The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 75

"They say she's a bird charmer," Rex went on. "She charmed me, all right. Gad, I always knew I was a bird!"

In his own apartments again, St. Rocheville, hot from his exertions on the tennis court, was preparing for a cold plunge, when Blitz fluttered in at the window and perched himself familiarly on the back of a chair.

"h.e.l.lo!" said St. Rocheville.

"h.e.l.lo!" Blitz replied promptly.

Astonished, the young man burst out laughing-a laugh which died under the steady glare of the beady eyes. Again, for some unaccountable reason, he was possessed of that singular feeling off horror he had felt at first. He shook it off impatiently and entered the bathroom, leaving Blitz in possession.

He returned just in time to see the big bird darting through the window with something bright dangling from the powerful beak. He knew instantly what it was-his watch! He had left it on a table, and the bird had taken advantage of his absence to steal it. He started toward the window on a run; but, struck by a sudden thought, he stopped, and stood staring into the open, the while he permitted an idea to seep in. Finally he dropped into a chair, his agile mind teeming with possibilities.

Suppose-just suppose-Blitz had been taught to steal? Absurd, of course! Blitz was probably an upright, moral enough bird according to his own lights; but couldn't he be taught to steal? Either Blitz or another bird like him? He had heard somewhere that magpies would filch any glittering thing and secrete it. Why not jackdaws? Weren't they the same thing, after all? He didn't know.

A tame bird, properly trained, cunning, wary, with an innate faculty of making acquaintances, and powerful on the wing!

St. Rocheville forgot all about his watch in contemplation of a new idea. By George, it was worth an experiment, anyway!

There was a light tapping at his door.

"Monsieur St. Rocheville!" some one called.

"Yes?" he answered.

"It is I, Miss Fayerwether. I think I have your watch here. One of my birds came in my window with it from this direction. Your window was open, so I imagine he-he stole it."

St. Rocheville pulled his bath robe about him and peered out. Miss Fayerwether, with disturbed face, held the watch toward him-the great, solemn-looking bird was perched upon one shoulder.

"h.e.l.lo!" Blitz greeted him socially.

"It is my watch, yes," said St. Rocheville. "Blitz paid me a visit and took it away with him."

"Naughty, naughty!" and Miss Fayerwether shook one rosy finger under the bird's nose. "He embarra.s.ses me awfully sometimes," she confided. "I can't keep him confined all the time; and he has a trick of picking up any bright thing and bringing it to me."

"Please don't let it disturb you," St. Rocheville begged. "As for you, Monsieur Blitz, I'll keep my eye on you."

Miss Fayerwether vanished down the hall, scolding.

So Blitz had a trick of picking up bright things, eh? Monsieur St. Rocheville was pleased to know it. It was only a question, then, of training the bird to bring the thing he picked up to the right place. a.s.suredly here was an experiment worth while. In failure or success he was safe. No sane person could blame him for the immoral acts of a bird.

St. Rocheville seemed to have conquered his aversion to Blitz and Jack and Jill, for during the next week he spent hours with them; and hours, too, with their charming mistress. Sometimes he would play games with the birds-curious games-always in the absence of Miss Fayerwether. He would toss bright bits of gla.s.s, or even a finger ring, into the gra.s.s, or into the open window of his room, and the birds would go hurtling off to search. At length they came to know that there would be a lump of sugar for each on their return, with two pieces for the bird who brought the ring. St. Rocheville found it an absorbing game. He played it for hour after hour, for day after day.

All these things immediately preceded the first public knowledge of that series of robberies within a district of which Idlewild was the center. Miss Fayerwether, it seemed, was the first victim. She had either lost, or mislaid, she said, a diamond and ruby bracelet, and asked Mrs. Wardlaw Browne to have her servants look for it. She pooh-poohed the idea of theft. She had been careless, that was all. Yes, the bracelet was quite valuable; but it would doubtless come to light. She wouldn't have mentioned it at all except for the fact that it was an heirloom.

This politely phrased request opened the floodgates of revelation. Rex Miller had lost a rare scarab stickpin; the elderly Mrs. Scott was minus three valuable rings and an aquamarine hair ornament; Claudia Chanoler had been robbed of a rope of pearls worth thousands-robbed was the word she used; an emerald cameo, the property of Agatha Blalock, was missing. Following closely upon these mysterious happenings came word to Mrs. Wardlaw Browne of similar happening at the near-by estates of friends. A dozen valuable trinkets had vanished from the Willows where the Melville Pages had a house party; and at Sagamore, Mrs. Willets was bewailing the loss of an emerald bracelet which represented a small fortune.

