The problem of Cell 13
then, finding all her love reawakened, she had decided to end it all?"
"But Curtis's knife and the blood on his handkerchief?"
"Suppose, having made up her mind to kill herself, she had sought a
weapon?" went on The Thinking Machine, as if there had been no
interruption. "What is more natural than she should have sought
something--the knife, say--in the tool bag or kit, which must have
been near her? Suppose she stabbed herself while the men were away
from the automobile, or even after they had started on again in the
darkness?"
Hatch looked a little crestfallen.
"You believe, then, that she did kill herself?" he asked.
"Certainly not," was the prompt response. "I don't believe Miss
Melrose killed herself--but as yet I know nothing to the contrary. As
for the blood on Curtis's handkerchief, remember he helped carry the
body to Dr. Leonard; it might have come from that--it might have come
from a slight spattering of blood."
"But circumstances certainly implicate Curtis."
"I wouldn't convict any man of any crime on any circumstantial
evidence," was the response. "It's worthless unless a man is forced to
confess."
The reporter was puzzled, bewildered, and his face showed it. There
were many things he did not understand, but the principal question in
his mind took form:
"Why did you turn Curtis over to the police, then?"
"Because he is the man who owned the knife," was the reply. "I knew he
was lying to me from the first about the knife. Men have been executed
on less evidence than that."
The train stopped and they proceeded to the office of the medical
examiner, where the body of the woman lay. Professor Van Dusen was
readily permitted to see the body, even to offer his expert assistance
in an autopsy which was then being performed; but the reporter was
stopped at the door. After an hour The Thinking Machine came out.
"She was stabbed from the right," he said in answer to Hatch's
inquiring look, "either by some one sitting at her right, by some one
leaning over her right shoulder, or she might have done it herself."
Then they went on to Monarch Inn, five miles away. Here, after a
comprehensive squint at the landscape, The Thinking Machine entered
and for half an hour questioned three waiters there.
Did these waiters see Mr. Reid? Yes. They identified his published
picture as a gentleman who had come in and taken a hot Scotch at the
bar. Any one with him? No. Speak to anyone in the inn? Yes, a lady.
"What did she look like?" asked The Thinking Machine.
"Couldn't say, sir," the waiter replied. "She came in an automobile
and wore a mask, with a veil tied about her head and a long tan
automobile coat."
"With the mask on you couldn't see her face?"
"Only her chin, sir."
"No glimpse of her hair?"
"No, sir. It was covered by the veil."
Then The Thinking Machine turned loose a flood of questions. He
learned that the woman had been waiting at the inn for nearly an hour
when Reid entered; that she had come there alone and at her request
had been shown into a private parlor--"to wait for a gentleman," she
had told the waiter.
She had opened the door when she heard Reid enter and had glanced out,
but he had disappeared into the bar before she saw him. When he
started away she looked out again. Then she saw him and he saw her.
She seemed surprised and started to close the door, when he spoke to
her. No one heard what was said, but he went in and the door was
closed.
No one knew just when either Reid or the woman left the inn. Some half
an hour or so after Reid entered the room a waiter rapped on the door.
There was no answer. He opened the door and went in, but there was no
one there. It was presumed then that the gentleman she had been
waiting for had appeared and they had gone out together. It was a fact
that an automobile had come up meanwhile--in addition to that in which
Curtis, Miss Melrose and Reid had come--and had gone away again.
When all this questioning had come to an end and these facts were in
possession of The Thinking Machine, the reporter advanced a theory.
"That woman was unquestionably Miss Dow, who knew Reid and who eloped
that night with Morgan Mason."
The Thinking Machine looked at him a moment without speaking, then led
the way into the private room where the lady had been waiting. Hatch
followed. They remained there five or ten minutes, then The Thinking
Machine came out and started toward the front door, only eight or ten
feet from this room. The road was twenty feet away.
"Let's go," he said, finally.
"Where?" asked Hatch.
"Don't you see?" asked The Thinking Machine, irrelevantly, "that it
would have been perfectly possible for Miss Melrose herself to have
left the automobile and gone inside the inn for a few minutes?"
Following previously received directions The Thinking Machine now set
out to find the man who had charge of the gasoline tank. They went
away together and remained half an hour.
On the scientist's return to where Hatch had been waiting impatiently
they climbed into the car which had brought them to the inn.
"Two miles down this road, then the first road to your right until I
tell you to stop," was the order to the chauffeur.
"Where are you going?" asked Hatch, curiously.
"Don't know yet," was the enigmatic reply.
The car ran on through the night, with great, unblinking lights
staring straight out ahead on a road as smooth as asphalt. The turn
was made, then more slowly the car proceeded along the cross road. At
the second house, dimly discernible through the night, The Thinking
Machine gave the signal to stop.
Hatch leaped out, and The Thinking Machine followed. Together they
approached the house, a small cottage some distance back from the
road. As they went up the path they came upon another automobile, but
it had no lights and the engine was still.
Even in the darkness they could see that one of the forward wheels was
gone, and the front of the car was demolished.
"That fellow had a bad accident," Hatch remarked.
