The Problem of Dressing Room A | Page 6

out Hatch had
asked several questions, to which the scientist vouchsafed no answer.
They were perhaps thirty minutes out of Springfield before the scientist
showed any disposition to talk. Then he began, without preliminary,
much as he was resuming a former conversation.
"Of course if Miss Wallack didn't leave the stage of the theater she was
there," he said. "We will admit that she did not become invisible. The
problem therefore was to find her on the stage. The fact that no
violence was used against her was conclusively proved by half a dozen
instances. No one heard her scream; there was no struggle, no trace of
blood. Ergo, we assume in the beginning that she must have consented
to the first steps which led to her disappearance. Remember her attire
was wholly unsuited to the street.
"Now let us shape a hypothesis which will fit all the circumstances.
Miss Wallack had a severe headache. Hypnotic influence will cure
headaches. Was there a hypnotist to whom Miss Wallack would have
submitted herself? Assume there was. Then would that hypnotist take
advantage of his control to place her in a cataleptic condition? Assume
a motive and he would. Then, how would he dispose of her?
"From this point questions radiate in all directions. We will confine
ourselves to the probable, granting for the moment that this hypothesis,
the only one which fits all the circumstances, is correct. Obviously, a
hypnotist would not have attempted to get her out of the dressing room.
What remains? One of the two trunks in her room.
Hatch gasped. "You mean you think it possible that she was hypnotized

and placed in that second trunk, the one that was strapped and locked?"
he asked.
"It's the only thing that could have happened," said The Thinking
Machine emphatically; "therefore that was just what did happen."
"Why, it's horrible!" exclaimed Hatch. "A live woman in a trunk for
forty-eight hours? Even if she was alive then, she must be dead now."
The reporter shuddered a little and gazed curiously at the inscrutable
face of his companion. He saw no pity, no horror, there; there was
merely the reflection of the workings of a brain.
"It does not necessarily follow that she is dead," explained The
Thinking Machine. "If she ate that third piece of candy before she was
hypnotized she is probably dead. If it was placed in her mouth after she
was in a cataleptic condition the chances are that she is not dead. The
candy would not melt and her system could not absorb the poison."
"But she would be suffocated--her bones would be broken by the rough
handling of the trunk--there are a hundred possibilities," the reporter
suggested.
"A person in a cataleptic condition is singularly impervious to injury,"
replied the scientist. "There is of course a chance of suffocation, but a
great deal of air may enter a trunk."
"And the candy?" Hatch asked.
"Yes, the candy. We know that two pieces of candy nearly killed the
maid. Yet Mr. Mason admitted having bought it. This admission
indicated that this poisoned candy is not the candy he bought. Is Mr.
Mason a hypnotist? No. He hasn't the eyes. His picture tells me that.
We know that Mr. Mason did buy candy for Miss Wallack on several
occasions. We know that sometimes he left it with the stage doorkeeper.
We know that members of the company stopped there for mail. We
instantly see that it is possible for one to take away that box and
substitute poisoned candy. All the boxes are alike.

"Madness and the cunning of madness lie back of all this. It was a
deliberate attempt to murder Miss Wallack, long pondered and due,
perhaps, to unrequited or hopeless infatuation. It began with the
poisoned candy, and that failing, went to a point immediately following
the moment when the stage manager last spoke to the actress. The
hypnotist was probably in her room then. You must remember that it
would have been possible for him to ease the headache, and at the same
time leave Miss Wallack free to play. She might have known this from
previous experience."
"Is Miss Wallack still in the trunk?" asked Hatch after a silence.
"No," replied the Thinking Machine. "She is out now, dead or alive--I
am inclined to believe alive."
"And the man?"
"I will turn him over to the police in half an hour after we reach
Boston."
From South Station the scientist and Hatch were driven immediately to
Police Headquarters. Detective Mallory, whom Hatch knew well,
received them.
"We got your 'phone from Springfield----" he began.
"Was she dead?" interrupted the scientist.
"No," Mallory replied. "She was unconscious when we took her out of
the trunk, but no bones are broken. She is badly bruised.