The problem of Cell 13

Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by The
Internet Web Archive











Transcriber's Notes:
     1. Page scan source: The Internet Web Archive
        https://books.google.com/books?id=MUtBAQAAMAAJ
        (the New York Public Library)





[Frontispiece: "Look out for a shot," warned The Thinking
Machine sharply. p. 332]






THE PROBLEM OF CELL 13



By
JACQUES FUTRELLE
Author of "The Chase of the Golden Plate," "The Haunted Bell," etc.




NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1917






Copyright, 1905-1906, by American-Journal-Examiner
(Copyright, 1907, by Dodd, Mead & Co.
Under the title of "The Thinking Machine")

-----------
By courtesy of William Randolph Hearst






To
_those two persons who made The Thinking Machine possible_

J. L. E.,

_who opened the way, and_

L. M. F.,

_who guided, advised and encouraged the hand that labored,

these tales are gratefully dedicated_.






CONTENTS

   THE PROBLEM OF CELL 13
   THE SCARLET THREAD
   THE MAN WHO WAS LOST
   THE GREAT AUTO MYSTERY
   THE FLAMING PHANTOM
   THE RALSTON BANK BURGLARY
   THE MYSTERY OF A STUDIO






THE PROBLEM OF CELL 13


I.


Practically all those letters remaining in the alphabet after Augustus
S. F. X. Van Dusen was named were afterward acquired by that gentleman
in the course of a brilliant scientific career, and, being honorably
acquired, were tacked on to the other end. His name, therefore, taken
with all that belonged to it, was a wonderfully imposing structure. He
was a Ph.D., an LL.D., an F.R.S., an M.D., and an M.D.S. He was also
some other things--just what he himself couldn't say--through
recognition of his ability by various foreign educational and
scientific institutions.

In appearance he was no less striking than in nomenclature. He was
slender with the droop of the student in his thin shoulders and the
pallor of a close, sedentary life on his clean-shaven face. His eyes
wore a perpetual, forbidding squint--the squint of a man who studies
little things--and when they could be seen at all through his thick
spectacles, were mere slits of watery blue. But above his eyes was his
most striking feature. This was a tall, broad brow, almost abnormal in
height and width, crowned by a heavy shock of bushy, yellow hair. All
these things conspired to give him a peculiar, almost grotesque,
personality.

Professor Van Dusen was remotely German. For generations his ancestors
had been noted in the sciences; he was the logical result, the master
mind. First and above all he was a logician. At least thirty-five
years of the half-century or so of his existence had been devoted
exclusively to proving that two and two always equal four, except in
unusual cases, where they equal three or five, as the case may be. He
stood broadly on the general proposition that all things that start
must go somewhere, and was able to bring the concentrated mental force
of his forefathers to bear on a given problem. Incidentally it may be
remarked that Professor Van Dusen wore a No. 8 hat.

The world at large had heard vaguely of Professor Van Dusen as The
Thinking Machine. It was a newspaper catch-phrase applied to him at
the time of a remarkable exhibition at chess; he had demonstrated then
that a stranger to the game might, by the force of inevitable logic,
defeat a champion who had devoted a lifetime to its study. The
Thinking Machine! Perhaps that more nearly described him than all his
honorary initials, for he spent week after week, month after month, in
the seclusion of his small laboratory from which had gone forth
thoughts that staggered scientific associates and deeply stirred the
world at large.

It was only occasionally that The Thinking Machine had visitors, and
these were usually men who, themselves high in the sciences, dropped
in to argue a point and perhaps convince themselves. Two of these men,
Dr. Charles Ransome and Alfred Fielding, called one evening to discuss
some theory which is not of consequence here.

"Such a thing is impossible," declared Dr. Ransome emphatically, in
the course of the conversation.

"Nothing is impossible," declared The Thinking Machine with equal
emphasis. He always spoke petulantly. "The mind is master of all
things. When science fully recognizes that fact a great advance will
have been made."

"How about the airship?" asked Dr. Ransome.

"That's not impossible at all," asserted The Thinking Machine. "It
will be invented some time. I'd do it myself, but I'm busy."

Dr. Ransome laughed tolerantly.

"I've heard you say such things before," he said. "But they mean
nothing. Mind may be master of matter, but it hasn't yet found a way
to apply itself. There are some things that can't be thought out of
existence, or rather which would not yield to any amount of thinking."

"What, for instance?" demanded The Thinking Machine.

Dr.