THE THINKING MACHINE 3

The Chase of the Golden Plate

and other stories

by Jacques Futrelle

CONTENTS

1. Kidnapped Baby Blake, Millionaire

2. The Chase of the Golden Plate

3. A Piece of String

4. The Tragedy of the Life Raft

5. The Problem of the Crystal Gazer

6. The Problem of the Deserted House

7. The Problem of the Cross Mark

8. The Problem of the Ghost Woman

9. The Mystery of the Grip of Death

10. The Jackdaw

11. My First Experience With the Great Logician

12. The Problem of the Opera Box

___________

1. Kidnapped Baby Blake, Millionaire

1

DOUGLAS BLAKE, millionaire, sat flat on the floor and gazed with delighted eyes at the unutterable beauties of a highly colored picture book. He was only fourteen months old, and the picture book was quite the most beautiful thing he had ever beheld. Evelyn Barton, a lovely girl of twenty-two or three years, sat on the floor opposite and listened with a slightly amused smile as Baby Blake in his infinite wisdom discoursed learnedly on the astonishing things he found in the book.

The floor whereon Baby Blake sat was that of the library of the Blake home, in the outskirts of Lynn. This home, handsomely but modestly furnished, had been built by Baby Blake's father, Langdon Blake, who had died four months previously, leaving Baby Blake's beautiful mother, Elizabeth Blake, heart-broken and crushed by the blow, and removing her from the social world of which she had been leader.

Here, quietly, with but three servants and Miss Barton, the nurse, who could hardly be classed as a servant—rather a companion—Mrs. Blake had lived on for the present.

The great house was gloomy, but it had been the scene of all her happiness, and she had clung to it. The building occupied relatively a central position in a plot of land facing the street for 200 feet or so, and stretching back about 300 feet. A stone wall inclosed it.

In Summer this plot was a great velvety lawn; now the first snow of the Winter had left an inch deep blanket over all, unbroken save the cement-paved walk which extended windingly from the gate in the street wall to the main entrance of the home. This path had been cleaned of snow and was now a black streak through the whiteness.

Near the front stoop this path branched off and led on around the building toward the back. This, too, had been cleared of snow, but beyond the back door entrance the white blanket covered everything back to the rear wall of the property. There against the rear wall, to the right as one stood behind the house, was a roomy barn and stable; in the extreme left hand corner of the property was a cluster of tall trees, with limbs outstretched fantastically.

The driveway from the front was covered with snow. It had been several weeks since Mrs. Blake had had occasion to use either of her vehicles or horses, so she had closed the barn and stabled the horses outside. Now the barn was wholly deserted. From one of the great trees a swing, which had been placed there for the delight of Baby Blake, swung idly.

In the Summer Baby Blake had been wont to toddle the hundred or more feet from the house to the swing; but now that pleasure was forbidden. He was confined to the house by the extreme cold.

When the snow began to fall that day about two o'clock Baby Blake had shown enthusiasm. It was the first snow he remembered. He stood at a window of the warm library and, pointing out with a chubby finger, told Miss Barton:

"Me want doe."

Miss Barton interpreted this as a request to be taken out or permitted to go out in the snow.

"No, no," she said, firmly. "Cold. Baby must not go. Cold. Cold."

Baby Blake raised his voice in lusty protestation at this unkindness of his nurse, and finally Mrs. Blake had to pacify him. Since then a hundred things had been used to divert Baby Blake's mind from the outside.

This snow had fallen for an hour, then stopped, and the clouds passed. Now, at fifteen minutes of six o'clock in the evening, the moon glittered coldly and clearly over the unbroken surface of the snow. Star points spangled the sky; the wind had gone, and extreme quiet lay over the place. Even the sound from the street, where an occasional vehicle passed, was muffled by the snow. Baby Blake heard a jingling sleigh bell somewhere in the distance and raised his head inquiringly.

"Pretty horse," said Miss Balton, quickly indicating a splash of color in the open book.

"Pitty horsie," said Baby Blake.

"Horse," said Miss Barton. "Four legs. One, two, three, four," she counted.

"Pitty horsie," said Baby Blake again.

He turned another page with a ruthless disregard of what might happen to it.

"Pitty kitty," he went on, wisely.

"Yes, pretty kitty," the nurse agreed.

"Pitty doggie, 'n' pitty ev'fing, ooo-o-oh," Baby Blake was gravely enthusiastic. "Ef'nit," he added, as his eye caught a full page picture.

"Elephant, yes," said Miss Barton. "Almost bedtime," she added.

"No, no," insisted Baby Blake, vigorously. "Pity ef'nit."

Then Baby Blake arose from his seat on the floor and toddled over to where Miss Barton sat, plumping down heavily, directly in front of her. Here, with the picture book in his hands he lay back with his head resting against her knee. Mrs. Blake appeared at the door.

"Miss Barton, a moment please," she said. Her face was white and there was a strange note in her voice.

A little anxiously, the girl arose and went into the adjoining room with Mrs. Blake, leaving Baby Blake with the picture book outspread on the floor. Mrs. Blake handed her an open letter, written on a piece of wrapping paper in a scrawly, almost indecipherable hand.

"This came in the late afternoon mail," said the mother. "Read it."

"'We hav maid plans to kiddnap your baby,'" Miss Barton read slowly. "'Nothig cann bee dun to keep us from it so it wont do no good to tel the polece. If you will git me ten thousan dolers we will not, and will go away. Advertis YES or NOA ann sin your name in a Boston Amurikan. Then we will tell you wat to do. (sined) Three. (3)'"

Miss Barton was silent a moment as she realized what she had read and there was a quick-caught breath.

"A threat to kidnap," said the mother. "Evelyn, Evelyn, can you believe it?"

"Oh, Mrs. Blake," and tears leaped to the girl's eyes quickly. "Oh, the monsters."

"I don't know what to do," said the mother, uncertainly.

"The police, I would suggest," replied the girl, quickly. "I should turn it over to the police immediately."

"Then the newspaper notoriety," said the mother, "and after all it may mean nothing. I think perhaps it would be better for us to leave here to-morrow, and go into Boston for the Winter. I could never live here with this horrible fear hanging over me—if I should lose my baby, too, it would kill me."

"As you say, but I would suggest the police, nevertheless," the girl insisted gently.

"Of course the money is nothing," she went on. "I would give every penny for the boy if I had to, but there's the fear and uncertainty of it. I think perhaps it would be better for you to pack up Douglas's little clothes to-night and to-morrow we will go to Boston to a hotel until we can make other arrangements for the Winter. You need not mention the matter to the others in the house."

"I think perhaps that would be best," said Miss Barton, "but I still think the police should be notified."

The two women left the room together and returned to the library after about ten minutes, where Baby Blake had been looking at the picture book. The baby was not there, and Miss Barton turned and glanced quickly at Mrs. Blake. The mother apparently paid no attention, and the nurse passed into another room, thinking Douglas had gone there.

Within ten minutes the household was in an uproar—Baby Blake had disappeared. Miss Barton, the servants and the distracted mother raced through the roomy building, searching every nook and corner, calling for Douglas. No answer. At last Miss Barton and Mrs. Blake met face to face in the library over the picture book the baby had been admiring.

"I'm afraid it's happened," said the nurse.

"Kidnapped!" exclaimed the mother. "Oh," and with waxen white face she sank back on a couch in a dead faint.

Regardless of the mother, Evelyn ran to the telephone and notified the police. They responded promptly, three detectives and two uniformed officers. The threatening letter was placed in their hands, and one of them laid its contents before his chief by 'phone, a general alarm was sent out.

While the uniformed men searched the house again from attic to cellar the two other plain clothes men searched outside. Together they went over the ground, but the surface of the snow was unbroken save for their own footprints and the paved path. From the front wall, which faced the street, the detectives walked slowly back, one on each side of the house, searching in the snow for some trace of a footprint.

There was nothing to reward this vigilance, and they met behind the house. Each shook his head. Then one stopped suddenly and pointed to the snow which lay at their feet and spreading away over the immense back yard. The other detective looked intently then stopped and stared.

What he saw was the footprint of a child -- a baby. The tracks led straight away through the snow toward the back wall, and without a word the two men followed them, one by one; the regular toddling steps of a baby who is only fairly certain of his feet. Ten, twenty, thirty feet they went on in a straight line and already the detectives saw a possible solution. It was that Baby Blake had wandered away of his own free will.

Then, as they were following the tracks, they stopped suddenly astounded. Each dropped on his knees in the snow and sought vainly for something sought over a space of many feet, then turned back to the tracks again.

"Well, if that—" one began.

The footprints, going steadily forward across the yard, had stopped. There was the last, made as if Baby Blake had intended to go forward, but there were no more tracks—no more traces of tracks—nothing. Baby Blake had walked to this point, and then——

"Why he must have gone straight up in the air," gasped one of the detectives. He sank down on a small wooden box three or four feet from where the tracks ended, and wiped the perspiration from his face.

2

"ALL PROBLEMS may be reduced to an arithmetical basis by a simple mental process," declared Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, emphatically. "Once a problem is so reduced, no matter what it is, it may be solved. If you play chess, Mr. Hatch, you will readily grasp what I mean. Our great chess masters are really our greatest logicians and mathematicians, yet their efforts are directed in a way which can be of no use save to demonstrate, theatrically, I may say, the unlimited possibilities of the human mind."

Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, leaned back in his chair and watched the great scientist and logician as he pottered around the long workbench beside the big window of his tiny laboratory. It was here that Professor Van Dusen had achieved some of those marvels which had attracted the attention of the world at large and had won for him a long list of honorary initials.

Hatch doubted if the Professor himself could recall these -- that is beyond the more common ones of Ph. D., LL. D., M. D., and M. A. There were strange combinations of letters bestowed by French, Italian, German and English educational and scientific institutions, which were delighted to honor so eminent a scientist as Professor Van Dusen, so-called The Thinking Machine.

The slender body of the scientist, bowed from close study and minute microscopic observation, gave the impression of physical weakness—an impression which was wholly correct—and made the enormous head which topped the figure seem abnormal. Added to this was the long yellow hair of the scientist, which sometimes as he worked fell over his face and almost obscured the keen blue eyes perpetually squinting through unusually thick glasses.

"By the reduction of a problem to an arithmetical basis," The Thinking Machine went on, "I mean the finding of the cause of an effect. For instance, a man is dead. We know only that. Reason tells us that he died naturally or was killed.

"If killed, it may have been an accident, design or suicide. There are no alternatives. The average mind grasps those possibilities instantly as facts because the average mind has to do with death and understands. We may call this primary reasoning instinct.

"In the higher reasoning which can only come from long study and experiment, imagination is necessary to supply temporarily gaps caused by absence of facts. Imagination is the backbone of the scientific mind. Marconi had to imagine wireless telegraphy before he accomplished it. It is the same with the telephone, the telegraph, the steam engine and those scores of commonplace marvels which are a part of our everyday life.

"The higher scientific mind is, perforce, the mind of a logician. It must possess imagination to a remarkable extent. For instance, science proved that all matter is composed of atoms -- the molecular theory. Having proven this, scientific imagination saw that it was possible that atoms were themselves composed of more minute atoms, and sought to prove this. It did so.

"Therefore we know atoms make atoms, and that more minute atoms make those atoms, and so on down to the point of absolute indivisibility. This is logic.

"Applied in the other direction this imagination— really logic— leads to amazing possibilities. It would grade upward something like this: Man is made of atoms; man and his works as other atoms make cities; cities and nature as atoms make countries; countries and oceans as atoms make worlds.

"Then comes the supreme imaginative leap which would make worlds merely atoms, pin point parts of a vast solar system; the vast solar system itself merely an atom in some greater scheme of creation which the imagination refuses to grasp, which staggers the mind. It is all logic, logic, logic."

The irritated voice stopped as the scientist lifted a graded measuring glass to the light and squinted for an instant at its contents, which, under the amazed eyes of Hutchinson Hatch, swiftly changed from a brilliant scarlet to a pure white.

"You have heard me say frequently, Mr. Hatch," The Thinking Machine resumed, "that two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time— atoms make atoms, therefore atoms make creations." He paused. "That change of color in this chemical is merely a change of atoms; it has in no way affected the consistency or weight of the liquid. Yet the red atoms have disappeared, eliminated by the white."

"The logic being that the white atoms are the stronger?" asked Hatch, almost timidly.

"Precisely," said The Thinking Machine, "and also constant and victorious enemies of the red atoms. In other words that was a war between red and white atoms you just witnessed. Who shall say that a war on this earth is not as puny to the observer of this earth as an atom in the greater creation, as was that little war to us?"

Hatch blinked a little at the question. It opened up something bigger than his mind had ever struggled with before, and he was a newspaper reporter, too. Professor Van Dusen turned away and stirred up more chemicals in another glass, then poured the contents of one glass into another.

Hatch heard the telephone bell ring in the next room, and after a moment Martha, the aged woman who was the household staff of the scientist's modest home, appeared at the door.

"Some one to speak to Mr. Hatch at the 'phone," she said.

Hatch went to the 'phone. At the other end was his city editor bursting with impatience.

"A big kidnapping story," the city editor said. "A wonder. I've been looking for you everywhere. Happened tonight about 6 o'clock— It's now 8:30. Jump up to Lynn quick and get it."

Then the city editor went on to detail the known points of the mystery, as the police of Lynn had learned them; the child left alone for only two or three minutes, the letter threatening kidnapping, the demand for $10,000 and the footsteps in the snow which led to— nothing.

Thoroughly alive with the instinct of the reporter Hatch returned to the laboratory where The Thinking Machine was at work.

"Another mystery," he said, persuasively.

"What is it?" asked The Thinking Machine, without turning.

Hatch repeated what information he had and The Thinking Machine listened without comment, down to the discovery of the tracks in the snow, and the abrupt ending of these.

"Babies don't have wings, Mr. Hatch," said The Thinking Machine, severely.

"I know," said Hatch. "Would— would you like to go out with me and look it over?"

"It's silly to say the tracks end there," declared The Thinking Machine aggressively. "They must go somewhere. If they don't, they are not the boy's tracks."

"If you'd like to go," said Hatch, coaxingly, "we could get there by half-past nine. It's half-past eight now."

"I'll go," said the other suddenly.

An hour later, they were at the front gate of the Blake home in Lynn. The Thinking Machine saw the kidnappers' letter. He looked at it closely and dismissed it apparently with a wave of his hand. He talked for a long time to the mother, to the nurse, Evelyn Barton, to the servants, then went out into the back yard where the tiny tracks were found.

Here, seeing perfectly by the brilliant light of the moon, The Thinking Machine remained for in hour. He saw the last of the tiny footprints which led nowhere, and he sat on the box where the detective had sat. Then he arose suddenly and examined the box. It was, he found, of wood, approximately two feet square, raised only four or five inches above the ground. It was built to cover and protect the main water connection with the house. The Thinking Machine satisfied himself on this point by looking inside.

From this box he sought in every direction for footprints— tracks which were not obviously those of the detectives or his own or Hatch's. No one else had been permitted to go over the ground, the detectives objecting to this until they had completed their investigations.

No other tracks or footprints appeared; there was nothing to indicate that there had been tracks which had been skillfully covered up by whoever made them.

Again The Thinking Machine sat down on the box and studied his surroundings. Hatch watched him curiously. First he looked away toward the stone wall, nearly a hundred feet in front of him. There was positively no indentation in the snow of any kind so far as Hatch could see. Then the scientist looked back toward the house— one of the detectives had told him it was just forty-eight feet from the box— but there were no tracks there save those the detectives and Hatch and himself had made.

Then The Thinking Machine looked toward the back of the lot. Here in the bright moonlight he could see the barn and the clump of trees, several inside the enclosure made by the stone wall and others outside, extending away indefinitely, snow laden and grotesque in the moonlight. From the view in this direction The Thinking Machine turned to the other stone wall, a hundred feet or so. Here, too, he vainly sought footprints in the snow.

Finally he arose and walked in this direction with an expression of as near bewilderment on his face as Hatch had ever seen. A small dark spot in the snow had attracted his attention. It was eight or ten feet from the box. He stopped and looked at it; it was a stone of flat surface, perhaps a foot square and devoid of snow.

"Why hasn't this any snow on it?" he asked Hatch.

Hatch started and shook his head. The Thinking Machine, bowed almost to the ground, continued to stare at the stone for a moment, then straightened up and continued walking toward the wall. A few feet further on a rope, evidently a clothes line, barred his way. Without stopping, he ducked his head beneath it and walked on toward the wall, still staring at the ground.

From the wall he retraced his steps to the clothes line, then walked along under that, still staring at the snow, to its end, sixty or seventy feet toward the back of the enclosure. Two or three supports placed at regular intervals beneath the line were closely examined.

"Find anything?" asked Hatch, finally.

The Thinking Machine shook his head impatiently.

"It's amazing," he exclaimed petulantly, like a disappointed child.

"It is," Hatch agreed, cheerfully.

The Thinking Machine turned and walked back toward the house as he had come, Hatch following.

"I think we'd better go back to Boston," he said tartly.

Hatch silently acquiesced. Neither spoke until they were in the train, and The Thinking Machine turned suddenly to the wondering reporter.

"Did it seem possible to you that those are not the footprints of Baby Blake at all, only the prints of his shoes?" he demanded suddenly.

"How did they get there?" asked Hatch, in turn.

The Thinking Machine shook his head.

On the afternoon of the next day, when the newspapers were full of the mystery, Mrs. Blake received this letter, signed "Three" as before:

"We hav the baby and will bring him bak for twenny fiv thousan dolers. Will you give it. Advertis as befour dereckted, YES or NOA."

3

WHEN Hutchinson Hatch went to inform The Thinking Machine of the appearance of this second letter late in the afternoon, he found the scientist sitting in his little laboratory, finger tips pressed together, squinting steadily at the ceiling. There was a little puzzled line on the high brow, a line Hatch never saw there before, and frank perplexity was in the blue eyes.

The Thinking Machine listened without changing his position as Hatch told him of the letter and its contents.

"What do you make of it all, professor?" asked the reporter.

"I don't know," was the reply— one which was a little startling to Hatch. "It's most perplexing."

"The only known facts seem to be that Baby Blake was kidnapped, and is now in the possession of the kidnappers," said Hatch.

"Those tracks— the footprints in the snow, I mean— furnish the real problem in this case," said the other after a moment. "Presumably they were made by the baby— yet they might not have been. They might have been put there merely to mislead anyone who began a search. If the baby made them -- how and why do they stop as they do? If they were made merely with the baby's shoes, to mislead investigation, the same question remains— how?

"Let's see a moment. We will dismiss the seeming fact that the baby walked on off into the air and disappeared, granting that those tracks were made by the baby. We will also dismiss the possibility that the baby was with anyone when it made the tracks, if it did make them. There were certainly no other footprints but those. There were no footprints leading from or to that point where the baby tracks stopped.

"What are the possibilities? What remains? A balloon? If we accept the balloon as a possibility we must at the same time relinquish the theory of a preconceived plan of abduction. Why? Because no successful plan could have been arranged so that that baby, of its own will, would have been in that particular spot at that particular moment. Therefore a balloon might have been floated over the place a thousand times without success, and balloons are large— they attract attention, therefore are to be avoided.

"There is a possibility— a bare one— that a balloon with a trailing anchor or hook did pass over the place, and that this hook caught up the baby by its clothing, lifting it clear of the ground. But in that event it was not kidnapping— it was accident. But here against the theory of accident we have the kidnappers' letters.

"If not a balloon, then an eagle? Hardly possible. It would take a bird of exceptional strength to have lifted a fourteen-month child, and besides there are a thousand things against such a possibility. Certainly the winged man is not known to science, yet there is every evidence of his handiwork here. Briefly, the problem is— granting that the baby itself made the tracks— how was a baby lifted out of the relative centre of a large yard?

"Consider for a moment that the baby did not make the tracks— that they were placed there by some one else. Then we are confronted by the same question— how? A person might have fastened shoes to a long pole and rigged up some arrangement of the sort, and made the tracks for a distance say of twenty feet out into the snow, but remember the tracks run out forty-eight feet to the box you say.

"If it would have been possible for a person to stand on that box without leaving a track to it or from it, he might have finished the tracks with the shoes on a pole, but nobody went to that box."

The Thinking Machine was silent for several minutes. Hatch had nothing to say. The Thinking Machine seemed to have covered the possibilities thoroughly.

"Of course, it might have been possible for a person in a balloon to have put the tracks there, but it would have been a senseless proceeding," the scientist went on. "Certainly there could have been no motive for it strong enough to make a person invite discovery by sailing about the house in a balloon even at night. We face a stone wall, Mr. Hatch— a stone wall. It is possible for the mind to follow it only to a certain point as it now stands."

He arose and disappeared into an adjoining room, returning in a few minutes with his hat and overcoat.

"Of course," he said to Hatch, "if the baby is alive and in the possession of the kidnappers, it is possible to recover it, and we'll do that, but the real problem remains."

"If it is alive?" Hatch repeated.

"Yes, if," said the other shortly. "There are in my mind grave doubts on that point."

"But the kidnappers' letters?" said Hatch

"Let's go find out who wrote them," said the other, enigmatically.

Together the two men went to Lynn, and there for half an hour The Thinking Machine talked to Mrs. Blake. He came out finally with a package in his hand.

Miss Barton, with eyes red, apparently from weeping, and evident sorrow imprinted on her pretty face, entered the room almost at the same moment.

"Miss Barton," the scientist asked, "could you tell me how much the baby Douglas weighed— relatively, I mean?"

The girl gazed at him a moment as if startled. "About thirty pounds, I should say," she answered.

"Thanks," said The Thinking Machine, and turned to Hatch. "I have twenty-five thousand dollars in this package," he said.

Miss Barton turned and glanced quickly toward him, then passed out of the room.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Hatch.

"It's for the kidnappers," was the reply. "The police advised Mrs. Blake not to try to make terms— I advised her the other way and she gave me this."

"What's the next step?" Hatch asked.

"To put the advertisement 'Yes' signed by Mrs. Blake in the newspaper," said The Thinking Machine. "That's in accordance with the stipulations of the letters."

An hour later the two men were in Boston. The advertisement was inserted in the Boston American as directed. The next day Mrs. Blake received a third letter.

"Rapp the munny in a ole nuspaipr ann thow it onn the trash-heape at the addge of the vakant lott one blok down the street frum wear you liv," it directed. "Putt it on topp. We wil gett it ann yore baby wil be in yore armms two ours latter. Three (3)."

This letter was immediately placed in the hands of The Thinking Machine. Mrs. Blake's face flushed with hope, and believing that the child would be restored to her, she waited in a fever of impatience.

"Now, Mr. Hatch," instructed The Thinking Machine. "Do with this package as directed. A man will come for it some time. I shall leave the task of finding out who he is, where he goes and all about him to you. He is probably a man of low mentality, though not so low as the misspelled words of his letter would have you believe. He should be easily trapped. Don't interfere with him— merely report to me when you find out these things."

Alone The Thinking Machine returned to Boston. Thirty-six hours later, in the early morning, a telegram came for him. It was as follows:

"Have man located in Lynn and trace of baby. Come quick, if possible, to——Hotel. Hatch."

4

THE Thinking Machine answered the telegraphic summons immediately, but instead of elation on his face there was another expression— possibly surprise. On the train he read and re-read the telegram.

"Have trace of baby," he mused. "Why, it's perfectly astonishing."

White-faced from exhaustion, and with eyes drooping from lack of sleep, Hutchinson Hatch met The Thinking Machine in the hotel lobby and they immediately went to a room, which the reporter had engaged on the third floor.

The Thinking Machine listened without comment as Hatch told the story of what he had done. He had placed the bundle, then hired a room overlooking the vacant lot and had remained there at the window for hours. At last night came, but there were clouds which effectively hid the moon. Then Hatch had gone out and secreted himself near the trash pile.

Here from six o'clock in the evening until four in the morning he had remained, numbed with cold and not daring to move. At last his long vigil was rewarded. A man suddenly appeared near the trash heap, glanced around furtively, and then picked up the newspaper package, felt of it to assure himself that it contained something, and then started away quickly.

The work of following him Hatch had not found difficult. He had gone straight to a tenement in the eastern end of Lynn and disappeared inside. Later in the morning, after the occupants of the house were about, Hatch made inquiries which established the identity of the man without question.

His name was Charles Gates and he lived with his wife on the fourth floor of the tenement. His reputation was not wholly savory, and he drank a great deal. He was a man of some education, but not of such ignorance as the letters he had written would indicate.

"After learning all these facts," Hatch went on, "my idea was to see the man and talk to him or to his wife. I went there this morning about nine o'clock, as a book agent." The reporter smiled a little. "His wife, Mrs. Gates, didn't want any books, but I nearly sold her a sewing machine.

"Anyway, I got into the apartments and remained there for fifteen or twenty minutes. There was only one room which I didn't enter, of the four there. In that room, the woman explained, her husband was asleep. He had been out late the night before, she said. Of course I knew that.

"I asked if she had any babies and received a negative. From other people in the house I learned that this was true so far as they knew. There was not and has not been a baby in the apartments so far as anyone could tell me. And in spite of that fact I found this."

Hatch drew something from his pocket and spread it on his open hand. It was a baby stocking of fine texture. The Thinking Machine took it and looked at it closely.

"Baby Blake's?" he asked.

"Yes," replied the reporter. "Both Mrs. Blake and the nurse, Miss Barton, identify it."

"Dear me! Dear me!" exclaimed the scientist, thoughtfully. Again the puzzled expression came into his face.

"Of course, the baby hasn't been returned?" went on the scientist.

"Of course not!" said Hatch.

"Did Mrs. Gates behave like a woman who had suddenly received a share of twenty-five thousand dollars?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"No," Hatch replied. "She looked as if she had attended a mixed ale party. Her lip was cut and bruised and one eye was black."

"That's what her husband did when he found out what was in the newspaper," commented The Thinking Machine, grimly.

"It wasn't money, at all, then?" asked Hatch.

"Certainly not."

Neither said anything for several minutes. The Thinking Machine sat idly twisting the tiny stocking between his long, slender fingers with the little puzzled line in his brow.

"How do you account for that stocking in Gates's possession?" asked the reporter at last.

"Let's go talk to Mrs. Blake," was the reply. "You didn't tell her anything about this man Gates getting the package?"

"No," said the reporter.

"It would only worry her," explained the scientist. "Better let her hope, because— "

Hatch looked at The Thinking Machine quickly, startled.

"Because, what?" he asked.

"There seems to be a very strong probability that Baby Blake is dead," the other responded.

Pondering that, yet conceiving no motive which would cause the baby's death, Hatch was silent as he and the scientist together went to the house of Mrs. Blake. Miss Barton, the nurse, answered the door.

"Miss Barton," said The Thinking Machine, testily as they entered, "just when did you give this stocking," —and he produced it— "to Charles Gates?"

The girl flushed quickly, and she stammered a little.

"I— I don't know what you mean," she said. "Who is Charles Gates?"

"May we see Mrs. Blake?" asked the scientist. He squinted steadily into the girl's eyes.

"Yes— of course— that is, I suppose so," she stammered.

She disappeared, and in a few minutes Mrs. Blake appeared. There was an eager, expectant look in her face. It was hope. It faded when she saw the solemn face of The Thinking Machine.

"What recommendations did Miss Barton have when you engaged her?" he began pointedly.

"The best I could ask," was the reply. "She was formerly a governess in the family of the Governor-General of Canada. She is well educated, and came to me from that position."

"Is she well acquainted in Lynn?" asked the scientist.

"That I couldn't say," replied Mrs. Blake. "If you are thinking that she might have some connection with this affair— "

"Ever go out much?" interrupted her questioner.

"Rarely, and then usually with me. She is more of a companion than servant."

"How long have you had her?"

"Since a week or so after my baby" —and the mother's lips trembled a little— "was born. She has been devoted to me since the death of my husband. I would trust her with my life."

"This is your baby's stocking?"

"Beyond any doubt," she replied as she again examined it.

"I suppose he had several pairs like this?"

"I really don't know. I should think so."

"Will you please have Miss Barton, or someone else, find those stockings and see if all the pairs like this are complete," instructed The Thinking Machine.

Wonderingly, Mrs. Blake gave the order to Miss Barton, who as wonderingly received it and went out of the room with a quick, resentful look at the bowed figure of the scientist.

"Did you ever happen to notice, Mrs. Blake, whether or not your baby could open a door? For instance, the front door?"

"I believe he could," she replied. "He could reach them because the handles are low, as you see," and she indicated the knob on the front door, which was visible through the reception hall room where they stood.

The Thinking Machine turned suddenly and strode to the window of the library, looking out on the back yard. He was debating something in his own mind. It was whether or not he should tell this mother his fear of her son's death, or should hide it from her until such time as it would appear itself. For some reason known only to himself he considered the child's death not only a possibility, but a probability.

Whatever might have resulted from this mental debate was not to be known then, for suddenly, as he stood staring out the rear window overlooking the spot where the baby's tracks had been seen in the snow— now melted— he started a little and peered eagerly out. It was the first sight he had had of the yard since the night he had examined it by moonlight.

"Dear me, dear me," he exclaimed suddenly.

Turning abruptly he left the room, and a moment later Hatch saw him in the back yard. Mrs. Blake at the window watched curiously. Outside The Thinking Machine walked straight out to the spot where the baby's tracks had been, and from there Hatch saw him stop and stare at the slightly raised box which covered the water connections.

From this box the scientist took five steps toward a flat-topped stone— the one he had noticed previously— and Hatch saw that it was about ten feet. Then from this he saw The Thinking Machine take four steps to where the sagging clothes-line hung. It was probably eight feet. Then the bowed figure of The Thinking Machine walked on out toward the rear wall of the enclosure, under the clothes-line.

When he stopped at the end of the line he was within fifteen feet of the dangling swing which had been Baby Blake's. This swing was attached to a limb twenty feet above -- a stout limb which jutted straight out from the tree trunk for fifteen feet. The Thinking Machine studied this for a moment, then passed on beyond the tree, still looking up, until he disappeared.

Fifteen minutes later he returned to the library where Mrs. Blake awaited him. There was a question in Hatch's eyes.

"I've got it," snapped The Thinking Machine, much as if there had been a denial. "I've got it."

5

ON THE following day, by direction of The Thinking Machine, Mrs. Blake ordered the following advertisement inserted in all Boston and Lynn newspapers, to occupy one-quarter of a page.

TO THE PERSONS WHO NOW

HOLD DOUGLAS BLAKE:

"Your names, residence and place of concealment of Douglas Blake, fourteen months old, and the manner in which he came into your possession are now known.

Mrs. Blake, the mother, does not desire to prosecute for reasons you know, and will give you twenty-four hours in which to return the baby safely to its home in Lynn.

Any attempt to escape of either person concerned will be followed instantly by arrest. Meanwhile you are closely watched, and will be for twenty-four hours, at which time arrest and prosecution will follow.

No questions will he asked when the child is returned and your names will be fully protected. There will also be a reward of $1,000 for the person who returns the baby.

Hutchinson Hatch read this when The Thinking Machine had completed it and had stared at the scientist in wonderment.

"Is it true?" he asked.

"I am afraid the child is dead," repeated The Thinking Machine evasively. "I am very much afraid of it."

"What gives you that impression?" Hatch asked.

"I know now how the child was taken from that back yard, if we grant that the child itself made the tracks," was the rejoinder. "And knowing how it was taken away makes me more fearful than I have been that it is not alive; in fact, that it may never be seen again."

"How did the child leave the yard?"

"If the child does not appear within twenty-four hours," was the reply, "I shall tell you. It is a hideous story."

Hatch had to be content with that statement of the case for the moment. None knew better than he how useless it would be to question The Thinking Machine.

"Did you happen to know, Mr. Hatch," The Thinking Machine asked, "that in the event of the death of Douglas Blake, his fortune of nearly three million dollars left in trust by his father would be divided among four relatives of Mrs. Blake?"

"What?" asked Hatch, a little startled.

"Suppose for instance, Baby Blake was never found, as seems possible," went on the other. "After a certain number of years, I believe, in a case of that kind there is an assumption of death and property passes to heirs. You see then, there was a motive, and a strong one, underlying this entire affair."

"But, surely there wouldn't be murder?"

"Not murder," responded The Thinking Machine tartly. "I haven't even suggested murder. I said I believe the child is dead. If it is not dead who would benefit by his disappearance? The four whom I named. Well, suppose Baby Blake fell into the hands of those people. It would be comparatively an easy matter for them to lose it in some way— not necessarily kill it— have it adopted in some orphan asylum, place it anywhere to hide its identity. That's the main thing."

Hatch began to see light faintly, he thought.

"Then this advertisement is to the people who may be holding the child now?" he asked.

"It is so addressed," was the other's reply.

"But, but -- " Hatch began.

"Once upon a time a noted wit, who was of necessity a student of human nature," The Thinking Machine began, "declared there was one thing carefully hidden in every man's life which would ruin him should it be known, or land him in prison. He volunteered to prove this, taking any man whose name was suggested. An eminent minister of the gospel was named as the victim. The wit sent a telegram to the minister, who was attending a banquet: 'All is discovered. Flee while there is opportunity,' signed 'Friend.' The minister read it, arose and left the room, and from that day to this he has never been seen again."

Hatch laughed, and The Thinking Machine glanced at him with an annoyed expression on his face.

"I had no intention of arousing your laughter," he said sharply. "I merely intended to illustrate the possible effect of a guilty conscience."

When the flaming advertisement in the newspapers was called to the attention of the police, they were first surprised, then amused. Then they grew serious. After a while an officer went to Mrs. Blake and asked what it meant. She informed him that she had acted at the suggestion of Professor Van Dusen. Then the police were amused again; they are wont to feign an amusement which they never feel in the presence of a superior mind.

That afternoon, Hatch, who by direction of The Thinking Machine, was on watch again near the Blake home, received a strange request from the scientist by telephone. It was:

"Go to the Blake home immediately, see the picture book which Baby Blake was looking at just before his disappearance, and report to me by 'phone just what's in it."

"The picture book?" Hatch repeated.

"Certainly, the picture book," said the scientist, irritably. "Also find out for me from the nurse and Mrs. Blake if the baby cried easily, that is from a slight hurt or anything of that kind."

With these things in his mind Hatch went to the Blake house, had a look at the picture book, asked the questions as to Baby Blake's propensity to weep on slight provocation, and returned to the 'phone. Feeling singularly foolish, he enumerated to The Thinking Machine the things he had seen in the picture book.

"There's a horse, and a cat with three kittens," he explained. "Also a pale purple rhinoceros, and a dog, an elephant, a deer, an alligator, a monkey, three chicks, and a whole lot of birds."

"Any eagle?" queried the other.

"Yes, an eagle among them, with a rabbit in its claws."

"And the monkey. What is it doing?"

"Hanging by its tail to a blue tree with a coconut in its hands," replied the reporter. The humor of the situation was beginning to appeal to him.

"And about the baby crying?" the scientist asked.

"He does not cry easily, both the mother and nurse say," replied Hatch. "They both describe him as a brave little chap, who cries sometimes when he can't have his own way, but never from fright or a minor hurt."

"Good," he heard The Thinking Machine say. "Watch in front of the Blake house tonight until half past eight. If the child returns it will probably be earlier than that. Speak to the person who brings him, as he leaves the house, and he will tell you his story I think, if you can make him understand that he is in no danger. Immediately after that come to my home in Boston."

Hatch was treading on air; when The Thinking Machine gave positive directions of that sort it usually meant that the final curtain was to be drawn aside. He so construed this.

Thus it came to pass that Hutchinson Hatch planted himself, carefully hidden so he might command a view of the front of the Blake home, and waited there for many hours.

* * *

MRS. BLAKE, the mother of the millionaire baby, had just finished her dinner and had retired to a small parlor off the library, where she reclined on a couch. It was ten minutes of seven o'clock in the evening. After a moment Miss Barton entered the room.

The girl heard a sob from the couch and impulsively ran to Mrs. Blake, who was weeping softly— she was always weeping now. A few comforting words, a little consolation such as one woman is able to give to another, and the girl arose from her knees and started into the library, where a dim light burned.

As she was entering that room again, she paused, screamed and without a word sank down on the floor, fainting. Mrs. Blake rose from the couch and rushed toward the door. She screamed too, but that scream was of a different tone from that of the girl— it was a fierce scream of mother-love satisfied.

For there on the floor of the library sat Baby Blake, millionaire, gazing with enraptured eyes at his brilliantly colored picture book.

"Pitty hossie," he said to his mother. "See! See!"

6

IT WAS an affecting scene Hutchinson Hatch witnessed in the Blake home about half-past seven o'clock. It was that of a mother clasping a baby to her breast while tears of joy and hysteria streamed from her eyes. Baby Blake struggled manfully to free himself, but the mother clung to him.

"My boy, my boy," she sobbed again and again.

Miss Barton sat on the floor beside the mother and wept too. Hatch saw it, and received some thanks, heartfelt, but broken with a little sobbing laughter. Then he had to dry his eyes, too, and Hutchinson Hatch was not a sentimental man.

"There will be no prosecution, Mrs. Blake, I suppose?" he asked.

"No, no, no," was the half laughing, half tearful reply. "I am content."

"I would like to ask a favor, if you don't mind?" he suggested.

"Anything -- anything for you and Professor Van Dusen," was the reply.

"Will you lend me the baby's picture book until to-morrow?" he asked.

"Certainly," and in her happiness the mother forgot to note the strangeness of the request.

Hatch's purpose in borrowing the book was not clear even to himself; in his mind had grown the idea that in some way The Thinking Machine connected this book with the disappearance of the child, and he was burning with curiosity to get the book and return to Boston, where The Thinking Machine might throw some light on the mystery. For it was still a mystery— a perplexing, baffling mystery that he could in no way grasp, even now that the baby was safe at home again.

In Boston the reporter went straight to the home of The Thinking Machine. The scientist was pottering about the little laboratory and only turned to look at Hatch when he entered.

"Baby back home?" he asked, shortly.

"Yes," said the reporter.

"Good," said the other, and he rubbed his slender hands together briskly. "Sit down, Mr. Hatch. It was a little better after all than I hoped for. Now your story first. What happened when the baby was brought back home?"

"I waited as you directed from afternoon until a few minutes to seven," Hatch explained. "I could plainly see anyone who approached the front gate of the Blake place, although I could not be seen well, remaining in the shadow of the building opposite.

"I saw two or three people go up to the gate and enter the yard, but they were tradespeople. I spoke to them as they came out and ascertained this for myself. At last I saw a man approaching carrying something closely wrapped in his arms. He stopped at the gate, stared up the path a moment, glanced around several times and entered the yard. He was carrying Baby Blake. I knew it instinctively.

"He went to the front door of the house and there I lost him in the shadow for a moment. Subsequent developments showed that he opened this front door, which was not locked, put the baby down and closed the door softly. Then he came rapidly down the path toward the gate. An instant later I heard two screams from the house. I knew then that the baby was there, dead or alive -- probably alive.

"The man who had brought it also heard the screams and accelerated his pace somewhat, so that I had to run. He heard me coming and he ran, too. It was a two-block chase before I caught him, and when I did he turned on me. I thought it was to fight.

"'There was a promise of no arrest or prosecution,' he said.

"I assured him hurriedly, and then walked on down the street beside him. He told me a queer story— it might be true or it might not, but I believe it. This was that the baby had been in his and his wife's care from about half-past six o'clock of the evening it disappeared until a few minutes before when he had returned it to its home.

"The man's name is Sheldon— Michael Sheldon— and he is an ex-convict. He served four years for burglary, and at one time had a pretty nasty record. He told me of it in explanation of his reasons for not turning the baby over to the police. Now he has reformed and is leading a new life. He is a clerk in a store here in Lynn, and despite his previous record is, I ascertained, a trusted and reliable man.

"Now here comes the queer part of the story. It seems that Sheldon and his wife live on the third floor of a tenement in northern Lynn. Their dining room has one window, which leads to a fire escape. He and his wife were at supper about half-past six— in other words, a little more than half an hour from the time the baby disappeared from the Blake home.

"After awhile they heard a noise— they didn't know what— on the fire escape. They paid no attention. Finally they heard another noise from the fire escape— that of a baby crying. Then Sheldon went to the window and opened it. There on the fire escape was Baby Blake. How he got there no human being knows."

"I know now," said The Thinking Machine. "Go on."

"Puzzled and bewildered they took the child off the iron structure, where only the barest chance had prevented it from falling and being killed on the pavement below. The baby was apparently uninjured save for a few bruises, but his clothing was soiled and rumpled, and he was terribly cold. The wife, mother-like, set out to warm the little fellow and make him comfortable with hot milk and a steaming bath. The husband, Sheldon, says he went out to find how it was possible for the baby to have reached the fire escape. He knew no baby lived in the building.

"He looked long and carefully. There was no possible way by which a man could have climbed the fire escape to the third floor, and therefore certainly no way by which a fourteen-month-old baby could climb there. There is a fence there which is pretty tall, say six feet, but even standing on this a man would have had to leap straight up in the air for five feet, and nobody I know could do it with a baby in his arms, particularly when the snow was there and everything was so slippery a person could hardly hold on.

"It seems that then Sheldon made inquiries of some of his neighbors, occupants of the house, but no one could throw any light on the subject. He did not tell them then of the baby, indeed, never told them. First, from the fine quality of the clothing, there had been an idea in his mind that the baby was one of a well-to-do family, and he remained quiet that night hoping that next day he might be able to learn something and possibly get a reward for the return of the child. He had given up the problem of how it got where he found it."

Hatch paused a moment and lighted a cigar.

"Well, next day," he went on, "Sheldon and his wife both saw the newspaper account of the mysterious disappearance of Baby Blake. The photographs of the missing child convinced them that Baby Blake was the child they had— the child they had really saved from death. Then came the question of returning the child to its home or turning it over to the police.

"Instantly the fact that a threat had been made to kidnap the child and a demand for ten thousand dollars made was borne in on Sheldon he became frightened. Remember he had a bad record. He was afraid of the police. He did not believe that he— however innocent he might be— could go to the police, turn over the baby and make them believe the strange story. I readily see how some wooden-headed department officials would have made his life a burden. I know the police. It is ninety-nine dollars to a cent they would have made him a prisoner and perhaps railroaded him for the kidnapping."

"Yes, I see," interrupted The Thinking Machine.

"So then he and his wife tried to devise a method of getting the baby back home. They thought of all sorts of things, but none satisfied them entirely. And they were still debating this point and considering it when your advertisement promised immunity. As a matter of fact it scared Sheldon. He imagined that you knew, and knew if he were even remotely connected with the matter it would get him in trouble. Then he resolved to take the baby back home on the promise of immunity."

There was a little pause. The Thinking Machine sat staring steadily at the ceiling.

"Is that all?" he asked at last.

"I think so," replied Hatch. "And now how— how in the name of all that's good or evil did that baby disappear from the middle of its own back yard and then suddenly appear on a fire escape three blocks away, to be taken in by strangers?"

"It's quite the most remarkable thing I have ever come across," The Thinking Machine said. "A balloon anchor, which picked up the child by its clothing, through accident, and then dropped it safely on the fire escape might answer the question in a way. But it does not fully answer it. The baby was carried there.

"Frankly I will say that I could see no possible explanation of the affair until the day you and I were talking to Mrs. Blake and I stood looking out of the library window. Then it all flashed on me instantly. I went out and satisfied myself. When I returned to the library I was satisfied in all reason that Baby Blake was dead; I had had such an idea before. I was firmly convinced the child was dead when I put those advertisements in the newspapers. But there was still a chance that he was not.

"Several seemingly unanswerable questions faced me when I found the end of the baby's footprints in the snow. I instantly saw that if the baby had made those tracks it had been lifted suddenly from the ground, but by what? From where? How had it been taken away? The balloon I could not consider seriously, although as I say it offered a possible solution. An eagle? I could not consider that seriously. Eagles are rare; eagles powerful enough to lift a baby weighing thirty pounds are extremely rare, practically unknown save in the far West; certainly I never heard of one doing such a thing as this. Therefore I passed the eagle by as an improbability.

"I satisfied myself that there were no other footsteps save the baby's in the yard. Then— what? It occurred to me that someone standing on the little box might have reached over and lifted the child out of its tracks. But it was too far away, I thought, and if someone did stand there and lift the child that someone could not have leaped from that box over the stone wall, which was approximately a hundred feet away in all directions.

"I saw the stone ten feet away. Could a man stand on the box and leap to the stone? Generally, no. And from the stone, where could he have gone? Obviously nowhere. I considered this matter not minutes, but hours and days, and no light came to me. I was convinced, though, that the box was the starting point if the baby had made the tracks. I was now fairly certain that the baby did make the tracks. He wanted to get out in the snow, was left alone, opened the front door and wandered out.

"Then it all occurred to me in a new light. What living animal could have stood on the box and lifted the child clear four feet away, then leaped from there to the stone, and from the stone where? The clothes line is eight feet or so from the stone. It is a pretty sturdy rope and capable of bearing a considerable weight, supported as it is."

He stopped and turned his eyes toward Hatch, who listened eagerly.

"Do you see it now?" he asked.

The reporter shook his head, bewildered.

"The thing that lifted Baby Blake from the snow stood on the box, leaped from there to the stone, from there to the clothes line, along which it climbed to the end. From the wooden support at the end it is a clear distance of fifteen feet to the nearest thing— the swing. This thing made that leap, climbed the swing rope, disappeared into the trees, moving through the branches freely from one tree to another, and dropped to the ground nearly a block away."

"A monkey?" suggested Hatch.

"An orang-outang," nodded The Thinking Machine.

"An orang-outang?" gasped Hatch, and he shuddered a little. "I see now why you were positive the child was dead."

"An orang-outang is the only living thing within the knowledge of man which could have done all these things— therefore an orang-outang did them," said the other emphatically. "Remember a full-sized orang-outang is nearly as tall as a man, has a reach relatively a third longer than a very tall man would have, and a strength which is enormous. It could have made the leaps and probably would have made them rather than step in the snow. They despise snow, being from the tropics themselves, and will not step in it unless they are compelled to. The leap of fifteen feet to the swing rope from the clothes line would have been comparatively easy, even with a child in its arms.

"Where could it have come from? I don't know. Possibly escaped from a ship, because sailors have strange pets; might have gotten away from a menagerie somewhere, or a circus. I only knew that an orang-outang was the actual abductor. The difficulties of a man climbing the fire escape where the baby was found were nothing to an orang-outang. There it would have merely been a leap up of five feet."

The Thinking Machine stopped as if he had finished. Hatch respected this silence for a moment, but he had questions yet to be answered.

"Who wrote the kidnapping letters demanding money?" was the first.

"You found him— Charles Gates," was the reply.

"And the letter written after the abduction demanding twenty-five thousand dollars?"

"Was written by him, of course— but this was a bluff. This poor deluded fool imagined that someone would actually go out and toss $25,000 on a trash-heap where he could find it, and then he could escape. That was his purpose. He knew nothing of the whereabouts of the baby. He beat his wife when he found, instead of money, I had put some good advice in the newspaper bundle for him."

"But the stocking in his room, and your question to Miss Barton?"

"This man did write a letter threatening kidnapping before the baby disappeared. It was perfectly possible that after the kidnapping he stole the little stocking and two or three other things from the laundry, for Miss Barton noticed they were missing, or got someone to do so for him. And, the baby being gone, he was intending to send these to the mother, one at a time, I imagine, to make her believe he had the child. That is transparent. I asked Miss Barton the question about giving them to Gates to see if she did— her manner would have told me. I instantly saw she did not— had never even heard of him, as a matter of fact. I also dropped that remark about there being $25,000 in the package to see what effect it would have on her."

"And the facts you had about the baby's fortune going to relatives of Mrs. Blake in the event of the baby's death?"

"I got from her, by a casual question as to the succession of the estate. There was still a possibility that the baby was in their hands despite the manner of its disappearance. As it transpired they had nothing whatever to do with it. The advertisement I put in the paper was a palpable trick -- but it had the desired effect. It touched a guilty conscience. The guilty conscience feared it was trapped and acted accordingly."

"It seems perfectly incomprehensible that the baby should have come out of it alive," mused Hatch. "I had always imagined orang-outangs to be extremely ferocious."

"Read up on them a bit, Mr. Hatch," said The Thinking Machine. "You will find they are of strangely contradictory and mischievous natures. Where this child was permitted to escape safely others might have been torn limb from limb."

There was silence for a time. Hatch considered the matter all explained, until suddenly the picture book occurred to him.

"You 'phoned to me to see the picture book and tell you what's in it," he said. "Why?"

"Suppose there was a picture of a monkey in it," rejoined the other. "I merely wanted to know if the baby would know a monkey, in other words an orang-outang, if it saw one. Why? Because if the baby knew one it would not necessarily be afraid of one in the flesh, and would not of necessity cry out when the orang-outang picked it up. As a matter of fact no one heard it scream when taken away."

"Oh, I see," said Hatch. "There was a picture of a monkey in the book. I told you." He took out the book and looked at it. "Here," and he extended it to the scientist who glanced at it casually, and nodded.

"If you want to prove this just as I have told it," said The Thinking Machine, "go to the Blake home to-morrow, put your finger on that picture and show it to Baby Blake. He will prove it."

It came to pass that Hatch did this very thing.

"Pitty monkey," said Baby Blake. "Doe, doe."

"He means he wants to go," Miss Barton exclaimed to Hatch.

Hatch was satisfied.

* * *

Two days later the Boston American carried a dispatch from a village near Lynn stating that a semi-tame orang-outang had been killed by a policeman. It had belonged to a sailor, from whose vessel it had escaped more than two weeks before.

_______________

2. The Chase of the Golden Plate

Part 1. The Burglar And The Girl

1

CARDINAL RICHELIEU and the Mikado stepped out on a narrow balcony overlooking the entrance to Seven Oaks, lighted their cigarettes and stood idly watching the throng as it poured up the wide marble steps. Here was an over-corpulent Dowager Empress of China, there an Indian warrior in full paint and toggery, and mincing along behind him two giggling Geisha girls. Next, in splendid robes of rank, came the Czar of Russia. The Mikado smiled.

"An old enemy of mine," he remarked to the Cardinal.

A Watteau Shepherdess was assisted out of an automobile by Christopher Columbus and they came up the walk arm-in-arm, while a Pierrette ran beside them laughing up into their faces. D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos swaggered along with insolent, clanking swords.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Cardinal. "There are four gentlemen whom I know well."

Mary Queen of Scots, Pocahontas, the Sultan of Turkey, and Mr. Micawber chatted amicably together in one language. Behind them came a figure which immediately arrested attention. It was a Burglar, with dark lantern in one hand and revolver in the other. A black mask was drawn down to his lips, a slouch hat shaded his eyes, and a kit of the tools of his profession swung from one shoulder.

"By George!" commented the Cardinal. "Now, that's clever."

"Looks like the real thing," the Mikado added.

The Burglar stood aside a moment, allowing a diamond-burdened Queen Elizabeth to pass, then came on up the steps. The Cardinal and the Mikado passed through an open window into the reception-room to witness his arrival.

"Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth!" the graven-faced servant announced.

The Burglar handed a card to the liveried Voice and noted, with obvious amusement, a fleeting expression of astonishment on the stolid face. Perhaps it was there because the card had been offered in that hand which held the revolver. The Voice glanced at the name on the card and took a deep breath of relief.

"Bill, the Burglar!" he announced.

There was a murmur of astonishment and interest in the reception-hall and the ballroom beyond. Thus it was that the Burglar found himself the centre of attention for a moment, while a ripple of laughter ran around. The entrance of a Clown, bounding in behind him, drew all eyes away, however, and the Burglar was absorbed in the crowd.

It was only a few minutes later that Cardinal Richelieu and the Mikado, seeking diversion, isolated the Burglar and dragged him off to the smoking-room. There the Czar of Russia, who was on such terms of intimacy with the Mikado that he called him Mike, joined them, and they smoked together.

"How did you ever come to hit on a costume like that?" asked the Cardinal of the Burglar.

The Burglar laughed, disclosing two rows of strong, white teeth. A cleft in the square-cut, clean-shaven chin, visible below the mask, became more pronounced. A woman would have called it a dimple.

"I wanted something different," he explained. "I couldn't imagine anything more extraordinary than a real burglar here ready to do business, so I came."

"It's lucky the police didn't see you," remarked the Czar.

Again the Burglar laughed. He was evidently a good-natured craftsman, despite his sinister garb.

"That was my one fear— that I would be pinched before I arrived," he replied. " 'Pinched,' I may explain, is a technical term in my profession meaning jugged, nabbed, collared, run in. It seemed that my fears had some foundation, too, for when I drove up in my auto and stepped out a couple of plain-clothes men stared at me pretty hard."

He laid aside the dark lantern and revolver to light a fresh cigarette. The Mikado picked up the lantern and flashed the light on and off several times, while the Czar sighted the revolver at the floor.

"Better not do that," suggested the Burglar casually. "It's loaded."

"Loaded?" repeated the Czar. He laid down the revolver gingerly.

"Surest thing, you know," and the Burglar laughed quizzically. "I'm the real thing, you see, so naturally my revolver is loaded. I think I ought to be able to make quite a good haul, as we say, before unmasking-time."

"If you're as clever as your appearance would indicate," said the Cardinal admiringly, "I see no reason why it shouldn't be worth while. You might, for instance, make a collection of Elizabethan jewels. I have noticed four Elizabeths so far, and it's early yet."

"Oh, I'll make it pay," the Burglar assured him lightly. "I'm pretty clever; practised a good deal, you know. Just to show you that I am an expert, here is a watch and pin I took from my friend, the Czar, five minutes ago."

He extended a well-gloved hand in which lay the watch and diamond pin. The Czar stared at them a moment in frank astonishment; patted, himself all over in sudden trepidation; then laughed sheepishly. The Mikado tilted his cigar up to a level with the slant eyes of his mask, and laughed.

"In the language of diplomacy, Nick," he told the Czar, "you are what is known as 'easy.' I thought I had convinced you of that."

"Gad, you are clever," remarked the Cardinal. "I might have used you along with D'Artagnan and the others."

The Burglar laughed again and stood up lazily.

"Come on, this is stupid," he suggested. "Let's go out and see what's doing."

"Say, just between ourselves tell us who you are," urged the Czar. "Your voice seems familiar, but I can't place you."

"Wait till unmasking-time," retorted the Burglar good-naturedly. "Then you'll know. Or if you think you could bribe that stone image who took my card at the door you might try. He'll remember me. I never saw a man so startled in all my life as he was when I appeared."

The quartet sauntered out into the ballroom just as the signal for the grand march was given. A few minutes later the kaleidoscopic picture began to move. Stuyvesant Randolph, the host, as Sir Walter Raleigh, and his superb wife, as Cleopatra, looked upon the mass of colour, and gleaming shoulders, and jewels, and brilliant uniforms, and found it good -- extremely good.

Mr. Randolph smiled behind his mask at the striking incongruities on every hand: Queen Elizabeth and Mr. Micawber; Cardinal Richelieu and a Pierrette; a Clown dancing attendance on Marie Antoinette. The Czar of Russia paid deep and devoted attention to a light-footed Geisha girl, while the Mikado and Folly, a jingling thing in bells and abbreviated skirts, romped together.

The grotesque figure of the march was the Burglar. His revolver was thrust carelessly into a pocket and the dark lantern hung at his belt. He was pouring a stream of pleasing nonsense into the august ear of Lady Macbeth, nimbly seeking at the same time to evade the pompous train of the Dowager Empress. The grand march came to an end and the chattering throng broke up into little groups.

Cardinal Richelieu strolled along with a Pierrette on his arm.

"Business good?" he inquired of the Burglar.

"Expect it to be," was the reply.

The Pierrette came and, standing on her tip-toes— silly, impractical sort of toes they were— made a moue at the Burglar.

"Oooh!" she exclaimed. "You are perfectly horrid."

"Thank you," retorted the Burglar.

He bowed gravely, and the Cardinal, with his companion, passed on. The Burglar stood gazing after them a moment, then glanced around the room, curiously, two or three times. He might have been looking for someone. Finally he wandered away aimlessly through the crowd.

2

HALF AN HOUR later the Burglar stood alone, thoughtfully watching the dancers as they whirled by. A light hand fell on his arm— he started a little— and in his ear sounded a voice soft with the tone of a caress.

"Excellent, Dick, excellent!"

The Burglar turned quickly to face a girl— a Girl of the Golden West, with deliciously rounded chin, slightly parted rose-red lips, and sparkling, eager eyes as blue as— as blue as— well, they were blue eyes. An envious mask hid cheeks and brow, but above a sombrero was perched arrogantly on crisp, ruddy-gold hair, flaunting a tricoloured ribbon. A revolver swung at her hip— the wrong hip— and a Bowie knife, singularly inoffensive in appearance, was thrust through her girdle. The Burglar looked curiously a moment, then smiled.

"How did you know me?" he asked.

