jeanette, Jeanette, Jeanette,” screamed the cock-
atoo, shrilly.
Jeanette dropped wearily into a chair, heeding neither
the tense attitude of her step-mother nor the quarrelings
of the cockatoo.
“You don’t sleep well, Miss Roswell ?” asked The
Thinking Machine.
“Oh, yes,” the girl replied. “I seem to sleep enough,
but I am always very tired. And I dream constantly,
nearly always my dreams are of the cockatoo. I im-
agine he calls my name.”
Mrs. Roswell looked quickly at Professor Van Dusen.
He crossed to the girl and examined her pulse.
“Do you read much?” he asked. “Did you ever
read this?” and he held up the copy of “Les Misera-
bles.”
“I don’t read French well enough,” she replied.
“I have read it in English.”
The conversation was desultory for a time and finally
The Thinking Machine arose. In the drawing room
down stairs he gave Mrs. Roswell some instructions
which amazed her exceedingly, and went his way.
Jeanette retired about eleven o’clock that night and
in an hour was sleeping soundly. But Mrs. Roswell
was up when the clock struck one. She had previously
bolted the doors of the two rooms and fastened the
windows. Now she arose from her seat, picked up a


The Roswell Tiara 117
small jar from her table, and crept cautiously, even stealth-
ily to the bed whereon Jeanette lay, pale almost as
the sheets. The girl's hands were outstretched in an
attitude of utter exhaustion. Mrs. Roswell bent low
over them a moment, then stole back to her own room.
Half an hour later she was asleep.


CHAPTER XI
A FOOL OF GOOD INTENTION
ARLY next morning Mrs. Roswell 'phoned to The
E Thinking Machine, and they talked for fifteen
minutes. She was apparently explaining some-
thing and the scientist gave crisp, monosyllabic answers.
When the wire was disconnected he called up two other
persons on the 'phone. One of them was Dr. Henderson,
noted alienist; the other was Dr. Forrester, a nerve
specialist of international repute. To both he said:
“I want to show you the most extraordinary thing
you have ever seen.”
sk >k sk >k sk >k >k
The dim light of the night lamp cast strange, unex-
pected shadows, half revealing yet half hiding, the
various objects in Mrs. Roswell's room. The bed
made a great white splotch in the shadows, and the only
other conspicuous point was the bright silver dial of the
jewel vault. From the utter darkness of Jeanette
Roswell's room came the steady, regular breathing of a
person asleep; the cockatoo was gone from his perch.
Outside was the faint night-throb of a city at rest. In
the distance a clock boomed four times.
Finally the stillness was broken by a faint creaking,
118


A Fool of Good Intention - 119
the tread of a light foot and Jeanette, robed mystically
in white, appeared in the door of her room. Her eyes
were wide open, staring, her face was chalk-like, her
hair tumbled in confusion about her head and here and
there was flecked with the glint of the night-light.
The girl paused and from somewhere in the shadows
came a quick gasp, instantly stifled. Then, unhearing,
she moved slowly but without hesitation across the room
to a table whereon lay several books. She stooped over
this and when she straightened up again she held “Les
Miserables” in her hand. Several times the leaves
fluttered through her fingers, and thrice she held the
book close to her eyes in the uncertain light, then nodded
as if satisfied and carefully replaced it as she had found it.
From the table she went straight toward the silver dial
which gleamed a reflection of light. As she went another
figure detached itself noiselessly from the shadows and
crept toward her from behind. As the girl leaned for-
ward to place her hand on the dial a steady ray of light
from an electric bulb struck her full in the face. She
did not flinch nor by the slightest sign show that she
was aware of it. From her face the light traveled to
each of her hands in turn.
The dial whirled in her fingers several times and then
stopped with a click, the bolt snapped and the vault
door opened. Conspicuously in front lay the tiara
glittering mockingly. Again from the shadows there


A Fool of Good Intention 121
----------. "
limply into a chair; her husband stood beside her help-
lessly stroking her hair.
“It’s all right,” said The Thinking Machine. “It’s
only shock.”
Grantham turned on him savagely, impetuously and
danger lay in the boyish eyes.
“It's a lie!” he said fiercely. “She didn’t steal
those diamonds.”
“How do you know?” asked The Thinking Machine
coldly.
“Because—because I took them myself,” the young
man blurted. “If I had known there was to be any such
trick as this I should never have consented to it.”
His mother stared up at him in open eyed wonder.
“How did you remove the jewels from the setting?”
asked The Thinking Machine, still quietly.
“I—I did it with my fingers.”
“Take out one of these for me,” and The Thinking
Machine offered him the tiara.
Grantham snatched it from his hand and tugged
at it frantically while the others stared, but each jewel
remained in its setting. Finally he sank down on the
bed beside the still figure of the girl he loved. His
face was crimson.
“Your intentions are good, but you're a fool,”
commented The Thinking Machine tartly. “I know
you did not take the jewels—you have proven it yourself


122 The Thinking Machine on the Case
—and I may add that Miss Roswell did not take
them.”
The stupefied look on Grantham's face was reflected
in those of his mother and step-father. Drs. Forrester
and Henderson were busy with the girl heedless of the
others.
“Then where are the jewels?” Mrs. Roswell de-
manded.
The Thinking Machine turned and squinted at her
with a slight suggestion of irritable reproach in his manner.
“Safe and easily found,” he replied impatiently.
He lifted the unconscious girl's hand and allowed his
fingers to rest on her pulse for a moment, then turned
to the medical men. “Would you have believed that
somnambulistic sub-consciousness would have taken
just this form P” he asked curtly.
“Not unless I had seen it,” replied Dr. Henderson,
frankly.
“It’s a remarkable mental condition—remarkable,”
commented Dr. Forrester.
It was a weirdly simple recital of the facts as he had
found them that The Thinking Machine told downstairs
in the drawing room an hour later. Dawn was breaking
over the city, and the faces of those who had waited
and watched for just what had happened showed weari-
ness. Yet they listened, listened with all their faculties
as the eminent scientist talked. Young Grantham sat


A Fool of Good Intention I23
white faced and nervous; Jeannette was sleeping quietly
upstairs with her maid on watch.
“The problem in itself was not a difficult one,”
The Thinking Machine began as he lounged in a big chair
with eyes upturned. “The unusual, not to say strange
features, which seemed to make it more difficult served
to simplify it as a matter of fact. When I had all the
facts I had the solution in the main. It was adding a
fact to a fact to get a result as one might add two and
two to get four.
“In the first place burglars were instantly removed
as a possibility. They would have taken everything,
not one small stone. Then what? Mr. Grantham
here? His mother assured me that he was quiet and
studious of habit, and had an allowance of ten thousand
a year. Then remember always that he no more than
anyone else could have entered the rooms. The barred
doors excluded the servants too.
“Then we had only you, Mrs. Roswell, and your
step-daughter. There would have been no motive
for you to remove the jewel unless your object was to
throw suspicion on the girl. I didn’t believe you capable
of this. So there was left somnambulism or a wilful
act of your step-daughter's. There was no motive for
the last—your daughter has ten thousand a year. Then
sleep-walking alone remained. Sleep-walking it was.
I am speaking now of the opening of the vault.”
9


124 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Grantham leaned forward in his chair gripping its
arms fiercely. The mother saw, and one of her white
hands was laid gently on his. He glanced at her im-
patiently then turned to The Thinking Machine. Mr.
Roswell, the alienist, and the specialist, followed the
cold clear logic as if fascinated.
“If somnambulism, then who was the somnambulist?”
The Thinking Machine resumed after a moment. “It
did not seem to be you Mrs. Roswell. You are not of a
nervous temperament; you are a normal healthy woman.
If we accept as true your statement that you were
aroused in bed by the cockatoo screaming ‘Jeannette’
we prove that you were not the somnambulist. Your
step-daughter? She suffered from a nervous disorder
so pronounced that you had fears for her mental con-
dition. With everyone else removed she was the som-
nambulist. Even the cockatoo said that.
“Now let us see how it would have been possible to
open the vault. We admit that no one except yourself
knew the combination. But a record of that com-
bination did appear therefore it was possible for some
one else to learn it. Your step-daughter does not know
that combination when she is in a normal condition.
I won’t say that she knows it when in the somnambulistic
state, but I will say that when in that condition she
knows where there is a record of it. How she learned this
I don't know. It is not a legitimate part of the problem.,
* * *


126 The Thinking Machine on the Case
next time the vault was found open it proved finally and
conclusively that Miss Roswell opened it. I chose
strawberry jam because it was unusual. I dare say no
one who might have a purpose in opening that vault
would go around with strawberry jam on his hands.
This jam did appear on the book, and then I summoned
you Dr. Forrester, and you Dr. Henderson. You know
the rest. I may add that Mr. Grantham in attempting
to take the theft upon himself merely made a fool of
himself. No person with bare fingers could have torn
out one of the stones.”
There was a long pause, and deep silence while the
problem as seen by The Thinking Machine was con-
sidered in the minds of his hearers. Grantham at last
broke the silence.
“Where are the two stones that are missing?”
“Oh yes,” said The Thinking Machine easily, as if
that trivial point had escaped him. “Mrs. Roswell
will you please have the cockatoo brought in P” he asked,
and then explained to the others: “I had the bird
removed from the room tonight for fear it would inter-
rupt at the wrong moment.”
Mrs. Roswell arose and gave some instructions to a
servant who was waiting outside. He went away and re-
turned later with a startled expression on his graven face.
“The bird is dead, madam,” he reported.
“Dead!” repeated Mrs. Roswell.


A Fool of Good Intention 127
“Good!” said The Thinking Machine rubbing his
hands briskly together. “Bring it in anyhow.”
“Why, what could have killed it?” asked Mrs. Ros-
well, bewildered. -
“Indigestion,” replied the scientist. “Here is the thief.”
He turned suddenly to the servant who had entered
bearing the cockatoo in state on a silver tray.
“Who? I ?” gasped the astonished servant.
“No, this fellow,” replied The Thinking Machine as
he picked up the dead bird. “He had the opportunity;
he had the pointed instrument necessary to pry out a
stone—note the sharp hooked bill; and he had the
strength to do it. Besides all that he confessed a fond-
ness for bright things when he tried to snatch my eye-
glasses. He saw Miss Roswell drop the tiara on the
floor, its brightness fascinated him. He pried out the
stone and swallowed it. It pained him, and he screamed
‘Jeannette. This same thing happened on two occa-
sions. Your encyclopedia will tell you that the cockatoo
has more strength in that sharp beak than you could
possibly exercise with two fingers unless you had a steel
instrument.”
Later that day The Thinking Machine sent to Mrs.
Roswell the two missing diamonds, the glass head of a
hat pin and a crystal shoe button which he had re-
covered from the dead bird. His diagnosis of the case
was acute indigestion.


CHAPTER XII
THE LOST RADIUM
NE ounce of radium! Within his open palm Pro-
O fessor Dexter held practically the world's entire
supply of that singular and seemingly inexhaust-
ible force which was, and is, one of the greatest of all
scientific riddles. So far as known there were only a
few more grains in existence—four in the Curie laboratory
in Paris, two in Berlin, two in St. Petersburg, one at
Leland Stanford and one in London. All the remainder
was here—here in the Yarvard laboratory, a tiny mass
lumped on a small piece of steel.
Gazing at this vast concentrated power Professor
Dexter was a little awed and a little appalled at the
responsibility which had suddenly devolved upon him,
naturally enough with this culmination of a project
which he had cherished for months. Briefly this had
been to gather into one cohesive whole the many particles
of the precious substance scattered over the world for the
purpose of elaborate experiments as to its motive power
practicability. Now here it was.
Its value, based on scarcity of supply, was incal-
culable. Millions of dollars would not replace it.
Minute portions had come from the four quarters of the
128


The Lost Radium 129
globe, in each case by special messenger, and each
separate grain had been heavily insured by Lloyd's at a
staggering premium. It was only after months of labor,
backed by the influence at the great university of Yarvard
in which he held the chair of physics, that Professor
Dexter had been able to accomplish his purpose.
At least one famous name had been loaned to the
proposed experiments, that of the distinguished scientist
and logician, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—
so called The Thinking Machine. The interest of this
master mind in the work was a triumph for Professor
Dexter, who was young and comparatively unknown.
The elder scientist—The Thinking Machine—was a
court of last appeal in the sciences and from the moment
his connection with Professor Dexter's plans was an-
nounced his fellows all over the world had been anxiously
awaiting a first word.
Naturally the task of gathering so great a quantity
of radium had not been accomplished without extensive,
and sometimes sensational, newspaper comment all
over the United States and Europe, therefore that news
of the receipt of the final portion of the radium at Yarvard
had been known in the daily press and with it a state-
ment that Professors Van Dusen and Dexter would
immediately begin their experiments.
The work was to be done in the immense laboratory
at Yarvard a high-ceilinged room with roof partially


130 The Thinking Machine on the Case
of glass, and with window set high in the walls far above
the reach of curious eyes. Full preparations had been
made;—the two men were to work together, and a guard
was to be stationed at the single door. This door led
into a smaller room, a sort of reception hall, which in
turn connected with the main hallway of the building.
Now Professor Dexter was alone in the laboratory,
waiting impatiently for The Thinking Machine and
turning over in his mind the preliminary steps in the
labor he had undertaken. Every instrument was in
place, all else was put aside, for these experiments, which
were either to revolutionize the motive power of the
world or else demonstrate the utter uselessness of radium
as a practical force. -
Professor Dexter's line of thought was interrupted by
the appearance of Mr. Bowen, one of the instructors of
the University.
“A lady to see you, Professor,” he said as he handed
him a card. “She said it was a matter of great im-
portance to you.”
Professor Dexter glanced at the card as Mr. Bowen
turned and went out through the small room into the
main hallway. The name, Mme. Therese du Chas-
taigny, was wholly unfamiliar. Puzzled a little and
perhaps impatient too, he carefully laid the steel with
its burden of radium on the long table, and started out
into the reception room. Almost in the door he stumbled


The Lost Radium 131
against something, recovered his equilibrium with an
effort and brought up with an undignified jerk.
The color mounted to his modest ears as he heard a
woman laugh—a pleasant, musical, throaty sort of ripple
that under other circumstances would have been agree-
able. Now, being directed at his own discomfiture, it
was irritating, and the Professor's face tingled a little
as a tall woman arose and came towards him.
“Please pardon me,” she said contritely, but there
was still a flicker of a smile upon her red lips. “It was
my carelessness. I should not have placed my suit case
in the door.” She lifted it easily and replaced it in that
identical position. “Or perhaps,” she suggested, in-
quiringly, “someone else coming might stumble as you
did P.”
“No,” replied the Professor, and he smiled a little
through his blushes. “There is no one else in there.” "
As Mme. du Chastaigny straightened up, with a
rustle of skirts, to greet him Professor Dexter was some-
what surprised at her height and at the splendid lines
of her figure. She was apparently of thirty years and
seemed from a casual glance, to be five feet nine or ten
inches tall. In addition to a certain striking inde-
finable beauty she was of remarkable physical power
if one might judge from her poise and manner. Pro-
fessor Dexter glanced at her and then at the card in-
quiringly.


132 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“I have a letter of introduction to you from Mme.
Curie of France,” she explained as she produced it from
a tiny chatelaine bag. “Shall we go over here where the
light is better?”
She handed the letter to him and together they seated
themselves under one of the windows near the door
into the outer hallway. Professor Dexter pulled up a
light chair facing her and opened the letter. He glanced
through it and then looked up with a newly kindled
interest in his eyes.
“I should not have disturbed you,” Mme. du Chas-
taigny explained pleasantly, “had I not known it was
a matter of the greatest possible interest to you.”
“Yes P” Professor Dexter nodded.
“It's radium,” she continued. “It just happens
that I have in my possession practically an ounce of
radium of which the world of science has never
heard.”
“An ounce of radium!” repeated Professor Dexter,
incredulously. “Why, Madame, you astonish, amaze
me. An ounce of radium ?”
He leaned further forward in his chair and waited
expectantly while Mme. du Chastaigny coughed vio-
lently. The paroxysm passed after a moment.
“That is my punishment for laughing,” she explained,
smilingly. “I trust you will pardon me. I have a bad
throat—and it was quick retribution.”


134 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“It happened that during the production of the last
quarter of an ounce, my husband contracted an illness
which later proved fatal,” Mme. du Chastaigny resumed
after a slight pause, and her voice dropped. “I did not
know the purpose of his experiments; I only knew what
they had been and their comparative cost. On his
death bed he revealed this purpose to me. Strangely
enough it was identical with yours as the newspapers
have announced it—that is, the practicability of radium
as a motive power. He was at work on plans looking
to the utilization of its power when he died but these
plans were not perfected and unfortunately were in such
shape as to be unintelligible to another.”
She paused and sat silent for a moment. Professor
Dexter watching her face, traced a shadow of grief and
sorrow there and his own big heart prompted a ready
sympathy.
“And what,” he asked, “was your purpose in coming
to me now P”
“I know of the efforts you have made and the diffi-
culties you have encountered in gathering enough radium
for the experiments you have in mind,” Mme. du Chas-
taigny continued, “and it occurred to me that what I have,
which is of no possible use to me, might be sold to you
or to the university. As I said, there is nearly an ounce
of it. It is where I can put my hands on it, and you of
course are to make the tests to prove it is what it should be.”
---4-----.


The Lost Radium 135
“Sell it?” gasped Professor Dexter. “Why, Mad-
ame, it’s impossible. The funds of the college are not
so plentiful that the vast fortune necessary to purchase
such a quantity would be forth-coming.”
A certain hopeful light in the face of the young woman
passed and there was a quick gesture of her hands which
indicated disappointment.
“You speak of a vast fortune,” she said at last. “I
could not hope, of course, to realize anything like the
actual value of the substance—a million perhaps?
Only a few hundred thousands? Something to convert
into available funds for me the fortune which has been
sunk.”
There was almost an appeal in her limpid voice and
Professor Dexter considered the matter deeply for
several minutes as he stared out the window.
“Or perhaps,” the woman hurried on after a moment,
“it might be that you need more radium for the ex-
periments you have in hand now, and there might be
some sum paid me for the use of what I have P A
sort of royalty? I am willing to do anything within
reason.”
Again there was a long pause. Ahead of him, with
this hitherto unheard of quantity of radium available,
Professor Dexter saw rosy possibilities in his chosen
work. The thought gripped him more firmly as he
considered it. He could see little chance of a purchase—


136 The Thinking Machine on the Case
but the use of the substance during his experiments!
That might be arranged.
“Madame,” he said at last, “I want to thank you
deeply for coming to me. While I can promise nothing
definite I can promise that I will take up the matter with
certain persons who may be able to do something for
you. It's perfectly astounding. Yes, I may say that
I will do something, but I shall perhaps, require several
days to bring it about. Will you grant me that time?”
Mme. du Chastaigny smiled.
“I must of course,” she said, and again she went off
into a paroxysm of coughing, a distressing, hacking out-
burst which seemed to shake her whole body. “Of
course,” she added, when the spasm passed, “I can only
hope that you can do something either in purchasing
or using it.”
“Could you fix a definite price for the quantity you
have—that is a sale price—and another price merely
for its use?” asked Professor Dexter.
“I can’t do that offhand of course, but here is my
address on this card—Hotel Teutonic. I expect to
remain there for a few days and you may reach me any
time. Please, now please,” and again there was a
pleading note in her voice, and she laid one hand on his
arm, “don’t hesitate to make any offer to me. I shall
be only too glad to accept it if I can.”
She arose and Professor Dexter stood beside her.


The Lost Radium 137
“For your information,” she went on, “I will explain
that I only arrived in this country yesterday by steamer
from Liverpool and my need is such that within another
six months I shall be absolutely dependent upon what I
may realize from the radium.”
She crossed the room, picked up the suit case and
again she smiled, evidently at the recollection of Pro-
fessor Dexter’s awkward stumble. Then with her
burden she turned to go.
“Permit me, Madame,” suggested Professor Dexter,
quickly as he reached for the bag.
“Oh no, it is quite light,” she responded easily.
There were a few commonplaces and then she went
out. Gazing through the window after her Professor
Dexter noted, with certain admiration in his eyes the
graceful strong lines of her figure as she entered a
carriage and was driven away. He stood deeply thought-
ful for a minute considering the possibilities arising from
her casual announcement of the existence of this un-
known radium.
“If I only had that too,” he muttered as he turned
and re-entered his work room.
An instant later, a cry—a wild amazed shriek—
came from the laboratory and Professor Dexter, with
pallid face, rushed out through the reception room and
flung open the door into the main hallway. Half a
dozen students gathered about him and from across the


- *- *- : *-* - - -
138 The Thinking Machine on the Case
hall Mr. Bowen, the instructor, appeared with startled
eyes.
“The radium is gone—stolen!” gasped Professor
Dexter.
The members of the little group stared at one another
blankly while Professor Dexter raved impotently and
ran his fingers through his hair. There were questions
and conjectures; a babble was raging about him when a
new figure loomed up in the picture. It was that of a
small man with an enormous yellow head and an eternal
petulant droop to the corners of his mouth. He had
just turned a corner in the hall.
“Ah, Professor Van Dusen,” exclaimed Professor
Dexter, and he seized the long, slender hand of The
Thinking Machine in a frenzied grip.
“Dear me! Dear me!” complained The Thinking
Machine as he sought to extract his fingers from the
vise. “Don’t do that. What’s the matter?”
“The radium is gone–stolen!” Professor Dexter
explained.
The Thinking Machine drew back a little and
squinted aggressively into the distended eyes of his
fellow scientist. -
“Why that's perfectly silly,” he said at last. “Come
in, please, and tell me what happened.”
With perspiration dripping from his brow and hands
atremble, Professor Dexter followed him into the recep-
"..."


