The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 197

There was a pause.

'That Mr Thalhauer is really a marvelous young man, Mr Hatch, don't you think?'

THE PROBLEM OF THE AUTO CAB.

Hutchinson Hatch gathered up his overcoat and took the steps coming down two at a time. There was no car in sight, nothing on wheels in fact, until-yes, here was an automobile turning the corner, an automobile cab drifting along apparently without purpose. Hatch hailed it.

"Get me out to Commonwealth Avenue and Arden Street in a hurry!" he instructed. "Take a chance with the speed law, and I'll make it worth while. It's important."

He yanked open the door, stepped in, and closed it with a slam. The chauffeur gave a twist to his lever, turned the car almost within its length, and went scuttling off up street.

Safely inside, Hatch became suddenly aware that he had a fellow pa.s.senger. Through the gloom he felt, rather than saw, two inquisitive eyes staring out at him, and there was the faintest odor of violets.

"h.e.l.lo!" Hatch demanded. "Am I in your way?"

"Not in the slightest," came the voice of a woman. "Am I in yours?"

"Why-I beg your pardon," Hatch stammered. "I thought I had the cab alone-didn't know there was a pa.s.senger. Perhaps I'd better get out?"

"No, no!" protested the woman quickly. "Don't think of it."

Then from outside came the bellowing voice of a policeman. "Hey, there! I'll report you!"

Glancing back, Hatch saw him standing in the middle of the street jotting down something in a note book. The chauffeur made a few uncomplimentary remarks about bluecoats in general, swished round a corner, and sped on. With a half smile of appreciation on his lips, Hatch turned back to his unknown companion.

"If you will tell me where you are going," he suggested, "I'll have the chauffeur set you down."

"It's of no consequence," replied the woman a little wearily. "I am going no place particularly-just riding about to collect my thoughts."

A woman unattended, riding about in an automobile at fifteen minutes of eleven o'clock at night to collect her thoughts! And the chauffeur didn't know he had a pa.s.senger! The reporter sat oblivious of the b.u.mping, grinding, of the automobile, trying to consider this unexpected incident calmly.

"You are a reporter?" inquired the woman.

"Yes," Hatch replied. "How did you guess it?"

"From seeing you rush out of a newspaper office in such a hurry at this time of night," she replied. "Something important, I dare say?"

"Well, yes," Hatch agreed. "A jewel robbery at a ball. Don't know much about it yet. Just got a police bulletin stating that Mrs. Windsor Dillingham had been robbed of a necklace worth thirty thousand dollars at a big affair she is giving to-night."

The inside of the cab was lighted brilliantly by the electric arc outside, and Hatch had an opportunity of seeing the woman face to face at close range. She was pretty; she was young; and she was well dressed. From her shoulders she was enveloped in some loose cloak of dark material; but it was not drawn together at her throat, and her bare neck gleamed.

There being nothing whatever to say, Hatch sat silently staring out of the window as the automobile whirled into Commonwealth Avenue and slowed up as it approached Arden Street.

"Will you do me one favor, please?" asked the woman.

"Yes, if I can," was the reporter's reply.

"Allow me, please, to get out of the automobile on the side away from the curb, and be good enough to attract the attention of the chauffeur to yourself while I am doing it. Here is a bill," and she pressed something into Hatch's hand. "You may pay the chauffeur a tip for the pa.s.senger he didn't know he had."

Hatch agreed in a dazed sort of way, and the automobile came to a stop. He stepped out on the curb, and slammed the door as the chauffeur leaped down from his seat. From the other side came an answering door slam, as if an echo.

Five minutes later Hatch joined Detective Mallory inside. At just that moment the detective was listening to the story of Mrs. Dillingham's maid.

"There's nothing missing but the necklace," she explained; "so far, at least, as we have been able to find out. Mrs. Dillingham began dressing at about half-past eight o'clock, and I a.s.sisted her as usual. I suppose it was half-past nine when she finished. All that time the necklace was in the jewel box on her dressing table. It was the only article of jewelry in the box.

"Well, the butler came up about half-past nine o'clock for his final instructions, and Mrs. Dillingham went into the adjoining room to talk to him. It was not more than a minute later when she sent me down to the conservatory for a rose for her hair. She was still talking to him when I returned five minutes later. I put the rose in her hair, and she sent me into her dressing room for her necklace. When I looked into the jewel box, the necklace was gone. I told Mrs. Dillingham. The butler heard me. That's all I know of it, except that Mrs. Dillingham went into hysterics and fainted, and I telephoned for a doctor."

Detective Mallory regarded the girl coldly; Hatch knew perfectly what was coming. "You are quite sure," asked the detective, "that you did not take the necklace with you when you went down to the conservatory, and pa.s.s it to a confederate on the outside."

The sudden pallor of the girl, her abject, cringing fright, answered the question to Hatch's satisfaction even before she opened her lips with a denial. Hatch himself was about to ask a question, when a footman entered.

"Mrs. Dillingham will see you in her boudoir," he announced.

From the lips of Mrs. Dillingham they heard identically the same story the maid had told. Mrs. Dillingham did not suspect anyone of her household.

For half an hour the detective interrogated her; then there came a rap at the door, and a woman entered.

"Why, Dora!" exclaimed Mrs. Dillingham

The young woman went straight to her, put her arms about her shoulders protectingly, then turned to glare defiantly at Detective Mallory and Hutchinson Hatch. The reporter gasped-it was the mysterious woman of the automobile. An exclamation was on his lips; but something in her eyes warned him, and he was silent.

When, on the following day, Hutchinson Hatch related the circ.u.mstances of the theft of Mrs. Dillingham's necklace to Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen-The Thinking Machine-he did not mention the mysterious woman in the automobile. However curious those incidents in which he and she had figured were, they were inconsequential, and there was nothing to connect them in anyway with the problem in hand. The strange woman's meeting with Mrs. Dillingham in the reporter's presence had convinced him that she was an intimate friend.

"Just what time was the theft discovered?" inquired The Thinking Machine.

"Within a few minutes of half-past nine."

"At what time did most of the guests arrive?"

"Between half-past nine and ten."

"Then at half-past nine," continued the scientist, "there could not have been many persons there?"

"Perhaps a dozen," returned the reporter.

"And who were they?"

"Their names, you mean? I don't know."

"Well, find out," directed The Thinking Machine crustily. "If the servants are removed from the case, and there were a dozen other persons in the house, common sense tells us to find out who and what they were. Suppose, Mr. Hatch, you had attended that ball and stolen that necklace; what would have been your natural inclination afterward?"

Hatch stared at him blankly for a minute, then smiled whimsically. "You mean how would I have tried to get away with it?" he asked.

"Yes. When would you have left the place?"