The jacques futrelle meg.., p.67
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack, page 67
“Then I found myself in what seemed to be a street in a small city. A faint, rosy line was just tinging the eastern sky. Houses to right and left of me were closed forbiddingly; but just ahead was the solitary figure of a man, walking slowly along, swinging a stick. I ran the automobile alongside him, shouting some senseless question, then fell forward fainting. My last recollection was of shutting off power.
“When I recovered consciousness it was to find myself upon a cot in a strange room, perhaps a hospital. A physician was bandaging my ankle. A thousand questions leaped to my lips; and some of them burst forth in a torrent.
“‘Don’t talk!’ commanded the physician brusquely.
“‘But where am I?’ I insisted.
“‘Millen,’ he responded tersely. ‘Don’t talk!’
“It struck me curiously that I should be here—that I should have reached the point for which I was bound even after all that had happened to me. It seemed centuries since I had left Pelham somewhere behind. Perhaps it was all a dream. But those screams! That silent old man! This broken ankle! I dropped into agonizing slumber after awhile—the sleep of sheer exhaustion—but asleep I lived again those awful moments which had almost driven me mad.
“On the following day I was calmer. The physician asked me some questions, and I answered them to the best of my ability. He did not smile at my fright; only shook his head and gave me something which made me sleep again. And so for a week I lay there, helpless, half asleep, and half awake. But one day I awoke to clear consciousness, comparatively free of the torture of the broken ankle, and myself again. Then the physician and I discussed the matter at length.
“He listened respectfully as I repeated it all, and at the end shook his head.
“‘There is no intersecting road between the small store of which you speak and the outskirts of Millen,’ he said positively.
“‘But, man, I was there!’ I protested. ‘I turned into the other road, and ran along till I saw the house in the open field. I tell you—’
“But he let me go no further. I knew why. He thought it was some mental vagary; for after awhile he gave me a pill and went away. So I resolved to solve the matter for myself. I would go back along that road by day, and find that silent old man, and, if not the house itself, the charred spot where it had stood. I would know that intersection; I would know even the path which led from the mysterious road off into the wood. When I found these I knew the maze would fade into some simple, plain explanation—perhaps even an absurd one.
“So I bided my time. In the course of another week I was able to leave my cot and hobble about with the aid of crutches. It was then that I took the physician in my car, and we went back along the highway toward Pelham. It was all unfamiliar ground to me; there was no road, and suddenly there ahead of me was the little store where I had bought the gasolene that night. I would question the old man I had seen there; but there was no old man. The little store was unoccupied; it seemed to have been unoccupied for weeks.
“I turned back and traversed the road toward Millen again. I recognized nothing; I couldn’t find a trace of a bypath from the highway in any direction. And once more I went over the ground at night. Nothing! After that the physician, a singularly patient man, accompanied me as I hobbled through the forest on each side of the road seeking that house, or its ashes. I never saw anything to lead me, to even suggest, a single incident of that awful night.
“‘I know the country, every inch of it,’ the physician told me. ‘There isn’t any such place as you mention.’
“And—well, that’s all. I know his opinion was that my story was some sort of delusion—a dream. But how he accounts for the broken ankle I don’t know. Then the condition of my clothing! I had been compelled to discard everything I wore for garments sent down from the city. And so in time I came to believe the experience a dream. I was growing content with this story, even knowing it to be wrong, because it brought mental rest, and was beginning to be myself again.
“Then one day I had occasion to search the coat I had worn that night for some papers which had been misplaced. In the course of the search I thrust my hand into an outside pocket, and drew out—a little ivory god, sitting on his haunches, grinning hideously!
“Now I am like this—and the little god sits up laughing at me. He knows!”
When he had finished reading, The Thinking Machine dropped back into the chair, with squint eyes turned steadily upward, and long slender fingers pressed tip to tip. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, sat staring in silence at the drawn, inscrutable face of the scientist.
“And the writer of this?” demanded The Thinking Machine at last.
