Thus clearly, pointedly Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen had once explained to Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, the analytical power by which he had solved some of the most perplexing mysteries that had ever come to the attention of either the police or the press. It was a text from which sermons might be preached. No one knew this better than Hatch.
Professor Van Dusen is the foremost logician of his time. His name has been honored at home and abroad until now it embraces as honorary initials nearly all those letters which had not been included in it in the first place. The Thinking Machine! This phrase applied once in a newspaper to the scientist had clung tenaciously. It was the name by which he was known to the world at large.
In a dozen ways he had proved his right to it. Hatch remembered vividly the scientist’s mysterious disappearance from a prison cell once; then there had been the famous automobile mystery, and more lately the strange chain of circumstances whose history has been written as “The Scarlet Thread.” This little text, as given above, was one afternoon, when Hatch had casually called on The Thinking Machine. It transpired that a few hours later he had returned to lay before the logician still another mystery.
On his return to his office Hatch had been dispatched in a rush on a murder story. In following up the threads of this he had learned every fact the police had, had written his story, and then presented himself at the Beacon Hill home of The Thinking Machine. It was then 11 o’clock at night. The Thinking Machine had received him, and the facts, in substance, were laid before him as follows:
A man who had given the name of Charles Wilkes called at the real estate office of Henry Holmes & Co., on Washington Street on October 14, just thirty-two days prior to the beginning of the story, as Hatch recited it. He was a man of possibly thirty years, stalwart, good-looking and clean-cut in appearance. There had been nothing about him to attract particular attention. He had said that he was eastern agent for a big manufacturing concern, and travelled a great deal.
“I want a six or seven room house in Cambridge,” he had explained. “Something quiet, where I won’t have too many neighbors. My wife is extremely nervous, and I want to get a couple of blocks from the street cars. If you have a house, say in the middle of a big lot somewhere in the outskirts of Cambridge, I think that will do.”
“What price?” a clerk had asked.
“Anywhere from $45 to $60,” he replied.
It just happened that Henry Holmes & Co. had such a house. An office man went with Mr. Wilkes to see it. Mr. Wilkes was pleased and paid the first month’s rent of $60 to the man who had accompanied him.
“I won’t go back to the office with you,” he said. “Everything is all right. I’ll have my stuff moved out in a couple of days and let your collector come for next month’s rent when it is due.”
Mr. Wilkes was a very pleasant man; the clerk had found him so and was gratified at the transaction, which gave his firm such a desirable tenant. He did not ask for Mr. Wilkes’ address, nor did he think to ask any questions as to where the household goods were at the moment. In the light of subsequent events this lack of caution temporarily hid, at least for a time, it seemed, the key which would have solved a mystery.
The month passed and in the office of Holmes & Co. the matter had been forgotten until the rent came due. Then a collector, Willard Clements, the regular Cambridge collector for the firm went to the Cambridge house. He found the front door locked. The shutters were still over the windows. There was no indication that anyone at all had either occupied the house or used it. That was an impression to be gathered by a casual outside inspection. Clements had gone around the house; the back door stood wide open.
Clements went inside the house and must have remained there for half an hour. When he came out his face was white, his lips quivered, and the madness of terror was in his eyes. He ran staggeringly around the house and down the walk to the street. A few minutes later he rushed into a police station and there poured out a babbling, incoherent story. The usually placid face of the officer in charge was overspread with surprise as he listened.
Three men were detailed to visit the house and investigate Clements’ story. Two of these men went with Clements through the back door, which still stood open, and the third, Detective Fahey, began an examination of the premises. Entering through the back door, the kitchen lay to his left. There was nothing to show that it had been occupied for many months. A hurried glance satisfied him, and he passed into the main body of the house. This consisted of a parlor, a dining room and a bedroom. Here, too, he found nothing. The dust lay thick over floors, mantels and window sills.
From the hall, stairs led to three sleeping rooms above. Under these stairs a short flight lead to the cellar. The door stood open, and a damp, chilly breath came up. Utter darkness lay below. The detective shrugged his shoulders and turned to go upstairs where the other men were.
He found them in the smallest of the three rooms, bending over a bed. Clements stood at the door, which had been broken in, still with the pallor of death on his face and his hands working nervously.
“Find anything?” asked the detective briskly.
“My God, no,” gasped Clements. “I wouldn’t go back in that room for a million dollars.”
The detective laughed and passed in.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A girl,” was the reply.
“What happened to her?”
“Stabbed,” was the laconic answer.
The other two men stood aside and the detective looked down at the body. It was that of a girl possibly twenty or twenty-two years old. She had been pretty, but the hand of death had obliterated many traces of it now. Her hair, of a rich, ruddy gold, mercifully veiled somewhat the ravages of death; her hands lay outstretched on the white of the bed.
