Chapter Five.The Master Atom.“Oh! la la! How horribly dull life is! I do wish something really startling would happen, Dick!”The words were spoken in pretty broken English by Yvette Pasquet, who, charming andchic, as usual, was sitting with Jules and Dick Manton. The adventurous trio were diningal frescoin the leafy garden of the old-world “Hôtel de France” on the river bank at Montigny, that delightful spot on the outskirts of the great Forest of Fontainebleau, a spot beloved by all the artists andlittérateursof Paris.“Something will happen suddenly, no doubt,” Dick laughed, glancing at his beloved. “It always does!”“I sincerely hope it will,” declared Jules in good English. “We’re really getting rather rusty. I met Regnier yesterday out at Pré Catalan with Madame Sohet, and he hinted to me that some great mystery had arisen; but he would tell me nothing further.”“Regnier, as head of the Service, is always well informed, and like an oyster,” Yvette remarked with a laugh. “So I suppose we must wait for something to happen. I hate to be idle.”“Yes. Something will surely happen very shortly,” said Dick. “I have a curious intuition that we shall very soon be away again on another mission. My intuition never fails me.”Dick Manton’s words were prophetic, for on that same evening before a meeting of the Royal Society in London, Professor Rudford, the world-famed scientist, made an amazing speech in which he said:“Could we but solve the problem of releasing and controlling the mighty forces locked up in this piece of chalk, we should have power enough to drive the biggest liner to New York and back. We should have at our disposal energy unlimited. The daily work of the world would be reduced to a few minutes’ tending of automatic machinery. And, I may add, the first nation to solve that problem will have the entire world at its mercy. For no nation, or combination of nations, could stand even against a small people armed with force unlimited and terrible. And—gentlemen—we are on the way to solving that problem!”As the words fell slowly and calmly from his lips his hearers felt a thrill of ungovernable emotion, almost of apprehension. For they knew well that he spoke only of what he knew, and the measured phrases conjured up in their keen brains not only a picture of a world where labour had been reduced to the vanishing point, but of a world where evil still strove with good, where the enemies of society still strove against the established order of things which they hated, where crime in the hands of the master criminal, armed with force whose potentiality they could only dream of, would be something transcending in sheer horror all the past experiences of tortured humanity.Supposing the great secretfell into the wrong hands!The speech at the Royal Society was a nine days’ wonder.The unthinking Press made merry in the bare idea of a lump of chalk being a source of power. Then the transient impression faded as public attention returned to football and the latest prize-fight. But behind the scenes, in a hundred laboratories, students bent unceasingly over their myriad experiments, striving to wrest from Nature her greatest secret, the mystery of the mighty energy of the atom. Since the day when Madame Curie had discovered that in breaking up, yet seemingly never growing less, radium was shooting off day and night power which never seemed to diminish, the minds of the men of science had been filled with the dream of discovering the secret.Could they learn to accelerate the process? Could they induce radium to deliver in a few moments the power which, expending itself for centuries untold, never seemed to grow less? Could they learn to control it, or would it, when at last the secret was discovered, prove to be a Frankenstein monster of titanic power, wreaking untold destruction on the world?A thin, keen-faced man sat facing the British Prime Minister in his private room in Downing Street a few days later. This was Clinton Scott, one of the smartest men of the British Secret Service, a man of wide culture and uncanny knowledge of the underworld of international crime. His profession was the detection of crime; his hobby science in any form.“We have very disturbing news, Scott,” said the Prime Minister, “and I have sent for you because the problem before us is largely of a scientific nature and I know all about your hobby.”Clinton Scott smiled.“You are aware, of course, of the latest developments in the search for some method of releasing and controlling atomic forces,” went on the Prime Minister. “I do not profess to understand them deeply myself, but I have a general idea of what is being done and what success would imply. Professor Rudford, to whom I applied for information on the subject, tells me that such a discovery would revolutionise world conditions. You will understand of your own knowledge all that it implies, and that is why I have sent specially for you in this matter.”“I am at the country’s service,” replied Scott.“Now information we have received from Norway suggests very strongly that the problem has been solved,” the other said. “We have no details—nothing in fact very definite at all. But it is certain that some very queer things have been happening. And from what Professor Rudford tells me I am assured that we cannot afford to neglect them. Our ordinary men are useless for this kind of thing. Men with a considerable knowledge of scientific subjects are absolutely necessary. Otherwise matter which, properly understood, would be full of significance will be passed over as of no account and quite minor and unessential incidents will be followed up, and there would be serious waste of time. And time is valuable.”“I agree that it is,” was the terse reply.“I want you to go to Norway and look into the matter,” the Prime Minister went on. “Of course I will see that you get all the information we have, and you can select your own assistants.”Clinton Scott suddenly looked grave.“Is it known at all?” he asked. “Who is behind this—I mean who has made this discovery? You will appreciate my reason for asking. If it is the work of a genuine man of science there would be no immediate danger, though of course such an invention would upset all ideas of international relations. It is literally true, as no doubt Professor Rudford will have told you, that the nation in exclusive possession of such a secret could dominate the world. But there are one or two men in the world who, with such a secret in their possession, would be a real peril to civilisation.”“Do you know a man named Lenart Gronvold?” asked the Premier.Clinton Scott started visibly.“Do you mean to say he is in it?” he gasped in utter astonishment.It was the Premier’s turn to be surprised.“Why—who is he?” he asked. “Professor Rudford had never even heard his name and laughed when I suggested that he could have had anything to do with it.”“He won’t laugh when he gets some real idea of Gronvold’s ability,” said Scott bitterly. “The man is one of the mysteries of the world of crime,” he went on. “Exactly who he is we don’t know—I mean we know little about his life. But we believe he is Norwegian born, though he has strong Russian characteristics. We know he studied at Leipzig. Tutors who knew him well speak with the utmost admiration of his amazing brain power as a student and the daring of his conceptions. But for some reason he never did well in examinations and attracted no attention whatever outside a very limited circle. Personally, I believe that for some strange reason he deliberately elected not to call attention to himself, for there is not the slightest doubt that he could with ease have captured every honour the University had to bestow. After leaving Leipzig he disappeared for some years. I don’t know how he spent them. But I do know that he is a chemist of amazing ability. He has, moreover, been mixed up with a number of puzzling international crimes, though we have never been able to bring any of them home to him. Do you remember the big bank robbery at Liverpool three years ago?”The Premier nodded.“You mean,” he said, “when the bank vaults were blown open with dynamite and half a million in gold stolen?”“That’s the case,” said Scott. “Only it wasn’t dynamite, there was no explosion. The thick steel and stone walls of the vaulted safe had been melted through as if they had been butter. The story of an explosion was deliberately given out to deceive the thieves. But the fact is that some process was used of which we have no knowledge whatever.”And he paused, then went on:“Now I am pretty sure Gronvold was in that. I was called in before anything had been touched. And in one corner I picked up a scrap of paper bearing some queer formulae of which I could make nothing. It had evidently been dropped by accident. And it bore Gronvold’s name. Moreover, as I ascertained by a visit to Leipzig, where I saw some of the old University registers, it was in his handwriting. But where he is, how he got into England, how the burglary was effected and how he got away with such an enormous weight of gold we never could make out. If he is really in this new discovery we are face to face with a terrible problem. The man is absolutely without scruple, and for three years he has had the use of half a million of money for his experiments. He may have done anything in that time.”“But how did you know of him?” asked the Premier.“It’s a queer story,” replied the other. “Simmons, one of our men in Christiansand came across, quite by accident, a drunken Norwegian sailor who told a strange story of the blowing up of a mountain by a tiny cartridge placed at the bottom of an old mine shaft. He actually mentioned Gronvold’s name, and claimed to have been one of his assistants. When he became sober he was evidently terribly alarmed at having talked, and denied the whole story. The same day he disappeared, and Simmons has been unable to trace him.”He went on after a pause:“Now the blowing up of a mountain is a fact. A hill nearly a thousand feet high in a wild lonely district north-east of Tonstad has absolutely disappeared—levelled out. To have done the work by ordinary means would have meant years of labour and would have cost a fortune. There can be no doubt that some entirely new force has been employed. Officially the occurrence is attributed to a landslide; actually it is and can be nothing of the kind. Now this, coupled with what the Norwegian sailor said, suggests that we ought to look into the matter. Whether the Norwegian Government knows anything about it I do not know, and the matter would be of such importance from the international point of view that we cannot make direct inquiries.”“Will you take it in hand?” asked the Premier. “Whom will you get to help you? I am afraid the ordinary men would be of very little use.”“I think I will run over to Paris and see Regnier,” replied Scott. “He has a fellow named Manton who will certainly be useful. He was in our flying corps and was invalided out owing to wounds. He has done some wonderful work and has an entirely new type of aeroplane which he invented and which, by the way, our people would have nothing to do with. Regnier swears by him. He works always with a French girl named Yvette Pasquet, who did some splendid intelligence work during the war, and her brother Jules. They will have nothing to do with anyone else when they are on a case, and they have had some amazing results.”Crossing to Paris by the afternoon air express Scott the same evening was warmly greeted by Regnier. He rapidly explained his visit. Regnier looked grave.“I have heard of the man,” he said, “but have never seen him, I don’t think in a case like this you can do better than Manton. He is very well up in all these scientific things; they seem to be a perfect craze with him.”An hour later, Regnier, Scott, Dick Manton, Yvette, and Jules were closely discussing the problem in Manton’s rooms.“We have got to find that sailor,” was Dick’s verdict, “and luck is going to have a good deal to do with it. I suppose Simmons is on the look out for him?”“Yes,” replied Scott, “I wired him at once.”“Do you think Gronvold and the sailor have quarrelled?” put in Yvette.“I think not,” was Scott’s reply. “If they had there seems no reason for the man’s alarm. I think he calculated on going back to him. That was Simmons’ view, too.”Dick, who had been carefully studying a map, looked up.“Just look here,” he said, “you could hide an army in this place.”The map was in contour and gave a vivid impression of the wild and desolate country, a broken mass of hills and lakes, stretching north and east from Tonstad.“Suppose Gronvold is there,” said Dick, “he could hide anything he wanted to. I don’t think he would have travelled far from its base to blow up the hill—that was probably experimental. My idea is that he has established his laboratory somewhere in the hills about there. There is no population and little or no traffic through the district. He must send to one of the towns for supplies, and Christiansand is the most likely. I should guess that the sailor had come there for that purpose and may come again.”