The problem of Cell 13
Then the figure of the town constable separated itself from the night
and approached.
"Who's that?"
"Professor Van Dusen and Mr. Hatch."
"Mr. Weston got him all right," said the constable, and there was
satisfaction in his tone. "He tried to come out the back way, but I
had that fastened, as you told me, and he came through the front way.
Mr. Weston tried to stop him, and he raised the knife to stick him;
then Mr. Weston shot. It broke his arm, I think. Mr. Weston is down
there with him now."
The Thinking Machine turned to the reporter.
"Wait here for me, with the constable," he directed. "If the man is
hurt he needs attention. I happen to be a doctor; I can aid him. Don't
come unless I call."
For a long while the constable and the reporter waited. The constable
talked, talked with all the bottled-up vigor of days. Hatch listened
impatiently; he was eager to go down there where The Thinking Machine
and Weston and the phantom were.
After half an hour the light disappeared, then he heard the swift,
quick churning of waters, a sound as of a powerful motor-boat
manoeuvering, and a long body shot out on the waters.
"All right down there?" Hatch called.
"All right," came the response.
There was again silence, then Ernest Weston and The Thinking Machine
came up.
"Where is the other man?" asked Hatch. "The ghost--where is he?"
echoed the constable. "He escaped in the motor-boat," replied Mr.
Weston, easily.
"Escaped?" exclaimed Hatch and the constable together.
"Yes, escaped," repeated The Thinking Machine, irritably. "Mr. Hatch,
let's go to the hotel."
Struggling with a sense of keen disappointment, Hatch followed the
other two men silently. The constable walked beside him, also silent.
At last they reached the hotel and bade the constable, a sadly
puzzled, bewildered and crestfallen man, goodnight.
"By ginger!" he remarked, as he walked away into the dark.
Upstairs the three men sat, Hatch impatiently waiting to hear the
story. Weston lighted a cigarette and lounged back; The Thinking
Machine sat with finger tips pressed together, studying the ceiling.
"Mr. Weston, you understand, of course, that I came into this thing to
aid Mr. Hatch?" he asked.
"Certainly," was the response. "I will only ask a favor of him when
you conclude."
The Thinking Machine changed his position slightly, readjusted his
thick glasses for a long, comfortable squint, and told the story, from
the beginning, as he always told a story. Here it is:
"Mr. Hatch came to me in a state of abject, cringing fear and told me
of the mystery. It would be needless to go over his examination of the
house, and all that. It is enough to say that he noted and told me of
four large mirrors in the dining-room and living-room of the house;
that he heard and brought to me the stories in detail of a tragedy in
the old house and missing jewels, valued at a hundred thousand
dollars, or more.
"He told me of his trip to the house that night, and of actually
seeing the phantom. I have found in the past that Mr. Hatch is a cool,
level-headed young man, not given to imagining things which are not
there, and controls himself well. Therefore I knew that anything of
charlatanism must be clever, exceedingly clever, to bring about such a
condition of mind in him.
"Mr. Hatch saw, as others had seen, the figure of a phantom in the
reception-room near the door of the library, or in the library near
the door of the reception-room, he couldn't tell exactly. He knew it
was near the door. Preceding the appearance of the figure he heard a
slight noise which he attributed to a rat running across the floor.
Yet the house had not been occupied for five years. Rodents rarely
remain in a house--I may say never--for that long if it is
uninhabited. Therefore what was this noise? A noise made by the
apparition itself? How?
"Now, there is only one white light of the kind Mr. Hatch described
known to science. It seems almost superfluous to name it. It is
phosphorus, compounded with Fuller's earth and glycerine and one or
two other chemicals, so it will not instantly flame as it does in the
pure state when exposed to air. Phosphorus has a very pronounced odor
if one is within, say, twenty feet of it. Did Mr. Hatch smell
anything? No.
"Now, here we have several facts, these being that the apparition in
appearing made a slight noise; that phosphorus was the luminous
quality; that Mr. Hatch did not smell phosphorus even when he ran
through the spot where the phantom had appeared. Two and two make
four; Mr. Hatch saw phosphorus, passed through the spot where he had
seen it, but did not smell it, therefore it was not there. It was a
reflection he saw--a reflection of phosphorus. So far, so good.
"Mr. Hatch saw a finger lifted and write a luminous word in the air.
Again he did not actually see this; he saw a reflection of it. This
first impression of mine was substantiated by the fact that when he
rushed for the phantom a part of it disappeared, first half of it, he
said--then the other half. So his extended hands grasped only air.
"Obviously those reflections had been made on something, probably a
mirror as the most perfect ordinary reflecting surface. Yet he
actually passed through the spot where he had seen the apparition and
had not struck a mirror. He found himself in another room, the
library, having gone through a door which, that afternoon, he had
himself closed. He did not open it then.
"Instantly a sliding mirror suggested itself to me to fit all these
conditions. He saw the apparition in the door, then saw only half of
it, then all of it disappeared. He passed through the spot where it
had been. All of this would have happened easily if a large mirror,
working as a sliding door, and hidden in the wall, were there. Is it
clear?"
