The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 148

"Are you sure?" asked the reporter.

"I am always sure," was the tart response.

Hatch opened a small hand satchel and removed several queerly wrought tools. These he spread on the roof beside him; then, kneeling again, began his work. For half an hour or so he labored in the gloom, with only the electric flash to aid him, and then he arose.

"It's all right," he said.

The Thinking Machine examined the work that had been done, grunted his satisfaction, and together they went to the skylight, leaving a thin, insulated wire behind them stringing along to mark their path. They pa.s.sed down through the roof, and into the darkness of the hall of the upper story. Here the light was extinguished. From far below came the faint echo of a man's footsteps as the watchman pa.s.sed through the silent deserted building.

"Be careful!" warned The Thinking Machine.

Along the hall to a room in the rear they went, and still the wire trailed behind. At the last door they stopped. The Thinking Machine fumbled with some keys, then opened the way. Here an electric light was going. The room was bare of furniture, the only sign of recent occupancy being a telephone instrument on the wall.

Here The Thinking Machine stopped and stared at the spool of wire which he had permitted to wind off as he walked, and his thin face expressed doubt.

"It wouldn't be safe," he said at last, "to leave the wire exposed as we have left it. True, this floor is not occupied; but some one might pa.s.s up this way and disturb it. You take the spool, go back to the roof, winding the wire as you go, then swing the spool down to me over the side so I can bring it in the window. That will be best. I will catch it here, and thus there will be nothing to indicate any connection."

Hatch went out quietly and closed the door.

Twice the following day The Thinking Machine spoke to the financier over the telephone. Grayson was in his private office, Miss Winthrop at her desk, when the first call came.

"Be careful in answering my questions," warned The Thinking Machine when Grayson answered. "Do you know how long Miss Winthrop has owned the little silver box which is now on her desk, near the telephone?"

Grayson glanced around involuntarily to where the girl sat idly turning over the leaves of her book. "Yes," he answered; "for seven months. I gave it last Christmas."

"Ah!" exclaimed the scientist. "That simplifies matters. Where did you buy it?"

Grayson mentioned the name of a well known jeweler.

"Good by," came the voice of the scientist, and the connection was broken.

Considerably later in the day The Thinking Machine called Grayson to the telephone again.

"What make of typewriter does she use?" came the querulous voice over the wire.

Grayson named it.

"Good by."

While Grayson sat with deeply perplexed lines in his face, the diminutive scientist called upon Hutchinson Hatch at his office. The reporter was just starting out.

"Do you use a typewriter?" demanded the Thinking Machine.

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"Oh, four or five kinds-we have half a dozen varieties in the office. I can use any of them."

They pa.s.sed along through the city room, at that moment practically deserted, until finally the watery, blue eyes settled upon a typewriter with the name emblazoned on the front.

"That's it!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "Write something on it," he directed Hatch.

"What shall I write?" inquired the reporter, and he sat down.

"Anything you like," was the terse response. "Just write something."

Hatch drew up a chair and rolled off several lines of the immortal practice sentence, beginning, "Now is the time for all good men--"

The Thinking Machine sat beside him, squinting off across the room in deep abstraction, and listening intently. His head was turned away from the reporter, and his ear was within a few inches of the machine. For half a minute he sat there listening, then shook his head.

"Strike your vowels," he commanded; "first slowly, then rapidly."

Again Hatch obeyed, while the scientist listened. And again he shook his head. Then in turn every make of machine in the office was tested the same way. At the end The Thinking Machine arose and went his way. There was an expression nearly approaching complete bewilderment on his face, as he went out.

For hour after hour that night The Thinking Machine half lay in a huge chair in his laboratory, with eyes turned uncompromisingly upward, and an expression of complete concentration on his face. There was no change either in his position or his gaze as minute succeeded minute; the brow was deeply wrinkled now, and the thin line of the lips was drawn taut. The tiny clock in the reception room struck ten, eleven, twelve, and finally one. At just half-past one The Thinking Machine arose suddenly.

"Positively I am getting stupid!" he grumbled half aloud. "Of course! Of course! Why couldn't I have thought of that in the first place!"

So it came about that Grayson did not go to his office on the following morning at the usual time. Instead, he called again upon The Thinking Machine in eager, expectant response to a note which had reached him at his home just before he started to his office.

"Nothing yet," said The Thinking Machine as the financier entered. "But here is something you must do to-day. What time does the Stock Exchange close?"

"Three o'clock," was the reply.

"Well, at one o'clock," the scientist went on, "you must issue orders for a gigantic deal of some sort; and you must issue them precisely as you have issued them in the past; there must be no variation. Dictate the letters as you have always done to Miss Winthrop; but don't send them. When they come to you, keep them until you see me."

"You mean that the deal must be purely imaginary?" inquired the financier.

"Precisely," was the reply. "But make your instructions circ.u.mstantial; give them enough detail to make them absolutely convincing."

"And hold the letters?"

"Hold the letters," the other repeated. "The leak comes before you receive them. I don't want to know or have an idea of what mythical deal it is to be; but issue your orders at one o'clock."

Grayson asked a dozen questions, answers to which was curtly denied, then went to his office. The Thinking Machine again called Hatch to the telephone.

"I've got it," he announced briefly. "I want the best telegraph operator you know. Bring him along and meet me in the room on the top floor where the telephone is at precisely fifteen minutes of one o'clock to-day."

"Telegraph operator?" Hatch repeated.

"That's what I said-telegraph operator!" replied the scientist irritably. "Good by."

Hatch smiled whimsically at the other end as he heard the receiver banged on the hook-smiled because he knew the eccentric ways of this singular man, whose mind so accurately illuminated every problem to which it was directed. Then he went out to the telegraph room and borrowed the princ.i.p.al operator. They were in the little room on the top floor at precisely fifteen minutes of one.

The operator glanced about in astonishment. The room was still unfurnished, save for the telephone box on the wall.

"What do I do?" he asked.