“He did not leave the town by boat,” declared Scott. “Simmons made the most careful inquiries on all the boats in the harbour and no one of his description was seen.”Three tourists a week later were lodged in a comfortable hotel in the Dronningens Gade, one of the principal streets in the busy port of Christiansand. They were Yvette, Jules, and Scott. Dick had flown the Mohawk direct to the wild district north-east of Tonstad, and with the help of a light tent had pitched a camp in a little wood a couple of miles from the southern edge of the blown-up hill. He had taken pains in the selection of a suitable place and his camp and the Mohawk were so admirably hidden that they were safe from discovery, unless some one actually walked right up to them, a contingency which in that roadless, unpopulated country was extremely unlikely. But though hidden himself he commanded a wide view.For two days Dick devoted himself to a thorough examination of the surrounding country, quartering it thoroughly either on foot or in the Mohawk. He could however see nothing in the least suspicious.Then came a surprise.His only method of receiving news from the others was to “listen in” on the wireless telegraph set with which the Mohawk was fitted for messages which, directed to an address in England, were handed to the Christiansand radio station for dispatch, but were really intended for him. These messages were handed in at eight o’clock precisely and Dick usually got them within half an hour.On the third day of his watch came the message:“Sailor located. Travelling north with pack mules. We follow. Osterluis road.”The man, as he was to learn later, had been spotted by Yvette in Christiansand. She had seen him leave a small café much frequented by sailors, and had been struck by his likeness to the description given by Simmons. She had followed him for some time while he made a variety of purchases at numerous shops, and had been struck by the fact that a mere sailor should evidently have such a large sum of money at his disposal. Luckily she had encountered Simmons, who at once recognised the man and had promptly disappeared to avoid arousing his suspicions.Yvette was able to learn that all the man’s purchases were being delivered to a small inn on the outskirts of the town, and a few inquiries showed that he had four mules stationed there.The matter began now to clear up. They were sure of the man; at least he could not leave without his mules and stores. Jules and Scott took up the watch at the inn, while Yvette shadowed the suspect. It was thought best that Simmons should not appear. It soon became evident that the man had no associates in Christiansand. All he did was to visit shops, paying cash for all his purchases and having them sent to the inn where his mules were stabled.The next day, with his mules heavily loaded, he set out from Christiansand, taking the road to Trygstand and Ostersluis.Yvette, Jules, and Scott decided to follow him on foot. To have taken horses would have told him he was being followed as soon as he left the road, as they were pretty sure he would, sooner or later. Luckily all three were splendid walkers and felt they would have no trouble in keeping up with the heavily-laden mules. Cramming a few necessities into rucksacks they were soon on the track of their quarry.Man and mules made steady progress. They were soon through Trygstand and, shortly after, caught sight of the Mohawk high above them and evidently following the road on the watch for them.With a handkerchief tied to a stick Yvette swiftly signalled to Dick the brief facts, and the Mohawk passed on towards Christiansand. When the sailor and the mules were hidden in a dip in the road Dick landed, and all four held a brief consultation as to their future plans.As a result Scott put on his best speed and soon passed the sailor who had stopped for a rest. The man was now between two parties on the ground and under observation from Dick from the air. He certainly could not escape.A few miles beyond Trygstand he suddenly left the high road, and turned westward and north across the open country. Evidently he was not bound for Ostersluis. But where could he be going? For miles there was not even a house in the deserted track of country into which he had plunged.But it was evident he knew his bearings thoroughly. Hour after hour he jogged along, and soon the pursuers realised that they had been wise not to bring horses. No horse could have crossed the country over which the sure-footed mules went swiftly without a stagger.At nightfall the man camped. Apparently he paid no attention to the passing of the aeroplane, for he barely glanced at it. Building a small fire under the shelter of a rock, the three pursuers spent a comfortless night. Dick had flown to his camp, intending to pick the party up again at dawn.Early next morning the man was afoot and continued his journey. He was now in the wild country well to the west of Ostersluis, and travelling due north. Yvette, Jules, and Scott were a mile behind, following with the utmost care not to reveal their presence and so rouse the man’s suspicions.They had gone but a few miles when the man paused on the flat top of a high hill, which on the side away from them sloped steeply into a deep gorge at the foot of which ran a small stream. They watched him narrowly.With great care he got the four mules together, standing side by side. He himself took up a position directly in front of them and almost touching the animals’ heads.A moment later man and mules sank together, apparently into the earth and disappeared!They could hardly believe their eyes! Surely the man must have gone down the reverse slope of the hill. But they were confident that he had not moved.They hurried to the spot. Not a sign of any living thing was to be seen! The mystery was profound.While they stood gazing at one another in speechless amazement, the Mohawk, which they had not perceived above them, dropped vertically downwards and landed a few yards away. Dick sprang out.“Did you see?” he gasped. “The man and mules went down into some sort of pit. But where was it?”The flat top of the hill was broken into a series of narrow cracks; apparently the rock of which it was composed was of volcanic origin. They examined it closely, but they could discover nothing which offered a solution of the mystery.Dick described closely what he had seen from the sky. It agreed with what the others had observed. The man had got the mules together, and all had sunk slowly downward. Dick had seen the black mouth of the pit for a few moments and a blaze of light. Then the pit had disappeared, and the ground resumed its normal appearance.“We shall have to camp here to-night,” said Dick. “We must get to the bottom of this. We shall have to take turns to watch. In the meantime we had better have a look round.”Having closely examined the top of the hill, they turned to the deep gorge and descended to the bottom. The stream, they found, issued from the hill itself, flowing out from a low tunnel high enough to admit the passage of a man. From it also issued a cloud of mist which spread over the bottom of the little valley in a thick blanket which completely concealed the surface of the ground from anyone at the top of the hill.But still more remarkable was that the bed of the little stream was deeply covered with what appeared to be recently melted lava. In many places it was still hot, and the water, they found, was nearly boiling. The first traces of this were found at the mouth of the tunnel from which the stream emerged, and for hundreds of yards the molten rock could be traced, as though it had poured from the tunnel and flowed down the bed of the brook.Wood and water were available in abundance, and soon they had pitched their camp, near enough to the top of the mysterious hill to enable them to watch it closely and yet well concealed so that if the man reappeared they would have no difficulty in escaping observation.The first watch fell to Yvette, and with a revolver ready for instant use, she prepared to spend a couple of lonely hours on the edge of the hill. The camp was but a quarter of a mile away so that a shot would bring her speedy help at any time.A brilliant moon lit up the country for miles.There was no trace of any living thing. Everything was still and silent.Yvette had been on watch about an hour when she became aware that the air was full of a dull murmur of sound. She listened intently. There was no mistake about it. A dull throbbing noise was distinctly discernible.She walked round the flat top of the hill, looking keenly in every direction and trying to locate the position from which the mysterious sound was coming. But it was in vain.Glancing into the gorge, she saw a strange and terrible phenomenon. The course of the little brook was traced in a dull fiery glow. Clouds of steam were rising thickly into the night air; she could plainly hear the sharp hiss of water on something hot.She ran swiftly down the hill. At the bottom she paused on the edge of the stream. The water had disappeared and in its place ran a river of molten rock! Through her boots she felt the heat of the ground.Returning to the top of the hill she waited for Dick, who was now almost due to relieve her. In a few moments he appeared and listened in amazement as she gasped out her story.The dull, throbbing noise was still audible.“Machinery,” said Dick laconically, “but where?”Suddenly he flung himself on his face, and pressed his ear close to the ground.“Listen,” he said.Yvette followed his example. There could be no mistake; the mysterious sound was coming from the ground beneath their feet! The earth was full of muffled thunder.Dick took from his pocket a hammer and struck a sharp blow on the flat rock beneath their feet. It rang hollow! Unmistakably they were standing on the roof of a cavern.Walking to the camp they roused the others and told them what they had seen and heard.“We have got to catch that sailor if we wait here a month,” said Scott. “He must come out again some time. But how about food?”“We have enough tinned stuff in the Mohawk for a week,” said Dick, “so we shall be all right for a few days. In the meantime we must watch the place closely.”Next day passed without incident until evening was drawing on. Then Yvette, who was watching the top of the hill while the others rested, at six o’clock gave a low whistle. She was lying on the ground keeping observation between a couple of rocks which hid her completely. In a moment the others had crawled to her side.“Look!” she said.On the top of the hill, three hundred yards away, stood the sailor and the four mules, clearly silhouetted against the evening glow. He had appeared suddenly, Yvette told them, just on the spot where he had disappeared on the previous day.“We must get him,” said Dick.The man with the mules started to return along the way he had come. They saw at once that the path he was taking would bring him close to them.With the mules unloaded the man evidently had no intention of walking. He mounted one of the animals and rode towards them at a fast trot.He was within twenty yards when Dick aimed his revolver and fired. The mule the man was riding bolted, throwing its rider heavily. Before he could recover himself he was bound and helpless. The other three mules stampeded wildly and were soon out of sight.Carried to the camp the man soon recovered. But he resolutely refused to say a word.“Well,” said Dick. “We must try to get into the cave. Perhaps the tunnel out of which the brook runs will lead us to it.”They were soon at the mouth of the strange tunnel. There was no sign of the molten matter of the previous night. The stream, thick with mud, flowed sluggishly, but the water was cool, and the ground, which the night before had been too hot to walk upon, was now not more than uncomfortably warm.With Dick leading, Scott and Yvette next in order, and Jules bringing up the rear they entered the mouth of the tunnel. There was, they found, just room for them to pass, stooping low and walking knee deep in the little stream. They were, of course, in total darkness, for Dick was afraid to show a light for fear of betraying their presence.For a hundred yards Dick groped his way onward. Then his outstretched hands struck something soft. It was a kind of curtain hung across the stream, thick and heavy.Cautiously he slightly raised one corner and peered through. The sight that struck his eyes filled them with amazement.They were at the entrance to an enormous chamber, a hundred and fifty yards across, dimly lighted by a single big electric lamp, the only one alight out of dozens which hung from the roof. The floor sloped steeply upwards at the far end where they could make out a kind of platform, reaching nearly to the roof and with steps leading downward into the great hall. All round the side were a series of openings, apparently small chambers cut into the solid rock. From one of these the stream they had followed seemed to issue, crossing the floor of the great cave in a narrow deep channel.But what fascinated Dick’s attention was a great table, apparently of iron, which occupied the centre of the cave. It was heavily constructed and seemed to be based on massive legs which went down into the rock. Upon it stood a strange machine unlike anything he had ever seen before and of the use of which he could not form the smallest idea. Surmounted by two huge governor balls, it was a complicated mass of polished wheels, of some metal which Dick could not identify, and which gleamed with a strange radiance in the light of the huge electric lamp overhead. From the machine a bewildering mass of wires led to a series of points at the face of the rock.So much Dick could make out in the dim light. He was keenly anxious to learn more. But how was it to be done? No sign of any human being was to be seen, but he could not imagine that what lay before their eyes was the work of the solitary sailor who now lay bound in their camp.At any rate they could not remain where they were. Dick decided to try to gain entrance to one of the wall chambers where they could shelter with a better chance of seeing what would happen in this underground home of mystery. But which should they choose?Some of the chambers were half-way to the roof and were reached by steps cut in the solid rock. Dick decided on one of these not far from where they were standing. They crept cautiously from their hiding-place and stole along to the bottom of the cave. A moment later they were at the foot of the steps. These they hastily climbed, and soon found themselves in a fair-sized cave, fifteen or sixteen feet above the floor of the main cavern and commanding a good view of the entire area. It was dry and warm and formed an ideal post of observation, provided their presence remained undiscovered.Suddenly a blaze of light struck their eyes. Some one had turned on the whole of the electric lamps which hung in clusters from the roof.Peering cautiously out they saw, to their amazement, half a dozen men issue from different chambers near the floor of the cave. All wore big round spectacles of deep blue glass and were clothed in close-fitting garments of rubber, with heavy gauntletted gloves of the same material. Apparently they could not see well, for the spectacles must have been almost impervious to ordinary light.One of the men, fixing his spectacles on more firmly and, drawing his rubber overall more closely around him, approached the strange machine which stood on the table. The others proceeded to the points at which the wires from the machine reached the side of the cave. Here they took up some kind of tool which looked like a gigantic blowpipe and stood ready as if awaiting a signal.A low whistle sounded from the man at the table, as he grasped a small wheel and gave it a quick turn.An instant later an appalling blaze of light burst from the strange machine, and the cave was filled with a roar of sound, a terrible deep drone of such frightful intensity that the hidden watchers shuddered as if with actual physical agony. Dick felt the sweat start suddenly from his forehead and pour down his face. Anxiously he glanced towards Yvette. She lay with her face buried in her arms, her body trembling convulsively. Scott and Jules, their faces white as chalk, were gazing at the unearthly light which streamed from the whirling machine, shading their eyes with their hands to shelter them from its blinding radiance. They could not look at it for more than a few seconds; it was like trying to gaze at the sun at midday.Taking a letter from his pocket, Dick bored a tiny hole in it with his scarf pin. Through this hole he found he could see in comparative comfort. He signed to the others to do the same, and soon all four—for Yvette quickly recovered her self-possession—were eagerly watching the strange scene before them. Speech, in the deafening noise by which they were surrounded, was, of course, out of the question.The man at the great table in the centre of the cavern evidently had a task of great difficulty to control the movements of the strange machine, which he seemed to do by means of a large wheel something like the steering wheel of a steamer. Long streamers of flame shot from it in all directions, and as its mass of wheels revolved at terrific speed it shook and trembled as if it would actually leap from the table.In the meantime the men at the rock face were hard at work with big blowpipes, from the muzzles of which shot streams of fire of such intensity that the solid rock seemed to melt away like butter. The molten matter was led by ducts in the ground through a grid