"By your chin," she replied. "You can never hide yourself behind a mask that doesn't cover that."

The Burglar touched his chin with one gloved hand.

"I forgot that," he remarked ruefully.

"Hadn't you seen me?"

"No."

The Girl drew nearer and laid one hand lightly on his arm; her voice dropped mysteriously.

"Is everything ready?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," he assured her quickly. His voice, too, was lowered cautiously.

"Did you come in the auto?"

"Yes."

"And the casket?"

For an instant the Burglar hesitated.

"The casket?" he repeated.

"Certainly, the casket. Did you get it all right?"

The Burglar looked at her with a new, business-like expression on his lips. The Girl returned his steady gaze for an instant, then her eyes dropped. A faint colour glowed in her white chin. The Burglar suddenly laughed admiringly.

"Yes, I got it," he said.

She took a deep breath quickly, and her white hands fluttered a little.

"We will have to go in a few minutes, won't we?" she asked uneasily.

"I suppose so," he replied.

"Certainly before unmasking-time," she said, "because— because I think there is someone here who knows, or suspects, that— "

"Suspects what?" demanded the Burglar.

"Sh-h-h-h!" warned the Girl, and she laid a finger on her lips. "Not so loud. Someone might hear. Here are some people coming now that I'm afraid of. They know me. Meet me in the conservatory in five minutes. I don't want them to see me talking to you."

She moved away quickly and the Burglar looked after her with admiration and some impalpable quality other than that in his eyes. He was turning away toward the conservatory when he ran into the arms of an oversized man lumpily clad in the dress of a courtier. The lumpy individual stood back and sized him up.

"Say, young fellow, that's a swell rig you got there," he remarked.

The Burglar glanced at him in polite astonishment— perhaps it was the tone of the remark.

"Glad you like it," he said coldly, and passed on.

As he waited in the conservatory the amusement died out of his eyes and his lips were drawn into a straight, sharp line. He had seen the lumpy individual speak to another man, indicating generally the direction of the conservatory as he did so. After a moment the Girl returned in deep agitation.

"We must go now— at once," she whispered hurriedly. "They suspect us. I know it, I know it!"

"I'm afraid so," said the Burglar grimly. "That's why that detective spoke to me."

"Detective?" gasped the Girl.

"Yes, a detective disguised as a gentleman."

"Oh, if they are watching us what shall we do?"

The Burglar glanced out, and seeing the man to whom the lumpy individual had spoken coming toward the conservatory, turned suddenly to the Girl.

"Do you really want to go with me?" he asked.

"Certainly," she replied eagerly.

"You are making no mistake?"

"No, Dick, no!" she said again. "But if we are caught— "

"Do as I say and we won't be caught," declared the Burglar. His tone now was sharp, commanding. "You go on alone toward the front door. Pass out as if to get a breath of fresh air. I'll follow in a minute. Watch for me. This detective is getting too curious for comfort. Outside we'll take the first auto and run for it."

He thoughtfully whirled the barrel of his revolver in his fingers as he stared out into the ballroom. The Girl clung to him helplessly a moment; her hand trembled on his arm.

"I'm frightened," she confessed. "Oh, Dick, if— "

"Don't lose your nerve," he commanded. "If you do we'll both be caught. Go on now, and do as I say. I'll come— but I may come in a hurry. Watch for me."

For just a moment more the Girl clung to his arm.

"Oh, Dick, you darling!" she whispered. Then, turning, she left him there.

From the door of the conservatory the Burglar watched her splendid, lithe figure as she threaded her way through the crowd. Finally she passed beyond his view and he sauntered carelessly toward the door. Once he glanced back. The lumpy individual was following slowly. Then he saw a liveried servant approach the host and whisper to him excitedly.

"This is my cue to move," the Burglar told himself grimly.

Still watching, he saw the servant point directly at him. The host, with a sudden gesture, tore off his mask and the Burglar accelerated his pace.

"Stop that man!" called the host.

For one brief instant there was the dead silence which follows general astonishment— and the Burglar ran for the door. Several pairs of hands reached out from the crowd toward him.

"There he goes, there!" exclaimed the Burglar excitedly. "That man ahead! I'll catch him!"

The ruse opened the way and he went through. The Girl was waiting at the foot of the steps.

"They're coming!" he panted as he dragged her along. "Climb in that last car on the end there!"

Without a word the Girl ran to the auto and clambered into the front seat. Several men dashed out of the house. Wonderingly her eyes followed the vague figure of the Burglar as he sped along in the shadow of a wall. He paused beneath a window, picked up something and raced for the car.

"Stop him!" came a cry.

The Burglar flung his burden, which fell at the Girl's feet with a clatter, and leaped. The auto swayed as he landed beside her. With a quick twist of the wheel he headed out.

"Hurry, Dick, they're coming!" gasped the Girl.

The motor beneath them whirred and panted and the car began to move.

"Halt, or I'll fire," came another cry.

"Down!" commanded the Burglar.

His hand fell on the Girl's shoulder heavily and he dragged her below the level of the seat. Then, bending low over the wheel, he gave the car half power. It leaped out into the road in the path of its own light, just as there came a pistol-shot from behind, followed instantly by another.

The car sped on.

3

STUYVESANT Randolph, millionaire, owner of Seven Oaks and host of the masked ball, was able to tell the police only what happened, and not the manner of its happening. Briefly, this was that a thief, cunningly disguised as a Burglar with dark lantern and revolver in hand, had surreptitiously attended the masked ball by entering at the front door and presenting an invitation card. And when Mr. Randolph got this far in his story even he couldn't keep his face straight.

The sum total of everyone's knowledge, therefore, was this:

Soon after the grand march a servant entered the smoking-room and found the Burglar there alone, standing beside an open window, looking out. This smoking-room connected, by a corridor, with a small dining-room where the Randolph gold plate was kept in ostentatious seclusion. As the servant entered the smoking-room the Burglar turned away from the window and went out into the ballroom. He did not carry a bundle; he did not appear to be excited.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later the servant discovered that eleven plates of the gold service, valued roughly at $15,000, were missing. He informed Mr. Randolph. The information, naturally enough, did not elevate the host's enjoyment of the ball, and he did things hastily.

Meanwhile— that is, between the time when the Burglar left the smoking-room and the time when he passed out the front door— the Burglar had talked earnestly with a masked Girl of the West. It was established that, when she left him in the conservatory, she went out the front door. There she was joined by the Burglar, and then came their sensational flight in the automobile— a 40 horsepower car that moved like the wind. The automobile in which the Burglar had gone to Seven Oaks was left behind; thus far it had not been claimed.

The identity of the Burglar and the Girl made the mystery. It was easy to conjecture -- that's what the police said— how the Burglar got away with the gold plate. He went into the smoking-room, then into the dining-room, dropped the gold plate into a sack and threw the sack out of a window. It was beautifully simple. Just what the Girl had to do with it wasn't very clear; perhaps a score or more articles of jewelry, which had been reported missing by guests, engaged her attention.

It was also easy to see how the Burglar and the Girl had been able to shake off pursuit by the police in two other automobiles. The car they had chosen was admittedly the fastest of the scores there, the night was pitch-dark, and, besides, a Burglar like that was liable to do anything. Two shots had been fired at him by the lumpy courtier, who was really Detective Cunningham, but they had only spurred him on.

These things were easy to understand. But the identity of the pair was a different and more difficult proposition, and there remained the task of yanking them out of obscurity. This fell to the lot of Detective Mallory, who represented the Supreme Police Intelligence of the Metropolitan District, happily combining a No. 11 shoe and a No. 6 hat. He was a cautious, suspicious, far-seeing man -- as police detectives go. For instance, it was he who explained the method of the theft with a lucidity that was astounding.

Detective Mallory and two or three of his satellites heard Mr. Randolph's story, then the statements of his two men who had attended the ball in costume, and the statements of the servants. After all this Mr. Mallory chewed his cigar and thought violently for several minutes. Mr. Randolph looked on expectantly; he didn't want to miss anything.

"As I understand it, Mr. Randolph," said the Supreme Police Intelligence at last, "each invitation-card presented at the door by your guests bore the name of the person to whom it was issued?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Randolph.

"Ah!" exclaimed the detective shrewdly. "Then we have a clue."

"Where are those cards, Curtis?" asked Mr. Randolph of the servant who had received them at the door.

"I didn't know they were of further value, sir, and they were thrown away— into the furnace."

Mr. Mallory was crestfallen.

"Did you notice if the card presented at the door by the Burglar on the evening of the masked ball at Seven Oaks bore a name?" he asked. He liked to be explicit like that.

"Yes, sir. I noticed it particularly because the gentleman was dressed so queerly."

"Do you remember the name?"

"No, sir."

"Would you remember it if you saw it or heard it again?"

The servant looked at Mr. Randolph helplessly.

"I don't think I would, sir," he answered.

"And the Girl? Did you notice the card she gave you?"

"I don't remember her at all, sir. Many of the ladies wore wraps when they came in, and her costume would not have been noticeable if she had on a wrap."

The Supreme Intelligence was thoughtful for another few minutes. At last he turned to Mr. Randolph again.

"You are certain there was only one man at that ball dressed as a Burglar?" he asked.

"Yes, thank Heaven," replied Mr. Randolph fervently. "If there'd been another one they might have taken the piano."

The Supreme Intelligence frowned.

"And this girl was dressed like a Western girl?" he asked.

"Yes. A sort of Spirit-of-the-West costume."

"And no other woman there wore such a dress?"

"No," responded Mr. Randolph.

"No," echoed the two detectives.

"Now, Mr. Randolph, how many invitations were issued for the ball?"

"Three or four hundred. It's a big house," Mr. Randolph apologised, "and we tried to do the thing properly."

"How many persons do you suppose actually attended the ball?"

"Oh, I don't know. Three hundred, perhaps."

Detective Mallory thought again.

"It's unquestionably the work of two bold and clever professional crooks," he said at last judicially, and his satellites hung on his words eagerly. "It has every ear-mark of it. They perhaps planned the thing weeks before, and forged invitation-cards, or perhaps stole them -- perhaps stole them."

He turned suddenly and pointed an accusing finger at the servant, Curtis.

"Did you notice the handwriting on the card the Burglar gave you?" he demanded.

"No, sir. Not particularly."

"I mean, do you recall if it was different in any way from the handwriting on the other cards?" insisted the Supreme Intelligence.

"I don't think it was, sir."

"If it had been would you have noticed it?"

"I might have, sir."

"Were the names written on all the invitation-cards by the same hand, Mr. Randolph?"

"Yes: my wife's secretary."

Detective Mallory arose and paced back and forth across the room with wrinkles in his brow.

"Ah!" he said at last, "then we know the cards were not forged, but stolen from someone to whom they had been sent. We know this much, therefore— " he paused a moment.

"Therefore all that must be done," Mr. Randolph finished the sentence, "is to find from whom the card or cards were stolen, who presented them at my door, and who got away with the plate."

The Supreme Intelligence glared at him aggressively. Mr. Randolph's face was perfectly serious. It was his gold plate, you know.

"Yes, that's it," Detective Mallory assented. "Now we'll get after this thing right. Downey, you get that automobile the Burglar left at Seven Oaks and find its owner; also find the car the Burglar and the Girl escaped in. Cunningham, you go to Seven Oaks and look over the premises. See particularly if the Girl left a wrap— she didn't wear one away from there— and follow that up. Blanton, you take a list of invited guests that Mr. Randolph will give you, check off those persons who are known to have been at the ball, and find out all about those who were not, and— follow that up."

"That'll take weeks!" complained Blanton.

The Supreme Intelligence turned on him fiercely.

"Well?" he demanded. He continued to stare for a moment, and Blanton wrinkled up in the baleful glow of his superior's scorn. "And," Detective Mallory added magnanimously, "I will do the rest."

Thus the campaign was planned against the Burglar and the Girl.

4

HUTCHINSON Hatch was a newspaper reporter, a long, lean, hungry-looking young man with an insatiable appetite for facts. This last was, perhaps, an astonishing trait in a reporter; and Hatch was positively finicky on the point. That's why his City Editor believed in him. If Hatch had come in and told his City Editor that he had seen a blue elephant with pink side-whiskers his City Editor would have known that that elephant was blue— mentally, morally, physically, spiritually and everlastingly— not any washed-out green or purple, but blue.

Hatch was remarkable in other ways, too. For instance, he believed in the use of a little human intelligence in his profession. As a matter of fact, on several occasions he had demonstrated that it was really an excellent thing— human intelligence. His mind was well poised, his methods thorough, his style direct.

Along with dozens of others Hatch was at work on the Randolph robbery, and knew what the others knew— no more. He had studied the case so closely that he was beginning to believe, strangely enough, that perhaps the police were right in their theory as to the identity of the Burglar and the Girl— that is, that they were professional crooks. He could do a thing like that sometimes -- bring his mind around to admit the possibility of somebody else being right.

It was on Saturday afternoon -- two days after the Randolph affair— that Hatch was sitting in Detective Mallory's private office at Police Headquarters laboriously extracting from the Supreme Intelligence the precise things he had not found out about the robbery. The telephone-bell rang. Hatch got one end of the conversation -- he couldn't help it. It was something like this:

"Hello! . . . Yes, Detective Mallory . . . Missing? . . . What's her name? . . . What? . . . Oh, Dorothy! . . . Yes? . . . Merritt? . . . Oh, Merryman! . . . Well, what the deuce is it then? . . . SPELL IT! . . . M-e-r-e-d-i-t-h. Why didn't you say that at first? . . . How long has she been gone? . . . Huh? . . . Thursday evening? . . . What does she look like? . . . Auburn hair. Red, you mean? . . . Oh, ruddy! I'd like to know what's the difference."

The detective had drawn up a pad of paper and was jotting down what Hatch imagined to be the description of a missing girl. Then:

"Who is this talking?" asked the detective.

There was a little pause as he got the answer, and, having the answer, he whistled his astonishment, after which he glanced around quickly at the reporter, who was staring dreamily out a window.

"No," said the Supreme Intelligence over the 'phone. "It wouldn't be wise to make it public. It isn't necessary at all. I understand. I'll order a search immediately. No. The newspapers will get nothing of it. Good-by."

"A story?" inquired Hatch carelessly as he detective hung up the receiver.

"Doesn't amount to anything," was the reply.

"Yes, that's obvious," remarked the reporter drily.

"Well, whatever it is, it is not going to be made public," retorted the Supreme Intelligence sharply. He never did like Hatch, anyway. "It's one of those things that don't do any good in the newspapers, so I'll not let this one get there."

Hatch yawned to show that he had no further interest in the matter, and went out. But there was the germ of an idea in his head which would have startled Detective Mallory, and he paced up and down outside to develop it. A girl missing! A red-headed girl missing! A red-headed girl missing since Thursday! Thursday was the night of the Randolph masked hall. The missing Girl of the West was red-headed! Mallory had seemed astonished when he learned the name of the person who reported this last case! Therefore the person who reported it was high up— perhaps! Certainly high enough up to ask and receive the courtesy of police suppression— and the missing girl's name was Dorothy Meredith!

Hatch stood still for a long time on the curb and figured it out. Suddenly he rushed off to a telephone and called up Stuyvesant Randolph at Seven Oaks. He asked the first question with trepidation:

"Mr. Randolph, can you give me the address of Miss Dorothy Meredith?"

"Miss Meredith?" came the answer. "Let's see. I think she is stopping with the Morgan Greytons, at their suburban place."

The reporter gulped down a shout. "Worked, by thunder!" he exclaimed to himself. Then, in a deadly, forced calm:

"She attended the masked ball Thursday evening, didn't she?"

"Well, she was invited."

"You didn't see her there?"

"No. Who is this?"

Then Hatch hung up the receiver. He was nearly choking with excitement, for, in addition to all those virtues which have been enumerated, he possessed, too, the quality of enthusiasm. It was no part of his purpose to tell anybody anything. Mallory didn't know, he was confident, anything of the girl having been a possible guest at the ball. And what Mallory didn't know now wouldn't be found out, all of which was a sad reflection upon the detective.

In this frame of mind Hatch started for the suburban place of the Greytons. He found the house without difficulty. Morgan Greyton was an aged gentleman of wealth and exclusive ideas -- wasn't in. Hatch handed a card bearing only his name, to a maid, and after a few minutes Mrs. Greyton appeared. She was a motherly, sweet-faced old lady of seventy, with that grave, exquisite courtesy which makes mere man feel ashamed of himself. Hatch had that feeling when he looked at her and thought of what he was going to ask.

"I came up direct from Police Headquarters," he explained diplomatically, "to learn any details you may be able to give us as to the disappearance of Miss Meredith."

"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Greyton. "My husband said he was going to ask the police to look into the matter. It is most mysterious— most mysterious! We can't imagine where Dollie is, unless she has eloped. Do you know that idea keeps coming to me and won't go away?"

She spoke as if it were a naughty child.

"If you'll tell me something about Miss Meredith— who she is and all that?" Hatch suggested.

"Oh, yes, to be sure," exclaimed Mrs. Greyton. "Dollie is a distant cousin of my husband's sister's husband," she explained precisely. "She lives in Baltimore, but is visiting us. She has been here for several weeks. She's a dear, sweet girl, but I'm afraid— afraid she has eloped."

The aged voice quivered a little, and Hatch was more ashamed of himself than ever.

"Some time ago she met a man named Herbert— Richard Herbert, I think, and— "

"Dick Herbert?" the reporter exclaimed suddenly.

"Do you know the young gentleman?" inquired the old lady eagerly.

"Yes, it just happens that we were classmates in Harvard," said the reporter.

"And is he a nice young man?"

"A good, clean-cut, straightforward, decent man," replied Hatch. He could speak with a certain enthusiasm about Dick Herbert. "Go on, please," he urged.

"Well, for some reason I don't know, Dollie's father objects to Mr. Herbert's attentions to her— as a matter of fact, Mr. Meredith has absolutely prohibited them— but she's a young, headstrong girl, and I fear that, although she had outwardly yielded to her father's wishes, she had clandestinely kept up a correspondence with Mr. Herbert. Last Thursday evening she went out unattended and since then we have not heard from her— not a word. We can only surmise— my husband and I— that they have eloped. I know her father and mother will be heart-broken, but I have always noticed that if a girl sets her heart on a man, she will get him. And perhaps it's just as well that she has eloped now since you assure me he is a nice young man."

Hatch was choking back a question that rose in his throat. He hated to ask it, because he felt this dear, garrulous old woman would have hated him for it, if she could have known its purpose. But at last it came.

"Do you happen to know," he asked, "if Miss Meredith attended the Randolph ball at Seven Oaks on Thursday evening?"

"I dare say she received an invitation," was the reply. "She receives many invitations, but I don't think she went there. It was a costume affair, I suppose?"

The reporter nodded.

"Well, I hardly believe she went there then," Mrs. Greyton replied. "She has had no costume of any sort made. No, I am positive she has eloped with Mr. Herbert, but I should like to hear from her to satisfy myself and explain to her parents. We did not permit Mr. Herbert to come here, and it will be very hard to explain."

Hatch heard the slight rustle of a skirt in the hall and glanced toward the door. No one appeared, and he turned back to Mrs. Greyton.

"I don't suppose it possible that Miss Meredith has returned to Baltimore?" he asked.

"Oh, no!" was the positive reply. "Her father there telegraphed to her to-day— I opened it— saying he would be here, probably to-night, and I— I haven't the heart to tell him the truth when he arrives. Somehow, I have been hoping that we would hear and— and— "

Then Hatch took his shame in his hand and excused himself. The maid attended him to the door.

"How much is it worth to you to know if Miss Meredith went to the masked ball?" asked the maid cautiously.

"Eavesdropping, eh?" asked Hatch in disgust.

The maid shrugged her shoulders.

"How much is it worth?" she repeated.

Hatch extended his hand. She took a ten-dollar bill which lay there and secreted it in some remote recess of her being.

"Miss Meredith did go to the ball," she said. "She went there to meet Mr. Herbert. They had arranged to elope from there and she had made all her plans. 1 was in her confidence and assisted her."

"What did she wear?" asked Hatch eagerly.

"Her costume was that of a Western Girl," the maid responded. "She wore a sombrero, and carried a Bowie knife and revolver."

Hatch nearly swallowed his palate.

5

HATCH started back to the city with his brain full of seven-column heads. He thoughtfully lighted a cigar just before he stepped on the car.

"No smoking," said the conductor.

The reporter stared at him with dull eyes and then went in and sat down with the cigar in his mouth.

"No smoking, I told you," bawled the conductor.

"Certainly not," exclaimed Hatch indignantly. He turned and glared at the only other occupant of the car, a little girl. She wasn't smoking. Then he looked at the conductor and awoke suddenly.

"Miss Meredith is the girl," Hatch was thinking. "Mallory doesn't even dream it and never will. He won't send a man out there to do what I did. The Greytons are anxious to keep it quiet, and they won't say anything to anybody else until they know what really happened. I've got it bottled up, and don't know how to pull the cork. Now, the question is: What possible connection can there be between Dorothy Meredith and the Burglar? Was Dick Herbert the Burglar? Why, of course not! Then— what?"

Pondering all these things deeply, Hatch left the car and ran up to see Dick Herbert. He was too self-absorbed to notice that the blinds of the house were drawn. He rang, and after a long time a man-servant answered the bell.

"Mr. Herbert here?" Hatch asked.

"Yes, sir, he's here," replied the servant, "but I don't know if he can see you. He is not very well, sir."

"Not very well?" Hatch repeated.

"No, it's not that he's sick, sir. He was hurt and -- "

"Who is it, Blair?" came Herbert's voice from the top of the stair.

"Mr. Hatch, sir."

"Come up, Hatch!" Dick called cordially. "Glad to see you. I'm so lonesome here I don't know what to do with myself."

The reporter ran up the steps and into Dick's room.

"Not that one," Dick smiled as Hatch reached for his right hand. "It's out of business. Try this one— " And he offered his left.

"What's the matter?" Hatch inquired.

"Little hurt, that's all," said Dick. "Sit down. I got it knocked out the other night and I've been here in this big house alone with Blair ever since. The doctor told me not to venture out yet. It has been lonesome, too. All the folks are away, up in Nova Scotia, and took the other servants along. How are you, anyhow?"

Hatch sat down and stared at Dick thoughtfully. Herbert was a good-looking, forceful person of twenty-eight or thirty, and a corking right-guard. Now he seemed a little washed out, and there was a sort of pallor beneath the natural tan. He was a young man of family, unburdened by superlative wealth, but possessing in his own person the primary elements of success. He looked what Hatch had said of him: a "good, clean-cut, straightforward, decent man."

"I came up here to say something to you in my professional capacity," the reporter began at last; "and frankly, I don't know how to say it."

Dick straightened up in his chair with a startled expression on his face. He didn't speak, but there was something in his eyes which interested Hatch immensely.

"Have you been reading the papers?" the reporter asked— "that is, during the last couple of days?"

"Yes."

"Of course, then, you've seen the stories about the Randolph robbery?"

Dick smiled a little.

"Yes," he said. "Clever, wasn't it?"

"It was," Hatch responded enthusiastically. "It was." He was silent for a moment as he accepted and lighted a cigarette. "It doesn't happen," he went on, "that, by any possible chance, you know anything about it, does it?"

"Not beyond what I saw in the papers. Why?"

"I'll be frank and ask you some questions, Dick," Hatch resumed in a tone which betrayed his discomfort. "Remember I am here in my official capacity— that is, not as a friend of yours, but as a reporter. You need not answer the questions if you don't want to."

Dick arose with a little agitation in his manner and went over and stood beside the window.

"What is it all about?" he demanded. "What are the questions?"

"Do you know where Miss Dorothy Meredith is?"

Dick turned suddenly and glared at him with a certain lowering of his eyebrows which Hatch knew from the football days.

"What about her?" he asked.

"Where is she?" Hatch insisted.

"At home, so far as I know. Why?"

"She is not there," the reporter informed him, "and the Greytons believe that you eloped with her."

"Eloped with her?" Dick repeated. "She is not at home?"

"No. She's been missing since Thursday evening— the evening of the Randolph affair. Mr. Greyton has asked the police to look for her, and they are doing so now, but quietly. It is not known to the newspapers -- that is, to other newspapers. Your name has not been mentioned to the police. Now, isn't it a fact that you did intend to elope with her on Thursday evening?"

Dick strode feverishly across the room several times, then stopped in front of Hatch's chair.

"This isn't any silly joke?" he asked fiercely.

"Isn't it a fact that you did intend to elope with her on Thursday evening?" the reporter went on steadily.

"I won't answer that question."

"Did you get an invitation to the Randolph ball?"

"Yes."

"Did you go?"

Dick was staring straight down into his eyes.

"I won't answer that, either," he said after a pause.

"Where were you on the evening of the masked ball?"

"Nor will I answer that."

When the newspaper instinct is fully aroused a reporter has no friends. Hatch had forgotten that he ever knew Dick Herbert. To him the young man was now merely a thing from which he might wring certain information for the benefit of the palpitating public.

"Did the injury to your arm," he went on after the approved manner of attorney for the prosecution, "prevent you going to the ball?"

"I won't answer that."

"What is the nature of the injury?"

"Now, see here, Hatch," Dick burst out, and there was a dangerous undertone in his manner, "I shall not answer any more questions— particularly that last one— unless I know what this is all about. Several things happened on the evening of the masked ball that I can't go over with you or anyone else, but as for me having any personal knowledge of events at the masked ball -- well, you and I are not talking of the same thing at all."

He paused, started to say something else, then changed his mind and was silent.

"Was it a pistol shot?" Hatch went on calmly.

Dick's lips were compressed to a thin line as he looked at the reporter, and he controlled himself only by an effort.

"Where did you get that idea?" he demanded.

Hatch would have hesitated a long time before he told him where he got that idea; but vaguely it had some connection with the fact that at least two shots were fired at the Burglar and the Girl when they raced away from Seven Oaks.

While the reporter was rummaging through his mind for an answer to the question there came a rap at the door and Blair appeared with a card. He handed it to Dick, who glanced at it, looked a little surprised, then nodded. Blair disappeared. After a moment there were footsteps on the stairs and Stuyvesant Randolph entered.

6

DICK AROSE and offered his left hand to Mr. Randolph, who calmly ignored it, turning his gaze instead upon the reporter.

"I had hoped to find you alone," he said frostily.

Hatch made as if to rise.

"Sit still, Hatch," Dick commanded. "Mr. Hatch is a friend of mine, Mr. Randolph. I don't know what you want to say, but whatever it is, you may say it freely before him."

Hatch knew that humour in Dick. It always preceded the psychological moment when he wanted to climb down someone's throat and open an umbrella. The tone was calm, the words clearly enunciated, and the face was white -- whiter than it had been before.

"I shouldn't like to——" Mr. Randolph began.

"You may say what you want to before Mr. Hatch, or not at all, as you please," Dick went on evenly.

Mr. Randolph cleared his throat twice and waved his hands with an expression of resignation.

"Very well," he replied. "I have come to request the return of my gold plate."

Hatch leaned forward in his chair, gripping its arms fiercely. This was a question bearing broadly on a subject that he wanted to mention, but he didn't know how. Mr. Randolph apparently found it easy enough.

"What gold plate?" asked Dick steadily.

"The eleven pieces that you, in the garb of a Burglar, took from my house last Thursday evening," said Mr. Randolph. He was quite calm.

Dick took a sudden step forward, then straightened up with flushed face. His left hand closed with a snap and the nails bit into the flesh; the fingers of the helpless right hand worked nervously. In a minute now Hatch could see him climbing all over Mr. Randolph.

But again Dick gained control of himself. It was a sort of recognition of the fact that Mr. Randolph was fifty years old; Hatch knew it; Mr. Randolph's knowledge on the subject didn't appear. Suddenly Dick laughed.

"Sit down, Mr. Randolph, and tell me about it," he suggested.

"It isn't necessary to go into details," continued Mr. Randolph, still standing. "I had not wanted to go this far in the presence of a third person, but you forced me to do it. Now, will you or will you not return the plate?"

"Would you mind telling me just what makes you think I got it?" Dick insisted.

"It is as simple as it is conclusive," said Mr. Randolph. "You received an invitation to the masked hall. You went there in your Burglar garb and handed your invitation-card to my servant. He noticed you particularly and read your name on the card. He remembered that name perfectly. I was compelled to tell the story as I knew it to Detective Mallory. I did not mention your name; my servant remembered it, had given it to me in fact, but I forbade him to repeat it to the police. He told them something about having burned the invitation-cards."

"Oh, wouldn't that please Mallory?" Hatch thought.

"I have not even intimated to the police that I have the least idea of your identity," Mr. Randolph went on, still standing. "I had believed that it was some prank of yours and that the plate would be returned in due time. Certainly I could not account for you taking it in any other circumstances. My reticence, it is needless to say, was in consideration of your name and family. But now I want the plate. If it was a prank to carry out the rôle of the Burglar, it is time for it to end. If the fact that the matter is now in the hands of the police has frightened you into the seeming necessity of keeping the plate for the present to protect yourself, you may dismiss that. When the plate is returned to me I shall see that the police drop the matter."

Dick had listened with absorbed interest. Hatch looked at him from time to time and saw only attention— not anger.

"And the Girl?" asked Dick at last. "Does it happen that you have as cleverly traced her?

"No," Mr. Randolph replied frankly. "I haven't the faintest idea who she is. I suppose no one knows that but you. I have no interest further than to recover the plate. I may say that I called here yesterday, Friday, and asked to see you, but was informed that you had been hurt, so I went away to give you opportunity to recover somewhat."

"Thanks," said Dick drily. "Awfully considerate."

There was a long silence. Hatch was listening with all the multitudinous ears of a good reporter.

“Now the plate," Mr. Randolph suggested again impatiently. "Do you deny that you got it?"

"I do," replied Dick firmly.

"I was afraid you would, and, believe me, Mr. Herbert, such a course is a mistaken one," said Mr. Randolph. "I will give you twenty-four hours to change your mind. If, at the end of that time, you see fit to return the plate, I shall drop the matter and use my influence to have the police do so. If the plate is not returned I shall be compelled to turn over all the facts to the police with your name."

"Is that all?" Dick demanded suddenly.

"Yes, I believe so."

"Then get out of here before I— " Dick started forward, then dropped back into a chair.

Mr. Randolph drew on his gloves and went out, closing the door behind him.

For a long time Dick sat there, seemingly oblivious of Hatch's presence, supporting his head with his left hand, while the right hung down loosely beside him. Hatch was inclined to be sympathetic, for, strange as it may seem, some reporters have even the human quality of sympathy— although there are persons who will not believe it.

"Is there anything I can do?" Hatch asked at last. "Anything you want to say?"

"Nothing," Dick responded wearily. "Nothing. You may think what you like. There are, as I said, several things of which I cannot speak, even if it comes to a question— a question of having to face the charge of theft in open court. I simply can't say anything."

"But— but— " stammered the reporter.

"Absolutely not another word," said Dick firmly.

7

THOSE satellites of the Supreme Police Intelligence of the Metropolitan District who had been taking the Randolph mystery to pieces to see what made it tick, lined up in front of Detective Mallory, in his private office, at police headquarters, early Saturday evening. They did not seem happy. The Supreme Intelligence placed his feet on the desk and glowered; that was a part of the job.

"Well, Downey?" he asked.

"I went out to Seven Oaks and got the automobile the Burglar left, as you instructed," reported Downey. "Then I started out to find its owner, or someone who knew it. It didn't have a number on it, so the job wasn't easy, but I found the owner all right, all right."

Detective Mallory permitted himself to look interested.

"He lives at Merton, four miles from Seven Oaks," Downey resumed. "His name is Blake— William Blake. His auto was in the shed a hundred feet or so from his house on Thursday evening at nine o'clock. It wasn't there Friday morning."

"Umph!" remarked Detective Mallory.

"There is no question but what Blake told me the truth," Downey went on. "To me it seems probable that the Burglar went out from the city to Merton by train, stole the auto and ran it on to Seven Oaks. That's all there seems to be to it. Blake proved ownership of the machine and I left it with him."

The Supreme Intelligence chewed his cigar frantically.

"And the other machine?" he asked.

"I have here a blood-stained cushion, the back of a seat from the car in which the Burglar and the Girl escaped," continued Downey in a walk-right-up-ladies-and-gentlemen sort of voice. "I found the car late this afternoon at a garage in Pleasantville. We knew, of course, that it belonged to Nelson Sharp, a guest at the masked hall. According to the manager of the garage the car was standing in front of his place this morning when he arrived to open up. The number had been removed."

Detective Mallory examined the cushion which Downey handed to him. Several dark brown stains told the story— one of the occupants of the car had been wounded.

"Well, that's something," commented the Supreme Intelligence. "We know now that when Cunningham fired at least one of the persons in the car was hit, and we may make our search accordingly. The Burglar and the Girl probably left the car where it was found during the preceding night."

"It seems so," said Downey. "I shouldn't think they would have dared to keep it long. Autos of that size and power are too easily traced. I asked Mr. Sharp to run down and identify the car and he did so. The stains were new."

The Supreme Intelligence digested that in silence while his satellites studied his face, seeking some inkling of the convolutions of that marvellous mind.

"Very good, Downey," said Detective Mallory at last. "Now Cunningham?"

"Nothing," said Cunningham in shame and sorrow. "Nothing."

"Didn't you find anything at all about the premises?"

"Nothing," repeated Cunningham. "The Girl left no wrap at Seven Oaks. None of the servants remembers having seen her in the room where the wraps were checked. I searched all around the place and found a dent in the ground under the smoking-room window, where the gold plate had been thrown, and there were what seemed to be footprints in the grass, but it was all nothing."

"We can't arrest a dent and footprints," said the Supreme Intelligence cuttingly.

The satellites laughed sadly. It was part of the deference they owed to the Supreme Intelligence.

"And you, Blanton?" asked Mr. Mallory. "What did you do with the list of guests?"

"I haven't got a good start yet," responded Blanton hopelessly. "There are three hundred and sixty names on the list. I have been able to see possibly thirty. It's worse than making a city directory. I won't be through for a month. Randolph and his wife checked off a large number of these whom they knew were there. The others I am looking up as rapidly as I can."

The detectives sat moodily thoughtful for uncounted minutes. Finally Detective Mallory broke the silence:

"There seems to be no question but that any clew that might have come from either of the automobiles is disposed of unless it is the fact that we now know one of the thieves was wounded. I readily see how the theft could have been committed by a man as bold as this fellow. Now we must concentrate all our efforts to running down the invited guests and learning just where they were that evening. All of you will have to get on this job and hustle it. We know that the Burglar did present an invitation-card with a name on it."

The detectives went their respective ways and then Detective Mallory deigned to receive representatives of the press, among them Hutchinson Hatch. Hatch was worried. He knew a whole lot of things, but they didn't do him any good. He felt that he could print nothing as it stood, yet he would not tell the police, because that would give it to everyone else, and he had a picture of how the Supreme Intelligence would tangle it if he got hold of it.

"Well, boys," said Detective Mallory smilingly, when the press filed in, "there's nothing to say. Frankly, I will tell you that we have not been able to learn anything— at least anything that can be given out. You know, of course, about the finding of the two automobiles that figured in the case, and the blood-stained cushion?"

The press nodded collectively.

"Well, that's all there is yet. My men are still at work, but I'm a little afraid the gold plate will never be found. It has probably been melted up. The cleverness of the thieves you can judge for yourself by the manner in which they handled the automobiles."

And yet Hatch was not surprised when, late that night, Police Headquarters made known the latest sensation. This was a bulletin, based on a telephone message from Stuyvesant Randolph to the effect that the gold plate had been returned by express to Seven Oaks. This mystified the police beyond description; but official mystification was as nothing to Hatch's state of mind. He knew of the scene in Dick Herbert's room and remembered Mr. Randolph's threat.

"Then Dick did have the plate," he told himself.

8

WHOLE FLOCKS of detectives, reporters, and newspaper artists appeared at Seven Oaks early next morning. It had been too late to press an investigation the night before. The newspapers had only time telephonically to confirm the return of the plate. Now the investigators unanimously voiced one sentiment: "Show us!"

Hatch arrived in the party headed by Detective Mallory, with Downey and Cunningham trailing. Blanton was off somewhere with his little list, presumably still at it. Mr. Randolph had not come down to breakfast when the investigators arrived, but had given his servant permission to exhibit the plate, the wrappings in which it had come, and the string wherewith it had been tied.

The plate arrived in a heavy paper-board box, covered twice over with a plain piece of stiff brown paper, which had no markings save the address and the "paid" stamp of the express company. Detective Mallory devoted himself first to the address. It was:

Mr. Stuyvesant Randolph,

"Seven Oaks," via Merton.

In the upper left-hand corner were scribbled the words:

From John Smith,

State Street, Watertown.

Detectives Mallory, Downey, and Cunningham studied the handwriting on the paper minutely.

"It's a man's," said Detective Downey.

"It's a woman's," said Detective Cunningham.

"It's a child's," said Detective Mallory.

"Whatever it is, it is disguised," said Hatch.

He was inclined to agree with Detective Cunningham that it was a woman's purposely altered, and in that event— Great Cæsar! There came that flock of seven-column heads again! And he couldn't open the bottle!

The simple story of the arrival of the gold plate at Seven Oaks was told thrillingly by the servant.

"It was eight o'clock last night," he said. "I was standing in the hall here. Mr. and Mrs. Randolph were still at the dinner table. They dined alone. Suddenly I heard the sound of wagon-wheels on the granolithic road in front of the house. I listened intently. Yes, it was wagon-wheels."

The detectives exchanged significant glances.

"I heard the wagon stop," the servant went on in an awed tone. "Still I listened. Then came the sound of footsteps on the walk and then on the steps. I walked slowly along the hall toward the front door. As I did so the bell rang."

"Yes, ting-a-ling-a-ling, we know. Go on," Hatch interrupted impatiently.

"I opened the door," the servant continued. "A man stood there with a package. He was a burly fellow. 'Mr. Randolph live here?' he asked gruffly. 'Yes,' I said. 'Here's a package for him,' said the man. 'Sign here.' I took the package and signed a book he gave me, and— and— "

"In other words," Hatch interrupted again, "an expressman brought the package here, you signed for it, and he went away?"

The servant stared at him haughtily.

"Yes, that's it," he said coldly.

A few minutes later Mr. Randolph in person appeared. He glanced at Hatch with a little surprise in his manner, nodded curtly, then turned to the detectives.

He could not add to the information the servant had given. His plate had been returned, prepaid. The matter was at an end so far as he was concerned. There seemed to be no need of further investigation.

"How about the jewelry that was stolen from your other guests?" demanded Detective Mallory.

"Of course, there's that," said Mr. Randolph. "It had passed out of my mind."

"Instead of being at an end this case has just begun," the detective declared emphatically.

Mr. Randolph seemed to have no further interest in the matter. He started out, then turned back at the door, and made a slight motion to Hatch which the reporter readily understood. As a result Hatch and Mr. Randolph were closeted together in a small room across the hall a few minutes later.

"May I ask your occupation, Mr. Hatch?" inquired Mr. Randolph.

"I'm a reporter," was the reply.

"A reporter?" Mr. Randolph seemed surprised. "Of course, when I saw you in Mr. Herbert's rooms," he went on after a little pause, "I met you only as his friend. You saw what happened there. Now, may I ask you what you intend to publish about this affair?"

Hatch considered the question a moment. There seemed to be no objection to telling.

"I can't publish anything until I know everything, or until the police act," he confessed frankly. "I had been talking to Dick Herbert in a general way about this case when you arrived yesterday. I knew several things, or thought I did, that the police do not even suspect. But, of course, I can print only just what the police know and say."

"I'm glad of that— very glad of it," said Mr. Randolph. "It seems to have been a freak of some sort on Mr. Herbert's part, and, candidly, I can't understand it. Of course he returned the plate, as I knew he would."

"Do you really believe he is the man who came here as the Burglar?" asked Hatch curiously.

"I should not have done what you saw me do if I had not been absolutely certain," Mr. Randolph explained. "One of the things, particularly, that was called to my attention— I don't know that you know of it— is the fact that the Burglar had a cleft in his chin. You know, of course, that Mr. Herbert has such a cleft. Then there is the invitation-card with his name. Everything together makes it conclusive."

Mr. Randolph and the reporter shook hands. Three hours later the press and police had uncovered the Watertown end of the mystery as to how the express package had been sent. It was explained by the driver of an express wagon there and absorbed by greedily listening ears.

"The boss told me to call at No. 410 State Street and get a bundle," the driver explained. "I think somebody telephoned to him to send the wagon. I went up there yesterday morning. It's a small house, back a couple of hundred feet from the street, and has a stone fence around it. I opened the gate, went in, and rang the bell.

"No one answered the first ring, and I rang again. Still nobody answered and I tried the door. It was locked. I walked around the house, thinking there might be somebody in the back, but it was all locked up. I figured as how the folks that had telephoned for me wasn't in, and started out to my wagon, intending to stop by later.

"Just as I got to the gate, going out, I saw a package set down inside, hidden from the street behind the stone fence, with a dollar bill on it. I just naturally looked at it. It was the package directed to Mr. Randolph. I reasoned as how the folks who 'phoned had to go out and left the package, so I took it along. I made out a receipt to John Smith, the name that was in the corner, and pinned it to a post, took the package and the money and went along. That's all."

"You don't know if the package was there when you went in?" he was asked.

"I dunno. I didn't look. I couldn't help but see it when I came out, so I took it."

Then the investigators sought out "the boss."

"Did the person who 'phoned give you a name?" inquired Detective Mallory.

"No, I didn't ask for one."

"Was it a man or a woman talking?"

"A man," was the unhesitating reply. "He had a deep, heavy voice."

The investigators trailed away, dismally despondent, toward No. 410 State Street. It was unoccupied; inquiry showed that it had been unoccupied for months. The Supreme Intelligence picked the lock and the investigators walked in, craning their necks. They expected, at the least, to find a thieves' rendezvous. There was nothing but dirt, and dust, and grime. Then the investigators returned to the city. They had found only that the gold plate had been returned, and they knew that when they started.

Hatch went home and sat down with his head in his hands to add up all he didn't know about the affair. It was surprising how much there was of it.

"Dick Herbert either did or didn't go to the ball," he soliloquised. "Something happened to him that evening. He either did or didn't steal the gold plate, and every circumstance indicates that he did— which, of course, he didn't. Dorothy Meredith either was or was not at the ball. The maid's statement shows that she was, yet no one there recognised her— which indicates that she wasn't. She either did or didn't run away with somebody in an automobile. Anyhow, something happened to her, because she's missing. The gold plate is stolen, and the gold plate is back. I know that, thank Heaven! And now, knowing more about this affair than any other single individual, I don't know anything."

Part 2. The Girl and the Plate

1

LOW-BENT over the steering-wheel, the Burglar sent the automobile scuttling breathlessly along the flat road away from Seven Oaks. At the first shot he crouched down in the seat, dragging the Girl with him; at the second, he winced a little and clenched his teeth tightly. The car's headlights cut a dazzling pathway through the shadows, and trees flitted by as a solid wall. The shouts of pursuers were left behind, and still the Girl clung to his arm.

"Don't do that," he commanded abruptly. "You'll make me smash into something."

"Why, Dick, they shot at us!" she protested indignantly.

The Burglar glanced at her, and, when he turned his eyes to the smooth road again, there was a flicker of a smile about the set lips.

"Yes, I had some such impression myself," he acquiesced grimly.

"Why, they might have killed us!" the Girl went on.

"It is just barely possible that they had some such absurd idea when they shot," replied the Burglar. "Guess you never got caught in a pickle like this before?"

"I certainly never did!" replied the Girl emphatically.

The whir and grind of their car drowned other sounds— sounds from behind— but from time to time the Burglar looked back, and from time to time he let out a new notch in the speed-regulator. Already the pace was terrific, and the Girl bounced up and down beside him at each trivial irregularity in the road, while she clung frantically to the seat.

"Is it necessary to go so awfully fast?" she gasped at last.

The wind was beating on her face, her mask blew this way and that; the beribboned sombrero clung frantically to a fast-failing strand of ruddy hair. She clutched at the hat and saved it, but her hair tumbled down about her shoulders, a mass of gold, and floated out behind.

"Oh," she chattered, "I can't keep my hat on!"

The Burglar took another quick look behind, then his foot went out against the speed-regulator and the car fairly leaped with suddenly increased impetus. The regulator was in the last notch now, and the car was one that had raced at Ormond Beach.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed the Girl again. "Can't you go a little slower?"

"Look behind," directed the Burglar tersely.

She glanced back and gave a little cry. Two giant eyes stared at her from a few hundred yards away as another car swooped along in pursuit, and behind this ominously glittering pair was still another.

"They're chasing us, aren't they?"

"They are," replied the Burglar grimly, "but if these tires hold, they haven't got a chance. A breakdown would— " He didn't finish the sentence. There was a sinister note in his voice, but the Girl was still looking back and did not heed it. To her excited imagination it seemed that the giant eyes behind were creeping up, and again she clutched the Burglar's arm.

"Don't do that, I say," he commanded again.

"But, Dick, they mustn't catch us— they mustn't!"

"They won't."

"But if they should—— "

"They won't," he repeated.

"It would be perfectly awful!"

"Worse than that."

For a time the Girl silently watched him bending over the wheel, and a singular feeling of security came to her. Then the car swept around a bend in the road, careening perilously, and the glaring eyes were lost. She breathed more freely.

"I never knew you handled an auto so well," she said admiringly.

"I do lots of things people don't know I do," he replied. "Are those lights still there?"

"No, thank goodness!"

The Burglar touched a lever with his left hand and the whir of the machine became less pronounced. After a moment it began to slow down. The Girl noticed it and looked at him with new apprehension.

"Oh, we're stopping!" she exclaimed.

"I know it."

They ran on for a few hundred feet; then the Burglar set the brake and, after a deal of jolting, the car stopped. He leaped out and ran around behind. As the Girl watched him uneasily there came a sudden crash and the auto trembled a little.

"What is it?" she asked quickly.

"I smashed that tail lamp," he answered. "They can see it, and it's too easy for them to follow."

He stamped on the shattered fragments in the road, then came around to the side to climb in again, extending his left hand to the Girl.

"Quick, give me your hand," he requested.

She did so wonderingly and he pulled himself into the seat beside her with a perceptible effort. The car shivered, then started on again, slowly at first, but gathering speed each moment. The Girl was staring at her companion curiously, anxiously.

"Are you hurt?" she asked at last.

He did not answer at the moment, not until the car had regained its former speed and was hurtling headlong through the night.

"My right arm's out of business," he explained briefly, then: "I got that second bullet in the shoulder."

"Oh, Dick, Dick," she exclaimed, "and you hadn't said anything about it! You need assistance!"

A sudden rush of sympathy caused her to lay her hands again on his left arm. He shook them off roughly with something like anger in his manner.

"Don't do that!" he commanded for the third time. "You'll make me smash hell out of this car."

Startled by the violence of his tone, she recoiled dumbly, and the car swept on. As before, the Burglar looked back from time to time, but the lights did not reappear. For a long time the Girl was silent and finally he glanced at her.

"I beg your pardon," he said humbly. "I didn't mean to speak so sharply, but— but it's true."

"It's really of no consequence," she replied coldly. "I am sorry— very sorry."

"Thank you," he replied.

"Perhaps it might be as well for you to stop the car and let me out," she went on after a moment.

The Burglar either didn't hear or wouldn't heed. The dim lights of a small village rose up before them, then faded away again; a dog barked lonesomely beside the road. The streaming lights of their car revealed a tangle of crossroads just ahead, offering a definite method of shaking off pursuit. Their car swerved widely, and the Burglar's attention was centred on the road ahead.

"Does your arm pain you?" asked the Girl at last timidly.

"No," he replied shortly. "It's a sort of numbness. I'm afraid I'm losing blood, though."

"Hadn't we better go back to the village and see a doctor?"

"Not this evening," he responded promptly in a tone which she did not understand. "I'll stop somewhere soon and bind it up."

At last, when the village was well behind, the car came to a dark little road which wandered off aimlessly through a wood, and the Burglar slowed down to turn into it. Once in the shelter of the overhanging branches they proceeded slowly for a hundred yards or more, finally coming to a standstill.

"We must do it here," he declared.

He leaped from the car, stumbled and fell. In an instant the Girl was beside him. The reflected light from the auto showed her dimly that he was trying to rise, showed her the pallor of his face where the chin below the mask was visible.

"I'm afraid it's pretty bad," he said weakly. Then he fainted.

The Girl, stooping, raised his head to her lap and pressed her lips to his feverishly, time after time.

"Dick, Dick!" she sobbed, and tears fell upon the Burglar's sinister mask.

2

WHEN THE Burglar awoke to consciousness he was as near heaven as any mere man ever dares expect to be. He was comfortable— quite comfortable— wrapped in a delicious, languorous lassitude which forbade him opening his eyes to realisation. A woman's hand lay on his forehead, caressingly, and dimly he knew that another hand cuddled cosily in one of his own. He lay still, trying to remember, before he opened his eyes. Someone beside him breathed softly, and he listened, as if to music.

Gradually the need of action— just what action and to what purpose did not occur to him -- impressed itself on his mind. He raised the disengaged hand to his face and touched the mask, which had been pushed back on his forehead. Then he recalled the ball, the shot, the chase, the hiding in the woods. He opened his eyes with a start. Utter darkness lay about him— for a moment he was not certain whether it was the darkness of blindness or of night.

"Dick, are you awake?" asked the Girl softly. He knew the voice and was content.

"Yes," he answered languidly.

He closed his eyes again and some strange, subtle perfume seemed to envelop him. He waited. Warm lips were pressed to his own, thrilling him strangely, and the Girl rested a soft cheek against his.

"We have been very foolish, Dick," she said, sweetly chiding, after a moment. "It was all my fault for letting you expose yourself to danger, but I didn't dream of such a thing as this happening. I shall never forgive myself, because -- "

"But— " he began protestingly.

"Not another word about it now," she hurried on. "We must go very soon. How do you feel?"

"I'm all right, or will be in a minute," he responded, and he made as if to rise. "Where is the car?"

"Right here. I extinguished the lights and managed to stop the engine for fear those horrid people who were after us might notice."

"Good girl!"

"When you jumped out and fainted I jumped out, too. I'm afraid I was not very clever, but I managed to bind your arm. I took my handkerchief and pressed it against the wound after ripping your coat, then I bound it there. It stopped the flow of blood, but, Dick, dear, you must have medical attention just as soon as possible."

The Burglar moved his shoulder a little and winced.

"Just as soon as I did that," the Girl went on, "I made you comfortable here on a cushion from the car."

"Good girl!" he said again.

"Then I sat down to wait until you got better. I had no stimulant or anything, and I didn't dare to leave you, so— so I just waited," she ended with a weary little sigh.

"How long was I knocked out?" he queried.

"I don't know; half an hour, perhaps."

"The bag is all right, I suppose?"

"The bag?"

"The bag with the stuff— the one I threw in the car when we started?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so! Really, I hadn't thought of it."

"Hadn't thought of it?" repeated the Burglar, and there was a trace of astonishment in his voice. "By George, you're a wonder!" he added.

He started to get on his feet, then dropped back weakly.

"Say, girlie," he requested, "see if you can find the bag in the car there and hand it out. Let's take a look."

"Where is it?"

"Somewhere in front. I felt it at my feet when I jumped out."

There was a rustle of skirts in the darkness, and after a moment a faint muffled clank as of one heavy metal striking dully against another.

"Goodness!" exclaimed the Girl. "It's heavy enough. What's in it?"

"What's in it?" repeated the Burglar, and he chuckled. "A fortune, nearly. It's worth being punctured for. Let me see."

In the darkness he took the bag from her hands and fumbled with it a moment. She heard the metallic sound again and then several heavy objects were poured out on the ground.

"A good fourteen pounds of pure gold," commented the Burglar. "By George, I haven't but one match, but we'll see what it's like."

The match was struck, sputtered for a moment, then flamed up, and the Girl, standing, looked down upon the Burglar on his knees beside a heap of gold plate. She stared at the glittering mass as if fascinated, and her eyes opened wide.

"Why, Dick, what is that?" she asked.

"It's Randolph's plate," responded the Burglar complacently. "I don't know how much it's worth, but it must be several thousands, on dead weight."

"What are you doing with it?"

"What am I doing with it?' repeated the Burglar. He was about to look up when the match burned his finger and he dropped it. "That's a silly question."

"But how came it in your possession?" the Girl insisted.

"I acquired it by the simple act of— of dropping it into a bag and bringing it along. That and you in the same evening— " He stretched out a hand toward her, but she was not there. He chuckled a little as he turned and picked up eleven plates, one by one, and replaced them in the bag.

"Nine— ten— eleven," he counted. "What luck did you have?"

"Dick Herbert, explain to me, please, what you are doing with that gold plate?" There was an imperative command in the voice.

The Burglar paused and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Oh, I'm taking it to have it fixed!" he responded lightly.

"Fixed? Taking it this way at this time of the night?"

"Sure," and he laughed pleasantly.

"You mean you— you— you stole it?" The words came with an effort.

"Well, I'd hardly call it that," remarked the Burglar. "That's a harsh word. Still, it's in my possession; it wasn't given to me, and I didn't buy it. You may draw your own conclusions."

The bag lay beside him and his left hand caressed it idly, lovingly. For a long time there was silence.

"What luck did you have?" he asked again.

There was a startled gasp, a gurgle and accusing indignation in the Girl's low, tense voice.

"You— you stole it!"

"Well, if you prefer it that way— yes."

The Burglar was staring steadily into the darkness toward that point whence came the voice, but the night was so dense that not a trace of the Girl was visible. He laughed again.

"It seems to me it was lucky I decided to take it at just this time and in these circumstances," he went on tauntingly— "lucky for you, I mean. If I hadn't been there you would have been caught."

Again came the startled gasp.

"What's the matter?" demanded the Burglar sharply, after another silence. "Why don't you say something?"

He was still peering unseeingly into the darkness. The bag of gold plate moved slightly under his hand. He opened his fingers to close them more tightly. It was a mistake. The bag was drawn away; his hand grasped— air.

"Stop that game now!" he commanded angrily. "Where are you?"

He struggled to his feet. His answer was the crackling of a twig to his right. He started in that direction and brought up with a bump against the automobile. He turned, still groping blindly, and embraced a tree with undignified fervour. To his left he heard another slight noise and ran that way. Again he struck an obstacle. Then he began to say things, expressive things, burning things from the depths of an impassioned soul. The treasure had gone— disappeared into the shadows. The Girl was gone. He called, there was no answer. He drew his revolver fiercely, as if to fire it; then reconsidered and flung it down angrily.

"And I thought I had nerve!" he declared. It was a compliment.

3

EXTRAVAGANTLY brilliant the sun popped up out of the east— not an unusual occurrence— and stared unblinkingly down upon a country road. There were the usual twittering birds and dew-spangled trees and nodding wild-flowers; also a dust that was shoe-top deep. The dawny air stirred lazily and rustling leaves sent long, sinuous shadows scampering back and forth.

Looking upon it all without enthusiasm or poetic exaltation was a Girl— a pretty Girl— a very pretty Girl. She sat on a stone beside the yellow roadway, a picture of weariness. A rough burlap sack, laden heavily, yet economically as to space, wallowed in the dust beside her. Her hair was tawny gold, and rebellious strands drooped listlessly about her face. A beribboned sombrero lay in her lap, supplementing a certain air of dilapidated bravado, due in part to a short skirt, heavy gloves and boots, a belt with a knife and revolver.

A robin, perched impertinently on a stump across the road, examined her at his leisure. She stared back at Signor Redbreast, and for this recognition he warbled a little song.

"I've a good mind to cry!" exclaimed the Girl suddenly.

Shamed and startled, the robin flew away. A mistiness came into the Girl's blue eyes and lingered there a moment, then her white teeth closed tightly and the glimmer of outraged emotion passed.

"Oh," she sighed again, "I'm so tired and hungry and I just know I'll never get anywhere at all!"

But despite the expressed conviction she arose and straightened up as if to resume her journey, turning to stare down at the bag. It was an unsightly symbol of blasted hopes, man's perfidy, crushed aspirations and— Heaven only knows what besides.

"I've a good mind to leave you right there," she remarked to the bag spitefully. "Perhaps I might hide it." She considered the question. "No, that wouldn't do. I must take it with me— and— and— Oh, Dick! Dick! What in the world was the matter with you, anyway?"

Then she sat down again and wept. The robin crept back to look and modestly hid behind a leaf. From this coign of vantage he watched her as she again arose and plodded off through the dust with the bag swinging over one shoulder. At last— there is an at last to everything— a small house appeared from behind a clump of trees. The Girl looked with incredulous eyes. It was really a house. Really! A tiny curl of smoke hovered over the chimney.

"Well, thank goodness, I'm somewhere, anyhow," she declared with her first show of enthusiasm. "I can get a cup of coffee or something."

