The Phantom Motor | Page 7

under his arms when he was taken. He talked freely when questioned.
'I will admit,' he said without hesitating, 'that I have acted beyond my
rights in removing the bonds from the vault here, but there is no ground
for prosecution. I am a responsible officer of this bank and have
violated no trust. Nothing is missing, nothing is stolen. Every bond that
went out of the bank is here.'
'But why - why did you take the bonds?' demanded Mr Stanwood.

Marsh shrugged his shoulders.
'It's what has been called a get-rich-quick scheme,' said The Thinking
Machine. 'Mr Hatch and I made some investigations today. Mr Marsh
and these other three are interested in a business venture which is
ethically dishonest but which is within the law. They have sought
backing for the scheme amounting to about a million dollars. Those
four or five men of means with whom they have discussed the matter
have called each night for a week at Marsh's country place. It was
necessary to make them believe that there was already a million or so in
the scheme, so these bonds were borrowed and represented to be owned
by themselves. They were taken to and fro between the bank and his
home in a kind of an automobile. This is really what happened, based
on knowledge which Mr Hatch has gathered and what I myself
developed by the use of a little logic.'
And his statement of the affair proved to be correct. Marsh and the
others admitted the statement to be true. It was while The Thinking
Machine was homeward bound that he explained the phantom auto
affair to Hatch.
'The phantom auto, as you call it,' he said, 'is the vehicle in which the
bonds were moved about. The phantom idea came merely by chance.
On the night the vehicle was first noticed it was rushing along- we'll
say to reach Marsh's house in time for an appointment. A road map will
show you that the most direct line from the bank to Marsh's was
through The Trap. If an automobile should go half way through there,
then out across the Stocker estate to the other road, distance would be
lessened by a good five miles. This saving at first was of course
valuable, so the car in which they rushed into The Trap was merely
taken across the Stocker estate to the road in front.'
'But how?' demanded Hatch. 'There's no road there.'
'I learned by phone from Mr Stocker that there is a narrow walk from a
very narrow foot-gate in Stocker's wall on The Trap leading through
the grounds to the other road. The phantom auto wasn't really an auto at
all - it was merely two motor cycles arranged with seats and a steering

apparatus. The French Army has been experimenting with them. The
motor cycles are, of course, separate machines and as such it was easy
to trundle them through a narrow gate and across to the other road. The
seats are light; they can be carried under the arm.' ls
'Oh!' exclaimed Hatch suddenly, then after a minute: 'But what did
Jimmie Thalhauer do for you?'
He waited in the road at the other end of the foot-path from The Trap,'
the scientist explained. 'When the auto was brought through and put
together he followed it to Marsh's home and from there to the bank.
The rest of it you and I worked out today. It's merely logic, Mr Hatch,
logic.'
There was a pause.
'That Mr Thalhauer is really a marvelous young man, Mr Hatch, don't
you think?' 2 RTEXTR*ch

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