of some metal, evidently highly refractory to heat, for it appeared to do no more than glow white-hot even in the terrific temperature of the melted rock. After passing through this grid the molten matter was led to the bed of the stream, from which the water had in some manner been cut off, and flowed out the way Dick and his companions had entered.What was the object of the work?Dick could not guess, but every now and again one of the men would walk to the grid and with a long implement shaped like a hoe would scrape off something adhering to the bars, which he deposited in a big tank of water. Dick determined that, sooner or later, he would obtain a specimen.But in the meantime their position was decidedly precarious. If they were observed there was no possible way of escape, for the tunnel by which they had entered was barred by the stream of molten matter. They could only lie still and hope that no one would enter the gallery in which they lay concealed.After two hours of work, the man at the table stopped the machine, and all the men straightened out for a rest. Evidently they were very much exhausted. The lights were extinguished, except for the single one which was burning when they entered, and the men returned to their quarters, evidently almost falling with weariness. Dick came to the conclusion that they could only carry on the work on which they were engaged for a short time and that after that sleep and rest were imperative. The flow of molten metal had stopped and the water was again allowed to flow along its ordinary channel, from whence it sent up huge clouds of dense steam.This gave Dick his chance.Sending the others to the mouth of the exit, he cautiously crept towards the tank in which were deposited the scrapings from the grid which filtered the molten rock. He reached it safely, and plunging in his arm up to the shoulder, abstracted a couple of handfuls of what seemed like heavy shot. These he placed at once in his pocket.He was about to return to the others when his attention was caught by the queer platform at the one end of the cave. Looking at this carefully he found that it was really a huge lift, and at once the mysterious disappearance of the sailor and the mules was explained. It was evident that the top of the lift was really the thin covering of rock which had sounded hollow when tapped and that this had been so cut that when the lift forced it into position only traces of ragged crevices were left on the surface. Dick could not but admire the ingenuity with which this approach to the subterranean retreat had been devised.Presently he heard a heavy knocking above his head and, guessing the cause, shrank back for shelter into the mouth of a small cave adjoining. A moment later a man emerged from one of the other chambers and approached the lift. Dick was curious to see how it worked. There was, as he could see, a small electric motor fitted to it, but where could the necessary power come from?The new-comer carried in his hand a tiny machine which was in every respect a duplicate in miniature of the big one on the central table. But it was so small that the man carried it easily in one hand. From it ran a pair of electric cables which the man proceeded to connect with the terminals of the motor.Placing the machine on the ground he gave the wheel a sharp turn. Immediately the tiny machine began to revolve, throwing out flashes and flames exactly like the larger one but on a miniature scale.Clearly, however, there was considerable power in it, for the lift at once commenced to descend. On it stood a man whom Dick instantly recognised as Gronvold. And he was accompanied by the sailor whom Dick had left safely tied up in their camp. Evidently Gronvold had found and released him.Their position was now indeed one of terrible gravity.As soon as the lift reached the bottom the two men stepped off and the lift reascended, moving upward with an ease which showed the tremendous power developed by the tiny machine. Here, indeed, was something of which Dick had had no previous experience.The three men crossed the cave to the shelter occupied by the man who worked the big machine, who was evidently the captain, and Dick knew there was no time to be lost.Directly the men entered the shelter, Dick dashed across the cave to join the others, snatching out his revolver as he ran.He had nearly reached them, when a whistle blew and instantly half a dozen men rushed from different caves. They were discovered!“Take care of Yvette, Jules!” Dick yelled as, with Scott at his side, he faced round to the men who were rushing at them from three sides.Instantly Yvette and Jules plunged into the tunnel. Dick and Scott backed after them with drawn revolvers threatening the men in the cave.For a moment the leaders hesitated; apparently they were not aimed. Then Gronvold rushed to the front, followed by the captain, both carrying curious weapons which looked like heavy pistols.All four men fired simultaneously. Dick saw the captain drop, evidently shot dead, and heard a bullet whiz past him and strike the rock behind. A burst of flame singed his hair, and he felt the hot breath of it on his face.Then Gronvold fired at Scott. The effect as the bullet struck him was strange and awful. His body actually disappeared in a mass of flame under the impact of some projectile of unimaginable power and energy. At the same instant Dick slipped on a projecting bit of rock and fell heavily on his head. As he lost consciousness he heard the crack of a revolver behind him. Yvette and Jules, hearing the shots, had returned in the nick of time. Jules snatched up Dick and carried him down the tunnel, while Yvette very coolly shot down Gronvold just as he was reloading his terrible weapon.When Dick recovered his senses he found himself lying on the ground at the entrance to the tunnel, his head pillowed on Yvette’s arm as she tried to pour some brandy between his lips. He could feel the sobs which shook her, and even felt a tear on his face. Jules stood on guard at the entrance to the tunnel, his revolver ready for instant action in case of pursuit.As Dick opened his eyes, Yvette gave a gasp of relief.“Oh, dearest, I thought you were dead!” she sobbed and burst into tears. A moment later she turned away blushing scarlet. She had betrayed her secret at last. And even in his confused state Dick felt a thrill of triumphant joy.His head spinning he staggered to his feet. But he would have fallen if Yvette had not caught him.“Sit down, Dick,” she said peremptorily. “Jules can look after this place.”Dick obeyed, perforce; he was so sick and giddy that he could have done nothing even if the expected attack had come.But it never came. Suddenly as they stood there, tense and waiting, a terrific convulsion shook the earth. With a terrible roar the great cavern collapsed and a vast burst of smoke and flame vomited to the sky, and a deep crater was left by the subsidence. Sick and dizzy, with showers of stones falling all around them, they stood aghast while explosion after explosion rent the air, rendering the crater deeper. It was some minutes before quiet reigned again and, white and shaken, after their nerve-racking experience, they were able to collect their shaken faculties and make an examination of the scene.The hill beneath which the cavern was located had practically disappeared; in its place was left nothing but a heap of torn and tumbled earth and rock. Its dreadful secret was safe, for the cave and its contents, and the men who had wielded such titanic forces, were buried deep under tens of thousands of tons of débris.Perhaps it was as well, Dick thought. There are some forms of knowledge which mortals ought not to possess; there are some powers which they are not fit to handle.Whatever secret Gronvold had discovered, it rested with him for ever on the very scene of his ill-omened labours. What had gone wrong in the depths of the cavern they could not even imagine, but it was evident that the mysterious force which Gronvold had called into existence, whatever it was, had destroyed him and his companions. And it was almost by a miracle that Dick, Yvette, and Jules had escaped.Slowly and painfully they made their way back to their camp, and for the first time Dick became conscious of the great weight of the double handful of shot which he had taken from the tank. He drew some of it out and examined it by the light of the fire. As he did so he gave a cry of surprise. For the “shot” was nothing more or less than tiny nuggets of virgin gold.Here was an addition to the mystery. As Dick knew perfectly well, there was not an atom of gold-bearing rock within hundreds of miles of where they stood.It was evident that one of the secrets of Gronvold’s invention was that it gave him the power of actually bringing about the transmutation of substances. There was some element in the rock which was susceptible of being changed into gold by a process at which they could not even guess. But if this were so, Gronvold had indeed, as they suspected, been able to solve the problem of loosing the incredible force contained in the atom. His discovery was, as Dick at once realised, on the lines of the latest development of scientific thought.Dick was to see the problem solved in later years by more reputable investigators.But he could never forget his strange encounter with the wonderful but misguided genius whose career had been so terribly brought to an end by the dread power he had himself evoked.
“Oh! la la! How horribly dull life is! I do wish something really startling would happen, Dick!”
The words were spoken in pretty broken English by Yvette Pasquet, who, charming andchic, as usual, was sitting with Jules and Dick Manton. The adventurous trio were diningal frescoin the leafy garden of the old-world “Hôtel de France” on the river bank at Montigny, that delightful spot on the outskirts of the great Forest of Fontainebleau, a spot beloved by all the artists andlittérateursof Paris.
“Something will happen suddenly, no doubt,” Dick laughed, glancing at his beloved. “It always does!”
“I sincerely hope it will,” declared Jules in good English. “We’re really getting rather rusty. I met Regnier yesterday out at Pré Catalan with Madame Sohet, and he hinted to me that some great mystery had arisen; but he would tell me nothing further.”
“Regnier, as head of the Service, is always well informed, and like an oyster,” Yvette remarked with a laugh. “So I suppose we must wait for something to happen. I hate to be idle.”
“Yes. Something will surely happen very shortly,” said Dick. “I have a curious intuition that we shall very soon be away again on another mission. My intuition never fails me.”
Dick Manton’s words were prophetic, for on that same evening before a meeting of the Royal Society in London, Professor Rudford, the world-famed scientist, made an amazing speech in which he said:
“Could we but solve the problem of releasing and controlling the mighty forces locked up in this piece of chalk, we should have power enough to drive the biggest liner to New York and back. We should have at our disposal energy unlimited. The daily work of the world would be reduced to a few minutes’ tending of automatic machinery. And, I may add, the first nation to solve that problem will have the entire world at its mercy. For no nation, or combination of nations, could stand even against a small people armed with force unlimited and terrible. And—gentlemen—we are on the way to solving that problem!”
As the words fell slowly and calmly from his lips his hearers felt a thrill of ungovernable emotion, almost of apprehension. For they knew well that he spoke only of what he knew, and the measured phrases conjured up in their keen brains not only a picture of a world where labour had been reduced to the vanishing point, but of a world where evil still strove with good, where the enemies of society still strove against the established order of things which they hated, where crime in the hands of the master criminal, armed with force whose potentiality they could only dream of, would be something transcending in sheer horror all the past experiences of tortured humanity.
Supposing the great secretfell into the wrong hands!
The speech at the Royal Society was a nine days’ wonder.
The unthinking Press made merry in the bare idea of a lump of chalk being a source of power. Then the transient impression faded as public attention returned to football and the latest prize-fight. But behind the scenes, in a hundred laboratories, students bent unceasingly over their myriad experiments, striving to wrest from Nature her greatest secret, the mystery of the mighty energy of the atom. Since the day when Madame Curie had discovered that in breaking up, yet seemingly never growing less, radium was shooting off day and night power which never seemed to diminish, the minds of the men of science had been filled with the dream of discovering the secret.
Could they learn to accelerate the process? Could they induce radium to deliver in a few moments the power which, expending itself for centuries untold, never seemed to grow less? Could they learn to control it, or would it, when at last the secret was discovered, prove to be a Frankenstein monster of titanic power, wreaking untold destruction on the world?
A thin, keen-faced man sat facing the British Prime Minister in his private room in Downing Street a few days later. This was Clinton Scott, one of the smartest men of the British Secret Service, a man of wide culture and uncanny knowledge of the underworld of international crime. His profession was the detection of crime; his hobby science in any form.
“We have very disturbing news, Scott,” said the Prime Minister, “and I have sent for you because the problem before us is largely of a scientific nature and I know all about your hobby.”
Clinton Scott smiled.
“You are aware, of course, of the latest developments in the search for some method of releasing and controlling atomic forces,” went on the Prime Minister. “I do not profess to understand them deeply myself, but I have a general idea of what is being done and what success would imply. Professor Rudford, to whom I applied for information on the subject, tells me that such a discovery would revolutionise world conditions. You will understand of your own knowledge all that it implies, and that is why I have sent specially for you in this matter.”
“I am at the country’s service,” replied Scott.
“Now information we have received from Norway suggests very strongly that the problem has been solved,” the other said. “We have no details—nothing in fact very definite at all. But it is certain that some very queer things have been happening. And from what Professor Rudford tells me I am assured that we cannot afford to neglect them. Our ordinary men are useless for this kind of thing. Men with a considerable knowledge of scientific subjects are absolutely necessary. Otherwise matter which, properly understood, would be full of significance will be passed over as of no account and quite minor and unessential incidents will be followed up, and there would be serious waste of time. And time is valuable.”
“I agree that it is,” was the terse reply.
“I want you to go to Norway and look into the matter,” the Prime Minister went on. “Of course I will see that you get all the information we have, and you can select your own assistants.”
