The problem of Cell 13
the house a man was found dead. No one knew who he was; no one within
a radius of many miles of the place had ever seen him.
"This led to all sorts of surmises, the most reasonable of which, and
the one which the family has always accepted, being that my
grandfather had gone to the house in the dark, had there met some one
who was stopping there that night as a shelter from the intense cold,
that this man learned of the jewels, that he had tried robbery and
there was a fight.
"In this fight the stranger was killed inside the house, and my
great-grandfather, injured, had tried to leave the house for aid. He
collapsed on the veranda where he was found and died without having
regained consciousness. That's all we know or can surmise reasonably
about the matter."
"Were the jewels ever found?" asked the reporter.
"No. They were not on the dead man, nor were they in the possession of
my grandfather."
"It is reasonable to suppose, then, that there was a third man and
that he got away with the jewels?" asked Ernest Weston.
"It seemed so, and for a long time this theory was accepted. I suppose
it is now, but some doubt was cast on it by the fact that only two
trails-of footsteps led to the house and none out. There was a heavy
snow on the ground. If none led out it was obviously impossible that
anyone came out."
Again there was silence. Ernest Weston sipped his coffee slowly.
"It would seem from that," said Ernest Weston, at last, "that the
jewels were hidden before the tragedy, and have never been found."
George Weston smiled.
"Off and on for twenty years the place was searched, according to my
mother's story," he said. "Every inch of the cellar was dug up; every
possible nook and corner was searched. Finally the entire matter
passed out of the minds of those who knew of it, and I doubt if it has
ever been referred to again until now."
"A search even now would be almost worth while, wouldn't it?" asked
the broker.
George Weston laughed aloud.
"It might be," he said, "but I have some doubt. A thing that was
searched for for twenty years would not be easily found."
So it seemed to strike the others after awhile and the matter was
dropped.
"But this ghost thing," said the broker, at last. "I'm interested in
that. Suppose we make up a ghost party and go down to-night. My
contractor declares he can't get men to work there."
"I would be glad to go," said George Weston, "but I'm running over to
the Vandergrift ball in Providence to-night."
"How about you, Hatch?" asked the broker.
"I'll go, yes," said Hatch, "as one of several," he added with a
smile.
"Well, then, suppose we say the constable and you and I?" asked the
broker; "to-night?"
"All right."
After making arrangements to meet the broker later that afternoon he
rushed away--away to The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened,
then resumed some chemical test he was making.
"Can't you go down with us to-night?" Hatch asked.
"No," said the other. "I'm going to read a paper before a scientific
society and prove that a chemist in Chicago is a fool. That will take
me all evening."
"To-morrow night?" Hatch insisted.
"No--the next night."
This would be on Friday night--just in time for the feature which had
been planned for Sunday. Hatch was compelled to rest content with
this, but he foresaw that he would have it all, with a solution. It
never occurred to him that this problem, or, indeed, that any problem,
was beyond the mental capacity of Professor Van Dusen.
Hatch and Ernest Weston took a night train that evening, and on their
arrival in the village stirred up the town constable.
"Will you go with us?" was the question.
"Both of you going?" was the counter-question.
"Yes."
"I'll go," said the constable promptly. "Ghost!" and he laughed
scornfully. "I'll have him in the lockup by morning."
"No shooting, now," warned Weston. "There must be somebody back of
this somewhere; we understand that, but there is no crime that we know
of. The worst is possibly trespassing."
"I'll get him all right," responded the constable, who still
remembered the experience where blood--warm blood--had been thrown in
his face. "And I'm not so sure there isn't a crime."
That night about ten the three men went into the dark, forbidding
house and took a station on the stairs where Hatch had sat when he saw
the THING--whatever it was. There they waited. The constable moved
nervously from time to time, but neither of the others paid any
attention to him.
At last the--the THING appeared. There had been a preliminary sound as
of something running across the floor, then suddenly a flaming figure
of white seemed to grow into being in the reception-room. It was
exactly as Hatch had described it to The Thinking Machine.
Dazed, stupefied, the three men looked, looked as the figure raised a
hand, pointing toward them, and wrote a word in the air--positively in
the air. The finger merely waved, and there, floating before them were
letters, flaming letters, in the utter darkness. This time the word
was: "Death."
Faintly, Hatch, fighting with a fear which again seized him,
remembered that The Thinking Machine had asked him if the handwriting
was that of a man or woman; now he tried to see. It was as if drawn on
a blackboard, and there was a queer twist to the loop at the bottom.
He sniffed to see if there was an odor of any sort. There was not.
Suddenly he felt some quick, vigorous action from the constable behind
him. There was a roar and a flash in his ear; he knew the constable
had fired at the THING. Then came the cry and laugh--almost a laugh of
derision--he had heard them before. For one instant the figure
lingered and then, before their eyes, faded again into utter
blackness. Where it had been was nothing--nothing.
_The constable's shot had had no effect_.
IV.
Three deeply mystified men passed down the hill to the village from
the old house. Ernest Weston, the owner, had not spoken since before
the--the THING appeared there in the reception-room, or was it in the
library? He was not certain--he couldn't have told. Suddenly he turned
to the constable.