The Lost Radium 139
tion room, whereupon The Thinking Machine turned,
closed the door into the hallway and snapped the lock.
Outside Mr. Bowen and the students heard the click
and turned away to send the astonishing news hurtling
through the great university. Inside Professor Dexter
sank down on a chair with staring eyes and nervously
twitching lips.
“Dear me, Dexter, are you crazy?” demanded The
Thinking Machine irritably. “Compose yourself. What
happened? What were the circumstances of the dis-
appearance?”
“Come—come in here—the laboratory and see,”
suggested Professor Dexter.
“Oh, never mind that now,” said the other im-
patiently. “Tell me what happened?”
Professor Dexter paced the length of the small room
twice then sat down again, controlling himself with a
perceptible effort. Then, ramblingly but completely,
he told the story of Mme. du Chastaigny’s call, covering
every circumstance from the time he placed the radium
on the table in the laboratory until he saw her drive
away in the carriage. The Thinking Machine leaned
back in his chair with squint eyes upturned and slender
white fingers pressed tip to tip.
“How long was she here?” he asked at the end.
“Ten minutes, I should say,” was the reply.
“Where did she sit P”
10


140 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Right where you are, facing the laboratory door.”
The Thinking Machine glanced back at the window
behind him.
“And you?” he asked.
“I sat here facing her.”
“You know that she did not enter the laboratory?”
“I know it, yes,” replied Professor Dexter promptly.
“No one save me has entered that laboratory today.
I have taken particular pains to see that no one did.
When Mr. Bowen spoke to me I had the radium in my
hand. He merely opened the door, handed me her
card and went right out. Of course it's impossible
that—”
“Nothing is impossible, Mr. Dexter,” blazed The
Thinking Machine suddenly. “Did you at any time
leave Mme. du Chastaigny in this room alone?”
“No, no,” declared Dexter emphatically. “I was
looking at her every moment she was here; I did not put
the radium out of my hand until Mr. Bowen was out
of this room and in the hallway there. I then came into
this room and met her.”
For several minutes The Thinking Machine sat
perfectly silent, squinting upward while Professor
Dexter gazed into the inscrutable face anxiously.
“I hope,” ventured the Professor at last, “that you
do not believe it was any fault of mine?”
The Thinking Machine did not say.


142 The Thinking Machine on the Case
explaining that Mme. du Chastaigny desired to see
Professor Dexter on a matter of importance.
“Do you happen to know Mme. Curie's hand-
writing?” asked The Thinking Machine after a cursory
examination. “Of course you had some correspondence
with her about this work?”
“I know her writing, yes,” was the reply. “I think
that is genuine, if that's what you mean.”
“We'll see after a while,” commented The Thinking
Machine.
He arose and led the way into the laboratory. There
Professor Dexter indicated to him the exact spot on the
work table where the radium had been placed. Standing
beside it he made some mental calculation as he squinted
about the room, at the highly placed windows, the glass
roof above, the single door. Then wrinkles grew in
his tall brow.
“I presume all the wall windows are kept fastened?”
“Yes, always.”
“And those in the glass roof?”
“Yes.”
“Then bring me a tall step-ladder please!”
It was produced after a few minutes. Professor
Dexter looked on curiously and with a glimmer of under-
standing as The Thinking Machine examined each
catch on every window, and tapped the panes over with


144 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“No.”
“Just what sort of a suit case was that she carried?”
“Oh, I don't know,” replied Professor Dexter. “I
didn't particularly notice. It seemed to be about the
usual kind of a suit case—sole leather I imagine.”
“She arrived in this country yesterday you said?”
“Yes.”
“It's perfectly extraordinary,” The Thinking Ma-
chine grunted. Then he scribbled a line or two on a
scrap of paper and handed it to Professor Dexter.
“Please have this sent by cable at once.”
Professor Dexter glanced at it. It was:
“Mme. Curie, Paris:
“Did you give Mme. du Chastaigny letter of intro-
duction for Professor Dexter? Answer quick.
“Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen.”
As Professor Dexter glanced at the dispatch his eyes
opened a little.
“You don’t believe that Mme. du Chastaigny could
have—” he began.
“I daresay I know what Mme. Curie's answer will
be,” interrupted the other abruptly.
“What?”
“It will be no,” was the positive reply. “And
then—” He paused.
“Then–?”
“Your veracity may be brought into question.”


The Lost Radium 145
With flaming face and tightly clenched teeth but
without a word, Professor Dexter saw The Thinking
Machine unlock the door and pass out. Then he
dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
There Mr. Bowen found him a few minutes later.
“Ah, Mr. Bowen,” he said, as he glanced up, “please
have this cable sent immediately.”


CHAPTER XIII
THE SUIT CASE
NCE in his apartments The Thinking Machine
O telephoned to Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, at
the office of his newspaper. That long, lean,
hungry looking young man was fairly bubbling with sup-
pressed emotion when he rushed into the booth to answer
and the exhilaration of pure enthusiasm made his voice
vibrant when he spoke. The Thinking Machine read-
ily understood.
“It’s about the radium theft at Yarvard that I wanted
to speak to you,” he said.
“Yes,” Hatch replied. “Just heard of it this minute
—a bulletin from Police Headquarters. I was about to
go out on it.”
“Please do something for me first,” requested The
Thinking Machine. “Go at once to the Hotel Teutonic
and ascertain indisputably for me whether or not Mme.
du Chastaigny, who is stopping there, is accompanied by
a child.”
“Certainly, of course,” said Hatch, “but the story—”
“This is the story,” interrupted The Thinking
Machine, tartly. “If you can learn nothing of any child
at the hotel go to the steamer on which she arrived yester-
146


The Suit Case 147
day from Liverpool and inquire there. I must have
definite, absolute, indisputable evidence.”
“I’m off,” Hatch responded.
He hung up the receiver and rushed out. He hap-
pened to be professionally acquainted with the chief
clerk of the Teutonic, a monosyllabic, rotund gentleman
who was an occasional source of private information and
who spent his life adding up a column of figures.
“Hello, Charlie,” Hatch greeted him. “Mme. du
Chastaigny stopping here?”
“Yep,” said Charlie.
“Husband with her?”
“Nope.”
“By herself when she came?”
“Yep.”
“Hasn’t a child with her?”
“Nope.”
“What does she look like P”
“A corker!” said Charlie.
This last loquacious outburst seemed to appease the
reporter's burning thirst for information and he rushed
away to the dock where the steamship, Granada from
Liverpool, still lay. Aboard he sought out the purser
and questioned him along the same lines with the same
result. There was no trace of a child. Then Hatch
made his way to the home of The Thinking Machine.
“Well?” demanded the scientist.


148 The Thinking Machine on the Case
The reporter shook his head.
“She hasn't seen or spoken to a child since she left
Liverpool so far as I can ascertain,” he declared.
It was not quite surprise, it was rather perturbation
in the manner of The Thinking Machine now. It
showed in a quick gesture of one hand, in the wrinkles
on his brow, in the narrowing down of his eyes. He
dropped back into a chair and remained there silent,
thoughtful for a long time.
“It couldn’t have been, it couldn’t have been, it
couldn’t have been,” the scientist broke out finally.
Having no personal knowledge on the subject, what-
ever it was, Hatch discreetly remained silent. After a
while The Thinking Machine aroused himself with a
jerk and related to the reporter the story of the lost
radium so far as it was known.
“The letter of introduction from Mme. Curie opened
the way for Mme. du Chastaigny,” he explained.
“Frankly I believe that letter to be a forgery. I cabled
asking Mme. Curie. A ‘No’ from her will mean that
my conjecture is correct; a ‘Yes’ will mean—but that
is hardly worth considering. The question now is:
What method was employed to cause the disappearance
of the radium from that room ?”
The door opened and Martha appeared. She handed
a cablegram to The Thinking Machine and he ripped it
open with hurried fingers. He glanced at the sheet once,


The Suit Case 149
then arose suddenly after which he sat down again, just
as suddenly.
“What is it?” ventured Hatch.
“It’s ‘Yes,” was the reply.
>k >k :k sk sk >k
In the seclusion of his own small laboratory The
Thinking Machine was making some sort of chemical
experiment about eight o’clock that night. He was just
hoisting a graduated glass, containing a purplish, hazy .
fluid, to get the lamp light through it, when an idea
flashed into his mind. He permitted the glass to fall
and smash on the floor.
“Perfectly stupid of me,” he grumbled and turning
he walked into an adjoining room without so much as a
glance at the wrecked glass. A minute later he had
Hutchinson Hatch on the telephone.
“Come right up,” he instructed.
There was that in his voice which caused Hatch to
jump. He seized his hat and rushed out of his office.
When he reached The Thinking Machine's apartments
that gentleman was just emerging from the room where
the telephone was.
“I have it,” the scientist told the reporter, forestalling
a question. “It’s ridiculously simple. I can’t imagine
how I missed it except through stupidity.”
Hatch smiled behind his hand. Certainly stupidity
was not to be charged against The Thinking Machine.


150 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Come in a cab P” asked the scientist.
“Yes, it's waiting.”
“Come on then.”
They went out together. The scientist gave some
instruction to the cabby and they clattered off.
“You’re going to meet a very remarkable person,”
The Thinking Machine explained. “He may cause
trouble and he may not—any way look out for him. He’s
tricky.”
That was all. The cab drew up in front of a large
building, evidently a boarding house of the middle class.
The Thinking Machine jumped out, Hatch following,
and together they ascended the steps. A maid answered
the bell.
“Is Mr.—Mr.—oh, what's his name?” and The
Thinking Machine snapped his fingers as if trying to
remember. “Mr. , the small gentleman who arrived
from Liverpool yesterday—”
“Oh,” and the maid smiled broadly, “you mean
Mr. Berkerstrom ?”
“Yes, that's the name,” exclaimed the scientist,
“Is he in, please?”
“I think so, sir,” said the maid, still smiling. “Shall
I take your card?”
“No, it isn't necessary,” replied The Thinking
Machine. “We are from the theater. He is expecting
* >
U.S.


The Suit Case I51
“Second floor, rear,” said the maid.
They ascended the stairs and paused in front of a
door. The Thinking Machine tried it softly. It was
unlocked and he pushed it open. A bright light blazed
from a gas jet but no person was in sight. As they stood
silent, they heard a newspaper rattle and both looked in
the direction whence came the sound.
Still no one appeared. The Thinking Machine raised
a finger and tiptoed to a large upholstered chair which
faced the other way. One slender hand disappeared
on the other side to be lifted immediately. Wriggling
in his grasp was a man—a toy man-a midget min-
ature in smoking jacket and slippers who swore fluently in
German. Hatch burst out laughing, an uncontrollable
fit which left him breathless.
“Mr. Berkerstrom, Mr. Hatch,” said The Think-
ing Machine gravely. “This is the gentleman, Mr.
Hatch, who stole the radium. Before you begin to talk,
Mr. Berkerstrom, I will say that Mme. du Chastaigny
has been arrested and has confessed.”
“Ach, Gott!” raged the little German. “Let me
down, der chair in, ef you blease.”
The Thinking Machine lowered the tiny wriggling
figure into the chair while Hatch closed and locked the
door. When the reporter came back and looked,
laughter was gone. The drawn wrinkled face of the
midget, the babyish body, the toy clothing, added to the


152 The Thinking Machine on the Case
pitiful helplessness of the little figure. His age might
have been fifteen or fifty, his weight was certainly not
more than twenty-five pounds, his height barely thirty
inches.
“It iss as we did him in der theater, und—” Mr.
Berkerstrom started to explain limpingly.
“Oh, that was it?” inquired The Thinking Ma-
chine curiously as if some question in his own mind had
been settled. “What is Mme. du Chastaigny's correct
name?”
“She iss der famous Mlle. Fanchon, und I am der
marvelous midget, Count von Fritz,” proclaimed Mr.
Berkerstrom proudly in play-bill fashion.
Then a glimmer of what had actually happened
flashed through Hatch's mind; he was staggered by the
sublime audacity which made it possible. The Think-
ing Machine arose and opened a closet door at which
he had been staring. From a dark recess he dragged
out a suit case and from this in turn a small steel
box.
“Ah, here is the radium,” he remarked as he opened
the box. “Think of it, Mr. Hatch. An actual value of
millions in that small box.”
Hatch was thinking of it, thinking all sorts of things
as he mentally framed an opening paragraph for this
whooping big yarn. He was still thinking of it as he and
The Thinking Machine accompanied willingly enough


The Suit Case 153
by the midget, entered the cab and were driven back
to the scientist's house.
An hour later Mme. du Chastaigny called by request.
She imagined her visit had something to do with the
purchase of an ounce of radium; Detective Mallory,
watching her out a corner of his official eye, imagined she
imagined that. The next caller was Professor Dexter.
Dumb anger gnawed at his heart, but he had heeded a
telephone request. The Thinking Machine and Hatch
completed the party.
“Now, Mme. du Chastaigny, please,” The Thinking
Machine began quietly, “will you please inform me if
you have another ounce of radium in addition to that
you stole from the Yarvard laboratory?”
Mme. du Chastaigny leaped to her feet. The Think-
ing Machine was staring upward with squint eyes and
finger tips pressed together. He didn’t alter his position
in the slightest at her sudden move—but Detective
Mallory did.
“Stole?” exclaimed Mme. du Chastaigny. “Stole?”
“That's the word I used,” said The Thinking Ma-
chine almost pleasantly.
Into the woman’s eyes there leapt a blaze of tigerish
ferocity. Her face flushed, then the color fled and she
sat down again, perfectly pallid.
“Count von Fritz has recounted his part in the affair
to me,” went on The Thinking Machine. He leaned


154. The Thinking Machine on the Case
forward and took a package from the table. “Here is
the radium. Now have you any radium in addition to
this P.”
“The radium!” gasped the Professor incredulously.
“If there is no denial Count von Fritz might as
well come in, Mr. Hatch,” remarked The Thinking
Machine.
Hatch opened the door. The midget bounded into
the room true theatric style.
“Is it enough, Mlle. Fanchon?” inquired the
scientist. There was an ironic touch in his voice.
Mme. du Chastaigny nodded, dumbly.
“It would interest you, of course, to know how it
came out,” went on The Thinking Machine. “I dare-
say your inspiration for the theft came from a newspaper
article, therefore you probably know that I was directly
interested in the experiments planned. I visited the
laboratory immediately after you left with the radium.
Professor Dexter told me your story. It was clever,
clever, but there was too much radium, therefore unbe-
lievable. If not true, then why had you been there?
The answer is obvious.
“Neither you or anyone else save Mr. Dexter entered
that laboratory. Yet the radium was gone. How?
My first impression was that your part in the theft had
been to detain Mr. Dexter while someone entered the
laboratory or else fished out the radium through a win-


The Suit Case 155
dow in the glass roof by some ingenious contrivance. I
questioned Mr. Dexter as to your precise acts, and ven-
tured the opinion that you had either sneezed or coughed.
You had coughed twice—obviously a signal—thus that
view was strengthened.
“Next, I examined window and roof fastenings—all
were locked. I tapped over the glass to see if they had
been tampered with. They had not. Apparently the
radium had not gone through the reception room; cer-
tainly it had not gone any other way—yet it was gone.
It was a nice problem until I recalled that Mr. Dexter had
mentioned a suit case. Why did a woman, on business,
go out carrying a suit case. Or why, granting that she
had a good reason for it, should she take the trouble to
drag it into the reception room instead of leaving it in the
carriage?
“Now I didn’t believe you had any radium; I knew
you had signaled to the real thief by coughing. There-
fore I was prepared to believe that the suit case was the
solution of the theft. How? Obviously, something
concealed in it. What? A monkey? I dismissed that
because the thief must have had the reasoning instinct.
If not a monkey then what? A child? That seemed
more probable, yet it was improbable. I proceeded,
however, on the hypothesis that a child carefully in-
structed had been the actual thief.”
Open eyes were opened wider. Mme. du Chastaigny,
11


156 The Thinking Machine on the Case
being chiefly concerned, followed the plain, cold reason-
ing as if fascinated. Count von Fritz straightened his
necktie and smiled.
“I sent a cable to Mme. Curie asking if the letter of
introduction were genuine; and sent Mr. Hatch to get a
trace of a child. He informed me that there was no
child just about the time I heard from Mme. Curie that
the letter was genuine. The problem immediately went
back to the starting point. Time after time I reasoned
it out, always the same way—finally the solution came.
If not a monkey or a child then what? A midget. Of
course it was stupid of me not to have seen that possi-
bility at first.
“Then there remained only the task of finding him.
He probably came on the same boat with the woman,
and I saw a plan to find him. It was through the driver
of the carriage which Mme. du Chastaigny used. I
got his number by 'phone at the Hotel Teutonic. Where
had Mme. du Chastaigny left a suit case? He gave me
an address. I went there.
“I won’t attempt to explain how this woman obtained
the letter from Mme. Curie. I will only say that a
woman who undertakes to sell an ounce of radium to a
man from whom she intends to steal it is clever enough
to do anything. I may add that she and the midget are
theatrical people and that the idea of a person in a suit
case came from some part of their stage performance.


The Suit Case 157
Of course the suit case is so built that the midget could
open and close it from inside.”
“Und it always gets der laugh,” interposed the
midget, complacently.
After awhile the prisoners were led away. Count
von Fritz escaped three times the first day by the simple
method of wriggling between the bars of his cell.


CHAPTER XIV
THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
ITH coffee cup daintily poised in one hand, Mrs.
Lingard van Safford lifted wistful, bewitching
eyes toward her husband, who sat across the
breakfast table partially immersed in the morning papers.
“Are you going out this morning?” she inquired.
Mr. van Safford grunted inarticulately.
“May I inquire,” she went on placidly, and a dimple
snuggled at a corner of her mouth, “if that particular
grunt means that you are or are not?”
Mr. van Safford lowered his newspaper and glanced
at his wife's pretty face. She smiled charmingly.
“Really, I beg your pardon,” he apologized, “I
hardly think I will go out. I feel rather listless and I
must write some letters. Why?”
“Oh, nothing particularly,” she responded.
She took a last sip of her coffee, brushed two or three
tiny crumbs from her lap, laid her napkin aside, and
arose. Once she turned and glanced back; Mr. van
Safford was reading again.
After a while he finished the papers and stood look-
ing out a window, yawning prodigiously at the prospect
of letters to be written. His wife entered and picked up
i. - /
158


The Green-eyed Monster 159
a handkerchief which had fallen beside her chair. He
merely glanced around. She was dressed for the street
—immaculately, stunningly gowned as only a young and
beautiful woman can gown herself.
“Where are you going, my dear?” he inquired, lan-
guidly.
“Out,” she responded archly.
She passed through the door. He heard her step and
the rustle of her skirts in the hall, then he heard the front
door open and close. For some reason, not quite clear
even to himself, it surprised him; she had never done a
thing like that before. He walked to the front window
and looked out. His wife went straight down the street,
and turned the first corner. After a time he wandered
away to the library to nurse an emotion he had never
felt before. It was curiosity.
Mrs. van Safford did not return home for luncheon so
he sat down alone. Afterwards he mouched about the
house restlessly for an hour or so, then he went down
town. He appeared at home again just in time to dress
for dinner.
“Has Mrs. van Safford returned?” was his first ques-
tion of Baxter, who opened the door.
“Yes, sir, half an hour ago,” responded Baxter.
“She's dressing.”
Mr. van Safford ran up the steps to his own apart-
ments. At dinner his wife was radiant, rosily radiant.