Clinton Scott suddenly looked grave.
“Is it known at all?” he asked. “Who is behind this—I mean who has made this discovery? You will appreciate my reason for asking. If it is the work of a genuine man of science there would be no immediate danger, though of course such an invention would upset all ideas of international relations. It is literally true, as no doubt Professor Rudford will have told you, that the nation in exclusive possession of such a secret could dominate the world. But there are one or two men in the world who, with such a secret in their possession, would be a real peril to civilisation.”
“Do you know a man named Lenart Gronvold?” asked the Premier.
Clinton Scott started visibly.
“Do you mean to say he is in it?” he gasped in utter astonishment.
It was the Premier’s turn to be surprised.
“Why—who is he?” he asked. “Professor Rudford had never even heard his name and laughed when I suggested that he could have had anything to do with it.”
“He won’t laugh when he gets some real idea of Gronvold’s ability,” said Scott bitterly. “The man is one of the mysteries of the world of crime,” he went on. “Exactly who he is we don’t know—I mean we know little about his life. But we believe he is Norwegian born, though he has strong Russian characteristics. We know he studied at Leipzig. Tutors who knew him well speak with the utmost admiration of his amazing brain power as a student and the daring of his conceptions. But for some reason he never did well in examinations and attracted no attention whatever outside a very limited circle. Personally, I believe that for some strange reason he deliberately elected not to call attention to himself, for there is not the slightest doubt that he could with ease have captured every honour the University had to bestow. After leaving Leipzig he disappeared for some years. I don’t know how he spent them. But I do know that he is a chemist of amazing ability. He has, moreover, been mixed up with a number of puzzling international crimes, though we have never been able to bring any of them home to him. Do you remember the big bank robbery at Liverpool three years ago?”
The Premier nodded.
“You mean,” he said, “when the bank vaults were blown open with dynamite and half a million in gold stolen?”
“That’s the case,” said Scott. “Only it wasn’t dynamite, there was no explosion. The thick steel and stone walls of the vaulted safe had been melted through as if they had been butter. The story of an explosion was deliberately given out to deceive the thieves. But the fact is that some process was used of which we have no knowledge whatever.”
And he paused, then went on:
“Now I am pretty sure Gronvold was in that. I was called in before anything had been touched. And in one corner I picked up a scrap of paper bearing some queer formulae of which I could make nothing. It had evidently been dropped by accident. And it bore Gronvold’s name. Moreover, as I ascertained by a visit to Leipzig, where I saw some of the old University registers, it was in his handwriting. But where he is, how he got into England, how the burglary was effected and how he got away with such an enormous weight of gold we never could make out. If he is really in this new discovery we are face to face with a terrible problem. The man is absolutely without scruple, and for three years he has had the use of half a million of money for his experiments. He may have done anything in that time.”
“But how did you know of him?” asked the Premier.
“It’s a queer story,” replied the other. “Simmons, one of our men in Christiansand came across, quite by accident, a drunken Norwegian sailor who told a strange story of the blowing up of a mountain by a tiny cartridge placed at the bottom of an old mine shaft. He actually mentioned Gronvold’s name, and claimed to have been one of his assistants. When he became sober he was evidently terribly alarmed at having talked, and denied the whole story. The same day he disappeared, and Simmons has been unable to trace him.”
He went on after a pause:
“Now the blowing up of a mountain is a fact. A hill nearly a thousand feet high in a wild lonely district north-east of Tonstad has absolutely disappeared—levelled out. To have done the work by ordinary means would have meant years of labour and would have cost a fortune. There can be no doubt that some entirely new force has been employed. Officially the occurrence is attributed to a landslide; actually it is and can be nothing of the kind. Now this, coupled with what the Norwegian sailor said, suggests that we ought to look into the matter. Whether the Norwegian Government knows anything about it I do not know, and the matter would be of such importance from the international point of view that we cannot make direct inquiries.”
“Will you take it in hand?” asked the Premier. “Whom will you get to help you? I am afraid the ordinary men would be of very little use.”
“I think I will run over to Paris and see Regnier,” replied Scott. “He has a fellow named Manton who will certainly be useful. He was in our flying corps and was invalided out owing to wounds. He has done some wonderful work and has an entirely new type of aeroplane which he invented and which, by the way, our people would have nothing to do with. Regnier swears by him. He works always with a French girl named Yvette Pasquet, who did some splendid intelligence work during the war, and her brother Jules. They will have nothing to do with anyone else when they are on a case, and they have had some amazing results.”
Crossing to Paris by the afternoon air express Scott the same evening was warmly greeted by Regnier. He rapidly explained his visit. Regnier looked grave.
“I have heard of the man,” he said, “but have never seen him, I don’t think in a case like this you can do better than Manton. He is very well up in all these scientific things; they seem to be a perfect craze with him.”
An hour later, Regnier, Scott, Dick Manton, Yvette, and Jules were closely discussing the problem in Manton’s rooms.
“We have got to find that sailor,” was Dick’s verdict, “and luck is going to have a good deal to do with it. I suppose Simmons is on the look out for him?”
“Yes,” replied Scott, “I wired him at once.”
“Do you think Gronvold and the sailor have quarrelled?” put in Yvette.
“I think not,” was Scott’s reply. “If they had there seems no reason for the man’s alarm. I think he calculated on going back to him. That was Simmons’ view, too.”
Dick, who had been carefully studying a map, looked up.
“Just look here,” he said, “you could hide an army in this place.”
The map was in contour and gave a vivid impression of the wild and desolate country, a broken mass of hills and lakes, stretching north and east from Tonstad.
“Suppose Gronvold is there,” said Dick, “he could hide anything he wanted to. I don’t think he would have travelled far from its base to blow up the hill—that was probably experimental. My idea is that he has established his laboratory somewhere in the hills about there. There is no population and little or no traffic through the district. He must send to one of the towns for supplies, and Christiansand is the most likely. I should guess that the sailor had come there for that purpose and may come again.”
“He did not leave the town by boat,” declared Scott. “Simmons made the most careful inquiries on all the boats in the harbour and no one of his description was seen.”
Three tourists a week later were lodged in a comfortable hotel in the Dronningens Gade, one of the principal streets in the busy port of Christiansand. They were Yvette, Jules, and Scott. Dick had flown the Mohawk direct to the wild district north-east of Tonstad, and with the help of a light tent had pitched a camp in a little wood a couple of miles from the southern edge of the blown-up hill. He had taken pains in the selection of a suitable place and his camp and the Mohawk were so admirably hidden that they were safe from discovery, unless some one actually walked right up to them, a contingency which in that roadless, unpopulated country was extremely unlikely. But though hidden himself he commanded a wide view.
For two days Dick devoted himself to a thorough examination of the surrounding country, quartering it thoroughly either on foot or in the Mohawk. He could however see nothing in the least suspicious.
Then came a surprise.
His only method of receiving news from the others was to “listen in” on the wireless telegraph set with which the Mohawk was fitted for messages which, directed to an address in England, were handed to the Christiansand radio station for dispatch, but were really intended for him. These messages were handed in at eight o’clock precisely and Dick usually got them within half an hour.
On the third day of his watch came the message:
“Sailor located. Travelling north with pack mules. We follow. Osterluis road.”
“Sailor located. Travelling north with pack mules. We follow. Osterluis road.”
The man, as he was to learn later, had been spotted by Yvette in Christiansand. She had seen him leave a small café much frequented by sailors, and had been struck by his likeness to the description given by Simmons. She had followed him for some time while he made a variety of purchases at numerous shops, and had been struck by the fact that a mere sailor should evidently have such a large sum of money at his disposal. Luckily she had encountered Simmons, who at once recognised the man and had promptly disappeared to avoid arousing his suspicions.
Yvette was able to learn that all the man’s purchases were being delivered to a small inn on the outskirts of the town, and a few inquiries showed that he had four mules stationed there.
The matter began now to clear up. They were sure of the man; at least he could not leave without his mules and stores. Jules and Scott took up the watch at the inn, while Yvette shadowed the suspect. It was thought best that Simmons should not appear. It soon became evident that the man had no associates in Christiansand. All he did was to visit shops, paying cash for all his purchases and having them sent to the inn where his mules were stabled.
The next day, with his mules heavily loaded, he set out from Christiansand, taking the road to Trygstand and Ostersluis.
Yvette, Jules, and Scott decided to follow him on foot. To have taken horses would have told him he was being followed as soon as he left the road, as they were pretty sure he would, sooner or later. Luckily all three were splendid walkers and felt they would have no trouble in keeping up with the heavily-laden mules. Cramming a few necessities into rucksacks they were soon on the track of their quarry.
Man and mules made steady progress. They were soon through Trygstand and, shortly after, caught sight of the Mohawk high above them and evidently following the road on the watch for them.
With a handkerchief tied to a stick Yvette swiftly signalled to Dick the brief facts, and the Mohawk passed on towards Christiansand. When the sailor and the mules were hidden in a dip in the road Dick landed, and all four held a brief consultation as to their future plans.
As a result Scott put on his best speed and soon passed the sailor who had stopped for a rest. The man was now between two parties on the ground and under observation from Dick from the air. He certainly could not escape.
A few miles beyond Trygstand he suddenly left the high road, and turned westward and north across the open country. Evidently he was not bound for Ostersluis. But where could he be going? For miles there was not even a house in the deserted track of country into which he had plunged.
But it was evident he knew his bearings thoroughly. Hour after hour he jogged along, and soon the pursuers realised that they had been wise not to bring horses. No horse could have crossed the country over which the sure-footed mules went swiftly without a stagger.
At nightfall the man camped. Apparently he paid no attention to the passing of the aeroplane, for he barely glanced at it. Building a small fire under the shelter of a rock, the three pursuers spent a comfortless night. Dick had flown to his camp, intending to pick the party up again at dawn.
Early next morning the man was afoot and continued his journey. He was now in the wild country well to the west of Ostersluis, and travelling due north. Yvette, Jules, and Scott were a mile behind, following with the utmost care not to reveal their presence and so rouse the man’s suspicions.
They had gone but a few miles when the man paused on the flat top of a high hill, which on the side away from them sloped steeply into a deep gorge at the foot of which ran a small stream. They watched him narrowly.
With great care he got the four mules together, standing side by side. He himself took up a position directly in front of them and almost touching the animals’ heads.
A moment later man and mules sank together, apparently into the earth and disappeared!
They could hardly believe their eyes! Surely the man must have gone down the reverse slope of the hill. But they were confident that he had not moved.
They hurried to the spot. Not a sign of any living thing was to be seen! The mystery was profound.
While they stood gazing at one another in speechless amazement, the Mohawk, which they had not perceived above them, dropped vertically downwards and landed a few yards away. Dick sprang out.
“Did you see?” he gasped. “The man and mules went down into some sort of pit. But where was it?”
The flat top of the hill was broken into a series of narrow cracks; apparently the rock of which it was composed was of volcanic origin. They examined it closely, but they could discover nothing which offered a solution of the mystery.
Dick described closely what he had seen from the sky. It agreed with what the others had observed. The man had got the mules together, and all had sunk slowly downward. Dick had seen the black mouth of the pit for a few moments and a blaze of light. Then the pit had disappeared, and the ground resumed its normal appearance.
“We shall have to camp here to-night,” said Dick. “We must get to the bottom of this. We shall have to take turns to watch. In the meantime we had better have a look round.”
Having closely examined the top of the hill, they turned to the deep gorge and descended to the bottom. The stream, they found, issued from the hill itself, flowing out from a low tunnel high enough to admit the passage of a man. From it also issued a cloud of mist which spread over the bottom of the little valley in a thick blanket which completely concealed the surface of the ground from anyone at the top of the hill.
But still more remarkable was that the bed of the little stream was deeply covered with what appeared to be recently melted lava. In many places it was still hot, and the water, they found, was nearly boiling. The first traces of this were found at the mouth of the tunnel from which the stream emerged, and for hundreds of yards the molten rock could be traced, as though it had poured from the tunnel and flowed down the bed of the brook.
