His name is Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, but to the newspapers he is known as "The Thinking Machine." Slender, stooped, his appearance dominated by his large forehead and perpetual squint, Van Dusen spends his days in the laboratory and his nights puzzling over the details of extraordinary crimes. What seems beyond comprehension to the police is mere amusement to the professor. All things that start must go somewhere, he firmly believes, and with the application of logic, all problems can be solved.
Whether unraveling a perfect murder, investigating a case of corporate espionage, or reasoning his way out of an inescapable prison cell, Van Dusen lets no detail elude his brilliant mind. In this highly entertaining collection, featuring many of the stories that made The Thinking Machine a national sensation, ingenious criminals and ruthless villains are no match for an egghead scientist.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
His name is Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, but to the newspapers he is known as "The Thinking Machine." Slender, stooped, his appearance dominated by his large forehead and perpetual squint, Van Dusen spends his days in the laboratory and his nights puzzling over the details of extraordinary crimes. What seems beyond comprehension to the police is mere amusement to the professor. All things that start must go somewhere, he firmly believes, and with the application of logic, all problems can be solved.
Whether unraveling a perfect murder, investigating a case of corporate espionage, or reasoning his way out of an inescapable prison cell, Van Dusen lets no detail elude his brilliant mind. In this highly entertaining collection, featuring many of the stories that made The Thinking Machine a national sensation, ingenious criminals and ruthless villains are no match for an egghead scientist.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
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Overview
His name is Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, but to the newspapers he is known as "The Thinking Machine." Slender, stooped, his appearance dominated by his large forehead and perpetual squint, Van Dusen spends his days in the laboratory and his nights puzzling over the details of extraordinary crimes. What seems beyond comprehension to the police is mere amusement to the professor. All things that start must go somewhere, he firmly believes, and with the application of logic, all problems can be solved.
Whether unraveling a perfect murder, investigating a case of corporate espionage, or reasoning his way out of an inescapable prison cell, Van Dusen lets no detail elude his brilliant mind. In this highly entertaining collection, featuring many of the stories that made The Thinking Machine a national sensation, ingenious criminals and ruthless villains are no match for an egghead scientist.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497659841 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MysteriousPress.com/Open Road |
| Publication date: | 08/26/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 416 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Thinking Machine
By Jacques Futrelle
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2014 MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5984-1
CHAPTER 1
"THE THINKING MACHINE"
It was absolutely impossible. Twenty-five chess masters from the world at large, foregathered in Boston for the annual championships, unanimously declared it impossible, and unanimity on any given point is an unusual mental condition for chess masters. Not one would concede for an instant that it was within the range of human achievement. Some grew red in the face as they argued it, others smiled loftily and were silent; still others dismissed the matter in a word as wholly absurd.
A casual remark by the distinguished scientist and logician, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, provoked the discussion. He had, in the past, aroused bitter disputes by some chance remark; in fact had been once a sort of controversial centre of the sciences. It had been due to his modest announcement of a startling and unorthodox hypothesis that he had been invited to vacate the chair of Philosophy in a great university. Later that university had felt honoured when he accepted its degree of LL.D.
For a score of years, educational and scientific institutions of the world had amused themselves by crowding degrees upon him. He had initials that stood for things he couldn't pronounce, degrees from France, England, Russia, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Spain. These were expressed recognition of the fact that his was the foremost brain in the sciences. The imprint of his crabbed personality lay heavily on half a dozen of its branches. Finally there came a time when argument was respectfully silent in the face of one of his conclusions.
The remark, which had arrayed the chess masters of the world into so formidable and unanimous a dissent, was made by Professor Van Dusen in the presence of three other gentlemen of note. One of these, Dr. Charles Elbert, happened to be a chess enthusiast.
"Chess is a shameless perversion of the functions of the brain," was Professor Van Dusen's declaration in his perpetually irritated voice. "It is a sheer waste of effort, greater because it is possibly the most difficult of all fixed abstract problems. Of course logic will solve it. Logic will solve any problem—not most of them but any problem. A thorough understanding of its rules would enable anyone to defeat your greatest chess players. It would be inevitable, just as inevitable as that two and two make four, not some times but all the time. I don't know chess because I never do useless things, but I could take a few hours of competent instruction and defeat a man who has devoted his life to it. His mind is cramped; bound down to the logic of chess. Mine is not; mine employs logic in its widest scope."
Dr. Elbert shook his head vigorously. "It is impossible," he asserted.
