CHAPTER I_Master tales of mystery, Volume 2 (of 3)

[Frontispiece: "Will you tell how you did it or shall I?" _Jacques

Futrelle The Scarlet Thread--p. 70_]

MASTER TALES

_of_

MYSTERY

BY THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS

AUTHORS OF TO-DAY

COLLECTED AND ARRANGED

BY FRANCIS J. REYNOLDS

VOLUME II

P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

BY P. F. COLLIER & SON

BY AMERICAN-JOURNAL-EXAMINER

BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

_By courtesy of William Randolph Hearst_

BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

BY SMART SET COMPANY, INC.

BY C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.

BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

BY ILLUSTRATED SUNDAY MAGAZINE

MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A.

Contents

JACQUES FUTRELLE

The Problem of Cell 13

The Scarlet Thread

The Man Who Was Lost

The Great Auto Mystery

The Flaming Phantom

The Mystery of a Studio

OSWALD CRAWFURD, C. M. G.

Gentleman Coggins: Alias Towers

The Murder at Jex Farm

HENRY C. ROWLAND

The Border

BARONESS ORCZY

The Fenchurch Street Mystery

LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

The Mystery of Seven Minutes

The Problem of Cell 13

BY JACQUES FUTRELLE

Practically all those letters remaining in the alphabet after

Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen was named were afterward acquired by that

gentleman in the course of a brilliant scientific career, and, being

honorably acquired, were tacked on to the other end. His name,

therefore, taken with all that belonged to it, was a wonderfully

imposing structure. He was a Ph.D., an LL.D., an F.E.S., an M.D.,

and an M.D.S. He was also some other things--just what he himself

couldn't say--through recognition of his ability by various foreign

educational and scientific institutions.

In appearance he was no less striking than in nomenclature. He was

slender with the droop of the student in his thin shoulders and the

pallor of a close, sedentary life on his clean-shaven face. His eyes

wore a perpetual, forbidding squint--of a man who studies little

things--and when they could be seen at all through his thick

spectacles, were mere slits of watery blue. But above his eyes was

his most striking feature. This was a tall, broad brow, almost

abnormal in height and width, crowned by a heavy shock of bushy,

yellow hair. All these things conspired to give him a peculiar,

almost grotesque, personality.

Professor Van Dusen was remotely German. For generations his

ancestors had been noted in the sciences; he was the logical result,

the master mind. First and above all he was a logician. At least

thirty-five years of the half-century or so of big existence had been

devoted exclusively to proving that two and two always equal four,

except in unusual cases, where they equal three or five, as the case

may be. He stood broadly on the general proposition that all things

that start must go somewhere, and was able to bring the concentrated

mental force of his forefathers to bear on a given problem.

Incidentally it may be remarked that Professor Van Dusen wore a No. 8

hat.

The world at large had heard vaguely of Professor Van Dusen as The

Thinking Machine. It was a newspaper catch-phrase applied to him at

the time of a remarkable exhibition at chess; he had demonstrated

then that a stranger to the game might, by the force of inevitable

logic, defeat a champion who had devoted a lifetime to its study.

The Thinking Machine! Perhaps that more nearly described him than

all his honorary initials, for he spent week after week, month after

month, in the seclusion of his small laboratory from which had gone

forth thoughts that staggered scientific associates and deeply

stirred the world at large.

It was only occasionally that The Thinking Machine had visitors, and

these were usually men who, themselves high in the sciences, dropped

in to argue a point and perhaps convince themselves. Two of these

men, Dr. Charles Ransome and Alfred Fielding, called one evening to

discuss some theory which is not of consequence here.

"Such a thing is impossible," declared Dr. Ransome emphatically, in

the course of the conversation.

"Nothing is impossible," declared The Thinking Machine with equal

emphasis. He always spoke petulantly. "The mind is master of all

things. When science fully recognizes that fact a great advance will

have been made."

"How about the airship?" asked Dr. Ransome.

"That's not impossible at all," asserted The Thinking Machine. "It

will be invented some time. I'd do it myself, but I'm busy."

Dr. Ransome laughed tolerantly.

"I've heard you say such things before," he said. "But they mean

nothing. Mind may be master of matter, but it hasn't yet found a way

to apply itself. There are some things that can't be _thought_ out

of existence, or rather which would not yield to any amount of

thinking."

"What, for instance?" demanded The Thinking Machine.

Dr. Ransome was thoughtful for a moment as he smoked.

"Well, say prison walls," he replied. "No man can _think_ himself

out of a cell. If he could, there would be no prisoners."

"A man can so apply his brain and ingenuity that he can leave a cell,

which is the same thing," snapped The Thinking Machine.

Dr. Ransome was slightly amused.

"Let's suppose a case," he said, after a moment. "Take a cell where

prisoners under sentence of death are confined--men who are desperate

and, maddened by fear, would take any chance to escape--suppose you

were locked in such a cell. Could you escape?"

"Certainly," declared The Thinking Machine.

"Of course," said Mr. Fielding, who entered the conversation for the

first time, "you might wreck the cell with an explosive--but inside,

a prisoner, you couldn't have that."

"There would be nothing of that kind," said The Thinking Machine.

"You might treat me precisely as you treated prisoners under sentence

of death, and I would leave the cell."

"Not unless you entered it with tools prepared to get out," said Dr.

Ransome.

The Thinking Machine was visibly annoyed and his blue eyes snapped.

"Lock me in any cell in any prison anywhere at any time, wearing only

what is necessary, and I'll escape in a week," he declared, sharply.

Dr. Ransome sat up straight in the chair, interested. Mr. Fielding

lighted a new cigar.

"You mean you could actually think yourself out?" asked Dr. Ransome.

"I would get out," was the response.

"Are you serious?"

"Certainly I am serious."

Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding were silent for a long time.

"Would you be willing to try it?" asked Mr. Fielding, finally.

"Certainly," said Professor Van Dusen, and there was a trace of irony

in his voice. "I have done more asinine things than that to convince

other men of less important truths."

The tone was offensive and there was an undercurrent strongly

resembling anger on both sides. Of course it was an absurd thing,

but Professor Van Dusen reiterated his willingness to undertake the

escape and it was decided upon.

"To begin now," added Dr. Ransome.

"I'd prefer that it begin to-morrow," said The Thinking Machine,

"because--"

"No, now," said Mr. Fielding, flatly. "You are arrested,

figuratively, of course, without any warning locked in a cell with no

chance to communicate with friends, and left there with identically

the same care and attention that would be given to a man under

sentence of death. Are you willing?"

"All right, now, then," said The Thinking Machine, and he arose.

"Say, the death-cell in Chisholm Prison."

"The death-cell in Chisholm Prison."

"And what will you wear?"

"As little as possible," said The Thinking Machine. "Shoes,

stocking, trousers and a shirt."

"You will permit yourself to be searched, of course?"

"I am to be treated precisely as all prisoners are treated," said The

Thinking Machine. "No more attention and no less."

There were some preliminaries to be arranged in the matter of

obtaining permission for the test, but all three were influential men

and everything was done satisfactorily by telephone, albeit the

prison commissioners, to whom the experiment was explained on purely

scientific grounds, were sadly bewildered. Professor Van Dusen would

be the most distinguished prisoner they had ever entertained.

When The Thinking Machine had donned those things which he was to

wear during his incarceration he called the little old woman who was

his housekeeper, cook and maid servant all in one.

"Martha," he said, "it is now twenty-seven minutes past nine o'clock.

I am going away. One week from to-night, at half-past nine, these

gentlemen and one, possibly two, others will take supper with me

here. Remember Dr. Ransome is very fond of artichokes."

The three men were driven to Chisholm Prison, where the warden was

awaiting them, having been informed of the matter by telephone. He

understood merely that the eminent Professor Van Dusen was to be his

prisoner, if he could keep him, for one week; that he had committed

no crime, but that he was to be treated as all other prisoners were

treated.

"Search him," instructed Dr. Ransome.

The Thinking Machine was searched. Nothing was found on him; the

pockets of the trousers were empty; the white, stiff-bosomed shirt

had no pocket. The shoes and stockings were removed, examined, then

replaced. As he watched all these preliminaries--the rigid search

and noted the pitiful, childlike physical weakness of the man, the

colorless face, and the thin, white hands--Dr. Ransome almost

regretted his part in the affair.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.

"Would you be convinced if I did not?" inquired The Thinking Machine

in turn.

"No."

"All right. I'll do it."

What sympathy Dr. Ransome had was dissipated by the tone. It nettled

him, and he resolved to see the experiment to the end; it would be a

stinging reproof to egotism.

"It will be impossible for him to communicate with anyone outside?"

he asked.

"Absolutely impossible," replied the warden. "He will not be

permitted writing materials of any sort."

"And your jailers, would they deliver a message from him?"

"Not one word, directly or indirectly," said the warden. "You may

rest assured of that. They will report anything he might say or turn

over to me anything he might give them."

"That seems entirely satisfactory," said Mr. Fielding, who was

frankly interested in the problem.

"Of course, in the event he fails," said Dr. Ransome, "and asks for

his liberty, you understand you are to set him free?"

"I understand," replied the warden.

The Thinking Machine stood listening, but had nothing to say until

this was all ended, then:

"I should like to make three small requests. You may grant them or

not, as you wish."

"No special favors, now," warned Mr. Fielding.

"I am asking none," was the stiff response. "I would like to have

some tooth powder--buy it yourself to see that it is tooth

powder--and I should like to have one five-dollar and two ten-dollar

bills."

Dr. Ransome, Mr. Fielding and the warden exchanged astonished

glances. They were not surprised at the request for tooth powder,

but were at the request for money.

"Is there any man with whom our friend would come in contact that he

could bribe with twenty-five dollars?" asked Dr. Ransome of the

warden.

"Not for twenty-five hundred dollars," was the positive reply.

"Well, let him have them," said Mr. Fielding. "I think they are

harmless enough."

"And what is the third request?" asked Dr. Ransome.

"I should like to have my shoes polished."

Again the astonished glances were exchanged. This last request was

the height of absurdity, so they agreed to it. These things all

being attended to, The Thinking Machine was led back into the prison

from which he had undertaken to escape.

"Here is Cell 13," said the warden, stopping three doors down the

steel corridor. "This is where we keep condemned murderers. No one

can leave it without my permission; and no one in it can communicate

with the outside. I'll stake my reputation on that. It's only three

doors back of my office and I can readily hear any unusual noise."

"Will this cell do, gentlemen?" asked The Thinking Machine. There

was a touch of irony in his voice.

"Admirably," was the reply.

The heavy steel door was thrown open, there was a great scurrying and

scampering of tiny feet, and The Thinking Machine passed into the

gloom of the cell. Then the door was closed and double locked by the

warden.

"What is that noise in there?" asked Dr. Ransome, through the bars.

"Rats--dozens of them," replied The Thinking Machine, tersely.

The three men, with final good-nights, were turning away when The

Thinking Machine called:

"What time is it exactly, warden?"

"Eleven seventeen," replied the warden.

"Thanks. I will join you gentlemen in your office at half-past eight

o'clock one week from to-night," said The Thinking Machine.

"And if you do not?"

"There is no 'if' about it."

Chisholm Prison was a great, spreading structure of granite, four

stories in all, which stood in the center of acres of open space. It

was surrounded by a wall of solid masonry eighteen feet high, and so

smoothly finished inside and out as to offer no foothold to a

climber, no matter how expert. Atop of this fence, as a further

precaution, was a five-foot fence of steel rods, each terminating in

a keen point. This fence in itself marked an absolute deadline

between freedom and imprisonment, for, even if a man escaped from his

cell, it would seem impossible for him to pass the wall.

The yard, which on all sides of the prison building was twenty-five

feet wide, that being the distance from the building to the wall, was

by day an exercise ground for those prisoners to whom was granted the

boon of occasional semi-liberty. But that was not for those in Cell

13.

At all times of the day there were armed guards in the yard, four of

them, one patrolling each side of the prison building.

By night the yard was almost as brilliantly lighted as by day. On

each of the four sides was a great arc light which rose above the

prison wall and gave to the guards a clear sight. The lights, too,

brightly illuminated the spiked top of the wall. The wires which fed

the arc lights ran up the side of the prison building on insulators

and from the top story led out to the poles supporting the arc lights.

All these things were seen and comprehended by The Thinking Machine,

who was only enabled to see out his closely barred cell window by

standing on his bed. This was on the morning following his

incarceration. He gathered, too, that the river lay over there

beyond the wall somewhere, because he heard faintly the pulsation of

a motor boat and high up in the air saw a river bird. From that same

direction came the shouts of boys at play and the occasional crack of

a batted ball. He knew then that between the prison wall and the

river was an open space, a playground.

Chisholm Prison was regarded as absolutely safe. No man had ever

escaped from it. The Thinking Machine, from his perch on the bed,

seeing what he saw, could readily understand why. The walls of the

cell, though built he judged twenty years before, were perfectly

solid, and the window bars of new iron had not a shadow of rust on

them. The window itself, even with the bars out, would be a

difficult mode of egress because it was small.

Yet, seeing these things, The Thinking Machine was not discouraged.

Instead, he thoughtfully squinted at the great arc light--there was

bright sunlight now--and traced with his eyes the wire which led from

it to the building. That electric wire, he reasoned, must come down

the side of the building not a great distance from his cell. That

might be worth knowing.

Cell 13 was on the same floor with the offices of the prison--that

is, not in the basement, nor yet upstairs. There were only four

steps up to the office floor, therefore the level of the floor must

be only three or four feet above the ground. He couldn't see the

ground directly beneath his window, but he could see it further out

toward the wall. It would be an easy drop from the window. Well and

good.

Then The Thinking Machine fell to remembering how he had come to the

cell. First, there was the outside guard's booth, a part of the

wall. There were two heavily barred gates there, both of steel. At

this gate was one man always on guard. He admitted persons to the

prison after much clanking of keys and locks, and let them out when

ordered to do so. The warden's office was in the prison building,

and in order to reach that official from the prison yard one had to

pass a gate of solid steel with only a peep-hole in it. Then coming

from that inner office to Cell 13, where he was now, one must pass a

heavy wooden door and two steel doors into the corridors of the

prison; and always there was the double-locked door of Cell 13 to

reckon with.

There were then, The Thinking Machine recalled, seven doors to be

overcome before one could pass from Cell 13 into the outer world, a

free man. But against this was the fact that he was rarely

interrupted. A jailer appeared at his cell door at six in the

morning with a breakfast of prison fare; he would come again at noon,

and again at six in the afternoon. At nine o'clock at night would

come the inspection tour. That would be all.

"It's admirably arranged, this prison system," was the mental tribute

paid by The Thinking Machine. "I'll have to study it a little when I

get out. I had no idea there was such great care exercised in the

prisons."

There was nothing, positively nothing, in his cell, except his iron

bed, so firmly put together that no man could tear it to pieces save

with sledges or a file. He had neither of these. There was not even

a chair, or a small table, or a bit of tin or crockery. Nothing!

The jailer stood by when he ate, then took away the wooden spoon and

bowl which he had used.

One by one these things sank into the brain of The Thinking Machine.

When the last possibility had been considered he began an examination

of his cell. From the roof, down the walls on all sides, he examined

the stones and the cement between them. He stamped over the floor

carefully time after time, but it was cement, perfectly solid. After

the examination he sat on the edge of the iron bed and was lost in

thought for a long time. For Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen,

The Thinking Machine, had something to think about.

He was disturbed by a rat, which ran across his foot, then scampered

away into a dark corner of the cell, frightened at its own daring.

After a while The Thinking Machine, squinting steadily into the

darkness of the corner where the rat had gone, was able to make out

in the gloom many little beady eyes staring at him. He counted six

pair, and there were perhaps others; he didn't see very well.

Then The Thinking Machine, from his seat on the bed, noticed for the

first time the bottom of his cell door. There was an opening there

of two inches between the steel bar and the floor. Still looking

steadily at this opening, The Thinking Machine backed suddenly into

the corner where he had seen the beady eyes. There was a great

scampering of tiny feet, several squeaks of frightened rodents, and

then silence.

None of the rats had gone out the door, yet there were none in the

cell. Therefore there must be another way out of the cell, however

small. The Thinking Machine, on hands and knees, started a search

for this spot, feeling in the darkness with his long, slender fingers.

At last his search was rewarded. He came upon a small opening in the

floor, level with the cement. It was perfectly round and somewhat

larger than a silver dollar. This was the way the rats had gone. He

put his fingers deep into the opening; it seemed to be a disused

drainage pipe and was dry and dusty.

Having satisfied himself on this point, he sat on the bed, again for

an hour, then made another inspection of his surroundings through the

small cell window. One of the outside guards stood directly

opposite, beside the wall, and happened to be looking at the window

of Cell 13 when the head of The Thinking Machine appeared. But the

scientist didn't notice the guard.

Noon came and the jailer appeared with the prison dinner of

repulsively plain food. At home The Thinking Machine merely ate to

live; here he took what was offered without comment. Occasionally he

spoke to the jailer who stood outside the door watching him.

"Any improvements made here in the last few years?" he asked.

"Nothing particularly," replied the jailer. "New wall was built four

years ago."

"Anything done to the prison proper?"

"Painted the woodwork outside, and T believe about seven years ago a

new system of plumbing was put in."

"Ah!" said the prisoner. "How far is the river over there?"

"About three hundred feet. The boys have a baseball ground between

the wall and the river."

The Thinking Machine had nothing further to say just then, but when

the jailer was ready to go he asked for some water.

"I get very thirsty here," he explained. "Would it be possible for

you to leave a little water in a bowl for me?"

"I'll ask the warden," replied the jailer, and he went away.

Half an hour later he returned with water in a small earthen bowl.

"The warden says you may keep this bowl," he informed the prisoner.

"But you must show it to me when I ask for it. If it is broken, it

will be the last."

"Thank you," said The Thinking Machine. "I shan't break it."

The jailer went on about his duties. For just the fraction of a

second it seemed that The Thinking Machine wanted to ask a question,

but he didn't.

Two hours later this same jailer, in passing the door of Cell No.

13, heard a noise inside and stopped. The Thinking Machine was down

on his hands and knees in a corner of the cell, and from that same

corner came several frightened squeaks. The jailer looked on

interestedly.

"Ah, I've got you," he heard the prisoner say.

"Got what?" he asked, sharply.

"One of these rats," was the reply. "See?" And between the

scientist's long fingers the jailer saw a small gray rat struggling.

The prisoner brought it over to the light and looked at it closely.

"It's a water rat," he said.

"Ain't you got anything better to do than to catch rats?" asked the

jailer.

"It's disgraceful that they should be here at all," was the irritated

reply. "Take this one away and kill it. There are dozens more where

it came from."

The jailer took the wriggling, squirmy rodent and flung it down on

the floor violently. It gave one squeak and lay still. Later he

reported the incident to the warden, who only smiled.

Still later that afternoon the outside armed guard on Cell 13 side of

the prison looked up again at the window and saw the prisoner looking

out. He saw a hand raised to the barred window and then something

white fluttered to the ground, directly under the window of Cell 13.

It was a little roll of linen, evidently of white shirting material,

and tied around it was a five-dollar bill. The guard looked up at

the window again, but the face had disappeared.

With a grim smile he took the little linen roll and the five-dollar

bill to the warden's office. There together they deciphered

something which was written on it with a queer sort of ink,

frequently blurred. On the outside was this:

"Finder of this please deliver to Dr. Charles Ransome."

"Ah," said the warden, with a chuckle. "Plan of escape number one

has gone wrong." Then, as an afterthought: "But why did he address

it to Dr. Ransome?"

"And where did he get the pen and ink to write with?" asked the guard.

The warden looked at the guard and the guard looked at the warden.

There was no apparent solution of that mystery. The warden studied

the writing carefully, then shook his head.

"Well, let's see what he was going to say to Dr. Ransome," he said at

length, still puzzled, and he unrolled the inner piece of linen.

"Well, if that--what--what do you think of that?" he asked, dazed.

The guard took the bit of linen and read this:

"_Epa cseot d'net niiy awe htto n'si sih_. "_T._"

III

The warden spent an hour wondering what sort of a cipher it was, and

half an hour wondering why his prisoner should attempt to communicate

with Dr. Ransome, who was the cause of him being there. After this

the warden devoted some thought to the question of where the prisoner

got writing materials, and what sort of writing materials he had.

With the idea of illuminating this point, he examined the linen

again. It was a torn part of a white shirt and had ragged edges.

Now it was possible to account for the linen, but what the prisoner

had used to write with was another matter. The warden knew it would

have been impossible for him to have either pen or pencil, and,

besides, neither pen nor pencil had been used in this writing. What,

then? The warden decided to personally investigate. The Thinking

Machine was his prisoner; he had orders to hold his prisoners; if

this one sought to escape by sending cipher messages to persons

outside, he would stop it, as he would have stopped it in the case of

any other prisoner.

The warden went back to Cell 13 and found The Thinking Machine on his

hands and knees on the floor, engaged in nothing more alarming than

catching rats. The prisoner heard the warden's step and turned to

him quickly.

"It's disgraceful," he snapped, "these rats. There are scores of

them."

"Other men have been able to stand them," said the warden. "Here is

another shirt for you.--let me have the one you have on."

"Why?" demanded The Thinking Machine, quickly. His tone was hardly

natural, his manner suggested actual perturbation.

"You have attempted to communicate with Dr. Ransome," said the warden

severely. "As my prisoner, it is my duty to put a stop to it."

The Thinking Machine was silent for a moment.

"All right," he said, finally. "Do your duty."

The warden smiled grimly. The prisoner arose from the floor and

removed the white shirt, putting on instead a striped convict shirt

the warden had brought. The warden took the white shirt eagerly, and

then and there compared the pieces of linen on which was written the

cipher with certain torn places in the shirt. The Thinking Machine

looked on curiously.

"The guard brought you those, then?" he asked.

"He certainly did," replied the warden triumphantly. "And that ends

your first attempt to escape."

The Thinking Machine watched the warden as he, by comparison,

established to his own satisfaction that only two pieces of linen had

been torn from the white shirt.

"What did you write this with?" demanded the warden, "I should think

it a part of your duty to find out," said The Thinking Machine,

irritably.

The warden started to say some harsh things, then restrained himself

and made a minute search of the cell and of the prisoner instead. He

found absolutely nothing; not even a match or toothpick which might

have been used for a pen. The same mystery surrounded the fluid with

which the cipher had been written. Although the warden left Cell 13

visibly annoyed, he took the torn shirt in triumph.

"Well, writing notes on a shirt won't get him out, that's certain,"

he told himself with some complacency. He put the linen scraps into

his desk to await developments. "If that man escapes from that cell

I'll--hang it--I'll resign."

On the third day of his incarceration The Thinking Machine openly

attempted to bribe his way out. The jailer had brought his dinner

and was leaning against the barred door, waiting, when The Thinking

Machine began the conversation.

"The drainage pipes of the prison lead to the river, don't they?" he

asked.

"Yes," said the jailer.

"I suppose they are very small?"

"Too small to crawl through, if that's what you're thinking about,"

was the grinning response.

There was silence until The Thinking Machine finished his meal. Then:

"You know I'm not a criminal, don't you?"

"Yes."

"And that I've a perfect right to be freed if I demand it?"

"Yes."

"Well, I came here believing that I could make my escape," said the

prisoner, and his squint eyes studied the face of the jailer. "Would

you consider a financial reward for aiding me to escape?"

The jailer, who happened to be an honest man, looked at the slender,

weak figure of the prisoner, at the large head with its mass of

yellow hair, and was almost sorry.

"I guess prisons like these were not built for the likes of you to

get out of," he said, at last.

"But would you consider a proposition to help me get out?" the

prisoner insisted, almost beseechingly.

"No," said the jailer, shortly.

"Five hundred dollars," urged The Thinking Machine. "I am not a

criminal."

"No," said the jailer,

"A thousand?"

"No," again said the jailer, and he started away hurriedly to escape

further temptation. Then he turned back. "If you should give me ten

thousand dollars I couldn't get you out. You'd have to pass through

seven doors, and I only have the keys to two."

Then he told the warden all about it.

"Plan number two fails," said the warden, smiling grimly, "First a

cipher, then bribery."

When the jailer was on his way to Cell 13 at six o'clock, again

bearing food to The Thinking Machine, he paused, startled by the

unmistakable scrape, scrape of steel against steel. It stopped at

the sound of his steps, then craftily the jailer, who was beyond the

prisoner's range of vision, resumed his tramping, the sound being

apparently that of a man going away from Cell 13. As a matter of

fact he was in the same spot.

After a moment there came again the steady scrape, scrape, and the

jailer crept cautiously on tiptoes to the door and peered between the

bars. The Thinking Machine was standing on the iron bed working at

the bars of the little window. He was using a file, judging from the

backward and forward swing of his arms.

Cautiously the jailer crept back to the office, summoned the warden

in person, and they returned to Cell 13 on tiptoes. The steady

scrape was still audible. The warden listened to satisfy himself and

then suddenly appeared at the door.

"Well?" he demanded, and there was a smile on his face.

The Thinking Machine glanced back from his perch on the bed and

leaped suddenly to the floor, making frantic efforts to hide

something. The warden went in, with hand extended.

"Give it up," he said.

"No," said the prisoner, sharply.

"Come, give it up," urged the warden. "I don't want to have to

search you again."

"No," repeated the prisoner.

"What was it, a file?" asked the warden.

The Thinking Machine was silent and stood squinting at the warden

with something very nearly approaching disappointment on his

face--nearly, but not quite. The warden was almost sympathetic.

"Plan number three fails, eh?" he asked, good-naturedly. "Too bad,

isn't it?"

The prisoner didn't say.

"Search him," instructed the warden.

The jailer searched the prisoner carefully. At last, artfully

concealed in the waist band of the trousers, he found a piece of

steel about two inches long, with one side curved like a half moon.

"Ah," said the warden, as he received it from the jailer. "From your

shoe heel," and he smiled pleasantly.

The jailer continued his search and on the other side of the trousers

waist band another piece of steel identical with the first. The

edges showed where they had been worn against the bars of the window.

"You couldn't saw a way through those bars with these," said the

warden.

"I could have," said The Thinking Machine firmly.

"In six months, perhaps," said the warden, good-naturedly.

The warden shook his head slowly as he gazed into the slightly

flushed face of his prisoner.

"Ready to give it up?" he asked.

"I haven't started yet," was the prompt reply.

Then came another exhaustive search of the cell. Carefully the two

men went over it, finally turning out the bed and searching that.

Nothing. The warden in person climbed upon the bed and examined the

bars of the window where the prisoner had been sawing. When he

looked he was amused.

"Just made it a little bright by hard rubbing," he said to the

prisoner, who stood looking on with a somewhat crestfallen air. The

warden grasped the iron bars in his strong hands and tried to shake

them. They were immovable, set firmly in the solid granite. He

examined each in turn and found them all satisfactory. Finally he

climbed down from the bed.

"Give it up, professor," he advised.

The Thinking Machine shook his head and the warden and jailer passed

on again. As they disappeared down the corridor The Thinking Machine

sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

"He's crazy to try to get out of that cell," commented the jailer.

"Of course he can't get out," said the warden. "But he's clever. I

would like to know what he wrote that cipher with."

* * * * * * * *

It was four o'clock next morning when an awful, heart-racking shriek

of terror resounded through the great prison. It came from a cell,

somewhere about the center, and its tone told a tale of horror,

agony, terrible fear. The warden heard and with three of his men

rushed into the long corridor leading to Cell 13.

As they ran there came again that awful cry. It died away in a sort

of wail. The white faces of prisoners appeared at cell doors

upstairs and down, staring out wonderingly, frightened.

"It's that fool in Cell 13," grumbled the warden.

He stopped and stared in as one of the jailers flashed a lantern.

"That fool in Cell 13" lay comfortably on his cot, flat on his back

with his mouth open, snoring. Even as they looked there came again

the piercing cry, from somewhere above. The warden's face blanched a

little as he started up the stairs. There on the top floor he found

a man in Cell 43, directly above Cell 13, but two floors higher,

cowering in a corner of his cell.

"What's the matter?" demanded the warden.

"Thank God you've come," exclaimed the prisoner, and he cast himself

against the bars of his cell.

"What is it?" demanded the warden again.

He threw open the door and went in. The prisoner dropped on his

knees and clasped the warden about the body. His face was white with

terror, his eyes were widely distended, and he was shuddering. His

hands, icy cold, clutched at the warden's.

"Take me out of this cell, please take me out," he pleaded.

"What's the matter with you, anyhow?" insisted the warden,

impatiently.

"I heard something--something," said the prisoner, and his eyes roved

nervously around the cell.

"What did you hear?"

"I--I can't tell you," stammered the prisoner. Then, in a sudden

burst of terror: "Take me out of this cell--put me anywhere--but take

me out of here."

The warden and the three jailers exchanged glances.

"Who is this fellow? What's he accused of?" asked the warden.

"Joseph Ballard," said one of the jailers. "He's accused of throwing

acid in a woman's face. She died from it."

"But they can't prove it," gasped the prisoner. "They can't prove

it. Please put me in some other cell."

He was still clinging to the warden, and that official threw his arms

off roughly. Then for a time he stood looking at the cowering

wretch, who seemed possessed of all the wild, unreasoning terror of a

child.

"Look here, Ballard," said the warden, finally, "if you heard

anything, I want to know what it was. Now tell me."

"I can't, I can't," was the reply. He was sobbing.

"Where did it come from?"

"I don't know. Everywhere--nowhere. I just heard it."

"What was it--a voice?"

"Please don't make me answer," pleaded the prisoner.

"You must answer," said the warden, sharply.

"It was a voice--but--but it wasn't human," was the sobbing reply.

"Voice, but not human?" repeated the warden, puzzled.

"It sounded muffled and--and far away--and ghostly," explained the

man.

"Did it come from inside or outside the prison?"

"It didn't seem to come from anywhere--it was just here, here,

everywhere. I heard it. I heard it."

For an hour the warden tried to get the story, but Ballard had become

suddenly obstinate and would say nothing--only pleaded to be placed

in another cell, or to have one of the jailers remain near him until

daylight. These requests were gruffly refused.

"And see here," said the warden, in conclusion, "if there's any more

of this screaming I'll put you in the padded cell."

Then the warden went his way, a sadly puzzled man. Ballard sat at

his cell door until daylight, his face, drawn and white with terror,

pressed against the bars, and looked out into the prison with wide,

staring eyes.

That day, the fourth since the incarceration of The Thinking Machine,

was enlivened considerably by the volunteer prisoner, who spent most

of his time at the little window of his cell. He began proceedings

by throwing another piece of linen down to the guard, who picked it

up dutifully and took it to the warden. On it was written:

"Only three days more."

The warden was in no way surprised at what he read; he understood

that The Thinking Machine meant only three days more of his

imprisonment, and he regarded the note as a boast. But how was the

thing written? Where had The Thinking Machine found this new piece

of linen? Where? How? He carefully examined the linen. It was

white, of fine texture, shirting material. He took the shirt which

he had taken and carefully fitted the two original pieces of the

linen to the torn places. This third piece was entirely superfluous;

it didn't fit anywhere, and yet it was unmistakably the same goods.

"And where--where does he get anything to write with?" demanded the

warden of the world at large.

Still later on the fourth day The Thinking Machine, through the

window of his cell, spoke to the armed guard outside.

"What day of the month is it?" he asked.

"The fifteenth," was the answer.

The Thinking Machine made a mental astronomical calculation and

satisfied himself that the moon would not rise until after nine

o'clock that night. Then he asked another question:

"Who attends to those arc lights?"

"Man from the company."

"You have no electricians in the building?"

"No."

"I should think you could save money if you had your own man."

"None of my business," replied the guard.

The guard noticed The Thinking Machine at the cell window frequently

during that day, but always the face seemed listless and there was a

certain wistfulness in the squint eyes behind the glasses. After a

while he accepted the presence of the leonine head as a matter of

course. He had seen other prisoners do the same thing; it was the

longing for the outside world.

That afternoon, just before the day guard was relieved, the head

appeared at the window again, and The Thinking Machine's hand held

something out between the bars. It fluttered to the ground and the

guard picked it up. It was a five-dollar bill.

"That's for you," called the prisoner.

As usual, the guard took it to the warden. That gentleman looked at

it suspiciously; he looked at everything that came from Cell 13 with

suspicion.

"He said it was for me," explained the guard.

"It's a sort of a tip, I suppose," said the warden. "I see no

particular reason why you shouldn't accept--"

Suddenly he stopped. He had remembered that The Thinking Machine had

gone into Cell 13 with one five-dollar bill and two ten-dollar bills;

twenty-five dollars in all. Now a five-dollar bill had been tied

around the first pieces of linen that came from the cell. The warden

still had it, and to convince himself he took it out and looked at

it. It was five dollars; yet here was another five dollars, and The

Thinking Machine had only had ten-dollar bills.

"Perhaps somebody changed one of the bills for him," he thought at

last, with a sigh of relief.

But then and there he made up his mind. He would search Cell 13 as a

cell was never before searched in this world, When a man could write

at will, and change money, and do other wholly inexplicable things,

there was something radically wrong with his prison. He planned to

enter the cell at night--three o'clock would be an excellent time.

The Thinking Machine must do all the weird things he did sometime.

Night seemed the most reasonable.

Thus it happened that the warden stealthily descended upon Cell 13

that night at three o'clock. He paused at the door and listened.

There was no sound save the steady, regular breathing of the

prisoner. The keys unfastened the double locks with scarcely a

clank, and the warden entered, locking the door behind him. Suddenly

he flashed his dark-lantern in the face of the recumbent figure.

If the warden had planned to startle The Thinking Machine he was

mistaken, for that individual merely opened his eyes quietly, reached

for his glasses and inquired, in a most matter-of-fact tone:

"Who is it?"

It would be useless to describe the search that the warden made. It

was minute. Not one inch of the cell or the bed was overlooked. He

found the round hole in the floor, and with a flash of inspiration

thrust his thick fingers into it. After a moment of fumbling there

he drew up something and looked at it in the light of his lantern.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed.

The thing he had taken out was a rat--a dead rat. His inspiration

fled as a mist before the sun. But he continued the search.

The Thinking Machine, without a word, arose and kicked the rat out of

the cell into the corridor.

The warden climbed on the bed and tried the steel bars in the tiny

window. They were perfectly rigid; every bar of the door was the

same.

Then the warden searched the prisoner's clothing, beginning at the

shoes. Nothing hidden in them! Then the trousers waist band. Still

nothing! Then the pockets of the trousers. From one side he drew

out some paper money and examined it.

"Five one-dollar bills," he gasped.

"That's right," said the prisoner.

"But the--you had two tens and a five--what the--how do you do it?"

"That's my business," said The Thinking Machine.

"Did any of my men change this money for you--on your word of honor?"

The Thinking Machine paused just a fraction of a second.

"No," he said.

"Well, do you make it?" asked the warden. He was prepared to believe

anything.

"That's my business," again said the prisoner.

The warden glared at the eminent scientist fiercely. He felt--he

knew--that this man was making a fool of him, yet he didn't know how.

If he were a real prisoner he would get the truth--but, then,

perhaps, those inexplicable things which had happened would not have

been brought before him so sharply. Neither of the men spoke for a

long time, then suddenly the warden turned fiercely and left the

cell, slamming the door behind him. He didn't dare to speak, then.

He glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to four. He had hardly

settled himself in bed when again came that heart-breaking shriek

through the prison. With a few muttered words, which, while not

elegant, were highly expressive, he relighted his lantern and rushed

through the prison again to the cell on the upper floor.

Again Ballard was crushing himself against the steel door, shrieking,

shrieking at the top of his voice. He stopped only when the warden

flashed his lamp in the cell.

"Take me out, take me out," he screamed. "I did it, I did it, I

killed her. Take it away."

"Take what away?" asked the warden.

"I threw the acid in her face--I did it--I confess. Take me out of

here."

Ballard's condition was pitiable; it was only an act of mercy to let

him out into the corridor. There he crouched in a corner, like an

animal at bay, and clasped his hands to his ears. It took half an

hour to calm him sufficiently for him to speak. Then he told

incoherently what had happened. On the night before at four o'clock

he had heard a voice--a sepulchral voice, muffled and wailing in tone.

"What did it say?" asked the warden, curiously.

"Acid--acid--acid!" gasped the prisoner. "It accused me. Acid! I

threw the acid, and the woman died. Oh!" It was a long, shuddering

wail of terror.

"Acid?" echoed the warden, puzzled. The case was beyond him.

"Acid. That's all I heard--that one word, repeated several times.

There were other things, too, but I didn't hear them."

"That was last night, eh?" asked the warden. "What happened

to-night--what frightened you just now?"

"It was the same thing," gasped the prisoner. "Acid--acid--acid."

He covered his face with his hands and sat shivering. "It was acid I

used on her, but I didn't mean to kill her. I just heard the words.

It was something accusing me--accusing me." He mumbled, and was

silent.

"Did you hear anything else?"

"Yes--but I couldn't understand--only a little bit--just a word or

two."

"Well, what was it?"

"I heard 'acid' three times, then I heard a long, moaning sound,

then--then--I heard 'No. 8 hat.' I heard that voice."

"No. 8 hat," repeated the warden. "What the devil--No. 8 hat?

Accusing voices of conscience have never talked about No. 8 hats, so

far as I ever heard."

"He's insane," said one of the jailers, with an air of finality.

"I believe you," said the warden. "He must be. He probably heard

something and got frightened. He's trembling now. No. 8 hat! What

the--"

When the fifth day of The Thinking Machine's imprisonment rolled

around the warden was wearing a hunted look. He was anxious for the

end of the thing. He could not help but feel that his distinguished

prisoner had been amusing himself. And if this were so, The Thinking

Machine had lost none of his sense of humor. For on this fifth day

he flung down another linen note to the outside guard, bearing the

words: "Only two days more." Also he flung down half a dollar.

Now the warden knew--he knew--that the man in Cell 13 didn't have any

half dollars--he couldn't have any half dollars, no more than he

could have pen and ink and linen, and yet he did have them. It was a

condition, not a theory; that is one reason why the warden was

wearing a hunted look.

That ghastly, uncanny thing, too, about "Acid" and "No. 8 hat" clung

to him tenaciously. They didn't mean anything, of course, merely the

ravings of an insane murderer who had been driven by fear to confess

his crime, still there were so many things that "didn't mean

anything" happening in the prison now since The Thinking Machine was

there.

On the sixth day the warden received a postal stating that Dr.

Ransome and Mr. Fielding would be at Chisholm Prison on the following

evening, Thursday, and in the event Professor Van Dusen had not yet

escaped--and they presumed he had not because they had not heard from

him--they would meet him there.

"In the event he had not yet escaped!" The warden smiled grimly.

Escaped!

The Thinking Machine enlivened this day for the warden with three

notes. They were on the usual linen and bore generally on the

appointment at half-past eight o'clock Thursday night, which

appointment the scientist had made at the time of his imprisonment.

On the afternoon of the seventh day the warden passed Cell 13 and

glanced in. The Thinking Machine was lying on the iron bed,

apparently sleeping lightly. The cell appeared precisely as it

always did from a casual glance. The warden would swear that no man

was going to leave it between that hour--it was then four

o'clock--and half-past eight o'clock that evening.

On his way back past the cell the warden heard the steady breathing

again, and coming close to the door looked in. He wouldn't have done

so if The Thinking Machine had been looking, but now--well, it was

different.

A ray of light came through the high window and fell on the face of

the sleeping man. It occurred to the warden for the first time that

his prisoner appeared haggard and weary. Just then The Thinking

Machine stirred slightly and the warden hurried on up the corridor

guiltily. That evening after six o'clock he saw the jailer.

"Everything all right in Cell 13?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," replied the jailer. "He didn't eat much, though."

It was with a feeling of having done his duty that the warden

received Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding shortly after seven o'clock.

He intended to show them the linen notes and lay before them the full

story of his woes, which was a long one. But before this came to

pass the guard from the river side of the prison yard entered the

office.

"The arc light in my side of the yard won't light," he informed the

warden.

"Confound it, that man's a hoodoo," thundered the official.

"Everything has happened since he's been here."

The guard went back to his post in the darkness, and the warden

'phoned to the electric light company.

"This is Chisholm Prison," he said through the 'phone. "Send three

or four men down here quick, to fix an arc light."

The reply was evidently satisfactory, for the warden hung up the

receiver and passed out into the yard. While Dr. Ransome and Mr.

Fielding sat waiting the guard at the outer gate came in with a

special delivery letter. Dr. Ransome happened to notice the address,

and, when the guard went out, looked at the letter more closely.

"By George!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" asked Mr. Fielding.

Silently the doctor offered the letter. Mr. Fielding examined it

closely.

"Coincidence," he said. "It must be."

It was nearly eight o'clock when the warden returned to his office.

The electricians had arrived in a wagon, and were now at work. The

warden pressed the buzz-button communicating with the man at the

outer gate in the wall.

"How many electricians came in?" he asked, over the short 'phone.

"Four? Three workmen In jumpers and overalls and the manager? Frock

coat and silk hat? All right. Be certain that only four go out.

That's all."

He turned to Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding. "We have to be careful

here--particularly," and there was broad sarcasm in his tone, "since

we have scientists locked up."

The warden picked up the special delivery letter carelessly, and then

began to open it.

"When I read this I want to tell you gentlemen something about how--

Great Cæsar!" he ended, suddenly, as he glanced at the letter. He

sat with mouth open, motionless, from astonishment.

"What is it?" asked Mr. Fielding.

"A special delivery letter from Cell 13," gasped the warden. "An

invitation to supper."

"What?" and the two others arose, unanimously.

The warden sat dazed, staring at the letter for a moment, then called

sharply to a guard outside in the corridor.

"Run down to Cell 13 and see if that man's in there."

The guard went as directed, while Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding

examined the letter.

"It's Van Dusen's handwriting; there's no question of that," said Dr.

Ransome. "I've seen too much of it."

Just then the buzz on the telephone from the outer gate sounded, and

the warden, in a semi-trance, picked up the receiver.

"Hello! Two reporters, eh? Let 'em come in." He turned suddenly to

the doctor and Mr. Fielding. "Why, the man can't be out. He must be

in his cell."

Just at that moment the guard returned.

"He's still in his cell, sir," he reported. "I saw him. He's lying

down."

"There, I told you so," said the warden, and he breathed freely

again. "But how did he mail that letter?"

There was a rap on the steel door which led from the jail yard into

the warden's office.

"It's the reporters," said the warden. "Let them in," he instructed

the guard; then to the two other gentlemen: "Don't say anything about

this before them, because I'd never hear the last of it."

The door opened, and the two men from the front gate entered.

"Good-evening, gentlemen," said one. That was Hutchinson Hatch; the

warden knew him well.

"Well?" demanded the other, irritably. "I'm here."

That was The Thinking Machine.

He squinted belligerently at the warden, who sat with mouth agape.

For the moment that official had nothing to say. Dr. Ransome and Mr.

Fielding were amazed, but they didn't know what the warden knew.

They were only amazed; he was paralyzed. Hutchinson Hatch, the

reporter, took in the scene with greedy eyes.

"How--how--how did you do it?" gasped the warden, finally.

"Come back to the cell," said The Thinking Machine, in the irritated

voice which his scientific associates knew so well.

The warden, still in a condition bordering on trance, led the way.

"Flash your light in there," directed The Thinking Machine.

The warden did so. There was nothing unusual in the appearance of

the cell, and there--there on the bed lay the figure of The Thinking

Machine. Certainly! There was the yellow hair! Again the warden

looked at the man beside him and wondered at the strangeness of his

own dreams.

With trembling hands he unlocked the cell door and The Thinking

Machine passed inside.

"See here," he said.

He kicked at the steel bars in the bottom of the cell door and three

of them were pushed out of place. A fourth broke off and rolled away

in the corridor.

"And here, too," directed the erstwhile prisoner as he stood on the

bed to reach the small window. He swept his hand across the opening

and every bar came out.

"What's this in the bed?" demanded the warden, who was slowly

recovering.

"A wig," was the reply. "Turn down the cover."

The warden did so. Beneath it lay a large coil of strong rope,

thirty feet or more, a dagger, three files, ten feet of electric

wire, a thin, powerful pair of steel pliers, a small tack hammer with

its handle, and--and a Derringer pistol.

"How did you do it?" demanded the warden.

"You gentlemen have an engagement to supper with me at half-past nine

o'clock," said The Thinking Machine. "Come on, or we shall be late."

"But how did you do it?" insisted the warden.

"Don't ever think you can hold any man who can use his brain," said

The Thinking Machine. "Come on; we shall be late."

It was an impatient supper party in the rooms of Professor Van Dusen

and a somewhat silent one. The guests were Dr. Ransome, Albert

Fielding, the warden, and Hutchinson Hatch, reporter. The meal was

served to the minute, in accordance with Professor Van Dusen's

instructions of one week before; Dr. Ransome found the artichokes

delicious. At last the supper was finished and The Thinking Machine

turned full on Dr. Ransome and squinted at him fiercely.

"Do you believe it now?" he demanded.

