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 whiskey 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 cushions 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 one. 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
caused her to pose in the first place. It was this 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.