The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 46

"There are shades of emotion intuition, call it what you will, so subtle that it is difficult to express them in words. As I had instinctively a.s.sociated Harrison with Bell's present condition I instinctively a.s.sociated this woman with Harrison. For not a word of the affair had appeared in a newspaper; only a very few persons knew of it. Was it possible that the stranger Manning was backing the woman in an effort to get the $10,000? That remained to be seen. I questioned the woman; she would say nothing. She is clever, but she blundered badly in claiming Mr. Hatch for a husband."

The reporter blushed modestly.

"I asked her flatly about a drug. She was quite calm and her manner indicated that she knew nothing of it. Yet I presume she did. Then I sprung the bombsh.e.l.l, and she saw she had made a mistake. I gave her over to Detective Mallory and she was locked up. This done, I wired to the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg to find out about this mysterious 'Harry' who had come into the case. I was so confident then that I also wired to Mrs. Bell in b.u.t.te, presuming that there was a Mrs. Bell, asking about her husband.

"Then Manning came to see me. I knew he came because he had remembered the name he knew you by," and The Thinking Machine turned to the central figure in this strange entanglement of ident.i.ty, "although he seemed surprised when I told him as much. He knew you as Harry Pillsbury. I asked him who the woman was. His manner told me that he knew nothing whatever of her. Then it came back to her as an a.s.sociate of Harrison, your enemy for some reason, and I could see it in no other light. It was her purpose to get hold of you and possibly keep you a prisoner, at least until some gigantic deal in which copper figured was disposed of. That was what I surmised.

"Then another telegram came from the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg. The name of Harry Pillsbury appeared as a visitor in the book in January, three years ago. It was you-Manning is not the sort of man to be mistaken-and then there remained only one point to be solved as I then saw the case. That was an answer from Mrs. Preston Bell, if there was a Mrs. Bell. She would know where her husband was."

Again there was silence. A thousand things were running through Bell's mind. The story had been told so pointedly, and was so vitally a part of him, that semi-recollection was again on his face.

"That telegram said that Preston Bell was in Honolulu; that the wife had received a cable dispatch that day. Then, frankly, I was puzzled; so puzzled, in fact, that the entire fabric I had constructed seemed to melt away before my eyes. It took me hours to readjust it. I tried it all over in detail, and then the theory which would reconcile every fact in the case was evolved. That theory is right-as right as that two and two make four. It's logic."

It was half an hour later when a detective entered and spoke to Detective Mallory aside.

"Fine!" said Mallory. "Bring 'em in."

Then there reappeared the woman who had been a prisoner and a man of fifty years.

"Harrison!" exclaimed Bell, suddenly. He staggered to his feet with outstretched hands. "Harrison! I know! I know!"

"Good, good, very good," said The Thinking Machine.

Bell's nervously twitching hands were reaching for Harrison's throat when he was pushed aside by Detective Mallory. He stood pallid for a moment, then sank down on the floor in a heap. He was senseless. The Thinking Machine made a hurried examination.

"Good!" he remarked again. "When he recovers he will remember everything except what has happened since he has been in Boston. Meanwhile, Mr. Harrison, we know all about the little affair of the drug, the battle for new copper workings in Honolulu, and your partner there has been arrested. Your drug didn't do its work well enough. Have you anything to add?"

The prisoner was silent.

"Did you search his rooms?" asked The Thinking Machine of the detective who had made the double arrest.

"Yes, and found this."

It was a large roll of money. The Thinking Machine ran over it lightly-$70,000-scanning the numbers of the bills. At last he held forth half a dozen. They were among the twenty-seven reported to have been burned in the bank fire in b.u.t.te.

Harrison and the woman were led away. Subsequently it developed that he had been systematically robbing the bank of which he was president for years; was responsible for the fire, at which time he had evidently expected to make a great haul; and that the woman was not his wife. Following his arrest this entire story came out; also the facts of the gigantic copper deal, in which he had rid himself of Bell, who was his partner, and had sent another man to Honolulu in Bell's name to buy up options on some valuable copper property there. This confederate in Honolulu had sent the cable dispatches to the wife in b.u.t.te. She accepted them without question.

