The Jacques Futrelle Megapack. Jacques Futrelle
to confirm my original idea that it had not been suicide. Night after night I thought of this, and finally decided to come to you rather than to the police. I feel that there is some dark mystery behind it all. If you can help me now—”
“Yes, yes,” broke in The Thinking Machine. “Where was the key to the workshop? In Pomeroy’s pocket? In his room? In the door?”
“Really, I don’t know,” said Miss Devan. “It hadn’t occurred to me.”
“Did Mr. Stockton leave a will?”
“Yes, it is with his lawyer, a Mr. Sloane.”
“Has it been read? Do you know what is in it?”
“It is to be read in a day or so. Judging from the second paragraph of the letter, I presume he left everything to his son.”
For the fourth time The Thinking Machine read the letter. At its end he again looked up at Miss Devan.
“Just what is your interpretation of this letter from one end to the other?” he asked.
“Speaking from my knowledge of Mr. Stockton and the circumstances surrounding him,” the girl explained, “I should say the letter means just what it says. I should imagine from the first paragraph that something he invented had been taken away from him, stolen perhaps. The second paragraph and the third, I should say, were intended as a rebuke to certain relatives—a brother and two distant cousins—who had always regarded him as a crank and took frequent occasion to tell him so. I don’t know a great deal of the history of that other branch of the family. The last two paragraphs explain themselves except—”
“Except the figure seven,” interrupted the scientist. “Do you have any idea whatever as to the meaning of that?”
The girl took the letter and studied it closely for a moment.
“Not the slightest,” she said. “It does not seem to be connected with anything else in the letter.”
“Do you think it possible, Miss Devan, that this letter was written under coercion?”
“I do,” said the girl quickly, and her face flamed. “That’s just what I do think. From the first I have imagined some ghastly, horrible mystery back of it all.”
“Or, perhaps Pomeroy Stockton never saw this letter at all,” mused The Thinking Machine. “It may be a forgery?”
“Forgery!” gasped the girl. “Then John Stockton—”
“Whatever it is, forged or genuine,” The Thinking Machine went on quietly, “it is a most extraordinary document. It might have been written by a poet. It states things in such a roundabout way. It is not directly to the point, as a practical man would have written.”
There was silence for several minutes and the girl sat leaning forward on the table, staring into the inscrutable eyes of the scientist.
“Perhaps, perhaps,” she said, “there is a cipher of some sort in it?”
“That is precisely correct,” said The Thinking Machine emphatically. “There is a cipher in it, and a very ingenious one.”
II
It was twenty-four hours later that The Thinking Machine sent for Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, and talked over the matter with him. He had always found Hatch a discreet, resourceful individual, who was willing to aid in any way in his power.
Hatch read the letter, which The Thinking Machine had said contained a cipher, and then the circumstances as related by Miss Devan were retold to the reporter.
“Do you think it is a cipher?” asked Hatch in conclusion.
“It is a cipher,” replied The Thinking Machine. “If what Miss Devan has said is correct, John Stockton cannot have said anything about the affair. I want you to go and talk to him, find out all about him and what division of the property is made by the will. Does this will give everything to the son?
“Also find out what personal enmity there is between John Stockton and Miss Devan, and what was the cause of it. Was there a man in it? If so, who? When you have done all this, go to the house in Dorchester and bring me the family Bible, if there is one there. It’s probably a big book. If it is not there, let me know immediately by telephone. Miss Devan will, I suppose, give it to you, if she has it.”
With these instructions Hatch went away. Half an hour later he was in the private office of John Stockton at the latter’s place of business. Mr. Stockton was a man of long visage, rather angular and clerical in appearance. There was a smug satisfaction about the man that Hatch didn’t quite approve of, and yet it was a trait which found expression only in a soft voice and small acts of needless courtesy.
A deprecatory look passed over Stockton’s face when Hatch asked the first question, which bore on his relationship with Pomeroy Stockton.
“I had hoped that this matter would not come to the attention of the press,” said Stockton in an oily, gentle tone. “It is something which can only bring disgrace upon my poor father’s memory, and his has been a name associated with distinct achievements in the progress of the world. However, if necessary, I will state my knowledge of the affair, and invite the investigation which, frankly, I will say, I tried to stop.”
“How much was your father’s estate?” asked Hatch.
“Something more than a million,” was the reply. “He made most of it through a device for coupling cars. This is now in use on practically all the railroads.”
“And the division of this property by will?” asked Hatch.
“I haven’t seen the will, but I understand that he left practically everything to me, settling an annuity and the home in Dorchester on Miss Devan, whom he had always regarded as a daughter.”
“That would give you then, say, two-thirds or three-quarters of the estate.”
“Something like that, possibly $800,000.”
“Where is this will now?”
“I understand in the hands of my father’s attorney, Mr. Sloane.”
“When is it to be read?”
“It was to have been read today, but there has been some delay about it. The attorney postponed it for a few days.”
“What, Mr. Stockton, was the purpose in making it appear that your father died naturally, when obviously he committed suicide and there is even a suggestion of something else?” demanded Hatch.
John Stockton sat up straight in his chair with a startled expression in his eyes. He had been rubbing his hands together complacently; now he stopped and stared at the reporter.
“Something else?” he asked. “Pray what else?”
Hatch shrugged his shoulders, but in his eyes there lay almost an accusation.
“Did any motive ever appear for your father’s suicide?”
“I know of none,” Stockton replied. “Yet, admitting that this is suicide, without a motive, it seems that the only fault I have committed is that I had a friend report it otherwise and avoided a police inquiry.”
“It’s just that. Why did you do it?”
“Naturally to save the family name from disgrace. But this something else you spoke of? Do you mean that anyone else thinks that anything other than suicide or natural death is possible?”
As he asked the question there came some subtle change over his face. He leaned forward toward the reporter. All trace of the sanctimonious smirk about the thin-lipped mouth had gone now.
“Miss Devan has produced the letter found on your father at death and has said—” began the reporter.
“Elizabeth! Miss Devan!” exclaimed John Stockton. He arose suddenly, paced several times across the room, then stopped in front of the