The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 187

"I think, gentlemen, this is all," remarked The Thinking Machine.

It was more than a month later that The Thinking Machine called upon Harold Fairbanks at his home. The young man was sitting up in bed, weak but intelligently cognizant of everything about him. There was still an occasional restless roving of his eyes; but that was all.

"You remember me, Mr. Fairbanks?" began the scientist.

"Yes," was the reply.

"You remember the events of the night we were together?"

"Everything, from the time the automobile left the road and the light appeared in the distance," said Fairbanks. "I remember seeing the old man again, and the woman appearing. I know now that he was deaf and dumb and blind, and that she was insane. That seems to clear the situation a great deal." He pa.s.sed a wasted hand across his brow. "But where is the place. I couldn't find it."

"Listen for just a moment now, please," said The Thinking Machine soothingly. "You don't remember shooting at your mother? No. Don't excite yourself; she was not wounded. Immediately after that you were placed in a sanatorium. I saw you there. The ivory image had been taken away from you. I went into the room where you were confined and gave it back to you. It acted as I thought it would,-quieted you. To make certain that it was this and nothing else that had that effect, I took it away from you again, and you grew violent-as a matter of fact, your condition was such that you overturned a heavy table that was bolted to the floor-broke the bolt. You don't remember that?"

"No."

"I left the image with you. That really was the tangible cause of your condition. If it hadn't been for that, and the brooding over the mystery which it constantly caused, the events of that first night would have pa.s.sed out of your mind in time. You superinduced self hypnotism with that little image; that is, you must understand that self hypnotism is possible to persons of a certain temperament in a mechanical way, when the object employed is highly polished-shiny, I might say.

"Although that image brought you to the condition you were in, I restored it to you to quiet you physically. That was necessary before I could reproduce for you the events of the first night. You went with us in an automobile, from Pelham to the little store where you had stopped that first night for gasolene. We stopped there for gasolene, and saw the man you saw that first night. As a matter of fact, he had gone away only for a few months, and is now installed in the little store again. This was all done, you understand, to arouse you, if possible, to what was pa.s.sing around you. In a way it succeeded.

"Well, from the little store we went as you went the night of your first trouble, until we came to the two roads, one leading by sharp turns to the left. Then we went straight to the farm house where the old man and the woman were. There I wanted to convince you that they were real people,-that there was nothing of the ghostly about them. As a matter of fact, that old man and the woman never knew you were in the house that night. The man had no means of knowing it so long as you never touched him nor he you. You say he brought in something to eat. In all probability that was intended for the woman. You a.s.sumed it was for yourself. The fire which compelled you to jump and which resulted in the broken ankle for you, did not destroy the house. There were still marks of it there but the heavy rain extinguished it, and carpenters made the necessary repairs. Now all that is clear, isn't it?"

"Perfectly," was the reply; "but the white thing in the road-the screaming I heard there?"

"There is no mystery whatever about that," continued the scientist calmly. "That road that turns to the left turns more sharply than you imagine. After a little distance it goes almost parallel with the main road, so that following it at night you would, without any knowledge of it, pa.s.s within a few hundred feet of a point on the main road. Now the house where these people live is say five hundred feet from the road that turns to the left therefore not more than eight hundred feet, we'll say, from the main road. Thus the screaming you heard in the main road was the woman who lived in that house; the figure you saw was that woman. Just why she had left the house and was wandering around through the wood does not appear; it is certain that she was there, and was frightened by the storm. I can only say that she might have known she was pursued by you and taken refuge on an overhanging limb, and thus gave you the impression of her figure rising above the ground and moving about among the trees.

"It followed naturally that by the time you had taken the roundabout way with your automobile and reached the house she had reached it by going straight ahead through the wood-say for eight hundred feet, and again you heard her screams there. Many things happened in that house that night of no consequence in themselves, but which to your excited imagination were mysterious. One of these was the candle going out. It is obvious that a gust of wind did that, or else a single drop of water from a leak in the roof. Do you follow me?"