"I do," replied Dr. Ransome.

"Do you admit that it was a fair test?"

"I do."

With the others, particularly the warden, he was waiting anxiously

for the explanation.

"Suppose you tell us how--" began Mr. Fielding.

"Yes, tell us how," said the warden.

The Thinking Machine readjusted his glasses, took a couple of

preparatory squints at his audience, and began the story. He told it

from the beginning logically; and no man ever talked to more

interested listeners.

"My agreement was," he began, "to go into a cell, carrying nothing

except what was necessary to wear, and to leave that cell within a

week. I had never seen Chisholm Prison. When I went into the cell I

asked for tooth powder, two ten and one five-dollar bills, and also

to have my shoes blacked. Even if these requests had been refused it

would not have mattered seriously. But you agreed to them.

"I knew there would be nothing in the cell which you thought I might

use to advantage. So when the warden locked the door on me I was

apparently helpless, unless I could turn three seemingly innocent

things to use. They were things which would have been permitted any

prisoner, under sentence of death, were they not, warden?"

"Tooth powder and polished shoes, yes, but not money,". replied the

warden.

"Anything is dangerous in the hands of a man who knows now to use

it," went on The Thinking Machine. "I did nothing that first night

but sleep and chase rats." He glared at the warden. "When the

matter was broached I knew I could do nothing that night, so

suggested next day. You gentlemen thought I wanted time to arrange

an escape with outside assistance, but this was not true. I knew I

could communicate with whom I pleased, when I pleased."

The warden stared at him a moment, then went on smoking solemnly.

"I was aroused next morning at six o'clock by the jailer with my

breakfast," continued the scientist. "He told me dinner was at

twelve and supper at six. Between these times, I gathered, I would

be pretty much to myself. So immediately after breakfast I examined

my outside surroundings from my cell window. One look told me it

would be useless to try to scale the wall, even should I decide to

leave my cell by the window, for my purpose was to leave not only the

cell, but the prison. Of course, I could have gone over the wall,

but it would have taken me longer to lay my plans that way.

Therefore, for the moment, I dismissed all idea of that.

"From this first observation I knew the river was on that side of the

prison, and that there was also a playground there. Subsequently

these surmises were verified by a keeper. I knew then one important

thing--that anyone might approach the prison wall from that side if

necessary without attracting any particular attention. That was well

to remember. I remembered it.

"But the outside thing which most attracted my attention was the feed

wire to the arc light which ran within a few feet--probably three or

four--of my cell window. I knew that would be valuable in the event

I found it necessary to cut off that arc light."

"Oh, you shut it off to-night, then?" asked the warden.

"Having learned all I could from that window," resumed The Thinking

Machine, without heeding the interruption, "I considered the idea of

escaping through the prison proper. I recalled just how I had come

into the cell, which I knew would be the only way. Seven doors lay

between me and the outside. So, also for the time being, I gave up

the idea of escaping that way. And I couldn't go through the solid

granite walls of the cell."

The Thinking Machine paused for a moment and Dr. Ransome lighted a

new cigar. For several minutes there was silence, then the

scientific jail-breaker went on:

"While I was thinking about these things a rat ran across my foot.

It suggested a new line of thought. There were at least half a dozen

rats in the cell--I could see their beady eyes. Yet I had noticed

none come under the cell door. I frightened them purposely and

watched the cell door to see if they went out that way. They did

not, but they were gone. Obviously they went another way. Another

way meant another opening.

"I searched for this opening and found it. It was an old drain pipe,

long unused and partly choked with dirt and dust. But this was the

way the rats had come. They came from somewhere. Where? Drain

pipes usually lead outside prison grounds. This one probably led to

the river, or near it. The rats must therefore come from that

direction. If they came a part of the way, I reasoned that they came

all the way, because it was extremely unlikely that a solid iron or

lead pipe would have any hole in it except at the exit.

"When the jailer came with my luncheon he told me two important

things, although he didn't know it. One was that a new system of

plumbing had been put in the prison seven years before; another that

the river was only three hundred feet away. Then I knew positively

that the pipe was a part of an old system; I knew, too, that it

slanted generally toward the river. But did the pipe end in the

water or on land?

"This was the next question to be decided. I decided it by catching

several of the rats in the cell. My jailer was surprised to see me

engaged in this work. I examined at least a dozen of them. They

were perfectly dry; they had come through the pipe, and, most

important of all, they were _not house rats, but field rats_. The

other end of the pipe was on land, then, outside the prison walls.

So far, so good.

"Then, I knew that if I worked freely from this point I must attract

the warden's attention in another direction. You see, by telling the

warden that I had come there to escape you made the test more severe,

because I had to trick him by false scents."

The warden looked up with a sad expression in his eyes.

"The first thing was to make him think I was trying to communicate

with you, Dr. Ransome. So I wrote a note on a piece of linen I tore

from my shirt, addressed it to Dr. Ransome, tied a five-dollar bill

around it and threw it out the window. I knew the guard would take

it to the warden, but I rather hoped the warden would send it as

addressed. Have you that first linen note, warden?"

The warden produced the cipher.

"What the deuce does it mean, anyhow?" he asked.

"Read it backward, beginning with the 'T' signature and disregard the

division into words," instructed The Thinking Machine.

The warden did so.

"T-h-i-s, this," he spelled, studied it a moment, then read it off,

grinning:

"This is not the way I intend to escape."

"Well, now what do you think o' that?" he demanded, still grinning.

"I knew that would attract your attention, just as it did," said The

Thinking Machine, "and if you really found out what it was it would

be a sort of gentle rebuke."

"What did you write it with?" asked Dr. Ransome, after he had

examined the linen and passed it to Mr. Fielding.

"This," said the erstwhile prisoner, and he extended his foot. On it

was the shoe he had worn in prison, though the polish was

gone--scraped off clean. "The shoe blacking, moistened with water,

was my ink; the metal tip of the shoe lace made a fairly good pen."

The warden looked up and suddenly burst into a laugh, half of relief,

half of amusement.

"You're a wonder," he said, admiringly. "Go on."

"That precipitated a search of my cell by the warden, as I had

intended," continued The Thinking Machine. "I was anxious to get the

warden into the habit of searching my cell, so that finally,

constantly finding nothing, he would get disgusted and quit. This at

last happened, practically."

The warden blushed.

"He then took my white shirt away and gave me a prison shirt. He was

satisfied that those two pieces of the shirt were all that was

missing. But while he was searching my cell I had another piece of

that same shirt, about nine inches square, rolled into a small ball

in my mouth."

"Nine inches of that shirt?" demanded the warden. "Where did it come

from?"

"The bosoms of all stiff white shirts are of triple thickness," was

the explanation. "I tore out the inside thickness, leaving the bosom

only two thicknesses. I knew you wouldn't see it. So much for that."

There was a little pause, and the warden looked from one to another

of the men with a sheepish grin.

"Having disposed of the warden for the time being by giving him

something else to think about, I took my first serious step toward

freedom," said Professor Van Dusen. "I knew, within reason, that the

pipe led somewhere to the playground outside; I knew a great many

boys played there; I knew that rats came into my cell from out there.

Could I communicate with some one outside with these things at hand?

"First was necessary, I saw, a long and fairly reliable thread,

so--but here," he pulled up his trousers legs and showed that the

tops of both stockings, of fine, strong lisle, were gone. "I

unraveled those--after I got them started it wasn't difficult--and I

had easily a quarter of a mile of thread that I could depend on.

"Then on half of my remaining linen I wrote, laboriously enough I

assure you, a letter explaining my situation to this gentleman here,"

and he indicated Hutchinson Hatch. "I knew he would assist me--for

the value of the newspaper story. I tied firmly to this linen letter

a ten-dollar bill--there is no surer way of attracting the eye of

anyone--and wrote on the linen: 'Finder of this deliver to Hutchinson

Hatch, _Daily American_, who will give another ten dollars for the

information.'

"The next thing was to get this note outside on that playground where

a boy might find it. There were two ways, but I chose the best. I

took one of the rats--I became adept in catching them--tied the linen

and money firmly to one leg, fastened my lisle thread to another, and

turned him loose in the drain pipe. I reasoned that the natural

fright of the rodent would make him run until he was outside the pipe

and then out on earth he would probably stop to gnaw off the linen

and money.

"From the moment the rat disappeared into that dusty pipe I became

anxious. I was taking so many chances. The rat might gnaw the

string, of which I held one end; other rats might gnaw it; the rat

might run out of the pipe and leave the linen and money where they

would never be found; a thousand other things might have happened.

So began some nervous hours, but the fact that the rat ran on until

only a few feet of the string remained in my cell made me think he

was outside the pipe. I had carefully instructed Mr. Hatch what to

do in case the note reached him. The question was: Would it reach

him?

"This done, I could only wait and make other plans in case this one

failed. I openly attempted to bribe my jailer, and learned from him

that he held the keys to only two of seven doors between me and

freedom. Then I did something else to make the warden nervous. I

took the steel supports out of the heels of my shoes and made a

pretense of sawing the bars of my cell window. The warden raised a

pretty row about that. He developed, too, the habit of shaking the

bars of my cell window to see if they were solid. They were--then."

Again the warden grinned. He had ceased being astonished.

"With this one plan I had done all I could and could only wait to see

what happened," the scientist went on. "I couldn't know whether my

note had been delivered or even found, or whether the mouse had

gnawed it up. And I didn't dare to draw back through the pipe that

one slender thread which connected me with the outside.

"When I went to bed that night I didn't sleep, for fear there would

come the slight signal twitch at the thread which was to tell me that

Mr. Hatch had received the note. At half-past three o'clock, I

judge, I felt this twitch, and no prisoner actually under sentence of

death ever welcomed a thing more heartily."

The Thinking Machine stopped and turned to the reporter.

"You'd better explain just what you did," he said.

"The linen note was brought to me by a small boy who had been playing

baseball," said Mr. Hatch. "I immediately saw a big story in it, so

I gave the boy another ten dollars, and got several spools of silk,

some twine, and a roll of light, pliable wire. The professor's note

suggested that I have the finder of the note show me just where it

was picked up, and told me to make my search from there, beginning at

two o'clock in the morning. If I found the other end of the thread I

was to twitch it gently three times, then a fourth.

"I began the search with a small bulb electric light. It was an hour

and twenty minutes before I found the end of the drain pipe, half

hidden in weeds. The pipe was very large there, say twelve inches

across. Then I found the end of the lisle thread, twitched it as

directed and immediately I got an answering twitch.

"Then I fastened the silk to this and Professor Van Dusen began to

pull it into his cell. I nearly had heart disease for fear the

string would break. To the end of the silk I fastened the twine, and

when that had been pulled in I tied on the wire. Then that was drawn

into the pipe and we had a substantial line, which rats couldn't

gnaw, from the mouth of the drain into the cell."

The Thinking Machine raised his hand and Hatch stopped.

"All this was done in absolute silence," said the scientist. "But

when the wire reached my hand I could have shouted. Then we tried

another experiment, which Mr. Hatch was prepared for. I tested the

pipe as a speaking tube. Neither of us could hear very clearly, but

I dared not speak loud for fear of attracting attention in the

prison. At last I made him understand what I wanted immediately. He

seemed to have great difficulty in understanding when I asked for

nitric acid, and I repeated the word 'acid' several times.

"Then I heard a shriek from a cell above me. I knew instantly that

some one had overheard, and when I heard you coming, Mr. Warden, I

feigned sleep. If you had entered my cell at that moment that whole

plan of escape would have ended there. But you passed on. That was

the nearest I ever came to being caught.

"Having established this improvised trolley it is easy to see how I

got things in the cell and made them disappear at will. I merely

dropped them back into the pipe. You, Mr. Warden, could not have

reached the connecting wire with your fingers; they are too large.

My fingers, you see, are longer and more slender. In addition I

guarded the top of that pipe with a rat--you remember how."

"I remember," said the warden, with a grimace.

"I thought that if any one were tempted to investigate that hole the

rat would dampen his ardor. Mr. Hatch could not send me anything

useful through the pipe until next night, although he did send me

change for ten dollars as a test, so I proceeded with other parts of

my plan. Then I evolved the method of escape, which I finally

employed.

"In order to carry this out successfully it was necessary for the

guard in the yard to get accustomed to seeing me at the cell window.

I arranged this by dropping linen notes to him, boastful in tone, to

make the warden believe, if possible, one of his assistants was

communicating with the outside for me. I would stand at my window

for hours gazing out, so the guard could see, and occasionally I

spoke to him. In that way I learned that the prison had no

electricians of its own, but was dependent upon the lighting company

if anything should go wrong.

"That cleared the way to freedom perfectly. Early in the evening of

the last day of my imprisonment, when it was dark, I planned to cut

the feed wire which was only a few feet from my window, reaching it

with an acid-tipped wire I had. That would make that side of the

prison perfectly dark while the electricians were searching for the

break. That would also bring Mr. Hatch into the prison yard.

"There was only one more thing to do before I actually began the work

of setting myself free. This was to arrange final details with Mr.

Hatch through our speaking tube. I did this within half an hour

after the warden left my cell on the fourth night of my imprisonment.

Mr. Hatch again had serious difficulty in understanding me, and I

repeated the word 'acid' to him several times, and later the words:

'Number eight hat'--that's my size--and these were the things which

made a prisoner upstairs confess to murder, so one of the jailers

told me next day. This prisoner heard our voices, confused of

course, through the pipe, which also went to his cell. The cell

directly over me was not occupied, hence no one else heard.

"Of course the actual work of cutting the steel bars out of the

window and door was comparatively easy with nitric acid, which I got

through the pipe in thin bottles, but it took time. Hour after hour

on the fifth and sixth and seventh days the guard below was looking

at me as I worked on the bars of the window with the acid on a piece

of wire. I used the tooth powder to prevent the acid spreading. I

looked away abstractedly as I worked and each minute the acid cut

deeper into the metal. I noticed that the jailers always tried the

door by shaking the upper part, never the lower bars, therefore I cut

the lower bars, leaving them hanging in place by thin strips of

metal. But that was a bit of dare-deviltry. I could not have gone

that way so easily."

The Thinking Machine sat silent for several minutes.

"I think that makes everything clear," he went on. "Whatever points

I have not explained were merely to confuse the warden and jailers.

These things in my bed I brought in to please Mr. Hatch, who wanted

to improve the story. Of course, the wig was necessary in my plan.

The special delivery letter I wrote and directed in my cell with Mr.

Hatch's fountain pen, then sent it out to him and he mailed it.

That's all, I think."

"But your actually leaving the prison grounds and then coming in

through the outer gate to my office?" asked the warden.

"Perfectly simple," said the scientist. "I cut the electric light

wire with acid, as I said, when the current was off. Therefore when

the current was turned on the arc didn't light. I knew it would take

some time to find out what was the matter and make repairs. When the

guard went to report to you the yard was dark. I crept out the

window--it was a tight fit, too--replaced the bars by standing on a

narrow ledge and remained in a shadow until the force of electricians

arrived. Mr. Hatch was one of them.

"When I saw him I spoke and he handed me a cap, a jumper and

overalls, which I put on within ten feet of you, Mr. Warden, while

you were in the yard. Later Mr. Hatch called me, presumably as a

workman, and together we went out the gate to get something out of

the wagon. The gate guard let us pass out readily as two workmen who

had just passed in. We changed our clothing and reappeared, asking

to see you. We saw you. That's all."

There was silence for several minutes. Dr. Ransome was first to

speak.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Perfectly amazing."

"How did Mr. Hatch happen to come with the electricians?" asked Mr.

Fielding.

"His father is manager of the company," replied The Thinking Machine.

"But what if there had been no Mr. Hatch outside to help?"

"Every prisoner has one friend outside who would help him escape if

he could."

"Suppose--just suppose--there had been no old plumbing system there?"

asked the warden, curiously.

"There were two other ways out," said The Thinking Machine,

enigmatically.

Ten minutes later the telephone bell rang. It was a request for the

warden.

"Light all right, eh?" the warden asked, through the 'phone. "Good.

Wire cut beside Cell 13? Yes, I know. One electrician too many?

What's that? Two came out?"

The warden turned to the others with a puzzled expression.

"He only let in four electricians, he has let out two and says there

are three left."

"I was the odd one," said The Thinking Machine.

"Oh," said the warden. "I see." Then through the 'phone: "Let the

fifth man go. He's all right."

The Scarlet Thread

BY JACQUES FUTRELLE

The Thinking Machine--Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D.,

LL.D., F.E.S., M.D., etc., scientist and logician--listened intently

and without comment to a weird, seemingly inexplicable story.

Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was telling it. The bowed figure of the

savant lay at ease in a large chair. The enormous head with its

bushy yellow hair was thrown back, the thin, white fingers were

pressed tip to tip and the blue eyes, narrowed to mere slits,

squinted aggressively upward. The scientist was in a receptive mood.

"From the beginning, every fact you know," he had requested.

"It's all out in the Back Bay," the reporter explained. "There is a

big apartment house there, a fashionable establishment, in a side

street, just off Commonwealth Avenue. It is five stories in all, and

is cut up into small suites, of two and three rooms with bath. These

suites are handsomely, even luxuriously furnished, and are occupied

by people who can afford to pay big rents. Generally these are young

unmarried men, although in several cases they are husband and wife.

It is a house of every modern improvement, elevator service, hall

boys, liveried door men, spacious corridors and all that. It has

both the gas and electric systems of lighting. Tenants are at

liberty to use either or both.

"A young broker, Weldon Henley, occupies one of the handsomest of

these suites, being on the second floor, in front. He has met with

considerable success in the Street. He is a bachelor and lives there

alone. There is no personal servant. He dabbles in photography as a

hobby, and is said to be remarkably expert.

"Recently there was a report that he was to be married this Winter to

a beautiful Virginia girl who has been visiting Boston from time to

time, a Miss Lipscomb--Charlotte Lipscomb, of Richmond. Henley has

never denied or affirmed this rumor, although he has been asked about

it often. Miss Lipscomb is impossible of access even when she visits

Boston. Now she is in Virginia, I understand, but will return to

Boston later in the season."

The reporter paused, lighted a cigarette and leaned forward in his

chair, gazing steadily into the inscrutable eyes of the scientist.

"When Henley took the suite he requested that all the electric

lighting apparatus be removed from his apartments," he went on, "He

had taken a long lease of the place, and this was done. Therefore he

uses only gas for lighting purposes, and he usually keeps one of his

gas jets burning low all night."

"Bad, bad for his health," commented the scientist.

"Now comes the mystery of the affair," the reporter went on. "It was

five weeks or so ago Henley retired as usual--about midnight. He

locked his door on the inside--he is positive of that--and awoke

about four o'clock in the morning nearly asphyxiated by gas. He was

barely able to get up and open the window to let in the fresh air.

The gas jet he had left burning was out, and the suite was full of

gas."

"Accident, possibly," said The Thinking Machine. "A draught through

the apartments; a slight diminution of gas pressure; a hundred

possibilities."

"So it was presumed," said the reporter. "Of course it would have

been impossible for--"

"Nothing is impossible," said the other, tartly. "Don't say that.

It annoys me exceedingly."

"Well, then, it seems highly improbable that the door had been opened

or that anyone came into the room and did this deliberately," the

newspaper man went on, with a slight smile. "So Henley said nothing

about this; attributed it to accident. The next night he lighted his

gas as usual, but he left it burning a little brighter. The same

thing happened again."

"Ah," and The Thinking Machine changed his position a little. "The

second time."

"And again he awoke just in time to save himself," said Hatch.

"Still he attributed the affair to accident, and determined to avoid

a recurrence of the affair by doing away with the gas at night. Then

he got a small night lamp and used this for a week or more."

"Why does he have a light at all?" asked the scientist, testily.

"I can hardly answer that," replied Hatch. "I may say, however, that

he is of a very nervous temperament, and gets up frequently during

the night. He reads occasionally when he can't sleep. In addition

to that he has slept with a light going all his life; it's a habit."

"Go on."

"One night he looked for the night lamp, but it had disappeared--at

least he couldn't find it--so he lighted the gas again. The fact of

the gas having twice before gone out had been dismissed as a serious

possibility. Next morning at five o'clock a bell boy, passing

through the hall, smelled gas and made a quick investigation. He

decided it came from Henley's place, and rapped on the door. There

was no answer. It ultimately developed that it was necessary to

smash in the door. There on the bed they found Henley unconscious

with the gas pouring into the room from the jet which he had left

lighted. He was revived in the air, but for several hours was

deathly sick."

"Why was the door smashed in?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Why not

unlocked?"

"It was done because Henley had firmly barred it," Hatch explained.

"He had become suspicious, I suppose, and after the second time he

always barred his door and fastened every window before he went to

sleep. There may have been a fear that some one used a key to enter."

"Well?" asked the scientist. "After that?"

"Three weeks or so elapsed, bringing the affair down to this

morning," Hatch went on. "Then the same thing happened a little

differently. For instance, after the third time the gas went out

Henley decided to find out for himself what caused it, and so

expressed himself to a few friends who knew of the mystery. Then,

night after night, he lighted the gas as usual and kept watch. It

was never disturbed during all that time, burning steadily all night.

What sleep he got was in daytime.

"Last night Henley lay awake for a time; then, exhausted and tired,

fell asleep. This morning early he awoke: the room was filled with

gas again. In some way my city editor heard of it and asked me to

look into the mystery."

That was all. The two men were silent for a long time, and finally

The Thinking Machine turned to the reporter.

"Does anyone else in the house keep gas going all night?" he asked.

"I don't know," was the reply. "Most of them, I know, use

electricity."

"Nobody else has been overcome as he has been?"

"No. Plumbers have minutely examined the lighting system all over

the house and found nothing wrong."

"Does the gas in the house all come through the same meter?"

"Yes, so the manager told me. This meter, a big one, is just off the

engine room. I supposed it possible that some one shut it off there

on these nights long enough to extinguish the lights all over the

house, then turned it on again. That is, presuming that it was done

purposely. Do you think it was an attempt to kill Henley?"

"It might be," was the reply. "Find out for me just who in the house

uses gas; also if anyone else leaves a light burning all night; also

what opportunity anyone would have to get at the meter, and then

something about Henley's love affair with Miss Lipscomb. Is there

anyone else? If so, who? Where does he live? When you find out

these things come back here."

* * * * * * * *

That afternoon at one o'clock Hatch returned to the apartments of The

Thinking Machine, with excitement plainly apparent on his face.

"Well?" asked the scientist.

"A French girl, Louise Regnier, employed as a maid by Mrs. Standing

in the house, was found dead in her room on the third floor to-day at

noon," Hatch explained quickly. "It looks like suicide."

"How?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"The people who employed her--husband and wife--have been away for a

couple of days," Hatch rushed on. "She was in the suite alone. This

noon she had not appeared, there was an odor of gas and the door was

broken in. Then she was found dead."

"With the gas turned on?"

"With the gas turned on. She was asphyxiated."

"Dear me, dear me," exclaimed the scientist. He arose and took up

his hat. "Let's go see what this is all about."

When Professor Van Dusen and Hatch arrived at the apartment house

they had been preceded by the Medical Examiner and the police.

Detective Mallory, whom both knew, was moving about in the apartment

where the girl had been found dead. The body had been removed and a

telegram sent to her employers in New York.

"Too late," said Mallory, as they entered.

"What was it, Mr. Mallory?" asked the scientist.

"Suicide," was the reply. "No question of it. It happened in this

room," and he led the way into the third room of the suite. "The

maid, Miss Regnier, occupied this, and was here alone last night.

Mr. and Mrs. Standing, her employers, have gone to New York for a few

days. She was left alone, and killed herself."

Without further questioning The Thinking Machine went over to the

bed, from which the girl's body had been taken, and, stooping beside

it, picked up a book. It was a novel by "The Duchess." He examined

this critically, then, standing on a chair, he examined the gas jet.

This done, he stepped down and went to the window of the little room.

Finally The Thinking Machine turned to the detective.

"Just how much was the gas turned on?" he asked.

"Turned on full," was the reply.

"Were both the doors of the room closed?"

"Both, yes."

"Any cotton, or cloth, or anything of the sort stuffed in the cracks

of the window?"

"No. It's a tight-fitting window, anyway. Are you trying to make a

mystery out of this?"

"Cracks in the doors stuffed?" The Thinking Machine went on.

"No." There was a smile about the detective's lips.

The Thinking Machine, on his knees, examined the bottom of one of the

doors, that which led into the hall. The lock of this door had been

broken when employees burst into the room. Having satisfied himself

here and at the bottom of the other door, which connected with the

bedroom adjoining, The Thinking Machine again climbed on a chair and

examined the doors at the top.

"Both transoms closed, I suppose?" he asked.

"Yes," was the reply. "You can't make anything but suicide out of

it," explained the detective. "The Medical Examiner has given that

as his opinion--and everything I find indicates it."

"All right," broke in The Thinking Machine abruptly. "Don't let us

keep you."

After a while Detective Mallory went away. Hatch and the scientist

went down to the office floor, where they saw the manager. He seemed

to be greatly distressed, but was willing to do anything he could in

the matter.

"Is your night engineer perfectly trustworthy?" asked The Thinking

Machine.

"Perfectly," was the reply. "One of the best and most reliable men I

ever met. Alert and wide-awake."

"Can I see him a moment? The night man, I mean?"

"Certainly," was the reply. "He's downstairs. He sleeps there.

He's probably up by this time. He sleeps usually till one o'clock in

the daytime, being up all night."

"Do you supply gas for your tenants?"

"Both gas and electricity are included in the rent of the Suites.

Tenants may use one or both."

"And the gas all comes through one meter?"

"Yes, one meter. It's just off the engine room."

"I suppose there's no way of telling just who in the house uses gas?"

"No. Some do and some don't. I don't know."

This was what Hatch had told the scientist. Now together they went

to the basement, and there met the night engineer, Charles

Burlingame, a tall, powerful, clean-cut man, of alert manner and

positive speech. He gazed with a little amusement at the slender,

almost childish figure of The Thinking Machine and the grotesquely

large head.

"You are in the engine room or near it all night every night?" began

The Thinking Machine.

"I haven't missed a night in four years," was the reply.

"Anybody ever come here to see you at night?"

"Never. It's against the rules."

"The manager or a hall boy?"

"Never."

"In the last two months?" The Thinking Machine persisted.

"Not in the last two years," was the positive reply. "I go on duty

every night at seven o'clock, and I am on duty until seven in the

morning. I don't believe I've seen anybody in the basement here with

me between those hours for a year at least."

The Thinking Machine was squinting steadily into the eyes of the

engineer, and for a time both were silent. Hatch moved about the

scrupulously clean engine room and nodded to the day engineer, who

sat leaning back against the wall. Directly in front of him was the

steam gauge.

"Have you a fireman?" was The Thinking Machine's next question.

"No. I fire myself," said the night man. "Here's the coal," and he

indicated a bin within half a dozen feet of the mouth of the boiler.

"I don't suppose you ever had occasion to handle the gas meter?"

insisted The Thinking Machine.

"Never touched it in my life," said the other. "I don't know

anything about meters, anyway."

"And you never drop off to sleep at night for a few minutes when you

get lonely? Doze, I mean?"

The engineer grinned good-naturedly.

"Never had any desire to, and besides I wouldn't have the chance," he

explained. "There's a time check here"--and he indicated it. "I

have to punch that every half hour all night to prove that I have

been awake."

"Dear me, dear me," exclaimed The Thinking Machine, irritably. He

went over and examined the time check--a revolving paper disk with

hours marked on it, made to move by the action of a clock, the face

of which showed in the middle.

"Besides there's the steam gauge to watch," went on the engineer.

"No engineer would dare go to sleep. There might be an explosion."

"Do you know Mr. Weldon Henley?" suddenly asked The Thinking Machine.

"Who?" asked Burlingame.

"Weldon Henley?"

"No-o," was the slow response. "Never heard of him. Who is he?"

"One of the tenants, on the second floor, I think."

"Lord, I don't know any of the tenants. What about him?"

"When does the inspector come here to read the meter?"

"I never saw him. I presume in daytime, eh Bill?" and he turned to

the day engineer.

"Always in daytime--usually about noon," said Bill from his corner.

"Any other entrance to the basement except this way--and you could

see anyone coming here this way I suppose?"

"Sure I could see 'em. There's no other entrance to the cellar

except the coal hole in the sidewalk in front."

"Two big electric lights in front of the building, aren't there?"

"Yes. They go all night."

A slightly puzzled expression crept into the eyes of The Thinking

Machine. Hatch knew from the persistency of the questions that he

was not satisfied; yet he was not able to fathom or to understand all

the queries. In some way they had to do with the possibility of some

one having access to the meter.

"Where do you usually sit at night here?" was the next question.

"Over there where Bill's sitting. I always sit there."

The Thinking Machine crossed the room to Bill, a typical,

grimy-handed man of his class.

"May I sit there a moment?" he asked.

Bill arose lazily, and The Thinking Machine sank down into the chair.

From this point he could see plainly through the opening into the

basement proper--there was no door--the gas meter of enormous

proportions through which all the gas in the house passed. An

electric light in the door made it bright as daylight. The Thinking

Machine noted these things, arose, nodded his thanks to the two men

and, still with the puzzled expression on his face, led the way

upstairs. There the manager was still in his office.

"I presume you examine and know that the time check in the engineer's

room is properly punched every half-hour during the night?" he asked.

"Yes. I examine the dial every day--have them here, in fact, each

with the date on it."

"May I see them?"

Now the manager was puzzled. He produced the cards, one for each

day, and for half an hour The Thinking Machine studied them minutely.

At the end of that time, when he arose and Hatch looked at him

inquiringly, he saw still the perplexed expression.

After urgent solicitation, the manager admitted them to the

apartments of Weldon Henley. Mr. Henley himself had gone to his

office in State Street. Here The Thinking Machine did several things

which aroused the curiosity of the manager, one of which was to

minutely study the gas jets. Then The Thinking Machine opened one of

the front windows and glanced out into the street. Below fifteen

feet was the sidewalk; above was the solid front of the building,

broken only by a flagpole which, properly roped, extended from the

hall window of the next floor above out over the sidewalk a distance

of twelve feet or so.

"Ever use that flagpole?" he asked the manager.

"Barely," said the manager. "On holidays sometimes--Fourth of July

and such times. We have a big flag for it."

From the apartments The Thinking Machine led the way to the hall, up

the stairs and to the flagpole. Leaning out of this window, he

looked down toward the window of the apartments he had just left.

Then he inspected the rope of the flagpoles drawing it through his

slender hands slowly and carefully. At last he picked off a slender

thread of scarlet and examined it.

"Ah," he exclaimed. Then to Hatch: "Let's go, Mr. Hatch. Thank

you," this last to the manager, who had been a puzzled witness.

Once on the street, side by side with The Thinking Machine, Hatch was

bursting with questions, but he didn't ask them. He knew it would be

useless. At last The Thinking Machine broke the silence.

"That girl, Miss Regnier, _was murdered_," he said suddenly,

positively. "There have been four attempts to murder Henley."

"How?" asked Hatch, startled.

"By a scheme so simple that neither you nor I nor the police have

ever heard of it being employed," was the astonishing reply. "_It is

perfectly horrible in its simplicity._"

"What was it?" Hatch insisted, eagerly.

"It would be futile to discuss that now," was the rejoinder. "There

has been murder. We know how. Now the question is--who? What

person would have a motive to kill Henley?"

III

There was a pause as they walked on.

"Where are we going?" asked Hatch finally.

"Come up to my place and let's consider this matter a bit further,"

replied The Thinking Machine.

Not another word was spoken by either until half an hour later, in

the small laboratory. For a long time the scientist was

thoughtful--deeply thoughtful. Once he took down a volume from a

shelf and Hatch glanced at the title. It was "Gases: Their

Properties." After a while he returned this to the shelf and took

down another, on which the reporter caught the title, "Anatomy."

"Now, Mr. Hatch," said The Thinking Machine in his perpetually

crabbed voice, "we have a most remarkable riddle. It gains this

remarkable aspect from its very simplicity. It is not, however,

necessary to go into that now. I will make it clear to you when we

know the motives.

"As a general rule, the greatest crimes never come to light because

the greatest criminals, their perpetrators, are too clever to be

caught. Here we have what I might call a great crime committed with

a subtle simplicity that is wholly disarming, and a greater crime

even than this was planned. This was to murder Weldon Henley. The

first thing for you to do is to see Mr. Henley and warn him of his

danger. Asphyxiation will not be attempted again, but there is a

possibility of poison, a pistol shot, a knife, anything almost. As a

matter of fact, he is in great peril.

"Superficially, the death of Miss Regnier, the maid, looks to be

suicide. Instead it is the fruition of a plan which has been tried

time and again against Henley. There is a possibility that Miss

Regnier was not an intentional victim of the plot, but the fact

remains that she was murdered. Why? Find the motive for the plot to

murder Mr. Henley and you will know why."

The Thinking Machine reached over to the shelf, took a book, looked

at it a moment, then went on:

"The first question to determine positively is: Who hated Weldon

Henley sufficiently to desire his death? You say he is a successful

man in the Street. Therefore there is a possibility that some enemy

there is at the bottom of the affair, yet it seems hardly probable.

If by his operations Mr. Henley ever happened to wreck another man's

fortune find this man and find out all about him. He may be the man.

There will be innumerable questions arising from this line of inquiry

to a man of your resources. Leave none of them unanswered.

"On the other hand there is Henley's love affair. Had he a rival who

might desire his death? Had he any rival? If so, find out all about

him. He may be the man who planned all this. Here, too, there will

be questions arising which demand answers. Answer them--all of

them--fully and clearly before you see me again.

"Was Henley ever a party to a liaison of any kind? Find that out,

too. A vengeful woman or a discarded sweetheart of a vengeful woman,

you know, will go to any extreme. The rumor of his engagement to

Miss--Miss--"

"Miss Lipscomb," Hatch supplied.

"The rumor of his engagement to Miss Lipscomb might have caused a

woman whom he had once been interested in or who was once interested

in him to attempt his life. The subtler murders--that is, the ones

which are most attractive as problems--are nearly always the work of

a cunning woman. I know nothing about women myself," he hastened to

explain; "but Lombroso has taken that attitude. Therefore, see if

there is a woman."

Most of these points Hatch had previously seen--seen with the

unerring eye of a clever newspaper reporter--yet there were several

which had not occurred to him. He nodded his understanding.

"Now the center of the affair, of course," The Thinking Machine

continued, "is the apartment house where Henley lives. The person

who attempted his life either lives there or has ready access to the

place, and frequently spends the night there. This is a vital

question for you to answer. I am leaving all this to you because you

know better how to do these things than I do. That's all, I think.

When these things are all learned come back to me."

The Thinking Machine arose as if the interview were at an end, and

Hatch also arose, reluctantly. An idea was beginning to dawn in his

mind.

"Does it occur to you that there is any connection whatever between

Henley and Miss Regnier?" he asked.

"It is possible," was the reply. "I had thought of that. If there

is a connection it is not apparent yet."

"Then how--how was it she--she was killed, or killed herself,

whichever may be true, and--"

"The attempt to kill Henley killed her. That's all I can say now."

"That all?" asked Hatch, after a pause.

"No. Warn Mr. Henley immediately that he is in grave danger.

Remember the person who has planned this will probably go to any

extreme. I don't know Mr. Henley, of course, but from the fact that

he always had a light at night I gather that he is a timid sort of

man--not necessarily a coward, but a man lacking in

stamina--therefore, one who might better disappear for a week or so

until the mystery is cleared up. Above all, impress upon him the

importance of the warning."

The Thinking Machine opened his pocketbook and took from it the

scarlet thread which he had picked from the rope of the flagpole.

"Here, I believe, is the real clew to the problem," he explained to

Hatch. "What does it seem to be?"

Hatch examined it closely.

"I should say a strand from a Turkish bath robe," was his final

judgment.

"Possibly. Ask some cloth expert what he makes of it, then if it

sounds promising look into it. Find out if by any possibility it can

be any part of any garment worn by any person in the apartment house."

"But it's so slight--" Hatch began.

"I know," the other interrupted, tartly. "It's slight, but I believe

it is a part of the wearing apparel of the person, man or woman, who

has four times attempted to kill Mr. Henley and who did kill the

girl. Therefore, it is important."

Hatch looked at him quickly.

"Well, how--in what manner--did it come where you found it?"

"Simple enough," said the scientist. "It is a wonder that there were

not more pieces of it--that's all."

Perplexed by his instructions, but confident of results, Hatch left

The Thinking Machine. What possible connection could this tiny bit

of scarlet thread, found on a flagpole, have with some one shutting

off the gas in Henley's rooms? How did any one go into Henley's

rooms to shut off the gas! How was it Miss Regnier was dead? What

was the manner of her death?

A cloth expert in a great department store turned his knowledge on

the tiny bit of scarlet for the illumination of Hatch, but he could

go no further than to say that it seemed to be part of a Turkish bath

robe.

"Man or woman's?" asked Hatch.

"The material from which bath robes are made is the same for both men

and women," was the reply. "I can say nothing else. Of course

there's not enough of it to even guess at the pattern of the robe."

Then Hatch went to the financial district and was ushered into the

office of Weldon Henley, a slender, handsome man of thirty-two or

three years, pallid of face and nervous in manner. He still showed

the effect of the gas poisoning, and there was even a trace of a

furtive fear--fear of something, he himself didn't know what--in his

actions.

Henley talked freely to the newspaper man of certain things, but of

other things was resentfully reticent. He admitted his engagement to

Miss Lipscomb, and finally even admitted that Miss Lipscomb's hand

had been sought by another man, Regnault Cabell, formerly of Virginia.

"Could you give me his address?" asked Hatch.

"He lives in the same apartment house with me--two floors above," was

the reply.

Hatch was startled; startled more than he would have cared to admit.

"Are you on friendly terms with him?" he asked.

"Certainly," said Henley. "I won't say anything further about this

matter. It would be unwise for obvious reasons."

"I suppose you consider that this turning on of the gas was an

attempt on your life?"

"I can't suppose anything else."

Hatch studied the pallid face closely as he asked the next question.

"Do you know Miss Regnier was found dead to-day?"

"Dead?" exclaimed the other, and he arose. "Who--what--who is she?"

It seemed a distinct effort for him to regain control of himself.

The reporter detailed then the circumstances of the finding of the

girl's body, and the broker listened without comment. From that time

forward all the reporter's questions were either parried or else met

with a flat refusal to answer. Finally Hatch, repeated to him the

warning which he had from The Thinking Machine, and feeling that he

had accomplished little went away.

At eight o'clock that night--a night of complete darkness--Henley was

found unconscious, lying in a little used walk in the Common. There

was a bullet hole through his left shoulder, and he was bleeding

profusely. He was removed to the hospital, where he regained

consciousness for just a moment.

"Who shot you?" he was asked.

"None of your business," he replied, and lapsed into unconsciousness.

Entirely unaware of this latest attempt on the life of the broker,

Hutchinson Hatch steadily pursued his investigations. They finally

led him to an intimate friend of Regnault Cabell. The young

Southerner had apartments on the fourth floor of the big house off

Commonwealth Avenue, directly over those Henley occupied, but two

flights higher up. This friend was a figure in the social set of the

Back Bay. He talked to Hatch freely of Cabell.

"He's a good fellow," he explained, "one of the best I ever met, and

comes of one of the best families Virginia ever had--a true F.F.V.

He's pretty quick tempered and all that, but an excellent chap, and

everywhere he has gone here he has made friends."

"He used to be in love with Miss Lipscomb of Virginia, didn't he?"

asked Hatch, casually.

"Used to be?" the other repeated with a laugh. "He _is_ in love with

her. But recently he understood that she was engaged to Weldon

Henley, a broker--you may have heard of him?--and that, I suppose,

has dampened his ardor considerably. As a matter of fact, Cabell

took the thing to heart. He used to know Miss Lipscomb in

Virginia--she comes from another famous family there--and he seemed

to think he had a prior claim on her."

Hatch heard all these things as any man might listen to gossip, but

each additional fact was sinking into his mind, and each additional

fact led his suspicions on deeper into the channel they had chosen.

"Cabell is pretty well to do," his informant went on, "not rich as we

count riches in the North, but pretty well to do, and I believe he

came to Boston because Miss Lipscomb spent so much of her time here.

She is a beautiful young woman of twenty-two and extremely popular in

the social world everywhere, particularly in Boston. Then there was

the additional fact that Henley was here."

"No chance at all for Cabell?" Hatch suggested.

"Not the slightest," was the reply. "Yet despite the heartbreak he

had, he was the first to congratulate Henley on winning her love.

And he meant it, too."

"What's his attitude toward Henley now?" asked Hatch. His voice was

calm, but there was an underlying tense note imperceptible to the

other.

"They meet and speak and move in the same set. There's no love lost

on either side, I don't suppose, but there is no trace of any ill

feeling."

"Cabell doesn't happen to be a vindictive sort of man?"

"Vindictive?" and the other laughed. "No. He's like a big boy,

forgiving, and all that; hot-tempered, though. I could imagine him

in a fit of anger making a personal matter of it with Henley, but I

don't think he ever did."

The mind of the newspaper man was rapidly focusing on one point; the

rush of thoughts, questions and doubts silenced him for a moment.

Then:

"How long has Cabell been in Boston?"

"Seven or eight months--that is, he has had apartments here for that

long--but he has made several visits South. I suppose it's South.

He has a trick of dropping out of sight occasionally. I understand

that he intends to go South for good very soon. If I'm not mistaken,

he is trying now to rent his suite."

Hatch looked suddenly at his informant; an idea of seeing Cabell and

having a legitimate excuse for talking to him had occurred to him.

"I'm looking for a suite," he volunteered at last. "I wonder if you

would give me a card of introduction to him? We might get together

on it."

Thus it happened that half an hour later, about ten minutes past nine

o'clock, Hatch was on his way to the big apartment house. In the

office he saw the manager.

"Heard the news?" asked the manager.

"No," Hatch replied. "What is it?"

"Somebody's shot Mr. Henley as he was passing through the Common

early to-night."

Hatch whistled his amazement.

"Is he dead?"

"No, but he is unconscious. The hospital doctors say it is a nasty

wound, but not necessarily dangerous."

"Who shot him? Do they know?"

"He knows, but he won't say."

Amazed and alarmed by this latest development, an accurate

fulfillment of The Thinking Machine's prophecy, Hatch stood

thoughtful for a moment, then recovering his composure a little asked

for Cabell.

"I don't think there's much chance of seeing him," said the manager.

"He's going away on the midnight train--going South, to Virginia."

"Going away to-night?" Hatch gasped.

"Yes; it seems to have been rather a sudden determination. He was

talking to me here half an hour or so ago, and said something about

going away. While he was here the telephone boy told me that Henley

had been shot; they had 'phoned from the hospital to inform us. Then

Cabell seemed greatly agitated. He said he was going away to-night,

if he could catch the midnight train, and now he's packing."

"I suppose the shooting of Henley upset him considerably?" the

reporter suggested.

"Yes, I guess it did," was the reply. "They moved in the same set

and belonged to the same clubs."

The manager sent Hatch's card of introduction to Cabell's apartments.

Hatch went up and was ushered into a suite identical with that of

Henley's in every respect save in minor details of furnishings.

Cabell stood in the middle of the floor, with his personal belongings

scattered about the room; his valet, evidently a Frenchman, was

busily engaged in packing.

Cabell's greeting was perfunctorily cordial; he seemed agitated. His

face was flushed and from time to time he ran his fingers through his

long, brown hair. He stared at Hatch in a preoccupied fashion, then

they fell into conversation about the rent of the apartments.

"I'll take almost anything reasonable," Cabell said hurriedly. "You

see, I am going away to-night, rather more suddenly than I had

intended, and I am anxious to get the lease off my hands. I pay two

hundred dollars a month for these just as they are."

"May I look them over?" asked Hatch.

He passed from the front room into the next. Here, on a bed, was

piled a huge lot of clothing, and the valet, with deft fingers, was

brushing and folding, preparatory to packing. Cabell was directly

behind him.

"Quite comfortable, you see," he explained. "There's room enough if

you are alone. Are you?"

"Oh, yes," Hatch replied.

"This other room here," Cabell explained, "is not in very tidy shape

now. I have been out of the city for several weeks, and-- What's

the matter?" he demanded suddenly.

Hatch had turned quickly at the words and stared at him, then

recovered himself with a start.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I rather thought I saw you in

town here a week or so ago--of course I didn't know you--and I was

wondering if I could have been mistaken."

"Must have been," said the other easily. "During the time I was away

a Miss ----, a friend of my sister's, occupied the suite. I'm afraid

some of her things are here. She hasn't sent for them as yet. She

occupied this room, I think; when I came back a few days ago she took

another place and all her things haven't been removed."

"I see," remarked Hatch, casually. "I don't suppose there's any

chance of her returning here unexpectedly if I should happen to take

her apartments?"

"Not the slightest. She knows I am back, and thinks I am to remain.

She was to send for these things."

Hatch gazed about the room ostentatiously. Across a trunk lay a

Turkish bath robe with a scarlet stripe in it. He was anxious to get

hold of it, to examine it closely. But he didn't dare to, then.

