The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 38

"The first five days were bad enough-short rations, little or no water, no sleep, and all that; but what came after was h.e.l.l! At the end of that fifth day there were only five of us-Ordway and me, the woman and child, and another man. I don't know whether I went to sleep or was just unconscious; anyway, when I came to there were only the three of us left. I asked Ordway where the woman and child was. He said they were washed off while I was asleep.

" 'And a good thing,' he says.

" 'Why?' I says.

" 'Too many mouths to feed,' he says. 'And still too many.' He meant the other man. 'I've been looking at the rations and the water,' he says. 'There's enough to keep three people alive three days, but if there were only two people-me and you, for instance?' he says.

" 'You mean throw him off?' I says.

" 'You're a sailor,' says he. 'If you go, we all go. But we may not be picked up for days. We may starve or die of thirst first. If there were only two of us, we'd have a better chance. I'm worth millions of dollars,' he says. 'If you'll get rid of this other fellow, and we ever come out alive, I'll give you one million dollars!' I didn't say anything. 'If there were only two of us,' says he, 'we would increase our chances of being saved one-third. One million dollars!' says he. 'One million dollars!'

"I expect I was mad with hunger and thirst and sleeplessness and exhaustion. Perhaps he was, too. I know that, regardless of the money he offered, his argument appealed to me. Peter Ordway was a coward; he didn't have the nerve; so an hour later I threw the man overboard, with Peter Ordway looking on.

"Days pa.s.sed somehow-G.o.d knows-and when I came to I had been picked up by a sailing vessel. I was in an asylum for months. When I came out, I asked Ordway for money. He threatened to have me arrested for murder. I pestered him a lot, I guess, for a little later I found myself shanghaied, on the high seas. I didn't come back for thirty years or so. I had almost forgotten the thing until I happened to see Peter Ordway's name in a paper. Then I wrote the slips and mailed them to him. He knew what they meant, and set a detective after me. Then I began hating him all over again, worse than ever. Finally I thought I'd go to his house and make a holdup of it-one million dollars! I don't think I intended to kill him; I thought he'd give me money. I didn't know there was any one with him. I talked to him, and he shot me. I killed him."

Fell a long silence. The Thinking Machine broke it:

"You entered the apartment with a skeleton key?"

"Yes."

"And after the shot was fired, you started out, but dodged behind the curtain at the door when you heard Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson coming in?"

"Yes."

Suddenly Hatch understood why The Thinking Machine had asked him to ascertain if there were curtains at that door. It was quite possible that in the excitement Mr. Pingree and Mrs. Robinson would not have noticed that the man who killed Peter Ordway actually pa.s.sed them in the doorway.

"I think," said The Thinking Machine, "that that is all. You understand, Mr. Mallory, that this confession is to be presented to the governor immediately, in order to save Walpole's life?" He turned to Holderby. "You don't want an innocent man to die for this crime?"

"Certainly not," was the reply. "That's why I wrote to the governor. Walpole's story was true. I was in court, and heard it." He glanced at Mallory curiously. "Now, if necessary, I'm willing to go to the chair."

"It won't be necessary," The Thinking Machine pointed out. "You didn't go to Peter Ordway's place to kill him-you went there for money you thought he owed you-he fired at you-you shot him. It's hardly self-defense, but it was not premeditated murder."

Detective Mallory whistled. It was the only satisfactory vent for the tangled mental condition which had befallen him. Shortly he went off with Holderby to the governor's office; and an hour later Walpole, deeply astonished, walked out of the death cell-a free man.

Meanwhile Hutchinson Hatch had some questions to ask of The Thinking Machine.

"Logic, logic, Mr. Hatch!" the scientist answered, in that perpetual tone of irritation. "As an experiment, we a.s.sumed the truth of Walpole's story. Very well. Peter Ordway was afraid of water. Connect that with the one word 'raft' or 'craft' in Walpole's statement of what the intruder had said. Connect that with his description of that man-'ruddy, like a seaman.' Add them up, as you would a sum in arithmetic. You begin to get a glimmer of cause and effect, don't you? Peter Ordway was afraid of the water because of some tragedy there in which he had played a part. That was a tentative surmise. Walpole's description of the intruder said white hair and flowing white beard. It is a common failing of men who disguise themselves to go to the other extreme. I went to the other extreme in conjecturing Holderby's appearance-clean-shaven or else close-cropped beard and hair-dyed. Since no bullet mark was found in the building-remember, we are a.s.suming Walpole's statement to be true-the man Ordway shot at carried the bullet away with him. Ergo, a seaman with a pistol wound. Seamen, as a rule, stop at the sailors' lodging houses. That's all."