160 The Thinking Machine on the Case
The flush of perfect health was in her cheeks and her
eyes sparkled beneath their long lashes. She smiled
brilliantly upon her husband. To him it was all as if
some great thing had been taken out of his life, leaving
it desolate, then as suddenly returned. Unnamed
emotions struggled within him prompted by that curios-
ity of the morning, and a dozen questions hammered
insistently for answers. But he repressed them gallantly,
and for this he was duly rewarded.
“I had such a delightful time today!” his wife
exclaimed, after the soup. “I called for Mrs. Black-
lock immediately after I left here, and we were together
all day shopping. We had luncheon down town.”
Oh! That was it! Mr. van Safford laughed out-
right from a vague sense of relief which he could not have
called by name, and toasted his wife silently by lifting
his glass. Her eyes sparkled at the compliment. He
drained the glass, snapped the slender stem in his fingers,
laughed again and laid it aside. Mrs. van Safford
dimpled with sheer delight.
“Oh, Wan, you silly boy!” she reproved softly, and
she stroked the hand which was, prosaically reaching for
the salt.
It was only a little while after dinner that Mr. van
Safford excused himself and started for the club, as usual.
His wife followed him demurely to the door and there,
under the goggling eyes of Baxter, he caught her in his


162 The Thinking Machine on the Case
the first persons he met down town was Mrs. Blacklock,
and she rushed toward him with outstretched hand.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she bubbled, for Mrs.
Blacklock was of that rare type which can bubble be-
comingly. “But where, in the name of goodness, is
your wife? I haven’t seen her for weeks and weeks?”
“Haven’t seen her for—” Mr. van Safford repeated,
slowly.
“No,” Mrs. Blacklock assured him. “I can’t im-
agine where she is keeping herself.”
Mr. van Safford gazed at her in dumb bewilderment
for a moment, and the lines about his mouth hardened a
little despite his efforts to control himself.
“I had an impression,” he said deliberately, “that
you saw her yesterday—that you went shopping together?”
“Goodness, no. It must be three weeks since I saw
her.”
Mr. van Safford's fingers closed slowly, fiercely, but
his face relaxed a little, masking with a slight smile,
a turbulent rush of mingled emotions.
“She mentioned your name,” he said at last, calmly.
“Perhaps she said she was going to call on you. I mis-
understood her.”
He didn’t remember the remainder of the conver-
sation, but it was of no consequence at the moment.
He had not misunderstood her, and he knew he had not.
At last he found himself at his club, and there idle guesses


The Green-eyed Monster 163
and conjectures flowed through his brain in an unending
stream. Finally he arose, grimly.
“I suppose I’m an ass,” he mused. “It doesn’t amount
to anything, of course, but—”
And he sought to rid himself of distracting thoughts
over a game of billiards; instead he only subjected him-
self to open derision for glaringly inaccurate play.
Finally he flung down the cue in disgust, strode away to
the 'phone and called up his home.
“Is Mrs. van Safford there?” he inquired of Baxter.
“No, sir. She hasn’t returned yet.” -
Mr. van Safford banged the telephone viciously as he
hung up the receiver. At six o'clock he returned home.
His wife was still out. At half past eight he sat down to
dinner, alone. He didn’t enjoy it; indeed hardly tasted
it. Then, just as he finished, she came in with a rush of
skirts and a lilt of laughter. He drew a long breath, and
set his teeth.
“You poor, deserted dear
ingly.
He started to say something, but two soft, clinging
! ”
she sympathized, laugh-
arms were about his neck, and a velvety cheek rested
against his own, so—so he kissed her instead. And
really he wasn’t at all to be blamed. She sighed happily,
and laid aside her hat and gloves.
“I simply couldn’t get here any sooner,” she explained
poutingly as she glanced into his accusing eyes. “I


164 The Thinking Machine on the Case
was out with Nell Blakesley in her big, new touring car,
and it broke down and we had to send for a man to
repair it, so-”
He didn't hear the rest; he was staring into her eyes,
steadily inquiringly. Truth shone triumphant there;
he could only believe her. Yet—yet—that other thing!
She hadn’t told him the truth! In her face, at last, he
read uneasiness as he continued to stare, and for a
moment there was silence.
“What's the matter, Van P” she inquired solici-
tiously. “Don’t you feel well ?”
He pulled himself together with a start and for a
time they chatted of inconsequential things as she ate.
He watched her until she pushed her desert plate aside,
then casually, quite casually:
“I believe you said you were going to call on Mrs.
Blacklock tomorrow?”
She looked up quickly.
“Oh no,” she replied. “I was with her all day
yesterday, shopping. I said I had called on her.”
Mr. van Safford arose suddenly, stood glaring down at
her for an instant, then turning abruptly left the house.
Involuntarily she had started up, then she sat down
again and wept softly over her coffee. Mr. van Safford
seemed to have a very definite purpose for when he
reached the club he went straight to a telephone booth,
and called Miss Blakesley over the wire.


The Green-eyed Monster 167
“Has Mr. van Safford been down yet?” she asked.
“No, Madam,” he replied.
“Did he come in at all last night?”
“Yes, Madam. About half past two. I let him in.
He had forgotten his key.”
Now as a matter of fact at that particular moment
Mr. van Safford was standing just around the corner,
four doors down, waiting for his wife. Just what he
intended to do when she appeared was not quite clear
in his mind, but the affair had gone to a point where he
felt that he must do something. So he waited impatiently,
and smoked innumerable cigars. Two hours passed.
He glanced around the corner. No one in sight. He
strolled back to the house, and met Baxter in the hall.
“Has Mrs. van Safford come down P” he asked of
the servant.
“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “She went out more than
an hour ago.”


CHAPTER XV
TWO AND TWO AGAIN MAKE FOUR
ARTHA opened the door.
“Please, sir,” she said, “there's a young
gentleman having a fit in the reception room.”
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Think-
ing Machine—turned away from his laboratory table
and squinted at her aggressively. Her eyes were dis-
tended with nervous excitement, and her wrinkled hands
twisted the apron she wore.
“Having a fit?” snapped the scientist.
“Yes, sir,” she gasped.
“Dear me! Dear me! How annoying!”
expostu-
lated the man of achievement, petulantly. “Just what
sort of a fit is it—epileptic, apoplectic or merely a fit
of laughter?”
“Lord, sir, I don’t know,” Martha confessed help-
lessly. “He’s just a-walking and a-talking and a-pull-
ing his hair, sir.”
“What name?”
“I—I forgot to ask, sir,” apologized the aged servant,
“it surprised me so to see a gentleman a-wiggling like
that. He said, though he'd been to Police Headquarters
and Detective Mallory sent him.”
168


Two and Two Again Make Four 169
The eminent logician dried his hands and started for
the reception room. At the door he paused and peered
in. With no knowledge of just what style of fit his
visitor had chosen to have he felt the necessity of this
caution. What he saw was not alarming—merely a
good looking young man pacing back and forth across
the room with quick, savage stride. His eyes were blaz-
ing, and his face was flushed with anger. It was Mr.
van Safford.
At sight of the diminutive figure of The Thinking
Machine, topped by the enormous yellow head, the young
man paused and his anger-distorted features relaxed
into something closely approaching surprise.
“Well?” demanded The Thinking Machine, quer-
ulously.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. van Safford with a
slight start. “I—I had expected to find a-a-rather
a different sort of person.”
“Yes, I know,” said The Thinking Machine grump-
ily. “A man with a black mustache and big feet. Sit
down.”
Mr. van Safford sat down rather suddenly. It
never occurred to anyone to do other than obey when the
crabbed little scientist spoke. Then, with an incoher-
ence which was thoroughly convincing Mr. van Safford
laid before The Thinking Machine in detail those singu-
lar happenings which had so disturbed him. The


170 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Thinking Machine leaned back in his chair, with finger
tips pressed together and listened to the end.
“My mental condition—my suffering—was such,”
explained Mr. van Safford in conclusion, “that when I
proved to my own satisfaction that she had twice mis-
represented the facts to me, wilfully, I—I could have
strangled her.”
“That would have been a nice thing to do,” re-
marked the scientist crustily. “You believe then, that
there may be another—”
“Don’t say it,” burst out the young man passionately.
He arose. His face was dead white. “Don’t say it,”
he repeated, menacingly.
The Thinking Machine was silent a moment, then
glanced up in the blazing eyes and cleared his throat.
“She never did such a thing before?” he asked.
“No, never.”
“Does she—did she—ever speculate?”
Mr. van Safford sat down again.
“Never,” he responded, positively. “She wouldn't
know one stock from another.”
“Has her own bank account?”
“Yes—nearly four hundred thousand dollars. This
was her father's gift at our wedding. It was deposited
in her name, and has remained so. My own income
is more than enough for our uses.”
“You are rich, then P”


Two and Two Again Make Four 171
“My father left me nearly two million dollars,” was
the reply. “But this all doesn’t matter. What I
want—”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted The Thinking Ma-
chine, testily. There was a long pause. “You have
never quarreled seriously?”
“Never one cross word,” was the reply.
“Remarkable,” commented The Thinking Machine
ambiguously. “How long have you been married?”
“Two years—last June.”
“Most remarkable,” supplemented the scientist.
Mr. van Safford stared. “How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“How long have you been thirty?”
“Six months—since last May.”
There was a long pause. Mr. van Safford plainly
did not see the trend of the questioning.
“How old is your wife?” demanded the scientist.
“Twenty-two, in January.”
“She has never had any mental trouble of any sort?”
“No, no.”
“Have you any brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
“Has she P”
“No.”
The Thinking Machine shot out the questions crustily
and Mr. van Safford answered briefly. There was an-
'.
12


172 The Thinking Machine on the Case
other pause, and the young man arose and paced back
and forth with nervous energy. From time to time he
glanced inquiringly at the pale, wizened face of the
scientist. Several thin lines had appeared in the dome-
like brow, and he was apparently oblivious of the other's
presence.
“It’s a most intangible, elusive affair,” he commented
at last, and the wrinkles deepened. “It is, I may say,
a problem without a given quantity. Perfectly extra-
ordinary.”
Mr. van Safford seemed a little relieved to find some
one express his own thoughts so accurately.
“You don’t believe, of course,” continued the scien-
tist, “that there is anything criminal in—”
“Certainly not,” the young man exploded, violently.
“Yet, the moment we pursue this to a logical conclu-
sion,” pursued the other, “we are more than likely to un-
cover something which is, to put it mildly, not pleasant.”
Mr. van Safford's face was perfectly white; his
hands were clenched desperately. Then the loyalty to
the woman he loved flooded his heart.
“It’s nothing of that kind,” he exclaimed, and yet
his own heart misgave him. “My wife is the dearest,
noblest, sweetest woman in the world. And yet—”
“Yet you are jealous of her,” interrupted The Think-
ing Machine. “If you are so sure of her, why annoy
me with your troubles?” *


Two and Two Again Make Four 173
The young man read, perhaps, a deeper meaning
than The Thinking Machine had intended for he started
forward impulsively. The Thinking Machine continued
to squint at him impersonally, but did not change his
position.
“All young men are fools,” he went on, blandly,
“and I may add that most of the old ones are, too.
But now the question is: What purpose can your wife
have in acting as she has, and in misrepresenting those
acts to you? Of course we must spy upon her to find
out, and the answer may be one that will wreck your
future happiness. It may be, I say. I don’t know.
Do you still want the answer?”
“I want to know—I want to know,” burst out
Mr. van Safford, harshly. “I shall go mad unless I
know.”
The Thinking Machine continued to squint at him
with almost a gleam of pity in his eyes—almost but not
quite. And the habitually irritated voice was in no
way softened when he gave some explicit and definite
instructions.
“Go on about your affairs,” he commanded. “Let
things go as they are. Don’t quarrel with your wife;
continue to ask your questions because if you don’t
she’ll suspect that you suspect; report to me any change
in her conduct. It’s a very singular problem. Certainly
I have never had another like it.”


174 The Thinking Machine on the Case
The Thinking Machine accompanied him to the door
and closed it behind him.
“I have never seen a man in love,” he mused, “who
wasn’t in trouble.”
And with this broad, philosophical conclusion he
went to the 'phone. Half an hour later Hutchinson
Hatch, reporter, entered the laboratory where the scien-
tist sat in deep thought.
“Ah, Mr. Hatch,” he began, without preliminary,
“did you ever happen to hear of Mr. and Mrs. van
Safford P.”
“Well, rather,” responded the reporter with quick
interest. “He’s a well known club-man, worth millions,
high in society and all that; and she's one of the most
beautiful women I ever saw. She was a Miss Potter
before marriage.”
“It’s wonderful the memories you newspaper men
have,” observed the scientist. “You know her per-
sonally?”
Hatch shook his head.
“You must find some one who knows her well,”
commanded The Thinking Machine, “a girl friend, for
instance—one who might be in her confidence. Learn
from her why Mrs. van Safford leaves her house every
morning at eight o’clock, then tells her husband she has
been with some one that we know she hasn’t seen. She


Two and Two Again Make Four I75
has done this every day for four days. Your assiduity
in this may prevent a divorce.”
Hatch pricked up his ears. -
“Also find out just what sort of an illness Miss Nell
Blakesley has—or is—suffering. That's all.”
An hour later Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, called on
Miss Gladys Beekman, a young society woman who was
an intimate of Mrs. van Safford's before the latter's
marriage. Without feeling that he was dallying with the
truth Hatch informed her that he called on behalf of Mr.
van Safford. She began to smile. He laid the case be-
fore her emphatically, seriously and with great detail.
The more he explained the more pleasantly she smiled.
It made him uncomfortable but he struggled on to the
end.
“I’m glad she did it,” exclaimed Miss Beekman.
“But I—I couldn’t believe she would.”
Then came a sudden gust of laughter which left
Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, with the feeling that he was
being imposed upon. It continued for a full minute-
a hearty, rippling, musical laugh, Hatch grinned sheep-
ishly. Then, without an excuse, Miss Beekman arose
and left the room. In the hall there came a fresh burst,
and Hatch heard it dying away in the distance.
“Well,” he muttered grimly, “I’m glad I was able
to amuse her.”
Then he called upon a Mrs. Francis, a young matron


176 The Thinking Machine on the Case
whom he had cause to believe was also favored with
Mrs. van Safford's friendship. He laid the case before
her, and she laughed! Then Hutchinson Hatch, reporter,
began to get mule-headed about it. He visited eight
other women who were known to be on friendly terms
with Mrs. van Safford. Six of them intimated that he
was an impertinent, prying, inquisitive person, and—
the other two laughed! Hatch paused a moment and
rubbed his fevered brow.
“Here's a corking good joke on somebody,” he told
himself, “and I’m beginning to think it's me.”
Whereupon he took his troubles to The Thinking
Machine. That distinguished gentleman listened in
pained surprise to the simple recital of what Hatch had
not been able to learn.
“It’s astonishing!” he declared, raspily.
“Yes, it so struck me,” agreed the reporter.
The Thinking Machine was silent for a long time;
the watery blue eyes were turned upward and the slender
white fingers pressed tip to tip. Finally he made up
his mind as to the next step.
“There seems only one thing to do,” he said. “And
I won’t ask you to do that.”
“What is it?” demanded the reporter.
“To watch Mrs. van Safford and see where she
goes.”
“I wouldn’t have done it before, but I will now,”


Two and Two Again Make Four 177
Hatch responded promptly. The bull-dog in him was
aroused. “I want to see what the joke is.”
It was ten o’clock next evening when Hatch called
to make a report. He seemed a little weary and tre-
mendously disgusted.
“I’ve been right behind her all day,” he explained,
“from eight o’clock this morning until twenty minutes
past nine tonight when she reached home. And if the
Lord’ll forgive me—”
“What did she do?” interrupted The Thinking
Machine, impatiently.
“Well,” and Hatch grinned as he drew out a note-
book, “she walked eastward from her house to the first
corner, turned, walked another block, took a down town
car, and went straight to the Public Library. There she
read a Henry James book until fifteen minutes of one,
and then she went to luncheon in a restaurant. I also
had luncheon. Then she went to the North End on a
car. After she got there she wandered around aim-
lessly all afternoon, nearly. At ten minutes of four she
gave a quarter to a crippled boy. He bit it to see if it
was good, found it was, then bought cigarettes with it.
At half past four she left the North End and went into
a big department store. If there's anything there she
didn't price I can’t remember it. She bought a pair
of shoe-laces. The store closed at six, so she went to
dinner in another restaurant. I also had dinner. We


178 The Thinking Machine on the Case
left there at half past seven o’clock and went back to the
Public Library. She read until nine o’clock, and then
went home. Phew!” he concluded.
The Thinking Machine had listened with growing
and obvious disappointment on his face. He seemed
so cast down by the recital that Hatch tried to cheer him.
“I couldn’t help it you know,” he said by way of
apology. “That's what she did.”
“She didn't speak to anyone?”
“Not a soul but clerks, waiters and library atten-
dants.”
“She didn’t give a note to anyone or receive a note?”
“No.”
“Did she seem to have any purpose at all in anything
she did?”
“No. The impression she gave me was that she
was killing time.”
The Thinking Machine was silent for several min-
utes. “I think perhaps—,” he began.
But what he thought Hatch didn’t learn for he was
sent away with additional instructions. Next morning
found him watching the front of the van Safford house
again. Mrs. van Safford came out at seven minutes
past eight o'clock, and walked rapidly eastward. She
turned the first corner and went on, still rapidly, to the
corner of an alley. There she paused, cast a quick look
behind her, and went in. Hatch was some distance


Two and Two Again Make Four 179
back and ran forward just in time to see her skirts trail-
ing into a door.
“Ah, here's something anyhow,” he told himself,
with grim satisfaction.
He walked along the alley to the door. It was like
the other doors along in that it led into the back hall of a
house, and was intended for the use of tradesmen.
When he examined the door he scratched his chin thought-
fully; then came utter bewilderment, an amazing sense of
hopeless insanity. For there, staring at him from a
door-plate, was the name: “van Safford.” She had
merely come out the front door and gone into the back!
Hatch started to rap and ask some questions, then
changed his mind and walked around to the front again,
and up the steps.
“Is Mrs. van Safford in ?” he inquired of Baxter,
who opened the door.
“No, sir,” was the reply. “She went out a few
minutes ago.”
Hatch stared at him coldly a minute, then walked
away.
“Now this is a particularly savory kettle of fish,”
he soliloquized. “She has either gone back into the
house without his knowledge, or else he has been bribed,
and then—”
And then, he took the story to The Thinking Machine.
That imperturbable man of science listened to the end,


180 The Thinking Machine on the Case
then arose and said “Oh!” three times. Which was
interesting to Hatch in that it showed the end was in
sight, but it was not illuminating. He was still flounder-
ing.
The Thinking Machine started into an adjoining
room, then turned back.
“By the way, Mr. Hatch,” he asked, “did you hap-
pen to find out what was the matter with Miss Blakesley?”
“By George, I forgot it,” returned the reporter, rue-
fully.
“Never mind, I’ll find out.”
At eleven o’clock Hutchinson Hatch and The Think-
ing Machine called at the van Safford home. Mr. van
Safford in person received them; there was a gleam of
hope in his face at sight of the diminutive scientist.
Hatch was introduced, then:
“You don’t know of any other van Safford family
in this block?” began the scientist.
“There's not another family in the city,” was the
reply. “Why?”
“Is your wife in now?”
“No. She went out this morning, as usual.”
“Now, Mr. van Safford I'll tell you how you may
bring this matter to an end, and understand it all at
once. Go upstairs to your wife's apartments—they
are probably locked—and call her. She won’t answer
but she'll hear you. Then tell her you understand it


Two and Two Again Make Four 181
all, and that you’re sorry. She'll hear that as that alone
is what she has been waiting to hear for some time.
When she comes out bring her down stairs. Believe
me I should be delighted to meet so clever a woman.”
Mr. van Safford was looking at him as if he doubted
his sanity.
“Really,” he said coldly, “what sort of child's play
is this P”
“It’s the only way you’ll ever coax her out of that
room,” snapped The Thinking Machine belligerently,
“and you’d better do it gracefully.”
“Are you serious?” demanded the other.
“Perfectly serious,” was the crabbed rejoinder.
“She has taught you a lesson that you’ll remember
for some time. She has been merely going out the front
door every day, and coming in the back, with the full
knowledge of the cook and her maid.”
Mr. van Safford listened in amazement.
“Why did she do it?” he asked.
“Why?” retorted The Thinking Machine. “That's
for you to answer. A little less of your time at the
club of evenings, and a little less of selfish amusement
so that you can pay attention to a beautiful woman who
has, previous to her marriage at least, been accustomed
to constant attention would solve this little problem.
You’ve spent every evening at your club for months,
and she was here alone probably a great part of that


182 The Thinking Machine on the Case
time. In your own selfishness you had never a thought
of her, so she gave you a reason to think of her.”
Suddenly Mr. van Safford turned and ran out of the
room. They heard him as he took the stairs, two at a
time.
“By George!” remarked Hatch. “That's a silly
ending to a cracking good mystery, isn’t it?”
Ten minutes later Mr. and Mrs. van Safford entered
the room. Her pretty face was suffused with color:
he was frankly, outrageously happy. There were
mutual introductions.
“It was perfectly dreadful of Mr. van Safford to
call you gentlemen into this affair,” Mrs. van Safford
apologized, charmingly. “Really I feel very much
ashamed of myself for—”
“It’s of no consequence, madam,” The Thinking
Machine assured her. “It’s the first opportunity I
have ever had of studying a woman’s mind. It was not
at all logical, but it was very—very instructive. I may
add that it was effective, too.”
He bowed low, and turning picked up his hat.
“But your fee?” suggested Mr. van Safford.
The Thinking Machine squinted at him sourly.
“Oh, yes, my fee,” he mused. “It will be just five
thousand dollars.”
“Five thousand dollars?” exclaimed Mr. van Saf-
ford.


Two and Two Again Make Four 183
“Five thousand dollars,” repeated the scientist.
“Why, man, it's perfectly absurd to talk—”
Mrs. van Safford laid one white hand on her husband’s
arm. He glanced at her and she smiled radiantly.
“Don’t you think I’m worth it, Van P” she asked,
archly.
He wrote the check. The Thinking Machine scrib-
bled his name across the back in a crabbed little hand,
and passed it on to Hatch.
“Please hand that to some charitable organization,”
he directed. “It was an excellent lesson, Mrs. van
Safford. Good day.”
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist,
and Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, walked along side by
side for two blocks, without speaking. The reporter
broke the silence.
“Why did you want to know what was the matter
with Miss Blakesley?” he asked.
“I wanted to know if she really had been ill or was
merely attempting to mislead Mr. van Safford,” was
the reply. “She was ill with a touch of grippe. I got
that by 'phone. I also learned of Mr. van Safford’s
club habits by 'phone from his club.”
“And those women who laughed—what was the
joke about?”
“They were intimate friends with whom the wife had
evidently discussed doing just what she did do,” ex-
2


184 The Thinking Machine on the Case
plained the scientist. “All things considered in this case
the facts could only have been as logic developed them.
I imagined the true state of affairs from your report of
Mrs. van Safford's day of wandering; when I knew she
went in the back door of her own house, I saw the solu-
tion. Because, Mr. Hatch,” and the scientist paused
and shook a long finger in the reporter's face, “because
two and two always make four-not some times, but all
the time.”


