The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 73

" '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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.s 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 doc.u.ment-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 s.h.i.+ning 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 circ.u.mstances 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 ident.i.ty of the princ.i.p.als 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ning light, received his distinguished visitor and Hatch.