Jacques Futrelle - Free Library Land Online

'The Thinking Machine Mysteries' is a comprehensive collection of forty-four stories featuring author Jacques Futrelle's most famous detective, Professor Van Dusen--the 'Thinking Machine,' who solved impossible crimes.

Professor Augustus Van Dusen, the 'Thinking Machine,' is an eccentric scientist with superior mental powers. He has an assistant, the clever newspaper reporter Hutchinson Hatch, who brings him cases. This model of team work was copied later by many mystery writers, among them Rex Stout in his books about Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe. With Sherlock Holmes, Van Dusen shared an unemotional and technical approach to problems, but without Holmes' human weaknesses, such as drug-taking, or Father Brown's moral and political concerns.

Van Dusen exemplified pure thought without human feelings. In 'The Problem of a Dressing Room,' there's an explanation of how the professor got his nickname: Van Dusen recounts how he can't play chess but that after a few hours of instruction he could defeat a master player. When Van Dusen proves that he wasn't joking, and beats his Russian opponent, the man exclaims: "Mon Dieu! You are not a man; you are a brain - a machine - a thinking machine."

In 1912 Jacques Futrelle was returning with his wife to New York on the Titanic in first class. After the ship had collided with the iceberg, she was escorted by her husband to lifeboat 9, filled almost to capacity. When Mrs Futrelle hesitated, an officer forced her into the boat, and she survived the disaster. Jacques Futrelle and several of his stories, which he had written during his stay in England, went down with the ship.

Included in this volume:
- The Haunted Bell
- The Problem of Cell 13 (The Thinking Machine's most celebrated case!)
- The Phantom Motor
- A Piece of String
- The Problem of the Auto Cab
- Problem of the Broken Bracelet
- The Chase of the Golden Plate (Full-length novel)
- Problem of Convict No. 97
- Problem of the Cross Mark
- Problem of the Crystal Gazer
- Problem of the Deserted House
- Problem of a Dressing Room
- The First Problem
- Mystery of the Fatal Cipher
- Five Millions by Wireless
- Mystery of the Flaming Phantom
- Problem of the Ghost Woman
- Mystery of the Golden Dagger
- The Great Auto Mystery
- Problem of the Green Eyed Monster
- The Grinning God
- Mystery of the Grip of Death
- Problem of the Hidden Million
- Problem of the Interrupted Wireless
- The Jackdaw
- Kidnapped Baby Blake, Millionaire
- Problem of the Knotted Cord
- The Tragedy of the Life Raft
- Problem of the Lost Radium
- Mystery of the Man Who Was Lost
- Problem of the Missing Necklace
- Problem of the Motor Boat
- My First Experience With the Great Logician
- Problem of the Opera Box
- Problem of the Organ Grinder
- Problem of the Perfect Alibi
- Problem of the Private Compartment
- Mystery of the Ralston Bank Burglary
- Problem of the Red Rose
- The Roswell Tiara
- Mystery of the Scarlet Thread
- The Case of the Scientific Murderer
- The Silver Box
- Problem of the Souvenir Cards
- Problem of the Stolen Bank Notes
- The Three Overcoats
- Problem of the Vanishing Man
- Problem of he Stolen Rubens
- The Mystery of a Studio
- Problem of the Superfluous Finger