The jacques futrelle meg.., p.75
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack, page 75
“We may assume that the revolver was Bartow Gillespie’s, and that it was in his possession at the time he was attacked. Why? Because if it had been in James Gillespie’s possession he would probably have finished his work by shooting his brother, when his brother began his struggle. Certainly James Gillespie did not kill himself, because the wound is in the back of his head. I am stating these things not as facts but as probabilities. When we know positively that the weapon was Bartow Gillespie’s, then the probabilities become facts.”
There was still a light, skeptical expression about Detective Mallory’s mouth. “And on the other hand,” he said, “we have the probability that the strangler came here and killed Bartow Gillespie, that the sound of the struggle attracted James Gillespie’s attention, that he came in to investigate, that he was threatened and started to go out, and that the strangler fired the shot which struck him in the back of the head.”
“Disproved flatly by two points,” said The Thinking Machine curtly. “First, the fact that the strangler deliberately left his revolver, if we accept your hypothesis and second, by the fact that—” He paused and turning stared curiously down into the face of James Gillespie.
Detective Mallory waited impatiently for a moment; then, “And the second is what?” he asked.
“Do you know the motive for the murder of the Barrett child?” asked the scientist irrelevantly.
“No,” said Detective Mallory in some surprise.
“And do you know the motive for this double crime, under your hypothesis?”
“No.”
“Well, the motive is written here,” and the scientist turned and thrust a long finger into the pallid face of James Gillespie. “It is in the eyes, in the mouth, and still again it’s written here.” He pulled aside the tumbled hair, and disclosed a bare spot. “Here is a scar, left months, perhaps years, ago by some serious injury.”
“Why, I don’t see—” began the detective protestingly.
“Of course, you don’t see!” snapped The Thinking Machine. “What was found in James Gillespie’s pockets?”
“I don’t know that there has been an examination,” said Mallory. “We always leave those things to the medical examiner, where there is no doubt of a man’s identity.”
With deft fingers the scientist ransacked the slain man’s clothes. From a hip pocket he drew a little bundle and threw it on the table before Mallory. “And there is your final proof,” he said. “It isn’t even necessary now to prove that the revolver was Bartow Gillespie’s—we know it—know it as inevitably as that two and two make four, Mr. Mallory, not sometimes but all the time.”
The little bundle that he had thrown on the table was a roll of plain manila twine—just a couple of yards. At last the detective was beginning to see.
“But what possible motive?” he asked.
“I told Mr. Hatch when I investigated the Barrett affair that when all conceivable human motives were eliminated, as seemed to be the fact in this case, there remained only the thing—the creature, which will act without motive—an ape, for instance,” interrupted The Thinking Machine. “I told him afterward that there would probably be a second crime under the same circumstances, and also that we were powerless to prevent it. This is the crime. There is no motive for either.
“The old scar on this man’s head, the expression of his face, and his eyes particularly, show conclusively that he was a maniac—just a shade the intellectual superior of an ape, with all the cunning of humanity distorted and diseased into a homicidal mania. An examination of his brain at the autopsy will prove all this even to you, Mr. Mallory. How long he has been a maniac I don’t know; your investigations will develop that. That is all, I think. Good day.”
The Thinking Machine and Hutchinson Hatch walked down the street together.
“How is it,” inquired the reporter, “that James Gillespie didn’t kill Barrett at the same time he killed the little girl?”
“I don’t know,” was the reply. “It is difficult enough, Mr. Hatch, to follow the mental workings of a sane man; when we have a maniac, no one can say what he will do next. We don’t look into the matter, but I dare say that Gillespie never knew that child he killed, and could have had no motive.”
And subsequently this proved to be true.
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 principal 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 glasses.
“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 passed into the other room. A stranger arose and came forward. He was tall, of apparently thirtyfive 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 identity. 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.
“It’s perfectly incomprehensible,” he said. “It’s precisely as if I, full grown, had been born into a world of which I knew nothing except its language. The ordinary things, chairs, tables and such things, are perfectly familiar, but who I am, where I came from, why I came—of these I have no idea. I will tell you just as my impressions came to me when I awoke one morning, four weeks ago.
