The problem of Cell 13
"Now, Mr. Cabell, will you please tell me just who Miss Austin is, and
where she is, and her mental condition? Believe me, it may save you a
great deal of trouble. What I said in the note is not exaggerated."
The young man turned suddenly and began to pace back and forth across
the room. After a few minutes he paused before The Thinking Machine,
who stood impatiently waiting for an answer.
"I'll tell you, yes," said Cabell, firmly. "Miss Austin is a
middle-aged woman whom my sister befriended several times--was, in
fact, my sister's governess when she was a child. Of late years she
has not been wholly right mentally, and has suffered a great deal of
privation. I had about concluded arrangements to put her in a private
sanitarium. I permitted her to remain in these rooms in my absence,
South. I did not take Jean--he lived in the quarters of the other
employees of the place, and gave the apartment entirely to Miss
Austin. It was simply an act of charity."
"What was the cause of your sudden determination to go South
to-night?" asked the scientist.
"I won't answer that question," was the sullen reply.
There was a long, tense silence. Jean, the valet, came and went
several times.
"How long has Miss Austin known Mr. Henley?"
"Presumably since she has been in these apartments," was the reply.
"Are you sure _you_ are not Miss Austin?" demanded the scientist.
The question was almost staggering, not only to Cabell, but to Hatch.
Suddenly, with flaming face, the young Southerner leaped forward as if
to strike down The Thinking Machine.
"That won't do any good," said the scientist, coldly. "Are you sure
you are not Miss Austin?" he repeated.
"Certainly I am not Miss Austin," responded Cabell, fiercely.
"Have you a mirror in these apartments about twelve inches by twelve
inches?" asked The Thinking Machine, irrelevantly.
"I--I don't know," stammered the young man. "I--have we, Jean?"
"_Oui_," replied the valet.
"Yes," snapped The Thinking Machine. "Talk English, please. May I see
it?"
The valet, without a word but with a sullen glance at the questioner,
turned and left the room. He returned after a moment with the mirror.
The Thinking Machine carefully examined the frame, top and bottom and
on both sides. At last he looked up; again the valet was bending over
a suit case.
"Do you use gas in these apartments?" the scientist asked suddenly.
"No," was the bewildered response. "What is all this, anyway?"
Without answering, The Thinking Machine drew a chair up under the
chandelier where the gas and electric fixtures were and began to
finger the gas tips. After awhile he climbed down and passed into the
next room, with Hatch and Cabell, both hopelessly mystified,
following. There the scientist went through the same process of
fingering the gas jets. Finally, one of the gas tips came out in his
hand.
"Ah," he exclaimed, suddenly, and Hatch knew the note of triumph in
it. The jet from which the tip came was just on a level with his
shoulder, set between a dressing table and a window. He leaned over
and squinted at the gas pipe closely. Then he returned to the room
where the valet was.
"Now, Jean," he began, in an even, calm voice, "please tell me _if you
did or did not kill Miss Regnier purposely?_"
"I don't know what you mean," said the servant sullenly, angrily, as
he turned on the scientist.
"You speak very good English now," was The Thinking Machine's terse
comment. "Mr. Hatch, lock the door and use this 'phone to call the
police."
Hatch turned to do as he was bid and saw a flash of steel in young
Cabell's hand, which was drawn suddenly from a hip pocket. It was a
revolver. The weapon glittered in the light, and Hatch flung himself
forward. There was a sharp report, and a bullet was buried in the
floor.
VI.
Then came a fierce, hard fight for possession of the revolver. It
ended with the weapon in Hatch's hand, and both he and Cabell blowing
from the effort they had expended. Jean, the valet, had turned at the
sound of the shot and started toward the door leading into the hall.
The Thinking Machine had stepped in front of him, and now stood there
with his back to the door. Physically he would have been a child in
the hands of the valet, yet there was a look in his eyes which stopped
him.
"Now, Mr. Hatch," said the scientist quietly, a touch of irony in his
voice, "hand me the revolver, then 'phone for Detective Mallory to
come here immediately. Tell him we have a murderer--and if he can't
come at once get some other detective whom you know."
"Murderer!" gasped Cabell.
Uncontrollable rage was blazing in the eyes of the valet, and he made
as if to throw The Thinking Machine aside, despite the revolver, when
Hatch was at the telephone. As Jean started forward, however, Cabell
stopped him with a quick, stern gesture. Suddenly the young Southerner
turned on The Thinking Machine; but it was with a question.
"What does it all mean?" he asked, bewildered.
"It means that that man there," and The Thinking Machine indicated the
valet by a nod of his head, "is a murderer--that he killed Louise
Regnier; that he shot Weldon Henley on Boston Common, and that, with
the aid of Miss Regnier, he had four times previously attempted to
kill Mr. Henley. Is he coming, Mr. Hatch?"
"Yes," was the reply. "He says he'll be here directly."
"Do you deny it?" demanded The Thinking Machine of the valet.
"I've done nothing," said the valet sullenly. "I'm going out of here."
Like an infuriated animal he rushed forward. Hatch and Cabell seized
him and bore him to the floor. There, after a frantic struggle, he was
bound and the other three men sat down to wait for Detective Mallory.