She was dressed for the street. Her hat still clung to her hair, fastened by a long, black-headed pin. Her clothing, of dark brown, was good but not rich. A muff lay beside her and her coat was open.
It was not necessary for Detective Fahey to ask the immediate cause of death. A stab wound in the breast showed that.
“Where’s the knife?” he asked.
“Didn’t find any.”
“Any other wounds?”
“Can’t tell until the medical examiner arrives. She’s just as we found her.”
“Here, O’Brien,” instructed the detective, “run out and ‘phone to Dr. Loyd and tell him to come up as fast as he can get here. It’s probably only suicide.”
One of the men went out, and the detective picked up and examined the muff. From it he drew out a small purse. He opened this to find a withered rose — nothing else. There was no money, no card, no key — nothing which might immediately throw light on the girl’s identity.
After a while Dr. Loyd came. He remained in the room alone for ten minutes or so, while the policemen went carefully over the upper rooms of the house. When the doctor opened the door and stepped out he carried something in his hand.
“It’s murder,” he told the detective.
“How do you know?”
“There are two wounds in the back, where she could not possibly have inflicted them herself. And I found this beneath the body.”
In his open hand lay a dagger — a dagger of gold. The handle was strangely and intricately fashioned and might, from its appearance, have been cut from a solid bar of gold. In the end blazed a single splendid gem — a diamond. It was probably of three or four karats and pure white. The steel blade was bright at the hilt but stained red.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed the detective as he examined it. “With a clue like that, the end is already in sight.”
This was the story that Hutchinson Hatch told to The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened carefully, as he lay stretched out in a chair with his enormous yellow head resting easily against a cushion. He asked only three questions.
“How long had the girl been dead?”
“The medical examiner says it is impossible to tell within more than a few days,” Hatch replied. “He gave it as his opinion that it was a week or ten days.”
“What was in the cellar?”
“I don’t know. No one looked.”
“Who broke in the door? Clements?”
“Yes.”
“I shall go with you tomorrow,” said The Thinking Machine. “I want to look at the dagger and also the cellar.”
2
It was 10 o’clock next day when Hutchinson Hatch and The Thinking Machine called on Dr. Loyd. The medical examiner willingly displayed the golden dagger, and in technical terms explained just what had caused the girl’s death. Minus the medical phraseology his opinion was that the wound in the breast had been the first inflicted and that the dagger point had punctured the heart. One of the wounds in the back had also reached the same vital spot; the other wound was superficial.
The Thinking Machine viewed the body and agreed with the medical examiner. He had, meanwhile, carefully examined the dagger, handle and blade, and had a photograph of it made. Then, with Hatch, he proceeded to the Cambridge house.
“It isn’t suicide, is it?” asked Hatch on the way.
“No,” was the quick response. “The only question thus far in my mind, is whether or not the girl was killed in that house.”
“Why was a man such a fool as to leave a dagger of that value where it would be found — or any dagger for that matter?” Hatch asked.
“A dozen reasons,” replied the scientist. “A possible one is, that whoever killed her may have been frightened away before he could regain possession of the weapon. Remember it was found underneath her body. Presumably she fell backwards and covered the dagger. A slight noise — any one of a dozen things — might have caused the person who killed her to run away rather than try to get the weapon again. Against that of course is the value of the dagger. I know little about jewels, but knowing as little as I do, I should say the value was in the thousands.”
“The very reason why it wouldn’t be left,” said Hatch.
“Quite true,” said the other. “Yet the value of the dagger may have been the very reason it was left.”
Hatch turned quickly and stared at The Thinking Machine with a question in his eyes.
“I mean,” The Thinking Machine explained, “that the dagger is nearly as good as the name and the address of its owner, because it can be traced immediately. Its owner would never have left it under any circumstances.”
Hatch was puzzled. He did not follow, as yet, the intricate reasoning of the scientist. It seemed that the one solid, substantial clue, as he regarded it, was to be eliminated without a hearing. The Thinking Machine went on:
“Suppose it had been someone’s purpose to kill this girl and, on the face of it, immediately direct attention to some other person as the criminal? In that event, what would have done it more effectively than to kill her with a stolen dagger belonging to some other man and leave it?”
“Oh,” exclaimed Hatch. “I think I see what you mean. The fact that a person owns this knife is not, then, to be taken against him?”
“On the contrary,” said The Thinking Machine sharply. “It’s almost a vindication, unless the person who killed her is mad.”