An Opera Box 189
“Dead?” gasped Knight.
Mr. Oliver arose suddenly and gripped the physician
fiercely by a shoulder. For an instant he gazed and then
his face grew deathly pale. With a distinct effort he re-
covered himself.
“Her heart?” he asked at last.
“No. She was stabbed.”
Dr. Brander looked from one to the other of the two
white faces with troubled lines about his eyes.
“Why it can’t be,” burst out Knight suddenly.
“Where is she? I'll go to her.”
Dr. Brander laid a detaining hand on his shoulder
“You can do no good,” he said quietly.
For a time Mr. Oliver was dumb and the physician
curiously watched the struggle in his face. The hand
that clung to his shoulder was trembling horribly. At
last the father found voice.
“What happened?” he asked.
“She was stabbed,” said Dr. Brander again. “When
we examined her we found the knife—a long, keen, short-
handled stiletto. It was driven in with great force di-
rectly under her left arm and penetrated the heart.
She must have been dead when she was lifted from the
box at the opera. The stiletto remained in the wound
and prevented any flow of blood while its position and
the short handle caused it to be overlooked when she was
lifted into the carriage. We did not find the knife for


190 The Thinking Machine on the Case
several minutes after we arrived. It was covered by
her arm.” -
“Did you tell my wife?” asked Mr. Oliver quickly.
“She was present,” the physician went on. “She
screamed and fainted. Dr. Seaver is attending her.
Her condition is—is not very good. Where is your
'phone? I must notify the police.”
Mr. Oliver started to ask something else, paused and
dropped back in his chair only to rise instantly and rush
up the stairs. Knight into whose face there had come a
deadly calm stood stone-like while Dr. Brander used the
telephone. At last the physician finished.
“The calling of the police means that Eleanor did
not kill herself?” asked the young man.
“It was murder,” was the positive reply. “She
could not have stabbed herself. The knife went straight
in, entering here,” and he indicated a spot about four
inches below his left arm. “You see,” he explained,
“it took a very long blade to penetrate the heart.”
There was dull despair in Knight's eyes. He
dropped down at a table with his head on his arms and
sat motionless for a long time. He looked up once and
asked a question.
“Where is the knife?”
“I have it,” replied Dr. Brander. “I shall turn it
over to the authorities.”
sk sk sk sk >k sk sk


An Opera Box 191
“Now,” began The Thinking Machine in his small,
irritated voice as Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, stopped
talking and leaned back to listen, “all problems are
merely sums in addition, when reduced to their primary
parts. Therefore this one is simply a matter of putting
facts together in order to prove that two and two do not
sometimes but always make four.”
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist
and logician, paused to adjust his head comfortably on
the cushion in the big chair, then resumed:
“Your statement of the case, Mr. Hatch, gives me
these absolute facts: Eleanor Oliver is dead; she died
of a stab wound; a stiletto made this wound; it was in
such a position that she could hardly have inflicted it
herself; and Sylvester Knight, her fiancé, is under
arrest. That’s all we know isn’t it?”
“You forget that she was stabbed while in a box at
the opera,” the reporter put in, “in the hearing of three
or four thousand persons.”
“I forget nothing,” snapped the scientist. “It does
not appear at all that she was stabbed while in that box.
It appears merely that she was ill and might have fainted.
She might have been stabbed while in the carriage, or
even after she was in her room.”
Hatch's eyes opened wide at the bare mention of
these possibilities.
“The presumption is of course,” The Thinking


192 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Machine went on a little less aggressively, “that she was
stabbed while in the box, but we can’t put that down
as an absolute fact to work on until we know it. Re-
member the stiletto was not found until she was in her
room.”
This gave the reporter something new to think about
and he was silent as he considered it. He saw that
either of the possibilities suggested by the scientist was
tenable, but on the other hand—on the other hand, and
there his mind refused to work.
“You have told me that Knight was arrested at the
suggestion of Mr. Oliver last night shortly after the
police learned of the affair,” The Thinking Machine
went on, musingly. “Now just what have you or the
police learned as to him? How do they connect him
with the affair?”
“First the police acted on the general ground of ex-
clusive opportunity,” the reporter explained. “Then
Knight was arrested. The stiletto used was not an
ordinary one. It had a blade of about seven inches
and was very slender, but instead of a guard on it there
was only a gold band. The handle is a straight, highly
polished piece of wood. Around it, below the gold band
where the guard should have been, there were threads
as if it had been screwed into something.”
“Yes, yes I see,” the other interrupted impatiently.
“It was intended to be carried hidden in a walking cane,


An Opera Box 193
perhaps, and was screwed down with the blade in the
stick. Go on.”
“Detective Mallory surmised that when he saw the
stiletto,” the reporter continued, “so after Knight was
locked up he searched his rooms for the other part—the
lower end—of the cane.”
“And he found it, without the stiletto ?”
“Yes, that's the chain against Knight. First, ex-
clusive opportunity, then the stiletto and the finding of
the lower end of the cane in his possession.”
“Exclusive fiddlesticks!” exclaimed the scientist
irritably. “I presume Knight denies that he killed
Miss Oliver?”
“Naturally.”
“And where is the stiletto that belongs to his cane?
Does he attempt to account for it?”
“He doesn’t seem to know where it is—in fact he
doesn’t deny that the stiletto might be his. He merely
says he doesn’t know.”
The Thinking Machine was silent for several minutes.
“Looks bad for him,” he remarked at last.
“Thank you,” remarked Hatch dryly. It was one
of those rare occasions when the scientist saw a problem
exactly as he saw it.
“Miss Oliver and Mr. Knight were to be married—
when P”
“Three weeks from next Wednesday.”


194 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“I suppose Detective Mallory has the stiletto and
cane?”
“Yes.”
The Thinking Machine arose and found his hat.
“Let's run over to police headquarters,” he sug-
gested.
They found Detective Mallory snugly ensconced
behind a fat cigar with beatific satisfaction on his face.
*
“Ah, gentlemen,” he remarked graciously—the
graciousness of conscious superiority. “We’ve nailed
it to our friend Knight all right.”
“How P” inquired The Thinking Machine.
The detective gloated a little—twisted his tongue
around the dainty morsel—before he answered.
“I suppose Hatch has told you the grounds of the
arrest?” he asked. “Exclusive opportunity and all
that? Then you know, too, how I searched Knight's
rooms and found the other part of the stiletto cane.
Of course that was enough to convict, but early this
evening the last link in the chain against him was sup-
plied when Mrs. Oliver made a statement to me.”
The detective paused in enjoyment of the curiosity
he had aroused.
“Well?” asked The Thinking Machine at last.
“Mrs. Oliver heard—understand me—heard Knight
threaten her daughter only a few minutes before she was
found dead.”


An Opera Box 195
“Threaten her?” exclaimed Hatch, as he glanced at
The Thinking Machine. “By George!”
Detective Mallory tugged at his mustache com-
placently.
“Mrs. Oliver heard Knight first say something like,
‘Please don’t. It won’t be very long.” Her daughter
answered something she couldn’t catch after which she
heard Knight say positively, ‘You mustn't. If you do I
shall do something desperate’ or something like that.
Now as she remembers it the tone was threatening—
it must have been raised in anger to be heard above the
anvils. Thus the case is complete.”
The Thinking Machine and Hatch silently considered
this new point.
“Remember this was only three or four minutes
before she was found stabbed,” the detective went on with
conviction. “It all connects up straight from exclusive
opportunity to the ownership of the stiletto; from that to
the threat and there you are.”
“No motive of course?” asked The Thinking Ma-
chine.
“Well, the question of motive isn’t exactly clear but
our further investigations will bring it out all right,”
the detective admitted. “I should imagine the motive
to be jealousy. Of course the story of Knight not know-
ing where his stiletto is has no weight.”
Detective Mallory was so charmed with himself that


196 The Thinking Machine on the Case
he offered cigars to his visitors—an unusual burst of
generosity—and Hatch was so deeply thoughtful that he
accepted. The Thinking Machine never smoked.
“May I see the stiletto and cane?” he asked instead.
The detective was delighted to oblige. He watched
the scientist with keen satisfaction as that astute gentle-
man squinted at the slender blade, still stained with blood,
and then as he examined the lower part of the cane.
Finally the scientist thrust the long blade into the hollow
stick and screwed the handle in. It fitted perfectly.
Detective Mallory smiled.
“I don’t suppose you’ll try to put a crimp in me this
time?” he asked jovially.
“Very clever, Mr. Mallory, very clever,” replied The
Thinking Machine, and with Hatch trailing he left
headquarters.
“Mallory will swell like a balloon after that,” Hatch
commented grimly.
“Well, he might save himself that trouble,” replied
the scientist crustily. “He has the wrong man.”
The reporter glanced quickly into the inscrutable
face of his companion.
“Didn't Knight do it?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” was the impatient answer.
“who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Together they went on to the theater from which


CHAPTER XVII
BEFORE, MIDNIGHT
FTER some wire pulling and a good deal of red
tape The Thinking Machine and his companion
were permitted to see Knight. They found him
standing at the barred cell door, staring out with weary
eyes and pallid face.
The Thinking Machine was introduced to the prisoner
by Hatch who had previously tried vainly to induce the
young man to talk.
“I have nothing to say,” Knight declared belliger-
ently. “See my attorney.”
“I would like to ask three or four questions to which
you can have no possible objection,” said The Thinking
Machine. “If you do object of course don’t answer.”
“Well?” demanded the prisoner.
“Have you ever traveled in Europe?”
“I was there for nearly a year. I only returned to
this country three months ago.”
“Have you ever been interested in any other woman?
Or has any other woman ever been interested in you?”
The prisoner stared at his questioner coldly.
“No,” he responded, emphatically.
“Your answer to that question may mean your free-
198


Before Midnight I99
*
t
dom within a few hours,” said The Thinking Machine
quite calmly. “Tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth—on my honor.”
The answer came frankly, and there came a quick
gleam of hope in the prisoner's face.
“Just where in Italy did you buy that stiletto cane?”
was the next question.
“In Rome.”
“Rather expensive?”
“Five hundred lira—that is about one hundred
dollars.”
“I suppose they are very common in Italy P”
“Yes, rather.”
Knight pressed eagerly against the bars of his cell
and gazed deeply but uncomprehendingly into the
quiet squinting blue eyes.
“There has never been any sort of a quarrel-serious
or otherwise between you and Miss Oliver?”
5
\ “Never,” was the quick response.
\“Now, only one more question,” said The Thinking
Machine. “I shall not ask it to hurt you.” There was
3, little pause and Hatch waited expectantly. “Does it
happen that you know whether or not Miss Oliver ever
had any other love affair?”
“Certainly not,” exclaimed the young man, hotly.
“She was just a girl—only twenty, out of Vassar just a
few months ago and—and-”
t


Before Midnight 201
the reception hall. There the scientist handed a card
to the servant.
“Tell Mr. Oliver, please, that I will only take a
moment,” he explained.
The servant bowed and left them. A short wait
and Mr. Oliver entered.
“I am sorry to disturb you at such a time, Mr. Oliver,”
said the scientist, “but if you can give me just a little
information I think perhaps we may get a full light on
this unfortunate affair.”
Mr. Oliver bowed.
“First, let me ask you to confirm what I may say is
my knowledge that your daughter, Eleanor, knew this
man. I will ask, too, that you do not mention his name
now.”
He scribbled hastily on a piece of paper and handed
it to Mr. Oliver. An expression of deep surprise came
into the latter's face and he shook his head.
“I can answer that question positively,” he said.
“She does not know him. She had never been abroad
and he has never been in this country until now.”
The Thinking Machine arose with something nearly
akin to agitation in his face, and his slender fingers worked
nervously.
“What?” he demanded abruptly. “What?” Then,
after a pause: “I beg your pardon, sir. It startled me a
little. But are you sure?”


202 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Perfectly sure,” replied Mr. Oliver firmly. “They
could not have met in any way.”
For a long time The Thinking Machine stood
squinting aggressively at his host with bewilderment
plainly apparent in his manner. Hatch looked on with
absorbed interest. Something had gone wrong; a cog
had slipped; the wheels of logic had been thrown out of
gear.
“I have made a mistake, Mr. Oliver,” said The
Thinking Machine at last. “I am sorry to have dis-
turbed you.”
Mr. Oliver bowed courteously and they were ushered
Out.
“What is it?” asked Hatch anxiously as they once
more took their seats in the cab. ,
The Thinking Machine shook his head in frank
annoyance.
“What happened?” Hatch insisted.
“I’ve made a mistake,” was the petulant response.
“I’m going home and start all over again. It may be
that I shall send for you later.”
Hatch accepted that as a dismissal and went his way
wonderingly. That evening The Thinking Machine
called him to the 'phone.
“Mr. Hatch?”
“Yes.”
“Did Miss Oliver have any sisters?”


Before Midnight 205
sciousness would account for the fact that she did not
scream, as the heart would have been pierced by a sud-
den thrust before consciousness of pain was awakened.
“Now the three persons who were with her. There
seemed no reason to suspect either the father or mother,
so we come to Sylvester Knight, her intended husband.
There is always to be found a motive, either real or imag-
inary, for a man to kill his sweetheart. In this case
Knight had the opportunity, but not the exclusive oppor-
tunity. Therefore, an unlimited field of speculation was
opened up.”
Detective Mallory raised his hand impressively and
started to say something, then thought better of it.
“After Mr. Knight's arrest,” The Thinking Ma-
chine continued, “your investigation, Mr. Mallory, drew
a net about him. That's what you wanted to say, I
believe. There was the stiletto, the other end of the
cane and the alleged threats. I admit all these things.
On this statement of the case it looked black for Mr.
Knight.”
“That’s what,” remarked the detective.
“Now a stiletto naturally suggests Italy. The
blade with which Miss Oliver was killed bore an Italian
manufacturer's mark. I presume you noticed it?”
“Oh, that!” exclaimed the detective.
“Means nothing conclusively,” added The Think-
ing Machine “I agree with you. Still it was a sug-


206 The Thinking Machine on the Case
gestion. Then I saw the thing that did mean some-
thing. This was the fact that the handle of the stiletto
was not of the same wood as the part of the cane you
found in Mr. Knight's room. This difference is so
slight that you would hardly notice it even now, but it
was there and showed a possible clue leading away from
Mr. Knight.”
Detective Mallory could not readily place his tongue
on words to fittingly express his disgust, so he remained
silent.
“When I considered what manner of man Mr. Knight
>
is and the singular nature of the crime,” resumed the
scientist, “I had no hesitancy in assuring Mr. Hatch
that you had the wrong man. After we first saw you we
examined the opera box. It was on the left of the theater
and separated from the next box by a latticed partition.
It was against this partition that Miss Oliver was leaning.
“Remember, I saw the box after I examined the
stiletto and while I was seeking a method by which
another person might have stabbed her without entering
the box. I found it. By using a stiletto without a
guard it would have been perfectly possible for a person
in the next box to have killed her by thrusting the blade
through the lattice partition. That is exactly what
happened.”
Detective Mallory arose with a mouth full of words.
They tumbled out in incoherent surprise and protest,


Before Midnight Q07
then he sat down again. The Thinking Machine was
still staring upward.
“I then took steps to learn who was in the adjoining
box at the time of her death,” he continued quietly.
“The manager of the theater told me it was occupied by
Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Dupree, and their guest an
Italian nobleman. Italian nobleman! Italian stiletto!
You see the connection.
“Then we saw Mr. Knight. He assured me, and I
believed him, that he had never had any other love affair,
therefore no woman would have had a motive in killing
Miss Oliver because of him. He was positive, too, that
Miss Oliver had never had any other love affair, yet I saw
the possibility of some connecting link between her and
the nobleman. It was perfectly possible, indeed prob-
able, that he would not know of it. At the moment
I was convinced that there had been such an affair.
“Mr. Knight also told me that he bought his stiletto
cane in Rome; and he paid a price that would seem to
guarantee that it would be a perfect one, with the same
wood in the handle and lower part, and that he and Miss
Oliver had never had any sort of a quarrel.”
There was a little pause and The Thinking Machine
shifted his position slightly.
“Here I had a motive—jealousy of one man who was
thrown over for another; the method of death, through
the lattice; a clue to the murderer in the stiletto, and the


208 The Thinking Machine on the Case
name of the man. It seemed conclusive but I had over-
looked a figure one. I saw that when Mr. Oliver as-
sured me that Miss Eleanor Oliver did not know the
nobleman whose name I wrote for him; that she could
not have known him. The entire structure tumbled.
I was nonplussed and a little rude, I fear, in my surprise.
Then I had to reconsider the matter from the beginning.
The most important of all the connecting links was
missing, yet the logic was right. It is always right.
“There are times when imagination has to bridge
gaps caused by the absence of demonstrable facts. I
considered the matter carefully, then saw where I had
dropped the figure one. I phoned to Mr. Hatch to
know if Miss Oliver had a sister. She had. The news-
papers to which Mr. Hatch referred me told me the rest
of it. It was Eleanor Oliver’s sister who had the affair
with the nobleman. That cleared it. There is the
name of the murderer.”
He laid down a card on which was scribbled this
name and address: “Count Leo Tortino, Hotel Teu-
tonic.” Hatch and the detective read it simultaneously,
then looked at The Thinking Machine inquiringly.
“But I don’t see it yet,” expostulated the detective.
“This man Knight—”
“Briefly it is this,” declared the other impatiently.
“The newspapers carried a story of Florence Oliver's
love affair with Count Tortino at the time she was travel-


210 The Thinking Machine on the Case
her, he says, that she musn't go, because he would have
to do something desperate. Silly explanation I call it.”
“But I dare say it's perfectly correct,” commented
The Thinking Machine. “Men of your profession,
Mr. Mallory, never believe the simple things. If you
would take the word of an accused man at face value
occasionally you would have less trouble.” There was a
pause, then: “I promised Mr. Knight that he would be
free by midnight. It is now ten. Suppose you run
down to the Teutonic and see Count Tortino. He
will hardly deny anything.”
Detective Mallory and Hatch found the Count in his
room. He was lying face down across a bed with a
bullet hole in his temple. A note of explanation con-
fessed the singular error which had led to the murder
of Eleanor Oliver.
It was three minutes of midnight when Sylvester
Knight walked out of his cell a heartbroken man, but
free.


212 The Thinking Machine on the Case
where the highest in the social world met, there was Mr.
Leighton. He was on every matron's selected list of
guests, a charming addition to any gathering. Scotland
Yard knew this. Of course it may have been only the
merest chance that he was always present at those
functions where valuable jewels had been “lost” or
“mislaid.” Yet Scotland Yard did not regard it as
chance. That it did not was another compliment to
Mr. Leighton.
From deep down in its innermost conscience Scotland
Yard looked up to Mr. Leighton as the master mind, if
not the actual vital instrument, in a long series of baffl-
ing jewel robberies. There was a finesse and delicacy—
not to mention regularity—about these robberies that
annoyed Scotland Yard. Yet believing all this Scot-
land Yard had never been so indiscreet as to mention the
matter to Mr. Leighton. As a matter of fact Scotland
Yard had never seen its way clear to mentioning it to
anyone.
Conway had some ideas of his own about Mr. Leigh-
ton whom he exalted to a position that would have sur-
prised if not flattered him. Conway perhaps, more
nearly expressed the opinion of Scotland Yard in a few
brief remarks than I could at greater length.
“He’s a crook and the cleverest in the world,” he said
of Mr. Leighton, almost enthusiastically. “He got the
Hemingway jewels, the Cheltenham bracelet and the


The Missing Necklace Q13
Quez shiners all right. I know he got them. But that
doesn’t do any good—merely knowing it. I can’t put
a finger on him because he's too blooming smooth. I
think I’ve got him and then—I haven't.”
This was before the Varron necklace affair. When
that remarkable episode came to be known to Scotland
Yard Conway's admiration for Mr. Leighton increased
immeasurably. He knew that Leighton was the re-
sponsible one—he knew it in his own head and heart—
but that was all. He gnawed his scrubby mustache
fiercely and set to work to prove it, feeling beforehand
that it was a vain task.
The absolute simplicity of the thing—and in this it
was like the others—was its most puzzling feature.
Lady Varron had tendered a reception to the United
States Ambassador at her London house. She had
gathered about her a most distinguished company.
There were representatives of England, France and
Russia; there were some of the most beautiful women of
the continent; there were two American Duchesses;
there were a chosen few of the American colony—and
Mr. Leighton. It may be well to repeat that he went
everywhere.
Lady Varron on this occasion wore the famous
Varron necklace. Its intrinsic value was said to be
£40,000; associations made it priceless. She was danc-
ing with the American Ambassador when she slipped


The Missing Necklace 215
Leighton had, on that occasion, strolled out on the lawn
at night with the Honorable Miss Cheltenham and she
had dropped the bracelet. That was all. It was never
found.
In this Varron affair it would be useless to go into
details of what immediately followed the loss of the neck-
lace. It is sufficient to say that it was not found; that
men and women stared at each other in bewildered em-
barrassment and mutual suspicion, and that finally Mr.
Leighton, who still stood beside Lady Varron, intimated
courteously, tactfully, that a personal search of her guests
would not be amiss. He did not say it in so many words
but the others understood.
Mr. Leighton was seconded heartily by the American
Ambassador, a Democratic individual with honest ideas
which were foremost when a question of personal integ-
rity was involved. But the search was not made and
the reception proceeded. Lady Varron bore her loss
marvelously well.
“She’s a brick,” was the audible compliment of one
of the American Duchesses whose father owned $20,000,-
000 worth of soap somewhere in vague America. “I’d
have had a fit if I’d lost a necklace like that.”
It was not until next day that Scotland Yard was
notified of Lady Varron's loss.
“Leighton there?” was Conway's first question.
“Yes.”