“His name is Harold Fairbanks,” the reporter explained. “He was removed to an asylum yesterday, hopelessly insane.”
PART II. The House That Was. by Jacques Futrelle
Editor’s Note.—Mrs. Futrelle undertook to set up a problem which The Thinking Machine could not solve. “Wraiths of the Storm,” in The Sunday Magazine last week, presented what she thought to be a mystery story impossible of solution. Printer’s proofs of the story were submitted to Mr. Futrelle, who, after frequent consultations with Professor Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine—evolved “The House that Was” as the perfect solution.
The Thinking Machine lowered his squint eyes and favored Hutchinson Hatch with a long, steady stare which for the moment seemed totally to obliterate him as a personality. Gradually, under the continued unseeing but tense gaze, there grew upon the newspaper man a singular sense of utter transparency, a complete invisibility, an uncomfortable feeling of not being present. He laughed a little finally, and lighted a cigarette.
“As I was saying,” Hatch began, “this Harold Fairbanks is hopelessly insane, and—”
“I imagine,” interrupted the eminent man of science—“I imagine that this insanity of Fairbanks’s is rather a maniacal condition?”
“Yes,” Hatch told him. “I was going to say—”
“And that possibly it took a homicidal turn?” The Thinking Machine continued.
“Yes,” the reporter assented. “He tried to—”
“Against a woman, perhaps?”
“Precisely. The direct cause of his—”
“Please don’t interrupt, Mr. Hatch!” snapped The Thinking Machine. He was silent for a time; Hatch smiled whimsically. “The object of his homicidal mania,” the scientist continued slowly, as if feeling his way, “was—was his mother?”
“Yes.”
Hatch dropped back into his chair and met the squint blue eyes fairly. He was not surprised at this statement of the case, thus far correct, because he was accustomed to the unerring accuracy of the master mind behind those eyes; but he was curious to know just how far that logical brain would follow a circumstantial thread which it had developed of itself out of an apparent nothingness. Nothing in the manuscript, nothing he had said, had even indicated, to his mind, the more recent developments.
The leaves of the manuscript fluttered through the slender white fingers of The Thinking Machine, and the straight line of the thin lips was drawn down a little as he glanced over a page or so.
“He shot at her?” he queried at last.
“Three times,” the reporter informed him. The Thinking Machine raised his eyes quickly, inquiringly, to those of the newspaper man. “She was not wounded,” the reporter hastened to say. “The shots went wild.”
“That happened in Fairbanks’s own room?”
“Yes.”
“At night?”
“Yes; about one o’clock.”
“Of course!” exclaimed the little scientist crabbedly. “I know that.” Again there was a pause. “Mrs. Fairbanks has a room near that of her son—perhaps on the same floor?”
“Just across the hall.”
“And she was awakened by some unusual noise in his room?”
“She hadn’t been to sleep.” The reporter smiled.
“Oh!” and again The Thinking Machine’s squint eyes were turned toward the ceiling. “Some unusual noise attracted her attention, then?”
“Yes,” the reporter agreed.
“Screams?”
“Yes.”
The Thinking Machine nodded. “So she ran to her son’s room just as she was—in a white night robe, I imagine?”
“Precisely.”
The reporter was leaning forward in his chair now, staring into the impassive face before him. Still he wasn’t surprised—he was merely curious and interested in the workings of that mind which laid before him in order these incidents which were not known to it by any tangible method.
“And as she entered her son’s room,” the scientist resumed, “he shot at her?”
“Three times—yes.”
The Thinking Machine was silent for a long time. “That’s all?” he remarked inquiringly at last.
“Well, Fairbanks was raving, of course,” and Hatch dropped back in his chair. “He was overpowered by two servants, and—”
“Yes, I know,” broke in The Thinking Machine. “He is now in a padded cell in a private asylum somewhere.” This was not a question; it was a statement. “And this manuscript was found in his room after he had gone?”