A few minutes later, they arrived at the house. It was a two-story frame structure, back thirty or forty feet from the street, in the centre of a small plot of ground. The nearest house was three or four hundred feet away. Hatch was somewhat surprised at the care with which The Thinking Machine examined the premises before he entered the house. Scarcely a foot of ground had not been critically gone over.
Then they entered through the back door. Here, in the kitchen, The Thinking Machine showed the same care in his examination. He squinted aggressively at the sink and casually turned the water on. Then he examined the rusty range. Thence he went to the dining room, where there was the same minute examination. The parlor, hall, and the lower bedroom were examined, after which the two men went up stairs.
“In which room was the girl found?” asked The Thinking Machine.
“The back room,” Hatch replied.
“Well, let’s examine the other two first,” and the scientist led the way to the front of the house. His examination seemed to be confined largely to the water arrangements. He examined each faucet in turn and turned the water on. He went through the same program in the bathroom.
This done, there remained only the room of death. It was precisely as the Medical Examiner had left it, except that the girl’s body was gone. The sheets whereon she lay and the pillows were closely scrutinized. Then The Thinking Machine straightened up.
“Any running water in here?” he asked.
“I don’t see any,” Hatch replied.
“All right, now for the cellar.”
The reporter could not even conjecture what The Thinking Machine expected to find in the cellar. It was low ceiling, damp and chilly. By the light of the electric bulb, which the scientist produced, they could see only the furnace, which stood rustily at about the centre. The Thinking Machine examined this for ashes, but found none. Then he wandered aimlessly about the place, taking it all in seemingly in one long, comprehensive squint. Finally he turned to Hatch.
“Let’s go,” he suggested.
Three-quarters of an hour later, the two men were again in the apartments on Beacon Hill. The scientist dropped into his accustomed place in the big chair and sat silent for a long time. Hatch waited impatiently.
“Has a picture of this dagger been printed yet?” asked The Thinking Machine at last.
“In every newspaper in Boston, today.”
“Dear me, dear me,” exclaimed the scientist. “It would have been perfectly easy to find the owner of the dagger if pictures of it hadn’t been printed.”
“Do you think it probable that its owner is the criminal?”
“No, unless, as I said, he was insane, but it would have been interesting to know how the knife passed out of his possession. Was it given away? If so, to whom? A thing of that value would never be given to anyone who was not near and dear to the one who gave it. It is not the kind of gift a man would make to a woman, but is rather a kind of gift a King might make to a loyal subject. It is Oriental in appearance and naturally suggests the Orient. But as I said, the person who owned it did not use it to kill the girl.”
“Then what did happen to it?” asked Hatch, curiously.
“Probably it was stolen. Here is the problem: A girl whose name we don’t know was murdered by a person we don’t know. We do know that this dagger was used to kill her. Therefore find the man who owned the dagger originally and learn how it passed out of his hands. That may lead us directly to the man who rented the house. When we find the man who rented the house, we find possibly the man who stole the dagger and the man who may have killed or may know who killed the girl.”
“That seems perfectly clear,” Hatch remarked smilingly. “That is, the nature of the problem itself is clear, but the solution is as far away as ever.”
The Thinking Machine arose abruptly and passed into the adjoining room. After a while Hatch heard the telephone bell. It was half an hour or so before The Thinking Machine returned.
“The person who owns the knife will call to see me this afternoon at 3 o’clock,” he announced.
Hatch half rose in his astonishment, then sank down again.
“Whoever it is will be arrested the moment the police learn of it,” he said after a pause.
“On what charge?”
“Murder. It’s a plain circumstantial case.”
“If he is arrested,” said the scientist, “there will be some international complications.”
“Who is he?” asked Hatch.
“His name will appear in due time. Meanwhile find out for me if there has ever been a report to the police of any robbery, in which a dagger is mentioned in any way.”
Wonderingly, Hatch went away to obey instructions. He found no trace of any such robbery for half a dozen years back. There were several entries on the police books, and of these he made a record.
At 1 o’clock that afternoon he was again in Cambridge working with the police and half a dozen reporters in an effort to get some light on the question of the girl’s identity. Later he went to the real estate office of Henry Holmes & Co. seeking further light there. It was not forthcoming.
“Did this man, Wilkes, sign anything?” he asked; “a lease, or anything of that sort? A sample of his handwriting might be useful now.”
“No,” was the reply. “We did not consider a lease necessary.”
Meanwhile the police had apparently exhausted every means of finding out who and what Charles Wilkes was. It was clear from the beginning, to them at least, that the name Wilkes was a fictitious one. There was no reason to suppose that if Wilkes rented the house with the deliberate intention of murder that he would give his real name. By the wildest stretch of the imagination they could find no motive for the murder. It was not any of the ordinary things. Yet it was deliberate. They regarded the golden dagger as the key to the entire mystery. There they stopped.
