The problem of Cell 13 27 – Futrelle · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The problem of Cell 13 27Part 5 · Chapter 3
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The problem of Cell 13 27
Part 5 · Chapter 3
FutrelleEnglish
Hatch found Ernest Weston at luncheon with another gentleman at one o'clock that day. This other gentleman was introduced to Hatch as George Weston, a cousin. Hatch instantly remembered George Weston for certain eccentric exploits at Newport a season or so before; and also as one of the heirs of the original Weston estate.
Hatch thought he remembered, too, that at the time Miss Everard had been so prominent socially at Newport George Weston had been her most ardent suitor. It was rumored that there would have been an engagement between them, but her father objected. Hatch looked at him curiously; his face was clearly a dissipated one, yet there was about him the unmistakable polish and gentility of the well-bred man of society.
Hatch knew Ernest Weston as Weston knew Hatch; they had met frequently in the ten years Hatch had been a newspaper reporter, and Weston had been courteous to him always. The reporter was in doubt as to whether to bring up the subject on which he had sought out Ernest Weston, but the broker brought it up himself, smilingly.
"Well, what is it this time?" he asked, genially. "The ghost down on the South Shore, or my forthcoming marriage?"
"Both," replied Hatch.
Weston talked freely of his engagement to Miss Everard, which he said was to have been announced in another week, at which time she was due to return to America from Europe. The marriage was to be three or four months later, the exact date had not been set.
"And I suppose the country place was being put in order as a Summer residence?" the reporter asked.
"Yes. I had intended to make some repairs and changes there, and furnish it, but now I understand that a ghost has taken a hand in the matter and has delayed it. Have you heard much about this ghost story?" he asked, and there was a slight smile on his face.
"I have seen the ghost," Hatch answered.
"You have?" demanded the broker.
George Weston echoed the words and leaned forward, with a new interest in his eyes, to listen. Hatch told them what had happened in the haunted house--all of it. They listened with the keenest interest, one as eager as the other.
"By George!" exclaimed the broker, when Hatch had finished. "How do you account for it?"
"I don't," said Hatch, flatly. "I can offer no possible solution. I am not a child to be tricked by the ordinary illusion, nor am I of the temperament which imagines things, but I can offer no explanation of this."
"It must be a trick of some sort," said George Weston.
"I was positive of that," said Hatch, "but if it is a trick, it is the cleverest I ever saw."
The conversation drifted on to the old story of missing jewels and a tragedy in the house fifty years before. Now Hatch was asking questions by direction of The Thinking Machine; he himself hardly saw their purport, but he asked them.
"Well, the full story of that affair, the tragedy there, would open up an old chapter in our family which is nothing to be ashamed of, of course," said the broker, frankly; "still it is something we have not paid much attention to for many years. Perhaps George here knows it better than I do. His mother, then a bride, heard the recital of the story from my grandmother."
Ernest Weston and Hatch looked inquiringly at George Weston, who lighted a fresh cigarette and leaned over the table toward them. He was an excellent talker.
"I've heard my mother tell of it, but it was a long time ago," he began. "It seems, though, as I remember it, that my great-grandfather, who built the house, was a wealthy man, as fortunes went in those days, worth probably a million dollars.
"A part of this fortune, say about one hundred thousand dollars, was in jewels, which had come with the family from England. Many of those pieces would be of far greater value now than they were then, because of their antiquity. It was only on state occasions, I might say, when these were worn, say, once a year.
"Between times the problem of keeping them safely was a difficult one, it appeared. This was before the time of safety deposit vaults. My grandfather conceived the idea of hiding the jewels in the old place down on the South Shore, instead of keeping them in the house he had in Boston. He took them there accordingly.
"At this time one was compelled to travel down the South Shore, below Cohasset anyway, by stagecoach. My grandfather's family was then in the city, as it was Winter, so he made the trip alone. He planned to reach there at night, so as not to attract attention to himself, to hide the jewels about the house, and leave that same night for Boston again by a relay of horses he had arranged for. Just what happened after he left the stagecoach, below Cohasset, no one ever knew except by surmise."
The speaker paused a moment and relighted his cigarette.
"Next morning my great-grandfather was found unconscious and badly injured on the veranda of the house. His skull had been fractured. In the house a man was found dead. No one knew who he was; no one within a radius of many miles of the place had ever seen him.
"This led to all sorts of surmises, the most reasonable of which, and the one which the family has always accepted, being that my grandfather had gone to the house in the dark, had there met some one who was stopping there that night as a shelter from the intense cold, that this man learned of the jewels, that he had tried robbery and there was a fight.