“It lay open on his table. That is his handwriting,” explained the newspaper reporter.
The Thinking Machine arose and walked the length of the room three times. Finally he stopped before the newspaper man. “And is there really such a thing as this grinning god that he describes?” he demanded.
“Certainly,” Hatch responded, and his tone indicated surprise.
“Not necessarily certain,” said the scientist sharply. “Do you know there is a grinning god?”
“Yes,” replied the newspaper man emphatically. “It was taken away from Fairbanks when he was locked up. He fought like a fiend for it.”
“Naturally,” was the terse comment. “You have seen it, have you?”
“Yes, I saw it. It’s about six inches tall, seems to be cut from a solid piece of ivory, and—”
“And has shiny eyes?” interrupted the other.
“Yes. The eyes seem to be of amethyst, highly polished.”
Again The Thinking Machine walked the length of the room three times. “Do you know anything about self hypnotism, Mr. Hatch?” he inquired at last.
“Only that there is such a thing,” replied the reporter, wondering at the abrupt change in the trend of the conversation. “Why?”
The Thinking Machine didn’t say why. “You came to me, of course, to see if it was possible, by throwing light on this affair, to restore Fairbanks’s mind?” he inquired instead.
“Well, that was the idea,” Hatch agreed. “Fairbanks was evidently driven to his present condition by the haunting mystery of this thing, by brooding over it, and by the tangible existence in his hands of that ivory god which established a definite connection with an experience which might otherwise have been only a nightmare, and it occurred to me that if he could be made to see just what had happened and the underlying causes for its happening, he might be brought back to a normal condition.” The reporter was silent for a moment, with eyes set on the drawn, inscrutable face of The Thinking Machine. “Of course,” he added, “I am presuming that if it was not a diseased mental condition the things as he set them down did happen, and if they did happen I know you won’t believe that they were due to other than natural causes.”
“I don’t disbelieve in anything, Mr. Hatch,” and The Thinking Machine regarded the newspaper man quietly. “I don’t even disbelieve in what is broadly termed the supernatural—I merely don’t know. It is necessary, in the solution of material problems, to work from a material basis, and then the things which are conjured up by fear and—and failure to understand may be dissipated. That is done by logic, Mr. Hatch. Disregard the supernatural, so called, in our material problems, and logic is as inevitable as that two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time.”
“You don’t deny the possibility of the so called supernatural, then?” Hatch asked, and again there was a note of surprise in his voice.
“I don’t deny anything until I know,” was the response. “I don’t know that there is a supernatural force; therefore,” and he shrugged his slender, stooping shoulders, “I work only from a material basis. If this manuscript states facts, then Fairbanks saw an old man, not a spook; he saw a woman, not a wraith; he jumped to escape a real fire, not a ghost fire. When we disregard the supernatural, we must admit that everything was real, unless it was pure invention, and the broken ankle and burned clothing are against that. If these were real people, we can find them—that’s all there is to that. Yet there is a chance that the whole tale is a fiction, or the product of a disordered brain. But even that being true, it interferes in no way with the inevitable logic of the affair. When we know that this manuscript is in existence, and when we know that the man who produced it has since become a raving maniac, the sheer logic of the thing reveals clearly the intermediate steps.”
“How, for instance?” Hatch inquired curiously.
“Well, we have this,” and The Thinking Machine rattled the sheets of the manuscript impatiently; “and while we’ll admit it was written by a sane man, we know that that man has since become a maniac. I stated the incidents which led to his incarceration as logic unfolded them to me. First I knew that insanity from fear and failure to understand nearly always takes the maniacal turn; therefore I saw that instead of being insane, as you stated first, Fairbanks was probably a maniac. There is a difference.”
The reporter nodded.
“Next, one of the first manifestations of a maniacal condition is a homicidal tendency. Did Fairbanks attempt homicide? Yes.
