The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 122

"There are still three possibilities," he told himself at the end as he carefully restored the room to its previous condition. "He might have left them in a package in the ship's safe but that's improbable-too risky; he might have left them in a trunk in the hold, which is still more improbable; or he might have them on his person. That is more than likely."

So Conway went out, extinguishing the light and locking the door behind him. He stepped into his own state room a moment and took a mouthful of whiskey which he spat out again. But it must have had some deep, potent effect for a few minutes later when he appeared in the smoking room he was in a lamentable state of intoxication and exhaled whiskey noticeably. His was a maudlin, thick-tongued condition. Leighton glanced up at him with well bred reproach.

It may have been only accident that Conway stumbled over Leighton's feet and noted that he wore flat-soled, loose slippers without heels, and also accident that he embraced him with exaggerated affection as he struggled to recover his equilibrium.

Be those things as they may Leighton excused himself good-naturedly from the bridge party and urged Conway to bed. Conway would only agree on condition that Leighton would a.s.sist him. Leighton consented cheerfully and they left the smoking room together, Conway clinging to him as the vine to the oak.

Half way down the deck Conway stumbled and fell despite the friendly supporting arm, and in his effort to save himself his hands slid all the way down Leighton's shapely legs. Then he was deposited in his state room and Leighton returned to his cards smiling.

"And he hasn't got them on him," declared Conway enigmatically to the bare walls. He was not intoxicated now.

It was an easy matter next day for him to learn that Leighton had left nothing in the ship's safe and that his four trunks in the hold were inaccessible, being buried under hundreds of others. Whereupon Conway sat down to wait and learn what new and original ideas of searching Uncle Sam's Customs officers had invented.

At last came a morning when the wireless telegraph operator aboard picked up a signal from sh.o.r.e and announced that the Romanic was less than a hundred miles from Boston light. Later Conway found Leighton leaning on the rail, smoking and gazing sh.o.r.eward.

It was three hours or so after that that several pa.s.sengers noticed a motor boat coming toward them. Leighton watched it with idle interest. Finally it circled widely and it became apparent that it was coming along-side the now slow moving liner. When it was only a hundred feet off and the liner was barely creeping along, Leighton grew suddenly interested.

"By Jove," he exclaimed, then shouted: "h.e.l.lo, Harry!"

"h.e.l.lo, Leighton," came an answering shout. "Heard you were aboard and came out to meet you."

There was a rapid fire of uninteresting pleasantries as the motor boat slid in under the Romanic's lee and bobbed up and down in her wash. The man aboard stood up with a package of newspapers in his hand.

"Here are some American papers for you," he called.

He flung the bundle and Leighton caught it, left the rail and pa.s.sed into his state room. He returned after a moment with a bundle of European papers-those Conway had previously seen.

"Catch," he called. "There's something in these that will interest you."

The man in the small boat caught the package and dropped it carelessly on a seat.

Then, suddenly, Conway awoke.

"There goes the necklace," he told himself with a start. A quick grasping movement of his hands attracted Leighton's attention and he smiled inscrutably, daringly into the blazing eyes of the Scotland Yard man. The motor boat with a parting shot of "I'll meet you on the wharf" sped away.

Thoughts began to flow rapidly through Conway's fertile brain. Five minutes later he burst in on the wireless operator and sent a long dispatch to officials ash.o.r.e. Then from the bow rail he watched the motor boat speeding away in the direction of Boston. It drew off about two miles and remained relatively in that position for nearly all the forty miles into Boston Harbour. It spoke no other craft, pa.s.sed near none in fact while in Conway's sight, which was until it disappeared in Boston Harbour.

An hour later the Romanic was warped in and tied up. Conway was the first man off. He went straight to a man who seemed to be waiting for him.

"Did you search the motor boat?" he demanded.

"Yes," was the reply. "We nearly tore it to pieces, even took it out of the water. We also searched the man on her, Harry Cheshire. You must have been mistaken."

"Are you sure she spoke no one or got rid of the jewels to another vessel?"

"She didn't go near another vessel," was the reply. "I met her at the Harbour mouth and came in with her."

For an instant Conway's face showed disappointment, then came animation again. He was just beginning to get really interested in the affair.

