Jacques Futrelle

“ I knew—the pure logic of it told me—how the ghost was made to appear and disappear; one look at the house inside convinced me beyond all doubt. I knew the motive for the ghost—a search for the jewels. I knew, or thought I knew, the name of the man who was seeking the jewels; the man who had fullest knowledge and fullest opportunity, the man whose brain was clever enough to devise the scheme. Then, the next step to prove what I knew. The first thing to do was to find the jewels.”
“Find the jewels?” Weston repeated, with a slight smile.
“Here they are,” said The Thinking Machine, quietly. ”

“ Hatch," said The Thinking Machine in his perpetually crabbed voice, "we have a most remarkable riddle. It gains this remarkable aspect from its very simplicity. It is not, however, necessary to go into that now. I will make it clear to you when we know the motives.
"As a general rule, the greatest crimes never come to light because the greatest criminals, their perpetrators, are too clever to be caught. Here we have what I might call a great crime committed with a subtle simplicity that is wholly disarming, and a greater crime even than this was planned. This was to murder Weldon Henley. ”

“ The bonds! He had dreamed of them, and fear for their safety had been born in that dream,—a strange,vivid vision of a desperate struggle with some straight staring, rugged faced, hulking man, some man who seemed to be—to be John Smith! In the dream he had lost the bonds! For a long time he sat listening, listening, then started to rise from the bed. It was an effort. Illness had sapped his strength, he was weak as a child, but the will of him came to his rescue, that merciless, all compelling will against which no man or thing had ever stood. ”

“ THE MYSTERY OF A STUDIO
I
Where the light slants down softly into one corner of a noted art museum in Boston there hangs a large picture. Its title is “Fulfillment.” Discriminating art critics have alternately raved at it and praised it; from the day it appeared there it has been a fruitful source of acrimonious discussion. As for the public, it accepts the picture as a startling, amazing thing of beauty, and there is always a crowd around it.
“Fulfillment” is typified by a woman. She stands boldly forth against a languorous background of deep tones. ”

“ That night at nine o'clock, under cover of perfect blackness, Hatch climbed the cliff toward the Weston house. At one o'clock he came racing down the hill, with frequent glances over his shoulder. His face was pallid with a fear which he had never known before and his lips were ashen. Once in his room in the village hotel Hutchinson Hatch, the nerveless young man, lighted a lamp with trembling hands and sat with wide, staring eyes until the dawn broke through the east. ”

“ Always the change is wrought by some trivial thing, like the lingering touch of a slender hand, or the haunting curl of scarlet lips, or the shy upward glance of timid eyes. Mr. Smith didn’t know precisely when or where the great change came. He only knew that on the second day after his release from arrest he had talked an hour or more with Edna Clarke, and since then his vision had cleared. When he bade her goodby he was preparing to catch the steamer at Cherbourg for home. At his hotel he found a note that stayed him. It said:
The Lord loveth a cheerful liar. ”

“ Grimm looked down on Pennsylvania Avenue, the central thread of Washington, ever changing, always brilliant, splashed at regular intervals with light from high-flung electric arcs. The early theater crowd was in the street, well dressed, well fed, careless for the moment of all things save physical comfort and amusement; automobiles, carriages, cabs, cars flowed past endlessly; and yet Mr. Grimm saw naught of it. In the distance, at one end of the avenue the dome of the capitol cleft the shadows of night, and a single light sparkled at its apex ”

“ Martha Pike laughed, albeit there was a singular little quaver in the trill of it. She began to laugh along in the middle somewhere when Rex inadvertently dragged into his declaration some anatomical references, and in an impetuous burst of enthusiasm began to fling off poetic things about eyes as soft as a star-haze, whatever that is; and lips like the bursting heart of a rose; and hair that held enmeshed the lure of the dying sun. ”

“ We never hear of them because they are never caught, and we never even suspect them because they make no mistake. Imagine the great brains of history turned to crime. Well, there are today brains as great as any of those of history; there is murder and theft and robbery under our noses that we never dream of. If I, for instance, should become an active criminal——" He paused.
Grayson, with a queer expression on his face, puffed steadily at his cigar.
"I could kill you now, here in this room," The Thinking Machine went on calmly, "and no one would ever know, never even suspect. ”

“ The whir and grind of their car drowned other sounds—sounds from behind—but from time to time the Burglar looked back, and from time to time he let out a new notch in the speed-regulator. Already the pace was terrific, and the Girl bounced up and down beside him at each trivial irregularity in the road, while she clung frantically to the seat.
"Is it necessary to go so awfully fast?" she gasped at last.
The wind was beating on her face, her mask blew this way and that; the beribboned sombrero clung frantically to a fast-failing strand of ruddy hair. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mr. Smith laid two hands upon her own. “Never mind all that,” he said quietly. “You seem to think I have done something wonderful. It is within your power to repay me. Will you?”
Edna didn’t move her hand; merely faced him without a word. If there had been any doubt in his mind it was dissipated by the misty light that grew in her eyes, by the happy curl of her lips. ”

“ The Thinking Machine made a mental astronomical calculation and satisfied himself that the moon would not rise until after nine o'clock that night. Then he asked another question:
"Who attends to those arc lights?"
"Man from the company."
"You have no electricians in the building?"
"No."
"I should think you could save money if you had your own man."
"None of my business," replied the guard.
The guard noticed The Thinking Machine at the cell window frequently during that day, but always the face seemed listless and there was a certain wistfulness in the squint eyes behind the glasses. ”