The Missing Necklace Q17
He knew Leighton, but was secure in the thought that
Leighton did not know him.
On the second day out he was disabused on this
point. He was beginning to think that it might not be
a bad idea to know Leighton casually so when he noticed
that immaculate gentleman alone, leaning on the rail,
smoking, he sauntered up and joined him in contempla-
tion of the infinite ocean.
“Beautiful weather,” Conway remarked after a long
time.
“Yes,” replied Leighton as he glanced around and
smiled. “I should think you Scotland Yard men would
enjoy a junket like this?”
Conway didn’t do any such foolish thing as start or
show astonishment, whatever he might have felt. In-
stead he smiled pleasantly. -
“”ve been working pretty hard on that Varron
affair,” he said frankly. “And now I'm taking a little
vacation.”
“Oh, that thing at Lady Varron’s P” inquired
Leighton lazily. “Indeed? I happened to be the one
to notice that the necklace was gone.”
“Yes, I know it,” responded Conway, grimly.
The conversation drifted to other things. Conway
found Leighton an agreeable companion, and a dem-
ocratic one. They smoked together, walked together
and played shuffle-board together. That evening Leigh-


The Missing Necklace 219
Next, still without haste or apparent disappoint-
ment, he turned his attention to the handbag, the suit
case and the steamer trunk all of which he had emptied.
Such things had been known to have false bottoms and
secret compartments. These had none. He satis-
fied himself absolutely on this point by every method
known to his art.
In due time his examination came down to the room
itself. He unmade the bed and closely felt of and
scrutinized the mattress, sheets, blankets, pillows, and
coverlid. He took the three drawers from the dressing
cabinet and looked behind them. He turned over sev-
eral English newspapers and shook them one by one.
He peered into the water pitcher and fumbled around the
plumbing in the tiny bath room adjoining. He examined
the carpet to see if anything had been hidden beneath it.
Finally he climbed on a chair and from this elevated
position looked for a crack or crevice where a necklace
or unset pearls could be hidden.
“There are still three possibilities,” he told himself
at the end as he carefully restored the room to its previous
condition. “He might have left them in a package in
the ship’s safe but that’s improbable—too risky; he
might have left them in a trunk in the hold, which is still
more improbable, or he might have them on his person.
That is more than likely.” f
So Conway went out, extinguishing the light and
15


The Missing Necklace 221
It was an easy matter next day for him to learn that
Leighton had left nothing in the ship's safe and that his
four trunks in the hold were inaccessible, being buried
under hundreds of others. Whereupon Conway sat
down to wait and learn what new and original ideas of
searching Uncle Sam's Customs officers had invented.
At last came a morning when the wireless telegraph
operator aboard picked up a signal from shore and
announced that the Romanic was less than a hundred
miles from Boston light. Later Conway found Leighton
leaning on the rail, smoking and gazing shoreward.
It was three hours or so after that that several passen-
gers noticed a motor boat coming toward them. Leigh-
ton watched it with idle interest. Finally it circled widely
and it became apparent that it was coming alongside the
now slow moving liner. When it was only a hundred feet
off and the liner was barely creeping along, Leighton
grew suddenly interested.
“By Jove,” he exclaimed, then shouted: “Hello,
Harry!”
“Hello Leighton,” came an answering shout. “Heard
you were aboard and came out to meet you.”
There was a rapid fire of uninteresting pleasantries as
the motor boat slid in under the Romanic's lee and
bobbed up and down in her wash. The man aboard
stood up with a package of newspapers in his hand.
“Here are some American papers for you,” he called.


222 The Thinking Machine on the Case
He flung the bundle and Leighton caught it, left the
rail and passed into his state room. He returned after
a moment with a bundle of European papers—those
Conway had previously seen.
“Catch,” he called. “There's something in these
that will interest you.”
The man in the small boat caught the package and
dropped it carelessly on a seat.
Then, suddenly, Conway awoke.
“There goes the necklace,” he told himself with a
start. A quick grasping movement of his hands attracted
Leighton’s attention and he smiled inscrutably, daringly
into the blazing eyes of the Scotland Yard man. The
motor boat with a parting shot of “I’ll meet you on the
wharf” sped away.
Thoughts began to flow rapidly through Conway's
fertile brain. Five minutes later he burst in on the wire-
less operator and sent a long dispatch to officials ashore.
Then from the bow rail he watched the motor boat speed-
ing away in the direction of Boston. It drew off about
two miles and remained relatively in that position for
nearly all the forty miles into Boston Harbor. It spoke
no other craft, passed near none in fact while in Conway's
sight, which was until it disappeared in Boston Harbor.
An hour later the Romanic was warped in and tied
up. Conway was the first man off. He went straight
to a man who seemed to be waiting for him.


924 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Conway didn’t answer. He didn’t dare to at the
moment, but he stood by when Leighton’s four trunks
were taken from the hold, and he saw that they were
searched with the same minute care that he had given to
the state room. At the fruitless end of it he sat down on
one of the trunks and stared at Leighton in a sort of
admiration.
Leighton stared back for a moment, smiled, nodded
pleasantly and strolled up the dock chatting carelessly
with Harry Cheshire. Conway made no attempt to
follow them. It wasn’t worth while—nothing was
worth while any more.
“But he did get them and he's got them now,”
he told himself savagely, “or he has disposed of them in
some way that I can’t find.”


228 The Thinking Machine on the Case
them in his state room and threw them into the motor
boat.
“In that event they were in the motor boat when it
left the Romanic and we must believe they were not in it
when it docked. Yet the motor boat neither spoke
nor approached any other vessel. The jewels were
not thrown into the water. The man Cheshire could
not have swallowed one hundred and seventy-two
pearls—or any great part of them—therefore, what
have we?”
“Nothing,” responded Conway promptly. “That's
what's the matter. I’ve had to give it all up.”
“Instead of nothing we have the answer,” replied The
Thinking Machine tartly. “Let's see. Perhaps I can
give you the name and address of the man who has the
jewels now, assuming of course that Leighton brought
them.” *,
He arose suddenly and passed into the adjoining
room. Conway turned and stared at Hatch inquiringly
with a queer expression on his face.
“Is he anything of a joker?” he asked.
“No, but he's a good deal of a wonder,” replied Hatch.
“Do you mean to say that I have been working on
this thing for months and months without learning any-
thing about it and all he's got to do is to go in there and
get the name and address of the man who has the neck-
lace?” demanded Conway in bewilderment.


Master of His Profession Q29
“If he went into that room and said he'd bring back
the Pacific Ocean in a tea cup I’d believe him,” said the
reporter. “I know him.”
They were interrupted by the tinkling of the telephone
bell in the next room, then for a long time the subdued
hum of the scientist’s irritable voice as he talked over
the 'phone. It was twenty-five or thirty minutes before
he appeared in the door again. He paused there and
scribbled something on a card which he handed to Hatch.
The reporter read this: “Henry C. H. Manderling,
Scituate, Mass.”
“There is the name and address of the man who has
the jewels now,” said The Thinking Machine quite as a
matter of fact. “Mr. Hatch, you accompany Mr. Con-
way, let him see the surroundings and act as his judg-
ment dictates. You must search this man’s house. I
don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding them because
they cannot foresee their danger. The pearls will be
unset and you will find them possibly in small oil-silk
bags, no larger than your little finger. When you find
them take steps to apprehend both this man and Leighton.
Call Detective Mallory when you get them and bring
them here.”
“But—but—” stammered Conway.
“Come on,” commanded Hatch.
And Conway went.
sk >k >k sk sk sk sk


Master of His Profession 231
two men enter. It was just at that psychological mo-
ment that Conway stepped out and faced them.
“I want you, Leighton,” he said calmly.
Hatch could not see beyond the Scotland Yard man
but he heard a shot and a bullet whistled uncomfortably
close to his head. Conway leaped forward; Hatch saw
his arm swing and one of the men fell. Then came
another shot. Conway staggered a little, took another
step forward and again swung his great right arm.
There was a scurrying of feet, the clatter of a revolver
on the floor and the front door slammed.
“Tie up that chap there,” commanded Conway.
He opened the door and Hatch heard him run along
the veranda and leap off. He turned his attention to
the senseless man on the floor. It was Harry Cheshire.
A blow on the point of the chin had rendered him un-
conscious. Hatch bound him hand and foot where he
lay and ran out.
Conway was racing down the cliff to where a motor
boat lay. Hatch saw a man climb into the boat and an
instant later it shot out into the water. Conway ran on
to where it had been; it was now fifty yards out.
“Not this time, Mr. Conway,” came Leighton’s
voice as the boat sped on.
The Scotland Yard man stared after it a minute or
more then returned to Hatch. The reporter saw that
he was pale, very pale.
*-
-*-


232 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Did you bind him?” Conway asked.
“Yes,” Hatch responded. “Are you wounded?”
“Sure,” replied the Scotland Yard man. “He got me
in the left arm. I never knew him to carry a revolver
before. It’s lucky those two shots were all he had.”
>k sk >k sk >k >k sk
The Thinking Machine put the finishing touches on
the binding of Conway's wound—it was trivial—then
turned to his other visitors. These were Harry Cheshire,
or Manderling, and Detective Mallory to whom he had
been delivered a prisoner on the arrival of Hatch and
Conway in Boston. A general alarm had been sent out
for Leighton.
Conway apparently didn’t care anything about the
wound but he had a frank curiosity as to just what
The Thinking Machine had done and how those things
which had happened had been brought to pass.
“It was all ridiculously simple,” began the scientist
at last in explanation. “It came down to this: How
could one hundred and seventy-two pearls be transferred
from a boat forty miles at sea to a safe place ashore ?
The motor boat did not speak or approach any other
vessel; obviously one could not throw them ashore and I
have never heard of such a thing as a trained fish which
might have brought them in. Now what are the only
other ways they could have reached shore with compara-
tive safety?”


234 The Thinking Machine on the Case
these would know an Englishman who had, say, twenty-
five or fifty birds, and presumably lived somewhere
near Boston. One did know. He gave me the name
of Henry C. H. Manderling. Harry is a corruption of
Henry and—Henry C* Henry Cheshire, or Harry
Cheshire—the name Mr. Manderling gave when he
was searched at the wharf.”
“Can you explain how Leighton was able to get
the necklace in the first place?” asked Conway,
curiously.
“Just as he got the other things,” replied The Think-
ing Machine, “by boldness and cleverness. Suppose,
when Lady Varron fell, Leighton had had a stout elastic
fastened high up at the shoulder, say, inside his coat
sleeve and the end of this elastic had a clamp of some
sort, and was drawn down until the elastic was taut,
and fastened to his cuff P Remember that this man was
always waiting for an opportunity, and was always
prepared to take advantage of it. Of course he did not
plan the thing as it happened.
“Say that the necklace dropped off as he leaned over
to help Lady Varron. In the momentary excitement he
could, under their very noses, have fastened the clamp
to the necklace. Instantly the jewels would have dis-
appeared up his sleeve and he could have submitted to
any sort of perfunctory search of his pockets as he sug-
gested.”


CHAPTER XX
THE PHANTOM MOTOR
WO dazzling white eyes bulged through the night
as an automobile swept suddenly around a curve in
the wide road and laid a smooth, glaring pathway
ahead. Even at the distance the rhythmical crackling-
chug informed Special Constable Baker that it was a gas-
oline car, and the headlong swoop of the unblinking
lights toward him made him instantly aware of the fact
that the speed ordinance of Yarborough County was
being a little more than broken—it was being obliterated.
Now the County of Yarborough was a wide expanse
of summer estates and superbly kept roads, level as a
floor and offered distracting temptations to the dangerous
pastime of speeding. But against this was the fact
that the county was particular about its speed laws, so
particular in fact that it had stationed half a hundred
men upon its highways to abate the nuisance. Inci-
dentally it had found that keeping record of the infractions
of the law was an excellent source of income.
“Forty miles an hour if an inch,” remarked Baker to
himseh. *
He arose from a camp stool where he was wont to
make himself comfortable from six o'clock until mid-
–––." ~. – ––f /
Q36


The Phantom Motor Q37
night on watch, picked up his lantern, turned up the
light and stepped down to the edge of the road. He
always remained on watch at the same place—at one end
of a long stretch which autoists had unanimously dubbed
The Trap. The Trap was singularly tempting—a per-
fectly macadamized road bed lying between two tall
stone walls with only enough of a sinuous twist in it to
make each end invisible from the other. Another man
Special Constable Bowman was stationed at the other
end of The Trap and there was telephonic communica-
tion between the points, enabling the men to check
each other and incidentally, if one failed to stop a car or
get its number, the other would. That at least was the
theory.
So now, with the utmost confidence, Baker waited
beside the road. The approaching lights were only a
couple of hundred yards away. At the proper instant he
would raise his lantern, the car would stop, its occupants
would protest and then the county would add a mite to
its general fund for making the roads even better and
tempting autoists still more. Or sometimes the cars
didn’t stop. In that event it was part of the Special
Constable's duties to get the number as it flew past, and
reference to the monthly automobile register would give
the name of the owner. An extra fine was always im-
posed in such cases.
Without the slightest diminution of speed the car


238 The Thinking Machine on the Case
came hurtling on toward him and swung wide so as to take
the straight path of The Trap at full speed. At the
psychological instant Baker stepped out into the road
and waved his lantern.
“Stop!” he commanded.
The crackling-chug came on, heedless of the cry.
The auto was almost upon him before he leaped out of
the road—a feat at which he was particularly expert–
then it flashed by and plunged into The Trap. Baker
was, at the instant, so busily engaged in getting out of the
way that he couldn’t read the number, but he was not dis-
concerted because he knew there was no escape from
The Trap. On the one side a solid stone wall eight feet
high marked the eastern boundary of the John Phelps
Stocker country estate, and on the other side a stone
fence nine feet high marked the western boundary of the
Thomas Q. Rogers country estate. There was no
turnout, no place, no possible way for an auto to get out
of The Trap except at one of the two ends guarded by
the special constables. So Baker, perfectly confident of
results, seized the 'phone.
“Car coming through sixty miles an hour,” he bawled.
“It won’t stop. I missed the number. Look out!”
“All right,” answered Special Constable Bowman.
For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes Baker waited ex-
pecting a call from Bowman at the other end. It didn’t
come and finally he picked up the 'phone again. No


242 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Relations between Special Constable Baker and
Special Constable Bowman were strained on the morrow.
But they walked along side by side to their respective
posts. Baker stopped at his end of The Trap; Bowman
didn’t even look around.
“You’d better keep your eyes open tonight, Jim,”
Baker called as a last word.
“I had 'em open last night,” was the disgusted retort.
Seven, eight, nine o’clock passed. Two or three cars
had gone through The Trap at moderate speed and one
had been warned by Baker. At a few minutes past nine
he was staring down the road which led into The Trap
when he saw something that brought him quickly to his
feet. It was a pair of dazzling white eyes, far away.
He recognized them—the mysterious car of the night
before.
“I’ll get it this time,” he muttered grimly, between
closed teeth.
Then when the onrushing car was a full two hundred
yards away Baker planted himself in the middle of the road
and began to swing the lantern. The auto seemed, if any-
thing, to be traveling even faster than on the previous
night. At a hundred yards Baker began to shout. Still
the car didn’t lessen speed, merely rushed on. Again at
the psychological instant Baker jumped. The auto
whisked by as the chauffeur gave it a dextrous twist to
prevent running down the Special Constable.


The Phantom Motor 243
Safely out of its way Baker turned and stared after it,
trying to read the number. He could see there was a
number because a white board swung from the tail axle,
but he could not make out the figures. Dust and a
swaying car conspired to defeat him. But he did see
that there were four persons in the car dimly silhouetted
against the light reflected from the road. It was useless,
of course, to conjecture as to sex for even as he looked
the fast receding car swerved around the turn and was
lost to sight.
Again he rushed to the telephone; Bowman responded
promptly.
“That car's gone in again,” Baker called. “Ninety
miles an hour. Look out!”
“I’m looking,” responded Bowman.
“Let me know what happens,” Baker shouted.
With the receiver to his ear he stood for ten or fifteen
minutes, then Bowman hallooed from the other end.
“Well?” Baker responded. “Get 'em P”
“No car passed through and there's none in sight,”
said Bowman.
“But it went in,” insisted Baker.
“Well it didn’t come out here,” declared Bowman.
“Walk along the road till I meet you and look out
for it.”
Then was repeated the search of the night before.
When the two men met in the middle of The Trap their


The Phantom Motor 245
Baker and Bowman met half way between posts and
talked it over.
“I’ll tell you what, Baker,” said Bowman in con-
clusion, “maybe you’re just imagining that you see a car.
Maybe if I was at your end I couldn’t see it.”
Special Constable Baker was distinctly hurt at the
insinuation.
“All right, Jim,” he said at last, “if you think that
way about it we’ll swap posts tomorrow night. We
won’t have to say anything about it when we report.”
“Now that’s the talk,” exclaimed Bowman with an
air approaching enthusiasm. “I’ll bet I don’t see it.”
On the following night Special Constable Bowman
made himself comfortable on Special Constable Baker's
camp-stool. And he saw the phantom auto. It came
upon him with a rush and a crackling-chug of engine
and then sped on leaving him nerveless. He called
Baker over the wire and Baker watched half an hour for
the phantom. It didn’t appear.
Ultimately all things reach the newspapers. So
with the story of the phantom auto. Hutchinson
Hatch, reporter, smiled incredulously when his City
Editor laid aside an inevitable cigar and tersely stated
the known facts. The known facts in this instance were
meager almost to the disappearing point. They con-
sisted merely of a corroborated statement that an auto-
mobile, solid and tangible enough to all appearances,


246 The Thinking Machine on the Case
rushed into The Trap each night and totally disap-
peared.
But there was enough of the bizarre about it to pique
the curiosity, to make one wonder, so Hatch journeyed
down to Yarborough County, an hour's ride from the
city, met and talked to Baker and Bowman and then,
in broad daylight strolled along The Trap twice. It
was a leisurely, thorough investigation with the end in
view of finding out how an automobile once inside might.
get out again without going out either end.
On the first trip through Hatch paid particular
attention to the Thomas Q. Rogers side of the road.
The wall, nine feet high, was an unbroken line of stone
with not the slightest indication of a secret wagon-way
through it anywhere. Secret wagon-way! Hatch
smiled at the phrase. But when he reached the other end
—Bowman's end—of The Trap he was perfectly con-
vinced of one thing—that no automobile had left the hard,
macadamized road to go over, under or through the
Thomas Q. Rogers wall. Returning, still leisurely, he
paid strict attention to the John Phelps Stocker side,
and when he reached the other end—Baker's end—he
was convinced of another thing—that no automobile had
left the road to go over, under or through the John
Phelps Stocker wall. The only opening of any sort was
a narrow footpath, not more than 16 inches wide.
Hatch saw no shrubbery along the road, nothing but


The Phantom Motor 247
a strip of scrupulously cared for grass, therefore the phan-
tom auto could not be hidden any time, night or day.
Hatch failed, too, to find any holes in the road so the auto-
mobile didn’t go down through the earth. At this point
he involuntarily glanced up at the blue sky above.
Perhaps, he thought whimsically, the automobile was a
strange sort of bird, or—or—and he stopped sud-
denly.
“By George!” he exclaimed. “I wonder if—”
And the remainder of the afternoon he spent sys-
tematically making inquiries. He went from house to
house, the Stocker house, the Rogers house both of which
were at the time unoccupied, then to cottage, cabin and
hut in turn. But he didn’t seem overladen with infor-
mation when he joined Special Constable Baker at his
end of The Trap that evening about seven o’clock.
Together they rehearsed the strange points of the
mystery and as the shadows grew about them until
finally the darkness was so dense that Baker's lantern
was the only bright spot in sight. As the chill of evening
closed in a certain awed tone crept into their voices.
Occasionally an auto bowled along and each time as it
hove in sight Hatch glanced at Baker questioningly.
And each time Baker shook his head. And each time,
too, he called Bowman, in this manner accounting for
every car that went into The Trap.
“It’ll come all right,” said Baker after a long silence,


248 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“and I'll know it the minute it rounds the curve coming
toward us. I'd know its two lights in a thousand.”
They sat still and smoked. After awhile two dazzl-
ing white lights burst into view far down the road and
Baker, in excitement, dropped his pipe.
“That's her,” he declared. “Look at he" coming!”
And Hatch did look at her coming. The speed of
the mysterious car was such as to make one look. Like
the eyes of a giant the two lights came on toward them,
and Baker perfunctorily went through the motions of
attempting to stop it. The car fairly whizzed past them
and the rush of air which tugged at their coats was con-
vincing enough proof of its solidity. Hatch strained his
eyes to read the number as the auto flashed past. But
it was hopeless. The tail of the car was lost in an eddy-
ing whirl of dust. *
“She certainly does travel,” commented Baker,
softly.
“She does,” Hatch assented.
Then, for the benefit of the newspaper man, Baker
called Bowman on the wire.
“Car’s coming again,” he shouted. “Look out and
let me know!”
Bowman, at his end, waited twenty minutes, then
made the usual report—the car had not passed. Hut-
chinson Hatch was a calm, cold, dispassionate young
man but now a queer, creepy sensation stole along his


The Gap in the Trail 253
“That's it,” agreed the reporter, “and of course,
why it does what it does, and how it gets out of The Trap.”
“Do you happen to know a fast, long-distance bicycle
rider?” demanded the scientist abruptly.
“A dozen of them,” replied the reporter promptly.
“I think I see the idea, but—”
“You haven’t the faintest inkling of the idea,” de-
clared The Thinking Machine positively. “If you can
arrange with a fast rider who can go a distance—it might
be thirty, forty, fifty miles—we may end this little affair
without difficulty.”
Under these circumstances Professor Augustus S.
F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., etc.,
etc., scientist and logician, met the famous Jimmie
Thalhauer, the world’s champion long distance bicyclist.
He held every record from five miles up to and including
six hours, had twice won the six-day race and was, alto-
gether, a master in his field. He came in chewing a
tooth-pick. There were introductions.
“You ride the bicycle?” inquired the crusty little
scientist.
“Well, some,” confessed the champion modestly with
a wink at Hatch.
“Can you keep up with an automobile for a distance
of, say, thirty or forty miles?”
“I can keep up with anything that ain’t got wings,”
was the response.


