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The Thinking Machine on the Case
America’s smartest sleuth solves his most puzzling cases yet Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen may look and sound like an egghead scientist—because he is one—but there is no detective in the world villains fear more. With the help of his friend and sidekick, newspaper reporter Hutchison Hatch, the criminologist known as “The Thinking Machine” applies cold, hard logic to the most bizarre of mysteries—and always finds the solution. In this comprehensive collection, Van Dusen investigates the enigmas of “The Midnight Message,” “The Gap in the Trail,” “A Fool of Good Intention,” “The Woman in the Case,” and many others. No matter how twisted the trail of clues—or diabolical the evildoer—the Thinking Machine knows that “two and two make four, not some times, but all the time.” In other words, take heed, crooks—your cleverest schemes are not match for this genius detective. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
259 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1908
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138 people want to read
About the author
Jacques Futrelle
242 books30 followersJacques Heath Futrelle (1875-1912) was an American journalist and mystery writer. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring the "Thinking Machine", Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. He worked for the Atlanta Journal, where he began their sports section; the New York Herald; the Boston Post; and the Boston American. In 1905, his Thinking Machine character first appeared in a serialized version of The Problem of Cell 13. In 1895, he married fellow writer Lily May Peel, with whom he had two children. While returning from Europe aboard the RMS Titanic, Futrelle, a first-cabin passenger, refused to board a lifeboat insisting his wife board instead. He perished in the Atlantic. His works include: The Chase of the Golden Plate (1906), The Simple Case of Susan (1908), The Thinking Machine on the Case (1908), The Diamond Master (1909), Elusive Isabel (1909), The High Hand (1911), My Lady's Garter (1912), Blind Man's Bluff (1914).
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 21, 2016
Meet the American version (no, really, ignore the fact the guy has a French name because he was an American) of Sherlock Holmes! Published right around the same time as Arthur Conan Doyle was doing his Sherlock Holmes stories, Futrelle countered "across the pond" with the exploits of Professor S. F. X. Van Dusen. From a historical and cultural point of view, these stories by Futrelle, and the other stories in this "series," are worth a gander. However, from a realism standpoint or just from the standpoint of passing the test of time, these stories don't pass muster.
This is a collection of short mysteries (very much like Doyle's) in which the brilliant Professor Van Dusen, known as "The Thinking Machine," takes on criminal cases and solves them through his profound logic. Alas, these stories "fail" in much the same way that the Sherlock Holmes stories let me down in that there is virtually no way the average (or even above average!) reader is going to be able to solve them along with the protagonist. The little clues one needs to know, the vast storehouse of knowledge one man possesses and can call upon at will, and the fantastical leaps in logic required just do not lend themselves to emotional investment. In other words, rather than the reader being involved in some manner in the story, you feel like a bystander tied to a chair with your eyes forced open while two computers play a game of speed chess and the first computer resigns after move 6. Then you're untied and shown why. Yawn.
I'm not against this book or the others involving the Thinking Machine. Some of it is quite clever, some of the cases are amusing, and as a precursor to today's detective and mystery stories they serve as a valid introduction to see where the genre came from. But by all means, if you do decide to get this book, understand what you are reading. The Thinking Machine will always win and be right, just like Sherlock Holmes, you won't really know why until it's explained to you, and you'll be none the wiser when it's all over. But thank goodness each story only takes a few minutes to read and you can go through them case by case to distract you from whatever else you're reading or might be trying to escape from. Don't avoid this book, but you don't have to seek it out either.
This is a collection of short mysteries (very much like Doyle's) in which the brilliant Professor Van Dusen, known as "The Thinking Machine," takes on criminal cases and solves them through his profound logic. Alas, these stories "fail" in much the same way that the Sherlock Holmes stories let me down in that there is virtually no way the average (or even above average!) reader is going to be able to solve them along with the protagonist. The little clues one needs to know, the vast storehouse of knowledge one man possesses and can call upon at will, and the fantastical leaps in logic required just do not lend themselves to emotional investment. In other words, rather than the reader being involved in some manner in the story, you feel like a bystander tied to a chair with your eyes forced open while two computers play a game of speed chess and the first computer resigns after move 6. Then you're untied and shown why. Yawn.