“Now the problem grew a little more complex, rather intricately psychological, if I may say it that way,” The Thinking Machine explained precisely. “However, it goes back generally to the broad grounds that a woman in a flowing white night robe typifies the popular conception of the ghostly, and when we know that this supposed wraith, or one of them, was a woman in white, we see that in Fairbanks’s condition at the moment the appearance of such a figure would have instantly aroused him to the frenzy which led to the subsequent events.”
“I understand, so far,” Hatch remarked.
“Now the only woman—the most likely woman, I should say—to go to his room in a white night robe was his mother.” He paused for a moment. “Therefore, his mother was in all probability the object of his attack. Remember, he was mad with fear, and, appearing suddenly as she did, perhaps in a dim light, she was to his disordered brain the incarnation of that thing he most feared.”
Hatch seemed to be perfectly fascinated. His cigarette burned up until the fire touched his fingers; and he barely noticed it.
“In this manuscript,” The Thinking Machine resumed after a moment, “Fairbanks tells me that he had a revolver, and shows a distinct weakness for the weapon. Therefore, wouldn’t he shoot at this incarnation of the thing which was responsible for his condition. He did shoot. The fact that the incidents happened in Fairbanks’s own room at night was an assumption based upon the fact that his mother figured in it, and the further fact that she was dressed for bed when she appeared in his room. Of course, if her room was near, her attention would be attracted by some unusual noise. If these noises were due to a maniac, they were in all probability screams.”
“Well, by George!” Hatch remarked fervently. “It’s—”
“Now the first thing to do is to see Fairbanks in person,” interrupted The Thinking Machine, with a sudden change to a most business like tone. “I think, if he can comprehend at all, that I may be able to do something for him.”
The Thinking Machine—Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist—was cordially, even deferentially, received by Dr. Pollock, physician in charge of the Westbrook Sanatorium.
“I should like to spend ten minutes in the padded cell with Fairbanks,” he announced tersely.
Dr. Pollock regarded him curiously, but without surprise. “It’s dangerous,” he remarked doubtfully. “I have no objection, of course; but I should advise that a couple of keepers go in with you.”
“I’ll go alone,” announced the diminutive man of science. “It may be that I can quiet him.” Dr. Pollock merely stared. “By the way,” The Thinking Machine added, “you have that little ivory god here, haven’t you? Well, let me see it, please.”
It was produced and subjected to a searching scrutiny, after which the scientist set it up on a table, dropped into a seat facing it, leaned forward on his elbows, and sat staring straight into the amethyst eyes for a long time. A curious silence fell upon the watchers as he sat there immovable, minute after minute, staring, staring. Hatch absently glanced at his watch and went over and looked out the window. The thing was getting on his nerves.
At last the scientist arose and thrust the grinning god into his pocket. “Now, please,” he directed curtly, “I shall go into the cell with Fairbanks alone. I want the door closed behind me, and I want that door to remain closed for ten minutes. Under no circumstances must there be any interruption.” He turned upon Dr. Pollock. “Don’t have any fears for me. I’m not a fool.”
Dr. Pollock led the way along the corridor, down some stairs, and paused before a door.
“Just ten minutes—no more, no less,” directed the scientist.
The key was inserted in the lock, and the door swung on its hinges. Instantly the ears of the three men outside were assailed by a torrent of screams, of blasphemy, hideous imprecations. The maniac rushed for the door, and Hatch for an instant gazed straight into a distorted, pallid face in which there was no trace of intelligence, or even of humanity. He turned away with a shudder. Dr. Pollock thrust his arm forward to stay the swaying figure, and glanced round at The Thinking Machine doubtfully.
“Look at me! Look at me!” commanded the scientist sharply, and the squint blue eyes fearlessly met the glitter of madness in the eyes of Fairbanks. He raised his right hand suddenly in front of his face, and instantly the incoherent ravings stopped, while some strange, sudden change came over the maniacal face. In the scientist’s right hand was the grinning god. That was the magic which had stilled the ravings. Slowly, slowly, with his eyes fixed upon those of the maniac, the scientist edged his way into the cell, Fairbanks retreating almost imperceptibly. Never for an instant did the maniacal eyes leave the ivory image; yet he made no attempt to seize it, he seemed merely fascinated.
