The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 166

"You see that he was mistaken, then?" demanded Carroll. "Mr. Black, we shall not require your services any longer. Mr. Swayne will give you a check immediately for what is due you. And you, Mr. Swayne, understand that if my orders are not obeyed to the letter in this office I shall be compelled to make other changes. From this time forward the door will be locked when I am in my office. That's all."

"But I was obeying orders when--" Black began in trepidation.

"I put my order on the door for you to obey," interrupted Carroll. "Go write him a check, Mr. Swayne."

Swayne and Black went out, and Swayne closed the door. Carroll had been seated as they went out; but the door had no sooner closed now than they heard the lock snap inside.

"What does it mean, Black?" Swayne inquired quietly.

"I don't know, sir," replied the astonished bookkeeper. "He certainly was not in that room when I was in there. And as for discharging me--"

"You are not discharged," Swayne said impatiently, with a new note in his voice. "You are going to take a vacation of a couple of weeks, though, on full salary. Meanwhile have luncheon with me today."

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen-The Thinking Machine-straightened up in his chair suddenly and turned his squinting, belligerent eyes full upon his two visitors.

"Never mind your personal opinion or prejudices, Mr. Swayne," he rebuked sharply. "If you want my a.s.sistance in this matter, I must insist that you relate the facts, and only the facts, freed of all coloring which may have been infused into them by your ill feeling toward Mr. Carroll. I understand readily enough the cause of this-this ill feeling. You are his senior in the office, and he was promoted over your head to be the president of the company, while you remained secretary and treasurer. Now give me the remainder of the facts, please."

There was a considerable pause. A flush had slowly mounted Swayne's face, and it was only with an obvious effort that he controlled himself. Once he looked toward Black, who had been a silent witness of the interview.

"Well, after those first two incidents," Swayne went on at last, "the door of Mr. Carroll's private office was always locked on the inside the moment he was left alone. Now I am not a fool, Professor Van Dusen. In my mind it stands to reason that if Mr. Carroll disappeared from that room twice when the door was left unlocked, he is gone from it practically all the time when the door is locked; therefore--"

"Opinion again," interrupted The Thinking Machine curtly. "Facts, Mr. Swayne, facts!"

"If he isn't gone, why does he keep the door locked?"

"Perhaps," and the crabbed little scientist regarded him coldly,-"perhaps it's really because he is busy and doesn't want to be interrupted. That is always possible, you know. I'm that way myself sometimes."

"And where does he go? How does he go? And why does he go?"

"If I had to diagnose this case," remarked The Thinking Machine almost pleasantly, "I should say it was a severe attack of idle curiosity, complicated with prejudice and suspicion." Suddenly his whole tone, his whole manner, changed. "Has the conduct of the business of the company been all it should have been since Mr. Carroll has been in charge?" he demanded.

"Well, yes," admitted Swayne.

"He has made money for the company?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps increased its earnings, if anything?"

Swayne nodded reluctantly.

"Nothing is stolen?" the scientist demanded. "Nothing is missing? Nothing has gone wrong?"

Three times Swayne shook his head.

The Thinking Machine arose impatiently. "If there had been anything wrong, of course you would have gone to the police," The Thinking Machine went on. "There being nothing wrong, you came to me. I don't mind giving what a.s.sistance I can in instances where it works for good; but my time is valuable to the world of science, Mr. Swayne, and really I can't be disturbed by such a trivial affair as this. If anything does go wrong, if anything does happen, you are at liberty to call again. Good day."

The two men arose, stood staring blankly at each other for a moment, then turned to go out. Swayne's face was crimson with anger, chagrin, at his abrupt dismissal. But at the door he turned back for one final question.

"Would you mind informing us how Mr. Carroll disappeared from his office on the two occasions when we know he did disappear, before he locked his door against us?"

"You saw him go in one door; he went out another, I suppose," replied The Thinking Machine.

"There is only one other door," retorted Swayne with something like triumph in his voice. "That is blocked in his office by his desk and also blocked in the stockholders' meeting room, to which it leads, by a long couch. The offices are fifty feet from the ground; so he couldn't jump from a window. He didn't go through the stockholders' room, either, because that has only one door, and that opens into the outer office within two or three feet of the door to his private office. There are no fire escapes at either of his windows, I may add. Now, how did he get out-if he got out?"

The face was flushed and angry again, the voice raised stridently. The Thinking Machine stared for half a minute, then opened the door to the street.

"I don't know if you know it," he said calmly at last; "but you are almost convincing me that there is something wrong there, and that you are responsible for it. Good day."

The steel gray eyes of Charles Duer Carroll were blazing as he flung open the outside door of the offices of Carroll-Swayne-McPartland Company and entered the large general office. Was it anger? Not one of the dozen clerks who raised half timid eyes as he appeared could have answered the question. Was it excitement? Still there would have been no answer. He went straight to his private office, without a look or word for his subordinates then wheeled suddenly on his heel there and called:

"Mr. Swayne!"

The secretary and treasurer started a little at the imperative command, and Carroll motioned for him to approach. Then he led the way into his office, Swayne following, and the clerks outside heard the lock click. Swayne, inside, stood waiting the president's pleasure. A vague sense of physical danger oppressed him.

"Sit down!" commanded Carroll. The secretary obeyed. "You are the secretary and treasurer of this company, are you not?" demanded Carroll brutally.

"Certainly. Why?"

"Then you know, or are supposed to know, exactly what securities this company holds in trust for its customers to protect margins, don't you?" Carroll went on. His eyes were blazing as the secretary met them.

"Certainly I know," Swayne responded after a moment.

"You know that in the round three million dollars worth of securities in our vaults and safety deposit vaults over the city there is one lot of four hundred thousand dollars' worth of United States gold bonds, and that these include the numbers 0043917 to 0044120?"

Swayne disregarded the urgent demand for an immediate answer which lay behind the tone, and stopped to consider the matter carefully. Was it a trap of some sort? He couldn't tell.

"Do you or do you not know that this consignment of bonds includes those numbers?" demanded Carroll hotly.

"Yes" was the reply, "I know that those numbers are included in the Mason-Hackett trust lot. Further I know that I locked them myself in the vault in the office here."

Carroll's eyes were contracted to pin points, and all the latent power of the man seemed aroused as he turned savagely in his chair.

"If you know that to be true, then what does that mean?" and he flung down a sheet of paper violently under the eyes of the secretary and treasurer.

Swayne, with a vague sense of terror which he could not fathom at the moment, picked up the paper and glanced over it. It was an affidavit signed by E. C. Morgan & Co., brokers, and dated the day before. It was in the usual form, and attested, with innumerable reiterations, that United States Government gold bonds, numbers 0043917 to 0043940 inclusive, were in the possession of E. C. Morgan & Co., having been bought in the open market three days previously.

Swayne stared unbelievingly at the affidavit, and slowly, slowly, the color deserted his face until it was chalk white. Twice he raised his eyes from the affidavit to the strangely working face of Carroll, and twice he lowered them under the baleful glare they met. When he raised them the third time there was mystification, wonder, utter helplessness, in them.

"Well?" blazed out Carroll. "Well?" he repeated.

Swayne started to his feet.

"Just a moment, Mr. Swayne," warned the president in a voice which had become suddenly and strangely quiet. "You had better remain here for a few minutes until we look into this." He arose and went to the door, and spoke to some one outside.

"Please bring me all the securities of all kinds in our vaults," he directed, "and send messengers to bring those which are in safety deposit vaults elsewhere. Bring them all to me personally-not to Mr. Swayne."