The explosion came the night Mrs. Wardlaw Browne's diamond necklace was stolen. There had been an unpleasant scene of some sort in the card room. Rex Miller seemed to think that there was more than luck in the cards Monsieur St. Rocheville held; and he intimated as much. All things considered, Monsieur St. Rocheville behaved superbly. Being the only winner at the table, he tore the score into bits, and it fluttered to the floor. The other gentlemen understood that he disdained to accept money so long as a doubt remained. So the game ended abruptly, and they joined the ladies in the drawing-room. Ten minutes later Mrs. Wardlaw Browne's necklace vanished utterly.

So ultimately it came to pa.s.s that The Thinking Machine-more properly, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., F. R. S., M. D., LL. D., et cetera, et cetera, logician, a.n.a.lyst, and master mind in the sciences-turned his crabbed genius upon the problem. He consented to do so at the request of Hutchinson Hatch, newspaper reporter; and, singularly enough, it was Monsieur Jean St. Rocheville in person who brought the matter to the reporter's attention. Together they went to The Thinking Machine.

"You know," St. Rocheville took the trouble to explain, "every time I read of a robbery of this sort, either in a newspaper or in fiction, some foreign n.o.bleman is always the villain in the piece." He shrugged his shoulders. "It is an honor I do not desire."

"You are a n.o.bleman, then?" queried The Thinking Machine. The narrowed, pale-blue, squinting eyes were fixed tensely upon the young man's face.

"No." St. Rocheville smiled.

"Extraordinary," murmured the little scientist. "And who are you?"

"My father and my father's father are bankers in France." St. Rocheville lied gracefully. "The situation at Idlewild is--"

"Where?" The Thinking Machine interrupted curtly.

"Idlewild."

"I mean, where is your father a banker?"

"Paris."

"In what capacity? What's his position?"

"Managing director."

"What bank?"

"Credit Lyonnaise."

The Thinking Machine nodded his satisfaction and dropped his enormous head, with its thick, straw-colored thatch, back against the chair comfortably, his slim fingers coming to rest precisely tip to tip. Monsieur St. Rocheville stared at him curiously. Obviously here was a person who was not to be trifled with. However, he felt he had pa.s.sed his preliminary examination, unexpected as it was, with great credit. Not once had he forgotten his dialect; not for a fraction of a second had he hesitated in answering the abrupt questions. Ability to lie readily is a great convenience.

"Now," The Thinking Machine commanded, his squinting eyes turned upward, "what happened at Idlewild?"

Inadvertently or otherwise, St. Rocheville failed to refer, even remotely, to the three great velvet-black birds-Blitz and Jack and Jill-in his narrative of events at Idlewild. It was rather a chronological statement of the thefts as they had been reported, with no suggestion as to the manner in which they might have been committed.

"Now," and St. Rocheville spoke slowly, as one who wanted to be certain of his words, "I come down to those things which happened immediately before the disappearance of Mrs. Wardlaw Browne's necklace. Frankly my own statement will place me in rather a compromising position-that is, my real motive may not be understood-but it is better that I should tell you in the beginning things that you will surely find out."

"Decidedly better," The Thinking Machine agreed dryly. He didn't alter his position.

"Well, you must know that at Idlewild the men play auction a great deal, and--"

"Auction?" The Thinking Machine repeated. "What is auction, Mr. Hatch?"

"Auction bridge," the reporter told him. "A game of cards-a variation of whist."

Monsieur St., Rocheville stared from the wizened little scientist to the reporter incredulously. He would not have believed a person could have lived in a civilized country and not know what auction was. Perhaps he wouldn't have believed, either, that The Thinking Machine never read a newspaper. So circ.u.mscribed is our own viewpoint.

"At Idlewild the men play auction a great deal," The Thinking Machine prompted. "Go on."

"Auction, yes," St. Rocheville resumed. "It happens sometimes that the stakes are rather high. On the night Mrs. Wardlaw Browne's necklace was stolen, four of us were playing in the card room-a Mr. Gordon and myself as partners against a Mr. Miller and Franklin Chanoler, the financier." He hesitated slightly. "Mr. Miller had been losing, and in a burst of temper he intimated that-that I-that I-er--"