"I told you not to shoot."
"That's all right," said the constable. "I was there in my official
capacity, and I shoot when I want to."
"But the shot did no harm," Hatch put in.
"I would swear it went right through it, too," said the constable,
boastfully. "I can shoot."
Weston was arguing with himself. He was a cold-blooded man of
business; his mind was not one to play him tricks. Yet now he felt
benumbed; he could conceive no explanation of what he had seen. Again
in his room in the little hotel, where they spent the remainder of the
night, he stared blankly at the reporter.
"Can you imagine any way it could be done?" Hatch shook his head.
"It isn't a spook, of course," the broker went on, with a nervous
smile; "but--but I'm sorry I went. I don't think probably I shall have
the work done there as I thought."
They slept only fitfully and took an early train back to Boston. As
they were about to separate at the South Station, the broker had a
last word.
"I'm going to solve that thing," he declared, determinedly. "I know
one man at least who isn't afraid of it--or of anything else. I'm
going to send him down to keep a lookout and take care of the place.
His name is O'Heagan, and he's a fighting Irishman. If he and
that--that--THING ever get mixed up together----"
Like a schoolboy with a hopeless problem, Hatch went straight to The
Thinking Machine with the latest developments. The scientist paused
just long enough in his work to hear it.
"Did you notice the handwriting?" he demanded.
"Yes," was the reply; "so far as I _could_ notice the style of a
handwriting that floated in air."
"Man's or woman's?"
Hatch was puzzled.
"I couldn't judge," he said. "It seemed to be a bold style, whatever
it was. I remember the capital D clearly."
"Was it anything like the handwriting of the
broker--what's-his-name?--Ernest Weston?"
"I never saw his handwriting."
"Look at some of it, then, particularly the capital D's," instructed
The Thinking Machine. Then, after a pause: "You say the figure is
white and seems to be flaming?"
"Yes."
"Does it give out any light? That is, does it light up a room, for
instance?"
"I don't quite know what you mean."
"When you go into a room with a lamp," explained The Thinking Machine,
"it lights the room. Does this thing do it? Can you see the floor or
walls or anything by the light of the figure itself?"
"No," replied Hatch, positively.
"I'll go down with you to-morrow night," said the scientist, as if
that were all.
"Thanks," replied Hatch, and he went away.
Next day about noon he called at Ernest Weston's office. The broker
was in.
"Did you send down your man O'Heagan?" he asked.
"Yes," said the broker, and he was almost smiling.
"What happened?"
"He's outside. I'll let him tell you."
The broker went to the door and spoke to some one and O'Heagan
entered. He was a big, blue-eyed Irishman, frankly freckled and
red-headed--one of those men who look trouble in the face and are glad
of it if the trouble can be reduced to a fighting basis. An
everlasting smile was about his lips, only now it was a bit faded.
"Tell Mr. Hatch what happened last night," requested the broker.
O'Heagan told it. He, too, had sought to get hold of the flaming
figure. As he ran for it, it disappeared, was obliterated, wiped out,
gone, and he found himself groping in the darkness of the room beyond,
the library. Like Hatch, he took the nearest way out, which happened
to be through a window already smashed.
"Outside," he went on, "I began to think about it, and I saw there was
nothing to be afraid of, but you couldn't have convinced me of that
when I was inside. I took a lantern in one hand and a revolver in the
other and went all over that house. There was nothing; if there had
been we would have had it out right there. But there was nothing. So I
started out to the barn, where I had put a cot in a room.
"I went upstairs to this room--it was then about two o'clock--and went
to sleep. It seemed to be an hour or so later when I awoke suddenly--I
knew something was happening. And the Lord forgive me if I'm a liar,
but there was a cat--a ghost cat in my room, racing around like mad. I
just naturally got up to see what was the matter and rushed for the
door. The cat beat me to it, and cut a flaming streak through the
night.
"The cat looked just like the thing inside the house--that is, it was
a sort of shadowy, waving white light like it might be afire. I went
back to bed in disgust, to sleep it off. You see, sir," he apologized
to Weston, "that there hadn't been anything yet I could put my hands
on."
"Was that all?" asked Hatch, smilingly.
"Just the beginning. Next morning when I awoke I was bound to my cot,
hard and fast. My hands were tied and my feet were tied, and all I
could do was lie there and yell. After awhile, it seemed years, I
heard some one outside and shouted louder than ever. Then the
constable come up and let me loose. I told him all about it--and then
I came to Boston. And with your permission, Mr. Weston, I resign right
now. I'm not afraid of anything I can fight, but when I can't get hold
of it--well----"
Later Hatch joined The Thinking Machine. They caught a train for the
little village by the sea. On the way The Thinking Machine asked a few
questions, but most of the time he was silent, squinting out the
window. Hatch respected his silence, and only answered questions.
"Did you see Ernest Weston's handwriting?" was the first of these.
"Yes."
"The capital D's?"
"They are not unlike the one the--the THING wrote, but they are not