CHAPTER I
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., LL. D., F. R. S., M. D.,etc., etc., was the Court of Last Appeal in the sciences. He was fivefeet two inches tall, weighed 107 pounds, that being slightly abovenormal, and wore a number eight hat. Bushy, yellow hair straggled downabout his ears and partially framed a clean-shaven, wizened face inwhich were combined the paradoxical qualities of extreme aggressivenessand childish petulance. The mouth drooped a little at the corners, beingotherwise a straight line; the eyes were mere slits of blue, squintingeternally through thick spectacles. His brow rose straight up, domelike,majestic even, and added a whimsical grotesqueness to his appearance.
The Professor's idea of light literature, for rare moments ofrecreation, was page after page of encyclopaedic discussion on "ologies"and "isms" with lots of figures in 'em. Sometimes he wrote thesediscussions himself, and frequently held them up to annihilation. Hisusual speaking tone was one of deep annoyance, and he had an unwaveringglare that went straight through one. He was the son of the son of theson of an eminent German scientist, the logical production of a housethat had borne a distinguished name in the sciences for generations.
Thirty-five of his fifty years had been devoted to logic, study,analysis of cause and effect, mental, material, and psychological. Byhis personal efforts he had mercilessly flattened out and readjusted atleast two of the exact sciences and had added immeasurably to theworld's sum of knowledge in others. Once he had held the chair ofphilosophy in a great university, but casually one day he promulgated athesis that knocked the faculty's eye out, and he was invited to vacate.It was a dozen years later that that university had openly resorted toinfluence and diplomacy to induce him to accept its LL. D.
For years foreign and American institutions, educational, scientific,and otherwise, crowded degrees upon him. He didn't care. He startedfires with the elaborately formal notifications of these unsoughthonours and turned again to his work in the small laboratory which was apart of his modest home. There he lived, practically a recluse, hissimple wants being attended to by one aged servant, Martha.
This, then, was The Thinking Machine. This last title, The ThinkingMachine, perhaps more expressive of the real man than a yard of honoraryinitials, was coined by Hutchinson Hatch at the time of the scientist'sdefeat of a chess champion after a single morning's instruction in thegame. The Thinking Machine had asserted that logic was inevitable, andthat game had proven his assertion. Afterward there had grown up astrange sort of friendship between the crabbed scientist and thereporter. Hatch, to the scientist, represented the great, whirlingoutside world; to the reporter the scientist was merely a brain--amarvellously keen, penetrating, infallible guide through materialmuddles far removed from the delicately precise labours of thelaboratory.
Now The Thinking Machine sat in a huge chair in his reception-room withlong, slender fingers pressed tip to tip and squint eyes turned upward.Hatch was talking, had been talking for more than an hour withinfrequent interruptions. In that time he had laid bare the facts as heand the police knew them from the incidents of the masked ball at SevenOaks to the return of Dollie Meredith.
"Now, Mr. Hatch," asked The Thinking Machine, "just what is known ofthis second theft of the gold plate?"
"It's simple enough," explained the reporter. "It was plain burglary.Some person entered the Randolph house on Monday night by cutting out apane of glass and unfastening a window-latch. Whoever it was took theplate and escaped. That's all anyone knows of it."
"Left no clew, of course?"
"No, so far as has been found."
"I presume that, on its return by express, Mr. Randolph ordered theplate placed in the small room as before?"
"Yes."
"He's a fool."
"Yes."
"Please go on."
"Now the police absolutely decline to say as yet just what evidence theyhave against Herbert beyond the finding of the plate in his possession,"the reporter resumed, "though, of course, that's enough and to spare.They will not say, either, how they first came to connect him with theaffair. Detective Mallory doesn't----"
"When and where was Mr. Herbert arrested?"
"Yesterday, Tuesday, afternoon in his rooms. Fourteen pieces of the goldplate were on the table."
The Thinking Machine dropped his eyes a moment to squint at thereporter.
"Only eleven pieces of the plate were first stolen, you said?"
"Only eleven, yes."
"And I think you said two shots were fired at the thief?"
"Yes."
"Who fired them, please?"
"One of the detectives--Cunningham, I think."
"It was a detective--you know that?"
"Yes, I know that."