She covered the next fifty yards with a new spring in her leaden heels and with a new and firmer grip on the precious bag. Then -- she stopped.

"Gracious!" and perplexed lines suddenly wrinkled her brow. "If I should go in there with a pistol and a knife they'll think I was a brigand— or— or a thief, and I suppose I am," she added as she stopped and rested the bag on the ground. "At least I have stolen goods in my possession. Now, what shall I say if they ask questions? What am I? They wouldn't believe me if I told them really. Short skirt, boots and gloves: I know! I'm a bicyclist. My wheel broke down, and— "

Whereupon she gingerly removed the revolver from her belt and flung it into the underbrush -- not at all in the direction she had intended— and the knife followed to keep it company. Having relieved herself of these sinister things, she straightened her hat, pushed back the rebellious hair, yanked at her skirt, and walked bravely up to the little house.

An Angel lived there— an Angel in a dizzily beflowered wrapper and a crabbed exterior. She listened to a rapidly constructed and wholly inconsistent story of a bicycle accident, which ended with a plea for a cup of coffee. Silently she proceeded to prepare it. After the pot was bubbling cheerfully and eggs had been put on and biscuits thrust into a stove to be warmed over, the Angel sat down at the table opposite the Girl.

"Book agent?" she asked.

"Oh, no!" replied the Girl.

"Sewing-machines?"

"No."

There was a pause as the Angel settled and poured a cup of coffee.

"Make to order, I s'pose?"

"No," the Girl replied uncertainly.

"What do you sell?"

"Nothing, I— I— " She stopped.

"What you got in the bag?" the Angel persisted.

"Some— some— just some— stuff," stammered the Girl, and her face suddenly flushed crimson.

"What kind of stuff?"

The Girl looked into the frankly inquisitive eyes and was overwhelmed by a sense of her own helplessness. Tears started, and one pearly drop ran down her perfect nose and splashed in the coffee. That was the last straw. She leaned forward suddenly with her head on her arms and wept.

"Please, please don't ask questions!" she pleaded. "I'm a poor, foolish, helpless, misguided, disillusioned woman!"

"Yes'm," said the Angel. She took up the eggs, then came over and put a kindly arm about the Girl's shoulders. "There, there!" she said soothingly. "Don't take on like that! Drink some coffee, and eat a bite, and you'll feel better!"

"I have had no sleep at all and no food since yesterday, and I've walked miles and miles and miles," the Girl rushed on feverishly. "It's all because— because— " She stopped suddenly.

"Eat something," commanded the Angel.

The Girl obeyed. The coffee was weak and muddy and delightful; the biscuits were yellow and lumpy and delicious; the eggs were eggs. The Angel sat opposite and watched the Girl as she ate.

"Husband beat you?" she demanded suddenly.

The Girl blushed and nearly choked on a biscuit.

"No," she hastened to say. "I have no husband."

"Well, there ain't no serious trouble in this world till you marry a man that beats you," said the Angel judicially. It was the final word.

The Girl didn't answer, and, in view of the fact that she had sufficient data at hand to argue the point, this repression required heroism. Perhaps she will never get credit for it. She finished the breakfast in silence and leaned back with some measure of returning content in her soul.

"In a hurry?" asked the Angel.

"No. I have no place to go. What is the nearest village or town?"

"Watertown, but you'd better stay and rest a while. You look all tuckered out."

"Oh, thank you so much," said the Girl gratefully. "But it would be so much trouble for— "

The Angel picked up the burlap bag, shook it inquiringly, then started toward the short stairs leading up.

"Please, please!" exclaimed the Girl suddenly. "I— I— let me have that, please!"

The Angel relinquished the bag without a word. The Girl took it, tremblingly, then, suddenly dropping it, clasped the Angel in her arms and placed upon her unresponsive lips a kiss for which a mere man would have endangered his immortal soul. The Angel wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and went on up the stairs with the Girl following.

For a time the Girl lay, with wet eyes, on a clean little bed, thinking. Humiliation, exhaustion, man's perfidy, disillusionment, and the kindess of an utter stranger all occupied her until she fell asleep. Then she was chased by a policeman with automobile lights for eyes, and there was a parade of hard-boiled eggs and yellow, lumpy biscuits.

When she awoke the room was quite dark. She sat up a little bewildered at first; then she remembered. After a moment she heard the voice of the Angel, below. It rippled on querulously; then she heard the gruff voice of a man.

"Diamond rings?"

The Girl sat up in bed and listened intently. Involuntarily her hands were clasped together. Her rings were still safe. The Angel's voice went on for a moment again.

"Something in a bag?" inquired the man.

Again the Angel spoke.

Terror seized upon the Girl; imagination ran riot, and she rose from the bed, trembling. She groped about the dark room noiselessly. Every shadow lent her new fears. Then from below came the sound of heavy footsteps. She listened fearfully. They came on toward the stairs, then paused. A match was struck and the step sounded on the stairs.

After a moment there was a knock at the door, a pause, then another knock. Finally the door was pushed open and a huge figure— the figure of a man— appeared, sheltering a candle with one hand. He peered about the room as if perplexed.

"Ain't nobody up here," he called gruffly down the stairs.

There was a sound of hurrying feet and the Angel entered, her face distorted by the flickering candlelight.

"For the land's sakes!" she exclaimed.

"Went away without even saying thank you," grumbled the man. He crossed the room and closed a window. "You ain't got no better sense than a chicken," he told the Angel. "Take in anybody that comes."

4

IF WILLIE'S little brother hadn't had a pain in his tummy this story might have gone by other and devious ways to a different conclusion. But fortunately he did have, so it happened that at precisely 8.47 o'clock of a warm evening Willie was racing madly along a side street of Watertown, drug-store-bound, when he came face to face with a Girl— a pretty Girl— a very pretty Girl. She was carrying a bag that clanked a little at each step.

"Oh, little boy!" she called.

"Hunh?" and Willie stopped so suddenly that he endangered his equilibrium, although that isn't how he would have said it.

"Nice little boy," said the Girl soothingly, and she patted his tousled head while he gnawed a thumb in pained embarrassment. "I'm very tired. I have been walking a great distance. Could you tell me, please, where a lady, unattended, might get a night's lodging somewhere near here?"

"Hunh?" gurgled Willie through the thumb.

Wearily the Girl repeated it all and at its end Willie giggled. It was the most exasperating incident of a long series of exasperating incidents, and the Girl's grip on the bag tightened a little. Willie never knew how nearly he came to being hammered to death with fourteen pounds of solid gold.

"Well?" inquired the Girl at last.

"Dunno," said Willie. "Jimmy's got the stomach-ache," he added irrelevantly.

"Can't you think of a hotel or boarding-house near by?" the Girl insisted.

"Dunno," replied Willie. "I'm going to the drug store for a pair o' gorrick."

The Girl bit her lip, and that act probably saved Willie from the dire consequences of his unconscious levity, for after a moment the Girl laughed aloud.

"Where is the drug store?" she asked.

"'Round the corner. I'm going."

"I'll go along, too, if you don't mind," the Girl said, and she turned and walked beside him. Perhaps the drug clerk would be able to illuminate the situation.

"I swallyed a penny oncst," Willie confided suddenly.

"Too bad!" commented the Girl.

"Unh unnh," Willie denied emphatically. "'Cause when I cried, Paw gimme a quarter." He was silent a moment, then: "If I'd 'a'swallyed that, I reckin he'd a gimme a dollar. Gee!"

This is the optimism that makes the world go round. The philosophy took possession of the Girl and cheered her. When she entered the drug store she walked with a lighter step and there was a trace of a smile about her pretty mouth. A clerk, the only attendant, came forward.

"I want a pair o' gorrick," Willie announced.

The Girl smiled, and the clerk, paying no attention to the boy, went toward her.

"Better attend to him first," she suggested. "It seems urgent."

The clerk turned to Willie.

"Paregoric?" he inquired. "How much?"

"About a quart, I reckin," replied the boy. "Is that enough?"

"Quite enough," commented the clerk. He disappeared behind the prescription screen and returned after a moment with a small phial. The boy took it, handed over a coin, and went out, whistling. The Girl looked after him with a little longing in her eyes.

"Now, madam?" inquired the clerk suavely.

"I only want some information," she replied. "I was out on my bicycle"— she gulped a little— "when it broke down, and I'll have to remain here in town over night, I'm afraid. Can you direct me to a quiet hotel or boarding-house where I might stay?"

"Certainly," replied the clerk briskly. "The Stratford, just a block up this street. Explain the circumstances, and it will be all right, I'm sure."

The Girl smiled at him again and cheerfully went her way. That small boy had been a leaven to her drooping spirits. She found the Stratford without difficulty and told the usual bicycle lie, with a natural growth of detail and a burning sense of shame. She registered as Elizabeth Carlton and was shown to a modest little room.

Her first act was to hide the gold plate in the closet; her second was to take it out and hide it under the bed. Then she sat down on a couch to think. For an hour or more she considered the situation in all its hideous details, planning her desolate future— women like to plan desolate futures— then her eye chanced to fall upon an afternoon paper, which, with glaring headlines, announced the theft of the Randolph gold plate. She read it. It told, with startling detail, things that had and had not happened in connection therewith.

This comprehended in all its horror, she promptly arose and hid the bag between the mattress and the springs. Soon after she extinguished the light and retired with little shivers running up and down all over her. She snuggled her head down under the cover. She didn't sleep much -- she was still thinking— but when she arose next morning her mind was made up.

First she placed the eleven gold plates in a heavy card-board box, then she bound it securely with brown paper and twine and addressed it: "Stuyvesant Randolph, Seven Oaks, via Merton." She had sent express packages before and knew how to proceed, therefore when the necessity of writing a name in the upper left-hand corner appeared— the sender— she wrote in a bold, desperate hand: "John Smith, Watertown."

When this was all done to her satisfaction, she tucked the package under one arm, tried to look as if it weren't heavy, and sauntered downstairs with outward self-possession and inward apprehension. She faced the clerk cordially, while a singularly distracting smile curled her lips.

"My bill, please?" she asked.

"Two dollars, madam," he responded gallantly.

"I don't happen to have any money with me," she explained charmingly. "Of course, I had expected to go back on my wheel, but, since it is broken, perhaps you would be willing to take this until I return to the city and can mail a check?"

She drew a diamond ring from an aristocratic finger and offered it to the clerk. He blushed furiously, and she reproved him for it with a cold stare.

"It's quite irregular," he explained, "but, of course, in the circumstances, it will be all right. It is not necessary for us to keep the ring at all, if you will give us your city address."

"I prefer that you keep it," she insisted firmly, "for, besides, I shall have to ask you to let me have fare back to the city— a couple of dollars? Of course it will be all right?"

It was half an hour before the clerk fully awoke. He had given the Girl two real dollars and held her ring clasped firmly in one hand. She was gone. She might just as well have taken the hotel along with her so far as any objection from that clerk would have been concerned.

Once out of the hotel the Girl hurried on.

"Thank goodness, that's over," she exclaimed.

For several blocks she walked on. Finally her eye was attracted by a "To Let" sign on a small house— it was No. 410 State Street. She walked in through a gate cut in the solid wall of stone and strolled up to the house. Here she wandered about for a time, incidentally tearing off the "To Let" sign. Then she came down the path toward the street again. Just inside the stone fence she left her express package, after scribbling the name of the street on it with a pencil. A dollar bill lay on top. She hurried out and along a block or more to a small grocery.

"Will you please 'phone to the express company and have them send a wagon to No. 410 State Street for a package?" she asked sweetly of a heavy-voiced grocer.

"Certainly, ma'am," he responded with alacrity.

She paused until he had done as she requested, then dropped into a restaurant for a cup of coffee. She lingered there for a long time, and then went out to spend a greater part of the day wandering up and down State Street. At last an express wagon drove up, the driver went in and returned after a little while with the package.

"And, thank goodness, that's off my hands!" sighed the Girl. "Now I'm going home."

* * *

Late that evening, Saturday, Miss Dollie Meredith returned to the home of the Greytons and was clasped to the motherly bosom of Mrs. Greyton, where she wept unreservedly.

5

IT WAS late Sunday afternoon. Hutchinson Hatch did not run lightly up the steps of the Greyton home and toss his cigar away as he rang the bell. He did go up the steps, but it was reluctantly, dragging one foot after the other, this being an indication rather of his mental condition than of physical weariness. He did not throw away his cigar as he rang the bell because he wasn't smoking— but he did ring the bell. The maid whom he had seen on his previous visit opened the door.

"Is Mrs. Greyton in?" he asked with a nod of recognition.

"No, sir."

"Mr. Greyton?"

"No, sir."

"Did Mr. Meredith arrive from Baltimore?"

"Yes, sir. Last midnight."

"Ah! Is he in?"

"No, sir."

The reporter's disappointment showed clearly in his face.

"I don't suppose you've heard anything further from Miss Meredith?" he ventured hopelessly.

"She's upstairs, sir."

Anyone who has ever stepped on a tack knows just how Hatch felt. He didn't stand on the order of being invited in— he went in. Being in, he extracted a plain calling-card from his pocketbook with twitching fingers and handed it to the waiting maid.

"When did she return?" he asked.

"Last night, about nine, sir."

"Where has she been?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Kindly hand her my card and explain to her that it is imperative that I see her for a few minutes," the reporter went on. "Impress upon her the absolute necessity of this. By the way, I suppose you know where I came from, eh?"

"Police headquarters, yes, sir."

Hatch tried to look like a detective, but a gleam of intelligence in his face almost betrayed him.

"You might intimate as much to Miss Meredith," he instructed the maid calmly.

The maid disappeared. Hatch went in and sat down in the reception-room, and said "Whew!" several times.

"The gold plate returned to Randolph last night by express," he mused, "and she returned also, last night. Now what does that mean?"

After a minute or so the maid reappeared to state that Miss Meredith would see him. Hatch received the message gravely and beckoned mysteriously as he sought for a bill in his pocketbook.

"Do you have any idea where Miss Meredith was?"

"No, sir. She didn't even tell Mrs. Greyton or her father."

"What was her appearance?"

"She seemed very tired, sir, and hungry. She still wore the masked ball costume."

The bill changed hands and Hatch was left alone again. There was a long wait, then a rustle of skirts, a light step, and Miss Dollie Meredith entered.

She was nervous, it is true, and pallid, but there was a suggestion of defiance as well as determination on her pretty mouth. Hatch stared at her in frank admiration for a moment, then, with an effort, proceeded to business.

"I presume, Miss Meredith," he said solemnly, "that the maid informed you of my identity?"

"Yes," replied Dollie weakly. "She said you were a detective."

"Ah!" exclaimed the reporter meaningly, "then we understand each other. Now, Miss Meredith, will you tell me, please, just where you have been?"

"No."

The answer was so prompt and so emphatic that Hatch was a little disconcerted. He cleared his throat and started over again.

"Will you inform me, then, in the interest of justice, where you were on the evening of the Randolph ball?" An ominous threat lay behind the words, Hatch hoped she believed.

"I will not."

"Why did you disappear?"

"I will not tell you."

Hatch paused to readjust himself. He was going at things backward. When next he spoke his tone had lost the official tang— he talked like a human being.

"May I ask if you happen to know Richard Herbert?"

The pallor of the girl's face was relieved by a delicious sweep of colour.

"I will not tell you," she answered.

"And if I say that Mr. Herbert happens to be a friend of mine?"

"Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Two distracting blue eyes were staring him out of countenance; two scarlet lips were drawn tightly together in reproof of a man who boasted such a friendship; two cheeks flamed with indignation that he should have mentioned the name. Hatch floundered for a moment, then cleared his throat and took a fresh start.

"Will you deny that you saw Richard Herbert on the evening of the masked ball?"

"I will not."

"Will you admit that you saw him?"

"I will not."

"Do you know that he was wounded?"

"Certainly."

Now, Hatch had always held a vague theory that the easiest way to make a secret known was to intrust it to a woman. At this point he revised his draw, threw his hand in the pack, and asked for a new deal.

"Miss Meredith," he said soothingly after a pause, "will you admit or deny that you ever heard of the Randolph robbery?"

"I will not," she began, then: "Certainly I know of it."

"You know that a man and a woman are accused of and sought for the theft?"

"Yes, I know that."

"You will admit that you know the man was in Burglar's garb, and that the woman was dressed in a Western costume?"

"The newspapers say that, yes," she replied sweetly.

"You know, too, that Richard Herbert went to that ball in Burglar's garb and that you went there dressed as a Western girl?" The reporter's tone was strictly professional now.

Dollie stared into the stern face of her interrogator and her courage oozed away. The colour left her face and she wept violently.

"I beg your pardon," Hatch expostulated. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean it just that way, but——"

He stopped helplessly and stared at this wonderful woman with the red hair. Of all things in the world tears were quite the most disconcerting.

"I beg your pardon," he repeated awkwardly.

Dollie looked up with tear-stained, pleading eyes, then arose and placed both her hands on Hatch's arm. It was a pitiful, helpless sort of a gesture; Hatch shuddered with sheer delight.

"I don't know how you found out about it," she said tremulously, "but, if you've come to arrest me, I'm ready to go with you."

"Arrest you?" gasped the reporter.

"Certainly. I'll go and be locked up. That's what they do, isn't it?" she questioned innocently.

The reporter stared.

"I wouldn't arrest you for a million dollars!" he stammered in dire confusion. "It wasn't quite that. It was— "

And five minutes later Hutchinson Hatch found himself wandering aimlessly up and down the sidewalk.

6

DICK HERBERT lay stretched lazily on a couch in his room with hands pressed to his eyes. He had just read the Sunday newspapers announcing the mysterious return of the Randolph plate, and naturally he had a headache. Somewhere in a remote recess of his brain mental pyrotechnics were at play; a sort of intellectual pinwheel spouted senseless ideas and suggestions of senseless ideas. The late afternoon shaded off into twilight, twilight into dusk, dusk into darkness, and still he lay motionless.

After a while, from below, he heard the tinkle of a bell and Blair entered with light tread:

"Beg pardon, sir, are you asleep?"

"Who is it, Blair?"

"Mr. Hatch, sir."

"Let him come up."

Dick arose, snapped on the electric lights, and stood blinkingly in the sudden glare. When Hatch entered they faced each other silently for a moment. There was that in the reporter's eyes that interested Dick immeasurably; there was that in Dick's eyes that Hatch was trying vainly to fathom. Dick relieved a certain vague tension by extending his left hand. Hatch shook it cordially.

"Well?" Dick inquired.

Hatch dropped into a chair and twirled his hat.

"Heard the news?" he asked.

"The return of the gold plate, yes," and Dick passed a hand across his fevered brow. "It makes me dizzy."

"Heard anything from Miss Meredith?"

"No. Why?"

"She returned to the Greytons last night."

"Returned to the— " and Dick started up suddenly. "Well, there's no reason why she shouldn't have," he added. "Do you happen to know where she was?"

The reporter shook his head.

"I don't know anything," he said wearily, "except—— " He paused.

Dick paced back and forth across the room several times with one hand pressed to his forehead. Suddenly he turned on his visitor.

"Except what?" he demanded.

"Except that Miss Meredith, by action and word, has convinced me that she either had a hand in the disappearance of the Randolph plate or else knows who was the cause of its disappearance."

Dick glared at him savagely.

"You know she didn't take the plate?" he demanded.

"Certainly," replied the reporter. "That's what makes it all the more astonishing. I talked to her this afternoon, and when I finished she seemed to think I had come to arrest her, and she wanted to go to jail. I nearly fainted."

Dick glared incredulously, then resumed his nervous pacing. Suddenly he stopped.

"Did she mention my name?"

"I mentioned it. She wouldn't admit even that she knew you."

There was a pause.

"I don't blame her," Dick remarked enigmatically. "She must think me a cad."

Another pause.

"Well, what about it all, anyhow?" Dick went on finally. "The plate has been returned, therefore the matter is at an end."

"Now look here, Dick," said Hatch. "I want to say something, and don't go crazy, please, until I finish. I know an awful lot about this affair— things the police never will know. I haven't printed anything much for obvious reasons."

Dick looked at him apprehensively.

"Go on," he urged.

"I could print things I know," the reporter resumed; "swear out a warrant for you in connection with the gold plate affair and have you arrested and convicted on your own statements, supplemented by those of Miss Meredith. Yet, remember, please, neither your name nor hers has been mentioned as yet."

Dick took it calmly; he only stared.

"Do you believe that I stole the plate?" he asked.

"Certainly I do not," replied Hatch, "but I can prove that you did; prove it to the satisfaction of any jury in the world, and no denial of yours would have any effect."

"Well?" asked Dick, after a moment.

"Further, I can, on information in my possession, swear out a warrant for Miss Meredith, prove she was in the automobile, and convict her as your accomplice. Now that's a silly state of affairs, isn't it?"

"But, man, you can't believe that she had anything to do with it! She's— she's not that kind."

"I could take oath that she didn't have anything to do with it, but all the same I can prove that she did," replied Hatch. "Now what I am getting at is this: if the police should happen to find out what I know they would send you up— both of you."

"Well, you are decent about it, old man, and I appreciate it," said Dick warmly. "But what can we do?"

"It behoves us— Miss Meredith and you and myself— to get the true facts in the case all together before you get pinched," said the reporter judicially. "Suppose now, just suppose, that we three get together and tell each other the truth for a change, the whole truth, and see what will happen?"

"If I should tell you the truth," said Dick dispassionately, "it would bring everlasting disgrace on Miss Meredith, and I'd be a beast for doing it; if she told you the truth she would unquestionably send me to prison for theft."

"But here— " Hatch expostulated.

"Just a minute!" Dick disappeared into another room, leaving the reporter to chew on what he had, then returned in a little while, dressed for the street. "Now, Hatch," he said, "I'm going to try to get to Miss Meredith, but I don't believe she'll see me. If she will, I may be able to explain several things that will clear up this affair in your mind, at any rate. If I don't see her— By the way, did her father arrive from Baltimore?"

"Yes."

"Good!" exclaimed Dick. "I'll see him, too— make a show-down of it, and when it's all over I'll let you know what happened."

Hatch went back to his shop and threatened to kick the office-boy into the waste-basket.

At just about that moment Mr. Meredith, in the Greyton home, was reading a card on which appeared the name, "Mr. Richard Hamilton Herbert." Having read it, he snorted his indignation and went into the reception-room. Dick arose to greet him and offered a hand, which was promptly declined.

"I'd like to ask you, Mr. Meredith," Dick began with a certain steelly coldness in his manner, "just why you object to my attention to your daughter, Dorothy?"

"You know well enough!" raged the old man.

"It is because of the trouble I had in Harvard with your son, Harry. Well and good, but is that all? Is that to stand forever?"

"You proved then that you were not a gentleman," declared the old man savagely. "You're a puppy, sir."

"If you didn't happen to be the father of the girl I'm in love with I'd poke you in the nose," Dick replied, almost cheerfully. "Where is your son now? Is there no way I can place myself right in your eyes?"

"No!" Mr. Meredith thundered. "An apology would only be a confession of your dishonour!"

Dick was nearly choking, but managed to keep his voice down.

"Does your daughter know anything of that affair?"

"Certainly not."

"Where is your son?"

"None of your business, sir!"

"I don't suppose there's any doubt in your mind of my affection for your daughter?"

"I suppose you do admire her," snapped the old man. "You can't help that, I suppose. No one can," he added naïvely.

"And I suppose you know that she loves me, in spite of your objections?" went on the young man.

"Bah! Bah!"

"And that you are breaking her heart by your mutton-headed objection to me?"

"You— you— " sputtered Mr. Meredith.

Dick was still calm.

"May I see Miss Meredith for a few minutes?" he went on.

"She won't see you, sir," stormed the irate parent. "She told me last night that she would never consent to see you again."

"Will you give me your permission to see her here and now, if she will consent?" Dick insisted steadily.

"She won't see you, I say."

"May I send a card to her?"

"She won't see you, sir," repeated Mr. Meredith doggedly.

Dick stepped out into the hall and beckoned to the maid.

"Please take my card to Miss Meredith," he directed.

The maid accepted the white square, with a little uplifting of her brows, and went up the stairs. Miss Meredith received it languidly, read it, then sat up indignantly.

"Dick Herbert!" she exclaimed incredulously. "How dare he come here? It's the most audacious thing I ever heard of! Certainly I will not see him again in any circumstances." She arose and glared defiantly at the demure maid. "Tell Mr. Herbert," she said emphatically, "tell him— that I'll be right down."

7

MR. MEREDITH had stamped out of the room angrily, and Dick Herbert was alone when Dollie, in regal indignation, swept in. The general slant of her ruddy head radiated defiance, and a most depressing chilliness lay in her blue eyes. Her lips formed a scarlet line, and there was a how-dare-you-sir tilt to nose and chin. Dick started up quickly at her appearance.

"Dollie!" he exclaimed eagerly.

"Mr. Herbert," she responded coldly. She sat down primly on the extreme edge of a chair which yawned to embrace her. "What is it, please?"

Dick was a singularly audacious sort of person, but her manner froze him into sudden austerity. He regarded her steadily for a moment.

"I have come to explain why— "

Miss Dollie Meredith sniffed.

"I have come to explain," he went on, "why I did not meet you at the Randolph masked hall, as we had planned."

"Why you did not meet me?" inquired Dollie coldly, with a little surprised movement of her arched brows. "Why you did not meet me?" she repeated.

"I shall have to ask you to believe that, in the circumstances, it was absolutely impossible," Dick continued, preferring not to notice the singular emphasis of her words. "Something occurred early that evening which— which left me no choice in the matter. I can readily understand your indignation and humiliation at my failure to appear, and I had no way of reaching you that evening or since. News of your return last night only reached me an hour ago. I knew you had disappeared."

Dollie's blue eyes were opened to the widest and her lips parted a little in astonishment. For a moment she sat thus, staring at the young man, then she sank back into her chair with a little gasp.

"May I inquire," she asked, after she recovered her breath, "the cause of this— this levity?"

"Dollie, dear, I am perfectly serious," Dick assured her earnestly. "I am trying to make it plain to you, that's all."

"Why you did not meet me?" Dollie repeated again. "Why you did meet me! And that's— that's what's the matter with everything!"

Whatever surprise or other emotion Dick might have felt was admirably repressed.

"I thought perhaps there was some mistake somewhere," he said at last. "Now, Dollie, listen to me. No, wait a minute, please! I did not go to the Randolph ball. You did. You eloped from that ball, as you and I had planned, in an automobile, but not with me. You went with some other man— the man who really stole the gold plate."

Dollie opened her mouth to exclaim, then shut it suddenly.

"Now just a moment, please," pleaded Dick. "You spoke to some other man under the impression that you were speaking to me. For a reason which does not appear now, he fell in with your plans. Therefore, you ran away with him— in the automobile which carried the gold plate. What happened after that I cannot even surmise. I only know that you are the mysterious woman who disappeared with the Burglar."

Dollie gasped and nearly choked with her emotions. A flame of scarlet leaped into her face and the glare of the blue eyes was pitiless.

"Mr. Herbert," she said deliberately at last, "I don't know whether you think I am a fool or only a child. I know that no rational human being can accept that as true. I know I left Seven Oaks with you in the auto; I know you are the man who stole the gold plate; I know how you received the shot in your right shoulder; I know how you afterward fainted from loss of blood. I know how I bound up your wound and— and— I know a lot of things else!"

The sudden rush of words left her breathless for an instant. Dick listened quietly. He started to say something— to expostulate— but she got a fresh start and hurried on:

"I recognised you in that silly disguise by the cleft in your chin. I called you Dick and you answered me. I asked if you had received the little casket and you answered yes. I left the ballroom as you directed and climbed into the automobile. I know that horrid ride we had, and how I took the gold plate in the bag and walked— walked through the night until I was exhausted. I know it all— how I lied and connived, and told silly stories— but I did it all to save you from yourself, and now you dare face me with a denial!"

Dollie suddenly burst into tears. Dick now attempted no further denial. There was no anger in his face— only a deeply troubled expression. He arose and walked over to the window, where he stood staring out.

"I know it all," Dollie repeated gurglingly— "all, except what possible idea you had in stealing the miserable, wretched old plate, anyway!" There was a pause and Dollie peered through teary fingers. "How— how long," she asked, "have you been a— a— a— kleptomaniac?"

Dick shrugged his sturdy shoulders a little impatiently.

"Did your father ever happen to tell you why he objects to my attentions to you?" he asked.

"No, but I know now." And there was a new burst of tears. "It's because— because you are a— a— you take things."

"You will not believe what I tell you?"

"How can I when I helped you run away with the horrid stuff?"

"If I pledge you my word of honour that I told you the truth?"

"I can't believe it, I can't!" wailed Dollie desolately. "No one could believe it. I never suspected -- never dreamed -- of the possibility of such a thing even when you lay wounded out there in the dark woods. If I had, I should certainly have never— have never— kissed you."

Dick wheeled suddenly.

"Kissed me?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, you horrid thing!" sobbed Dollie. "If there had previously been the slightest doubt in my mind as to your identity, that would have convinced me that it was you, because— because— just because! And besides, if it wasn't you I kissed, you ought to have told me!"

Dollie leaned forward suddenly on the arm of the chair with her face hidden in her hands. Dick crossed the room softly toward her and laid a hand caressingly about her shoulders. She shook it off angrily.

"How dare you, sir?" she blazed.

"Dollie, don't you love me?" he pleaded.

"No!" was the prompt reply.

"But you did love me— once?"

"Why— yes, but I— I— "

"And couldn't you ever love me again?"

"I— I don't ever want to again."

"But couldn't you?"

"If you had only told me the truth, instead of making such a silly denial," she blubbered. "I don't know why you took the plate unless— unless it is because you— you couldn't help it. But you didn't tell me the truth."

Dick stared down at the ruddy head moodily for a moment. Then his manner changed and he dropped on his knees beside her.

"Suppose," he whispered, "suppose I should confess that I did take it?"

Dollie looked up suddenly with a new horror in her face.

"Oh, you did do it then?" she demanded. This was worse than ever!

"Suppose I should confess that I did?"

"Oh, Dick!" she sobbed. And her arms went suddenly around his neck. "You are breaking my heart. Why? Why?"

"Would you be satisfied?" he insisted.

"What could have caused you to do such a thing?"

The love-light glimmered again in her blue eyes; the red lips trembled.

"Suppose it had been just a freak of mine, and I had intended to— to return the stuff, as has been done?" he went on.

Dollie stared deeply into the eyes upturned to hers.

"Silly boy," she said. Then she kissed him. "But you must never, never do it again."

"I never will," he promised solemnly.

Five minutes later Dick was leaving the house, when he met Mr. Meredith in the hall.

"I'm going to marry your daughter," he said quite calmly.

Mr. Meredith raved at him as he went down the steps.

8

ALONE in her room, with the key turned in the lock, Miss Dollie Meredith had a perfectly delightful time. She wept and laughed and sobbed and shuddered; she was pensive and doleful and happy and melancholy; she dreamed dreams of the future, past and present; she sang foolish little ecstatic songs— just a few words of each— and cried again copiously. Her father had sent her to her room with a stern reprimand, and she giggled joyously as she remembered it.

"After all, it wasn't anything," she assured herself. "It was silly for him to— to take the stuff, of course, but it's back now, and he told me the truth, and he intended to return it, anyway." In her present mood she would have justified anything. "And he's not a thief or anything. I don't suppose father will ever give his consent, so, after all, we'll have to elope, and that will be— perfectly delightful. Papa will go on dreadfully and then he'll be all right."

After a while Dollie snuggled down in the sheets and lay quite still in the dark until sleep overtook her. Silence reigned in the house. It was about two o'clock in the morning when she sat up suddenly in bed with startled eyes. She had heard something— or rather in her sleep she had received the impression of hearing something. She listened intently as she peered about.

Finally she did hear something— something tap sharply on the window once. Then came silence again. A frightened chill ran all the way down to Dollie's curling pink toes. There was a pause, and then again came the sharp click on the window, whereupon Dollie pattered out of bed in her bare feet and ran to the window, which was open a few inches.

With the greatest caution she peered out. Vaguely skulking in the shadows below she made out the figure of a man. As she looked it seemed to draw up into a knot, then straighten out quickly. Involuntarily she dodged. There came another sharp click at the window. The man below was tossing pebbles against the pane with the obvious purpose of attracting her attention.

"Dick, is that you?" she called cautiously.

"Sh -- h -- h -- h!" came the answer. "Here's a note for you. Open the window so I may throw it in."

"Is it really and truly you?" Dollie insisted.

"Yes," came the hurried, whispered answer. "Quick, someone is coming!"

Dollie threw the sash up and stepped back. A whirling, white object came through and fell noiselessly on the carpet. Dollie seized upon it eagerly and ran to the window again. Below she saw the retreating figure of a man. Other footsteps materialised in a bulky policeman, who strolled by seeking, perhaps, a quiet spot for a nap.

Shivering with excitement, Dollie closed the window and pulled down the shade, after which she lighted the gas. She opened the note eagerly and sat down upon the floor to read it. Now a large part of this note was extraneous verbiage of a superlative emotional nature -- its vital importance was an outline of a new plan of elopement, to take place on Wednesday in time for them to catch a European-bound steamer at half-past two in the afternoon.

Dollie read and reread the crumpled sheet many times, and when finally its wording had been indelibly fixed in her mind she wasted an unbelievable number of kisses on it. Of course this was sheer extravagance, but— girls are wonderful creatures.

"He's the dearest thing in the world!" she declared at last.

She burned the note reluctantly and carefully disposed of the ashes by throwing them out of the window, after which she returned to her bed. On the following morning, Monday, father glared at daughter sternly as she demurely entered the breakfast-room. He was seeking to read that which no man has ever been able to read -- a woman's face. Dollie smiled upon him charmingly.

After breakfast father and daughter had a little talk in a sunny corner of the library.

"I have planned for us to return to Baltimore on next Thursday," he informed her.

"Oh, isn't that delightful?" beamed Dollie.

"In view of everything and your broken promise to me— the promise not to see Herbert again— I think it wisest," he continued.

"Perhaps it is," she mused.

"Why did you see him?" he demanded.

"I consented to see him, only to bid him good-by," replied Dollie demurely, "and to make perfectly clear to him my position in this matter."

Oh, woman! Perfidious, insincere, loyal, charming woman! All the tangled skeins of life are the work of your dainty fingers. All the sins and sorrows are your doing!

Mr. Meredith rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"You may take it as my wish— my order even," he said as he cleared his throat— for giving orders to Dollie was a dangerous experiment, "that you must not attempt to communicate in any way with Mr. Herbert again— by letter or otherwise."

"Yes, papa."

Mr. Meredith was somewhat surprised at the ease with which he got away with this. Had he been blessed with a little more wisdom in the ways of women he would have been suspicious.

"You really do not love him, anyway," he ventured at last. "It was only a girlish infatuation."

"I told him yesterday just what I thought of him," she replied truthfully enough.

And thus the interview ended.

It was about noon that day when Hutchinson Hatch called on Dick Herbert.

"Well, what did you find out?" he inquired.

"Really, old man," said Dick kindly, "I have decided that there is nothing I can say to you about the matter. It's a private affair, after all."

"Yes, I know that you know about that, but the police don't know it," commented the reporter grimly.

"The police!" Dick smiled.

"Did you see her?" Hatch asked.

"Yes, I saw her— and her father, too."

Hatch saw the one door by which he had hoped to solve the riddle closing on him.

"Was Miss Meredith the girl in the automobile?" he asked bluntly.

"Really, I won't answer that."

"Are you the man who stole the gold plate?"

"I won't answer that, either," replied Dick smilingly. "Now, look here, Hatch, you're a good fellow. I like you. It is your business to find out things, but, in this particular affair, I'm going to make it my business to keep you from finding out things. I'll risk the police end of it." He went over and shook hands with the reporter cordially. "Believe me, if I told you the absolute truth— all of it— you couldn't print it unless— unless I was arrested, and I don't intend that that shall happen."

Hatch went away.

***

That night the Randolph gold plate was stolen for the second time. Thirty-six hours later Detective Mallory arrested Richard Herbert with the stolen plate in his possession. Dick burst out laughing when the detective walked in on him.

Part 3. The Thinking Machine

1

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 five feet two inches tall, weighed 107 pounds, that being slightly above normal, and wore a number eight hat. Bushy, yellow hair straggled down about his ears and partially framed a clean-shaven, wizened face in which were combined the paradoxical qualities of extreme aggressiveness and childish petulance. The mouth drooped a little at the corners, being otherwise a straight line; the eyes were mere slits of blue, squinting eternally 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 of recreation, was page after page of encyclopædic discussion on "ologies" and "isms" with lots of figures in 'em. Sometimes he wrote these discussions himself, and frequently held them up to annihilation. His usual speaking tone was one of deep annoyance, and he had an unwavering glare that went straight through one. He was the son of the son of the son of an eminent German scientist, the logical production of a house that 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. By his personal efforts he had mercilessly flattened out and readjusted at least two of the exact sciences and had added immeasurably to the world's sum of knowledge in others. Once he had held the chair of philosophy in a great university, but casually one day he promulgated a thesis 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 to influence 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 started fires with the elaborately formal notifications of these unsought honours and turned again to his work in the small laboratory which was a part of his modest home. There he lived, practically a recluse, his simple wants being attended to by one aged servant, Martha.

This, then, was The Thinking Machine. This last title, The Thinking Machine, perhaps more expressive of the real man than a yard of honorary initials, was coined by Hutchinson Hatch at the time of the scientist's defeat of a chess champion after a single morning's instruction in the game. The Thinking Machine had asserted that logic was inevitable, and that game had proven his assertion. Afterward there had grown up a strange sort of friendship between the crabbed scientist and the reporter. Hatch, to the scientist, represented the great, whirling outside world; to the reporter the scientist was merely a brain— a marvellously keen, penetrating, infallible guide through material muddles far removed from the delicately precise labours of the laboratory.

Now The Thinking Machine sat in a huge chair in his reception-room with long, slender fingers pressed tip to tip and squint eyes turned upward. Hatch was talking, had been talking for more than an hour with infrequent interruptions. In that time he had laid bare the facts as he and the police knew them from the incidents of the masked ball at Seven Oaks to the return of Dollie Meredith.

"Now, Mr. Hatch," asked The Thinking Machine, "just what is known of this 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 a pane of glass and unfastening a window-latch. Whoever it was took the plate 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 the plate 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 they have 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 the affair. Detective Mallory doesn't— "

"When and where was Mr. Herbert arrested?"

"Yesterday, Tuesday, afternoon in his rooms. Fourteen pieces of the gold plate were on the table."

The Thinking Machine dropped his eyes a moment to squint at the reporter.

"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 to pack 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. His people 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 case and fifteen or twenty odd pieces— fifty thousand dollars' worth of stuff, at least. The police took it to find the owners."

"Dear me! Dear me!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "Why didn't you mention 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 cigarettes before 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 have been at all funny to me."

"Has he said anything since?"

"No, nothing to me or anybody else. He was arraigned at a preliminary hearing, pleaded not guilty, and was released on twenty thousand dollars bail. Some of his rich friends furnished it."

"Did he give any reason for his refusal to say anything?" insisted The Thinking Machine testily.

"He remarked to me that he wouldn't say anything, because, even if he told 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. He was silent for several minutes. "It could have been a brother, of course," 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 the reporter. "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 his honesty."

"And Miss Meredith?"

The reporter was reaching the explosive point. He had seen and talked to Miss Meredith, you know.

"It's perfectly asinine to suppose that she had anything to do with either 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: Did a man, and perhaps a woman, who are circumstantially proven guilty of stealing the gold plate, actually steal it? We have the stained cushion of the automobile in which the thieves escaped to indicate that one of them was wounded; we have Mr. Herbert with an injured right shoulder— a hurt received that night on his own statement, though he won't say how. We have, then, the second theft and the finding of the stolen property in his possession along with another lot of stolen stuff— jewels. It is apparently a settled case now without going further."

"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 two points whether or not Mr. Herbert was wounded while in the automobile. If he was wounded while in that automobile, he was the first thief; if not, 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, a possibility that he was the second."

Hatch was listening with mouth open.

"Suppose we begin now," continued The Thinking Machine, "by finding out the name of the physician who treated Mr. Herbert's wound last Thursday night. Mr. Herbert may have a reason for keeping the identity of this physician secret, but, perhaps— wait a minute," and the scientist disappeared into the next room. He was gone for five minutes. "See if the 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 usual questions."

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," replied the scientist.

2

THE SUPREME Police Intelligence of the Metropolitan District was doing some heavy thinking, which, modestly enough, bore generally on his own dazzling perspicacity. Just at the moment he couldn't recall any detector of crime whose lustre in any way dimmed his own, or whose mere shadow, even, had a right to fall on the same earth as his; and this lapse of memory so stimulated his admiration for the subject of his thoughts that he lighted a fresh cigar and put his feet in the middle of the desk.

He sat thus when The Thinking Machine called. The Supreme Intelligence— Mr. Mallory— knew Professor Van Dusen well, and, though he received his visitor graciously, he showed no difficulty in restraining any undue outburst of enthusiasm. Instead, the same admirable self-control which prevented him from outwardly evidencing his pleasure prompted him to square back in his chair with a touch of patronising aggressiveness in his manner.

"Ah, Professor," was his noncommittal greeting.

"Good-evening, Mr. Mallory," responded the scientist in the thin, irritated voice which always set Mr. Mallory's nerves a-jangle. "I don't suppose you would tell me by what steps you were led to arrest Mr. Herbert?"

"I would not," declared Mr. Mallory promptly.

"No, nor would you inform me of the nature of the evidence against him in addition to the jewels and plate found in his possession?"

"I would not," replied Mr. Mallory again.

"No, I thought perhaps you would not," remarked The Thinking Machine. "I understand, by the way, that one of your men took a leather cushion from the automobile in which the thieves escaped on the night of the ball?"

"Well, what of it?" demanded the detective.

"I merely wanted to inquire if it would be permissible for me to see that cushion?"

Detective Mallory glared at him suspiciously, then slowly his heavy face relaxed, and he laughed as he arose and produced the cushion.

"If you're trying to make any mystery of this cushion, you're in bad," he informed the scientist. "We know the owner of the automobile in which Herbert and the Girl escaped. The cushion means nothing."

The Thinking Machine examined the heavy leather carefully and paid a great deal of attention to the crusted stains which it bore. He picked at one of the brown spots with his penknife and it flaked off in his hand.

"Herbert was caught with the goods on," declared the detective, and he thumped the desk with his lusty fist. "We've got the right man."

"Yes," admitted The Thinking Machine, "it begins to look very much as if you did have the right man— for once."

Detective Mallory snorted.

"Would you mind telling me if any of the jewelry you found in Mr. Herbert's possession has been identified?"

"Sure thing," replied the detective. "That's where I've got Herbert good. Four people who lost jewelry at the masked ball have appeared and claimed pieces of the stuff."

For an instant a slightly perplexed wrinkle appeared in the brow of The Thinking Machine, and as quickly it passed.

"Of course, of course," he mused.

"It's the biggest haul of stolen goods the police of this city have made for many years," the detective volunteered complacently. "And, if I'm not wrong, there's more of it coming— no man knows how much more. Why, Herbert must have been operating for years, and he got away with it, of course, by the gentlemanly exterior, the polish, and all that. I consider his capture the most important that has happened since I have been connected with the police."

"Indeed?" inquired the scientist thoughtfully. He was still gazing at the cushion.

"And the most important development of all is to come," Detective Mallory rattled on. "That will be the real sensation, and make the arrest of Herbert seem purely incidental. It now looks as if there would be another arrest of a— of a person who is so high socially, and all tha— "

"Yes," interrupted The Thinking Machine, "but do you think it would be wise to arrest her now?"

"Her?" demanded Detective Mallory. "What do you know of any woman?"

"You were speaking of Miss Dorothy Meredith, weren't you?" inquired The Thinking Machine blandly. "Well, I merely asked if you thought it would be wise for your men to go so far as to arrest her."

The detective bit his cigar in two in obvious perturbation.

"How— how— did you happen to know her name?" he demanded.

"Oh, Mr. Hatch mentioned it to me," replied the scientist. "He has known of her connection with the case for several days, as well as Herbert's, and has talked to them both, I think."

The Supreme Intelligence was nearly apoplectic.

"If Hatch knew it why didn't he tell me?" he thundered.

"Really, I don't know," responded the scientist. "Perhaps," he added curtly, "he may have had some absurd notion that you would find it out for yourself. He has strange ideas like that sometimes."

And when Detective Mallory had fully recovered The Thinking Machine was gone.

Meanwhile Hatch had seen and questioned Dr. Clarence Walpole in the latter's office, only a stone's throw from Dick Herbert's home. Had Doctor Walpole recently dressed a wound for Mr. Herbert? Doctor Walpole had. A wound caused by a pistol-bullet? Yes.

"When was it, please?" asked Hatch.

"Only a few nights ago."

"Thursday night, perhaps?"

Doctor Walpole consulted a desk-dairy.

"Yes, Thursday night, or rather Friday morning," he replied. "It was between two and three o'clock. He came here and I fixed him up."

"Where was the wound, please?"

"In the right shoulder," replied the physician, "just here," and he touched the reporter with one finger. "It wasn't dangerous, but he had lost considerable blood."

Hatch was silent for a moment, dazed. Every new point piled up the evidence against Herbert. The location of the wound— a pistol-wound— the very hour of the dressing of it! Dick would have had plenty of time between the moment of the robbery, which was comparatively early, and the hour of his call on Doctor Walpole to do all those things which he was suspected of doing.

"I don't suppose Mr. Herbert explained how he got the wound?" Hatch asked apprehensively. He was afraid he had.

"No. I asked, but he evaded the question. It was, of course, none of my business, after I had extracted the bullet and dressed the hurt."

"You have the bullet?"

"Yes. It's the usual size— thirty-two calibre."

That was all. The prosecution was in, the case proven, the verdict rendered. Ten minutes later Hatch's name was announced to Dick Herbert. Dick received him gloomily, shook hands with him, then resumed his interrupted pacing.

"I had declined to see men from other papers," he said wearily.

"Now, look here, Dick," expostulated Hatch, "don't you want to make some statement of your connection with this affair? I honestly believe that if you did it would help you."

"No, I cannot make any statement— that's all." Dick's hand closed fiercely. "I can't," he added, "and there's no need to talk of it." He continued his pacing for a moment or so; then turned on the reporter. "Do you believe me guilty?" he demanded abruptly.

"I can't believe anything else," Hatch replied falteringly. "But at that I don't want to believe it." There was an embarrassed pause. "I have just seen Dr. Clarence Walpole."

"Well?" Dick wheeled on him angrily.

"What he said alone would convict you, even if the stuff had not been found here," Hatch replied.

"Are you trying to convict me?" Dick demanded.

"I'm trying to get the truth," remarked Hatch.

"There is just one man in the world whom I must see before the truth can ever be told," declared Dick vehemently. "And I can't find him now. I don't know where he is!"

"Let me find him. Who is he? What's his name?"

"If I told you that I might as well tell you everything," Dick went on. "It was to prevent any mention of that name that I have allowed myself to be placed in this position. It is purely a personal matter between us— at least I will make it so— and if I ever meet him— " his hands closed and unclosed spasmodically, "the truth will be known unless I— I kill him first."

More bewildered, more befuddled, and more generally betangled than ever, Hatch put his hands to his head to keep it from flying off. Finally he glanced around at Dick, who stood with clenched fists and closed teeth. A blaze of madness lay in Dick's eyes.

"Have you seen Miss Meredith again?" inquired the reporter.

Dick burst out laughing.

Half an hour later Hatch left him. On the glass top of an inkstand he carried three precious drops of Herbert's blood.

3

FAITHFULLY, phonographically even, Hatch repeated to The Thinking Machine the conversation he had had with Doctor Walpole, indicating on the person of the eminent scientist the exact spot of the wound as Doctor Walpole had indicated it to him. The scientist listened without comment to the recital, casually studying meanwhile the three crimson drops on the glass.

"Every step I take forward is a step backward," the reporter declared in conclusion with a helpless grin. "Instead of showing that Dick Herbert might not have stolen the plate I am proving conclusively that he was the thief -- nailing it to him so hard that he can't possibly get out of it." He was silent a moment. "If I keep on long enough," he added glumly, "I'll hang him."

The Thinking Machine squinted at him aggressively.

"You still don't believe him guilty?" he asked.

"Why, I— I— I— " Hatch burst out savagely. "Damn it, I don't know what I believe," he tapered off. "It's absolutely impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible, Mr. Hatch," snapped The Thinking Machine irritably. "The worst a problem can be is difficult, but all problems can be solved as inevitably as that two and two make four— not sometimes, but all the time. Please don't say things are impossible. It annoys me exceedingly."

Hatch stared at his distinguished friend and smiled whimsically. He was also annoyed exceedingly on his own private, individual account -- the annoyance that comes from irresistibly butting into immovable facts.

"Doctor Walpole's statement," The Thinking Machine went on after a moment, "makes this particular problem ludicrously simple. Two points alone show conclusively that Mr. Herbert was not the man in the automobile. I shall reach the third myself."

Hatch didn't say anything. The English language is singularly inadequate at times, and if he had spoken he would have had to invent a phraseology to convey even a faint glimmer of what he really thought.

"Now, Mr. Hatch," resumed the scientist, quite casually, "I understand you graduated from Harvard in ninety-eight. Yes? Well, Herbert was a classmate of yours there. Please obtain for me one of the printed lists of students who were in Harvard that year— a complete list."

"I have one at home," said the reporter.

"Get it, please, immediately, and return here," instructed the scientist.

Hatch went out and The Thinking Machine disappeared into his laboratory. He remained there for one hour and forty-seven minutes by the clock. When he came out he found the reporter sitting in the reception-room again, holding his head. The scientist's face was as blankly inscrutable as ever.

"Here is the list," said Hatch as he handed it over.

The Thinking Machine took it in his long, slender fingers and turned two or three leaves. Finally he stopped and ran a finger down one page.

"Ah," he exclaimed at last. "I thought so."

"Thought what?" asked Hatch curiously.

"I'm going out to see Mr. Meredith now," remarked The Thinking Machine irrelevantly. "Come along. Have you met him?"

"No."

Mr. Meredith had read the newspaper accounts of the arrest of Dick Herbert and the seizure of the gold plate and jewels; he had even taunted his charming daughter with it in a fatherly sort of a way. She was weeping, weeping her heart out over this latest proof of the perfidy and loathsomeness of the man she loved. Incidentally, it may be mentioned here that the astute Mr. Meredith was not aware of any elopement plot— either the first or second.

When a card bearing the name of Mr. Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen was handed to Mr. Meredith he went wonderingly into the reception-room. There was a pause as the scientist and Mr. Meredith mentally sized each other up; then introductions— and The Thinking Machine came down to business abruptly, as always.

"May I ask, Mr. Meredith," he began, "how many sons you have?"

"One," replied Mr. Meredith, puzzled.

"May I ask his present address?" went on the scientist.

Mr. Meredith studied the belligerent eyes of his caller and wondered what business it was of his, for Mr. Meredith was a belligerent sort of a person himself.

"May I ask," he inquired with pronounced emphasis on the personal pronoun, "why you want to know?"

Hatch rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He was wondering what would happen to him when the cyclone struck.

"It may save him and you a great deal of annoyance if you will give me his address," said The Thinking Machine. "I desire to communicate with him immediately on a matter of the utmost importance— a purely personal matter."

"Personal matter?" repeated Mr. Meredith. "Your abruptness and manner, sir, were not calculated to invite confidence."

The Thinking Machine bowed gravely.

"May I ask your son's address?" he repeated.

Mr. Meredith considered the matter at some length and finally arrived at the conclusion that he might ask.

"He is in South America at present— Buenos Ayres," he replied.

"What?" exclaimed The Thinking Machine so suddenly that both Hatch and Mr. Meredith started a little. "What?" he repeated, and wrinkles suddenly appeared in the domelike brow.

"I said he was in South America— Buenos Ayres," repeated Mr. Meredith stiffly, but a little awed. "A letter or cable to him in care of the American Consul at Buenos Ayres will reach him promptly."

The Thinking Machine's narrow eyes were screwed down to the disappearing point, the slender white fingers were twiddled jerkily, the corrugations remained in his brow.

"How long has Mr. Meredith been there?" he asked at last.

"Three months."

"Do you know he is there?"

Mr. Meredith started to say something then swallowed it with an effort.

"I know it positively, yes," he replied. "I received this letter dated the second from him three days ago, and to-day I received a cable-dispatch forwarded to me here from Baltimore."

"Are you positive the letter is in your son's handwriting?"

Mr. Meredith almost choked in mingled bewilderment and resentment at the question and the manner of its asking.

"I am positive, yes," he replied at last, preserving his tone of dignity with a perceptible effort. He noted the inscrutable face of his caller and saw the corrugations in the brow suddenly swept away. "What business of yours is it, anyway?" blazed Mr. Meredith suddenly.

"May I ask where you were last Thursday night?" went on the even, steady voice.

"It's no business of yours," Mr. Meredith blurted. "I was in Baltimore."

"Can you prove it in a court of law?"

"Prove it? Of course I can prove it!" Mr. Meredith was fairly bellowing at his impassive interrogator. "But it's nobody's business."

"If you can prove it, Mr. Meredith," remarked The Thinking Machine quietly, coldly, "you had best make your arrangements to do so, because, believe me, it may be necessary to save you from a charge of having stolen the Randolph gold plate on last Thursday night at the masked ball. Good-day, sir."

4

"BUT MR. Herbert won't see anyone, sir," protested Blair.

"Tell Mr. Herbert, please, that unless I can see him immediately his bail-bond will be withdrawn," directed The Thinking Machine.

He stood waiting in the hall while Blair went up the stairs. Dick Herbert took the card impatiently and glanced at it.

"Van Dusen," he mused. "Who the deuce is Van Dusen?"

Blair repeated the message he had received below.

"What does he look like?" inquired Dick.

"He's a shrivelled little man with a big yellow head, sir," replied Blair.

"Let him come up," instructed Dick.

Thus, within an hour after he had talked to Mr. Meredith, The Thinking Machine met Dick Herbert.

"What's this about the bail-bond?" Dick inquired.

"I wanted to talk to you," was the scientist's calm reply. "That seemed to be the easiest way to make you believe it was important, so— "

Dick's face flushed crimson at the trick.

"Well, you see me!" he broke out angrily. "I ought to throw you down the stairs, but— what is it?"

Not having been invited to a seat, The Thinking Machine took one anyway and settled himself comfortably.

"If you will listen to me for a moment without interruption," he began testily, "I think the subject of my remarks will be of deep personal concern to you. I am interested in solving this Randolph plate affair and have perhaps gone further in my investigation than anyone else. At least, I know more about it. There are some things I don't happen to know, however, that are of the greatest importance."

"I tell you— " stormed Dick.

"For instance," calmly resumed the scientist, "it is very important for me to know whether or not Harry Meredith was masked when he came into this room last Thursday night."

Dick gazed at him in surprise which approached awe. His eyes were widely distended, the lower part of his face lax, for the instant; then his white teeth closed with a snap and he sat down opposite The Thinking Machine. Anger had gone from his manner; instead there was a pallor of apprehension in the clean-cut face.

"Who are you, Mr. Van Dusen?" he asked at last. His tone was mild, even deferential.

"Was he masked?" insisted the scientist.

For a long while Dick was silent. Finally he arose and paced nervously back and forth across the room, glancing at the diminutive figure of The Thinking Machine each time as he turned.

"I won't say anything," he decided.

"Will you name the cause of the trouble you and Meredith had at Harvard?" asked the scientist.

Again there was a long pause.

"No," Dick said finally.

"Did it have anything to do with theft?"

"I don't know who you are or why you are prying into an affair that, at least on its face, does not concern you," replied Dick. "I'll say nothing at all— unless— unless you produce the one man who can and shall explain this affair. Produce him here in this room where I can get my hands on him!"

The Thinking Machine squinted at the sturdy shoulders with admiration in his face.

"Did it ever happen to occur to you, Mr. Herbert, that Harry Meredith and his father are precisely of the same build?"

Some nameless, impalpable expression crept into Dick's face despite an apparent fight to restrain it, and again he stared at the small man in the chair.

"And that you and Mr. Meredith are practically of the same build?"

Tormented by unasked questions and by those emotions which had compelled him to silence all along, Dick still paced back and forth. His head was whirling. The structure which he had so carefully guarded was tumbling about his ears. Suddenly he stopped and turned upon The Thinking Machine.

"Just what do you know of this affair?" he asked.

"I know for one thing," replied the scientist positively, "that you were not the man in the automobile."

"How do you know that?"

"That's beside the question just now."

"Do you know who was in the automobile?" Dick insisted.

"I can only answer that question when you have answered mine," the scientist went on. "Was Harry Meredith masked when he entered this room last Thursday night?"

Dick sat staring down at his hands, which were working nervously. Finally he nodded.

The Thinking Machine understood.

"You recognised him, then, by something he said or wore?"