I'm not against this book or the others involving the Thinking Machine. Some of it is quite clever, some of the cases are amusing, and as a precursor to today's detective and mystery stories they serve as a valid introduction to see where the genre came from. But by all means, if you do decide to get this book, understand what you are reading. The Thinking Machine will always win and be right, just like Sherlock Holmes, you won't really know why until it's explained to you, and you'll be none the wiser when it's all over. But thank goodness each story only takes a few minutes to read and you can go through them case by case to distract you from whatever else you're reading or might be trying to escape from. Don't avoid this book, but you don't have to seek it out either.
August 22, 2016
This wasn't my first encounter with Professor Van Dusen aka the eponymous Thinking Machine, though this was the most extensive one. This book is set up like a novel, but it is essentially a collection of stories/cases for Futrelle's detective to prove his superb skills as a logician. It's impossible not to compare Van Dusen to the original inimitable and most intrepid of all literary detectives and in comparison to Sherlock most/all would pale. The mysteries here are not as eloquent, the detection isn't as elaborate and, most importantly, there is only one Sherlock and a diminutive snippy professor Van Dusen just doesn't have the personality to match. Compare Van Dusen's Two and two make four not some time but all of the time to Sherlock's famous axiom and you'll see. But outside of the inevitable comparison, these are plenty entertaining in their own right, light quick reading and not overburdened with racism/xenophobia and sexism as some works of its age, this one was originally published in 1908. It reads nicely and is quite fun.
June 17, 2023
Free | Okay enough to finish, not worth taking the time to write a review. On the higher end of the standard amount of bigotry for books written at that time.
August 22, 2016
Truly enjoyed reading this book.
Reminded me old black and white Perry Mason and Colombo shows, always see wheels in their heads were grinding. The Thinking Machine, working these short stories written early 1908, he solved every case without all the stuff we have today. He should came back and help to solve all the cold cases.
Reminded me old black and white Perry Mason and Colombo shows, always see wheels in their heads were grinding. The Thinking Machine, working these short stories written early 1908, he solved every case without all the stuff we have today. He should came back and help to solve all the cold cases.
April 27, 2017
Written in 1908 this is the first collection in a series of "The Thinking Machine", otherwise known as Professor Van Dusen, short stories. Each story is broken up into two chapters making me think they may have originally been published in a serial manner. Because of the author's name, I had assumed this would be a French detective but no, the man and the cases are American through and through. This is obviously a variation of the Holmes stories even including a "Watson", Hutchinson Hatch, a journalist. Hatch is basically a gopher as he goes out doing the Professor's legwork. Hatch can obtain plenty of information due to his profession making him have friends in both high and low places. The Thinking Machine solves his cases purely with logic, but I found the cases to be over-the-top and improbable even though Van Dusen will put them together with usually only sound logic. I'm glad to have now read this detective but generally found the stories mediocre; I'll not be reading another.
1. The Thinking Machine - This is a very short story telling the tale of how Professor Van Dusen became known as "The Thinking Machine", a man who uses pure logic to solve any problem. He is obviously based on Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
2. The Motor Boat - A motor boat comes into a dock at full speed and crashes. Turns out the driver has been dead about 12 hours. Police conclude a heart attack but the Professor deduces otherwise.
3. The Woman in the Case - This brings the conclusion to the current case. Van Dusen and his reporter sidekick, Hatch, travel to the victim's home to interview his wife. Thence, the Thinking Machine gathers all those involved and exposes the murderer, telling how he did it. (3/5)
4. Dressing Room A - An actress mysteriously vanishes from her dressing room minutes before she's called on stage. Van Dusen deducts a crime has been committed and sends Hatch off to answer several questions he has.
