Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen

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Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., M.D.S. is a fictional character in a series of detective short stories and two novels by Jacques Futrelle. Some of the short stories were originally published in The Saturday Evening Post and the Boston American. Futrelle died at age 37 on April 15, 1912, on the RMS Titanic. He refused to board a lifeboat, insisting that his wife board instead.

Plot[]

In the stories, Professor Van Dusen solves a variety of different mysteries with his friend and companion, Hutchinson Hatch, reporter of a fictional newspaper called The Daily New Yorker.

The professor is known as "The Thinking Machine", solving problems by the remorseless application of logic. This nickname was given to him after his winning of a match against the fictional chess champion of the day, Tschaikowsky, in a demonstration to show the power of applying pure logic. He was able to win against the reigning champion, having only been taught the game the morning of the match. Many of his titles are actually honorary degrees awarded to him, serving only to amuse the universities and scientific institutions that crown him with those titles.

Van Dusen's catchphrases include, "Two and two always equal four," "Nothing is impossible" and "All things that start must go somewhere."

Novels[]

1. The Chase of the Golden Plate (1906)

Short stories[]

• The Problem of Cell 13. Boston American, 30 October to 5 November 1905. Van Dusen accepts a challenge to escape from a death row cell within a week, and Hatch publicizes it in the newspaper
• Problem of Dressing Room 'A' . Associated Sunday Magazines [e.g. (Minneapolis) Sunday Journal], 2 September 1906. Collected in (1908) as a two part story - Dressing Room A and Fitting the Hypothesis
• Problem of the Motor Boat. Associated Sunday Magazines, 9 September 1906. Collected in (1908) as a two part story - The Motor Boat and The Woman in the Case
• A Piece of String. Associated Sunday Magazines, 16 September 1906
• Problem of the Crystal Gazer. Associated Sunday Magazines, 23 September 1906. Collected in (1908) as a two part story - The Crystal Gazer and A Matter of Logic
• Problem of the Roswell Tiara. Associated Sunday Magazines, 30 September 1906. Collected in (1908) as a two-part story - The Roswell Tiara and 'A Fool of Good Intention
• Problem of the Lost Radium. Associated Sunday Magazines, 7 October 1906. the story takes place in a laboratory at the fictional "Yarvard University", named for Yale and Harvard). Collected in (1908) as a two-part story - The Lost Radium and The Suitcase
• The Problem of the Opera Box. Associated Sunday Magazines, 14 October 1906
• Problem of the Missing Necklace. Associated Sunday Magazines, 21 October 1906. Collected in (1908) As a two-part story - The Missing Necklace and Master of His Profession
• Problem of the Green Eyed Monster. Associated Sunday Magazines, 28 October 1906. Collected in (1908) as a two-part story - The Green-Eyed Monster and Two and Two Again Make Four
• Problem of the Perfect Alibi. Associated Sunday Magazines, 4 November 1906. Collected in (1908) as His Perfect Alibi
• Problem of the Phantom Auto. Associated Sunday Magazines, 11 November 1906. Collected in (1908) as The Phantom Motor
• The Haunted Bell. The Saturday Evening Post, 17 November 1906
• Problem of the Stolen Bank Notes. Associated Sunday Magazines, 18 November 1906
• Problem of the Superfluous Finger. Associated Sunday Magazines, 25 November 1906. A doctor comes to Van Dusen with an ethical quandary: a woman wants a perfectly good little finger amputated, but won't say why. Collected in (1908) as The Superfluous Finger
• My First Experience with the Great Logician. Associated Sunday Magazines, 20 January 1907. The story includes The Problem of the Knotted Cord
• Problem of The Souvenir Cards. Associated Sunday Magazines, 3 February 1907
• Problem of the Stolen Rubens. Associated Sunday Magazines, 17 February 1907
• Problem of the Three Overcoats. Associated Sunday Magazines, 3 March 1907
• Problem of the Organ Grinder. Associated Sunday Magazines, 17 March 1907
• Problem of the Hidden Million. Associated Sunday Magazines, 31 March 1907
• Problem of the Auto Car. Associated Sunday Newspapers, 14 April 1907
• Problem of the Private Compartment. Associated Sunday Newspapers, 28 April 1907
• Problem of the Cross Mark. Associated Sunday Magazines, 12 May 1907
• Problem of the Ghost Woman. Associated Sunday Newspapers, 26 May 1907
• The Silver Box. Associated Sunday Newspapers, 9 June 1907. Also published as The Leak. A businessman asks Van Dusen's help when his industrial secrets are instantly leaked to a competitor
• Problem of Convict No. 97. Associated Sunday Newspapers, 23 June 1907
• Problem of the Deserted House. Associated Sunday Magazines, 7 July 1907
• Problem of the Red Rose. Associated Sunday Magazines, 21 July 1907
• Problem of The Vanishing Man. Associated Sunday Magazines, 11 August 1907
• Problem of the Broken Bracelet. Associated Sunday Magazines, 8 September 1907
• Problem of the Interrupted Wireless. Associated Sunday Magazines, 3 November 1907. Collected in (1908) as a two-part story - The Interrupted Wireless and The Midnight Message
• The Grinning God: Part 2: The House That Was. Associated Sunday Magazines, 1 December 1907. Part 1, Wraiths of the Storm was written by his wife, May Futrelle
• The Mystery of Prince Otto. Cassell's Magazine of Fiction, July 1912. Also published as Five Millions by Wireless
• The Tragedy of the Life Raft. Popular Magazine, 1 August 1912