254 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Well, to tell you the truth,” volunteered The Think-
ing Machine, “there is a growing belief that this par-
ticular automobile has wings. However if you can keep
up with it—”
“Ah, quit your kiddin’,” said the champion, easily.
“I can ride rings around anything on wheels. I’ll
start behind it and beat it where it's going.”
The Thinking Machine examined the champion,
Jimmie Thalhauer as a curiosity. In the seclusion of
his laboratory he had never had an opportunity of meet-
ing just such another worldly young person.
“How fast can you ride, Mr. Thalhauer?” he
asked at last.
“I’m ashamed to tell you,” confided the champion in
a hushed voice. “I can ride so fast that I scare myself.”
He paused a moment. “But it seems to me,” he said,
“if there's thirty or forty miles to do I ought to do it on
a motor-cycle.”
“Now that's just the point,” explained The Thinking
Machine. “A motor-cycle makes noise and if it could
have been used we would have hired a fast automobile.
This proposition briefly is: I want you to ride without
lights behind an automobile which may also run without
lights and find out where it goes. No occupant of the
car must suspect that it is followed.”
“Without lights?” repeated the champion. “Gee!
Rubber shoe, eh?”


The Gap in the Trail 255
The Thinking Machine looked his bewilderment
“Yes, that's it,” Hatch answered for him.
“I guess it’s good for a four column head? Hunh P”
inquired the champion. “Special pictures posed by the
champion? Hunh P”
“Yes,” Hatch replied.
“Tracked on a Bicycle sounds good to me. Hunh P”
Hatch nodded.
So arrangements were concluded and then and there
The Thinking Machine gave definite and conclusive in-
structions to the champion. While these apparently
bore broadly on the problem in hand they conveyed
absolutely no inkling of his plan to the reporter. At the
end the champion arose to go.
“You’re a most extraordinary young man, Mr.
Thalhauer,” commented The Thinking Machine, not
without admiration for the sturdy, powerful figure.
And as Hatch accompanied the champion out the
door and down the steps Jimmie smiled with easy grace.
“Nutty old guy, ain’t he? Hunh P”
>k sk >k >k sk sk sk
Night! Utter blackness, relieved only by a white,
ribbon like road which winds away mistily under a star-
less sky. Shadowy hedges line either side and occasion-
ally a tree thrusts itself upward out of the sombreness.
The murmur of human voices in the shadows, then the
crackling-chug of an engine and an automobile moves


256 The Thinking Machine on the Case
slowly, without lights, into the road. There is the sud-
den clatter of an engine at high speed and the car rushes
away.
From the hedge comes the faint rustle of leaves as of
wind stirring, then a figure moves impalpably. A mo-
ment and it becomes a separate entity; a quick movement
and the creak of a leather bicycle saddle. Silently the
single figure, bent low over the handle bars, moves after .
the car with ever increasing momentum.
Then a long, desperate race. For mile after mile,
mile after mile the auto goes on. The silent cyclist has
crept up almost to the rear axle and hangs there doggedly
as a racer to his pace. On and on they rush together
through the darkness, the chauffeur moving with a per-
fect knowledge of his road, the single rider behind cling-
ing on grimly with set teeth. The powerful, piston-like
legs move up and down to the beat of the engine.
At last, with dust-dry throat and stinging, aching
eyes the cyclist feels the pace slacken and instantly he
drops back out of sight. It is only by sound that he
follows now. The car stops; the cyclist is lost in the
shadows.
For two or three hours the auto stands deserted and
silent. At last the voices are heard again, the car stirs,
moves away and the cyclist drops in behind. Another
race which leads off in another direction. Finally, from a
knoll, the lights of a city are seen. Ten minutes elapse,


The Gap in the Trail 257
the auto stops, the head lights flare up and more leisurely
it proceeds on its way.
sk >k sk sk sk sk sk
On the following evening The Thinking Machine and
Hutchinson Hatch called upon Fielding Stanwood,
President of the Fordyce National Bank. Mr. Stanwood
looked at them with interrogative eyes.
“We called to inform you, Mr. Stanwood,” explained
The Thinking Machine, “that a box of securities, prob-
ably United States bonds, is missing from your bank.”
“What?” exclaimed Mr. Stanwood, and his face
paled. “Robbery?”
“I only know the bonds were taken out of the vault
said
tonight by Joseph Marsh, your assistant cashier,’
the scientist, “and that he, together with three other men,
left the bank with the box and are now at—a place I can
name.”
Mr. Stanwood was staring at him in amazement.
“You know where they are?” he demanded.
“I said I did,” replied the scientist, shortly.
“Then we must inform the police at once, and—”
“I don’t know that there has been an actual crime,”
interrupted the scientist. “I do know that every night
for a week these bonds have been taken out through the
connivance of your watchman and in each instance have
been returned, intact, before morning. They will be
returned tonight. Therefore I would advise, if you act,


The Gap in the Trail Q59
necessary to make them believe that there was already
a million or so in the scheme, so these bonds were bor-
rowed and represented to be owned by themselves.
They were taken to and fro between the bank and his
home in a kind of an automobile. This is really what
happened, based on knowledge which Mr. Hatch has
gathered and what I myself developed by the use of a
little logic.”
And his statement of the affair proved to be correct.
Marsh and the others admitted the statement to be true.
It was while The Thinking Machine was homeward
bound that he explained the phantom auto affair to Hatch.
“The phantom auto as you call it,” he said, “is the
vehicle in which the bonds were moved about. The
phantom idea came merely by chance. On the night
the vehicle was first noticed it was rushing along—we'll
say to reach Marsh's house in time for an appoint-
ment. A road map will show you that the most direct
line from the bank to Marsh's was through The Trap.
If an automobile should go half way through there, then
out across the Stocker estate to the other road, the dis-
tance would be lessened by a good five miles. This
saving at first was of course valuable, so the car in which
they rushed into the trap was merely taken across the
Stocker estate to the road in front.”
“But how P” demanded Hatch. “There’s no road
there.”


260 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“I learned by 'phone from Mr. Stocker that there is a
narrow walk from a very narrow foot-gate in Stocker's
wall on The Trap leading through the grounds to the
other road. The phantom auto wasn’t really an auto
at all—it was merely two motor cycles arranged with
seats and a steering apparatus. The French Army has
been experimenting with them. The motor cycles are,
of course, separate machines and as such it was easy to
trundle them through a narrow gate and across to the
other road. The seats are light; they can be carried
under the arm.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Hatch suddenly, then after a
minute: “But what did Jimmie Thalhauer do for you?”
“He waited in the road at the other end of the foot-
path from The Trap,” the scientist explained. “When
the auto was brought through and put together he
followed it to Marsh's home and from there to the bank.
The rest of it you and I worked out today. It's merely
logic, Mr. Hatch, logic.”
There was a pause.
“That Mr. Thalhauer is really a marvelous young
man, Mr. Hatch, don’t you think?”


262 The Thinking Machine on the Case
he had started early. This robbery of the Thirteenth
National was his “big” job and was to have been his
last. With the proceeds he had intended to take his
wife and quietly disappear beneath a full beard and an
alias in some place far removed from former haunts.
But the mutability of human events is a matter of proverb.
While the robbery as a robbery was a thoroughly artistic
piece of work and in full accordance with plans which
had been worked out to the minutest details months be-
fore, he had made one mistake. This was leaving be-
hind him in the bank the can in which the nitro-glycerine
had been bought. Through this carelessness he had
been traced.
Dolan and his wife occupied three poor rooms in a
poor tenement house. From the moment the police
got a description of the person who bought the explosive
they were confident for they knew their men. Therefore
four clever men were on watch about the poor tenement.
Neither Dolan nor his wife was there then, but from the
condition of things in the rooms the police believed that
they intended to return so took up positions to watch.
Unsuspecting enough, for his one mistake in the
robbery had not recurred to him, Dolan came along
just about dusk and started up the five steps to the front
door of the tenement. It just happened that he glanced
back and saw a head drawn suddenly behind a project-
ing stoop. But the electric light glared strongly there


264. The Thinking Machine on the Case
Then and there he sat down to figure it all out. There
seemed no escape for him. Every way out was blocked,
and it was only a question of time before they would
close in on him. He imagined now they were only
waiting for his wife's return. He could fight for his
freedom of course—even kill one, perhaps two, of the
detectives who were waiting for him. But that would
only mean his own death. It he tried to run for it past
either of the detectives he would get a shot in the back.
And besides, murder was repugnant to Dolan’s artistic
soul. It didn’t do any good. But could he warn Isabel,
his wife? He feared she would walk into the trap as he
had done, and she had had no connection of any sort
with the affair.
Then, from a fear that his wife would return, there
swiftly came a fear that she would not. He suddenly
remembered that it was necessary for him to see her.
The police could not connect her with the robbery in any
way; they could only hold her for a time and then would
be compelled to free her for her innocence of this par-
ticular crime was beyond question. And if he were
taken before she returned she would be left penniless;
and that was a thing which Dolan dreaded to contem-
plate. There was a spark of human tenderness in his
heart and in prison it would be comforting to know that
she was well cared for. If she would only come now he
would tell her where the money—'


The Brown Coat 265
For ten minutes Dolan considered the question in all
possible lights. A letter telling her where the money
was P No. It would inevitably fall into the hands of
the police. A cipher? She would never get it. How?
How? How? Every moment he expected a clamor
at the door which would mean that the police had come
for him. They knew he was cornered. Whatever he
did must be done quickly. Dolan took a long breath
and started to roll another cigarette. With the thin
white paper held in his left hand and tobacco bag raised
in the other he had an inspiration.
For a little more than an hour after that he was left
alone. Finally his quick ear caught the shuffle of
stealthy feet in the hall, then came an imperative rap on
the door. The police had evidently feared to wait longer.
Dolan was leaning over a sewing machine when the
summons came. Instinctively his hand closed on his
revolver, then he tossed it aside and walked to the door.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Let us in, Dolan,” came the reply.
“That you, Downey?” Dolan inquired.
“Yes. Now don’t make any mistakes, Mort. There
are three of us here and Cunningham is in the alley
watching your windows. There's no way out.”
For one instant—only an instant—Dolan hesitated.
It was not that he was repentant; it was not that he
feared prison—it was regret at being caught. He had
-------→m - " -
,


266 The Thinking Machine on the Case
planned it all so differently, and the little woman would
be heart-broken. Finally, with a quick backward glance
at the sewing machine, he opened the door. Three
revolvers were thrust into his face with a unanimity that
spoke well for the police opinion of the man. Dolan
promptly raised his hands over his head.
“Oh, put down your guns,” he expostulated. “I’m
not crazy. My gun is over on the couch there.”
Detective Downey, by a personal search, corrob-
orated this statement then the revolvers were lowered.
“The chief wants you,” he said. “It’s about that
Thirteenth National Bank robbery.”
“All right,” said Dolan, calmly and he held out his
hands for the steel nippers.
“Now, Mort,” said Downey, ingratiatingly, “you
can save us a lot of trouble by telling us where the
money is.”
“Doubtless I could,” was the ambiguous response.
Detective Downey looked at him and understood.
Cunningham was called in from the alley. He and
Downey remained in the apartment and the other two
men led Dolan away. In the natural course of events
the prisoner appeared before Detective Mallory at Police
Headquarters. They were well acquainted, profession-
ally. -
Dolan told everything frankly from the inception of
the plan to the actual completion of the crime. The


The Brown Coat Q67
detective sat with his feet on his desk listening. At
the end he leaned forward toward the prisoner.
“And where is the money?” he asked.
Dolan paused long enough to roll a cigarette.
“That's my business,” he responded, pleasantly.
insisted Detective
“You might just as well tell us,’
Mallory. “We will find it, of course, and it will save us
trouble.”
“I’ll just bet you a hat you don’t find it,” replied
Dolan, and there was a glitter of triumph in his eyes.
“On the level, between man and man now I will bet you
a hat that you never find that money.”
“You’re on,” replied Detective Mallory. He looked
keenly at his prisoner and his prisoner stared back with-
out a quiver. “Did your wife get away with it?”
From the question Dolan surmised that she had not
been arrested.
“No,” he answered.
“Is it in your flat?”
“Downey and Cunningham are searching now,”
was the rejoinder. “They will report what they find.”
There was silence for several minutes as the two men
—officer and prisoner-stared each at the other. When
a thief takes refuge in a refusal to answer questions he
becomes a difficult subject to handle. There was the
“third degree” of course, but Dolan was the kind of man
who would only laugh at that; the kind of man from whom
18


268 The Thinking Machine on the Case
anything less than physical torture could not bring a
statement if he didn’t choose to make it. Detective
Mallory was perfectly aware of this dogged trait in his
character.
“It's this way, chief,” explained Dolan at last. “I
robbed the bank, I got the money, and it's now where
you will never find it. I did it by myself, and am willing
to take my medicine. Nobody helped me. My wife—
I know your men waited for her before they took me—
my wife knows nothing on earth about it. She had no
connection with the thing at all and she can prove it.
That's all I’m going to say. You might just as well
make up your mind to it.”
Detective Mallory's eyes snapped.
“You will tell where that money is,” he blustered,
“or—or I'll see that you get—”
“Twenty years is the absolute limit,” interrupted
Dolan quietly. “I expect to get twenty years—that's
the worst you can do for me.”
The Detective stared at him hard.
“And besides,” Dolan went on, “I won’t be lone-
some when I get where you’re going to send me. I’ve
got lots of friends there—been there before. One of
the jailers is the best pinochle player I ever met.”
Like most men who find themselves balked at the
outset Detective Mallory sought to appease his indigna-
tion by heaping invective upon the prisoner, by threats,


The Brown Coat 269
by promises, by wheedling, by bluster. It was all the
same, Dolan remained silent. Finally he was led away
and locked up.
A few minutes later Downey and Cunningham ap-
peared. One glance told their chief that they could not
enlighten him as to the whereabouts of the stolen money.
“Do you have any idea where it is?” he demanded.
“No, but I have a very definite idea where it isn’t,”
replied Downey grimly. “It isn’t in that flat. There's
not one square inch of it that we didn’t go over—not one
object there that we didn’t tear to pieces looking. It
simply isn’t there. He hid it somewhere before we got
him.”
“Well take all the men you want and keep at it,”
instructed Detective Mallory. “One of you, by the
way, had better bring in Dolan’s wife. I am fairly
certain that she had nothing to do with it but she might
know something and I can bluff a woman.” Detective
Mallory announced that accomplishment as if it were a
thing to be proud of. “There's nothing to do now but
get the money. Meanwhile I’ll see that Dolan isn’t
permitted to communicate with anybody.”
“There is always the chance,” suggested Downey,
“that a man as clever as Dolan could in a cipher letter,
or by a chance remark, inform her where the money
is if we assume she doesn’t know, and that should be
• 35
guarded against.


274 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Mr. Ashe. “It was a large sum and the theft has crip-
pled us considerably.”
“All right,” said Dolan carelessly. “The sooner I
get two years the sooner you get it.” -
“How could it be—be fixed ?”
“I’ll leave that to you.”
That was all. The bank president and the two
directors went out fuming impotently. Mr. Ashe paused
in Detective Mallory's office long enough for a final word.
“Of course it was brilliant work on the part of the
police to capture Dolan,” he said caustically, “but it
isn’t doing us a particle of good. All I see now is that
we lose a hundred and nine thousand dollars.”
“It looks very much like it,” assented the detective,
“unless we find it.”
“Well, why don't you find it?”
Detective Mallory had to give it up.


CHAPTER XXIII
A HUMAN PROBLEM
4 & HAT did Dolan do with the money?” Hut-
W chinson Hatch was asking of Professor Augus-
tus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking
Machine. “It isn’t in the flat. Everything indicates
that it was hidden somewhere else.”
“And Dolan's wife?” inquired The Thinking
Machine in his perpetually irritated voice. “It seems
conclusive that she had no idea where it is?”
“She has been put through the third degree,’”
explained the reporter, “and if she had known she would
probably have told.”
“Is she living in the flat now?”
“No. She is stopping with her sister. The flat
is under lock and key. Mallory has the key. He has
shown the utmost care in everything he has done. Dolan
has not been permitted to write to or see his wife for fear
he would let her know some way where the money is;
he has not been permitted to communicate with anybody
at all, not even a lawyer. He did see President Ashe and
two directors of the bank but naturally he wouldn’t give
them a message for his wife.”
The Thinking Machine was silent. For five, ten,
twenty minutes he sat with long, slender fingers pressed
275


276 The Thinking Machine on the Case
tip to tip, squinting unblinkingly at the ceiling. Hatch
waited patiently.
“Of course,” said the scientist at last, “one hundred
and nine thousand dollars, even in large bills would make
a considerable bundle and would be extremely difficult
to hide in a place that has been gone over so often. We
may suppose, therefore, that it isn’t in the flat. What
have the detectives learned as to Dolan’s whereabouts
after the robbery and before he was taken?”
“Nothing,” replied Hatch, “nothing, absolutely.
He seemed to disappear off the earth for a time. That
time, I suppose, was when he was disposing of the
money. His plans were evidently well laid.”
“It would be possible of course, by the simple rules
of logic, to sit still here and ultimately locate the money,”
remarked The Thinking Machine musingly, “but it
would take a long time. We might begin, for instance,
with the idea that he contemplated flight. When P
By rail or steamer? The answers to those questions
would, in a way, enlighten us as to the probable location
of the money, because, remember, it would have to be
placed where it was readily accessible in case of flight.
But the process would be a long one. Perhaps it would
be best to make Dolan tell us where he hid it.”
“It would if he would tell,” agreed the reporter,
“but he is reticent to a degree that is maddening when the
money is mentioned.”


278 The Thinking Machine on the Case
demanded The Thinking Machine tartly. “If Dolan
wants to convey knowledge of the whereabouts of the
money to his wife let him talk to her—let him give her the
information. I daresay if she is clever enough to inter-
pret a word as a clue to where the money is I am too.”
The detective thought that over. He knew this
crabbed little scientist with the enormous head of old;
and he knew, too, some of the amazing results he had
achieved by methods wholly unlike those of the police.
But in this case he was frankly in doubt.
“This way,” The Thinking Machine continued.
“Get the wife here, let her pass Dolan's cell and speak
to him so that he will know that it is her, then let her carry
on a conversation with him while she is beyond his sight.
Have a stenographer, without the knowledge of either,
take down just what is said, word for word. Give me
a transcript of the conversation, and hold the wife on
some pretext until I can study it a little. If he gives her a
clue I'll get the money.”
There was not the slightest trace of egotism in the
irritable tone. It seemed merely a statement of fact.
Detective Mallory, looking at the wizened face of the
logician, was doubtfully hopeful and at last he consented
to the experiment. The wife was sent for and came
eagerly, a stenographer was placed in the cell adjoining
Dolan, and the wife was led along the corridor. As
she paused in front of Dolan’s cell he started toward her


A Human Problem 279
with an exclamation. Then she was led on a little way
out of his sight.
With face pressed close against the bars Dolan glow-
ered out upon Detective Mallory and Hatch. An ex-
pression of awful ferocity leapt into his eyes.
“What're you doing with her?” he demanded.
“Mort, Mort,” she called.
“Belle, is it you?” he asked in turn.
“They told me you wanted to talk to me,” explained
the wife. She was panting fiercely as she struggled
to shake off the hands which held her beyond his
reach.
“What sort of a game is this, Mallory?” demanded
the prisoner. -
“You’ve wanted to talk to her,” Mallory replied,
“now go ahead. You may talk, but you must not see
her.”
“Oh, that's it, eh?” snarled Dolan. “What did you
bring her here for then? Is she under arrest?”
“Mort, Mort,” came his wife's voice again. “They
won’t let me come where I can see you.”
There was utter silence for a moment. Hatch was
overpowered by a feeling that he was intruding upon a
family tragedy, and tiptoed beyond reach of Dolan's
roving eyes to where The Thinking Machine was sitting
on a stool, twiddling his fingers. After a moment the
detective joined them.


