Master Tales of Mystery

In the escape-proof Chisholm Prison, Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—the brilliant, abrasive "Thinking Machine"—accepts a challenge to prove that reason can conquer even the most secure cell. Locked into Cell 13 under condemned-prisoner conditions, he calmly studies every bar, wall, light, and shadow, probing the prison's seven doors, the river below, the arc-light wire, and even the rats that share his confinement. What looks like an impossible wager soon becomes a chilling experiment in intellect and nerve, as Van Dusen turns the cell into a laboratory and begins producing baffling signs of an escape plan: a cryptic linen message, a bribery attempt, hidden steel tools, and the ominous scrape of metal in the dark. Meanwhile, a separate mystery unfolds around the disappearance of Grace Field. Hatch interviews witnesses, including Miss Stanford and the evasive Victor Willis, and discovers that Grace may be linked to St. George's painting "Fulfillment." When Van Dusen drags the case to its true center, he dismisses easy conclusions and exposes a tangle of art, obsession, and secret relationships. Then he makes a precise prediction about the reclusive artist St. George, which proves uncannily true, leading Hatch into a studio full of clues, a vanished woman's traces, and the unsettling sense that the missing artist knows more than he will admit. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.