The jacques futrelle meg.., p.25
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack, page 25
Then came a new sound. It was the patter of small feet. The guarded door was pushed open and a tousle-headed child, a boy, ran in.
“Mama, mama!” he called loudly. He ran to the woman and clutched at her skirts.
“Oh, my baby! what have you done?” she asked piteously. “We are lost, lost!”
“Me ’faid,” the child went on.
With the door—his avenue of possible escape—open, Hatch did not drop the key. Instead, he gazed at the woman, then down at the child. From below he again heard The Thinking Machine.
“How far is the car track, then?”
The servant answered something. There was a sound of steps, and the front door closed. Hatch knew that The Thinking Machine had come and gone; yet he was strangely calm about it, quite himself, despite the fact that a nervous finger still lay on the trigger of the pistol.
From his refuge behind his mother’s skirts the boy peered around at Hatch shyly. The reporter gazed, gazed, all eyes, and then was convinced. The boy was Walter Francis, the kidnapped boy whose pictures were being published in every newspaper of a dozen cities. Here was a story—the story—the superlative story.
“Mrs. Francis, if you wouldn’t mind letting down that hammer—” he suggested modestly. “I assure you I contemplate no harm, and you—you are very nervous.”
“You know me, then?” she asked.
“Only because the child there, Walter, called you mama.”
Mrs. Francis lowered the revolver hammer so recklessly that Hatch involuntarily dodged. And then came a scene, a scene with tears in it, and all those things which stir men, even reporters. Finally the woman dropped the revolver on the floor and swept the boy up in her arms with a gesture of infinite tenderness. He cuddled there, content. At that moment Hatch could have walked out the door, but instead he sat down. He was just beginning to get interested.
“They sha’n’t take you!” sobbed the mother.
“There is no immediate danger,” the reporter assured her. “The man who came here for that purpose has gone. Meanwhile, if you will tell me the facts, perhaps—perhaps I may be able to be of some assistance.”
Mrs. Francis looked at him, startled. “Help me?”
“If you will explain, perhaps I can do something,” said Hatch again.
Somewhere back in a remote recess of his brain he was remembering. And as it became clearer he was surprised that he had not remembered sooner. It was a story of marital infelicity, and its principals were Stanley Francis and his wife—this bewilderingly pretty young woman before him. It had been only eight or nine months back.
Technically she had deserted Stanley Francis. There had been some violent scene and she left their home and little son. Soon afterward she went to Europe. It had been rumored that divorce proceedings would follow, or at least a legal separation, but nothing had ever come of the rumors. All this Mrs. Francis told to Hatch in little incoherent bursts, punctuated with sobs and tears.
“He struck me, he struck me!” she declared with a flush of anger and shame, “and I went then on impulse. I was desperate. Later, even before I went to Europe, I knew the legal status of the affair; but the thought of my boy lingered, and I resolved to come back and get him—abduct him, if necessary. I did that, and I will keep him if I have to kill the one who opposes me.”
Hatch saw the mother instinct here, that tigerish ferocity of love which stops at nothing.
“I conceived the plan of demanding fifty thousand dollars of my husband under threat of abduction,” Mrs. Francis went on. “My purpose was to make it appear that the plot was that of professional—what would you call it?—kidnappers. But I did not send the letter demanding this until I had perfected all my plans and knew I could get the boy. I wanted my husband to think it was the work of others, at least until we were safe in Europe, because even then I imagined there would be a long legal fight.
“After I stole the boy and he recognized me, I wanted him as my own, absolutely safe from legal action by his father. Then I wrote to Mr. Francis, telling him I had Walter, and asking that in pity to me he legally give me the boy by a document of some sort. In that letter I told how he might signify his willingness to do this; but of course I would not give my address. I placed a string, the one you saw, in that tree after having tied two knots in it. It was a silly, romantic means of communication he and I used years ago in my girlhood when we both lived near here. If he agreed that I should have the child, he was to come or send some one last night and unties one of the two knots.”
Then, to Hatch, the intricacies passed away. He understood clearly. Instead of going to the police with the second letter from his wife, Francis had gone to The Thinking Machine. The Thinking Machine sent the reporter to untie the knot, which was an answer of “Yes” to Mrs. Francis’s request for the child. Then she would have written giving her address, and there would have been a clue to the child’s whereabouts. It was all perfectly clear now.
“Did 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.
