The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 87

"For your benefit, Mr. Mills," continued the scientist, "I will state that the motive for the girl's act was one which reflected her great courage, and her loyalty to you-perhaps at the same time her regard for another man. Do you follow me? In some way-perhaps the man told her-she learned of the plan to engage Reagan for the work, and she could have learned of that only from the man by a relations.h.i.+p which partook of love for him. Her loyalty to you and a natural desire to save this man's name in your eyes, led her to seek in person to recover the doc.u.ment. It merely happened that they both visited the study the same night."

The Thinking Machine stopped as if that was all.

"But here, go on," Detective Mallory insisted. "I want to know the rest."

"Suppose, Mr. Mallory, that you find Reagan for yourself?" suggested The Thinking Machine after a long pause. "I did it. Surely you can."

"Where is he? Where did you see him?"

"I saw him at my house," responded the scientist calmly. "I left him there to come here; but a man who confesses what he confessed to me doesn't stay at a place like that if he can help it. The matter is as I have stated it, Mr. Mills. Your reason for refusing to give the young man any explanation of your holding the property is a good one, I dare say, so I'll not question it."

"I'll tell you," flamed Mills suddenly. "He is not really the grandson of Pendexter. I will be compelled to show that if he sues me-that is why I have advised him not to sue."

"I imagined as much," said The Thinking Machine.

Ruby Reagan left the home of The Thinking Machine in a cab late that night. And a few days later the Pendexter suit was withdrawn by the plaintiff.

A PIECE OF STRING.

It was just midnight. Somewhere near the center of a cloud of tobacco smoke, which hovered over one corner of the long editorial room, Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was writing. The rapid click-click of his type writer went on and on, broken only when he laid aside one sheet to put in another. The finished pages were seized upon one at a time by an office boy and rushed off to the city editor. That astute person glanced at them for information and sent them on to the copy desk, whence they were shot down into that noisy, chaotic wilderness, the composing room.

The story was what the phlegmatic head of the copy desk, speaking in the vernacular, would have called a "beaut." It was about the kidnapping that afternoon of Walter Francis, the four-year-old son of a wealthy young broker, Stanley Francis. An alternative to the abduction had been proposed in the form of a gift to certain persons, ident.i.ty unknown, of fifty thousand dollars. Francis, not unnaturally, objected to the bestowal of so vast a sum upon anyone. So he told the police, and while they were making up their minds the child was stolen. It happened in the usual way-closed carriage, and all that sort of thing.

Hatch was telling the story graphically, as he could tell a story when there was one to be told. He glanced at the clock, jerked out another sheet of copy, and the office boy scuttled away with it.

"How much more?" called the city editor.

"Just a paragraph," Hatch answered.

His type writer clicked on merrily for a couple of minutes and then stopped. The last sheet of copy was taken away, and he rose and stretched his legs.

"Some guy wants yer at the 'phone," an office boy told him.

"Who is it?" asked Hatch.

"Search me," replied the boy. "Talks like he'd been eatin' pickles."

Hatch went into the booth indicated. The man at the other end was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. The reporter instantly recognized the crabbed, perpetually irritated voice of the noted scientist, The Thinking Machine.

"That you, Mr. Hatch?" came over the wire.

"Yes."

"Can you do something for me immediately?" he queried. "It is very important."

"Certainly."

"Now listen closely," directed The Thinking Machine. "Take a car from Park-sq., the one that goes toward Worcester through Brookline. About two miles beyond Brookline is Randall's Crossing. Get off there and go to your right until you come to a small white house. In front of this house, a little to the left and across an open field, is a large tree. It stands just in the edge of a dense wood. It might be better to approach it through the wood, so as not to attract attention. Do you follow me?"

"Yes," Hatch replied. His imagination was leading him a chase.

"Go to this tree now, immediately, to-night," continued The Thinking Machine. "You will find a small hole in it near the level of your eye. Feel in that hole, and see what is there-no matter what it is-then return to Brookline and telephone me. It is of the greatest importance."

The reporter was thoughtful for a moment; it sounded like a page from a Dumas romance.

"What's it all about?" he asked curiously.

"Will you go?" came the counter question.

"Yes, certainly."

"Good-by."

Hatch heard a click as the receiver was hung up at the other end. He shrugged his shoulders, said "Good-night" to the city editor, and went out. An hour later he was at Randall's Crossing. The night was dark-so dark that the road was barely visible. The car whirled on, and as its lights were swallowed up Hatch set out to find the white house. He came upon it at last, and, turning, faced across an open field toward the wood. Far away over there outlined vaguely against the distant glow of the city, was a tall tree.

Having fixed its location, the reporter moved along for a hundred yards or more to where the wood ran down to the road. Here he climbed a fence and stumbled on through the dark, doing sundry injuries to his s.h.i.+ns. After a disagreeable ten minutes he reached the tree.

With a small electric flash light he found the hole. It was only a little larger than his hand, a place where decay had eaten its way into the tree trunk. For just a moment he hesitated about putting his hand into it-he didn't know what might be there. Then, with a grim smile, he obeyed orders.

He felt nothing save crumblings of decayed wood, and finally dragged out a handful, only to spill it on the ground. That couldn't be what was meant. For the second time he thrust in his hand, and after a deal of grabbing about produced-a piece of string. It was just a plain, ordinary, common piece of string-white string. He stared at it and smiled.

"I wonder what Van Dusen will make of that?" he asked himself.

Again his hand was thrust into the hole. But that was all-the piece of string. Then came another thought, and with that due regard for detail which made him a good reporter he went looking around the big tree for a possible second opening of some sort. He found none.

About three quarters of an hour later he stepped into an all-night drug store in Brookline and 'phoned to The Thinking Machine. There was an instant response to his ring.

"Well, well, what did you find?" came the query.

"Nothing to interest you, I imagine," replied the reporter grimly. "Just a piece of string."

"Good, good!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "What does it look like?"

"Well," replied the newspaper man judicially, "it's just a piece of white string-cotton, I imagine-about six inches long."

"Any knots in it?"

"Wait till I see."

He was reaching into his pocket to take it out, when the startled voice of The Thinking Machine came over the line.

"Didn't you leave it there?" it demanded.

"No; I have it in my pocket."