The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 105

"Well, under the circ.u.mstances, I suppose, perhaps--"

"Now," said The Thinking Machine.

The chief pressed a b.u.t.ton. After a moment one of his men came in.

"Bring Wilkes in here," directed the police official.

The man went out and after a time returned with Wilkes, who had been undergoing the third degree in another room. The prisoner's face was white and every move indicated his tense nervous condition.

"Mr. Wilkes, when did the dagger pa.s.s out of your possession?" asked The Thinking Machine, suddenly, as he extended the photograph of the golden dagger.

"I have never seen such a dagger," was the reply, after a long, deliberate study of the picture.

"Did you not receive an order for a blade for it?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"No."

"Mr. Wilkes, I know possibly more of this affair than the police do as yet. You can supply those facts that I haven't. Now who-who-is the girl who was murdered with this dagger?"

What little color that had been in the prisoner's face was gone now, and he trembled violently. Suddenly he sank down in the chair, burying his face on his arms.

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know," he sobbed.

Yet that afternoon, when Wilkes stood beside the body of the murdered girl he looked at her long and earnestly then with a wailing cry he lunged forward, half fainting.

"Alice, Alice!" he gasped.

V.

Wilkes, or Wingate, as he had been last known, told a story as to his knowledge of the dead girl, which was on its face straight-forward and to the point. In a little room adjoining that in which the body lay he had been revived with a stimulant, and, once himself again, he talked freely. The thing which impressed the police most was the detail which he gave; The Thinking Machine had nothing to say as to what he thought of this recital. He merely observed it without comment.

Briefly here is the story, denuded of extraneous verbiage:

The girl was Alice Gorham. There was no shadow of doubt about the identification. She was the daughter of a man who had been for a long time connected with the Steel Trust offices in Cleveland. Misfortune had finally come to her father and then in her last year at Va.s.sar she had been compelled to return home. Shortly after that her father had died suddenly, leaving her nothing; her mother had died several years previously. She was an only child.

According to his story, Wilkes had been acquainted with her since her childhood. His father, too, had been in the Steel Trust at one time and had left it to take a partnership in the cutlery concern which he now represented. The girl's age, so far as Wilkes's story went, was about twenty-one years.

Since the death of her father, when she had been thrown upon her own resources, she had been employed as companion to an aged woman in Cleveland. There had been some disagreement between them, and the girl decided to come East. She had been in Boston only a few weeks at the time she was found dead.

"That's all I know about it," said Wilkes in conclusion. "Naturally, the shock was very great when I saw her in there dead. I knew that she had come to Boston. I knew, too, that she had disappeared from where she lived, for both my wife and myself, before we went to Cuba, had called and inquired for her."

"You have no idea where she was from the time she disappeared until the time she was found dead, which was at the most not more than fourteen days ago?" asked The Thinking Machine.

"None," replied Wilkes.

"Do you know of any love affair-any man in the case?" insisted The Thinking Machine.

"No, I never heard of one."

"Of course, you read the newspaper accounts of this affair. Did you, then, from the detailed description of the girl printed, a.s.sociate her in any way with the girl who was dead?"

"I did, yes, but not directly. The thing which impressed me most in the newspaper accounts was the reiterated statement that the man who rented the house must have been the murderer. This placed it directly to me. Then frankly I got frightened and tried to hide my ident.i.ty for the moment under another name. It was very foolish, of course, but the circ.u.mstances seemed to point so conclusively to me that-that I did what I did."

"When did you last see Miss Gorham?"

"In Cleveland seven months ago."

"That's all," said The Thinking Machine, and he arose as if to go.

"Now what do you know of this?" asked the State police chief.

"I shall call on you to-morrow and explain just what I know and how I learned it," was the reply.

"Who is the man who owned that dagger?" the chief continued.

"You mean the dagger that was stolen from Dr. Loyd?" asked The Thinking Machine. There was a touch of irony in his tone.

"Who-how-what do you know about that?"

"Let's go, Mr. Hatch," said The Thinking Machine suddenly. "I'll see you to-morrow, chief."

Once outside, The Thinking Machine led the way toward the Scollay Square subway.

"Where to now?" asked Hatch.

"To the house in Cambridge," explained The Thinking Machine. "I want to look it over again. I have an idea I overlooked a few things."

"Do you think Wilkes killed Miss Gorham?" asked Hatch.

"I don't know."

"Do you think now that Ha.s.san did it?"

"I don't know."

Further questioning seemed useless, and both men were silent until they stood inside the Cambridge house. Then again, The Thinking Machine went over the structure from cellar to attic, but more carefully, with more detail than even before. Particularly this was true as to the cellar. Not one square inch of the floor surface escaped his eyes. Once he picked up a small sc.r.a.p of cloth-black cloth, and examined it. Later, on hands and knees, he studied the soft ground flooring in a remote corner. Hatch stood looking on curiously.

"See this?" The Thinking Machine asked.

Hatch looked by the light of the electric bulb and saw only a few indentations in the soft soil. It was as if something heavy and elaborately carved had been pressed down in the dirt.

"What is it?" he asked.

Without answering The Thinking Machine arose and together they went straight to the room of death upstairs. Here the scientist ruthlessly cut into the smooth wood of the bed. He handed the small chip he removed to the reporter.

"What does that look like?" he asked.