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

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СКАЧАТЬ eyes, too, and Hutchinson Hatch was not a sentimental man.

      “There will be no prosecution, Mrs. Blake, I suppose?” he asked.

      “No, no, no,” was the half laughing, half tearful reply. “I am content.”

      “I would like to ask a favor, if you don’t mind?” he suggested.

      “Anything—anything for you and Professor Van Dusen,” was the reply.

      “Will you lend me the baby’s picture book until tomorrow?” he asked.

      “Certainly,” and in her happiness the mother forgot to note the strangeness of the request.

      Hatch’s purpose in borrowing the book was not clear even to himself; in his mind had grown the idea that in some way The Thinking Machine connected this book with the disappearance of the child, and he was burning with curiosity to get the book and return to Boston, where The Thinking Machine might throw some light on the mystery. For it was still a mystery—a perplexing, baffling mystery that he could in no way grasp, even now that the baby was safe at home again.

      In Boston the reporter went straight to the home of The Thinking Machine. The scientist was pottering about the little laboratory and only turned to look at Hatch when he entered.

      “Baby back home?” he asked, shortly.

      “Yes,” said the reporter.

      “Good,” said the other, and he rubbed his slender hands together briskly. “Sit down, Mr. Hatch. It was a little better after all than I hoped for. Now your story first. What happened when the baby was brought back home?”

      “I waited as you directed from afternoon until a few minutes to seven,” Hatch explained. “I could plainly see anyone who approached the front gate of the Blake place, although I could not be seen well, remaining in the shadow of the building opposite.

      “I saw two or three people go up to the gate and enter the yard, but they were tradespeople. I spoke to them as they came out and ascertained this for myself. At last I saw a man approaching carrying something closely wrapped in his arms. He stopped at the gate, stared up the path a moment, glanced around several times and entered the yard. He was carrying Baby Blake. I knew it instinctively.

      “He went to the front door of the house and there I lost him in the shadow for a moment. Subsequent developments showed that he opened this front door, which was not locked, put the baby down and closed the door softly. Then he came rapidly down the path toward the gate. An instant later I heard two screams from the house. I knew then that the baby was there, dead or alive—probably alive.

      “The man who had brought it also heard the screams and accelerated his pace somewhat, so that I had to run. He heard me coming and he ran, too. It was a two-block chase before I caught him, and when I did he turned on me. I thought it was to fight.

      “‘There was a promise of no arrest or prosecution,’ he said.

      “I assured him hurriedly, and then walked on down the street beside him. He told me a queer story—it might be true or it might not, but I believe it. This was that the baby had been in his and his wife’s care from about halfpast six o’clock of the evening it disappeared until a few minutes before when he had returned it to its home.

      “The man’s name is Sheldon—Michael Sheldon—and he is an exconvict. He served four years for burglary, and at one time had a pretty nasty record. He told me of it in explanation of his reasons for not turning the baby over to the police. Now he has reformed and is leading a new life. He is a clerk in a store here in Lynn, and despite his previous record is, I ascertained, a trusted and reliable man.

      “Now here comes the queer part of the story. It seems that Sheldon and his wife live on the third floor of a tenement in northern Lynn. Their dining room has one window, which leads to a fire escape. He and his wife were at supper about halfpast six—in other words, a little more than half an hour from the time the baby disappeared from the Blake home.

      “After awhile they heard a noise—they didn’t know what—on the fire escape. They paid no attention. Finally they heard another noise from the fire escape—that of a baby crying. Then Sheldon went to the window and opened it. There on the fire escape was Baby Blake. How he got there no human being knows.”

      “I know now,” said The Thinking Machine. “Go on.”

      “Puzzled and bewildered they took the child off the iron structure, where only the barest chance had prevented it from falling and being killed on the pavement below. The baby was apparently uninjured save for a few bruises, but his clothing was soiled and rumpled, and he was terribly cold. The wife, mother-like, set out to warm the little fellow and make him comfortable with hot milk and a steaming bath. The husband, Sheldon, says he went out to find how it was possible for the baby to have reached the fire escape. He knew no baby lived in the building.

      “He looked long and carefully. There was no possible way by which a man could have climbed the fire escape to the third floor, and therefore certainly no way by which a fourteenmonth-old baby could climb there. There is a fence there which is pretty tall, say six feet, but even standing on this a man would have had to leap straight up in the air for five feet, and nobody I know could do it with a baby in his arms, particularly when the snow was there and everything was so slippery a person could hardly hold on.

      “It seems that then Sheldon made inquiries of some of his neighbors, occupants of the house, but no one could throw any light on the subject. He did not tell them then of the baby, indeed, never told them. First, from the fine quality of the clothing, there had been an idea in his mind that the baby was one of a well-to-do family, and he remained quiet that night hoping that next day he might be able to learn something and possibly get a reward for the return of the child. He had given up the problem of how it got where he found it.”

      Hatch paused a moment and lighted a cigar.

      “Well, next day,” he went on, “Sheldon and his wife both saw the newspaper account of the mysterious disappearance of Baby Blake. The photographs of the missing child convinced them that Baby Blake was the child they had—the child they had really saved from death. Then came the question of returning the child to its home or turning it over to the police.

      “Instantly the fact that a threat had been made to kidnap the child and a demand for ten thousand dollars made was borne in on Sheldon he became frightened. Remember he had a bad record. He was afraid of the police. He did not believe that he—however innocent he might be-could go to the police, turn over the baby and make them believe the strange story. I readily see how some wooden-headed department officials would have made his life a burden. I know the police. It is ninety-nine dollars to a cent they would have made him a prisoner and perhaps railroaded him for the kidnapping.”

      “Yes, I see,” interrupted The Thinking Machine.

      “So then he and his wife tried to devise a method of getting the baby back home. They thought of all sorts of things, but none satisfied them entirely. And they were still debating this point and considering it when your advertisement promised immunity. As a matter of fact it scared Sheldon. He imagined that you knew, and knew if he were even remotely connected with the matter it would get him in trouble. Then he resolved to take the baby back home on the promise of immunity.”

      There was a little pause. The Thinking Machine sat staring steadily at the ceiling.

      “Is that СКАЧАТЬ