“I suppose the shooting of Henley upset him considerably?” the reporter suggested.
“Yes, I guess it did,” was the reply. “They moved in the same set and belonged to the same clubs.”
The manager sent Hatch’s card of introduction to Cabell’s apartments. Hatch went up and was ushered into a suite identical with that of Henley’s in every respect save in minor details of furnishings. Cabell stood in the middle of the floor, with his personal belongings scattered about the room; his valet, evidently a Frenchman, was busily engaged in packing.
Cabell’s greeting was perfunctorily cordial; he seemed agitated. His face was flushed and from time to time he ran his fingers through his long, brown hair. He stared at Hatch in a preoccupied fashion, then they fell into conversation about the rent of the apartments.
“I’ll take almost anything reasonable,” Cabell said hurriedly. “You see, I am going away tonight, rather more suddenly than I had intended, and I am anxious to get the lease off my hands. I pay two hundred dollars a month for these just as they are.”
“May I look them over?” asked Hatch.
He passed from the front room into the next. Here, on a bed, was piled a huge lot of clothing, and the valet, with deft fingers, was brushing and folding, preparatory to packing. Cabell was directly behind him.
“Quite comfortable, you see,” he explained. “There’s room enough if you are alone. Are you?”
“Oh, yes,” Hatch replied.
“This other room here,” Cabell explained, “is not in very tidy shape now. I have been out of the city for several weeks, and—What’s the matter?” he demanded suddenly.
Hatch had turned quickly at the words and stared at him, then recovered himself with a start.
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “I rather thought I saw you in town here a week or so ago—of course I didn’t know you—and I was wondering if I could have been mistaken.”
“Must have been,” said the other easily. “During the time I was away a Miss—, a friend of my sister’s, occupied the suite. I’m afraid some of her things are here. She hasn’t sent for them as yet. She occupied this room, I think; when I came back a few days ago she took another place and all her things haven’t been removed.”
“I see,” remarked Hatch, casually. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of her returning here unexpectedly if I should happen to take her apartments?”
“Not the slightest. She knows I am back, and thinks I am to remain. She was to send for these things.”
Hatch gazed about the room ostentatiously. Across a trunk lay a Turkish bath robe with a scarlet stripe in it. He was anxious to get hold of it, to examine it closely. But he didn’t dare to, then. Together they returned to the front room.
“I rather like the place,” he said, after a pause, “but the price is—”
“Just a moment,” Cabell interrupted. “Jean, before you finish packing that suit case be sure to put my bath robe in it. It’s in the far room.”
Then one question was settled for Hatch. After a moment the valet returned with the bath robe, which had been in the far room. It was Cabell’s bath robe. As Jean passed the reporter an end of the robe caught on a corner of the trunk, and, stopping, the reporter unfastened it. A tiny strand of thread clung to the metal; Hatch detached it and stood idly twirling it in his fingers.
“As I was saying,” he resumed, “I rather like the place, but the price is too much. Suppose you leave it in the hands of the manager of the house—”
“I had intended doing that,” the Southerner interrupted.
“Well, I’ll see him about it later,” Hatch added.
With a cordial, albeit preoccupied, handshake, Cabell ushered him out. Hatch went down in the elevator with a feeling of elation; a feeling that he had accomplished something. The manager was waiting to get into the lift.
“Do you happen to remember the name of the young lady who occupied Mr. Cabell’s suite while he was away?” he asked.
“Miss Austin,” said the manager, “but she’s not young. She was about forty-five years old, I should judge.”
“Did Mr. Cabell have his servant Jean with him?”
“Oh, no,” said the manager. “The valet gave up the suite to Miss Austin entirely, and until Mr. Cabell returned occupied a room in the quarters we have for our own employees.”
“Was Miss Austin ailing any way?” asked Hatch. “I saw a large number of medicine bottles upstairs.”
“I don’t know what was the matter with her,” replied the manager, with a little puzzled frown. “She certainly was not a woman of sound mental balance—that is, she was eccentric, and all that. I think rather it was an act of charity for Mr. Cabell to let her have the suite in his absence. Certainly we didn’t want her.”
Hatch passed out and burst in eagerly upon The Thinking Machine in his laboratory.
“Here,” he said, and triumphantly he extended the tiny scarlet strand which he had received from The Thinking Machine, and the other of the identical colour which came from Cabell’s bath robe. “Is that the same?”
The Thinking Machine placed them under the microscope and examined them immediately. Later he submitted them to a chemical test.
“It is the same,” he said, finally.
“Then the mystery is solved,” said Hatch, conclusively.
CHAPTER V
The Thinking Machine stared steadily into the eager, exultant eyes of the newspaper man until Hatch at last began to fear that he had been precipitate. After awhile, under close scrutiny, the reporter began to feel convinced that he had made a mistake—he didn’t quite see where, but it must be there, and the exultant manner passed. The voice of The Thinking Machine was like a cold shower.
“Remember, Mr. Hatch,” he said, critically, “that unless every possible question has been considered one cannot boast of a solution. Is there any possible question lingering yet in your mind?”