Fairbanks was silent for several minutes as he lay back with his eyes closed. "But the vital thing, the real thing that bewildered me most of all," he said slowly, "you haven't touched. That is, Why was it that after all my searching for the road to the left and the farm house, I didn't find them, if they were there?"

"Of course you don't remember," explained The Thinking Machine; "but the night our party went over the route I asked Dr. Pollock and Mr. Hatch just after we left the little store whether they had noticed anything peculiar. They replied in the negative. As a matter of fact," and the scientist was speaking very quietly, "our automobile went the same way yours had gone-not toward Millen, as you supposed and they supposed, but back toward Pelham. You didn't find the road to the left and the farm house when you were searching, for the reason that they were beyond the little store toward Pelham, eight or ten miles away."

A great wave of relief swept over the young man, and he leaned forward eagerly. "But wouldn't I have known when I turned the wrong way?" he demanded.

The Thinking Machine shrugged his shoulders. "You would have known in daylight, yes," was the reply, "but at night, in a hurry and somewhat confused by the flying dust, you turned the wrong way-toward Pelham, not toward Millen. You see that is possible when I tell you that Dr. Pollock and Mr. Hatch didn't notice that we had turned the wrong way, when there was no storm, and when I asked them if they had noticed anything peculiar."

There was a long silence. Fairbanks dropped back in the bed and lay silent.

"In your ma.n.u.script," resumed The Thinking Machine at last, "you mentioned that you seemed to hear some one calling you as you started away from the little store. This you attributed vaguely to imagination. As a matter of fact, you did hear some one call-it was the man who sold you the gasolene. He knew you intended going to Millen, saw that you had turned the wrong way, and called to tell you so. You didn't wait to hear."

And that was all of it.

THE MYSTERY OF STUDIO A.

I.

Where the light slants down softly into one corner of a noted art museum in Boston there hangs a large picture. Its t.i.tle is "Fulfillment." Discriminating art critics have alternately raved at it and praised it; from the day it appeared there it has been a fruitful source of acrimonious discussion. As for the public, it accepts the picture as a startling, amazing thing of beauty, and there is always a crowd around it.

"Fulfillment" is typified by a woman. She stands boldly forth against a languorous background of deep tones. Flesh tints are daringly laid on the semi-nude figure, diaphanous draperies hide, yet, reveal, the exquisite lines of the body. Her arms are outstretched straight toward the spectator, the black hair ripples down over her shoulders, the red lips are slightly parted. The mysteries of complete achievement and perfect life lie in her eyes.

Into this picture the artist wove the spiritual and the worldly; here he placed on canvas an elusive portrayal of success in its fullest and widest meaning. One's first impression of the picture is that it is sensual; another glance shows the underlying typification of success, and love and life are there. One by one the qualities stand forth.

The artist was Constans St. George. After the first flurry of excitement which the picture caused there came a whirlwind of criticism. Then the artist, who had labored for months on the work which he had intended and which proved to be his masterpiece, collapsed. Some said it was overwork-they were partly right; others that it was grief at the attacks of critics who did not see beyond the surface of the painting. Perhaps they, too, were partly right.

However that may be, it is a fact that for several months after the picture was exhibited St. George was in a sanitarium. The physicians said it was nervous collapse-a total breaking-down, and there were fears for his sanity. At length there came an improvement in his condition, and he returned to the world. Since then he had lived quietly in his studio, one of many in a large office building. From time to time he had been approached with offers for the picture, but always he refused to sell. A New York millionaire made a flat proposition of fifty thousand dollars, which was as flatly refused.

The artist loved the picture as a child of his own brain; every day he visited the museum where it was exhibited and stood looking at it with something almost like adoration in his eyes. Then he went away quietly, tugging at his straggling beard and with the dim blindness of tears in his eyes. He never spoke to anyone; and always avoided that moment when a crowd was about.