"Nothing is impossible," snapped the scientist. "The human mind can do anything. It is all we have to lift us above the brute creation. For Heaven's sake leave us that."
The aggressive tone, the uncompromising egotism brought a flush to Dr. Elbert's face. Professor Van Dusen affected many persons that way, particularly those fellow savants who, themselves men of distinction, had ideas of their own.
"Do you know the purposes of chess? Its countless combinations?" asked Dr. Elbert.
"No," was the crabbed reply. "I know nothing whatever of the game beyond the general purpose which, I understand to be, to move certain pieces in certain directions to stop an opponent from moving his King. Is that correct?"
"Yes," said Dr. Elbert slowly, "but I never heard it stated just that way before."
"Then, if that is correct, I maintain that the true logician can defeat the chess expert by the pure mechanical rules of logic. I'll take a few hours some time, acquaint myself with the moves of the pieces, and defeat you to convince you."
Professor Van Dusen glared savagely into the eyes of Dr. Elbert.
"Not me," said Dr. Elbert. "You say anyone—you for instance, might defeat the greatest chess player. Would you be willing to meet the greatest chess player after you 'acquaint' yourself with the game?"
"Certainly," said the scientist. "I have frequently found it necessary to make a fool of myself to convince people. I'll do it again."
This, then, was the acrimonious beginning of the discussion, which aroused chess masters and brought open dissent from eminent men who had not dared for years to dispute any assertion by the distinguished Professor Van Dusen. It was arranged that at the conclusion of the championships Professor Van Dusen should meet the winner. This happened to be Tschaikowsky, the Russian, who had been champion for half a dozen years.
After this expected result of the tournament Hillsbury, a noted American master, spent a morning with Professor Van Dusen in the latter's modest apartments on Beacon Hill. He left there with a sadly puzzled face; that afternoon Professor Van Dusen met the Russian champion. The newspapers had said a great deal about the affair and hundreds were present to witness the game.
There was a little murmur of astonishment when Professor Van Dusen appeared. He was slight, almost childlike in body, and his thin shoulders seemed to droop beneath the weight of his enormous head. He wore a number eight hat. His brow rose straight and domelike and a heavy shock of long, yellow hair gave him almost a grotesque appearance. The eyes were narrow slits of blue squinting eternally through thick spectacles; the face was small, clean-shaven, drawn and white with the pallor of the student. His lips made a perfectly straight line. His hands were remarkable for their whiteness, their flexibility, and for the length of the slender fingers. One glance showed that physical development had never entered into the schedule of the scientist's fifty years of life.
The Russian smiled as he sat down at the chess table. He felt that he was humouring a crank. The other masters were grouped near by, curiously expectant. Professor Van Dusen began the game, opening with a Queen's gambit. At his fifth move, made without the slightest hesitation, the smile left the Russian's face. At the tenth, the masters grew intensely eager. The Russian champion was playing for honour now. Professor Van Dusen's fourteenth move was King's castle to Queen's four.
"Check," he announced.
After a long study of the board the Russian protected his King with a Knight. Professor Van Dusen noted the play then leaned back in his chair with fingertips pressed together. His eyes left the board and dreamily studied the ceiling. For at least ten minutes there was no sound, no movement, then:
"Mate in fifteen moves," he said quietly.
There was a quick gasp of astonishment. It took the practised eyes of the masters several minutes to verify the announcement. But the Russian champion saw and leaned back in his chair a little white and dazed. He was not astonished; he was helplessly floundering in a maze of incomprehensible things. Suddenly he arose and grasped the slender hand of his conqueror.
"You have never played chess before?" he asked.
"Never."
"Mon Dieu! You are not a man; you are a brain—a machine—a thinking machine."
"It's a child's game," said the scientist abruptly. There was no note of exultation in his voice; it was still the irritable, impersonal tone, which was habitual.
This, then, was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., etc., etc., etc. This is how he came to be known to the world at large as The Thinking Machine. The Russian's phrase had been applied to the scientist as a title by a newspaper reporter, Hutchinson Hatch. It had stuck.
CHAPTER 2My First Experience with the Great Logician
It was once my good fortune to meet in person Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., etc. The meeting came about through a singular happening, which was as mystifying as it was dangerous to me—he saved my life in fact; and in process of hauling me back from eternity—the edge of that appalling mist which separates life and death—I had full opportunity of witnessing the workings of that marvelously keen, cold brain which has made him the most distinguished scientist and logician of his day. It was sometime afterward, however, that Professor Van Dusen was identified in my mind with The Thinking Machine.