The reporter silently considered that for a moment, then:
“Well, I have the main facts, anyway. There may be one or two minor questions left, but the principal ones are answered.”
“Then tell me, to the minutest detail, what you have learned, what has happened.”
Professor Van Dusen sank back in his old, familiar pose in the large arm chair and Hatch related what he had learned and what he surmised. He related, too, the peculiar circumstances surrounding the wounding of Henley, and right on down to the beginning and end of the interview with Cabell in the latter’s apartments. The Thinking Machine was silent for a time, then there came a host of questions.
“Do you know where the woman—Miss Austin—is now?” was the first.
“No,” Hatch had to admit.
“Or her precise mental condition?”
“No.”
“Or her exact relationship to Cabell?”
“No.”
“Do you know, then, what the valet, Jean, knows of the affair?”
“No, not that,” said the reporter, and his face flushed under the close questioning. “He was out of the suite every night.”
“Therefore might have been the very one who turned on the gas,” the other put in testily.
“So far as I can learn, nobody could have gone into that room and turned on the gas,” said the reporter, somewhat aggressively. “Henley barred the doors and windows and kept watch, night after night.”
“Yet the moment he was exhausted and fell asleep the gas was turned on to kill him,” said The Thinking Machine; “thus we see that he was watched more closely than he watched.”
“I see what you mean now,” said Hatch, after a long pause.
“I should like to know what Henley and Cabell and the valet knew of the girl who was found dead,” The Thinking Machine suggested. “Further, I should like to know if there was a good-sized mirror—not one set in
a bureau or dresser—either in Henley’s room or the apartments where the girl was found. Find out this for me and—never mind. I’ll go with you.”
The scientist left the room. When he returned he wore his coat and hat. Hatch arose mechanically to follow. For a block or more they walked along, neither speaking. The Thinking Machine was the first to break the silence:
“You believe Cabell is the man who attempted to kill Henley?”
“Frankly, yes,” replied the newspaper man.
“Why?”
“Because he had the motive—disappointed love.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” Hatch confessed. “The doors of the Henley suite were closed. I don’t see how anybody passed them.”
“And the girl? Who killed her? How? Why?”
Disconsolately Hatch shook his head as he walked on. The Thinking Machine interpreted his silence aright.
“Don’t jump at conclusions,” he advised sharply. “You are confident Cabell was to blame for this—and he might have been, I don’t know yet—but you can suggest nothing to show how he did it. I have told you before that imagination is half of logic.”
At last the lights of the big apartment house where Henley lived came in sight. Hatch shrugged his shoulders. He had grave doubts—based on what he knew—whether The Thinking Machine would be able to see Cabell. It was nearly eleven o’clock and Cabell was to leave for the South at midnight.
“Is Mr. Cabell here?” asked the scientist of the elevator boy.
“Yes, just about to go, though. He won’t see anyone.”
“Hand him this note,” instructed The Thinking Machine, and he scribbled something on a piece of paper. “He’ll see us.”
The boy took the paper and the elevator shot up to the fourth floor. After awhile he returned.
“He’ll see you,” he said.
“Is he unpacking?”
“After he read your note twice he told his valet to unpack,” the boy replied.
“Ah, I thought so,” said The Thinking Machine.
With Hatch, mystified and puzzled, following, The Thinking Machine entered the elevator to step out a second or so later on the fourth floor. As they left the car they saw the door of Cabell’s apartment standing open; Cabell was in the door. Hatch traced a glimmer of anxiety in the eyes of the young man.
“Professor Van Dusen?” Cabell inquired.
“Yes,” said the scientist. “It was of the utmost importance that I should see you, otherwise I should not have come at this time of night.”
With a wave of his hand Cabell passed that detail.
“I was anxious to get away at midnight,” he explained, “but, of course, now I shan’t go, in view of your note. I have ordered my valet to unpack my things, at least until tomorrow.”
The reporter and the scientist passed into the luxuriously furnished apartments. Jean, the valet, was bending over a suitcase as they entered, removing some things he had been carefully placing there. He didn’t look back or pay the least attention to the visitors.
“This is your valet?” asked The Thinking Machine.
“Yes,” said the young man.
“French, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Speak English at all?”
“Very badly,” said Cabell. “I use French when I talk to him.”
“Does he know that you are accused of murder?” asked The Thinking Machine, in a quiet, conversational tone.
The effect of the remark on Cabell was startling. He staggered back a step or so as if he had been struck in the face, and a crimson flush overspread his brow. Jean, the valet, straightened up suddenly and looked around. There was a queer expression, too, in his eyes; an expression which Hatch could not fathom.
“Murder?” gasped Cabell, at last.
“Yes, he speaks English all right,” remarked The Thinking Machine. “Now, Mr. Cabell, will you please tell me just who Miss Austin is, and where she is, and her mental condition? Believe me, it may save you a great deal of trouble. What I said in the note is not exaggerated.”
The young man turned suddenly and began to pace back and forth across the room. After a few minutes he paused before The Thinking Machine, who stood impatiently waiting for an answer.
