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

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      “How long has he been dead?” asked the detective.

      “Eight or ten hours, I should say. The cause of death doesn’t appear. There is no shot or knife wound so far as I can see.”

      Detective Mallory closely examined the dead man’s clothing. There was no name or tailor mark; the linen was new; the name of the maker of the shoes had been ripped out with a knife. There was nothing in the pockets, not a piece of paper or even a vagrant coin.

      Then Detective Mallory turned his attention to the boat. Both hull and motor were of French manufacture. Long, deep scratches on each side showed how the name had been removed. Inside the boat the detective saw something white and picked it up. It was a handkerchief—a woman’s handkerchief, with the initials “E. M. B.” in a corner.

      “Ah, a woman’s in it!” he soliloquised.

      Then the body was removed and carefully secluded from the prying eyes of the press. Thus no picture of the dead man appeared. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, and others asked many questions.

      Detective Mallory hinted vaguely at international questions—the dead man was a French officer, he said, and there might be something back of it.

      “I can’t tell you all of it,” he said wisely, “but my theory is complete. It is murder. The victim was captain of a French man-of-war. His body was placed in a motor boat, possibly a part of the fittings of the war ship and the boat set adrift. I can say no more.”

      “Your theory is complete then,” Hatch remarked casually, “except the name of the man, the manner of death, the motive, the name of his ship, the presence of the handkerchief and the precise reason why the body should be disposed of in this fashion instead of being cast into the sea?”

      The detective snorted. Hatch went away to make some inquiries on his own account. Within half a dozen hours he had satisfied himself by telegraph that no French war craft had been within five hundred miles of Boston for six months. Thus the mystery grew deeper; a thousand questions to which there seemed no answer arose.

      At this point, the day following the events related, the problem of the motor boat came to the attention of Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened closely but petulantly to the story Hatch told.

      “Has there been an autopsy yet?” he asked at last.

      “It is set for eleven o’clock today,” replied the reporter. “It is now after ten.”

      “I shall attend it,” said the scientist.

      Medical Examiner Clough welcomed the eminent Professor Van Dusen’s proffer of assistance in his capacity of M. D., while Hatch and other reporters impatiently cooled their toes on the curb. In two hours the autopsy had been completed. The Thinking Machine amused himself by studying the insignia on the dead man’s uniform, leaving it to Dr. Clough to make a startling statement to the press. The man had not been murdered; he had died of heart failure. There was no poison in the stomach, nor was there a knife or pistol wound.

      Then the inquisitive press poured in a flood of questions. Who had scratched off the name of the boat? Dr. Clough didn’t know. Why had it been scratched off? Still he didn’t know. How did it happen that the name of the maker of the shoes had been ripped out? He shrugged his shoulders. What did the handkerchief have to do with it? Really he couldn’t conjecture. Was there any inkling of the dead man’s identity? Not so far as he knew. Any scar on the body which might lead to identification? No.

      Hatch made a few mental comments on officials in general and skilfully steered The Thinking Machine away from the other reporters.

      “Did that man die of heart failure?” he asked, flatly.

      “He did not,” was the curt reply. “It was poison.”

      “But the Medical Examiner specifically stated that there was no poison in the stomach,” persisted the reporter.

      The scientist did not reply. Hatch struggled with and suppressed a desire to ask more questions. On reaching home the scientist’s first act was to consult an encyclopaedia. After several minutes he turned to the reporter with an inscrutable face.

      “Of course the idea of a natural death in this case is absurd,” he said, shortly. “Every fact is against it. Now, Mr. Hatch, please get for me all the local and New York newspapers of the day the body was found—not the day after. Send or bring them to me, then come again at five this afternoon.”

      “But—but—” Hatch blurted.

      “I can say nothing until I know all the facts,” interrupted The Thinking Machine.

      Hatch personally delivered the specified newspapers into the hands of The Thinking Machine—this man who never read newspapers—and went away. It was an afternoon of agony; an agony of impatience. Promptly at five o’clock he was ushered into Professor Van Dusen’s laboratory. He sat half smothered in newspapers, and popped up out of the heap aggressively.

      “It was murder, Mr. Hatch,” he exclaimed, suddenly. “Murder by an extraordinary method.”

      “Who—who is the man? How was he killed?” asked Hatch.

      “His name is—” the scientist began, then paused. “I presume your office has the book ‘Who’s Who In America?’ Please ‘phone and ask them to give you the record of Langham Dudley.”

      “Is he the dead man?” Hatch demanded quickly.

      “I don’t know,” was the reply.

      Hatch went to the telephone. Ten minutes later he returned to find The Thinking Machine dressed to go out.

      “Langham Dudley is a ship owner, fifty-one years old,” the reporter read from notes he had taken. “He was once a sailor before the mast and later became a ship owner in a small way. He was successful in his small undertakings and for fifteen years has been a millionaire. He has a certain social position, partly through his wife whom he married a year and a half ago. She was Edith Marston Belding, a daughter of the famous Belding family. He has an estate on the North Shore.”

      “Very good,” commented the scientist. “Now we will find out something about how this man was killed.”

      At North Station they took train for a small place on the North Shore, thirty five miles from Boston. There The Thinking Machine made some inquiries and finally they entered a lumbersome carry-all. After a drive of half an hour through the dark they saw the lights of what seemed to be a pretentious country place. Somewhere off to the right Hatch heard the roar of the restless ocean.

      “Wait for us,” commanded The Thinking Machine as the carry-all stopped.

      The Thinking Machine ascended the steps, followed by Hatch, and rang. After a minute or so the door was opened and a light flooded out. Standing before them was a Japanese—a man of indeterminate age with the graven face of his race.

      “Is Mr. Dudley in?” asked The Thinking Machine.

      “He has not that pleasure,” replied the Japanese, and Hatch smiled at the queerly turned phrase.

      “Mrs. Dudley?” asked the scientist.

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