The Thinking Machine Collected Stories
Chapter 83 : Again he examined the instrument under the light, with something akin to perplexity on

Again he examined the instrument under the light, with something akin to perplexity on his drawn face; then allowed his eyes to follow the silken wire as it led up, across the room, and out the window. Did it go up or down? Probably up, possibly down. He had just taken two steps toward that window, with the purpose of answering this question definitely, when he heard a sound somewhere off in the house and stopped.

The light faded, and utter gloom swooped down upon him as he listened. What he heard apparently was the tread of feet at a distance, somewhere below. They seemed to be approaching. Now they were in the lower hall, and grew clatteringly distinct in the emptiness of the house; then the tread sounded on the stairs, the certain, quick step of one who knew his way perfectly. Now the sound was at the door-now finally in the room. Yet there was not one ray of light.

For a little time The Thinking Machine stood motionless, invisible in the enshrouding darkness, until the footsteps seemed almost upon him. Then suddenly his right arm was extended full length from his body, the electric bulb blazed in his hand, and slashed around the room. By every evidence of the sense of sound the flash should have revealed something-perhaps the figure of a man. But there was nothing! The room was vacant, save for himself. And even while the light flared he heard the steps again. The light went out, he took four quick, noiseless steps to his left, and stood there for a moment puzzled.

Then he understood. The mysterious tread was stilled now, as if the person had stopped, and it remained still for several minutes. The Thinking Machine crept silently, cautiously, toward the door and stepped out into the hall. Leaning over the stair rail, he listened. And after awhile the tread sounded again. He drew back into the shadow of a linen closet as the sound grew nearer-stood stock-still staring into blank nothingness as it was almost upon him; then the footsteps receded gradually along the hall, down the stairs, growing fainter, until the receding echo was lost in the silence of the night.

Whereupon The Thinking Machine went boldly up the stairs to the fourth floor, the top. He mounted confidently, as if expecting something to reward his scrutiny; but his eyes rested only upon the bleak desolation of unoccupied apartments. He went straight to the rear room, above the one he had just left, and directly across to one of the windows. Faint, rosy streaks of dawn slashed the east-just enough natural light to show dimly a silken wire hanging down from the middle of the window outside. He opened the window, drew in the wire, and examined it carefully under the electric light, and nodded as if he understood.

Finally he turned abruptly and retraced his steps to the first floor. There he paused to examine the k.n.o.b of the front door; then went on down into the bas.e.m.e.nt. Instead of examining the door there, however, he turned back under the stairs. There he found another door-a door to the subcellar, standing open a scant few inches. A damp, moldy smell came up. After a moment he pushed the door open slowly and ventured one foot forward in the darkness. It found a step, and he began to descend. The fourth step down creaked suddenly, and he paused to listen intently. Utter silence!

Then on down, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, steps, and his foot struck soft, yielding earth. Safely on the ground again, in the protecting gloom, he stood still for a long time, peering blindly around him. At last a blaze of light leaped from the electric bulb, which was extended far from the body to the right, and The Thinking Machine drew a quick breath. It might have been surprise; for within the glow of the light lay the figure of a young man, a boy almost, flat of his back on the muddy earth, with eyes blinking in the glare. His feet were bound tight together with a rope, and his hands were evidently fastened behind him.

"Are you the gentleman who telephoned for me?" inquired The Thinking Machine calmly.

There was no answer, and yet the prostrate man was fully conscious, as proved by the moving eyes and a twitching of his limbs.

"Well?" demanded the scientist impatiently. "Can't you talk?"

His answer was a flash of flame, the crash of a revolver at short range, and the light dropped, automatically extinguished as the pressure on the b.u.t.ton was removed. Upon this came the sound of a body falling. There was a long drawn gasp, and again silence.

"For G.o.d's sake, Cranston!" came the explosive voice of a man after a moment. "You've killed him!"

"Well, I'm not in this game to spend the rest of my life in jail," was the answer, almost a snarl. "I didn't want to kill anybody; but if I had to, all right. If it hadn't been for this kid here, we'd have been all right anyway. I've got a good mind to give him one too, while I'm at it!"