Whatever the verdict of the critics or of the public on "Fulfillment," it was an admitted fact that the artist had placed on canvas a representation of a wonderfully beautiful woman. Therefore, after awhile the question of who had been the model for "Fulfillment" was aroused. No one knew, apparently. Artists who knew St. George could give no idea-they only knew that the woman who had posed was not a professional model.

This led to speculation, in which the names of some of the most beautiful women in the United States were mentioned. Then a romance was woven. This was that the artist was in love with the original and that his collapse was partly due to her refusal to wed him. This story, as it went, was elaborated until the artist was said to be pining away for love of one whom he had immortalized in oils.

As the story grew it gained credence, and a search was still made occasionally for the model. Half a dozen times Hutchinson Hatch, a newspaper reporter of more than usual astuteness, had been on the story without success; he had seen and studied the picture until every line of it was firmly in his mind. He had seen and talked to St. George twice. The artist would answer no questions as to the ident.i.ty of the model.

This, then, was the situation on the morning of Friday, November 27, when Hatch entered the reportorial rooms of his newspaper. At sight of him the City Editor removed his cigar, placed it carefully on the "official block" which adorned his flat-topped desk, and called to the reporter.

"Girl reported missing," he said, brusquely. "Name is Grace Field, and she lived at No. 195 -- Street, Dorchester. Employed in the photographic department of the Star, a big department store. Report of her disappearance made to the police early to-day by Ellen Stanford, her roommate, also employed at the Star. Jump out on it and get all you can. Here is the official police description."

Hatch took a slip of paper and read:

"Grace Field, twenty-one years, five feet seven inches tall, weight 151 pounds, profuse black hair, dark-brown eyes, superb figure, oval face, said to be beautiful."

Then the description went into details of her dress and other things which the police note in their minute records for a search. Hatch absorbed all these things and left his office. He went first to the department store, where he was told Miss Stanford had not appeared that day, sending a note that she was ill.

From the store Hatch went at once to the address given in Dorchester. Miss Stanford was in. Would she see a reporter? Yes. So Hatch was ushered into the modest little parlor of a boarding-house, and after awhile Miss Stanford entered. She was as a pet.i.te blonde, with pink cheeks and blue eyes, now reddened by weeping.

Briefly Hatch explained the purpose of his visit-an effort to find Grace Field, and Miss Stanford eagerly and tearfully expressed herself as willing to tell him all she knew.

"I have known Grace for five months," she explained; "that is, from the time she came to work at the Star. Her counter is next to mine. A friendship grew up between us, and we began rooming together. Each of us is alone in the East. She comes from the West, somewhere in Nevada, and I come from Quebec.

"Grace has never said much about herself, but I know that she had been in Boston a year or so before I met her. She lived somewhere in Brookline, I believe, but it seems that she had some funds and did not go to work until she came to the Star. This is as I understand it.

"Three days ago, on Tuesday it was, there was a letter for Grace when we came in from work. It seemed to agitate her, although she said nothing to me about what was in it, and I did not ask. She did not sleep well that night, but next morning, when we started to work, she seemed all right. That is, she was all right until we got to the subway station, and then she told me to go on to the store, saying she would be there after awhile.

"I left her, and at her request explained to the manager of our floor that she would be late. From that time to this no one has seen her or heard of her. I don't know where she could have gone," and the girl burst into tears. "I'm sure something dreadful has happened to her."

"Possibly an elopement?" Hatch suggested.

"No," said the girl, quickly. "No. She was in love, but the man she was in love with has not heard of her either. I saw him the night after she disappeared. He called here and asked for her, and seemed surprised that she had not returned home, or had not been at work."

"What's his name?" asked Hatch.

"He's a clerk in a bank," said Miss Stanford. "His name is Willis-Victor Willis. If she had eloped with him I would not have been surprised, but I am positive she did not, and if she did not, where is she?"