Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen

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.

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

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.

Novels

• The Chase of the Golden Plate (1906)

Short Stories featuring Van Dusen

• The Problem of The Auto Cab
• The Problem of The Broken Bracelet
• The Brown Coat
• The Case of the Life Raft
• The Case of the Mysterious Weapon
• The Case of the Scientific Murderer
• Convict #97
• The Problem of The Cross Mark
• The Crystal Gazer
• The Disappearance of Baby Blake
• A Dressing Room
• The Deserted House
• The Fatal Cipher
• The Flaming Phantom (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 Ghost Woman
• The Golden Dagger
• The Great Auto Mystery
• The Green Eyed Monster
• The Haunted Bell
• The House That Was (Written as companion piece to May Futrelle's "The Grinning God")
• The Problem of The Hidden Million
• The Interrupted Wireless
• The Jackdaw Girl
• The Knotted Cord
• The Leak
• The Lost Radium (Takes place in a laboratory at the fictional "Yarvard University", a pastiche of Yale and Harvard)
• The Man Who Was Lost
• The Missing Necklace
• The Motor Boat
• The Mystery of a Studio
• The Mystery of Room 666
• The Opera Box
• The Organ Grinder
• A Perfect Alibi
• The Phantom Motor
• A Piece of String
• Prince Otto
• The Private Compartment
• The Problem of Cell 13 (Van Dusen accepts a challenge to escape from a death row cell within a week, and Hatch publicizes it in the newspaper)
• The Ralston Bank Burglary
• The Red Rose
• The Roswell Tiara
• The Scarlet Thread
• The Silver Box (A businessman asks Van Dusen's help when his industrial secrets are instantly leaked to a competitor from a closed office)
• The Problem of The Souvenir Cards
• The Problem of The Stolen Rubens
• The Superfluous Finger (A doctor comes to Van Dusen with an ethical quandary: a woman wants a perfectly good little finger amputated, but won't say why)
• The Thinking Machine Investigates
• The Three Overcoats
• The Problem of The Vanishing Man
• The Yellow Diamond Pendant

In other media

Television

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."

Radio

Between 1978 and 1999 the German radio station RIAS produced and broadcast 79 Augustus Van Dusen-based radio plays. 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 when she encounters H. P. Lovecraft's Elder Gods in Antarctica

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