Again Dick nodded reluctantly.

"Both," he added.

The Thinking Machine leaned back in his chair and sat there for a long time. At last he arose as if the interview were at an end. There seemed to be no other questions that he desired to ask at the moment.

"You need not be unnecessarily alarmed, Mr. Herbert," he assured Dick as he picked up his hat. "I shall act with discretion in this matter. I am not representing anyone who would care to make it unpleasant for you. I may tell you that you made two serious mistakes: the first when you saw or communicated with Mr. Randolph immediately after the plate was stolen the second time, and again when you undertook something which properly belonged within the province of the police."

Herbert still sat with his head in his hands as The Thinking Machine went out.

It was very late that night— after twelve, in fact— when Hutchinson Hatch called on The Thinking Machine with excitement evident in tone, manner, and act. He was accustomed to calling at any hour; now he found the scientist at work as if it were midday.

"The worst has happened," the reporter told him.

The Thinking Machine didn't look around.

"Detective Mallory and two of his men saw Miss Meredith this evening about nine o'clock," Hatch hurried on, "and bully-ragged her into a confession."

"What sort of a confession?"

"She admitted that she was in the automobile on the night of the ball and that—— "

"Mr. Herbert was with her," the scientist supplied.

"Yes."

"And— what else?"

"That her own jewels, valued at twenty thousand dollars, were among those found in Herbert's possession when he was arrested."

The Thinking Machine turned and looked at the reporter, just casually, and raised his hand to his mouth to cover a yawn.

"Well, she couldn't do anything else," he said calmly.

5

HUTCHINSON Hatch remained with The Thinking Machine for more than an hour, and when he left his head was spinning with the multitude of instructions which had been heaped upon him.

"Meet me at noon in Detective Mallory's office at police headquarters," The Thinking Machine had said in conclusion. "Mr. Randolph and Miss Meredith will be there."

"Miss Meredith?" Hatch repeated. "She hasn't been arrested, you know, and I doubt if she will come."

"She will come," the scientist had replied, as if that settled it.

Next day the Supreme Intelligence was sitting in his private office. He had eaten the canary; mingled triumph and gratification beamed upon his countenance. The smile remained, but to it was added the quality of curiosity when the door opened and The Thinking Machine, accompanied by Dollie Meredith and Stuyvesant Randolph, entered.

"Mr. Hatch called yet?" inquired the scientist.

"No," responded the detective.

"Dear me!" grumbled the other. "It's one minute after twelve o'clock now. What could have delayed him?"

His answer was the clattering rush of a cab and the appearance of Hatch in person a moment later. He came into the room headlong, glanced around, then paused.

"Did you get it?" inquired The Thinking Machine.

"Yes, I got it, but— " began the reporter.

"Nothing else now," commanded the other.

There was a little pause as The Thinking Machine selected a chair. The others also sat down.

"Well?" inquired the Supreme Intelligence at last.

"I would like to ask, Mr. Mallory," the scientist said, "if it would be possible for me to convince you of Mr. Herbert's innocence of the charges against him?"

"It would not," replied the detective promptly. "It would not while the facts are before me, supplemented by the statement of Miss Meredith here— her confession."

Dollie coloured exquisitely and her lips trembled slightly.

"Would it be possible, Miss Meredith," the even voice went on, "to convince you of Mr. Herbert's innocence?"

"I— I don't think so," she faltered. "I— I know."

Tears which had been restrained with difficulty gushed forth suddenly, and The Thinking Machine squinted at her in pained surprise.

"Don't do that," he commanded. "It's— it's exceedingly irritating." He paused a moment, then turned suddenly to Mr. Randolph. "And you?" he asked.

Mr. Randolph shrugged his shoulders.

The Thinking Machine receded still further into his chair and stared dreamily upward with his long, slender fingers pressed tip to tip. Hatch knew the attitude; something was going to happen. He waited anxiously. Detective Mallory knew it, too, and wriggled uncomfortably.

"Suppose," the scientist began, "just suppose that we turn a little human intelligence on this problem for a change and see if we can't get the truth out of the blundering muddle that the police have helped to bring about. Let's use logic, inevitable logic, to show, simply enough, that instead of being guilty, Mr. Herbert is innocent."

Dolly Meredith suddenly leaned forward in her chair with flushed face, eyes widely opened and lips slightly parted. Detective Mallory also leaned forward in his chair, but there was a different expression on his face— oh, so different.

"Miss Meredith, we know you were in the automobile with the Burglar who stole the plate," The Thinking Machine went on. "You probably knew that he was wounded and possibly either aided in dressing the wound -- as any woman would -- or else saw him dress it himself?"

"I bound my handkerchief on it," replied the Girl. Her voice was low, almost a whisper.

"Where was the wound?"

"In the right shoulder," she replied.

"Back or front?" insisted the scientist.

"Back," she replied. "Very near the arm, an inch or so below the level of the shoulder."

Except for The Thinking Machine himself Hatch was the only person in the room to whom this statement meant anything, and he restrained a shout with difficulty.

"Now, Mr. Mallory," the scientist went on calmly, "do you happen to know Dr. Clarence Walpole?"

"I know of him, yes," replied the detective. "He is a man of considerable reputation."

"Would you believe him under oath?"

"Why, certainly, of course."

The Supreme Intelligence tugged at his bristly moustache.

"If Doctor Walpole should dress a wound and should later, under oath, point out its exact location, you would believe him?"

"Why, I'd have to, of course."

"Very well," commented The Thinking Machine tersely. "Now I will state an incontrovertible scientific fact for your further enlightenment. You may verify it any way you choose. This is, briefly, that the blood corpuscles in man average one-thirty-three hundredths of an inch in diameter. Remember that, please: one-thirty-three hundredths of an inch. The system of measurement has reached a state of perfection almost incomprehensible to the man who does not understand."

He paused for so long that Detective Mallory began to wriggle again. The others were leaning forward, listening with widely varied expressions on their faces.

"Now, Mr. Mallory," continued The Thinking Machine at last, "one of your men shot twice at the Burglar in the automobile, as I understand it?"

"Yes— two shots."

"Mr. Cunningham?"

"Yes, Detective Cunningham."

"Is he here now?"

The detective pressed a button on his desk and a uniformed man appeared. Instructions were given, and a moment later Detective Cunningham stood before them wonderingly.

"I suppose you can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt," resumed the scientist, still addressing Mr. Mallory, "that two shots— and only two— were fired?"

"I can prove it by twenty witnesses," was the reply.

"Good, very good," exclaimed the scientist, and he turned to Cunningham. "You know that only two shots were fired?"

"I know it, yes," replied Cunningham. "I fired 'em."

"May I see your revolver?"

Cunningham produced the weapon and handed it over. The Thinking Machine merely glanced at it.

"This is the revolver you used?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then," remarked the scientist quietly, "on that statement alone Mr. Herbert is proven innocent of the charge against him."

There was an astonished gasp all around. Hatch was beginning to see what The Thinking Machine meant, and curiously watched the bewitchingly sorrowful face of Dollie Meredith. He saw all sorts of strange things there.

"Proven innocent?" snorted Detective Mallory. "Why, you've convicted him out of hand so far as I can see."

"Corpuscles in human blood average, as I said, one-thirty-three hundredths of an inch in diameter," resumed the scientist. "They vary slightly each way, of course. Now, the corpuscles of the Burglar in the automobile measured just one-thirty-one-forty-seven hundredths of an inch. Mr. Herbert's corpuscles, tested the same way, with the same instruments, measure precisely one-thirty-five-sixty hundredths." He stopped as if that were all.

"By George!" exclaimed Mr. Randolph. "By George!"

"That's all tommy-rot," Detective Mallory burst out. "That's nothing to a jury or to any other man with common sense."

"That difference in measurement proves beyond question that Mr. Herbert was not wounded while in the automobile," went on The Thinking Machine as if there had been no interruption. "Now, Mr. Cunningham, may I ask if the Burglar's back was toward you when you fired?"

"Yes, I suppose so. He was going away from me."

"Well, that statement agrees with the statement of Miss Meredith to show that the Burglar was wounded in the back. Doctor Walpole dressed Mr. Herbert's wound between two and three o'clock Friday morning following the masked ball. Mr. Herbert had been shot, but the wound was in the front of his right shoulder."

Delighted amazement radiated from Dollie Meredith's face; she clapped her hands involuntarily as she would have applauded a stage incident. Detective Mallory started to say something, then thought better of it and glared at Cunningham instead.

"Now, Mr. Cunningham says that he shot the Burglar with this revolver." The Thinking Machine waved the weapon under Detective Mallory's nose. "This is the usual police weapon. Its calibre is thirty-eight. Mr. Herbert was shot with a thirty-two calibre. Here is the bullet." And he tossed it on the desk.

6

STRANGE emotions all tangled up with turbulent, night-marish impressions scrambled through Dollie Meredith's pretty head in garish disorder. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Finally she compromised by blushing radiantly at the memory of certain lingering kisses she had bestowed upon— upon— Dick Herbert? No, it wasn't Dick Herbert. Oh, dear!

Detective Mallory pounced upon the bullet as a hound upon a hare, and turned and twisted it in his hands. Cunningham leaned over his shoulder, then drew a cartridge from the revolver and compared it, as to size, with the bullet. Hatch and Mr. Randolph, looking on, saw him shake his head. The ball was too small for the revolver.

The Supreme Intelligence turned suddenly, fiercely, upon Dollie and thrust an accusing finger into her startled face.

"Mr. Herbert confessed to you that he was with you in the automobile, didn't he?"

"Y-yes," she faltered.

"You know he was with you?"

"I thought I knew it."

"You wouldn't have gone with any other man?"

"Certainly not!" A blaze of indignation suffused her cheeks.

"Your casket of jewels was found among the stolen goods in his possession?"

"Yes, but— "

With a wave of his hand the Supreme Intelligence stopped explanations and turned to glare at The Thinking Machine. That imperturbable gentleman did not alter his position in the slightest, nor did he change the steady, upward squint of his eyes.

"If you have quite finished, Mr. Mallory," he said after a moment, "I will explain how and in what circumstances the stolen plate and jewels came into Mr. Herbert's possession."

"Go on," urged Mr. Randolph and Hatch in a breath.

"Explain all you please; I've got him with the goods on," declared the Supreme Intelligence doggedly.

"When the simplest rules of logic establish a fact it becomes incontrovertible," resumed the scientist. "I have shown that Mr. Herbert was not the man in the automobile— the Burglar. Now, what did happen to Mr. Herbert? Twice since his arrest he has stated that it would be useless for him to explain because no one would believe it, and no one would have believed it unsupported, least of all you, Mr. Mallory.

"It's an admitted fact that Miss Meredith and Mr. Herbert had planned to elope from Seven Oaks the night of the ball. I daresay that Mr. Herbert did not deem it wise for Miss Meredith to know his costume, although he must, of necessity, have known hers. Therefore, the plan was for him to recognise her, but as it developed she recognised him— or thought she did— and that was the real cause of this remarkable muddle." He glanced at Dollie. "Is that correct?"

Dollie nodded blushingly.

"Now, Mr. Herbert did not go to the ball— why not I will explain later. Therefore, Miss Meredith recognised the real Burglar as Mr. Herbert, and we know how they ran away together after the Burglar had stolen the plate and various articles of jewelry. We must credit the Burglar with remarkable intelligence, so that when a young and attractive woman— I may say a beautiful woman— spoke to him as someone else he immediately saw an advantage in it. For instance, when there came discovery of the theft the girl might unwittingly throw the police off the track by revealing to them what she believed to be the identity of the thief. Further, he was a daring, audacious sort of person; the pure love of such an adventure might have appealed to him. Still, again, it is possible that he believed Miss Meredith a thief who was in peril of discovery or capture, and a natural gallantry for one of his own craft prompted him to act as he did. There is always, too, the possibility that he knew he was mistaken for Mr. Herbert."

Dollie was beginning to see, too.

"We know the method of escape, the pursuit, and all that," continued the Professor, "therefore we jump to the return of the gold plate. Logic makes it instantly apparent that that was the work of Miss Meredith here. Not having the plate, Mr. Herbert did not send it back, of course; and the Burglar would not have sent it back. Realising, too late, that the man she was with was really a thief— and still believing him, perhaps, to be Mr. Herbert— she must have taken the plate and escaped under cover of darkness?"

The tone carried a question and The Thinking Machine turned squintingly upon Dollie. Again she nodded. She was enthralled, fascinated, by the recital.

"It was a simple matter for her to return the gold plate by express, taking advantage of an unoccupied house and the willingness of a stranger to telephone for an express wagon. Thus, we have the plate again at Seven Oaks, and we have it there by the only method it could have been returned there when we account for, and consider, every known fact."

The Thinking Machine paused and sat silently staring upward. His listeners readjusted themselves in their chairs and waited impatiently.

"Now, why did Mr. Herbert confess to Miss Meredith that he stole the plate?" asked the scientist, as if of himself. "Perhaps she forced him to it. Mr. Herbert is a young man of strong loyalty and a grim sense of humour, this latter being a quality the police are not acquainted with. However, Mr. Herbert did confess to Miss Meredith that he was the Burglar, but he made this confession, obviously, because she would believe nothing else, and when a seeming necessity of protecting the real Burglar was still uppermost in his mind. What he wanted was the Girl. If the facts never came out he was all right; if they did come out they would implicate one whom he was protecting, but through no fault of his -- therefore, he was still all right."

"Bah!" exclaimed the Supreme Intelligence. "My experience has shown that a man doesn't confess to a theft unless— "

"So we may safely assume," The Thinking Machine continued almost pleasantly, "that Mr. Herbert, by confessing the theft as a prank, perhaps, won back Miss Meredith's confidence; that they planned an elopement for the second time. A conversation Mr. Hatch had with Mr. Herbert immediately after Mr. Herbert saw Miss Meredith practically confirms it. Then, with matters in this shape, the real Burglar, to whom I have accredited unusual powers, stole the plate the second time -- we know how."

"Herbert stole it, you mean!" blazed Detective Mallory.

"This theft came immediately on top of the reconciliation of Miss Meredith and Mr. Herbert," The Thinking Machine went on steadily, without heeding the remark by the slightest sign. "Therefore, it was only natural that he should be the person most vitally interested in seeing that the plate was again returned. He undertook to do this himself. The result was that, where the police had failed, he found the plate and a lot of jewels, took them from the Burglar, and was about to return Mr. Randolph's property when the detectives walked in on him. That is why he laughed."

Detective Mallory arose from his seat and started to say something impolite. The presence of Dollie Meredith choked the words back and he swallowed hard.

"Who then," he demanded after a couple of gulps— "who do you say is the thief if Herbert is not?"

The Thinking Machine glanced up into his face, then turned to Hatch.

"Mr. Hatch, what is that name I asked you to get?"

"George Francis Hayden," was the stammering reply, "but— but— "

"Then George Francis Hayden is the thief," declared The Thinking Machine emphatically.

"But I— I started to say," Hatch blurted— "I started to say that George Francis Hayden has been dead for two years."

The Thinking Machine rose suddenly and glared at the reporter. There was a tense silence, broken at last by a chuckle from Detective Mallory.

"Dead?" repeated the scientist incredulously. "Do you know that?"

"Yes, I— I know it."

The Thinking Machine stood for another moment squinting at him, then, turning, left the room.

7

HALF AN hour later The Thinking Machine walked in, unannounced, upon Dick Herbert. The front door had not been locked; Blair was somewhere in the rear. Herbert, in some surprise, glanced up at his visitor just in time to see him plank himself down solidly into a chair.

"Mr. Herbert," the scientist began, "I have gone out of my way to prove to the police that you were not in the automobile with Miss Meredith, and that you did not steal the gold plate found in your possession. Now, I happen to know the name of the thief, and— "

"And if you mention it to one living soul," Dick added suddenly, hotly, "I shall forget myself and— and— "

"His name is George Francis Hayden," the scientist continued.

Dick started a little and straightened up; the menace dropped from him and he paused to gaze curiously into the wizened face before him. After a moment he drew a sigh of deep relief.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Oh!"

"I know that that isn't who you thought it was," resumed the other, "but the fact remains that Hayden is the man with whom Miss Meredith unwittingly eloped, and that Hayden is the man who actually stole the plate and jewels. Further, the fact remains that Hayden -- "

"Is dead," Dick supplemented grimly. "You are talking through your -- " He coughed a little. "You are talking without any knowledge of what you are saying."

"He can't be dead," remarked the scientist calmly.

"But he is dead!" Dick insisted.

"He can't be dead," snapped the other abruptly. "It's perfectly silly to suppose such a thing. Why, I have proven absolutely, by the simplest rules of logic, that he stole the gold plate, therefore he cannot be dead. It's silly to say so."

Dick wasn't quite certain whether to be angry or amused. He decided to hold the matter in abeyance for the moment and see what other strange thing would develop.

"How long has he been dead?" continued the scientist.

"About two years."

"You know it?"

"Yes, I know it."

"How do you know it?"

"Because I attended his funeral," was the prompt reply. Dick saw a shadow of impatience flash into his visitor's face and instantly pass.

"How did he die?" queried the scientist.

"He was lost from his catboat," Dick answered. "He had gone out sailing, alone, while in a bathing-suit. Several hours after the boat drifted in on the tide without him. Two or three weeks later the body was recovered."

"Ah!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine.

Then, for half an hour or so, he talked, and— as he went on, incisively, pointedly, dramatically, even, at times— Dick Herbert's eyes opened wider and wider. At the end he rose and gripped the scientist's slender white fingers heartily in his own with something approaching awe in his manner. Finally he put on his hat and they went out together.

That evening at eight o'clock Detective Mallory, Hutchinson Hatch, Mr. Randolph, Mr. Meredith, Mr. Greyton, and Dollie Meredith gathered in a parlour of the Greyton home by request of The Thinking Machine. They were waiting for something— no one knew exactly what.

Finally there came a tinkle at the bell and The Thinking Machine entered. Behind him came Dick Herbert, Dr. Clarence Walpole, and a stranger. Mr. Meredith glanced up quickly at Herbert, and Dollie lifted her chin haughtily with a stony stare which admitted of no compromise. Dick pleaded for recognition with his eyes, but it was no use, so he sat down where he could watch her unobserved.

Singular expressions flitted over the countenance of the Supreme Intelligence. Right here, now, he knew the earth was to be jerked out from under him and he was not at all certain that there would be anything left for him to cling to. This first impression was strengthened when The Thinking Machine introduced Doctor Walpole with an ostentatious squint at Mr. Mallory. The detective set his teeth hard.

The Thinking Machine sat down, stretched out his slender legs, turned his eyes upward, and adjusted his fingers precisely, tip to tip. The others watched him anxiously.

"We will have to go back a few years to get the real beginning of the events which have culminated so strangely within the past week," he said. "This was a close friendship of three young men in college. They were Mr. Herbert here, a freshman, and Harry Meredith and George Francis Hayden, juniors. This friendship, not an unusual one in college, was made somewhat romantic by the young men styling themselves The Triangle. They occupied the same apartments and were exclusive to a degree. Of necessity Mr. Herbert was drawn from that exclusiveness, to a certain extent by his participation in football."

A germ of memory was working in Hatch's mind.

"At someone's suggestion three triangular watch charms were made, identical in every way save for initials on the back. They bore a symbol which was meaningless except to The Triangle. They were made to order and are, therefore, the only three of the kind in the world. Mr. Herbert has one now on his watch chain, with his own initials; there is another with the initials 'G. F. H.' in the lot of jewelry Mr. Mallory recovered from Mr. Herbert. The third is worn by Harry Meredith, who is now in Buenos Ayres. The American Consul there has confirmed, by cable, that fact.

"In the senior year the three young men of The Triangle were concerned in the mysterious disappearance of a valuable diamond ring. It was hushed up in college after it seemed established that Mr. Herbert was a thief. Knowing his own innocence and seeing what seemed to be an exclusive opportunity for Harry Meredith to have done what was charged, Mr. Herbert laid the matter to him, having at that time an interview with Harry's father. The result of that interview was more than ever to convince Mr. Meredith of Mr. Herbert's guilt. As a matter of fact, the thief in that case was George Francis Hayden."

There were little murmurs of astonishment, and Mr. Meredith turned and stared at Dick Herbert. Dollie gave him a little glance out of a corner of her eye, smiled, then sat up primly.

"This ended The Triangle," resumed the scientist. "A year or so later Mr. Herbert met Miss Meredith. About two years ago George Francis Hayden was reported drowned from his catboat. This was confirmed, apparently, by the finding of his body, and an insurance company paid over a large sum— I think it was $25,000— to a woman who said she was his wife. But George Francis Hayden was not drowned; he is alive now. It was a carefully planned fraud against the insurance company, and it succeeded.

"This, then, was the situation on last Thursday— the night of the masked ball at Seven Oaks— except that there had grown up a love affair between Miss Meredith and Mr. Herbert. Naturally, the father opposed this because of the incident in college. Both Miss Meredith and Mr. Herbert had invitations to that ball. It was an opportunity for an elopement and they accepted it. Mr. Herbert sent word to her what costume to wear; she did not know the nature of his.

"On Thursday afternoon Miss Meredith sent her jewel-casket, with practically all her jewels, to Mr. Herbert. She wanted them, naturally; they probably planned a trip abroad. The maid in this house took the casket and gave it into Mr. Herbert's own hands. Am I right?" He turned squarely and squinted at Dollie.

"Yes," she gasped quickly. She smiled distractingly upon her father and he made some violent remarks to himself.

"At this point, Fate, in the guise of a masked Burglar, saw fit to step into the affair," the scientist went on after a moment. "About nine-thirty, Thursday evening, while Mr. Herbert was alone, the masked Burglar, George Francis Hayden, entered Mr. Herbert's house, possibly thinking everyone was away. There, still masked, he met Mr. Herbert, who— by something the Burglar said and by the triangular charm he wore— recognised him as Harry Meredith. Remember, he thought he knew George Francis Hayden was dead.

"There were some words and a personal encounter between the two men. George Francis Hayden fired a shot which struck Mr. Herbert in the right shoulder -- in front -- took the jewel-casket in which Mr. Herbert had placed his card of invitation to the ball, and went away, leaving Mr. Herbert senseless on the floor."

Dollie's face blanched suddenly and she gasped. When she glanced involuntarily at Dick she read the love-light in his eyes, and her colour returned with a rush.

"Several hours later, when Mr. Herbert recovered consciousness," the unruffled voice went on, "he went to Doctor Walpole, the nearest physician, and there the bullet was extracted and the wound dressed. The ball was thirty-two calibre?"

Doctor Walpole nodded.

"And Mr. Cunningham's revolver carried a thirty-eight," added the scientist. "Now we go back to the Burglar. He found the invitation in the casket, and the bold scheme, which later he carried out so perfectly, came to him as an inspiration. He went to the ball just as he was. Nerve, self-possession, and humour took him through. We know the rest of that.

"Naturally, in the circumstances, Mr. Herbert, believing that Harry Meredith was the thief, would say nothing to bring disgrace upon the name of the girl he loved. Instead, he saw Miss Meredith, who would not accept his denial then, and in order to get her first -- explanations might come later -- he confessed to the theft, whereupon they planned the second elopement.

"When Miss Meredith returned the plate by express there was no anticipation of a second theft. Here is where we get a better understanding of the mettle of the real Burglar -- George Francis Hayden. He went back and got the plate from Seven Oaks. Instantly that upset the second elopement plan. Then Mr. Herbert undertook the search, got a clew, followed it, and recovered not only the plate, but a great lot of jewels."

There was a pause. A skyrocket ascended in Hatch's mind and burst, illuminating the whole tangled story. Detective Mallory sat dumbly, thinking harsh words. Mr. Meredith arose, went over to Dick Herbert, and solemnly shook his hand, after which he sat down again. Dollie smiled charmingly.

8

"NOW THAT is what actually happened," said The Thinking Machine, after a little while. "How do I know it? Logic, logic, logic! The logical mind can start from any given point and go backward or forward, with equal facility, to a natural conclusion. This is as certain as that two and two make four— not sometimes, but all the time.

"First in this case I had Mr. Hatch's detailed examination of each circumstance. By an inspiration he connected Mr. Herbert and Miss Meredith with the affair and talked to both before the police had any knowledge at all of them. In other words, he reached at a bound what they took days to accomplish. After the second theft he came to me and related the story."

The reporter blushed modestly.

"Mr. Hatch's belief that the things that had happened to Mr. Herbert and Miss Meredith bore on the theft," resumed the scientist, "was susceptible of confirmation or refutation in only one way, this being so because of Mr. Herbert's silence— due to his loyalty. I saw that. But, before I went further, I saw clearly what had actually happened if I presupposed that there had been some connection. Thus came to me, I may say here, the almost certain knowledge that Miss Meredith had a brother, although I had never heard of him or her."

He paused a little and twiddled his thumbs thoughtfully.

"Suppose you give us just your line of reasoning," ventured Hatch.

"Well, I began with the blood-stains in the automobile to either bring Mr. Herbert into this affair or shut him out," replied the scientist. "You know how I made the blood tests. They showed conclusively that the blood on the cushion was not Mr. Herbert's. Remember, please, that, although I knew Miss Meredith had been in the automobile, I also knew she was not wounded; therefore the blood was that of someone else— the man.

"Now, I knew Mr. Herbert had been wounded— he wouldn't say how. If at home, would he not go to the nearest physician? Probably. I got Doctor Walpole's name from the telephone-book— he being nearest the Herbert home— and sent Mr. Hatch there, where he learned of the wound in front, and of the thirty-two calibre ball. I already knew the police revolvers were thirty-eight calibre; therefore Mr. Herbert was not wounded while in the automobile.

"That removed Mr. Herbert as a possibility in the first theft, despite the fact that his invitation-card was presented at the door. It was reasonable to suppose that invitation had been stolen. Immediately after the plate was returned by express, Mr. Herbert effected a reconciliation with Miss Meredith. Because of this and for other reasons I could not bring myself to see that he was a party to the second theft, as I knew him to be innocent of the first. Yet, what happened to him? Why wouldn't he say something?

"All things must be imagined before they can be achieved; therefore imagination is one of the most vital parts of the scientific brain. In this instance I could only imagine why Mr. Herbert was silent. Remember, he was shot and wouldn't say who did it. Why? If it had been an ordinary thief— and I got the idea of a thief from the invitation-card being in other hands than his— he would not have hesitated to talk. Therefore, it was an extraordinary thief in that it connected with something near and dear to him. No one was nearer and dearer to him than Miss Meredith. Did she shoot him? No. Did her father shoot him? Probably not, but possibly. A brother? That began to look more reasonable. Mr. Herbert would probably not have gone so far to protect one less near to her than brother or father.

"For the moment I assumed a brother, not knowing. How did Mr. Herbert know this brother? Was it in his college days? Mr. Hatch brought me a list of the students of three years before his graduating year and there I found the name, Harry Meredith. You see, step by step, pure logic was leading me to something tangible, definite. My next act was to see Mr. Meredith and ask for the address of his son -- an only son -- whom at that time I frankly believed was the real thief. But this son was in South America. That startled me a little and brought me up against the father as a possible thief. He was in Baltimore on that night.

"I accepted that as true at the moment after some— er— some pleasant words with Mr. Meredith. Then the question: Was the man who stole from Mr. Herbert, probably entering his place and shooting him, masked? Mr. Herbert said he was. I framed the question so as to bring Harry Meredith's name into it, much to Mr. Herbert's alarm. How had he recognised him as Harry Meredith? By something he said or wore? Mr. Herbert replied in the affirmative— both. Therefore I had a masked Burglar who could not have been either Harry Meredith or Harry Meredith's father. Who was he?

"I decided to let Mr. Hatch look into that point for me, and went to see Doctor Walpole. He gave me the bullet he had extracted from Mr. Herbert's shoulder. Mr. Hatch, shortly after, rushed in on me with the statement that Miss Meredith had admitted that Mr. Herbert had confessed to her. I could see instantly why he had confessed to her. Then Mr. Hatch undertook for me the investigation of Herbert's and Harry Meredith's careers in college. He remembered part of it and unearthed the affair of The Triangle and the theft of a diamond ring.

"I had asked Mr. Hatch to find for me if Harry Meredith and Mr. Herbert had had a mutual intimate in college. They had: George Francis Hayden, the third member of the Triangle. Then the question seemed to be solved, but Mr. Hatch upset everything when he said that Mr. Hayden was dead. I went immediately to see Mr. Herbert. From him I learned that, although Mr. Hayden was supposed to be dead and buried, there was no positive proof of it; the body recovered had been in the water three weeks and was consequently almost unrecognisable. Therefore, the theft came inevitably to Mr. Hayden. Why? Because the Burglar had been recognised by something he said and wore. It would have been difficult for Mr. Herbert to recognise a masked man so positively unless the masked man wore something he absolutely knew, or said something he absolutely knew. Mr. Herbert thought with reason that the masked man was Harry Meredith, but, with Harry Meredith in South America, the thief was incontrovertibly George Francis Hayden. There was no going behind that.

"After a short interview as to Hayden, during which Mr. Herbert told me more of The Triangle and the three watch charms, he and I went out investigating. He took me to the room where he had found the plate and jewels— a place in an apartment-house which this gentleman manages." The scientist turned to the stranger, who had been a silent listener. "He identified an old photograph of George Francis Hayden as an occupant of an apartment.

"Mr. Herbert and I searched the place. My growing idea, based on the established knavery of George Francis Hayden, that he was the real thief in the college incident, was proven when I found this ring there— the ring that was stolen at that time— with the initials of the owner in it."

The Thinking Machine produced the ring and offered it to Detective Mallory, who had allowed the earth to slip away from him slowly but surely, and he examined it with a new and absorbed interest.

"Mr. Herbert and I learned of the insurance fraud in another manner -- that is, when we knew that George Francis Hayden was not dead, we knew there had been a fraud. Mr. Hayden has been known lately as Chester Goodrich. He has been missing since Mr. Herbert, in his absence, recovered the plate and the jewels in his apartments. I may add that, up to the day of the masked ball, he was protected from casual recognition by a full beard. He is now clean-shaven."

The Thinking Machine glanced at Mr. Mallory.

"Your man— Downey, I think it was— did excellent work," he said, "in tracing Miss Meredith from the time she left the automobile until she returned home, and later leading you to Mr. Herbert. It was not strange that you should have been convinced of his guilt when we consider the goods found in his possession and also the wound in his shoulder. The only trouble is he didn't get to the real insides of it."

That was all. For a long time there was silence. Dollie Meredith's pretty face was radiant and her eyes were fastened on her father. Mr. Meredith glanced at her, cleared his throat several times, then arose and offered his hand to Dick Herbert.

"I have done you an injustice, sir," he said gravely. "Permit me to apologise. I think perhaps my daughter— "

That was superfluous. Dollie was already beside Dick, and a rousing, smacking, resounding kiss echoed her father's words. Dick liked it some and was ready for more, but Dollie impetuously flung her arms around the neck of The Thinking Machine, and he -- passed to his reward.

"You dear old thing!" she gurgled. "You're just too sweet and cute for anything."

"Dear me! Dear me!" fussed The Thinking Machine. "Don't do that. It annoys me exceedingly."

* * *

SOME THREE months later, when the search for George Francis Hayden had become only lukewarm, this being three days before Miss Meredith's wedding to Dick Herbert, she received a small box containing a solitaire ring and a note. It was brief:

In memory of one night in the woods and of what happened there, permit me to give this— you can't return it. It is one of the few things honest money from me ever paid for.

Bill, the Burglar.

While Dollie examined the ring with mingled emotions Dick stared at the postmark on the package.

"It's a corking good clew," he said enthusiastically.

Dollie turned to him, recognising a menace in the words, and took the paper which bore the postmark from his hands.

"Let's pretend," she said gently— "let's pretend we don't know where it came from!"

Dick stared a little and kissed her.

___________________

3. A Piece of String

IT WAS just midnight. Somewhere near the center of a cloud of tobacco smoke, which hovered over one corner of the long editorial room, Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was writing. The rapid click-click of his type writer went on and on, broken only when he laid aside one sheet to put in another. The finished pages were seized upon one at a time by an office boy and rushed off to the city editor. That astute person glanced at them for information and sent them on to the copy desk, whence they were shot down into that noisy, chaotic wilderness, the composing room.

The story was what the phlegmatic head of the copy desk, speaking in the vernacular, would have called a "beaut." It was about the kidnapping that afternoon of Walter Francis, the four-year-old son of a wealthy young broker, Stanley Francis. An alternative to the abduction had been proposed in the form of a gift to certain persons, identity unknown, of fifty thousand dollars. Francis, not unnaturally, objected to the bestowal of so vast a sum upon anyone. So he told the police, and while they were making up their minds the child was stolen. It happened in the usual way— closed carriage, and all that sort of thing.

Hatch was telling the story graphically, as he could tell a story when there was one to be told. He glanced at the clock, jerked out another sheet of copy, and the office boy scuttled away with it.

"How much more?" called the city editor.

"Just a paragraph," Hatch answered.

His type writer clicked on merrily for a couple of minutes and then stopped. The last sheet of copy was taken away, and he rose and stretched his legs.

"Some guy wants yer at the 'phone," an office boy told him.

"Who is it?" asked Hatch.

"Search me," replied the boy. "Talks like he'd been eatin' pickles."

Hatch went into the booth indicated. The man at the other end was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. The reporter instantly recognized the crabbed, perpetually irritated voice of the noted scientist, The Thinking Machine.

"That you, Mr. Hatch?" came over the wire.

"Yes."

"Can you do something for me immediately?" he queried. "It is very important."

"Certainly."

"Now listen closely," directed The Thinking Machine. "Take a car from Park-sq., the one that goes toward Worcester through Brookline. About two miles beyond Brookline is Randall's Crossing. Get off there and go to your right until you come to a small white house. In front of this house, a little to the left and across an open field, is a large tree. It stands just in the edge of a dense wood. It might be better to approach it through the wood, so as not to attract attention. Do you follow me?"

"Yes," Hatch replied. His imagination was leading him a chase.

"Go to this tree now, immediately, to-night," continued The Thinking Machine. "You will find a small hole in it near the level of your eye. Feel in that hole, and see what is there— no matter what it is— then return to Brookline and telephone me. It is of the greatest importance."

The reporter was thoughtful for a moment; it sounded like a page from a Dumas romance.

"What's it all about?" he asked curiously.

"Will you go?" came the counter question.

"Yes, certainly."

"Good-by."

Hatch heard a click as the receiver was hung up at the other end. He shrugged his shoulders, said "Good-night" to the city editor, and went out. An hour later he was at Randall's Crossing. The night was dark— so dark that the road was barely visible. The car whirled on, and as its lights were swallowed up Hatch set out to find the white house. He came upon it at last, and, turning, faced across an open field toward the wood. Far away over there outlined vaguely against the distant glow of the city, was a tall tree.

Having fixed its location, the reporter moved along for a hundred yards or more to where the wood ran down to the road. Here he climbed a fence and stumbled on through the dark, doing sundry injuries to his shins. After a disagreeable ten minutes he reached the tree.

With a small electric flash light he found the hole. It was only a little larger than his hand, a place where decay had eaten its way into the tree trunk. For just a moment he hesitated about putting his hand into it— he didn't know what might be there. Then, with a grim smile, he obeyed orders.

He felt nothing save crumblings of decayed wood, and finally dragged out a handful, only to spill it on the ground. That couldn't be what was meant. For the second time he thrust in his hand, and after a deal of grabbing about produced— a piece of string. It was just a plain, ordinary, common piece of string— white string. He stared at it and smiled.

"I wonder what Van Dusen will make of that?" he asked himself.

Again his hand was thrust into the hole. But that was all— the piece of string. Then came another thought, and with that due regard for detail which made him a good reporter he went looking around the big tree for a possible second opening of some sort. He found none.

About three quarters of an hour later he stepped into an all-night drug store in Brookline and 'phoned to The Thinking Machine. There was an instant response to his ring.

"Well, well, what did you find?" came the query.

"Nothing to interest you, I imagine," replied the reporter grimly. "Just a piece of string."

"Good, good!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "What does it look like?"

"Well," replied the newspaper man judicially, "it's just a piece of white string— cotton, I imagine— about six inches long."

"Any knots in it?"

"Wait till I see."

He was reaching into his pocket to take it out, when the startled voice of The Thinking Machine came over the line.

"Didn't you leave it there?" it demanded.

"No; I have it in my pocket."

"Dear me!" exclaimed the scientist irritably. "That's bad. Well, has it any knots in it?" he asked with marked resignation.

Hatch felt that he had committed the unpardonable sin. "Yes," he replied after an examination. "It has two knots in it— just plain knots— about two inches apart."

"Single or double knots?"

"Single knots."

"Excellent! Now, Mr. Hatch, listen. Untie one of those knots— it doesn't matter which one— and carefully smooth out the string. Then take it and put it back where you found it. 'Phone me as soon after that as you can."

"Now, to-night?"

"Now, immediately."

"But— but— " began the astonished reporter.

"It is a matter of the utmost consequence," the irritated voice assured him. "You should not have taken the string. I told you merely to see what was there. But as you have brought it away you must put it back as soon as possible. Believe me, it is of the highest importance. And don't forget to 'phone me."

The sharp, commanding tone stirred the reporter to new action and interest. A car was just going past the door, outward bound. He raced for it and got aboard. Once settled, he untied one of the knots, straightened out the string, and fell to wondering what sort of fool's errand he was on.

"Randall's Crossing!" called the conductor at last.

Hatch left the car and retraced his tortuous way along the road and through the wood to the tall tree, found the hole, and had just thrust in his hand to replace the string when he heard a woman's voice directly behind him, almost in his ear. It was a calm, placid, convincing sort of voice. It said:

"Hands up!"

Hatch was a rational human being with ambitions and hopes for the future; therefore his hands went up without hesitation. "I knew something would happen," he told himself.

He turned to see the woman. In the darkness he could only dimly trace a tall, slender figure. Steadily poised just a couple of dozen inches from his nose was a revolver. He could see that without any difficulty. It glinted a little, even in the gloom, and made itself conspicuous.

"Well," asked the reporter at last, as he stood reaching upward, "it's your move."

"Who are you?" asked the woman. Her voice was steady and rather pleasant.

The reporter considered the question in the light of all he didn't know. He felt it wouldn't be a sensible thing to say just who he was. Somewhere at the end of this thing The Thinking Machine was working on a problem; he was presumably helping in a modest, unobtrusive sort of way; therefore he would be cautious.

"My name is Williams," he said promptly. "Jim Williams," he added circumstantially.

"What are you doing here?"

Another subject for thought. That was a question he couldn't answer; he didn't know what he was doing there; he was wondering himself. He could only hazard a guess, and he did that with trepidation.

"I came from him," he said with deep meaning.

"Who?" demanded the woman suspiciously.

"It would be useless to name him," replied the reporter.

"Yes, yes, of course," the woman mused. "I understand."

There was a little pause. Hatch was still watching the revolver. He had a lively interest in it. It had not moved a hair's breath since he first looked at it; hanging up there in the night it fairly stared him out of countenance.

"And the string?" asked the woman at last.

Now the reporter felt that he was in the mire. The woman herself relieved this new embarrassment.

"Is it in the tree?" she went on.

"Yes."

"How many knots are in it?"

"One."

"One?" she repeated eagerly. "Put your hand in there and hand me the string. No tricks, now!"

Hatch complied with a certain deprecatory manner which he intended should convey to her the impression that there would be no tricks. As she took the string her fingers brushed against his. They were smooth and delicate. He knew that even in the dark.

"And what did he say?" she went on.

Having gone this far without falling into anything, the reporter was willing to plunge— felt that he had to, as a matter of fact.

"He said yes," he murmured without shifting his eyes from the revolver.

"Yes?" the woman repeated again eagerly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," said the reporter again. The thought flashed through his mind that he was tangling up somebody's affairs sadly— he didn't know whose. Anyhow, it was a matter of no consequence to him, as long as that revolver stared at him that way.

"Where is it?" asked the woman.

Then the earth slipped out from under him. "I don't know," he replied weakly.

"Didn't he give it to you?"

"Oh, no. He— he wouldn't trust me with it."

"How can I get it, then?"

"Oh, he'll fix it all right," Hatch assured her soothingly. "I think he said something about to-morrow night."

"Where?"

"Here."

"Thank God!" the woman gasped suddenly. Her tone betrayed deep emotion; but it wasn't so deep that she lowered the revolver.

There was a long pause. Hatch was figuring possibilities. How to get possession of the revolver seemed the imminent problem. His hands were still in the air, and there was nothing to indicate that they were not to remain there indefinitely. The woman finally broke the silence.

"Are you armed?"

"Oh, no."

"Truthfully?"

"Truthfully."

"You may lower your hands," she said, as if satisfied; "then go on ahead of me straight across the field to the road. Turn to your left there. Don't look back under any circumstances. I shall be behind you with this revolver pointing at your head. If you attempt to escape or make any outcry I shall shoot. Do you believe me?"

The reporter considered it for a moment. "I'm firmly convinced of it," he said at last.

They stumbled on to the road, and there Hatch turned as directed. Walking along in the shadows with the tread of small feet behind him he first contemplated a dash for liberty; but that would mean giving up the adventure, whatever it was. He had no fear for his personal safety as long as he obeyed orders, and he intended to do that implicitly. And besides, The Thinking Machine had his slender finger in the pie somewhere. Hatch knew that, and knowing it was a source of deep gratification.

Just now he was taking things at face value, hoping that with their arrival at whatever place they were bound for he would be further enlightened. Once he thought he heard the woman sobbing, and started to look back. Then he remembered her warning, and thought better of it. Had he looked back he would have seen her stumbling along, weeping, with the revolver dangling limply at her side.

At last, a mile or more farther on, they began to arrive somewhere. A house sat back some distance from the road.

"Go in there!" commanded his captor.

He turned in at the gate, and five minutes later stood in a comfortably furnished room on the ground floor of a small house. A dim light was burning. The woman turned it up. Then almost defiantly she threw aside her veil and hat and stood before him. Hatch gasped. She was pretty— bewilderingly pretty— and young and graceful and all that a young woman should be. Her cheeks were flushed.

"You know me, I suppose?" she exclaimed.

"Oh yes, certainly," Hatch assured her.

And saying that, he knew he had never seen her before.

"I suppose you thought it perfectly horrid of me to keep you with your hands up like that all the time; but I was dreadfully frightened," the woman went on, and she smiled a little uncertainly. "But there wasn't anything else to do."

"It was the only thing," Hatch agreed.

"Now I'm going to ask you to write and tell him just what happened," she resumed. "And tell him, too, that the other matter must be arranged immediately. I'll see that your letter is delivered. Sit here!"

She picked up the revolver from the table beside her and placed a chair in position. Hatch walked to the table and sat down. Pen and ink lay before him. He knew now he was trapped. He couldn't write a letter to that vague "him" of whom he had talked so glibly, about that still more vague "it" -- whatever that might be. He sat dumbly staring at the paper.

"Well?" she demanded suspiciously.

"I— I can't write it," he confessed suddenly.

She stared at him coldly for a moment as if she had suspected just that, and he in turn stared at the revolver with a new and vital interest. He felt the tension, but saw no way to relieve it.

"You are an imposter!" she blurted out at last. "A detective?"

Hatch didn't deny it. She backed away toward a bell call near the door, watching him closely, and rang vigorously several times. After a little pause the door opened, and two men, evidently servants, entered.

"Take this gentleman to the rear room up stairs," she commanded without giving them a glance, "and lock him up. Keep him under close guard. If he attempts to escape, stop him! That's all."

Here was another page from a Dumas romance. The reporter started to explain; but there was a merciless gleam, danger even, in the woman's eyes, and he submitted to orders. So, he was led up stairs a captive, and one of the men took a place on guard inside the room.

The dawn was creeping on when Hatch fell asleep. It was about ten o'clock when he awoke, and the sun was high. His guard, wide eyed and alert, still sat beside the door. For several minutes the reporter lay still, seeking vainly some sort of explanation of what was happening. Then, cheerfully:

"Good-morning."

The guard merely glared at him.

"May I inquire your name?" the reporter asked.

There was no answer.

"Or the lady's name?"

No answer.

"Or why I am where I am?"

Still no answer.

"What would you do," Hatch went on casually, "if I should try to get out of here?"

The guard handled his revolver carelessly. The reporter was satisfied. "He is not deaf, that's certain," he told himself.

He spent the remainder of the morning yawning and wondering what The Thinking Machine was about; also he had a few casual reflections as to the mental state of his city editor at his failure to appear and follow up the kidnapping story. He finally dismissed all these ideas with a shrug of his shoulders, and sat down to wait for whatever was coming.

It was in the early afternoon that he heard laughter in the next room. First there was a woman's voice, then the shrill cackle of a child. Finally he distinguished some words.

"You ticky!" exclaimed the child, and again there was the laugh.

The reporter understood "you ticky," coupled with the subsequent peal, to be a sort of abbreviated English for "you tickle." After awhile the merriment died away and he heard the child's insistent demand for something else.

"You be hossie."

"No, no," the woman expostulated.

"Yes, you be hossie."

"No, let Morris be hossie."

"No, no. You be hossie."

That was all. Evidently some one was "hossie," because there was a sound of romping; but finally even that died away. Hatch yawned away another hour or so under the constant eye of his guard, and then began to grow restless. He turned on the guard savagely.

"Isn't anything ever going to happen?" he demanded.

The guard didn't say.

"You'll never convict yourself on your own statement," Hatch burst out again in disgust.

He stretched out on a couch, bored by the sameness which had characterized the last few hours of his adventure. His attention was attracted by some movement at the door, and he looked up. His guard heard, too, and with revolver in hand went to the door, carefully unlocking it. After a few hurriedly whispered words he left the room, and Hatch was meditating an instant rush for a window, when the woman entered. She had the revolver now. She was deathly white and gripped the weapon menacingly. She did not lock the door— only closed it— but with her own person and the attention compelling revolver she blocked the way.

"What is it now?" asked Hatch wearily.

"You must not speak or call, or make the slightest sound," she whispered tensely. "If you do, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

Hatch confessed by a nod that he understood. He also imagined that he understood this sudden change in guard, and the warning. It was because some one was about to enter or had entered the house. His conjecture was partially confirmed instantly by a distant rapping on a door.

"Not a sound, now!" whispered the woman.

From somewhere below he heard the sound of steps as one of the servants answered the knock. After a short wait he heard two voices mumbling. Suddenly one was raised clearly.

"Why, Worcester can't be that far," it protested irritably.

Hatch knew. It was The Thinking Machine. The woman noted a change in his manner and drew back the hammer of the revolver. The reporter saw the idea. He didn't dare call. That would be suicide. Perhaps he could attract attention, though; drop a key, for instance. The sound might reach The Thinking Machine and be interpreted aright. One hand was in a pocket, and slowly he was drawing out a key. He would risk it. Maybe——

Then came a new sound. It was the patter of small feet. The guarded door was pushed open and a tousle-headed child, a boy, ran in.

"Mama, mama!" he called loudly. He ran to the woman and clutched at her skirts.

"Oh, my baby! what have you done?" she asked piteously. "We are lost, lost!"

"Me 'faid," the child went on.

With the door— his avenue of possible escape— open, Hatch did not drop the key. Instead, he gazed at the woman, then down at the child. From below he again heard The Thinking Machine.

"How far is the car track, then?"

The servant answered something. There was a sound of steps, and the front door closed. Hatch knew that The Thinking Machine had come and gone; yet he was strangely calm about it, quite himself, despite the fact that a nervous finger still lay on the trigger of the pistol.

From his refuge behind his mother's skirts the boy peered around at Hatch shyly. The reporter gazed, gazed, all eyes, and then was convinced. The boy was Walter Francis, the kidnapped boy whose pictures were being published in every newspaper of a dozen cities. Here was a story -- the story -- the superlative story.

"Mrs. Francis, if you wouldn't mind letting down that hammer— " he suggested modestly. "I assure you I contemplate no harm, and you— you are very nervous."

"You know me, then?" she asked.

"Only because the child there, Walter, called you mama."

Mrs. Francis lowered the revolver hammer so recklessly that Hatch involuntarily dodged. And then came a scene, a scene with tears in it, and all those things which stir men, even reporters. Finally the woman dropped the revolver on the floor and swept the boy up in her arms with a gesture of infinite tenderness. He cuddled there, content. At that moment Hatch could have walked out the door, but instead he sat down. He was just beginning to get interested.

"They sha'n't take you!" sobbed the mother.

"There is no immediate danger," the reporter assured her. "The man who came here for that purpose has gone. Meanwhile, if you will tell me the facts, perhaps— perhaps I may be able to be of some assistance."

Mrs. Francis looked at him, startled. "Help me?"

"If you will explain, perhaps I can do something," said Hatch again.

Somewhere back in a remote recess of his brain he was remembering. And as it became clearer he was surprised that he had not remembered sooner. It was a story of marital infelicity, and its principals were Stanley Francis and his wife— this bewilderingly pretty young woman before him. It had been only eight or nine months back.

Technically she had deserted Stanley Francis. There had been some violent scene and she left their home and little son. Soon afterward she went to Europe. It had been rumored that divorce proceedings would follow, or at least a legal separation, but nothing had ever come of the rumors. All this Mrs. Francis told to Hatch in little incoherent bursts, punctuated with sobs and tears.

"He struck me, he struck me!" she declared with a flush of anger and shame, "and I went then on impulse. I was desperate. Later, even before I went to Europe, I knew the legal status of the affair; but the thought of my boy lingered, and I resolved to come back and get him— abduct him, if necessary. I did that, and I will keep him if I have to kill the one who opposes me."

Hatch saw the mother instinct here, that tigerish ferocity of love which stops at nothing.

"I conceived the plan of demanding fifty thousand dollars of my husband under threat of abduction," Mrs. Francis went on. "My purpose was to make it appear that the plot was that of professional— what would you call it? — kidnappers. But I did not send the letter demanding this until I had perfected all my plans and knew I could get the boy. I wanted my husband to think it was the work of others, at least until we were safe in Europe, because even then I imagined there would be a long legal fight.

"After I stole the boy and he recognized me, I wanted him as my own, absolutely safe from legal action by his father. Then I wrote to Mr. Francis, telling him I had Walter, and asking that in pity to me he legally give me the boy by a document of some sort. In that letter I told how he might signify his willingness to do this; but of course I would not give my address. I placed a string, the one you saw, in that tree after having tied two knots in it. It was a silly, romantic means of communication he and I used years ago in my girlhood when we both lived near here. If he agreed that I should have the child, he was to come or send some one last night and unties one of the two knots."

Then, to Hatch, the intricacies passed away. He understood clearly. Instead of going to the police with the second letter from his wife, Francis had gone to The Thinking Machine. The Thinking Machine sent the reporter to untie the knot, which was an answer of "Yes" to Mrs. Francis's request for the child. Then she would have written giving her address, and there would have been a clue to the child's whereabouts. It was all perfectly clear now.

"Did you specifically mention a string in your letter?" he asked.

"No. I merely stated that I would expect his answer in that place, and would leave something there by which he could signify 'Yes' or 'No,' as he did years ago. The string was one of the odd little ideas of my girlhood. Two knots meant 'No'; one knot meant 'Yes'; and if the string was found by anyone else it meant nothing."

This, then, was why The Thinking Machine did not tell him at first that he would find a string and instruct him to untie one of the knots in it. The scientist had seen that it might have been one of the other tokens of the old romantic days.

"When I met you there," Mrs. Francis resumed. "I believed you were an imposter— I don't know why, I just believed it— yet your answers were in a way correct. For fear you were not what you seemed— that you were a detective— I brought you here to keep you until I got the child's release. You know the rest."

The reporter picked up the revolver and whirled it in his fingers. The action, apparently, did not disturb Mrs. Francis.

"Why did you remain here so long after you got the child?" asked Hatch.

"I believed it was safer than in a city," she answered frankly. "The steamer on which I planned to sail for Europe with my boy leaves to-morrow. I had intended going to New York to-night to catch it; but now— "

The reporter glanced down at the child. He had fallen asleep in his mother's arms. His tiny hand clung to her. The picture was a pretty one. Hatch made up his mind.

"Well, you'd better pack up," he said. "I'll go with you to New York and do all I can."

It was on the New York-bound train several hours later that Hatch turned to Mrs. Francis with an odd smile.

"Why didn't you load that revolver?" he asked.

"Because I was horribly afraid some one would get hurt with it," she replied laughingly.

She was gay with that gentle happiness of possession which blesses woman for the agonies of motherhood, and glanced from time to time at the berth across the aisle where her baby was asleep. Looking upon it all, Hatch was content. He didn't know his exact position in law; but that didn't matter, after all.

* * *

HUTCHINSON HATCH'S exclusive story of the escape to Europe of Mrs. Francis and her boy was remarkably complete; but all the facts were not in it. It was a week or so later that he detailed them to The Thinking Machine.

"I knew it," said the scientist at the end. "Francis came to me, and I interested myself in the case, practically knowing every fact from his statement. When you heard me speak in the house where you were a prisoner I was there merely to convince myself that the mother did have the baby. I heard it call her and went away satisfied. I knew you were there, too, because you had failed to 'phone me the second time as I expected, and I knew intuitively what you would do when you got the real facts about Mrs. Francis and her baby. I went away so that the field might be clear for you to act. Francis himself is a detestable puppy. I told him so."

And that was all that was ever said about it.

___________________

4. The Tragedy of the Life Raft

‘TWAS A SHABBY picture altogether— old Peter Ordway in his office; the man shriveled, bent, cadaverous, aquiline of feature, with skin like parchment, and cunning, avaricious eyes; the room gaunt and curtainless, with smoke-grimed windows, dusty, cheerless walls, and threadbare carpet, worn through here and there to the rough flooring beneath. Peter Ordway sat in a swivel chair in front of an ancient roll-top desk. Opposite, at a typewriter upon a table of early vintage, was his secretary— one Walpole, almost a replica in middle age of his employer, seedy and servile, with lips curled sneeringly as a dog's.

Familiarly in the financial district, Peter Ordway was "The Usurer," a title which was at once a compliment to his merciless business sagacity and an expression of contempt for his methods. He was the money lender of the Street, holding in cash millions which no one dared to estimate. In the last big panic the richest man in America, the great John Morton in person, had spent hours in the shabby office, begging for the loan of the few millions in currency necessary to check the market. Peter Ordway didn't fail to take full advantage of his pressing need. Mr. Morton got the millions on collateral worth five times the sum borrowed, but Peter Ordway fixed the rate of interest, a staggering load.

Now we have the old man at the beginning of a day's work. After glancing through two or three letters which lay open on his desk, he picked up at last a white card, across the face of which was scribbled in pencil three words only:

One million dollars!

Ordinarily it was a phrase to bring a smile to his withered lips, a morsel to roll under his wicked old tongue; but now he stared at it without comprehension. Finally he turned to his secretary, Walpole.

"What is this?" he demanded querulously, in his thin, rasping voice.

"I don't know, sir," was the reply. "I found it in the morning's mail, sir, addressed to you."

Peter Ordway tore the card across, and dropped it into the battered wastebasket beside him, after which he settled down to the ever-congenial occupation of making money.

On the following morning the card appeared again, with only three words, as before:

One million dollars!

Abruptly the aged millionaire wheeled around to face Walpole, who sat regarding him oddly.

"It came the same way, sir," the seedy little secretary explained hastily, "in a blank envelope. I saved the envelope, sir, if you would like to see it."

"Tear it up!" Peter Ordway directed sharply.

Reduced to fragments, the envelope found its way into the wastebasket. For many minutes Peter Ordway sat with dull, lusterless eyes, gazing through the window into the void of a leaden sky. Slowly, as he looked, the sky became a lashing, mist-covered sea, a titanic chaos of water; and upon its troubled bosom rode a life raft to which three persons were clinging. Now the frail craft was lifted up, up to the dizzy height of a giant wave; now it shot down sickeningly into the hissing trough beyond; again, for minutes it seemed altogether lost in the far-plunging spume. Peter Ordway shuddered and closed his eyes.

On the third morning the card, grown suddenly ominous, appeared again:

One million dollars!

Peter Ordway came to his feet with an exclamation that was almost a snarl, turning, twisting the white slip nervously in his talonlike fingers. Astonished, Walpole half arose, his yellow teeth bared defensively, and his eyes fixed upon the millionaire.

"Telephone Blake's Agency," the old man commanded, "and tell them to send a detective here at once."

Came in answer to the summons a suave, smooth-faced, indolent-appearing young man, Fragson by name, who sat down after having regarded with grave suspicion the rickety chair to which he was invited. He waited inquiringly.

"Find the person— man or woman— who sent me that!"

Peter Ordway flung the card and the envelope in which it had come upon a leaf of his desk. Fragson picked them up and scrutinized them leisurely. Obviously the handwriting was that of a man, an uneducated man, he would have said. The postmark on the envelope was Back Bay; the time of mailing seven p.m. on the night before. Both envelope and card were of a texture which might be purchased in a thousand shops.

