Problem of the Hidden Million - Jacques Futrelle

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Problem of the Hidden Million by Jacques Foutrell. The
gray hand of death had already left its ashen mark
upon the wrinkled, venomous face of the old man, who
lay huddled up in bed. Save for the feverishly brilliant eyes, cunning, vindictive, hateful,
there seemed to be no spark of life in the

(00:21):
aged form. The withered lips were mute, and the thin,
yellow claw like hands lay helplessly outstretched on the white sheets.
All physical power was gone. Only the brain remained doggedly alive.
Two men and two women stood beside the death bed
upon each and turned the glittering eyes rested with the merciless,

(00:43):
unreasoning hatred of age. Crouched on the floor was a
huge Saint Bernard dog, and on a perch across the
room was a parrot, which screeched abominably. The gloom of
the wretched little room was suddenly relieved by a ruddy sunbeam,
which shot athwart the bed and lighted the scene fantastically.

(01:04):
The old man noted it, and his lips curled into
a hideous smile. That's the last son I'll ever see,
he piped feebly. I'm dying dying, do you hear, And
you're all glad of it, every one of you. Yes,
you are. You are glad of it because you want

(01:28):
my money. You came here to make me believe you
were paying a last tribute of respect to your old grandfather.
But that isn't it. It's the money. You want the money.
But I've got a surprise for you. You never get
the money. It's hidden safely. You'll never get it. You

(01:54):
all hate me, you have hated me for years, and
after this sun dies, you'll all hate me worse, but
not more than I hate you. You'll all hate me
worse then, because I'll be gone, and you'll never know
where the money is hidden. It will lie there safely

(02:15):
where I put it, rotting and crumbling away. But you
shall never warm your fingers with it. It's hidden, hidden, hidden.
There was a rasping in the shrunken throat, a deeply
drawn breath. Then the figure stiffened, and a distorted soul

(02:36):
passed out upon the eternal way. Martha held a card
within the blinding light of the reflector, and Professor Augustus
s f X von Duson, with his hands immersed to
the elbows in some chemical mess. Squinted at it a
Doctor Walter Ballard, he read, show him in. After a moment,

(02:59):
Doctor Ballard entered. The scientist was still absorbed in his labors,
but paused long enough to jerk his head toward a chair.
Doctor Ballard accepted this as an invitation, and sat down,
staring curiously at the singular, childlike figure of the eminent
man of science, at the mop of tangled straw, yellow hair,

(03:19):
the enormous brow, and the peering blue eyes. Well demanded
the scientist abruptly. I beg your pardon, began Doctor Ballard,
with a little start. Your name was mentioned to me
some time ago by a newspaper reporter, a Hutchinson Hatch,
whom I chanced to meet in his professional capacity. He

(03:41):
suggested then that I come and see you, but I
thought it useless. Now the affair in which we were
both interested at that time seems hopelessly beyond solution, so
I came to you for aid. We want to find
one million dollars in gold and United States bonds, which
were hidden by my grandfather, John Walter Ballard some time

(04:02):
before his death just a month ago. The circumstances are
altogether out of the ordinary, the thinking machine abandoned his
labors and dried his hands carefully, after which he took
a seat facing doctor Ballard. Tell me about it, he commanded, well,
began Doctor Ballard reminiscently, as he settled back in his chair.

(04:26):
The old man, my grandfather, died, as I said a
month ago. He was nearly eighty six. In the last
five or six years of his life he spent as
a recluse in a little hut twenty miles from the city,
a place some distance from any other house. He had
a spot of ground there half an acre or so,
and lived like a pauper, despite the fact that he

(04:48):
was worth at least a million dollars. Previous to the
time he went there to live, there had been an
estrangement with my family, his sole heirs. My family consists
of myself, wife, son, and daughter. My grandfather lived in
the house with me for ten years before he went
out to this hut, and why he left us then

