"The Ablest Man in the World" is a short story by American journalist and author Edward Page Mitchell.
It was later included in the modern collection The Crystal Man: Stories by Edward Page Mitchell, edited by Sam Moskowitz in 1973.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding Savitch, mostly concerning his humble beginnings to his rise in the Tsar's court after graduating from the University of Dorpat.
Rapperschwyll found him there one day and, with his skill in medicine and watchmaking, made a clockwork brain for Savitch which is explicitly superior to Charles Babbage's difference engine.
With the baron's guard down, Fisher takes his brain, runs off with it and later throws it into the Atlantic Ocean on his return trip to America.