LITMIR.BIZ

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Because I would make no mistake.”

      It was not a boast as he said it; it was merely a statement of fact. Grayson appeared to be a little startled. Where there had been only impatient interest in his manner, there was now fascination.

      “How would you kill me, for instance?” he inquired curiously.

      “With any one of a dozen poisons, with virulent germs, or even with a knife or revolver,” replied the scientist placidly. “You see, I know how to use poisons; I know how to inoculate with germs; I know how to produce a suicidal appearance perfectly with either a revolver or knife. And I never make mistakes, Mr. Grayson. In the sciences we must be exact—not approximately so, but absolutely so. We must know. It isn’t like carpentry. A carpenter may make a trivial mistake in a joint, and it will not weaken his house; but if the scientist makes one mistake, the whole structure tumbles down. We must know. Knowledge is progress. We gain knowledge through observation and logic—inevitable logic. And logic tells us that two and two make four—not sometimes but all the time.”

      Grayson flicked the ashes off his cigar thoughtfully, and little wrinkles appeared about his eyes as he stared into the drawn, inscrutable face of the scientist. The enormous, straw-yellow head was cushioned against the chair, the squinting, watery blue eyes turned upward, and the slender white fingers at rest, tip to tip. The financier drew a long breath. “I have been informed that you were a remarkable man,” he said at last slowly. “I believe it. Quinton Frazer, the banker who gave me the letter of introduction to you, told me how you once solved a remarkable mystery in which—”

      “Yes, yes,” interrupted the scientist shortly, “the Ralston Bank burglary—I remember.”

      “So I came to you to enlist your aid in something which is more inexplicable than that,” Grayson went on hesitatingly. “I know that no fee I might offer would influence you; yet it is a case which—”

      “State it,” interrupted The Thinking Machine again.

      “It isn’t a crime—that is, a crime that can be reached by law,” Grayson hurried on, “but it has cost me millions, and—”

      For one instant The Thinking Machine lowered his squint eyes to those of his visitor, then raised them again. “Millions!” he repeated. “How many?”

      “Six, eight, perhaps ten,” was the reply. “Briefly, there is a leak in my office. My plans become known to others almost by the time I have perfected them. My plans are large; I have millions at stake; and the greatest secrecy is absolutely essential. For years I have been able to preserve this secrecy; but half a dozen times in the last eight weeks my plans have become known, and I have been caught. Unless you know the Street, you can’t imagine what a tremendous disadvantage it is to have someone know your next move to the minutest detail and, knowing it, defeat you at every turn.”

      “No, I don’t know your world of finance, Mr. Grayson,” remarked The Thinking Machine. “Give me an instance.”

      “Well, take this last case,” said the financier earnestly. “Briefly, without technicalities, I had planned to unload the securities of the P., Q. & X. Railway, protecting myself through brokers, and force the outstanding stock down to a price where other brokers, acting for me, could buy far below the actual value. In this way I intended to get complete control of the stock. But my plans became known, and when I began to unload everything was snapped up by the opposition, with the result that instead of gaining control of the road I lost heavily. This same thing has happened, with variations, half a dozen times.”

      “I presume that is strictly honest?” inquired the scientist mildly.

      “Honest?” repeated Grayson. “Certainly—of course.”

      “I shall not pretend to understand all that,” said The Thinking Machine curtly. “It doesn’t seem to matter, anyway. You want to know where the leak is. Is that right?”

      “Precisely.”

      “Well, who is in your confidence?”

      “No one, except my stenographer.”

      “Who is he, please?”

      “It’s a woman—Miss Evelyn Winthrop. She has been in my employ for six years in the same capacity—more than five years before this leak appeared. I trust her absolutely.”

      “No man knows your business?”

      “No,” replied the financier grimly. “I learned years ago that no one could keep my secrets as well as I do—there are too many temptations. Therefore, I never mention my plans to anyone—never—to anyone!”

      “Except your stenographer,” corrected the scientist.

      “I work for days, weeks, sometimes months, perfecting plans, and it’s all in my head, not on paper—not a scratch of it,” explained Grayson. “When I say that she is in my confidence, I mean that she knows my plans only half an hour or less before the machinery is put into motion. For instance, I planned this P., Q. & X. deal. My brokers didn’t know of it; Miss Winthrop never heard of it until twenty minutes before the Stock Exchange opened for business. Then I dictated to her, as I always do, some short letters of instructions to my agents. That is all she knew of it.”

      “You outlined the plan in those letters?”

      “No; they merely told my brokers what to do.”

      “But a shrewd person, knowing the contents of all those letters, could have learned what you intended to do?”

      “Yes; but no one person knew the contents of all the letters. No one broker knew what was in the other letters. Miss Winthrop and I were the only two human beings who knew all that was in them.”

      The Thinking Machine sat silent for so long that Grayson began to fidget in his chair. “Who was in the room besides you and Miss Winthrop before the letters were sent?” he asked at last.

      “No one,” responded Grayson emphatically. “For an hour before I dictated those letters, until at least an hour afterward, after my plans had gone to smash, no one entered that room. Only she and I work there.”

      “But when she finished the letters, she went out?” insisted The Thinking Machine.

      “No,” declared the financier, “she didn’t even leave her desk.”

      “Or perhaps sent something out—carbon copies of the letters?”

      “No.”

      “Or called up a friend on the telephone?” continued The Thinking Machine quietly.

      “Nor that,” retorted Grayson.

      “Or signaled to someone through the window?”

      “No,” said the financier again. “She finished the letters, then remained quietly at her desk, reading a book. She hardly moved for two hours.”

      The Thinking Machine lowered his eyes and glared straight into those of the financier. “Someone listened at the window?” he went on after a moment.

      “No. It is sixteen stories up, fronting the street, and there is no fire escape.”

      “Or the door?”

      “If you knew the arrangement of my offices, you would see how utterly impossible that would be, because—”

      “Nothing is impossible, Mr. Grayson,” snapped the scientist abruptly. “It might be improbable, but not impossible. Don’t say that—it annoys me exceedingly.” He was silent for a moment. Grayson stared at him blankly. “Did either you or she answer a call on the ’phone?”

      “No one called; we called no one.”

      “Any apertures—holes or cracks—in your flooring or walls or ceilings?” demanded the scientist.

      “Private detectives whom I had employed looked for such an opening, and there was none,” replied Grayson.

      Again

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