"'One million dollars!'" Fragson read. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know," the millionaire answered.

"What do you think it means?"

"Nor do I know that, unless— unless it's some crank, or— or blackmailer. I've received three of them— one each morning for three days."

Fragson placed the card inside the envelope with irritating deliberation, and thrust it into his pocket, after which he lifted his eyes quite casually to those of the secretary, Walpole. Walpole, who had been staring at the two men tensely, averted his shifty gaze, and busied himself at his desk.

"Any idea who sent them?" Fragson was addressing Peter Ordway, but his eyes lingered lazily upon Walpole.

"No." The word came emphatically, after an almost imperceptible instant of hesitation.

"Why"— and the detective turned to the millionaire curiously— "why do you think it might be blackmail? Has any one any knowledge of any act of yours that— "

Some swift change crossed the parchmentlike face of the old man. For an instant he was silent; then his avaricious eyes leaped into flame; his fingers closed convulsively on the arms of his chair.

"Blackmail may be attempted without reason," he stormed suddenly. "Those cards must have some meaning. Find the person who sent them."

Fragson arose thoughtfully, and drew on his gloves.

"And then?" he queried.

"That's all!" curtly. "Find him, and let me know who he is."

"Do I understand that you don't want me to go into his motives? You merely want to locate the man?"

"That understanding is correct— yes."

. . . a lashing, mist-covered sea; a titanic chaos of water, and upon its troubled bosom rode a life raft to which three persons were clinging. . . .

Walpole's crafty eyes followed his millionaire employer's every movement as he entered his office on the morning of the fourth day. There was nervous restlessness in Peter Ordway's manner; the parchment face seemed more withered; the pale lips were tightly shut. For an instant he hesitated, as if vaguely fearing to begin on the morning's mail. But no fourth card had come! Walpole heard and understood the long breath of relief which followed upon realization of this fact.

Just before ten o'clock a telegram was brought in. Peter Ordway opened it:

One million dollars!

Three hours later at his favorite table in the modest restaurant where he always went for luncheon, Peter Ordway picked up his napkin, and a white card fluttered to the floor:

One million dollars!

Shortly after two o'clock a messenger boy entered his office, whistling, and laid an envelope on the desk before him:

One million dollars!

Instinctively he had known what was within.

At eight o'clock that night, in the shabby apartments where he lived with his one servant, he answered an insistent ringing of the telephone bell.

"What do you want?" he demanded abruptly.

"One million dollars!" The words came slowly, distinctly.

"Who are you?"

"One million dollars!" faintly, as an echo.

Again Fragson was summoned, and was ushered into the cheerless room where the old millionaire sat cringing with fear, his face reflecting some deadly terror which seemed to be consuming him. Incoherently he related the events of the day. Fragson listened without comment, and went out.

On the following morning— Sunday— he returned to report. He found his client propped upon a sofa, haggard and worn, with eyes feverishly aglitter.

"Nothing doing," the detective began crisply. "It looked as if we had a clew which would at least give us a description of the man, but -- " He shook his head.

"But that telegram— some one filed it?" Peter Ordway questioned huskily. "The message the boy brought— "

"The telegram was inclosed in an envelope with the money necessary to send it, and shoved through the mail slot of a telegraph office in Cambridge," the detective informed him explicitly. "That was Friday night. It was telegraphed to you on Saturday morning. The card brought by the boy was handed in at a messenger agency by some street urchin, paid for, and delivered to you. The telephone call was from an automatic station in Brookline. A thousand persons use it every day."

For the first time in many years, Peter Ordway failed to appear at his office Monday morning. Instead he sent a note to his secretary:

Bring all important mail to my apartment to-night at eight o'clock. On your way uptown buy a good revolver with cartridges to fit.

Twice that day a physician— Doctor Anderson— was hurriedly summoned to Peter Ordway's side. First there had been merely a fainting spell; later in the afternoon came complete collapse. Doctor Anderson diagnosed the case tersely.

"Nerves," he said. "Overwork, and no recreation."

"But, doctor, I have no time for recreation!" the old millionaire whined. "My business -- "

"Time!" Doctor Anderson growled indignantly. "You're seventy years old, and you're worth fifty million dollars. The thing you must have if you want to spend any of that money is an ocean trip— a good, long ocean trip— around the world, if you like."

"No, no, no!" It was almost a shriek. Peter Ordway's evil countenance, already pallid, became ashen; abject terror was upon him. . . . a lashing, mist-covered sea; a titanic chaos of water, and upon its troubled bosom rode a life raft to which three persons were clinging. . . .

"No, no, no!" he mumbled, his talon fingers clutching the physician's hand convulsively. "I'm afraid, afraid!"

The slender thread which held sordid soul to withered body was severed that night by a well-aimed bullet. Promptly at eight o'clock Walpole had arrived, and gone straight to the room where Peter Ordway sat propped up on a sofa. Nearly an hour later the old millionaire's one servant, Mrs. Robinson, answered the doorbell, admitting Mr. Franklin Pingree, a well-known financier. He had barely stepped into the hallway when there came a reverberating crash as of a revolver shot from the room where Peter Ordway and his secretary were.

Together Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson ran to the door. Still propped upon the couch, Peter Ordway sat— dead. A bullet had penetrated his heart. His head was thrown back, his mouth was open, and his right hand dangled at his side. Leaning over the body was his secretary, Walpole. In one hand he held a revolver, still smoking. He didn't turn as they entered, but stood staring down upon the man blankly. Mr. Pingree disarmed him from behind.

Hereto I append a partial transcript of a statement made by Frederick Walpole immediately following his arrest on the charge of murdering his millionaire employer. This statement he repeated in substance at the trial:

I am forty-eight years old. I had been in Mr. Ordway's employ for twenty-two years. My salary was eight dollars a week. . . . I went to his apartments on the night of the murder in answer to a note. (Note produced.) I bought the revolver and gave it to him. He loaded it and thrust it under the covering beside him on the sofa. . . . He dictated four letters and was starting on another. I heard the door open behind me. I thought it was Mrs. Robinson, as I had not heard the front-door bell ring.

Mr. Ordway stopped dictating, and I looked at him. He was staring toward the door. He seemed to be frightened. I looked around. A man had come in. He seemed very old. He had a flowing white beard and long white hair. His face was ruddy, like a seaman's.

"Who are you?" Mr. Ordway asked.

"You know me all right," said the man. "We were together long enough on that craft." (Or "raft," prisoner was not positive.)

"I never saw you before," said Mr. Ordway. "I don't know what you mean."

"I have come for the reward," said the man.

"What reward?" Mr. Ordway asked.

"One million dollars!" said the man.

Nothing else was said. Mr. Ordway drew his revolver and fired. The other man must have fired at the same instant, for Mr. Ordway fell back dead. The man disappeared. I ran to Mr. Ordway and picked up the revolver. He had dropped it. Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson came in. . . .

Reading of Peter Ordway's will disclosed the fact that he had bequeathed unconditionally the sum of one million dollars to his secretary, Walpole, for "loyal services." Despite Walpole's denial of any knowledge of this bequest, he was immediately placed under arrest. At the trial, the facts appeared as I have related them. The district attorney summed up briefly. The motive was obvious -- Walpole's desire to get possession of one million dollars in cash. Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson, entering the room directly after the shot had been fired, had met no one coming out, as they would have had there been another man -- there was no other egress. Also, they had heard only one shot -- and that shot had found Peter Ordway's heart. Also, the bullet which killed Peter Ordway had been positively identified by experts as of the same make and same caliber as those others in the revolver Walpole had bought. The jury was out twenty minutes. The verdict was guilty. Walpole was sentenced to death.

It was not until then that "The Thinking Machine" — otherwise Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., F. R. S., M. D., LL. D., et cetera, et cetera, logician, analyst, master mind in the sciences -- turned his crabbed genius upon the problem.

Five days before the date set for Walpole's execution, Hutchinson Hatch, newspaper reporter, introduced himself into The Thinking Machine's laboratory, bringing with him a small roll of newspapers. Incongruously enough, they were old friends, these two— on one hand, the man of science, absorbed in that profession of which he was already the master, small, almost grotesque in appearance, and living the life of a recluse; on the other, a young man of the world, worldly, enthusiastic, capable, indefatigable.

So it came about The Thinking Machine curled himself in a great chair, and sat for nearly two hours partially submerged in newspaper accounts of the murder and of the trial. The last paper finished, he dropped his enormous head back against his chair, turned his petulant, squinting eyes upward, and sat for minute after minute staring into nothingness.

"Why," he queried, at last, "do you think he is innocent?"

"I don't know that I do think it," Hatch replied. "It is simply that attention has been attracted to Walpole's story again because of a letter the governor received. Here is a copy of it."

The Thinking Machine read it:

You are about to allow the execution of an innocent man. Walpole's story on the witness stand was true. He didn't kill Peter Ordway. I killed him for a good and sufficient reason.

"Of course," the reporter explained, "the letter wasn't signed. However, three handwriting experts say it was written by the same hand that wrote the 'One million dollar' slips. Incidentally the prosecution made no attempt to connect Walpole's handwriting with those slips. They couldn't have done it, and it would have weakened their case."

"And what," inquired the diminutive scientist, "does the governor purpose doing?"

"Nothing," was the reply. "To him it is merely one of a thousand crank letters."

"He knows the opinions of the experts?"

"He does. I told him."

"The governor," remarked The Thinking Machine gratuitously, "is a fool." Then: "It is sometimes interesting to assume the truth of the improbable. Suppose we assume Walpole's story to be true, assuming at the same time that this letter is true— what have we?"

Tiny, cobwebby lines of thought furrowed the domelike brow as Hatch watched; the slender fingers were brought precisely tip to tip; the pale-blue eyes narrowed still more.

"If," Hatch pointed out, "Walpole's attorney had been able to find a bullet mark anywhere in that room, or a single isolated drop of blood, it would have proven that Peter Ordway did fire as Walpole says he did, and— "

"If Walpole's story is true," The Thinking Machine went on serenely, heedless of the interruption, "we must believe that a man— say, Mr. X— entered a private apartment without ringing. Very well. Either the door was unlocked, he entered by a window, or he had a false key. We must believe that two shots were fired simultaneously, sounding as one. We must believe that Mr. X was either wounded or the bullet mark has been overlooked; we must believe Mr. X went out by the one door at the same instant Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson entered. We must believe they either did not see him, or they lied."

"That's what convicted Walpole," Hatch declared. "Of course, it's impossible—— "

"Nothing is impossible, Mr. Hatch," stormed The Thinking Machine suddenly. "Don't say that. It annoys me exceedingly."

Hatch shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. Again minute after minute passed, and the scientist sat motionless, staring now at a plan of Peter Ordway's apartment he had found in a newspaper, the while his keen brain dissected the known facts.

"After all," he announced, at last, "there's only one vital question: Why Peter Ordway's deadly fear of water?"

The reporter shook his head blankly. He was never surprised any more at The Thinking Machine's manner of approaching a problem. Never by any chance did he take hold of it as any one else would have.

"Some personal eccentricity, perhaps," Hatch suggested hopefully. "Some people are afraid of cats, others of — "

"Go to Peter Ordway's place," The Thinking Machine interrupted tartly, "and find if it has been necessary to replace a broken windowpane anywhere in the building since Mr. Ordway's death."

"You mean, perhaps, that Mr. X, as you call him, may have escaped -- " the newspaper man began.

"Also find out if there was a curtain hanging over or near the door where Mr. X must have gone out."

"Right!"

"We'll assume that the room where Ordway died has been gone over inch by inch in the search for a stray shot," the scientist continued. "Let's go farther. If Ordway fired, it was probably toward the door where Mr. X entered. If Mr. X left the door open behind him, the shot may have gone into the private hall beyond, and may be buried in the door immediately opposite." He indicated on the plan as he talked. "This second door opens into a rear hall. If both doors chanced to be open -- "

Hatch came to his feet with blazing eyes. He understood. It was a possibility no one had considered. Ordway's shot, if he had fired one, might have lodged a hundred feet away.

"Then if we find a bullet mark— " he questioned tensely.

"Walpole will not go to the electric chair."

"And if we don't?"

"We will look farther," said The Thinking Machine. "We will look for a wounded man of perhaps sixty years, who is now, or has been, a sailor; who is either clean-shaven or else has a close-cropped beard, probably dyed -- a man who may have a false key to the Ordway apartment— the man who wrote this note to the governor."

"You believe, then," Hatch demanded, "that Walpole is innocent?"

"I believe nothing of the sort," snapped the scientist. "He's probably guilty. If we find no bullet mark, I'm merely saying what sort of man we must look for."

"But— but how do you know so much about him— what he looks like?" asked the reporter, in bewilderment.

"How do I know?" repeated the crabbed little scientist. "How do I know that two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time? By adding the units together. Logic, that's all— logic, logic!"

While Hatch was scrutinizing the shabby walls of the old building where Peter Ordway had lived his miserly life, The Thinking Machine called on Doctor Anderson, who had been Peter Ordway's physician for a score of years. Doctor Anderson couldn't explain the old millionaire's aversion to water, but perhaps if the scientist went farther back in his inquiries there was an old man, John Page, still living who had been Ordway's classmate in school. Doctor Anderson knew of him because he had once treated him at Peter Ordway's request. So The Thinking Machine came to discuss this curious trait of character with John Page. What the scientist learned didn't appear, but whatever it was it sent him to the public library, where he spent several hours pulling over the files of old newspapers.

All his enthusiasm gone, Hatch returned to report.

"Nothing," he said. "No trace of a bullet."

"Any windowpanes changed or broken?"

"Not one."

"There were curtains, of course, over the door through which Mr. X entered Ordway's room." It was not a question.

"There were. They're there yet."

"In that case," and The Thinking Machine raised his squinting eyes to the ceiling, "our sailorman was wounded."

"There is a sailorman, then?" Hatch questioned eagerly.

"I'm sure I don't know," was the astonishing reply. "If there is, he answers generally the description I gave. His name is Ben Holderby. His age is not sixty; it's fifty-eight."

The newspaper man took a long breath of amazement. Surely here was the logical faculty lifted to the nth power! The Thinking Machine was describing, naming, and giving the age of a man whose existence he didn't even venture to assert— a man who never had been in existence so far as the reporter knew! Hatch fanned himself weakly with his hat.

"Odd situation, isn't it?" asked The Thinking Machine. "It only proves that logic is inexorable— that it can only fail when the units fail; and no unit has failed yet. Meantime, I shall leave you to find Holderby. Begin with the sailors' lodging houses, and don't scare him off. I can add nothing to the description except that he is probably using another name."

Followed a feverish two days for Hatch— a hurried, nightmarish effort to find a man who might or might not exist, in order to prevent a legal murder. With half a dozen other clever men from his office, he finally achieved the impossible.

"I've found him!" he announced triumphantly over the telephone to The Thinking Machine. "He's stopping at Werner's, in the North End, under the name of Benjamin Goode. He is clean-shaven, his hair and brows are dyed black, and he is wounded in the left arm."

"Thanks," said The Thinking Machine simply. "Bring Detective Mallory, of the bureau of criminal investigation, and come here to-morrow at noon prepared to spend the day. You might go by and inform the governor, if you like, that Walpole will not be electrocuted Friday."

Detective Mallory came at Hatch's request— came with a mouthful of questions into the laboratory, where The Thinking Machine was at work.

"What's it all about?" he demanded.

"Precisely at five o-clock this afternoon a man will try to murder me," the scientist informed him placidly, without lifting his eyes. "I'd like to have you here to prevent it."

Mallory was much given to outbursts of amazement; he humored himself now:

"Who is the man? What's he going to try to kill you for? Why not arrest him now?"

"His name is Benjamin Holderby," The Thinking Machine answered the questions in order. "He'll try to kill me because I shall accuse him of murder. If he should be arrested now, he wouldn't talk. If I told you whom he murdered, you wouldn't believe it."

Detective Mallory stared without comprehension.

"If he isn't to try to kill you until five o'clock," he asked, "why send for me at noon?"

"Because he may know you, and if he watched and saw you enter he wouldn't come. At half past four you and Mr. Hatch will step into the adjoining room. When Holderby enters, he will face me. Come behind him, but don't lift a finger until he threatens me. If you have to shoot -- kill! He'll be dangerous until he's dead."

It was just two minutes of five o'clock when the bell rang, and Martha ushered Benjamin Holderby into the laboratory. He was past middle age, powerful, with deep-bronzed face and the keen eyes of the sea. His hair and brows were dyed— badly dyed; his left arm hung limply. He found The Thinking Machine alone.

"I got your letter, sir," he said respectfully. "If it's a yacht, I'm willing to ship as master; but I'm too old to do much— "

"Sit down, please," the little scientist invited courteously, dropping into a chair as he spoke. "There are one or two questions I should like to ask. First" — the petulant blue eyes were raised toward the ceiling; the slender fingers came together precisely, tip to tip— "first: Why did you kill Peter Ordway?"

Fell an instant's amazed silence. Benjamin Holderby's muscles flexed, the ruddy face was contorted suddenly with hideous anger, the sinewy right hand closed until great knots appeared in the tendons. Possibly The Thinking Machine had never been nearer death than in that moment when the sailorman towered above him— 'twas giant and weakling. The tiger was about to spring. Then, suddenly as it had come, anger passed from Holderby's face; came instead curiosity, bewilderment, perplexity.

The silence was broken by the sinister click of a revolver. Holderby turned his head slowly, to face Detective Mallory, stared at him oddly, then drew his own revolver, and passed it over, butt foremost.

No word had been spoken. Not once had The Thinking Machine lowered his eyes.

"I killed Peter Ordway," Holderby explained distinctly, "for good and sufficient reasons."

"So you wrote the governor," the scientist observed. "Your motive was born thirty-two years ago?"

"Yes." The sailor seemed merely astonished.

"On a raft at sea?"

"Yes."

"There was murder done on that raft?"

"Yes."

"Instigated by Peter Ordway, who offered you— "

"One million dollars— yes."

"So Peter Ordway is the second man you have killed?"

"Yes."

With mouth agape, Hutchinson Hatch listened greedily; he had— they had— saved Walpole! Mallory's mind was a chaos. What sort of tommyrot was this? This man confessing to a murder for which Walpole was to be electrocuted! His line of thought was broken by the petulant voice of The Thinking Machine.

"Sit down, Mr. Holderby," he was saying, "and tell us precisely what happened on that raft."

'Twas a dramatic story Benjamin Holderby told— a tragedy tale of the sea— a tale of starvation and thirst torture and madness, and ceaseless battling for life— of crime and greed and the power of money even in that awful moment when death seemed the portion of all. The tale began with the foundering of the steamship Neptune, Liverpool to Boston, ninety-one passengers and crew, some thirty-two years ago. In mid-ocean she was smashed to bits by a gale, and went down. Of those aboard only nine persons reached shore alive.

Holderby told the story simply:

"God knows how many of us went through that storm; it raged for days. There were ten of us on our raft when the ship settled, and by dusk of the second day there were only six— one woman, and one child, and four men. The waves would simply smash over us, and when we came to daylight again there was some one missing. There was little enough food and water aboard, anyway, so the people dropping off that way was really what saved— what saved two of us at the end. Peter Ordway was one, and I was the other.

"The first five days were bad enough— short rations, little or no water, no sleep, and all that; but what came after was hell! At the end of that fifth day there were only five of us— Ordway and me, the woman and child, and another man. I don't know whether I went to sleep or was just unconscious; anyway, when I came to there were only the three of us left. I asked Ordway where the woman and child was. He said they were washed off while I was asleep.

"'And a good thing,' he says.

"'Why?' I says.

"'Too many mouths to feed,' he says. 'And still too many.' He meant the other man. 'I've been looking at the rations and the water,' he says. 'There's enough to keep three people alive three days, but if there were only two people -- me and you, for instance?' he says.

"'You mean throw him off?' I says.

"'You're a sailor,' says he. 'If you go, we all go. But we may not be picked up for days. We may starve or die of thirst first. If there were only two of us, we'd have a better chance. I'm worth millions of dollars,' he says. 'If you'll get rid of this other fellow, and we ever come out alive, I'll give you one million dollars!' I didn't say anything. 'If there were only two of us,' says he, 'we would increase our chances of being saved one-third. One million dollars!' says he. 'One million dollars!'

"I expect I was mad with hunger and thirst and sleeplessness and exhaustion. Perhaps he was, too. I know that, regardless of the money he offered, his argument appealed to me. Peter Ordway was a coward; he didn't have the nerve; so an hour later I threw the man overboard, with Peter Ordway looking on.

"Days passed somehow— God knows— and when I came to I had been picked up by a sailing vessel. I was in an asylum for months. When I came out, I asked Ordway for money. He threatened to have me arrested for murder. I pestered him a lot, I guess, for a little later I found myself shanghaied, on the high seas. I didn't come back for thirty years or so. I had almost forgotten the thing until I happened to see Peter Ordway's name in a paper. Then I wrote the slips and mailed them to him. He knew what they meant, and set a detective after me. Then I began hating him all over again, worse than ever. Finally I thought I'd go to his house and make a holdup of it— one million dollars! I don't think I intended to kill him; I thought he'd give me money. I didn't know there was any one with him. I talked to him, and he shot me. I killed him."

Fell a long silence. The Thinking Machine broke it:

"You entered the apartment with a skeleton key?"

"Yes."

"And after the shot was fired, you started out, but dodged behind the curtain at the door when you heard Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson coming in?"

"Yes."

Suddenly Hatch understood why The Thinking Machine had asked him to ascertain if there were curtains at that door. It was quite possible that in the excitement Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson would not have noticed that the man who killed Peter Ordway actually passed them in the doorway.

"I think," said The Thinking Machine, "that that is all. You understand, Mr. Mallory, that this confession is to be presented to the governor immediately, in order to save Walpole's life?" He turned to Holderby. "You don't want an innocent man to die for this crime?"

"Certainly not," was the reply. "That's why I wrote to the governor. Walpole's story was true. I was in court, and heard it." He glanced at Mallory curiously. "Now, if necessary, I'm willing to go to the chair."

"It won't be necessary," The Thinking Machine pointed out. "You didn't go to Peter Ordway's place to kill him— you went there for money you thought he owed you— he fired at you— you shot him. It's hardly self-defense, but it was not premeditated murder."

Detective Mallory whistled. It was the only satisfactory vent for the tangled mental condition which had befallen him. Shortly he went off with Holderby to the governor's office; and an hour later Walpole, deeply astonished, walked out of the death cell— a free man.

Meanwhile Hutchinson Hatch had some questions to ask of The Thinking Machine.

"Logic, logic, Mr. Hatch!" the scientist answered, in that perpetual tone of irritation. "As an experiment, we assumed the truth of Walpole's story. Very well. Peter Ordway was afraid of water. Connect that with the one word 'raft' or 'craft' in Walpole's statement of what the intruder had said. Connect that with his description of that man -- 'ruddy, like a seaman.' Add them up, as you would a sum in arithmetic. You begin to get a glimmer of cause and effect, don't you? Peter Ordway was afraid of the water because of some tragedy there in which he had played a part. That was a tentative surmise. Walpole's description of the intruder said white hair and flowing white beard. It is a common failing of men who disguise themselves to go to the other extreme. I went to the other extreme in conjecturing Holderby's appearance -- clean-shaven or else close-cropped beard and hair -- dyed. Since no bullet mark was found in the building -- remember, we are assuming Walpole's statement to be true -- the man Ordway shot at carried the bullet away with him. Ergo, a seaman with a pistol wound. Seamen, as a rule, stop at the sailors' lodging houses. That's all."

"But— but you knew Holderby's name — his age!" the reporter stammered.

"I learned them in my effort to account for Ordway's fear of water," was the reply. "An old friend, John Page, whom I found through Doctor Anderson, informed me that he had seen some account in a newspaper thirty-two years before, at the time of the wreck of the Neptune, of Peter Ordway's rescue from a raft at sea. He and one other man were picked up. The old newspaper files in the libraries gave me Holderby's name as the other survivor, together with his age. You found Holderby. I wrote to him that I was about to put a yacht in commission, and he had been recommended to me— that is, Benjamin Goode had been recommended. He came in answer to the advertisement. You saw everything else that happened."

"And the so-called 'one million dollar' slips?"

"Had no bearing on the case until Holderby wrote to the governor," said The Thinking Machine. "In that note he confessed the killing; ergo I began to see that the 'One million dollar' slips probably indicated some enormous reward Ordway had offered Holderby. Walpole's statement, too, covers this point. What happened on the raft at sea? I didn't know. I followed an instinct, and guessed." The distinguished scientist arose. "And now," he said, "begone about your business. I must go to work."

Hatch started out, but turned at the door. "Why," he asked, "were you so anxious to know if any windowpane in the Ordway house had been replaced or was broken?"

"Because," the scientist didn't lift his head, "because a bullet might have smashed one, if it was not to be found in the woodwork. If it smashed one, our unknown Mr. X was not wounded."

Upon his own statement, Benjamin Holderby was sentenced to ten years in prison; at the end of three months he was transferred to an asylum after an examination by alienists.

__________________

5. The Problem of the Crystal Gazer

WITH HIDEOUS, goggling eyes the great god Budd sat cross-legged on a pedestal and stared stolidly into the semi-darkness. He saw, by the wavering light of a peacock lamp which swooped down from the ceiling with wings outstretched, what might have been a nook in a palace of East India. Draperies hung here, there, everywhere; richly embroidered divans sprawled about; fierce tiger rugs glared up from the floor; grotesque idols grinned mirthlessly in unexpected corners; strange arms were grouped on the walls. Outside the trolley cars clanged blatantly.

The single human figure was a distinct contradiction of all else. It was that of a man in evening dress, smoking. He was fifty, perhaps sixty, years old with the ruddy colour of one who has lived a great deal out of doors. There was only a touch of gray in his abundant hair and moustache. His eyes were steady and clear, and indolent.

For a long time he sat, then the draperies to his right parted and a girl entered. She was a part of the picture of which the man was a contradiction. Her lustrous black hair flowed about her shoulders; lambent mysteries lay in her eyes. Her dress was the dress of the East. For a moment she stood looking at the man and then entered with light tread.

"Varick Sahib," she said, timidly, as if it were a greeting. "Do I intrude?" Her voice was softly guttural with the accent of her native tongue.

"Oh no, Jadeh. Come in," said the man.

She smiled frankly and sat down on a hassock near him.

"My brother?" she asked.

"He is in the cabinet."

Varick had merely glanced at her and then continued his thoughtful gaze into vacancy. From time to time she looked up at him shyly, with a touch of eagerness, but there was no answering interest in his manner. His thoughts were far away.

"May I ask what brings you this time, Sahib?" she inquired at last.

"A little deal in the market," responded Varick, carelessly. "It seems to have puzzled Adhem as much as it did me. He has been in the cabinet for half an hour."

He stared on musingly as he smoked, then dropped his eyes to the slender, graceful figure of Jadeh. With knees clasped in her hands she leaned back on the hassock deeply thoughtful. Her head was tilted upward and the flickering light fell full on her face. It crossed Varick's mind that she was pretty, and he was about to say so as he would have said it to any other woman, when the curtains behind them were thrown apart and they both glanced around.

Another man— an East Indian— entered. This man was Adhem Singh, the crystal gazer, in the ostentatious robes of a seer. He, too, was a part of the picture. There was an expression of apprehension, mingled with some other impalpable quality on his strong face.

"Well, Adhem?" inquired Varick.

"I have seen strange things, Sahib," replied the seer, solemnly. "The crystal tells me of danger."

"Danger?" repeated Varick with a slight lifting of his brows. "Oh well, in that case I shall keep out of it."

"Not danger to your business, Sahib," the crystal gazer went on with troubled face, "but danger in another way."

The girl, Jadeh, looked at him with quick, startled eyes and asked some question in her native tongue. He answered in the same language, and she rose suddenly with terror stricken face to fling herself at Varick's feet, weeping. Varick seemed to understand too, and looked at the seer in apprehension.

"Death?" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

Adhem was silent for a moment and bowed his head respectfully before the steady, inquiring gaze of the white man.

"Pardon, Sahib," he said at last. "I did not remember that you understood my language."

"What is it?" insisted Varick, abruptly. "Tell me."

"I cannot, Sahib."

"You must," declared the other. He had arisen commandingly. "You must."

The crystal gazer crossed to him and stood for an instant with his hand on the white man's shoulder, and his eyes studying the fear he found in the white man's face.

"The crystal, Sahib," he began. "It tells me that— that— "

"No, no, brother," pleaded the girl.

"Go on," Varick commanded.

"It grieves me to say that which will pain one whom I love as I do you, Sahib," said the seer, slowly. "Perhaps you had rather see for yourself?"

"Well, let me see then," said Varick. "Is it in the crystal?"

"Yes, by the grace of the gods."

"But I can't see anything there," Varick remembered. "I've tried scores of times."

"I believe this will he different, Sahib," said Adhem, quietly. "Can you stand a shock?"

Varick shook himself a little impatiently.

"Of course," he replied. "Yes, yes."

"A very serious shock?"

Again there was an impatient twist of Varick's shoulders.

"Yes, I can stand anything," he exclaimed shortly. "What is it? Let me see."

He strode toward that point in the draperies where Adhem had entered while the girl on her knees, sought with entreating hands to stop him.

"No, no, no," she pleaded. "No."

"Don't do that," Varick expostulated in annoyance, but gently he stooped and lifted her to her feet. "I am not a child— or a fool."

He threw aside the curtains. As they fell softly behind him he heard a pitiful little cry of grief from Jadeh and set his teeth together hard.

He stood in the crystal cabinet. It was somewhat larger than an ordinary closet and had been made impenetrable to the light by hangings of black velvet. For awhile he stood still so that his eyes might become accustomed to the utter blackness, and gradually the sinister fascinating crystal ball appeared, faintly visible by its own mystic luminosity. It rested on a pedestal of black velvet.

Varick was accustomed to his surroundings— he had been in the cabinet many times. Now he dropped down on a stool in front of the table whereon the crystal lay and leaning forward on his arms stared into its limpid depths. Unblinkingly for one, two, three minutes he sat there with his thoughts in a chaos.

After awhile there came a change in the ball. It seemed to glow with a growing light other than its own. Suddenly it darkened completely, and out of this utter darkness grew shadowy, vague forms to which he could give no name. Finally a veil seemed lifted for the globe grew brighter and he leaned forward, eagerly, fearfully. Another veil melted away and a still brighter light illumined the ball.

Now Varick was able to make out objects. Here was a table littered with books and papers, there a chair, yonder a shadowy mantel. Gradually the light grew until his tensely fixed eyes pained him, but he stared steadily on. Another quick brightness came and the objects all became clear. He studied them incredulously for a few seconds, and then he recognized what he saw. It was a room— his study— miles away in his apartments.

A sudden numb chilliness seized him but he closed his teeth hard and gazed on. The outlines of the crystal were disappearing, now they were gone and he saw more. A door opened and a man entered the room into which he was looking. Varick gave a little gasp as he recognized the man. It was— himself. He watched the man— himself— as he moved about the study aimlessly for a time as if deeply troubled, then as he dropped into a chair at the desk. Varick read clearly on the vision-face those emotions which he was suffering in person. As he looked the man made some hopeless gesture with his hands -- his hands— and leaned forward on the desk with his head on his arms. Varick shuddered.

For a long time, it seemed, the man sat motionless, then Varick became conscious of another figure— a man— in the room. This figure had come into the vision from his own view point. His face was averted— Varick did not recognize the figure, but he saw something else and started in terror. A knife was in the hand of the unknown, and he was creeping stealthily toward the unconscious figure in the chair— himself— with the weapon raised.

An inarticulate cry burst from Varick's colourless lips— a cry of warning— as he saw the unknown creep on, on, on toward— himself. He saw the figure that was himself move a little and the unknown leaped. The upraised knife swept down and was buried to the handle. Again a cry, an unintelligible shriek, burst from Varick's lips; his heart fluttered and perspiration poured from his face. With incoherent mutterings he sank forward helplessly.

How long he remained there he didn't know, but at last he compelled himself to look again. The crystal glittered coldly on its pedestal of velvet but that hideous thing which had been there was gone. The thought came to him to bring it back, to see more, but repulsive fear, terror seized upon him. He rose and staggered out of the cabinet. His face was pallid and his hands clasped and unclasped nervously.

Jadeh was lying on a divan sobbing. She leaped to her feet when he entered, and looking into his face she knew. Again she buried her face in her hands and wept afresh. Adhem stood with moody eyes fixed on the great god Budd.

"I saw— I understand," said Varick between his teeth, "but— I don't believe it."

"The crystal never lies, Sahib," said the seer, sorrowfully.

"But it can't be— that," Varick declared protestingly.

"Be careful, Sahib, oh, be careful," urged the girl.

"Of course I shall be careful," said Varick, shortly. Suddenly he turned to the crystal gazer and there was a menace in his tone. "Did such a thing ever appear to you before?"

"Only once, Sahib."

"And did it come true?"

Adhem inclined his head, slowly.

"I may see you tomorrow," exclaimed Varick suddenly. "This room is stifling. I must go out."

With twitching hands he drew on a light coat over his evening dress, picked up his hat and rushed out into the world of realities. The crystal gazer stood for a moment while Jadeh clung to his arm, tremblingly.

"It is as the gods will," he said sadly, at last.

* * * *

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen— The Thinking Machine— received Howard Varick in the small reception room and invited him to a seat. Varick's face was ashen; there were dark lines under his eyes and in them there was the glitter of an ungovernable terror. Every move showed the nervousness which gripped him. The Thinking Machine squinted at him curiously, then dropped back into his big chair.

For several minutes Varick said nothing; he seemed to be struggling to control himself. Suddenly he burst out:

"I'm going to die some day next week. Is there any way to prevent it?"

The Thinking Machine turned his great yellow head and looked at him in a manner which nearly indicated surprise.

"Of course if you've made up your mind to do it," he said irritably, "I don't see what can be done." There was a trace of irony in his voice, a coldness which brought Varick around a little. "Just how is it going to happen?"

"I shall be murdered— stabbed in the back— by a man whom I don't know," Varick rushed on desperately.

"Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate," commented the scientist. "Tell me something about it. But here— " He arose and went into his laboratory. After a moment he returned and handed a glass of some effervescent liquid to Varick, who gulped it down. "Take a minute to pull yourself together," instructed the scientist.

He resumed his seat and sat silent with his long, slender fingers pressed tip to tip. Gradually Varick recovered. It was a fierce fight for the mastery of emotion.

"Now," directed The Thinking Machine at last, "tell me about it."

Varick told just what happened lucidly enough, and The Thinking Machine listened with polite interest. Once or twice he turned and looked at his visitor.

"Do you believe in any psychic force?" Varick asked once.

"I don't disbelieve in anything until I have proven that it cannot be," was the answer. "The God who hung a sun up there has done other things which we will never understand." There was a little pause, then: "How did you meet this man, Adhem Singh?"

"I have been interested for years in the psychic, the occult, the things we don't understand," Varick replied. "I have a comfortable fortune, no occupation, no dependents and made this a sort of hobby. I have studied it superficially all over the world. I met Adhem Singh in India ten years ago, afterwards in England where he went through Oxford with some financial assistance from me, and later here. Two years ago he convinced me that there was something in crystal gazing— call it telepathy, self hypnotism, sub-conscious mental action— what you will. Since then the science, I can call it nothing else, has guided me in every important act of my life."

"Through Adhem Singh?"

"Yes."

"And under a pledge of secrecy, I imagine— that is secrecy as to the nature of his revelations?"

"Yes."

"Any taint of insanity in your family?"

Varick wondered whether the question was in the nature of insolent reproof, or was a request for information. He construed it as the latter.

"No," he answered. "Never a touch of it."

"How often have you consulted Mr. Singh?"

"Many times. There have been occasions when he would tell me nothing because, he explained, the crystal told him nothing. There have been other times when he advised me correctly. He has never given me bad advice even in intricate stock operations, therefore I have been compelled to believe him in all things."

"You were never able to see anything yourself in the crystal until this vision of death, last Tuesday night you say?"

"That was the first."

"How do you know the murder is to take place at any given time— that is next week, as you say?"

"That is the information Adhem Singh gave me," was the reply. "He can read the visions— they mean more to him than— "

"In other words, he makes it a profession?" interrupted the scientist.

"Yes."

"Go on."

"The horror of the thing impressed me so— both of us— that he has at my request twice invoked the vision since that night. He, like you, wanted to know when it would happen. There is a calendar by weeks in my study; that is, only one week is shown on it at a time. The last time the vision appeared he noted this calendar. The week was that beginning next Sunday, the 21st of this month. The only conclusion we could reach was it would happen during that week."

The Thinking Machine arose and paced back and forth across the room deeply thoughtful. At last he stopped before his visitor.

"It's perfectly amazing," he commented emphatically. "It approaches nearer to the unbelievable than anything I have ever heard of."

Varick's response was a look that was almost grateful.

"You believe it impossible then?" he asked, eagerly.

"Nothing is impossible," declared the other aggressively. "Now, Mr. Varick, you are firmly convinced that what you saw was prophetic? That you will die in that manner, in that place?"

"I can't believe anything else -- I can't," was the response.

"And you have no idea of the identity of the murderer-to-be, if I may use that phrase?"

"Not the slightest. The figure was wholly unfamiliar to me."

"And you know— you know— that the room you saw in the crystal was yours?"

"I know that absolutely. Rugs, furniture, mantel, books, everything was mine."

The Thinking Machine was again silent for a time.

"In that event," he said at last, "the affair is perfectly simple. Will you place yourself in my hands and obey my directions implicitly?"

"Yes." There was an eager, hopeful note in Varick's voice now.

"I am going to try to disarrange the affairs of Fate a little bit," explained the scientist gravely. "I don't know what will happen but it will be interesting to try to throw the inevitable, the pre-ordained I might say, out of gear, won't it?"

With a quizzical, grim expression about his thin lips The Thinking Machine went to the telephone in an adjoining room and called some one. Varick heard neither the name nor what was said, merely the mumble of the irritable voice. He glanced up as the scientist returned.

"Have you any servants— a valet for instance?" asked the scientist.

"Yes, I have an aged servant, a valet, but he is now in France, I gave him a little vacation. I really don't need one now as I live in an apartment house— almost a hotel."

"I don't suppose you happen to have three or four thousand dollars in your pocket?"

"No, not so much as that," was the puzzled reply. "If it's your fee— "

"I never accept fees," interrupted the scientist. "I interest myself in affairs like these because I like them. They are good mental exercise. Please draw a cheque for, say four thousand dollars, to Hutchinson Hatch."

"Who is he?" asked Varick. There was no reply. The cheque was drawn and handed over without further comment.

It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that a cab pulled up in front of the house. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, and another man whom he introduced as Philip Byrne were ushered in. As Hatch shook hands with Varick The Thinking Machine compared them mentally. They were relatively of the same size and he bobbed his head as if satisfied.

"Now, Mr. Hatch," he instructed, "take this cheque and get it cashed immediately, then return here. Not a word to anybody."

Hatch went out and Byrne discussed politics with Varick until he returned with the money. The Thinking Machine thrust the bills into Byrne's hand and he counted it, afterward stowing it away in a pocket.

"Now, Mr. Varick, the keys to your apartment, please," asked the scientist.

They were handed over and he placed them in his pocket. Then he turned to Varick.

"From this time on," he said, "your name is John Smith. You are going on a trip, beginning immediately, with Mr. Byrne here. You are not to send a letter, a postal, a telegram or a package to anyone; you are to buy nothing, you are to write no checks, you are not to speak to or recognize anyone, you are not to telephone or attempt in any manner to communicate with anyone, not even me. You are to obey Mr. Byrne in everything he says."

Varick's eyes had grown wider and wider as he listened.

"But my affairs— my business?" he protested.

"It is a matter of your life or death," said The Thinking Machine shortly.

For a moment Varick wavered a little. He felt that he was being treated like a child.

"As you say," he said finally.

"Now, Mr. Byrne," continued the scientist, "you heard those instructions. It is your duty to enforce them. You must lose this man and yourself. Take him away somewhere to another place. There is enough money there for ordinary purposes. When you learn that there has been an arrest in connection with a certain threat against Mr. Varick, come back to Boston— to me — and bring him. That's all."

Mr. Byrne arose with a business like air.

"Come on, Mr. Smith," he commanded.

Varick followed him out of the room.

Here was a table littered with books and papers, there a chair, yonder a shadowy mantel .... A door opened and a man entered the room .... moved about the study aimlessly for a time as if deeply troubled, then dropped into a chair at the desk .... made some hopeless gesture with his hands and leaned forward on the desk with his head on his arms .... another figure in the room .... knife in his hand .... creeping stealthily toward the unconscious figure in the chair with the knife raised .... the unknown crept on, on, on ....

There was a blinding flash, a gush of flame and smoke, a sharp click and through the fog came the unexcited voice of Hutchinson Hatch, reporter.

"Stay right where you are, please."

"That ought to be a good picture," said The Thinking Machine.

The smoke cleared and he saw Adhem Singh standing watching with deep concern a revolver in the hand of Hatch, who had suddenly arisen from the desk in Varick's room. The Thinking Machine rubbed his hands briskly.

"Ah, I thought it was you," he said to the crystal gazer. "Put down the knife, please. That's right. It seems a little bold to have interfered with what was to be like this, but you wanted too much detail, Mr. Singh. You might have murdered your friend if you hadn't gone into so much trivial theatrics."

"I suppose I am a prisoner?" asked the crystal gazer.

"You are," The Thinking Machine assured him cheerfully. "You are charged with the attempted murder of Mr. Varick. Your wife will be a prisoner in another half hour with all those who were with you in the conspiracy."

He turned to Hatch, who was smiling broadly. The reporter was thinking of that wonderful flash-light photograph in the camera that The Thinking Machine held, — the only photograph in the world, so far as he knew, of a man in the act of attempting an assassination.

"Now, Mr. Hatch," the scientist went on, "I will 'phone to Detective Mallory to come here and get this gentleman, and also to send men and arrest every person to be found in Mr. Singh's home. If this man tries to run— shoot."

The scientist went out and Hatch devoted his attention to his sullen prisoner. He asked half a dozen questions and receiving no answers he gave it up as hopeless. After awhile Detective Mallory appeared in his usual state of restrained astonishment and the crystal grazer was led away.

Then Hatch and The Thinking Machine went to the Adhem Singh house. The police had preceded them and gone away with four prisoners, among them the girl Jadeh. They obtained an entrance through the courtesy of a policeman left in charge and sought out the crystal cabinet. Together they bowed over the glittering globe as Hatch held a match.

"But I still don't see how it was done," said the reporter after they had looked at the crystal.

The Thinking Machine lifted the ball and replaced it on its pedestal half a dozen times apparently trying to locate a slight click. Then he fumbled all around the table, above and below. At his suggestion Hatch lifted the ball very slowly, while the scientist slid his slender fingers beneath it.

"Ah," he exclaimed at last. "I thought so. It's clever, Mr. Hatch, clever. Just stand here a few minutes in the dark and I'll see if I can operate it for you."

He disappeared and Hatch stood staring at the crystal until he was developing a severe case of the creeps himself. Just then a light flashed in the crystal, which had been only dimly visible, and he found himself looking into— the room in Howard Varick's apartments, miles away. As he looked, startled, he saw The Thinking Machine appear in the crystal and wave his arms. The creepiness passed instantly in the face of this obvious attempt to attract his attention.

It was later that afternoon that The Thinking Machine turned the light of his analytical genius on the problem for the benefit of Hatch and Detective Mallory.

"Charlatanism is a luxury which costs the peoples of the world incredible sums," he began. "It had its beginning, of course, in the dark ages when man's mind grasped at some tangible evidence of an Infinite Power, and through its very eagerness was easily satisfied. Then quacks began to prey upon man, and do to this day under many guises and under many names. This condition will continue until enlightenment has become so general that man will realize the absurdity of such a thing as Nature, or the other world's forces, going out of its way to tell him whether a certain stock will go up or down. A sense of humour ought to convince him that disembodied spirits do not come back and rap on tables in answer to asinine questions. These things are merely prostitutions of the Divine Revelations."

Hatch smiled a little at the lecture platform tone, and Detective Mallory chewed his cigar uncomfortably. He was there to find out something about crime; this thing was over his head.

"This is merely preliminary," The Thinking Machine went on after a moment. "Now as to this crystal gazing affair— a little reason, a little logic. When Mr. Varick came to me I saw he was an intelligent man who had devoted years to a study of the so-called occult. Being intelligent he was not easily hoodwinked, yet he had been hoodwinked for years, therefore I could see that the man who did it must be far beyond the blundering fool usually found in these affairs.

"Now Mr. Varick, personally, had never seen anything in any crystal— remember that— until this 'vision' of death. When I knew this I knew that 'vision' was stamped as quackery; the mere fact of him seeing it proved that, but the quackery was so circumstantial that he was convinced. Thus we have quackery. Why? For a fee? I can imagine successful guesses on the stock market bringing fees to Adhem Singh, but the 'vision' of a man's death is not the way to his pocket-book. If not for a fee -- then what?

"A deeper motive was instantly apparent. Mr. Varick was wealthy, he had known Singh and had been friendly with him for years, had supplied him with funds to go through Oxford, and he had no family or dependents. Therefore it seemed probable that a will, or perhaps in another way, Singh would benefit by Mr. Varick's death. There was a motive for the 'vision,' which might have been at first an effort to scare him to death, because he had a bad heart. I saw all these things when Mr. Varick talked to me first, several days after he saw the 'vision' but did not suggest them to him. Had I done so he would not have believed so sordid a thing, for he believed in Singh, and would probably have gone his way to be murdered or to die of fright as Singh intended.

"Knowing these things there was only the labour of trapping a clever man. Now the Hindu mind works in strange channels. It loves the mystic, the theatric, and I imagined that having gone so far Singh would attempt to bring the 'vision' to a reality. He presumed, of course, that Mr. Varick would keep the matter to himself.

"The question of saving Varick's life was trifling. If he was to die at a given time in a given room the thing to do was to place him beyond possible reach of that room at that time. I 'phoned to you, Mr. Hatch, and asked you to bring me a private detective who would obey orders, and you brought Mr. Byrne. You heard my instructions to him. It was necessary to hide Mr. Varick's identity and my elaborate directions were to prevent anyone getting the slightest clue as to him having gone, or as to where he was. I don't know where he is now.

"Immediately Mr. Varick was off my hands, I had Martha, my housekeeper, write a note to Singh explaining that Mr. Varick was ill, and confined to his room, and for the present was unable to see anyone. In this note a date was specified when he would call on Singh. Martha wrote, of course, as a trained nurse who was in attendance merely in day time. All these points were made perfectly clear to Singh.

"That done, it was only a matter of patience. Mr. Hatch and I went to Mr. Varick's apartments each night— I had Martha there in day time to answer questions— and waited, in hiding. Mr. Hatch is about Varick's size and a wig helped us along. What happened then you know. I may add that when Mr. Varick told me the story I commented on it as being almost unbelievable. He understood, as I meant he should, that I referred to the 'vision.' I really meant that the elaborate scheme which Singh had evolved was unbelievable. He might have killed him just as well with a drop of poison or something equally pleasant."

The Thinking Machine stopped as if that were all.

"But the crystal?" asked Hatch. "How did that work? How was it I saw you?"

"That was a little ingenious and rather expensive," said The Thinking Machine, "so expensive that Singh must have expected to get a large sum from success. I can best describe the manufacture of the 'vision' as a variation of the principle of the camera obscura. It was done with lenses of various sorts and a multitude of mirrors, and required the assistance of two other men— those who were taken from Singh's house with Jadeh.

"First, the room in Mr. Varick's apartments was duplicated in the basement of Singh's house, even to rugs, books and wall decorations. There two men rehearsed the murder scene that Mr. Varick saw. They were disguised of course. You have looked through the wrong end of a telescope of course? Well, the original reduction of the murder scene to a size where all of it would appear in a small mirror was accomplished that way. From this small mirror there ran pipes with a series of mirrors and lenses, through the house, carrying the reflection of what was happening below, so vaguely though that features were barely distinguishable. This pipe ran up inside one of the legs of the table on which the crystal rested, and then, by reflection to the pedestal.

"You, Mr. Hatch, saw me lift that crystal several times and each time you might have noticed the click. I was trying to find then, how the reflection reached it. When you lifted it slowly and I put my fingers under it I knew. There was a small trap in the pedestal, covered with velvet. This closed automatically and presented a solid surface when the crystal was lifted, and opened when the crystal was replaced. Thus the reflection reached the crystal which reversed it the last time and made it appear right side up to the watcher. The apparent growth of the light in the crystal was caused below. Some one simply removed several sheets of gauze, one at a time, from in front of the first lens."

"Well!" exclaimed Detective Mallory. "That's the most elaborate affair I ever heard of."

"Quite right," commented the scientist, "but we don't know how many victims Singh had. Of course any 'vision' was possible with a change of scene in the basement. I imagine it was a profitable investment because there are many fools in this world."

"What did the girl have to do with it?" asked Hatch.

"That I don't know," replied the scientist. "She was pretty. Perhaps she was used as a sort of bait to attract a certain class of men. She was really Singh's wife I imagine, not his sister. She was a prominent figure in the mummery with Varick of course. With her aid Singh was able to lend great effectiveness to the general scheme."

A couple of days later Howard Varick returned to the city in tow of Philip Byrne. The Thinking Machine asked Mr. Varick only one question of consequence.

"How much money did you intend to leave Singh?"

"About two hundred and fifty thousand dollars," was the reply. "It was to be used under his direction in furthering an investigation into the psychic. He and I had planned just how it was to be spent."

Personally Mr. Varick is no longer interested in the occult.

________________

6. The Problem of the Deserted House

THE TELEPHONE bell rang sharply, twice. Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen — The Thinking Machine — opened his eyes from a sound sleep, rose from the bed, turned on an electric light, and squinted at the clock on the table. It was just half-past one; he had been asleep for only a little more than an hour. He slid his small feet into a pair of soft slippers and went to the telephone.

"Hello!" he called irritably.

"Is that Professor Van Dusen?" came the answer in a man's voice— a voice tense with nervous excitement, and so quick in enunciation that the words tumbled over one another.

"Yes," replied the scientist. "What is it?"

"It's a matter of life and death!" came the hurried response in the same hasty tone. "Can you come at once and—— " The instrument buzzed and sputtered incoherently, and the remainder of the question was lost.

For an instant The Thinking Machine listened intently, seeking to interpret the interruption; then the sputtering ceased and the wire was silent. "Who is this talking?" he demanded.

The answer was almost a shout; it was as if the speaker was strangling, and the words came explosively, with a distinct effort. "My name is -- "

And that was all. The voice was swallowed up suddenly in the deafening crack of an explosion of some sort— a pistol shot! Involuntarily The Thinking Machine dodged. The receiver sang shrilly in his ear, and the transmitter vibrated audibly; then the instrument was mute again— the connection was broken.

"Hello, hello!" the scientist called again and again; but there was no answer. He moved the hook up and down several times to attract Central's attention. But that brought no response. Whatever had happened had at least temporarily rendered his own line lifeless. "Dear me! Dear me!" he grumbled petulantly. "Most extraordinary!"

For a time he stood thoughtfully staring at the instrument; then went over and sat down on the edge of the bed. Sleep was banished now. Here was a problem, and a strange one! Every faculty of his wonderful brain was concentrated upon it. The minutes sped on as he sat there turning it all over in his mind, analyzing it, regarding it from every possible viewpoint, while tiny wrinkles were growing in the enormous brow. Finally he concluded to try the telephone again. Perhaps it had only been momentarily deadened by the shock. He returned to the instrument and picked up the receiver. The rhythmic buzz of the wire told him instantly that the line was working. Central answered promptly.

"Can you tell me the number which was just connected with this?" he inquired. "We were interrupted."

"I'll see if I can get it," was the reply.

"It's of the utmost importance," he went on to explain tersely; "a matter of life and death, even."

"I'll do what I can," Central assured him; "but there is no record of the calls, you know, and there may have been fifty in the last ten or fifteen minutes, and of course the operators don't remember them." She obligingly gave him a quarter of an hour as she sought some clue to the number.

The Thinking Machine waited patiently for the report, staring dumbly at the transmitter meanwhile, and at last it came. No one remembered the number; there was no record of it. Central was sorry. With a curt word of thanks the scientist called for one of the big newspaper offices and asked for Hutchinson Hatch, reporter.

"Mr. Hatch isn't in," came the response.

"Do you know where he is?" queried the scientist, and there was a shadow of anxiety in the perpetually irritated voice.

"No; home, I suppose."

The man of science drew long, quick breath— it might have been one of uneasiness -- and called the newspaper man's home number. Of course the mysterious message over the telephone had not been from Hatch. It was not the reporter's voice, he was positive of that, and yet there was the bare chance that—

"Hello!" Hatch growled amiably but sleepily over the wire.

The Thinking Machine's drawn face showed a vague relief as he recognized the tone. "That you, Mr. Hatch?" he asked.

"Yes."

"In any trouble?"

"Trouble?" repeated the reporter in evident surprise. "No. Who is this?"

"Van Dusen," was the response. "Good night."

Mechanically, unconsciously almost, The Thinking Machine began dressing. The ever active, resourceful brain, plunged so suddenly into this maze of mystery, was fully awake now and was groping through the fog of possibilities and conjecture, feeling for some starting point in this singular problem which had been thrust upon it so strangely. And evidently at last there came some inspiration; for the eminent scientist started hurriedly out the front door into the night, pausing on the steps to remember that in his haste he had forgotten to exchange his slippers for shoes, and that he was bare headed.

Fifteen minutes later the night operator in chief at the branch telephone exchange was favored with a personal call from Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. There was a conference of five minutes or so, after which the scientist was led back through the operating room and ushered into a long high ceilinged apartment where thousands of telephone wires were centered -- a web woven of thin strands, each of which led ultimately to the long table where a dozen or more girls were on watch. He went into that room at five minutes of two o'clock; he came out at seventeen minutes after four and appeared before the night operator in the outer office.

"I found it," he announced shortly. "Please, now, let me speak to police headquarters -- either Detective Mallory or Detective Cunningham."

Detective Cunningham answered.

"This is Van Dusen," the scientist told him. "I should like to know if any murder or attempted murder has been reported to the police to-night?"

"No," replied the detective. "Why?"

"I was afraid not," mused The Thinking Machine enigmatically. "Has there been any call for police assistance anywhere?"

"No."

"Between one and two o'clock?" insisted the scientist.

"There hasn't been a call to-night," was the reply. "What's it all about?"

"I don't know— yet," said the scientist. "Good night."

The Thinking Machine went out after a few minutes, pausing on the curb in the brilliant glare of a street lamp to jot down a number on his cuff. When he looked up a cab was just passing. He hailed it, gave an address to the driver, and a moment later the vehicle went clattering down the street. When it stopped at last before a dark, four-story house, the cabman sat still for a moment expecting his passenger to alight. But nothing happened; so he jumped down and peered into the gloom of the vehicle. Dimly he was able to make out the small figure of the scientist huddled up in a corner of the cab with his huge yellow head thrown back, and slender white fingers pressed tip to tip.

"Here we are, sir," announced the driver.

"Yes, yes, to be sure!" exclaimed the scientist hurriedly. "I quite forgot. You needn't wait."

The vehicle was driven off as The Thinking Machine ascended the brown stone steps of the house and pulled the bell. There was no answer, no sound inside, and he pulled it the second time, then the third. Finally, leaning forward with his ear pressed against the door, he pulled the bell the fourth time. This evidently convinced him that the cord inside was disconnected, and he tried the door. It was locked.

Without an instant's hesitation he ran down the steps to the basement entrance in an areaway. There was no bell there, and he tried the knob tentatively. It turned, and he stepped into a damp, smelly hallway, unrelieved by one glint of light. He closed the door noiselessly behind him, and stood for a little while listening. Then he did peculiar thing. He produced a small electric pocket lamp, and holding it as far to the left as he could reach, with the lens pointing ahead of him, pressed the button. A single white ray cleft the darkness, revealing a bare, littered floor, moldy walls, a couple of doors, and stairs leading up.

He spent five cautious minutes perhaps in the basement. There was no sign of recent human habitation, nothing but accumulated litter, and dust and dirt. Then he went up the stairs to the floor above. Here he spent another five minutes, with only an occasional flash of light, always at arm's length to extreme right or left, to tell him there was yet no sign of occupancy. Then another flight of stairs to the second floor. Still there was no sound, no trace of anyone, no indication of a living thing.

His first glimpse of the third floor confirmed at first glance all those impressions of desertion he had gathered below. The front room was identical with the one below, the front hall room was identical; but there was a difference in the large rear room. The dust and litter of the floor seemed worn into a sort of path from the top of the stairs, and following this path toward the back he came upon— a telephone!

