The jacques futrelle meg.., p.51
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack, page 51
“That’s worth forty thousand dollars,” he remarked casually.
“Is this the—”
“It’s the Colgate diamond,” interrupted The Thinking Machine. “I surmised that he would have it somewhere about him, because he would have no place to hide it. And now for the second man—the brains of the theft. First I shall telephone for Colgate. Look at him when he enters; for I think you will be greatly surprised. And above all, remember to be careful.”
Looking deeply into the quiet, squint eyes of the scientist, Hatch read a warning. He understood and nodded. Travers, stupefied, was removed to an adjoining room.
A few minutes later there was a rattle of carriage wheels, the door bell rang, and Colgate entered. Hatch glanced at him, then turned quickly to look out of a window.
“You have the diamond?” burst out Colgate suddenly.
“I said I would have it when you came,” retorted The Thinking Machine. “Now for these post cards,” and the scientist produced the three cards that had been handed to him at first. “Perhaps you would be interested to know what was really on them?”
“I haven’t the slightest curiosity,” said Colgate impatiently. “All I want is the diamond. If you will give me that, I think perhaps that will terminate this affair, and there will be no necessity of taking up more of your time.”
“Of course you have no desire to prosecute Travers?” asked The Thinking Machine. There was a velvety note in the crabbed voice. Hatch glanced at him.
“I don’t think I care to prosecute him,” said Colgate steadily.
“I thought perhaps you would not,” rejoined The Thinking Machine enigmatically. “But as to these post cards. They constitute what is known as the book cipher. For your information I may state that it is always possible to know a book cipher by the fact that a small number, rarely above twelve or fourteen, always precedes the X; the X merely divides the words. For instance, on the first card we have I-28-38-4; in other words, volume one, page 28, line 38, and the fourth word of that line. Unless one knows or can learn the name of the book which is the basis of the cipher, it is perhaps the most difficult of all. Any ordinary cipher may be solved precisely as Poe solved his great cipher in ‘The Gold Bug.’”
“But I am not at all interested—” protested Colgate.
“So really all that was necessary for me to do was to find out what book was the basis of this particular cipher,” continued The Thinking Machine to Hatch, without heeding his visitor’s remark. “I knew of course it was some book in Mr. Colgate’s home. The clue to what book was given, either wittingly or unwittingly, by the single I, the two I’s and the three I’s on the first, second, and third cards. Did these represent volumes? I found a dozen three volume books in Mr. Colgate’s library, but in each instance there was no connection in the first three or four words which I found in accordance with the numbers given; that is, until I came to ‘Ten Thousand a Year.’ The first word I found in that was ‘will’; the second, page 47, line 30, second word, was ‘return’; the third was ‘diamond.’ So I knew that was the book I wanted. Here is the full meaning of the cipher as it appears on the three cards, as I have transcribed it.”
He handed Colgate a slip of paper, on which was written:
Will return diamond for ten thousand. If you agree inform me in daily press.
“This all seems very clever and very curious indeed,” commented Colgate; “but really I do not think—”
“The book of Mr. Colgate’s is a first edition—there is also a first edition in the public library,” the scientist went on placidly; “so Travers had no difficulty on that score. We shall admit that the cards were mailed in Philadelphia; perhaps he went there and later returned to this city. The manner in which I got possession of the diamond—by first discovering Travers through an advertisement and then keeping him at the telephone until he was inveigled here by my assistant—is possibly of no interest; it was all very easily done by a prearranged plan with the telephone exchange; so now, Mr.—Mr.—”
“Colgate,” his visitor supplied, as if surprised at the hesitancy.
“I mean your real name,” said the scientist quietly.
There was a sudden tense silence; Hatch had come a little closer, and was staring at the stranger with keen, inquiring eyes.
“This is not the Mr. William C. Colgate you know, Mr. Hatch?”
“No.”
“Do you happen to have an idea who he is?”