"Well, why don't you?" came a third voice. It was taunting, cold, unafraid.

"Oh, shut up!"

Feet moved uncertainly, feelingly, over the soft earth and stumbled upon the inert, limp figure of The Thinking Machine, lying face down on the ground, almost at the feet of the bound man. One of the men who had spoken stooped, and his fingers touched the still, slim body. He withdrew his hands quickly.

"Is he dead?" some one asked.

"My G.o.d, man! Why did you do it?" exclaimed the man who had spoken first, and there was a pa.s.sionate undertone in his voice. "I never dreamed that this thing would lead to-to murder!"

"It hardly seems to be a time to debate why I did it," was the brutal response; "so much as it is to decide what we'll do now that it is done. We might drop this body in the coal bin in the bas.e.m.e.nt until we finish up here; but what shall we do with the boy? We are both guilty-he saw it. He wanted to tell the other. What will he do now?"

"He'll tell it just so surely as he lives," the bound man answered for himself.

"In that case there's only one thing to do," declared Cranston flatly. "We'd better make a double job of this, leave them both here, and get away."

"Don't kill me-don't kill me!" whined the young man suddenly. "I won't ever tell-I promise! Don't kill me!"

"Oh, shut up!" snarled Cranston. "We'll attend to you later. Got a match?"

"Don't strike a light," commanded the other man sharply, fearfully. "No, don't! Why, man, suppose-suppose your shot had struck him in-in the face. G.o.d!"

"Well, help me lift it," asked Cranston shortly.

And between them they carried the childlike body of the eminent man of science through the darkness to the stairs, up the stairs and through the bas.e.m.e.nt to the back. The dawn was growing now, and the pallid, drawn face of The Thinking Machine was dimly visible by a light from the window. The eyes were wide open, gla.s.sy; the mouth agape slightly. Overcome by a newborn terror,-hideous fear,-the two men flung the body brutally into an open coal bin, slammed down the cover, and went stumbling, clattering, out of the room.

It was something less than half an hour later that the lid of the coal bin was raised from inside, and The Thinking Machine clambered out. He paused for a moment, to rub his knees and elbows ruefully and stretch his cramped limbs.

"Dear me! Dear me!" he grumbled to himself. "I really must be more careful."

And then straight back to the entrance of the subcellar he went. It was lighter outside now, and he walked with the a.s.surance of one who saw where he went, yet noiselessly. But the door of the stairs leading down still revealed only a yawning, black hole. He went on without the slightest hesitation, remembering to step over the fourth step, which had squeaked once before. In the gloom below, standing on the earth again, he listened for many minutes.

a.s.sured at last that he was alone, he groped about the floor for his electric light, and finally found it. Without fear or apparent caution he examined the huge, dark, damp room. On each side were thrown up banks of dirt that seemed to have been dug recently, and here before him was where the bound man had lain. And over there-he started forward eagerly when he saw it-was a telephone! The transmitter box had been wrecked by what seemed to be a bullet. As he saw it he nodded his head comprehendingly.

From there he went on around some masonry. Here was a pa.s.sage of some sort. He flashed the light into it. It had been dug out of the solid earth, and its existence evidently accounted for the heaps of dirt in the subcellar. Still he didn't hesitate. Straight along the pa.s.sage he went, wary of step, and stooping occasionally to avoid striking his head against the earth above him. Ten, fifteen, twenty, feet he went, and still the gloomy, foul smelling hole lay ahead of him, leading to-what? At about thirty-five feet from the subcellar there was a sharp turn,-he thought at first it was the end of the tunnel,-then the pa.s.sage straightened out again, and there was another fifteen or twenty feet, growing smaller and smaller as he went forward.

Suddenly the tunnel stopped. The Thinking Machine found himself flattening his nose against a door of some sort. He allowed his light to fade, then dimly, through a cranny, he saw a faint glow outside. This seemed to be his destination, wherever it was,-and he paused thoughtfully. Obviously the light outside was electric, and if electric light might not some one be in there? A subterranean chamber of some sort, perhaps? His fingers ran around the edge of the door, loosened a fastening, and he peered out. Then, a.s.sured again, he opened the door wide, and stepped out into a brilliant glare.

