Jacques Futrelle's &quote;The Thinking Machine&quote; : The Enigmatic Problems of Prof. Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., LL. D., F. R. S., M. D., M. D. S.

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, whowith only the power of ratiocinationunravels 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 nger. 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.