“It was eight or nine o’clock, I suppose. I was in a room. I knew instantly it was a hotel, but had not the faintest idea of how I got there, or of ever having seen the room before. I didn’t even know my own clothing when I started to dress. I glanced out of my window; the scene was wholly strange to me.
“For half an hour or so I remained in my room, dressing and wondering what it meant. Then, suddenly, in the midst of my other worries, it came home to me that I didn’t known my own name, the place where I lived nor anything about myself. I didn’t know what hotel I was in. In terror I looked into a mirror. The face reflected at me was not one I knew. It didn’t seem to be the face of a stranger; it was merely not a face that I knew.
“The thing was unbelievable. Then I began a search of my clothing for some trace of my identity. I found nothing whatever that would enlighten me—not a scrap of paper of any kind, no personal or business card.”
“Have a watch?” asked The Thinking Machine.
“No.”
“Any money?”
“Yes, money,” said the stranger. “There was a bundle of more than ten thousand dollars in my pocket, in one-hundred-dollar bills. Whose it is or where it came from I don’t know. I have been living on it since, and shall continue to do so, but I don’t know if it is mine. I knew it was money when I saw it, but did not recollect ever having seen any previously.”
“Any jewelry?”
“These cuff buttons,” and the stranger exhibited a pair which he drew from his pocket.
“Go on.”
“I finally finished dressing and went down to the office. It was my purpose to find out the name of the hotel and who I was. I knew I could learn some of this from the hotel register without attracting any attention or making anyone think I was insane. I had noted the number of my room. It was twenty-seven.
“I looked over the hotel register casually. I saw I was at the Hotel Yarmouth in Boston. I looked carefully down the pages until I came to the number of my room. Opposite this number was a name—John Doane, but where the name of the city should have been there was only a dash.”
“You realize that it is perfectly possible that John Doane is your name?” asked The Thinking Machine.
“Certainly,” was the reply. “But I have no recollection of ever having heard it before. This register showed that I had arrived at the hotel the night before—or rather that John Doane had arrived and been assigned to Room 27, and I was the John Doane, presumably. From that moment to this the hotel people have known me as John Doane, as have other people whom I have met during the four weeks since I awoke.”
“Did the handwriting recall nothing?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Is it anything like the handwriting you write now?”
“Identical, so far as I can see.”
“Did you have any baggage or checks for baggage?”
“No. All I had was the money and this clothing I stand in. Of course, since then I have bought necessities.”
Both were silent for a long time and finally the stranger—Doane—arose and began pacing nervously again.
“That a tailor-made suit?” asked the scientist.
“Yes,” said Doane, quickly. “I know what you mean. Tailor-made garments have linen strips sewed inside the pockets on which are the names of the manufacturers and the name of the man for whom the clothes were made, together with the date. I looked for those. They had been removed, cut out.”
“Ah!” exclaimed The Thinking Machine suddenly. “No laundry marks on your linen either, I suppose?”
“No. It was all perfectly new.”
“Name of the maker on it?”
“No. That had been cut out, too.”
Doane was pacing back and forth across the reception room; the scientist lay back in his chair.
“Do you know the circumstances of your arrival at the hotel?” he asked at last.
“Yes. I asked, guardedly enough, you may be sure, hinting to the clerk that I had been drunk so as not to make him think I was insane. He said I came in about eleven o’clock at night, without any baggage, paid for my room with a one-hundred-dollar bill, which he changed, registered and went upstairs. I said nothing that he recalls beyond making a request for a room.”
“The name Doane is not familiar to you?”
“No.”
“You can’t recall a wife or children?”
“No.”
“Do you speak any foreign language?”
“No.”
“Is your mind clear now? Do you remember things?”
“I remember perfectly every incident since I awoke in the hotel,” said Doane. “I seem to remember with remarkable clearness, and somehow I attach the gravest importance to the most trivial incidents.”
The Thinking Machine arose and motioned to Doane to sit down. He dropped back into a seat wearily. Then the scientist’s long, slender fingers ran lightly, deftly through the abundant black hair of his visitor. Finally they passed down from the hair and along the firm jaws; thence they went to the arms, where they pressed upon good, substantial muscles. At last the hands, well shaped and white, were examined minutely. A magnifying glass was used to facilitate this examination. Finally The Thinking Machine stared into the quick-moving, nervous eyes of the stranger.