PROBLEM OF THE CRYSTAL GAZER
WITH hideous, goggling eyes the great god Budd sat cross-legged on a pedestal and stared stolidly into the semi-darkness. He saw, by the wavering light of a peacock lamp which swooped down from the ceiling with wings outstretched, what might have been a nook in a palace of East India. Draperies hung here, there, everywhere; richly embroidered divans sprawled about; fierce tiger rugs glared up from the floor; grotesque idols grinned mirthlessly in unexpected corners; strange arms were grouped on the walls. Outside the trolley cars clanged blatantly.
The single human figure was a distinct contradiction of all else. It was that of a man in evening dress, smoking. He was fifty, perhaps sixty, years old with the ruddy colour of one who has lived a great deal out of doors. There was only a touch of gray in his abundant hair and moustache. His eyes were steady and clear, and indolent.
For a long time he sat, then the draperies to his right parted and a girl entered. She was a part of the picture of which the man was a contradiction. Her lustrous black hair flowed about her shoulders; lambent mysteries lay in her eyes. Her dress was the dress of the East. For a moment she stood looking at the man and then entered with light tread.
“Varick Sahib,” she said, timidly, as if it were a greeting. “Do I intrude?” Her voice was softly guttural with the accent of her native tongue.
“Oh no, Jadeh. Come in,” said the man.
She smiled frankly and sat down on a hassock near him.
“My brother?” she asked.
“He is in the cabinet.”
Varick had merely glanced at her and then continued his thoughtful gaze into vacancy. From time to time she looked up at him shyly, with a touch of eagerness, but there was no answering interest in his manner. His thoughts were far away.
“May I ask what brings you this time, Sahib?” she inquired at last.
“A little deal in the market,” responded Varick, carelessly. “It seems to have puzzled Adhem as much as it did me. He has been in the cabinet for half an hour.”
He stared on musingly as he smoked, then dropped his eyes to the slender, graceful figure of Jadeh. With knees clasped in her hands she leaned back on the hassock deeply thoughtful. Her head was tilted upward and the flickering light fell full on her face. It crossed Varick’s mind that she was pretty, and he was about to say so as he would have said it to any other woman, when the curtains behind them were thrown apart and they both glanced around.
Another man—an East Indian—entered. This man was Adhem Singh, the crystal gazer, in the ostentatious robes of a seer. He, too, was a part of the picture. There was an expression of apprehension, mingled with some other impalpable quality on his strong face.
“Well, Adhem?” inquired Varick.
“I have seen strange things, Sahib,” replied the seer, solemnly. “The crystal tells me of danger.”
“Danger?” repeated Varick with a slight lifting of his brows. “Oh well, in that case I shall keep out of it.”
“Not danger to your business, Sahib,” the crystal gazer went on with troubled face, “but danger in another way.”
The girl, Jadeh, looked at him with quick, startled eyes and asked some question in her native tongue. He answered in the same language, and she rose suddenly with terror stricken face to fling herself at Varick’s feet, weeping. Varick seemed to understand too, and looked at the seer in apprehension.
“Death?” he exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
Adhem was silent for a moment and bowed his head respectfully before the steady, inquiring gaze of the white man.
“Pardon, Sahib,” he said at last. “I did not remember that you understood my language.”
“What is it?” insisted Varick, abruptly. “Tell me.”
“I cannot, Sahib.”
“You must,” declared the other. He had arisen commandingly. “You must.”
The crystal gazer crossed to him and stood for an instant with his hand on the white man’s shoulder, and his eyes studying the fear he found in the white man’s face.
“The crystal, Sahib,” he began. “It tells me that—that—”
“No, no, brother,” pleaded the girl.
“Go on,” Varick commanded.
“It grieves me to say that which will pain one whom I love as I do you, Sahib,” said the seer, slowly. “Perhaps you had rather see for yourself?”
“Well, let me see then,” said Varick. “Is it in the crystal?”
“Yes, by the grace of the gods.”
“But I can’t see anything there,” Varick remembered. “I’ve tried scores of times.”
“I believe this will he different, Sahib,” said Adhem, quietly. “Can you stand a shock?”
Varick shook himself a little impatiently.
“Of course,” he replied. “Yes, yes.”
“A very serious shock?”
Again there was an impatient twist of Varick’s shoulders.
“Yes, I can stand anything,” he exclaimed shortly. “What is it? Let me see.”
He strode toward that point in the draperies where Adhem had entered while the girl on her knees, sought with entreating hands to stop him.
“No, no, no,” she pleaded. “No.”
