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

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СКАЧАТЬ you specifically mention a string in your letter?” he asked.

      “No. I merely stated that I would expect his answer in that place, and would leave something there by which he could signify ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ as he did years ago. The string was one of the odd little ideas of my girlhood. Two knots meant ‘No’; one knot meant ‘Yes’; and if the string was found by anyone else it meant nothing.”

      This, then, was why The Thinking Machine did not tell him at first that he would find a string and instruct him to untie one of the knots in it. The scientist had seen that it might have been one of the other tokens of the old romantic days.

      “When I met you there,” Mrs. Francis resumed. “I believed you were an imposter—I don’t know why, I just believed it—yet your answers were in a way correct. For fear you were not what you seemed—that you were a detective—I brought you here to keep you until I got the child’s release. You know the rest.”

      The reporter picked up the revolver and whirled it in his fingers. The action, apparently, did not disturb Mrs. Francis.

      “Why did you remain here so long after you got the child?” asked Hatch.

      “I believed it was safer than in a city,” she answered frankly. “The steamer on which I planned to sail for Europe with my boy leaves tomorrow. I had intended going to New York tonight to catch it; but now—”

      The reporter glanced down at the child. He had fallen asleep in his mother’s arms. His tiny hand clung to her. The picture was a pretty one. Hatch made up his mind.

      “Well, you’d better pack up,” he said. “I’ll go with you to New York and do all I can.”

      It was on the New York-bound train several hours later that Hatch turned to Mrs. Francis with an odd smile.

      “Why didn’t you load that revolver?” he asked.

      “Because I was horribly afraid some one would get hurt with it,” she replied laughingly.

      She was gay with that gentle happiness of possession which blesses woman for the agonies of motherhood, and glanced from time to time at the berth across the aisle where her baby was asleep. Looking upon it all, Hatch was content. He didn’t know his exact position in law; but that didn’t matter, after all.

      Hutchinson Hatch’s exclusive story of the escape to Europe of Mrs. Francis and her boy was remarkably complete; but all the facts were not in it. It was a week or so later that he detailed them to The Thinking Machine.

      “I knew it,” said the scientist at the end. “Francis came to me, and I interested myself in the case, practically knowing every fact from his statement. When you heard me speak in the house where you were a prisoner I was there merely to convince myself that the mother did have the baby. I heard it call her and went away satisfied. I knew you were there, too, because you had failed to ‘phone me the second time as I expected, and I knew intuitively what you would do when you got the real facts about Mrs. Francis and her baby. I went away so that the field might be clear for you to act. Francis himself is a detestable puppy. I told him so.”

      And that was all that was ever said about it.

      The Problem of the Perfect Alibi

      Table of Contents

      Skulking along through the dense gloom, impalpably a part of the murky mist which pressed down between the tall board fences on each side, moved the figure of a man. Occasionally he shot a glance behind him, but the general direction of his gaze was to his left, where a fence cut off the small back-yards of an imposing row of brown stone residences. At last he stopped and tried a gate. It opened noiselessly and he disappeared inside. A pause. A man came out of the gate, closed it carefully and walked on through the alley toward an arc-light which spread a generous glare at the intersection of a street.

      Patrolman Gillis was standing idly on a corner, within the light-radius of a street lamp debating some purely personal questions when he heard the steady clack, clack, clack of footsteps a block or more away. He glanced up and dimly he saw a man approaching. As he came nearer the policeman noticed that the man’s right hand was pressed to his face.

      “Good evening, officer,” said the stranger nervously. “Can you tell me where I can find a dentist?”

      “Toothache?” inquired the policeman.

      “Yes, and it’s nearly killing me,” was the reply. “If I don’t get it pulled I’ll—I’ll go crazy.”

      The policeman grinned sympathetically.

      “Had it myself—I know what it is,” he said. “You passed one dentist down in the other block, but there’s another just across the street here,” and he indicated a row of brown-stone residences. “Dr. Paul Sitgreaves. He’ll charge you good and plenty.”

      “Thank you,” said the other.

      He crossed the street and the policeman gazed after him until he mounted the steps and pulled the bell. After a few minutes the door opened, the stranger entered the house and Patrolman Gillis walked on.

      “Dr. Sitgreaves here?” inquired the stranger of a servant who answered the bell.

      “Yes.”

      “Please ask him if he can draw a tooth for me. I’m in a perfect agony, and—”

      “The doctor rarely gets up to attend to such cases,” interrupted the servant.

      “Here,” said the stranger and he pressed a bill in the servant’s hand. “Wake him for me, won’t you? Tell him it’s urgent.”

      The servant looked at the bill, then opened the door and led the patient into the reception room.

      Five minutes later, Dr. Sitgreaves, gaping ostentatiously, entered and nodded to his caller.

      “I hated to trouble you, doctor,” explained the stranger, “but I haven’t slept a wink all night.”

      He glanced around the room until his eye fell upon a clock. Dr. Sitgreaves glanced in that direction. The hands of the clock pointed to 1:53.

      “Phew!” said Dr. Sitgreaves. “Nearly two o’clock. I must have slept hard. I didn’t think I’d been asleep more than an hour.” He paused to gape again and stretch himself. “Which tooth is it?” he asked.

      “A molar, here,” said the stranger, and he opened his mouth.

      Dr. Sitgreaves gazed officially into his innermost depths and fingered the hideous instruments of torture.

      “That tooth’s too good to lose,” he said after an examination. “There’s only a small cavity in it.”

      “I don’t know what’s the matter with it,” replied the other impatiently, “except that it hurts. My nerves are fairly jumping.”

      Dr. Sitgreaves was professionally serious as he noted the drawn face, the nervous twitching of hands and the unusual pallor of his client.

      “They are,” he said finally. СКАЧАТЬ