Jacques Heath Futrelle (April 9, 1875 - April 15, 1912) was an American journalist and mystery writer. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring the "Thinking Machine", Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. Futrelle, who was born in Pike County, Georgia, worked for the Atlanta Journal, where he began their sports section; the New York Herald; the Boston Post; and the Boston American, where, in 1905, his Thinking Machine character first appeared in a serialized version of "The Problem of Cell 13". In 1895, he married fellow writer Lily May Peel, with whom he had two children, Virginia and Jacques "John" Jr. Futrelle left the Boston American in 1906 to focus his attention on writing novels. He had a house built in Scituate, Massachusetts, which he called "Stepping Stones", and spent most of his time there until his death in 1912. Returning from Europe aboard the RMS Titanic, Futrelle, a first-cabin passenger, refused to board a lifeboat insisting his wife board instead. His wife remembered the last she saw of him, he was smoking a cigarette with John J. Astor. He perished in the Atlantic. Futrelle's last work, "My Lady's Garter", was published posthumously later in 1912. His wife inscribed in the book, "To the heroes of the Titanic, I dedicate this my husband's book" under a photo of her late husband. On 29 July 1912 his mother, Linnie Futrelle, died in her Georgia home; her death was attributed to grief over her son's death. Futrelle is used as the protagonist in The Titanic Murders, a novel about two murders aboard the Titanic, by Max Allan Collins.