The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 67

"Silence, please," whispered the scientist.

He took the lantern from the warden's unresisting hand, and going softly to the cot turned the light full into the face of the sleeping man. For a second or so he gazed steadily at the features upturned thus to him, then the brilliant light seemed to disturb the sleeper, for his eyelids twitched, and finally opened with a start.

"Do you know me, Gilfoil?" demanded The Thinking Machine suddenly, and he leaned forward so that the cutting rays of light should illumine has own features.

"Yes," the prisoner replied shortly.

"What's my name?" insisted the scientist.

"Van Dusen," was the prompt reply. "I know you, all right." Convict 97 raised himself on an elbow and met the eyes of the other two men without a quiver.

"What size shoe do you wear?" demanded the scientist.

"None of your business!" growled the convict.

The Thinking Machine turned the lantern to the floor and found the shoes the prisoner had laid aside on retiring. He picked them up and examined them carefully, after which he replaced them, nodded to the warden, and they went out. The prisoner lay for a long time, resting on his elbow, seeking to pierce the gloom of the cell and corridor beyond with wide awake eyes, then, sighing, lay down again.

"Let me see Gilfoil's pedigree, and I shall not annoy you further," The Thinking Machine requested, once they were in the warden's office again. The record book was forthcoming. The scientist copied, accurately and at length, everything written therein concerning Philip Gilfoil. "And last," he requested, "the name, please, of the physician who called to see Convict 97?"

"Dr. Heindell," replied the Warden,-"Dr. Delmore L. Heindell."

The Thinking Machine replaced his notebook in his pocket, planted his hat more firmly on the great shock of yellow hair, and slowly began to draw on his gloves.

"What is all this thing about Gilfoil, anyhow?" demanded the warden desperately. "Be good enough to inform me what the deuce you and Hatch have been driving at?"

"You are, I believe, an able, careful, conscientious man," said The Thinking Machine, "and I don't know that under the circ.u.mstances you can be blamed for what has happened; but the man you have in Cell 9 is not Philip Gilfoil. I don't know who your Convict 97 is; but Philip Gilfoil hasn't been in Chisholm prison for weeks. Good night."

And the crabbed little scientist went on his way.

For the third time Hutchinson Hatch rapped upon the little door. The echo reverberated through the house; but there came no answering sound. The modest cottage in a quiet street of a fas.h.i.+onable suburb seemed wholly deserted, yet as he stepped back to the edge of the veranda he could see a faint light trickling through closely drawn shutters on the second floor.

Surely there must be some one there, the reporter reasoned, or that light would not be burning. And if some one was there, why wouldn't they answer? As he looked the trickling light remained still, and then he went to the door and tried it. It was unlocked. He merely ascertained that the door yielded readily under his hand, then he rapped for the fourth time. No answer yet.

He was just turning away from the door, when suddenly it opened before him, a single arm shot out from the gloom of the hall, and before he could retreat had closed on the collar of his coat. He was hauled into the house despite an instinctive resistance, then the door banged behind him. He could see nothing; the darkness was intense. But still that powerful hand gripped his collar.

"I'll fix your clock, young fellow, right now!" said a man's voice.

Then, even as he struggled, he was conscious of a heavy blow on the point of the chin, strange lights dancing fantastically before his eyes; he felt himself sinking, sinking, and then he knew no more.

When he recovered consciousness he lay stretched full length upon a couch on a strange room. His head seemed bursting, and the rosy light of dawn through the window caused a tense pain in his eyes. For half a minute he lay still, until he had remembered those singular events which had preceded this, and then he started up. He was leaning on one elbow surveying the room, when he became conscious of the rustling of skirts. He turned; a woman was advancing toward him-a woman of apparently thirty years, in whose sweet face lay some heavy, desperate grief.

Involuntarily Hatch struggled to his feet-perhaps it was a spirit of defense, perhaps a natural gallantry. She paused and stood looking at him.

"What happened?" he demanded flatly. "What am I doing here?"