Wood and water were available in abundance, and soon they had pitched their camp, near enough to the top of the mysterious hill to enable them to watch it closely and yet well concealed so that if the man reappeared they would have no difficulty in escaping observation.
The first watch fell to Yvette, and with a revolver ready for instant use, she prepared to spend a couple of lonely hours on the edge of the hill. The camp was but a quarter of a mile away so that a shot would bring her speedy help at any time.
A brilliant moon lit up the country for miles.
There was no trace of any living thing. Everything was still and silent.
Yvette had been on watch about an hour when she became aware that the air was full of a dull murmur of sound. She listened intently. There was no mistake about it. A dull throbbing noise was distinctly discernible.
She walked round the flat top of the hill, looking keenly in every direction and trying to locate the position from which the mysterious sound was coming. But it was in vain.
Glancing into the gorge, she saw a strange and terrible phenomenon. The course of the little brook was traced in a dull fiery glow. Clouds of steam were rising thickly into the night air; she could plainly hear the sharp hiss of water on something hot.
She ran swiftly down the hill. At the bottom she paused on the edge of the stream. The water had disappeared and in its place ran a river of molten rock! Through her boots she felt the heat of the ground.
Returning to the top of the hill she waited for Dick, who was now almost due to relieve her. In a few moments he appeared and listened in amazement as she gasped out her story.
The dull, throbbing noise was still audible.
“Machinery,” said Dick laconically, “but where?”
Suddenly he flung himself on his face, and pressed his ear close to the ground.
“Listen,” he said.
Yvette followed his example. There could be no mistake; the mysterious sound was coming from the ground beneath their feet! The earth was full of muffled thunder.
Dick took from his pocket a hammer and struck a sharp blow on the flat rock beneath their feet. It rang hollow! Unmistakably they were standing on the roof of a cavern.
Walking to the camp they roused the others and told them what they had seen and heard.
“We have got to catch that sailor if we wait here a month,” said Scott. “He must come out again some time. But how about food?”
“We have enough tinned stuff in the Mohawk for a week,” said Dick, “so we shall be all right for a few days. In the meantime we must watch the place closely.”
Next day passed without incident until evening was drawing on. Then Yvette, who was watching the top of the hill while the others rested, at six o’clock gave a low whistle. She was lying on the ground keeping observation between a couple of rocks which hid her completely. In a moment the others had crawled to her side.
“Look!” she said.
On the top of the hill, three hundred yards away, stood the sailor and the four mules, clearly silhouetted against the evening glow. He had appeared suddenly, Yvette told them, just on the spot where he had disappeared on the previous day.
“We must get him,” said Dick.
The man with the mules started to return along the way he had come. They saw at once that the path he was taking would bring him close to them.
With the mules unloaded the man evidently had no intention of walking. He mounted one of the animals and rode towards them at a fast trot.
He was within twenty yards when Dick aimed his revolver and fired. The mule the man was riding bolted, throwing its rider heavily. Before he could recover himself he was bound and helpless. The other three mules stampeded wildly and were soon out of sight.
Carried to the camp the man soon recovered. But he resolutely refused to say a word.
“Well,” said Dick. “We must try to get into the cave. Perhaps the tunnel out of which the brook runs will lead us to it.”
They were soon at the mouth of the strange tunnel. There was no sign of the molten matter of the previous night. The stream, thick with mud, flowed sluggishly, but the water was cool, and the ground, which the night before had been too hot to walk upon, was now not more than uncomfortably warm.
With Dick leading, Scott and Yvette next in order, and Jules bringing up the rear they entered the mouth of the tunnel. There was, they found, just room for them to pass, stooping low and walking knee deep in the little stream. They were, of course, in total darkness, for Dick was afraid to show a light for fear of betraying their presence.
For a hundred yards Dick groped his way onward. Then his outstretched hands struck something soft. It was a kind of curtain hung across the stream, thick and heavy.
Cautiously he slightly raised one corner and peered through. The sight that struck his eyes filled them with amazement.
They were at the entrance to an enormous chamber, a hundred and fifty yards across, dimly lighted by a single big electric lamp, the only one alight out of dozens which hung from the roof. The floor sloped steeply upwards at the far end where they could make out a kind of platform, reaching nearly to the roof and with steps leading downward into the great hall. All round the side were a series of openings, apparently small chambers cut into the solid rock. From one of these the stream they had followed seemed to issue, crossing the floor of the great cave in a narrow deep channel.
But what fascinated Dick’s attention was a great table, apparently of iron, which occupied the centre of the cave. It was heavily constructed and seemed to be based on massive legs which went down into the rock. Upon it stood a strange machine unlike anything he had ever seen before and of the use of which he could not form the smallest idea. Surmounted by two huge governor balls, it was a complicated mass of polished wheels, of some metal which Dick could not identify, and which gleamed with a strange radiance in the light of the huge electric lamp overhead. From the machine a bewildering mass of wires led to a series of points at the face of the rock.
So much Dick could make out in the dim light. He was keenly anxious to learn more. But how was it to be done? No sign of any human being was to be seen, but he could not imagine that what lay before their eyes was the work of the solitary sailor who now lay bound in their camp.
At any rate they could not remain where they were. Dick decided to try to gain entrance to one of the wall chambers where they could shelter with a better chance of seeing what would happen in this underground home of mystery. But which should they choose?
Some of the chambers were half-way to the roof and were reached by steps cut in the solid rock. Dick decided on one of these not far from where they were standing. They crept cautiously from their hiding-place and stole along to the bottom of the cave. A moment later they were at the foot of the steps. These they hastily climbed, and soon found themselves in a fair-sized cave, fifteen or sixteen feet above the floor of the main cavern and commanding a good view of the entire area. It was dry and warm and formed an ideal post of observation, provided their presence remained undiscovered.
Suddenly a blaze of light struck their eyes. Some one had turned on the whole of the electric lamps which hung in clusters from the roof.
Peering cautiously out they saw, to their amazement, half a dozen men issue from different chambers near the floor of the cave. All wore big round spectacles of deep blue glass and were clothed in close-fitting garments of rubber, with heavy gauntletted gloves of the same material. Apparently they could not see well, for the spectacles must have been almost impervious to ordinary light.
One of the men, fixing his spectacles on more firmly and, drawing his rubber overall more closely around him, approached the strange machine which stood on the table. The others proceeded to the points at which the wires from the machine reached the side of the cave. Here they took up some kind of tool which looked like a gigantic blowpipe and stood ready as if awaiting a signal.
A low whistle sounded from the man at the table, as he grasped a small wheel and gave it a quick turn.
An instant later an appalling blaze of light burst from the strange machine, and the cave was filled with a roar of sound, a terrible deep drone of such frightful intensity that the hidden watchers shuddered as if with actual physical agony. Dick felt the sweat start suddenly from his forehead and pour down his face. Anxiously he glanced towards Yvette. She lay with her face buried in her arms, her body trembling convulsively. Scott and Jules, their faces white as chalk, were gazing at the unearthly light which streamed from the whirling machine, shading their eyes with their hands to shelter them from its blinding radiance. They could not look at it for more than a few seconds; it was like trying to gaze at the sun at midday.
Taking a letter from his pocket, Dick bored a tiny hole in it with his scarf pin. Through this hole he found he could see in comparative comfort. He signed to the others to do the same, and soon all four—for Yvette quickly recovered her self-possession—were eagerly watching the strange scene before them. Speech, in the deafening noise by which they were surrounded, was, of course, out of the question.
The man at the great table in the centre of the cavern evidently had a task of great difficulty to control the movements of the strange machine, which he seemed to do by means of a large wheel something like the steering wheel of a steamer. Long streamers of flame shot from it in all directions, and as its mass of wheels revolved at terrific speed it shook and trembled as if it would actually leap from the table.
In the meantime the men at the rock face were hard at work with big blowpipes, from the muzzles of which shot streams of fire of such intensity that the solid rock seemed to melt away like butter. The molten matter was led by ducts in the ground through a grid of some metal, evidently highly refractory to heat, for it appeared to do no more than glow white-hot even in the terrific temperature of the melted rock. After passing through this grid the molten matter was led to the bed of the stream, from which the water had in some manner been cut off, and flowed out the way Dick and his companions had entered.
What was the object of the work?
Dick could not guess, but every now and again one of the men would walk to the grid and with a long implement shaped like a hoe would scrape off something adhering to the bars, which he deposited in a big tank of water. Dick determined that, sooner or later, he would obtain a specimen.
But in the meantime their position was decidedly precarious. If they were observed there was no possible way of escape, for the tunnel by which they had entered was barred by the stream of molten matter. They could only lie still and hope that no one would enter the gallery in which they lay concealed.
After two hours of work, the man at the table stopped the machine, and all the men straightened out for a rest. Evidently they were very much exhausted. The lights were extinguished, except for the single one which was burning when they entered, and the men returned to their quarters, evidently almost falling with weariness. Dick came to the conclusion that they could only carry on the work on which they were engaged for a short time and that after that sleep and rest were imperative. The flow of molten metal had stopped and the water was again allowed to flow along its ordinary channel, from whence it sent up huge clouds of dense steam.
This gave Dick his chance.
Sending the others to the mouth of the exit, he cautiously crept towards the tank in which were deposited the scrapings from the grid which filtered the molten rock. He reached it safely, and plunging in his arm up to the shoulder, abstracted a couple of handfuls of what seemed like heavy shot. These he placed at once in his pocket.
He was about to return to the others when his attention was caught by the queer platform at the one end of the cave. Looking at this carefully he found that it was really a huge lift, and at once the mysterious disappearance of the sailor and the mules was explained. It was evident that the top of the lift was really the thin covering of rock which had sounded hollow when tapped and that this had been so cut that when the lift forced it into position only traces of ragged crevices were left on the surface. Dick could not but admire the ingenuity with which this approach to the subterranean retreat had been devised.
Presently he heard a heavy knocking above his head and, guessing the cause, shrank back for shelter into the mouth of a small cave adjoining. A moment later a man emerged from one of the other chambers and approached the lift. Dick was curious to see how it worked. There was, as he could see, a small electric motor fitted to it, but where could the necessary power come from?
The new-comer carried in his hand a tiny machine which was in every respect a duplicate in miniature of the big one on the central table. But it was so small that the man carried it easily in one hand. From it ran a pair of electric cables which the man proceeded to connect with the terminals of the motor.
Placing the machine on the ground he gave the wheel a sharp turn. Immediately the tiny machine began to revolve, throwing out flashes and flames exactly like the larger one but on a miniature scale.
Clearly, however, there was considerable power in it, for the lift at once commenced to descend. On it stood a man whom Dick instantly recognised as Gronvold. And he was accompanied by the sailor whom Dick had left safely tied up in their camp. Evidently Gronvold had found and released him.
Their position was now indeed one of terrible gravity.
As soon as the lift reached the bottom the two men stepped off and the lift reascended, moving upward with an ease which showed the tremendous power developed by the tiny machine. Here, indeed, was something of which Dick had had no previous experience.
The three men crossed the cave to the shelter occupied by the man who worked the big machine, who was evidently the captain, and Dick knew there was no time to be lost.
Directly the men entered the shelter, Dick dashed across the cave to join the others, snatching out his revolver as he ran.
He had nearly reached them, when a whistle blew and instantly half a dozen men rushed from different caves. They were discovered!
“Take care of Yvette, Jules!” Dick yelled as, with Scott at his side, he faced round to the men who were rushing at them from three sides.
Instantly Yvette and Jules plunged into the tunnel. Dick and Scott backed after them with drawn revolvers threatening the men in the cave.
For a moment the leaders hesitated; apparently they were not aimed. Then Gronvold rushed to the front, followed by the captain, both carrying curious weapons which looked like heavy pistols.
All four men fired simultaneously. Dick saw the captain drop, evidently shot dead, and heard a bullet whiz past him and strike the rock behind. A burst of flame singed his hair, and he felt the hot breath of it on his face.