At 3 o’clock Hatch returned to the home of The Thinking Machine. He had hardly been ushered into the little reception room when the doorbell rang and the scientist in person appeared. Accompanying him was a stranger; dark, swarthy and with the coal black beard of the Orient.
Hatch was introduced to him as Ali Hassan. Then The Thinking Machine produced the photograph of the dagger.
“Is this the correct picture?” he asked.
The stranger examined it closely.
“It seems to be,” he said at last.
“Is there another dagger like that in existence?”
“No.”
“How did it come into your possession?”
“It was a gift to me from the Sultan of Turkey,” was the reply.
3
Gravely Mr. Hassan sat down while The Thinking Machine resumed his seat in the big chair opposite. Hatch was leaning forward eagerly to catch every word. The story of the man who owned the wonderful golden dagger was one which the great public would naturally want to know.
“Now,” began The Thinking Machine, “would you mind telling us a little of the history of the dagger?”
“It is not a story to be told to infidels,” was the reply. “I mean, of course, unbelievers. I will answer any question that you see fit to ask if I can do so.”
A little expression of perplexity crept into the squinting eyes of The Thinking Machine; then it passed as suddenly as it came.
“You are a Mohammedan?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Is there any religious significance attached to the dagger?”
“Yes, it is sacred. A gift from the Sultan — my imperial master — and blessed by the royal hand is always sacred to a subject. It may not be even seen by the eyes of an unbeliever.”
Hatch straightened up a little, and The Thinking Machine readjusted himself in the big chair.
“You were educated at Oxford?” he asked irrelevantly.
“Yes. I left there in 1887.”
“You did not embrace the Christian religion?”
“No. I am a Mohammedan, loyal to my master.”
“Would you mind saying for what service the Sultan so honored you?”
“I cannot say that. It was a service to the crown at a time when I was secretary of the Turkish Embassy in England.”
“Under what circumstances did this dagger leave your possession?” asked The Thinking Machine quietly.
“It has not left my possession,” was the equally quiet reply. “It would be sacrilege if it did. Therefore I still have it — closely guarded.”
Frankly, Hutchinson Hatch was amazed. His manner showed it clearly. The Thinking Machine was still leaning back in the chair staring upward.
“I understand then,” he said after a little pause, “that the dagger, of which this is a photograph, is in your possession now?”
“It has not been out of my possession at any time since it was given to me,” was the startling reply.
“Then how do you account for this photograph?”
“I don’t account for it.”
“But Dr. Loyd — the dagger — I had it in my hands,” Hatch interposed in bewilderment.
“You are mistaken,” replied the Turk quietly. “It is still in my possession.”
“Will you produce it?” asked The Thinking Machine calmly.
“I will not,” was the firm response. “I have explained that it is not to be seen by the eyes of unbelievers.”
“If a charge of murder should be laid against you, would you produce it?” insisted The Thinking Machine.
“I would not.”
“To avoid an arrest?”
“There is no danger of an arrest,” was the still calm response. “I am connected with the Turkish delegation in Washington and I am responsible there. I am entitled to the protection of my own government. If there is any charge against me it must come that way.”
There was a long silence. Hatch was bursting with questions, which were silenced by a slight gesture from The Thinking Machine. Under the peculiar circumstances the scientist realized that what Mr. Hassan had said was true. It is one of the idiosyncrasies of international law.
“You know, of course, that a woman has been murdered with that dagger, don’t you?” asked the scientist.
“I have heard that a woman has been murdered.”
“Do you attribute any magical properties to the weapon?”
“Oh, no.”
“Just where is it at present? Would you produce it if your government ordered you to do so?”
“My government will not order me to do so.”
Hatch was annoyed. All this was tommyrot. If Mr. Hassan had his dagger, then there were more than one of them in existence. Dr. Loyd had one; the reporter knew that. Whether it was a clever counterfeit he did not know; but the dagger used to kill the girl was certainly in possession of the medical examiner.
“If that dagger should ever by an chance pass out of your possession, Mr. Hassan, what would happen?” asked The Thinking Machine.
“I am sworn to protect it with my life. If it should pass out of my possession I should kill myself. It is customary and so understood in my country.”
“Oh,” exclaimed the scientist, suddenly. “How long will you be in Boston?”
“For several days, probably,” was the reply. “Meanwhile, if I can be of any further service to you, I should do so gladly.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About a week.”
“Were you ever in Boston before?”
“Once, a couple of years ago, when I first came to this country.”