It was a day or so later that Hatch dropped in to see The Thinking Machine and asked a few questions.

"How did Bell happen to have that $10,000?"

"It was given to him, probably, because it was safer to have him rambling about the country, not knowing who he was as, than to kill him."

"And how did he happen to be here?"

"That question may be answered at the trial."

"And how did it come that Bell was once known as Harry Pillsbury?"

"Bell is a director in United States Steel, I have since learned. There was a secret meeting of this board in Pittsburg three years ago. He went incognito to attend that meeting and was introduced at the Lincoln Club as Harry Pillsbury."

"Oh!" exclaimed Hatch.

PROBLEM OF THE PRIVATE COMPARTMENT.

Leaning forward in his seat, the driver lashed his horses into a gallop. The carriage had barely halted at the railroad station, when a woman leaped out. She was closely veiled; but her slender figure revealed the fact that she was little more than a girl. She paused just long enough to hand the driver a bill, then hurried to a train.

When the conductor pa.s.sed through the cars he found the slender young woman sitting in one of the day coaches. She paid her fare in cash through to Albany, and made inquiry about accommodations in the sleeping car. He volunteered to arrange the matter for her; and so it came to pa.s.s that half an hour after she had boarded the train she was ushered into the more exclusive rear car.

"We have only one upper berth," the conductor there apologized.

"Oh, well, it doesn't really matter," she remarked listlessly, and was shown to a seat.

Then for the first time she raised her veil. Her pretty face was still flushed from the excitement of catching the train; but a haunting, furtive fear mingled with a shade of sorrow in the shadowy, dark eyes, and the red lips expressed a sullen defiance. For a long time she sat moodily thoughtful, staring out of the window; then the growing dusk obliterated the flying landscape, and the porter came through to light the lamps.

After awhile the door of the drawing room compartment at one end of the car opened, and a young woman glanced out. It might have been idle curiosity which caused her to scrutinize the lounging pa.s.sengers; but her eyes paused, with a flash of recognition, on the crisp, brown hair of the slender young woman just half a dozen seats ahead, and she went forward.

"Why, Julia!" she exclaimed. "I hadn't the faintest idea you were on the train!"

First there came an embarra.s.sed surprise into the face of the slender young woman; but it was instantly followed by an expression of relief.

"Oh, Mary! How you startled me!"

There was a little interchange of greetings, which ended by Miss Mary Langham leading Miss Julia Farrar back into the snug little drawing room. They had been cla.s.smates at Va.s.sar, these two, and there were a thousand things to talk about; yet in the manner of each was a certain restraint, a vague, indefinable reserve. As a breaking point of a sudden silence which fell between them, Miss Farrar mentioned the upper berth that she had been given.

"Well, don't worry about that a moment, my dear," urged Miss Langham cheerfully. "I have this whole big compartment, and there are two lower berths. You shall take one, and I'll take the other." There was silence for a moment. "But, my dear girl, where are you going?"

"I'm going to Albany-now," was the reply.

"Right on the eve of your--"

"I'm not going to marry Mr. Devore!" interrupted Miss Farrar with quick pa.s.sion.

Miss Langham lifted her arched brows in astonishment. "Why, Julia, you amaze me!" she exclaimed.

"I'm running away from him now," she went on.

Miss Langham stared at her blankly for an instant. Defiance flamed in Miss Farrar's face; there were tense little lines about the mouth, and the lips were pressed sternly together. But at last some glimmer of comprehension seemed to reach Miss Langham, and with it came an expression which might almost have been of relief. With a quick movement she seized Miss Farrar's hand.

"I think I understand, dear," she said sympathetically at last. "Under all circ.u.mstances, I don't know that I can blame you either. Mr. Devore must know that you don't love him."

"Well, if he doesn't, it isn't because I haven't told him so, goodness knows!" replied Miss Farrar.

Miss Langham laughed lightly, and her eyes reflected some strange, new born light, a glimmer of satisfaction.

"Poor fellow!" she mused. "And he is so devoted!"