“If I am not mistaken,” Hatch replied calmly, “this is a gentleman I have met before on an exceedingly interesting occasion—Mr. Bradlee Cunnyngham Leighton.”
At the name the erstwhile Colgate turned upon the reporter with a snarl. There was a quick movement of his right hand, and Hatch found himself blinking down the barrel of a revolver, as Leighton slowly moved backward toward the door.
The Thinking Machine moved around behind the aggressor. “Now, Mr. Leighton,” he said almost pleasantly, “if you don’t lower that revolver I’ll blow your brains out.”
For one instant Leighton hesitated, then glanced back quickly toward the scientist. That diminutive man stood calmly, with his hands in his pockets. Instantly Hatch leaped. There was a quick, sharp struggle, a few muttered curses, and then the discomfited Leighton, in his turn, was gazing down the revolver barrel.
“Won’t you gentlemen sit down?” suggested The Thinking Machine.
They were all sitting down when Detective Mallory rushed up from police headquarters. Leighton was farthest from the door. The Thinking Machine sat staring at him with the revolver held in position for quick use.
“Ah, Mr. Mallory,” he said, without turning his head or glancing back. “This is Mr. Bradlee Cunnyngham Leighton. You may have heard of him before?”
“Do you mean the Englishman who brought the Varron necklace to this country?” blurted out the detective.
“The same man of the carrier pigeon case,” said Hatch grimly.
“I should like particularly to call your attention to Mr. Leighton,” continued The Thinking Machine. “He is a man of accomplishments. We know how he distinguished himself by the simple expedient of using carrier pigeons in the Varron necklace affair. In this case, he has risen to greater heights. First—I am assuming some things—he plotted with young Travers to steal the Colgate diamond. In some manner, which is not essential here, Travers got the diamond and sought to profit by the theft alone by negotiating its return for ten thousand dollars. Travers wrote a cipher to Mr. Colgate making the proposition—it was possible he knew Mr. Colgate would understand his cipher. I shall give Leighton credit for anticipating just this possibility and intercepting the post cards. They meant nothing to him; so—please note this—he came to me as Mr. Colgate, knowing that Mr. Colgate was in Europe with his family, and sought my assistance in recovering the jewel from his fellow conspirator. The sublime audacity of all these conceptions marks Mr. Leighton as little short of a genius in his particular profession.
“Only once was Mr. Leighton embarrassed. That was when I told him I should have to visit his library. But he even rose to this necessity brilliantly. He delayed my visit for a day or so, and in some manner, possibly by forgery, secured an entrance to Mr. Colgate’s home, perhaps as a cousin of the same name. There he received me. Two or three things had happened to arouse a doubt in my mind as to whether he was the real Mr. Colgate.
“First was his hesitancy in connection with my visit to the library; then while I was in the house a telegram came for Mr. William C. Colgate. A servant asked Mr. Leighton in my presence if the telegram was for him. That question would never have been asked if he had been the real William C. Colgate. Then finally I asked Mr. Hatch over the phone if William C. Colgate was redheaded. William C. Colgate is not redheaded. This gentleman is, therefore he is not William C. Colgate. I only knew this much. Mr. Hatch recognized him as Leighton. He saw him at the time you were all interested in his escape from a Scotland Yard man—Conway, who wanted him for stealing a necklace. That is all, I think.”
“But the diamond and Travers?” asked the detective.
“Here is the diamond,” said The Thinking Machine, and he produced it from one of his pockets. “Travers is lying on a bed in the next room in a drunken stupor.”
PROBLEM OF THE SUPERFLUOUS FINGER
She drew off her left glove, a delicate, crinkled suede affair, and offered her bare hand to the surgeon. An artist would have called it beautiful, perfect, even; the surgeon, professionally enough, set it down as an excellent structural specimen. From the polished pink nails of the tapering fingers to the firm, well moulded wrist, it was distinctly the hand of a woman of ease—one that had never known labour, a pampered hand Dr. Prescott told himself.
“The forefinger,” she explained calmly. “I should like to have it amputated at the first joint, please.”
“Amputated?” gasped Dr. Prescott. He stared into the pretty face of his caller. It was flushed softly, and the red lips were parted in a slight smile. It seemed quite an ordinary affair to her. The surgeon bent over the hand with quick interest. “Amputated!” he repeated.
“I came to you,” she went on with a nod, “because I have been informed that you are one of the most skilful men of your profession, and the cost of the operation is quite immaterial.”
Dr. Prescott pressed the pink nail of the forefinger then permitted the blood to rush back into it. Several times he did this, then he turned the hand over and scrutinized it closely inside from the delicately lined palm to the tips of the fingers. When he looked up at last there was an expression of frank bewilderment on his face.
“What’s the matter with it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” the woman replied pleasantly. “I merely want it off from the first joint.”
The surgeon leaned back in his chair with a frown of perplexity on his brow, and his visitor was subjected to a sharp, professional stare. She bore it unflinchingly and even smiled a little at his obvious perturbation.
“Why do you want it off?” he demanded.
The woman shrugged her shoulders a little impatiently.
“I can’t tell you that,” she replied. “It really is not necessary that you should know. You are a surgeon, I want an operation performed. That is all.”
There was a long pause; the mutual stare didn’t waver.
“You must understand, Miss—Miss—er—” began Dr. Prescott at last. “By the way, you have not introduced yourself?” She was silent. “May I ask your name?”
“My name is of no consequence,” she replied calmly. “I might, of course, give you a name, but it would not be mine, therefore any name would be superfluous.”
Again the surgeon stared.
“When do you want the operation performed?” he inquired.
“Now,” she replied. “I am ready.”
“You must understand,” he said severely, “that surgery is a profession for the relief of human suffering, not for mutilation—wilful mutilation I might say.”
“I understand that perfectly,” she said. “But where a person submits of her own desire to—to mutilation as you call it I can see no valid objection on your part.”
“It would be criminal to remove a finger where there is no necessity for it,” continued the surgeon bluntly. “No good end could be served.”
A trace of disappointment showed in the young woman’s face, and again she shrugged her shoulders.
“The question after all,” she said finally, “is not one of ethics but is simply whether or not you will perform the operation. Would you do it for, say, a thousand dollars?”
“Not for five thousand dollars,” blurted the surgeon.
“Well, for ten thousand then?” she asked, quiet casually.
All sorts of questions were pounding in Dr. Prescott’s mind. Why did a young and beautiful woman desire—why was she anxious even—to sacrifice a perfectly healthy finger? What possible purpose would it serve to mar a hand which was as nearly perfect as any he had ever seen? Was it some insane caprice? Staring deeply into her steady, quiet eyes he could only be convinced of her sanity. Then what?
“No, madam,” he said at last, vehemently, “I would not perform the operation for any sum you might mention, unless I was first convinced that the removal of that finger was absolutely necessary. That, I think, is all.”
He arose as if to end the consultation. The woman remained seated and continued thoughtful for a minute.
“As I understand it,” she said, “you would perform the operation if I could convince you that it was absolutely necessary?”
“Certainly,” he replied promptly, almost eagerly. His curiosity was aroused. “Then it would come well within the range of my professional duties.”
“Won’t you take my word that it is necessary, and that it is impossible for me to explain why?”
“No. I must know why.”
The woman arose and stood facing him. The disappointment had gone from her face now.
“Very well,” she remarked steadily. “You will perform the operation if it is necessary, therefore if I should shoot the finger off, perhaps—?”
“Shoot it off?” exclaimed Dr. Prescott in amazement. “Shoot it off?”
“That is what I said,” she replied calmly. “If I should shoot the finger off you would consent to dress the wound? You would make any necessary amputation?”