He was in the subway. He stood blinking incredulously. Here to his right the s.h.i.+ning rails went winding off round a curve in the far distance; and to the left was a quicker turn in the line of the excavation. In neither direction was there anything that looked like a station.

"Really, this is most extraordinary!" he exclaimed.

Then and there the eminent man of science paused to consider this weird thing from all possible viewpoints. It was unbelievable, positively nightmarish; yet true enough, for here he stood in the subway. There was no question about that; for in the distance was the roar of a train, and he discreetly withdrew into the little door, closing it carefully behind him until it had pa.s.sed.

Finally he popped out again, closed the door behind him, paused only to admire the skill with which a portion of the tiling in the tunnel had been utilized as a door, then went on across the tracks. It was still early morning; the trains were as yet few and far between; so he had a little leisure for the minute examination he made of the tiled walls opposite the closed door. It was perhaps ten minutes before he found a tile that was loose. He hauled at it until it came out in his hand, revealing a dark aperture beyond.

Within fifteen minutes, therefore, from the time he undertook the search for the second door he was standing in another narrow, earthy tunnel which beckoned him on. With the ever ready light to guide him, and still proceeding with caution, he advanced for possibly thirty feet; then came a turn. Round the turn he found himself in a sort of room-another cellar, perhaps. He permitted his light to go out, and stood listening, straining his squint eyes. After a time he was satisfied and flashed his light again.

Directly before him were half a dozen rough steps, leading up to what seemed to be a trap door. He had barely time to notice this and to see that the trap door was hanging open, when there came a cyclonic rush toward him out of the darkness, from the direction of his right, something whizzed past his head, causing him to drop the precious light, and instinctively he ran up the steps. The gloom above was no more dangerous, he thought, than the gloom below, and he went on, finally pa.s.sing through the trap and standing on a hard floor above.

There was the sound of a fierce, desperate struggle down there somewhere, cursing, blasphemy, then the noise of feet on the steps coming toward him, and the trap door closed with the heavy, resonant clang of iron. He was alone, his light lost. A sudden strange, awful silence closed down around him, a silence alive with suggestion of unseen, unknown dangers. He stood for a moment, then sank down upon the floor wearily.

Cas.h.i.+er Randall stood beside the ponderous door of the vault, watch in hand. It was two minutes of ten o'clock. At precisely ten the time lock on the ma.s.sive steel structure, built into the solid masonry of the bank, would bring the mechanism into position for the combination to work. Already the various clerks and tellers were at their posts; books and money were in the vault. At length there came a whir and a sharp click in the heavy door, and the cas.h.i.+er whirled the combination. A few minutes later he pulled open the outer door with a perceptible effort, then turned his attention to the combination lock on the second door. This yielded more readily; but there was still another door, the third to be unlocked. Altogether the task of opening the huge vault required something like six minutes.

Finally Cas.h.i.+er Randall threw open the light third door, then touched an electric b.u.t.ton to his right. Instantly the gloom of the structure was dispelled by a flood of light, and he started back in amazement. Almost at his feet, on the floor of the vault, was the huddled figure of a man. Dead? Or unconscious? Certainly there was no movement to indicate life, and the cas.h.i.+er stepped backward into the office with blanched face.

Others came crowding round and saw, and startled glances were exchanged.

"You, Carroll and Young, lift him out, please," requested the cas.h.i.+er quietly. "Don't make any noise about it. Take him to my office."

The order was obeyed in silence. Then Cas.h.i.+er Randall in person went into the vault and ran hurriedly through the piles of money which lay there. He came out at last and spoke to one of the paying tellers.

"The money is all right," he said, with a relieved expression in his face. "Have it all counted carefully, please, and report to me."

He retired into his private office and closed the door behind him. Carroll and Young stood staring down curiously at the man who now lay stretched full length on the couch. They looked at the cas.h.i.+er inquiringly.

"I think it's a matter for the police," continued the cas.h.i.+er after a moment and he picked up the receiver of the telephone.

"But how-how did he get in the vault?" stammered Carroll.

"I don't know. h.e.l.lo! Police headquarters, please."