"But-but you knew Holderby's name-his age!" the reporter stammered.

"I learned them in my effort to account for Ordway's fear of water," was the reply. "An old friend, John Page, whom I found through Doctor Anderson, informed me that he had seen some account in a newspaper thirty-two years before, at the time of the wreck of the Neptune, of Peter Ordway's rescue from a raft at sea. He and one other man were picked up. The old newspaper files in the libraries gave me Holderby's name as the other survivor, together with his age. You found Holderby. I wrote to him that I was about to put a yacht in commission, and he had been recommended to me-that is, Benjamin Goode had been recommended. He came in answer to the advertis.e.m.e.nt. You saw everything else that happened."

"And the so-called 'one million dollar' slips?"

"Had no bearing on the case until Holderby wrote to the governor," said The Thinking Machine. "In that note he confessed the killing; ergo I began to see that the 'One million dollar' slips probably indicated some enormous reward Ordway had offered Holderby. Walpole's statement, too, covers this point. What happened on the raft at sea? I didn't know. I followed an instinct, and guessed." The distinguished scientist arose. "And now," he said, "begone about your business. I must go to work."

Hatch started out, but turned at the door. "Why," he asked, "were you so anxious to know if any windowpane in the Ordway house had been replaced or was broken?"

"Because," the scientist didn't lift his head, "because a bullet might have smashed one, if it was not to be found in the woodwork. If it smashed one, our unknown Mr. X was not wounded."

Upon his own statement, Benjamin Holderby was sentenced to ten years in prison; at the end of three months he was transferred to an asylum after an examination by alienists.

_______________________.

MYSTERY OF THE MAN WHO WAS LOST.

I.

Here are the facts in the case as they were known in the beginning to Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist and logician. After hearing a statement of the problem from the lips of its princ.i.p.al he declared it to be one of the most engaging that had ever come to his attention, and--

But let me begin at the beginning: The Thinking Machine was in the small laboratory of his modest apartments at two o'clock in the afternoon. Martha, the scientist's only servant, appeared at the door with a puzzled expression on her wrinkled face.

"A gentleman to see you, sir," she said.

"Name?" inquired The Thinking Machine, without turning.

"He-he didn't give it, sir," she stammered.

"I have told you always, Martha, to ask names of callers."

"I did ask his name, sir, and-and he said he didn't know it."

The Thinking Machine was never surprised, yet now he turned on Martha in perplexity and squinted at her fiercely through his thick gla.s.ses.

"Don't know his own name?" he repeated. "Dear me! How careless! Show the gentleman into the reception room immediately."

With no more introduction to the problem than this, therefore, The Thinking Machine pa.s.sed into the other room. A stranger arose and came forward. He was tall, of apparently thirty-five years, clean shaven and had the keen, alert face of a man of affairs. He would have been handsome had it not been for dark rings under the eyes and the unusual white of his face. He was immaculately dressed from top to toe; altogether a man who would attract attention.

For a moment he regarded the scientist curiously; perhaps there was a trace of well-bred astonishment in his manner. He gazed curiously at the enormous head, with its shock of yellow hair, and noted, too, the droop in the thin shoulders. Thus for a moment they stood, face to face, the tall stranger making The Thinking Machine dwarf-like by comparison.

"Well?" asked the scientist.

The stranger turned as if to pace back and forth across the room, then instead dropped into a chair which the scientist indicated.

"I have heard a great deal about you, Professor," he began, in a well-modulated voice, "and at last it occurred to me to come to you for advice. I am in a most remarkable position-and I'm not insane. Don't think that, please. But unless I see some way out of this amazing predicament I shall be. As it is now, my nerves have gone; I am not myself."

"Your story? What is it? How can I help you?"

"I am lost, hopelessly lost," the stranger resumed. "I know neither my home, my business, nor even my name. I know nothing whatever of myself or my life; what it was or what it might have been previous to four weeks ago. I am seeking light on my ident.i.ty. Now, if there is any fee--"

"Never mind that," the scientist put in, and he squinted steadily into the eyes of the visitor. "What do you know? From the time you remember things tell me all of it."

He sank back into his chair, squinting steadily upward. The stranger arose, paced back and forth across the room several times and then dropped into his chair again.