“When I recovered consciousness it was to find myself upon a cot in a strange room, perhaps a hospital. A physician was bandaging my ankle. A thousand questions leaped to my lips; and some of them burst forth in a torrent.
“‘Don’t talk!’ commanded the physician brusquely.
“‘But where am I?’ I insisted.
“‘Millen,’ he responded tersely. ‘Don’t talk!’
“It struck me curiously that I should be here—that I should have reached the point for which I was bound even after all that had happened to me. It seemed centuries since I had left Pelham somewhere behind. Perhaps it was all a dream. But those screams! That silent old man! This broken ankle! I dropped into agonizing slumber after awhile—the sleep of sheer exhaustion—but asleep I lived again those awful moments which had almost driven me mad.
“On the following day I was calmer. The physician asked me some questions, and I answered them to the best of my ability. He did not smile at my fright; only shook his head and gave me something which made me sleep again. And so for a week I lay there, helpless, half asleep, and half awake. But one day I awoke to clear consciousness, comparatively free of the torture of the broken ankle, and myself again. Then the physician and I discussed the matter at length.
“He listened respectfully as I repeated it all, and at the end shook his head.
“‘There is no intersecting road between the small store of which you speak and the outskirts of Millen,’ he said positively.
“‘But, man, I was there!’ I protested. ‘I turned into the other road, and ran along till I saw the house in the open field. I tell you—’
“But he let me go no further. I knew why. He thought it was some mental vagary; for after awhile he gave me a pill and went away. So I resolved to solve the matter for myself. I would go back along that road by day, and find that silent old man, and, if not the house itself, the charred spot where it had stood. I would know that intersection; I would know even the path which led from the mysterious road off into the wood. When I found these I knew the maze would fade into some simple, plain explanation—perhaps even an absurd one.
“So I bided my time. In the course of another week I was able to leave my cot and hobble about with the aid of crutches. It was then that I took the physician in my car, and we went back along the highway toward Pelham. It was all unfamiliar ground to me; there was no road, and suddenly there ahead of me was the little store where I had bought the gasolene that night. I would question the old man I had seen there; but there was no old man. The little store was unoccupied; it seemed to have been unoccupied for weeks.
“I turned back and traversed the road toward Millen again. I recognized nothing; I couldn’t find a trace of a bypath from the highway in any direction. And once more I went over the ground at night. Nothing! After that the physician, a singularly patient man, accompanied me as I hobbled through the forest on each side of the road seeking that house, or its ashes. I never saw anything to lead me, to even suggest, a single incident of that awful night.
“‘I know the country, every inch of it,’ the physician told me. ‘There isn’t any such place as you mention.’
“And—well, that’s all. I know his opinion was that my story was some sort of delusion—a dream. But how he accounts for the broken ankle I don’t know. Then the condition of my clothing! I had been compelled to discard everything I wore for garments sent down from the city. And so in time I came to believe the experience a dream. I was growing content with this story, even knowing it to be wrong, because it brought mental rest, and was beginning to be myself again.
“Then one day I had occasion to search the coat I had worn that night for some papers which had been misplaced. In the course of the search I thrust my hand into an outside pocket, and drew out—a little ivory god, sitting on his haunches, grinning hideously!
“Now I am like this—and the little god sits up laughing at me. He knows!”
When he had finished reading, The Thinking Machine dropped back into the chair, with squint eyes turned steadily upward, and long slender fingers pressed tip to tip. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, sat staring in silence at the drawn, inscrutable face of the scientist.
“And the writer of this?” demanded The Thinking Machine at last.
“His name is Harold Fairbanks,” the reporter explained. “He was removed to an asylum yesterday, hopelessly insane.”
