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My first experience with a great logician
by Jacques Foutrelle. It was once my

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good fortune to meet in person Professor
Augustus s. F X Van Duson,

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pH D, L D, frs
M, D, et cetera. The

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meeting came about through a singular happening
which was as mystifying as it was dangerous

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to me. He saved my life
in fact, and in process of hauling

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me back from eternity, the edge
of that appalling mist which separates life and

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death, I had full opportunity of
witnessing the workings of that marvelously keen,

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cold brain which has made him the
most distinguished scientist and logician of his day.

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It was some time afterward, however, that Professor Van Dusson was identified

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in my mind with the thinking machine. I had dined at the Hotel Teutonic,

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taken a cigar from my pocket,
lighted it, and started for a

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stroll across Boston Common. It was
after eight o'clock on one of those clear,

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nippy evenings of winter. I was
near the center of the Common,

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on one of the many little bipaths
which lead toward Beacon Hill, when I

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became conscious of an acute pain in
my chest, a sudden fluttering of my

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heart, and a constriction in my
throat. The lights in the distance began

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to waver and grow dim. Perspiration
broke out all over me from an inward,

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gnawing agony, which grew more intense
each moment. I felt myself reeling.

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My cigar dropped from my fingers,
and I clutched at a seat to

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steady myself. There was no one
near me. I tried to call.

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Then everything grew dark and I sank
down on the ground. My last recollection

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was of a figure approaching me.
The last words I heard were a petulant,

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irritable dear me. Then I was
lost to consciousness. When I recovered

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consciousness, I lay on a couch
in a strange room. My eyes wandered

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weakly about and lingered with a certain
childish interest on half a dozen spots which

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reflected glitteringly the light of an electric
bulb sat high up on one side.

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These bright spots, I came to
realize after a moment, were metal parts

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of various instruments of a laboratory.
For a time, I lay helpless,

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listless, with trembling pulse and ear
drums thumping. Then I heard steps approaching,

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and someone bent over and peered into
my face. It was a man,

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but such a man as I had
never seen before. A great shock

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of straw yellow hair tumbled about a
broad, high forehead, a small,

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wrinkled, querulous face, the face
of an aged child, a pair of

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watery blue eyes squinting aggressively through thicked
spectacles, and a thin lipped mouth as

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straight as the mark of a surgeon's
knife, save for the drooping corners.

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My impression then was that it was
some sort of hallucination, the distorted vagary

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of a disordered brain. But gradually
my vision cleared, and the grip of

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slender fingers on my pulse made me
realize the actuality of the apparition. How

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do you feel? The thin lips
had opened just enough to let out the

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question. The tone was curt and
belligerent, and the voice rasped unpleasantly.

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At the same time, the squint
eyes were focused on mine with a steady,

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piercing glare that made me uneasy.
I tried, I had to answer,

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but my tongue refused to move.
The gaze continued for an instant.

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Then the man the thinking machine,
turned away and prepared a particularly vile smelling

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concoction, which he poured into me. Then I was lost again. After

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a time it might have been minutes
or hours, I felt again the hand

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on my pulse, and again the
thinking machine favored me with a glare.

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An hour later, I was sitting
up on the couch with unclouded brain and

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a heartbeat which was nearly normal.
It was then I learned why Professor van

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Dusen, an eminent man of the
sciences, had been dubbed the thinking machine.

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I understood firsthand how material muddles were
so unfailingly dissipated by unadulterated, infallible

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logic. Remember that I had gone
into that room, an inanimate thing,

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inert, unconscious, mentally and physically
dead to all practical intents, beyond the

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point where I might have babbled any
elucidating fact, and remembered, too please

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that I didn't know, had not
the faintest idea what had happened to me

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beyond the fact that I had fallen
unconscious. The thinking machine didn't ask questions,

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yet he supplied all the missing details, together with a host of personal,

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intimate things of which he could personally
have had no knowledge. In other

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words, I was an abtruse problem. And he solved me. With head

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tilted back against the cushion of the
chair, and such a head with eyes

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unwaveringly turned upward, and fingertips pressed
idly together. He sat there, a

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strange, grotesque little figure in the
midst of his laboratory apparatus. Not for

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a moment did he display the slightest
interest in me personally. It was all

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as if I had been written down
on a slate to be wiped off when

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I was solved. Did this ever
happen to you before? He asked abruptly,

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No, I replied, What was
it? You were poisoned? He

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said. The poison was a deadly
one, corrosive's subliment, or by chloride

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or mercury. The shock was very
severe. But you'll be all right in

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poisoned, I exclaimed, aghast who
poisoned me? Why you poisoned yourself?

