LITMIR.BIZ

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said The Thinking Machine, “and incidentally a little proof that circumstantial evidence is absolutely worthless. For instance, here it was proven that Miss Melrose was dead, that Mr. Curtis was jealous of her, that while drinking he had threatened her—this I learned at the Hotel Yarmouth, but now it is unimportant—that his knife killed her, and finally that there was blood on one of his handkerchiefs. This is the complete circumstantial chain; and Miss Melrose appears, alive.

      “Suppose we take the case from the point where I entered it. It will be interesting as showing the methods of a brain which reduces all things to tangible strands which may be woven into a whole, then fitting them together. My knowledge of the affair began when Mr. Curtis was brought to these apartments by Mr. Hatch. Mr. Curtis was ill. I gave him a stimulant; he aroused suddenly and shrieked: ‘I saw her. There was a dagger in her heart. Marguerite!’

      “My first impression was that he was insane; my next that he had delirium tremens, because I saw he had been drinking heavily. Later I saw it was temporary mental collapse due to excessive drinking and a tremendous strain. Instantly I associated Marguerite with this—‘a dagger in her heart.’ Therefore, Marguerite dead or wounded. ‘I saw her.’ Dead or alive? These, then, were my first impressions.

      “I asked Mr. Hatch what had happened. He told me Miss Melrose, an actress, had been murdered the night before. I suggested suicide, because suicide is always the first possibility in considering a case of violent death which is not obviously accidental. He insisted that he believed it was murder, and told me why. It was all he knew of the story.

      “There was the stopping of The Green Dragon at the Monarch Inn for gasoline; the disappearance of Mr. Curtis, as he told the police, to hunt for gasoline—partly proven by the fact that he brought it back; the statement of Mr. Reid to the police that he had gone into the inn for a hot Scotch, and confirmation of this. Above all, here was the opportunity for the crime—if it were committed by any person other than Curtis or Reid.

      “Then Mr. Hatch repeated to me the statement made to him by Dr. Leonard. The first thing that impressed me here was the fact that Curtis had, in taking the girl into the house, carried her by the shoulders. Instantly I saw, knowing that the girl had been stabbed through the heart, how it would be possible for blood to get on Mr. Curtis’s hands, thence on his handkerchief or clothing. This was before I knew or considered his connection with the death at all.

      “Curtis told Dr. Leonard that the girl was Miss Melrose. The body wasn’t yet cold, therefore death must have come just before it reached the doctor. Then the knife was discovered. Here was the first tangible working clue—a rough knife, with a blade six or seven inches long. Obviously not the sort of knife a woman would carry about with her. Therefore, where did it come from?

      “Curtis tried to induce the doctor to let him have the knife; probably Curtis’s knife, possibly Reid’s. Why Curtis’s? The nature of the knife, a blade six or seven inches long, indicated a knife used for heavy work, not for a penknife. Under ordinary circumstances such a knife would not have been carried by Reid; therefore it may have belonged to Curtis’s auto kit. He might have carried it in his pocket.

      “Thus, considering that it was Miss Melrose who was dead, we had these facts: Dead only a few minutes, possibly stabbed while the two men were away from the car; Curtis’s knife used—not a knife from any other auto kit, mind you, because Curtis recognized this knife. Two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time.”

      Every person in the room was leaning forward, eagerly listening; Reid’s face was perfectly white. The Thinking Machine finally arose, walked over and ran his fingers through Reid’s hair, then sat again squinting at the ceiling. He spoke as if to himself.

      “Then Mr. Hatch told me another important thing,” he went on. “At the moment it appeared a coincidence, later it assumed its complete importance. This was that Dr. Leonard did not actually see the face of the girl—only the chin; that the hair was covered by a veil and the mask covered the remainder of the face. Here for the first time I saw that it was wholly possible that the woman was not Miss Melrose at all. I saw it as a possibility; not that I believed it. I had no reason to, then.

      “The dress of the young woman meant nothing; it was that of thousands of other young women who go automobiling—handsome tailor-made gown, tan dust coat. Then I tricked Mr. Curtis—I suppose it is only fair to use the proper word—into telling me his story by making him believe he made compromising admissions while unconscious. I had, I may say, too, examined his head minutely. I have always maintained that the head of a murderer will show a certain indentation. Mr. Curtis’s head did not show this indentation, neither does Mr. Reid’s.

      “Mr. Curtis told me the first thing to show that the knife which killed the girl—I still believed her Miss Melrose then—could have passed out of his hands. He said when he leaped from the automobile he thought he dropped something, searched for it a moment, failed to find it, then, being in a hurry, went on. He called back to Mr. Reid to search for what he had lost. That is when Mr. Curtis lost the knife; that is when it passed into the possession of Mr. Reid. He found it.”

      Every eye was turned on Reid. He sat as if fascinated, staring into the upward turned face of the scientist.

      “There we had a girl—presumably Miss Melrose—dead, by a knife owned by Mr. Curtis, last in the possession of Mr. Reid. Mr. Hatch had previously told me that the medical examiner said the wound which killed the girl came from her right, in a general direction. Therefore here was a possibility that Mr. Reid did it in the automobile—a possibility, I say.

      “I asked Mr. Curtis why he tried to recover the knife from Dr. Leonard. He stammered and faltered, but really it was because, having recognized the knife, he was afraid the crime would come home to him. Mr. Curtis denied flatly that the knife was his, and in denying told me that it was. It was not Mr. Reid’s I was assured. Mr. Curtis also told me of his love for Miss Melrose, but there was nothing there, as it appeared, strong enough to suggest a motive for murder. He mentioned you, Mr. MacLean, then.

      “Then Mr. Curtis named Miss Dow as one whose hand had been sought by Mr. Reid. Mr. Hatch told me this girl—Miss Dow—had eloped the night before with Morgan Mason from Monarch Inn—or, to be exact, that her family had received a letter from her stating that she was eloping; that Mason had taken out a marriage license. Remember this was the girl that Reid was in love with; it was singular that there should have been a Monarch Inn end to that elopement as well as to this tragedy.

      “This meant nothing as bearing on the abstract problem before me until Mr. Curtis described Miss Melrose as having golden hair. With another minor scrap of information Mr. Hatch again opened up vast possibilities by stating that the medical examiner, a careful man, had said Miss Melrose had dark hair. I asked him if he had seen the body; he had not. But the medical examiner told him that. Instantly in my mind the question was aroused: Was it Miss Melrose who was killed? This was merely a possibility; it still had no great weight with me.

      “I asked Mr. Curtis as to the circumstances which caused his collapse in Winter Street. He explained it was because he had seen a woman whom he would have sworn was Miss Melrose if he had not known that she was dead. This, following the dark hair and blonde hair puzzle, instantly caused this point to stand forth sharply in my mind. Was Miss Melrose dead at all? I had good reason then to believe that she was not.

      “Previously, with the idea of fixing for all time the ownership of the knife—yet knowing in my own mind it was Mr. Curtis’s—I had sent for Mr. Reid. I told him Mr. Curtis had said it was his knife. Mr. Reid fell into the trap and did the very thing I expected. He declared angrily the knife was Mr. Curtis’s, thinking Curtis had tried to saddle the crime on him. Then I turned Mr. Curtis over to the police. When he was locked up I was reasonably certain that he did not commit any crime, because I had traced the knife from him to Mr. Reid.”

      There was a glitter in Reid’s eyes now. It was not fear, only a nervous battle to restrain himself. The Thinking Machine went on:

      “I saw the body of the dead woman—indeed, assisted at her autopsy. She was a pronounced brunette—Miss Melrose was a blonde. The mistake in identity was not an impossible one in view of the

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