LITMIR.BIZ

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sort of fish?” he asked curiously.

      “I don’t know,” was the reply. “A person, or persons, have picked up one or more of those suit cases to the bottom of which our electric wire is connected. He is unable to let go—he, or they, as the case may be. He will be unconscious when we reach him.”

      “Dead, you mean,” said Hatch grimly. “The current from that trolley wire—”

      “Unconscious,” The Thinking Machine corrected. “The current is reduced. There is a transformer in each of the suit cases. The wiring extends up through the handles where the insulation is stripped off.”

      Three, four, nearly five, miles they went like the wind; then the motor car stopped with a jerk, and Hatch, taking advantage of his longer legs, galloped off through the open field toward the lone tree in the center. The thing he saw caused him to stop suddenly and raise his hands in horror. Upon the ground in front of him was the convulsed figure of a young man, foreign-looking, distinguished even. His distorted face, livid now, was turned upward, and his hands were gripped to the suit case by the powerful electric current.

      “Who is it?” queried the scientist.

      “Crown Prince Otto Ludwig, of Germania–Austria!”

      “What?” The question came violently, a single burst of amazement. And again: “What?” There was an expression on The Thinking Machine’s face the like of which Hatch had never seen there before. “It’s a possibility I had never considered. So he wanted the five million—” Suddenly his whole manner changed. “Let’s get him to the motor.”

      With rubber-gloved hands, he cut the wire which held the crown prince prisoner, and the unconscious man fell back limply, as if dead. Five minutes later they had lifted him into the tonneau, and The Thinking Machine bent over him anxiously, with his hand on his wrist.

      “Where to?” asked Hatch.

      “Anywhere, and fast!” was the reply. “I must think.”

      Oblivious of the swaying and clatter of the huge car, The Thinking Machine sat silent for minute after minute as it sped on over the smooth road. Finally he seemed satisfied. He leaned forward, and touched Hatch on the shoulder.

      “It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll go aboard ship now.”

      Late that night the crown prince, himself again, but with badly burned hands, explained. He had been stupefied by chloroform, kidnaped, and lowered over the battleship rail in utter darkness. His impression was that he had been taken away in a small boat which had muffled oars. When he recovered, he found himself a prisoner in a deserted country house, with two men on guard. He didn’t know the name of either.

      Calmly enough, the three of them discussed the affair in all its aspects. They could devise no safe means of communicating with the ship until he suggested the wireless. He even aided in the erection of a station between two tall trees on a remote hill somewhere. One of his guards, meanwhile, had to master the code. He had become fairly proficient when they saw the advertisement in the newspapers.

      “But how is it you went to get the money?” the scientist questioned curiously.

      “The men feared treachery,” was the explanation. “They were willing to take my word of honor that I would get it and return with it, after which I was to be free. A prince of the royal house of Germania–Austria may not break his word of honor.”

      Tiny corrugations in the domelike brow of the scientist caused Hatch to stare at him expectantly; even as he looked they passed.

      “Mr. Hatch,” he said abruptly, “I have heard you refer to certain newspaper stories as ‘peaches’ and ‘corkers’ and what not. How would you class this?”

      “This,” said the reporter enthusiastically, “this is a bird!”

      “It has only one defect,” remarked The Thinking Machine. “It cannot be printed.”

      One eminent scientist who had achieved the seemingly impossible, and one disgusted newspaper reporter were rowed ashore at midnight.

      “What do you think of it all, anyhow?” demanded Hatch suddenly.

      “I have no opinion to express,” declared The Thinking Machine crabbedly. “The prince has come to his own again; that is sufficient.”

      Some weeks later Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen was decorated with the Order of the Iron Eagle by Emperor Gustavus, of Germania–Austria. Reflectively he twisted the elaborate jeweled bauble in his slender fingers; then returned to his worktable under the great electric light. For a minute or more tiny corrugations appeared in his forehead; finally they passed as that strange mind of his became absorbed in the thing he was doing.

      The Problem of the Green Eyed Monster

      Table of Contents

      With coffee cup daintily poised in one hand, Mrs. Lingard van Safford lifted wistful, bewitching eyes towards her husband, who sat across the breakfast table partially immersed in the morning papers.

      “Are you going out this morning?” she inquired.

      Mr. van Safford grunted inarticulately.

      “May I inquire,” she went on placidly, and a dimple snuggled at a corner of her mouth, “if that particular grunt means that you are or are not?”

      Mr. van Safford lowered his newspaper and glanced at his wife’s pretty face. She smiled charmingly.

      “Really, I beg your pardon,” he apologized, “I hardly think I will go out. I feel rather listless, and I must write some letters. Why?”

      “Oh, nothing particularly,” she responded.

      She took a last sip of her coffee, brushed two or three tiny crumbs from her lap, laid her napkin aside, and arose. Once she turned and glanced back; Mr. van Safford was reading again.

      After a while he finished the papers and stood looking out a window, yawning prodigiously at the prospect of letters to be written. His wife entered and picked up a handkerchief which had fallen beside her chair. He merely glanced around. She was dressed for the street—immaculately, stunningly gowned as only a young and beautiful and wealthy woman can gown herself.

      “Where are you going, my dear?” he inquired, languidly.

      “Out,” she responded archly.

      She passed through the door. He heard her step and the rustle of her skirts in the hall, then he heard the front door open and close. For some reason, not quite clear even to himself, it surprised him; she had never done a thing like that before. He walked to the front window and looked out. His wife went straight down the street, and turned the first corner. After a time he wandered away to the library to nurse an emotion he had never felt before. It was curiosity.

      Mrs. van Safford did not return home for luncheon, so he sat down alone. Afterwards he mouched about the house restlessly for an hour or so, then he went down town. He appeared at home again just in time to dress for dinner.

      “Has Mrs. van Safford returned?” was his first question of Baxter, who opened the door.

      “Yes, sir, half an hour ago,” responded Baxter. “She’s dressing.”

      Mr. van Safford ran up the steps to his own apartments. At dinner his wife was radiant, rosily radiant. The flush of perfect health was in her checks and her eyes sparkled beneath their long lashes. She smiled brilliantly upon her husband. To him it was all as if some great thing had been taken out of his life, leaving it desolate, then as suddenly returned. Unnamed emotions struggled within him prompted by that curiosity of the morning, and a dozen questions hammered insistently for answers, But he repressed them gallantly, and for this he was duly rewarded.

      “I had such a delightful time today!”

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