Professor Augustus Van Dusen: 49 Detective Mysteries in One Edition. Jacques Futrelle

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СКАЧАТЬ hour later Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, called on Miss Gladys Beekman, a young society woman who was an intimate of Mrs. van Safford’s before the latter’s marriage. Without feeling that he was dallying with the truth Hatch informed her that he called on behalf of Mr. van Safford. She began to smile. He laid the case before her emphatically, seriously and with great detail. The more he explained the more pleasantly she smiled. It made him uncomfortable but he struggled on to the end.

      “I’m glad she did it,” exclaimed Miss Beekman. “But I—I couldn’t believe she would.”

      Then came a sudden gust of laughter which left Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, with the feeling that he was being imposed upon. It continued for a full minute—a hearty, rippling, musical laugh. Hatch grinned sheepishly. Then, without an excuse, Miss Beekman arose and left the room. In the hall there came a fresh burst, and Hatch heard it dying away in the distance.

      “Well,” he muttered grimly. “I’m glad I was able to amuse her.”

      Then he called upon a Mrs. Francis, a young matron whom he had cause to believe was also favoured with Mrs. van Safford’s friendship. He laid the case before her, and she laughed! Then Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, began to get mule-headed about it. He visited eight other women who were known to be on friendly terms with Mrs. van Safford. Six of them intimated that he was an impertinent, prying, inquisitive person, and—the other two laughed! Hatch paused a moment and rubbed his fevered brow.

      “Here’s a corking good joke on somebody,” he told himself, “and I’m beginning to think it’s me.”

      Whereupon he took his troubles to The Thinking Machine. That distinguished gentleman listened in pained surprise to the simple recital of what Hatch had not been able to learn, and spidery wrinkles on his forehead assumed the relative importance of the canals on Mars.

      “It’s astonishing!” he declared, raspily.

      “Yes, it so struck me,” agreed the reporter.

      The Thinking Machine was silent for a long time; the watery blue eyes were turned upward and the slender white fingers pressed tip to tip. Finally he made up his mind as to the next step.

      “There seems only one thing to do,” he said. “And I won’t ask you to do that.”

      “What is it?” demanded the reporter.

      “To watch Mrs. van Safford and see where she goes.”

      “I wouldn’t have done it before, but I will now.” Hatch responded promptly. The bull-dog in him was aroused. “I want to see what the joke is.”

      It was ten o’clock next evening when Hatch called to make a report. He seemed a little weary and tremendously disgusted.

      “I’ve been right behind her all day,” he explained, “from eight o’clock this morning until twenty minutes past nine tonight when she reached home. And if the Lord’ll forgive me—”

      “What did she do?” interrupted The Thinking Machine, impatiently.

      “Well,” and Hatch grinned as he drew out a notebook, “she walked eastward from her house to the first corner, turned, walked another block, took a down town car, and went straight to the Public Library. There she read a Henry James book until fifteen minutes of one, and then she went to luncheon in a restaurant. I also had luncheon. Then she went to the North End on a car. After she got there she wandered around aimlessly all afternoon, nearly. At ten minutes of four she gave a quarter to a crippled boy. He bit it to see if it was good, found it was, then bought cigarettes with it. At half past four she left the North End and went into a big department store. If there’s anything there she didn’t price I can’t remember it. She bought a pair of shoe-laces. The store closed at six, so she went to dinner in another restaurant. I also had dinner. We left there at half past seven o’clock and went back to the Public Library. She read until nine o’clock, and then went home. Phew!” he concluded.

      The Thinking Machine had listened with growing and obvious disappointment on his face. He seemed so cast down by the recital that Hatch tried to cheer him.

      “I couldn’t help it you know,” he said by way of apology. “That’s what she did.”

      “She didn’t speak to anyone?”

      “Not a soul but clerks, waiters and library attendants.”

      “She didn’t give a note to anyone or receive a note?”

      “No.”

      “Did she seem to have any purpose at all in anything she did?”

      “No. The impression she gave me was that she was killing time.”

      The Thinking Machine was silent for several minutes. “I think perhaps—” he began.

      But what he thought Hatch didn’t learn for he was sent away with additional instructions. Next morning found him watching the front of the van Safford house again. Mrs. van Safford came out at seven minutes past eight o’clock, and walked rapidly eastward. She turned the first corner and went on, still rapidly, to the corner of an alley. There she paused, cast a quick look behind her, and went in. Hatch was some distance back and ran forward just in time to see her skirts trailing into a door.

      “Ah, here’s something anyhow,” he told himself, with grim satisfaction.

      He walked along the alley to the door. It was like the other doors along in that it led into the back hall of a house, and was intended for the use of tradesmen. When he examined the door he scratched his chin thoughtfully; then came utter bewilderment, an amazing sense of hopeless insanity. For there, staring at him from a door-plate, was the name: “van Safford.” She had merely come out the front door and gone into the back!

      Hatch started to rap and ask some questions, then changed his mind and walked around to the front again, and up the steps.

      “Is Mrs. van Safford in?” he inquired of Baxter, who opened the door.

      “No, sir,” was the reply. “She went out a few minutes ago.”

      Hatch stared at him coldly a minute, then walked away.

      “Now this is a particularly savoury kettle of fish,” he soliloquized. “She has either gone back into the house without his knowledge, or else he has been bribed, and then—”

      And then, he took the story to The Thinking Machine. That imperturbable man of science listened to the end, then arose and said “Oh!” three times. Which was interesting to Hatch in that it showed the end was in sight, but it was not illuminating. He was still floundering.

      The Thinking Machine started into an adjoining room, then turned back.

      “By the way, Mr. Hatch,” he asked, “did you happen to find out what was the matter with Miss Blakesley?”

      “By George, I forgot it,” returned the reporter, ruefully.

      “Never mind, I’ll find out.”

      At eleven o’clock Hutchinson Hatch and The Thinking Machine called at the van Safford home. Mr. van Safford in person received them; there was a gleam of hope in his face at sight of the diminutive scientist. Hatch was introduced, СКАЧАТЬ