The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 81

"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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sa.s.sination.

"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 pa.s.sed 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 a.n.a.lytical 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 prost.i.tutions 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 ident.i.ty 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 mult.i.tude of mirrors, and required the a.s.sistance 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 bas.e.m.e.nt of Singh's house, even to rugs, books and wall decorations. There two men rehea.r.s.ed 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 bas.e.m.e.nt. 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 cla.s.s 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?"