An old woman and a boy appeared at the door in answer to their rap.
"I am looking for a gentleman who was injured last night in an
automobile accident," said The Thinking Machine. "Is he still here?"
"Yes. Come in."
They stepped inside as a man's voice called from another room:
"Who is it?"
"Two gentlemen to see the man who was hurt," the woman called.
"Do you know his name?" asked The Thinking Machine.
"No, sir," the woman replied. Then the man who had spoken appeared.
"Would it be possible for us to see the gentleman who was hurt?" asked
The Thinking Machine.
"Well, the doctor said we would have to keep folks away from him," was
the reply. "Is there anything I could tell you?"
"We would like to know who he is," said The Thinking Machine. "It may
be that we can take him off your hands."
"I don't know his name," the man explained; "but here are the things
we took off him. He was hurt on the head, and hasn't been able to
speak since he was brought here."
The Thinking Machine took a gold watch, a small notebook, two or three
cards of various business concerns, two railroad tickets to New York
and one thousand dollars in large bills. He merely glanced at the
papers. No name appeared anywhere on them; the same with the railroad
tickets. The business cards meant nothing at the moment. It was the
gold watch on which the scientist concentrated his attention. He
looked on both sides, then inside, carefully. Finally he handed it
back.
"What time did this gentleman come here?" he asked.
"We brought him in from the road about nine o'clock," was the reply.
"We heard his automobile smash into something and found him there
beside it a moment later. He was unconscious. His car had struck a
stone on the curve and he was thrown out head first."
"And where is his wife?"
"His wife?" The man looked from The Thinking Machine to the woman.
"His wife? We didn't see anybody else."
"Nobody ran away from the machine as you went out?" insisted the
scientist.
"No, sir," was the positive reply.
"And no woman has been here to inquire for him?"
"No, sir."
"Has anybody?"
"No, sir."
"What direction was the car going when it struck?"
"I couldn't tell you, sir. It had turned entirely over and was in the
middle of the road when we found it."
"What's the number of the car?"
"It didn't have any."
"This gentleman has good medical attention, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. Dr. Leonard is attending him. He says his condition isn't
dangerous, and meanwhile we're letting him stay here, because we
suppose he'll make it all right with us when he gets well."
"Thank you--that's all," said The Thinking Machine. "Good-night."
With Hatch he turned and left the house. "What is all this?" asked
Hatch, bewildered. "That man is Morgan Mason," said The Thinking
Machine.
"The man who eloped with Miss Dow?" asked Hatch, breathlessly.
"Now, where is Miss Dow?" asked The Thinking Machine, in turn.
"You mean----"
The Thinking Machine waved his hand off into the vague night; it was a
gesture which Hatch understood perfectly.
V.
Hutchinson Hatch was deeply thoughtful on the swift run back to the
village. There he and The Thinking Machine took train to Boston. Hatch
was turning over possibilities. Had Miss Dow eloped with some one
besides Mason? There had been no other name mentioned. Was it possible
that she killed Miss Melrose? Vaguely his mind clutched for a motive
for this, yet none appeared, and he dismissed the idea with a laugh at
its absurdity. Then, What? Where? How? Why?
"I suppose the story of an actress having been murdered in an
automobile under mysterious circumstances would have been telegraphed
all over the country, Mr. Hatch?" asked The Thinking Machine.
"Yes," said Hatch. "If you mean this story, there's not a city in the
country that doesn't know of it by this time."
"It's perfectly wonderful, the resources of the press," the scientist
mused.
Hatch nodded his acquiescence. He had hoped for a moment that The
Thinking Machine had asked the question as a preliminary to something
else, but that was apparently all. After awhile the train jerked a
little and The Thinking Machine spoke again.
"I think, Mr. Hatch, I wouldn't yet print anything about the
disappearance of Miss Dow," he said. "It might be unwise at present.
No one else will find it out, so----"
"I understand," said Hatch. It was a command. "By the way," the other
went on, "do you happen to remember the name of that Winter Street
store that Curtis went in?"
"Yes," and he named it.
It was nearly midnight when The Thinking Machine and Hatch reached
Boston. The reporter was dismissed with a curt:
"Come up at noon to-morrow."
Hatch went his way. Next day at noon promptly he was waiting in the
reception room of The Thinking Machine's home. The scientist was
out--down in Winter Street, Martha explained--and Hatch waited
impatiently for his return. He came in finally.
"Well?" inquired the reporter.
"Impossible to say anything until day after to-morrow," said The
Thinking Machine.
"And then?" asked Hatch.
"The solution," replied the scientist positively. "Now I'm waiting for
some one."
"Miss Dow?"
"Meanwhile you might see Reid and find out in some way if he ever
happened to make a gift of any little thing, a thing that a woman
would wear on the outside of her coat, for instance, to Miss Dow."
"Lord, I don't think _he'll_ say anything."
"Find out, too, when he intends to go back West."
It took Hatch three hours, and required a vast deal of patience and
skill, to find out that on a recent birthday Miss Dow had received a
present of a monogram belt buckle from Reid. That was all; and that