5. Fitting a Hypothesis - Hatch follows Van Dusen around the city as he unravels the case and apprehends the villain. Quite an unbelievable solution but the ending was satisfyingly dramatic. (3/5)
6. The Crystal Gazer - A man comes to Van Dusen with an incredible tale. His trusted "seer" of many years has seen his death in his crystal. The man himself has witnessed the vision. He shall die in a week in his own apartments. Van Dusen takes the case and plans an elaborate ruse for the man while Van Dusen sorts things out. It was weird having this start with all the occult stuff as I didn't know how this would connect to Van Dusen at first.
7. A Matter of Logic - This one turned out to be quite fun. Quickly at the beginning the Thinking Machine figures out the case and makes arrests. The rest of the story explains how the Professor figured out the elaborate plan that was in place for the hapless client. My favourite so far. (4/5)
8. The Interrupted Wireless - A great start to this story. Very engaging which had me into the plot right away. Taking place on a passenger ship, the telegram officer is found dead with a knife in the back. The one who found him, the First Officer, is immediately suspected and soon arrested. They reach shore and we can expect Van Dusen to show up in part two.
9. The Midnight Message - The captain goes to Professor Van Dusen because he swears his friend is innocent. Van Dusen questions him and the doctor extensively, then goes to confront the real killer. The plot reminds me of the Crippen affair and his arrest on a liner, but that happened two years after this book was published. Enjoyable. (4/5)
10. The Roswell Tiara - Very intriguing mystery! A type of locked room puzzle. A rich woman wakes one night to find her vault open and a gem torn from a priceless tiara. To avoid public scandal due to her place in society, she goes to the Professor for help. He deduces the problem and gives her strange instructions.
11. A Fool of Good Intention - An overly dramatic solution based on early 1900s science makes this resolution simply silly. The solution is possible in the sense that everything is at some level possible. However, it just wasn't logical to the end which defeats the Thinking Machine's modus operandi. (2/5)
12. The Lost Radium - This is an interesting story from an historical point of view. It concerns radium and takes place while Mme Curie is alive and well. A friend of The Professor's is conducting official international experiments on whether radium can be used for locomotion. A lady visits him one day offering her own radium for the experiments, at a price. After she leaves the radium in-house is gone, stolen. The Thinking Machine then interrogates his friend.
13. The Suitcase - Another over-the-top solution, however quite plausible. As one character states, it was "audacious". We watch the Thinking Machine in action as he unravels the mystery with his logic and in typical fashion gathers everyone together to tell them how the heist was pulled off. A fun case! (4/5)
14. The Green-Eyed Monster - A man's wife starts going off for the day mysteriously and when he questions her he finds that she is not telling the truth.Eventually, he becomes so concerned he tries to follow her but she eludes him.
15. Two and Two Again Make Four - A humorous solution to the question of why the wife has been sneaking around day after day. Certainly a tale of its own time where a woman's clever, though illogical, solution to teaching her husband a lesson is praised. (3/5)
There is a printing error here as the chapter has no title nor is it listed in the toc. I started reading but it was in the middle of something happening and obviously not the beginning. I'll skip ahead to the next chapter and hope I didn't miss anything.
16. Before Midnight - This is short and the second half of the previous part above which is printed incorrectly. (0/5)
17. The Missing Necklace - We are introduced to a master "gentleman thief" and the Scotland Yard detective who is after him. The thief has never been caught and the detective is determined to catch him in the most recent necklace theft. He sets sail with him to America and searchs him, his rooms and belongings to no avail, while the thief is onto him.
18. Master of His Profession - The Scotland Yard man comes to The Thinking Machine and spends a few hours telling him everything about his recent pursuit of the thief. The Professor asks him a few questions, then solves the case and explains. Far-fetched again, but logical. Entertaining. (3/5)
19. The Phantom Motor - As opposed to all the other stories in this collection, this story is complete in itself. A trap has been set up at both ends of an 8-foot high wall tunnel to catch speeding "gasoline autos". But suddenly every evening at midnight a car going incredibly fast enters the tunnel and never exits it. Both officers stationed at the ends are baffled and it takes the Professor to expose the truth. (3/5)
20. The Brown Coat - A young man being an accomplished thief robs a huge sum from a bank. He leaves one tiny bit of evidence behind and is caught and confesses. But he has a wife he wants to provide for so the question for the police is "Where is the money and how can they get?"