She held up the finger under discussion and looked at it curiously. Dr. Prescott himself stared at it with a sudden new interest.
“Shoot it off?” he repeated. “Why you must be mad to contemplate such a thing,” he exploded, and his face flushed in sheer anger. “I—I will have nothing whatever to do with the affair, madam. Good day.”
“I should have to be very careful of course,” she mused, “but I think perhaps one shot would be sufficient, then I should come to you and demand that you dress it?”
There was a question in the tone. Dr. Prescott stared at her for a full minute then walked over and opened the door.
“In my profession, madam,” he said coldly, “there is too much possibility of doing good and relieving actual suffering for me to consider this matter or discuss it further with you. There are three persons now waiting in the ante-room who need my services. I shall be compelled to ask you to excuse me.”
“But you will dress the wound?” the woman insisted, undaunted by his forbidding tone and manner.
“I shall have nothing whatever to do with it,” declared the surgeon, positively, finally. “If you need the services of any medical man permit me to suggest that it is an alienist and not a surgeon.”
The woman didn’t appear to take offence.
“Someone would have to dress it,” she continued insistently. “I should much prefer that it be a man of undisputed skill—you I mean, therefore I shall call again. Good day.”
There was a rustle of silken skirts and she was gone. Dr. Prescott stood for an instant gazing after her with frank wonder and annoyance in his eyes, his attitude, then he went back and sat down at the desk. The crinkled suede glove still lay where she had left it. He examined it gingerly then with a final shake of his head dismissed the affair and turned to other things.
Early next afternoon Dr. Prescott was sitting in his office writing when the door from the ante-room where patients awaited his leisure was thrown open and the young man in attendance rushed in.
“A lady has fainted, sir,” he said hurriedly. “She seems to be hurt.”
Dr. Prescott arose quickly and strode out. There, lying helplessly back in her chair with white face and closed eyes, was his visitor of the day before. He stepped toward her quickly then hesitated as he recalled their conversation. Finally, however, professional instinct, the desire to relieve suffering, and perhaps curiosity too, caused him to go to her. The left hand was wrapped in an improvised bandage through which there was a trickle of blood. He glared at it with incredulous eyes.
“Hanged if she didn’t do it,” he blurted angrily.
The fainting spell, Dr. Prescott saw, was due only to loss of blood and physical pain, and he busied himself trying to restore her to consciousness. Meanwhile he gave some hurried instructions to the young man who was in attendance in the ante-room.
“Call up Professor Van Dusen on the ’phone,” he directed his assistant, “and ask him if he can assist me in a minor operation. Tell him it’s rather a curious case and I am sure it will interest him.”
It was in this manner that the problem of the superfluous finger first came to the attention of The Thinking Machine. He arrived just as the mysterious woman was opening her eyes to consciousness from the fainting spell. She stared at him glassily, unrecognizingly; then her glance wandered to Dr. Prescott. She smiled.
“I knew you’d have to do it,” she murmured weakly.
After the ether had been administered for the operation, a simple and an easy one, Dr.
Prescott stated the circumstances of the case to The Thinking Machine. The scientist stood with his long, slender fingers resting lightly on the young woman’s pulse, listening in silence.
“What do you make of it?” demanded the surgeon.
The Thinking Machine didn’t say. At the moment he was leaning over the unconscious woman squinting at her forehead. With his disengaged hand he stroked the delicately pencilled eyebrows several times the wrong way, and again at close range squinted at them. Dr. Prescott saw and seeing, understood.
“No, it isn’t that,” he said and he shuddered a little. “I thought of it myself. Her bodily condition is excellent, splendid.”
It was some time later when the young woman was sleeping lightly, placidly under the influence of a soothing potion, that The Thinking Machine spoke of the peculiar events which had preceded the operation. Then he was sitting in Dr. Prescott’s private office. He had picked up a woman’s glove from the desk.
“This is the glove she left when she first called, isn’t it?” he inquired.
