This irascible genius, this diminutive egghead scientist, known to the world as “The Thinking Machine,” is no less than the newly rediscovered literary link between Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe: Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, who—with only the power of ratiocination—unravels problems of outrageous criminous activity in dazzlingly impossible settings. He can escape from the inescapable death-row “Cell 13.” He can fathom why the young woman chopped off her own finger. He can solve the anomaly of the phone that could not speak. These twenty-three Edwardian-era adventures prove (as The Thinking Machine reiterates) that “two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time.”

Reproduction of the original: The Problem of Cell 13 by Jaques Futrelle

This is a richly entertaining collection of stories from the golden age of crime fiction - a period when crimes were solved by the wit and ingenuity of the sleuth with only his own intelligence to rely on

Jacques Futrelle's first published book-length story featuring the arrogant, cocaine-taking, large-headed Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, nicknamed "The Thinking Machine" A high-society fancy-dress party falls victim to a robbery— confusions of identity, long-held grudges, romance, and honor all appear in the excitement that follows. Jacques Futrelle was an American journalist and detective-story writer and Van Dusen was his most famous detective character, appearing in a number of his works.