"Yes, yes. Please go on."
"The plate was all spread out--there was no attempt to conceal it,"Hatch resumed. "There was a box on the floor and Herbert was about topack the stuff in it when Detective Mallory and two of his men entered.Herbert's servant, Blair, was away from the house at the time. Hispeople are up in Nova Scotia, so he was alone."
"Nothing but the gold plate was found?"
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the reporter. "There was a lot of jewelry in a caseand fifteen or twenty odd pieces--fifty thousand dollars' worth ofstuff, at least. The police took it to find the owners."
"Dear me! Dear me!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "Why didn't youmention the jewelry at first? Wait a minute."
Hatch was silent while the scientist continued to squint at the ceiling.He wriggled in his chair uncomfortably and smoked a couple of cigarettesbefore The Thinking Machine turned to him and nodded.
"That's all I know," said Hatch.
"Did Mr. Herbert say anything when arrested?"
"No, he only laughed. I don't know why. I don't imagine it would havebeen at all funny to me."
"Has he said anything since?"
"No, nothing to me or anybody else. He was arraigned at a preliminaryhearing, pleaded not guilty, and was released on twenty thousand dollarsbail. Some of his rich friends furnished it."
"Did he give any reason for his refusal to say anything?" insisted TheThinking Machine testily.
"He remarked to me that he wouldn't say anything, because, even if hetold the truth, no one would believe him."
"If it should have been a protestation of innocence I'm afraid nobody_would_ have believed him," commented the scientist enigmatically. Hewas silent for several minutes. "It could have been a brother, ofcourse," he mused.
"A brother?" asked Hatch quickly. "Whose brother? What brother?"
"As I understand it," the scientist went on, not heeding the question,"you did not believe Herbert guilty of the first theft?"
"Why, I couldn't," Hatch protested. "I couldn't," he repeated.
"Why?"
"Well, because--because he's not that sort of man," explained thereporter. "I've known him for years, personally and by reputation."
"Was he a particular friend of yours in college?"
"No, not an intimate, but he was in my class--and he's a whacking,jam-up, ace-high football player." That squared everything.
"Do you now believe him guilty?" insisted the scientist.
"I can't believe anything else--and yet I'd stake my life on hishonesty."
"And Miss Meredith?"
The reporter was reaching the explosive point. He had seen and talked toMiss Meredith, you know.
"It's perfectly asinine to suppose that _she_ had anything to do witheither theft, don't you think?"
The Thinking Machine was silent on that point.
"Well, Mr. Hatch," he said finally, "the problem comes down to this: Dida man, and perhaps a woman, who are circumstantially proven guilty ofstealing the gold plate, _actually_ steal it? We have the stainedcushion of the automobile in which the thieves escaped to indicate thatone of them was wounded; we have Mr. Herbert with an injured rightshoulder--a hurt received that night on his own statement, though hewon't say how. We have, then, the second theft and th
e finding of thestolen property in his possession along with another lot of stolenstuff--jewels. It is apparently a settled case now without goingfurther."
"But----" Hatch started to protest.
"But suppose we do go a little further," The Thinking Machine went on."I can prove definitely, conclusively, and finally by settling only twopoints whether or not Mr. Herbert was wounded while in the automobile.If he was wounded while in that automobile, he was the first thief; ifnot, he wasn't. If he was the first thief, he was probably the second,but even if he were not the first thief, there is, of course, apossibility that he was the second."
Hatch was listening with mouth open.
"Suppose we begin now," continued The Thinking Machine, "by finding outthe name of the physician who treated Mr. Herbert's wound last Thursdaynight. Mr. Herbert may have a reason for keeping the identity of thisphysician secret, but, perhaps--wait a minute," and the scientistdisappeared into the next room. He was gone for five minutes. "See ifthe physician who treated the wound wasn't Dr. Clarence Walpole."
The reporter blinked a little.
"Right," he said. "What next?"
"Ask him something about the nature of the wound and all the usualquestions."
Hatch nodded.
"Then," resumed The Thinking Machine casually, "bring me some of Mr.Herbert's blood."
The reporter blinked a good deal, and gulped twice.
"How much?" he inquired briskly.
"A single drop on a small piece of glass will do very nicely," repliedthe scientist.