(05:09):
is not clear to any member of my family, unless
and he shrugged his shoulders. He was mentally unbalanced. Anyway
he went, he would neither come to see us, nor
would he permit us to go see him. As far
as we know, he owned no real property of any
sort except this miserable little place, worth altogether furnishing, in all,

(05:33):
not more than a thousand or twelve hundred dollars. Well,
about a month ago some one stopped at the hut
for something and found he was ill. I was notified,
and with my wife, son and daughter, went to see
what we could do. He took occasion, on his death
bed to heap the tuperation upon us, and incidentally to
state that something like a million dollars was left behind,

(05:56):
but hidden. For the sake of my son and daughter.
I undertook to recover this money. I consulted attorneys, private detectives,
and in fact exhausted every possible method. I ascertained beyond
question that the money was not in a bank anywhere,
and hardly think he would have left it there, because,

(06:16):
of course, if he had, even with a will disinheriting us,
the law would have turned it over to us. He
had no safe deposit vault as far as one month's
close search revealed, and the money was not hidden in
the house or grounds. He stated on his death bed
that it was in bonds and gold, and that we
should never find it. He was just vindictive enough not

(06:40):
to destroy it, but to leave it somewhere, believing we
should never find it. Where did he hide it? The
thinking machine sat silent for several minutes, with his enormous
yellow head tilted back and slender fingers pressed together. The
house and the grounds were searched, he asked. The house

(07:02):
was searched from cellar to garrett. Was the reply. Workmen,
under my directions, practically wrecked the building, floors, ceilings, walls,
chimney stairs, everything, little cubby holes in the roof, the
foundation of the chimney, the pillars, even the flagstones leading
from the gate to the door. Everything was examined. The

(07:26):
joists were sounded to see if they were solid, and
a dozen of them were cut through. The posts on
the verandah were cut to pieces, and every stick of
furniture was dissected, mattresses, beds, chairs, tables, bureaus, all of it.
Outside in the grounds the search was just as thorough,
not one square inch, but what was overturned. We dug

(07:50):
it all up to a depth of ten feet. Still nothing,
of course, said the scientist. At last, the search of
the house and grounds was useless. The old man was
shrewd enough to know that they would be searched. Also,
it would appear that the search of banks and safety

(08:12):
deposit vaults was equally useless. He was shrewd enough to
foresee that too. We shall, for the present assume that
he did not destroy the money or give it away,
So it is hidden. If the brain of man is
clever enough to conceal a thing, the brain of man

(08:33):
is clever enough to find it. It's a little problem
in subtraction, doctor Ballard, He was silent for a moment.
Who was your grandfather's attending physician?

Speaker 2 (08:46):
I was.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
I was present at his death. Nothing could be done.
It was merely the collapse consequent upon old age. I
issued the burial certificate, where any special directions lie left
as to the place or manner of burial. No, have
all his papers been examined for a clue as to

(09:08):
the possible hiding place everything. There were no papers to
amount to anything. Have you those papers now? Doctor Ballard
silently produced a packet and handed it to the scientist.
I shall examine these at my leisure, said the thinking machine.
It may be a day or so before I communicate

(09:29):
with you. Doctor Ballard went his way. For a dozen hours,
the thinking machine sat with the papers spread out before him,
and the keen, squinting blue eyes dissected them, every paragraph,
every sentence, every word. At the end he arose and
bundled up the papers impatiently. Dear me, dear me, he exclaimed, irritably,

(09:54):
there's no cipher. That's certain. Then, what devastating hands had
wrought the wreck of the little hut where the old
man died. Standing in the midst of its litter, the
thinking machine regarded it closely and dispassionately. For a long time,
the work of destruction had been well done. Can you

(10:16):
suggest anything, asked doctor Ballard, impatiently. One mind may read
another mind, said the thinking machine. When there is some
external thing upon which there can come concentration as a unit.
In other words, when we have a given number, the
logical brain can construct either backward or forward. There are