“Any marks at all on your body?” he asked at last.
“No,” Doane responded. “I had thought of that and sought for an hour for some sort of mark. There’s nothing—nothing.” The eyes glittered a little and finally, in a burst of nervousness, he struggled to his feet. “My God!” he exclaimed. “Is there nothing you can do? What is it all, anyway?”
“Seems to be a remarkable form of aphasia,” replied The Thinking Machine. “That’s not an uncommon disease among people whose minds and nerves are overwrought. You’ve simply lost yourself—lost your identity. If it is aphasia, you will recover in time. When, I don’t know.”
“And meantime?”
“Let me see the money you found.”
With trembling hands Doane produced a large roll of bills, principally hundreds, many of them perfectly new. The Thinking Machine examined them minutely, and finally made some memoranda on a slip of paper. The money was then returned to Doane.
“Now, what shall I do?” asked the latter.
“Don’t worry,” advised the scientist. “I’ll do what I can.”
“And—tell me who and what I am?”
“Oh, I can find that out all right,” remarked The Thinking Machine. “But there’s a possibility that you wouldn’t recall even if I told you all about yourself.”
II
When John Doane of Nowhere—to all practical purposes—left the home of The Thinking Machine he bore instructions of divers kinds. First he was to get a large map of the United States and study it closely, reading over and pronouncing aloud the name of every city, town and village he found. After an hour of this he was to take a city directory and read over the names, pronouncing them aloud as he did so. Then he was to make out a list of the various professions and higher commercial pursuits, and pronounce these. All these things were calculated, obviously, to arouse the sleeping brain. After Doane had gone The Thinking Machine called up Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, on the ’phone.
“Come up immediately,” he requested. “There’s something that will interest you.”
“A mystery?” Hatch inquired, eagerly.
“One of the most engaging problems that has ever come to my attention,” replied the scientist.
It was only a question of a few minutes before Hatch was ushered in. He was a living interrogation point, and repressed a rush of questions with a distinct effort. The Thinking Machine finally told what he knew.
“Now it seems to be,” said The Thinking Machine—and he emphasized the ‘seems’—“it seems to be a case of aphasia. You know, of course, what that is. The man simply doesn’t know himself. I examined him closely. I went over his head for a sign of a possible depression, or abnormality. It didn’t appear. I examined his muscles. He has biceps of great power, is evidently now or has been athletic. His hands are white, well cared for and have no marks on them. They are not the hands of a man who has ever done physical work. The money in his pocket tends to confirm the fact that he is not of that sphere.
“Then what is he? Lawyer? Banker? Financier? What? He might be either, yet he impressed me as being rather of the business than the professional school. He has a good, square-cut jaw—the jaw of a fighting man—and his poise gives one the impression that whatever he has been doing he has been foremost in it. Being foremost in it, he would naturally drift to a city, a big city. He is typically a city man.
“Now, please, to aid me, communicate with your correspondents in the large cities and find if such a name as John Doane appears in any directory. Is he at home now? Has he a family? All about him.”
“Do you believe John Doane is his name?” asked the reporter.
“No reason why it shouldn’t be,” said The Thinking Machine. “Yet it might not be.”
“How about inquiries in this city?”
“He can’t well be a local man,” was the reply. “He has been wandering about the streets for four weeks, and if he had lived here he would have met some one who knew him.”
“But the money?”
“I’ll probably be able to locate him through that,” said The Thinking Machine. “The matter is not at all clear to me now, but it occurs to me that he is a man of consequence, and that it was possibly necessary for some one to get rid of him for a time.”
“Well, if it’s plain aphasia, as you say,” the reporter put in, “it seems rather difficult to imagine that the attack came at a moment when it was necessary to get rid of him.”
“I say it seems like aphasia,” said the scientist, crustily, “There are known drugs which will produce the identical effect if properly administered.”
“Oh,” said Hatch. He was beginning to see.
“There is one drug particularly, made in India, and not unlike hasheesh. In a case of this kind anything is possible. Tomorrow I shall ask you to take Mr. Doane down through the financial district, as an experiment. When you go there I want you particularly to get him to the sound of the ‘ticker.’ It will be an interesting experiment.”