282 The Thinking Machine on the Case
ask of you for a long time so will you do it this after-
noon?”
“Yes,” she answered, tearfully.
“The rip is under the right arm, and be certain to
sew it up,” said Dolan again. “Perhaps, when I am
tried, I shall have a chance to see you and—”
The Thinking Machine arose and stretched himself
a little.
“That's all that's necessary, Mr. Mallory,” he said.
“Have her held until I tell you to release her.”
Mallory made a motion to Cunningham and Blanton
and the woman was led away, screaming. Hatch
shuddered a little, and Dolan, not understanding, flung
himself against the bars of his cell like a caged animal.
“Clever, aren't you?” he snarled as he caught
sight of Detective Mallory. “Thought I'd try to tell
her where it was, but I didn't and you never will know
where it is—not in a thousand years.”
Accompanied by The Thinking Machine and Hatch
the detective went back to his private office. All were
silent but the detective glanced from time to time into the
eyes of the scientist.
“Now, Mr. Hatch, we have the whereabouts of the
money settled,” said The Thinking Machine, quietly.
“Please go at once to the flat and bring the brown coat
Dolan mentioned. I daresay the secret of the hidden
money is somewhere in that coat.”


284 The Thinking Machine on the Case
pieces. Each piece in turn was submitted to the sharpest
scrutiny. Nothing resulted. Detective Mallory frankly
regarded it all as wasted effort and when there remained
nothing of the coat save strips of cloth and lining he was
inclined to be triumphant. The Thinking Machine
was merely thoughtful.
“It went further back than that,” the scientist
mused, and tiny wrinkles appeared in the dome-like
brow. “Ah! Mr. Hatch please go back to the flat, look
in the machine drawers, or work basket and you will
find a spool of brown thread. Bring it to me.”
“Spool of brown thread?” repeated the detective
in amazement. “Have you been through the place?”
“NO.”
“How do you know there's a spool of brown thread
there, then P”
“I know it because Mr. Hatch will bring it back to
me,” snapped The Thinking Machine. “I know it by
the simplest, most rudimentary rules of logic.”
Hatch went out again. In half an hour he returned
with a spool of brown thread. The Thinking Machine's
white fingers seized upon it eagerly, and his watery,
squint eyes examined it. A portion of it had been used—
the spool was only halfgone. But he noted—and as
he did his eyes reflected a glitter of triumph—he noted
that the paper cap on each end was still in place.
“Now, Mr. Mallory,” he said, “I’ll demonstrate to


-----------
- -- -
The Phantom Motor 249
spinal column. He lighted a cigarette and pulled him-
self together with a jerk. -
“There’s one way to find out where it goes,” he
declared at last, emphatically, “and that's to place a
man in the middle just beyond the bend of The Trap
and let him wait and see. If the car goes up, down, or
evaporates he'll see and can tell us.”
Baker looked at him curiously.
“I’d hate to be the man in the middle,” he declared.
There was something of uneasiness in his manner.
“I rather think I would, too,” responded Hatch.
On the following evening, consequent upon the
appearance of the story of the phantom auto in Hatch's
paper, there were twelve other reporters on hand. Most
of them were openly, flagrantly sceptical; they even in-
sinuated that no one had seen an auto. Hatch smiled
wisely.
“Wait!” he advised with deep conviction.
So when the darkness fell that evening the newspaper
men of a great city had entered into a conspiracy to
capture the phantom auto. Thirteen of them, making a
total of fifteen men with Baker and Bowman, were on
hand and they agreed to a suggestion for all to take
positions along the road of The Trap from Baker's
post to Bowman's, watch for the auto, see what happened
to it and compare notes afterwards. So they scattered
themselves along a few hundred feet apart and waited.
->
− —r- :
- - - - >.


CHAPTER XXI
THE GAP IN THE TRAIL
L' a child with a troublesome problem, Hatch
took the entire matter and laid it before Professor
Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, the master brain.
The Thinking Machine, with squint eyes turned steadily
upward and long, slender fingers pressed tip to tip list-
ened to the end.
“Now I know of course that automobiles don’t
fly,” Hatch burst out savagely in conclusion, “and if
this one doesn’t fly, there is no earthly way for it to get
out of The Trap, as they call it. I went over the thing
carefully—I even went so far as to examine the ground
and the tops of the walls to see if a runway had been let
down for the auto to go over.”
The Thinking Machine squinted at him inquiringly.
“Are you sure you saw an automobile?” he de-
manded irritably.
“Certainly I saw it,” blurted the reporter. “I not
only saw it—I smelled it. Just to convince myself that
it was real I tossed my cane in front of the thing and it
smashed it to tooth-picks.”
“Perhaps, then, if everything is as you say the auto
actually does fly,” remarked the scientist.
17 951


252 The Thinking Machine on the Case
The reporter stared into the calm, inscrutable face
of The Thinking Machine, fearing first that he had not
heard aright. Then he concluded that he had.
“You mean,” he inquired eagerly, “that the phantom
may be an auto-areoplane affair, and that it actually does
fly?”
“It’s not at all impossible,” commented the scientist.
“I had an idea something like that myself,” Hatch
explained, “and questioned every soul within a mile or
so but I didn’t get anything.”
“The perfect stretch of road there might be the very
place for some daring experimenter to get up sufficient
speed to soar a short distance in a light machine,” con-
tinued the scientist.
“Light machine?” Hatch repeated. “Did I tell
you that this car had four people in it?”
“Four people!” exclaimed the scientist. “Dear
me! Dear me! That makes it very different. Of
course four people would be too great a lift for an—”
For ten minutes he sat silent, and tiny, cobwebby
lines appeared in his dome-like brow. Then he arose
and passed into the adjoining room. After a moment
Hatch heard the telephone bell jingle. Five minutes
later The Thinking Machine appeared, and scowled upon
him unpleasantly.
“I suppose what you really want to learn is if the car is
a—a material one, and to whom it belongs?” he queried.


A Human Problem 285
you that in Dolan the police are dealing with a man far
beyond the ordinary bank thief. In his way he is a
genius. Look here!”
With a pen-knife he ripped off the paper caps and
looked through the hole of the spool. For an instant
his face showed blank amazement. Then he put the
spool down on the table and squinted at it for a moment
in absolute silence.
“It must be here,” he said at last. “It must be,
else why did he—of course!”
With quick fingers he began to unwind the thread.
Yard after yard it rolled off in his hand, and finally in the
mass of brown on the spool appeared a white strip. In
another instant The Thinking Machine held in his
hand a tiny, thin sheet of paper—a cigarette paper. It
had been wound around the spool and the thread wound
over it so smoothly that it was impossible to see that it
had ever been removed.
The detective and Hatch were leaning over his shoul-
der watching him curiously. The tiny paper unfolded
—something was written on it. Slowly The Thinking
Machine deciphered it.
“47 Causeway street, basement, tenth flagstone from
northeast corner.”
And there the money was found—$109,000. The
house was unoccupied and within easy reach of a wharf
from which a European bound steamer sailed. Within


286 The Thinking Machine on the Case
half an hour of sailing time it would have been an easy
matter for Dolan to have recovered it all and that with-
out in the least exciting the suspicion of those who might
be watching him. For a saloon next door opened into
an alley behind, and a broken window in the basement
gave quick access to the treasure.
“Dolan reasoned,” The Thinking Machine explained,
“that even if he was never permitted to see his wife she
would probably use that thread and in time find the
directions for recovering the money. Further he argued
that the police would never suspect that a spool contained
the secret for which they sought so long. His conversa-
tion with his wife, today, was merely to draw her atten-
tion to something which would require her to use the
spool of brown thread. The brown coat was all that he
could think of. And that’s all I think.”
Dolan was a sadly surprised man when news of the
recovery of the money was broken to him. But a cer-
tain quaint philosophy didn’t desert him. He gazed
at Detective Mallory incredulously as the story was told
and at the end went over and sat down on his cell cot.
“Well, chief,” he said, “I didn’t think it was in you.
That makes me owe you a hat.”


His Perfect Alibi 289
“I hated to trouble you, doctor,” explained the
stranger, “but I haven’t slept a wink all night.”
He glanced around the room until his eye fell upon a
clock. Dr. Sitgreaves glanced in that direction. The
hands of the clock pointed to 1:53.
“Phew!” said Dr. Sitgreaves. “Nearly two o'clock.
I must have slept hard. I didn’t think I’d been asleep
more than an hour.” He paused to gape again and
stretch himself. “Which tooth is it?” he asked.
“A molar, here,”
said the stranger, and he opened
his mouth.
Dr. Sitgreaves gazed officially into his innermost
depths and fingered the hideous instruments of
torture.
“That tooth’s too good to lose,” he said after an
examination. “There's only a small cavity in it.”
“I don’t know what's the matter with it,” replied
the other impatiently, “except that it hurts. My nerves
are fairly jumping.”
Dr. Sitgreaves was professionally serious as he noted
the drawn face, the nervous twitching of hands and the
unusual pallor of his client.
“They are,” he said finally. “There's no doubt of
that. But it isn’t the tooth. It’s neuralgia.”
“Well, pull it anyway,” pleaded the stranger. “It
always comes in that tooth, and I’ve got to get rid of it
some time.”


290 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“It wouldn’t be wise,” remonstrated the dentist.
“A filling will save it. Here,” and he turned and
stirred an effervescent powder in a glass. “Take this
and see if it doesn’t straighten you out.”
The stranger took the glass and gulped down the
foaming liquid.
“Now sit right there for five minutes or so,” instructed
the dentist. “If it doesn’t quiet you and you insist on
having the tooth pulled, of course—”
He sat down and glanced again at the clock after
which he looked at his watch and replaced it in a pocket
of his pajamas. His visitor was sitting, too, controlling
himself only with an obvious effort.
“This is real neuralgia weather,” observed the
dentist at last, idly. “Misty and damp.”
“I suppose so,” was the reply. “This began to
hurt about twelve o’clock, just as I went to bed, and
finally it got so bad that I couldn’t stand it. Then I
got up and dressed and came out for a walk. I kept on,
thinking that it would get better but it didn’t and a
policeman sent me here.”
There was a pause of several minutes.
“Feel any better?” inquired the dentist, at last.
“No,” was the reply. “I think you’d better take it
out.”
“Just as you say!”
The offending tooth was drawn, the stranger paid


292 The Thinking Machine on the Case
him sprawled upon it face downward. The weapon
was one of several curious daggers which had been
used ornamentally on the walls of his apartments. The
blade missed the heart only a quarter of an inch or so;
death must have come within a couple of minutes.
Detective Mallory went to the apartments, accom-
panied by the Medical Examiner. Together they
lifted the dead man. Beneath his body, on the desk,
lay a sheet of paper on which were scrawled a few words;
a pencil was clutched tightly in his right hand. The
detective glanced then stared at the paper; it startled him.
In the scrawly, trembling, incoherent handwriting of the
dying man were these disjointed sentences and words:
“Murdered * * * * Franklin Chase * * * * quarrel
* * * * stabbed me * * * * am dying * * * * God help
me * * * * clock striking 2 * * * * good-bye.”
The detective's jaws snapped as he read. Here was
crime, motive and time. After a sharp scrutiny of the
apartments, he went down the single flight of stairs to
the office floor to make some inquiries. An elevator
man, Moran, was the first person questioned. He had
been on duty the night before. Did he know Mr.
Franklin Chase? Yes. Had Mr. Franklin Chase
called to see Mr. De Forrest on the night before? Yes.
“What time was he here?”
“About half past eleven, I should say. He and Mr.
De Forrest came in together from the theater.”


296 The Thinking Machine on the Case
three persons,” the prisoner went on steadily. “Two
of these happen to be city officials, one the City Engineer.
Will he please come forward.”
There was a little stir in the room and the Court
scratched one ear gravely. City Engineer Malcolm
appeared inquiringly. -
“This is Mr. Malcolm ?” asked the prisoner. “Yes?
Here is a map of the city issued by your office. I
would like to ask please the approximate distance between
this point—” and he indicated on the map the location
of the Avon—“and this.” He touched another point
far removed.
The City Engineer studied the map carefully.
“At least two and a half miles,” he explained.
“You would make that statement on oath P”
“Yes, I’ve surveyed it myself.”
“Thank you,” said the prisoner, courteously, and he
turned to face the crowd in the rear. “Is Policeman
No. 1122 in Court?—I don’t know his name?”
Again there was a stir, and Policeman Gillis came
forward.
“Do you remember me?” inquired the prisoner.
“Sure,” was the reply.
“Where did you see me last night?”
“At this corner,” and Gillis put his finger down on
the map at the second point the prisoner had indicated.
The Court leaned forward eagerly to peer at the map:


His Perfect Alibi Q97
- * ~ *
------------>
Detective Mallory tugged violently at his mustache.
Into the prisoner's manner there came tense anxiety.
“Do you know what time you saw me there?” he
asked.
Policeman Gillis was thoughtful a moment.
“No,” he replied at last. “I heard a clock strike
just after I saw you but I didn’t notice.”
The prisoner's face went deathly white for an instant,
then he recovered himself with an effort.
“You didn’t count the strokes?” he asked.
“No, I wasn’t paying any attention to it.”
The color rushed back into Chase’s face and he was
silent a moment. Then:
“It was two o'clock you heard strike?” It was
hardly a question, rather a statement.
“I don’t know,” said Gillis. “It might have been.
Probably was.”
“What did I say to you?”
“You asked me where you could find a dentist, and
I directed you to Dr. Sitgreaves across the street.”
“You saw me enter Dr. Sitgreaves’ house?”
“Yes.”
The accused glanced up at the Court and that emi-
nent jurist proceeded to look solemn.
“Dr. Sitgreaves, please?” called the prisoner.
The dentist appeared, exchanging nods with the
prisoner.


His Perfect Alibi Q99
“And what time did I leave your office?” the prisoner
asked.
“Seventeen minutes past two—I happen to remem-
ber,” was the reply.
The prisoner glanced dreamily around the room
twice, his eyes met Detective Mallory's. He stared
straight into that official for an instant then turned back
to the dentist.
“When you drew the tooth there was blood of course.
It is possible that I got the stains on my fingers and
clothing?”
“Yes, certainly.”
The prisoner turned to the Court and surprised a
puzzled expression on that official countenance.
“Is anything else necessary?” he inquired courte-
ously. “It has been established that the moment of
the crime was two o'clock; I have shown by three wit-
nesses—two of them city officials—that I was two and a
half miles away in less than half an hour; I couldn’t have
gone on a car in less than fifteen minutes—hardly that.”
There was a long silence as the Court considered
the matter. Finally he delivered himself, briefly.
“It resolves itself into a question of the accuracy of
the clocks,” he said. “The accuracy of the clock at the
Avon is attested by the known accuracy of the clock in
the telegraph office, while it seems established that Dr.
Sitgreaves’ clock was also accurate, because it was with
20


300 The Thinking Machine on the Case
his watch. Of course there is no question of veracity
of witnesses—it is merely a question of the clock in Dr.
Sitgreaves office. If that is shown to be absolutely
correct we must accept the alibi.”
The prisoner turned to the elevator man from the
Avon.
“What sort of a clock was that you mentioned?”
“An electric clock, regulated from Washington
Observatory,” was the reply.
“And the clock at the telegraph office, Mr. Mallory?”
“An electric clock, regulated from Washington
Observatory.”
“And yours, Dr. Sitgreaves?”
“An electric clock, regulated from Washington Ob-
servatory.”
The prisoner remained in his cell until seven o’clock
that evening while experts tested the three clocks. They
were accurate to the second; and it was explained that
there could have been no variation of either without this
variation showing in the delicate testing apparatus.
Therefore it came to pass that Franklin Chase was re-
leased on his own recognizance, while Detective Mallory
wandered off into the sacred precincts of his private
office to hold his head in his hands and think.


CHAPTER XXV
A QUESTION OF TIME
H' HATCH, reporter, had followed
the intricacies of the mystery from the discovery
of De Forrest's body, through the preliminary
hearing, up to and including the expert examination of
the clocks, which immediately preceded the release of
Franklin Chase. When this point was reached his
mental condition was not unlike that of Detective Mal-
lory—he was groping hopelessly, blindly in the mazes of
the problem.
It was then that he called to see Professor Augustus
S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine. That
distinguished gentleman listened to a recital of the
known facts with petulant, drooping mouth and the
everlasting squint in his blue eyes. As the reporter
talked on, corrugations appeared in the logician’s ex-
pansive brow, and these gave way in turn to a net-work
of wrinkles. At the end The Thinking Machine sat
twiddling his long fingers and staring upward.
“This is one of the most remarkable cases that has
come to my attention,” he said at last, “because it
possesses the unusual quality of being perfect in each way
—that is the evidence against Mr. Chase is perfect and
301


304 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“Oh, I see,” he said at last. “No, I hardly think
so, and yet I might.”
Later Hatch and The Thinking Machine by per-
mission of Detective Mallory, made an exhaustive search
of De Forrest's apartments in the Avon, seeking some
clue. When The Thinking Machine went down the
single flight of stairs to the office he seemed perplexed.
“Where is your clock?” he inquired of the elevator
IIlan.
“In the inside office, opposite the telephone booth,”
was the reply.
The scientist went in and taking a stool, clambered
up and squinted fiercely into the very face of the time-
piece. He said “Ah!” once, non-commitally, then
clambered down.
“It would not be possible for any one here to see a
person pass through the hall,” he mused. “Now,”
and he picked up a telephone book, “just a word with
Dr. Sitgreaves.”
He asked the dentist only two questions and their
nature caused Hatch to smile. The first was:
“You have a pocket in the shirt of your pajamas?”
“Yes,” came the wondering reply.
“And when you are called at night you pick up your
watch and put it in that pocket?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks. Good-bye.”


A Question of Time 305
Then The Thinking Machine turned to Hatch.
“We are safe in believing,” he said, “that Mr. De
Forrest was not killed by a thief, because his valuables
were undisturbed, therefore we must believe that the
person who killed him was an acquaintance. It would
be unfair to act hastily, so I shall ask you to devote three
or four days to getting this man’s history in detail;
see his friends and enemies, find out all about him, his
life, his circumstances, his love affairs—all those things.”
Hatch nodded; he was accustomed to receiving large
orders from The Thinking Machine.
“If you uncover nothing in that line to suggest an-
other line of investigation I will give you the name of the
person who killed him and an arrest will follow. The
murderer will not run away. The solution of the affair
is quite clear, unless—” he emphasized the word—
“unless some unknown fact gives it another turn.”
Hatch was forced to be content with that and for the
specified four days labored arduously and vainly. Then
he returned to The Thinking Machine and summed up
results briefly in one word: “Nothing.”
The Thinking Machine went out and was gone two
hours. When he returned he went straight to the 'phone
and called Detective Mallory. The detective appeared
after a few minutes.
“Have one of your men go at once and arrest Mr.
Chase,” The Thinking Machine instructed. “You


306 The Thinking Machine on the Case
might explain to him that there is new evidence—an eye
witness if you like. But don’t mention my name or this
place to him. Anyway bring him here and I'll show
you the flaw in the perfect alibi he set up!”
Detective Mallory started to ask questions.
“It comes down simply to this,” interrupted The
Thinking Machine impatiently. “Somebody killed Mr.
De Forrest and that being true it must be that that some-
body can be found. Please, when Mr. Chase comes here
do not interrupt me, and introduce me to him as an im-
portant new witness.”
An hour later Franklin Chase entered with Detective
Mallory. He was somewhat pale and nervous and in
his eyes lay a shadow of apprehension. Over it all was
the gloss of ostentatious nonchalance and self control.
There were introductions. Chase started visibly at
actual reference to the “important new witness.”
“An eye witness,” added The Thinking Machine.
Positive fright came into Chase's manner and he
quailed under the steady scrutiny of the narrow blue eyes.
The Thinking Machine dropped back into his chair and
pressed his long, white fingers tip to tip.
“If you'll just follow me a moment, Mr. Chase,”
he suggested at last. “You know Dr. Sitgreaves of
course? Yes. Well, it just happens that I have a
room a block or so away from his house around the corner.
These are Mr. Hatch’s apartments.” He stated it so


A Question of Time 307
convincingly that there was no possibility of doubt.
“Now my room faces straight up an alley which runs
directly back of Dr. Sitgreaves's house. There is an
electric light at the corner.”
Chase started to say something, gulped, then was
silent.
“I was in my room the night of Mr. De Forrest's
murder,” went on the scientist, “and was up moving
about because I, too, had a toothache. It just happened
that I glanced out my front window.” His tone had
been courteous in the extreme; now it hardened per-
ceptibly. “I saw you, Mr. Chase, come along the street,
stop at the alley, glance around and then go into the
alley. I saw your face clearly under the electric light,
and that was at twenty minutes to three o’clock. Detec-
tive Mallory has just learned of this fact and I have
signified my willingness to go on the witness stand and
swear to it.”
The accused man was deathly white now; his face
was working strangely, but still he was silent. It was
only by a supreme effort that he restrained himself.
“I saw you open a gate and go into the back yard
of Dr. Sitgreaves's house,” resumed The Thinking
Machine. “Five minutes or so later you came out and
walked on to the cross street, where you disappeared.
Naturally I wondered what it meant. It was still in
my mind about half past three o'clock, possibly later,


308 The Thinking Machine on the Case
when I saw you enter the alley again, disappear in the
same yard, then come out and go away.”
“I—I was not—not there,” said Chase weakly.
“You were—were mistaken.”
“When we know,” continued The Thinking Machine
steadily, “that you entered that house before you entered
by the front door, we know that you tampered with Dr.
Sitgreaves's watch and clock, and when we know that
you tampered with those we know that you murdered Mr.
De Forrest as his dying note stated. Do you see it?”
Chase arose suddenly and paced feverishly back and
forth across the room; Detective Mallory discreetly
moved his chair in front of the door. Chase saw and
understood.
“I know how you tampered with the clock so as not
to interfere with its action or cause any variation at the
testing apparatus. You were too superbly clever to
stop it, or interfere with the circuit. Therefore I see
that you simply took out the pin which held on the
hands and moved them backward one hour. It was
then actually a quarter of three-you made it a quarter
of two. You showed your daring by invading the
dentist's sleeping room. You found his watch on a
table beside his bed, set that with the clock, then went
out, spoke to Policeman Gillis whose number you noted
and rang the front door bell. After you left by the front.- -
door you allowed time for the household to get quiet


310 The Thinking Machine on the Case
When Chase had gone with the detective, Hatch
lingered with The Thinking Machine.
“It’s perfectly astonishing,” he said. “How did
you get at it anyway?”
“I visited the neighborhood, saw how it could have
been done, learned through your investigation that no
one else appeared in the case, then, knowing that this
must have happened, tricked Mr. Chase into believing I
was an eye witness to the incidents in the alley. That
was the only way to make him confess. Of course
there was no one else in it.”
One of the singular points in the Chase murder trial
was that while the prisoner was convicted of murder on
his own statement no inkling of a motive ever appeared.