Mr. Hassan arose and took up his hat. He had formally told Hatch and The Thinking Machine good day and was at the door when he turned back.
“I understand,” he said, “that this dagger is supposed now to be in the possession of Dr. Loyd, the Medical Examiner?”
“Yes,” said the scientist.
Mr. Hassan went away. Hatch sat nursing his wrath a moment, and then came the explosion. It was inevitable; a righteous protest against an insult to his intelligence and that of the eminent scientist who had become interested in the case.
“Mr. Hassan is a liar, else there are two daggers,” he burst out.
“Mr. Hassan is a gentleman of the Turkish legation, Mr. Hatch,” said The Thinking Machine reprovingly. “Do you know Mr. Loyd very well?”
“Yes.”
“‘Phone him immediately and ask him to have that dagger secretly removed to a safety deposit vault,” instructed the scientist. “Then you had better go out and work with the police to see if they yet have any clue to the girl’s identity. Mr. Hassan will produce the dagger if he has it.”
The remainder of that day and a part of the next Hatch spent running down the small possibilities, trying to settle some of the minor questions, which were naturally aroused in his mind. There was a result — a very definite result — and when he again appeared before The Thinking Machine, he felt that he had accomplished something.
“It occurred to me,” he explained, “that there was a possibility that this man Wilkes had communicated with or advertised for this girl that was dead. I searched the want columns of three newspapers. At last I found this.”
He extended a small clipping to The Thinking Machine, who took it and studied it a moment. This clipping was an advertisement for an intelligent young woman as companion and gave the street and number of the house in Cambridge where the girl had been found.
“Very good,” said The Thinking Machine, and he rubbed his hands briskly together. “It looks, Mr. Hatch, as if it might be a long tedious work to establish the name of this girl. It may take weeks. I should meanwhile take that clipping and turn it over to the police, and let them make the search. I see it is dated October 19, which is four days form the time Wilkes rented the house. Yet the girl had been dead for not more than ten days. There is a lapse of time in there to be accounted for. Find out if this advertisement appeared more than once, and also get the original copy of it from the newspaper. It might be in Wilkes’s handwriting. In that case it would be a substantial clue.”
“Have you heard anything more about Hassan’s dagger?” inquired the reporter.
“No, but he will produce it. Did you phone Dr. Loyd in reference to it?”
“I ‘phoned yesterday, as you suggested, and was then informed that Dr. Loyd had left the city. I ‘phoned twice this morning, but got no answer from the house. I presume he has not returned.”
“No answer?” asked The Thinking Machine quickly. “No answer? Dear me, dear me!” He arose and paced back and forth across the room twice, then paused before the reporter. “That’s bad, bad, bad!” he said.
“Why?” asked Hatch.
The Thinking Machine turned suddenly and entered the adjoining room. When he came out there was a new expression on his face — an expression which Hatch could not read.
“Dr. Loyd was found at 1 o’clock today in his home, bound and gagged,” he explained shortly. “The only servant there was insensible from some drug. It was burglars. They ransacked the house from top to bottom.”
“What — what does that mean?” asked Hatch, wonderingly.
Just then the door from the hall opened and Martha, the aged servant of The Thinking Machine, appeared.
“Mr. Hassan, sir,” she said.
The Turk appeared in the door behind her, gravely courteous, suave, and dignified as ever.
“Ah,” explained The Thinking Machine. “You have brought the dagger?”
“I talked with the Turkish Minister in Washington by telephone and he explained the necessity of my producing it,” said Mr. Hassan. “I have it here to convince you.”
“I thought it was in Washington?” Hatch blurted out.
“Here it is,” was the Turk’s response. He produced a richly jeweled box. In it lay the golden dagger. The Thinking Machine lifted it. The blade was bright and without a trace of a stain. With a quick movement The Thinking Machine twisted the handle and part of it came off. A few drops of a pungent liquid ran out on the floor.
4
Mr. Hassan left Boston that night for Washington. He took the dagger with him. The Thinking Machine made no objection, and the very existence of the man was as yet unknown to the police.
“When it is necessary to produce that dagger,” he explained to Hatch, “it can be done through regular channels, if Hassan is still alive. It seems very probable now that international law may have to take a hand in the case.”
“Do you consider it possible that Hassan in person had any connection with the affair?” Hatch asked.
“Anything is possible,” was the short reply. “By the way, Mr. Hatch, it might be interesting to know a little more about this real estate collector, Clements, who discovered the girl’s body. He might have known about the house being unoccupied. There are still possibilities in every direction, but the real problem hangs on the golden dagger.”
“In that event, it seems to come back to Hassan,” said the reporter doggedly.
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