The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 169

"Nothing is impossible," The Thinking Machine interrupted, in the tone of perpetual irritation which seemed to be a part of him. "You annoy me when you say it."

"It seems highly improbable," Hatch corrected himself, "that there can be the remotest connection between the crimes, yet--"

"You're wasting words," the crabbed little scientist declared impatiently. "Begin at the beginning. Who was murdered? When? How? Why? What was the manner of death?"

"Taking the last question first," the reporter explained, "we have the most singular part of the problem. No one can say the manner of death, not even the physicians."

"Oh!" For the first time The Thinking Machine lifted his petulant, squinting, narrowed eyes, and stared into the face of the newspaper man. "Oh!" he said again. "Go on."

As Hatch talked, the lure of a material problem laid hold of the master mind, and after a little The Thinking Machine dropped into a chair. With his great, grotesque head tilted back, his eyes turned steadily upward, and slender fingers placed precisely tip to tip, he listened in silence to the end.

"We come now," said the newspaper man, "to the inexplicable after developments. We have proven that Mrs. Cecelia Montgomery, Miss Danbury's companion, did not go to Concord to visit friends; as a matter of fact, she is missing. The police have been able to find no trace of her, and to-day are sending out a general alarm. Naturally, her absence at this particular moment is suspicious. It is possible to conjecture her connection with the death of Miss Danbury, but what about--"

"Never mind conjecture," the scientist broke in curtly. "Facts, facts!"

"Further," and Hatch's bewilderment was evident on his face, "mysterious things have been happening in the rooms where Miss Danbury and this man Henry Sumner were found dead. Miss Danbury was found dead last Thursday. Immediately after the body was removed, Detective Mallory ordered her room locked, his idea being that nothing should be disturbed at least for the present, because of the strange circ.u.mstances surrounding her death. When the nature of the Henry Sumner affair became known, and the similarity of the cases recognized, he gave the same order regarding Sumner's room."

Hatch stopped, and stared vainly into the pallid, wizened face of the scientist. A curious little chill ran down his spinal column.

"Some time Tuesday night," he continued, after a moment, "Miss Danbury's room was entered and ransacked; and some time that same night Henry Sumner's room was entered and ransacked. This morning, Wednesday, a clearly defined hand print in blood was found in Miss Danbury's room. It was on the wooden top of a dressing table. It seemed to be a woman's hand. Also, an indistinguishable smudge of blood, which may have been a hand print, was found in Sumner's room!" He paused; The Thinking Machine's countenance was inscrutable. "What possible connection can there be between this young woman of the aristocracy, and this-this longsh.o.r.eman? Why should--"

"What chair," questioned The Thinking Machine, "does Professor Meredith hold in the university?"

"Greek," was the reply.

"Who is Mr. Willing?"

"One of the leading lawyers of the city."

"Did you see Miss Danbury's body?"

"Yes."

"Did she have a large mouth, or a small mouth?"

The irrelevancy of the questions, to say nothing of their disjointedness, brought a look of astonishment to Hatch's face; and he was a young man who was rarely astonished by the curious methods of The Thinking Machine. Always he had found that the scientist approached a problem from a new angle.

"I should say a small mouth," he ventured. "Her lips were bruised as if-as if something round, say the size of a twenty-five-cent piece, had been crushed against them. There was a queer, drawn, caved-in look to her mouth and cheeks."

"Naturally," commented The Thinking Machine enigmatically. "And Sumner's was the same?"

"Precisely. You say 'naturally.' Do you mean--" There was eagerness in the reporter's question.

It pa.s.sed unanswered. For half a minute The Thinking Machine continued to stare into nothingness. Finally:

"I dare say Sumner was of the English type? His name is English?"

"Yes; a splendid physical man, a hard drinker, I hear, as well as a hard worker."

Again a pause.

"You don't happen to know if Professor Meredith is now or ever has been particularly interested in physics-that is, in natural philosophy?"

"I do not."

"Please find out immediately," the scientist directed tersely. "Willing has handled some legal business for Miss Danbury. Learn what you can from him to the general end of establis.h.i.+ng some connection, a relations.h.i.+p possibly, between Henry Sumner and the Honorable Violet Danbury. That, at the moment, is the most important thing to do. Neither of them may have been aware of the relations.h.i.+p, if relations.h.i.+p it was, yet it may have existed. If it doesn't exist, there's only one answer to the problem."

"And that is?" Hatch asked.

"The murders are the work of a madman," was the tart rejoinder. "There's no mystery, of course, in the manner of the deaths of these two."

"No mystery?" the reporter echoed blankly. "Do you mean you know how they--"

"Certainly I know, and you know. The examining physicians know, only they don't know that they know." Suddenly his tone became didactic. "Knowledge that can't be applied is utterly useless," he said. "The real difference between a great mind and a mediocre mind is only that the great mind applies its knowledge." He was silent a moment. "The only problem remaining here is to find the person who was aware of the many advantages of this method of murder."

"Advantages?" Hatch was puzzled.

"From the viewpoint of the murderer there is always a good way and a bad way to kill a person," the scientist told him. "This particular murderer chose a way that was swift, silent, simple, and sure as the march of time. There was no scream, no struggle, no pistol shot, no poison to be traced, nothing to be seen except--"

"The hole in the left cheek, perhaps?"

"Quite right, and that leaves no clew. As a matter of fact, the only clew we have at all is the certainty that the murderer, man or woman, is well acquainted with physics, or natural philosophy."

"Then you think," the newspaper man's eyes were about to start from his head, "that Professor Meredith--"

"I think nothing," The Thinking Machine declared briefly. "I want to know what he knows of physics, as I said; also I want to know if there is any connection between Miss Danbury and the longsh.o.r.eman. If you'll attend to--"

Abruptly the laboratory door opened and Martha entered, pallid, frightened, her hands shaking.

"Something most peculiar, sir," she stammered in her excitement.

"Well?" the little scientist questioned.

"I do believe," said Martha, "that I'm a-going to faint!"

And as an evidence of good faith she did, crumpling up in a little heap before their astonished eyes.

"Dear me! Dear me!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine petulantly. "Of all the inconsiderate things! Why couldn't she have told us before she did that?"

It was a labor of fifteen minutes to bring Martha around, and then weakly she explained what had happened. She had answered a ring of the telephone, and some one had asked for Professor Van Dusen. She inquired the name of the person talking.

"Never mind that," came the reply. "Is he there? Can I see him?"

"You'll have to explain what you want, sir," Martha had told him. "He always has to know."

"Tell him I know who murdered Miss Danbury and Henry Sumner," came over the wire. "If he'll receive me I'll be right up."

"And then, sir," Martha explained to The Thinking Machine, "something must have happened at the other end, sir. I heard another man's voice, then a sort of a choking sound, sir, and then they cursed me, sir. I didn't hear any more. They hung up the receiver or something, sir." She paused indignantly. "Think of him, sir, a-swearing at me!"