PART II. The House That Was. by Jacques Futrelle
Editor’s Note.—Mrs. Futrelle undertook to set up a problem which The Thinking Machine could not solve. “Wraiths of the Storm,” in The Sunday Magazine last week, presented what she thought to be a mystery story impossible of solution. Printer’s proofs of the story were submitted to Mr. Futrelle, who, after frequent consultations with Professor Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine—evolved “The House that Was” as the perfect solution.
The Thinking Machine lowered his squint eyes and favored Hutchinson Hatch with a long, steady stare which for the moment seemed totally to obliterate him as a personality. Gradually, under the continued unseeing but tense gaze, there grew upon the newspaper man a singular sense of utter transparency, a complete invisibility, an uncomfortable feeling of not being present. He laughed a little finally, and lighted a cigarette.
“As I was saying,” Hatch began, “this Harold Fairbanks is hopelessly insane, and—”
“I imagine,” interrupted the eminent man of science—“I imagine that this insanity of Fairbanks’s is rather a maniacal condition?”
“Yes,” Hatch told him. “I was going to say—”
“And that possibly it took a homicidal turn?” The Thinking Machine continued.
“Yes,” the reporter assented. “He tried to—”
“Against a woman, perhaps?”
“Precisely. The direct cause of his—”
“Please don’t interrupt, Mr. Hatch!” snapped The Thinking Machine. He was silent for a time; Hatch smiled whimsically. “The object of his homicidal mania,” the scientist continued slowly, as if feeling his way, “was—was his mother?”
“Yes.”
Hatch dropped back into his chair and met the squint blue eyes fairly. He was not surprised at this statement of the case, thus far correct, because he was accustomed to the unerring accuracy of the master mind behind those eyes; but he was curious to know just how far that logical brain would follow a circumstantial thread which it had developed of itself out of an apparent nothingness. Nothing in the manuscript, nothing he had said, had even indicated, to his mind, the more recent developments.
The leaves of the manuscript fluttered through the slender white fingers of The Thinking Machine, and the straight line of the thin lips was drawn down a little as he glanced over a page or so.
“He shot at her?” he queried at last.
“Three times,” the reporter informed him. The Thinking Machine raised his eyes quickly, inquiringly, to those of the newspaper man. “She was not wounded,” the reporter hastened to say. “The shots went wild.”
“That happened in Fairbanks’s own room?”
“Yes.”
“At night?”
“Yes; about one o’clock.”
“Of course!” exclaimed the little scientist crabbedly. “I know that.” Again there was a pause. “Mrs. Fairbanks has a room near that of her son—perhaps on the same floor?”
“Just across the hall.”
“And she was awakened by some unusual noise in his room?”
“She hadn’t been to sleep.” The reporter smiled.
“Oh!” and again The Thinking Machine’s squint eyes were turned toward the ceiling. “Some unusual noise attracted her attention, then?”
“Yes,” the reporter agreed.
“Screams?”
“Yes.”
The Thinking Machine nodded. “So she ran to her son’s room just as she was—in a white night robe, I imagine?”
“Precisely.”
The reporter was leaning forward in his chair now, staring into the impassive face before him. Still he wasn’t surprised—he was merely curious and interested in the workings of that mind which laid before him in order these incidents which were not known to it by any tangible method.
“And as she entered her son’s room,” the scientist resumed, “he shot at her?”
“Three times—yes.”
The Thinking Machine was silent for a long time. “That’s all?” he remarked inquiringly at last.
“Well, Fairbanks was raving, of course,” and Hatch dropped back in his chair. “He was overpowered by two servants, and—”
“Yes, I know,” broke in The Thinking Machine. “He is now in a padded cell in a private asylum somewhere.” This was not a question; it was a statement. “And this manuscript was found in his room after he had gone?”
“It lay open on his table. That is his handwriting,” explained the newspaper reporter.
The Thinking Machine arose and walked the length of the room three times. Finally he stopped before the newspaper man. “And is there really such a thing as this grinning god that he describes?” he demanded.