"Do you know the Customs officer in charge?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Introduce me."

There was an introduction and the three men spoke aside for several minutes. The result of it was that when Leighton sauntered down the gang plank he was invited into a private office. He went smilingly and submitted to a search of his person without anger or the slightest trace of uneasiness. As he came out Conway was standing at the door.

"Are you satisfied?" Leighton asked.

"No," blazed Conway, savagely.

"What? Not after searching me twice and my state room once?"

Conway didn't answer. He didn't dare to at the moment, but he stood by when Leighton's four trunks were taken from the hold, and he saw that they were searched with the same minute care that he had given to the state room. At the fruitless end of it he sat down on one of the trunks and stared at Leighton in a sort of admiration.

Leighton stared back for a moment, smiled, nodded pleasantly and strolled up the dock chatting carelessly with Harry Cheshire. Conway made no attempt to follow them. It wasn't worth while-nothing was worth while any more.

"But he did get them and he's got them now," he told himself savagely, "or he has disposed of them in some way that I can't find."

The Thinking Machine did not seem to regard the problem as at all difficult when it came to his attention a couple of days later. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, brought it to him. Hatch had some good friends in the Customs Office where Conway had told his story. He learned from them that that office had refused to have anything to do with the case insisting that the Scotland Yard man must be mistaken.

Crushed in spirit, mangled in reputation and taunted by Leighton's final words Conway took a desolate view of life. Momentarily he lost even that bull-dog tenacity which had never before faltered-lost it all except in so far as he still believed that Leighton was the man. It was about this time Hatch met him. Would he talk? He was burning to talk; caution was a senseless thing anyway. Then Hatch took him gently by the hand and led him to The Thinking Machine.

Conway unburdened himself at length and with vitriolic emphasis. For an hour he went on while the scientist leaned back in his chair with his great yellow head pillowed on a cushion and squinted aggressively at the ceiling. At the end of the hour The Thinking Machine knew as much of the Varron problem as Conway knew and knew as much of Leighton as any man knew, except Leighton.

"How many stones were in the necklace," the scientist asked.

"One hundred and seventy-two," replied Conway.

"Was the man in the motor boat-Harry Cheshire you call him-an Englishman?"

"Yes, in speech, manner and appearance."

For a long time The Thinking Machine twiddled his fingers while Conway and the reporter sat staring at him impatiently. Hatch knew, from the past, that something tangible, something that led somewhere, would come from that wonderful a.n.a.lytical brain; Conway not knowing, was only hopefully curious. But like most men of his profession he wanted action; sitting down and thinking didn't seem to get anywhere.

"You see, Mr. Conway," said the scientist at last, "you haven't proven anything. Your investigations, as a matter of fact, indicate that Leighton did not take the pearls, therefore did not bring them with him. There is only one thing that indicates that he might have. That is the throwing of the newspapers into the motor boat. That one act seems to have been a senseless one, unless--"

"Unless the pearls were concealed in the bundle," interrupted the Scotland Yard man.

"Or unless he was amusing himself at your expense and is perfectly innocent," added The Thinking Machine. "It is perfectly possible that if he were an innocent man and discovered that you were on his track that he has merely made a fool of you. If we take any other view of it we must base it on an a.s.sumption which has no established fact to support it. We will have to dispose of every other person who might have stolen the necklace and pin it down to Leighton. Further, we will have to a.s.sume out of hand that he brought the jewels to this country."

The Scotland Yard man was getting interested.

"That is not good logic, yet when we a.s.sume all this for our present purposes the problem is a simple one. And by a.s.suming it we prove that your search of the state room was not thorough. Did you, for instance, happen to look on the under side of the slats in the berth? Do you know that the necklace, or its unset pearls, did not hang down in the drain pipe from the water bowl?"

Conway snapped his fingers in annoyance. These were two things he had not done.

"There are other possibilities of course," resumed The Thinking Machine, "therefore the search for the necklace was useless. Now we must take for granted that, if they came to this country at all, they came in one of those places and you overlooked them. Obviously Mr. Leighton would not have left them in the trunks in the hold. Therefore we a.s.sume further that he hid them in his state room and threw them into the motor boat.