Together they returned to the front room.

"I rather like the place," he said, after a pause, "but the price

is--"

"Just a moment," Cabell interrupted. "Jean, before you finish

packing that suit case be sure to put my bath robe in it. It's in

the far room."

Then one question was settled for Hatch. After a moment the valet

returned with the bath robe, which had been in the far room. It was

Cabell's bath robe. As Jean passed the reporter an end of the robe

caught on a corner of the trunk, and, stopping, the reporter

unfastened it. A tiny strand of thread clung to the metal; Hatch

detached it and stood idly twirling it in his fingers.

"As I was saying," he resumed, "I rather like the place, but the

price is too much. Suppose you leave it in the hands of the manager

of the house--"

"I had intended doing that," the Southerner interrupted.

"Well, I'll see him about it later," Hatch added.

With a cordial, albeit pre-occupied, handshake, Cabell ushered him

out. Hatch went down in the elevator with a feeling of elation; a

feeling that he had accomplished something. The manager was waiting

to get into the lift.

"Do you happen to remember the name of the young lady who occupied

Mr. Cabell's suite while he was away?" he asked.

"Miss Austin," said the manager, "but she's not young. She was about

forty-five years old, I should judge."

"Did Mr. Cabell have his servant Jean with him?"

"Oh, no," said the manager. "The valet gave up the suite to Miss

Austin entirely, and until Mr. Cabell returned occupied a room in the

quarters we have for our own employees."

"Was Miss Austin ailing any way?" asked Hatch. "I saw a large number

of medicine bottles upstairs."

"I don't know what was the matter with her," replied the manager,

with a little puzzled frown. "She certainly was not a woman of sound

mental balance--that is, she was eccentric, and all that. I think

rather it was an act of charity for Mr. Cabell to let her have the

suite in his absence. Certainly we didn't want her."

Hatch passed out, and burst in eagerly upon The Thinking Machine in

his laboratory.

"Here," he said, and triumphantly he extended the tiny scarlet strand

which he had received from The Thinking Machine, and the other of the

identical color which came from Cabell's bath robe. "Is that the

same?"

The Thinking Machine placed them under the microscope and examined

them immediately. Later he submitted them, to a chemical test.

"_It is the same,_" he said, finally.

"Then the mystery is solved," said Hatch, conclusively.

The Thinking Machine stared steadily into the eager, exultant eyes of

the newspaper man until Hatch at last began to fear that he had been

precipitate. After awhile, under close scrutiny, the reporter began

to feel convinced that he had made a mistake--he didn't quite see

where, but it must be there, and the exultant manner passed. The

voice of The Thinking Machine was like a cold shower.

"Remember, Mr. Hatch," he said, critically, "that unless every

possible question has been considered one cannot boast of a solution.

Is there any possible question lingering yet in your mind?"

The reporter silently considered that for a moment, then:

"Well, I have the main facts, anyway. There may be one or two minor

questions left, but the principal ones are answered."

"Then tell me, to the minutest detail, what you have learned, what

has happened."

Professor Van Dusen sank back in his old, familiar pose in the large

arm chair and Hatch related what he had learned and what he surmised.

He related, too, the peculiar circumstances surrounding the wounding

of Henley, and right on down to the beginning and end of the

interview with Cabell in the latter's apartments. The Thinking

Machine was silent for a time, then there came a host of questions.

"Do you know where the woman--Miss Austin--is now?" was the first.

"No," Hatch had to admit.

"Or her precise mental condition?"

"No."

"Or her exact relationship to Cabell?"

"No."

"Do you know, then, what the valet, Jean, knows of the affair?"

"No, not that," said the reporter, and his face flushed under the

close questioning. "He was out of the suite every night."

"Therefore might have been the very one who turned on the gas," the

other put in testily.

"So far as I can learn, nobody could have gone into that room and

turned on the gas," said the reporter, somewhat aggressively.

"Henley barred the doors and windows and kept watch, night after

night."

"Yet the moment he was exhausted and fell asleep the gas was turned

on to kill him," said The Thinking Machine; "thus we see that _he was

watched more closely than he watched._"

"I see what you mean now," said Hatch, after a long pause.

"I should like to know what Henley and Cabell and the valet knew of

the girl who was found dead," The Thinking Machine suggested.

"Further, I should like to know if there was a good-sized mirror--not

one set in a bureau or dresser--either in Henley's room or the

apartments where the girl was found. Find out this for me and--never

mind. I'll go with you."

The scientist left the room. When he returned he wore his coat and

hat. Hatch arose mechanically to follow. For a block or more they

walked along, neither speaking. The Thinking Machine was the first

to break the silence:

"You believe Cabell is the man who attempted to kill Henley?"

"Frankly, yes," replied the newspaper man.

"Why?"

"Because he had the motive--disappointed love."

"How?"

"I don't know," Hatch confessed. "The doors of the Henley suite were

closed. I don't see how anybody passed them."

"And the girl? Who killed her? How? Why?"

Disconsolately Hatch shook his head as he walked on. The Thinking

Machine interpreted his silence aright.

"Don't jump at conclusions," he advised sharply. "You are confident

Cabell was to blame for this--and he might have been, I don't know

yet--but you can suggest nothing to show how he did it. I have told

you before that imagination is half of logic."

At last the lights of the big apartment house where Henley lived came

in sight. Hatch shrugged his shoulders. He had grave doubts--based

on what he knew--whether The Thinking Machine would be able to see

Cabell. It was nearly eleven o'clock and Cabell was to leave for the

South at midnight.

"Is Mr. Cabell here?" asked the scientist of the elevator boy.

"Yes, just about to go, though. He won't see anyone."

"Hand him this note," instructed The Thinking Machine, and he

scribbled something on a piece of paper. "He'll see us."

The boy took the paper and the elevator shot up to the fourth floor.

After a while he returned.

"He'll see you," he said.

"Is he unpacking?"

"After he read your note twice he told his valet to unpack," the boy

replied.

"Ah, I thought so," said The Thinking Machine.

With Hatch, mystified and puzzled, following, The Thinking Machine

entered the elevator to step out a second or so later on the fourth

floor. As they left the car they saw the door of Cabell's apartment

standing open; Cabell was in the door. Hatch traced a glimmer of

anxiety in the eyes of the young man.

"Professor Van Dusen?" Cabell inquired.

"Yes," said the scientist. "It was of the utmost importance that I

should see you, otherwise I should not have come at this time of

night."

With a wave of his hand Cabell passed that detail.

"I was anxious to get away at midnight," he explained, "but, of

course, now I shan't go, in view of your note. I have ordered my

valet to unpack my things, at least until to-morrow."

The reporter and the scientist passed into the luxuriously furnished

apartments. Jean, the valet, was bending over a suit case as they

entered, removing some things he had been carefully placing there.

He didn't look back or pay the least attention to the visitors.

"This is your valet?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"Yes," said the young man.

"French, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"Speak English at all?"

"Very badly," said Cabell. "I use French when I talk to him."

"Does he know that you are accused of murder?" asked The Thinking

Machine, in a quiet, conversational tone.

The effect of the remark on Cabell was startling. He staggered back

a step or so as if he had been struck in the face, and a crimson

flush overspread his brow. Jean, the valet, straightened up suddenly

and looked around. There was a queer expression, too, in his eyes;

an expression which Hatch could not fathom.

"Murder?" gasped Cabell, at last.

"Yes, he speaks English all right," remarked The Thinking Machine.

"Now, Mr. Cabell, will you please tell me just who Miss Austin is,

and where she is, and her mental condition? Believe me, it may save

you a great deal of trouble. What I said in the note is not

exaggerated."

The young man turned suddenly and began to pace back and forth across

the room. After a few minutes he paused before The Thinking Machine,

who stood impatiently waiting for an answer.

"I'll tell you, yes," said Cabell, firmly. "Miss Austin is a

middle-aged woman whom my sister befriended several times--was, in

fact, my sister's governess when she was a child. Of late years she

has not been wholly right mentally, and has suffered a great deal of

privation. I had about concluded arrangements to put her in a

private sanitarium. I permitted her to remain in these rooms in my

absence, South. I did not take Jean--he lived in the quarters of the

other employees of the place, and gave the apartment entirely to Miss

Austin. It was simply an act of charity."

"What was the cause of your sudden determination to go South

to-night?" asked the scientist.

"I won't answer that question," was the sullen reply.

There was a long, tense silence. Jean, the valet, came and went

several times.

"How long has Miss Austin known Mr. Henley?"

"Presumably since she has been in these apartments," was the reply.

"Are you sure _you_ are not Miss Austin?" demanded the scientist.

The question was almost staggering, not only to Cabell, but to Hatch.

Suddenly, with flaming face, the young Southerner leaped forward as

if to strike down The Thinking Machine.

"That won't do any good," said the scientist, coldly. "Are you sure

you are not Miss Austin?" he repeated.

"Certainly I am not Miss Austin," responded Cabell, fiercely.

"Have you a mirror in these apartments about twelve inches by twelve

inches?" asked The Thinking Machine, irrelevantly.

"I--I don't know," stammered the young man. "I--have we, Jean?"

"_Oui_," replied the valet.

"Yes," snapped The Thinking Machine. "Talk English, please. May I

see it?"

The valet, without a word but with a sullen glance at the questioner,

turned and left the room. He returned after a moment with the

mirror. The Thinking Machine carefully examined the frame, top and

bottom and on both sides. At last he looked up; again the valet was

bending over a suit case.

"Do you use gas in these apartments?" the scientist asked suddenly.

"No," was the bewildered response. "What is all this, anyway?"

Without answering, The Thinking Machine drew a chair up under the

chandelier where the gas and electric fixtures were and began to

finger the gas tips. After a while he climbed down and passed into

the next room, with Hatch and Cabell, both hopelessly mystified,

following. There the scientist went through the same process of

fingering the gas jets. Finally, one of the gas tips came out in his

hand.

"Ah," he exclaimed, suddenly, and Hatch knew the note of triumph in

it. The jet from which the tip came was just on a level with his

shoulder, set between a dressing table and a "window. He leaned over

and squinted at the gas pipe closely. Then he returned to the room

where the valet was.

"Now, Jean," he began, in an even, calm voice, "please tell me _if

you did or did not kill Miss Regnier purposely?_"

"I don't know what you mean," said the servant sullenly, angrily, as

he turned on the scientist.

"You speak very good English now," was The Thinking Machine's terse

comment. "Mr. Hatch, lock the door and use this 'phone to call the

police."

Hatch turned to do as he was bid and saw a flash of steel in young

Cabell's hand, which was drawn suddenly from a hip pocket. It was a

revolver. The weapon glittered in the light, and Hatch flung himself

forward. There was a sharp report, and a bullet was buried in the

floor.

Then came a fierce, hard fight for possession of the revolver. It

ended with the weapon in Hatch's hand, and both he and Cabell blowing

from the effort they had expended. Jean, the valet, had turned at

the sound of the shot and started toward the door leading into the

hall. The Thinking Machine had stepped in front of him, and now

stood there with his back to the door. Physically he would have been

a child in the hands of the valet, yet there was a look in his eyes

which stopped him.

"Now, Mr. Hatch," said the scientist quietly, a touch of irony in his

voice, "hand me the revolver, then 'phone for Detective Mallory to

come here immediately. Tell him we have a murderer--and if he can't

come at once get some other detective whom you know."

"Murderer!" gasped Cabell.

Uncontrollable rage was blazing in the eyes of the valet, and he made

as if to throw The Thinking Machine aside, despite the revolver, when

Hatch was at the telephone. As Jean started forward, however, Cabell

stopped him with a quick, stern gesture. Suddenly the young

Southerner turned on The Thinking Machine; but it was with a question.

"What does it all mean?" he asked, bewildered.

"It means that that man there," and The Thinking Machine indicated

the valet by a nod of his head, "is a murderer--that he killed Louise

Regnier; that he shot Weldon Henley on Boston Common, and that, with

the aid of Miss Regnier, he had four times previously attempted to

kill Mr. Henley. Is he coming, Mr. Hatch?"

"Yes," was the reply. "He says he'll be here directly."

"Do you deny it?" demanded The Thinking Machine of the valet.

"I've done nothing," said the valet sullenly. "I'm going out of

here."

Like an infuriated animal he rushed forward. Hatch and Cabell seized

him and bore him to the floor. There, after a frantic struggle, he

was bound and the other three men sat down to wait for Detective

Mallory. Cabell sank back in his chair with a perplexed frown on his

face. From time to time he glanced at Jean. The flush of anger

which had been on the valet's face was gone now; instead there was

the pallor of fear.

"Won't you tell us?" pleaded Cabell impatiently.

"When Detective Mallory comes and takes his prisoner," said The

Thinking Machine.

Ten minutes later they heard a quick step in the hall outside and

Hatch opened the door. Detective Mallory entered and looked from one

to another inquiringly.

"That's your prisoner, Mr. Mallory," said the scientist, coldly. "I

charge him with the murder of Miss Regnier, whom you were so

confident committed suicide; I charge him with five attempts on the

life of Weldon Henley, four times by gas poisoning, in which Miss

Regnier was his accomplice, and once by shooting. He is the man who

shot Mr. Henley."

The Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the prostrate man,

handing the revolver to Hatch. He glared down at Jean fiercely.

"Will you tell how you did it or shall I?" he demanded.

His answer was a sullen, defiant glare. He turned and picked up the

square mirror which the valet had produced previously.

"That's where the screw was, isn't it?" he asked, as he indicated a

small hole in the frame of the mirror. Jean stared at it and his

head sank forward hopelessly. "And this is the bath robe you wore,

isn't it?" he demanded again, and from the suit case he pulled out

the garment with the scarlet stripe.

"I guess you got me all right," was the sullen reply.

"It might be better for you if you told the story then?" suggested

The Thinking Machine.

"You know so much about it, tell it yourself."

"Very well," was the calm rejoinder. "I will. If I make any mistake

you will correct me."

For a long time no one spoke. The Thinking Machine had dropped back

into a chair and was staring through his thick glasses at the

ceiling; his finger tips were pressed tightly together. At last he

began:

"There are certain trivial gaps which only the imagination can supply

until the matter is gone into more fully. I should have supplied

these myself, but the arrest of this man, Jean, was precipitated by

the attempted hurried departure of Mr. Cabell for the South to-night,

and I did not have time to go into the case to the fullest extent.

"Thus, we begin with the fact that there were several clever attempts

made to murder Mr. Henley. This was by putting out the gas which he

habitually left burning in his room. It happened four times in all;

thus proving that it was an attempt to kill him. If it had been only

once it might have been accident, even twice it might have been

accident, but the same accident does not happen four times at the

same time of night.

"Mr. Henley finally grew to regard the strange extinguishing of the

gas as an effort to kill him, and carefully locked and barred his

door and windows each night. He believed that some one came into his

apartments and put out the light, leaving the gas flow. This, of

course, was not true. Yet the gas was put out. How? My first idea,

a natural one, was that it was turned off for an instant at the

meter, when the light would go out, then turned on again. This, I

convinced myself, was not true. Therefore still the question--how?

"It is a fact--I don't know how widely known it is--but it is a fact

that every gas light in this house might be extinguished at the same

time from this room without leaving it. How? Simply by removing the

gas jet tip and blowing into the gas pipe. It would not leave a jet

in the building burning. It is due to the fact that the lung power

is greater than the pressure of the gas in the pipes, and forces it

out.

"Thus we have the method employed to extinguish the light in Mr.

Henley's rooms, and all the barred and locked doors and windows would

not stop it. At the same time it threatened the life of every other

person in the house--that is, every other person who used gas. It

was probably for this reason that the attempt was always made late at

night, I should say three or four o'clock. That's when it was done,

isn't it?" he asked suddenly of the valet.

Staring at The Thinking Machine in open-mouthed astonishment the

valet nodded his acquiescence before he was fully aware of it.

"Yes, that's right," The Thinking Machine resumed complacently.

"This was easily found out--comparatively. The next question was how

was a watch kept on Mr. Henley? It would have done no good to

extinguish the gas before he was asleep, or to have turned it on when

he was not in his rooms. It might have led to a speedy discovery of

just how the thing was done.

"There's a spring lock on the door of Mr. Henley's apartment.

Therefore it would have been impossible for anyone to peep through

the keyhole. There are no cracks through which one might see. How

was this watch kept? How was the plotter to satisfy himself

positively of the time when Mr. Henley was asleep? How was it the

gas was put out at no time of the score or more nights Mr. Henley

himself kept watch? Obviously he was watched through a window.

"No one could climb out on the window ledge and look into Mr.

Henley's apartments. No one could see into that apartment from the

street--that is, could see whether Mr. Henley was asleep or even in

bed. They could see the light. Watch was kept with the aid offered

by the flagpole, supplemented with a mirror--this mirror. A screw

was driven into the frame--it has been removed now--it was swung on

the flagpole rope and pulled out to the end of the pole, facing the

building. To a man standing in the hall window of the third floor it

offered precisely the angle necessary to reflect the interior of Mr.

Henley's suite, possibly even showed him in bed through a narrow

opening in the curtain. There is no shade on the windows of that

suite; heavy curtains instead. Is that right?"

Again the prisoner was surprised into a mute acquiescence.

"I saw the possibility of these things, and I saw, too, that at three

or four o'clock in the morning it would be perfectly possible for a

person to move about the upper halls of this house without being

seen. If he wore a heavy bath robe, with a hood, say, no one would

recognize him even if he were seen, and besides the garb would not

cause suspicion. This bath robe has a hood.

"Now, in working the mirror back and forth on the flag-pole at night

a tiny scarlet thread was pulled out of the robe and clung to the

rope. I found this thread; later Mr. Hatch found an identical thread

in these apartments. Both came from that bath robe. Plain logic

shows that the person who blew down the gas pipes worked the mirror

trick; the person who worked the mirror trick left the thread; the

thread comes back to the bath robe--that bath robe there," he pointed

dramatically. "Thus the person who desired Henley's death was in

these apartments, or had easy access to them."

He paused a moment and there was a tense silence. A great light was

coming to Hatch, slowly but surely. The brain that had followed all

this was unlimited in possibilities.

"Even before we traced the origin of the crime to this room," went on

the scientist, quietly now, "attention had been attracted here,

particularly to you, Mr. Cabell. It was through the love affair, of

which Miss Lipscomb was the center. Mr. Hatch learned that you and

Henley had been rivals for her hand. It was that, even before this

scarlet thread was found, which indicated that you might have some

knowledge of the affair, directly or indirectly.

"You are not a malicious or revengeful man, Mr. Cabell. But you are

hot-tempered--extremely so. You demonstrated that just now, when,

angry and not understanding, but feeling that your honor was at

stake, you shot a hole in the floor."

"What?" asked Detective Mallory.

"A little accident," explained The Thinking Machine quickly. "Not

being a malicious or revengeful man, you are not the man to

deliberately go ahead and make elaborate plans for the murder of

Henley. In a moment of passion you might have killed him--but never

deliberately as the result of premeditation. Besides you were out of

town. Who was then in these apartments? Who had access to these

apartments? Who might have used your bath robe? Your valet,

possibly Miss Austin. Which? Now, let's see how we reached this

conclusion which led to the valet.

"Miss Regnier was found dead. It was not suicide. How did I know?

Because she had been reading with the gas light at its full. If she

had been reading by the gas light, how was it then that it went out

and suffocated her before she could arise and shut it off? Obviously

she must have fallen asleep over her book and left the light burning.

"If she was in this plot to kill Henley, why did she light the jet in

her room? There might have been some slight defect in the electric

bulb in her room which she had just discovered. Therefore she

lighted the gas, intending to extinguish it--turn it off

entirely--later. But she fell asleep. Therefore when the valet here

blew into the pipe, intending to kill Mr. Henley, he unwittingly

killed the woman he loved--Miss Regnier. It was perfectly possible,

meanwhile, that she did not know of the attempt to be made that

particular night, although she had participated in the others,

knowing that Henley had night after night sat up to watch the light

in his rooms.

"The facts, as I knew them, showed no connection between Miss Regnier

and this man at that time--nor any connection between Miss Regnier

and Henley. It might have been that the person who blew the gas out

of the pipe from these rooms knew nothing whatever of Miss Regnier,

just as he didn't know who else he might have killed in the building.

"But I had her death and the manner of it. I had eliminated you, Mr.

Cabell. Therefore there remained Miss Austin and the valet. Miss

Austin was eccentric--insane, if you will. Would she have any motive

for killing Henley? I could imagine none. Love? Probably not.

Money? They had nothing in common on that ground. What? Nothing

that I could see. Therefore, for the moment, I passed Miss Austin

by, after asking you, Mr. Cabell, if you were Miss Austin.

"What remained? The valet. Motive? Several possible ones, one or

two probable. He is French, or says he is. Miss Regnier is French.

Therefore I had arrived at the conclusion that they knew each other

as people of the same nationality will in a house of this sort. And

remember, I had passed by Mr. Cabell and Miss Austin so the valet was

the only one left; he could use the bath robe.

"Well, the motive. Frankly that was the only difficult point in the

entire problem--difficult because there were so many possibilities.

And each possibility that suggested itself suggested also a woman.

Jealousy? There must be a woman. Hate? Probably a woman.

Attempted extortion? With the aid of a woman. No other motive which

would lead to so elaborate a plot of murder would come forward. Who

was the woman? Miss Regnier.

"Did Miss Regnier know Henley? Mr. Hatch had reason to believe he

knew her because of his actions when informed of her death. Knew her

how? People of such relatively different planes of life can know

each other--or do know each other--only on one plane. Henley is a

typical young man, fast, I dare say, and liberal. Perhaps, then,

there had been a liaison. When I saw this possibility I had my

motives--all of them--jealousy, hate and possibly attempted extortion

as well.

"What was more possible than Mr. Henley and Miss Regnier had been

acquainted? All liaisons are secret ones. Suppose she had been cast

off because of the engagement to young woman of Henley's own level?

Suppose she had confided in the valet here? Do you see? Motives

enough for any crime, however diabolical. The attempts on Henley's

life possibly followed an attempted extortion of money. The shot

which wounded Henley was fired by this man, Jean. Why? Because the

woman who had cause to hate Henley was dead. Then the man? He was

alive and vindictive. Henley knew who shot him, and knew why, but

he'll never way it publicly. He can't afford to. It would ruin him.

I think probably that's all. Do you want to add anything?" he asked

of the valet.

"No," was the fierce reply. "I'm sorry I didn't kill him, that's

all. It was all about as you said, though God knows how you found it

out," he added, desperately.

"Are you a Frenchman?"

"I was born in New York, but lived in France for eleven years. I

first knew Louise there."

Silence fell upon the little group. Then Hatch asked a question:

"You told me, Professor, that there would be no other attempt to kill

Henley by extinguishing the gas. How did you know that?"

"Because one person--the wrong person--had been killed that way," was

the reply. "For this reason it was hardly likely that another

attempt of that sort would be made. You had no intention of killing

Louise Regnier, had you, Jean?"

"No, God help me, no."

"It was all done in these apartments," The Thinking Machine added,

turning to Cabell, "at the gas jet from which I took the tip. It had

been only loosely replaced and the metal was tarnished where the lips

had dampened it."

"It must take great lung power to do a thing like that," remarked

Detective Mallory.

"You would be amazed to know how easily it is done," said the

scientist. "Try it some time."

The Thinking Machine arose and picked up his hat; Hatch did the same.

Then the reporter turned to Cabell.

"Would you mind telling me why you were so anxious to get away

to-night?" he asked.

"Well, no," Cabell explained, and there was a rush of red to his

face. "It's because I received a telegram from Virginia--Miss

Lipscomb, in fact. Some of Henley's past had come to her knowledge

and the telegram told me that the engagement was broken. On top of

this came the information that Henley had been shot and--I was

considerably agitated."

The Thinking Machine and Hatch were walking along the street.

"What did you write in the note you sent to Cabell that made him

start to unpack?" asked the reporter, curiously.

"There are some things that it wouldn't be well for everyone to

know," was the enigmatic response. "Perhaps it would be just as well

for you to overlook this little omission."

"Of course, of course," replied the reporter, wonderingly.

The Man Who Was Lost

BY JACQUES FUTRELLE

Here are the facts in the case as they were known in the beginning to

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist and logician. After

hearing a statement of the problem from the lips of its principal he

declared it to be one of the most engaging that had ever come to his

attention, and--

But let me begin at the beginning:

* * * * * * * *

The Thinking Machine was in the small laboratory of his modest

apartments at two o'clock in the afternoon. Martha, the scientist's

only servant, appeared at the door with a puzzled expression on her

wrinkled face.

"A gentleman to see you, sir," she said.

"Name?" inquired The Thinking Machine, without turning.

"He--he didn't give it, sir," she stammered.

"I have told you always, Martha, to ask names of callers."

"I did ask his name, sir, and--and he said he didn't know it."

The Thinking Machine was never surprised, yet now he turned on Martha

in perplexity and squinted at her fiercely through his thick glasses.

"Don't know his own name?" he repeated. "Dear me! How careless!

Show the gentleman into the reception room immediately."

With no more introduction to the problem than this, therefore, The

Thinking Machine passed into the other room. A stranger arose and

came forward. He was tall, of apparently thirty-five years, clean

shaven and had the keen, alert face of a man of affairs. He would

have been handsome had it not been for dark rings under the eyes and

the unusual white of his face. He was immaculately dressed from top

to toe; altogether a man who would attract attention.

For a moment he regarded the scientist curiously; perhaps there was a

trace of well-bred astonishment in his manner. He gazed curiously at

the enormous head, with its shock of yellow hair, and noted, too, the

droop in the thin shoulders. Thus for a moment they stood, face to

face, the tall stranger making The Thinking Machine dwarf-like by

comparison.

"Well?" asked the scientist.

The stranger turned as if to pace back and forth across the room,

then instead dropped into a chair which the scientist indicated.

"I have heard a great deal about you, Professor," he began, in a

well-modulated voice, "and at last it occurred to me to come to you

for advice. I am in a most remarkable position--and I'm not insane.

Don't think that, please. But unless I see some way out of this

amazing predicament I shall be. As it is now, my nerves have gone; I

am not myself."

"Your story? What is it? How can I help you?"

"I am lost, hopelessly lost," the stranger resumed. "I know neither

my home, my business, nor even my name. I know nothing whatever of

myself or my life; what it was or what it might have been previous to

four weeks ago. I am seeking light on my identity. Now, if there is

any fee--"

"Never mind that," the scientist put in, and he squinted steadily

into the eyes of the visitor. "What do you know? From the time you

remember things tell me all of it."

He sank back into his chair, squinting steadily upward. The stranger

arose, paced back and forth across the room Several times and then

dropped into his chair again.

"It's perfectly incomprehensible," he said. "It's precisely as if I,

full grown, had been born into a world of which I knew nothing except

its language. The ordinary things, chairs, tables and such things,

are perfectly familiar, but who I am, where I came from, why I

came--of these I have no idea. I will tell you just as my

impressions came to me when I awoke one morning, four weeks ago.

"It was eight or nine o'clock, I suppose. I was in a room. I knew

instantly it was a hotel, but had not the faintest idea of how I got

there, or of ever having seen the room before. I didn't even know my

own clothing when I started to dress. I glanced out of my window;

the scene was wholly strange to me.

"For half an hour or so I remained in my room, dressing and wondering

what it meant. Then, suddenly, in the midst of my other worries, it

came home to me that I didn't know my own name, the place where I

lived nor anything about myself. I didn't know what hotel I was in.

In terror I looked into a mirror. The face reflected at me was not

one I knew. It didn't seem to be the face of a stranger; it was

merely not a face that I knew.

"The thing was unbelievable. Then I began a search of my clothing

for some trace of my identity. I found nothing whatever that would

enlighten me--not a scrap of paper of any kind, no personal or

business card."

"Have a watch?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"No."

"Any money?"

"Yes, money," said the stranger. "There was a bundle of more than

ten thousand dollars in my pocket, in one-hundred-dollar bills.

Whose it is or where it came from I don't know. I have been living

on it since, and shall continue to do so, but I don't know if it is

mine. I knew it was money when I saw it, but did not recollect ever

having seen any previously."

"Any jewelry?"

"These cuff buttons," and the stranger exhibited a pair which he drew

from his pocket.

"Go on."

"I finally finished dressing and went down to the office. It was my

purpose to find out the name of the hotel and who I was. I knew I

could learn some of this from the hotel register without attracting

any attention or making anyone think I was insane. I had noted the

number of my room. It was twenty-seven.

"I looked over the hotel register casually. I saw I was at the Hotel

Yarmouth in Boston. I looked carefully down the pages until I came

to the number of my room. Opposite this number was a name--John

Doane, but where the name of the city should have been there was only

a dash."

"You realize that it is perfectly possible that John Doane is your

name?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"Certainly," was the reply. "But I have no recollection of ever

having heard it before. This register showed that I had arrived at

the hotel the night before--or rather that John Doane had arrived and

been assigned to Room 27, and I was the John Doane, presumably. From

that moment to this the hotel people have known me as John Doane, as

have other people whom I have met during the four weeks since I

awoke."

"Did the handwriting recall nothing?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Is it anything like the handwriting you write now?"

"Identical, so far as I can see."

"Did you have any baggage or checks for baggage?"

"No. All I had was the money and this clothing I stand in. Of

course, since then I have bought necessities."

Both were silent for a long time and finally the

stranger--Doane--arose and began pacing nervously again.

"That a tailor-made suit?" asked the scientist.

"Yes," said Doane, quickly. "I know what you mean. Tailor-made

garments have linen strips sewed inside the pockets on which are the

names of the manufacturers and the name of the man for whom the

clothes were made, together with the date. I looked for those. They

had been removed, cut out."

"Ah!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine suddenly. "No laundry marks on

your linen either, I suppose?"

"No. It was all perfectly new."

"Name of the maker on it?"

"No. That had been cut out, too."

Doane was pacing back and forth across the reception room; the

scientist lay back in his chair.

"Do you know the circumstances of your arrival at the hotel?" he

asked at last.

"Yes. I asked, guardedly enough, you may be sure, hinting to the

clerk that I had been drunk so as not to make him think I was insane.

He said I came in about eleven o'clock at night, without any baggage,

paid for my room with a one-hundred-dollar bill, which he changed,

registered and went upstairs. I said nothing that he recalls beyond

making a request for a room."

"The name Doane is not familiar to you?"

"No."

"You can't recall a wife or children?"

"No."

"Do you speak any foreign language?"

"No."

"Is your mind clear now? Do you remember things?"

"I remember perfectly every incident since I awoke in the hotel,"

said Doane. "I seem to remember with remarkable clearness, and

somehow I attach the gravest importance to the most trivial

incidents."

The Thinking Machine arose and motioned to Doane to sit down. He

dropped back into a seat wearily. Then the scientist's long, slender

fingers ran lightly, deftly through the abundant black hair of his

visitor. Finally they passed down from the hair and along the firm

jaws; thence they went to the arms, where they pressed upon good,

substantial muscles. At last the hands, well shaped and white, were

examined minutely. A magnifying glass was used to facilitate this

examination. Finally The Thinking Machine stared into the

quick-moving, nervous eyes of the stranger.

"Any marks at all on your body?" he asked at last.

"No," Doane responded. "I had thought of that and sought for an hour

for some sort of mark. There's nothing--nothing." The eyes

glittered a little and finally, in a burst of nervousness, he

struggled to his feet. "My God!" he exclaimed. "Is there nothing

you can do? What is it all, anyway?"

"Seems to be a remarkable form of aphasia," replied The Thinking

Machine. "That's not an uncommon disease among people whose minds

and nerves are overwrought. You've simply lost yourself--lost your

identity. If it is aphasia, you will recover in time. When, I don't

know."

"And meantime?"

"Let me see the money you found."

With trembling hands Doane produced a large roll of bills,

principally hundreds, many of them perfectly new. The Thinking

Machine examined them minutely, and finally made some memoranda on a

slip of paper. The money was then returned to Doane.

"Now, what shall I do?" asked the latter.

"Don't worry," advised the scientist. "I'll do what I can."

"And--tell me who and what I am?"

"Oh, I can find that out all right," remarked The Thinking Machine.

"But there's a possibility that you wouldn't recall even if I told

you all about yourself."

When John Doane of Nowhere--to all practical purposes--left the home

of The Thinking Machine he bore instructions of divers kinds. First

he was to get a large map of the United States and study it closely,

reading over and pronouncing aloud the name of every city, town and

village he found. After an hour of this he was to take a city

directory and read over the names, pronouncing them aloud as he did

so. Then he was to make out a list of the various professions and

higher commercial pursuits, and pronounce these. All these things

were calculated, obviously, to arouse the sleeping brain. After

Doane had gone The Thinking Machine called up Hutchinson Hatch,

reporter, on the 'phone.

"Come up immediately," he requested. "There's something that will

interest you."

"A mystery?" Hatch inquired, eagerly.

"One of the most engaging problems that has ever come to my

attention," replied the scientist.

It was only a question of a few minutes before Hatch was ushered in.

He was a living interrogation point, and repressed a rush of

questions with a distinct effort. The Thinking Machine finally told

what he knew.

"Now it seems to be," said The Thinking Machine, and he emphasized

the "seems," "it seems to be a case of aphasia. You know, of course,

what that is. The man simply doesn't know himself. I examined him

closely. I went over his head for a sign of a possible depression,

or abnormality. It didn't appear. I examined his muscles. He has

biceps of great power, is evidently now or has been athletic. His

hands are white, well cared for and have no marks on them. They are

not the hands of a man who has ever done physical work. The money in

his pocket tends to confirm the fact that he is not of that sphere.

"Then what is he? Lawyer? Banker? Financier? What? He might be

either, yet he impressed me as being rather of the business than the

professional school. He has a good, square-cut jaw--the jaw of a

fighting man--and his poise gives one the impression that whatever he

has been doing he has been foremost in it. Being foremost in it, he

would naturally drift to a city, a big city. He is typically a city

man.

"Now, please, to aid me, communicate with your correspondents in the

large cities and find if such a name as John Doane appears in any

directory. Is he at home now? Has he a family? All about him."

"Do you believe that John Doane is his name?" asked the reporter.

"No reason why it shouldn't be," said The Thinking Machine. "Yet it

might not be."

"How about inquiries in this city?"

"He can't well be a local man," was the reply. "He has been

wandering about the streets for four weeks, and if he had lived here

he would have met some one who knew him."

"But the money?"

"I'll probably be able to locate him through that," said The Thinking

Machine. "The matter is not at all clear to me now, but it occurs to

me that he is a man of consequence, and that it was possibly

necessary for some one to get rid of him for a time."

"Well, if it's plain aphasia, as you say," the reporter put in, "it

seems rather difficult to imagine that the attack came at a moment

when it was necessary to get rid of him."

"I say it _seems_ like aphasia," said the scientist, crustily.

"There are known drugs which will produce the identical effect if

properly administered."

"Oh," said Hatch. He was beginning to see.

"There is one drug particularly, made in India, and not unlike

hasheesh. In a case of this kind anything is possible. To-morrow I

shall ask you to take Mr. Doane down through the financial district,

as an experiment. When you go there I want you particularly to get

him to the sound of the 'ticker.' It will be an interesting

experiment."

The reporter went away and The Thinking Machine sent a telegram to

the Blank National Bank of Butte, Montana:

"To whom did you issue hundred-dollar bills, series B, numbering

846380 to 846395 inclusive? Please answer."

It was ten o'clock next day when Hatch called on The Thinking

Machine. There he was introduced to John Doane, the man who was

lost. The Thinking Machine was asking questions of Mr. Doane when

Hatch was ushered in.

"Did the map recall nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Montana, Montana, Montana," the scientist repeated monotonously;

"think of it. Butte, Montana."

Doane shook his head hopelessly, sadly.

"Cowboy, cowboy. Did you ever see a cowboy?"

Again the head shake.

"Coyote--something like a wolf--coyote. Don't you recall ever having

seen one?"

"I'm afraid it's hopeless," remarked the other.

There was a note of more than ordinary irritation in The Thinking

Machine's voice when he turned to Hatch.

"Mr. Hatch, will you walk through the financial district with Mr.

Doane?" he asked. "Please go to the places I suggested."

So it came to pass that the reporter and Doane went out together,

walking through the crowded, hurrying, bustling financial district.

The first place visited was a private room where market quotations

were displayed on a blackboard. Mr. Doane was interested, but the

scene seemed to suggest nothing. He looked upon it all as any

stranger might have done. After a time they passed out. Suddenly a

man came running toward them--evidently a broker.

"What's the matter?" asked another.

"Montana copper's gone to smash," was the reply.

"_Copper! Copper!_" gasped Doane suddenly.

Hatch looked around quickly at his companion. Doane's face was a

study. On it was half realization and a deep perplexed wrinkle, a

glimmer even of excitement.

"Copper!" he repeated.

"Does the word mean anything to you?" asked Hatch quickly.

"Copper--metal, you know."

"Copper, copper, copper," the other repeated. Then, as Hatch looked,

the queer expression faded; there came again utter hopelessness.

There are many men with powerful names who operate in the

Street--some of them in copper. Hatch led Doane straight to the

office of one of these men and there introduced him to a partner in

the business.

"We want to talk about copper a little," Hatch explained, still eying

his companion.

"Do you want to buy or sell?" asked the broker.

"Sell," said Doane suddenly. "Sell, sell, sell copper. That's

it--copper."

He turned to Hatch, stared at him dully a moment, a deathly pallor

came over his face, then, with upraised hands, fell senseless.

III

Still unconscious, the man of mystery was removed to the home of The

Thinking Machine and there stretched out on a sofa. The Thinking

Machine was bending over him, this time in his capacity of physician,

making an examination. Hatch stood by, looking on curiously.

"I never saw anything like it," Hatch remarked. "He just threw up

his hands and collapsed. He hasn't been conscious since."

"It may be that when he comes to he will have recovered his memory,

and in that event he will have absolutely no recollection whatever of

you and me," explained The Thinking Machine.

Doane moved a little at last, and under a stimulant the color began

to creep back into his pallid face.

"Just what was said, Mr. Hatch, before he collapsed?" asked the

scientist.

Hatch explained, repeating the conversation as he remembered it.

"And he said 'sell,'" mused The Thinking Machine. "In other words,

he thinks--or imagines he knows--that copper is to drop. I believe

the first remark he heard was that copper had gone to smash--down, I

presume that means?"

"Yes," the reporter replied.

Half an hour later John Doane sat up on the couch and looked about

the room.

"Ah, Professor," he remarked. "I fainted, didn't I?"

The Thinking Machine was disappointed because his patient had not

recovered memory with consciousness. The remark showed that he was

still in the same mental condition--the man who was lost.

"Sell copper, sell, sell, sell," repeated The Thinking Machine,

commandingly.

"Yes, yes, sell," was the reply.

The reflection of some great mental struggle was on Doane's face; he

was seeking to recall something which persistently eluded him.

"Copper, copper," the scientist repeated, and he exhibited a penny.

"Yes, copper," said Doane. "I know. A penny."

"Why did you say sell copper?"

"I don't know," was the weary reply. "It seemed to be an unconscious

act entirely. I don't know."

He clasped and unclasped his hands nervously and sat for a long time

dully staring at the floor. The fight for memory was a dramatic one.

"It seemed to me," Doane explained after awhile, "that the word

copper touched some responsive chord in my memory, then it was lost

again. Some time in the past, I think, I must have had something to

do with copper."

"Yes," said The Thinking Machine, and he rubbed his slender fingers

briskly. "Now you are coming around again."

His remarks were interrupted by the appearance of Martha at the door

with a telegram. The Thinking Machine opened it hastily. What he

saw perplexed him again.

"Dear me! Most extraordinary!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" asked Hatch, curiously.

The scientist turned to Doane again.

"Do you happen to remember Preston Bell?" he demanded, emphasizing

the name explosively.

"Preston Bell?" the other repeated, and again the mental struggle was

apparent on his face, "Preston Bell!"

"Cashier of the Blank National Bank of Butte, Montana?" urged the

other, still in an emphatic tone. "Cashier Bell?"

He leaned forward eagerly and watched the face of his patient; Hatch

unconsciously did the same. Once there was almost realization, and

seeing it The Thinking Machine sought to bring back full memory.

"Bell, cashier, copper," he repeated, time after time.

The flash of realization which had been on Doane's face passed, and

there came infinite weariness--the weariness of one who is ill.

"I don't remember," he said at last. "I'm very tired."

"Stretch out there on the couch and go to sleep," advised The

Thinking Machine, and he arose to arrange a pillow. "Sleep will do

you more good than anything else right now. But before you lie down,

let me have, please, a few of those hundred-dollar bills you found."

Doane extended the roll of money, and then slept like a child. It

was uncanny to Hatch, who had been a deeply interested spectator.

The Thinking Machine ran over the bills and finally selected fifteen

of them--bills that were new and crisp. They were of an issue by the

Blank National Bank of Butte, Montana. The Thinking Machine stared

at the money closely, then handed it to Hatch.

"Does that look like counterfeit to you?" he asked.

"Counterfeit?" gasped Hatch. "Counterfeit?" he repeated. He took

the bills and examined them. "So far as I can see they seem to be

good," he went on, "though I have never had enough experience with

one-hundred-dollar bills to qualify as an expert."

"Do you know an expert?"

"Yes."

"See him immediately. Take fifteen bills and ask him to pass on

them, each and every one. Tell him you have reason--excellent

reason--to believe that they are counterfeit. When he give his

opinion come back to me."

Hatch went away with the money in his pocket. Then The Thinking

Machine wrote another telegram, addressed to President Bell, cashier

of the Butte Bank. It was as follows:

"Please send me full details of the manner in which money previously

described was lost, with names of all persons who might have had any

knowledge of the matter. Highly important to your bank and to

justice. Will communicate in detail on receipt of your answer."

Then, while his visitor slept, The Thinking Machine quietly removed

his shoes and examined them. He found, almost worn away, the name of

the maker. This was subjected to close scrutiny under the magnifying

glass, after which The Thinking Machine arose with a perceptible

expression of relief on his face.

"Why didn't I think of that before?" he demanded of himself.

Then other telegrams went into the West One was to a customs

shoemaker in Denver, Colorado:

"To what financier or banker have you sold within three months a pair

of shoes, Senate brand, calfskin blucher, number eight, D last? Do

you know John Doane?"

A second telegram went to the Chief of Police of Denver. It was:

"Please wire if any financier, banker or business man has been out of

your city for five weeks or more, presumably on business trip. Do

you know John Doane?"

Then The Thinking Machine sat down to wait. At last the door bell

rang and Hatch entered.

"Well?" demanded the scientist, impatiently.

"The expert declares those are not counterfeit," said Hatch.

Now The Thinking Machine was surprised. It was shown clearly by the

quick lifting of the eyebrows, by the sudden snap of his jaws, by a

quick forward movement of the yellow head.

"Well, well, well!" he exclaimed at last. Then again: "Well, well!"

"What is it?"

"See here," and The Thinking Machine took the hundred-dollar bills in

his own hands. "These bills, perfectly new and crisp, were issued by

the Blank National Bank of Butte, and the fact that they are in

proper sequence would indicate that they were issued to one

individual at the same time, probably recently. There can be no

doubt of that. The numbers run from 846380 to 846395, all series B.

"I see," said Hatch.

"Now read that," and the scientist extended to the reporter the

telegram Martha had brought in just before Hatch had gone away.

Hatch read this:

"Series B, hundred-dollar bills 846380 to 846395 issued by this bank

are not in existence. Were destroyed by fire, together with

twenty-seven others of the same series. Government has been asked to

grant permission to reissue these numbers.

"PRESTON BELL, _Cashier_."

The reporter looked up with a question in his eyes,

"It means," said The Thinking Machine, "that this man is either a

thief or the victim of some sort of financial jugglery."

"In that case is he what he pretends to be--a man who doesn't know

himself?" asked the reporter.

"That remains to be seen."

Event followed event with startling rapidity during the next few

hours. First came a message from the Chief of Police of Denver. No

capitalist or financier of consequence was out of Denver at the

moment, so far as his men could ascertain. Longer search might be

fruitful. He did not know John Doane. One John Doane in the

directory was a teamster.

Then from the Blank National Bank came another telegram signed

"Preston Bell, Cashier," reciting the circumstances of the

disappearance of the hundred-dollar bills. The Blank National Bank

had moved into a new structure; within a week there had been a fire

which destroyed it. Several packages of money, including one package

of hundred-dollar bills, among them those specified by The Thinking

Machine, had been burned. President Harrison of the bank immediately

made affidavit to the Government that these bills were left in his

office.

The Thinking Machine studied this telegram carefully and from time to

time glanced at it while Hatch made his report. This was as to the

work of the correspondents who had been seeking John Doane. They

found many men of the name and reported at length on each. One by

one The Thinking Machine heard the reports, then shook his head.

Finally he reverted again to the telegram, and after consideration

sent another--this time to the Chief of Police of Butte. In it he

asked these questions:

"Has there ever been any financial trouble in Blank National Bank?