“Don’t do that,” Varick expostulated in annoyance, but gently he stooped and lifted her to her feet. “I am not a child—or a fool.”
He threw aside the curtains. As they fell softly behind him he heard a pitiful little cry of grief from Jadeh and set his teeth together hard.
He stood in the crystal cabinet. It was somewhat larger than an ordinary closet and had been made impenetrable to the light by hangings of black velvet. For awhile he stood still so that his eyes might become accustomed to the utter blackness, and gradually the sinister fascinating crystal ball appeared, faintly visible by its own mystic luminosity. It rested on a pedestal of black velvet.
Varick was accustomed to his surroundings—he had been in the cabinet many times. Now he dropped down on a stool in front of the table whereon the crystal lay and leaning forward on his arms stared into its limpid depths. Unblinkingly for one, two, three minutes he sat there with his thoughts in a chaos.
After awhile there came a change in the ball. It seemed to glow with a growing light other than its own. Suddenly it darkened completely, and out of this utter darkness grew shadowy, vague forms to which he could give no name. Finally a veil seemed lifted for the globe grew brighter and he leaned forward, eagerly, fearfully. Another veil melted away and a still brighter light illumined the ball.
Now Varick was able to make out objects. Here was a table littered with books and papers, there a chair, yonder a shadowy mantel. Gradually the light grew until his tensely fixed eyes pained him, but he stared steadily on. Another quick brightness came and the objects all became clear. He studied them incredulously for a few seconds, and then he recognized what he saw. It was a room—his study—miles away in his apartments.
A sudden numb chilliness seized him but he closed his teeth hard and gazed on. The outlines of the crystal were disappearing, now they were gone and he saw more. A door opened and a man entered the room into which he was looking. Varick gave a little gasp as he recognized the man. It was—himself. He watched the man—himself—as he moved about the study aimlessly for a time as if deeply troubled, then as he dropped into a chair at the desk. Varick read clearly on the vision-face those emotions which he was suffering in person. As he looked the man made some hopeless gesture with his hands—his hands—and leaned forward on the desk with his head on his arms. Varick shuddered.
For a long time, it seemed, the man sat motionless, then Varick became conscious of another figure—a man—in the room. This figure had come into the vision from his own view point. His face was averted—Varick did not recognize the figure, but he saw something else and started in terror. A knife was in the hand of the unknown, and he was creeping stealthily toward the unconscious figure in the chair—himself—with the weapon raised.
An inarticulate cry burst from Varick’s colourless lips—a cry of warning—as he saw the unknown creep on, on, on toward—himself. He saw the figure that was himself move a little and the unknown leaped. The upraised knife swept down and was buried to the handle. Again a cry, an unintelligible shriek, burst from Varick’s lips; his heart fluttered and perspiration poured from his face. With incoherent mutterings he sank forward helplessly.
How long he remained there he didn’t know, but at last he compelled himself to look again. The crystal glittered coldly on its pedestal of velvet but that hideous thing which had been there was gone. The thought came to him to bring it back, to see more, but repulsive fear, terror seized upon him. He rose and staggered out of the cabinet. His face was pallid and his hands clasped and unclasped nervously.
Jadeh was lying on a divan sobbing. She leaped to her feet when he entered, and looking into his face she knew. Again she buried her face in her hands and wept afresh. Adhem stood with moody eyes fixed on the great god Budd.
“I saw—I understand,” said Varick between his teeth, “but—I don’t believe it.”
“The crystal never lies, Sahib,” said the seer, sorrowfully.
“But it can’t be—that,” Varick declared protestingly.
“Be careful, Sahib, oh, be careful,” urged the girl.
“Of course I shall be careful,” said Varick, shortly. Suddenly he turned to the crystal gazer and there was a menace in his tone. “Did such a thing ever appear to you before?”
“Only once, Sahib.”
“And did it come true?”
Adhem inclined his head, slowly.
“I may see you tomorrow,” exclaimed Varick suddenly. “This room is stifling. I must go out.”
With twitching hands he drew on a light coat over his evening dress, picked up his hat and rushed out into the world of realities. The crystal gazer stood for a moment while Jadeh clung to his arm, tremblingly.
“It is as the gods will,” he said sadly, at last.
* * * *
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine—received Howard Varick in the small reception room and invited him to a seat. Varick’s face was ashen; there were dark lines under his eyes and in them there was the glitter of an ungovernable terror. Every move showed the nervousness which gripped him. The Thinking Machine squinted at him curiously, then dropped back into his big chair.
