The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 112

"Just what sort of a suit case was that she carried?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Professor Dexter. "I didn't particularly notice. It seemed to be about the usual kind of a suit case-sole leather I imagine."

"She arrived in this country yesterday you said?"

"Yes."

"It's perfectly extraordinary," The Thinking Machine grunted. Then he scribbled a line or two on a sc.r.a.p of paper and handed it to Professor Dexter.

"Please have this sent by cable at once."

Professor Dexter glanced at it. It was:

"Mme. Curie, Paris:

"Did you give Mme. du Chastaigny letter of introduction for Professor Dexter? Answer quick.

"Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen."

As Professor Dexter glanced at the dispatch his eyes opened a little.

"You don't believe that Mme. du Chastaigny could have--" he began.

"I daresay I know what Mme. Curie's answer will be," interrupted the other abruptly.

"What?"

"It will be no," was the positive reply. "And then--" He paused.

"Then--?"

"Your veracity may be brought into question."

With flaming face and tightly clenched teeth but without a word, Professor Dexter saw The Thinking Machine unlock the door and pa.s.s out. Then he dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. There Mr. Bowen found him a few minutes later.

"Ah, Mr. Bowen," he said, as he glanced up, "please have this cable sent immediately."

Once in his apartments The Thinking Machine telephoned to Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, at the office of his newspaper. That long, lean, hungry looking young man was fairly bubbling with suppressed emotion when he rushed into the booth to answer and the exhilaration of pure enthusiasm made his voice vibrant when he spoke. The Thinking Machine readily understood.

"It's about the radium theft at Yarvard that I wanted to speak to you," he said.

"Yes," Hatch replied. "just heard of it this minute-a bulletin from Police Headquarters. I was about to go out on it."

"Please do something for me first," requested The Thinking Machine. "Go at once to the Hotel Teutonic and ascertain indisputably for me whether or not Mme. du Chastaigny, who is stopping there, is accompanied by a child."

"Certainly, of course," said Hatch, "but the story--"

"This is the story," interrupted The Thinking Machine, tartly. "If you can learn nothing of any child at the hotel go to the steamer on which she arrived yesterday from Liverpool and inquire there. I must have definite, absolute, indisputable evidence."

"I'm off," Hatch responded.

He hung up the receiver and rushed out. He happened to be professionally acquainted with the chief clerk of the Teutonic, a monosyllabic, rotund gentleman who was an occasional source of private information and who spent his life adding up a column of figures.

"h.e.l.lo, Charlie," Hatch greeted him. "Mme. du Chastaigny stopping here?"

"Yep," said Charlie.

"Husband with her?"

"Nope."

"By herself when she came?"

"Yep."

"Hasn't a child with her?"

"Nope."

"What does she look like?"

"A corker!" said Charlie.

This last loquacious outburst seemed to appease the reporter's burning thirst for information and he rushed away to the dock where the steamship, Granada from Liverpool, still lay. Aboard he sought out the purser and questioned him along the same lines with the same result. There was no trace of a child. Then Hatch made his way to the home of The Thinking Machine.

"Well?" demanded the scientist.

The reporter shook his head.

"She hasn't seen or spoken to a child since she left Liverpool so far as I can ascertain," he declared.

It was not quite surprise, it was rather perturbation in the manner of The Thinking Machine now. It showed in a quick gesture of one hand, in the wrinkles on his brow, in the narrowing down of his eyes. He dropped back into a chair and remained there silent, thoughtful for a long time.

"It couldn't have been, it couldn't have been, it couldn't have been," the scientist broke out finally.

Having no personal knowledge on the subject, whatever it was, Hatch discreetly remained silent. After a while The Thinking Machine aroused himself with a jerk and related to the reporter the story of the lost radium so far as it was known.

"The letter of introduction from Mme. Curie opened the way for Mme. du Chastaigny," he explained. "Frankly I believe that letter to be a forgery. I cabled asking Mme. Curie. A 'No' from her will mean that my conjecture is correct; a 'Yes' will mean-but that is hardly worth considering. The question now is: What method was employed to cause the disappearance of the radium from that room?"

The door opened and Martha appeared. She handed a cablegram to The Thinking Machine and he ripped it open with hurried fingers. He glanced at the sheet once, then arose suddenly after which he sat down again, just as suddenly.

"What is it?" ventured Hatch.

"It's 'Yes,' " was the reply.

In the seclusion of his own small laboratory The Thinking Machine was making some sort of chemical experiment about eight o'clock that night. He was just hoisting a graduated gla.s.s, containing a purplish, hazy fluid, to get the lamp light through it, when an idea flashed into his mind. He permitted the gla.s.s to fall and smash on the floor.

"Perfectly stupid of me," he grumbled and turning he walked into an adjoining room without so much as a glance at the wrecked gla.s.s. A minute later he had Hutchinson Hatch on the telephone.