The problem of Cell 13
"Look here, Ballard," said the warden, finally, "if you heard
anything, I want to know what it was. Now tell me."
"I can't, I can't," was the reply. He was sobbing. "Where did it come
from?"
"I don't know. Everywhere--nowhere. I just heard it."
"What was it--a voice?"
"Please don't make me answer," pleaded the prisoner.
"You must answer," said the warden, sharply.
"It was a voice--but--but it wasn't human," was the sobbing reply.
"Voice, but not human?" repeated the warden, puzzled.
"It sounded muffled and--and far away--and ghostly," explained the
man.
"Did it come from inside or outside the prison?"
"It didn't seem to come from anywhere--it was just here, here,
everywhere. I heard it. I heard it."
For an hour the warden tried to get the story, but Ballard had become
suddenly obstinate and would say nothing--only pleaded to be placed in
another cell, or to have one of the jailers remain near him until
daylight. These requests were gruffly refused.
"And see here," said the warden, in conclusion, "if there's any more
of this screaming I'll put you in the padded cell."
Then the warden went his way, a sadly puzzled man. Ballard sat at his
cell door until daylight, his face, drawn and white with terror,
pressed against the bars, and looked out into the prison with wide.
staring eyes.
That day, the fourth since the incarceration of The Thinking Machine,
was enlivened considerably by the volunteer prisoner, who spent most
of his time at the little window of his cell. He began proceedings by
throwing another piece of linen down to the guard, who picked it up
dutifully and took it to the warden. On it was written:
"Only three days more."
The warden was in no way surprised at what he read; he understood that
The Thinking Machine meant only three days more of his imprisonment,
and he regarded the note as a boast. But how was the thing written?
Where had The Thinking Machine found this new piece of linen? Where?
How? He carefully examined the linen. It was white, of fine texture,
shirting material. He took the shirt which he had taken and carefully
fitted the two original pieces of the linen to the torn places. This
third piece was entirely superfluous; it didn't fit anywhere, and yet
it was unmistakably the same goods.
"And where--where does he get anything to write with?" demanded the
warden of the world at large.
Still later on the fourth day The Thinking Machine, through the window
of his cell, spoke to the armed guard outside.
"What day of the month is it?" he asked.
"The fifteenth," was the answer.
The Thinking Machine made a mental Astronomical calculation and
satisfied himself that the moon would not rise until after nine
o'clock that night. Then he asked another question:
"Who attends to those arc lights?"
"Man from the company."
"You have no electricians in the building?"
"I should think you could save money if you had your own man."
"None of my business," replied the guard.
The guard noticed The Thinking Machine at the cell window frequently
during that day, but always the face seemed listless and there was a
certain wistfulness in the squint eyes behind the glasses. After a
while he accepted the presence of the leonine head as a matter of
course. He had seen other prisoners do the same thing; it was the
longing for the outside world.
That afternoon, just before the day guard was relieved, the head
appeared at the window again, and The Thinking Machine's hand held
something out between the bars. It fluttered to the ground and the
guard picked it up. It was a five-dollar bill.
"That's for you," called the prisoner.
As usual, the guard took it to the warden. That gentleman looked at it
suspiciously; he looked at everything that came from Cell 13 with
suspicion.
"He said it was for me," explained the guard.
"It's a sort of a tip, I suppose," said the warden. "I see no
particular reason why you shouldn't accept----"
Suddenly he stopped. He had remembered that The Thinking Machine had
gone into Cell 13 with one five-dollar bill and two ten-dollar bills;
twenty-five dollars in all. Now a five-dollar bill had been tied
around the first pieces of linen that came from the cell. The warden
still had it, and to convince himself he took it out and looked at it.
It was five dollars; yet here was another five dollars, and The
Thinking Machine had only had ten-dollar bills.
"Perhaps somebody changed one of the bills for him," he thought at
last, with a sigh of relief.
But then and there he made up his mind. He would search Cell 13 as a
cell was never before searched in this world. When a man could write
at will, and change money, and do other wholly inexplicable things,
there was something radically wrong with his prison. He planned to
enter the cell at night--three o'clock would be an excellent time. The
Thinking Machine must do all the weird things he did sometime. Night
seemed the most reasonable.
Thus it happened that the warden stealthily descended upon Cell 13
that night at three o'clock. He paused at the door and listened. There
was no sound save the steady, regular breathing of the prisoner.
The keys unfastened the double locks with scarcely a clank, and the
warden entered, locking the door behind him. Suddenly he flashed his
dark-lantern in the face of the recumbent figure.
If the warden had planned to startle The Thinking Machine he was
mistaken, for that individual merely opened his eyes quietly, reached
for his glasses and inquired, in a most matter-of-fact tone:
"Who is it?"
It would be useless to describe the search that the warden made. It
was minute. Not one inch of the cell or the bed was overlooked. He
found the round hole in the floor, and with a flash of inspiration
thrust his thick fingers into it. After a moment of fumbling there he
drew up something and looked at it in the light of his lantern.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed.