(10:37):
so many thousands of ways in which your grandfather could
have disposed of this money that the task becomes tremendous
in view of the fact that we have no starting point.
It is a case for patients rather than any other quality. Therefore,
for greater speed we must proceed psychologically. The question then

(10:59):
becomes not one of where the money is hidden, but
one of where that sort of man would hide it. Now,
what sort of man was your grandfather, the scientist continued,
He was crabbed, eccentric, and possibly not mentally sound. The
cunning of a diseased brain is greater than the cunning

(11:21):
of a normal one. He boasted to you that the
money was in existence, and his last words were intended
to arouse your curiosity, to hang over you all the
rest of your life and torment you. You can imagine the vindictive,
petty brain like that putting a thing safely beyond your reach,
but just beyond it, near enough to tantalize, and yet

(11:46):
far enough to remain undiscovered. This seems to me to
be the mental attitude in this case. Your grandfather knew
that you would do just what you have done here,
that is, search the house. And he knew too that
you would search banks and safety deposit vaults, and with
a million at stake, he knew it would be done thoroughly.

(12:09):
Knowing this, naturally he would not put the money in
any of those places. Then what he doesn't own any
other property as far as we know, and we shall
assume that he did not buy property in the name
of some other persons. Therefore, what have we left? Obviously,

(12:29):
if the money is still in existence, it is hidden
on somebody else's property. And the minute we say that
we had the whole wide world to search. But again,
doesn't the devil tree and maliciousness of the old man
narrow that down? Wouldn't he have liked to remember, as
a dying thought that the money was always just within

(12:53):
your reach and yet safely beyond it. Wouldn't it have
been a keener revenge to have you you dig over
the whole place while the money was hidden just six
feet outside in a spot where you would never dig.
It might be sixty or six hundred or six thousand.

(13:13):
But then we have the law of probability to narrow
those limits. So Professor von Duson turned suddenly and strolled
across the uneven ground to the property line, Walking slowly
and scrutinizing the ground as he went, he circled the lot,
returning to the starting point. Doctor Ballard had followed along

(13:34):
behind him. Are all your grandfather's belongings still in the house,
asked the scientist. Yes, everything just as he left it,
that is, except his dog and a parrot. They are
temporarily in charge of a widow down the road. Here.
The scientist looked at Doctor Ballard quickly. What sort of

(13:55):
dog is it? He inquired, A Saint Bernard, I think,
replied Doctor Ballard, wonderingly. Do you happen to have a
glove or something that you know your grandfather war? I
have a glove. Yes. From the debris which littered the
floor of the house, a well worn glove was recovered.

(14:16):
Now the dog, please, commanded the scientist. A short walk
along the country road brought them to a house, and
here they stopped. The Saint Bernard, a shaggy, handsome, boisterous
old chap with wise eyes, was let out on leash.
The thinking Machine thrust the glove forward, and the dog
sniffed at it. After a moment, he sank down on

(14:39):
his haunches, and, with his head thrust forward and upward,
whined softly. It was the call of the brute soul
to its master. The thinking Machine patted the heavy coated head, and,
with the glove still in his hand, made as if
to go away. Again came the wine, but the dog
sank down on the floor with his head between his

(15:00):
four paws, Regarding him intently for ten minutes, the scientists
sought to coax the animal to follow him, but still
he lay motionless. I don't mind keeping that dog here,
but that parrot is powerful noisy, said the woman after
a moment. She had been standing by watching the scientist curiously.