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He replied testily, It was your
own carelessness. Nine out of ten persons

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handle poison as if it were candy, and you are like all the rest.

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But I couldn't have poisoned myself,
I protested, Why I've had no

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occasion to handle poisons, not for
I don't know how long. I do

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know, he said, it was
nearly a year ago when you handled this.

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The corrosive sublement is always dangerous.
The tone irritated me. The impassive

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arrogance of the little man inflamed my
reeling brain. And I'm not sure that

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I did not shake my finger in
his face. If I was poisoned,

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I declared, with some heat,
it was not my fault. Somebody gave

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it to me, somebody tried to
You poisoned yourself, said the thinking machine

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again, impatiently. You talk like
a child. How do you know I

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poisoned myself? How do you know
I ever handled it poisoned? And how

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do you know it was a year
ago? If I did? The Thinking

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Machine regarded me coldly for an instant, and then those strange eyes of his

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wandered upward again. I know those
things, he said, just as I

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know your name, address, and
profession from cards I found in your pockets,

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Just as I know you smoke from
half a dozen cigars on you,

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just as I know that you're wearing
those clothes for the first time this winter,

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Just as I know you lost your
wife within a few months that you

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kept house then, and that your
house was an infested with insects. I

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know, just as I know everything
else, by the rules of inevitable logic.

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My head was whirling. I stared
at him in blank astonishment. But

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how do you know those things?
I insisted in bewilderment. The average person

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of today replied, the scientist knows
nothing unless it is written down and thrust

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under his nose. I happened to
be a physician. I saw you fall

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and went to you, my first
thought being of heart trouble. Your pulse

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showed it was not that, and
it was obviously not apoplexy. Now there

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was no visible reason why you should
have collapsed like that. There had been

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no shot, There was no wound, therefore poisoned. An examination confirmed this

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first hypothesis. Your symptoms showed that
the poison was by chloride of mercury.

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I put you in a cab and
brought you here. From the fact you

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were not dead, then I knew
that your system had absorbed only a minute

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quantity of poison, a quantity so
small that it demonstrated instantly that there had

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been no suicidal intent, and was
indicated too that no one else had administered

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it. If that was true,
I knew. I didn't guess. I

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knew that the poisoning was accidental.
How accidental. My first surmise, naturally,

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was that the poison had been absorbed
through the mouth. I searched your

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pockets. The only thing I found
that you would put in your mouth were

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the cigars where they poisoned. A
test showed they were all of them with

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intent to kill. No, not
enough poison was used. Was the poison

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a part of the gum used to
bind the cigar? Possible, of course,

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but not probable. Then what his
eyes and squinted at me suddenly aggressively,

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I shook my head, and as
an afterthought, I closed my gaping

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mouth. Perhaps you carried corrosive supplement
in your pocket. I didn't find any,

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but perhaps you once carried it.
I tore out the coat pocket in

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which I found the cigars and subjected
it to the test. At some time

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there had been corrosive supplement in the
form of powder or crystals in the pocket,

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and in some manner, perhaps because
of an imperfection in the package,

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a minute quantity was loose in your
pocket. Here was an answer to every

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question, and more, Here was
how the cigars were poisoned, and in

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combination with a tailor's tag inside your
pocket, a short history of your life.

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Briefly, it was like this.
Once you had corrosive supplement in your

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pocket. For what purpose? First
thought, to rid your home of insects?

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Second thought, if you were boarding, married or unmarried, the task

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of getting rid of the insects would
have been left to the servant. This

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would possibly have been the case if
you had been living at home. So

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I assumed for the instant that you
were keeping house, And if keeping house

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you were married, you bought the
poison for use in your own house.

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Now without an effort, naturally,
I had you married and keeping house.

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Then what the tailor's tag with your
name and the date your clothing was made

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one year and three months ago.
It is winter clothing. If you had

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worn it since the poison was loose
in your pocket, the thing that happened

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to you to night would have happened
to you before. But it never happened

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before. Therefore, I assumed that
you had the poison early last spring,

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when insects began to be troublesome,
and immediately after that you laid away the

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suit until this winter. I know
you are wearing the suit for the first

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time this winter, because again,
this thing has not happened before, and

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because two of the faint odor of
mothballs, a band of crape on your

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hat, the picture of a young
woman in your watch, and the fact

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you are now living at your club
as your bill for last month's shows established

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beyond doubt that you are a widower. It's perfectly miraculous, I exclaimed.

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Logic. Logic, Logic, snapped
the irritable little scientist. You are a

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lawyer. You ought to know the
correlation of facts. You ought to know

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that two and two make four,
not sometimes, but all the time.

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End of my first experience with the
great logician.