21. A Human Problem - The thief is in jail and the Professor is out to find the whereabouts of the money. Halfway through this story a printing error had the story abruptly stop with text from in the middle of "The Phantom Motor"
22. The Gap in the Trail - Another printing error. The first part of this story goes back and add adds a part that was probably missing from #19 "The Phantom Moor" then it suddenly continues on where the last story "A Human Problem" was cut off. I enjoyed the brown coat/human problem story and would have rated it a three or perhaps even a four but because of the confusing printing errors, I must lower the rating. (2/5)
23. His Perfect Alibi - We start off in the middle of the night as a man wanders around with an agonizing toothache and is directed to a dentist's where he has the tooth pulled. Nex morning he is arrested for a murder which happened at the time he was at the dentist. Evidence points to him as the murderer but his alibi proves otherwise.
24. The Thinking Machine is asked to look a the case and in his efficient manner he quickly examines the evidence and the alibi then explains by whom and how the murder was executed. The typical Thinking Machine puzzle that I've come o expect at this point. (3/5)
25. The Superfluous Finger - Very puzzling case! This one is much longer than the other first stories in each two-story case. An elegant British woman enters a surgeon's office and asks to have her perfectly formed middle finger removed at the first joint. He refuses on ethical grounds and the next day she is found dead in her apartments. The Thinking Machine examines everything and the story ends with him telling us he knows just what went on here. One of the better stories in this collection.
26. The Case is Closed - The Thinking Machine sums up all the clues then tells exactly how (and why) the events occurred ending with the identity of the killers and how to find them. A good story to end the collection with and my favourite of the lot. (5/5)
1. The Thinking Machine - This is a very short story telling the tale of how Professor Van Dusen became known as "The Thinking Machine", a man who uses pure logic to solve any problem. He is obviously based on Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
2. The Motor Boat - A motor boat comes into a dock at full speed and crashes. Turns out the driver has been dead about 12 hours. Police conclude a heart attack but the Professor deduces otherwise.
3. The Woman in the Case - This brings the conclusion to the current case. Van Dusen and his reporter sidekick, Hatch, travel to the victim's home to interview his wife. Thence, the Thinking Machine gathers all those involved and exposes the murderer, telling how he did it. (3/5)
4. Dressing Room A - An actress mysteriously vanishes from her dressing room minutes before she's called on stage. Van Dusen deducts a crime has been committed and sends Hatch off to answer several questions he has.
5. Fitting a Hypothesis - Hatch follows Van Dusen around the city as he unravels the case and apprehends the villain. Quite an unbelievable solution but the ending was satisfyingly dramatic. (3/5)
6. The Crystal Gazer - A man comes to Van Dusen with an incredible tale. His trusted "seer" of many years has seen his death in his crystal. The man himself has witnessed the vision. He shall die in a week in his own apartments. Van Dusen takes the case and plans an elaborate ruse for the man while Van Dusen sorts things out. It was weird having this start with all the occult stuff as I didn't know how this would connect to Van Dusen at first.
7. A Matter of Logic - This one turned out to be quite fun. Quickly at the beginning the Thinking Machine figures out the case and makes arrests. The rest of the story explains how the Professor figured out the elaborate plan that was in place for the hapless client. My favourite so far. (4/5)
8. The Interrupted Wireless - A great start to this story. Very engaging which had me into the plot right away. Taking place on a passenger ship, the telegram officer is found dead with a knife in the back. The one who found him, the First Officer, is immediately suspected and soon arrested. They reach shore and we can expect Van Dusen to show up in part two.