Then Gronvold fired at Scott. The effect as the bullet struck him was strange and awful. His body actually disappeared in a mass of flame under the impact of some projectile of unimaginable power and energy. At the same instant Dick slipped on a projecting bit of rock and fell heavily on his head. As he lost consciousness he heard the crack of a revolver behind him. Yvette and Jules, hearing the shots, had returned in the nick of time. Jules snatched up Dick and carried him down the tunnel, while Yvette very coolly shot down Gronvold just as he was reloading his terrible weapon.
When Dick recovered his senses he found himself lying on the ground at the entrance to the tunnel, his head pillowed on Yvette’s arm as she tried to pour some brandy between his lips. He could feel the sobs which shook her, and even felt a tear on his face. Jules stood on guard at the entrance to the tunnel, his revolver ready for instant action in case of pursuit.
As Dick opened his eyes, Yvette gave a gasp of relief.
“Oh, dearest, I thought you were dead!” she sobbed and burst into tears. A moment later she turned away blushing scarlet. She had betrayed her secret at last. And even in his confused state Dick felt a thrill of triumphant joy.
His head spinning he staggered to his feet. But he would have fallen if Yvette had not caught him.
“Sit down, Dick,” she said peremptorily. “Jules can look after this place.”
Dick obeyed, perforce; he was so sick and giddy that he could have done nothing even if the expected attack had come.
But it never came. Suddenly as they stood there, tense and waiting, a terrific convulsion shook the earth. With a terrible roar the great cavern collapsed and a vast burst of smoke and flame vomited to the sky, and a deep crater was left by the subsidence. Sick and dizzy, with showers of stones falling all around them, they stood aghast while explosion after explosion rent the air, rendering the crater deeper. It was some minutes before quiet reigned again and, white and shaken, after their nerve-racking experience, they were able to collect their shaken faculties and make an examination of the scene.
The hill beneath which the cavern was located had practically disappeared; in its place was left nothing but a heap of torn and tumbled earth and rock. Its dreadful secret was safe, for the cave and its contents, and the men who had wielded such titanic forces, were buried deep under tens of thousands of tons of débris.
Perhaps it was as well, Dick thought. There are some forms of knowledge which mortals ought not to possess; there are some powers which they are not fit to handle.
Whatever secret Gronvold had discovered, it rested with him for ever on the very scene of his ill-omened labours. What had gone wrong in the depths of the cavern they could not even imagine, but it was evident that the mysterious force which Gronvold had called into existence, whatever it was, had destroyed him and his companions. And it was almost by a miracle that Dick, Yvette, and Jules had escaped.
Slowly and painfully they made their way back to their camp, and for the first time Dick became conscious of the great weight of the double handful of shot which he had taken from the tank. He drew some of it out and examined it by the light of the fire. As he did so he gave a cry of surprise. For the “shot” was nothing more or less than tiny nuggets of virgin gold.
Here was an addition to the mystery. As Dick knew perfectly well, there was not an atom of gold-bearing rock within hundreds of miles of where they stood.
It was evident that one of the secrets of Gronvold’s invention was that it gave him the power of actually bringing about the transmutation of substances. There was some element in the rock which was susceptible of being changed into gold by a process at which they could not even guess. But if this were so, Gronvold had indeed, as they suspected, been able to solve the problem of loosing the incredible force contained in the atom. His discovery was, as Dick at once realised, on the lines of the latest development of scientific thought.
Dick was to see the problem solved in later years by more reputable investigators.
But he could never forget his strange encounter with the wonderful but misguided genius whose career had been so terribly brought to an end by the dread power he had himself evoked.
Chapter Six.The Horror of Lockie.Many readers will recall the tragedy of Renstoke Castle and the terrible death of young Lord Renstoke. The case aroused much sensation at the time. It would have aroused far more had the real facts been allowed to transpire.They were known, however, to only a few people, and, for reasons which were at the time sufficient, they were kept secret. I am now able to lift the veil which shrouded one of the most perplexing mysteries which has ever puzzled the scientific world. Even now, the story is not complete; the great secret died with the amazing but perverted genius who discovered it.Lord Renstoke, a young man only thirty, was one of those favoured individuals on whom Fortune seemed to have showered all her gifts. Born and brought up in Canada, he was connected only very remotely with the ancient family of Renstoke, and no one ever dreamed that he could by any possibility succeed to the title, which carried with it Renstoke Castle and a rent-roll of something like a hundred thousand pounds a year.James Mitchell, as Lord Renstoke was before he succeeded to the title, had left a lumber camp in Upper Canada when the call of the Great War brought Britishers from all the wild places of the world to join the colours. He served as a private in one of the Canadian Regiments, rapidly winning his way upward, and finally being awarded the Victoria Cross for a piece of dare-devil folly—so his comrades declared—that had led to the capture of an important German position and had helped very materially to bring about one of the most brilliant of the many successes scored by the Canadians in the closing stages of the fighting.That episode seemed to mark the turning-point in the fortunes of James Mitchell. From then onward it seemed as though Fate had no gifts that were too good to be showered upon him. It was only a few weeks later that the obscure Canadian private was summoned to headquarters to receive the astounding intelligence that through a series of deaths that in fiction would have been deemed fantastic, he was a peer of the United Kingdom with a vast fortune at his disposal.Then James Mitchell, Baron Renstoke, went back to his trenches and the comrades he had learned to love to finish the work on hand.It was during the latter half of the war that James Mitchell found himself swept by chance into the strange web of mystery and adventure that surrounded the doings of Yvette Pasquet and Dick Manton. He had been detailed, quite privately and “unofficially,” to help Yvette in one of her achievements, and the clever French girl had been quick to recognise in him an assistant of more than ordinary ability. Yvette was one of those rare people who never forget, and so there came about a gradual friendship which included Dick Manton and Jules Pasquet. Yvette rejoiced unfeignedly when, after the Armistice, she learned of Mitchell’s good fortune. The friendship continued and ripened, and Yvette, Jules, and Dick Manton were staying at Renstoke Castle when a terrible stroke of malign fate cut short a career of brilliant promise and brought an ancient lineage to an end.Renstoke Castle was a wonderful old house in Argyllshire, and James Mitchell, now Lord Renstoke, was surely one of the favoured of the gods! Over six feet in height, strikingly handsome and of superb physique, wealthy and with great charm of manner, there seemed to be nothing to which he could not aspire. Despite the surroundings of his early years he had been well educated for his father, though only a Canadian farmer, had been a man of considerable culture and learning, and had seen that his son, who inherited his own intellectual gifts, had been well taught. Only the spirit of adventure had led him at twenty-one into the wild places of the world, where he saw existence from many angles, and in a rough outdoor life had brought to perfection physical powers which had been remarkable even in boyhood.He was now the last of the Renstokes. But he was still young. No one dreamed but that he would marry and that the ancient line would be continued.Then the blow fell!Through the late summer a series of mysterious attacks had been made on live stock throughout the western portion of Argyllshire. Sheep, and even deer, had been attacked, evidently by some unusually powerful animal.Sheep worrying, of course, is not an uncommon vice among dogs, and when the outbreak first started little was thought of the matter. The local farmers and shepherds merely began to watch their dogs more closely than usual. But the outbreaks continued, more and more sheep were killed, and at length the losses became so heavy that drastic steps were taken.For thirty miles around, not a dog was permitted off the chain after dusk. Bands of men armed with guns, with instructions to shoot any dog on sight, patrolled the country-side by day and night. It was all in vain. Sheep continued to perish under the teeth of the mysterious prowler, and even the smaller deer, in spite of their speed, began to fall victims.The farmers were at their wits’ ends when the mystery was suddenly lifted into the region of unadulterated horror.Alan MacPherson, a young gamekeeper, had been one of a number of men who, stretched out into a line a couple of miles long, had set out at nightfall to search a lonely piece of moorland in which it was thought the strange animal might be hiding. The line of men had gone forward on a prearranged plan for five or six miles and then “pivoted” on the right hand man, swung round and marched homeward, concentrating finally at a big farm known as Kelsie, where the losses had been very serious.The men, of course, knew the country thoroughly, and similar manoeuvres had been many times repeated without mishap. Always the last man of the line had turned up within a few minutes of the prearranged time.On this occasion MacPherson was on the extreme left wheel and, having farthest to go, should have been the last man home. No one was uneasy when it was found he was a few minutes late; he was armed and knew the country like the palm of his hand.But when the minutes slipped by without news his companions began to be anxious. Three hours passed, and, at length, a search party was hastily formed.Two hours later MacPherson’s body was found lying terribly mangled beside a big rock on the slope of a small tor. His gun, still loaded, was only three feet away. Beside the body lay a filled pipe and a box of matches. Evidently the man had laid down his gun to light his pipe and had been suddenly attacked and killed before he could raise a hand to defend himself.A few minutes later, Lord Renstoke, Yvette, Dick Manton, and Jules were on the scene. Though all were familiar with the ghastly sights of war, they found themselves in the presence of a horror which overbore all their previous experiences.Renstoke, whose experience abroad had made him familiar with many wild animals quite unknown to the others, examined the body carefully. At length he rose from his knees with a horrified expression in his eyes, and gave brief orders for the removal of the body to the unfortunate man’s home to await the inquest.But it was not until they had returned to the Castle that he spoke of what he had seen. And his first words gave his comrades a terrible shock.“No dog did that!” he said quietly, but in a tone of intense conviction.“Whatever do you mean, Renstoke?” asked Dick quickly. “What else could have done it? There are no lions or tigers about here, you know.”“Are you sure?” replied Renstoke. “I think we shall have to see Erckmann about this.” Boris Erckmann, he went on to explain, was a famous zoologist who lived in a big lonely house on the Renstoke estate some ten miles away. He had spent many years in wandering explorations in tropical countries and was known in the inner circles of science as a man of brilliant attainments. He did not advertise himself, however, living the life of a recluse, and to the general public his name meant nothing. Among his Highland neighbours, a dour people who concerned themselves very little with the affairs of other folk, little notice was taken of him. He lived at Lockie, a big house surmounted by a high wall and perched on a gaunt hill-side overlooking a lonely glen. Among his neighbours, who guessed nothing of his wonderful abilities, Erckmann passed for a harmless scientist and was affable and good-natured to those he chanced to meet during his incessant pilgrimages over the wide moorland which stretched for many miles around Lockie.“Erckmann is said to have a lot of wild animals at Lockie,” Renstoke went on to explain, “and it is possible that one of them may have broken loose. I am perfectly certain MacPherson was not killed by a dog.”“But what makes you so certain?” Dick questioned. “So far as I could see any big dog could have done it.”“Did you ever see a dog with hands, Dick?” asked Renstoke quietly.His hearers started simultaneously with a gasp of horror.“Whatever do you mean?” they asked.“Just this,” Lord Renstoke replied. “He was not killed by a dog at all. As you saw, the front of his throat was badly torn. But on the back of his neck were two distinct bruises, one on each side and nearly meeting, which suggested the mark of two thumbs, as if he had been seized from behind by two hands which clasped his neck. Now, no dog could have done that. Moreover no dog could have killed him so quickly that he never had a chance either to fight for his life or to call for help. Remember, he was an extremely powerful man and his nearest neighbour in the line was scarcely more than a hundred yards away. He was killed so suddenly and so swiftly that he had no time even to shout. I have seen many men who had been killed by wolves, bears, and cougars, but never one who had not made a fight for his life.”“But what could it have been?” asked Yvette in a horrified whisper.“There is only one animal in the world that could have done it,” replied Renstoke, “and that is a gorilla. You know the strength of the gorilla compared with that of a man is enormous. It has enormously powerful hands and teeth. A man seized unawares, as MacPherson must have been, would be dead in a few seconds; he wouldn’t have the smallest chance either to defend himself or to shout. And I happen to know, though it is not generally known, that Erckmann actually has a gorilla at Lockie. I am going over to see him after the inquest and I mean to see the gorilla as well. Erckmann is a tenant of mine, though, as it happens, I have never seen him.