Was there an embezzlement or shortage at anytime? What is reputation

of President Harrison? What is reputation of Cashier Bell? Do you

know John Doane?"

In due course of events the answer came. It was brief and to the

point. It said:

"Harrison recently embezzled $175,000 and disappeared. Bell's

reputation excellent; now out of city. Don't know John Doane. If

you have any trace of Harrison, wire quick."

This answer came just after Doane awoke, apparently greatly

refreshed, but himself again--that is, himself in so far as he was

still lost. For an hour The Thinking Machine pounded him with

questions--questions of all sorts, serious, religious and at times

seemingly silly. They apparently aroused no trace of memory, save

when the name Preston Bell was mentioned; then there was the strange,

puzzled expression on Doane's face.

"Harrison--do you know him?" asked the scientist. "President of the

Blank National Bank of Butte?"

There was only an uncomprehending stare for an answer. After a long

time of this The Thinking Machine instructed Hatch and Doane to go

for a walk. He had still a faint hope that some one might recognize

Doane and speak to him. As they wandered aimlessly on two persons

spoke to him. One was a man who nodded and passed on.

"Who was that?" asked Hatch quickly. "Do you remember ever having

seen him before?"

"Oh, yes," was the reply. "He stops at my hotel. He knows me as

Doane."

It was just a few minutes before six o'clock when, walking slowly,

they passed a great office building. Coming toward them was a

well-dressed, active man of thirty-five years or so, As he approached

he removed a cigar from his lips.

"Hello, Harry!" he exclaimed, and reached for Doane's hand.

"Hello," said Doane, but there was no trace of recognition in his

voice.

"How's Pittsburg?" asked the stranger.

"Oh, all right, I guess," said Doane, and there came new wrinkles of

perplexity in his brow. "Allow me, Mr.--Mr.--really I have forgotten

your name--"

"Manning," laughed the other,

"Mr. Hatch, Mr. Manning."

The reporter shook hands with Manning eagerly; he saw now a new line

of possibilities suddenly revealed. Here was a man who knew Doane as

Harry--and then Pittsburg, too.

"Last time I saw you was in Pittsburg, wasn't it?" Manning rattled

on, as he led the way into a nearby café, "By George, that was a

stiff game that night! Remember that jack full I held? It cost me

nineteen hundred dollars," he added, ruefully.

"Yes, I remember," said Doane, but Hatch knew that he did not. And

meanwhile a thousand questions were surging through the reporter's

brain.

"Poker hands as expensive as that are liable to be long remembered,"

remarked Hatch, casually. "How long ago was that?"

"Three years, wasn't it, Harry?" asked Manning.

"All of that, I should say," was the reply.

"Twenty hours at the table," said Manning, and again he laughed

cheerfully. "I was woozy when we finished."

Inside the café they sought out a table in a corner. No one else was

near. When the waiter had gone, Hatch leaned over and looked Doane

straight in the eyes.

"Shall I ask some questions?" he inquired.

"Yes, yes," said the other eagerly.

"What--what is it?" asked Manning.

"It's a remarkably strange chain of circumstances," said Hatch, in

explanation. "This man whom you call Harry, we know as John Doane.

What is his real name? Harry what?"

Manning stared at the reporter for a moment in amazement, then

gradually a smile came to his lips.

"What are you trying to do?" he asked. "Is this a joke?"

"No, my God, man, can't you see?" exclaimed Doane, fiercely. "I'm

ill, sick, something. I've lost my memory, all of my past. I don't

remember anything about myself. What is my name?"

"Well, by George!" exclaimed Manning. "By George! I don't believe I

know your full name. Harry--Harry--what?"

He drew from his pocket several letters and half a dozen scraps of

paper and ran over them. Then he looked carefully through a worn

notebook.

"I don't know," he confessed. "I had your name and address in an old

notebook, but I suppose I burned it. I remember, though, I met you

in the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg three years ago. I called you Harry

because everyone was calling everyone else by his first name. Your

last name made no impression on me at all. By George!" he concluded,

in a new burst of amazement.

"What were the circumstances, exactly?" asked Hatch.

"I'm a traveling man," Manning explained. "I go everywhere. A

friend gave me a card to the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg and I went

there. There were five or six of us playing poker, among them

Mr.--Mr. Doane here. I sat at the same table with him for twenty

hours or so, but I can't recall his last name to save me. It isn't

Doane, I'm positive. I have an excellent memory for faces, and I

know you're the man. Don't you remember me?"

"I haven't the slightest recollection of ever having seen you before

in my life," was Doane's slow reply. "I have no recollection of ever

having been in Pittsburg--no recollection of anything."

"Do you know if Mr. Doane is a resident of Pittsburg?" Hatch

inquired. "Or was he there as a visitor, as you were?"

"Couldn't tell you to save my life," replied Manning. "Lord, it's

amazing, isn't it? You don't remember me? You called me Bill all

evening."

The other man shook his head.

"Well, say, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Nothing, thanks," said Doane. "Only tell me my name, and who I am."

"Lord, I don't know."

"What sort of a club is the Lincoln?" asked Hatch.

"It's a sort of a millionaire's club," Manning explained. "Lots of

iron men belong to it. I had considerable business with them--that's

what took me to Pittsburg."

"And you are absolutely positive this is the man you met there?"

"Why, I _know_ it. I never forget faces; it's my business to

remember them."

"Did he say anything about a family?"

"Not that I recall. A man doesn't usually speak of his family at a

poker table."

"Do you remember the exact date or the month?"

"I think it was in January or February possibly," was the reply. "It

was bitterly cold and the snow was all smoked up. Yes, I'm positive

it was in January, three years ago."

After awhile the men separated. Manning was stopping at the Hotel

Teutonic and willingly gave his name and permanent address to Hatch,

explaining at the same time that he would be in the city for several

days and was perfectly willing to help in any way he could. He took

also the address of The Thinking Machine.

From the café Hatch and Doane returned to the scientist. They found

him with two telegrams spread out on a table before him. Briefly

Hatch told the story of the meeting with Manning, while Doane sank

down with his head in his hands. The Thinking Machine listened

without comment.

"Here," he said, at the conclusion of the recital, and he offered one

of the telegrams to Hatch. "I got the name of a shoemaker from Mr.

Doane's shoe and wired to him in Denver, asking if he had a record of

the sale. This is the answer. Read it aloud."

Hatch did so.

"Shoes such as described made nine weeks ago for Preston Bell,

cashier Blank National Bank of Butte. Don't know John Doane."

"Well--what--" Doane began, bewildered.

"_It means that you are Preston Bell_," said Hatch, emphatically.

"No," said The Thinking Machine, quickly. "It means that there is

only a strong probability of it."

* * * * * * * *

The door bell rang. After a moment Martha appeared.

"A lady to see you, sir," she said.

"Her name?"

"Mrs. John Doane."

"Gentlemen, kindly step into the next room," requested The Thinking

Machine.

Together Hatch and Doane passed through the door. There was an

expression of--of--no man may say what--on Doane's face as he went.

"Show her in here, Martha," instructed the scientist. "There was a

rustle of silk in the hall, the curtains on the door were pulled

apart quickly and a richly gowned woman rushed into the room.

"My husband? Is he here?" she demanded, breathlessly. "I went to

the hotel; they said he came here for treatment. Please, please, is

he here?"

"A moment, madam," said The Thinking Machine. He stepped to the door

through which Hatch and Doane had gone, and said something. One of

them appeared in the door. It was Hutchinson Hatch.

"John, John, my darling husband," and the woman flung her arms about

Hatch's neck. "Don't you know me?"

With blushing face Hatch looked over her shoulder into the eyes of

The Thinking Machine, who stood briskly rubbing his hands. Never

before in his long acquaintance with the scientist had Hatch seen him

smile.

For a time there was silence, broken only by sobs, as the woman clung

frantically to Hatch, with her face buried on his shoulder. Then:

"Don't you remember me?" she asked again and again. "Your wife?

Don't you remember me?"

Hatch could still see the trace of a smile on the scientist's face,

and said nothing.

"You are positive this gentleman is your husband?" inquired The

Thinking Machine, finally.

"Oh, I know," the woman sobbed. "Oh, John, don't you remember me?"

She drew away a little and looked deeply into the reporter's eyes.

"Don't you remember me, John?"

"Can't say that I ever saw you before," said Hatch, truthfully

enough. "I--I--fact is--"

"Mr. Doane's memory is wholly gone now," explained The Thinking

Machine. "Meanwhile, perhaps you would tell me something about him.

He is my patient. I am particularly interested."

The voice was soothing; it had lost for the moment its perpetual

irritation. The woman sat down beside Hatch. Her face, pretty

enough in a bold sort of way, was turned to The Thinking Machine

inquiringly. With one hand she stroked that of the reporter.

"Where are you from?" began the scientist. "I mean where is the home

of John Doane?"

"In Buffalo," she replied, glibly. "Didn't he even remember that?"

"And what's his business?"

"His health has been bad for some time and recently he gave up active

business," said the woman. "Previously he was connected with a bank."

"When did you see him last?"

"Six weeks ago. He left the house one day and I have never heard

from him since. I had Pinkerton men searching and at last they

reported he was at the Yarmouth Hotel. I came on immediately. And

now we shall go back to Buffalo." She turned to Hatch with a

languishing glance. "Shall we not, dear?"

"Whatever Professor Van Dusen thinks best," was the equivocal reply.

Slowly the glimmer of amusement was passing out of the squint eyes of

The Thinking Machine; as Hatch looked he saw a hardening of the lines

of the mouth. There was an explosion coming. He knew it. Yet when

the scientist spoke his voice was more velvety than ever.

"Mrs. Doane, do you happen to be acquainted with a drug which

produces temporary loss of memory?"

She stared at him, but did not lose her self-possession.

"No," she said finally. "Why?"

"You know, of course, that this man is _not_ your husband?"

This time the question had its effect. The woman arose suddenly,

stared at the two men, and her face went white.

"Not?--not?--what do you mean?"

"I mean," and the voice reassured its tone of irritation, "I mean

that I shall send for the police and give you in their charge unless

you tell me the truth about this affair. Is that perfectly clear to

you?"

The woman's lips were pressed tightly together. She saw that she had

fallen into some sort of a trap; her gloved hands were clenched

fiercely; the pallor faded and a flush of anger came.

"Further, for fear you don't quite follow me even now," explained The

Thinking Machine, "I will say that I know all about this copper deal

of which this so-called John Doane was the victim. _I know his

condition now_. If you tell the truth you may escape prison--if you

don't, there is a long term, not only for you, but for your

fellow-conspirators. Now will you talk?"

"No," said the woman. She arose as if to go out.

"Never mind that," said The Thinking Machine. "You had better stay

where you are. You will be locked up at the proper moment. Mr.

Hatch, please 'phone for Detective Mallory."

Hatch arose and passed into the adjoining room.

"You tricked me," the woman screamed suddenly, fiercely.

"Yes," the other agreed, complacently. "Next time be sure you know

your own husband. Meanwhile where is Harrison?"

"Not another word," was the quick reply.

"Very well," said the scientist, calmly. "Detective Mallory will be

here in a few minutes. Meanwhile I'll lock this door."

"You have no right--" the woman began.

Without heeding the remark, The Thinking Machine passed into the

adjoining room. There for half an hour he talked earnestly to Hatch

and Doane. At the end of that time he sent a telegram to the manager

of the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg, as follows:

"Does your visitors' book show any man, registered there in the month

of January three years ago, whose first name is Harry or Henry? If

so, please wire name and description, also name of man whose guest he

was."

This telegram was dispatched. A few minutes later the door bell rang

and Detective Mallory entered.

"What is it?" he inquired.

"A prisoner for you in the next room," was the reply. "A woman. I

charge her with conspiracy to defraud a man who for the present we

will call John Doane. That may or may not be his name."

"What do you know about it?" asked the detective.

"A great deal now--more after awhile. I shall tell you then.

Meanwhile take this woman. You gentlemen, I should suggest, might go

out somewhere this evening. If you drop by afterward there may be an

answer to a few telegrams which will make this matter clear."

Protestingly the mysterious woman was led away by Detective Mallory;

and Doane and Hatch followed shortly after. The next act of The

Thinking Machine was to write a telegram addressed to Mrs. Preston

Bell, Butte, Montana. Here it is:

"Your husband suffering temporary mental trouble here. Can you come

on immediately? Answer."

When the messenger boy came for the telegram he found a man on the

stoop. The Thinking Machine received the telegram, and the man, who

gave to Martha the name of Manning, was announced.

"Manning, too," mused the scientist. "Show him in."

"I don't know if you know why I am here," explained Manning.

"Oh, yes," said the scientist. "You have remembered Doane's name.

What is it, please?"

Manning was too frankly surprised to answer and only stared at the

scientist.

"Yes, that's right," he said finally, and he smiled. "His name is

Pillsbury. I recall it now."

"And what made you recall it?"

"I noticed an advertisement in a magazine with the name in large

letters. It instantly came to me that that was Doane's real name."

"Thanks," remarked the scientist. "And the woman--who is she?"

"What woman?" asked Manning.

"Never mind, then. I am deeply obliged for your information. I

don't suppose you know anything else about it?"

"No," said Manning. He was a little bewildered, and after a while

went away.

For an hour or more The Thinking Machine sat with finger tips pressed

together staring at the ceiling. His meditations were interrupted by

Martha.

"Another telegram, sir."

The Thinking Machine took it eagerly. It was from the manager of the

Lincoln Club in Pittsburg:

"Henry C. Carney, Harry Meltz, Henry Blake, Henry W. Tolman, Harry

Pillsbury, Henry Calvert and Henry Louis Smith all visitors to club

in month you name. Which do you want to learn more about?"

It took more than an hour for The Thinking Machine to establish long

distance connection by 'phone with Pittsburg. When he had finished

talking he seemed satisfied.

"Now," he mused. "The answer from Mrs. Preston."

It was nearly midnight when that came. Hatch and Doane had returned

from a theater and were talking to the scientist when the telegram

was brought in.

"Anything important?" asked Doane, anxiously.

"Yes," said the scientist, and he slipped a finger beneath the flap

of the envelope. "It's clear now. It was an engaging problem from

first to last, and now--"

He opened the telegram and glanced at it; then with bewilderment on

his face and mouth slightly open he sank down at the table and leaned

forward with his head on his arms. The message fluttered to the

table and Hatch read this:

"Man in Boston can't be my husband. He is now in Honolulu. I

received cablegram from him to-day.

"MRS. PRESTON BELL."

It was thirty-six hours later that the three men met again. The

Thinking Machine had abruptly dismissed Hatch and Doane the last

time. The reporter knew that something wholly unexpected had

happened. He could only conjecture that this had to do with Preston

Bell. When the three met again it was in Detective Mallory's office

at police headquarters. The mysterious woman who had claimed Doane

for her husband was present, as were Mallory, Hatch, Doane and The

Thinking Machine.

"Has this woman given any name?" was the scientist's first question.

"Mary Jones," replied the detective, with a grin.

"And address?"

"No."

"Is her picture in the Rogues' Gallery?"

"No. I looked carefully."

"Anybody called to ask about her?"

"A man--yes. That is, he didn't ask about her--he merely asked some

general questions, which now we believe were to find out about her."

The Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the woman. She looked

up at him defiantly.

"There has been a mistake made, Mr. Mallory," said the scientist.

"It's my fault entirely. Let this woman go. I am sorry to have done

her so grave an injustice."

Instantly the woman was on her feet, her face radiant. A look of

disgust crept into Mallory's face.

"I can't let her go now without arraignment," the detective growled.

"It ain't regular."

"You must let her go, Mr. Mallory," commanded The Thinking Machine,

and over the woman's shoulder the detective saw an astonishing thing.

The Thinking Machine winked. It was a decided, long, pronounced wink.

"Oh, all right," he said, "but it ain't regular at that."

The woman passed out of the room hurriedly, her silken skirts

rustling loudly. She was free again. Immediately she disappeared

The Thinking Machine's entire manner changed.

"Put your best man to follow her," he directed rapidly. "Let him go

to her home and arrest the man who is with her as her husband. Then

bring them both back here, after searching their rooms for money."

"Why--what--what is all this?" demanded Mallory, amazed.

"The man who inquired for her, who is with her, is wanted for a

$175,000 embezzlement in Butte, Montana. Don't let your man lose

sight of her."

The detective left the room hurriedly. Ten minutes later he returned

to find The Thinking Machine leaning back in his chair with eyes

upturned. Hatch and Doane were waiting, both impatiently.

"Now, Mr. Mallory," said the scientist, "I shall try to make this

matter as clear to you as it is to me. By the time I finish I expect

your man will be back here with this woman and the embezzler. His

name is Harrison; I don't know hers. I can't believe she is Mrs.

Harrison, yet he has, I suppose, a wife. But here's the story. It

is the chaining together of fact after fact; a necessary logical

sequence to a series of incidents, which are, separately, deeply

puzzling."

The detective lighted a cigar and the others disposed themselves

comfortably to listen.

"This gentleman came to me," began The Thinking Machine, "with a

story of loss of memory. He told me that he knew neither his name,

home, occupation, nor anything whatever about himself. At the moment

it struck me as a case for a mental expert; still I was interested.

It seemed to be a remarkable case of aphasia, and I so regarded it

until he told me that he had $10,000 in bills, that he had no watch,

that everything which might possibly be of value in establishing his

identity had been removed from his clothing. This included even the

names of the makers of his linen. That showed intent, deliberation.

"Then I knew it could not be aphasia. That disease strikes a man

suddenly as he walks the street, as he sleeps, as he works, but never

gives any desire to remove traces of one's identity. On the

contrary, a man is still apparently sound mentally--he has merely

forgotten something--and usually his first desire is to find out who

he is. This gentleman had that desire, and in trying to find some

clew he showed a mind capable of grasping at every possible

opportunity. Nearly every question I asked had been anticipated.

Thus I recognized that he must be a more than usually astute man.

"But if not aphasia, what was it? What caused his condition? A

drug? I remembered that there was such a drug in India, not unlike

hasheesh. Therefore for the moment I assumed a drug. It gave me a

working basis. Then what did I have? A man of striking mentality

who was the victim of some sort of plot, who had been drugged until

he lost himself, and in that way disposed of. The handwriting might

be the same, for handwriting is rarely affected by a mental disorder;

it is a physical function.

"So far, so good. I examined his head for a possible accident.

Nothing. His hands were white and in no way calloused. Seeking to

reconcile the fact that he had been a man of strong mentality, with

all other things a financier or banker, occurred to me. The same

things might have indicated a lawyer, but the poise of this man, his

elaborate care in dress, all these things made me think him the

financier rather than the lawyer.

"Then I examined some money he had when he awoke. Fifteen or sixteen

of the hundred-dollar bills were new and in sequence. They were

issued by a national bank. To whom? The possibilities were that the

bank would have a record. I wired, asking about this, and also asked

Mr. Hatch to have his correspondents make inquiries in various cities

for a John Doane. It was not impossible that John Doane was his

name. Now I believe it will be safe for me to say that when he

registered at the hotel he was drugged, his own name slipped his

mind, and he signed John Doane--the first name that came to him.

That is not his name.

"While waiting an answer from the bank I tried to arouse his memory

by referring to things in the West. It appeared possible that he

might have brought the money from the West with him. Then, still

with the idea that he was a financier, I sent him to the financial

district. There was a result. The word 'copper' aroused him so that

he fainted after shouting, 'Sell copper, sell, sell, sell.'

"In a way my estimate of the man was confirmed. He was or had been

in a copper deal, selling copper in the market, or planning to do so.

I know nothing of the intricacies of the stock market. But there

came instantly to me the thought that a man who would faint away in

such a case must be vitally interested as well as ill. Thus I had a

financier, in a copper deal, drugged as result of a conspiracy. Do

you follow me, Mr. Mallory?"

"Sure," was the reply.

"At this point I received a telegram from the Butte bank telling me

that the hundred-dollar bills I asked about had been burned. This

telegram was signed 'Preston Bell, Cashier.' If that were true, the

bills this man had were counterfeit. There were no ifs about that.

I asked him if he knew Preston Bell. It was the only name of a

person to arouse him in any way. A man knows his own name better

than anything in the world. Therefore was it his? For a moment I

presumed it was.

"Thus the case stood: Preston Bell, cashier of the Butte bank, had

been drugged, was the victim of a conspiracy, which was probably a

part of some great move in copper. But if this man were _Preston

Bell_, how came the signature there? Part of the office regulation?

It happens hundreds of times that a name is so used, particularly on

telegrams.

"Well, this man who was lost--Doane, or Preston Bell--went to sleep

in my apartments. At that time I believed it fully possible that he

was a counterfeiter, as the bills were supposedly burned, and sent

Mr. Hatch to consult an expert. I also wired for details of the fire

loss in Butte and names of persons who had any knowledge of the

matter. This done, I removed and examined this gentleman's shoes for

the name of the maker. I found it. The shoes were of fine quality,

probably made to order for him.

"Remember, at this time I believed this gentleman to be Preston Bell,

for reasons I have stated. I wired to the maker or retailer to know

if he had a record of a sale of the shoes, describing them in detail,

to any financier or banker. I also wired to the Denver police to

know if any financier or banker had been away from there for four or

five weeks. Then came the somewhat startling information, through

Mr. Hatch, that the hundred-dollar bills were genuine. That answer

meant that Preston Bell--as I had begun to think of him--was either a

thief or the victim of some sort of financial conspiracy."

During the silence which followed every eye was turned on the man who

was lost--Doane or Preston Bell. He sat staring straight ahead of

him with hands nervously clenched. On his face was written the sign

of a desperate mental struggle. He was still trying to recall the

past.

"Then," The Thinking Machine resumed, "I heard from the Denver

police. There was no leading financier or banker out of the city so

far as they could learn hurriedly. It was not conclusive, but it

aided me. Also I received another telegram from Butte, signed

Preston Bell, telling me the circumstances of the supposed burning of

the hundred-dollar bills. It did not show that they were burned at

all; it was merely an assumption that they had been. They were last

seen in President Harrison's office."

"Harrison, Harrison, Harrison," repeated Doane.

"Vaguely I could see the possibility of something financially wrong

in the bank. Possibly Harrison, even Mr. Bell here, knew of it.

Banks do not apply for permission to reissue bills unless they are

positive of the original loss. Yet here were the bills. Obviously

some sort of jugglery. I wired to the police of Butte, asking some

questions. The answer was that Harrison had embezzled $175,000 and

had disappeared. Now I knew he had part of the missing, supposedly

burned, bills with him. It was obvious. Was Bell also a thief?

"The same telegram said that Mr. Bell's reputation was of the best,

and he was out of the city. That confirmed my belief that it was an

office rule to sign telegrams with the cashier's name, and further

made me positive that this man was Preston Bell. The chain of

circumstances was complete. It was two and two--inevitable result,

four.

"Now, what was the plot? Something to do with copper, and there was

an embezzlement. Then, still seeking a man who knew Bell personally,

I sent him out walking with Hatch. I had done so before. Suddenly

another figure came into the mystery--a confusing one at the moment.

This was a Mr. Manning, who knew Doane, or Bell, as Harry--something;

met him in Pittsburg three years ago, in the Lincoln Club.

"It was just after Mr. Hatch told me of this man that I received a

telegram from the shoemaker in Denver. It said that he had made a

shoe such as I described within a few months for Preston Bell. I had

asked if a sale had been made to a financier or banker; I got the

name back by wire.

"At this point a woman appeared to claim John Doane as her husband.

With no definite purpose, save general precaution, I asked Mr. Hatch

to see her first. She imagined he was Doane and embraced him,

calling him John. Therefore she was a fraud. She did not know John

Doane, or Preston Bell, by sight. Was she acting under the direction

of some one else? If so, whose?"

There was a pause as The Thinking Machine readjusted himself in the

chair. After a time he went on:

"There are shades of emotion, intuition, call it what you will, so

subtle that it is difficult to express them in words. As I had

instinctively associated Harrison with Bell's present condition I

instinctively associated this woman with Harrison. For not a word of

the affair had appeared in a newspaper; only a very few persons knew

of it. Was it possible that the stranger Manning was backing the

woman in an effort to get the $10,000? That remained to be seen. I

questioned the woman; she would say nothing. She is clever, but she

blundered badly in claiming Mr. Hatch for a husband."

The reporter blushed modestly.

"I asked her flatly about a drug. She was quite calm and her manner

indicated that she knew nothing of it. Yet I presume she did. Then

I sprung the bombshell, and she saw she had made a mistake. I gave

her over to Detective Mallory and she was locked up. This done, I

wired to the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg to find out about this

mysterious 'Harry' who had come into the case. I was so confident

then that I also wired to Mrs. Bell in Butte, presuming that there

was a Mrs. Bell, asking about her husband.

"Then Manning came to see me. I knew he came because he had

remembered the name he knew you by," and The Thinking Machine turned

to the central figure in this strange entanglement of identity,

"although he seemed surprised when I told him as much. He knew you

as Harry Pillsbury. I asked him who the woman was. His manner told

me that he knew nothing whatever of her. Then it came back to her as

an associate of Harrison, your enemy for some reason, and I could see

it in no other light. It was her purpose to get hold of you and

possibly keep you a prisoner, at least until some gigantic deal in

which copper figured was disposed of. That was what I surmised.

"Then another telegram came from the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg. The

name of Harry Pillsbury appeared as a visitor in the book in January,

three years ago. It was you--Manning is not the sort of man to be

mistaken--and then there remained only one point to be solved as I

then saw the case. That was an answer from Mrs. Preston Bell, if

there was a Mrs. Bell. She would know where her husband was."

Again there was silence. A thousand things were running through

Bell's mind. The story had been told so pointedly, and was so

vitally a part of him, that semi-recollection was again on his face.

"That telegram said that Preston Bell was in Honolulu; that the wife

had received a cable dispatch that day. Then, frankly, I was

puzzled; so puzzled, in fact, that the entire fabric I had

constructed seemed to melt away before my eyes. It took me hours to

readjust it. I tried it all over in detail, and then the theory

which would reconcile every fact in the case was evolved. That

theory is right--as right as that two and two make four. It's logic."

It was half an hour later when a detective entered and spoke to

Detective Mallory aside.

"Fine!" said Mallory. "Bring 'em in."

Then there reappeared the woman who had been a prisoner and a man of

fifty years.

"Harrison!" exclaimed Bell, suddenly. He staggered to his feet with

outstretched hands. "Harrison! I know! I know!"

"Good, good, very good," said The Thinking Machine.

Bell's nervously twitching hands were reaching for Harrison's throat

when he was pushed aside by Detective Mallory. He stood pallid for a

moment, then sank down on the floor in a heap. He was senseless.

The Thinking Machine made a hurried examination.

"Good!" he remarked again. "When he recovers he will remember

everything except what has happened since he has been in Boston.

Meanwhile, Mr. Harrison, we know all about the little affair of the

drug, the battle for new copper workings in Honolulu, and your

partner there has been arrested. Your drug didn't do its work well

enough. Have you anything to add?"

The prisoner was silent.

"Did you search his rooms?" asked The Thinking Machine of the

detective who had made the double arrest.

"Yes, and found this."

It was a large roll of money. The Thinking Machine ran over it

lightly--$70,000--scanning the numbers of the bills. At last he held

forth half a dozen. They were among the twenty-seven reported to

have been burned in the bank fire in Butte.

Harrison and the woman were led away. Subsequently it developed that

he had been systematically robbing the bank of which he was president

for years; was responsible for the fire, at which time he had

evidently expected to make a great haul; and that the woman was not

his wife. Following his arrest this entire story came out; also the

facts of the gigantic copper deal, in which he had rid himself of

Bell, who was his partner, and had sent another man to Honolulu in

Bell's name to buy up options on some valuable copper property there.

This confederate in Honolulu had sent the cable dispatches to the

wife in Butte. She accepted them without question.

It was a day or so later that Hatch dropped in to see The Thinking

Machine and asked a few questions.

"How did Bell happen to have that $10,000?"

"It was given to him, probably, because it was safer to have him

rambling about the country, not knowing who he was, than to kill him."

"And how did he happen to be here?"

"That question may be answered at the trial."

"And how did it come that Bell was once known as Harry Pillsbury?"

"Bell is a director in United States Steel, I have since learned.

There was a secret meeting of this board in Pittsburg three years

ago. He went incog. to attend that meeting and was introduced at the

Lincoln Club as Harry Pillsbury."

"Oh!" exclaimed Hatch.

The Great Auto Mystery

BY JACQUES FUTRELLE

With a little laugh of sheer light-heartedness on her lips and a

twinkle in her blue eyes, Marguerite Melrose bound on a grotesque

automobile mask, and stuffed the last strand of her recalcitrant hair

beneath her veil. The pretty face was hidden from mouth to brow; and

her curls were ruthlessly imprisoned under a cap held in place by the

tightly tied veil.

"It's perfectly hideous, isn't it?" she demanded of her companions.

Jack Curtis laughed.

"Well," he remarked, quizzically, "it's just as well that we _know_

you are pretty."

"We could never discover it as you are now," added Charles Reid.

"Can't see enough of your face to tell whether you are white or

black."

The girl's red lips were pursed into a pout, which ungraciously hid

her white teeth, as she considered the matter seriously.

"I think I'll take it off," she said at last.

"Don't," Curtis warned her. "On a good road The Green Dragon only

hits the tall places."

"Tear your hair off," supplemented Reid. "When Jack lets her loose

it's just a pszzzzt!--and wherever you're going you're there."

"Not on a night as dark as this?" protested the girl, quickly.

"I've got lights like twin locomotives," Curtis assured her,

smilingly. "It's perfectly safe. Don't get nervous."

He tied on his own mask with its bleary goggles, while Reid did the

same. The Green Dragon, a low, gasoline car of racing build, stood

panting impatiently, awaiting them at a side door of the hotel.

Curtis assisted Miss Melrose into the front seat and climbed in

beside her, while Reid sat behind in the tonneau. There was a

preparatory quiver, the car jerked a little and then began to move.

The three persons in it were Marguerite Melrose, an actress who had

attracted attention in the West five years before by her great beauty

and had afterward, by her art, achieved a distinct place; Jack

Curtis, a friend since childhood, when both lived in San Francisco

and attended the same school, and Charles Reid, his chum, son of a

mine owner at Denver.

The unexpected meeting of the three in Boston had been a source of

mutual pleasure. It had been two years since they had seen one

another in Denver, where Miss Melrose was playing. Now she was in

Boston, pursuing certain vocal studies before returning West for her

next season.

Reid was in Boston to lay siege to the heart of a young woman of

society, Miss Elizabeth Dow, whom he first met in San Francisco. She

was only nineteen years old, but despite this he had begun a siege

and his ardor had never cooled, even after Miss Dow returned East.

In Boston, he had heard, she looked with favor upon another man,

Morgan Mason, poor but of excellent family, and frantically Reid had

rushed, like Lochinvar out of the West, to find the rumor true.

Curtis was one who never had anything to do save seek excitement in a

new and novel way. He had come East with Reid. They had been

together constantly since their arrival in Boston. He was of a

different type from Reid in that his wealth was distinctly a burden,

a thing which left him with nothing to do, and opened illimitable

possibilities of dissipation. The pace he led was one which caused

other young men to pause and think.

Warm-hearted and perfectly at home with both Curtis and Reid, Miss

Melrose, the actress, frequently took occasion to scold them. It was

charming to be scolded by Miss Melrose, so much so in fact that it

was worth while sinning again. Since she had appeared on the horizon

Curtis had devoted a great deal of time to her; Reid had his own

difficulties trying to make Miss Dow change her mind.

The Green Dragon with its three passengers ran slowly down from the

Hotel Yarmouth, where Miss Melrose was stopping, toward the Common,

twisting and winding tortuously through the crowd of vehicles. It

was half-past six o'clock in the evening.

"Cut across here to Commonwealth Avenue," Miss Melrose suggested.

She remembered something and her bright blue eyes sparkled beneath

the disfiguring mask. "I know a delightful old-fashioned inn out

this way. It would be an ideal place to stop for supper. I was

there once five years ago when I was in Boston."

"How far?" asked Reid.

"Fifteen or twenty miles," was the reply.

"Right," said Curtis. "Here we go."

Soon after they were skimming along Commonwealth Avenue, which at

that time of day is practically given over to automobilists, past the

Vendome, the Somerset and on over the flat, smooth road. It was

perfectly light now, because the electric lights were about them; but

there was no moon above, and once in the country it would be dark

going.

Curtis was intent on his machine; Reid was thoughtful for a time, but

after awhile leaned over and talked to Miss Melrose.

"I heard something to-day that might interest you," he remarked.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Don MacLean is in Boston."

"I heard that," she replied, casually.

"Who is he?" asked Curtis.

"A man who is frantically in love with Marguerite," said Reid, with a

smile.

"Charlie!" the girl reproved, and a flush crept into her face. "It

was never anything very serious."

Curtis looked at her curiously for a moment, then his eyes turned

again to the road ahead.

"I don't suppose it's very serious if a man proposes to a girl seven

times, is it?" Reid asked, banteringly.

"Did he do that?" asked Curtis, quickly.

"He merely made a fool of himself and me," replied the actress, with

spirit, speaking to Curtis. "He was--in love with me, I suppose, but

his family objected because I was on the stage and threatened to

disinherit him, and all that sort of thing. So--it ended it. Not

that I ever considered the matter seriously anyway," she added.

There was silence again as The Green Dragon plunged into the darkness

of the country, the two brilliant lights ahead showing every dip and

rise in the road. After a while Curtis spoke again.

"He's now in Boston?"

"Yes," said the girl. "At least, I've heard so," she added, quickly.

Then the conversation ran into other channels, and Curtis, busy with

the great machine and the innumerable levers which made it do this or

do that or do the other, dropped out of it. Reid and Miss Melrose

talked on, but the whirr of the car as it gained speed made talking

unsatisfactory and finally the girl gave herself up to the pure

delight of high speed; a dangerous pleasure which sets the nerves

atingle and makes one greedy for more.

"Do you smell gasoline?" Curtis asked suddenly, turning to the others.

"Believe I do," said Reid.

"Confound it! If I've sprung a leak in my tank it will be the

deuce," Curtis growled amiably.

"Do you think you've got enough to get to the inn?" asked Miss

Melrose. "It can't be more than five or six miles now."

"I'll run on until we stop," said Curtis. "We might be able to stir

up some along here somewhere. I suppose they are prepared for autos."

At last lights showed ahead, many lights glimmering through the trees.

"I suppose that's the inn now," said Curtis. "Is it?" he asked of

the girl.

"Really, I don't know, but I have an impression that it isn't. The

one I mean seems farther out than this and it seems to me we passed

one on the way. However, I don't remember very well."

"We'll stop and get some gasoline, anyhow," said Curtis.

Puffing and snorting odorously The Green Dragon came to a standstill

in front of an old house which stood back twenty feet or more from

the road. It was lighted up, and from inside they could hear the

cheery rattle of dishes and see white-aproned waiters moving about.

Above the door was a sign, "Monarch Inn."

"Is this the place?" asked Reid.

"Oh, no," replied Miss Melrose. "The inn I spoke of was back from

the road three or four hundred feet through a grove."

Curtis leaped out, and evidently dropped something from his pocket as

he did so, for he stopped and felt around for a moment. Then he

examined his tank.

"It's a leak," he said, in irritation. "I haven't more than half a

gallon left. These people must have some gasoline. Wait a few

minutes."

Miss Melrose and Reid still sat in the car as he started away toward

the house. Almost at the veranda he turned and called back:

"Charlie, I dropped something there when I jumped out. Get down and

strike a match and see if you can find it. Don't go near that

gasoline tank with the match."

He disappeared inside the house. Reid climbed out and struck several

matches. Finally he found what was lost and thrust it into an

outside pocket. Miss Melrose was gazing away down the road at two

brilliant lights coming toward them rapidly.

"Rather chilly," Reid said, as he straightened up. "Want a cup of

coffee or something?"

"Thanks, no," the girl replied.

"I think I'll run in and scare up some sort of a hot drink, if you'll

excuse me?"

"Now, Charlie, don't," the girl asked, suddenly. "I don't like it."

"Oh, one won't hurt," he replied, lightly.

"I shan't speak to you when you come out," she insisted, half

banteringly.

"Oh, yes, you will." He laughed, and passed into the house.

Miss Melrose tossed her pretty head impatiently and turned to watch

the approaching lights. They were blinding as they drew nearer,

clearly revealing her figure, in its tan auto coat, to the occupant

of the other car. The newcomer stopped and then she heard whoever

was in it--she couldn't see--speaking to her.

"Would you mind turning your car a little so I can run in off the

road?"

"I don't know how," she replied, helplessly.

There was a little pause. The occupant of the other car was leaning

forward, looking at her closely.

"Is that you, Marguerite?" he asked finally.

"Yes," she replied. "Who is that? Don?"

"Yes."

A man's figure leaped out of the other machine and came toward her.

* * * * * * * *

Curtis appeared beside The Green Dragon with a huge can of gasoline

twenty minutes later. The two occupants of the car were clearly

silhouetted against the sky, and Reid, leaning back in the tonneau,

was smoking.

"Find it?" he asked.

"Yes," growled Curtis. And he began the work of repairing the leak

and refilling his tank. It took only five minutes or so, and then he

climbed up into the car.

"Cold, Marguerite?" he asked.

"She won't speak," said Reid, leaning forward a little. "She's angry

because I went inside to get a hot Scotch."

"Wish I had one myself," said Curtis.

"Let's wait till we get to the next place," Reid interposed. "A

little supper and trimmings will put all of us in a better humor."

Without answering, Curtis threw a lever, and the car pulled out. Two

automobiles which had been standing when they arrived were still

waiting for their owners. Annoyed at the delay, Curtis put on full

speed. Finally Reid leaned forward and spoke to the girl.

"In a good humor?" he asked.

She gave no sign of having heard, and Reid placed his hand on her

shoulder as he repeated the question. Still there was no answer.

"Make her talk to you, Jack," he suggested to Curtis.

"What's the matter, Marguerite?" asked Curtis, as he glanced around.

Still there was no answer, and he slowed up the car a little. Then

he took her arm and shook it gently. There was no response.

"What is the matter with her?" he demanded "Has she fainted?"

Again he shook her, this time more vigorously than before.

"Marguerite," he called.

Then his hand sought her face; it was deathly cold, clammy even about

the chin. The upper part was still covered by the mask. For the

third time he shook her, then, really frightened, apparently, he

caught at her gloved wrist and brought the car to a standstill.

There was no trace of a pulse; the wrist was cold as death.

"She must be ill--very ill," he said in some agitation. "Is there a

doctor near here?"

Reid was leaning over the senseless body now, having raised up in the

tonneau, and when he spoke there seemed to be fear in his tone.

"Better run on as fast as you can to the inn ahead," he, instructed

Curtis. "It's nearer than the one we just left. There may be a

doctor there."

Curtis grabbed frantically at the lever and the car shot ahead

suddenly through the dark. In three minutes the lights of the second

inn were in sight. The two men leaped from the car simultaneously

and raced for the house.

"A doctor, quick," Curtis breathlessly demanded of a waiter.

"Next door."

Without waiting for further instructions, Curtis and Reid ran to the

auto, lifted the girl in their arms and took her to a house which

stood just a few feet away. There, after much clamoring, they

aroused some one. Was the doctor in? Yes. Would he hurry? Yes.

The door opened and the men laid the girl's body on a couch in the

hall. Dr. Leonard appeared. He was an old fellow, grizzled, with

keen, kindly eyes and rigid mouth.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Think she's dead," replied Curtis.

The doctor adjusted his glasses rather hurriedly.

"Who is she?" he asked, as he bent over the still figure and fumbled

about the throat and breast.

"Miss Marguerite Melrose, an actress," explained Curtis, hurriedly.

"What's the matter with her?" demanded Reid, fiercely.

The doctor still bent over the figure. In the dim lamplight Curtis

and Reid stood waiting anxiously, impatiently, with white faces. At

last the doctor straightened up.

"What is it?" demanded Curtis.

"She's dead," was the reply.

"Great God!" exclaimed Reid. "How?" Curtis seemed speechless.

"This," said the doctor, and he exhibited a long knife, damp with

blood. "Stabbed through the heart."

Curtis stared at him, at the knife, then at the inert figure, and

lastly at the dead white of her face where it showed beneath the mask.

"Look, Jack!" exclaimed Reid, suddenly. "The knife!"

Curtis looked again, then sank down on the couch beside the body.

"Oh, my God! It's horrible!" he said.

To Hutchinson Hatch and half a dozen other reporters, Dr. Leonard, at

his home late that night, told the story of the arrival of Jack

Curtis and Charles Reid with the body of the girl, and the succeeding

events so far as he knew them. The police and Medical Examiner

Francis had preceded the newspaper men, and the body had been removed

to a nearby village.

"They came here in great excitement," Dr. Leonard explained. They

brought the body in with them, the man Curtis lifting her by the

shoulders and the man Reid at the feet. They placed the body on this

couch. I asked them who she was, and they told me she was Marguerite

Melrose, an actress. That's all that was said of her identity.

"Then I made an examination of the body, seeking a trace of life.

There was none, although the body was not then entirely cold. In

examining her heart my hand struck the knife which had killed her--a

heavy weapon, evidently used for rough work, with a blade of six or

seven inches. I drew the knife out. Of course, knowing that it had

pierced her heart, any idea of doing anything to save her was beyond

question.

"One of the men, Curtis, seemed greatly excited about this knife

after Reid called his attention to it. Curtis took the knife out of

my hand and examined it closely, then asked if he might keep it. I

told him it would have to be turned over to the medical examiner. He

argued about it, and finally, to settle the argument, I took it out

of his hand. Reid explained to Curtis that it was necessary for me

to keep the knife, and finally Curtis seemed to agree to it.

"Then I suggested that the police be notified. I did this myself by

telephone, the men remaining with me all the time. I asked if they

could throw any light on the tragedy, but neither could. Curtis said

he had been out searching for a man who had the keys to a shed where

some gasoline was locked up, and it took fifteen or twenty minutes to

find him. As soon as he got the gasoline he returned to the auto.

"Reid and Miss Melrose were at this time in the auto, he said. What

had happened while he had been away Curtis didn't know. Reid said

he, too, had stepped out of the automobile, and after exchanging a

few words with Miss Melrose went into the inn. There he remained

fifteen minutes or so, because inside he saw a woman he knew and

spoke to her. He declared that any one of three waiters could verify

his statement that he was in the Monarch Inn.

"After I had notified the police Curtis grew very uneasy in his

actions--it didn't occur to me at the moment, but now I recall that

it was so--and suggested to Reid that they go on to Boston and send

out detectives--special Pinkerton men. I tried to dissuade them, but

they went away. I couldn't stop them. They gave me their cards,

however. They are at the Hotel Teutonic, and told me they could be

seen there at any time. The medical examiner and the police came

afterward. I told them, and one of the detectives started

immediately for Boston. They have probably told their story to him

by this time."

"What did the young woman look like?" asked Hatch.

"Really, I couldn't say," said the doctor. "She wore an automobile

mask which covered all her face except the chin, and there was a veil

tied over her cap, concealing her hair. I didn't remove these; I

left the body just as it was for the medical examiner."

"How was she dressed?" Hatch went on.

"She wore a long tan automobile dust coat of what seemed to be rich

material, and beneath this a handsome--not a fancy--gown. I believe

it was tailor-made. She was a woman of superb figure."

That was all that could be learned from Dr. Leonard, and Hatch and

the other men raced back to Boston. The next day the newspapers

flamed with the mystery of the murder of Miss Melrose, a beautiful

Western actress who was visiting Boston. Each newspaper watched the

other greedily to see if there was a picture of Miss Melrose; neither

had one.

The newspapers also carried the stories of Jack Curtis and Charles

Reid in connection with the murder. The stories were in substance

just what Dr. Leonard had said, but were given in more detail. It

was the general presumption, almost a foregone conclusion, that some

one had killed Miss Melrose while the two men were away from the auto.

Who was this some one? Man or woman? No one could answer. Reid's

story of being inside the Monarch Inn, where he spoke to a lady he

knew--but whose name he refused to give--was verified by Hatch's

paper. Three waiters had seen him.

The medical examiner had made only a brief statement, in which he had

said, in answer to a question, that the person who killed Miss

Melrose might have been either at her right, in the position Curtis

would have occupied while driving the car, or might have leaned

forward from behind and stabbed her. Thus it was not impossible that

one of the men in the car with her had killed her, yet against this

possibility was. the fact that each of the men was one whom one

could not readily associate with such a crime.

The fact that the fatal blow was delivered from the right was proven,

said the astute medical examiner, by the fact that the knife slanted

as a knife could not have been slanted conveniently by a person on

her other side--her left. There were many dark, underlying

intimations behind what the medical man said; but he refused to say

any more. Meanwhile the body remained in the village where it had

been taken. Efforts to get a photograph were unavailing; pleas of

newspaper artists for permission to sketch her fell upon deaf ears.

Curtis and Reid, after their first statements, remained in seclusion

at the Teutonic. They were not arrested because this did not seem

necessary. Both had offered to do anything in their power to solve

the riddle, had even employed Pinkerton men who were now on the case;

but they would say nothing nor see anyone except the police. The

police encouraged them in this attitude, and hinted darkly and

mysteriously at clews which "would lead to an arrest within

twenty-four hours."

Hatch read these intimations and smiled grimly. Then he went out to

try what a little patience and perseverance and human intelligence

would do. He learned something of Reid's little romance in Boston.

Yet not all of it. It was a fact, however, that Reid had called at

the home of Miss Elizabeth Dow on Beacon Hill just after noon and

inquired for her.

"She is not in," the maid had replied.

"I'll leave my card for her," said Reid.

"I don't think she'll be back," the girl answered.

"Not be back?" Reid repeated. "Why?"

"Haven't you seen the afternoon papers?" asked the girl. "They will

explain. Mrs. Dow, her mother, told me not to talk to anyone."

Reid left the house with a wrinkle in his brow and walked on toward

the Common. There he halted a newsboy and bought an afternoon

paper--many afternoon papers. The first pages were loaded with

details of the murder of Miss Melrose, theories, conjectures, a

thousand little things, with long dispatches of her history and her

stage career from San Francisco.

Reid passed these over impatiently with a slight shiver and looked

inside the paper. There he found the thing to which the maid had

referred.

"By George!" he exclaimed.

It was a story of the elopement of Elizabeth Dow with Morgan Mason,

Reid's rival. It seemed that Miss Dow and Mason met by appointment

at the Monarch Inn and went from there in an automobile. The bride

had written to her parents before she started, saying she preferred

Mason despite his poverty. The family refused to talk of the matter,

But there in facsimile was the marriage license.

Reid's face was a study as he walked back to the hotel. In a private

room off the café he found Curtis, who had been drinking heavily, yet

who, with the strange mood of some men, was not visibly intoxicated.

Reid threw the paper down, open at the elopement announcement.

"See that," he said shortly.

Curtis read it--or glanced at it--but did not make a remark until he

came to the name, the Monarch Inn. Then he looked up.

"That's where the other thing happened, isn't it?" he asked, rather

thickly.

"Yes."

Curtis rambled off into something else; studiously he avoided any

reference to the tragedy, yet that was the one thing which was in his

mind. It was in a futile effort to forget it that he was drinking

now. He talked on as a drunken man will for a time, then turned

suddenly to Reid.

"I loved her," he declared suddenly, passionately. "My God!"

"Try not to think of it," Reid advised.

"You'll never say anything about that other thing--the knife--will

you?" pleaded Curtis.

"Of course not," said Reid, impatiently. "They couldn't drag it out

of me. But you're drinking too much--you want to quit it. First

thing you know you'll be saying more than--get up and go out and take

a walk."

Curtis stared at Reid vacantly for a moment, as if not understanding,

then arose. He had regained possession of himself to a certain

extent, but his face was pale.

"I think I will go out," he said,

After a time he passed through the café door into a side street and,

refreshed a little by the cool air, started to walk along Tremont

Street toward the shopping district. It was two o'clock in the

afternoon and the streets were thronged.

Half a dozen reporters were idling in the lobby of the hotel, waiting

vainly for either Reid or Curtis. The newspapers were shouting for

another story from the only two men who could know a great deal of

the circumstances attending the tragedy. Reid, on his return, had

marched boldly through the crowd of reporters, paying no attention to

their questions. They had not seen Curtis.

As Curtis, now free of the reporters, crossed a side street off

Tremont on his way toward the shopping district he met Hutchinson

Hatch, who was bound for the hotel to see his man there. Hatch

instantly recognized him and fell in behind, curious to see where he

would go. At a favorable opportunity, safe beyond reach of the other

men, he intended to ask a few questions.

Curtis turned into Winter Street and strolled along through the crowd

of women. Half way down Winter Street Hatch followed, and then for a

moment he lost sight of him. He had gone into a store, he imagined.

As he stood at a door waiting, Curtis came out, rushed through the

crowd of women, slinging his arms like a madman, with frenzy in his

face. He ran twenty steps, then stumbled and fell.

Hatch immediately ran to his assistance, lifted him up and gazed into

the staring, terror-stricken eyes and an ashen face.

"What is it?" asked Hatch, quickly.

"I--I'm very ill. I--I think I need a doctor," gasped Curtis. "Take

me somewhere, please."

He fell back limply, half fainting, into Hatch's arms. A cab came

worming through the crowd; Hatch climbed into it, assisting Curtis,

and gave some directions to the cabby.

"And hurry," he added. "This gentleman is ill."

The cabby applied the whip and drove out into Tremont, then over

toward Park Street. Curtis aroused a little.

"Where're we going?" he demanded.

"To a doctor," replied Hatch,

Curtis sank back with eyes closed and his face white--so white that

Hatch felt of the pulse to assure himself that the heart was still

beating. After a few minutes the cab stopped and, still assisting

Curtis, Hatch went to the door. An aged woman answered the bell.

"Professor Van Dusen here?" asked the reporter.

"Yes."

"Please tell him that Mr. Hatch is here with a gentleman who needs

immediate attention," Hatch directed, hurriedly.

He knew his way here and, still supporting Curtis, walked in. The

woman disappeared. Curtis sank down on a couch in the little

reception room, looked at Hatch glassily for a moment, then without a

sound dropped back on the couch unconscious.

After a moment the door opened and there came in Professor Augustus

S. F. X. Van Dusen, The Thinking Machine. He squinted inquiringly at

Hatch, and Hatch waved his head toward Curtis.

"Dear me, dear me," exclaimed The Thinking Machine.

He leaned over the prostrate figure a moment, then disappeared into

another room, returning with a hypodermic. After a few anxious

minutes Curtis sat up straight. He stared at the two men with

unseeing eyes, and in them was unutterable terror.

"_I saw her! I saw her!_" he screamed. "_There was a dagger in her

heart. Marguerite!_"

Again he fell back, unconscious. The Thinking Machine squinted at

Hatch.

"The man's got delirium tremens," he snapped impatiently.

III

For fifteen minutes Hatch silently looked on as The Thinking Machine

worked over the unconscious man. Once or twice Curtis moved uneasily

and moaned slightly. Hatch had started to explain the situation to

The Thinking Machine, but the irascible scientist glared at him and

the reporter became silent. After ten or fifteen minutes The

Thinking Machine turned to Hatch more genially.

"He'll be all right in a little while now," he said. "What is it?"

"Well, it's a murder," Hatch began. "Marguerite Melrose, an actress,

was stabbed through the heart last night, and--"

"Murder?" interrupted The Thinking Machine. "Might it not have been

suicide?"

"Might have been; yes," said the reporter, after a moment's pause.

"But it appears to be murder."

"When you say it is murder," said The Thinking Machine, "you

immediately give the impression that you were there and saw it. Go

on."

From the beginning, then, Hatch told the story as he knew it; of the

stopping of The Green Dragon at the Monarch Inn, of the events there,

of the whereabouts of Curtis and Reid at the time the girl received

the knife thrust and of the confirmation of Reid's story. Then he

detailed those incidents of the arrival of the men with the girl at

Dr Leonard's house, of what had transpired there, of the effort

Curtis had made to get possession of the knife.

With finger tips pressed together and squinting steadily upward, The

Thinking Machine listened. At its end, which bore on the actions of

Curtis just preceding his appearance in the room with them, The

Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the couch where Curtis lay.

He ran his slender fingers idly through the unconscious man's thick

hair several times.

"Doesn't it strike you as perfectly possible, Mr. Hatch," he asked

finally, "that Miss Melrose did kill herself?"

"It may be perfectly possible, but it doesn't appear so," said Hatch.

"There was no motive."

"And certainly you've shown no motive for anything else," said the

other, crustily. "Still," he mused, "I really can't say anything

until I talk to him."

He again turned to his patient, and as he looked saw the red blood

surge back into the face.

"Ah, now we're all right," he announced.

Thus it happened, for after another ten minutes the patient sat up

suddenly on the couch and looked at the two men Before him,

bewildered.

"What's the matter?" he asked. The thickness was gone from his

speech; he was himself again, although a little shaky.

Briefly, Hatch explained to him what had happened, and he listened

silently. Finally he turned to The Thinking Machine.

"And this gentleman?" he asked. He noted the queer appearance of the

scientist, and stared into the squint eyes frankly.

"Professor Van Dusen, a distinguished scientist and physician," Hatch

introduced. "I brought you here. He has been working with you for

an hour."

"And now, Mr. Curtis," said The Thinking Machine, "if you will tell

us all you know about the murder of Miss Melrose--"

Curtis paled suddenly.

"Why do you ask me?" he demanded.

"You said a great deal while you were unconscious," remarked The

Thinking Machine, as he dreamily stared at the ceiling. "I know that

worry over that and too much alcohol have put you in a condition

bordering on nervous collapse. I think it would be better if you

told it all."

Hatch instantly saw the trend of the scientist's remarks, and

remained discreetly silent. Curtis stared at both for a moment, then

paced nervously across the room. He did not know what he might have

said, what chance word might have been dropped. Then, apparently, he

made up his mind, for he stopped suddenly in front of The Thinking

Machine.

"Do I look like a man who would commit murder?" ha asked.

"No, you do not," was the prompt response.

His recital of the story was similar to that of Hatch, but the

scientist listened carefully.

"Details! details!" he interrupted once.

The story was complete from the moment Curtis jumped out of the car

until the return to the hotel of Curtis and Reid. There the narrator

stopped.

"Mr. Curtis, why did you try to induce Dr. Leonard to give up the

knife to you?" asked The Thinking Machine, finally.

"Because--well, because--" He faltered, flushed and stopped.

"Because you were afraid it would bring the crime home to you?" asked

the scientist.

"I didn't know _what_ might happen," was the response.

"Is it your knife?"

Again the tell-tale flush overspread Curtis's face.

"No," he said, flatly.

"Is it Reid's knife?"

"Oh, no," he said, quickly.

"You were in love with Miss Melrose?"

"Yes," was the steady reply.

"Had she ever refused to marry you?"

"I had never asked her."

"Why?"

"Is this a third degree?" demanded Curtis, angrily, and he arose.

"Am I a prisoner?"

"Not at all," said The Thinking Machine, quietly. "You may be made a

prisoner, though, on what you said awhile unconscious. I am merely

trying to help you."

Curtis sank down in a chair with his head in his hands and remained

motionless for several minutes. At last he looked up.

"I'll answer your questions," he said.

"Why did you never ask Miss Melrose to marry you?"

"Because--well, because I understood another man, Donald MacLean, was

in love with her, and she might have loved him. I understood she

would have married him had it not been that by doing so she would

have caused his disinheritance. MacLean is now in Boston."

"Ah!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "Your friend Reid didn't

happen to be in love with her, too, did he?"

"Oh, no," was the reply. "Reid came here hoping to win the love of

Miss Dow, a society girl. I came with him."

"Miss Dow?" asked Hatch, quickly. "The girl who eloped last night

with Morgan Mason?"

"Yes," replied Curtis. "That elopement and this--crime have put Reid

almost in as bad a condition as I am."

"What elopement?" asked The Thinking Machine.

Hatch explained how Mason had procured a marriage license, how Miss

Dow and Mason had met at the Monarch Inn--where Miss Melrose must

have been killed according to all stories--how Miss Dow had written

to her parents from there of the elopement and then of their

disappearance. The Thinking Machine listened, but without apparent

interest.

"Have you such a knife as was used to kill Miss Melrose?" he asked at

the end.

"No."

"Did you ever have such a knife?"

"Well, once."

"Where did you carry it when it was not in your auto kit?"

"In my lower coat pocket."

"By the way, what kind of looking woman was Miss Melrose?"

"One of the most beautiful women I ever met," said Curtis, with a

certain enthusiasm. "Of ordinary height, superb figure--a woman who

would attract attention anywhere."

"I believe she wore a veil and an automobile mask at the time she was

killed?"

"Yes. They covered all her face except her chin."

"Could she, wearing an automobile mask, see either side of herself

without turning?" asked The Thinking Machine, pointedly. "Had you

intended to stab her, say while the car was in motion and had the

knife in your hand, even in daylight, could she have seen it without

turning her head? Or, if she had had the knife, could you have seen

it?"

Curtis shuddered a little.

"No, I don't believe so."

"Was she blonde or brunette?"

"Blonde, with great clouds of golden hair," said Curtis, and again

there was admiration in his tone.

"Golden hair?" Hatch repeated. "I understood Medical Examiner

Francis to say she had dark hair?"

"No, golden hair," was the positive reply.

"Did you see the body, Mr. Hatch?" asked the scientist.

"No. None of us saw it. Dr. Francis makes that a rule."

The Thinking Machine arose, excused himself and passed into another

room. They heard the telephone bell ring and then some one closed

the door connecting the two rooms. When the scientist returned he

went straight to a point which Hatch had impatiently awaited.

"What happened to you this afternoon in Winter Street?"

Curtis had retained his composure well up to this point; now he

became uneasy again. Quick pallor on his face was succeeded by a

flush which crept up to the roots of his hair.

"I've been drinking too much," he said at last. "That and this thing

have completely unnerved me. I am afraid I was not myself."

"What did you think you saw?" insisted The Thinking Machine.

"I went into a store for something. I've forgotten what now. I know

there was a great crowd of women--they were all about me. There I

saw--" He stopped and was silent for a moment. "There I saw," he

went on with an effort, "a woman--just a glimpse of her, over the

heads of the others in the store--and--"

"And what?" insisted The Thinking Machine.

"At the moment I would have sworn it was Marguerite Melrose," was the

reply.

"Of course you know you were mistaken?"

"I know it now," said Curtis. "It was a chance resemblance, but the

effect on me was awful. I ran out of there shrieking--it seemed to

me. Then I found myself here."

"And you don't know what you said or did from that time until the

present?" asked the scientist, curiously.

"No, except in a hazy sort of way."

After a while Martha, the scientist's aged servant, appeared in the

doorway.

"Mr. Mallory and a gentleman, sir."

"Let them come in," said The Thinking Machine. "Mr. Curtis," and he

turned to him gravely, "Mr. Reid is here. I sent for him as if at

your request to ask him two questions, If he answers those questions,

as I believe he will, I can demonstrate that you are not guilty of

and have no connection with the murder of Miss Melrose. Let me ask

these questions, without any hint or remark from you as to what the

answer must be. Are you willing?"

"I am," replied Curtis. His face was white, but his voice was firm.

Detective Mallory, whom Curtis didn't know, and Charles Reid entered

the room. Both looked about curiously. Mallory nodded brusquely at

Hatch. Reid looked at Curtis and Curtis looked away.

"Mr. Reid," said The Thinking Machine, without any preliminary, "Mr.

Curtis tells me that the knife used to kill Miss Melrose was your

property. Is that so?" he demanded quickly, as Curtis faced about

wonderingly.

"No," thundered Reid, fiercely.

"Is it Mr. Curtis's knife?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"Yes," flashed Reid. "It's a part of his auto kit."

Curtis started to speak; The Thinking Machine waved his hand toward

him. Detective Mallory caught the gesture and understood that Jack

Curtis was his prisoner for murder.

Curtis was led away and locked up. He raved and bitterly denounced

Reid for the information he had given, but he did not deny it.

Indeed, after the first burst of fury he said nothing.

Once he was under lock and key the police, led by Detective Mallory,

searched his rooms at the Hotel Teutonic and there they found a

handkerchief stained with blood. It was slight, still it was a

stain. This was immediately placed in the hands of an expert, who

pronounced it human blood. Then the case against Curtis seemed

complete; it was his knife, he had been in love with Miss Melrose,

therefore probably jealous of her, and here was the tell-tale

bloodstain.

Meanwhile Reid was permitted to go his way. He seemed crushed by the

rapid sequence of events, and read eagerly every line he could find

in the public prints concerning both the murder and the elopement of

Miss Dow. This latter affair, indeed, seemed to have greater sway

over his mind than the murder, or that a lifetime friend was now held

as the murderer.

Meanwhile The Thinking Machine had signified to Hatch his desire to

visit the scene of the crime and see what might be done there. Late

in the afternoon, therefore, they started, taking a train for a

village nearest the Monarch Inn.

"It's a most extraordinary case," The Thinking Machine said, "much

more extraordinary than you can imagine."

"In what respect?" asked the reporter.

"In motive, in the actual manner of the girl meeting her death and in

a dozen other details which I can't state now because I haven't all

the facts."

"You don't doubt but what it was murder?"

"It doesn't necessarily follow," said The Thinking Machine,

evasively. "Suppose we were seeking a motive for Miss Melrose's

suicide, what would we have? We would have her love affair with this

man MacLean whom she refused to marry because she knew he would be

disinherited. Suppose she had not seen him for a couple of

years--suppose she had made up her mind to give him up--that he had

suddenly appeared when she sat alone in the automobile in front of

the Monarch Inn--suppose, then, finding all her love reawakened, she

had decided to end it all?"

"But Curtis's knife and the blood on his handkerchief?"

"Suppose, having made up her mind to kill herself, she had sought a

weapon?" went on The Thinking Machine, as if there had been no

interruption. "What is more natural than she should have sought

something--the knife, say--in the tool bag or kit, which must have

been near her? Suppose she stabbed herself while the men were away

from the automobile, or even after they had started on again in the

darkness?"

Hatch looked a little crestfallen.

"You believe, then, that she did kill herself?" he asked.

"Certainly not," was the prompt response. "I _don't_ believe Miss

Melrose killed herself--but as yet I know nothing to the contrary.

As for the blood on Curtis's handkerchief, remember he helped carry

the body to Dr. Leonard; it might have come from that--it might have

come from a slight spattering of blood."

"But circumstances certainly implicate Curtis."

"I wouldn't convict any man of any crime on any circumstantial

evidence," was the response. "It's worthless unless a man is forced

to confess."

The reporter was puzzled, bewildered, and his face showed it. There

were many things he did not understand, but the principal question in

his mind took form:

"Why did you turn Curtis over to the police, then?"

"Because he is the man who owned the knife," was the reply. "I knew

he was lying to me from the first about the knife. Men have been

executed on less evidence than that."

The train stopped and they proceeded to the office of the medical

examiner, where the body of the woman lay. Professor Van Dusen was

readily permitted to see the body, even to offer his expert

assistance in an autopsy which was then being performed; but the

reporter was stopped at the door. After an hour The Thinking Machine

came out.

"She was stabbed from the right," he said in answer to Hatch's

inquiring look, "either by some one sitting at her right, by some one

leaning over her right shoulder, or she might have done it herself."

Then they went on to Monarch Inn, five miles away. Here, after a

comprehensive squint at the landscape, The Thinking Machine entered

and for half an hour questioned three waiters there.

Did these waiters see Mr. Reid? Yes. They identified his published

picture as a gentleman who had come in and taken a hot Scotch at the

bar. Anyone with him? No. Speak to anyone in the inn? Yes, a lady.

"What did she look like?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"Couldn't say, sir," the waiter replied. "She came in an automobile

and wore a mask, with a veil tied about her head and a long tan

automobile coat."

"With the mask on you couldn't see her face?"

"Only her chin, sir."

"No glimpse of her hair?"

"No, sir. It was covered by the veil."

Then The Thinking Machine turned loose a flood of questions. He

learned that the woman had been waiting at the inn for nearly an hour

when Reid entered; that she had come there alone and at her request

had been shown into a private parlor--"to wait for a gentleman," she

had told the waiter.

She had opened the door when she heard Reid enter and had glanced

out, but he had disappeared into the bar before she saw him. When he

started away she looked out again. Then she saw him and he saw her.

She seemed surprised and started to close the door, when he spoke to

her. No one heard what was said, but he went in and the door was

closed. No one knew just when either Reid or the woman left the inn.

Some half an hour or so after Reid entered the room a waiter rapped

on the door. There was no answer. He opened the door and went in,

but there was no one there. It was presumed then that the gentleman

she had been waiting for had appeared and they had gone out together.

It was a fact that an automobile had come up meanwhile--in addition

to that in which Curtis, Miss Melrose and Reid had come--and had gone

away again.

When all this questioning had come to an end and these facts were in

possession of The Thinking Machine, the reporter advanced a theory.

"That woman was unquestionably Miss Dow, who knew Reid and who eloped

that night with Morgan Mason."

The Thinking Machine looked at him a moment without speaking, then

led the way into the private room where the lady had been waiting.

Hatch followed. They remained there five or ten minutes, then The

Thinking Machine came out and started toward the front door, only

eight or ten feet from this room. The road was twenty feet away.

"Let's go," he said, finally.

"Where?" asked Hatch.

"Don't you see?" asked The Thinking Machine, irrelevantly, "that it

would have been perfectly possible for Miss Melrose herself to have

left the automobile and gone inside the inn for a few minutes?"

Following previously received directions The Thinking Machine now set

out to find the man who had charge of the gasoline tank. They went

away together and remained half an hour.

On the scientist's return to where Hatch had been waiting impatiently

they climbed into the car which had brought them to the inn.

"Two miles down this road, then the first road to your right until I

tell you to stop," was the order to the chauffeur.

"Where are you going?" asked Hatch, curiously.

"Don't know yet," was the enigmatic reply.

The car ran on through the night, with great, unblinking lights

staring straight out ahead on a road as smooth as asphalt. The turn

was made, then more slowly the car proceeded along the cross road.

At the second house, dimly discernible through the night, The

Thinking Machine gave the signal to stop.

Hatch leaped out, and The Thinking Machine followed. Together they

approached the house, a small cottage some distance back from the

road. As they went up the path they came upon another automobile,

but it had no lights and the engine was still. Even in the darkness

they could see that one of the forward wheels was gone, and the front

of the car was demolished.

"That fellow had a bad accident," Hatch remarked.

An old woman and a boy appeared at the door in answer to their rap.

"I am looking for a gentleman who was injured last night in an

automobile accident," said The Thinking Machine. "Is he still here?"

"Yes. Come in."

They stepped inside as a man's voice called from another room.

"Who is it?"

"Two gentlemen to see the man who was hurt," the woman called.

"Do you know his name?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"No, sir," the woman replied. Then the man who had spoken appeared.

"Would it be possible for us to see the gentleman who was hurt?"

asked The Thinking Machine.

"Well, the doctor said we would have to keep folks away from him,"

was the reply. "Is there anything I could tell you?"

"We would like to know who he is," said The Thinking Machine. "It

may be that we can take him off your hands."

"I don't know his name," the man explained; "but here are the things

we took off him. He was hurt on the head, and hasn't been able to

speak since he was brought here."

The Thinking Machine took a gold watch, a small notebook, two or

three cards of various business concerns, two railroad tickets to New

York and one thousand dollars in large bills. He merely glanced at

the papers. No name appeared anywhere on them; the same with the

railroad tickets. The business cards meant nothing at the moment.

It was the gold watch on which the scientist concentrated his

attention. He looked on both sides, then inside, carefully. Finally

he handed it back.

"What time did this gentleman come here?" he asked.

"We brought him in from the road about nine o'clock," was the reply.

"We heard his automobile smash into something and found him there

beside it a moment later. He was unconscious. His car had struck a

stone on the curve and he was thrown out head first."

"And where is his wife?"

"His wife?" The man looked from The Thinking Machine to the woman.

"His wife? We didn't see anybody else."

"Nobody ran away from the machine as you went out?" insisted the

scientist.

"No, sir," was the positive reply.

"And no woman has been here to inquire for him?"

"No, sir."

"Has anybody?"

"No, sir."

"What direction was the car going when it struck?"

"I couldn't tell you, sir. It had turned entirely over and was in

the middle of the road when we found it."

"What's the number of the car?"

"It didn't have any."

"This gentleman has good medical attention, I suppose?'

"Yes, sir. Dr. Leonard is attending him. He says his condition

isn't dangerous, and meanwhile we're letting him stay here, because

we suppose he'll make it all right with us when he gets well."

"Thank you--that's all," said The Thinking Machine. "Good-night."

With Hatch he turned and left the house.

"What is all this?" asked Hatch, bewildered.

"That man is Morgan Mason," said The Thinking Machine.

"The man who eloped with Miss Dow?" asked Hatch, breathlessly.

"Now, where is Miss Dow?" asked The Thinking Machine, in turn.

"You mean--"

The Thinking Machine waved his hand off into the vague night; it was

a gesture which Hatch understood perfectly.

Hutchinson Hatch was deeply thoughtful on the swift run back to the

village. There he and The Thinking Machine took train to Boston.

Hatch was turning over possibilities. Had Miss Dow eloped with some

one besides Mason? There had been no other name mentioned. Was it

possible that she killed Miss Melrose? Vaguely his mind clutched for

a motive for this, yet none appeared, and he dismissed the idea with

a laugh at its absurdity. Then, What? Where? How? Why?

"I suppose the story of an actress having been murdered in an

automobile under mysterious circumstances would have been telegraphed

all over the country, Mr. Hatch?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"Yes," said Hatch. "If you mean this story, there's not a city in

the country that doesn't know of it by this time."

"It's perfectly wonderful, the resources of the press," the scientist

mused.

Hatch nodded his acquiescence. He had hoped for a moment that The

Thinking Machine had asked the question as a preliminary to something

else, but that was apparently all. After a while the train jerked a

little and The Thinking Machine spoke again.

"I think, Mr. Hatch, I wouldn't yet print anything about the

disappearance of Miss Dow," he said. "It might be unwise at present.

No one else will find it out, so--"

"I understand," said Hatch. It was a command.

"By the way," the other went on, "do you happen to remember the name

of that Winter Street store that Curtis went in?"

"Yes," and he named it.

It was nearly midnight when The Thinking Machine and Hatch reached

Boston. The reporter was dismissed with a curt:

"Come up at noon to-morrow."

Hatch went his way. Next day at noon promptly he was waiting in the

reception room of The Thinking Machine's home. The scientist was

out--down in Winter Street, Martha explained--and Hatch waited

impatiently for his return. He came in finally.

"Well?" inquired the reporter.

"Impossible to say anything until day after to-morrow," said The

Thinking Machine.

"And then?" asked Hatch.

"The solution," replied the scientist positively. "Now I'm waiting

for some one."

"Miss Dow?"

"Meanwhile you might see Reid and find out in some way if he ever

happened to make a gift of any little thing, a thing that a woman

would wear on the outside of her coat, for instance, to Miss Dow."

"Lord, I don't think he'll say anything."

"Find out, too, when he intends to go back West."

It took Hatch three hours, and required a vast deal of patience and

skill, to find out that on a recent birthday Miss Dow had received a

present of a monogram belt buckle from Reid. That was all; and that

was not what The Thinking Machine meant. Hatch had the word of Miss

Dew's maid for it that while Miss Dow wore this belt at the time of

her elopement, it was underneath the automobile coat.

"Have you heard anything more from Miss Dow?" asked Hatch.

"Yes," responded the maid. "Her father received a letter from her

this morning. It was from Chicago, and said that she and her husband

were on their way to San Francisco and that the family might not hear

from them again until after the honeymoon."

"How? What?" gasped Hatch. His brain was in a muddle. "She in

Chicago, _with--her husband_?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is there any question about the letter being in her handwriting?"

"Not at all," replied the maid, positively. "It's perfectly

natural," she concluded.

"But--" Hatch began, then he stopped.

For one fleeting instant he was tempted to tell the maid that the man

whom the family had supposed was Miss Dew's husband was lying

unconscious at a farmhouse not a great way from the Monarch Inn, and

that there was no trace of Miss Dow. Now this letter! His head

whirled when he thought of it.

"Is there any question but that Miss Dow did elope with Mr. Mason and

not some other man?" he asked.

"It was Mr. Mason, all right," the girl responded. "I knew there was

to be an elopement and helped arrange for Miss Dow to go," she added,

confidentially. "It was Mr. Mason, I know."

Then Hatch rushed away and telephoned to The Thinking Machine. He

simply couldn't hold this latest development until he saw him again.

"We've made a mistake," he bellowed through the 'phone.

"What's that?" demanded The Thinking Machine, aggressively.

"Miss Dow is in Chicago with her husband--family has received a

letter from her--that man out there with the smashed head can't be

Mason," the reporter explained hurriedly.

"Dear me, dear me!" said The Thinking Machine over the wire. And

again: "Dear me!"

"Her maid told me all about it," Hatch rushed on, "that is, all about

her aiding Miss Dow to elope, and all that. Must be some mistake."

"Dear me!" again came in the voice of The Thinking Machine. Then:

"Is Miss Dow a blonde or brunette?"

The irrelevancy of the question caused Hatch to smile in spite of

himself.

"A brunette," he answered. "A pronounced brunette."

"Then," said The Thinking Machine, as if this were merely dependent

upon or a part of the blonde or brunette proposition, "get

immediately a picture of Mason somewhere--I suppose you can--go out

and see that man with the smashed head and see if it is Mason. Let

me know by 'phone."

"All right," said Hatch, rather hopelessly. "But it is impossible--"

"Don't say that," snapped The Thinking Machine. "Don't say that," he

repeated, angrily. "It annoys me exceedingly."

It was nearly ten o'clock that night when Hatch again 'phoned to The

Thinking Machine. He had found a photograph, he had seen the man

with the smashed head. They were the same. He so informed The

Thinking Machine.

"Ah," said that individual, quietly. "Did you find out about any

gift that Reid might have made to Miss Dow?" he asked.

"Yes, a monogram belt buckle of gold," was the reply.

Hatch was over his head and knew it. He was finding out things and

answering questions, which by the wildest stretch of his imagination,

he could not bring to bear on the matter in hand--the mystery

surrounding the murder of Marguerite Melrose, an actress.

"Meet me at my place here at one o'clock day after to-morrow,"

instructed The Thinking Machine. "Publish as little as you can of

this matter until you see me. It's extraordinary--perfectly

extraordinary. Good-by."

That was all. Hatch groped hopelessly through the tangle, seeking

one fact that he could grasp. Then it occurred to him that he had

never ascertained when Reid intended to return West, and he went to

the Hotel Teutonic for this purpose. The clerk informed him that

Reid was to start in a couple of days. Reid had hardly left his room

since Curtis was locked up.

Precisely at one o'clock on the second day following, as directed by

The Thinking Machine, Hatch appeared and was ushered in. The

Thinking Machine was bowed over a retort in his laboratory, and he

looked up at the reporter with a question in his eyes.

"Oh, yes," he said, as if recollecting for the first time the purpose

of the visit. "Oh, yes."

He led the way to the reception room and gave instructions to Martha

to admit whoever inquired for him; then he sat down and leaned back

in his chair. After a while the bell rang and two men were shown in.

One was Charles Reid; the other a detective whom Hatch knew.

"Ah, Mr. Reid," said The Thinking Machine. "I'm sorry to have

troubled you, but there were some questions I wanted to ask before

you went away. If you'll wait just a moment."

Reid bowed and took a seat.

"Is he under arrest?" Hatch inquired of the detective, aside.

"Oh, no," was the reply. "Oh, no. Detective Mallory told me to ask

him to come up. I don't know what for."

After a while the bell rang again. Then Hatch heard Detective

Mallory's voice in the hall and the rustle of skirts; then the voice

of another man. Mallory appeared at the door after a moment; behind

him came two veiled women and a man who was a stranger to Hatch.

"I'm going to make a request, Mr. Mallory," said The Thinking

Machine. "I know it will be a cause of pleasure to Mr. Reid. It is

that you release Mr. Curtis, who is charged with the murder of Miss

Melrose."

"Why?" demanded Mallory, quickly. Hatch and Reid stared at the

scientist curiously.

"This," said The Thinking Machine.

The two women simultaneously removed their veils.

One was Miss Marguerite Melrose.

"Miss Melrose that was," explained The Thinking Machine, "now Mrs.

Donald MacLean. This, gentlemen, is her husband. This other young

woman is Miss Dow's maid. Together I believe we will be able to

throw some light on the death of the young woman who was found in Mr.

Curtis's automobile."

Stupefied with amazement, Hatch stared at the woman whose reported

murder had startled and puzzled the entire country. Reid had shown

only slight emotion--an emotion of a kind hard to read. Finally he

advanced to Miss Melrose, or Mrs. MacLean, with outstretched hand.

"Marguerite," he said.

The girl looked deeply into his eyes, then took the proffered hand.

"And Jack Curtis?" she asked.

"If Detective Mallory will have him brought here we can immediately

end his connection with this case so far as your murder is

concerned," said The Thinking Machine.

"Who--who was murdered, then?" asked Hatch.

"A little circumstantial development is necessary to show," replied

The Thinking Machine.

Detective Mallory retired into another room and 'phoned to have

Curtis brought up. On his assurance that there had been a mistake

which he would explain later, Curtis set out from his cell with a

detective and within a few minutes appeared in the room, wonderingly.

One look at Marguerite and he was beside her, gripping her hand. For

a time he didn't speak; it was not necessary. Then the actress, with

flushed face, indicated MacLean, who had stood quietly by, an

interested but silent spectator.

"My husband, Jack," she said.

Quick comprehension swept over Curtis and he looked from one to

another. Then he approached MacLean with outstretched hand.

"I congratulate you," he said, with deep feeling. "Make her happy."

Reid had stood unobserved meanwhile. Hatch's glance traveled from

one to another of the persons in the room. He was seeking to explain

that expression on Reid's face, vainly thus far. There was a little

pause as Reid and Curtis came face to face, but neither spoke.

"Now, please, what does it all mean?" asked MacLean, who up to this

time had been silent.

"It's a strange study of the human brain," said The Thinking Machine,

"and incidentally a little proof that circumstantial evidence is

absolutely worthless. For instance, here it was proven that Miss

Melrose was dead, that Mr. Curtis was jealous of her, that while

drinking he had threatened her--this I learned at the Hotel Yarmouth,

but now it is unimportant--that his knife killed her, and finally

that there was blood on one of his handkerchiefs. This is the

complete circumstantial chain; and Miss Melrose appears, alive.

"Suppose we take the case from the point where I entered it. It will

be interesting as showing the methods of a brain which reduces all

things to tangible strands which may be woven into a whole, then

fitting them together. My knowledge of the affair began when Mr.

Curtis was brought to these apartments by Mr. Hatch. Mr. Curtis was

ill. I gave him a stimulant; he aroused suddenly and shrieked: 'I

saw her. There was a dagger in her heart. Marguerite!'

"My first impression was that he was insane; my next that he had

delirium tremens, because I saw he had been drinking heavily. Later

I saw it was temporary mental collapse due to excessive drinking and

a tremendous strain. Instantly I associated Marguerite with this--'a

dagger in her heart.' Therefore, Marguerite dead or wounded. 'I saw

her.' Dead or alive? These, then, were my first impressions.

"I asked Mr. Hatch what had happened. He told me Miss Melrose, an

actress, had been murdered the night before. I suggested suicide,

because suicide is always the first possibility in considering a case

of violent death which is not obviously accidental. He insisted that

he believed it was murder, and told me why. It was all he knew of

the story.

"There was the stopping of The Green Dragon at the Monarch Inn for

gasoline; the disappearance of Mr. Curtis, as he told the police, to

hunt for gasoline--partly proven by the fact that he brought it back;

the statement of Mr. Reid to the police that he had gone into the inn

for a hot Scotch, and confirmation of this. Above all, here was the

opportunity for the crime--if it were committed by any person other

than Curtis or Reid.

"Then Mr. Hatch repeated to me the statement made to him by Dr.

Leonard. The first thing that impressed me here was the fact that

Curtis had, in taking the girl into the house, carried her by the

shoulders. Instantly I saw, knowing that the girl had been stabbed

through the heart, how it would be possible for blood to get on Mr.

Curtis's hands, thence on his handkerchief or clothing. This was

before I knew or considered his connection with the death at all.

"Curtis told Dr. Leonard that the girl was Miss Melrose. The body

wasn't yet cold, therefore death must have come just before it

reached the doctor. Then the knife was discovered. Here was the

first tangible working clew--a rough knife, with a blade six or seven

inches long. Obviously not the sort of knife a woman would carry

about with her. Therefore, where did it come from?

"Curtis tried to induce the doctor to let him have the knife;

probably Curtis's knife, possibly Reid's. Why Curtis's? The nature

of the knife, a blade six or seven inches long, indicated a knife

used for heavy work, not for a penknife. Under ordinary

circumstances such a knife would not have been carried by Reid;

therefore it may have belonged to Curtis's auto kit. He might have

carried it in his pocket.

"Thus, considering _that it was Miss Melrose who was dead_, we had

these facts: Dead only a few minutes, possibly stabbed while the two

men were away from the car; Curtis's knife used--not a knife from any

other auto kit, mind you, _because Curtis recognized this knife_.

Two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time."

Every person in the room was leaning forward, eagerly listening;

Reid's face was perfectly white. The Thinking Machine finally arose,

walked over and ran his fingers through Reid's hair, then sat again

squinting at the ceiling. He spoke as if to himself.

"Then Mr. Hatch told me another important thing," he went on. "At

the moment it appeared a coincidence, later it assumed its complete

importance. This was that Dr. Leonard did not actually _see_ the

face of the girl--only the chin; that the hair was covered by a veil

and the mask covered the remainder of the face. Here for the first

time I saw that it was wholly possible that the woman _was not Miss

Melrose at all_. I saw it as a possibility; not that I believed it.

I had no reason to, then.

"The dress of the young woman meant nothing; it was that of thousands

of other young women who go automobiling--handsome tailor-made gown,

tan dust coat. Then I tricked Mr. Curtis--I suppose it is only fair

to use the proper word--into telling me his story by making him

believe he made compromising admissions while unconscious. I had, I

may say, too, examined his head minutely. I have always maintained

that the head of a murderer will show a certain indentation. Mr.

Curtis's head did not show this indentation, neither does Mr. Reid's.

"Mr. Curtis told me the first thing to show that the knife which

killed the girl--I still believed her Miss Melrose then--could have

passed out of his hands. He said when he leaped from the automobile

he thought he dropped something, searched for it a moment, failed to

find it, then, being in a hurry, went on. He called back to Mr. Reid

to search for what he had lost. That is when Mr. Curtis lost the

knife; that is when it passed into the possession of Mr. Reid. He

found it."

Every eye was turned on Reid. He sat as if fascinated, staring into

the upward turned face of the scientist.

"There we had a girl--presumably Miss Melrose--dead, by a knife owned

by Mr. Curtis, last in the possession of Mr. Reid. Mr. Hatch had

previously told me that the medical examiner said the wound which

killed the girl came from her right, in a general direction.

Therefore here was a possibility that Mr. Reid did it in the

automobile--a possibility, I say.

"I asked Mr. Curtis why he tried to recover the knife from Dr.

Leonard. He stammered and faltered, but really it was because,

having recognized the knife, he was afraid the crime would come home

to him. Mr. Curtis denied flatly that the knife was his, and in

denying told me that it was. It was not Mr. Reid's I was assured.

Mr. Curtis also told me of his love for Miss Melrose, but there was

nothing there, as it appeared, strong enough to suggest a motive for

murder. He mentioned you, Mr. MacLean, then.

"Then Mr. Curtis named Miss Dow as one whose hand had been sought by

Mr. Reid. Mr. Hatch told me this girl--Miss Dow--had eloped the

night before with Morgan Mason from Monarch Inn--or, to be exact,

that her family had received a letter from her stating that she was

eloping; that Mason had taken out a marriage license. Remember this

was the girl that Reid was in love with; it was singular that there

should have been a Monarch Inn end to that elopement as well as to

this tragedy.

"This meant nothing as bearing on the abstract problem before me

until Mr. Curtis described Miss Melrose as having golden hair. With

another minor scrap of information Mr. Hatch again opened up vast

possibilities by stating that the medical examiner, a careful man,

had said Miss Melrose had _dark_ hair. I asked him if he had seen

the body; he had not. But the medical examiner told him that.

Instantly in my mind the question was aroused: Was it _Miss Melrose_

who was killed? This was merely a possibility; it still had no great

weight with me.

"I asked Mr. Curtis as to the circumstances which caused his collapse

in Winter Street. He explained it was because he had seen a woman

whom he would have sworn was Miss Melrose if he had not known that

she was dead. This, following the dark hair and blonde hair puzzle,

instantly caused this point to stand forth sharply in my mind. Was

Miss Melrose dead at all? I had good reason then to believe that she

was _not_.

"Previously, with the idea of fixing for all time the ownership of

the knife--yet knowing in my own mind it was Mr. Curtis's--I had sent

for Mr. Reid. I told him Mr. Curtis had said it was his knife. Mr.

Reid fell into the trap and did the very thing I expected. He

declared angrily the knife was Mr. Curtis's, thinking Curtis had

tried to saddle the crime on him. Then I turned Mr. Curtis over to

the police. When he was locked up I was reasonably certain that he

did not commit any crime, because I had traced the knife from him to

Mr. Reid."

There was a glitter in Reid's eyes now. It was not fear, only a

nervous battle to restrain himself. The Thinking Machine went on:

"I saw the body of the dead woman--indeed, assisted at her autopsy.

She was a pronounced brunette--Miss Melrose was a blonde. The

mistake in identity was not an impossible one in view of the fact

that each wore a mask and had her hair tied up under a veil. That

woman was stabbed from the right--still a possibility of suicide."

"Who was the woman?" demanded Curtis. He seemed utterly unable to

control himself longer.

"Miss Elizabeth Dow, who was supposed to have eloped with Morgan

Mason," was the quiet reply.

Instant amazement was reflected on every face save Reid's, and again

every eye was turned to him. Miss Dow's maid burst into tears.

"Mr. Reid knew who the woman was all the time," said The Thinking

Machine. "Knowing then that Miss Dow was the dead woman--this belief

being confirmed by a monogram gold belt buckle, 'E.D.,' on the

body--I proceeded to find out all I could in this direction. The

waiters had seen Mr. Reid in the inn; had seen him talking to a

masked and veiled lady who had been waiting for nearly an hour; had

seen him go into a room with her, but had not seen them leave the

inn. Mr. Reid had recognized the lady--not she him. How? By a

glimpse of the monogram belt buckle which he knew because he probably

gave it to her."

"He did," interposed Hatch.

"I did," said Reid, calmly. It was the first time he had spoken.

"Now, Mr. Reid went into the room and closed the door, carrying with

him Mr. Curtis's knife," went on The Thinking Machine. "I can't tell

you from _personal observation_ what happened in that room, but I

know. Mr. Reid learned in some way that Miss Dow was going to elope;

he learned that she had been waiting long past the time when Mason

was due there; that she believed he had humiliated her by giving up

the idea at the last minute. Being in a highly nervous condition,

she lost faith in Mason and in herself, and perhaps mentioned

suicide?"

"She did," said Reid, calmly.

"Go on, Mr. Reid," suggested The Thinking Machine.

"I believed, too, that Mason had changed his mind," the young man

continued, with steady voice. "I pleaded with Miss Dow to give up

the idea of eloping, because, remember, I loved her, too. She

finally consented to go on with our party, as her automobile had

gone. We came out of the inn together. When we reached the

automobile--The Green Dragon, I mean--I saw Miss Melrose getting into

Mr. MacLean's automobile, which had come up meanwhile. Instantly I

saw, or imagined, the circumstances, and said nothing to Miss Dow

about it, particularly as Mr. MacLean's car dashed away at full speed.

"Now, in taking Miss Dow to The Green Dragon it had been my purpose

to introduce her to Miss Melrose. She knew Mr. Curtis. When I saw

Miss Melrose was gone I knew Curtis would wonder why. I couldn't

explain, because every moment I was afraid Mason would appear to

claim Miss Dow and I was anxious to get her as far away as possible.

Therefore I requested her not to speak until we reached the next inn,

and there I would explain to Curtis.

"Somewhere between the Monarch Inn and the inn we had started for

Miss Dow changed her mind; probably was overcome by the humiliation

of her position, and she used the knife. She had seen me take the

knife from my pocket and throw it into the tool kit on the floor

beside her. It was comparatively a trifling matter for her to stoop

and pick it up, almost from under her feet, and--"

"Under all these circumstances, as stated by Mr. Reid," interrupted

The Thinking Machine, "we understand why, after he found the girl

dead, he didn't tell all the truth, even to Curtis. Any jury on

earth would have convicted him of murder on circumstantial evidence.

Then, when he saw Miss Dow dead, mistaken for Miss Melrose, he could

not correct the impression without giving himself away. He was

forced to silence.

"I realized these things--not in exact detail as Mr. Reid has told

them, but in a general way--after my talk with the waiters. Then I

set out to find out _why_ Mason had not appeared. It was possibly

due to accident. On a chance entirely I asked the man in charge of

the gasoline tank at the Monarch if he had heard of an accident

nearby on the night of the tragedy. He had.

"With Mr. Hatch I found the injured man. A monogram, 'M.M.,' on his

watch, told me it was Morgan Mason. Mr. Mason had a serious accident

and still lies unconscious. He was going to meet Miss Dow when this

happened. He had two railroad tickets to New York--for himself and

bride--in his pocket."

Reid still sat staring at The Thinking Machine, waiting. The others

were awed into silence by the story of the tragedy.

"Having located both Mason and Miss Dow to my satisfaction, I then

sought to find what had become of Miss Melrose. Mr. Reid could have

told me this, but he wouldn't have, because it would have turned the

light on the very thing which he was trying to keep hidden. With

Miss Melrose alive, it was perfectly possible that Curtis had seen

her in the Winter Street store.

"I asked Mr. Hatch if he remembered what store it was. He did. I

also asked Mr. Hatch if such a story as the murder of Miss Melrose

would be telegraphed all over the country. He said it would. It did

not stand to reason that if Miss Melrose were in any city, or even on

a train, she could have failed to hear of her own murder, which would

instantly have called forth a denial.

"Therefore, where was she? On the water, out of reach of newspapers?

I went to the store in Winter Street and asked if any purchases had

been sent from there to any steamer about to sail on the day

following the tragedy. There had been several purchases made by a

woman who answered Miss Melrose's description as I had it, and these

had been sent to a steamer which sailed for Halifax.

"Miss Melrose and Mr. MacLean, married then, were on that steamer. I

wired to Halifax to ascertain if they were coming back immediately.

They were. I waited for them. Otherwise, Mr. Hatch, I should have

given you the solution of the mystery two days ago. As it was, I

waited until Miss Melrose, or Mrs. MacLean, returned. I think that's

all."

"The letter from Miss Dow in Chicago?" Hatch reminded him.

"Oh, yes," said The Thinking Machine. "That was sent to a friend in

her confidence, and mailed on a specified date. As a matter of fact,

she and Mason were going to New York and thence to Europe. Of

course, as matters happened, the two letters--the other being the one

mailed from the Monarch Inn--were sent and could not be recalled."

* * * * * * * *

This strange story was one of the most astonishing news features the

American newspapers ever handled. Charles Reid was arrested,

established his story beyond question, and was released. His

principal witnesses were Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Jack

Curtis and Mrs. Donald MacLean.

The Flaming Phantom

BY JACQUES FUTRELLE

Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, stood beside the City Editor's desk,

smoking and waiting patiently for that energetic gentleman to dispose

of several matters in hand. City Editors always have several matters

in hand, for the profession of keeping count of the pulse-beat of the

world is a busy one. Finally this City Editor emerged from a mass of

other things and picked up a sheet of paper on which he had scribbled

some strange hieroglyphics, these representing his interpretation of

the art of writing.

"Afraid of ghosts?" he asked.

"Don't know," Hatch replied, smiling a little. "I never happened to

meet one."

"Well, this looks like a good story," the City Editor explained.

"It's a haunted house. Nobody can live in it; all sorts of strange

happenings, demoniacal laughter, groans and things. House is owned

by Ernest Weston, a broker. Better jump down and take a look at it.

If it is promising, you might spend a night in it for a Sunday story.

Not afraid, are you?"

"I never heard of a ghost hurting anyone," Hatch replied, still

smiling a little. "If this one hurts me it will make the story

better."

Thus attention was attracted to the latest creepy mystery of a small

town by the sea which in the past had not been wholly lacking in

creeping mysteries.

Within two hours Hatch was there. He readily found the old Weston

house, as it was known, a two-story, solidly built frame structure,

which had stood for sixty or seventy years high upon a cliff

overlooking the sea, in the center of a land plot of ten or twelve

acres. From a distance it was imposing, but close inspection showed

that, outwardly, at least, it was a ramshackle affair.

Without having questioned anyone in the village, Hatch climbed the

steep cliff road to the old house, expecting to find some one who

might grant him permission to inspect it. But no one appeared; a

settled melancholy and gloom seemed to overspread it; all the

shutters were closed forbiddingly.

There was no answer to his vigorous knock on the front door, and he

shook the shutters on a window without result. Then he passed around

the house to the back. Here he found a door and dutifully hammered

on it. Still no answer. He tried it, and passed in. He stood in

the kitchen, damp, chilly and darkened by the closed shutters.

One glance about this room and he went on through a back hall to the

dining-room, now deserted, but at one time a comfortable and

handsomely furnished place. Its hardwood floor was covered with

dust; the chill of disuse was all-pervading. There was no furniture,

only the litter which accumulates of its own accord.

From this point, just inside the dining-room door, Hatch began a sort

of study of the inside architecture of the place, To his left was a

door, the butler's pantry. There was a passage through, down three

steps into the kitchen he had just left.

Straight before him, set in the wall, between two windows, was a

large mirror, seven, possibly eight, feet tall and proportionately

wide. A mirror of the same size was set in the wall at the end of

the room to his left. From the dining-room he passed through a wide

archway into the next room. This archway made the two rooms almost

as one. This second, he presumed, had been a sort of living-room,

but here, too, was nothing save accumulated litter, an old-fashioned

fireplace and two long mirrors. As he entered, the fireplace was to

his immediate left, one of the large mirrors was straight ahead of

him and the other was to his right.

Next to the mirror in the end was a passageway of a little more than

usual size which had once been closed with a sliding door. Hatch

went through this into the reception-hall of the old house. Here, to

his right, was the main hall, connected with the reception-hall by an

archway, and through this archway he could see a wide, old-fashioned

stairway leading up. To his left was a door, of ordinary size,

closed. He tried it and it opened. He peered into a big room

beyond. This room had been the library. It smelled of books and

damp wood. There was nothing here--not even mirrors.

Beyond the main hall lay only two rooms, one a drawing-room of the

generous proportions our old folks loved, with its gilt all tarnished

and its fancy decorations covered with dust. Behind this, toward the

back of the house, was a small parlor. There was nothing here to

attract his attention, and he went upstairs. As he went he could see

through the archway into the reception-hall as far as the library

door, which he had left closed.

Upstairs were four or five roomy suites. Here, too, in small rooms

designed for dressing, he saw the owner's passion for mirrors again.

As he passed through room after room he fixed the general arrangement

of it in his mind, and later on paper, to study it, so that, if

necessary, he could leave any part of the house in the dark. He

didn't know but what this might be necessary, hence his care--the

same care he had evidenced downstairs.

After another casual examination of the lower floor, Hatch went out

the back way to the barn. This stood a couple of hundred feet back

of the house and was of more recent construction. Above, reached by

outside stairs, were apartments intended for the servants. Hatch

looked over these rooms, but they, too, had the appearance of not

having been occupied for several years. The lower part of the barn,

he found, was arranged to house half a dozen horses and three or four

traps.

"Nothing here to frighten anybody," was his mental comment as he left

the old place and started back toward the village. It was three

o'clock in the afternoon. His purpose was to learn then all he could

of the "ghost," and return that night for developments.

He sought out the usual village bureau of information, the town

constable, a grizzled old chap of sixty years, who realized his

importance as the whole police department, and who had the gossip and

information, more or less distorted, of several generations at his

tongue's end.

The old man talked for two hours--he was glad to talk--seemed to have

been longing for just such a glorious opportunity as the reporter

offered. Hatch sifted out what he wanted, those things which might

be valuable in his story.

It seemed, according to the constable, that the Weston house had not

been occupied for five years, since the death of the father of Ernest

Weston, present owner. Two weeks before the reporter's appearance

there Ernest Weston had come down with a contractor and looked over

the old place.

"We understand here," said the constable, judicially, "that Mr.

Weston is going to be married soon, and we kind of thought he was

having the house made ready for his Summer home again."

"Whom do you understand he is to marry?" asked Hatch, for this was

news.

"Miss Katherine Everard, daughter of Curtis Everard, a banker up in

Boston," was the reply. "I know he used to go around with her before

the old man died, and they say since she came out in Newport he has

spent a lot of time with her."

"Oh, I see," said Hatch. "They were to marry and come here?"

"That's right," said the constable. "But I don't know when, since

this ghost story has come up."

"Oh, yes, the ghost," remarked Hatch. "Well, hasn't the work of

repairing begun?"

"No, not inside," was the reply. "There's been some work done on the

grounds--in the daytime--but not much of that, and I kind of think it

will be a long time before it's all done."

"What is the story, anyway?"

"Well," and the old constable rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It

seems sort of funny. A few days after Mr. Weston was down here a

gang of laborers, mostly Italians, came down to work and decided to

sleep in the house--sort of camp out--until they could repair a leak

in the barn and move in there. They got here late in the afternoon

and didn't do much that day but move into the house, all upstairs,

and sort of settle down for the night. About one o'clock they heard

some sort of noise downstairs, and finally all sorts of a racket and

groans and yells, and they just naturally came down to see what it

was.

"Then they saw the ghost. It was in the reception-hall, some of 'em

said, others said it was in the library, but anyhow it was there, and

the whole gang left just as fast as they knew how. They slept on the

ground that night. Next day they took out their things and went back

to Boston. Since then nobody here has heard from 'em."

"What sort of a ghost was it?"

"Oh, it was a man ghost, about nine feet high, and he was blazing

from head to foot as if he was burning up," said the constable. "He

had a long knife in his hand and waved it at 'em. They didn't stop

to argue. They ran, and as they ran they heard the ghost a-laughing

at them."

"I should think he would have been amused," was Hatch's somewhat

sarcastic comment. "Has anybody who lives in the village seen the

ghost?"

"No; we're willing to take their word for it, I suppose," was the

grinning reply, "because there never was a ghost there before. I go

up and look over the place every afternoon, but everything seems to

be all right, and I haven't gone there at night. It's quite a way

off my beat," he hastened to explain.

"A man ghost with a long knife," mused Hatch. "Blazing, seems to be

burning up, eh? That sounds exciting. Now, a ghost who knows his

business never appears except where there has been a murder. Was

there ever a murder in that house?"

"When I was a little chap I heard there was a murder or something

there, but I suppose if I don't remember it nobody else here does,"

was the old man's reply. "It happened one Winter when the Westons

weren't there. There was something, too, about jewelry and diamonds,

but I don't remember just what it was."

"Indeed?" asked the reporter.

"Yes, something about somebody trying to steal a lot of jewelry--a

hundred thousand dollars' worth. I know nobody ever paid much

attention to it. I just heard about it when I was a boy, and that

was at least fifty years ago."

"I see," said the reporter.

* * * * * * * *

That night at nine o'clock, under cover of perfect blackness, Hatch

climbed the cliff toward the Weston house. At one o'clock he came

racing down the hill, with frequent glances over his shoulder. His

face was pallid with a fear which he had never known before and his

lips were ashen. Once in his room in the village hotel Hutchinson

Hatch, the nerveless young man, lighted a lamp with trembling hands

and sat with wide, staring eyes until the dawn broke through the east.

He had seen the flaming phantom.

It was ten o'clock that morning when Hutchinson Hatch called on

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen--The Thinking Machine. The

reporter's face was still white, showing that he had slept little, if

at all. The Thinking Machine squinted at him a moment through his

thick glasses, then dropped into a chair.

"Well?" he queried.

"I'm almost ashamed to come to you, Professor," Hatch confessed,

after a minute, and there was a little embarrassed hesitation in his

speech. "It's another mystery."

"Sit down and tell me about it."

Hatch took a seat opposite the scientist

"I've been frightened," he said at last, with a sheepish grin;

"horribly, awfully frightened. I came to you to know what frightened

me."

"Dear me! Dear me!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine, "What is it?"

Then Hatch told him from the beginning the story of the haunted house

as he knew it; how he had examined the house by daylight, just what

he had found, the story of the old murder and the jewels, the fact

that Ernest Weston was to be married. The scientist listened

attentively.

"It was nine o'clock that night when I went to the house the second

time," said Hatch. "I went prepared for something, but not for what

I saw."

"Well, go on," said the other, irritably.

"I went in while it was perfectly dark. I took a position on the

stairs because I had been told the--the THING--had been seen from the

stairs, and I thought that where it had been seen once it would be

seen again. I had presumed it was some trick of a shadow, or

moonlight, or something of the kind. So I sat waiting calmly. I am

not a nervous man--that is, I never have been until now.

"I took no light of any kind with me. It seemed an interminable time

that I waited, staring into the reception-room in the general

direction of the library. At last, as I gazed into the darkness, I

heard a noise. It startled me a bit, but it didn't frighten me, for

I put it down to a rat running across the floor.

"But after a while I heard the most awful cry a human being ever

listened to. It was neither a moan nor a shriek--merely a--a cry.

Then, as I steadied my nerves a little, a figure--a blazing, burning

white figure--grew out of nothingness before my very eyes, in the

reception-room. It actually grew and assembled as I looked at it."

He paused, and The Thinking Machine changed his position slightly.

"The figure was that of a man, apparently, I should say, eight feet

high. Don't think I'm a fool--I'm not exaggerating. It was all in

white and seemed to radiate a light, a ghostly, unearthly light,

which, as I looked, grew brighter, I saw no face to the THING, but it

had a head. Then I saw an arm raised and in the hand was a dagger,

blazing as was the figure.

"By this time I was a coward, a cringing, frightened

coward--frightened not at what I saw, but at the weirdness of it.

And then, still as I looked, the--the THING--raised the other hand,

and there, in the air before my eyes, wrote with his own finger--_on

the very face of the air_, mind you--one word: 'Beware!'"

"Was it a man's or woman's writing?" asked The Thinking Machine.

The matter-of-fact tone recalled Hatch, who was again being carried

away by fear, and he laughed vacantly.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know."

"Go on."

"I have never considered myself a coward, and certainly I am not a

child to be frightened at a thing which my reason tells me is not

possible, and, despite my fright, I compelled myself to action. If

the THING were a man I was not afraid of it, dagger and all; if it

were not, it could do me no injury.

"I leaped down the three steps to the bottom of the stairs, and while

the THING stood there with upraised dagger, with one hand pointing at

me, I rushed for it. I think I must have shouted, because I have a

dim idea that I heard my own voice. But whether or not I did I--"

Again he paused. It was a distinct effort to pull himself together.

He felt like a child the cold, squint eyes of The Thinking Machine

were turned on him disapprovingly.

"Then--the THING disappeared just as it seemed I had my hands on it.

I was expecting a dagger thrust. Before my eyes, while I was staring

at it, I suddenly saw _only half of it_. Again I heard the cry, and

the other half disappeared--my hands grasped empty air.

"Where the THING had been there was nothing. The impetus of my rush

was such that I went right on past the spot where the THING had been,

and found myself groping in the dark in a room which I didn't place

for an instant. Now I know it was the library.

"By this time I was mad with terror. I smashed one of the windows

and went through it. Then from there, until I reached my room, I

didn't stop running. I couldn't. I wouldn't have gone back to the

reception-room for all the millions in the world."

The Thinking Machine twiddled his fingers idly; Hatch sat gazing at

him with anxious, eager inquiry in his eyes.

"So when you ran and the--the THING moved away or disappeared you

found yourself in the library?" The Thinking Machine asked at last.

"Yes."

"Therefore you must have run from the reception-room through the door

into the library?"

"Yes."

"You left that door closed that day?"

"Yes."

Again there was a pause.

"Smell anything?" asked The Thinking Machine,

"No."

"You figure that the THING, as you call it, must have been just about

in the door?"

"Yes."

"Too bad you didn't notice the handwriting--that is, whether it

seemed to be a man's or a woman's."

"I think, under the circumstances, I would be excused for omitting

that," was the reply.

"You said you heard something that you thought must be a rat," went

on The Thinking Machine. "What was this?"

"I don't know."

"Any squeak about it?"

"No, not that I noticed."

"Five years since the house was occupied," mused the scientist. "How

far away is the water?"

"The place overlooks the water, but it's a steep climb of three

hundred yards from the water to the house."

That seemed to satisfy The Thinking Machine as to what actually

happened.

"When you went over the house in daylight, did you notice if any of

the mirrors were dusty?" he asked.

"I should presume that all were," was the reply. "There's no reason

why they should have been otherwise."

"But you didn't notice particularly that some were not dusty?" the

scientist insisted.

"No. I merely noticed that they were there."

The Thinking Machine sat for a long time squinting at the ceiling,

then asked, abruptly:

"Have you seen Mr. Weston, the owner?"

"No."

"See him and find out what he has to say about the place, the murder,

the jewels, and all that. It would be rather a queer state of

affairs if, say, a fortune in jewels should be concealed somewhere

about the place, wouldn't it?"

"It would," said Hatch. "It would."

"Who is Miss Katherine Everard?"

"Daughter of a banker here, Curtis Everard. Was a reigning belle at

Newport for two seasons. She is now in Europe, I think, buying a

trousseau, possibly."

"Find out all about her, and what Weston has to say, then come back

here," said The Thinking Machine, as if in conclusion. "Oh, by the

way," he added, "look up something of the family history of the

Westons. How many heirs were there? Who are they? How much did

each one get? All those things. That's all."

Hatch went out, far more composed and quiet than when he entered, and

began the work of finding out those things The Thinking Machine had

asked for, confident now that there would be a solution of the

mystery.

That night the flaming phantom played new pranks. The town

constable, backed by half a dozen villagers, descended upon the place

at midnight, to be met in the yard by the apparition in person.

Again the dagger was seen; again the ghostly laughter and the awful

cry were heard.

"Surrender or I'll shoot," shouted the constable, nervously.

A laugh was the answer, and the constable felt something warm spatter

in his face. Others in the party felt it, too, and wiped their faces

and hands. By the light of the feeble lanterns they carried they

examined their handkerchiefs and hands. Then the party fled in awful

disorder.

The warmth they had felt was the warmth of blood--red blood, freshly

drawn.

III

Hatch found Ernest Weston at luncheon with another gentleman at one

o'clock that day. This other gentleman was introduced to Hatch as

George Weston, a cousin. Hatch instantly remembered George Weston

for certain eccentric exploits at Newport a season or so before; and

also as one of the heirs of the original Weston estate.

Hatch thought he remembered, too, that at the time Miss Everard had

been so prominent socially at Newport, George Weston had been her

most ardent suitor. It was rumored that there would have been an

engagement between them, but her father objected. Hatch looked at

him curiously; his face was clearly a dissipated one, yet there was

about him the unmistakable polish and gentility of the well-bred man

of society.

Hatch knew Ernest Weston as Weston knew Hatch; they had met

frequently in the ten years Hatch had been a newspaper reporter, and

Weston had been courteous to him always. The reporter was in doubt

as to whether to bring up the subject on which he had sought out

Ernest Weston, but the broker brought it up himself, smilingly.

"Well, what is it this time?" he asked, genially. "The ghost down on

the South Shore, or my forthcoming marriage?"

"Both," replied Hatch.

Weston talked freely of his engagement to Miss Everard, which he said

was to have been announced in another week, at which time she was due

to return to America from Europe. The marriage was to be three or

four months later, the exact date had not been set.

"And I suppose the country place was being put in order as a Summer

residence?" the reporter asked.

"Yes. I had intended to make some repairs and changes there, and

furnish it, but now I understand that a ghost has taken a hand in the

matter and has delayed it. Have you heard much about this ghost

story?" he asked, and there was a slight smile on his face.

"I have seen the ghost," Hatch answered.

"You have?" demanded the broker.

George Weston echoed the words and leaned forward, with a new

interest in his eyes, to listen. Hatch told them what had happened

in the haunted house--all of it. They listened with the keenest

interest, one as eager as the other.

"By George!" exclaimed the broker, when Hatch had finished, "How do

you account for it?"

"I don't," said Hatch, flatly. "I can offer no possible solution. I

am not a child to be tricked by the ordinary illusion, nor am I of

the temperament which imagines things, but I can offer no explanation

of this."

"It must be a trick of some sort," said George Weston.

"I was positive of that," said Hatch, "but if it is a trick, it is

the cleverest I ever saw."

The conversation drifted on to the old story of missing jewels and a

tragedy in the house fifty years before. Now Hatch was asking

questions by direction of The Thinking Machine; he himself hardly saw

their purport, but he asked them.

"Well, the full story of that affair, the tragedy there, would open

up an old chapter in our family which is nothing to be ashamed of, of

course," said the broker, frankly; "still it is something we have not

paid much attention to for many years. Perhaps George here knows it

better than I do. His mother, then a bride, heard the recital of the

story from my grandmother."

Ernest Weston and Hatch looked inquiringly at George Weston, who

lighted a fresh cigarette and leaned over the table toward them. He

was an excellent talker.

"I've heard my mother tell of it, but it was a long time ago," he

began. "It seems, though, as I remember it, that my

great-grandfather, who built the house, was a wealthy man, as

fortunes went in those days, worth probably a million dollars.

"A part of this fortune, say about one hundred thousand dollars, was

in jewels, which had come with the family from England. Many of

those pieces would be of far greater value now than they were then,

because of their antiquity. It was only on state occasions, I might

say, when these were worn, say, once a year.

"Between times the problem of keeping them safely was a difficult

one, it appeared. This was before the time of safety deposit vaults.

My grandfather conceived the idea of hiding the jewels in the old

place down on the South Shore, instead of keeping them in the house

he had in Boston. He took them there accordingly.

"At this time one was compelled to travel down the South Shore, below

Cohasset anyway, by stagecoach. My grandfather's family was then in

the city, as it was Winter, so he made the trip alone. He planned to

reach there at night, so as not to attract attention to himself, to

hide the jewels about the house, and leave that same night for Boston

again by a relay of horses he had arranged for. Just what happened

after he left the stagecoach, below Cohasset, no one ever knew except

by surmise."

The speaker paused a moment and relighted his cigarette.

"Next morning my great-grandfather was found unconscious and badly

injured on the veranda of the house. His skull had been fractured.

In the house a man was found dead. No one knew who he was; no one

within a radius of many miles of the place had ever seen him.

"This led to all sorts of surmises, the most reasonable of which, and

the one which the family has always accepted, being that my

grandfather had gone to the house in the dark, had there met some one

who was stopping there that night as a shelter from the intense cold,

that this man learned of the jewels, that he had tried robbery and

there was a fight.

"In this fight the stranger was killed inside the house, and my

great-grandfather, injured, had tried to leave the house for aid. He

collapsed on the veranda where he was found and died without having

regained consciousness. That's all we know or can surmise reasonably

about the matter."

"Were the jewels ever found?" asked the reporter.

"No. They were not on the dead man, nor were they in the possession

of my grandfather."

"It is reasonable to suppose, then, that there was a third man and

that he got away with the jewels?" asked Ernest Weston.

"It seemed so, and for a long time this theory was accepted. I

suppose it is now, but some doubt was cast on it by the fact that

only two trails of footsteps led to the house and none out. There

was a heavy snow on the ground. If none led out it was obviously

impossible that anyone came out."

Again there was silence. Ernest Weston sipped his coffee slowly.

"It would seem from that," said Ernest Weston, at last, "that the

jewels were hidden before the tragedy, and have never been found."

George Weston smiled.

"Off and on for twenty years the place was searched, according to my

mother's story," he said. "Every inch of the cellar was dug up;

every possible nook and corner was searched. Finally the entire

matter passed out of the minds of those who knew of it, and I doubt

if it has ever been referred to again until now."

"A search even now would be almost worth while, wouldn't it?" asked

the broker.

George Weston laughed aloud.

"It might be," he said, "but I have some doubt. A thing that was

searched for for twenty years would not be easily found."

So it seemed to strike the others after a while and the matter was

dropped.

"But this ghost thing," said the broker, at last. "I'm interested in

that. Suppose we make up a ghost party and go down to-night. My

contractor declares he can't get men to work there."

"I would be glad to go," said George Weston, "but I'm running over to

the Vandergrift ball in Providence to-night."

"How about you, Hatch?" asked the broker.

"I'll go, yes," said Hatch, "as one of several," he added with a

smile.

"Well, then, suppose we say the constable and you and I?" asked the

broker; "to-night?"

"All right."

After making arrangements to meet the broker later that afternoon he

rushed away--away to The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened,

then resumed some chemical test he was making.

"Can't you go down with us to-night?" Hatch asked.

"No," said the other. "I'm going to read a paper before a scientific

society and prove that a chemist in Chicago is a fool. That will

take me all evening."

"To-morrow night?" Hatch insisted.

"No--the next night."

This would be on Friday night--just in time for the feature which had

been planned for Sunday. Hatch was compelled to rest content with

this, but he foresaw that he would have it all, with a solution. It

never occurred to him that this problem, or, indeed, that any

problem, was beyond the mental capacity of Professor Van Dusen.

Hatch and Ernest Weston toot a night train that evening, and on their

arrival in the village stirred up the town constable.

"Will you go with us?" was the question.

"Both of you going?" was the counter-question.

"Yes."

"I'll go," said the constable promptly. "Ghost!" and he laughed

scornfully, "I'll have him in the lockup by morning."

"No shooting, now," warned Weston. "There must be somebody back of

this somewhere; we understand that, but there is no crime that we

know of. The worst is possibly trespassing."

"I'll get him all right," responded the constable, who still

remembered the experience where blood--warm blood--had been thrown in

his face. "And I'm not so sure there isn't a crime."

That night about ten the three men went into the dark, forbidding

house and took a station on the stairs where Hatch had sat when he

saw the THING--whatever it was. There they waited. The constable

moved nervously from time to time, but neither of the others paid any

attention to him.

At last the--the THING appeared. There had been a preliminary sound

as of something running across the floor, then suddenly a flaming

figure of white seemed to grow into being in the reception-room. It

was exactly as Hatch had described it to The Thinking Machine.

Dazed, stupefied, the three men looked, looked as the figure raised a

hand, pointing toward them, and wrote a word in the air--positively

in the air. The finger merely waved, and there, floating before

them, were letters, flaming letters, in the utter darkness. This

time the word was: "Death."

Faintly, Hatch, fighting with a fear which again seized him,

remembered that The Thinking Machine had asked him if the handwriting

was that of a man or woman; now he tried to see. It was as if drawn

on a blackboard, and there was a queer twist to the loop at the

bottom. He sniffed to see if there was an odor of any sort. There

was not.

Suddenly he felt some quick, vigorous action from the constable

behind him. There was a roar and a flash in his ear, he knew the

constable had fired at the THING. Then came the cry and

laugh--almost a laugh of derision--he had heard them before. For one

instant the figure lingered and then, before their eyes, faded again

into utter blackness. Where it had been was nothing--nothing.

_The constable's shot had had no effect._

Three deeply mystified men passed down the hill to the village from

the old house. Ernest Weston, the owner, had not spoken since before

the--the THING appeared there in the reception-room, or was it in the

library? He was not certain--he couldn't have told. Suddenly he

turned to the constable.

"I told you not to shoot."

"That's all right," said the constable. "I was there in my official

capacity, and I shoot when I want to."

"But the shot did no harm," Hatch put in.

"I would swear it went right through it, too," said the constable,

boastfully. "I can shoot."

Weston was arguing with himself. He was a cold-blooded man of

business; his mind was not one to play him tricks. Yet now he felt

benumbed; he could conceive no explanation of what he had seen.

Again in his room in the little hotel, where they spent the remainder

of the night, he stared blankly at the reporter.

"Can you imagine any way it could be done?"

Hatch shook his head.

"It isn't a spook, of course," the broker went on, with a nervous

smile; "but--but I'm sorry I went. I don't think probably I shall

have the work done there as I thought."

They slept only fitfully and took an early train back to Boston. As

they were about to separate at the South Station, the broker had a

last word.

"I'm going to solve that thing," he declared, determinedly, "I know

one man at least who isn't afraid of it--or of anything else. I'm

going to send him down to keep a lookout and take care of the place.

His name is O'Heagan, and he's a fighting Irishman. If he and

that--that--THING ever get mixed up together--"

Like a schoolboy with a hopeless problem, Hatch went straight to The

Thinking Machine with the latest developments. The scientist paused

just long enough in his work to hear it.

"Did you notice the handwriting?" he demanded.

"Yes," was the reply; "so far as I _could_ notice the style of a

handwriting that floated in air."

"Han's or woman's?"

Hatch was puzzled.

"I couldn't judge," he said. "It seemed to be a bold style, whatever

it was. I remember the capital D clearly."

"Was it anything like the handwriting of the

broker--what's-his-name?--Ernest Weston?"

"I never saw his handwriting."

"Look at some of it, then, particularly the capital D's," instructed

The Thinking Machine. Then, after a pause: "You say the figure is

white and seems to be flaming?"

"Yes."

"Does it give out any light? That is, does it light up a room, for

instance?"

"I don't quite know what you mean."

"When you go into a room with a lamp," explained The Thinking

Machine, "it lights the room. Does this thing do it? Can you see

the floor or walls or anything by the light of the figure itself?"

"No," replied Hatch, positively.

"I'll go down with you to-morrow night," said the scientist, as if

that were all.

"Thanks," replied Hatch, and he went away.

Next day about noon he called at Ernest Weston's office. The broker

was in.

"Did you send down your man O'Heagan?" he asked.

"Yes," said the broker, and he was almost smiling.

"What happened?"

"He's outside. I'll let him tell you."

The broker went to the door and spoke to some one and O'Heagan

entered. He was a big, blue-eyed Irishman, frankly freckled and

red-headed--one of those men who look trouble in the face and are

glad of it if the trouble can be reduced to a fighting basis. An

everlasting smile was about his lips, only now it was a bit faded.

"Tell Mr. Hatch what happened last night," requested the broker.

O'Heagan told it. He, too, had sought to get hold of the flaming

figure. As he ran for it, it disappeared, was obliterated, wiped

put, gone, and he found himself groping in the darkness of the room

beyond, the library. Like Hatch, he took the nearest way out, which

happened to be through a window already smashed.

"Outside," he went on, "I began to think about it, and I saw there

was nothing to be afraid of, but you couldn't have convinced me of

that when I was inside. I took a lantern in one hand and a revolver

in the other and went all over that house. There was nothing; if

there had been we would have had it out right there. But there was

nothing. So I started out to the barn, where I had put a cot in a

room.

"I went upstairs to this room--it was then about two o'clock--and

went to sleep. It seemed to be an hour or so later when I awoke

suddenly--I knew something was happening. And the Lord forgive me if

I'm a liar, but there was a cat--a ghost cat in my room, racing

around like mad. I just naturally got up to see what was the matter

and rushed for the door. The cat beat me to it, and cut a flaming

streak through the night.

"The cat looked just like the thing inside the house--that is, it was

a sort of shadowy, waving white light like it might be afire. I went

back to bed in disgust, to sleep it off. You see, sir," he

apologized to Weston, "that there hadn't been anything yet I could

put my hands on."

"Was that all?" asked Hatch, smilingly.

"Just the beginning. Next morning when I awoke I was bound to my

cot, hard and fast. My hands were tied and my feet were tied, and

all I could do was lie there and yell, awhile, it seemed years, I

heard some one outside and shouted louder than ever. Then the

constable came up and let me loose. I told him all about it--and

then I came to Boston. And with your permission, Mr. Weston, I

resign right now. I'm not afraid of anything I can fight, but when I

can't get hold of it--well--"

Later Hatch joined The Thinking Machine. They caught a train for the

little village by the sea. On the way The Thinking Machine asked a

few questions, but most of the time he was silent, squinting out the

window. Hatch respected his silence, and only answered questions.

"Did you see Ernest Weston's handwriting?" was the first of these.

"Yes."

"The capital D's?"

"They are not unlike the one the--the THING wrote, but they are not

wholly like it," was the reply.

"Do you know anyone in Providence who can get some information for

you?" was the next query.

"Yes."

"Get him by long-distance 'phone when we get to this place and let me

talk to him a moment."

Half an hour later The Thinking Machine was talking over the

long-distance 'phone to the Providence correspondent of Hatch's

paper. What he said or what he learned there was not revealed to the

wondering reporter, but he came out after several minutes, only to

re-enter the booth and remain for another half an hour.

"Now," he said,

Together they went to the haunted house. At the entrance to the

grounds something else occurred to The Thinking Machine.

"Run over to the 'phone and call Weston," he directed. "Ask him if

he has a motor-boat or if his cousin has one. We might need one.

Also find out what kind of a boat it is--electric or gasoline."

Hatch returned to the village and left the scientist alone, sitting

on the veranda gazing out over the sea. When Hatch returned he was

still in the same position.

"Well?" he asked.

"Ernest Weston has no motor-boat," the reporter informed him.

"George Weston has an electric, but we can't get it because it is

away. Maybe I can get one somewhere else if you particularly want

it."

"Never mind," said The Thinking Machine. He spoke as if he had

entirely lost interest in the matter.

Together they started around the house to the kitchen door.

"What's the next move?" asked Hatch.

"I'm going to find the jewels," was the startling reply.

"Find them?" Hatch repeated.

"Certainly."

They entered the house through the kitchen and the scientist squinted

this way and that, through the reception-room, the library, and

finally the back hallway. Here a closed door in the flooring led to

a cellar.

In the cellar they found heaps of litter. It was damp and chilly and

dark. The Thinking Machine stood in the center, or as near the

center as he could stand, because the base of the chimney occupied

this precise spot, and apparently did some mental calculation.

From that point he started around the walls, solidly built of stone,

stooping and running his fingers along the stones as he walked. He

made the entire circuit as Hatch looked on. Then he made it again,

but this time with his hands raised above his head, feeling the walls

carefully as he went. He repeated this at the chimney, going

carefully around the masonry, high and low.

"Dear me, dear me!" he exclaimed, petulantly. "You are taller than I

am, Mr. Hatch. Please feel carefully around the top of this chimney

base and see if the rocks are all solidly set."

Hatch then began a tour. At last one of the great stones which made

this base trembled under his hand.

"It's loose," he said.

"Take it out."

It came out after a deal of tugging.

"Put your hand in there and pull out what you find," was the nest

order. Hatch obeyed. He found a wooden box, about eight inches

square, and handed it to The Thinking Machine.

"Ah!" exclaimed that gentleman.

A quick wrench, caused the decaying wood to crumble. Tumbling out of

the box were the jewels which had been lost for fifty years.

Excitement, long restrained, burst from Hatch in a laugh--almost

hysterical. He stooped and gathered up the fallen jewelry and handed

it to The Thinking Machine, who stared at him in mild surprise.

"What's the matter?" inquired the scientist.

"Nothing," Hatch assured him, but again he laughed.

The heavy stone which had been rolled out of place was lifted up and

forced back into position, and together they returned to the village,

with the long-lost jewelry loose in their pockets.

"How did you do it?" asked Hatch.

"Two and two always make four," was the enigmatic reply. "It was

merely a sum in addition." There was a pause as they walked on,

then: "Don't say anything about finding this, or even hint at it in

any way, until you have my permission to do so."

Hatch had no intention of doing so. In his mind's eye he saw a

story, a great, vivid, startling story spread all over his newspaper

about flaming phantoms and treasure trove--$100,000 in jewels. It

staggered him. Of course he would say nothing about it--even hint at

it, yet. But when he did say something about it--!

In the village The Thinking Machine found the constable.

"I understand some blood was thrown on you at the Weston place the

other night?"

"Yes. Blood--warm blood."

"You wiped it off with your handkerchief?"

"Yes."

"Have you the handkerchief?"

"I suppose I might get it," was the doubtful reply. "It might have

gone into the wash."

"Astute person," remarked The Thinking Machine. "There might have

been a crime and you throw away the one thing which would indicate

it--the blood stains."

The constable suddenly took notice.

"By ginger!" he said, "Wait here and I'll go see if I can find it."

He disappeared and returned shortly with the handkerchief. There

were half a dozen blood stains on it, now dark brown.

The Thinking Machine dropped into the village drug store and had a

short conversation with the owner, after which he disappeared into

the compounding room at the back and remained for an hour or

more--until darkness set in. Then he cams out and joined Hatch, who,

with the constable, had been waiting.

The reporter did not ask any questions, and The Thinking Machine

volunteered no information.

"Is it too late for anyone to get down from Boston to-night?" he

asked the constable.

"No. He could take the eight o'clock train and be here about

half-past nine."

"Mr. Hatch, will you wire to Mr. Weston--Ernest Weston--and ask him

to come to-night, sure. Impress on him the fact that it is a matter

of the greatest importance."

Instead of telegraphing, Hatch went to the telephone and spoke to

Weston at his club. The trip would interfere with some other plans,

the broker explained, but he would come. The Thinking Machine had

meanwhile been conversing with the constable and had given some sort

of instructions which evidently amazed that official exceedingly, for

he kept repeating "By ginger!" with considerable fervor.

"And not one word or hint of it to anyone," said The Thinking

Machine. "Least of all to the members of your family."

"By ginger!" was the response, and the constable went to supper.

The Thinking Machine and Hatch had their supper thoughtfully that

evening in the little village "hotel." Only once did Hatch break

this silence.

"You told me to see Weston's handwriting," he said. "Of course you

knew he was with the constable and myself when we saw the THING,

therefore it would Have been impossible--"

"Nothing is impossible," broke in The Thinking Machine. "Don't say

that, please."

"I mean that, as he was with us--"

"We'll end the ghost story to-night," interrupted the scientist.

Ernest Weston arrived on the nine-thirty train and had a long,

earnest conversation with The Thinking Machine, while Hatch was

permitted to cool his toes in solitude. At last they joined the

reporter.

"Take a revolver by all means," instructed The Thinking Machine.

"Do you think that necessary?" asked Weston.

"It is--absolutely," was the emphatic response.

Weston left them after awhile. Hatch wondered where he had gone, but

no information was forthcoming. In a general sort of way he knew

that The Thinking Machine was to go to the haunted house, but he

didn't know when; he didn't even know if he was to accompany him.

At last they started, The Thinking Machine swinging a hammer he had

borrowed from his landlord. The night was perfectly black, even the

road at their feet was invisible. They stumbled frequently as they

walked on up the cliff toward the house, dimly standing out against

the sky. They entered by way of the kitchen, passed through to the

stairs in the main hall, and there Hatch indicated in the darkness

the spot from which he had twice seen the flaming phantom.

"You go in the drawing-room behind here," The Thinking Machine

instructed. "Don't make any noise whatever."

For hours they waited, neither seeing the other. Hatch heard his

heart thumping heavily; if only he could see the other man; with an

effort he recovered from a rapidly growing nervousness and waited,

waited. The Thinking Machine sat perfectly rigid on the stair, the

hammer in his right hand, squinting steadily through the darkness.

At last he heard a noise, a slight nothing; it might almost Have been

his imagination. It was as if something had glided across the floor,

and he was more alert than ever. Then came the dread misty light in

the reception-hall, or was it in the library? He could not say. But

he looked, looked, with every sense alert.

Gradually the light grew and spread, a misty whiteness which was

unmistakably light, but which did not illuminate anything around it.

The Thinking Machine saw it without the tremor of a nerve; saw the

mistiness grow more marked in certain places, saw these lines

gradually grow into the figure of a person, a person who was the

center of a white light.

Then the mistiness fell away and The Thinking Machine saw the outline

in bold relief. It was that of a tall figure, clothed in a robe,

with head covered by a sort of hood, also luminous. As The Thinking

Machine looked he saw an arm raised, and in the hand he saw a dagger.

The attitude of the figure was distinctly a threat. And yet The

Thinking Machine had not begun to grow nervous; he was only

interested.

As he looked, the other hand of the apparition was raised and seemed

to point directly at him. It moved through the air in bold sweeps,

and The Thinking Machine saw the word "Death," written in air

luminously, swimming before his eyes. Then he blinked incredulously.

There came a wild, demoniacal shriek of laughter from somewhere.

Slowly, slowly the scientist crept down the steps in his stocking

feet, silent as the apparition itself, with the hammer still in his

hand. He crept on, on toward the figure. Hatch, not knowing the

movements of The Thinking Machine, stood waiting for something, he

didn't know what. Then the thing he had been waiting for happened.

There was a sudden loud clatter as of broken glass, the phantom and

writing faded, crumbled up, disappeared, and somewhere in the old

house there was the hurried sound of steps. At last the reporter

heard his name called quietly. It was The Thinking Machine.

"Mr. Hatch, come here."

The reporter started, blundering through the darkness toward the

point whence the voice had come. Some irresistible thing swept down

upon him; a crashing blow descended on his head, vivid lights flashed

before his eyes; he fell. After a while, from a great distance, it

seemed, he heard faintly a pistol shot.

When Hatch fully recovered consciousness it was with the flickering

light of a match in his eyes--a match in the hand of The Thinking

Machine, who squinted anxiously at him as he grasped his left wrist.

Hatch, instantly himself again, sat up suddenly.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

"How's your head?" came the answering question.

"Oh," and Hatch suddenly recalled those incidents which had

immediately preceded the crash on his head. "Oh, it's all right, my

head, I mean. What happened?"

"Get up and come along," requested The Thinking Machine, tartly.

"There's a man shot down here."

Hatch arose and followed the slight figure of the scientist through

the front door, and toward the water. A light glimmered down near

the water and was dimly reflected; above, the clouds had cleared

somewhat and the moon was struggling through.

"What hit me, anyhow?" Hatch demanded, as they went. He rubbed his

head ruefully.

"The ghost," said the scientist. "I think probably he has a bullet

in him now--the ghost."

Then the figure of the town constable separated itself from the night

and approached.

"Who's that?"

"Professor Van Dusen and Mr. Hatch."

"Mr. Weston got him all right," said the constable, and there was

satisfaction in his tone. "He tried to come out the back way, but I

had that fastened, as you told me, and he came through the front way.

Mr. Weston tried to stop him, and he raised the knife to stick him;

then Mr. Weston shot. It broke his arm, I think. Mr. Weston is down

there with him now."

The Thinking Machine turned to the reporter.

"Wait here for me, with the constable," he directed. "If the man is

hurt he needs attention. I happen to be a doctor; I can aid him.

Don't come unless I call."

For a long while the constable and the reporter waited. The

constable talked, talked with all the bottled-up vigor of days.

Hatch listened impatiently; he was eager to go down there where The

Thinking Machine and Weston and the phantom were.

After half an hour the light disappeared, then he heard the swift,

quick churning of waters, a sound as of a powerful motor-boat

maneuvering, and a long body shot out on the waters.

"All right down there?" Hatch called.

"All right," came the response.

There was again silence, then Ernest Weston and The Thinking Machine

came up.

"Where is the other man?" asked Hatch.

"The ghost--where is he?" echoed the constable.

"He escaped in the motor-boat," replied Mr. Weston, easily.

"Escaped?" exclaimed Hatch and the constable together.

"Yes, escaped," repeated The Thinking Machine, irritably. "Mr.

Hatch, let's go to the hotel."

Struggling with a sense of keen disappointment, Hatch followed the

other two men silently. The constable walked beside him, also

silent. At last they reached the hotel and bade the constable, a

sadly puzzled, bewildered and crestfallen man, good-night.

"By ginger!" he remarked, as he walked away into the dark.

Upstairs the three men sat, Hatch impatiently waiting to hear the

story. Weston lighted a cigarette and lounged back; The Thinking

Machine sat with finger tips pressed together, studying the ceiling.

"Mr. Weston, you understand, of course, that I came into this thing

to aid Mr. Hatch?" he asked.

"Certainly," was the response. "I will only ask a favor of him when

you conclude."

The Thinking Machine changed his position slightly, readjusted his

thick glasses for a long, comfortable squint, and told the story,

from the beginning, as he always told a story. Here it is:

"Mr. Hatch came to me in a state of abject, cringing fear and told me

of the mystery. It would be needless to go over his examination of

the house, and all that. It is enough, to say that he noted and told

me of four large mirrors in the dining-room and living-room of the

house; that he heard and brought to me the stories in detail of a

tragedy in the old house and missing jewels, valued at a hundred

thousand dollars, or more.

"He told me of his trip to the house that night, and of actually

seeing the phantom. I have found in the past that Mr. Hatch is a

cool, level-headed young man, not given to imagining things which are

not there, and controls himself well. Therefore I knew that anything

of charlatanism must be clever, exceedingly clever, to bring about

such a condition of mind in him.

"Mr. Hatch saw, as others had seen, the figure of a phantom in the

reception-room near the door of the library, or in the library near

the door of the reception-room, he couldn't tell exactly. He knew it

was near the door. Preceding the appearance of the figure he heard a

slight noise which he attributed to a rat running across the floor.

Yet the house had not been occupied for five years. Rodents rarely

remain in a house--I may say never--for that long if it is

uninhabited. Therefore what was this noise? A noise made by the

apparition itself? How?

"Now, there is only one white light of the kind Mr. Hatch described

known to science. It seems almost superfluous to name it. It is

phosphorus, compounded with Fuller's earth and glycerine and one or

two other chemicals, so it will not instantly flame as it does in the

pure state when exposed to air. Phosphorus has a very pronounced

odor if one is within, say, twenty feet of it. Did Mr. Hatch smell

anything? No.

"Now, here we have several facts, these being that the apparition in

appearing made a slight noise; that phosphorus was the luminous

quality; that Mr. Hatch did not smell phosphorus even when he ran

though the spot where the phantom had appeared. Two and two make

four; Mr. Hatch saw phosphorus, passed through the spot where he had

seen it, but did not smell it, therefore it was not there. It was a

reflection he saw--a reflection of phosphorus. So far, so good.

"Mr. Hatch saw a finger lifted and write a luminous word in the air.

Again he did not actually see this; he saw a reflection of it. This

first impression of mine was substantiated by the fact that when he

rushed for the phantom _a part of it_ disappeared, first half of it,

he said--then the other half. So his extended hands grasped only air.

"Obviously those reflections had been made on something, probably a

mirror as the most perfect ordinary reflecting surface. Yet he

actually passed through the spot where he had seen the apparition and

had not struck a mirror. He found himself in another room, the

library, having gone through a door which, that afternoon, he had

himself closed. He did not open it then.

"Instantly a sliding mirror suggested itself to me to fit all these

conditions. He saw the apparition in the door, then saw only half of

it, then all of it disappeared. He passed through the spot where it

had been. All of this would have happened easily if a large mirror,

working as a sliding door, and hidden in the wall, were there. Is it

clear?"

"Perfectly," said Mr. Weston.

"Yes," said Hatch, eagerly. "Go on."

"This sliding mirror, too, might have made the noise which Mr. Hatch

imagined was a rat. Mr. Hatch had previously told me of four large

mirrors in the living and dining-rooms. With these, from the

position in which he said they were, I readily saw how the reflection

could have been made.

"In a general sort of way, in my own mind, I had accounted for the

phantom. Why was it there? This seemed a more difficult problem.

It was possible that it had been put there for amusement, but I did

not wholly accept this. Why? Partly because no one had ever heard

of it until the Italian workmen went there. Why did it appear just

at the moment they went to begin the work Mr. Weston had ordered?

Was it the purpose to keep the workmen away?

"These questions arose in my mind in order. Then, as Mr. Hatch had

told me of a tragedy in the house and hidden jewels, I asked him to

learn more of these. I called his attention to the fact that it

would be a queer circumstance if these jewels were still somewhere in

the old house. Suppose some one who knew of their existence were

searching for them, believed he could find them, and wanted something

which would effectually drive away any inquiring persons, tramps or

villagers, who might appear there at night. A ghost? Perhaps.

"Suppose some one wanted to give the old house such a reputation that

Mr. Weston would not care to undertake the work of repair and

refurnishing. A ghost? Again perhaps. In a shallow mind this ghost

might have been interpreted even as an effort to prevent the marriage

of Miss Everard and Mr. Weston. Therefore Mr. Hatch was instructed

to get all the facts possible about you, Mr. Weston, and members of

your family. I reasoned that members of your own family would be

more likely to know of the lost jewels than anyone else after a lapse

of fifty years.

"Well, what Mr. Hatch learned from you and your cousin, George

Weston, instantly, in my mind, established a motive for the ghost.

It was, as I had supposed, an effort to drive workmen away, perhaps

only for a time, while a search was made for the jewels. The old

tragedy in the house was a good pretext to hang a ghost on. A clever

mind conceived it and a clever mind put it into operation.

"Now, what one person knew most about the jewels? Your cousin

George, Mr. Weston. Had he recently acquired any new information as

to these jewels? I didn't know. I thought it possible. Why? On

his own statement that his mother, then a bride, got the story of the

entire affair direct from his grandmother, who remembered more of it

than anybody else--who might even have heard his grandfather say

where he intended hiding the jewels."

The Thinking Machine paused for a little while, shifted his position,

then went on.

"George Weston refused to go with you, Mr. Weston, and Mr. Hatch, to

the ghost party, as you called it, because he said he was going to a

ball in Providence that night. He did not go to Providence; I

learned that from your correspondent there, Mr. Hatch; so George

Weston might, possibly, have gone to the ghost party after all.

"After I looked over the situation down there it occurred to me that

the most feasible way for a person, who wished to avoid being seen in

the village, as the perpetrator of the ghost did, was to go to and

from the place at night in a motor-boat. He could easily run in the

dark and land at the foot of the cliff, and no soul in the village

would be any the wiser. Did George Weston have a motor-boat? Yes,

an electric, which runs almost silently.

"From this point the entire matter was comparatively simple. I

knew--the pure logic of it told me--how the ghost was made to appear

and disappear; one look at the house inside convinced me beyond all

doubt. I knew the motive for the ghost--a search for the jewels. I

knew, or thought I knew, the name of the man who was seeking the

jewels; the man who had fullest knowledge and fullest opportunity,

the man whose brain was clever enough to devise the scheme. Then,

the next step to prove what I knew. The first thing to do was to

find the jewels."

"Find the jewels?" Weston repeated, with a slight smile.

"Here they are," said The Thinking Machine, quietly.

And there, before the astonished eyes of the broker, he drew out the

gems which had been lost for fifty years. Mr. Weston was not amazed;

he was petrified with astonishment and sat staring at the glittering

heap in silence. Finally he recovered his voice.

"How did you do it?" he demanded. "Where?"

"I used my brain, that's all," was the reply. "I went into the old

house seeking them where the owner, under all conditions, would have

been most likely to hide them, and there I found them."

"But--but--" stammered the broker.

"The man who hid these jewels hid them only temporarily, or at least

that was his purpose," said The Thinking Machine, irritably.

"Naturally he would not hide them in the woodwork of the house,

because that might burn; he did not bury them in the cellar, because

that has been carefully searched. Now, in that house there is

nothing except woodwork and chimneys above the cellar. Yet he hid

them in the house, proven by the fact that the man he killed was

killed in the house, and that the outside ground, covered with snow,

showed two sets of tracks into the house and none out. Therefore he

did hide them in the cellar. Where? In the stonework. There was no

other place.

"Naturally he would not hide them on a level with the eye, because

the spot where he took out and replaced a stone would be apparent if

a close search were made. He would, therefore, place them either

above or below the eye level. He placed them above. A large loose

stone in the chimney was taken out and there was the box with these

things."

Mr. Weston stared at The Thinking Machine with a new wonder and

admiration in his eyes.

"With the jewels found and disposed of, there remained only to prove

the ghost theory by an actual test. I sent for you, Mr. Weston,

because I thought possibly, as no actual crime had been committed, it

would be better to leave the guilty man to you. When you came I went

into the haunted house with a hammer--an ordinary hammer--and waited

on the steps.

"At last the ghost laughed and appeared. I crept down the steps

where I was sitting in my stocking feet. I knew what it was. Just

when I reached the luminous phantom I disposed of it for all time by

smashing it with a hammer. It shattered a large sliding mirror which

ran in the door inside the frame, as I had thought. The crash

startled the man who operated the ghost from the top of a box, giving

it the appearance of extreme height, and he started out through the

kitchen, as he had entered. The constable had barred that door after

the man entered; therefore the ghost turned and came toward the front

door of the house. There he ran into and struck down Mr. Hatch, and

ran out through the front door, which I afterward found was not

securely fastened. You know the rest of it; how you found the

motorboat and waited there for him; how he came there, and--"

"Tried to stab me," Weston supplied. "I had to shoot to save myself."

"Well, the wound is trivial," said The Thinking Machine. "His arm

will heal up in a little while. I think then, perhaps, a little trip

of four or five years in Europe, at your expense, in return for the

jewels, might restore him to health."

"I was thinking of that myself," said the broker, quietly. "Of

course, I couldn't prosecute."

"The ghost, then, was--?" Hatch began.

"George Weston, my cousin," said the broker. "There are some things

in this story which I hope you may see fit to leave unsaid, if you

can do so with justice to yourself."

Hatch considered it.

"I think there are," he said, finally, and he turned to The Thinking

Machine. "Just where was the man who operated the phantom?"

"In the dining-room, beside the butler's pantry," was the reply.

"With that pantry door closed he put on the robe already covered with

phosphorus, and merely stepped out. The figure was reflected in the

tall mirror directly in front, as you enter the dining-room from the

back, from there reflected to the mirror on the opposite wall in the

living-room, and thence reflected to the sliding mirror in the door

which led from the reception-hall to the library. This is the one I

smashed."

"And how was the writing done?"

"Oh, that? Of course that was done by reversed writing on a piece of

clear glass held before the apparition as he posed. This made it

read straight to anyone who might see the last reflection in the

reception-hall."

"And the blood thrown on the constable and the others when the ghost

was in the yard?" Hatch went on.

"Was from a dog. A test I made in the drug store showed that. It

was a desperate effort to drive the villagers away and keep them

away. The ghost cat and the tying of the watchman to his bed were

easily done."

All sat silent for a time. At length Mr. Weston arose, thanked the

scientist for the recovery of the jewels, bade them all good-night

and was about to go out. Mechanically Hatch was following. At the

door he turned back for the last question.

"How was it that the shot the constable fired didn't break the

mirror?"

"Because he was nervous and the bullet struck the door beside the

mirror," was the reply. "I dug it out with a knife. Good-night."

The Mystery of a Studio

BY JACQUES FUTRELLE

Where the light slants down softly into one corner of a noted art

museum in Boston there hangs a large picture. Its title is

"Fulfillment." Discriminating art critics have alternately raved at

it and praised it; from the day it appeared there it has been a

fruitful source of acrimonious discussion. As for the public, it

accepts the picture as a startling, amazing thing of beauty, and

there is always a crowd around it.

"Fulfillment" is typified by a woman. She stands boldly forth

against a languorous background of deep tones. Flesh tints are

daringly laid on the semi-nude figure, diaphanous draperies hide,

yet, reveal, the exquisite lines of the body. Her arms are

outstretched straight toward the spectator, the black hair ripples

down over her shoulders, the red lips are slightly parted. The

mysteries of complete achievement and perfect life lie in her eyes.

Into this picture the artist wove the spiritual and the worldly; here

he placed on canvas an elusive portrayal of success in its fullest

and widest meaning. One's first impression of the picture is that it

is sensual; another glance shows the underlying typification of

success, and love and life are there. One by one the qualities stand

forth.

The artist was Constans St. George. After the first flurry of

excitement which the picture caused there came a whirlwind of

criticism. Then the artist, who had labored for months on the work

which he had intended and which proved to be his masterpiece,

collapsed. Some said it was overwork--they were partly right; others

that it was grief at the attacks of critics who did not see beyond

the surface of the painting. Perhaps they, too, were partly right.

However that may be, it is a fact that for several months after the

picture was exhibited St. George was in a sanitarium. The physicians

said it was nervous collapse--a total breaking-down, and there were

fears for his sanity. At length there came an improvement in his

condition, and he returned to the world. Since then he had lived

quietly in his studio, one of many in a large office building. From

time to time he had been approached with offers for the picture, but

always he refused to sell. A New York millionaire made a flat

proposition of fifty thousand dollars, which was as flatly refused.

The artist loved the picture as a child of his own brain; every day

he visited the museum where it was exhibited and stood looking at it

with something almost like adoration in his eyes. Then he went away

quietly, tugging at his straggling beard and with the dim blindness

of tears in his eyes. He never spoke to anyone; and always avoided

that moment when a crowd was about.

Whatever the verdict of the critics or of the public on

"Fulfillment," it was an admitted fact that the artist had placed on

canvas a representation of a wonderfully beautiful woman. Therefore,

after a while the question of who had been the model for

"Fulfillment" was aroused. No one knew, apparently. Artists who

knew St. George could give no idea--they only knew that the woman who

had posed was not a professional model.

This led to speculation, in which the names of some of the most

beautiful women in the United States were mentioned. Then a romance

was woven. This was that the artist was in love with the original

and that his collapse was partly due to her refusal to wed him. This

story, as it went, was elaborated until the artist was said to be

pining away for love of one whom he had immortalized in oils.

As the story grew it gained credence, and a search was still made

occasionally for the model. Half a dozen times Hutchinson Hatch, a

newspaper reporter of more than usual astuteness, had been on the

story without success; he had seen and studied the picture until

every line of it was firmly in his mind. He had seen and talked to

St. George twice. The artist would answer no questions as to the

identity of the model.

This, then, was the situation on the morning of Friday, November 27,

when Hatch entered the reportorial rooms of his newspaper. At sight

of him the City Editor removed his cigar, placed it carefully on the

"official block" which adorned his flat-topped desk, and called to

the reporter.

"Girl reported missing," he said, brusquely. "Name is Grace Field,

and she lived at No. 195 ---- Street, Dorchester. Employed in the

photographic department of the Star, a big department store. Report

of her disappearance made to the police early to-day by Ellen

Stanford, her room-mate, also employed at the Star. Jump out on it

and get all you can. Here is the official police description."

Hatch took a slip of paper and read:

"Grace Field, twenty-one years, five feet seven inches tall, weight

151 pounds, profuse black hair, dark-brown eyes, superb figure, oval

face, said to be beautiful."

Then the description went into details of her dress and other things

which the police note in their minute records for a search. Hatch

absorbed all these things and left his office. He went first to the

department store, where he was told Miss Stanford had not appeared

that day, sending a note that she was ill.

From the store Hatch went at once to the address given in Dorchester.

Miss Stanford was in. Would she see a reporter? Yes. So Hatch was

ushered into the modest little parlor of a boarding-house, and after

a while Miss Stanford entered. She was a petite blonde, with pink

cheeks and blue eyes, now reddened by weeping.

Briefly Hatch explained the purpose of his visit--an effort to find

Grace Field, and Miss Stanford eagerly and tearfully expressed

herself as willing to tell him all she knew.

"I have known Grace for five months," she explained; "that is, from

the time she came to work at the Star. Her counter is next to mine.

A friendship grew up between us, and we began rooming together. Each

of us is alone in the East. She comes from the West, somewhere in

Nevada, and I come from Quebec.

"Grace has never said much about herself, but I know that she had

been in Boston a year or so before I met her. She lived somewhere in

Brookline, I believe, but it seems that she had some funds and did

not go to work until she came to the Star. This is as I understand

it.

"Three days ago, on Tuesday it was, there was a letter for Grace when

we came in from work. It seemed to agitate her, although she said

nothing to me about what was in it, and I did not ask. She did not

sleep well that night, but next morning, when we started to work, she

seemed all right. That is, she was all right until we got to the

subway station, and then she told me to go on to the store, saying

she would be there after a while.

"I left her, and at her request explained to the manager of our floor

that she would be late. From that time to this no one has seen her

or heard of her. I don't know where she could have gone," and the

girl burst into tears. "I'm sure something dreadful has happened to

her."

"Possibly an elopement?" Hatch suggested.

"No," said the girl, quickly. "No. She was in love, but the man she

was in love with has not heard of her either. I saw him the night

after she disappeared. He called here and asked for her, and seemed

surprised that she had not returned home, or had not been at work."

"What's his name?" asked Hatch.

"He's a clerk in a bank," said Miss Stanford. "His name is

Willis--Victor Willis. If she had eloped with him I would not have

been surprised, but I am positive she did not, and if she did not,

where is she?"

"Were there any other admirers you know of?" Hatch asked.

"No," said the girl, stoutly. "There may have been others who

admired her, but none she cared for. She has told me too much--I--I

know," she faltered.

"How long have you known Mr. Willis?" asked Hatch.

The girl's face flamed scarlet instantly.

"Only since I've known Grace," she replied. "She introduced us."

"Has Mr. Willis ever shown you any attention?"

"Certainly not," Miss Stanford flashed, angrily. "All his attention

was for Grace."

There was the least trace of bitterness in the tone, and Hatch

imagined he read it aright. Willis was a man whom both perhaps

loved; it might be in that event that Miss Stanford knew more than

she had said of the whereabouts of Grace Field. The next step was to

see Willis.

"I suppose you'll do everything possible to find Miss Field?" he

asked.

"Certainly," said the girl.

"Have you her photograph?"

"I have one, yes, but I don't think--I don't believe Grace--"

"Would like to have it published?" asked Hatch. "Possibly not, under

ordinary circumstances--but now that she is missing it is the surest

way of getting a trace of her. Will you give it to me?"

Miss Stanford was silent for a time. Then apparently she made up her

mind, for she arose.

"It might be well, too," Hatch suggested, "to see if you can find the

letter you mentioned."

The girl nodded and went out. When she returned she had a photograph

in her hand; a glimpse of it told Hatch it was a bust picture of a

woman in evening dress. The girl was studying a scrap of paper.

"What is it?" asked Hatch, quickly.

"I don't know," she responded. "I was searching for the letter when

I remembered she frequently tore them up and dropped them into the

waste-basket. It had been emptied every day, but I looked and found

this clinging to the bottom, caught between the cane."

"May I see it?" asked the reporter.

The girl handed it to him. It was evidently a piece of a letter torn

from the outer edge just where the paper was folded to put it into

the envelope. On it were these words and detached letters, written

in a bold hand:

sday

ill you

to the

Hatch's eyes opened wide.

"Do you know the handwriting?" he asked.

The girl faltered an instant.

"No," she answered, finally.

Hatch studied her face a moment with cold eyes, then turned the scrap

of paper over. The other side was blank. Staring down at it he

veiled a glitter of anxious interest.

"And the picture?" he asked, quietly.

The girl handed him the photograph. Hatch took it and as he looked

it was with difficulty he restrained an exclamation of

astonishment--triumphant astonishment. Finally, with his brain

teeming with possibilities, he left the house, taking the photograph

and the scrap of paper. Ten minutes later he was talking to his City

Editor over the 'phone.

"It's a great story," he explained, briefly. "The missing girl is

the mysterious model of St. George's picture, 'Fulfillment.'"

"Great," came the voice of the City Editor.

Having laid his story before his City Editor, Hatch sat down to

consider the fragmentary writing. Obviously "sday" represented a day

of the week--either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, these being the

only days where the letter "s" preceded the "day." This seemed to be

a definite fact, but still it meant nothing. True, Miss Field had

last been seen on Wednesday, but then?--nothing.

To the next part of the fragment Hatch attached the greatest

importance It was the possibility of a threat, ---- "ill you." Did

it mean "kill you" or "will you" or "till you" or--or what? There

might be dozens of other words ending in "ill" which he did not

recall at the moment. His imagination hammered the phrase into his

brain as "kill you." The "to the"--the next words--were clear, but

meant nothing at all. The last letters were distinctly "ho,"

possibly "hope."

Then Hatch began real work on the story. First he saw the bank

clerk, Victor Willis, who Miss Stanford had said loved Grace Field,

and whom Hatch suspected Miss Stanford loved. He found Willis a

grim, sullen-faced young man of twenty-eight years, who would say

nothing.

From that point Hatch worked vigorously for several hours. At the

end of that time he had found out that on Wednesday, the day of Miss

Field's disappearance, a veiled woman--probably Grace Field--had

called at the bank and inquired for Willis. Later, Willis, urging

necessity, had asked to be allowed the day off and left the bank. He

did not appear again until next morning. His actions did not impress

any of his associates with the idea that he was a bridegroom; in

fact, Hatch himself had given up the idea that Miss Field had eloped.

There seemed no reason for an elopement.

When Hatch called at the studio, and home, of Constans St. George, to

inform him of the disappearance of the model whose identity had been

so long guarded, he was told that Mr. St. George was not in; that is,

St. George refused to answer knocks at the door, and had not been

seen for a day or so. He frequently disappeared this way, his

informant said.

With these facts--and lack of facts--in his possession on Friday

evening, Hatch called on Professor S. F. X. Van Dusen. The Thinking

Machine received him as cordially as he ever received anybody.

"Well, what is it?" he asked.

"I don't believe this is really worth your while, Professor," Hatch

said, finally. "It's just a case of a girl who disappeared. There

are some things about it which are puzzling, but I'm afraid it's only

an elopement."

The Thinking Machine dragged up a footstool, planted his small feet

on it comfortably and leaned back in his chair.

"Go on," he directed.

Then Hatch told the story, beginning at the time when the picture was

placed in the art museum, and continuing up to the point where he had

seen Willis after finding the photograph and the scrap of paper. He

had always found that it saved time to begin at the beginning with

The Thinking Machine; he did it now as a matter of course.

"And the scrap of paper?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"I have it here," replied the reporter.

For several minutes the scientist examined the fragment and then

handed it back to the reporter.

"If one could establish some clear connection between that and the

disappearance of the girl it might be valuable," he said. "As it is

now, it means nothing. Any number of letters might be thrown into

the waste-basket in the room the two girls occupied, therefore

dismiss this for the moment."

"But isn't it possible--" Hatch began.

"Anything is possible, Mr. Hatch," retorted the other, belligerently.

"You might take occasion to see the handwriting of St. George, the

artist, and see if that is his--also look at Willis's. Even if it

were Willis's, however, it may mean nothing in connection with this."

"But what could have happened to Miss Field?"

"Any one of fifty things," responded the other. "She might have

fallen dead in the street and been removed to a hospital or

undertaking establishment; she might have been arrested for

shoplifting and given a wrong name; she might have gone mad and gone

away; she might have eloped with another man; she might have

committed suicide; she might have been murdered. The question is not

what could have happened, but what did happen."

"Yes, I thoroughly understand that," Hatch replied, with a slight

smile. "But still I don't see--"

"Probably you don't," snapped the other. "We'll take it for granted

that she did none of these things, with the possible exception of

eloping, killing herself, or was murdered. You are convinced that

she did not elope. Yet you have only run down one possible end of

this--that is, the possibility of her elopement with Willis. You

don't believe she did elope with him. Well, why not with St. George?"

"St. George?" gasped Hatch. "A great artist elope with a shop-girl?"

"She was his ideal in a picture which you say is one of the greatest

in the world," replied the other, testily. "That being true, it is

perfectly possible that she was his ideal for a wife, isn't it?"

The matter had not occurred to Hatch in just that light. He nodded

his head, with a feeling of having been weighed and found wanting.

"Now, you say, too, that St. George has not been seen around his

studio for a couple of days," said the scientist. "What is more

possible than that they are together somewhere?"

"I see," said the reporter.

"It was understood, too, as I understand it, that St. George was in

love with her," went on The Thinking Machine. "So, I should imagine

a solution of the mystery might be reached by taking St. George as

the center of the affair. Suicide may be passed by for the moment,

because she had no known motive for suicide--rather, if she loved

Willis, she had every reason to live. Murder, too, may be passed for

the moment--although there is a possibility that we might come back

to that. Question St. George. He will listen if you make him, and

then he must answer."

"But his place is all closed up," said Hatch. "It is supposed he is

half crazy."

"Possibly he might be," said The Thinking Machine. "Or it is

possible that he is keeping to his studio at work--or he might even

be married to Miss Field and she might be there with him."

"Well, I see no way to ascertain definitely that he is there," said

the reporter, and a puzzled wrinkle came into his face. "Of course I

might remain on watch night and day to see if he comes out for food,

or if anything to eat is sent in."

"That would take too long, and besides it might not happen at all,"

said The Thinking Machine. He arose and went into the adjoining

room. He returned after a moment, and glanced at the clock on the

mantel. "It is just nine o'clock now," he commented. "How long

would it take you to get to the studio?"

"Half an hour."

"Well, go there now," directed the scientist. "If Mr. St. George is

in his studio he will come out of it to-night at thirty-two minutes

past nine. He will be running, and may not wear either a hat or

coat."

"What?" and Hatch grinned, a weak, puzzled grin.

"You wait where he can't see you when he comes out," the scientist

went on. "When he goes he may leave the door open. If he does go on

see if you find any trace of Miss Field, and then, on his return,

meet him at the outer door, ask him what you please, and come to see

me to-morrow morning. He will be out of his studio about twenty

minutes."

Vaguely Hatch felt that the scientist was talking rot, but he had

seen this strange mind bring so many odd things to pass that he could

not doubt this, even if it were absurd on its face.

"At thirty-two minutes past nine to-night," said the reporter, and he

glanced at his watch.

"Come to see me to-morrow after you see the handwriting of Willis and

St. George," directed the scientist. "Then you may also tell me just

what happens to-night."

* * * * * * * *

Hatch was feeling like a fool. He was waiting in a darkened corner,

just a few feet from St. George's studio. It was precisely half-past

nine o'clock. He had been there for seven minutes. What strange

power was to bring St. George, who for two days had denied himself to

everyone, out of that studio, if, indeed, he were there?

For the twentieth time Hatch glanced at his watch, which he had set

with the little clock in The Thinking Machine's home. Slowly the

minute hand crept around, to 9:31, 9:31½, and he heard the door of

the studio rattle. Then suddenly it was thrown open and St. George

appeared.

Without a glance to right or left, hatless and coatless, he rushed

out of the building. Hatch got only a glimpse of his face; his lips

were pressed tightly together; there was a glint of madness in his

eyes. He jerked at the door once, then ran through the hall and

disappeared down the stairs leading to the street. The studio door

stood open behind him.

III

When the clatter of the running footsteps had died away and Hatch

heard the outer door slam, he entered the studio, closing the door

behind him. It was close here, and there was a breath of Chinese

incense which was almost stifling. One quick glance by the light of

an incandescent told Hatch that he stood in the reception-room.

Typically, from floor to ceiling, the place was the abode of an

artist; there was a rich gradation of color and everywhere were

scraps of art and half-finished studies.

The reporter had given up the idea of solving the mystery of why St.

George had so suddenly left his apartments; now he devoted himself to

a quick, minute search of the place. He found nothing to interest

him in the reception-room, and went on into the studio where the

artist did his work.

Hatch glanced around quickly, his eyes taking in all the details,

then went to a little table which stood, half-covered with

newspapers. He turned these over, then bent forward suddenly and

picked up--a woman's glove. Beside it lay its mate. He stuffed them

into his pocket.

Eagerly he sought now for anything that might come to hand. At last

he reached another door, leading into the bedroom. Here on a large

table was a chafing dish, many dishes which had not been washed, and

all the other evidences of a careless man who did a great deal of his

own cooking. There was a dresser here, too, a gorgeous, mahogany

affair. Hatch didn't stop to admire this because his eye was

attracted by a woman's veil which lay on it. He thrust it into his

pocket.

"Quite a haul I'm making," he mused, grimly.

From this room a door, half open, led into a bathroom. Hatch merely

glanced in, then looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had elapsed.

He must get out, and he started for the outer door. As he opened it

quietly and stepped into the hall he heard the street door open one

flight below, and started down the steps. There, half way, he met

St. George.

"Mr. St. George?" he asked.

"No," was the reply.

Hatch knew his man perfectly, because he had seen him half a dozen

times and had talked to him twice. The denial of identity therefore

was futile.

"I came to tell you that Grace Field, the model for your

'Fulfillment,' has disappeared," Hatch went on, as the other glared

at him.

"I don't care," snapped the other. He darted up the steps. Hatch

listened until he heard the door of the studio close.

It was ten minutes to ten o'clock when Hatch left the building. Now

he would see Miss Stanford and have her identify the gloves and the

veil. He boarded a car and drew out and closely examined the gloves

and veil. The gloves were tan, rather heavy, but small, and the veil

was of some light, cobwebby material which he didn't know by name.

"If these are Grace Field's," the reporter argued, to himself, "it

means something. If they are not, I'm simply a burglar."

There was a light in the Dorchester house where Miss Stanford lived,

and the reporter rang the bell. A servant appeared.

"Would it be possible for me to see Miss Stanford for just a moment?"

he asked.

"If she has not gone to bed."

He was ushered into the little parlor again. The servant

disappeared, and after a moment Miss Stanford came in.

"I hated to trouble you so late," said the reporter, and she smiled

at him frankly, "but I would like to ask if you have ever seen these?"

He laid in her hands the gloves and the veil. Miss Stanford studied

them carefully and her hands trembled.

"The gloves, I know, are Grace's--the veil I am not so positive

about," she replied.

Hatch felt a great wave of exultation sweep over him, and it stopped

his tongue for an instant.

"Did you--did you find them in Mr. Willis's possession?" asked the

girl.

"I am not at liberty to tell just where I found them," Hatch replied.

"If they are Miss Field's--and you can swear to that, I suppose--it

may mean that we have a clew."

"Oh, I was afraid it would be this way," gasped the girl, and she

sank down weeping on a couch.

"Knew what would be which way?" asked Hatch, puzzled.

"I knew it! I knew it!" she sobbed. "Is there anything to connect

Mr. Willis directly with the--_the murder_?"

The reporter started to say something, then paused. He wasn't quite

sure of himself. He had uncovered something, he didn't know what yet.

"It would be better, Miss Stanford," lie explained, gently, "if you

would tell me all you know about this affair. The things which are

now in my possession are fragmentary--if you could give me any new

detail it would be only serving the ends of justice."

For a little while the girl was silent, then she arose and faced him.

"Is Mr. Willis yet under arrest?" she asked, calmly now.

"Not yet," said the reporter.

"Then I will say nothing else," she declared, and her lips closed in

a straight line.

"What was the motive for murder?" Hatch insisted.

"I will say nothing else," she replied, firmly.

"And what makes you positive there was murder?"

"Good-night. You need not come again, for I will not see you."

Miss Stanford turned and left the room.

Hatch, sadly puzzled, bewildered, stood staring after her a moment,

then went out, his brain alive with possibilities, with intangible

ends which would not be connected. He was eager to lay the new facts

before The Thinking Machine.

From Dorchester the reporter took a car for his home. In his room,

with the tangible threads of the mystery spread out on a table, he

thought and surmised far into the night, and when he finally replaced

them all in his pocket and turned down the light it was with a

hopeless shake of his head.

On the following morning when Hatch arose he picked up a paper and

went to breakfast. He spread the paper before him and there--the

first thing he saw--was a huge headline, stating that a burglar had

entered the room of Constans St. George and had tried to kill Mr. St.

George. A shot had been fired at him and had passed through his left

arm.

Mr. St. George had been asleep when the door of his apartments was

burst in by the thief. The artist arose at the noise, and as he

stepped into the reception-room had been shot. The wound was

trivial. The burglar escaped; there was no clew.

It was a long story of seemingly hopeless complications that Hatch

told The Thinking Machine that morning. Nothing connected with

anything, and yet here was a series of happenings, all apparently

growing out of the disappearance of Miss Field, and which must have

some relation one to the other. At the conclusion of the story,

Hatch passed over the newspaper containing the account of the

burglary in the studio. The artist had been removed to a hospital.

The Thinking Machine read the newspaper account and turned to the

reporter with a question:

"Did you see Willis's handwriting?"

"Not yet," replied the reporter.

"See it at once," instructed the other. "If possible, bring me a

sample of it. Did you see St. George's handwriting?"

"No," the reporter confessed.

"See that and bring me a sample if you can. Find out first if Willis

has a revolver now or has ever had. If so, see it and see if it is

loaded or empty--its exact condition. Find out also if St. George

has a revolver--and if he has one, get possession of it if it is in

your power."

The scientist twisted the two gloves and the veil which Hatch had

given to him in his fingers idly, then passed them to the reporter

again.

Hatch arose and stood waiting, hat in hand.

"Also find out," The Thinking Machine went on, "the exact condition

of St. George--his mental condition particularly. Find out if Willis

is at his office in the bank to-day, and, if possible, where and how

he spent last night. That's all."

"And Miss Stanford?" asked Hatch.

"Never mind her," replied The Thinking Machine. "I may see her

myself. These other things are of immediate consequence. The minute

you satisfy yourself come back to me. Quickness on your part may

prevent a tragedy."

The reporter went away hurriedly. At four o'clock that afternoon he

returned. The Thinking Machine greeted him; he held a piece of

letter-paper in his hand.

"Well?" he asked.

"The handwriting is Willis's," said Hatch, without hesitation. "I

saw a sample--it is identical, and the paper on which he writes is

identical."

The scientist grunted.

"I also saw some of St. George's writing," the reporter went on, as

if he were reciting a lesson. "It is wholly dissimilar."

The Thinking Machine nodded.

"Willis has no revolver that anyone ever heard of," Hatch continued.

"He was at dinner with several of his fellow employees last night,

and left the restaurant at eight o'clock."

"Been drinking?"

"Might have had a few drinks," responded the reporter. "He is not a

drinking man."

"Has St. George a revolver?"

"I was unable to find that out or do anything except get a sample of

his writing from another artist," the reporter explained. "He is in

a hospital, raving crazy. It seems to be a return of the trouble he

had once before, except it is worse. The wound itself is not bad."

The scientist was studying the sheet of paper.

"Have you that scrap?" he asked.

Hatch produced it, and the scientist placed it on the sheet; Hatch

could only conjecture that he was fitting it to something else

already there. He was engaged in this work when Martha entered.

"The young lady who was here earlier to-day wants to see you again,"

she announced.

"Show her in," directed The Thinking Machine, without raising his

eyes.

Martha disappeared, and after a moment Miss Stanford entered. Hatch,

himself unnoticed, stared at her curiously, and arose, as did the

scientist. The girl's face was flushed a little, and there was an

eager expression in her eyes.

"I know he didn't do it," she began. "I've just gotten a letter from

Springfield stating that he was there on the day Grace went

away--and--"

"Know who didn't do what?" asked the scientist.

"That Mr. Willis didn't kill Grace," replied the girl, her enthusiasm

suddenly checked. "See here."

The scientist read a letter which she offered, and the girl sank into

a chair. Then for the first time she saw Hatch and her eyes

expressed her surprise. She stared at him a moment, then nodded a

greeting, after which she fell to watching The Thinking Machine.

"Miss Stanford," he said, at length, "you made several mistakes when

you were here before in not telling me the truth--all of it. If you

will tell me all you know of this case I may be able to see it more

clearly."

The girl reddened and stammered a little, then her lips trembled.

"Do you _know_--not conjecture, but _know_--whether or not Miss

Field, or Grace, as you call her, was engaged to Willis?" the

irritated voice asked.

"I--I know it, yes," she stammered.

"And you were in love with Mr. Willis--you _are_ in love with him?"

Again the tell-tale blush swept over her face. She glanced at Hatch;

it was the nervousness of a girl who is driven to a confession of

love.

"I regard Mr. Willis very highly," she said, finally, her voice low.

"Well," and the scientist arose and crossed to where the girl sat,

"don't you see that a very grave charge might be brought home to you

if you don't tell all of this? The girl has disappeared. There

might be even a hint of murder in which your name would be mentioned.

Don't you see?"

There was a long pause, and the girl stared steadily into the squint

eyes above her. Finally her eyes fell.

"I think I understand. Just what is it you want me to answer?"

"Did or did you not ever hear Mr. Willis threaten Miss Field?"

"I did once, yes."

"Did or did you not know that Miss Field was the original of the

painting?"

"I did not."

"It is a semi-nude picture, isn't it?"

Again there was a flush in the girl's face.

"I have heard it was," she said. "I have never seen it. I suggested

to Grace several times that we go to see it, but she never would. I

understand why now."

"Did Willis know she was the original of that painting? That is,

knowing it yourself now, do you have any reason to suppose that he

previously knew?"

"I don't know," she said, frankly. "I know that there was something

which was always causing friction between them--something they

quarreled about. It might have been that. That was when I heard Mr.

Willis threaten her--it was something about shooting her if she ever

did something--I don't know what."

"Miss Field knew him before you did, I think you said?"

"She introduced me to him."

The Thinking Machine fingered the sheet of paper he held.

"Did you know what those scraps of paper you brought me contained?"

"Yes, in a way," said the girl.

"Why did you bring them, then?"

"Because you told me you knew I had them, and I was afraid it might

make more trouble for me and for Mr. Willis if I did not."

The Thinking Machine passed the sheet to Hatch.

"This will interest you, Mr. Hatch," he explained. "Those words and

letters in parentheses are what I have supplied to complete the full

text of the note, of which you had a mere scrap. You will notice how

the scrap you had fitted into it."

The reporter read this:

"If you go to th(at stud)io Wednesday to see that artist, (I will

k)ill you bec(ause I w)on't have it known to the world tha(t you a)re

a model. I hope you will heed this warning. "V. W."

The reporter stared at the patched-up letter, pasted together with

infinite care, and then glanced at The Thinking Machine, who settled

himself again comfortably in the chair.

"And now, Miss Stanford," asked the scientist, in a most

matter-of-fact tone, "where is the body of Miss Field?"

The blunt question aroused the girl, and she arose suddenly, staring

at The Thinking Machine. He did not move. She stood as if

transfixed, and Hatch saw her bosom rise and fall rapidly with the

emotion she was seeking to repress.

"Well?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"I don't know," flamed Miss Stanford, suddenly, almost fiercely. "I

don't even know she is dead. I know that Mr. Willis did not kill

her, because, as that letter I gave you shows, he was in Springfield.

I won't be tricked into saying anything further."

The outburst had no appreciable effect on The Thinking Machine beyond

causing him to raise his eyebrows slightly as he looked at the

defiant little figure.

"When did you last see Mr. Willis have a revolver?"

"I know nothing of any revolver. I know only that Victor Willis is

innocent as you are, and that I love him. Whatever has become of

Grace Field I don't know."

Tears leaped suddenly to her eyes, and, turning, she left the room.

After a moment they heard the outer door slam as she passed out.

Hatch turned to the scientist with a question in his eyes.

"Did you smell anything like chloroform or ether when you were in St.

George's apartments?" asked The Thinking Machine as he arose.

"No," said Hatch. "I only noticed that the place seemed close, and

there was an odor of Chinese incense--joss sticks--which was almost

stifling."

The Thinking Machine looked at the reporter quickly, but said

nothing. Instead, he passed out of the room, to return a few minutes

later with his hat and coat on.

"Where are we going?" asked Hatch.

"To St. George's studio," was the answer.

Just then the telephone bell in the next room rang. The scientist

answered it in person.

"Your City Editor," he called to Hatch.

Hatch went to the 'phone and remained there several minutes. When he

came back there was a new excitement in his face.

"What is it?" asked the scientist.

"Another queer thing my City Editor told me," Hatch responded.

"Constans St. George, raving mad, has escaped from the hospital and

disappeared."

"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed the scientist, quickly. It was as near

surprise as he ever showed. "Then there is danger."

With quick steps he went to the telephone and called up Police

Headquarters.

"Detective Mallory," Hatch heard him ask for. "Yes. This is

Professor Van Dusen. Please meet me immediately here at my house.

Be here in ten minutes? Good. I'll wait. It's a matter of great

importance. Good-by."

Then impatiently The Thinking Machine moved about, waiting. The

reporter, whose acquaintance with the logician was an extended one,

had never seen him in just such a state. It started when he heard

St. George had escaped.

At last they left the house and stood waiting on the steps until

Detective Mallory appeared in a cab. Into that Hatch and The

Thinking Machine climbed, after the latter had given some direction,

and the cabby drove rapidly away. It was all a mystery to Hatch, and

he was rather glad of it when Detective Mallory asked what it meant.

"Means that there is danger of a tragedy," said The Thinking Machine,

crustily. "We may be in time to avert it. There is just a chance.

If I'd only known this an hour ago--even half an hour ago--it might

have been stopped."

The Thinking Machine was the first man out of the cab when it

stopped, and Hatch and the detective followed quickly.

"Is Mr. St. George in his apartments?" asked the scientist of the

elevator boy.

"No, sir," said the boy. "He's in hospital, shot."

"Is there a key to his place? Quick."

"I think so, sir, but I can't give it to you."

"Here, give it to me, then!" exclaimed the detective. He flashed a

badge in the boy's eyes, and the youth immediately lost a deal of his

coolness.

"Gee, a detective! Yes, sir."

"How many rooms has Mr. St. George?" asked the scientist.

"Three and a bath," the boy responded.

Two minutes later the three men stood in the reception-room of the

apartments. There came to them from somewhere inside a deadly,

stifling odor of chloroform. After one glance around The Thinking

Machine rushed into the next room, the studio.

"Dear me, dear me!" he exclaimed.

There on the floor lay huddled the figure of a man. Blood had run

from several wounds on his head. The Thinking Machine stooped a

moment, and his slender fingers fumbled over the heart.

"Unconscious, that's all," he said, and he raised the man up.

"Victor Willis!" exclaimed Hatch.

"Victor Willis!" repeated The Thinking Machine, as if puzzled. "Are

you sure?"

"Certain," said Hatch, positively. "It's the bank clerk."

"Then we are too late," declared the scientist.

He arose and looked about the room. A door to his right attracted

his attention. He jerked it open and peered in. It was a clothes

press. Another small door on the other side of the room was also

thrown open. Here was a kitchenette, with a great quantity of canned

stuffs.

The Thinking Machine went on into the little bedroom which Hatch had

searched. He flung open the bathroom and peered in, only to shut it

immediately. Then he tried the handle of another door, a closet. It

was fastened.

"Ah!" he exclaimed.

Then on his hands and knees he sniffed at the crack between the door

and the flooring. Suddenly, as if satisfied, he arose and stepped

away from the door.

"Smash that door in," he directed.

Detective Mallory looked at him stupefied. There was a similar

expression on Hatch's face.

"What's--what's in there?" the detective asked.

"Smash it," said the other, tartly. "Smash it, or God knows what

you'll find in there."

The detective, a powerful man, and Hatch threw their weight against

the door; it stood rigid. They pulled at the handle; it refused to

yield.

"Lend me your revolver?" asked The Thinking Machine.

The weapon was in his hand almost before the detective was aware of

it, and, placing the barrel to the keyhole, The Thinking Machine

pulled the trigger. There was a resonant report, the lock was

smashed and the detective put out his hand to open the door.

"Look out for a shot," warned The Thinking Machine, sharply.

The Thinking Machine drew Detective Mallory and Hatch to one side,

out of immediate range of any person who might rush out, then pulled

the closet door open. A cloud of suffocating fumes--the sweet,

sickening odor of chloroform--gushed out, but there was no sound from

inside. The detective looked at The Thinking Machine inquiringly.

Carefully, almost gingerly, the scientist peered around the edge of

the door. What he saw did not startle him, because it was what he

expected. It was Constans St. George lying prone on the floor as if

dead, with a blood-spattered revolver clasped loosely in one hand;

the other hand grasped the throat of a woman, a woman of superb

physical beauty, who also lay with face upturned, staring glassily.

"Open the windows--all of them, then help me," commanded the

scientist.

As Detective Mallory and Hatch turned to obey the instructions, The

Thinking Machine took the revolver from the inert fingers of the

artist. Then Hatch and Mallory returned and together they lifted the

unconscious forms toward a window.

"It's Grace Field," said the reporter.

In silence for half an hour the scientist labored over the

unconscious forms of his three patients. The detective and reporter

stood by, doing only what they were told to do. The wind, cold and

stinging, came pouring through the windows, and it was only a few

minutes until the chloroform odor was dissipated. The first of the

three unconscious ones to show any sign of returning comprehension

was Victor Willis, whose presence at all in the apartments furnished

one of the mysteries which Hatch could not fathom.

It was evident that his condition was primarily due to the wounds on

his head--two of which bled profusely. The chloroform had merely

served to further deaden his mentality. The wounds were made with

the butt of the revolver, evidently in the hands of the artist.

Willis's eyes opened finally and he stared at the faces bending over

him with uncomprehending eyes.

"What happened?" he asked.

"You're all right now," was the scientist's assuring answer. "This

man is your prisoner, Detective Mallory, for breaking and entering

and for the attempted murder of Mr. St. George."

Detective Mallory was delighted. Here was something he could readily

understand; a human being given over to his care; a tangible thing to

put handcuffs on and hold. He immediately proceeded to put the

handcuffs on.

"Any need of an ambulance?" he asked.

"No," replied The Thinking Machine. "He'll be all right in half an

hour."

Gradually as reason came back Willis remembered. He turned his head

at last and saw the inert bodies of St. George and Grace Field, the

girl whom he had loved.

"She was here, then!" he exclaimed suddenly, violently. "I knew it.

Is she dead?"

"Shut up that young fool's mouth, Mr. Mallory," commanded the

scientist, sharply. "Take him in the other room or send him away."

Obediently Mallory did as directed; there was that in the voice of

this cold, calm being, The Thinking Machine, which compelled

obedience. Mallory never questioned motives or orders.

Willis was able to walk to the other room with help. Miss Field and

St. George lay side by side in the cold wind from the open window.

The Thinking Machine had forced a little whisky down their throats,

and after a time St. George opened his eyes.

The artist was instantly alert and tried to rise. He was weak,

however, and even a strength given to him by the madness which blazed

in his eyes did not avail. At last he lay raving, cursing,

shrieking. The Thinking Machine regarded him closely.

"Hopeless," he said, at last.

Again for many minutes the scientist worked with the girl. Finally

he asked that an ambulance be sent for. The detective called up the

City Hospital on the telephone in the apartments and made the

request. The Thinking Machine stared alternately at the girl and at

the artist.

"Hopeless," he said again. "St. George, I mean."

"Will the girl recover?" asked Hatch.

"I don't know," was the frank reply. "She's been partly stupefied

for days--ever since she disappeared, as a matter of fact. If her

physical condition was as good as her appearance indicates she may

recover. Now the hospital is the best place for her."

It was only a few minutes before two ambulances came and the three

persons were taken away; Willis a prisoner, and a sullen, defiant

prisoner, who refused to speak or answer questions; St. George raving

hideously and cursing frightfully; the woman, beautiful as a marble

statue, and colorless as death.

When they had all gone, The Thinking Machine went back into the

bedroom and examined more carefully the little closet in which he had

found the artist and Grace Field. It was practically a padded cell,

relatively six feet each way. Heavy cushion of felt two or three

inches thick covered the interior of the little room closely. In the

top of it there was a small aperture, which had permitted some of the

fumes of the chloroform to escape. The place was saturated with the

poison.

"Let's go," he said, finally.

Detective Mallory and Hatch followed him out and a few minutes later

sat opposite him in his little laboratory. Hatch had told a story

over the telephone that made his City Editor rejoice madly; it was

news, great, big, vital news.