"In this fight the stranger was killed inside the house, and my great-grandfather, injured, had tried to leave the house for aid. He collapsed on the veranda where he was found and died without having regained consciousness. That's all we know or can surmise reasonably about the matter."
"Were the jewels ever found?" asked the reporter.
"No. They were not on the dead man, nor were they in the possession of my grandfather."
"It is reasonable to suppose, then, that there was a third man and that he got away with the jewels?" asked Ernest Weston.
"It seemed so, and for a long time this theory was accepted. I suppose it is now, but some doubt was cast on it by the fact that only two trails-of footsteps led to the house and none out. There was a heavy snow on the ground. If none led out it was obviously impossible that anyone came out."
Again there was silence. Ernest Weston sipped his coffee slowly.
"It would seem from that," said Ernest Weston, at last, "that the jewels were hidden before the tragedy, and have never been found."
George Weston smiled.
"Off and on for twenty years the place was searched, according to my mother's story," he said. "Every inch of the cellar was dug up; every possible nook and corner was searched. Finally the entire matter passed out of the minds of those who knew of it, and I doubt if it has ever been referred to again until now."
"A search even now would be almost worth while, wouldn't it?" asked the broker.
George Weston laughed aloud.
"It might be," he said, "but I have some doubt. A thing that was searched for for twenty years would not be easily found."
So it seemed to strike the others after awhile and the matter was dropped.
"But this ghost thing," said the broker, at last. "I'm interested in that. Suppose we make up a ghost party and go down to-night. My contractor declares he can't get men to work there."
"I would be glad to go," said George Weston, "but I'm running over to the Vandergrift ball in Providence to-night."
"How about you, Hatch?" asked the broker.
"I'll go, yes," said Hatch, "as one of several," he added with a smile.
"Well, then, suppose we say the constable and you and I?" asked the broker; "to-night?"
"All right."
After making arrangements to meet the broker later that afternoon he rushed away--away to The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened, then resumed some chemical test he was making.
"Can't you go down with us to-night?" Hatch asked.
"No," said the other. "I'm going to read a paper before a scientific society and prove that a chemist in Chicago is a fool. That will take me all evening."
"To-morrow night?" Hatch insisted.
"No--the next night."
This would be on Friday night--just in time for the feature which had been planned for Sunday. Hatch was compelled to rest content with this, but he foresaw that he would have it all, with a solution. It never occurred to him that this problem, or, indeed, that any problem, was beyond the mental capacity of Professor Van Dusen.
Hatch and Ernest Weston took a night train that evening, and on their arrival in the village stirred up the town constable.
"Will you go with us?" was the question.
"Both of you going?" was the counter-question.
"Yes."
"I'll go," said the constable promptly. "Ghost!" and he laughed scornfully. "I'll have him in the lockup by morning."
"No shooting, now," warned Weston. "There must be somebody back of this somewhere; we understand that, but there is no crime that we know of. The worst is possibly trespassing."
"I'll get him all right," responded the constable, who still remembered the experience where blood--warm blood--had been thrown in his face. "And I'm not so sure there isn't a crime."
That night about ten the three men went into the dark, forbidding house and took a station on the stairs where Hatch had sat when he saw the THING--whatever it was. There they waited. The constable moved nervously from time to time, but neither of the others paid any attention to him.
At last the--the THING appeared. There had been a preliminary sound as of something running across the floor, then suddenly a flaming figure of white seemed to grow into being in the reception-room. It was exactly as Hatch had described it to The Thinking Machine.
Dazed, stupefied, the three men looked, looked as the figure raised a hand, pointing toward them, and wrote a word in the air--positively in the air. The finger merely waved, and there, floating before them were letters, flaming letters, in the utter darkness. This time the word was: "Death."
Faintly, Hatch, fighting with a fear which again seized him, remembered that The Thinking Machine had asked him if the handwriting was that of a man or woman; now he tried to see. It was as if drawn on a blackboard, and there was a queer twist to the loop at the bottom. He sniffed to see if there was an odor of any sort. There was not.
Suddenly he felt some quick, vigorous action from the constable behind him. There was a roar and a flash in his ear; he knew the constable had fired at the THING. Then came the cry and laugh--almost a laugh of derision--he had heard them before. For one instant the figure lingered and then, before their eyes, faded again into utter blackness. Where it had been was nothing--nothing.