I had dined at the Hotel Teutonic, taken a cigar from my pocket, lighted it, and started for a stroll across Boston Common. It was after eight o'clock on one of those clear, nippy evenings of winter. I was near the center of the Common on one of the many little by paths which lead toward Beacon Hill when I became conscious of an acute pain in my chest, a sudden fluttering of my heart, and a constriction in my throat. The lights in the distance began to waver and grow dim, and perspiration broke out all over me from an inward, gnawing agony, which grew more intense each moment. I felt myself reeling, my cigar dropped from my fingers, and I clutched at a seat to steady myself. There was no one near me. I tried to call, then everything grew dark, and I sank down on the ground. My last recollection was of a figure approaching me; the last words I heard were a petulant, irritable "Dear me!" then I was lost to consciousness.
When I recovered consciousness I lay on a couch in a strange room. My eyes wandered weakly about and lingered with a certain childish interest on half a dozen spots, which reflected glitteringly the light of an electric bulb set high up on one side. These bright spots, I came to realize after a moment, were metal parts of various instruments of a laboratory. For a time I lay helpless, listless, with trembling pulse and eardrums thumping, then I heard steps approaching, and some one bent over and peered into my face.
It was a man, but such a man as I had never seen before. A great shock of straw yellow hair tumbled about a broad, high forehead, a small, wrinkled, querulous face—the face of an aged child—a pair of watery blue eyes squinting aggressively through thick spectacles, and a thin lipped mouth as straight as the mark of a surgeon's knife, save for the drooping corners. My impression then was that it was some sort of hallucination, the distorted vagary of a disordered brain, but gradually my vision cleared and the grip of slender fingers on my pulse made me realize the actuality of the—the apparition.
"How do you feel?" The thin lips had opened just enough to let out the question, the tone was curt and belligerent, and the voice rasped unpleasantly. At the same time the squint eyes were focused on mine with a steady, piercing glare that made me uneasy. I tried to answer, but my tongue refused to move. The gaze continued for an instant, then the man—The Thinking Machine—turned away and prepared a particularly vile smelling concoction, which he poured into me. Then I was lost again.
After a time—it might have been minutes or hours—I felt again the hand on my pulse, and again The Thinking Machine favored me with a glare. An hour later I was sitting up on the couch, with unclouded brain, and a heartbeat, which was nearly normal. It was then I learned why Professor Van Dusen, an eminent man of the sciences, had been dubbed The Thinking Machine; I understood first hand how material muddles were so unfailingly dissipated by unadulterated, infallible logic.
Remember that I had gone into that room an inanimate thing, inert, unconscious, mentally and physically dead to all practical intents—beyond the point where I might have babbled any elucidating fact. And remember, too, please, that I didn't know—had not the faintest idea—what had happened to me, beyond the fact that I had fallen unconscious. The Thinking Machine didn't ask questions, yet he supplied all the missing details, together with a host of personal, intimate things of which he could personally have had no knowledge. In other words, I was an abstruse problem, and he solved me. With head tilted back against the cushion of the chair—and such a head!—with eyes unwaveringly turned upward, and finger tips pressed idly together, he sat there, a strange, grotesque little figure in the midst of his laboratory apparatus. Not for a moment did he display the slightest interest in me, personally; it was all as if I had been written down on a slate, to be wiped off when I was solved.
"Did this ever happen to you before?" he asked abruptly.
"No," I replied. "What was it?"
"You were poisoned," he said. "The poison was a deadly one—corrosive sublimate, or bichlorid or mercury. The shock was very severe; but you will be all right in—"
"Poisoned!" I exclaimed, aghast. "Who poisoned me? Why?"
"You poisoned yourself," he replied testily. "It was your own carelessness. Nine out of ten persons handle poison as if it was candy, and you are like all the rest."
"But I couldn't have poisoned myself," I protested. "Why, I have had no occasion to handle poisons—not for—I don't know how long."
"I do know," he said. "It was nearly a year ago when you handled this; but corrosive sublimate is always dangerous."
The tone irritated me, the impassive arrogance of the little man inflamed my reeling brain, and I am not sure that I did not shake my finger in his face. "If I was poisoned," I declared with some heat, "it was not my fault. Somebody gave it to me; somebody tried to—"
"You poisoned yourself," said The Thinking Machine again impatiently. "You talk like a child."