“Certainly,” Hatch responded, and his tone indicated surprise.
“Not necessarily certain,” said the scientist sharply. “Do you know there is a grinning god?”
“Yes,” replied the newspaper man emphatically. “It was taken away from Fairbanks when he was locked up. He fought like a fiend for it.”
“Naturally,” was the terse comment. “You have seen it, have you?”
“Yes, I saw it. It’s about six inches tall, seems to be cut from a solid piece of ivory, and—”
“And has shiny eyes?” interrupted the other.
“Yes. The eyes seem to be of amethyst, highly polished.”
Again The Thinking Machine walked the length of the room three times. “Do you know anything about self hypnotism, Mr. Hatch?” he inquired at last.
“Only that there is such a thing,” replied the reporter, wondering at the abrupt change in the trend of the conversation. “Why?”
The Thinking Machine didn’t say why. “You came to me, of course, to see if it was possible, by throwing light on this affair, to restore Fairbanks’s mind?” he inquired instead.
“Well, that was the idea,” Hatch agreed. “Fairbanks was evidently driven to his present condition by the haunting mystery of this thing, by brooding over it, and by the tangible existence in his hands of that ivory god which established a definite connection with an experience which might otherwise have been only a nightmare, and it occurred to me that if he could be made to see just what had happened and the underlying causes for its happening, he might be brought back to a normal condition.” The reporter was silent for a moment, with eyes set on the drawn, inscrutable face of The Thinking Machine. “Of course,” he added, “I am presuming that if it was not a diseased mental condition the things as he set them down did happen, and if they did happen I know you won’t believe that they were due to other than natural causes.”
“I don’t disbelieve in anything, Mr. Hatch,” and The Thinking Machine regarded the newspaper man quietly. “I don’t even disbelieve in what is broadly termed the supernatural—I merely don’t know. It is necessary, in the solution of material problems, to work from a material basis, and then the things which are conjured up by fear and—and failure to understand may be dissipated. That is done by logic, Mr. Hatch. Disregard the supernatural, so called, in our material problems, and logic is as inevitable as that two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time.”
“You don’t deny the possibility of the so called supernatural, then?” Hatch asked, and again there was a note of surprise in his voice.
“I don’t deny anything until I know,” was the response. “I don’t know that there is a supernatural force; therefore,” and he shrugged his slender, stooping shoulders, “I work only from a material basis. If this manuscript states facts, then Fairbanks saw an old man, not a spook; he saw a woman, not a wraith; he jumped to escape a real fire, not a ghost fire. When we disregard the supernatural, we must admit that everything was real, unless it was pure invention, and the broken ankle and burned clothing are against that. If these were real people, we can find them—that’s all there is to that. Yet there is a chance that the whole tale is a fiction, or the product of a disordered brain. But even that being true, it interferes in no way with the inevitable logic of the affair. When we know that this manuscript is in existence, and when we know that the man who produced it has since become a raving maniac, the sheer logic of the thing reveals clearly the intermediate steps.”
“How, for instance?” Hatch inquired curiously.
“Well, we have this,” and The Thinking Machine rattled the sheets of the manuscript impatiently; “and while we’ll admit it was written by a sane man, we know that that man has since become a maniac. I stated the incidents which led to his incarceration as logic unfolded them to me. First I knew that insanity from fear and failure to understand nearly always takes the maniacal turn; therefore I saw that instead of being insane, as you stated first, Fairbanks was probably a maniac. There is a difference.”
The reporter nodded.
“Next, one of the first manifestations of a maniacal condition is a homicidal tendency. Did Fairbanks attempt homicide? Yes.
“Now the problem grew a little more complex, rather intricately psychological, if I may say it that way,” The Thinking Machine explained precisely. “However, it goes back generally to the broad grounds that a woman in a flowing white night robe typifies the popular conception of the ghostly, and when we know that this supposed wraith, or one of them, was a woman in white, we see that in Fairbanks’s condition at the moment the appearance of such a figure would have instantly aroused him to the frenzy which led to the subsequent events.”