"Perfectly," said Mr. Weston.
"Yes," said Hatch, eagerly. "Go on."
"This sliding mirror, too, might have made the noise which Mr. Hatch
imagined was a rat. Mr. Hatch had previously told me of four large
mirrors in the living- and dining-rooms. With these, from the position
in which he said they were, I readily saw how the reflection could
have been made.
"In a general sort of way, in my own mind, I had accounted for the
phantom. Why was it there? This seemed a more difficult problem. It
was possible that it had been put there for amusement, but I did not
wholly accept this. Why? Partly because no one had ever heard of it
until the Italian workmen went there. Why did it appear just at the
moment they went to begin the work Mr. Weston had ordered? Was it the
purpose to keep the workmen away?
"These questions arose in my mind in order. Then, as Mr. Hatch had
told me of a tragedy in the house and hidden jewels, I asked him to
learn more of these. I called his attention to the fact that it would
be a queer circumstance if these jewels were still somewhere in the
old house. Suppose some one who knew of their existence were searching
for them, believed he could find them, and wanted something which
would effectually drive away any inquiring persons, tramps or
villagers, who might appear there at night. A ghost? Perhaps.
"Suppose some one wanted to give the old house such a reputation that
Mr. Weston would not care to undertake the work of repair and
refurnishing. A ghost? Again perhaps. In a shallow mind this ghost
might have been interpreted even as an effort to prevent the marriage
of Miss Everard and Mr. Weston. Therefore Mr. Hatch was instructed to
get all the facts possible about you, Mr. Weston, and members of your
family. I reasoned that members of your own family would be more
likely to know of the lost jewels than anyone else after a lapse of
fifty years.
"Well, what Mr. Hatch learned from you and your cousin, George Weston,
instantly, in my mind, established a motive for the ghost. It was, as
I had supposed possible, an effort to drive workmen away, perhaps only
for a time, while a search was made for the jewels. The old tragedy in
the house was a good pretext to hang a ghost on. A clever mind
conceived it and a clever mind put it into operation.
"Now, what one person knew most about the jewels? Your cousin George,
Mr. Weston. Had he recently acquired any new information as to these
jewels? I didn't know. I thought it possible. Why? On his own
statement that his mother, then a bride, got the story of the entire
affair direct from his grandmother, who remembered more of it than
anybody else--who might even have heard his grandfather say where he
intended hiding the jewels."
The Thinking Machine paused for a little while, shifted his position,
then went on:
"George Weston refused to go with you, Mr. Weston, and Mr. Hatch, to
the ghost party, as you called it, because he said he was going to a
ball in Providence that night. He did not go to Providence; I learned
that from your correspondent there, Mr. Hatch; so George Weston might,
possibly, have gone to the ghost party after all.
"After I looked over the situation down there it occurred to me that
the most feasible way for a person, who wished to avoid being seen in
the village, as the perpetrator of the ghost did, was to go to and
from the place at night in a motor-boat. He could easily run in the
dark and land at the foot of the cliff, and no soul in the village
would be any the wiser. Did George Weston have a motor-boat? Yes, an
electric, which runs almost silently.
"From this point the entire matter was comparatively simple. I
_knew_--the pure logic of it told me--how the ghost was made to appear
and disappear; one look at the house inside convinced me beyond all
doubt. I knew the motive for the ghost--a search for the jewels. I
knew, or thought I knew, the name of the man who was seeking the
jewels; the man who had fullest knowledge and fullest opportunity, the
man whose brain was clever enough to devise the scheme. Then, the next
step to prove what I knew. The first thing to do was to find the
jewels."
"Find the jewels?" Weston repeated, with a slight smile.
"Here they are," said The Thinking Machine, quietly.
And there, before the astonished eyes of the broker, he drew out the
gems which had been lost for fifty years. Mr. Weston was not amazed;
he was petrified with astonishment and sat staring at the glittering
heap in silence. Finally he recovered his voice.
"How did you do it?" he demanded. "Where?"
"I used my brain, that's all," was the reply. "I went into the old
house seeking them where the owner, under all conditions, would have
been most likely to hide them, and there I found them."
"But--but----" stammered the broker.
"The man who hid these jewels hid them only temporarily, or at least
that was his purpose," said The Thinking Machine, irritably.
"Naturally he would not hide them in the woodwork of the house,
because that might burn; he did not bury them in the cellar, because
that has been carefully searched. Now, in that house there is nothing
except woodwork and chimneys above the cellar. Yet he hid them in the
house, proven by the fact that the man he killed was killed in the
house, and that the outside ground, covered with snow, showed two sets
of tracks into the house and none out. Therefore he did hide them in
the cellar. Where? In the stonework. There was no other place.
"Naturally he would not hide them on a level with the eye, because the
spot where he took out and replaced a stone would be apparent if a
close search were made. He would, therefore, place them either above
or below the eye level. He placed them above. A large loose stone in
the chimney was taken out and there was the box with these things."
Mr. Weston stared at The Thinking Machine with a new wonder and
admiration in his eyes.
"With the jewels found and disposed of, there remained only to prove