9. The Midnight Message - The captain goes to Professor Van Dusen because he swears his friend is innocent. Van Dusen questions him and the doctor extensively, then goes to confront the real killer. The plot reminds me of the Crippen affair and his arrest on a liner, but that happened two years after this book was published. Enjoyable. (4/5)
10. The Roswell Tiara - Very intriguing mystery! A type of locked room puzzle. A rich woman wakes one night to find her vault open and a gem torn from a priceless tiara. To avoid public scandal due to her place in society, she goes to the Professor for help. He deduces the problem and gives her strange instructions.
11. A Fool of Good Intention - An overly dramatic solution based on early 1900s science makes this resolution simply silly. The solution is possible in the sense that everything is at some level possible. However, it just wasn't logical to the end which defeats the Thinking Machine's modus operandi. (2/5)
12. The Lost Radium - This is an interesting story from an historical point of view. It concerns radium and takes place while Mme Curie is alive and well. A friend of The Professor's is conducting official international experiments on whether radium can be used for locomotion. A lady visits him one day offering her own radium for the experiments, at a price. After she leaves the radium in-house is gone, stolen. The Thinking Machine then interrogates his friend.
13. The Suitcase - Another over-the-top solution, however quite plausible. As one character states, it was "audacious". We watch the Thinking Machine in action as he unravels the mystery with his logic and in typical fashion gathers everyone together to tell them how the heist was pulled off. A fun case! (4/5)
14. The Green-Eyed Monster - A man's wife starts going off for the day mysteriously and when he questions her he finds that she is not telling the truth.Eventually, he becomes so concerned he tries to follow her but she eludes him.
15. Two and Two Again Make Four - A humorous solution to the question of why the wife has been sneaking around day after day. Certainly a tale of its own time where a woman's clever, though illogical, solution to teaching her husband a lesson is praised. (3/5)
There is a printing error here as the chapter has no title nor is it listed in the toc. I started reading but it was in the middle of something happening and obviously not the beginning. I'll skip ahead to the next chapter and hope I didn't miss anything.
16. Before Midnight - This is short and the second half of the previous part above which is printed incorrectly. (0/5)
17. The Missing Necklace - We are introduced to a master "gentleman thief" and the Scotland Yard detective who is after him. The thief has never been caught and the detective is determined to catch him in the most recent necklace theft. He sets sail with him to America and searchs him, his rooms and belongings to no avail, while the thief is onto him.
18. Master of His Profession - The Scotland Yard man comes to The Thinking Machine and spends a few hours telling him everything about his recent pursuit of the thief. The Professor asks him a few questions, then solves the case and explains. Far-fetched again, but logical. Entertaining. (3/5)
19. The Phantom Motor - As opposed to all the other stories in this collection, this story is complete in itself. A trap has been set up at both ends of an 8-foot high wall tunnel to catch speeding "gasoline autos". But suddenly every evening at midnight a car going incredibly fast enters the tunnel and never exits it. Both officers stationed at the ends are baffled and it takes the Professor to expose the truth. (3/5)
20. The Brown Coat - A young man being an accomplished thief robs a huge sum from a bank. He leaves one tiny bit of evidence behind and is caught and confesses. But he has a wife he wants to provide for so the question for the police is "Where is the money and how can they get?"
21. A Human Problem - The thief is in jail and the Professor is out to find the whereabouts of the money. Halfway through this story a printing error had the story abruptly stop with text from in the middle of "The Phantom Motor"
22. The Gap in the Trail - Another printing error. The first part of this story goes back and add adds a part that was probably missing from #19 "The Phantom Moor" then it suddenly continues on where the last story "A Human Problem" was cut off. I enjoyed the brown coat/human problem story and would have rated it a three or perhaps even a four but because of the confusing printing errors, I must lower the rating. (2/5)
23. His Perfect Alibi - We start off in the middle of the night as a man wanders around with an agonizing toothache and is directed to a dentist's where he has the tooth pulled. Nex morning he is arrested for a murder which happened at the time he was at the dentist. Evidence points to him as the murderer but his alibi proves otherwise.