The Case of the Scientific Murderer. Popular Magazine, 1 September 1912. Revised as The Case of the Mysterious Weapon. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, October 1950

• The Jackdaw. Popular Magazine, 15 September 1912. Also published as The Jackdaw Girl
• The Knife. Mystery, October 1933

Details of first publication are not yet known for the following stories[]

• The Brown Coat. Collected in (1908)
• The Disappearance of Baby Blake. Associated Sunday Magazines, 8 December 1907 [Not yet verified]
• The Fatal Cipher. Associated Sunday Magazines, 3 February 1907, as 'The Thinking Machine Looks into the Cipher Message'
• The Flaming Phantom. Before 1907. Hatch is sent to investigate a "haunted house" where a flaming ghost chases off any intruders, but he is forced to summon Van Dusen)
• The Golden Dagger. Before 1907
• The Great Auto Mystery. Before 1907
• The Man Who Was Lost. Before 1907
• The Mystery of the Grip of Death. Before 1997
• The Mystery of a Studio. Before 1907
• The Ralston Bank Burglary. Before 1907
• The Scarlet Thread. Before 1907
• The Motor Boat. Before 1908. Collected in (1908)
• The Woman in the Case. Before 1908. Collected in (1908)

Short stories not featuring The Thinking Machine

• The Mystery of Room 666. The Story-Teller, August 1910

Short stories sometimes misattributed to Jacques Futrelle

• The Yellow Diamond Pendant. A short story by May Futrelle

Collections[]

• The Thinking Machine (1907)
• The Thinking Machine on the Case (1908)
• Best "Thinking Machine" Detective Stories (1973), edited by E. F. Bleiler
• Great Cases of the "Thinking Machine" (1976), edited by E. F. Bleiler
• Jacques Futrelle's Thinking Machine (2003), edited by Harlan Ellison 21 stories
• The Great Thinking Machine: "The Problem of Cell 13" and Other Stories (2018) (Dover Mystery Classics) 12 stories

In other media[]

Television[]

The story "The Problem of Cell 13" was broadcast as "The Problem of Cell Block 13" on the American TV series Kraft Mystery Theater in 1962, with actor Claude Dauphin as the van Dusen character (but named Lowell in the episode). The program also featured Philip Pine and Vic Perrin.

The professor appeared in two episodes of the 1970s Thames Television series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. Douglas Wilmer portrayed Van Dusen in "Cell 13" and "The Superfluous Finger." The 1981 Australian Broadcasting Commission series Detective dramatised "The Brown Coat" with John Hannan as Dusen.

Radio[]

Between 1978 and 1999 the German radio station RIAS produced and broadcast 79 radio plays based on the character. A few of them were based on original stories by Futrelle, but most of the scripts were new creations by German author Michael Koser. The role of Hutchinson Hatch is a lot more prominent in the radio plays than it was in the original; Hatch was made into the fictional narrator in the radio version.

In 2011, the BBC Radio 4 series The Rivals featured Paul Rhys as Professor Van Dusen in Chris Harrald's adaptation of "The Problem of Cell 13", which was directed by Sasha Yevtushenko. He returned for the first episode of the second series in 2013, in Chris Harrald's adaptation of "The Problem of the Superfluous Finger", produced by Liz Webb. In the fourth episode of the fourth series in 2016, "The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread", Van Dusen was played by Tony Gardner.

Comics[]

In 2013, the character appeared in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's graphic novel Nemo: Heart of Ice; the character aids explorer Janni Nemo in 1925 when she encounters H. P. Lovecraft's Elder Gods in Antarctica. He returns in , the final part of the series; set in 2010. He has been resurrected as a sentient A.I., becoming a literal 'thinking machine.'

External links[]

• Selected stories and bibliographical information about Futrelle
• BBC Radio 4 - The Rivals: The Problem of Cell 13
• BBC Radio 4 - The Rivals: The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread
• Works by Jacques Futrelle on Project Gutenberg
• Works by Jacques Futrelle on LibriVox