"Forty-one-seventeen," he read, as the instrument stood revealed, bathed in the light from the electric bulb. Then he glanced down at his cuff and repeated, "Forty-one-seventeen."

With every sense alert for one disturbing sound, he spent two full minutes examining the instrument. He seemed to be seeking some mark upon it, — the scar of a bullet, perhaps, — and as the scrutiny continued fruitless, the tiny wrinkles, which had momentarily disappeared from his face, appeared there again, and deepened perceptibly. The receiver was on the hook, the transmitter seemed to be in perfect condition, and the walls round the box were smooth. Finally he allowed the light to fade, then picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. His sensitive fingers instantly became aware of tiny particles of dust on the smooth black surface; and the line was dead. Central did not answer. Yet this was the telephone from which he had been called!

Again he examined the instrument under the light, with something akin to perplexity on his drawn face; then allowed his eyes to follow the silken wire as it led up, across the room, and out the window. Did it go up or down? Probably up, possibly down. He had just taken two steps toward that window, with the purpose of answering this question definitely, when he heard a sound somewhere off in the house and stopped.

The light faded, and utter gloom swooped down upon him as he listened. What he heard apparently was the tread of feet at a distance, somewhere below. They seemed to be approaching. Now they were in the lower hall, and grew clatteringly distinct in the emptiness of the house; then the tread sounded on the stairs, the certain, quick step of one who knew his way perfectly. Now the sound was at the door— now finally in the room. Yet there was not one ray of light.

For a little time The Thinking Machine stood motionless, invisible in the enshrouding darkness, until the footsteps seemed almost upon him. Then suddenly his right arm was extended full length from his body, the electric bulb blazed in his hand, and slashed around the room. By every evidence of the sense of sound the flash should have revealed something— perhaps the figure of a man. But there was nothing! The room was vacant, save for himself. And even while the light flared he heard the steps again. The light went out, he took four quick, noiseless steps to his left, and stood there for a moment puzzled.

Then he understood. The mysterious tread was stilled now, as if the person had stopped, and it remained still for several minutes. The Thinking Machine crept silently, cautiously, toward the door and stepped out into the hall. Leaning over the stair rail, he listened. And after awhile the tread sounded again. He drew back into the shadow of a linen closet as the sound grew nearer -- stood stock-still staring into blank nothingness as it was almost upon him; then the footsteps receded gradually along the hall, down the stairs, growing fainter, until the receding echo was lost in the silence of the night.

Whereupon The Thinking Machine went boldly up the stairs to the fourth floor, the top. He mounted confidently, as if expecting something to reward his scrutiny; but his eyes rested only upon the bleak desolation of unoccupied apartments. He went straight to the rear room, above the one he had just left, and directly across to one of the windows. Faint, rosy streaks of dawn slashed the east— just enough natural light to show dimly a silken wire hanging down from the middle of the window outside. He opened the window, drew in the wire, and examined it carefully under the electric light, and nodded as if he understood.

Finally he turned abruptly and retraced his steps to the first floor. There he paused to examine the knob of the front door; then went on down into the basement. Instead of examining the door there, however, he turned back under the stairs. There he found another door— a door to the subcellar, standing open a scant few inches. A damp, moldy smell came up. After a moment he pushed the door open slowly and ventured one foot forward in the darkness. It found a step, and he began to descend. The fourth step down creaked suddenly, and he paused to listen intently. Utter silence!

Then on down, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, steps, and his foot struck soft, yielding earth. Safely on the ground again, in the protecting gloom, he stood still for a long time, peering blindly around him. At last a blaze of light leaped from the electric bulb, which was extended far from the body to the right, and The Thinking Machine drew a quick breath. It might have been surprise; for within the glow of the light lay the figure of a young man, a boy almost, flat of his back on the muddy earth, with eyes blinking in the glare. His feet were bound tight together with a rope, and his hands were evidently fastened behind him.

"Are you the gentleman who telephoned for me?" inquired The Thinking Machine calmly.

There was no answer, and yet the prostrate man was fully conscious, as proved by the moving eyes and a twitching of his limbs.

"Well?" demanded the scientist impatiently. "Can't you talk?"

His answer was a flash of flame, the crash of a revolver at short range, and the light dropped, automatically extinguished as the pressure on the button was removed. Upon this came the sound of a body falling. There was a long drawn gasp, and again silence.

"For God's sake, Cranston!" came the explosive voice of a man after a moment. "You've killed him!"

"Well, I'm not in this game to spend the rest of my life in jail," was the answer, almost a snarl. "I didn't want to kill anybody; but if I had to, all right. If it hadn't been for this kid here, we'd have been all right anyway. I've got a good mind to give him one too, while I'm at it!"

"Well, why don't you?" came a third voice. It was taunting, cold, unafraid.

"Oh, shut up!"

Feet moved uncertainly, feelingly, over the soft earth and stumbled upon the inert, limp figure of The Thinking Machine, lying face down on the ground, almost at the feet of the bound man. One of the men who had spoken stooped, and his fingers touched the still, slim body. He withdrew his hands quickly.

"Is he dead?" some one asked.

"My God, man! Why did you do it?" exclaimed the man who had spoken first, and there was a passionate undertone in his voice. "I never dreamed that this thing would lead to— to murder!"

"It hardly seems to be a time to debate why I did it," was the brutal response; "so much as it is to decide what we'll do now that it is done. We might drop this body in the coal bin in the basement until we finish up here; but what shall we do with the boy? We are both guilty -- he saw it. He wanted to tell the other. What will he do now?"

"He'll tell it just so surely as he lives," the bound man answered for himself.

"In that case there's only one thing to do," declared Cranston flatly. "We'd better make a double job of this, leave them both here, and get away."

"Don't kill me— don't kill me!" whined the young man suddenly. "I won't ever tell— I promise! Don't kill me!"

"Oh, shut up!" snarled Cranston. "We'll attend to you later. Got a match?"

"Don't strike a light," commanded the other man sharply, fearfully. "No, don't! Why, man, suppos— suppose your shot had struck him in— in the face. God!"

"Well, help me lift it," asked Cranston shortly.

And between them they carried the childlike body of the eminent man of science through the darkness to the stairs, up the stairs and through the basement to the back. The dawn was growing now, and the pallid, drawn face of The Thinking Machine was dimly visible by a light from the window. The eyes were wide open, glassy; the mouth agape slightly. Overcome by a newborn terror, — hideous fear, — the two men flung the body brutally into an open coal bin, slammed down the cover, and went stumbling, clattering, out of the room.

It was something less than half an hour later that the lid of the coal bin was raised from inside, and The Thinking Machine clambered out. He paused for a moment, to rub his knees and elbows ruefully and stretch his cramped limbs.

"Dear me! Dear me!" he grumbled to himself. "I really must be more careful."

And then straight back to the entrance of the subcellar he went. It was lighter outside now, and he walked with the assurance of one who saw where he went, yet noiselessly. But the door of the stairs leading down still revealed only a yawning, black hole. He went on without the slightest hesitation, remembering to step over the fourth step, which had squeaked once before. In the gloom below, standing on the earth again, he listened for many minutes.

Assured at last that he was alone, he groped about the floor for his electric light, and finally found it. Without fear or apparent caution he examined the huge, dark, damp room. On each side were thrown up banks of dirt that seemed to have been dug recently, and here before him was where the bound man had lain. And over there— he started forward eagerly when he saw it— was a telephone! The transmitter box had been wrecked by what seemed to be a bullet. As he saw it he nodded his head comprehendingly.

From there he went on around some masonry. Here was a passage of some sort. He flashed the light into it. It had been dug out of the solid earth, and its existence evidently accounted for the heaps of dirt in the subcellar. Still he didn't hesitate. Straight along the passage he went, wary of step, and stooping occasionally to avoid striking his head against the earth above him. Ten, fifteen, twenty, feet he went, and still the gloomy, foul smelling hole lay ahead of him, leading to— what? At about thirty-five feet from the subcellar there was a sharp turn, — he thought at first it was the end of the tunnel, -- then the passage straightened out again, and there was another fifteen or twenty feet, growing smaller and smaller as he went forward.

Suddenly the tunnel stopped. The Thinking Machine found himself flattening his nose against a door of some sort. He allowed his light to fade, then dimly, through a cranny, he saw a faint glow outside. This seemed to be his destination, wherever it was, -- and he paused thoughtfully. Obviously the light outside was electric, and if electric light might not some one be in there? A subterranean chamber of some sort, perhaps? His fingers ran around the edge of the door, loosened a fastening, and he peered out. Then, assured again, he opened the door wide, and stepped out into a brilliant glare.

He was in the subway. He stood blinking incredulously. Here to his right the shining rails went winding off round a curve in the far distance; and to the left was a quicker turn in the line of the excavation. In neither direction was there anything that looked like a station.

"Really, this is most extraordinary!" he exclaimed.

Then and there the eminent man of science paused to consider this weird thing from all possible viewpoints. It was unbelievable, positively nightmarish; yet true enough, for here he stood in the subway. There was no question about that; for in the distance was the roar of a train, and he discreetly withdrew into the little door, closing it carefully behind him until it had passed.

Finally he popped out again, closed the door behind him, paused only to admire the skill with which a portion of the tiling in the tunnel had been utilized as a door, then went on across the tracks. It was still early morning; the trains were as yet few and far between; so he had a little leisure for the minute examination he made of the tiled walls opposite the closed door. It was perhaps ten minutes before he found a tile that was loose. He hauled at it until it came out in his hand, revealing a dark aperture beyond.

Within fifteen minutes, therefore, from the time he undertook the search for the second door he was standing in another narrow, earthy tunnel which beckoned him on. With the ever ready light to guide him, and still proceeding with caution, he advanced for possibly thirty feet; then came a turn. Round the turn he found himself in a sort of room— another cellar, perhaps. He permitted his light to go out, and stood listening, straining his squint eyes. After a time he was satisfied and flashed his light again.

Directly before him were half a dozen rough steps, leading up to what seemed to be a trap door. He had barely time to notice this and to see that the trap door was hanging open, when there came a cyclonic rush toward him out of the darkness, from the direction of his right, something whizzed past his head, causing him to drop the precious light, and instinctively he ran up the steps. The gloom above was no more dangerous, he thought, than the gloom below, and he went on, finally passing through the trap and standing on a hard floor above.

There was the sound of a fierce, desperate struggle down there somewhere, cursing, blasphemy, then the noise of feet on the steps coming toward him, and the trap door closed with the heavy, resonant clang of iron. He was alone, his light lost. A sudden strange, awful silence closed down around him, a silence alive with suggestion of unseen, unknown dangers. He stood for a moment, then sank down upon the floor wearily.

Cashier Randall stood beside the ponderous door of the vault, watch in hand. It was two minutes of ten o'clock. At precisely ten the time lock on the massive steel structure, built into the solid masonry of the bank, would bring the mechanism into position for the combination to work. Already the various clerks and tellers were at their posts; books and money were in the vault. At length there came a whir and a sharp click in the heavy door, and the cashier whirled the combination. A few minutes later he pulled open the outer door with a perceptible effort, then turned his attention to the combination lock on the second door. This yielded more readily; but there was still another door, the third to be unlocked. Altogether the task of opening the huge vault required something like six minutes.

Finally Cashier Randall threw open the light third door, then touched an electric button to his right. Instantly the gloom of the structure was dispelled by a flood of light, and he started back in amazement. Almost at his feet, on the floor of the vault, was the huddled figure of a man. Dead? Or unconscious? Certainly there was no movement to indicate life, and the cashier stepped backward into the office with blanched face.

Others came crowding round and saw, and startled glances were exchanged.

"You, Carroll and Young, lift him out, please," requested the cashier quietly. "Don't make any noise about it. Take him to my office."

The order was obeyed in silence. Then Cashier Randall in person went into the vault and ran hurriedly through the piles of money which lay there. He came out at last and spoke to one of the paying tellers.

"The money is all right," he said, with a relieved expression in his face. "Have it all counted carefully, please, and report to me."

He retired into his private office and closed the door behind him. Carroll and Young stood staring down curiously at the man who now lay stretched full length on the couch. They looked at the cashier inquiringly.

"I think it's a matter for the police," continued the cashier after a moment and he picked up the receiver of the telephone.

"But how— how did he get in the vault?" stammered Carroll.

"I don't know. Hello! Police headquarters, please."

"Anything missing, sir?" inquired Young.

"Not so far as we know," was the reply. "Don't make any excitement about it, please. He is breathing yet, isn't he?"

"Yes," answered Carroll. "He doesn't seem to be hurt— just unconscious."

"Lack of air," said the cashier. "He must have been in there all night. It's enough to kill him. Hello! I want to speak to the chief of detectives. Mr. Mallory, yes. This is the Grandison National Bank, Mr. Mallory. Can you come down at once, please, and investigate a matter of great importance?"

Fifteen minutes later Detective Mallory walked into the cashier's private office. Instantly his eyes fell upon the recumbent figure on the couch, and there came with the glimpse a strange, startled expression.

"Well, for— " he blurted. "Where did you get hold of him?"

"I found him in the vault just now when I opened it," was the reply. "Do you know him?"

"Know him?" bellowed Detective Mallory. "Know him? Why it's Professor Van Dusen, a distinguished scientist. He's the fellow they call The Thinking Machine sometimes." He paused incredulously. "Have you sent for a doctor? Well, send for one quick!"

With the tender care of a mother for her child the detective hovered about the couch whereon The Thinking Machine lay, having first opened the window, and pausing now and then to swear roundly at the physician's delay in arriving. And at last the doctor came. Quick restoratives brought the scientist to consciousness within a few minutes.

"Ah, Mr. Mallory!" he remarked weakly. "Please have the doors locked, and put somebody you can trust on guard. Don't let anyone out. I'll explain in a minute or so."

The detective rushed out of the room, returning a moment later. He found The Thinking Machine talking to the cashier.

"Have you a man named Cranston employed here in the bank?"

"Yes," replied the cashier.

"Arrest him, Mr. Mallory," directed The Thinking Machine. "Doctor, just the least bit of nitroglycerin, please, in my left arm, here. And, also, Mr. Mallory, arrest any particular chum of this man Cranston; also a young man, almost a boy, possibly employed here -- probably a relative or closely connected with Cranston's chum. That will do, doctor. Thanks! Anything stolen?"

The detective glanced inquiringly at the cashier.

"No," replied that official.

The Thinking Machine dropped back on the couch, closed his eyes, and lay silent for a moment.

"Pretty bad pulse, doctor," he remarked at last. "Charge your hypodermic again. What bank is this, Mr. Mallory?"

"Grandison National," the detective informed him. "What happened to you? How did it come you were in the vault?"

"It was awful, Mr. Mallory— awful, believe me!" was the reply. "I'll tell you about it after awhile. Meanwhile be sure to get Cranston and— "

And he fainted.

Twenty-four hours' rest in his own home, under the watchful eye of a physician, restored The Thinking Machine to a physical condition almost normal. But the whys and wherefors of his mysterious presence in the vault of the bank were still matters of eager speculation, but speculation only, to both the police and the bank officials. His last words, before being removed to his own apartments, had been a warning against the further use of the vault; but no explanation accompanied it.

Meanwhile Detective Mallory and his men rounded up three prisoners— Harry Cranston, a middle aged and long trusted employee of the bank; David Ellis Burge, a young mechanical engineer with whom Cranston had been upon terms of great intimacy for many months; and Richard Folsom, a stalwart young nephew of Burge's, himself a student of mechanical engineering. They were held upon charges born in the fertile mind of Detective Mallory, carefully isolated from one another and from the outside.

The Thinking Machine told his story in detail, incident by incident, from the moment of the telephone call until the trap door closed behind him and he found himself in the vault of a bank. His listeners, Detective Mallory, President Hall and Cashier Randall of the Grandison National, and Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, absorbed it in utter amazement.

"Certainly it was the most elusive problem that has ever come under my observation," declared the diminutive man of science. "It was so elusive, so compelling, that I indiscreetly placed my life in danger twice, and I didn't know definitely what it all meant until I knew I was in the vault. No man may know that slow suffocation, that hideous gasping for breath as minute after minute went by, unless he has felt it. And, gentlemen, if I had been killed one of the most valuable minds in the sciences would have been lost. It would have been nothing less than a catastrophe." He paused and settled back into that position which was so familiar to at least two of his hearers.

"When I got the telephone call," he resumed after a moment, "it told me several things beyond the obvious. The logic of it all— and logic, gentlemen, is incontrovertible— was that some man was in danger, in danger even as he talked to me, that he had tried to reach me, seeking help, that the first interruption on the wire came because perhaps he was being choked, and that the second came— the shot which wrecked the instrument— as a desperate expedient to prevent further conversation. The scene was quite clear in my mind.

"The wire was dead then. Central didn't know the number. There was no way to get that number save by the tedious process of testing the wires in the exchange, and that might have taken days. It took only two hours or so, fortunately; but I got the number at last from which I was called; that is, I got a wire which was inexplicably dead, and assumed the rest. The number of that wire was forty-one-seventeen. The records showed the street and number of the house where it came from. Therefore I went there. Before I went I took the precaution of calling up police headquarters to see if any report of a murder or attempted murder or anything unusual had come in. Nothing had come in. This fact in itself was elucidating, because vaguely it indicated that I had been called, rather than the police, because -- well, perhaps because it was not desirable for the police to know.

"Well, as I explained, I searched the house; and by the way, Mr. Mallory, I don't know if you know the advantages of always holding your dark lantern as far away from your body as possible when going into dangerous places; because if there is danger, a shot, say, the natural impulse of the person who shoots is to aim at the light. Incidentally this precaution saved my life in the cellar, when I feigned death. But I'm going a little ahead of myself.

"I found telephone number forty-one-seventeen, and there was a heavy coat of dust on the receiver. Obviously it had not been recently used. The line was dead, it is true, but the instrument was in perfect condition. There was no sign of a bullet mark anywhere round or near it. If the bullet that was fired had killed the man who had been using the line, it would not have deadened the wire; therefore instantly I saw that the line had been tapped somewhere; that this instrument had been cut off from it, and the instrument which was demolished was the one on the branch wire.

"I knew this, and was going to the window to see if the wire led up or down, when I heard some one approaching. I first supposed that the person, whoever it was, was in the room with me, the steps were so distinct; but when I flashed the light, intending at least to see him, I knew he was above me. One loses the sense of direction of sound, particularly in the dark; and it is an incontestable fact that footsteps, or any sound above, can be heard more clearly than the same sound below. Therefore I knew that some one was in the room above me. For what purpose? Possibly to disconnect the branch wire on the telephone line.

"I waited until the person, whoever it was, came down and went his way; then I found the wire, and saw where the connection had been made on it. Then I went straight down to the subcellar. There I saw this Folsom lying on the ground, bound. He was not gagged; yet he didn't answer my questions; obviously because he knew if he did he would place himself in danger. The shot was fired at me, or rather at my light, and I went through the farce which ultimately placed me in a coal bin. Then I began to get a definite idea of things from the conversation, when Cranston's name was mentioned several times.

"Folsom persisted in an outspoken declaration to reveal everything he knew, including the story of my murder. He insisted until he placed himself in grave danger, and then, under cover of utter darkness, I extended one hand and pinched him twice on the ankle. He knew then that I was not dead, that I had heard, and did the very thing I wanted him to do— begged for his life. It was a bit of justifiable duplicity. I knew if he was the man his every act so far had indicated that he would humbug Cranston and the other man into letting him go, or at least not committing another murder. Subsequent developments showed that this conjecture was correct.

"From the coal bin I went back to the subcellar, knowing positively now that there would be no one there. Those men were frightened when they left me, and men run from fright. What they would do with young Folsom I didn't know. There, with my electric light, I found the branch telephone. The transmitter box had been ruined by a shot, as I imagined. So, thus far at least, the logic of the affair was taking me some place.

"And then I followed that tunnel through the subway into another tunnel. I should not have ventured into that second tunnel had I not been fairly confident that no one else was there. In that I was mistaken. I don't know now, but I imagine that young Folsom was temporarily being held prisoner there, and that possibly Cranston was on guard. Anyway, there was a fight, and the trap door was open— the trap door into the vault. And I don't know yet whether Folsom and Cranston, if they were there, even knew I was at hand. Certainly the trap door, once closed behind me, was not opened again. And you know the rest of it." Again there was a pause, and the scientist twiddled his fingers idly.

"Now it all comes down to this," he concluded at last. "Cranston dragged Burge in to the affair, -- Burge is a mechanical engineer, and a good one was needed to do this work, -- they rented the house, and went to work. It took weeks, perhaps months, to do it all. Folsom in some way learned of it, and he is an honest man. He took a desperate means of getting the information into my hands, instead of the hands of the police. Why the telephone was in the house I don't know -- perhaps it was already there, perhaps they had it put in. Anyway, of your prisoners, Mr. Mallory, this young Folsom is guilty only of an attempt to shield his uncle, Burge, while Cranston is the ringleader, and Burge the man who achieved the immense task of getting under the vault of the bank.

"This vault has a floor of cement, cut into small squares. The trap door is in that floor, and so perfectly concealed in the lines of the squares that it is invisible unless submitted to a close scrutiny, just as the doors in the tiled walls of the subway were invisible to a casual observer. They overcame tremendous difficulties, these two men, in cutting through the immense foundation of the vault, even the steel itself, but remember that they worked at night for weeks and weeks, and were making no mistakes. They did not actually rob the bank because, I imagine, they were awaiting the deposit there of some immense sum. Is that correct, Mr. Hall?"

President Hall started suddenly. "Yes, in a week or so we were expecting a shipment of gold from Europe— nearly three million dollars," he explained. "Think of it!"

Detective Mallory whistled. "Phew! What a haul it would have been!"

"Now, Mr. Mallory, either of these three men, if properly approached, will confess the whole thing substantially as I have told it," remarked The Thinking Machine. "But I would advise that Folsom be allowed to go. He is really a very decent sort of young man."

When they had all gone except Hatch, the eminent man of science went over and laid one hand upon the report's shoulder and squinted straight into his eyes for a moment. "You know, Mr. Hatch," he said, and there was a strange note in the irritable voice, "my first fear, when the telephone call came, was that it was you. You must be careful —very careful, always."

__________________

7. The Problem of the Cross Mark

IT was an unsolved mystery, apparently a riddle without an answer, in which Watson Richards, the distinguished character actor, happened to play a principal part. The story was told at the Mummers Club one dull afternoon. Richards’ listeners were three other actors, a celebrated poet, and a newspaper reporter named Hutchinson Hatch.

“You know there are few men in the profession to-day who really amount to anything who haven’t had their hard knocks. Well, my hard times came early, and lasted a long time. So it was just about three years ago to a day that a real crisis came in my affairs. It seemed the end. I had gone one day without food, had bunked in the park that night, and here it was two o’clock in the afternoon of another day. It was dismal enough.

“I was standing on a corner, gazing moodily across the street at the display window of a restaurant, rapidly approaching the don’t care stage. Some one came up behind and touched me on the shoulder. I turned listlessly enough, and found myself facing a stranger—a clean cut, well groomed man of some forty years.

“‘Is this Mr. Watson Richards, the character actor?’ he asked.

“‘Yes,’ I replied.

“‘I have been looking for you everywhere,’ he explained briefly. ‘I want to engage you to do a part for one performance. Are you at liberty?’

“You chaps know what that meant to me just at that moment. Certainly the words dispelled some unpleasant possibilities I had been considering.

“‘I am at liberty—yes,’ I replied. ‘Be glad to do it. What sort of part is it?’

“‘An old man,’ he informed me. ‘Just one performance, you know. Perhaps you’d better come up town with me and see Mr. Hallman right now.’

“I agreed with a readiness which approached eagerness, and he called a passing cab. Hallman was perhaps the manager, or stage manager, I thought. We had driven on for a block in the general direction of up town, my companion chatting pleasantly. Finally he offered me a cigar. I accepted it. I know now that cigar was drugged, because I had hardly taken more than two or three puffs from it when I lost myself completely.

“The next thing I remember distinctly was of stepping out of the cab—I think the stranger assisted me—and going into a house. I don’t know where it was—I didn’t know then—didn’t know even the street. I was dizzy, giddy. And suddenly I stood before a tall, keen faced, clean shaven man. He was Hallman. The stranger introduced me and then left the room. Hallman regarded me keenly for several minutes, and somehow under that scrutiny my dormant faculties were aroused. I had thrown away the cigar at the door.

“‘You play character parts?’ Hallman began.

“‘Yes, all the usual things,’ I told him. ‘I’m rather obscure, but——’

“‘I know,’ he interrupted; ‘but I have seen your work, and like it. I have been told too that you are remarkably clever at make-up.’

“I think I blushed,—I hope I did, anyway,—I know I nodded. He paused to stare at me for a long time.

“‘For instance,’ he went on finally, ‘you would have no difficulty at all in making up as a man of seventy-five years?’

“‘Not the slightest,’ I answered. ‘I have played such parts.’

“‘Yes, yes, I know,’ and he seemed a little impatient. ‘Well, your make-up is the matter which is most important here. I want you for only one performance; but the make-up must be perfect, you understand.’ Again he stopped and stared at me. ‘The pay will be one hundred dollars for the one performance.’

“He drew out a drawer of a desk and produced a photograph. He looked at it, then at me, several times, and finally placed it in my hands.

“‘Can you make up to look precisely like that?’ he asked quietly.

“I studied the photograph closely. It was that of a man about seventy-five years old, of rather a long cast of features, not unlike the general shape of my own face. He had white hair, and was clean shaven. It was simple enough, with the proper wig, a make-up box, and a mirror.

“‘I can,’ I told Hallman.

“‘Would you mind putting on the make-up here now for my inspection?’ he inquired.

“‘Certainly not,’ I replied. It did not strike me at the moment as unusual. ‘But I’ll need the wig and paints.’

“‘Here they are,’ said Hallman abruptly, and produced them. ‘There’s a mirror in front of you. Go ahead.’

“I examined the wig and compared it with the photograph. It was as near perfect as I had ever seen. The make-up box was new and the most complete I ever saw. It didn’t occur to me until a long time afterward that it had never been used before. So I went to work. Hallman paced up and down nervously behind me. At the end of twenty minutes I turned upon him a face which was so much like the photograph that I might have posed for it. He stared at me in amazement.

“‘By George!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s it! It’s marvelous!’ Then he turned and opened the door. ‘Come in, Frank,’ he called, and the man who had conducted me there entered. Hallman indicated me with a wave of his hand. ‘How is it?’ he asked.

“Frank, whoever he was, also seemed astonished. Then that passed and a queer expression appeared on his face. You may imagine that I awaited their verdict anxiously.

“‘Perfect—absolutely perfect,’ said Frank at last.

“‘Perhaps the only thing,’ Hallman mused critically, ‘is that it isn’t quite pale enough.’

“‘Easily remedied,’ I replied, and turned again to the make-up box. A moment later I turned back to the two men. Simple enough, you know—it was one of those pallid, pasty faced make-ups—the old man on the verge of the grave, and all that sort of thing—good deal of pearl powder.

“‘That’s it!’ the two men exclaimed.

“The man Frank looked at Hallman inquiringly.

“‘Go ahead,’ said Hallman, and Frank left the room.

“Hallman went over, closed and locked the door, after which he came back and sat down in front of me, staring at me for a long time in silence. At length he opened an upper drawer of the desk and glanced in. A revolver lay there, right under his hand. I know now he intended that I should see it.

“‘Now, Mr. Richards,’ he said at last very slowly, ‘what we want you to do is very simple, and as I said there’s a hundred dollars in it. I know your circumstances perfectly—you need the hundred dollars.’ He offered me a cigar, and foolishly enough I accepted it. ‘The part you are to play is that of an old man, who is ill in bed, speechless, utterly helpless. You are dying, and you are to play the part. Use your eyes all you want; but don’t speak!’

“Gradually the dizziness I had felt before was coming upon me again. As I said, I know now it was the cigar; but I kept on smoking.

“‘There will be no rehearsal,’ Hallman went on, and now I knew he was fingering the revolver I had seen in the desk; but it made no particular impression on me. ‘If I ask you questions, you may nod an affirmative, but don’t speak! Do only what I say, and nothing else!’

“Full realization was upon me now; but everything was growing hazy again. I remember I fought the feeling for a moment; then it seemed to overwhelm me, and I was utterly helpless under the dominating power of that man.

“‘When am I to play the part?’ I remember asking.

“‘Now!’ said Hallman suddenly, and he rose. ‘I’m afraid you don’t fully understand me yet, Mr. Richards. If you play the part properly, you get the hundred dollars; if you don’t, this!’

“He meant the revolver. I stared at it dumbly, overcome by a helpless terror, and tried to stand up. Then there came a blank, for how long I don’t know. The next thing I remember I was lying in bed, propped up against several pillows. I opened my eyes feebly enough, and there wasn’t any acting about it either, because whoever drugged those cigars knew his business.

“There in front of me was Hallman, with a grief stricken expression on his face which made all my art seem amateurish. There was another man there too (not Frank), and a woman who seemed to be about forty years old. I couldn’t see their faces—I wouldn’t even be able to suggest a description of them, because the room was almost dark. Just the faintest flicker of light came through the drawn curtains; but I could see Hallman’s devilish face all right. These three conversed together in low tones—sick room voices—but I couldn’t hear, and doubt if I could have followed their conversation if I had heard.

“Finally the door opened and a girl entered. I have seen many women, but—well, she was peculiarly fascinating. She gave one little cry, rushed toward the bed impulsively, dropped on her knees beside it, and buried her face in the sheets. She was shaking with sobs.

“Then I knew—intuitively, perhaps, but I knew—that in some way I was being used to injure that girl. A sudden feeling of fearful anger seized upon me, but I couldn’t move to save my soul. Hallman must have caught the blaze in my eyes, for he came forward on the other side of the bed, and, under cover of a handkerchief which he had been using rather ostentatiously, pressed the revolver against my side.

“But I wouldn’t be made a tool of. In my dazed condition I know I was seized with a desperate desire to fight it out—to make him kill me if he had to, but I would not deceive the girl. I knew if I could jerk my head down on the pillow it would disarrange the wig, and perhaps she would see. I couldn’t. I might pass my hands across my make-up and smear it. But I couldn’t lift my hands. I was struggling to speak, and couldn’t.

“Then somehow I lost myself again. Hazily I remember that somebody placed a paper in front of me on a book—a legal-looking document—and guided my hand across it; but that isn’t clear. I was helpless, inert, so much clay in the hands of this man Hallman. Then everything faded—slowly, slowly. My impression was that I was actually dying; my eyelids closed of themselves; and the last thing I saw was the shining gold of that girl’s hair as she sobbed there beside me.

“That’s all of it. When I became fully conscious again a policeman was shaking me. I was sitting on a bench in the park. He swore at me volubly, and I got up and moved slowly along the path with my hands in my pockets. Something was clenched in one hand. I drew it out and looked at it. It was a hundred-dollar bill. I remember I got something to eat; and I woke up in a hospital.

“Well, that’s the story. Make what you like of it. It can never be solved, of course. It was three years ago. You fellows know what I have done in that time. Well, I’d give it all, every bit of it, to meet that girl again (I should know her), tell her what I know, and make her believe that it was no fault of mine.”

Hutchinson Hatch related the circumstances casually one afternoon a day or so later to Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine.

That eminent man of science listened petulantly, as he listened to all things. “It happened in this city?” he inquired at the end.

“Yes.”

“But Richards has no idea what part of the city?”

“Not the slightest. I imagine that the drugged cigar and a naturally weakened condition made him lose his bearings while in the cab.”

“I dare say,” commented the scientist. “And of course he has never seen Hallman again?”

“No—he would have mentioned it if he had.”

“Does Richards remember the exact date of the affair?”

“I dare say he does, though he didn’t mention it,” replied the reporter.

“Suppose you see Richards and get the date—exactly, if possible,” remarked The Thinking Machine. “You might telephone it to me. Perhaps——” and he shrugged his slender shoulders.

“You think there is a possibility of solving the riddle?” demanded the reporter eagerly.

“Certainly,” snapped The Thinking Machine. “It requires no solution. It is ridiculously simple,—obvious, I might say,—and yet I dare say the girl Richards referred to has been the victim of some huge plot. It’s worth looking into for her sake.”

“Remember, it happened three years ago,” Hatch suggested tentatively.

“It wouldn’t matter particularly if it happened three hundred years ago,” declared the scientist. “Logic, Mr. Hatch, remains the same through all the ages—from Adam and Eve to us. Two and two made four in the Garden of Eden just as they do now in a counting house. Therefore, the solution, I say, is absurdly simple. The only problem is to discover the identity of the principals in the affair—and a child could do that.”

Later that afternoon Hatch telephoned to The Thinking Machine from the Mummers Club.

“That date you asked for was May 19, three years ago,” said the reporter.

“Very well,” commented The Thinking Machine. “Drop by to-morrow afternoon. Perhaps we can solve the riddle for Richards.”

Hatch called late the following afternoon, as directed, but The Thinking Machine was not in.

“He went out about nine o’clock, and hasn’t returned yet,” the scientist’s aged servant, Martha, informed him.

That night about ten o’clock Hatch used the telephone in a second attempt to reach The Thinking Machine.

“He hasn’t come in yet,” Martha told him over the wire. “He said he would be back for luncheon; but he isn’t here yet.”

Hatch replaced the receiver thoughtfully on the hook. Early the following morning he again used the telephone, and there was a note of anxiety in Martha’s voice when she answered.

“He hasn’t come yet, sir,” she explained. “Please, what ought I to do? I’m afraid something has happened to him.”

“Don’t do anything yet,” replied Hatch. “I dare say he’ll return to-day.”

Again at noon, at six o’clock, and at eleven that night Hatch called Martha on the telephone. Still the scientist had not appeared. Hatch too was worried now; yet how should he proceed? He didn’t know, and he hesitated to think of the possibilities. On the morrow, however, something must be done—he would take the matter to Detective Mallory at police headquarters if necessary.

But this was made unnecessary unexpectedly by the arrival next morning of a letter from The Thinking Machine. As he read, an expression of utter bewilderment spread over Hatch’s face. Tersely the letter was like this:

Employ an expert burglar, a careful, clever man. At two o’clock of the night following the receipt of this letter go with him to the alley which runs behind No. 810 Blank Street. Enter this house with him from the rear, go up two flights of stairs, and let him pick the lock of the third door on the left from the head of the stairs. Silence above everything. Don’t shoot if possible to avoid it.

VAN DUSEN.

P.S. Put some ham sandwiches in your pocket.

Hatch stared at the note in blank bewilderment for a long time; but he obeyed orders. Thus it came to pass that at ten minutes of two o’clock that night he boosted the notorious Blindy Bates—a man of rare accomplishments in his profession, who at the moment happened to be out of prison—to the top of the rear fence of No. 810 Blank Street. Bates hauled up the reporter, and they leaped down lightly inside the yard.

The back door was simplicity itself to the gifted Bates, and yielded in less than sixty seconds from the moment he laid his hand upon it. Then came a sneaking, noiseless advance along the lower hall, to the accompaniment of innumerable thrills up and down Hatch’s spinal column; up the first flight safely, with Blindy Bates leading the way; then along the hall and up the second flight. There was absolutely not a sound in the house—they moved like ghosts.

At the top of the second flight Bates shot a gleam of light from his dark lantern along the hall. The third door it was. And a moment later he was concentrating every faculty on the three locks of this door. Still there had been not the slightest sound. The one spot in the darkness was the bull’s eye of the lantern as it illuminated the lock. The first lock was unfastened, then the second, and finally the third. Bates didn’t open the door—he merely stepped back—and the door opened as of its own volition. Involuntarily Hatch’s hand closed fiercely on his revolver, and Bates’s ready weapon glittered a little in the darkness.

“Thanks,” came after a moment, in the quiet, querulous voice of The Thinking Machine. “Mr. Hatch, did you bring those sandwiches?”

Half an hour later The Thinking Machine and Hatch appeared at police headquarters. Being naturally of a retiring, unostentatious disposition, Bates did not accompany them; instead, he went his way fingering a bill of moderately large denomination.

Detective Mallory was at home in bed; but Detective Cunningham, another shining light, received his distinguished visitor and Hatch.

“There’s a man named Howard Guerin now asleep in his state room aboard the steamer Austriana, which sails at five o’clock this morning—just an hour and a half from now—for Hamburg,” began The Thinking Machine without any preface. “Please have him arrested immediately.”

“What charge?” asked the detective.

“Really, it’s of no consequence,” replied The Thinking Machine. “Attempted murder, conspiracy, embezzlement, fraud—whatever you like. I can prove any or all of them.”

“I’ll go after him myself,” said the detective.

“And there is also a young woman aboard,” continued The Thinking Machine,—“a Miss Hilda Fanshawe. Please have her detained, not arrested, and keep a close guard on her—not to prevent escape, but to protect her.”

“Tell us some of the particulars of it,” asked the detective.

“I haven’t slept in more than forty-eight hours,” replied The Thinking Machine. “I’ll explain it all this afternoon, after I’ve rested a while.”

The Thinking Machine, for the benefit of Detective Mallory and his satellites, recited briefly the salient points of the story told by the actor, Watson Richards. His listeners were Howard Guerin, tall, keen faced, and clean shaven; Miss Hilda Fanshawe, whose pretty face reflected her every thought; Hutchinson Hatch, and three or four headquarters men. Every eye was upon the drawn face of the diminutive scientist, as he sat far back in his chair, with squint eyes turned upward, and fingertips pressed together.

“From the facts as he stated them, we know beyond all question, in the very beginning, that Mr. Richards was used as a tool to further some conspiracy or fraud,” explained The Thinking Machine. “That was obvious. So the first thing to do was to learn the identity of those persons who played the principal parts in it. From Mr. Richards’ story we apparently had nothing, yet it gave us practically the names and addresses of the persons at the bottom of the thing.

“How? To find how, we’ll have to consider the purpose of the conspiracy. An actor—an artist in facial impersonation, we might say—is picked up in the street and compelled to go through the mummery of a death bed scene while stupefied with drugs. Obviously this was arranged for the benefit of some person who must be convinced that he or she had witnessed a dissolution and the signature of a will, perhaps,—and a will signed under the eyes of that person for whose benefit the farce was acted.

“So we assume a will was signed. We know, within reason, that the mummery was arranged for the benefit of a young woman—Miss Fanshawe here. From the intricacy and daring of the plot, it was pretty safe to assume that a large sum of money was involved. As a matter of fact, there was—more than a million. Now, here is where we take an abstract problem and establish the identity of the actors in it. That will was signed by compulsory forgery, if I may use the phrase, by an utter stranger—a man who could not have known the handwriting of the man whose name he signed, and who was in a condition that makes it preposterous to imagine that he even attempted to sign that name. Yet the will was signed, and the conspirators had to have a signature that would bear inspection. Now, what have we left?

“When a person is incapable of signing his or her name, physically or by reason of no education, the law accepts a cross mark as a signature, when properly witnessed. We know Mr. Richards couldn’t have known or imitated the signature of the old man he impersonated; but he did sign—therefore a cross mark, which could have been established beyond question in a court of law. Now, you see how I established the identity of the persons in this fraud. I got the date of the incident from Mr. Richards, then a trip to the surrogate’s office told me all I wanted to know. What will had been filed for probate about that date which bore the cross mark as a signature? The records answered the question instantly—John Wallace Lawrence.

“I glanced over the will. It specifically allowed Miss Hilda Fanshawe a trivial thousand dollars a year, and yet she was Lawrence’s adopted daughter. See how the joints began to fit together? Further, the will left the bulk of the property to Howard Guerin, a Mrs. Francis,—since deceased, by the way,—and one Frank Hughes. The men were his nephews, the woman his niece. The joints continued to fit nicely, therefore the problem was solved. It was an easy matter to find these people, once I knew their names. I found Guerin—Mr. Richards knew him as Hallman—and asked him about the matter. From the fact that he locked me up in a room of his house and kept me prisoner for two days I was convinced that he was the principal conspirator, and so it proves.”

Again there was silence. Detective Mallory took three long breaths, and asked a question. “But where was John Wallace Lawrence when this thing happened?”

“Miss Fanshawe had been in Europe, and was rushing home, knowing that her adopted father was dying,” The Thinking Machine explained. “As a matter of fact, when she returned Mr. Lawrence was dead—he died the day before the farce which had been arranged for her benefit, and at the moment his body lay in an up stairs room. He was buried two days later—a day after the farce had been played—and she attended his funeral. You see there was no reason why she should have suspected anything. I don’t happen to know the provisions of Lawrence’s real will, but I dare say it left practically everything to her. The thousand-dollar allowance by the conspirators was a sop to stop possible legal action.”

The door of the room opened, and a uniformed man thrust his head in. “Mr. Richards wants to see Professor Van Dusen,” he announced.

Immediately behind him came the actor. He stopped in the door and stared at Guerin for a moment.

“Why, hello, Hallman!” he remarked pleasantly. Then his eyes fell upon the girl, and a flash of recognition lighted them.

“Miss Fanshawe, permit me, Mr. Richards,” said The Thinking Machine. “You have met before. This is the gentleman you saw die.”

“And where is Frank Hughes?” asked Detective Mallory.

“In South Africa,” replied the scientist. “I learned a great deal while I was a prisoner.”

A deeply troubled expression suddenly appeared on Hutchinson Hatch’s face that night when he was writing the story for his newspaper, and he went to the telephone and called The Thinking Machine.

“If you were guarded so closely as a prisoner in that room, how on earth did you mail that letter to me?” he inquired.

“Guerin came in to say some unpleasant things,” came the reply, “and placed several letters he intended to post on the table for a moment. The letter for you was already written and stamped, and I was seeking a way to mail it, so I put it with his letters and he mailed it for me.”

Hatch burst out laughing.

______________

8. The Problem of the Ghost Woman

RUBY REAGAN, expert cracksman, was busily, albeit quietly, engaged in the practice of his profession. His rubber soles fell silently upon the deep carpet as he stepped into the utter gloom of the study and closed the door noiselessly behind him. For a long time he stood perfectly still, listening, feeling with that vague single sense for the presence of some one else; then he flashed his electric light. A flat topped library table was directly in front of him, littered over with books, and to his left were the bulky outlines of a roll top desk. There were some chairs, a cabinet or so, and rows of bookcases.

His scrutiny, brief but comprehensive, seemed to satisfy Reagan; for the light went out suddenly, and, turning in his tracks, he slid the bolt of the door into its socket slowly, to avoid even a click. Next he released the grips on one of the windows, for it might be necessary to leave the room that way in the event of some one entering by the single door. Then he settled down to work. First was the desk, and after a long, minute inspection of the lock he dropped on his knees before it and began trying his skeleton keys. The electric flash, with the light fixed, was on the left leaf of the desk, brightly illuminating the lock and lending a deeper glow of ruby red to his hair. On the right leaf of the desk, within instant reach, was his revolver.

It was nearly half an hour before the lock yielded, and then, with a sigh of relief, Reagan carefully pushed up the roll top. Inside he found a metal box. From a score of pigeonholes he dragged forth papers of all descriptions, ruthlessly scattering them about him after a quick examination of each in turn. Then he went through drawer after drawer, carefully scrutinizing each article before he laid it down.

“Guess it’s in the box,” he mused at length.

Sitting flat upon the floor, with the box between his knees, he lavished his talents upon it. After a few minutes the lock clicked, and the metal lid lifted. Again Reagan smiled, for here were packages and packages of banknotes. But after a moment they too were spilled out on the floor. It was something else he sought.

“Now, that’s funny,” he told himself finally. “It isn’t here.” He paused thoughtfully, while his eyes rested lovingly upon the packages of money. “Of course, if I can’t get what I want I’ll take what I can get,” he went on at last. And he proceeded to stuff the money away in his pockets.

Several times he ran his fingers slowly through his red hair. It was plain that he was deeply puzzled. He was on the point of rising to continue his investigations in other directions, when he heard something. It was a voice—a quiet, soothing, pleasant voice—about fourteen inches behind his right ear.

“Don’t try to get your revolver, please!” the voice advised. “If you do, I’ll shoot!”

Involuntarily Reagan’s hand darted out toward the weapon on the leaf of the desk; but it was drawn back as suddenly when he heard a sharp click behind him. Nonplussed for the moment, he sat down again on the floor, half expecting a shot. It didn’t come, and he screwed his head around to see why.

What he saw astounded him. It was a diaphanous, floating, lacy, white something—the figure of a girl. Or was it a girl? The head was sheathed in white, the features covered by a misty, hazy, veily thing, and in the dim reflected light the whole figure seemed ridiculously unsubstantial. It was a girl’s voice, though.

“Sit perfectly still, please, and don’t make any noise!” the voice advised again. Yes, it was a girl’s voice.

Reagan noted the small, gold mounted revolver in her right hand, with the barrel, at just that moment, on a direct line with his head and only a foot or so away; and he noted that it remained steadily where it was without one tremor or quiver.

“Yes’m,” he said at last.

The white figure walked around him—or did it float?—and picked up his revolver from the desk.

“This is Mr. Reagan, isn’t it?” she inquired.

“Yes’m,” responded Reagan. The admission was surprised out of him.

“Did you find it?”

“No’m.”

Was this thing real? Reagan rubbed his eyes doubtfully. He was dreaming, of course. He would wake up in a minute. He opened his eyes again. Yes, there she was. But she wasn’t real,—she couldn’t be real,—she was a ghost. She was certainly not in the room when he entered, and she could not have come in since, because he had bolted the door on the inside.

“I shall trouble you now, Mr. Reagan,” the ghost woman went on, “to take all that money from your pocket and put it back in the box.”

Reagan stared at the end of the revolver a moment, and the ghost woman wriggled it. That was real enough, anyway. Promptly and without a word he began to disgorge packages of banknotes. Then at last looked up again.

“You put back only eight packages,” said the ghost woman calmly. “You took out nine.”

“Yes’m,” said Reagan.

He fished through his pockets again, in a semi-hypnotic condition, produced more money, and deposited it with the other. He closed the metal lid and snapped the lock.

“That will do very nicely,” she said approvingly. “Now I shall trouble you, please, to go on about your business.”

Reagan started to rise, awkwardly enough, on hands and knees. The ghost woman stepped back a little; but still she was not far enough away, for when Reagan suddenly came to his feet his outstretched arms struck her violently beneath the wrists and sent the two revolvers flying upward. With another quick movement he swept the electric light from the desk, extinguishing it. There was a sound of scuffling feet in the darkness, as of persons struggling, a little despairing cry, then finally a pistol shot.

Reagan stumbled blindly about the room, seeking the door. He found it at last, still bolted on the inside, and tugged at it frantically. Then came the sound of heavy feet running along the hall outside toward the study, and Reagan stopped. The window! It was the only way now! The shot had aroused the household. He rushed toward the window; but it refused to move.

The clamor was at the door. Desperately Reagan sought for the side grips on the window; but they seemed to have disappeared. The door trembled as some heavy body was hurled against it. The bolt would yield—it was yielding—Reagan heard the woodwork crack. Then deliberately he drove his clenched fist through the glass, took one step on a chair and hurled himself straight through. The door crashed under the onslaught and swung inward.

On the following morning Chester Mills, a wealthy merchant, called on Detective Mallory, chief of the bureau of criminal investigation.

“I own a large country estate forty miles out of town,” Mills began abruptly. “Yesterday was the last day of the month. I went to the bank and drew nine hundred dollars, and placed it in a metal box in my desk at home and locked both the box and desk.

“I went to bed at eleven o’clock. About two o’clock this morning I heard a pistol shot in the study. I jumped out of bed and rushed into the hall toward the study, meeting on the way one of my servants, O’Brien. We found the study locked, and started to smash the door in. As we did so we heard a great crash of glass inside.

“Then we did smash the door, and O’Brien turned on the electric lights. One of the two windows was smashed out as if somebody had jumped or been thrown through it; my desk had been ransacked, and my papers scattered all over the floor. The desk was standing open, and I picked up the box. It had a bullet hole in it. The ball went in the top and came out the side. I found it sticking in the desk. It was thirty-two caliber. Here it is.”

Mills tossed the misshapen leaden missile on the table, and Detective Mallory examined it.

“Then I found the first real puzzle,” Mills went on. “I opened the box and counted the money. Instead of any of it being missing, there was more there than there was when I put the box in the desk. Where there had been only nine hundred dollars, verified by the paying teller and myself, there was now nine hundred and ten dollars—an extra ten-dollar bill.”

Detective Mallory chewed his cigar frantically.

“O’Brien found a soft black hat in the room, near the door,” continued Mills, “a revolver, thirty-eight caliber, with every chamber loaded, an overcoat, an electric flashlight which had been thrown to the floor and broken, and a very complete kit of burglar’s tools. I straightened the women folk all out, had the house searched, and went back to bed. So far as I have been able to find out, nothing was stolen—nothing is missing.”

“Well, in that case——” began the detective.

“I haven’t started yet,” interrupted Mills tersely. “The window was out, as I said; so when we went to bed again we left O’Brien in the study on watch. About half-past three o’clock I was awakened again by a scream—a woman. Again I jumped out and ran along toward the study. The lights were going, but there was no sign of O’Brien. I presumed then that his attention had been attracted by the scream and he had gone to investigate. But—— Well, O’Brien has disappeared. No one has seen or heard of him since—there’s not a trace.”

Detective Mallory sat for a long time silently smoking, and staring into the eyes of his caller.

At this point the problem came under the observation of that eminent logician, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine. As Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, related the known facts, the distinguished man of science permitted his eyes to narrow down to mere slits of watery blue, and the tall, dome-like forehead was deeply furrowed.

“Why was any shot fired?” Hatch demanded of the scientist in perplexity. “And who fired it? Were there two burglars? Did they fight? Was one wounded? There were bloodstains on the ground outside the window; but we can see that whoever jumped out might have cut himself on the glass. And why was the hole shot in the tin box? Not to break the lock, obviously; for it could have been taken along. Where does the odd ten-dollar bill in the box figure? Where is O’Brien? Who was the woman who screamed that second time? Why did she scream? Why wasn’t something stolen?”

Having relieved himself of this torrent of questions, Hatch dropped back into his chair expectantly and lighted a cigarette. The Thinking Machine permitted two disapproving eyes to settle on the young man for a moment.

“And still you haven’t asked the one vital question,” he remarked tartly. “That is, What particular object in that study, or supposed to be in that study, is of such great importance to some one unknown that two bold, daring I might say, attempts were made to get it in the same night?”

“It seems to me it would be impossible to learn that, until——”

“Nothing is impossible, Mr. Hatch. It is merely a little sum in arithmetic. Two and two make four; not sometimes but all the time. This problem, at the moment, seems remarkably disjointed, particularly when we consider the disappearance of O’Brien. First, then, is Mr. Mills positive nothing was stolen?”

“Absolutely so,” replied Hatch. “He has checked off every paper, and accounted for every article.”

The furrows in the tall brow deepened perceptibly, and for a long time the crabbed little scientist sat silent. “How much blood was found outside?” he asked suddenly.

“Quite a good deal of it,” Hatch responded. “It looks as if some one, whoever jumped or was thrown out, received some nasty cuts. The edges of the glass are stained.”

The Thinking Machine nodded. “It is established beyond all question that the woman who screamed that second time was not one of those in the house?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” returned Hatch confidently. “They had all retired after the first fright, and the second didn’t even arouse them. They didn’t know of O’Brien’s disappearance until morning.”

“The police have found nothing yet?”

“Not yet. The articles left in the room, of course,—the hat and coat and burglar’s tools,—are clues that they are working on. They might establish identity by their aid.”

“Well, we’ll have to find the man who jumped,” remarked the scientist placidly. “When we do that, we can go somewhere with this affair.”

“Yes, when we do that,” Hatch agreed, with a grin.

“Of course we can do it!” snapped The Thinking Machine. “Here we seek a man with neither hat nor overcoat, who is cut up with glass, possibly badly wounded.”

“But he’s the sort of man who would scuttle to cover like a scared rabbit,” Hatch protested. “Wouldn’t matter how badly hurt he was, if he could walk he would hide.”

“You seem to think, Mr. Hatch, that leaping through a window, taking all the glass with you, and falling twenty feet to a hard pavement, is a trivial affair,” declared the scientist crabbedly. “If this man wasn’t badly hurt, it’s a miracle; therefore——” He stopped abruptly and squinted at the newspaper man. “I’m going to state a case and ask you a question,” he went on suddenly. “Before I do it I’ll write the answer you will give on this bit of paper. You are an intelligent man; so I’ll demonstrate to you how intelligent minds run in the same channel.”

He scribbled a few words hurriedly, folded the paper twice, and handed it to the reporter.

“Now you are the burglar,” he resumed, “a man perhaps well known to the police. You jumped from that window and hurt yourself seriously. You need medical attention; yet you can’t afford to run the slightest risk of capture. You have no hat or coat. You go to physician, not too near the scene of the affair, and you tell a story to account for your condition. What could you say to do away with all suspicion, and make yourself perfectly safe, at least for the moment?”

Hatch smiled whimsically as he turned and twisted the scrap of paper in his fingers, then lighted a cigarette and got down to the matter in hand seriously.

“I think,” he said at last slowly, and feeling unaccountably sheepish about it, “that the safest story to tell the physician would be that I had been thrown from an automobile, lost my hat, say, cut myself going head foremost through the glass front when the car ran away, badly bruised by the violence with which I hit the ground; and all that sort of thing.”

The Thinking Machine glared at him aggressively for an instant, then arose and left the room. Hatch drew a long breath, then opened the folded paper reluctantly. He found only these words:

“Runaway automobile—cut by diving through glass front—hat lost—bruises and other lacerations by fall to ground.”

When the scientist returned, he wore his hat and overcoat.

“Mr. Hatch, go at once to Mr. Mills, and inquire if he has yet learned of anything being missing from the study—a paper of some sort, in all probability,” he instructed. “Then, without mentioning the matter to him, take other steps to learn the nature of any litigation which might be pending in which he is concerned—I imagine something is either now going on or will be going on in a few days. Run by this evening to see me.”

“Are you going with me?” inquired the reporter.

“No, no,” responded the scientist impatiently. “I’m going to see the man who jumped out of the window.”

When Ruby Reagan, expert cracksman, awoke to consciousness he found himself gazing straight into two squinting blue eyes, magnified beyond all proportion by the thick spectacles through which he saw them. The eyes were set far back in a thin, drawn face, and above them was a shock of straw yellow hair.

“Be perfectly quiet,” said The Thinking Machine. “You are safe enough, and in a day or so you will be all right.”

“Who are you?” demanded Reagan suspiciously.

“I am acting for the gentleman who employed you to get that—that document from Mr. Mills’s study,” replied the scientist glibly. “You are in my home. The doctor fixed you up, and I brought you here as soon as I found you. He doesn’t suspect anything. He thinks you were injured in an automobile accident, as you said.”

The cracksman closed his eyes to think about it. Weakly, for he had lost much blood, he gradually pieced together a shattered recollection of events of the last few hours,—the jump, his hurts, that staggering run through deserted streets to get away from that place, the final collapse at the very door of a physician, the muttered story he told to account for his wounds. Then he looked again into the inscrutable face of The Thinking Machine. It all seemed regular enough.

“The cops don’t know?” he demanded suddenly.

“No,” replied The Thinking Machine emphatically. “Who fired the shot?”

“The ghost lady,” replied the cracksman promptly. “Guess she didn’t mean to, though, cause she seemed as anxious to be quiet as I was.”

“And of course you jumped when you heard some one at the door?”

“Betcher neck!” replied Reagan grimly. “The cops ain’t never had me yet, an’ I don’t intend to break no record.”

“And the ghost lady,” resumed the scientist. “Tell me about her.”

And then the story of the strange happenings in the study that night as Reagan recalled them was told. “And I didn’t get the paper at that,” he concluded.

“You say the ghost lady was all in white?”

“Sure,” was the reply. “I don’t know really whether she was a ghost or not; but she started the mix-up.” He was silent for a moment. “But le’me tell you she must have been a ghost. She couldn’t have got in that room any other way. She slid in through the keyhole or something.”

“And she called you by name, you say?”

“Yes. That’s another thing that makes me think she’s a ghost. How did she know my name. And why did she ask me if I got it?”

Hutchinson Hatch called an hour later. There was something of elation, excitement nearly, in his manner. He found The Thinking Machine stretched out in a huge chair in the laboratory, with unruffled brow, and idly twiddling fingers.

“The litigation, Mr. Hatch,” said the latter without turning.

“Well, there are a dozen cases in which he is interested one way or another,” Hatch informed him; “but there is one particularly——”

“Something about property rights, I imagine?” interrupted the scientist.

“Yes,” said the reporter. “There’s a fortune involved, and a vast deal of real estate. A business partner of Mills, Martin Pendexter by name, died three or four years ago and his grandson, now about twenty-two years old, is suing to recover certain money and property from Mills, alleging that Mills assumed it as his own when Pendexter died. Mills has steadfastly refused to go into the matter, or even discuss it, and finally the boy brought the suit. It has been postponed several times; but it’s to come up for hearing soon.”