24. The Thinking Machine is asked to look a the case and in his efficient manner he quickly examines the evidence and the alibi then explains by whom and how the murder was executed. The typical Thinking Machine puzzle that I've come o expect at this point. (3/5)
25. The Superfluous Finger - Very puzzling case! This one is much longer than the other first stories in each two-story case. An elegant British woman enters a surgeon's office and asks to have her perfectly formed middle finger removed at the first joint. He refuses on ethical grounds and the next day she is found dead in her apartments. The Thinking Machine examines everything and the story ends with him telling us he knows just what went on here. One of the better stories in this collection.
26. The Case is Closed - The Thinking Machine sums up all the clues then tells exactly how (and why) the events occurred ending with the identity of the killers and how to find them. A good story to end the collection with and my favourite of the lot. (5/5)
April 29, 2024
Around 60 years ago or so, as a teenager, I discovered a book of detective stories Edited by someone like Richard Matheson which contained among others stories by Conan Doyle, Ellory Queen, and others. I only remember one of the stories and it featured a professor who was known as the Thinking Machine. The story concerned a challenge in which the thinking machine was challenged to escape from a prison cell with nothing more than logic. He did so. That was my first encounter with what has been called the “locked room” mystery. Holmes, of course, that many locked room mysteries especially the one in the Sign of Four Where the body was found in bed in his bedroom with the door locked from the inside, windows all locked and chimney too small for a human being to descend. In other words, there was no obvious way in or out. This book by Jacques Futrelle has several locked room mysteries along with others for which there is no obvious explanation of means, motive or opportunity, much less even a potential perpetrator. The thinking machine has his accomplice, namely a reporter from the Boston paper named Hutchinson Hatch who acts as the professor’s support much as Archie did for Nero Wolfe. A satisfying set of stories for fans of Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Maurice LeBlanc and others of that era. Interesting note: the author, Jacques Futrelle, an American journalist born in Georgia, died on the Titanic at the age of 37
September 1, 2020
Amusing little mysteries solved by a super-genius.
The kind of guy who listens to a description of the crime, asks one seemingly ridiculous question, like "Did the victim own a green tie with red stripes?" and after getting the answer announces the name of the perpetrator.
Short, kind of fun stories. These were written in the early 1900s. The version I had has some serious formatting issues. There would be weird jumps in the text and then the missing paragraph would appear a couple of chapters later.
The kind of guy who listens to a description of the crime, asks one seemingly ridiculous question, like "Did the victim own a green tie with red stripes?" and after getting the answer announces the name of the perpetrator.
Short, kind of fun stories. These were written in the early 1900s. The version I had has some serious formatting issues. There would be weird jumps in the text and then the missing paragraph would appear a couple of chapters later.
May 27, 2017
Great little mysteries, very poor editing
Some stories and chopped in half with ending showing up in the middle of another chapter...and the like. Clean it up and it will be a nice little read.
Some stories and chopped in half with ending showing up in the middle of another chapter...and the like. Clean it up and it will be a nice little read.
November 2, 2016
It's surprising that the description of this book states that it has been "professionally proofread." This Kindle edition is a mess, with several sections misplaced or missing, and many paragraphs are not set off from the preceding ones, making it difficult to follow the dialogue. On top of that, it's not very well written. From this example, I conclude that Futrelle never came close to being a writer of Conan Doyle's caliber.
December 22, 2016
Not for me
I enjoy mysteries/detective books, like Sherlock Holmes. But I did not enjoy this story. I read less than 20%, but it was all I could take. I guess I wasn't ready for a man who studied chess for 2 hours and then destroyed the world's chess champion. Really? Too much belief to be suspended.
I enjoy mysteries/detective books, like Sherlock Holmes. But I did not enjoy this story. I read less than 20%, but it was all I could take. I guess I wasn't ready for a man who studied chess for 2 hours and then destroyed the world's chess champion. Really? Too much belief to be suspended.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews