"How about inquiries in this city?"
"He can't well be a local man," was the reply. "He has been wandering about the streets for four weeks, and if he had lived here he would have met some one who knew him."
"But the money?"
"I'll probably be able to locate him through that," said The Thinking Machine. "The matter is not at all clear to me now, but it occurs to me that he is a man of consequence, and that it was possibly necessary for some one to get rid of him for a time."
"Well, if it's plain aphasia, as you say," the reporter put in, "it seems rather difficult to imagine that the attack came at a moment when it was necessary to get rid of him."
"I say it _seems_ like aphasia," said the scientist, crustily. "There are known drugs which will produce the identical effect if properly administered."
"Oh," said Hatch. He was beginning to see.
"There is one drug particularly, made in India, and not unlike hasheesh. In a case of this kind anything is possible. To-morrow I shall ask you to take Mr. Doane down through the financial district, as an experiment. When you go there I want you particularly to get him to the sound of the 'ticker.' It will be an interesting experiment."
The reporter went away and The Thinking Machine sent a telegram to the Blank National Bank of Butte, Montana:
"To whom did you issue hundred-dollar bills, series B, numbering 846380 to 846395 inclusive? Please answer."