The thing he had taken out was a rat--a dead rat. His inspiration fled
as a mist before the sun. But he continued the search. The Thinking
Machine, without a word, arose and kicked the rat out of the cell into
the corridor.
The warden climbed on the bed and tried the steel bars in the tiny
window. They were perfectly rigid; every bar of the door was the same.
Then the warden searched the prisoner's clothing, beginning at the
shoes. Nothing hidden in them! Then the trousers waist band. Still
nothing! Then the pockets of the trousers. From one side he drew out
some paper money and examined it.
"Five one-dollar bills," he gasped.
"That's right," said the prisoner.
"But the--you had two tens and a five--what the--how do you do it?"
"That's my business," said The Thinking Machine.
"Did any of my men change this money for you--on your word of honor?"
The Thinking Machine paused just a fraction of a second.
"No," he said.
"Well, do you make it?" asked the warden. He was prepared to believe
anything.
"That's my business," again said the prisoner.
The warden glared at the eminent scientist fiercely. He felt--he
knew--that this man was making a fool of him, yet he didn't know how.
If he were a real prisoner he would get the truth--but, then, perhaps,
those inexplicable things which had happened would not have been
brought before him so sharply. Neither of the men spoke for a long
time, then suddenly the warden turned fiercely and left the cell,
slamming the door behind him. He didn't dare to speak, then.
He glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to four. He had hardly
settled himself in bed when again came that heart-breaking shriek
through the prison. With a few muttered words, which, while not
elegant, were highly expressive, he relighted his lantern and rushed
through the prison again to the cell on the upper floor.
Again Ballard was crushing himself against the steel door, shrieking,
shrieking at the top of his voice. He stopped only when the warden
flashed his lamp in the cell.
"Take me out, take me out," he screamed. "I did it, I did it, I killed
her. Take it away."
"Take what away?" asked the warden.
"I threw the acid in her face--I did it--I confess. Take me out of
here."
Ballard's condition was pitiable; it was only an act of mercy to let
him out into the corridor. There he crouched in a corner, like an
animal at bay, and clasped his hands to his ears. It took half an hour
to calm him sufficiently for him to speak. Then he told incoherently
what had happened. On the night before at four o'clock he had heard a
voice--a sepulchral voice, muffled and wailing in tone.
"What did it say?" asked the warden, curiously.
"Acid--acid--acid!" gasped the prisoner. "It accused me. Acid! I threw
the acid, and the woman died. Oh!" It was a long, shuddering wail of
terror.
"Acid?" echoed the warden, puzzled. The case was beyond him.
"Acid. That's all I heard--that one word, repeated several times.
There were other things, too, but I didn't hear them."
"That was last night, eh?" asked the warden. "What happened
to-night--what frightened you just now?"
"It was the same thing," gasped the prisoner. "Acid--acid--acid!" He
covered his face with his hands and sat shivering. "It was acid I used
on her, but I didn't mean to kill her. I just heard the words. It was
something accusing me--accusing me." He mumbled, and was silent.
"Did you hear anything else?"
"Yes--but I couldn't understand--only a little bit--just a word or
two."
"Well, what was it?"
"I heard 'acid' three times, then I heard a long, moaning sound,
then--then--I heard 'No. 8 hat.' I heard that twice."
"No. 8 hat," repeated the warden. "What the devil--No. 8 hat? Accusing
voices of conscience have never talked about No. 8 hats, so far as I
ever heard."
"He's insane," said one of the jailers, with an air of finality.
"I believe you," said the warden. "He must be. He probably heard
something and got frightened. He's trembling now. No. 8 hat! What
the----"
V.
When the fifth day of The Thinking Machine's imprisonment rolled
around the warden was wearing a hunted look. He was anxious for the
end of the thing. He could not help but feel that his distinguished
prisoner had been amusing himself. And if this were so, The Thinking
Machine had lost none of his sense of humor. For on this fifth day he
flung down another linen note to the outside guard, bearing the words:
"Only two days more." Also he flung down half a dollar.
Now the warden knew--he _knew_--that the man in Cell 13 didn't have
any half dollars--he _couldn't_ have any half dollars, no more than he
could have pen and ink and linen, and yet he did have them. It was a
condition, not a theory; that is one reason why the warden was wearing
a hunted look.
That ghastly, uncanny thing, too, about "Acid" and "No. 8 hat" clung
to him tenaciously. They didn't mean anything, of course, merely the
ravings of an insane murderer who had been driven by fear to confess
his crime, still there were so many things that "didn't mean anything"
happening in the prison now since The Thinking Machine was there.
On the sixth day the warden received a postal stating that Dr.
Ransome and Mr. Fielding would be at Chisholm Prison on the following
evening, Thursday, and in the event Professor Van Dusen had not yet
escaped--and they presumed he had not because they had not heard from
him--they would meet him there.
"In the event he had not yet escaped!" The warden smiled grimly.
Escaped!
The Thinking Machine enlivened this day for the warden with three
notes. They were on the usual linen and bore generally on the
appointment at half-past eight o'clock Thursday night, which
appointment the scientist had made at the time of his imprisonment.
On the afternoon of the seventh day the warden passed Cell 13 and