The Legendary Detectives II: 8 Classic Novelettes Featuring the World (Jean Marie Stine) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Jacques Futrelle

The Thinking Machine, AKA Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL. D., F. R. S., M. D., is perhaps Sherlock Holmes’ only superior at the art of ratiocination. Created by Jacques Futrelle (1875-1912), whose career was cut short at the age of thirty-seven when he went down on the Titanic, The Thinking Machine debuted in 1906, when he appeared at the end of a mystery novel, The Chase of the Golden Plate, to provide a solution to the crime. Tragically, The Thinking Machine's farewell performance was two short years later in 1908 – his career as abbreviated, and its end as untimely, as that of his creator. The first and most famous Thinking Machine tale was "The Problem of Cell 13," which has been rightly described as one of the most anthologized detective stories of all time.