(15:22):
There ain't no peace in this house. Noisy, how, asked
doctor Ballard. He swears and sings and whistles and does
rithmetic all day long, the woman explained. It nearly drives
me distracted. Does arithmetic, inquired the thinking machine, Yes, replied

(15:43):
the woman. And he swearses terrible. It's almost like having
a man bout the house. There he goes. Now from
another room came a sudden, squawking burst of profanity, followed
instantly by a whistle, which caused the dog on the
floor to prick up his ears. Does the parrot talk well,

(16:04):
asked the scientist. Just like a human being, replied the woman.
And jes bout as sensible as some I've seen. I
don't mind his whistling, if only he wouldn't swear so
and do all his figurein out loud. For a minute
or more, the scientists stood staring down at the dog
in deep thought. Gradually there came some subtle change in

(16:26):
his expression. Doctor Ballard was watching him closely. I think
perhaps it would be a good idea for me to
keep the parrot for a few days, suggested the scientist. Finally,
he turned to the woman. Just what sort of arithmetic
does the bird do? All kinds? She answered promptly, he

(16:48):
does all the multiplication table, but he ain't very good
in subtraction. I shouldn't be surprised, commented the thinking machine.
I'll take the bird for a few days, doctor, if
you don't mind. And so it came to pass that
when the Thinking Machine returned to his apartments, he was
accompanied by as noisy and vociferous a companion as one

(17:10):
would care to have. Martha, the aged servant, viewed him
with horror as he entered the professor. Do be gettin' old,
she muttered, I suppose there will be a cat next.
Two days later, doctor Ballard was called to the telephone.
The Thinking Machine was at the other end of the wire.
Take two men whom you can trust, and go down

(17:32):
to your grandfather's place, instructed the scientist. Curtly. Take picks shovels,
a compass, and a long tape line. Stand on the
front steps facing east. To your right will be an
apple tree some distance off that lot on the adjoining property.
Go to that apple tree. A boulder is at its

(17:54):
foot measure from the edge of that stone twenty six
feet due north by the compass, and from that point
fourteen feet due west, you will find your money there. Then,
please have someone come and take this bird away. If
you don't, I'll wring its neck. It's the most blasphemous

(18:16):
creature I ever heard. Goodbye, Doctor Ballard slipped the catch
on the suitcase and turned it upside down on the
laboratory table. It was packed, literally packed with United States bonds.
The thinking Machine fingered them idly. And there is this too,
said doctor Ballard. He lifted a stout sack from the floor,

(18:38):
cut the string, and spilled out its contents. Beside the bonds,
it was gold, thousands and thousands of dollars. Doctor Ballard
was frankly excited about it. The thinking Machine accepted it
as he accepted all material things. How much is there
of it, he asked quietly. I don't know, replied doctor Ballard.

(19:02):
And how did you find it as you directed, twenty
six feet north from the boulder, and fourteen feet west
from that point. I knew that, of course, snapped the
thinking machine. But how was it hidden? It's rather peculiar,
explained doctor Ballard. Fourteen feet brought the man who had

(19:25):
measured it to the edge of an old, dried up
well twelve or fifteen feet deep. Not expecting any such thing,
he tumbled into it. In his efforts to get out,
he stepped upon a stone which protruded from one side,
that fell out and revealed the wooden box which contained
all this. In other words, said the scientist, the money

(19:48):
was hidden in such a manner that it would in
time have come to be buried twelve or fifteen feet
below the surface, because the well, being dry, would ultimately,
of course have been filled in. Doctor Ballard had been
listening only hazily. His hands had been plowing in and
out of the heap of gold. The Thinking Machine regarded

(20:11):
him with something like contempt about his thin lipped mouth.
How how did you ever do it? Asked doctor Ballard.
At last, I am surprised that you want to know,
remarked the thinking machine, cuttingly. You know how I reached
the conclusion that the money was not hidden, either in
the house or lot. The plain logic of the thing

(20:35):
told me that even before the search you made had
demonstrated it. You saw how logic narrowed down the search,
and you saw my experiment with the dog. That was
purely an experiment. I wanted to see the instinct of
the animal. Would it lead him anywhere, perhaps to the

(20:55):
spot where the money had been hidden? It did not.
But the parrot, that was another matter. It just happens
that once before I had an interesting experience with a bird,
a cockatoo, which figured in a sleep walking case, and
naturally was interested in this bird. Now, what were the