“Mr. Mills, then, holds title to this property?” inquired The Thinking Machine.

“I presume if he hadn’t felt safe in his position he would not have permitted the matter to go into court,” replied Hatch. “I figure that Mills does hold a release from Pendexter of the property, and intends to produce it in court. He has advised the boy several times not to sue; but would never give a reason.”

“Oh!” and for a long time the scientist sat silent. “Of course—of course,” he mused, half aloud. “Then the ghost woman was one of the——”

“And there’s another thing,” Hatch rushed on impatiently. “Detective Downey told me a little while ago the police have established the identity of at least one person who was in the study that night, by the kit of tools left behind. His name is Ruby Reagan.”

“Ruby Reagan,” repeated the scientist thoughtfully. “Oh, yes. He’s asleep in the next room there.”

The Thinking Machine was talking; Mills, Detective Mallory, and Hutchinson Hatch were listening.

“There is no puzzle about it at all,” declared the scientist. “Briefly what happened was this: A burglar was employed by a man who is suing you, Mr. Mills, to go into your study and find, if indeed such a thing is in existence, the document upon which you must depend to prove your title to the Pendexter property now in dispute.

“Well, this burglar went to that study and looked for that document—vainly, I may say here. While looking for that he found the money in the box. He was tempted then, contrary to orders, perhaps, and put this money in his pocket. Later he was compelled at the point of a revolver to put the money back in the box, and in his hurry to obey orders he put in a ten-dollar bill of his own. The person who compelled him to replace the money was—was——”

He paused, wrote something on a slip of paper, and passed it to Mills.

“What!” exclaimed Mills incredulously.

“No names, please—yet, anyway,” broke in the scientist. “Anyway, it was a woman, I may say a woman of great courage, even audacity. She had gained possession of the burglar’s revolver, and with two weapons ordered him to go. The burglar precipitated a struggle, a shot was fired by accident, perhaps, and that is the shot which went through the tin box. The burglar jumped through the window and escaped. The woman, who was in the room, perhaps behind the curtain of the door when the burglar entered, had come there to get that particular document he was seeking. At the time he jumped we can imagine how she managed to get out into the hall when the door flew open, and you and your man O’Brien entered.

“The next we know of that woman she was with the others screaming. A little logic shows us that after that first fright, when the house was perfectly still again, the woman, not knowing O’Brien was on watch, returned to that study again to seek that document. He was sitting in the dark, heard her, and flashed on the electric lights. She was surprised, she screamed, was recognized by O’Brien, and then for some consideration that does not appear—probably a bribe—induced O’Brien to disappear. Again she avoided discovery, and if an investigation had been made she would have been found in bed, I dare say.

“Being totally ignorant now, of the incidents leading up to the pistol shot and the burglar’s escape, the first point that the logical mind can seize upon is the finding of more money in the tin box than was known to be there. Therefore, we know that that box had been opened, and we know that the burglar was either an honest man or was compelled to be honest. We know too from the fact that a thirty-eight caliber revolver was found, that there was a second revolver—the one from which the shot was fired. Burglars are not honest. Was this one compelled to be honest? What honest person could be in that room alone with that burglar, remember? You see instantly a thousand possibilities.

“Without pursuing those possibilities at the moment, it came down to a question of finding the burglar—the dishonest one, I may say. That was not difficult, only tedious work on the telephone, seeking a doctor who had treated a man who was probably—probably, you note—injured in an automobile accident. I found your Ruby Reagan, Mr. Mallory, and from him I learned just what happened at first—a woman in white, a ghost woman, obviously some woman in the house. White lacy gowns are not popular for street wear at two o’clock in the morning.”

“I wonder if this is absolutely necessary, Mr. Van Dusen?” interrupted Mills. His face was white. “I think I understand, and I assure you the matter has taken a personal turn which may mean a great deal to me and my family.”

The Thinking Machine waved his hand as if the matter was dismissed.

“For your benefit, Mr. Mills,” continued the scientist, “I will state that the motive for the girl’s act was one which reflected her great courage, and her loyalty to you—perhaps at the same time her regard for another man. Do you follow me? In some way—perhaps the man told her—she learned of the plan to engage Reagan for the work, and she could have learned of that only from the man by a relationship which partook of love for him. Her loyalty to you and a natural desire to save this man’s name in your eyes, led her to seek in person to recover the document. It merely happened that they both visited the study the same night.”

The Thinking Machine stopped as if that was all.

“But here, go on,” Detective Mallory insisted. “I want to know the rest.”

“Suppose, Mr. Mallory, that you find Reagan for yourself?” suggested The Thinking Machine after a long pause. “I did it. Surely you can.”

“Where is he? Where did you see him?”

“I saw him at my house,” responded the scientist calmly. “I left him there to come here; but a man who confesses what he confessed to me doesn’t stay at a place like that if he can help it. The matter is as I have stated it, Mr. Mills. Your reason for refusing to give the young man any explanation of your holding the property is a good one, I dare say, so I’ll not question it.”

“I’ll tell you,” flamed Mills suddenly. “He is not really the grandson of Pendexter. I will be compelled to show that if he sues me—that is why I have advised him not to sue.”

“I imagined as much,” said The Thinking Machine.

Ruby Reagan left the home of The Thinking Machine in a cab late that night. And a few days later the Pendexter suit was withdrawn by the plaintiff.

______________

9. The Mystery of the Grip of Death

1

DEEP silence, then a long shuddering wail of terror, a stifled, strangling cry for help, the sound of a body falling, and again deep silence. A pause, and after awhile the tramp, tramp of heavy shoes through a lower hall. A door slammed and a man staggered out into a deserted street, haggard, trembling and with lips hard set. He reeled down the street and turned the first corner, waving his trembling hands fantastically.

Another pause, and spears of light flashed through the black night from the second floor of a great six-story tenement in South Boston, then came the sound of stockinged feet hurrying along the hall. Half a dozen horror-stricken men and women gathered at the door of the room whence had come the cry, helplessly gazing into one another’s eyes, waiting, waiting, listening.

Finally, from inside the room, they heard a faint whispering sound as of wind rustling through dead leaves, or the silken swish of skirts, or the gasp of a dying man. They listened with strained attention until the noise stopped.

At last one of the men rapped on the door lightly. There was no answer, no sound. Again he rapped, this time louder; then he beat his fists on the door and called out. Still a silence that was terrifying. Mute inquiry lay in the eyes of all.

“Break in the door,” said some one at length, in an awed whisper.

“Send for the police,” said another.

The police came. They smashed in the door, old and rotting from age, and two of them entered the dark room. One of them used his lantern and those who crowded the door heard an exclamation.

“He’s dead!”

Peering curiously around the corner of the door the white-faced watchers in the hall saw a man, dressed for bed, lying still on the floor. Two chairs had been over-turned; the bed clothing was disarranged. One of the policemen was bending over the body, making a hurried examination. He finally arose.

“Strangled to death with a rope—but no rope here,” he explained to the other. “This is a case for a medical examiner and detectives.”

“What’s his name?” asked one of the policemen of a man who stood looking in curiously.

“Fred Boyd,” was the reply.

“Have a room-mate?”

“No.”

The other policeman was fumbling about the table with his light. At last he turned and held up something in his hand.

“Look here,” he said.

It was a new wedding ring. The bright gold glittered in the lantern light.

* * * *

AN HOUR later a man turned from a side street into the avenue where stood the big tenement house, and swung along in that direction. It was the man who had left the lower door soon after the cries were heard on the second floor. Then his face had been haggard, distorted; now it was calm. One might even trace a line of melancholy and regret there.

Around the street door of the tenement was gathered a crowd of half a hundred curious ones, half-clad and shivering in the chill of the night, all craning their necks to see into the hall over the broad shoulders of a policeman who barred the door.

From a score of windows the heads of other curious ones were thrust out; there was the hum of subdued conversation.

The stranger paused on the outskirts of the little knot and peered curiously into the hall, as others were doing. He saw nothing, and turned to a bystander.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Man murdered inside,” was the short response.

“Murdered?” exclaimed the stranger, “who was it?”

“Fellow named Fred Boyd.”

A flash of horror passed over the stranger’s face and he made an involuntary motion with his hand toward his heart. Then he steadied himself with an effort.

“How was he—he murdered?” he asked.

“Choked to death,” said the other. “Somebody heard him yell for help a little while ago, and when a policeman came he smashed in the door and found him dead. The body was still warm.”

The stranger’s face was white as death now and his lips moved nervously. His hands, thrust deep into his pockets, were clenched until the nails cut the flesh.

“What time did it happen?” he said.

“The cop says about fifteen minutes to eleven,” was the reply. “One of the tenants who lived on the second floor, where Boyd had a room, looked at his clock when he got up after he heard Boyd shout, so they know just when it was.”

Uncontrollable terror glittered in the stranger’s eyes, but none noted it. All were intently looking into the hall waiting for something.

“Medical Examiner Barry and Detective Mallory are up there now,” volunteered the bystander. “The body will be coming out in a minute.”

Then an awed whisper went around: “It’s coming.”

The stranger stood peering on as the others did.

“Do they know who did it?” he asked. His voice was tense, and he fiercely repressed a quaver in it.

“No,” said his informant. “I heard, though, that a fellow had been up in Boyd’s room to-night, and the man who had the next room heard them talking very loud. They had been playing cards.”

“Did the man go out?” asked the stranger.

“Nobody saw him if he did,” was the reply. “I guess, though, the police know who he was, and they’re probably looking for him by this time. If they don’t know, Mallory’ll find him out all right.”

“Great God!” exclaimed the stranger between his tightly compressed lips.

The other man turned and looked at him curiously.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” said the stranger, hurriedly. “Look, there it comes—that’s all. It’s awful, awful, awful.”

The big policeman in the door stepped to one side, and men came out bearing a litter, on which lay a grim, grisly something that had been a man. It was covered with a sheet. Beside it were Detective Mallory and Medical Examiner Barry. The little knot of onlookers was silent in the presence of death.

The stranger looked, looked as if fascinated by the horrid thing which lay there, watched them put the litter into the police ambulance, heard the Medical Examiner give some instructions and then Detective Mallory re-entered the house. The wagon drove away.

Turning suddenly, the stranger strode quickly down the avenue to the first corner. There he turned away and was swallowed up in the darkness. After a moment, from a distance, came the sound of a man’s footsteps, running.

2

SEVERAL newspaper men, among them Hutchinson Hatch, went over the scene of the crime with Detective Mallory. It was a square, corner room on the second floor. The furniture consisted only of a bed, a table, a wash stand, chairs, there was no carpet to cover the gaping cracks in the floor, no curtains on the two windows.

The building was old and poorly constructed. Here a part of the cornice was sagging and broken, there the walls were mouldy; the ceiling was blotched with smoke, over by the steam radiator rats had gnawed a hole big enough to put one’s fist in, the single-stemmed gas jet was grimy with dirt.

Of the two windows one was in the back wall and one in the side. Hutchinson Hatch trailed around the room with Detective Mallory. He saw that the two windows were securely fastened down with a sliding catch over the middle of the lower sash; there were no broken panes so that one leaving by the window might have reached in and fastened it after him.

Mr. Mallory explored the closet, but found only the things that belong to a poor man: clothing, an old hat, a battered trunk. There was no opening, the walls were solid. Then Mr. Mallory went to the door that had been smashed in. It was the only door except that of the closet. There was no transom.

Mr. Mallory and the reporter looked at this door a long time. It had been fastened when the police came—barred with an iron rod from one side to the other—held in round, iron sockets, set in the door facing. Neither of the sockets was open at the top; the bar had to be pushed through one straight on across the door into the other.

Thus early in the investigation Hutchinson Hatch saw this problem. If the windows were fastened inside and the murderer could not have passed out that way; if the door was fastened inside with an iron bar in both sockets and the murderer could not have gone that way—What then?

Hatch thought instinctively of a certain scientist and logician of note. Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., M. D., LL. D., etc., so-called The Thinking Machine, whom he had occasion to know well because of certain previous adventures in which the scientist had accomplished seemingly impossible things.

“And I think this would stump even him,” Hatch said to himself with a grim smile.

Then he listened as Detective Mallory questioned the various tenants of the house. Briefly the detective brought out these facts:

A man, whose description the detective carefully noted, had called to see Boyd that evening about half past eight o’clock. He had been there many times before. Four persons had seen him this evening in Boyd’s room, but no one of these knew his name. Some one passing had seen Boyd playing cards with him.

Shortly after 10 o’clock, when practically every one in the house had gone to bed, a man and woman in the next room heard Boyd’s voice and that of his caller raised suddenly as if in argument. This continued for five minutes or so, then it quieted down. Such things were common in the tenement and the man and woman dropped off to sleep, thinking nothing of it.

Some time later, evidently only a few minutes, they were awakened by that pitiful, terror-stricken cry which made them shudder. With others in the house who had been aroused they dressed hurriedly. It was then they heard heavy foot steps in the hall below and the street door opened with a bang.

Both were of the opinion not five minutes could not have elapsed from the time they heard the cry until they stood outside the door where the man lay. They would have heard, they thought, anyone leave Boyd’s room after they were awakened by the cry, yet there was no sound from there when they stood in the hall. Then they heard—what?

“It was a peculiar sound,” the man explained. “It struck me first that it was the swish of silk skirt, then, of course, as no woman was in the room, it must have been the dying man breathing.”

“Silk skirt! Woman! woman! wedding ring!” Hatch thought. Whose was it? How could a woman have escaped from the room when it seemed that it would have been impossible for a man to escape? The questionings concluded, Detective Mallory turned graciously to the representatives of the press who were waiting impatiently. It was after midnight, dangerously near the first edition time, and the reporters were anxious for the detective’s comment.

He was about to begin when another reporter, one of Hatch’s fellow workers, entered, called Hatch to one side and said something quickly. Hatch nodded his head and idly fingered a pack of playing cards he had taken from the table.

“Good,” he said, “Go back to the office and write the story. I’ll ’phone Mallory’s statement and tell him that other thing. I want to do a little more work, but I’ll be at the office by half-past 2 o’clock.”

The reporter went out hurriedly.

“I suppose you boys want to know something about how all this happened?” the detective was saying. He lighted a cigar and spread his feet wide apart. “I’ll tell you all I can—not all I know, mind you, because that wouldn’t be wise, but how the murder happened, and you can put in the thrill and all that to suit yourself.

“About half-past 8 o’clock to-night a man called here to see Boyd. He knew Boyd very well—was probably a friend of several years’ standing—and had called here frequently. We have an accurate description of him. He was seen by several persons who knew him by sight, therefore will be able to absolutely identify him when we arrest him.

“Now, those two men were together in this room for possibly two hours. They were playing cards. More than half the murders on record are committed in the heat of passion. These men quarrelled over their game, probably ‘pitch’ or ‘casino’——”

“It’s a pinochle pack,” said Hatch.

“Then the crime was committed,” the detective went on, not heeding the interruption, “the unknown man was sitting here,” and Mallory indicated an overturned chair to his right.

“He leaped like this,” and the detective, with a full eye for dramatic effect, illustrated, “seized Boyd by the throat, there was a struggle, notice the other overturned chair—and the unknown man bore Boyd down gripping his throat. He choked him to death.”

“I thought the dead man was undressed when he was found?” asked Hatch. “The bed, too,” and he indicated its disordered condition.

“He was, but—but it must have happened as I said,” said the detective. He didn’t like reporters who asked embarrassing questions. “His victim dead, the murderer went out by that door,” and he pointed dramatically.

“Through the keyhole, I suppose?” said Hatch, quietly. “That door was fastened inside as no mere mortal could fasten it after he left the room.”

“It’s an old burglar’s trick to fasten a door after you leave the room,” said the detective, loftily.

“How about the wedding ring?”

“Ah!” and the detective looked wise. “There’s nothing to be said of that now.” He saw suddenly that he had made one mistake and he felt his prestige slipping away. The reporters turned a flood of questions upon him: “How did it happen Boyd was undressed?” “Who put out the gas?” “How would a burglar replace an iron bar like that?” “Do you suspect a burglar?”

Mr. Mallory raised his hand. “I will say absolutely nothing else about the case.”

“Let’s see if we understand you,” said Hatch, and there was a mocking smile on his lips. “The police theory briefly is this: A man came here, there was a quarrel, a struggle; Boyd was killed, choked; then the murderer left this room by that door, possibly through the keyhole or a convenient crack. Then, being dead, Boyd got up, took off his clothes, turned out the gas, lay down on the floor, screamed for help and died again. Is that right?”

“Bah!” thundered Mr. Mallory, on the verge of apoplexy. “Perhaps,” he added scornfully, “you know more about it than I do.”

“Well, yes, I’ll confess that,” said Hatch. “I know at least the name of the man who was here to-night, and these other reporters will know it when their outside men come in.”

“You do, eh,” demanded Mr. Mallory. “Who is it?”

“His name is Frank Cunningham, a watchmaker of No. 213 —— Street.”

“Then he is Boyd’s murderer,” Mr. Mallory declared. “We’ll have him under arrest in an hour.”

“He has disappeared,” said Hatch, and he left the room.

3

FROM the South Boston tenement house Hutchinson Hatch went to the undertaking establishment where the body of Fred Boyd lay, made a careful examination of the mark which showed that he had been throttled, and then went in a cab to the home of Professor Van Dusen, The Thinking Machine. As he drove up he noticed a bright light in the professor’s laboratory. It was just fifteen minutes past 1 o’clock when he ascended the steps.

The Thinking Machine in person answered the door bell, the leonine head with its shock of yellow hair, the clean shaven face, and the perpetually squinted eyes behind thick glasses standing out boldly and grotesquely in the light from a nearby arc.

“Who is it?” asked The Thinking Machine.

“Hutchinson Hatch,” said the reporter. “I saw your light and I was particularly anxious for a little advise, so I thought——”

“Come in,” said the scientist, and he extended his long, slender fingers cordially.

Hatch followed the thin, bowed figure of the scientist, which seemed that of a child, into the laboratory where he was motioned to a seat. Then Hatch told the story of the crime, so far as it was known, while the professor sat squinting steadily at him, his long taper fingers pressed together.

“Did you see the man?” asked The Thinking Machine.

“Yes.”

“What kind of marks, exactly, were those on his neck?”

“They seemed to be such marks as would be made by a large rope drawn about the throat.”

“Was the skin broken?”

“No, but whoever strangled him must have had tremendous strength,” said the reporter. “The pressure seemed to have been all around.”

The Thinking Machine sat silent for several minutes.

“Door fastened inside with iron bar,” he mused, “and no transom, so the bar was not placed back in position. Both windows fastened inside.”

“It would have been absolutely impossible for any person to leave that room after Boyd was dead,” said the reporter, emphatically.

“Nothing is impossible, Mr. Hatch,” said The Thinking Machine, testily. “I thought I had demonstrated that clearly, once. The worst anything can be is extremely difficult—not impossible.”

Hatch bowed gravely. He had walked over one of The Thinking Machine’s pet hobbies.

“Man was undressed,” went on The Thinking Machine. “Bed disordered, chairs overturned, gas out.” He paused a moment, then asked: “You reason that the man must have gone to bed after putting out the light, and that his murderer came upon him unawares?”

“That seems to be the only possible thing to imagine,” said Hatch.

“And in that case the other man—Cunningham—would not have been there?”

“Precisely.”

“What sort of a wedding ring was it?”

“Perfectly new. It didn’t seem to have ever been worn.”

The Thinking Machine arose from his seat and took down a heavy volume, one of hundreds which lined his walls.

“You don’t believe it probable that Cunningham left the room while angry and returned after Boyd was asleep and killed him?” asked The Thinking Machine as he fingered the leaves.

“He couldn’t have come back if that door was fastened,” said Hatch, doggedly.

“He could have, of course,” said The Thinking Machine, “but it is hardly probable. Do you think it reasonable to suppose then that someone hidden in the closet waited until Cunningham was gone and then killed Boyd?”

“That sounds more plausible,” said Hatch, after a moment’s consideration. “But he couldn’t have gone out of that room and fastened the door or window behind him.”

“Of course he could have,” said The Thinking Machine, irritably. “Don’t keep saying he couldn’t have done anything. It annoys me exceedingly.”

Properly rebuked Hatch sat silent while The Thinking Machine sought something in the book.

“In the event, of course, that somebody was hidden in the room it would make it a premeditated murder, wouldn’t it?” asked the scientist.

“Yes, unquestionably,” replied the reporter.

“Here is something,” said The Thinking Machine, as he squinted into the volume he held. “It is logic reduced to figures. Criminologists agree, practically, that thirty and one-third per cent of all premeditated crimes are committed because of money, directly or indirectly; that two per cent are committed because of insanity; and that the others, sixty-seven and two-thirds per cent, are committed because of women.”

Hatch nodded.

“We’ll shut out for the time being the matter of insanity—it is only a remote chance; money would hardly enter into the case because of the fact that both men were poor. Therefore, there remains a woman. The wedding ring found in the room also indicates a woman, though in what connection is not clear.

“Now, Mr. Hatch,” he continued, glaring at the reporter almost fiercely, “find out all you can about the private life of this man Boyd—it will probably be like every other man of his class—and particularly his love affairs; find out also all you can about Cunningham and his love affairs. If the name of any woman appears in the case at all, find out all about her—and her love affairs. You understand?”

“Yes,” was the reply.

“Don’t delude yourself with the thought that it was impossible for anyone to leave that room after Boyd was dead,” went on the scientist, with the stubborn persistence of a child. “Suppose this—I don’t offer it as a solution—suppose that Boyd had been engaged to be married, that someone else loved the girl he was to marry, that that someone else had hidden in his room until Cunningham went away, then—you see?”

“By George!” exclaimed the reporter. “I never thought of that. But how did he get out?” he added helplessly.

“If a man did do such a thing he would have made every arrangement to leave that room in a manner calculated to puzzle anyone who came after. Mind, I don’t say this is what happened at all—I merely suggest it as a possibility until I find more to work on.”

Hatch arose, stretched his long legs and thanked The Thinking Machine as he pulled on his gloves.

“I’m sorry I could not have been of any more direct assistance,” said the scientist. “When you do these things I ask come back to see me—I may be able to help you then. You see I’m at a tremendous disadvantage in not having seen the place where Boyd was killed. There is one thing, though, which I particularly would like for you to find out for me now—to-night.”

“What is it?” asked Hatch.

“This tenement is an old building, I understand. I should like to know if the occupants have ever been annoyed by rats and mice, and if they are so annoyed now?”

“I don’t quite see——” began the reporter in surprise.

“Of course not,” said The Thinking Machine petulantly. “But I should like to know just the same.”

“I’ll find out for you.”

Hutchinson Hatch had still nearly an hour, and he drove to the tenement in South Boston, to wake up its occupants and ask them—of all the silly questions in the world—“Are you annoyed by mice?” He set his teeth grimly and smiled.

When he reached the tenement he went straight on to the second floor. The steps ended within a few feet of the door where the crime had been committed. Hatch looked at the door curiously; the police had gone, the room was silent again, hiding its own mystery.

As he stood there he heard something which startled him. It came from the room where Boyd had been found dead. There was no question of that. It was a faint whispering sound as of wind rustling through dead leaves, or the silken swish of skirts, or the gasp of a dying man.

With blood tingling, Hatch rushed to the door and threw it open. He stepped inside, lighting a match as he did so. The room was empty save for the poor furniture. No sign of as living thing!

4

STRAINING his ears to catch every sound, Hatch stood still, peering this way and that until the match burned his fingers. Then he lighted another and still another, but there was no repetition of the noise. At last the ghostly quiet of the room, its gloom and thoughts of the mystery which its walls had witnessed began to press on his nerves. He laughed shortly.

“A very pronounced case of enlargement of the imagination,” he said to himself, and he passed out. “This thing is getting on my nerves.”

Then, feeling very foolish, he aroused several persons and inquired solicitously as to whether or not they had ever been troubled with mice or rats, and when this annoyance had stopped, if it had stopped.

The concensus of opinion was that it was a silly thing to ask, but that up to a fortnight ago the rodents had been very bad. Since then no one had noticed particularly. These things, in so far as they related to rodents of any kind, were telephoned to The Thinking Machine.

“Uh, huh,” he said over the ’phone. “Thanks. Good night.”

From that point on every effort of the police and the press was directed to finding Frank Cunningham, who was openly charged with the murder of Fred Boyd. His disappearance had been complete. If there had been any doubt whatsoever of his guilt, this was convincing—to the police.

It was Hatch’s personal efforts that uncovered the fact that Cunningham had had a bank account of $287 in a small institution, that on the morning following the mysterious crime in the South Boston tenement a check to “cash” had been presented for the full sum and that check had been honored. This began to look conclusive.

It was also due to Hatch’s personal efforts that the police learned Cunningham was to have been married a week after his disappearance to Caroline Pierce, a working girl of the West End. Then Hatch discovered that Caroline Pierce had also disappeared; that she went away presumably to work on the morning after the murder of Boyd. Where had she gone? No one knew, not even Miss Jerrod, the girl who, with her, occupied a suite of three rooms in the West End. Why had she gone? No one knew that. When had she gone? Still no one knew. When would she return? Again the same answer.

To the reporter there seemed only one plausible explanation. This was that Cunningham had drawn his money from the bank—which he had saved to make a little home for the girl he loved—and they had gone away together. In the natural course of his duty Hatch printed this, and it came to the eyes of the police. Detective Mallory smiled.

But the wedding ring in Boyd’s room?

There was no explanation of that. Boyd had had no love affair so far as any one knew. He had been a hard-working, steady-going man in his trade—electrician employed by a telephone company—and he and Cunningham had been friends since boyhood.

All these things, while interesting in themselves, still threw no light on the actual crime. Who killed Boyd, and why? How did the murderer get away? Hatch had put the question to himself time and again. There was no answer. Thus the intangible pall of mystery which lay over the happenings in the South Boston tenement was still impenetrable.

On the second day after the crime Hatch again consulted The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened patiently and carefully, but without any enthusiastic interest to the reporter’s recital of what he had discovered.

“Have you a man watching the place where the girl lives?” he asked.

“No,” Hatch replied. “I think she’s gone for good.”

“I don’t think so,” said The Thinking Machine. “I should send a man there to see if she returns.”

“If you think best,” said Hatch. “But don’t you think now this man Cunningham must have been the criminal?”

The scientist squinted at the reporter a long time, seemingly having heard nothing of the question.

“It looks that way to me,” Hatch went on, hesitatingly. “But frankly, I can’t imagine a way that he might have left that room after Boyd was dead.”

Still the scientist was silent, and the reporter nervously fingered his hat.

“That information you gave me about the rats was very interesting,” said The Thinking Machine at last, irrelevantly.

“Perhaps, but I don’t see how it applies.”

“Looking out the windows of the room where Boyd was found, what did you see?” the scientist interrupted.

Hatch did not recall that he had ever looked out either of the windows; he had merely satisfied himself that neither had been used as a means of exit. Now he blushed guiltily.

“I’m afraid you haven’t looked,” said The Thinking Machine, testily. “I thought probably you wouldn’t have. Suppose we go to South Boston this afternoon and see that room.”

“If you only would,” said Hatch, delightedly. Here was better luck than he dreamed of. “If you only would,” he repeated.

“We’ll go now,” said The Thinking Machine. He left the room and returned a moment later dressed for the street. The slender, bent figure and the great head seemed more grotesque than ever.

“Before we go,” he instructed, “telephone to your office and have a reliable man sent to watch the girl’s house. Tell him under no circumstances to try to enter or speak with anyone there until he hears from us.”

The Thinking Machine stood waiting impatiently while Hatch did this. Then they took a cab to the tenement in South Boston.

“Dear me, what an old, ramshackle affair it is!” commented the scientist as they climbed the stairs.

The door of Boyd’s room was not locked. The furniture and the personal effects of the man had been moved out—taken in charge by the Medical Examiner for possible use at an inquest.

“Just how was this room fastened when Boyd was found?” asked the scientist.

Hatch showed him, at the door and windows. The Thinking Machine was interested for a moment and then looked out the side window. Straight down fifteen feet was a wilderness of ash barrels and boxes and papers—a typical refuse heap of a cheap tenement. Then The Thinking Machine squinted out the back window. There he saw an open space, a rough baseball diamond, intersected at two places by the trampled down rings of a circus.

Perfunctorily he peered into the closet, after which his eyes swept the room in one comprehensive squint. He noted the begrimed condition of the place; the drooping cornice, the smoky ceiling, the gaping cracks in the floor, the rat holes beside the radiator, the dirty gas pipe leading down to a single jet. He leaned against a wall and wrote for several minutes on a sheet of paper torn from his notebook.

“Have you an envelope?” he asked.

Hatch produced one. The Thinking Machine put what he had written into the envelope, sealed it and handed it back.

“There’s something that may interest you some time,” he said, “but don’t open it until I give you permission to do so.”

“Certainly not,” said the reporter, puzzled but without question. “But may I ask——”

“What it is?” snapped the scientist. “No, I will tell you when to open it.”

They descended the stairs together.

“Somewhere to a public telephone,” were The Thinking Machine’s instructions to the cabby. At a nearby drug store, he disappeared into a telephone booth and remained for five minutes. When he came out he asked for the envelope he had given Hatch and in a little crabbed hand wrote on it:

“November 9-10.”

“Keep it,” he commanded, as he returned it to the reporter. “Now we’ll drive to the girl’s place.”

When the cab reached the West End address it was a little later than dusk. Caroline Pierce and her girl chum occupied a front apartment on the ground floor. As The Thinking Machine and Hatch were about to enter the building, Tom Manning, another reporter on Hatch’s paper, approached them.

“The girl hasn’t returned,” he reported. “The other girl—Miss Jerrod—came back home from work just a few minutes ago.”

“We’ll see her,” said The Thinking Machine. Then to Manning: “At the end of two minutes, by your watch, after I enter this apartment, ring the bell several times. Don’t be afraid. Ring it! If any person runs out, man or woman, hold him. Mr. Hatch, you go to the back entrance of this apartment. Stop any person, man or woman, coming from this suite.”

“You believe then——” Hatch began.

“I’ll give you two minutes to get to the back door,” snapped The Thinking Machine.

Hatch disappeared hurriedly, and for just two minutes, not a second more, The Thinking Machine waited. Then he rang the bell of the apartment. Miss Jerrod appeared at the door. He followed her into the suite.

Manning at the front door waited, watch in hand. When the two minutes were up he rang the bell time after time, long, insistent rings. He could hear it tinkling furiously. Then he heard something else. It was the slamming of a door, a rush of feet and a struggle. Then The Thinking Machine appeared before him.

“Come in,” he said, modestly. “We have Cunningham inside.”

5

A LITTLE drama of human emotion was being enacted in the tiny front suite. Frank Cunningham, wanted for the murder of Fred Boyd, sat wearily resigned in the corner furthest from the door under the watchful eye of Hutchinson Hatch. The man was unshaven, haggard, and there lay in his eyes the restless, feverish look of one who lives his life in terror of the law. Caroline Pierce, who was to have been his wife, had flung herself on a couch, weeping hysterically.

Towering above the slender, shrinking figure of The Thinking Machine, Miss Jerrod was bitterly denouncing him for a trick which had given Cunningham into his hands. The scientist listened patiently, albeit unhappily. He couldn’t help himself.

“You told me,” stormed Miss Jerrod, “that you believed him innocent, and now this—this.”

“Well?” said The Thinking Machine meekly.

Miss Jerrod was about to say something else when Cunningham stopped her with a gesture.

“I’m rather glad of it,” he said, “or rather I would be if it were not for her,” and he indicated Caroline Pierce. “I have never spent such hours of mortal fear as those since the murder of Fred Boyd. Now, somehow, it’s a relief to know it must all come out.”

“You know you were a fool to try to hide, anyway,” said The Thinking Machine, frankly.

“I know I made a mistake—now,” replied Cunningham. “But we were afraid—Caroline and I—and I couldn’t help it.”

“Well, go on with your story,” commanded the scientist testily.

Manning, the other reporter, crossed the room and sat beside Hatch, while Cunningham moved over, took a seat beside the couch where the girl lay weeping and gently stroked her hair.

“I’ll tell what story I can,” he said at last. “I don’t know what you’ll think of it, but——”

“Pardon me just a moment,” said The Thinking Machine. He went to Cunningham and ran his long, slender fingers over the prisoner’s head several times. Suddenly he leaned forward and squinted at Cunningham’s head.

“What is this?” he asked.

“That is where a silver plate was put in,” Cunningham replied. “I was badly injured by a fall when I was about fourteen years old.”

“Yes, yes,” said the scientist. “Go on with your story.”

“I have known Boyd since we were boys together up in Vermont,” Cunningham began, “and there, too, I knew Caroline. All three of us came from the same little town—Caroline only two years ago. Boyd and I had been in Boston for seven years when she came. Boyd lived for five years in that—that room in South Boston, where——”

“Never mind,” said The Thinking Machine. “Go on.”

“Well, Caroline came here two years ago as I said and I believe that Boyd loved her as well as I do,” said Cunningham. “But she promised to be my wife and we were to be married next Wednesday——”

“But the night Boyd was killed,” interrupted The Thinking Machine impatiently. “Come down to that.”

“I went to Boyd’s room that night at a few minutes after eight o’clock. We sat for an hour or more and talked of our work, our plans and various things as we played cards—pinochle it was. Neither of us was particularly interested in the game.

“Boyd didn’t know of my coming marriage to Caroline and finally I happened to mention her name. I also showed him the wedding ring I had bought that day for her. He looked at it, and asked me what I intended to do with it. I then told him that Caroline and I were to be married.

“He was surprised. I think any man in his position would have been surprised, because I think it was his intention to ask her to marry him. Well, at any rate, he grew angry about it, and I tried to placate him.

“I guess he was pretty hard hit—worse than I thought—for several times between the deals he picked up the ring and looked at it, then he’d put it down each time on his side of the table.

“After awhile he threw down his hand with the remark that he didn’t care to play. ‘Now look here, Fred,’ I said, ‘I didn’t think of the thing hitting you so hard.’ He replied something about it not being fair to him, though just what he meant I didn’t know.

“Then word led to word, until finally I was in a fury at a careless reference he made to Caroline—a thing he would never thought of doing in his proper senses—and demanded an apology. He grew ugly and said still more, and then, somehow, I don’t know quite what happened. I know that I had an insane desire to take hold of him—but——”

Cunningham paused and gently stroked the hand of the girl.

“And then?” asked The Thinking Machine.

“You know this hurt on my head was more serious than you may imagine,” said Cunningham. “There are times, in moments of anger particularly, when things are not clear to me. I lose myself, I don’t know what to do. A surgeon once explained to me why it was but I don’t remember.”

“I understand,” said The Thinking Machine. “Go on.”

“Well, from the moment the quarrel became really serious I would not swear to anything that happened,” Cunningham resumed. “I know at last I found myself in the lower hall after what seemed a long time, and I remember leaving there, slamming the door behind me.

“I went down the avenue and was almost home when it occurred to me that the ring was in Boyd’s room. By that time, too, I was seeing things more clearly. I wanted to go back and talk to Boyd more calmly and see if both of us hadn’t said things we should not have said. It was with this double purpose of seeing him and getting the ring that I started back to the tenement.

“Outside, I found a crowd. I wondered why, and asked. One man told me Boyd had been murdered—choked to death; that the police knew who did it and were searching for him. I was terror-stricken, and after the body was taken out I walked away. The terror was on me, and after I turned into a side street I broke into a run. I knew myself, you see, and my own irresponsibility.

“Then, although it was midnight, I came straight here, aroused Caroline and Miss Jerrod and told them both what had happened so far as I knew. There seemed to be nothing else to do but hide; I did it. I remained here, as I thought safely enough. Two or three reporters came and asked questions, and once a detective was here, but Miss Jerrod answered their inquiries satisfactorily and that seemed to be all—until now. To-morrow Caroline and I were going back to Vermont.”

There was a long pause. Caroline pressed the hand of the man she loved to her cheek with a gesture of infinite confidence. The Thinking Machine sat silent with the tips of his long, slender fingers together.

“Mr. Cunningham,” he said at last, “you have not told us the one vital thing. Did you or did you not kill Fred Boyd?”

“I don’t know,” was the reply. “If I only could know!”

“Uh,” grunted The Thinking Machine. “I was afraid you wouldn’t know.”

6

HUTCHINSON HATCH and Manning, the other reporter, gazed at Cunningham thunderstruck, and from him to The Thinking Machine.

“Don’t know whether or not you killed a man?” asked Hatch incredulously.

“It’s perfectly possible, Mr. Hatch,” said The Thinking Machine, curtly. “I understand, Mr. Cunningham,” he explained. “I suppose you would be perfectly willing to go with me now?”

“No, no, no,” exclaimed Caroline Pierce suddenly, in evident terror.

“Not to the police, Miss Pierce,” said The Thinking Machine. He paused a moment and looked at the girl curiously. Of women he knew nothing, and knew he knew nothing. “Perhaps it would assure you, Miss Pierce, if I told you I know that Mr. Cunningham did not kill Boyd.”

“You believe he didn’t, then?” she asked eagerly.

“I know he didn’t,” said The Thinking Machine tersely. “Two and two make four not some times, but all the time,” he went on enigmatically. “If Mr. Cunningham will come with me now we will establish beyond all doubt the cause of Boyd’s death. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” said the girl slowly, and she looked steadily into the squint eyes of the scientist. “I—I have faith in you.”

The Thinking Machine coughed, slightly embarrassed, and turned to Hatch with a faint color in his cheeks.

“Well, who did kill Boyd?” asked Hatch, amazed.

“That’s what we will now demonstrate,” was the reply. “Come on.”

After Cunningham had himself assured the girl of his safety the four men passed out into the night—it was nearly 10 o’clock—entered a cab and were driven to the tenement in South Boston. There they passed up the one flight of stairs into the room where Boyd had been found, and after lighting the gas the scientist made one quick survey of the room.

“These walls are awfully thin,” he commented petulantly. “If I should fire a pistol in here I might kill someone in another room. Yes, a knife would do better. Have any of you gentlemen a knife—one with a blade that won’t break easily?”

“Will this do?” asked Cunningham, and he produced one.

The Thinking Machine examined it and nodded his satisfaction.

“Now a revolver,” he said.

Manning went out to get one. While he was gone The Thinking Machine gave some formal instructions to Cunningham and Hatch.

“I’m going to put out this light and remain in this room alone,” he said. “I may be here fifteen minutes or I may be here till daylight. I don’t know. But I want you three to remain quietly outside the door and listen. When I need you I shall need you quickly. My life may be in danger, and I am not a strong man.”

“What is it anyway?” asked Hatch curiously.

“After awhile you will hear something inside, I have no doubt,” went on the scientist, paying no attention to the question. “But don’t enter the room under any circumstances until I call out or you hear a struggle.”

“But what is it?” asked Hatch again. “I don’t understand at all.”

“I’m going to find the murderer of Fred Boyd,” said the scientist. “Please do not ask so many absurd questions. They annoy me exceedingly. I may have to kill him,” he added reflectively.

“Kill him?” gasped Hatch. “Who, the murderer?” He couldn’t help it.

“Yes, the murderer,” was the tart reply.

Manning returned with the revolver, which The Thinking Machine examined and handed to Hatch.

“You will know what to do with it when you enter the room,” he instructed. “You, Manning, come in with these other two and light this gas. Keep your matches in your hand.”

Then the two reporters and Cunningham passed out of the room, closing the door, but not fastening it. Pressed close against the panels outside, listening, Hatch started to explain to Manning in a whisper when they heard the irritated voice of the scientist.

“Keep silent,” was the sharp command.

Five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour of utter silence, save for a distant sound of some sort in the big tenement. But no one came up the stairs. The dim gas light fluttered weirdly down the hall.

A full hour passed, still nothing. Hatch could hear his heart beat, also he thought the regular breathing of The Thinking Machine. At last there came a slight sound, and Hatch started. The other men heard, too.

It was a faint whispering sound, as of the wind rustling through dead leaves, or the silken swish of skirts or the gasp of a dying man.

Hatch clutched the revolver more firmly and set his teeth hard together. He was going to face something—a deadly, terrible something—and had not the faintest idea of what it might be. Manning held a match ready for instant use.

Then, as they listened, there was another sound, still faint, as of something sliding over the floor. Suddenly there was a heavy thump, a half-strangled cry from The Thinking Machine and the sounds of a fearful struggle. Hatch rushed into the room with revolver raised; Manning was just behind him. A match flared up and they saw a struggling heap on the floor. The arm of the scientist rose and fell thrice, burying the knife each time in flesh.

In the light of the gas, which hissed into a brilliant light under the match, the reporter placed the revolver flat against the head of a writhing, twisting body and fired. For the second time he fired, and the struggling bodies lay still.

Then for the first time Hatch realized what had happened. A giant boa constrictor held The Thinking Machine in its coils and was in its death struggle almost crushing the life out of him. It required the combined efforts of the three men to release the scientist from the deadly folds. He lay still for a moment, but finally the life came back into his frail body with a rush. He raised up from Hatch’s arms and looked curiously at the snake.

“Dear me, dear me,” he commented. “What a brain would have been lost to scientific inquiry if that snake had killed me.”

* * * *

OCCUPANTS of the house, aroused by the two pistol shots, rushed again terror-stricken to the room, and after awhile the police came and rescued the four men from the besieging mob of questioners. All went to the police station, and there The Thinking Machine, with several caustic comments on the police in general, told his story. The body of the giant retile lay full length on the floor.

“Mr. Hatch here asked for my advice in the matter,” he explained to the police captain, “and I did what I could to assist him. When he explained the condition of the body and the room when it was broken open—the fact the door and both windows were fastened securely inside—it instantly occurred to me that, with suicide removed as a possibility, the thing which had killed Boyd was still in the room or else had escaped only after the body was found.

“It was not unreasonable to suppose that any animal, a snake for instance, would have attempted to leave the room while a crowd of people blocked the door; in fact it was not unreasonable to suppose that such a snake, snuggly fixed in a large, tumble-down building, with the infinite possibility of feeding on rats and mice, would attempt to leave the building at all. It could get water easily from a dozen places.

“Therefore I presumed it was a snake, and I asked Mr. Hatch to ascertain for me first if the people in the house had ever been greatly annoyed by rodents; if they were now, and if not, when they had noticed that they were not. He reported to me that they had been annoyed up to a fortnight preceding the crime, but since they had not noticed. Of course a boa constrictor can live on rodents, therefore they would leave the building or be eaten out of it gradually.

“A fortnight since they missed the rodents? That meant that the snake must have been in the building at least that long. All these conclusion I reached before I personally went over the scene. If it were a snake, as I thought possible, it must have come from somewhere. Where, then?”

The Thinking Machine paused and looked from one to another of his hearers. Each in turn shook his head, Hatch being the last to do so.

“And yet your own paper published a full solution of the mystery before it ever occurred,” said the scientist sharply. “Looking from the back window of the room there, perfectly visible, were three banked rings, plainly where a circus had been. Possibly the snake escaped from that circus and crept into the house.

“I called up your office on the ’phone, Mr. Hatch, and ascertained that there had been a circus on that place two weeks before, November 9 and 10, and further I found that a boa constrictor had escaped from that circus. You printed a column of it on the first page.”

“Lord, and we really thought that was a press agent’s yarn,” remarked Hatch sadly.

“To-night when we went to the room it was my intention to allow the snake to creep out of that large hole near the radiator—I suppose you noticed there was one there?—then to pass between the snake and the hole and call for Mr. Hatch and these other gentlemen who were waiting outside the door. If the snake attacked me I had a knife and Mr. Hatch had a revolver.

“But I’m afraid I didn’t give the snake credit for quickness and such enormous strength,” he went on ruefully. “I heard the snake come out of the hole, and then instantly almost I felt its folds crushing me. Then these gentlemen rushed in. I can readily understand how it choked Boyd, he having no way to defend himself, and then crawled away when those people knocked on the door. It nearly crushed the life out of me.”

That seemed to be all, and The Thinking Machine stopped.

“But Frank Cunningham?” asked the police captain. “Why did he run away, and where is he now?”

“Cunningham?” repeated the scientist, puzzled.

“Yes,” said the captain. “Where is he?”

“Why here he is,” and The Thinking Machine indicated the accused man. “Mr. Cunningham permit me to introduce you to Captain—er—er. I don’t know his name.”

The captain was not surprised; he was nonplussed. It had never occurred to him to ask the name of the fourth member of the party; he knew the two newspaper men.

“How—where—when did you——“ he began.

“Not knowing whether or not he had killed his friend Boyd,” explained the scientist, “he was hiding in the suite of Miss Caroline Pierce, his fiancé. His lack of knowledge was due entirely to a queer mental condition. He was badly hurt at one time and wears a silver plate in his head. That accounts for many things.”

“How did you get him?” asked the captain, amazed.

“I walked into Miss Pierce’s suite after I had put a man at the back and front to stop any one who ran out, and told Miss Pierce’s friend, Miss Jerrod, that I believed—in fact knew—that Cunningham was innocent, and that I had come merely to warn him,” said The Thinking Machine.

“I told her then that three policemen were at the front door, and then Mr. Manning here rang the bell violently, as I had instructed him, and Cunningham dashed out of a rear room and started out the back way. Mr. Hatch got him there. It was perfectly simple—that part of it. Of course, there was a chance that he wasn’t there at all—but he was.”

The Thinking Machine arose.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Why did you examine Cunningham’s head before he told us his story?” asked Hatch.

“I have some idea of the cranial formation of criminals and I merely wanted to satisfy myself,” said the scientist. “It was then that I discovered the silver plate in his head.”

“And this?” asked Hatch. He took from his pocket the sealed envelope which The Thinking Machine had given him in the tenement room immediately after he had inspected the room. On this envelope was written “November 9-10”, this being the date the circus was in South Boston.

“Oh, that?” said Professor Van Dusen a little impatiently, “that is merely a solution to the mystery.”

Hatch opened the envelope and looked at it. There were only a few words:

“Snake. Came through hole near radiator. Lived in walls. Escaped from circus. Cunningham innocent.”

“That all?” again asked The Thinking Machine.

There was no answer, and the scientist and the two newspaper men left the police station, followed by Cunningham.

________________

10. The Jackdaw

MONSIEUR Jean Saint Rocheville lived by his wits, and, being rather witty, he lived rather well. In the beginning he hadn’t been Monsieur Jean St. Rocheville at all. Born Jones, christened James Aloysius, nicknamed Jimmie, he had been, first, a pickpocket. Sheer ability lifted him above that; and it came to pass that he graduated from all the cruder professions—second-story work, burglary, and what not—until now, when we meet him, he was a social brigand famous under many names.

For instance, in two cities of the West he was being industriously sought as Wilhelm Van Der Wyde, and was described as of the æsthetic, musical type—young, thick-spectacled, clean-shaven, long-haired, and pale blond, speaking English badly and profusely.

In New York, the police knew him as Hubert Montgomery Wade, card sharp and utterer of worthless checks; and described him as taciturn, past middle age, with fluffy, iron-gray hair, full iron-gray beard, and a singularly pallid face. As we see him, he seemed about thirty, slim, elegant, aristocratic of feature, with close-cut brown hair, carefully waxed mustache, and a suggestion of an imperial. Also, he spoke English with a slight accent.

Monsieur St. Rocheville was smiling as he strode through the spacious estate of Idlewild, whipping his light cane in the early-morning air of a balmy June day. On the whole, he had little to complain of in the way the world was wagging. True, he had failed, at his first attempt, to possess himself of the superb diamond necklace of his hostess, Mrs. Wardlaw Browne; but it had not been a discreditable failure; there had been no unpleasant features connected therewith, no exposure; not even a shadow of suspicion. Perhaps, after all, he had been hasty. His invitation had several weeks to run; and meanwhile here were all the luxuries of a splendid country place at his command—motors, horses, tennis, golf, to say nothing of a house full of charming women and several execrable players of auction, who insisted on gambling for high stakes. And auction, Monsieur St. Rocheville might have said, was his middle name.

Idly meditating upon all these pleasant things, St. Rocheville dropped down upon a seat in the shade of a hedge overlooking the rose garden, lighted a cigarette, and fell to watching the curious evolutions of three great velvet-black birds swimming in the air above him. Now they rose in a vast spiral, up, up until they were mere specks against the blue void, only to drop sheerly almost to the earth before their wings stayed them; now with motionless pinions, floating away in immense circles; again darting hither and yon swiftly as an arrow flies, weaving strange patterns in the air. Something here for the Wright brothers to learn, Monsieur St. Rocheville thought lazily.

Came finally an odd whistle from the direction of the house behind him. The three birds swooped down with a rush and vanished beyond the hedge. Curiously St. Rocheville peered through the thick-growing screen. On a second-story balcony stood a girl with one of the birds perched upon each shoulder, and the third at rest on her hand.

“Well, by George!” exclaimed St. Rocheville.

As he looked, the girl flipped something into the air. The birds dived for it simultaneously, immediately returning to their perches. Fascinated, he looked on as the trick was repeated. So this was she, to whom he had heard some one refer as the Jackdaw Girl—the young lady he had caught staring at him so oddly the night before, just after her arrival. He had been introduced to her between rubbers—a charming, piquant wisp of a creature, with big, innocent eyes and cameo features, much given to gay little bursts of laughter. Her name? Oh, yes. Fayerwether—Drusila Fayerwether.

St. Rocheville ventured into the open. Miss Fayerwether smiled, and flung a titbit of some sort directly at his feet. The birds came for it like huge black projectiles. Involuntarily he took a step backward. She laughed.

“They won’t hurt you, really,” she assured him mockingly. “They are quite tame. Let me show you.” She held aloft a slice of toast; the powerful black wings quivered expectantly. “No,” she commanded. The toast fell at St. Rocheville’s feet. Neither of the birds stirred. “Hold it in your left hand,” she directed. Mechanically the astonished young man obeyed. “Extend your right and keep it steady.” He did so. “Now, Blitz!”

It was a command. The bird from her left shoulder, the largest of the three, came hurtling toward St. Rocheville with a shrill scream. For an instant the giant wings beat about his ears, then the talons closed on his right hand in no gentle grip, and man and bird stared at each other. To the young man there was something evil and cruel in the beady, fixed eyes; in the poise of the head on the glistening, snakelike neck; in the merciless claws. And, gad, what a beak! It was a thing to tear with, to mutilate, destroy.

St. Rocheville shuddered. The whole performance was creepy and uncanny. It chilled his blood. It seemed out of all proportion, this exquisite, dainty, pink-and-white girl, and the sinister, somber, winged things——

He drew a breath of relief when Blitz, having solemnly gobbled up his toast, flew away to his mistress.

“They are my pets,” she said affectionately. “Aren’t they beautiful? Blitz and Jack and Jill I call them.”

“Strange pets they are, mademoiselle,” remarked St. Rocheville gravely. “How did you come to choose them?”

“Why, I’ve known them always,” she replied. “Blitz here is old enough, and I dare say wise enough, to be my grandfather. He is nearly sixty, and was in my family thirty-five years before I was born. He used to stalk solemnly around my cradle like a soldier on guard, and swear dreadfully. He talks a little when he will—half a dozen words or so. Jack and Jill are younger. From their conduct, I should say they haven’t yet reached the age of discretion.”

“Would you mind telling me,” he questioned curiously, “how a person would proceed to tame a—a flock of flying machines like that?”

“Sugar,” replied Miss Fayerwether tersely. “They will do anything for sugar.”

“Sugar!” Blitz screamed harshly, ruffling his silky plumage. “Sugar!”

Monsieur St. Rocheville went away to keep a tennis engagement. Miss Fayerwether disappeared into her room, leaving the three birds perched on the rail of the balcony. On the court, Rex Miller was waiting for St. Rocheville with a question:

“Meet the new girl last night? Miss Fayerwether?”

“Yes.”

“They say she’s a bird charmer,” Rex went on. “She charmed me, all right. Gad, I always knew I was a bird!”

In his own apartments again, St. Rocheville, hot from his exertions on the tennis court, was preparing for a cold plunge, when Blitz fluttered in at the window and perched himself familiarly on the back of a chair.

“Hello!” said St. Rocheville.

“Hello!” Blitz replied promptly.

Astonished, the young man burst out laughing—a laugh which died under the steady glare of the beady eyes. Again, for some unaccountable reason, he was possessed of that singular feeling off horror he had felt at first. He shook it off impatiently and entered the bathroom, leaving Blitz in possession.

He returned just in time to see the big bird darting through the window with something bright dangling from the powerful beak. He knew instantly what it was—his watch! He had left it on a table, and the bird had taken advantage of his absence to steal it. He started toward the window on a run; but, struck by a sudden thought, he stopped, and stood staring into the open, the while he permitted an idea to seep in. Finally he dropped into a chair, his agile mind teeming with possibilities.

Suppose—just suppose—Blitz had been taught to steal? Absurd, of course! Blitz was probably an upright, moral enough bird according to his own lights; but couldn’t he be taught to steal? Either Blitz or another bird like him? He had heard somewhere that magpies would filch any glittering thing and secrete it. Why not jackdaws? Weren’t they the same thing, after all? He didn’t know.

A tame bird, properly trained, cunning, wary, with an innate faculty of making acquaintances, and powerful on the wing!

St. Rocheville forgot all about his watch in contemplation of a new idea. By George, it was worth an experiment, anyway!

There was a light tapping at his door.

“Monsieur St. Rocheville!” some one called.

“Yes?” he answered.

“It is I, Miss Fayerwether. I think I have your watch here. One of my birds came in my window with it from this direction. Your window was open, so I imagine he—he stole it.”

St. Rocheville pulled his bath robe about him and peered out. Miss Fayerwether, with disturbed face, held the watch toward him—the great, solemn-looking bird was perched upon one shoulder.

“Hello!” Blitz greeted him socially.

“It is my watch, yes,” said St. Rocheville. “Blitz paid me a visit and took it away with him.”

“Naughty, naughty!” and Miss Fayerwether shook one rosy finger under the bird’s nose. “He embarrasses me awfully sometimes,” she confided. “I can’t keep him confined all the time; and he has a trick of picking up any bright thing and bringing it to me.”

“Please don’t let it disturb you,” St. Rocheville begged. “As for you, Monsieur Blitz, I’ll keep my eye on you.”

Miss Fayerwether vanished down the hall, scolding.

So Blitz had a trick of picking up bright things, eh? Monsieur St. Rocheville was pleased to know it. It was only a question, then, of training the bird to bring the thing he picked up to the right place. Assuredly here was an experiment worth while. In failure or success he was safe. No sane person could blame him for the immoral acts of a bird.

St. Rocheville seemed to have conquered his aversion to Blitz and Jack and Jill, for during the next week he spent hours with them; and hours, too, with their charming mistress. Sometimes he would play games with the birds—curious games—always in the absence of Miss Fayerwether. He would toss bright bits of glass, or even a finger ring, into the grass, or into the open window of his room, and the birds would go hurtling off to search. At length they came to know that there would be a lump of sugar for each on their return, with two pieces for the bird who brought the ring. St. Rocheville found it an absorbing game. He played it for hour after hour, for day after day.

All these things immediately preceded the first public knowledge of that series of robberies within a district of which Idlewild was the center. Miss Fayerwether, it seemed, was the first victim. She had either lost, or mislaid, she said, a diamond and ruby bracelet, and asked Mrs. Wardlaw Browne to have her servants look for it. She pooh-poohed the idea of theft. She had been careless, that was all. Yes, the bracelet was quite valuable; but it would doubtless come to light. She wouldn’t have mentioned it at all except for the fact that it was an heirloom.

This politely phrased request opened the floodgates of revelation. Rex Miller had lost a rare scarab stickpin; the elderly Mrs. Scott was minus three valuable rings and an aquamarine hair ornament; Claudia Chanoler had been robbed of a rope of pearls worth thousands—robbed was the word she used; an emerald cameo, the property of Agatha Blalock, was missing. Following closely upon these mysterious happenings came word to Mrs. Wardlaw Browne of similar happening at the near-by estates of friends. A dozen valuable trinkets had vanished from the Willows where the Melville Pages had a house party; and at Sagamore, Mrs. Willets was bewailing the loss of an emerald bracelet which represented a small fortune.

The explosion came the night Mrs. Wardlaw Browne’s diamond necklace was stolen. There had been an unpleasant scene of some sort in the card room. Rex Miller seemed to think that there was more than luck in the cards Monsieur St. Rocheville held; and he intimated as much. All things considered, Monsieur St. Rocheville behaved superbly. Being the only winner at the table, he tore the score into bits, and it fluttered to the floor. The other gentlemen understood that he disdained to accept money so long as a doubt remained. So the game ended abruptly, and they joined the ladies in the drawing-room. Ten minutes later Mrs. Wardlaw Browne’s necklace vanished utterly.