CHAPTER XXVI
THE SUPERFLUOUS FINGER
HE drew off her left glove, a delicate, crinkled suede
S affair, and offered her bare hand to the surgeon.
An artist would have called it beautiful, perfect,
even; the surgeon, professionally enough, set it down
as an excellent structural specimen. From the polished
pink nails of the tapering fingers to the firm, well moulded
wrist, it was distinctly the hand of a woman of ease—one
that had never known labor, a pampered hand Dr.
Prescott told himself.
“The fore-finger,” she explained calmly. “I should
like to have it amputated at the first joint, please.”
“Amputated?” gasped Dr. Prescott. He stared
into the pretty face of his caller. It was flushed softly,
and the red lips were parted in a slight smile. It seemed
quite an ordinary affair to her. The surgeon bent over
the hand with quick interest. “Amputated!” he
repeated.
“I came to you,” she went on with a nod, “because
I have been informed that you are one of the most skilful
men of your profession, and the cost of the operation is
quite immaterial.”
Dr. Prescott pressed the pink nail of the fore-finger
311


312 The Thinking Machine on the Case
then permitted the blood to rush back into it. Several
times he did this, then he turned the hand over and
scrutinized it closely inside from the delicately lined palm
to the tips of the fingers. When he looked up at last
there was an expression of frank bewilderment on his face.
“What’s the matter with it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” the woman replied pleasantly. “Imerely
want it off from the first joint.”
The surgeon leaned back in his chair with a frown of
perplexity on his brow, and his visitor was subjected to
a sharp, professional stare. She bore it unflinchingly
and even smiled a little at his obvious perturbation.
“Why do you want it off?” he demanded.
The woman shrugged her shoulders a little impa-
tiently.
“I can’t tell you that,” she replied. “It really is not
necessary that you should know. You are a surgeon,
I want an operation performed. That is all.”
There was a long pause; the mutual stare didn’t waver.
“You must understand, Miss–Miss—er—” began
Dr. Prescott at last. “By the way, you have not intro-
duced yourself?” She was silent. “May I ask your
name?”
“My name is of no consequence,” she replied calmly.
“I might, of course, give you a name, but it would not be
mine, therefore any name would be superfluous.”
Again the surgeon stared.


\ The Superfluous Finger 313
\
“When do you want the operation performed?”
he inquired.
“Now,” she replied. “I am ready.”
“You must understand,” he said severely, “that
surgery is a profession for the relief of human suffering,
not for mutilation—willful mutilation I might say.”
“I understand that perfectly,” she said. “But
where a person submits of her own desire to—to muti-
lation as you call it I can see no valid objection on your
part.”
“It would be criminal to remove a finger where there
is no necessity for it,” continued the surgeon bluntly.
“No good end could be served.”
A trace of disappointment showed in the young
woman’s face, and again she shrugged her shoulders.
“The question after all,” she said finally, “is not one
of ethics but is simply whether or not you will perform
the operation. Would you do it for, say, a thousand
dollars?”
“Not for five thousand dollars,” blurted the surgeon.
“Well, for ten thousand then?” she asked, quite
casually.
All sorts of questions were pounding in Dr. Prescott's
mind. Why did a young and beautiful woman desire—
why was she anxious even—to sacrifice a perfectly healthy
finger? What possible purpose would it serve to mar
a hand which was as nearly perfect as any he had ever


314 The Thinking Machine on the Case
seen P Was it some insane caprice? Staring deeply into
her steady, quiet eyes he could only be convinced of her
sanity. Then what?
“No, madam,” he said at last, vehemently, “I would
not perform the operation for any sum you might men-
tion, unless I was first convinced that the removal of that
finger was absolutely necessary. That, I think, is all.”
He arose as if to end the consultation. The woman
remained seated and continued thoughtful for a
minute.
“As I understand it,” she said, “you would perform
the operation if I could convince you that it was abso-
lutely necessary?”
“Certainly,” he replied promptly, almost eagerly.
His curiosity was aroused. “Then it would come within
the range of my professional duties.”
“Won't you take my word that it is necessary, and
that it is impossible for me to explain why?”
“No. I must know why.”
The woman arose and stood facing him. The disap-
pointment had gone from her face now.
“Very well,” she remarked steadily. “You will
perform the operation if it is necessary, therefore if I
should shoot the finger off, perhaps—?”
“Shoot it off?” exclaimed Dr. Prescott in amaze-
ment. “Shoot it off P”
“That is what I said,” she replied calmly. “If I


The Superfluous Finger 315
should shoot the finger off you would consent to dress
the wound? You would make any necessary amputa-
tion ?”
She held up the finger under discussion and looked at
it curiously. Dr. Prescott himself stared at it with a
sudden new interest.
“Shoot it off?” he repeated. “Why you must be
mad to contemplate such a thing,” he exploded, and his
face flushed in sheer anger. “I—I will have nothing
whatever to do with the affair, madam. Good day.”
“I should have to be very careful of course,” she
mused, “but I think perhaps one shot would be suffi-
cient, then I should come to you and demand that you
dress it?”
There was a question in the tone. Dr. Prescott
stared at her for a full minute then walked over and
opened the door.
“In my profession, madam,” he said coldly, “there
is too much possibility of doing good and relieving actual
suffering for me to consider this matter or discuss it
further with you. There are three persons now waiting
in the ante-room who need my services. I shall be com-
pelled to ask you to excuse me.”
“But you will dress the wound?” the woman in-
sisted, undaunted by his forbidding tone and manner.
“I shall have nothing whatever to do with it,” de-
clared the surgeon, positively, finally. “If you need the
21


316 The Thinking Machine on the Case
services of any medical man permit me to suggest that
it is an alienist and not a surgeon.”
The woman didn’t appear to take offense.
“Someone would have to dress it,” she continued
insistently. “I should much prefer that it be a man
of undisputed skill—you I mean, therefore I shall call
again. Good day.”
There was a rustle of silken skirts and she was gone.
Dr. Prescott stood for an instant gazing after her in
frank wonder and annoyance in his eyes, his attitude,
then he went back and sat down at the desk. The
crinkled suede glove still lay where she had left it. He
examined it gingerly then with a final shake of his head
dismissed the affair and turned to other things.
Early next afternoon Dr. Prescott was sitting in his
office writing when the door from the ante-room where
patients awaited his leisure was thrown open and the
young man in attendance rushed in.
“A lady has fainted, sir,” he said hurriedly. “She
seems to be hurt.”
Dr. Prescott arose quickly and strode out. There,
lying helplessly back in her chair with white face and
closed eyes, was his visitor of the day before. He stepped
toward her quickly then hesitated as he recalled their
conversation. Finally, however, professional instinct,
the desire to relieve suffering, and perhaps curiosity too,
caused him to go to her. The left hand was wrapped in


The Superfluous Finger 317
an improvised bandage through which there was a
trickle of blood. He glared at it with incredulous eyes.
“Hanged if she didn’t do it,” he blurted angrily.
The fainting spell, Dr. Prescott saw, was due only to
loss of blood and physical pain, and he busied himself
trying to restore her to consciousness. Meanwhile he
gave some hurried instructions to the young man who
was in attendance in the ante-room.
“Call up Professor Van Dusen on the 'phone,” he
directed, “and ask him if he can assist me in a minor
operation. Tell him it's rather a curious case and I am
sure it will interest him.”
It was in this manner that the problem of the super-
fluous finger first came to the attention of The Thinking
Machine. He arrived just as the mysterious woman was
opening her eyes to consciousness from the fainting spell.
She stared at him glassily, unrecognizingly; then her
glance wandered to Dr. Prescott. She smiled.
“I knew you’d have to do it,” she murmured weakly.
After the ether had been administered for the opera-
tion, a simple and an easy one, Dr. Prescott stated the
circumstances of the case to The Thinking Machine.
The scientist stood with his long, slender fingers rest-
ing lightly on the young woman’s pulse, listening in
silence.
“What do you make of it?” demanded the surgeon.
The Thinking Machine didn’t say. At the moment


The Superfluous Finger 319
“It's difficult to say what motive is back of her
desire to have the finger amputated,” he said musingly.
“I could perhaps venture a conjecture but if the matter
is of no importance to you beyond mere curiosity I should
not like to do so. Within a few months from now,
I daresay, important developments will result and I
should like to find out something more about her. That
I can do when she returns to wherever she is stopping in
the city. I'll 'phone to Mr. Hatch and have him ascer-
tain for me where she goes, her name and other things
which may throw a light on the matter.”
“He Will follow her?”
“Yes, precisely. Now we only seem to know two
facts in connection with her. First, she is English.”
“Yes,” Dr. Prescott agreed. “Her accent, her ap-
pearance, everything about her suggests that.”
“And the second fact is of no consequence at the
moment,” resumed The Thinking Machine. “Let me
use your 'phone please.”
Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was talking.
“When the young woman left Dr. Prescott's she took
the cab which had been ordered for her and told the
driver to go ahead until she stopped him. I got a good
look at her, by the way. I managed to pass just as
she entered the cab and walking on down got into another
cab which was waiting for me. Her cab drove for three


320 The Thinking Machine on the Case
or four blocks aimlessly, and finally stopped. The
driver stooped down as if to listen to someone inside,
and my cab passed. Then the other cab turned across
a side street and after going eight or ten blocks pulled
up in front of an apartment house. The young woman
got out and went inside. Her cab went away. Inside
I found out that she was Mrs. Frederick Chevedon Morey.
She came there last Tuesday—this is Friday—with her
husband, and they engaged-”
“Yes, I knew she had a husband,” interrupted The
Thinking Machine.
“—engaged apartments for three months. When I
had learned this much I remembered your instructions
as to steamers from Europe landing on the day they
took apartments or possibly a day or so before. I was
just going out when Mrs. Morey stepped out of the ele-
vator and preceded me to the door. She had changed
her clothing and wore a different hat.
“It didn’t seem to be necessary then to find out where
she was going for I knew I could find her when I wanted
to, so I went down and made inquiries at the steamship
offices. I found, after a great deal of work, that no one
of the three steamers which arrived the day they took
apartments brought a Mr. and Mrs. Morey, but one
steamer on the day before brought a Mr. and Mrs. David
Girardeau from Liverpool. Mrs. Girardeau answered
Mrs. Morey's description to the minutest detail even


The Superfluous Finger 321
to the gown she wore when she left the steamer—that is
the same she wore when she left Dr. Prescott's after the
operation.”
That was all. The Thinking Machine sat with his
enormous yellow head pillowed against a high-backed
chair and his long slender fingers pressed tip to tip. He
asked no questions and made no comment for a long
time, then:
“About how many minutes was it from the time she
entered the house until she came out again?”
“Not more than ten or fifteen,” was the reply. “I
was still talking casually to the people down stairs trying
to find out something about them.”
“What do they pay for their apartment?” asked the
scientist, irrelevantly.
“Three hundred dollars a month.”
The Thinking Machine's squint eyes were fixed im-
movably on a small discolored spot on the ceiling of his
laboratory.
“Whatever else may develop in this matter, Mr.
Hatch,” he said after a time, “we must admit that we
have met a woman with extraordinary courage—nerve,
I daresay you’d call it. When Mrs. Morey left Dr.
Prescott's operating room she was so ill and weak from
the shock that she could hardly stand, and now you tell
me she changed her dress and went out immediately after
she returned home.”


The Superfluous Finger 323
tomorrow—you can find some pretext—and see what
you can learn about them. You are an ingenious young
man—I’ll leave it all to you.”
Hatch did call at the Morey apartments on the mor-
row but under circumstances which were not at all what
he expected. He went there with Detective Mallory,
and Detective Mallory went there in a cab at full speed
because the manager of the apartment house had 'phoned
that Mrs. Frederick Chevedon Morey had been found
murdered in her apartments. The detective ran up two
flights of stairs and blundered, heavy-footed into the
rooms, and there he paused in the presence of death.
The body of the woman lay on the floor and some
one had mercifully covered it with a cloth from the bed.
Detective Mallory drew the covering down from over the
face and Hatch stared with a feeling of awe at the beauti-
ful countenance which had, on the day before, been
so radiant with life. Now it was distorted into an ex-
pression of awful agony and the limbs were drawn up
convulsively. The mark of the murderer was at the
white, exquisitely rounded throat-great black bruises
where powerful, merciless fingers had sunk deeply into
the soft flesh.
A physician in the house had preceded the police.
After one glance at the woman and a swift, compre-
hensive look about the room Detective Mallory turned
to him inquiringly.


324 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“She has been dead for several hours,” the doctor
volunteered, “possibly since early last night. It appears
that some virulent, burning poison was administered
and then she was choked. I gather this from an ex-
amination of her mouth.”
These things were readily to be seen; also it was
plainly evident for many reasons that the finger marks
at the throat were those of a man, but each step be-
yond these obvious facts only served to further bewilder
the investigators. First was the statement of the night
elevator boy.
“Mr. and Mrs. Morey left here last night about
eleven o’clock,” he said. “I know because I telephoned
for a cab, and later brought them down from the third
floor. They went into the manager's office leaving two
suit cases in the hall. When they came out I took the
suit cases to a cab that was waiting. They got in it and
drove away.”
“When did they return?” inquired the detective.
“They didn’t return, sir,” responded the boy. “I
was on duty until six o'clock this morning. It just
happened that no one came in after they went out until
I was off duty at six.”
The detective turned to the physician again.
“Then she couldn’t have been dead since early last
night,” he said.
“She has been dead for several hours—at least twelve,


328 The Thinking Machine on the Case
the house despite the fact that they had been here only
a few days.”
“Of course,” mused the scientist abstractedly. “Of
course. Perhaps Mrs. Morey did not play at all ?”
“I believe she told me she did not.”
The Thinking Machine drew down the thin cloth
which had been thrown over the body and glanced at
the left hand.
“Dear me! Dear me!” he exclaimed suddenly,
and he arose. “Dear me!” he repeated. “That's
the—” He turned to the manager and the two elevator
boys. “This is Mrs. Morey beyond any question?”
The answer was a chorus of affirmation accompanied
by some startling facial expressions.
“Did Mr. and Mrs. Morey employ any servants?”
“No,” was the reply. “They had their meals in the
cafe below most of the time. There is no housekeeping
in these apartments at all.”
“How many persons live in the building?”
“A hundred I should say.”
“There is a great deal of passing two and fro, then P”
“Certainly. It was rather unusual that so few per-
sons passed in and out last night and this morning, and
certainly Mrs. Morey and her husband were not among
them if that's what you’re trying to find out.”
The Thinking Machine glanced at the physician who
was standing by silently. -


The Superfluous Finger 329
“How long do you make it that she's been dead?”
he asked.
“At least twelve hours,” replied the physician.
“Possibly longer.”
“Yes, nearer fourteen, I imagine.”
Abruptly he left the group and walked through the
apartment and back again slowly. As he re-entered the
room where the body lay, the door from the hall opened
and Dr. Prescott entered, followed by Hutchinson Hatch.
The Thinking Machine led the surgeon straight to the
body and drew the cloth down from the face. Dr.
Prescott started back with an exclamation of astonish-
ment, recognition.
“There's no doubt about it at all in your mind?”
inquired the scientist.
“Not the slightest,” replied Dr. Prescott positively.
“It’s the same woman.”
“Yet, look here!”
With a quick movement The Thinking Machine drew
down the cloth still more. Dr. Prescott together with
those who had no idea of what to expect, peered down
at the body. After one glance the surgeon dropped on
his knees and examined closely the dead left hand. The
fore-finger was off at the first joint. Dr. Prescott
stared, stared incredulously. After a moment his
eyes left the maimed hand and settled again on her
face.


330 The Thinking Machine on the Case
“I have never seen—never dreamed—of such a start-
ling—” he began.
“That settles it all, of course,” interrupted The
Thinking Machine. “It solves and proves the problem
at once. Now, Mr. Mallory, if we can go to your office
or some place where we will be undisturbed I will—”
“But who killed her?” demanded the detective ab-
ruptly.
“I have the photograph of her murderer in my
pocket,” returned The Thinking Machine. “Also, a
photograph of an accomplice.”


CHAPTER XXVII
THE CASE IS CLOSED
ETECTIVE MALLORY, Dr. Prescott,The Think-
D ing Machine, Hutchinson Hatch and the apart-
ment house physician were seated in the front
room of the Morey apartments with all doors closed
against prying, inquisitive eyes. At the scientist's re-
quest Dr. Prescott repeated the circumstances leading up
to the removal of a woman’s left fore-finger, and there
The Thinking Machine took up the story.
“Suppose, Mr. Mallory,” and the scientist turned to
the detective, “a woman should walk into your office
and say she must have a finger cut off, what would you
think?”
“I’d think she was crazy,” was the prompt reply.
“Naturally, in your position,” The Thinking Ma-
chine went on, “you are acquainted with many strange
happenings. Wouldn’t this one instantly suggest some-
thing to you? Something that was to happen months
off P”
Detective Mallory considered it wisely, but was silent.
“Well here,” declared The Thinking Machine. “A
woman whom we now know to be Mrs. Morey wanted
her finger cut off. It instantly suggested three, four,
22 331


332 The Thinking Machine on the Case
five, a dozen possibilities. Of course only one, or pos-
sibly two in combination, could be true. Therefore
which one? A little logic now to prove that two and
two always make four-not some times but all the
time.
“Naturally the first supposition was insanity. We
pass that as absurd on its face. Then disease—a taint
of leprosy perhaps which had been visible on the left
fore-finger. I tested for that, and that was elimin-
ated. Three strong reasons for desiring the finger off,
either of which is strongly probable, remained. The
fact that the woman was English unmistakably was
obvious. From the mark of a wedding ring on her glove
and a corresponding mark on her finger—she wore no
such ring—we could safely surmise that she was married.
These were the two first facts I learned. Substantiative
evidence that she was married and not a widow came
partly from her extreme youth and the lack of mourning
in her attire.
“Then Mr. Hatch followed her, learned her name,
where she lived and later the fact that she had arrived
with her husband on a steamer a day or so before they
took apartments here. This was proof that she was
English, and proof that she had a husband. They came
over on the steamer as Mr. and Mrs. David Girardeau
—here they were Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Chevedon
Morey. Why this difference in name? The circum-


336 The Thinking Machine on the Case
Mrs. Morey here you told me she dressed again and
went out?” asked the scientist in turn. “It was not
Mrs. Morey you saw then—she was ill and I knew it
from the operation—it was Miss Rossmore. The
manager says a hundred persons live in this house—that
there is a great deal of passing in and out. Can't you
see that when there is such a startling resemblance Miss
Rossmore could pass in and out at will and always be
mistaken for Mrs. Morey P. That no one would ever
notice the difference?”
“But who killed her?” asked Detective Mallory,
curiously. “How P Why?”
“Morey killed her,” said The Thinking Machine
flatly, and he produced two other photographs from his
pocket. “There's his picture and his wife's picture for
identification purposes. How did he kill her? We
can fairly presume that first he tricked her into drinking
the acid, then perhaps she was screaming with the pain
of it, and he choked her to death. I imagined first he
was a large, powerful man because his grip on her throat
was so powerful that he ruptured the jugular inside;
but instead of that he plays the piano a great deal, which
would give him the hand-power to choke her. And
why? We can suppose only that it was because she
had in some way learned of their purpose. That would
have established the motive. The crowning delicacy
of the affair was Morey's act in leaving his keys with the


The Case is Closed 337
manager here. He did not anticipate that the apart-
ments would be entered for several days—after they were
safely away—while there was a chance that if neither of
them had been seen here and their disappearance was
unexplained the rooms would have been opened to
ascertain why. That is all, I think.”
“Except to catch Morey and his wife,” said the
detective grimly.
“Easily done with those photographs,” said The
Thinking Machine. “I imagine, if this murder is kept
out of the newspapers for a couple of hours you can find
them about to sail for Europe. Suppose you try the
line they came over on ?”
It was just three hours later that the accused man and
wife were taken prisoner. They had just engaged pas-
sage on the steamer which sailed at half past four o’clock.
Their trial was a famous one and resulted in conviction
after an astonishing story of an attempt to seize an estate
and title belonging rightfully to Miss Evelyn Rossmore
who had mysteriously disappeared years before.
(1)
THE END





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