“I understand, so far,” Hatch remarked.
“Now the only woman—the most likely woman, I should say—to go to his room in a white night robe was his mother.” He paused for a moment. “Therefore, his mother was in all probability the object of his attack. Remember, he was mad with fear, and, appearing suddenly as she did, perhaps in a dim light, she was to his disordered brain the incarnation of that thing he most feared.”
Hatch seemed to be perfectly fascinated. His cigarette burned up until the fire touched his fingers; and he barely noticed it.
“In this manuscript,” The Thinking Machine resumed after a moment, “Fairbanks tells me that he had a revolver, and shows a distinct weakness for the weapon. Therefore, wouldn’t he shoot at this incarnation of the thing which was responsible for his condition. He did shoot. The fact that the incidents happened in Fairbanks’s own room at night was an assumption based upon the fact that his mother figured in it, and the further fact that she was dressed for bed when she appeared in his room. Of course, if her room was near, her attention would be attracted by some unusual noise. If these noises were due to a maniac, they were in all probability screams.”
“Well, by George!” Hatch remarked fervently. “It’s—”
“Now the first thing to do is to see Fairbanks in person,” interrupted The Thinking Machine, with a sudden change to a most business like tone. “I think, if he can comprehend at all, that I may be able to do something for him.”
The Thinking Machine—Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist—was cordially, even deferentially, received by Dr. Pollock, physician in charge of the Westbrook Sanatorium.
“I should like to spend ten minutes in the padded cell with Fairbanks,” he announced tersely.
Dr. Pollock regarded him curiously, but without surprise. “It’s dangerous,” he remarked doubtfully. “I have no objection, of course; but I should advise that a couple of keepers go in with you.”
“I’ll go alone,” announced the diminutive man of science. “It may be that I can quiet him.” Dr. Pollock merely stared. “By the way,” The Thinking Machine added, “you have that little ivory god here, haven’t you? Well, let me see it, please.”
It was produced and subjected to a searching scrutiny, after which the scientist set it up on a table, dropped into a seat facing it, leaned forward on his elbows, and sat staring straight into the amethyst eyes for a long time. A curious silence fell upon the watchers as he sat there immovable, minute after minute, staring, staring. Hatch absently glanced at his watch and went over and looked out the window. The thing was getting on his nerves.
At last the scientist arose and thrust the grinning god into his pocket. “Now, please,” he directed curtly, “I shall go into the cell with Fairbanks alone. I want the door closed behind me, and I want that door to remain closed for ten minutes. Under no circumstances must there be any interruption.” He turned upon Dr. Pollock. “Don’t have any fears for me. I’m not a fool.”
Dr. Pollock led the way along the corridor, down some stairs, and paused before a door.
“Just ten minutes—no more, no less,” directed the scientist.
The key was inserted in the lock, and the door swung on its hinges. Instantly the ears of the three men outside were assailed by a torrent of screams, of blasphemy, hideous imprecations. The maniac rushed for the door, and Hatch for an instant gazed straight into a distorted, pallid face in which there was no trace of intelligence, or even of humanity. He turned away with a shudder. Dr. Pollock thrust his arm forward to stay the swaying figure, and glanced round at The Thinking Machine doubtfully.
“Look at me! Look at me!” commanded the scientist sharply, and the squint blue eyes fearlessly met the glitter of madness in the eyes of Fairbanks. He raised his right hand suddenly in front of his face, and instantly the incoherent ravings stopped, while some strange, sudden change came over the maniacal face. In the scientist’s right hand was the grinning god. That was the magic which had stilled the ravings. Slowly, slowly, with his eyes fixed upon those of the maniac, the scientist edged his way into the cell, Fairbanks retreating almost imperceptibly. Never for an instant did the maniacal eyes leave the ivory image; yet he made no attempt to seize it, he seemed merely fascinated.