So ultimately it came to pass that The Thinking Machine—more properly, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., F. R. S., M. D., LL. D., et cetera, et cetera, logician, analyst, and master mind in the sciences—turned his crabbed genius upon the problem. He consented to do so at the request of Hutchinson Hatch, newspaper reporter; and, singularly enough, it was Monsieur Jean St. Rocheville in person who brought the matter to the reporter’s attention. Together they went to The Thinking Machine.

“You know,” St. Rocheville took the trouble to explain, “every time I read of a robbery of this sort, either in a newspaper or in fiction, some foreign nobleman is always the villain in the piece.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It is an honor I do not desire.”

“You are a nobleman, then?” queried The Thinking Machine. The narrowed, pale-blue, squinting eyes were fixed tensely upon the young man’s face.

“No.” St. Rocheville smiled.

“Extraordinary,” murmured the little scientist. “And who are you?”

“My father and my father’s father are bankers in France.” St. Rocheville lied gracefully. “The situation at Idlewild is——”

“Where?” The Thinking Machine interrupted curtly.

“Idlewild.”

“I mean, where is your father a banker?”

“Paris.”

“In what capacity? What’s his position?”

“Managing director.”

“What bank?”

“Credit Lyonnaise.”

The Thinking Machine nodded his satisfaction and dropped his enormous head, with its thick, straw-colored thatch, back against the chair comfortably, his slim fingers coming to rest precisely tip to tip. Monsieur St. Rocheville stared at him curiously. Obviously here was a person who was not to be trifled with. However, he felt he had passed his preliminary examination, unexpected as it was, with great credit. Not once had he forgotten his dialect; not for a fraction of a second had he hesitated in answering the abrupt questions. Ability to lie readily is a great convenience.

“Now,” The Thinking Machine commanded, his squinting eyes turned upward, “what happened at Idlewild?”

Inadvertently or otherwise, St. Rocheville failed to refer, even remotely, to the three great velvet-black birds—Blitz and Jack and Jill—in his narrative of events at Idlewild. It was rather a chronological statement of the thefts as they had been reported, with no suggestion as to the manner in which they might have been committed.

“Now,” and St. Rocheville spoke slowly, as one who wanted to be certain of his words, “I come down to those things which happened immediately before the disappearance of Mrs. Wardlaw Browne’s necklace. Frankly my own statement will place me in rather a compromising position—that is, my real motive may not be understood—but it is better that I should tell you in the beginning things that you will surely find out.”

“Decidedly better,” The Thinking Machine agreed dryly. He didn’t alter his position.

“Well, you must know that at Idlewild the men play auction a great deal, and——”

“Auction?” The Thinking Machine repeated. “What is auction, Mr. Hatch?”

“Auction bridge,” the reporter told him. “A game of cards—a variation of whist.”

Monsieur St., Rocheville stared from the wizened little scientist to the reporter incredulously. He would not have believed a person could have lived in a civilized country and not know what auction was. Perhaps he wouldn’t have believed, either, that The Thinking Machine never read a newspaper. So circumscribed is our own viewpoint.

“At Idlewild the men play auction a great deal,” The Thinking Machine prompted. “Go on.”

“Auction, yes,” St. Rocheville resumed. “It happens sometimes that the stakes are rather high. On the night Mrs. Wardlaw Browne’s necklace was stolen, four of us were playing in the card room—a Mr. Gordon and myself as partners against a Mr. Miller and Franklin Chanoler, the financier.” He hesitated slightly. “Mr. Miller had been losing, and in a burst of temper he intimated that—that I—that I—er——”

“Had been cheating,” The Thinking Machine supplied crabbedly. “Go on.”

“As a result of that little unpleasantness,” St. Rocheville continued, “the game ended, and we joined the ladies. Now, please understand that it is not my wish to retaliate upon Mr. Miller. I have explained my motive—I don’t want to be made a scapegoat. I do want the actual facts to come out.” Some subtle change passed across his face. “Mr. Miller,” he said measuredly, “stole Mrs. Wardlaw Browne’s necklace!”

“Miller,” Hatch repeated. “Do you mean Rex Miller?”

“That’s his name, yes—Rex Miller.”

“Rex Miller? The son of John W. Miller, the millionaire?” Hatch came to his feet excitedly.

“Rex Miller is his name, yes,” St. Rocheville shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, that’s impossible!” Hatch declared.

“Nothing is impossible, Mr. Hatch,” interrupted The Thinking Machine tartly. “Sit down. You annoy me.” He shifted his pale-blue eyes, and squinted at Monsieur St. Rocheville through his thick spectacles. “How do you know Mr. Miller stole the necklace?”

“I saw him slip it into the pocket of his dress coat,” St. Rocheville declared flatly. “Naturally, I had an idea that, when he drew Mrs. Wardlaw Browne aside immediately after we came out of the card room, it was his intention to—to denounce me as a card sharp. You may imagine that I was watching them both closely, because my honor was at stake. I wanted to see how she took it. It seems that he said nothing whatever to her about the card game; but he did steal the necklace. I saw him hiding it.”

Fell a long silence. With inscrutable face The Thinking Machine sat staring at the ceiling. Twice St. Rocheville shifted his position uneasily. He was wondering if his story had been convincing. Adroit mixture of truth and falsehood that it was, he failed to see a single defect in it. Hatch, too, was staring curiously at the scientist.

“I understand perfectly your hesitation in going into details,” said The Thinking Machine at last. “Under all the circumstances your motive might be misconstrued; but I think you have made me understand.” He rose suddenly. “That’s all,” he said. “I’ll look into the matter to-morrow.”

Monsieur St. Rocheville was about to take his departure, when The Thinking Machine stopped him for a last question.

“You used a phrase just now,” he said. “I am anxious to get it exactly—something about your father and your father’s father——”

“Oh! I said”—Monsieur St. Rocheville obliged—“that my father and my father’s father were bankers in Paris.”

“That’s it,” said the little scientist. “Thanks. Good day.”

Monsieur St. Rocheville went out. The Thinking Machine scribbled something on a sheet of paper and handed it to the reporter.

“Attend to that when you get to your office,” he directed. Hatch read it, and his eyes opened wide. “Also, do you happen to know a native Frenchman who speaks perfect English?”

“I do; yes.”

“Look him up, and ask him to repeat the phrase, ‘My father and my father’s father.’ ”

“Why?” inquired the reporter blankly.

“When he says it you’ll know why. Immediately this other matter is attended to come back here.”

Monsieur St. Rocheville’s troubled meditations were disturbed by the appearance of Miss Fayerwether around a bend in the walk. Fluttering about her were her pets, Blitz and Jack and Jill. One after another they would swoop down, gobble up a beakful of sugar from her open hand, then sail off in a circle. There was something in the sight of Miss Fayerwether to dispel troubled meditations. She was gowned in a filmy white, clinging stuff, with a wide, flapping sun hat, her cheeks glowing with the sun’s reflection, her big, innocent eyes repeating the marvelous blue of the sky.

Monsieur St. Rocheville, at sight of her, arose, bowed formally, and made way for her beside him. She sat down, to be instantly submerged in a fluttering cloud of black wings.

“Go away,” she ordered. “I have no more sugar. See?” and she extended her empty hands.

The giant birds wandered off seeking what they might find; and for a time the girl and the young man sat silent. Twice Miss Fayerwether’s eyes sought St. Rocheville’s; twice she caught him staring straight into her face.

“Detectives were here to-day,” she remarked at last.

“Yes, I know,” said St. Rocheville.

“They had a long talk with Mrs. Wardlaw Browne, and insisted on searching the house—that is, the rooms of the guests—but she would not permit it.”

“She made a mistake.”

“You mean that some one of the guests——”

“I mean there is a thief here somewhere,” said St. Rocheville; “and he should be unmasked.” (And this from Jimmie Jones, erstwhile pickpocket, burglar, and what not—Jimmie Jones, alias Wilhelm Van Der Wyde, alias Hubert Montgomery Wade, alias Jean St. Rocheville.) “I am willing for them to search my room; you are willing for them to search your room—the others should be.”

The young man’s lips were tightly set; there was an uncompromising glint in his eyes. His simulation had been so perfect that even he was feeling the righteous indignation of the hopelessly moral. Whatever else he felt didn’t appear at the moment. Miss Fayerwether was gazing dreamily into the void.

“Have you ever been to Chicago?” she queried irrelevantly at last.

“No,” said Monsieur St. Rocheville. As a matter of fact, Chicago was one of the cities in which there was being made even then an industrious search for Wilhelm Van Der Wyde.

“Or Denver?” the girl continued dreamily.

That was another city in which Wilhelm Van Der Wyde was badly wanted. Monsieur St. Rocheville turned upon Miss Fayerwether suspiciously.

“No,” he declared. “Why?”

“No reason—I was merely curious,” she replied carelessly. And then again irrelevantly: “Nothing has been stolen from you?”

For answer, St. Rocheville held out his left hand. A heavy diamond solitaire which he usually wore on his little finger was missing. The print of the ring on the flesh was still visible.

“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Fayerwether; and again: “Oh!” She looked startled. St. Rocheville didn’t recall that he had ever seen just such an expression before. “When was your ring stolen? How?”

“I removed it when I got into my bath,” St. Rocheville explained. “My window was closed, but my door was unlocked. When I came out of the bath the ring had disappeared—that’s all.”

“Well”—and there was a flash of indignation in the girl’s eyes—“you can’t blame that on Blitz, anyway.”

“I’m not trying to,” said St. Rocheville. “I said my window was closed. My door was closed but unlocked. I don’t think Blitz can open a door, can he?”

Miss Fayerwether didn’t answer. Once she was almost on the point of saying something further; and, for an instant, there was mute appeal in the innocent eyes as her slim white hand lay on the young man’s arm. Then she changed her mind and went on to her room, the birds fluttering along after.

Strange thoughts came to Monsieur St. Rocheville. The light touch on his arm had thrilled him curiously. He found himself staring off moodily in the direction of her window. Also he caught himself remembering the marvelous blue of her eyes! He didn’t recall at the moment that he had ever noticed the color of any one’s eyes before.

’Twas an hour after dinner when The Thinking Machine, accompanied by Detective Mallory, the bright light of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and one of his satellites, Blanton by name, with Hutchinson Hatch trailing, appeared at Idlewild. It may have been mere accident that St. Rocheville met them as they stepped out of the automobile.

“I neglected to tell you,” he remarked to the scientist, “that young Miller has been losing heavily at auction of late; and I hear that he has had some sort of a row with his father about his allowance.”

“I understand,” The Thinking Machine nodded.

“Also,” St. Rocheville ran on, “there has been at least one other theft here since I saw you. A diamond ring of mine was stolen from my room while I was in the bath. I wouldn’t venture to say who took it.”

“I know,” The Thinking Machine assured him curtly. “I will have it in my hand in ten minutes.”

Indignant at the intrusion of the police in what she was pleased to term her personal affairs—the detectives who had been there before were from a private agency—Mrs. Wardlaw Browne bustled into the room where The Thinking Machine and his party waited. Monsieur St. Rocheville effaced himself.

“Pray what does this mean?” Mrs. Wardlaw Browne demanded.

“It means, madam, that we have a search warrant, and intend to go through your house, if necessary.” The Thinking Machine informed her crustily. Through the half-open door he caught a glimpse of a slender figure—a mere wisp of a girl with big, wonder-stuck eyes. “Mallory, close that door. You, madam,”—this to Mrs. Wardlaw Browne—“can assist us by answering a few questions.”

Mrs. Wardlaw Browne was of the tall, gaunt, haughty type; thin to scrawniness, enormously rich, and possessed of all the arrogance that riches bring. She studied the faces of the four men contemptuously; then, with a little resigned expression, sat down.

“Just how did you lose your necklace?” The Thinking Machine began abruptly. “Did you drop it? Was it taken from your neck? Are you sure you had it on?”

“I know I had it on,” was the reply. “I did not drop it. It was taken from my neck.”

“Did you, by any chance, wear a low-neck gown on the evening it was taken?” The little scientist’s squinting eyes were fixed upon her tensely.

“I never wear décolleté,” came the frigid response.

With his great head pillowed upon the back of his chair, his thin fingers tip to tip, and his eyes turned upward, The Thinking Machine sat in silence for a minute or more, the while tiny, cobwebby lines appeared in his domelike brow.

“Can you,” he inquired finally, “summon a servant without leaving this room?”

“There is a bell, yes.” Mrs. Wardlaw Browne was forgetting to be haughty in a certain fascination which grew upon her as she gazed at this little man.

“Will you ring it, please?”

Mrs. Wardlaw Browne arose, touched a button, and sat down again. A moment later a footman entered.

“Tell Mr. Rex Miller,” The Thinking Machine directed, “that Mrs. Wardlaw Browne would like to see him immediately in this room.”

The footman bowed and withdrew. Followed an interminable wait—interminable, at least, to Detective Mallory, who impatiently clicked his handcuffs together. Mrs. Wardlaw Browne yawned to hide the curiosity that was consuming her.

The door opened, and Rex Miller entered. He stood for a moment staring at the silent party, and finally:

“Did you send for me, Mrs. Browne?”

“I did,” said The Thinking Machine. “Sit down, please.” Rex sank into a chair mechanically. “Mr. Blanton”—the scientist neither raised his voice nor lowered his eyes—“you will undertake to see that Mr. Miller doesn’t leave this room. Mr. Mallory, you will search Mt. Miller’s apartments. Somewhere there you will find Mrs. Wardlaw Browne’s diamond necklace; also a man’s diamond ring.”

Rex came to his feet with writhing hands, a thundercloud in his face. Mrs. Wardlaw Browne burst into inarticulate expostulations. Blanton drew a revolver and laid it across his knee. Mallory bustled out. Hatch merely waited. Silence came; a silence so tense, so strained that Mrs. Wardlaw Browne was tempted to scream. At last there were footsteps, the door from the hall was thrown open, and Mallory, triumphant, appeared.

“I have them,” he announced grimly. The necklace, a radiant, glittering thing, was dangling from one finger. The ring lay in his open palm. “And now, Mr. Rex Miller”—he fished out his handcuffs and started toward the young man—“if you’ll hold out your——”

“Oh, sit down, Mallory!” commanded The Thinking Machine impatiently.

Loitering in a hallway, where he could keep an eye on the stairs leading from the lower part of the house, Monsieur St. Rocheville saw Miss Fayerwether creep stealthily up, silent-footed, chalk-white of face, and come racing toward him across the heavy velvet carpet. For the reason that she would surely see him, he walked toward her, amazed and a little perturbed at something in her manner.

“What’s the matter?” inquired St. Rocheville calmly.

“Oh, it’s you!” Miss Fayerwether’s hand flew to her heart. She was frightened, gasping. “Nothing!”

“But something must be the matter,” he insisted. “You are white as a sheet.”

With an apparent effort the girl regained control of herself, and stood staring at him mutely. ’Twas in that moment that Monsieur St. Rocheville saw for the first time some strange, new expression in the big, innocent eyes—they seemed to grow hard, worldly, all-wise even as he looked.

“There are detectives in the house,” she said.

“I know it. What about it?”

“They have a warrant, and intend to search every room.”

“Well?” St. Rocheville refused to get excited about it.

“Including, I imagine, yours and mine.”

“I’m willing. I dare say you are.”

For an instant the girl’s self-possession seemed to desert her completely. Her eyes closed as if in pain, and she swayed a little. St. Rocheville thrust out an arm protectingly. When she lifted her face again St. Rocheville read terror therein.

“If—if they search my room,” she faltered, “I—I am lost!”

“How? Why? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know that I could make any one else understand,” she went on swiftly. “The birds, you know—Blitz and Jack and Jill. You saw, and I explained to you, a trick they have of—of thieving; stealing bright things.”

She stopped. In his impatience St. Rocheville seized her by the arm and shook her soundly.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Nearly every jewel that has been stolen is hidden now in my room,” she confessed. “I knew nothing of it until yesterday, when I came across them. Then, after all the excitement about the thefts, I was afraid to return the things, and I could think of no way to proceed. So, you see, if they search my room it will——”

St. Rocheville was possessed of an agile mind; resourceful as it was agile. Suddenly he remembered two questions the girl had asked the day before—questions about Chicago and Denver. His teeth snapped. He thrust out a hand, and, opening the nearest door—he didn’t happen to know whose room it was—he dragged her in, and turned on the electric light. Then their eyes met squarely.

“You are the thief, then?” he demanded. “Don’t lie to me! You are the thief?”

“The things are in my room.” She was sobbing a little. “The birds——”

“You are the thief!” There was a curious note of exultation in his voice. “And you do know something about Chicago and Denver?”

“I know that you are Wilhelm Van Der Wyde,” she flashed defiantly. “I recognized you at once. I saw you in old Charles’ ‘fence’ there once when you were not aware of it. I could never be mistaken in your eyes.”

Monsieur St. Rocheville laughed blithely; came a faint answering smile, and he gathered her into his arms.

“I’ve always needed a partner,” he said.

“Mr. Miller,” The Thinking Machine was saying placidly, “isn’t the thief at all.” He raised his hand to still a clamor of ejaculation. “Monsieur Rocheville, so called, stole the necklace, at least, and concealed it, with a ring from his own finger, in Mr. Miller’s apartment.” Again he raised his hand. “Mr. Miller caught Monsieur St. Rocheville cheating at cards, and practically denounced him. Monsieur St. Rocheville took his revenge by undertaking to fasten the jewel thefts upon Mr. Miller. He imagined, shallowly enough, that if the necklace should be found in Mr. Miller’s room the police would look no farther. It is barely possible that the police wouldn’t have looked farther.”

Mrs. Wardlaw Browne’s aristocratic mouth had dropped open in sheer astonishment. Detective Mallory looked bewildered, dazed. Rex Miller’s face was an animated interrogation mark.

“Then who is the thief?” Mallory found voice to express the burning question.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” The Thinking Machine confessed frankly. “I think, perhaps, it was Monsieur St. Rocheville, so called; but there’s nothing to connect him—— Please sit down, Mallory. You annoy me. It would do no good to search his apartment. If he stole anything, it isn’t here now; besides——”

The door opened suddenly, and the footman appeared.

“Miss Fayerwether is badly hurt, ma’am,” he explained hurriedly. “She seems to have fallen from her window. We found her outside, unconscious.”

Mrs. Wardlaw Browne went out hurriedly. Obeying an almost imperceptible nod of The Thinking Machine’s head, Detective Mallory followed her. The scientist turned to Detective Blanton.

“Get St. Rocheville,” he directed tersely.

Ten minutes later Mallory returned. In one hand he held a small chamois bag. The contents thereof he spilled upon a table. The Thinking Machine glanced around, saw a glittering heap of jewels, then resumed his steady scrutiny of the ceiling.

“The girl had them?”

“Yes,” replied the detective. “She tried to escape from her room by sliding down a rope made of sheets. It broke, and she fell.”

“Badly hurt?”

“Only a sprained ankle, and shock.”

Blanton flung himself in.

“St. Rocheville’s gone,” he announced hurriedly. “I imagine he cut for it. Went away in one of the automobiles.”

When Miss Fayerwether recovered consciousness, and the sharp agony in her ankle had become a mere dull pain, she found herself in some large room, rank with the odor of strange chemical messes. As a matter of fact, it was The Thinking Machine’s laboratory; and the three men present were the little scientist in person, Mallory, and Hatch. Blanton had gone on to police headquarters to send out a general alarm for Monsieur St. Rocheville.

“There was no mystery about it,” she heard The Thinking Machine saying. “That is, no mystery that the simplest rules of logic wouldn’t instantly dissipate. A man, presumably French, but speaking English almost perfectly, comes into this room and betrays himself as an imposter five minutes afterward by using, without a trace of accent, the one phrase in all our language which no Frenchman, unless he is reared from infancy in an English-speaking country, can pronounce as it should be pronounced. This man used the phrase: ‘My father and my father’s father;’ and he pronounced it as either of us would have pronounced it. The French can master our ‘th’ only with difficulty, and then only at the beginning of a word; otherwise their ‘th’ becomes almost like our ‘z.’

“From the beginning, therefore, I imagined our so-called Monsieur St. Rocheville an imposter. Being an imposter, he was a liar. I proved he was a liar when I made him state who his father was. At my suggestion, Mr. Hatch cabled to Paris, demonstrated that there is not, and never has been a Monsieur St. Rocheville connected with the Credit Lyonnaise; and, this much established, St. Rocheville’s story collapsed utterly. He had been accused of cheating at cards; and in retaliation he tried to shift the thefts upon Mr. Miller. He had seen Mr. Miller, so he said, steal the necklace. His obvious purpose in this was to bring about a search of Mr. Miller’s apartment, where he had carefully planted the necklace, also his own ring. The remainder of the story you all know.”

Miss Fayerwether had listened breathlessly, with closed eyes. The Thinking Machine arose and came over to her. For an instant his slender, cool hand rested on her brow; and in that instant she fought the fight. She was caught. St. Rocheville, alias Van Der Wyde, was free. He had tried to help her. She was to have gathered the jewels together, escaped through her window to avoid attracting attention, and joined him in the waiting automobile. He was free. She would allow him to remain free. Love, be it said, makes martyrs of us all.

“I stole the jewels,” she said quietly. “Monsieur St. Rocheville knew nothing of the thefts. My birds——”

That was all. The door opened and closed. Monsieur St. Rocheville stood before them with a vicious-looking, snub-nosed, automatic pistol in his hand.

“Put up your hands!” he commanded curtly. “You, Mallory, you! Put them up, I say! Put them up!” Mallory put them up. “And you, too! Put them up!” The Thinking Machine and Hutchinson Hatch obeyed unanimously. “Now, Miss Fayerwether, can you walk?”

“I think so.” She struggled to her feet.

“Very well.” There was a deadly calm in his manner. “Take Mallory’s gun, his keys, his handcuffs, and his police whistle. Careful now! Stand on the far side of him. I may have to kill him.” The girl obeyed deftly. “Are the handcuffs unlocked? Good! Snap one end around his right wrist. Now, Mallory, lower your right hand!”

“I’ll be——” the enraged detective began.

“Lower your right hand.” The pistol clicked. “Now, Miss Fayerwether, snap the other end of the handcuff around the leg of his chair, above the rungs.” It was done, neatly and quickly. “And I think that will hold you for a few minutes, Mallory. Now, Miss Fayerwether, there’s an automobile outside. The motor is running. Get in the car. Take your time. Safely in, honk the horn three times.”

The girl hobbled out. Monsieur St. Rocheville took advantage of the pause to sneer a little at the three men—Mallory safely shackled to a heavy chair, which would effectually stop immediate pursuit; Hatch with his hands anxiously stretched into the air, The Thinking Machine placidly meeting his gaze, eye to eye.

“I’ll get you yet!” Mallory bellowed in impotent rage.

“Oh, perhaps.” Outside, the automobile horn sounded thrice. “Until then, au revoir!” and Monsieur St. Rocheville vanished as silently as he had come.

“There’s loyalty for you,” observed The Thinking Machine, as if astonished.

“Love, not loyalty,” Hatch declared. “He’s crazy about her. Nothing on earth would have brought him back but love.”

“Love!” mused the little scientist. “A most interesting phenomena. I shall have to look into it some time.”

As I have said, Monsieur St. Rocheville was a young man of resource and daring. Later that night he burglariously entered the room Miss Fayerwether had occupied at Idlewild, and took Blitz and Jack and Jill away with him, cage and all.

__________________

11. My First Experience With the Great Logician

IT was once my good fortune to meet in person Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., LL. D., F. R. S., M. D., etc. The meeting came about through a singular happening, which was as mystifying as it was dangerous to me—he saved my life in fact; and in process of hauling me back from eternity—the edge of that appalling mist which separates life and death—I had full opportunity of witnessing the workings of that marvelously keen, cold brain which has made him the most distinguished scientist and logician of his day. It was sometime afterward, however, that Professor Van Dusen was identified in my mind with The Thinking Machine.

I had dined at the Hotel Teutonic, taken a cigar from my pocket, lighted it, and started for a stroll across Boston Common. It was after eight o’clock on one of those clear, nippy evenings of winter. I was near the center of the Common on one of the many little by paths which lead toward Beacon Hill when I became conscious of an acute pain in my chest, a sudden fluttering of my heart, and a constriction in my throat. The lights in the distance began to waver and grow dim, and perspiration broke out all over me from an inward, gnawing agony which grew more intense each moment. I felt myself reeling, my cigar dropped from my fingers, and I clutched at a seat to steady myself. There was no one near me. I tried to call, then everything grew dark, and I sank down on the ground. My last recollection was of a figure approaching me; the last words I heard were a petulant, irritable “Dear me!” then I was lost to consciousness.

When I recovered consciousness I lay on a couch in a strange room. My eyes wandered weakly about and lingered with a certain childish interest on half a dozen spots which reflected glitteringly the light of an electric bulb set high up on one side. These bright spots, I came to realize after a moment, were metal parts of various instruments of a laboratory. For a time I lay helpless, listless, with trembling pulse and eardrums thumping, then I heard steps approaching, and some one bent over and peered into my face.

It was a man, but such a man as I had never seen before. A great shock of straw yellow hair tumbled about a broad, high forehead, a small, wrinkled, querulous face—the face of an aged child—a pair of watery blue eyes squinting aggressively through thick spectacles, and a thin lipped mouth as straight as the mark of a surgeon’s knife, save for the drooping corners. My impression then was that it was some sort of hallucination, the distorted vagary of a disordered brain, but gradually my vision cleared and the grip of slender fingers on my pulse made me realize the actuality of the—the apparition.

“How do you feel?” The thin lips had opened just enough to let out the question, the tone was curt and belligerent, and the voice rasped unpleasantly. At the same time the squint eyes were focused on mine with a steady, piercing glare that made me uneasy. I tried to answer, but my tongue refused to move. The gaze continued for an instant, then the man—The Thinking Machine—turned away and prepared a particularly vile smelling concoction, which he poured into me. Then I was lost again.

After a time—it might have been minutes or hours—I felt again the hand on my pulse, and again The Thinking Machine favored me with a glare. An hour later I was sitting up on the couch, with unclouded brain, and a heartbeat which was nearly normal. It was then I learned why Professor Van Dusen, an eminent man of the sciences, had been dubbed The Thinking Machine; I understood first hand how material muddles were so unfailingly dissipated by unadulterated, infallible logic.

Remember that I had gone into that room an inanimate thing, inert, unconscious, mentally and physically dead to all practical intents—beyond the point where I might have babbled any elucidating fact. And remember, too, please, that I didn’t know—had not the faintest idea—what had happened to me, beyond the fact that I had fallen unconscious. The Thinking Machine didn’t ask questions, yet he supplied all the missing details, together with a host of personal, intimate things of which he could personally have had no knowledge. In other words, I was an abstruse problem, and he solved me. With head tilted back against the cushion of the chair—and such a head!—with eyes unwaveringly turned upward, and finger tips pressed idly together, he sat there, a strange, grotesque little figure in the midst of his laboratory apparatus. Not for a moment did he display the slightest interest in me, personally; it was all as if I had been written down on a slate, to be wiped off when I was solved.

“Did this ever happen to you before?” he asked abruptly.

“No,” I replied. “What was it?”

“You were poisoned,” he said. “The poison was a deadly one—corrosive sublimate, or bichlorid or mercury. The shock was very severe; but you will be all right in——”

“Poisoned!” I exclaimed, aghast. “Who poisoned me? Why?”

“You poisoned yourself,” he replied testily. “It was your own carelessness. Nine out of ten persons handle poison as if it was candy, and you are like all the rest.”

“But I couldn’t have poisoned myself,” I protested. “Why, I have had no occasion to handle poisons—not for—I don’t know how long.”

“I do know,” he said. “It was nearly a year ago when you handled this; but corrosive sublimate is always dangerous.”

The tone irritated me, the impassive arrogance of the little man inflamed my reeling brain, and I am not sure that I did not shake my finger in his face. “If I was poisoned,” I declared with some heat, “it was not my fault. Somebody gave it to me; somebody tried to——”

“You poisoned yourself,” said The Thinking Machine again impatiently. “You talk like a child.”

“How do you know I poisoned myself? How do you know I ever handled a poison? And how do you know it was a year ago, if I did?”

The Thinking Machine regarded me coldly for an instant, and then those strange eyes of his wandered upward again. “I know those things,” he said, “just as I know your name, address, and profession from cards I found in your pockets; just as I know you smoke, from half a dozen cigars on you; just as I know that you are wearing those clothes for the first time this winter; just as I know you lost your wife within a few months; that you kept house then; and that your house was infested with insects. I know just as I know everything else—by the rules of inevitable logic.”

My head was whirling. I stared at him in blank astonishment. “But how do you know those things?” I insisted in bewilderment.

“The average person of to-day,” replied the scientist, “knows nothing unless it is written down and thrust under his nose. I happen to be a physician. I saw you fall, and went to you, my first thought being of heart trouble. Your pulse showed it was not that, and it was obviously not apoplexy. Now, there was no visible reason why you should have collapsed like that. There had been no shot; there was no wound; therefore, poison. An examination confirmed this first hypothesis; your symptoms showed that the poison was bichlorid of mercury. I put you in a cab and brought you here. From the fact that you were not dead then I knew that your system had absorbed only a minute quantity of poison—a quantity so small that it demonstrated instantly that there had been no suicidal intent, and indicated, too, that no one else had administered it. If this was true, I knew—I didn’t guess, I knew—that the poisoning was accidental. How accidental?

“My first surmise, naturally, was that the poison had been absorbed through the mouth. I searched your pockets. The only thing I found that you would put into your mouth were the cigars. Were they poisoned? A test showed they were, all of them. With intent to kill? No. Not enough poison was used. Was the poison a part of the gum used to bind the cigar? Possible, of course, but not probable. Then what?” He lowered his eyes and squinted at me suddenly, aggressively. I shook my head, and, as an afterthought, closed my gaping mouth.

“Perhaps you carried corrosive sublimate in your pocket. I didn’t find any; but perhaps you once carried it. I tore out the coat pocket in which I found the cigars and subjected it to the test. At sometime there had been corrosive sublimate, in the form of powder or crystals, in the pocket, and in some manner, perhaps because of an imperfection in the package, a minute quantity was loose in your pocket.

“Here was an answer to every question, and more; here was how the cigars were poisoned, and, in combination with the tailor’s tag inside your pocket, a short history of your life. Briefly it was like this: Once you had corrosive sublimate in your pocket. For what purpose? First thought—to rid your home of insects. Second thought—if you were boarding, married or unmarried, the task of getting rid of the insects would have been left to the servant; and this would possibly have been the case if you had been living at home. So I assumed for the instant that you were keeping house, and if keeping house, you were married—you bought the poison for use in your own house.

“Now, without an effort, naturally, I had you married, and keeping house. Then what? The tailor’s tag, with your name, and the date your clothing was made—one year and three months ago. It is winter clothing. If you had worn it since the poison was loose in your pocket the thing that happened to you to-night would have happened to you before; but it never happened before, therefore I assume that you had the poison early last spring, when insects began to be troublesome, and immediately after that you laid away the suit until this winter. I know you are wearing the suit for the first time this winter, because, again, this thing has not happened before, and because, too, of the faint odor of moth balls. A band of crape on your hat, the picture of a young woman in your watch, and the fact that you are now living at your club, as your bill for last month shows, establish beyond doubt that you are a widower.”

“It’s perfectly miraculous!” I exclaimed.

“Logic, logic, logic,” snapped the irritable little scientist. “You are a lawyer, you ought to know the correlation of facts; you ought to know that two and two make four, not sometimes but all the time.”

__________________

12. The Problem of the Opera Box

GRADUALLY the lights dimmed and the great audience became an impalpable, shadowy mass broken here and there by the vagrant glint of a jewel or the gleam of white shoulders. There was a preliminary blare of horns, then the crashing anvil chorus of “Il Trovatore” began. Sparks spattered and flashed as the sledges rose and fell in exquisite rhythm while the clangorous music roared through the big theatre.

Eleanor Oliver arose, and moving from the front of the box into the gloom at the rear, leaned her head wearily against the latticed partition. Her mother, beside whom she had been sitting, glanced up inquiringly as did her father and their guest Sylvester Knight.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” asked Mrs. Oliver.

“Those sparks and that noise give me a headache,” she explained. “Father, sit in front there if you wish. I’ll stay here in the dark until I feel better.”

Mr. Oliver took the seat near his wife and Knight immediately lost interest in the stage, turning his chair to face Eleanor. She seemed a little pale and mingled eagerness and anxiety in his face showed his concern. They chatted together for a minute or so and under cover of darkness his hand caught hers and held it a fluttering prisoner.

As they talked the drone of their voices interfered with Mrs. Oliver’s enjoyment of the music and she glanced back warningly. Neither noticed it for Knight was gazing deeply into the girl’s eyes with adoration in his own. She made some remark to him and he protested quickly.

“Please don’t,” Mrs. Oliver heard him say pleadingly as his voice was raised. “It won’t be long.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to,” the girl replied.

“You mustn’t,” Knight commanded earnestly. “If you insist on it I shall have to do something desperate.”

Mrs. Oliver turned and looked back at them reprovingly.

“You children chatter too much,” she said good naturedly. “You make more noise than the anvils.”

She turned again to the stage and Knight was silent for a moment. Finally the girl said something else that the mother didn’t catch.

“Certainly,” he replied.

He arose quietly and left the box. The swish and fall of the curtain behind him were smothered in the heavy volume of music. The girl sat white and inert. Knight found her in just that position when he returned with a glass of water. He had been out only a minute or so, and the encore to the chorus was just ending.

He offered the glass to Eleanor but she made no move to take it and he touched her lightly on the arm. Still she did not move and he leaned over and looked at her closely. Then he turned quickly to Mrs. Oliver.

“Eleanor has fainted, I think,” he whispered uneasily.

“Fainted?” exclaimed Mrs. Oliver as she arose. “Fainted?”

She pushed her chair back and in a moment was beside her daughter chafing her hands. Mr. Oliver turned and glanced at them with languid interest.

“What’s the matter now?” he inquired.

“We’ll have to go,” replied Mrs. Oliver. “Eleanor has fainted.”

“Again?” he asked impatiently.

Knight hovered about anxiously, helplessly as the father and mother worked with the girl. Finally in some way he never understood Eleanor was lifted out, still unconscious and white as death, and removed in a waiting carriage to her home. Two physicians were summoned and disappeared into her boudoir while Knight paced back and forth restlessly between the smoking room and the hall. Mrs. Oliver was with her daughter; Mr. Oliver sat quietly smoking.

“I wouldn’t worry,” he advised the young man after a few minutes. “She has a trick of fainting like that. You will know more about her after awhile—when she is Mrs. Knight.”

From somewhere upstairs came a scream and Knight started nervously. It was a shrill, penetrating cry that tore straight through him. Mr. Oliver took it phlegmatically, even smiled at his nervousness.

“That’s my wife fainting,” he explained. “She always does it that way. You know,” he added confidentially, “my wife and two daughters are so exhausted with this everlasting social game that they go off like that at any minute. I’ve talked to them about it but they won’t listen.”

Heedless of the idle, even heartless, comments of the father Knight stopped in the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs looking up. After a minute a man came down; it was Dr. Brander, one of the two physicians who had been called. On his face was an expression of troubled perplexity.

“How is she?” demanded Knight abruptly.

“Where is Mr. Oliver?” asked Dr. Brander.

“In the smoking room,” replied the young man. “What’s the matter?”

Without answering the physician went on to the father. Mr. Oliver looked up.

“Bring her around all right?” he asked.

“She’s dead,” replied the physician.

“Dead?” gasped Knight.

Mr. Oliver rose suddenly and gripped the physician fiercely by a shoulder. For an instant he gazed and then his face grew deathly pale. With a distinct effort he recovered himself.

“Her heart?’ he asked at last.

“No. She was stabbed.”

Dr. Brander looked from one to the other of the two white faces with troubled lines about his eyes.

“Why it can’t be,” burst out Knight suddenly. “Where is she? I’ll go to her.”

Dr. Brander laid a detaining hand on his shoulder.

“You can do no good,” he said quietly.

For a time Mr. Oliver was dumb and the physician curiously watched the struggle in his face. The hand that clung to his shoulder was trembling horribly. At last the father found voice.

“What happened?” he asked.

“She was stabbed,” said Dr. Brander again. “When we examined her we found the knife—a long, keen, short-handled stiletto. It was driven in with great force directly under her left arm and penetrated the heart. She must have been dead when she was lifted from the box at the opera. The stiletto remained in the wound and prevented any flow of blood while its position and the short handle caused it to be overlooked when she was lifted into the carriage. We did not find the knife for several minutes after we arrived. It was covered by her arm.”

“Did you tell my wife?” asked Mr. Oliver quickly.

“She was present,” the physician went on. “She screamed and fainted. Dr. Seaver is attending her. Her condition is—is not very good. Where is your ’phone? I must notify the police.”

Mr. Oliver started to ask something else, paused and dropped back in his chair only to rise instantly and rush up the stairs. Knight into whose face there had come a deadly calm stood stone-like while Dr. Brander used the telephone. At last the physician finished.

“The calling of the police means that Eleanor did not kill herself?” asked the young man.

“It was murder,” was the positive reply. “She could not have stabbed herself. The knife went straight in, entering here,” and he indicated a spot about four inches below his left arm. “You see,” he explained, “it took a very long blade to penetrate the heart.”

There was dull despair in Knight’s eyes. He dropped down at a table with his head on his arms and sat motionless for a long time. He looked up once and asked a question.

“Where is the knife?”

“I have it,” replied Dr. Brander. “I shall turn it over to the authorities.”

* * * *

“NOW,” began The Thinking Machine in his small, irritated voice as Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, stopped talking and leaned back to listen, “all problems are merely sums in addition, when reduced to their primary parts. Therefore this one is simply a matter of putting facts together in order to prove that two and two do not sometimes but always make four.”

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist and logician, paused to adjust his head comfortably on the cushion in the big chair, then resumed:

“Your statement of the case, Mr. Hatch, gives me these absolute facts: Eleanor Oliver is dead; she died of a stab wound; a stiletto made this wound; it was in such a position that she could hardly have inflicted it herself; and Sylvester Knight, her fiancé, is under arrest. That’s all we know isn’t it?”

“You forget that she was stabbed while in a box at the opera,” the reporter put in, “in the hearing of three or four thousand persons.”

“I forget nothing,” snapped the scientist. “It does not appear at all that she was stabbed while in that box. It appears merely that she was ill and might have fainted. She might have been stabbed while in the carriage, or even after she was in her room.”

Hatch’s eyes opened wide at the bare mention of these possibilities.

“The presumption is of course,” The Thinking Machine went on a little less aggressively, “that she was stabbed while in the box, but we can’t put that down as an absolute fact to work on until we know it. Remember the stiletto was not found until she was in her room.”

This gave the reporter something new to think about and he was silent as he considered it. He saw that either of the possibilities suggested by the scientist was tenable, but on the other hand—on the other hand, and there his mind refused to work.

“You have told me that Knight was arrested at the suggestion of Mr. Oliver last night shortly after the police learned of the affair,” The Thinking Machine went on, musingly. “Now just what have you or the police learned as to him? How do they connect him with the affair?”

“First the police acted on the general ground of exclusive opportunity,” the reporter explained. “Then Knight was arrested. The stiletto used was not an ordinary one. It had a blade of about seven inches and was very slender, but instead of a guard on it there was only a gold band. The handle is a straight, highly polished piece of wood. Around it, below the gold band where the guard should have been, there were threads as if it had been screwed into something.”

“Yes, yes, I see,” the other interrupted impatiently. “It was intended to be carried hidden in a walking cane, perhaps, and was screwed down with the blade in the stick. Go on.”

“Detective Mallory surmised that when he saw the stiletto,” the reporter continued, “so after Knight was locked up he searched his rooms for the other part—the lower end—of the cane.”

“And he found it, without the stiletto?”

“Yes, that’s the chain against. Knight. First, exclusive opportunity, then the stiletto and the finding of the lower end of the cane in his possession.”

“Exclusive fiddlesticks!” exclaimed the scientist irritably. “I presume Knight denies that he killed Miss Oliver?”

“Naturally.”

“And where is the stiletto that belongs to his cane? Does he attempt to account for it?”

“He doesn’t seem to know where it is—in fact he doesn’t deny that the stiletto might be his. He merely says he doesn’t know.”

The Thinking Machine was silent for several minutes.

“Looks bad for him,” he remarked at last.

“Thank you,” remarked Hatch dryly. It was one of those rare occasions when the scientist saw a problem exactly as he saw it.

“Miss Oliver and Mr. Knight were to be married—when?”

“Three weeks from next Wednesday.”

“I suppose Detective Mallory has the stiletto and cane?”

“Yes.”

The Thinking Machine arose and found his hat.

“Let’s run over to police headquarters,” he suggested.

They found Detective Mallory snugly ensconced behind a fat cigar with beatific satisfaction on his face.

“Ah, gentlemen,” he remarked graciously—the graciousness of conscious superiority. “We’ve nailed it to our friend Knight all right.”

“How?” inquired The Thinking Machine.

The detective gloated a little—twisted his tongue around the dainty morsel—before he answered.

“I suppose Hatch has told you the grounds of the arrest?” he asked. “Exclusive opportunity and all that? Then you know, too, how I searched Knight’s rooms and found the other part of the stiletto cane. Of course that was enough to convict, but early this evening the last link in the chain against him was supplied when Mrs. Oliver made a statement to me.”

The detective paused in enjoyment of the curiosity he had aroused.

“Well?” asked The Thinking Machine, at last.

“Mrs. Oliver heard—understand me—heard Knight threaten her daughter only a few minutes before she was found dead.”

“Threaten her?” exclaimed Hatch, as he glanced at The Thinking Machine. “By George!”

Detective Mallory tugged at his moustache complacently.

“Mrs. Oliver heard Knight first say something like, ‘Please don’t. It won’t be very long.’ Her daughter answered something she couldn’t catch after which she heard Knight say positively, ‘You mustn’t. If you do I shall do something desperate’ or something like that. Now as she remembers it the tone was threatening—it must have been raised in anger to be heard above the anvils. Thus the case is complete.”

The Thinking Machine and Hatch silently considered this new point.

“Remember this was only three or four minutes before she was found stabbed,” the detective went on with conviction. “It all connects up straight from exclusive opportunity to the ownership of the stiletto; from that to the threat and there you are.”

“No motive of course?” asked The Thinking Machine.

“Well, the question of motive isn’t exactly clear but our further investigations will bring it out all right,” the detective admitted. “I should imagine the motive to be jealousy. Of course the story of Knight not knowing where his stiletto is has no weight.”

Detective Mallory was so charmed with himself that he offered cigars to his visitors—an unusual burst of generosity—and Hatch was so deeply thoughtful that he accepted. The Thinking Machine never smoked.

“May I see the stiletto and cane?” he asked instead.

The detective was delighted to oblige. He watched the scientist with keen satisfaction as that astute gentleman squinted at the slender blade, still stained with blood, and then as he examined the lower part of the cane. Finally the scientist thrust the long blade into the hollow stick and screwed the handle in. It fitted perfectly. Detective Mallory smiled.

“I don’t suppose you’ll try to put a crimp in me this time?” he asked jovially.

“Very clever, Mr. Mallory, very clever,” replied The Thinking Machine, and with Hatch trailing he left headquarters.

“Mallory will swell like a balloon after that,” Hatch commented grimly.

“Well, he might save himself that trouble,” replied the scientist crustily. “He has the wrong man.”

The reporter glanced quickly into the inscrutable face of his companion.

“Didn’t Knight do it?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” was the impatient answer.

“Who did?”

“I don’t know.”

Together they went on to the theatre from which Miss Oliver had been removed the night before. There a few words with the manager gained permission to look at the Oliver box—a box which the Olivers held only on alternate nights during the opera season. It was on the first balcony level, to the left as they entered the house.

The first three rows of seats in the balcony ran around to and stopped at the box, one of four on that level and the furthest from the stage. The Thinking Machine pottered around aimlessly for ten minutes while Hatch looked on. He entered the box two or three times, examined the curtains, the partitions, the floor and the chairs after which he led the way into the lobby.

There he excused himself to Hatch and stopped in the manager’s office. He remained only a few minutes, afterwards climbing into a cab in which he and Hatch were driven back to police headquarters.

After some wire pulling and a good deal of red tape The Thinking Machine and his companion were permitted to see Knight. They found him standing at the barred cell door, staring out with weary eyes and pallid face.

The Thinking Machine was introduced to the prisoner by Hatch who had previously tried vainly to induce the young man to talk.

“I have nothing to say,” Knight declared belligerently. “See my attorney.”

“I would like to ask three or four questions to which you can have no possible objection,” said The Thinking Machine. “If you do object of course don’t answer.”

“Well?” demanded the prisoner.

“Have you ever travelled in Europe?”

“I was there for nearly a year. I only returned to this country three months ago.”

“Have you ever been interested in any other woman? Or has any other woman ever been interested in you?”

The prisoner stared at his questioner coldly.

“No,” he responded, emphatically.

“Your answer to that question may mean your freedom within a few hours,” said The Thinking Machine quite calmly. “Tell me the truth.”

“That is the truth—on my honour.”

The answer came frankly, and there came a quick gleam of hope in the prisoner’s face.

“Just where in Italy did you buy that stiletto cane?” was the next question.

“In Rome.”

“Rather expensive?”

“Five hundred lira—that is about one hundred dollars.”

“I suppose they are very common in Italy?”

“Yes, rather.”

Knight pressed eagerly against the bars of his cell and gazed deeply but uncomprehendingly into the quiet squinting blue eyes.

“There has never been any sort of a quarrel—serious or otherwise between you and Miss Oliver?”

“Never,” was the quick response.

“Now, only one more question,” said The Thinking Machine. “I shall not ask it to hurt you.” There was a little pause and Hatch waited expectantly. “Does it happen that you know whether or not Miss Oliver ever had any other love affair?”

“Certainly not,” exclaimed the young man, hotly. “She was just a girl—only twenty, out of Vassar just a few months ago and—and——”

“You needn’t say any more,” interrupted The Thinking Machine. “It isn’t necessary. Make your plans to leave here to-night, not later than midnight. It is now four o’clock. To-morrow the newspapers will exonerate you.”

The prisoner seemed almost overcome by his emotions. He started to speak, but only extended an open hand through the bars. The Thinking Machine laid his slender fingers in it with a slight look of annoyance, said “Good day” mechanically and he and Hatch went out.

The reporter was in a sort of a trance, not an unusual condition in him when in the company of his scientific friend. They climbed into the cab again and were driven away. Hatch was thinking too deeply to note the destination when the scientist gave it to the cabby.

“Do you actually anticipate that you will be able to get Knight out of this thing so easily?” he asked incredulously.

“Certainly,” was the response. “The problem is solved except for one or two minor points. Now I am proving it.”

“But—but——”

“I will make it all clear to you in due time,” interrupted the other.

They were both silent until the cab stopped. Hatch glanced out and recognized the Oliver home. He followed The Thinking Machine up the steps and into the reception hall. There the scientist handed a card to the servant.

“Tell Mr. Oliver, please, that I will only take a moment,” he explained.

The servant bowed and left them. A short wait and Mr. Oliver entered.

“I am sorry to disturb you at such a time, Mr. Oliver,” said the scientist, “but if you can give me just a little information I think perhaps we may get a full light on this unfortunate affair.”

Mr. Oliver bowed.

“First, let me ask you to confirm what I may say is my knowledge that your daughter, Eleanor, knew this man. I will ask, too, that you do not mention his name now.”

He scribbled hastily on a piece of paper and handed it to Mr. Oliver. An expression of deep surprise came into the latter’s face and he shook his head.

“I can answer that question positively,” he said. “She does not know him. She had never been abroad and he has never been in this country until now.”

The Thinking Machine arose with something nearly akin to agitation in his face, and his slender fingers worked nervously.

“What?” he demand abruptly. “What?” Then, after a pause: “I beg your pardon, sir. It startled me a little. But are you sure?”

“Perfectly sure,” replied Mr. Oliver firmly. “They could not have met in any way.”

For a long time The Thinking Machine stood squinting aggressively at his host with bewilderment plainly apparent in his manner. Hatch looked on with absorbed interest. Something had gone wrong; a cog had slipped; the wheels of logic had been thrown out of gear.

“I have made a mistake, Mr. Oliver,” said The Thinking Machine at last. “I am sorry to have disturbed you.”

Mr. Oliver bowed courteously and they were ushered out.

“What is it?” asked Hatch anxiously as they once more took their seats in the cab.

The Thinking Machine shook his head in frank annoyance.

“What happened?” Hatch insisted.

“I’ve made a mistake,” was the petulant response. “I’m going home and start all over again. It may be that I shall send for you later.”

Hatch accepted that as a dismissal and went his way wonderingly. That evening The Thinking Machine called him to the ’phone.

“Mr. Hatch?”

“Yes.”

“Did Miss Oliver have any sisters?”

“Yes, one. Her name is Florence. There’s something about her in the afternoon papers in connection with the murder story.”

“How old is she?”

“I don’t know—twenty-two or three.”

“Ah!” came a long, aspirated sigh of relief over the wire. “Run by and bring Detective Mallory up to my place.”

“All right. But what was the matter?”

“I was a fool, that’s all. Good bye.”

Detective Mallory was still delighted with himself when Hatch entered his office.

“What particular line is your friend Van Dusen working?” he asked a little curiously.

The reporter shrugged his shoulders.

“He asked me to come by and bring you up,” he replied. “He has evidently reached some conclusion.”

“If it’s anything that doesn’t count Knight in it’s all wind,” he said loftily. For once in his life he was confident that he could deliver a blow which would obliterate any theory but his own. In this mood, therefore, he went with Hatch. They found The Thinking Machine pacing back and forth across his small laboratory with his slender hands clasped behind his back. Hatch noted that the perplexed wrinkles had gone.

“In adding up a column of figures,” began the scientist abruptly as he sat down, “the oversight of even so trivial a unit as one will make a glaring error in the result. You, Mr. Mallory, have overlooked a figure one, therefore your conclusion is wrong. In my first consideration of this affair I also overlooked a figure one and my conclusion toppled over just at the moment when it seemed to be corroborated. So I had to start over; I found the one.”

“But this thing against Knight is conclusive,” said the detective explosively.

“Except for the figure one,” added the scientist.

Detective Mallory snorted politely.

“Now here is the logic of the thing,” resumed The Thinking Machine. “It will show how I overlooked the figure one—that is a vital fact—and how I found it.”

He dropped back into the reflective attitude which was so familiar to his hearers, squint eyes turned upward and with his fingers pressed tip to tip. For several minutes he was silent while Detective Mallory vented his impatience by chewing his moustache.

“In the beginning,” began The Thinking Machine at last, “we have a girl, pretty, young and wealthy in a box at the opera with her parents and her fiancé. It would seem, at first glance, to be as safe a place as her home would be, yet she is murdered mysteriously. A stiletto is thrust into her heart. We will assume that her death occurred in the box; that the knife thrust came while she was in a dead faint. This temporary unconsciousness would account for the fact that she did not scream, as the heart would have been pierced by a sudden thrust before consciousness of pain was awakened.

“Now the three persons who were with her. There seemed no reason to suspect either the father or mother, so we come to Sylvester Knight, her intended husband. There is always to be found a motive, either real or imaginary, for a man to kill his sweetheart. In this case Knight had the opportunity, but not the exclusive opportunity. Therefore, an unlimited field of speculation was opened up.”

Detective Mallory raised his hand impressively and started to say something, then thought better of it.

“After Mr. Knight’s arrest,” The Thinking Machine continued, “your investigation, Mr. Mallory, drew a net about him. That’s what you wanted to say, I believe. There was the stiletto, the other end of the cane and the alleged threats. I admit all these things. On this statement of the case it looked black for Mr. Knight.”

“That’s what,” remarked the detective.

“Now a stiletto naturally suggests Italy. The blade with which Miss Oliver was killed bore an Italian manufacturer’s mark. I presume you noticed it?”

“Oh, that!” exclaimed the detective.

“Means nothing conclusively,” added The Thinking Machine. “I agree with you. Still it was a suggestion. Then I saw the thing that did mean something. This was the fact that the handle of the stiletto was not of the same wood as the part of the cane you found in Mr. Knight’s room. This difference is so slight that you would hardly notice it even now, but it was there and showed a possible clue leading away from Mr. Knight.”

Detective Mallory could not readily place his tongue on words to fittingly express his disgust, so he remained silent.

“When I considered what manner of man Mr. Knight is and the singular nature of the crime,” resumed the scientist, “I had no hesitancy in assuring Mr. Hatch that you had the wrong man. After we first saw you we examined the opera box. It was on the left of the theatre and separated from the next box by a latticed partition. It was against this partition that Miss Oliver was leaning.

“Remember, I saw the box after I examined the stiletto and while I was seeking a method by which another person might have stabbed her without entering the box. I found it. By using a stiletto without a guard it would have been perfectly possible for a person in the next box to have killed her by thrusting the blade through the lattice partition. That is exactly what happened.”

Detective Mallory arose with a mouth full of words. They tumbled out in incoherent surprise and protest, then he sat down again. The Thinking Machine was still staring upward.

“I then took steps to learn who was in the adjoining box at the time of her death,” he continued quietly. “The manager of the theatre told me it was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Dupree, and their guest an Italian nobleman. Italian nobleman! Italian stiletto! You see the connection?

“Then we saw Mr. Knight. He assured me, and I believed him, that he had never had any other love affair, therefore no woman would have had a motive in killing Miss Oliver because of him. He was positive, too, that Miss Oliver had never had any other love affair, yet I saw the possibility of some connecting link between her and the nobleman. It was perfectly possible, indeed probable, that he would not know of it. At the moment I was convinced that there had been such an affair.

“Mr. Knight also told me that he bought his stiletto cane in Rome; and he paid a price that would seem to guarantee that it would be a perfect one, with the same wood in the handle and lower part, and that he and Miss Oliver had never had any sort of a quarrel.”

There was a little pause and The Thinking Machine shifted his position slightly.

“Here I had a motive—jealousy of one man who was thrown over for another; the method of death, through the lattice; a clue to the murderer in the stiletto, and the name of the man. It seemed conclusive but I had overlooked a figure one. I saw that when Mr. Oliver assured me that Miss Eleanor Oliver did not know the nobleman whose name I wrote for him; that she could not have known him. The entire structure tumbled. I was nonplussed and a little rude, I fear, in my surprise. Then I had to reconsider the matter from the beginning. The most important of all the connecting links was missing, yet the logic was right. It is always right.

“There are times when imagination has to bridge gaps caused by the absence of demonstrable facts. I considered the matter carefully, then saw where I had dropped the figure one. I ’phoned to Mr. Hatch to know if Miss Oliver had a sister. She had. The newspapers to which Mr. Hatch referred me told me the rest of it. It was Eleanor Oliver’s sister who had the affair with the nobleman. That cleared it. There is the name of the murderer.”

He laid down a card on which was scribbled this name and address: “Count Leo Tortino, Hotel Teutonic.” Hatch and the detective read it simultaneously, then looked at The Thinking Machine inquiringly.

“But I don’t see it yet,” expostulated the detective. “This man Knight——”

“Briefly it is this,” declared the other impatiently. “The newspapers carried a story of Florence Oliver’s love affair with Count Tortino at the time she was travelling in Europe with her mother. According to what I read she jilted him and returned to this country where her engagement to another man was rumoured. That was several months ago. Now it doesn’t follow that because the Count knew Florence Oliver that he knew or even knew of Eleanor Oliver.

“Suppose he came here maddened by disappointment and seeking revenge, suppose further he reached the theatre, as he did, while the anvil chorus was on, the party started into the wrong box and the usher mentioned casually that the Olivers were in there. We presume he knew Mrs. Oliver by sight, and saw her. He might reasonably have surmised, perhaps he was told, that the other woman was Miss Oliver—and Miss Oliver meant to him the woman who had jilted him. The lattice work offered a way, the din of the music covered the act—and that’s all. It doesn’t really appear—it isn’t necessary to know—how he carried the stiletto about him, or why.”

The detective was gnawing his moustache. He was silent for several minutes trying to see the tragedy in this new light.

“But the threats Knight made?” he inquired finally.

“Has he explained them?”

“Oh, he said something about the girl being ill and wanting to go home, and he urged her not to. He told her, he says, that she mustn’t go, because he would have to do something desperate. Silly explanation I call it.”

“But I dare say it’s perfectly correct,” commented The Thinking Machine. “Men of your profession, Mr. Mallory, never believe the simple things. If you would take the word of an accused man at face value occasionally you would have less trouble.” There was a pause, then: “I promised Mr. Knight that he would be free by midnight. It is now ten. Suppose you run down to the Teutonic and see Count Tortino. He will hardly deny anything.”

Detective Mallory and Hatch found the Count in his room. He was lying face down across a bed with a bullet hole in his temple. A note of explanation confessed the singular error which had led to the murder of Eleanor Oliver.

It was three minutes of midnight when Sylvester Knight walked out of his cell a heartbroken man, but free.

END