“I’ll tell you, yes,” said Cabell, firmly. “Miss Austin is a middle-aged woman whom my sister befriended several times—was, in fact, my sister’s governess when she was a child. Of late years she has not been wholly right mentally, and has suffered a great deal of privation. I had about concluded arrangements to put her in a private sanitarium. I permitted her to remain in these rooms in my absence, South. I did not take Jean—he lived in the quarters of the other employees of the place, and gave the apartment entirely to Miss Austin. It was simply an act of charity.”
“What was the cause of your sudden determination to go South tonight?” asked the scientist.
“I won’t answer that question,” was the sullen reply.
There was a long, tense silence. Jean, the valet, came and went several times.
“How long has Miss Austin known Mr. Henley?”
“Presumably since she has been in these apartments,” was the reply.
“Are you sure you are not Miss Austin?” demanded the scientist.
The question was almost staggering, not only to Cabell, but to Hatch. Suddenly, with flaming face, the young Southerner leaped forward as if to strike down The Thinking Machine.
“That won’t do any good,” said the scientist, coldly. “Are you sure you are not Miss Austin?” he repeated.
“Certainly I am not Miss Austin,” responded Cabell, fiercely.
“Have you a mirror in these apartments about twelve inches by twelve inches?” asked The Thinking Machine, irrelevantly.
“I—I don’t know,” stammered the young man. “I—have we, Jean?”
“Oui,” replied the valet.
“Yes,” snapped The Thinking Machine. “Talk English, please. May I see it?”
The valet, without a word but with a sullen glance at the questioner, turned and left the room. He returned after a moment with the mirror. The Thinking Machine carefully examined the frame, top and bottom and on both sides. At last he looked up; again the valet was bending over a suitcase.
“Do you use gas in these apartments?” the scientist asked suddenly.
“No,” was the bewildered response. “What is all this, anyway?”
Without answering, The Thinking Machine drew a chair up under the chandelier where the gas and electric fixtures were and began to finger the gas tips. After awhile he climbed down and passed into the next room, with Hatch and Cabell, both hopelessly mystified, following. There the scientist went through the same process of fingering the gas jets. Finally, one of the gas tips came out in his hand.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, suddenly, and Hatch knew the note of triumph in it. The jet from which the tip came was just on a level with his shoulder, set between a dressing table and a window. He leaned over and squinted at the gas pipe closely. Then he returned to the room where the valet was.
“Now, Jean,” he began, in an even, calm voice, “please tell me if you did or did not kill Miss Regnier purposely?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the servant sullenly, angrily, as he turned on the scientist.
“You speak very good English now,” was The Thinking Machine’s terse comment. “Mr. Hatch, lock the door and use this phone to call the police.”
Hatch turned to do as he was bid and saw a flash of steel in young Cabell’s hand, which was drawn suddenly from a hip pocket. It was a revolver. The weapon glittered in the light, and Hatch flung himself forward. There was a sharp report, and a bullet was buried in the floor.
CHAPTER VI
Then came a fierce, hard fight for possession of the revolver. It end
ed with the weapon in Hatch’s hand, and both he and Cabell blowing from the effort they had expended. Jean the valet, had turned at the sound of the shot and started toward the door leading into the hall. The Thinking Machine had stepped in front of him, and now stood there with his back to the door. Physically he would have been a child in the hands of the valet, yet there was a look in his eyes which stopped him.
“Now, Mr. Hatch,” said the scientist quietly, a touch of irony in his voice, “hand me the revolver, then phone for Detective Mallory to come here immediately. Tell him we have a murderer—and if he can’t come at once get some other detective whom you know.”
“Murderer!” gasped Cabell.
Uncontrollable rage was blazing in the eyes of the valet, and he made as if to throw The Thinking Machine aside, despite the revolver, when Hatch was at the telephone. As Jean started forward, however, Cabell stopped him with a quick, stern gesture. Suddenly the young Southerner turned on The Thinking Machine; but it was with a question.
“What does it all mean?” he asked, bewildered.
“It means that that man there,” and The Thinking Machine indicated the valet by a nod of his head, “is a murderer—that he killed Louise Regnier; that he shot Weldon Henley on Boston Common, and that, with the aid of Miss Regnier, he had four times previously attempted to kill Mr. Henley. Is he coming, Mr. Hatch?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “He says he’ll be here directly.”
“Do you deny it?” demanded The Thinking Machine of the valet.
“I’ve done nothing,” said the valet sullenly. “I’m going out of here.”
Like an infuriated animal he rushed forward. Hatch and Cabell seized him and bore him to the floor. There, after a frantic struggle, he was bound and the other three men sat down to wait for Detective Mallory. Cabell sank back in his chair with a perplexed frown on his face. From time to time he glanced at Jean. The flush of anger which had been on the valet’s face was gone now; instead there was the pallor of fear.
“Won’t you tell us?” pleaded Cabell impatiently.
“When Detective Mallory comes and takes his prisoner,” said The Thinking Machine.
The Mystery & Suspense Novella Page 8