(21:18):
circumstances in this case? Here was a bird that talked
exceptionally well. Yet that bird had been living for five
years alone with an old man. It is a fact
that no matter how well a parrot may talk, it
will forget in the course of time unless there is
someone around it who talks. This old man was the

(21:42):
only person near this bird. Therefore, from the fact that
the bird talks, we know that the old man talked.
From the fact that the bird repeated the multiplication table,
we know that the old man repeated it. From the
fact that the bird whistles, we know that the old
man whistled, perhaps to the dog, and in the course

(22:06):
of five years, under these circumstances a bird would have
come to that point where it would repeat only the
words or sounds that the old man used. All this
shows two that the old man talked to himself. Most
people who live alone a great deal do. That then

(22:27):
came a question as to whether at any time the
old man had ever repeated the secret of the hiding
place within the hearing of the bird, not once, but
many times, because it takes a parrot a long time
to learn phrases. When we know the vindictiveness which lay
behind the old man's actions in hiding the money, when

(22:50):
we know how the thing preyed on his mind, coupled
with the fact that he talked to himself and was
not wholly sound mentally, we can imagine him doddering about
the place alone, repeating the very thing of which he
made so great a secret. Thus the bird learned it,

(23:12):
but learned it disjointedly, not connectedly. So when I brought
the parrot here, my idea was to know by personal
observation what the bird said that didn't connect, That is,
that had no obvious meaning. I hoped to get a
clue which would result, just as the clue I did

(23:34):
get did result. The bird's trick of repeating the multiplication
table means nothing except it shows the strange workings of
an unbalanced mind. And yet there is one exception to this.
In a disjointed sort of way, the bird knows all

(23:54):
the multiplication tables to ten except one. For an instance, listen,
the thinking machine crept stealthily to a door and opened
it softly. A few inches from somewhere out there came
the screeching of the parrot. For several minutes, they listened
in silence. There was a flood of profanity, a shrill

(24:17):
whistle or two. Then the squawking voice ran off into
a monotone.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Six times one or six six time two, or twelve
six times three or eighteen six times four or twenty
four and ad two.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
That's it, explained the scientist as he closed the door.
Six times four are twenty four and add two. That's
the one table the bird doesn't know. The thing is incoherent,
except as applied to a peculiar method of remembering a number.
That number is twenty six. On one occasion I heard

(25:00):
the bird repeat a dozen times twenty six feet to
the polar star. That could mean nothing except the direction
of the twenty six feet due north. One of the
first things I noticed the bird saying was something about
fourteen feet to the setting sun or due west. When

(25:21):
set down with the twenty six I could readily see
that I had something to go on. But where was
the starting point? Again, logic, There was no tree or
stone inside the lot except the apple tree, which your
workmen cut down, and that was more than twenty six
feet from the boundary of the lot. In all directions.

(25:44):
There was one tree in the adjoining lot, an apple
tree with a boulder at its foot. I knew that
by observation, and there was no other tree I knew
also within several hundred feet. Therefore that tree or boulder
rather as a starting point, not the tree so much
as the boulder. Because the tree might be cut down

(26:07):
or would in time decay, the chances are the stone
would have been allowed to remain there indefinitely. Naturally, your
grandfather would measure from a prominent point the boulder. That
is all I gave you the figures. You know, the
rest for a minute or more. Doctor Ballard stared at

(26:29):
him blankly. How was it you knew, he asked, that
the direction should have been first twenty six feet north,
then fourteen feet west, instead of first fourteen west and
then twenty six feet north. I didn't know, replied the
thinking machine. If you had failed to find the money

(26:50):
by those directions, I should merely have reversed the order.
Half an hour later, doctor Ballard went away, carrying the
money to parrot in its cage. The bird cursed the
thinking machine roundly as doctor Ballard went down the steps.
End of the Problem of the Hidden Million by Jacques

(27:12):
Foutrelle