“But there is one thing that puzzles me,” Renstoke went on after a pause. “The sheep-killing has been going on for several months, and I don’t see where such an animal as a gorilla, assuming that it has been at large for so long, can have been hidden without being seen. But, of course, the country is very wild and there are some big woods that may have screened it during the daytime.”“What are you going to say at the inquest?” Dick asked abruptly.“Nothing at all until I know a lot more,” answered Renstoke deliberately. “Remember, we don’t know anything positively yet. I am only giving you my personal opinion.”All agreed that Renstoke’s plan was best. But they had yet to learn how far the appalling reality outstripped the horror of their suppositions.The inquest, held the following afternoon, was almost formal. There was no real evidence, of course, as to how the unfortunate man was killed, and what amounted to an open verdict was found. Neither the doctor who examined the body, nor the detectives from Glasgow who made every possible inquiry, struck the chain of reasoning which had led Renstoke to his strange theory, and it was generally assumed that MacPherson had been killed by some ferocious dog which had been lurking unseen for months in the wild country around Renstoke.Next morning all four started for Lockie. Erckmann’s house, though only ten miles away in a direct line, was at least thirty by road, and as the day was fine they decided to motor for about five miles, leave the car, and walk across country for the remainder of the distance. It was this decision which led them to the first strange clue in the solution of the terrible mystery.At the point where they left the car, the road, which had been leading westward, made an abrupt turn at the summit of a desolate hill, and stretched away southward as far as they could see. Their destination was further west, and as Dick ran the car on to the grass at the side of the road, they prepared for their tramp.They had walked some four miles over rough heather-clad country when Renstoke pointed to a big building a mile away and facing the top of the steep rise they had just breasted.“That is Lockie?” he said.For the most part, the country was dry. Below them, however, was a shallow valley, along the bottom of which a rippling burn wound its way. Descending the hill they crossed the brook and soon found themselves at a tiny bridge beside the only gateway they could see in the high stone wall, surmounted by a formidable barrier of barbed iron, which surrounded the building.In response to Renstoke’s knock the door was opened by an ill-favoured individual, evidently a foreigner, who stared at them in blank surprise.“I want to see Mr Erckmann; is he at home?” Renstoke demanded.The man made some reply in a language which neither of them understood. Renstoke repeated his question.Turning to a telephone which stood on a small table in the lodge the man spoke a few words. A moment later he signed to them to enter and conducted them to the entrance door of the big house.As they approached a big, powerfully built man, heavily bearded and wearing round horn spectacles, met them on the steps of the front door.Renstoke bowed courteously. “Mr Erckmann?” he inquired.“Yes, I am Mr Erckmann,” was the reply. “What can I do for you?”Renstoke as briefly as possible explained what had happened. Erckmann listened patiently and carefully. Only at the end of the story, when Renstoke told him quite frankly his suspicions, the man’s eyes hardened ominously and his lips tightened under his heavy grey moustache.“Yes, I have a gorilla,” he admitted. “But if you suggest that it has escaped you are quite wrong. It has never left its cage since it was brought here, quite young, six years ago. It would be a bad thing for some one if it did,” he added.“May we see it?” asked Renstoke quietly.“Yes—if you doubt my word,” snapped the scientist. He was evidently, for some reason, much annoyed and was controlling himself with obvious difficulty.During the conversation Dick had once or twice glanced at Yvette and was surprised at the fixity of the gaze she directed at Erckmann. She was regarding him almost as if fascinated, with every sign of horror and apprehension.Without further words Erckmann led the way through a small paddock to a row of cages, heavily barred with iron, which stood at the rear of the house. Before one of the strongest he halted.“There you are,” he said grimly.Inside the cage, erect on its hind legs, stood an enormous ape, shackled by a huge chain round its neck to a heavy stake driven into the ground. Nearly seven feet high, it was so horribly repulsive in its perverted likeness to humanity, that Yvette, Dick, and Jules turned away sick with disgust and horror. It snarled and chattered at the sight of the strangers.Renstoke, however, carefully examined the monster. But he soon realised that this creature had certainly not been at large, at any rate for some considerable time.The clue had failed. Whatever the truth might be it was clear the gorilla could have had no part in the terrible tragedy of Alan MacPherson.“A wonderful specimen,” said Renstoke, turning to Erckmann. “Have you had him long?”“About six years,” the scientist replied. “Would you like to see what it can do?” Without waiting for a reply, he spoke softly to the raging beast in some language the others did not understand.Instantly the brute calmed down, shuffled to the bars of the cage and laid its head on the ground close to where Erckmann was standing. It was just as though a dog were fawning on its master. Erckmann fearlessly thrust a hand between the bars and scratched the repulsive head while the great ape lay with closed eyes evidently in keen enjoyment of the sensation.Still talking quietly in the strange language, Erckmann put the beast through a number of tricks which it performed, clumsily, of course, but with obvious understanding of what was required of it. It was, as Renstoke realised, a wonderful example of animal training, for the gorilla is perhaps the most intractable of all living animals.“Perhaps as you are here you would like to see the rest of my menagerie,” said Erckmann, as he led the way to a series of cages adjoining.They gazed in astonishment at what they saw. There was a superb tiger, several leopards of different species, and at least a dozen wolves. The animals were all clean and well cared for and it was obvious at a glance that none of them could have been wandering for an indefinite period about the country.“I hope you are satisfied, Lord Renstoke,” said Erckmann at last, “that none of my pets is responsible for what has happened?”“Quite,” replied Renstoke. “And I am sorry we had to trouble you. But I am sure you will understand why I came. The affair is so mysterious that I could not leave any possibility unexplored.” Erckmann had puzzled them all. The man was perfectly courteous and apparently quite open in his replies to their questions. None the less all sensed that he was ill at ease and that he quite certainly resented their intrusion.Yvette, more sensitive and keenly strung than the others, shuddered violently as they left the house.“That man is bad, all bad,” she declared vehemently. “He has the eyes of the snake.” She had put into words what all had felt, yet had been half ashamed to confess. There was something repulsively snake-like in the steady glare of Erckmann’s eyes behind the thick round glasses.“I confess I feel like Yvette,” said Dick, “the man gave me the creeps.”Renstoke looked grave.“He didn’t strike me as being quite aboveboard,” he admitted. “At the same time, I don’t see what he has to conceal. All the cages were occupied and it is certain none of the animals had been loose recently, and if one had broken out there is no reason why he should not say so. But he may have another ape which he has not shown us?”They walked a few hundred yards in silence until they had got to the bottom of the hill and approached the little burn that ran down the valley. There was no path, and as chance would have it, they deviated a few yards from the way along which they had come. They were crossing the brook when Yvette gave a slight exclamation.“Oh, look here,” she said.The bed of the burn was stony throughout, but at one point, at the very edge of the water was a tiny patch of sand, smooth and firm and hardly larger than a handkerchief. Yvette pointed to it.There, sharply and clearly defined, was the unmistakable imprint of a naked, misshapen foot! It was human beyond all question. It pointed in the direction of the house they had just left, and it was dear that the barefooted walker, whoever he may have been, had stepped from the heather just on to the patch of firm sand and been carried by his next stride through and beyond the rivulet on to the heather and stones where no footprints would remain. By some strange chance that one tell-tale footprint had been left in perhaps the only square foot of ground for miles where an impression could be left!They examined the footprint with eager curiosity. Evidently the walker, or rather runner, had come fast down the hill, for the front part of the foot was driven deeply into the sand while the heel was only just showing.“He must have been running,” said Renstoke, “and what kind of man could run over such a country as this?”The question was natural, for the heather grew thick and deep round there and they had found walking difficult enough; running would have been out of the question for any of them.They were puzzled by the strange footprint, but how little they guessed that it held the key to the terrible tragedy of Renstoke!Late that night, Renstoke, Dick, and Jules sat yarning in the great old drawing-room at the Castle. The night was close and sultry, with a threat of thunder in the air, and the big French windows which opened on to the spreading lawn were flung wide.They were discussing Erckmann.“I didn’t like him,” said Renstoke, “though it is recognised that he possesses genius in a marked degree.”“Oh! You’ve heard something then?” asked Dick quickly.“Yes. The general public know nothing of him, but I hear that he has an amazing theory that it is possible, by an operation on the brain, to abolish almost entirely the ordinary characteristics of a man or an animal, and by the injection of an appropriate serum to substitute the mental, and to some extent the physical, characteristics of another species. He believes that you can, for instance, take a puppy-dog, operate on its brain, inject a serum prepared in some way from the brain of a monkey, and the puppy will grow up with the mentality and habits of a monkey and with its bodily characteristics so transformed that it can do many things—such, for instance, as climb a tree—which no dog could do. I believe he has actually succeeded in doing this!”“How weird and extraordinary!” remarked Yvette.“More than this, he believes you could do the same with a human being—destroy its human attributes and give it, for example, the ferocity, and something of the speed, of a wolf or a tiger.”“How on earth did you learn this, Renstoke?” asked Dick.“From perhaps the only person who ever knew Erckmann really well,” was the reply. “Some years ago Erckmann was the resident doctor at a lunatic asylum in Prague. He made a particular crony of his chief assistant, a young doctor named Chatry, who afterwards went to Canada, where I met him. Chatry told me something of Erckmann’s views and experiments. I was, of course, tremendously interested, but I little thought I should ever run against the man in the flesh. Erckmann was undoubtedly a very able man, but there was a scandal. On some pretext or other he performed a remarkable operation on an insane person. The patient, who had previously been quite tractable, developed extraordinary characteristics. He growled and snapped at all who approached him, insisted on eating his food on the floor instead of at table, barked like a dog, and finally would only sleep curled up on a rug. In fact, he developed strikingly dog-like habits. How much of anything Erckmann let out generally Chatry never knew. But he was asked to resign, and he left Prague.”“A very curious story!” Dick remarked.“Now Chatry had no doubt whatever on the subject,” said his host. “Amazing as it may seem, he was firmly convinced that Erckmann had deliberately made this extraordinary experiment and that it had succeeded. Chatry died just before I left Canada, but before he died, he gave me a little manuscript book in which he has related the whole story. I’ll show it to you to-morrow.”They said good-night and went to bed, leaving Renstoke, who sometimes suffered from insomnia, to read himself sleepy.It was about two o’clock when Dick, who was a light sleeper, was roused by a shout for help, apparently from the drawing-room which was directly below his bedroom. Instantly he sprang out of bed, and snatching up a revolver, rushed downstairs.But he was just too late.As he entered the brilliantly lighted drawing-room he caught sight through the open window of a heavy misshapen body disappearing into the gloom beyond the bright patch of light cast by the electric lamps on the lawn outside.Renstoke lay on his back on the floor, dying beside his favourite chair. Close by was the book he had been reading and on the carpet near it was his pipe, the tobacco still smouldering.Dick knelt hastily by the side of his friend and sought frantically to revive him. But it was in vain. The young peer died in his arms. It was evident that he had been attacked without the slightest warning, and mercilessly strangled.And in the side of his throat, just above the jugular vein, was a deep wound, horribly lacerated, from which the blood flowed in a heavy stream.The Castle was speedily aroused, and in a few minutes half a dozen men were busily searching the surrounding country. But it was in vain—the mysterious assailant of the unfortunate Lord Renstoke had vanished completely.The following day Dick, Jules, and Yvette, almost overcome with grief, were discussing the loss of their friend.“There is some devilry at work,” Dick declared. “And I shall never rest till it is cleared up, if I spend the rest of my life here.”Yvette burst into a furious philippic against Erckmann. “That man is at the bottom of it all,” she insisted.“But, Yvette,” Dick remonstrated, “we have no kind of evidence of that.”“I don’t care,” she replied vehemently, “Erckmann knows all about it. I should like to choke it out of him,” she ended viciously in French.“Well,” said Jules, “we can’t go to Lockie and accuse him. How about trying a trap of some kind?”“We might do it in that way,” Dick admitted. “But what kind of trap?”Long and eagerly they discussed the matter, and at length a plan was evolved.The next morning brought them a visit from Inspector Buckman, one of the ablest men of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard, to whom, utterly baffled, the police had very wisely applied for help. He was well known to all of them as a keen, capable man of infinite resource and undaunted courage.Buckman listened closely while Dick ran over the story, putting in a keen question here and there.