The woman's eyes grew suddenly moist, and her lips trembled. "I'm glad it was no worse," she said hopelessly.

"Who are you?" Hatch asked curiously.

"Please don't ask," she pleaded. "Please don't! If you are able to go, please go now while you may."

The reporter wasn't at all certain that he wanted to go. He was himself again now, confident, alert, with new strength rus.h.i.+ng through his veins, and a naturally inquisitive mind fully aroused. If it was only a poke in the jaw he got, it didn't matter much. He had had those before, and besides here was something which demanded an explanation.

"Who was the man who struck me last night?" he asked.

"Please go!" the woman pleaded. "Believe me, you must. I can't explain anything-it's all horrible and unreal and hideous!" Tears were streaming down the wan cheeks now, and the hands closed and unclosed spasmodically.

Hatch sat down. "I am not going yet," he said. "Tell me about it."

"There is nothing I can tell-nothing!" the woman sobbed.

She buried her face in her hands and wept softly. Then Hatch saw a great bruised spot across her cheek and neck-it might have been the mark of a lash. Whatever particular kind of trouble he was in, he told himself, he was not alone, for she too was a victim.

"You must tell me about it," he insisted.

"I can't, I can't!" she wailed.

And then a cringing, awful fear came into her tear stained face, as she lifted her head to listen. There was the sound of footsteps outside the door.

"He'll kill you, he'll kill you!" whispered the woman.

Hatch set his lips grimly, motioned her to silence, and stepped toward the door. A heavy chair stood there. He weighed it judicially in his hands, and glanced toward the woman rea.s.suringly. She had dropped down on the couch and had buried her face in a pillow; her slender form was shaking with sobs. Hatch raised the chair above his head and closed his hands on it fiercely.

There was a slight rattle as some one turned the k.n.o.b of the door. Then it opened and a man entered. Hatch stared at the profile with amazed eyes.

"By George!" he exclaimed.

Then he brought the chair down with all the strength of two well muscled arms. The man sank to the floor without a sound; the woman straightened up, screamed once, and fell forward in a dead faint.

It was about ten o'clock that morning when The Thinking Machine and Hutchinson Hatch, together with a powerful cabman, dragged a man into the warden's office at Chisholm prison.

"Here's your man, Philip Gilfoil," said The Thinking Machine tersely.

"Gilfoil!" the warden almost shouted. "Did he escape?"

And a moment later two guards came into the warden's office with Convict 97 between them. There were two Philip Gilfoils, if one might trust the evidence of a sense of sight; the first with dissipated, brutally lined face, and the other with the prison pallor upon him and with deep grief written indelibly in his eyes.

"They are brothers, gentlemen-twin brothers," explained The Thinking Machine. He turned to the man in prison garb, the man from Cell 9. "This is the Rev. Dr. Phineas Gilfoil, pastor of a fas.h.i.+onable little church in a suburb, and," he turned upon the man whom they had brought there in the cab, "this is Philip Gilfoil, forger-this is Convict 97."

The warden and the prison guards stood stupefied, gazing from one to the other of the two men. The facial lines were identical; physically they had been cast in the same mold.

"The only real difference between them, except a radical mental difference, is the size of their feet," The Thinking Machine went on. "Philip Gilfoil, the forger, the real Convict 97, who has been out of this prison for five weeks and four days, wears a number eight and a half shoe, according to your own records Mr. Warden; the Rev. Phineas Gilfoil, who has been in his brothers place, Cell 9, for five weeks and four days, wears a number seven shoe. See here!"

He stooped suddenly, lifted one of Dr. Gilfoil's feet and slipped one shoe off without even untying it. It showed no impression of the foot at all in the upper part, it was so large. Dr. Gilfoil dropped back weakly into a chair without a word and buried his face in his hands; Philip Gilfoil, the forger, his head still awhirl with the fumes of liquor, took one step toward his brother, then sat down and glared from one to the other defiantly.

"But how-what-when did they change places?" demanded the warden stammeringly. The whole thing was a nightmare to him.