"Now, Mr. Hatch, I suppose you want some details," said The Thinking

Machine, as he relapsed into his accustomed attitude. "And you, too,

Mr. Mallory, since you are holding Willis a prisoner on my say-so.

Would you like to know why?"

"Sure," said the detective.

"Let's go back a little--begin at the beginning, where Mr. Hatch

called on me," said The Thinking Machine. "I can make the matter

clearer that way. And I believe the cause of justice, Mr. Mallory,

requires absolute accuracy and clarity in all things, does it not?"

"Sure," said the detective again.

"Well, Mr. Hatch told me at some length of the preliminaries of this

case," explained The Thinking Machine. "He told me the history of

the picture; the mystery as to the identity of the model; her great

beauty; how he found her to be Grace Field, a shop-girl. He also

told me of the mental condition of the artist, St. George, and

repeated the rumor as he knew it about the artist being heartbroken

because the girl--his model--would not marry him.

"All this brought the artist into the matter of the girl's

disappearance. She represented to him, physically, the highest ideal

of which he could conceive--hope, success, life itself. Therefore it

was not astonishing that he should fall in love with her; and it is

not difficult to imagine that the girl did not fall in love with him.

She is a beautiful woman, but not necessarily a woman of mentality;

he is a great artist, eccentric, childish even in certain things.

They were two natures totally opposed.

"These things I could see instantly. Mr. Hatch showed me the

photograph and also the scrap of paper. At the time the scrap of

paper meant nothing. As I pointed out, it might have no bearing at

all, yet it made it necessary for me to know whose handwriting it

was. If Willis's, it still might mean nothing; if St. George's, a

great deal, because it showed a direct thread to him. There was

reason to believe that any friendship between them had ended when the

picture was exhibited.

"It was necessary, therefore, even that early in the work of reducing

the mystery to logic to center it about St. George. This I explained

to Mr. Hatch and pointed out the fact that the girl and the artist

might have eloped--were possibly together somewhere. First it was

necessary to get to the artist; Mr. Hatch had not been able to do so.

"A childishly simple trick, which seemed to amaze Mr. Hatch

considerably, brought the artist out of his rooms after he had been

there closely for two days. I told Mr. Hatch. that the artist would

leave his rooms, if he were there, one night at 9:32, and told him to

wait in the hall, then if he left the door open to enter the

apartments and search for some trace of the girl. Mr. St. George did

leave his apartments at the time I mentioned, and--"

"But why, how?" asked Hatch.

"There was one thing in the world that St. George loved with all his

heart," explained the scientist. "That was his picture. Every act

of his life has demonstrated that. I looked at a telephone book; I

found he had a 'phone. If he were in his rooms, locked in, it was a

bit of common sense that his telephone was the best means of reaching

him. He answered the 'phone; I told him, just at 9:30, that the Art

Museum was on fire and his picture in danger.

"St George left his apartments to go and see, just as I knew he

would, hatless and coatless, and leaving the door open. Mr. Hatch

went inside and found two gloves and a veil, all belonging to Miss

Field. Miss Stanford identified them and asked if he had gotten them

from Willis, and if Willis had been arrested. Why did she ask these

questions? Obviously because she knew, or thought she knew, that

Willis had some connection with the affair.

"Mr. Hatch detailed all his discoveries and the conversation with

Miss Stanford to me on the day after I 'phoned to St. George, who, of

course, had found no fire. It showed that Miss Stanford suspected

Willis, whom she loved, of the murder of Miss Field. Why? Because

she had heard him threaten. He's a hare-brained young fool, anyway.

What motive? Jealousy. Jealousy of what? He knew in some way that

she had posed for a semi-nude picture, and that the man who painted

it loved her. There is your jealousy. It explains Willis's every

act."

The Thinking Machine paused a moment, then went on:

"This conversation with Mr. Hatch made me believe Miss Stanford knew

more than she was willing to tell. In what way? By a letter?

Possibly. She had given Mr. Hatch a scrap of a letter; perhaps she

had found another letter, or more of this. I sent her a note,

telling her I knew she had these scraps of letters, and she promptly

brought them to me. She had found them after Mr. Hatch saw her first

somewhere in the house--in a bureau drawer she said, I think.

"Meanwhile, Mr. Hatch had called my attention to the burglary of St.

George's apartments. One reading of that convinced me that it was

Willis who did this. Why? Because burglars don't burst in doors

when they think anyone is inside; they pick the lock. Knowing, too,

Willis's insane jealousy, I figured that he would be the type of man

who would go there to kill St. George if he could, particularly if he

thought the girl was there.

"Thus it happened that I was not the only one to think that St.

George knew where the girl was. Willis, the one most interested,

thought she was there. I questioned Miss Stanford mercilessly,

trying to get more facts about the young man from her which would

bear on this, trying to trick her into some statement, but she was

loyal to the last.

"All these things indicated several things. First, that Willis

didn't actually know where the girl was, as he would have known had

he killed her; second, that if she had disappeared with a man, it was

St. George, as there was no other apparent possibility; third, that

St. George would be with her or near her, even if he had killed her;

fourth, the pistol shot through the arm had brought on again a mental

condition which threatened his entire future, and now as it happens

has blighted it.

"Thus, Miss Field and St. George were together. She loved Willis

devotedly, therefore she was with St. George against her will, or she

was dead. Where? In his rooms? Possibly. I determined to search

there. I had just reached this determination when I heard St.

George, violently insane, had escaped from the hospital. He had only

one purpose then--to get to the woman. Then she was in danger.

"I reasoned along these lines, rushed to the artist's apartments,

found Willis there wounded. He had evidently been there searching

when St. George returned, and St. George had attacked him, as a

madman will, and with the greater strength of a madman. Then I knew

the madman's first step. It would be the end of everything for him;

therefore the death of the girl and his own. How? By poison

preferably, because he would not shoot her--he loved beauty too much.

Where? Possibly in the place where she had been all along, the

closet, carefully padded and prepared to withstand noises. It is

really a padded cell. I have an idea that the artist, sometimes

overcome by his insane fits, and knowing when they would come,

prepared this closet and used it himself occasionally. Here the girl

could have been kept and her shrieks would never have been heard.

You know the rest."

The Thinking Machine stopped and arose, as if to end the matter. The

others arose, too.

"I took you, Mr. Mallory, because you were a detective, and I knew I

could force a way into the apartments which I imagined would be

locked. I think that's all."

"But how did the girl get there?" asked Hatch.

"St George evidently asked her to come, possibly to pose again. It

was a gratification to the girl to do this--a little touch of vanity

that Willis was fighting so hard, and which led to his threats and

his efforts to kill St. George. Of course the artist was insane when

she came; his frantic love for her led him to make her a prisoner and

hold her against her will. You saw how well he did it."

There was an awed pause. Hatch was rubbing the nap of his hat

against his sleeve, thoughtfully. Detective Mallory had nothing to

say, it was all said. Both turned as if to go, but the reporter had

two more questions.

"I suppose St George's case is hopeless?"

"Absolutely. It will end in a few months with his death."

"And Miss Field?"

"If she is not dead by this time she will recover. Wait a minute."

He went into the next room and they heard the telephone bell jingle.

After a time he came out. "She will recover," he said.

"Good-afternoon."

Wonderingly, Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, and Detective Mallory passed

down the street together.

Gentleman Coggins: Alias Towers

BY OSWALD CRAWFURD, C.M.G.

CHAPTER I

CAPTAIN TOWERS

"I have always considered," said my friend, Inspector Morgan, when he

paid me a late after-dinner visit, "I have always considered that the

greatest help a detective can have in following up and finding out

about a crime is to know something beforehand of the criminal's own

private and particular way of looking at things.

"To prove that I should like to tell you the real story of the great

jewel robbery at Balin Abbey, and how the place was broken into by

Ikey Coggins, commonly called Gentleman Coggins, alias Towers. You

read about it, I dare say, at the time, in the newspapers?"

"I did," I said; "I remember the case vaguely."

"You only read part of the real story; for the general public never

got to know more than a little bit of what actually happened. The

real story is a very curious one."

"I should like to hear it from you."

"You shall," said the Inspector, "only you must let me tell you about

it from the beginning, and in my own way."

Inspector Morgan then told me the following story:

"My first years of services in the army were passed in India and in

the Colonies, and when I got my company and came home, I exchanged

into a smart cavalry regiment. From that time, things went wrong

with me. I had meant, being a comparatively poor man, and very

ambitious, to work hard and make a serious career of my profession,

and, so far, I had done so; but when I got into the ---- I confess I

led a fool's life. Few men can fight against their environment. The

regiment was a sporting regiment, and it was quartered in Ireland.

Unfortunately for me, I had a fair seat in the saddle, a light hand

on the reins, and I could ride under ten stone. My fellow-officers

were good fellows and sportsmen. The talk at mess was of nothing but

polo, drag-hunts, and steeplechases. I fell into their way.

Anything like serious study was impossible. I bought two polo

ponies. I had part ownership in a famous steeplechaser which I had

ridden more than once to a win. I lost a good deal more than I could

afford at cards. My polo stud was expensive. I was running fast

into debt, but I looked to pull myself free at a great race meeting

in our near neighborhood. The two chief events of that meeting were

the Hunt Steeplechase, in which I was to ride a friend's hunter, and

the Great West of Ireland Handicap, in which my mount was the horse

in which I held a part ownership, a very famous steeplechaser, named

The Leprochaun. On both events I had laid to win heavily.

"Now, I have every reason to believe I should have won both races,

paid my debts, pulled myself together, seen what an idiot I had been

making of myself, changed into a quieter regiment, and made the army

a career and perhaps a successful one. I say I might have done all

this but for one man, my evil genius, Captain Towers, who, about this

time, came into our regiment. He had done service in the Colonies.

No one knew much about him, but he brought with him a reputation as a

sportsman and a rider. Towers was never liked at mess. He was a

cold, quiet, cynical fellow, with a pale, sinister face, and a

horseman's build, broad-shouldered, clean-limbed, strong, spare, and

wiry. I saw at once that I had a rival in the saddle, and I was not

sorry, for, in point of fact, I had had it too much my own way for

the last year or two, being the only man in the regiment who

fulfilled all the requirements of a race rider, seat, hand,

experience, nerve, and low weight.

"The regiment was at that time mad upon bridge, and Towers played a

good, quiet game. He had certain rare advantages as a bridge player;

he never abused his partner or made cynical remarks; he won without

triumphing, and he lost gaily. Not that he lost often, and it was

soon observed that no man ever enjoyed so consistent a run of good

luck as Captain Towers.

"He and I having so much in common were thrown together--but we were

never friends. Indeed, I disliked him and distrusted him from the

first. He was not a genial fellow. He was a man who never lost a

chance of sneering at the four or five things on which men at large

do not care to listen to cynical speech--religion, politics, women,

social honor, and social honesty. He and I sometimes quarreled, as

two men will when one is quick-tempered and the other coldly cynical.

I was fool enough to lend him a hundred pounds when he first came to

the regiment, and he had the impudence to look upon my loan to him as

the act of a fool. 'Why,' he said, 'you never expected to get it

back, did you?'

"'You are chaffing, Captain Towers,' I said stiffly.

"'Oh,' he said, 'you may call it chaffing if you like; you won't get

the money out of me! You haven't my I.O.U.'

"'Then,' I said, losing my temper, 'you'll allow me to have my

opinion of your conduct, and to let my friends know what I think.'

"Do, and be hanged to you!' he said.

"We parted uncomfortably. What an infernal blackguard! I thought.

The great race was still in the far future, when one day Towers came

to me and said, overlooking the bad terms we were on, 'Captain

Morgan, I want your opinion on a matter in which you know more than I

do.'

"'What can that be?' I asked, rather amused, for Towers was not, as a

rule, overmodest.

"'The points of a horse.'

"I said nothing, but I thought, What is he driving at now?

"If I had been able to give the right answer to that question, my

life would perhaps have been a different life to what it has been.

"'The fact is,' he said, 'I am in rather a hole. I got a letter from

a friend in Dublin, last week, offering me a chaser for sale--the

price was reasonable, the mare young and untried, but she could jump

and she could gallop, and I was tempted. "Send her down," I wired.

Well, she has come; she is standing at Simpson's, and, to look at

her, she is the greatest brute I ever saw. Come and see her.'

"A lover of horses does not lose a chance of seeing something out of

the way in the horse line. Certainly I never saw a less promising

animal than the mare in Simpson's stable; ewe-necked, a huge, ugly

head, vicious eyes, looking round at us with the whites showing, as

we came near the stall.

"'Do you see any points about that mare?" asked Towers.

"'She has big quarters,' I said, 'she ought to gallop, but her

shoulder is straight.'

"'She's the devil's own of a temper, your honor,' said the groom,

'when a man's on her back; and she cries out if she's vexed, like a

woman. We call her The Squealer.'

"'The Squealer!' said Towers. 'I'll christen her that--she's unnamed

as yet--that is, if I keep her. But shall I? Shall I pay her

journey back to Dublin and send a fiver and try to be off the

bargain?'

"Irish grooms are free with their opinions.

"'Begorra, sir, I'd send a tenner wid her and make sure!'

"'Better see what she can do first,' I said, 'hadn't you? Take her

out with the drag-hounds to-morrow.'

"'Put a saddle and bridle on her now, Pat, and we'll try her in

Simpson's field.'

"Irishmen resent the general use of that common patronymic which

Englishmen think it knowing and friendly to apply to every Irishman

they meet.

"'Me name's Terence, with yer honor's leave,' said the groom.

"'Is that so? Then, Terence, my man, if you can manage to sit

astride of a horse, perhaps you won't mind putting the mare round the

field?'

"The groom was offended. Every Irishman in or near a stable can

ride, and it was clear that Terence had the seat and the hand of a

good workman when he was on the mare's back, shoulders well set back,

knees forward, hands held low on either side of the mare's withers.

Perhaps the ill-humor of the man communicated itself to the mare--for

there is no sympathy so close as that between horse and rider--or

perhaps, as Terence had said, she had a bad temper of her own.

Certainly a more cantankerous mount no man ever had. While she

walked, the whites of her wicked eyes and the wrinkling of her

nostrils were the only sign, but when Terence put her to a canter,

she went short, she bucked, she threw her head up, then put it down

to nearly between her knees, and she stopped in her stride to kick.

"'By Jove,' I said, 'that fellow can keep his seat!'

"'Now we'll try her over the fences,' said Towers.

"The outer circle at Simpson's field was a lane of green turf. An

inner circle was set with fences to represent the obstacles in a

steeplechase or the hunting-field, and was used to test Mr. Simpson's

hunters.

"The groom put the mare at the first fence. She went at it at ninety

miles an hour, stopped suddenly as she came close up, gave a squeal

of ill-temper such as I never heard from a horse before, and reared

badly.

"Towers laughed heartily, while the man was, I could see, in imminent

danger of a broken neck.

"'Drop the curb, Terence!' I shouted, but the advice came too late.

The mare was standing nearly bolt upright, her head straight up in

the air. 'Slip off her, man!' I called out, and he did so, just in

time to save himself from being crushed. Relieved of his weight, the

mare fell to her fore feet again.

"'I knew she'd rear if he touched the curb, that's her way,' Towers

said, with a broad grin.

"'What! You knew that, and you let him ride her on the curb?'

"'Pooh! What does a fellow like that signify?'

"The groom had seized the reins and led her back to us.

"'Sure the mare's got an imp of Satan inside her to make her want to

kill the two of us that way!' said Terence.

"'Put on a plain running snaffle,' said Towers, 'and I'll try her.'

"'You're risking your neck, Towers, for no good. She's a brute, and

you'll make nothing of her for hunting or racing. Send her back,

even if you lose money by it.'

"He did not listen to me, and presently he was on the mare's back.

"'I want to let her extend herself and see if she can gallop.'

"She went freer in the snaffle as Towers galloped her round the outer

circle. She seemed to go a little short for a racer, showing no

indications whatever of any remarkable turn of speed. I have had

good reason since to suspect that Towers, a clever rider, took

particularly good care not to put the mare, as the saying is, 'on the

stretch.'

"When Towers rode at the fences, the mare's behavior was quite

changed. She went round the ring at a slow canter, taking every

fence, large and small, in her stride, and taking them well and

easily.

"'What do you think of that?' said Captain Towers, as he brought the

mare back to us.

"'Bedad, sir,' said Terence, putting in his say, 'when she's in that

humor she'd be the very mount for a nervous old gentleman who loves a

quiet day with hounds.'

"'What do you think of her, Captain Morgan?'

"'I agree with Terence, and I don't think she has the making of a

racer in her. Did you try to extend her just now?'

"'All she'd let me,' said Towers.

"'I'd send her back to Dublin, if you'd care to have my advice,' said

"'Wid fifteen golden sovereigns tied to her tail!' suggested Terence.

"'I'll take your advice, Morgan.'

"When I nest spoke to Towers about the mare it was three days

afterward, and he looked vexed.

"'Would you believe it? They've stuck me with that infernal mare!

The man refused to be off his bargain at any price, and now I've got

her on my hands.'

"'A white elephant! Shall you put her in training?'

"'Is she worth it?'

"Towers never did put the mare into regular training--he never even

let her be properly clipped or singed, and as the winter came on her

coat grew ragged and her fetlocks were left untrimmed. He took her

out once or twice with the hounds, and he entered her regularly at

the drag meets, but though she jumped cleverly she was never forward

with hounds, and she never came near winning the drag.

"Needless to say he and his unfortunate purchase came in for a good

deal of chaff at mess. He took it in fairly good part, and defended

the mare. 'The more I know her,' he said, 'the more I like her. She

has a temper and is too lazy to gallop, but I believe she can.'

"Not with that shape, my dear fellow,' said Major O'Gorman, a keen

sportsman, but too stout to ride his own horses on the turf. 'A

horse wants shoulders to land him as well as hind legs to send him

forward, and your mare has shoulders like a sheep's.'

"You know more of horses than I do,' said Towers almost humbly.

"'Not difficult,' said O'Gorman behind his moustache. But Towers did

not hear, or pretended not to hear.

"I'd back her even now,' said Towers, 'over a stiff course against

some horses I could name.'

"The weakness we all have for our own property blinds the wisest of

us! and we were a little sorry even for Towers when we saw O'Gorman's

eagerness to take him at his word. It was a little over-sharp of

O'Gorman, we thought, upon the newcomer.

"'Do you mean any of my lot, Captain Towers? because if you mean

that, I'll do business with you.'

"'I suppose it's cheek of me, but I did mean The Clipper.'

"There was a peal of laughter at the mess table.

"'Owners up?' suggested Towers, and the laugh turned against the

red-faced, burly major.

"'Certainly not,' said O'Gorman; 'you know I never ride my own

horses. I'll put Morgan up.'

"Then I must choose the course!' said Towers sharply and decisively.

"O'Gorman suspected a trap and hesitated. 'Four miles of fair

hunting country?' he suggested.

"'Quite so,' answered Towers, 'and I to choose it.'

"So the matter was agreed upon for £100 a side. The Clipper was a

clever chaser who had won many a hurdle race and many a local

steeplechase. He was thought even to have a good chance against The

Leprochaun for the Great West of Ireland Race, having to receive no

less than 11 lbs. from that famous crack. The Clipper could gallop

and could jump, and if his jumping was not always very free, that

would not matter in a match when he could follow a lead over every

fence, for his great turn of speed would enable him to beat nearly

any horse in the last run in.

"There was little betting till the last, so hollow a thing did the

race seem, and so foregone a conclusion its result. At the last,

among the few hundred of sporting men from the neighborhood and

officers from the garrison, almost any odds could have been obtained

against Towers' mare. He himself, already in the saddle, in his

jockey cap and jacket, went among the crowd and was received with

chaff and laughter. 'What odds do you want?' they asked him.

"'What offer?' Towers called out.

"One man in derision offered ten to one. Towers shook his head and

laughed. The other raised his offer to 25 to 1, and the Captain,

saying 'Done with you!' booked the bet in tenners.

"Others followed half in fun, half in the wish to make a sovereign or

two out of the match, and before Towers and I stood at the

starting-point he must have booked over a thousand pounds in bets.

He asked me, as we stood waiting for the start, if I would give him

the current odds, but I wouldn't take advantage of him.

"A match between a fast horse who is not a safe and ready fencer and

a slower horse who can jump is generally a very dull affair. My

riding orders were simple. 'Follow Towers' lead over every fence and

race in from the last,' O'Gorman had said. I did as I was bid, and

the race was conducted mostly at a walk. The fences were big and

various; doubles, bullfinches, a stiff post and rail. A big flying

leap at a brook, the last jump before the finish was also a brook,

but quite a narrow one, not more than 12 feet of water with a good

take off and landing. The brook lay at the bottom of a slope, so

that, coming at it, we had a good view of the water, and it looked

bigger than it was. I could see why Towers had insisted upon

choosing the course. The Clipper, like most horses, preferred any

kind of jump to water. If he refused anything, he would refuse a

water jump, but O'Gorman's riding orders had provided for this, and

with a lead over the fences there was no danger of his refusing

anything. The most refusing of jumpers will always follow another

horse over a fence.

"Towers and I went over the course at our ease, chaffing each other.

He gave me a good lead over the big brook, and then pulled up in the

middle of the field to let me follow and rejoin him.

"'There's no use my trying to get away from you,' he said, 'is there?

By Jove, The Clipper is a clipper, and no mistake; and my last chance

is gone, I suppose, if he can do water like that. Come along!'

"I really thought the race was over and was admiring Towers' pluck.

He was always a good loser.

"We were coming back in a great four-mile circle to the

starting-field where the crowd stood and where also was the

winning-post not more than 300 yards from the last fence, the brook

before mentioned.

"We rode pretty fast at it, nearly side by side, The Clipper only

half a length behind Towers' mare. I could see the green winning

flags, beyond the two red ones which marked the spot where we were to

take the brook, and I was already pulling myself together for the

effort to race in.

"We were within five yards of the water when Towers' mare showed her

temper--or perhaps was made to. She stopped dead short at the edge

of the water, gave the strange squeal I had heard before, and began

to rear.

"I jammed The Clipper at the little brook, but the sight of the

water, or more probably the unexpected refusal of the mare whom he

had been following, scared him. He stuck his fore feet obstinately

together at the take off, and then swerved suddenly some twenty yards

to the left.

"As I made a half circle to put my horse again at the jump, I could

not well see what Towers was about, but they told me afterward that

what happened was this: The mare almost immediately came down from

her rear, and Towers, who, by-the-bye, carried no whip and wore no

spurs, without turning back, urged his mare to take the brook

standing. She did so at once, with so big a bound as surprised the

lookers on, and then she began to canter very slowly up the slope

toward the winning-post.

"I put The Clipper fast at the brook; he took it splendidly, and,

seeing the slow pace of The Squealer, I made no doubt of overtaking

her, but Towers, looking round, saw me coming up and mended his own

pace. We raced in, I was overtaking him fast, I had reached his

mare's quarters, then the saddle, then her neck, amid shouts of 'The

Clipper wins! The Clipper wins!' but Towers squeezed pact the post,

a winner by half a head! There was a moment's silence among the

onlookers, so unexpected was the issue of the race. Then in a moment

came a great huzzaing for Captain Towers. He became at once the hero

of the crowd and his win the cleverest bit of jockeyship ever seen on

an Irish racecourse.

"Was it accident, or was it design? Had the mare's temper prevailed

for a moment, or had Towers induced it at the critical moment? The

crowd never doubted but that Towers had managed the whole thing, nor,

to be sure, did I or any one who saw the race run and knew Towers,

have the slightest doubt on the subject. The ethics of horse-racing

are not very strict, and a trick of this sort is held to be fair by

the majority of racing men. Even O'Gorman laughed over his loss,

like the good sportsman and gentleman he was, and was seen to shake

hands openly on the course with the winner of the match--whereat the

Irish crowd cheered both gentlemen heartily.

"This affair, however, did not increase Captain Towers' reputation in

the regiment. The race might be all right, but that long-continued

belittling of an animal that if she could only gallop fairly well

could at least jump superbly. Many of us, too, had lost considerably

to him at cards. Good as his play was, it was not enough to justify

his almost constant winning at bridge, and some of the more

suspicious among us began to make unpleasant remarks, and one or two

of the heaviest losers were so convinced of the unfairness of his

play that they set themselves to watch him. They found, of course,

nothing. Towers was a most scrupulous player, he always called

attention to a player who held his hand carelessly. His own eyes

never traveled beyond his own hand and the cards on the table. It

was noticed that he was clumsy in handling the pack, that he shuffled

and cut awkwardly, dealing slowly, and carrying his hand, as some

old-fashioned players do, with every card dealt, and dealing them

into four regular little heaps on the table. The watchers noted all

this, and then gave up watching him as a bad job.

"'It's all luck,' said some of us. 'He'll make up for his run of

luck some day, somehow'--a prediction which came true in the end, but

not quite in the way the prophets had meant.

"Rather to our surprise, after the exhibition of lack of speed which

The Squealer had made in the match with The Clipper, Towers had

entered his mare for the two chief events in the Great West of

Ireland Race meeting--namely, for the Hunters' Sweepstakes, for which

The Squealer had qualified, and for the Great West of Ireland Race.

We could not quite make this out, for the mare could not have a

chance in the Hunt Steeplechase even though no better horse than The

Clipper ran in it, and I had every reason to believe The Clipper

would win the race. I had backed him heavily. That Towers should

put his mare into the Great West of Ireland Handicap, that he should

enter such an animal as The Squealer against all the best chasers in

Ireland, and among them against the famous Leprochaun, seemed nothing

short of madness. Yet there were some of us who, after Towers'

exploit against The Clipper, were quite willing to take long odds

against The Squealer for both races. Towers was one of them. He

said he thought he might win. He laid freely against any horse in

the race, and took all the long odds that he could get against his

own mount. By the day of the race he had a book which must have

totaled over ten thousand pounds.

"I will not tell you the story of that day's racing," said Inspector

Morgan. "Even now the memory of it is too unpleasant and the feeling

I have against that swindling scoundrel too bitter. Enough to say

that Towers won both races.

"When he appeared on the course in his preliminary canter, on his

ragged-coated mare, with her ewe neck, her ugly head, and her

shambling, lurching gallop, a shout of derision went up among the

racecourse crowd, and the usual cheap wit was indulged in.

"'How much the pound, Captain?' 'What price cat's meat to-day?'

'Take her home and cut her hair, sir, do!'

"When the race began and they saw her take every fence as if it was

playtime with her, keep her place in the first rank, and that

although the race was being run at the usual break-neck pace of

modern steeplechases, an unaccustomed silence fell upon the crowd.

Towers and I were again alone, every other horse in the race having

either fallen or been out-paced. This time we rode abreast, and I

took no lead. The Clipper was full of go to-day, and full of

courage, facing every jump and clearing everything safely and well.

We raced hard over the last sweep three fields off the finish, and

took the last three jumps simultaneously and abreast. I could not

shake off the mare: we were neck and neck. I plied whip and spurs,

and the brave beast responded, but I could not get past Towers, and,

almost at the post, The Squealer forged ahead, and won the race by a

narrow half length.

"Amid the shouting of the crowd and the congratulations of brother

sportsmen, Towers kept his usual cool cynicism as he was being led

back to the weighing yard. He caught sight of O'Gorman's red face in

the lane of sportsmen through which he was being led.

"'I told you, O'Gorman,' he said quietly, 'that I thought the mare

might have a turn of speed in her.'

"The history of the great race of the day was the history of the Hunt

race over again. The mare never made a mistake at her fences, never

seemed to exert herself, and Captain Towers drew alongside of me on

The Leprechaun, and raced that famous chaser over the last few

hundred yards, beating him as he had beaten The Clipper by the

narrowest of distances at the post.

"That race was the end of my army career. I was in debt far beyond

my solvency. I had lost some hundreds at cards, and my chances of

recouping myself at the race meeting had been hindered by Captain

Towers and his mysterious mare.

"It was not quite the end of Towers' career, but it was the beginning

of the end. It was not till all racing debts had been paid to him

and done with, that something happened which was to solve the problem

of The Squealer and how she had come to beat the best horses in

Ireland, but another rather startling event was to happen first, and

this also led to unexpected developments.

"Captain Towers' exploits on the turf had made him famous, and in

sporting circles outside our mess he was even popular, for he had

other claims to society success. He was musical and had a capital

voice, and he was beyond compare the best amateur actor I have ever

known. His specialty was what on the stage is known as character

parts, old men, particularly foreign old men, when he would make up

and talk in a way to make one entirely forget his own individuality.

The complicated Jew nature he seemed to have studied as few men

have--when and where I could never guess. He impersonated Shylock

once in the trial scene from the 'Merchant of Venice.' Portia, the

Duke, Bassanio, and Antonio were all forgotten. We had eyes and ears

for him alone.

"In a silly melodrama which the Amateur Dramatists of the garrison

town played in for a charity, Towers had been asked to choose his

part. He chose, to the surprise of every one, the character of 'Ikey

Moses,' a young Cockney Jew, dealer in old clothes, who, in some way,

comes into collision with the noble Christian hero of the piece and

gets the worse of the encounter. His part consisted only of a dozen

or two of words, but they were delivered at rehearsals with such an

unctuous roll of the lips, such a broad and humorous accent, half

Cockney, half Yiddish, that our stage-manager--a

professional--suggested a little writing up of the part. At the next

rehearsal Towers had put in a few lines and delivered them with

marvelous effect. The whole company applauded and entreated him to

work on, upon the same lines. At every rehearsal the part grew.

Ikey Moses was from the first a ridiculous, somewhat hateful

character--mean, subservient to his superiors, a bully to his

inferiors--spurned by the low-born heroine, to whom he presumes to

offer his obnoxious addresses. Towers with great skill preserved all

the mean and ridiculous elements in the character, but he converted

the Jew's presumptuous courting of the heroine into a genuine love.

The better elements in the man were seen to be fighting against his

baser side. There was the true dramatic struggle and contention of

passion with passion. Pathos and even tragedy were latent in the

struggle. The part extended day by day till at last it literally

filled the play. It _was_ the play--the parts of the leading

gentleman and lady were ruthlessly cut down, and when the piece came

to be acted, Ikey Moses, with his comic lisp, his mixture of

knowingness, knavery, and simplicity, was on the stage during nearly

the whole of the four acts, and there was a scene between him and his

sweetheart while he pleads, and she half pities, half despises him,

and finally rejects him, which stirred the house to unwonted tragic

depths. Towers was cheered when he came on and when he went off, and

when the curtain fell it was amid a tumult of applause.

"I mention this to show what a versatile and accomplished fellow

Towers was, and also because his mimetic powers have a distinct

relation to something I shall have to tell you presently. With all

these talents, enough to raise any man to a pinnacle of success in

almost any line of life, there was in Towers an instinct toward evil,

that demoniac tendency which drives men to their doom, that

mysterious, little understood impulse which lies deep at the heart of

every great criminal, the tendency to set evil above good which

finally destroys the man's soul.

"Now," Morgan went on, "I must tell you of the incident which led to

the first of a series of catastrophes in Towers' military career. I

have told you how he systematically won at cards, and how, though we

all began to suspect him of foul play, we never could find anything

to justify any suspicions. The cards he played with belonged to the

mess, and were procured in the usual way by the mess committee for

the time being. Towers went on winning, and we had no excuse but to

go on playing with him.

"There was one young fellow among us who did not take it so

calmly--Terence O'Grady, a hot-headed young Tipperary giant--a good

fellow, popular among us all, a distant relative of my own, and a man

whom I loved as a brother. He had lost night after night when he

played against Towers, and won only when he found himself Towers'

partner.

"'I know the beggar cheats!' he cried out.

"'Hush!' said an older officer. 'You can't prove it, whatever you

think, and you'd best hold your tongue till you're sure.'

"Then I'll make sure!' said O'Grady. 'I'll pin him, sir, never fear

but I'll pin him!'

"We laughed at this vague threat--not for a moment guessing what he

meant by his vague threat of pinning Captain Towers.

"That night O'Grady and I played against Towers and O'Gorman. It

happened that every one of the three of us had already, in previous

play, lost heavily to Towers--O'Gorman in particular, and O'Grady far

more than he could afford. Towers dealt. We watched with an

ill-defined suspicion the slow and deliberate movements of the

dealer. We always expected something fantastic in the way of a

declaration when Towers dealt, but this time it surprised me to find

that he declared no trumps, for, sitting third hand, I held seven

hearts to the Quart Major in my own hand. I immediately redoubled,

and, to my surprise, Towers redoubled again. Knowing that my partner

would follow the 'heart convention' and play me a heart, I doubled

again, and on a seeming certainty, and so it went on to the extreme

limit. Eventually we stood to win or lose 100 points on each trick.

"What was my surprise when O'Grady failed to lead a heart. He had

none. Towers easily discarded the few hearts in his own hand, kept

the lead, my hearts never came in, and we lost the whole thirteen

tricks, Grand Slam!

"'Now,' thought I, 'how could Towers possibly have dared to redouble

and to continue to redouble, unless he had felt sure that O'Grady,

with the blind lead, had not a single heart in his hand? How could

he have known this by any fair means? He could not even have caught

a chance glance at O'Grady's hand, for that young Irishman is

short-sighted, and never holds his cards more than three inches from

his nose.

"I looked at O'Gorman, who is a fine player. He wore a very grave

look. I saw he had arrived at the same conclusion as I had. Indeed,

it was too obvious to miss. O'Grady's face worked. I thought he

meant mischief.

"The score was marked down, Towers cut for O'Grady and the game went

on with varied success till the turn came again for Towers to deal.

"'Hearts!' said Towers, after a glance at his hand.

"He laid his cards in a neat heap on the table, sat back and waited

for developments; as he did so, he rested both hands for a moment on

his knees. It is an ordinary action which I have seen many an

innocent bridge-player adopt, but it suggested foul doings to O'Grady.

"'May I play?' he asked me, but his voice was choked with some strong

emotion.

"'Yes,' I answered, and Towers raised his hands from the table and

proceeded to take up his cards. In the moment of his doing so, and

before he could touch the cards, O'Grady shot out his right hand and

grasped Towers by the wrist so strongly that he could not move it.

O'Grady was a fellow of prodigious strength.

"Poor O'Grady's feat was a poor parody of the old story of the man

who pierces the sharper's hand to the table with a dagger and offers

to apologize if there is not a card beneath it.

"I'll make you my apologies, Captain Towers,' says O'Grady, 'if you

don't hold a false card in your hand.'

"As is usual in such catastrophes, there was a moment's silence.

Towers, though he could not disengage his hand, could turn it, and he

did so, and showed that it was empty.

"'You young idiot!' O'Gorman called out. 'Let go! No one cheats at

bridge that way.'

"O'Grady, out of countenance, withdrew his hand, but, before he had

quite done so, Towers had clenched his left hand, and, half raising

himself from his seat, brought his fist with prodigious force full on

O'Grady's temple. As the young Irishman's right arm and shoulder

were extended, his head inclined somewhat away from the shoulder, and

the temple lying flat to the blow, received it full and without a

glance. O'Grady groaned, his head dropped forward--he had been

felled, as an ox is felled, by the terrible force of the blow

delivered by an angry man.

"'You brute!' I said, but I felt, as I said it, that the provocation

almost justified the assault.

"'I presume the rubber is over for the present,' said O'Gorman,

cold-bloodedly. I'll gather up the cards,' he added, and he

proceeded to put them together in the order they lay on the table and

placed them in his pocket.

"Towers had left the room.

"'Do you feel any better yet, O'Grady, my boy?' asked O'Gorman, but

the young Irishman lay still. 'Give him time,' said O'Gorman, 'and a

spoonful of whisky, but I say, what a biceps that fellow must have to

deliver such a smasher, eh!'

"I was dragging O'Grady's lifeless form to a sofa, helped by

O'Gorman, and presently we forced a drop or two of raw whisky between

his lips.

"He opened his eyes.

"'I pinned him, didn't I?' he asked, 'and then I seem to forget.

What happened then?'

"'What naturally would,' said O'Gorman. 'You lay hold of a man's

hand and suggest that he cheats, and he hits you hard over the ear.'

"'I'll have him out for it!' says O'Grady.

"'No, you won't, my boy. It's tit for tat, and that's good law all

the world over.'

"'My head aches infernally,' muttered the young man, 'but I'll have

him out on the field and shoot him.'

"'We'll have the blackguard into court first, and get him time and

hard labor for cheating at cards--'

"'Then we've found him out.'

"O'Gorman went to the door and locked it. 'Look here, you two,' he

said, and he took the pack of cards out of his pocket and spread

them, face up, on the card-table. He counted out the first thirteen.

'There, that was Towers' hand. This is O'Grady's,' and he counted a

second thirteen. 'This is mine, his dummy, and this is Morgan's.

Now you heard him call hearts, didn't you? Let us see what he did it

on. See here, Captain Morgan, he had just three hearts in his hand,

knave, ten, and four, with some strength in the three other suits.

Does any sane man declare hearts with only three of the suit in his

hand? Never. But he might if he happened to know that his dummy

holds five hearts.'

"'How could he guess that?'

"'By some devil's cantrip, sir! That's his secret, Captain Morgan,

and Satan's, his master!'

"The thing had gone beyond a mess scandal. It was made a matter of

regimental inquiry. Just about this time, too, ugly rumors began to

circulate as to Towers' doings on the turf. The Colonel had received

anonymous letters, of which he took at first no notice, alleging that

Towers' mare, entered under the name of The Squealer as a

six-year-old, was in fact a well-known steeplechaser named The

Scapegoat, who had run in the Grand National at Liverpool two years

before, and had come very near to winning that important event. A

letter from a friend of the Colonel's, a well-known Irish sportsman,

testified to the same effect. He had had his suspicions aroused, he

said, on the day of the race, but not being sure, for the mare's coat

was ragged and her appearance changed, he had held his tongue. It

was not till some time had passed that he and a companion had

examined the mare in Simpson's stables and he had found his

suspicions confirmed. It was The Scapegoat sure enough. The mare's

teeth had been tampered with, she bore 'mark of mouth' at variance

with the length of her teeth, and that mark had evidently been

'faked.' Moreover, there was a conspicuous scar on the coronet of

the off hind leg of The Scapegoat which was hidden by the unusual

growth of hair on the fetlocks of Captain Towers' mare. This mark

was looked for and found on the animal in Simpson's stable.

"On this evidence Towers was summoned before a Regimental Court of

Inquiry and required to give an explanation. He was also called upon

to explain the incidents during the bridge rubber, interrupted by the

action of Lieutenant O'Grady. He had no excuse to offer for his

redoubling 'No Trumps' and declaring 'hearts' with only three of that

suit in his hand, except that he always played a forward, dashing

game, and found it a winning one. As to his mare, he denied that she

was anything but a young mare 'rising six,' and declared that a

friend had picked her up for him in a Dublin livery stable.

"The inquiry was adjourned for further expert testimony. A Dublin

vet. deposed that the mare's mouth had been 'faked,' that the length

of her teeth indicated her age to be not less than eight. At that

age the depression in the corner teeth of a horse, known as 'mark of

mouth,' has disappeared for more than a twelvemonth. The mare indeed

possessed 'mark of mouth,' but it was easy to see that it was a mark

which had been produced by artificial means.

"Captain Towers being asked to explain why he had failed to singe or

clip the mare and thus let her run at disadvantage to herself with

half her winter coat on, replied that he was opposed to excessive

removal of a horse's natural covering.

"Asked if the growth of hair allowed to grow on her fetlocks was not

Captain Towers said the same answer would apply as he had made to the

court's former question.

"An eminent detective officer had been brought from Scotland Yard, an

expert in the ways of card-sharping. On being told of the

circumstances of the last rubber played by Captain Towers, the

detective asked for the packs that had been used. He examined the

cards carefully, picked out sixteen cards from each pack, looking

only at the backs, and dealt them into two heaps, face downward on

the table, at which the officers on the inquiry were sitting.

"We looked at Captain Towers. For the first time his assumed smile

left him and he showed some emotion. He had turned pale. 'You will

probably find, gentlemen,' said Inspector Medlicott, 'that these two

heaps consist of the whole suit of hearts and the three remaining

aces. He turned up the cards and it proved to be as he said. There

lay exposed all four aces and all the hearts in each pack.

"He handed the bundle of sixteen cards to the President.

"'You will see nothing, sir, in these cards unless you look with a

powerful magnifying glass, and you will feel nothing, but the man who

takes the precaution of slightly rubbing down the skin of the ball of

the thumb and of his second finger with pumice stone, and so

increasing the sensibility of the skin, can perceive in handling the

cards that each ace has received the prick of a fine needle point,

moving from face to back, and all the hearts similar pricks, from

back to front--the pricks in the case of the hearts varying in number

according to the value of the card. Now that supplies information

enough to a good player to enable him to win heavily on every rubber.'

"Inspector Medlicott gathered up the cards of one pack into his hand,

shuffled them and turned to the President.

"'If you will allow me, sir, to deal this pack, as if I were the

dealer at a game of bridge, I will show you the _modus operandi_ of

the swindler at the game of bridge.'

"'Certainly, Mr. Inspector,' said the Colonel from the head of the

board table, 'do as you say.'

"Every one in the room was a bridge player, and we watched the

movements of the detective with deep interest. I glanced at the

accused.

"He had turned to a death-like pallor.

"'This,' said Inspector Medlicott, 'is how a card-sharper, using

these needle-marked cards, would probably deal.'

"He dealt the cards and, to my astonishment, he exactly repeated the

slow method of dealing practiced by Captain Towers--the hand in each

case following the card and laying each card, in its turn, on its

respective heap.

"'By so doing,' said the inspector, 'the ball of the thumb and of the

second finger have time to come into contact with the prick marks on

each card.'

"The cards now lay in four heaps on the table.

"'I am able now to tell you, sir,' said Inspector Medlicott, looking

to the President, 'that I have dealt two aces to my dummy and one to

each of my adversaries. I have, as it happens, given myself four

good hearts; there are five small hearts in my dummy's hand, and my

adversaries have each two. I should accordingly declare hearts on

this deal though I have only four in the suit, and am quite sure to

win heavily.'

"He turned up the cards and showed that he had correctly described

them.

"The evidence was conclusive.

"We looked at Captain Towers. He had covered his face with his

hands. A report of the inquiry was forwarded to headquarters, and

Captain Towers was ordered to submit himself to a court martial or

quit the service. But Towers did not wait for any instructions from

headquarters. He disappeared suddenly from our midst. The day

following the inquiry he was gone. He had left numerous creditors

behind, which we thought the more iniquitous, as his short career

among us had left him a winner at cards and on the turf of over

£15,000. He had never repaid advances made by O'Gorman, O'Grady, and

myself, Simpson had an unpaid bill of £50 against him with the mare

as set-off, but a steeplechaser whose teeth have been tampered with

is not a very realizable asset, and he was glad to take £100 from

Major O'Gorman for the animal, with the understanding that the

balance was to be paid to any legal claimant who might turn up.

"I will observe that the mare's bad temper was a fiction of Towers'.

She had nothing wrong with her but a delicate mouth, and the touch of

the curb was an agony to her that caused her to rear. She became

O'Gorman's favorite hunter, and won him many a race, but she had to

carry weight in consideration of her previous performances as The

Scapegoat, her old name, which was honestly restored to her.

"A terrible catastrophe followed Towers' disappearance. If he had

not entirely ruined me, he was the actual sole cause of the ruin of

my poor young kinsman, Lieutenant O'Grady. He had borrowed money

from O'Grady when he had any to lend, won from him at cards and, we

now knew, cheated him, besides inducing him to make absurd books on

horse-races with him. O'Grady was irretrievably insolvent. He came

of a family of good and honorable soldiers. He felt that honor

soiled and sullied, and on the day following Towers' departure,

O'Grady blew his brains out.

"I shall never forget our meeting after the funeral. We swore among

us that if ever the chance presented itself we would be even with the

cold-blooded villain Towers. It has happened that I alone among us

was able to redeem that oath.

"I cannot lay all the blame of my own misfortunes upon Captain

Towers. Some of it at least was due to my own stupidity and my own

extravagance.

"I could only just pay my debts and I was nearly a pauper, with no

chances left. My purpose was to enlist in some regiment going to

India or the Colonies. I mentioned my intention to Inspector

Medlicott, as a man of wide experience, to whose society I had taken

a fancy.

"'Don't do anything so rash with your life, sir,' he said. 'Don't

waste it--you've had your lesson. You've learnt a lot without

knowing that you've learnt anything. Go where you can use what you

have learnt.'

"'And where's that, Mr. Inspector? I am too old and ignorant of

business for an office, and I don't know any situation where they

have any use for the sort of thing I know.'

"'Come to us,' said the Inspector, 'work your way up from the ranks.

It's more interesting than soldiering, and quite as dangerous.'

"This is how I came to enter the detective force, and I never have

regretted taking Inspector Medlicott's advice. Nevertheless, I did

not take it quite at once. It is a big jump from being an officer in

a smart cavalry regiment to the rank and file of the Force at

Scotland Yard. I hesitated for a time and tried other ways, but I

need dwell no longer at present upon that interval in my career."