#the thinking machine

The Stranger Times by C.K. McDonnell

The Municipalists by Seth Fried

The Thinking Machine stories by Jaques Futrelle

The only moment, in the first ten Thinking Machine stories written, in which Augustus Van Dusen (the titular thought-machine) resembles a human being. An Angry Young Man comes to see the famously competent Van Dusen, and much to his surprise, finds a little man with a weirdly big head. And much to our surprise, Van Dusen actually reacts.

The airship, otherwise known as a ship that travels by air. The Mystery of Cell 13 was serially published from October 30 to November 5, 1905, according to E. F. Bleiler's introduction in The Great Thinking Machine: "The Problem of Cell 13" and Other Stories.

On December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers made the first successful powered flight, which lasts only 12 seconds, and is reported on by only 3 US newspapers.

On May 22, 1906, Patent no. 821,393 is issued to Orville and Wilbur Wright on a Flying Machine:

This was so interesting, because the first flight had already happened when the Thinking Machine was boasting about being too busy to build one. What we think of today as the epoch-making moment in aerospace history was so little known, that two years later, the Boston American published this story without even blinking at that comment.

The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes: Cell 13 (2.3, Thames, 1973)

"Professor, I had heard that you'd been making some such claims. I was anxious to meet you, because as the architect responsible for advising the prison commissioners on security, you must realise that statements of that kind are damaging to my professional reputation."

The Adventure of the Mona Lisa (1912)

The Society of Infallible Detectives was a team of the most well known detectives of the late 19th and early 20th century. However, their adventures seemed to have been a parody, in which the detectives proved ineffectual as a team, mainly because each detective insisted on solving the mystery himself.

The society was led by Sherlock Holmes and came to order at the society's headquarters on Fakir Street in London. They investigated the robbery of the Mona Lisa painting, as well as other crimes.

Membership included: Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Arsène Lupin, Craig Kennedy, Monsieur Lecoq, Rouletabille, A.J. Raffles (E.W. Hornung), C. Auguste Dupin (Edgar Allan Poe), S.S. "The Thinking Machine" Van Dusen (Jacques Futrelle), Philip Trent (E.C. Bentley), Ebenezer Gryce (Anna Katherine Green), Calvin "Scientific" Sprague (Francis Lynde), Luther Trant (William MacHarg and Edwin Balmer), and M. Eugène François Vidocq.

Source: Public Domain Super Heroes

Sherlock Holmes and a band of his most infallible deductive friends solve mysteries. Infallibly, of course. "The Adventure of the Mona Lisa" appeared in January 1912 in The Century magazine, and "The Adventure of the Clothes-Line" in the same magazine in May 1915.

Mystery and humor writer Carolyn Wells' two crossover stories invented the concept of a modern league of heroes. (Homer and the Argonaut legends did it back in the day.) She also wrote The Technique of the Detective Story, an instruction manual.

Source: The Internet Archive

The International Society of Infallible Detectives is the first superhero team of history. Presided by Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle) and Composed of Arsene Lupin (Maurice Leblanc), Arthur J. Raffles (Ernest William Hornung), the Thinking Machine (Jacques Futrelle), Auguste Dupin (Edgar Allan Poe), Vidocq-Lecocq (Emile Gaboriau), Rouletabille (Gaston Leroux), Craig Kennedy (Arthur Reeve), Luther Trant (William MacHarg and Edwin Balmer), Ebenezer Gryce (Anna Katharine Green) and Dr. Watson (Arthur Conan Doyle).

In their headquarters on Fakir Street, they are waiting for a case worthy of them. When it happens they mutualise their intelligence to solve the mystery. But their solutions are... strange.