The Problem of Cell 13

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The Problem of Cell 13
by Jacques Futrelle
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I
Practically all those letters remaining in the alphabet after Augustus S.
F. X. Van Dusen was named were afterward acquired by that
gentleman in the course of a brilliant scientific career, and, being
honorably acquired, were tacked on to the other end. His name,
therefore, taken with all that belonged to it, was a wonderfully
imposing structure. He was a Ph.D., an LL.D., an F.R.S., an M.D., and
an M.D.S. He was also some other things -- just what he himself
couldn't say -- through recognition of his ability by various foreign
educational and scientific institutions.
In appearance he was no less striking than in nomenclature. He was
slender with the droop of the student in his thin shoulders and the pallor
of a close, sedentary life on his clean-shaven face. His eyes wore a
perpetual, forbidding squint -- the squint of a man who studies little
things -- and when they could be seen at all through his thick spectacles,
were mere slits of watery blue. But above his eyes was his most
striking feature. This was a tall, broad brow, almost abnormal in height
and width, crowned by a heavy shock of bushy, yellow hair. All these
things conspired to give him a peculiar, almost grotesque, personality.
Professor Van Dusen was remotely German. For generations his
ancestors had been noted in the sciences; he was the logical result, the
master mind. First and above all he was a logician. At least thirty-five
years of the half-century or so of his existence had been devoted

exclusively to proving that two and two always equal four, except in
unusual cases, where they equal three or five, as the case may be. He
stood broadly on the general proposition that all things that start must
go somewhere, and was able to bring the concentrated mental force of
his forefathers to bear on a given problem. Incidentally it may be
remarked that Professor Van Dusen wore a No. 8 hat.
The world at large had heard vaguely of Professor Van Dusen as the
Thinking Machine. It was a newspaper catch-phrase applied to him at
the time of a remarkable exhibition at chess; he had demonstrated then
that a stranger to the game might, by the force of inevitable logic,
defeat a champion who had devoted a lifetime to its study. The
Thinking Machine! Perhaps that more nearly described him than all his
honorary initials, for he spent week after week, month after month, in
the seclusion of his small laboratory from which had gone forth
thoughts that staggered scientific associates and deeply stirred the
world at large.
It was only occasionally that The Thinking Machine had visitors, and
these were usually men who, themselves high in the sciences, dropped
in to argue a point and perhaps convince themselves. Two of these men,
Dr. Charles Ransome and Alfred Fielding, called one evening to
discuss some theory which is not of consequence here.
"Such a thing is impossible," declared Dr. Ransome emphatically, in
the course of the conversation.
"Nothing is impossible," declared The Thinking Machine with equal
emphasis. He always spoke petulantly. "The mind is master of all
things. When science fully recognizes that fact a great advance will
have been made."
"How about the airship?" asked Dr. Ransome.
"That's not impossible at all," asserted The Thinking Machine. "It will
be invented some time. I'd do it myself, but I'm busy."
Dr. Ransome laughed tolerantly.

"I've heard you say such things before," he said." But they mean
nothing. Mind may be master of matter, but it hasn't yet found a way to
apply itself. There are some things that can't be thought out of existence,
or rather which would not yield to any amount of thinking."
"What, for instance?" demanded The Thinking Machine.
Dr. Ransome was thoughtful for a moment as he smoked.
"Well, say prison walls," he replied. "No man can think himself out of a
cell. If he could, there would be no prisoners."
"A man can so apply his brain and ingenuity that he can leave a cell,
which is the same thing," snapped The Thinking Machine.
Dr. Ransome was slightly amused.
"'Let's suppose a case," he said, after a moment. "Take a cell where
prisoners under sentence of death are confined -- men who are
desperate and, maddened by fear, would take any chance to escape --
suppose you were locked in such a cell. Could you escape?"
"Certainly," declared The Thinking Machine.
"Of course," said Mr. Fielding, who entered the conversation for the
first time, "you might wreck the cell with an explosive -- but inside, a
prisoner, you couldn't have that."
"There would be nothing of