“She’s crazy, man, crazy,” said Stockton in deep agitation. “Who could have killed my father? What motive could there have been?”
There was a grim twitching of Hatch’s lips.
“Was Miss Devan legally adopted by your father?” he asked, irrelevantly.
“Yes.”
“In that event, disregarding other relatives, doesn’t it seem strange even to you that he gives three-quarters of the estate to you—you have a fortune already—and only a small part to Miss Devan, who has nothing?”
“That’s my father’s business.”
There was a pause. Stockton was still pacing back and forth.
Finally he sank down in his chair at the desk, and sat for a moment looking at the reporter.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“I should like to know, if you don’t mind telling me, what direct cause there is for ill feeling between Miss Devan and you?”
“There is no ill feeling. We merely never got along well together. My father and I have had several arguments about her for reasons which it is not necessary to go into.”
“Did you have such an argument on the night before your father was found dead?”
“I believe there was something said about her.”
“What time did you leave the shop that night?”
“About 10 o’clock.”
“And you had been in the room with your father since afternoon, had you not?”
“Yes.”
“No dinner?”
“No.”
“How did you come to neglect that?”
“My father was explaining a recent invention he had perfected, which I was to put on the market.”
“I suppose the possibility of suicide or his death in any way had not occurred to you?”
“No, not at all. We were making elaborate plans for the future.”
Possibly it was some prejudice against the man’s appearance which made Hatch so dissatisfied with the result of the interview. He felt that he had gained nothing, yet Stockton had been absolutely frank, as it seemed. There was one last question.
“Have you any recollection of a large family Bible in your father’s house?” he asked.
“I have seen it several times,” Stockton said.
“Is it still there?”
“So far as I know, yes.”
That was the end of the interview, and Hatch went straight to the house in Dorchester to see Miss Devan. There, in accordance with instructions from The Thinking Machine, he asked for the family Bible.
“There was one here the other day,” said Miss Devan, “but it has disappeared.”
“Since your father’s death?” asked Hatch.
“Yes, the next day.”
“Have you any idea who took it?”
“Not unless—unless—”
“John Stockton! Why did he take it?” blurted Hatch.
There was a little resigned movement of the girl’s hands, a movement which said, “I don’t know.”
“He told me, too,” said Hatch indignantly, “that he thought the Bible was still here.”
The girl drew close to the reporter and laid one white hand on his sleeve. She looked up into his eyes and tears stood in her own. Her lips trembled.
“John Stockton has that book,” she said. “He took it away from here the day after my father died, and he did it for a purpose. What, I don’t know.”
“Are you absolutely positive he has it?” asked Hatch.
“I saw it in his room, where he had hidden it,” replied the girl.
III
Hatch laid the results of the interviews before the scientist at the Beacon Hill home. The Thinking Machine listened without comment up to that point where Miss Devan had said she knew the family Bible to be in the son’s possession.
“If Miss Devan and Stockton do not get along well together, why should she visit Stockton’s place at all?” demanded The Thinking Machine.
“I don’t know,” Hatch replied, “except that she thinks he must have had some connection with her father’s death, and is investigating on her own account. What has this Bible to do with it anyway?”
“It may have a great deal to do with it,” said The Thinking Machine enigmatically. “Now, the thing to do is to find out if the girl told the truth and if the Bible is in Stockton’s apartment. Now, Mr. Hatch, I leave that to you. I would like to see that Bible. If you can bring it to me, well and good. If you can’t bring it, look at and study the seventh page for any pencil marks in the text, anything whatever. It might be even advisable, if you have the opportunity, to tear out that page and bring it to me. No harm will be done, and it can be returned in proper time.”
Perplexed wrinkles were gathering on Hatch’s forehead as he listened. What had page 7 of a Bible to do with what seemed to be a murder mystery? Who had said anything about a Bible, anyway? The letter left by Stockton mentioned a Bible, but that didn’t seem to mean anything. Then Hatch remembered that same letter carried a figure seven in parentheses which had apparently nothing to do and no connection with any other part of the letter. Hatch’s introspective study of the affair was interrupted by The Thinking Machine.
“I shall await your report here, Mr. Hatch. If it is what I expect, we shall go out late tonight on a little voyage of discovery. Meanwhile see that Bible and tell me what you find.”
Hatch found the apartments of John Stockton on Beacon Street without any difficulty. In a manner best known to himself he entered and searched the place. When he came out there was a look of chagrin on his face as he hurried to the house of The Thinking Machine nearby.
“Well?” asked the scientist.
“I saw the Bible,” said Hatch.
“And page 7?”
“Was torn out, missing, gone,” replied the reporter.
“Ah,” exclaimed the scientist. “I thought so. Tonight we will make the little trip I spoke of. By the way, did you happen to notice if John Stockton had or used a fountain pen?”
“I didn’t see one,” said Hatch.
“Well, please see for me if any of his employees have ever noticed one. Then meet me here tonight at 10 o’clock.”
Thus Hatch was dismissed. A little later he called casually on Stockton again. There, by inquiries, he established to his own satisfaction that Stockton did not own a fountain pen. Then with Stockton himself he took up the matter of the Bible again.
“I understand you to say, Mr. Stockton,” he began in his smoothest tone, “that you knew of the existence of a family Bible, but you did not know if it was still at the Dorchester place.”
“That’s correct,” said Stockton.
“How is it then,” Hatch resumed, “that that identical Bible is now at your apartments, carefully hidden in a box under a sofa?”
Mr. Stockton seemed to be amazed. He arose suddenly and leaned over toward the reporter with hands clenched. There was a glitter of what might have been anger in his eyes.
“What do you know about this? What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“I