The Problem of Cell 13 | Page 9

anywhere,
and yet it was unmistakably the same goods.
"And where -- where does he get anything to write with?" demanded
the warden of the world at large.
Still later on the fourth day The Thinking Machine, through the
window of his cell, spoke to the armed guard outside.
"What day of the month is it?" he asked.
"The fifteenth," was the answer.
The Thinking Machine made a mental astronomical calculation and
satisfied himself that the moon would not rise until after nine o'clock
that night. Then he asked another question: "Who attends to those arc

lights?"
"Man from the company."
"You have no electricians in the building?"
"No."
"I should think you could save money if you had your own man."
"None of my business," replied the guard.
The guard noticed The Thinking Machine at the cell window frequently
during that day, but always the face seemed listless and there was a
certain wistfulness in the squint eyes behind the glasses. After a while
he accepted the presence of the leonine head as a matter of course. He
had seen other prisoners do the same thing; it was the longing for the
outside world.
That afternoon, just before the day guard was relieved, the head
appeared at the window again, and The Thinking Machine's hand held
something out between the bars. It fluttered to the ground and the guard
picked it up. It was a five-dollar bill.
"That's for you," called the prisoner.
As usual, the guard, took it to the warden. That gentleman looked at it
suspiciously; he looked at everything that came from Cell 13 with
suspicion.
"He said it was for me," explained the guard.
"It's a sort of a tip, I suppose," said the warden. "I see no particular
reason why you shouldn't accept -- "
Suddenly he stopped. He had remembered that The Thinking Machine
had gone into Cell 13 with one five-dollar bill and two ten-dollar bills;
twenty-five dollars in all. Now a five-dollar bill had been tied around
the first pieces of linen that came from the cell. The warden still had it,
and to convince himself he took it out and looked at it. It was five

dollars; yet here was another five dollars, and The Thinking Machine
had only had ten-dollar bills.
"Perhaps somebody changed one of the bills for him," he thought at last,
with a sigh of relief.
But then and there he made up his mind. He would search Cell 13 as a
cell was never before searched in this world. When a man could write
at will, and change money, and do other wholly inexplicable things,
there was something radically wrong with his prison. He planned to
enter the cell at night -- three o'clock would be an excellent time. The
Thinking Machine must do all the weird things he did sometime. Night
seemed the most reasonable.
Thus it happened that the warden stealthily descended upon Cell 13
that night at three -o'clock. He paused at the door and listened. There
was no sound save the steady, regular breathing of the prisoner. The
keys unfastened the double locks with scarcely a clank, and the warden
entered, locking the door behind him. Suddenly he flashed his
dark-lantern in the face of the recumbent figure.
If the warden had planned to startle The Thinking Machine he was
mistaken, for that individual merely opened his eyes quietly, reached
for his glasses and inquired, in a most matter-of-fact tone:
"Who is it?"
It would be useless to describe the search that the warden made. It was
minute. Not one inch of the cell or the bed was overlooked. He found
the round hole in the floor, and with a flash of inspiration thrust his
thick fingers into it. After a moment of fumbling there he drew up
something and looked at it in the light of his lantern.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed.
The thing he had taken out was a rat -- a dead rat. His inspiration fled
as a mist before the sun. But he continued the search. The Thinking
Machine, without a word, arose and kicked the rat out of the cell into

the corridor.
The warden climbed on the bed and tried the steel bars in the tiny
window. They were perfectly rigid; every bar of the door was the same.
Then the warden searched the prisoner's clothing, beginning at the
shoes. Nothing hidden in them! Then the trousers waist band. Still
nothing! Then the pockets of the trousers. From one side he drew out
some paper money and examined it.
"Five one-dollar bills," he gasped.
"That's right," said the prisoner.
"But the -- you had two tens and a five -- what the -- how do you do
it?"
"That's my business," said the Thinking Machine.
"Did any of my