LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

it will be interesting to try to throw the inevitable, the preordained I might say, out of gear, won’t it?”

      With a quizzical, grim expression about his thin lips The Thinking Machine went to the telephone in an adjoining room and called some one. Varick heard neither the name nor what was said, merely the mumble of the irritable voice. He glanced up as the scientist returned.

      “Have you any servants—a valet for instance?” asked the scientist.

      “Yes, I have an aged servant, a valet, but he is now in France, I gave him a little vacation. I really don’t need one now as I live in an apartment house—almost a hotel.”

      “I don’t suppose you happen to have three or four thousand dollars in your pocket?”

      “No, not so much as that,” was the puzzled reply. “If it’s your fee—”

      “I never accept fees,” interrupted the scientist. “I interest myself in affairs like these because I like them. They are good mental exercise. Please draw a cheque for, say four thousand dollars, to Hutchinson Hatch.”

      “Who is he?” asked Varick. There was no reply. The cheque was drawn and handed over without further comment.

      It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that a cab pulled up in front of the house. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, and another man whom he introduced as Philip Byrne were ushered in. As Hatch shook hands with Varick The Thinking Machine compared them mentally. They were relatively of the same size and he bobbed his head as if satisfied.

      “Now, Mr. Hatch,” he instructed, “take this cheque and get it cashed immediately, then return here. Not a word to anybody.”

      Hatch went out and Byrne discussed politics with Varick until he returned with the money. The Thinking Machine thrust the bills into Byrne’s hand and he counted it, afterward stowing it away in a pocket.

      “Now, Mr. Varick, the keys to your apartment, please,” asked the scientist.

      They were handed over and he placed them in his pocket. Then he turned to Varick.

      “From this time on,” he said, “your name is John Smith. You are going on a trip, beginning immediately, with Mr. Byrne here. You are not to send a letter, a postal, a telegram or a package to anyone; you are to buy nothing, you are to write no checks, you are not to speak to or recognize anyone, you are not to telephone or attempt in any manner to communicate with anyone, not even me. You are to obey Mr. Byrne in everything he says.”

      Varick’s eyes had grown wider and wider as he listened.

      “But my affairs—my business?” he protested.

      “It is a matter of your life or death,” said The Thinking Machine shortly.

      For a moment Varick wavered a little. He felt that he was being treated like a child.

      “As you say,” he said finally.

      “Now, Mr. Byrne,” continued the scientist, “you heard those instructions. It is your duty to enforce them. You must lose this man and yourself. Take him away somewhere to another place. There is enough money there for ordinary purposes. When you learn that there has been an arrest in connection with a certain threat against Mr. Varick, come back to Boston—to me—and bring him. That’s all.”

      Mr. Byrne arose with a business like air.

      “Come on, Mr. Smith,” he commanded.

      Varick followed him out of the room.

      Here was a table littered with books and papers, there a chair, yonder a shadowy mantel.

      A door opened and a man entered the room moved about the study aimlessly for a time as if deeply troubled, then dropped into a chair at the desk made some hopeless gesture with his hands and leaned forward on the desk with his head on his arms another figure in the room knife in his hand creeping stealthily toward the unconscious figure in the chair with the knife raised the unknown crept on, on, on.

      There was a blinding flash, a gush of flame and smoke, a sharp click and through the fog came the unexcited voice of Hutchinson Hatch, reporter.

      “Stay right where you are, please.”

      “That ought to be a good picture,” said The Thinking Machine.

      The smoke cleared and he saw Adhem Singh standing watching with deep concern a revolver in the hand of Hatch, who had suddenly arisen from the desk in Varick’s room. The Thinking Machine rubbed his hands briskly.

      “Ah, I thought it was you,” he said to the crystal gazer. “Put down the knife, please. That’s right. It seems a little bold to have interfered with what was to be like this, but you wanted too much detail, Mr. Singh. You might have murdered your friend if you hadn’t gone into so much trivial theatrics.”

      “I suppose I am a prisoner?” asked the crystal gazer.

      “You are,” The Thinking Machine assured him cheerfully. “You are charged with the attempted murder of Mr. Varick. Your wife will be a prisoner in another half hour with all those who were with you in the conspiracy.”

      He turned to Hatch, who was smiling broadly. The reporter was thinking of that wonderful flashlight photograph in the camera that The Thinking Machine held,—the only photograph in the world, so far as he knew, of a man in the act of attempting an assassination.

      “Now, Mr. Hatch,” the scientist went on, “I will ‘phone to Detective Mallory to come here and get this gentleman, and also to send men and arrest every person to be found in Mr. Singh’s home. If this man tries to run—shoot.”

      The scientist went out and Hatch devoted his attention to his sullen prisoner. He asked half a dozen questions and receiving no answers he gave it up as hopeless. After awhile Detective Mallory appeared in his usual state of restrained astonishment and the crystal grazer was led away.

      Then Hatch and The Thinking Machine went to the Adhem Singh house. The police had preceded them and gone away with four prisoners, among them the girl Jadeh. They obtained an entrance through the courtesy of a policeman left in charge and sought out the crystal cabinet. Together they bowed over the glittering globe as Hatch held a match.

      “But I still don’t see how it was done,” said the reporter after they had looked at the crystal.

      The Thinking Machine lifted the ball and replaced it on its pedestal half a dozen times apparently trying to locate a slight click. Then he fumbled all around the table, above and below. At his suggestion Hatch lifted the ball very slowly, while the scientist slid his slender fingers beneath it.

      “Ah,” he exclaimed at last. “I thought so. It’s clever, Mr. Hatch, clever. Just stand here a few minutes in the dark and I’ll see if I can operate it for you.”

      He disappeared and Hatch stood staring at the crystal until he was developing a severe case of the creeps himself. Just then a light flashed in the crystal, which had been only dimly visible, and he found himself looking into—the room in Howard Varick’s apartments, miles away. As he looked, startled, he saw The Thinking Machine appear in the crystal and wave his arms. The creepiness passed instantly in the face of this obvious attempt to attract his attention.

      It was later that afternoon that The Thinking Machine turned the light of his analytical genius on the problem for the benefit of Hatch and Detective Mallory.

      “Charlatanism is a luxury which costs the peoples of the world incredible sums,” he began. “It had its beginning, of course, in the dark ages when man’s mind grasped at some tangible evidence of an Infinite Power, and through its very eagerness was easily satisfied. Then quacks began to prey upon man, and do to this day under many guises and under many names. This condition will continue until enlightenment has become so general that man will realize the absurdity of such a thing as Nature, or the other world’s forces, going out of its way to tell him whether a certain stock will go up or down. A sense of humour ought to convince him that disembodied spirits do not come back and rap on tables in answer to asinine

Скачать книгу