"How do you know I poisoned myself? How do you know I ever handled a poison? And how do you know it was a year ago, if I did?"
The Thinking Machine regarded me coldly for an instant, and then those strange eyes of his wandered upward again. "I know those things," he said, "just as I know your name, address, and profession from cards I found in your pockets; just as I know you smoke, from half a dozen cigars on you; just as I know that you are wearing those clothes for the first time this winter; just as I know you lost your wife within a few months; that you kept house then; and that your house was infested with insects. I know just as I know everything else—by the rules of inevitable logic."
My head was whirling. I stared at him in blank astonishment. "But how do you know those things?" I insisted in bewilderment.
"The average person of to-day," replied the scientist, "knows nothing unless it is written down and thrust under his nose. I happen to be a physician. I saw you fall, and went to you, my first thought being of heart trouble. Your pulse showed it was not that, and it was obviously not apoplexy. Now, there was no visible reason why you should have collapsed like that. There had been no shot; there was no wound; therefore, poison. An examination confirmed this first hypothesis; your symptoms showed that the poison was bichlorid of mercury. I put you in a cab and brought you here. From the fact that you were not dead then I knew that your system had absorbed only a minute quantity of poison—a quantity so small that it demonstrated instantly that there had been no suicidal intent, and indicated, too, that no one else had administered it. If this was true, I knew—I didn't guess, I knew—that the poisoning was accidental. How accidental?
"My first surmise, naturally, was that the poison had been absorbed through the mouth. I searched your pockets. The only things I found that you would put into your mouth were the cigars. Were they poisoned? A test showed they were, all of them. With intent to kill? No. Not enough poison was used. Was the poison a part of the gum used to bind the cigar? Possible, of course, but not probable. Then what?" He lowered his eyes and squinted at me suddenly, aggressively. I shook my head, and, as an afterthought, closed my gaping mouth.
"Perhaps you carried corrosive sublimate in your pocket. I didn't find any; but perhaps you once carried it. I tore out the coat pocket in which I found the cigars and subjected it to the test. At sometime there had been corrosive sublimate, in the form of powder or crystals, in the pocket, and in some manner, perhaps because of an imperfection in the package, a minute quantity was loose in your pocket.
"Here was an answer to every question, and more; here was how the cigars were poisoned, and, in combination with the tailor's tag inside your pocket, a short history of your life. Briefly it was like this: Once you had corrosive sublimate in your pocket. For what purpose? First thought—to rid your home of insects. Second thought—if you were boarding, married or unmarried, the task of getting rid of the insects would have been left to the servant; and this would possibly have been the case if you had been living at home. So I assumed for the instant that you were keeping house, and if keeping house, you were married—you bought the poison for use in your own house.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Thinking Machine by Jacques Futrelle. Copyright © 2014 MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
"The Thinking Machine",My First Experience with the Great Logician,
A Piece of String,
Problem of the Perfect Alibi,
The Problem of the Stolen Bank Notes,
Problem of Convict No. 97,
The First Problem,
Problem of the Crystal Gazer,
Five Millions by Wireless,
Problem of the Green Eyed Monster,
The Problem of the Hidden Million,
Kidnapped Baby Blake, Millionaire,
Problem of the Missing Necklace,
Problem of the Motor Boat,
The Ralston Bank Burglary,
Problem of the Opera Box,
Problem of the Cross Mark,
Problem of the Broken Bracelet,
Problem of the Lost Radium,
The Problem of the Stolen Rubens,
Problem of the Souvenir Cards,
Problem of the Superfluous Finger,
The Case of the Scientific Murderer,
Problem of the Deserted House,
Mystery of the Fatal Cipher,
Mystery of the Flaming Phantom,
Problem of the Ghost Woman,
Mystery of the Golden Dagger,
The Great Auto Mystery,
The Grinning God,
The Mystery of the Grip of Death,
The Haunted Bell,
The Jackdaw Girl,
Problem of the Knotted Cord,
Mystery of the Man Who Was Lost,
The Mystery of a Studio,
Problem of the Organ Grinder,
The Phantom Motor,
Problem of the Private Compartment,
The Problem of the Auto Cab,
Problem of the Red Rose,
The Roswell Tiara,
Mystery of the Scarlet Thread,
The Silver Box,
The Three Overcoats,
The Tragedy of the Life Raft,
The Chase of the Golden Plate,
The Problem of Cell 13,
Problem of the Vanishing Man,
Problem of the Interrupted Wireless,