Cabell sank back in his chair with a perplexed frown on his face. From
time to time he glanced at Jean. The flush of anger which had been on
the valet's face was gone now; instead there was the pallor of fear.
"Won't you tell us?" pleaded Cabell impatiently.
"When Detective Mallory comes and takes his prisoner," said The
Thinking Machine.
Ten minutes later they heard a quick step in the hall outside and
Hatch opened the door. Detective Mallory entered and looked from one
to another inquiringly.
"That's your prisoner, Mr. Mallory," said the scientist, coldly. "I
charge him with the murder of Miss Regnier, whom you were so confident
committed suicide; I charge him with five attempts on the life of
Weldon Henley, four times by gas poisoning, in which Miss Regnier was
his accomplice, and once by shooting. He is the man who shot Mr.
Henley."
The Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the prostrate man,
handing the revolver to Hatch. He glared down at Jean fiercely.
"Will you tell how you did it or shall I?" he demanded.
His answer was a sullen, defiant glare. He turned and picked up the
square mirror which the valet had produced previously.
"That's where the screw was, isn't it?" he asked, as he indicated a
small hole in the frame of the mirror. Jean stared at it and his head
sank forward hopelessly. "And this is the bath robe you wore, isn't
it?" he demanded again, and from the suit case he pulled out the
garment with the scarlet stripe.
"I guess you got me all right," was the sullen reply.
"It might be better for you if you told the story then?" suggested The
Thinking Machine.
"You know so much about it, tell it yourself."
"Very well," was the calm rejoinder. "I will. If I make any mistake
you will correct me."
For a long time no one spoke. The Thinking Machine had dropped back
into a chair and was staring through his thick glasses at the ceiling;
his finger tips were pressed tightly together. At last he began:
"There are certain trivial gaps which only the imagination can supply
until the matter is gone into more fully. I should have supplied these
myself, but the arrest of this man, Jean, was precipitated by the
attempted hurried departure of Mr. Cabell for the South to-night, and
I did not have time to go into the case to the fullest extent.
"Thus, we begin with the fact that there were several clever attempts
made to murder Mr. Henley. This was by putting out the gas which he
habitually left burning in his room. It happened four times in all;
thus proving that it was an attempt to kill him. If it had been only
once it might have been accident, even twice it might have been
accident, but the same accident does not happen four times at the same
time of night.
"Mr. Henley finally grew to regard the strange extinguishing of the
gas as an effort to kill him, and carefully locked and barred his door
and windows each night. He believed that some one came into his
apartments and put out the light, leaving the gas flow. This, of
course, was not true. Yet the gas was put out. How? My first idea, a
natural one, was that it was turned off for an instant at the meter,
when the light would go out, then turned on again. This, I convinced
myself, was not true. Therefore still the question--how?
"It is a fact--I don't know how widely known it is--but it is a fact
that every gas light in this house might be extinguished at the same
time from this room without leaving it. How? Simply by removing the
gas jet tip and blowing into the gas pipe. It would not leave a jet in
the building burning. It is due to the fact that the lung power is
greater than the pressure of the gas in the pipes, and forces it out.
"Thus we have the method employed to extinguish the light in Mr.
Henley's rooms, and all the barred and locked doors and windows would
not stop it. At the same time it threatened the life of every other
person in the house--that is, every other person who used gas. It was
probably for this reason that the attempt was always made late at
night, I should say three or four o'clock. That's when it was done,
isn't it?" he asked suddenly of the valet.
Staring at The Thinking Machine in open-mouthed astonishment the valet
nodded his acquiescence before he was fully aware of it.
"Yes, that's right," The Thinking Machine resumed complacently. "This
was easily found out--comparatively. The next question was how was a
watch kept on Mr. Henley? It would have done no good to extinguish the
gas before he was asleep, or, to have turned it on when he was not in
his rooms. It might have led to a speedy discovery of just how the
thing was done.
"There's a spring lock on the door of Mr. Henley's apartment.
Therefore it would have been impossible for anyone to peep through the
keyhole. There are no cracks through which one might see. How was this
watch kept? How was the plotter to satisfy himself positively of the
time when Mr. Henley was asleep? How was it the gas was put out at no
time of the score or more nights Mr. Henley himself kept watch?
Obviously he was watched through a window.
"No one could climb out on the window ledge and look into Mr. Henley's
apartments. No one could see into that apartment from the street--that
is, could see whether Mr. Henley was asleep or even in bed. They could
see the light. Watch was kept with the aid offered by the flagpole,
supplemented with a mirror--this mirror. A screw was driven into the
frame--it has been removed now--it was swung on the flagpole rope and
pulled out to the end of the pole, facing the building. To a man
standing in the hall window of the third floor it offered precisely
the angle necessary to reflect the interior of Mr. Henley's suite,
possibly even showed him in bed through a narrow opening in the
curtain. There is no shade on the windows of that suite; heavy
curtains instead. Is that right?"
Again the prisoner was surprised into a mute acquiescence.
"I saw the possibility of these things, and I saw, too, that at three
or four o'clock in the morning it would be perfectly possible for a