“We have got to keep the real facts quiet,” he said at length. “Erckmann must not suspect that we have the smallest inkling of the evidence of Lord Renstoke’s death. I will fix that up with the coroner.”It was an easy matter. Renstoke Castle was a remote spot, and while the affair, of course, could not be entirely concealed, it was a simple matter to keep the exact details secret. All the public learned was that Lord Renstoke had been attacked and murdered presumably by a burglar for whom a close search was being made.But behind all and working in secret the keen brains of Dick, Yvette, Jules, and Buckman were busy.Two or three nights later the word went round to the scattered farms that every single head of stock was to be driven in to the farms and rigidly confined in the buildings from dusk to daybreak. So far as they could ensure it not a single living thing was at large.Dick’s trap was arranged on the hill-side a mile from Renstoke.Four inches above the ground, in a circle fifty yards in diameter, ran a thin electric wire supported at intervals on small insulated posts. Just inside the circle, on the side away from Renstoke, a sheep was tethered to a strong stake. In the centre of the circle from a tall pole hung a powerful magnesium flash, electrically connected so that it would be at once exploded by any pressure on the encircling wire, and momentarily light up with day-time brilliance a large patch of the surrounding country.As dusk fell, Dick, Yvette, Jules, and Buckman carefully crossed the wire and took up their positions in the centre of the circle, lying full length in the sheltering heather, and each with a revolver ready to hand. In a leash beside Dick lay Spot, his favourite Airedale, who could be trusted to give warning of the approach of any intruder, and afterwards to track him remorselessly.As the leaden moments dragged by it grew darker and darker until the country-side was plunged in pitch blackness. The strain on the watchers was terrific. They could not smoke or talk, they hardly dared to move.Hour after hour dragged by. Midnight passed. Dick, half asleep, was gently stroking the back of the Airedale.Suddenly he felt the animal stiffen, and the hair along its back bristled ominously. A moment later the dog gave a low, half-audible growl and rose to its feet. Instantly the party were keenly alert.Dick clapped his hand over the dog’s muzzle, and the well-trained animal subsided into silence. But Dick could feel that it was strainingly alert; obviously it sensed an intruder.Keenly at attention, with every faculty strained to the utmost, the silent watchers heard not a sound. But a few moments later there was a vicious snap in the air above them as the magnesium flash exploded, turning the inky blackness for a fraction of a second into a blaze of dazzling light.In that brief outburst of radiance the four caught a glimpse of a horror that photographed itself indelibly on their memories.Twenty-five yards away a bestial, hideous face loomed out in the glare of light. It was the epitome of all things evil, with wild matted hair, staring eyes and a horrible misshapen mouth drawn back in a snarl which showed two rows of monstrous teeth. The body they could not see. Apparently the creature was crouching in the heather so that only its ghastly head was visible.Had it been a wild animal not one of the four, their nerves steel-hardened by the war, would have felt a tremor. But that ghastly face, vile and brutal as it was, was unmistakably human, and for an instant the watchers were paralysed with uncontrollable terror.But it was only for a moment.Four revolver shots rang out almost simultaneously, fired in the darkness at the spot where the apparition had appeared. A crackling volley followed as the four automatics were emptied. Almost with the last shot came a howl of mingled rage and pain from the darkness. Evidently a bullet had got home.A few moments later Dick, with Spot barking madly and tugging wildly at his leash, had plunged into the blackness in hot pursuit at the fiendish intruder. Close behind him came Yvette, Jules, and Buckman.The hunt had begun!Of that wild dash across country in the darkness Dick afterwards remembered but little. Spot plunged ahead without hesitation and Dick followed, intent only on making the best speed possible and careless of constant falls as he stumbled blindly along. He dared not loose the dog, for without it he would have been helpless, and he plunged blindly forward, his reloaded pistol grasped in his right hand, careless of himself and intent only on overtaking the horror which he knew lay somewhere ahead of him. Behind him toiled the others, guided by Spot’s frantic barks.Progress, of course, was slow; falls and stumbles every few moments checked the pace; the darkness was baffling. It was with feelings of intense relief that Dick at length saw the silvery edge of the moon lifting itself above the hills behind him. He had lost all sense of direction, but the moon rising behind him told him he was travelling westward.Half an hour later the country was bathed in soft light and Dick was able to pick up his bearings. Suddenly he realised with a shock that he was heading straight for Lockie!Dick halted to let the others come up. Without being afraid he felt instinctively that something terrible lay ahead of them and that for safety’s sake it were best that they should be together.They were a sorry-looking party—hatless, their clothes torn, their faces and hands bruised and scratched by constant falls, almost exhausted by their tremendous efforts. But none of them thought of giving up the chase.For another mile they pushed onward, making better progress in the growing moonlight.Suddenly Buckman gave a tremendous shout. “Look there!” he roared, pointing to a low hill which ran across their path.Not five hundred yards away, on the top of the rise and clearly silhouetted against the sky, they caught a glimpse of a monstrous figure which, even as they looked, vanished over the crest and was gone. It was, unmistakably, a man of giant stature! It moved stiffly as though in pain; evidently one of the shots fired in the trap had got home.They hurried on. When they reached the crest of the rise Lockie lay before them, and they could see the monstrous figure crossing a tiny stream in the valley below.They were gaining rapidly now. Dawn was breaking and the cold pale light allowed them a dear view.The creature ahead of them was toiling painfully up the slope which led to Lockie. Suddenly a man issued from the house. It was Erckmann and in his hand he carried a formidable whip.Less than two hundred yards away Dick and his companions halted spellbound. In some mysterious fashion they realised that they were to witness the last act in the terrible drama.The end came swiftly. More and more slowly, almost crawling at last, the strange creature approached Erckmann and at length, evidently utterly exhausted, collapsed at his feet in a heap.They heard the scientist shout something unintelligible. Then he raised his heavy whip and struck with fearful force at the unfortunate thing which lay before him.It was a fatal mistake. With the speed of lightning the misshapen heap on the ground flashed into furious activity. All the horrified spectators saw was an instantaneous leap and a brief struggle, and Erckmann and the Thing locked in a deadly grapple and then drop motionless.Dick covered the last hundred yards in a furious dash. But he was too late. Erckmann lay dead, with his adversary dead on top of him. The zoologist had been killed almost instantly by the grip of two large hands that still encircled his neck in a vice-like clutch, and in his throat the misshapen fangs of the creature were still buried deeply. Only with infinite trouble was the body of the scientist freed from that deadly grapple, and they were able to examine the monster that had spread terror and death through Argyllshire.Unmistakably the body was that of a man, but incredibly dehumanised and ape-like. The muscular development was tremendous; the hands and arms were knotted masses of titanic muscle. But the crowning horror was the face—low-browed, flat-nosed, with a tremendous jaw and long pointed teeth, utterly unlike anything human. The body, stark naked, was covered thickly with hair and in the side was a terrible wound evidently made by the impact of a soft-nosed bullet from one of the automatic pistols. No normal human being could have survived it for more than a few minutes.It was only later, when they searched Lockie, that they realised fully that Erckmann had fallen a victim to a monster he had himself created. His diaries proved that Chatry had spoken the truth. They were a repellent but horribly fascinating account of his experiments. Of the results he had written in a wealth of detail, but of the process he employed there was not even a hint. That awful secret he had kept to himself, and had taken with him to his grave.They found that he had, as Chatry had said, taken a human being, obviously of low mental development—possibly an asylum patient—and practically, by some devilish discovery, converted it into a human ape, endowed with the blood-lust of the tiger. But whether the fearful creature was capable of receiving and acting upon instructions, or whether Erckmann simply let it loose to follow its terrible instincts until the “homing” instinct brought it back they never learned.Of Lockie, the police decided to make a clean sweep. The animals were shot and the half-dozen evil-looking foreign servants were paid off and sent to their homes, mostly in the wilder parts of Transylvania. They one and all refused to say a word. Whatever they were, they were at least faithful to their dead master.Then, in the magnificent chemical laboratory with which the house was equipped, Dick, who found himself Renstoke’s sole executor, easily arranged an “accident.” Fire broke out, there was no help for miles around and in a couple of hours the ill-omened house was a heap of ashes. The Spectre of Lockie had been finally laid.
Many readers will recall the tragedy of Renstoke Castle and the terrible death of young Lord Renstoke. The case aroused much sensation at the time. It would have aroused far more had the real facts been allowed to transpire.
They were known, however, to only a few people, and, for reasons which were at the time sufficient, they were kept secret. I am now able to lift the veil which shrouded one of the most perplexing mysteries which has ever puzzled the scientific world. Even now, the story is not complete; the great secret died with the amazing but perverted genius who discovered it.
Lord Renstoke, a young man only thirty, was one of those favoured individuals on whom Fortune seemed to have showered all her gifts. Born and brought up in Canada, he was connected only very remotely with the ancient family of Renstoke, and no one ever dreamed that he could by any possibility succeed to the title, which carried with it Renstoke Castle and a rent-roll of something like a hundred thousand pounds a year.
James Mitchell, as Lord Renstoke was before he succeeded to the title, had left a lumber camp in Upper Canada when the call of the Great War brought Britishers from all the wild places of the world to join the colours. He served as a private in one of the Canadian Regiments, rapidly winning his way upward, and finally being awarded the Victoria Cross for a piece of dare-devil folly—so his comrades declared—that had led to the capture of an important German position and had helped very materially to bring about one of the most brilliant of the many successes scored by the Canadians in the closing stages of the fighting.
That episode seemed to mark the turning-point in the fortunes of James Mitchell. From then onward it seemed as though Fate had no gifts that were too good to be showered upon him. It was only a few weeks later that the obscure Canadian private was summoned to headquarters to receive the astounding intelligence that through a series of deaths that in fiction would have been deemed fantastic, he was a peer of the United Kingdom with a vast fortune at his disposal.
Then James Mitchell, Baron Renstoke, went back to his trenches and the comrades he had learned to love to finish the work on hand.
It was during the latter half of the war that James Mitchell found himself swept by chance into the strange web of mystery and adventure that surrounded the doings of Yvette Pasquet and Dick Manton. He had been detailed, quite privately and “unofficially,” to help Yvette in one of her achievements, and the clever French girl had been quick to recognise in him an assistant of more than ordinary ability. Yvette was one of those rare people who never forget, and so there came about a gradual friendship which included Dick Manton and Jules Pasquet. Yvette rejoiced unfeignedly when, after the Armistice, she learned of Mitchell’s good fortune. The friendship continued and ripened, and Yvette, Jules, and Dick Manton were staying at Renstoke Castle when a terrible stroke of malign fate cut short a career of brilliant promise and brought an ancient lineage to an end.
Renstoke Castle was a wonderful old house in Argyllshire, and James Mitchell, now Lord Renstoke, was surely one of the favoured of the gods! Over six feet in height, strikingly handsome and of superb physique, wealthy and with great charm of manner, there seemed to be nothing to which he could not aspire. Despite the surroundings of his early years he had been well educated for his father, though only a Canadian farmer, had been a man of considerable culture and learning, and had seen that his son, who inherited his own intellectual gifts, had been well taught. Only the spirit of adventure had led him at twenty-one into the wild places of the world, where he saw existence from many angles, and in a rough outdoor life had brought to perfection physical powers which had been remarkable even in boyhood.
He was now the last of the Renstokes. But he was still young. No one dreamed but that he would marry and that the ancient line would be continued.
Then the blow fell!
Through the late summer a series of mysterious attacks had been made on live stock throughout the western portion of Argyllshire. Sheep, and even deer, had been attacked, evidently by some unusually powerful animal.
Sheep worrying, of course, is not an uncommon vice among dogs, and when the outbreak first started little was thought of the matter. The local farmers and shepherds merely began to watch their dogs more closely than usual. But the outbreaks continued, more and more sheep were killed, and at length the losses became so heavy that drastic steps were taken.
For thirty miles around, not a dog was permitted off the chain after dusk. Bands of men armed with guns, with instructions to shoot any dog on sight, patrolled the country-side by day and night. It was all in vain. Sheep continued to perish under the teeth of the mysterious prowler, and even the smaller deer, in spite of their speed, began to fall victims.
The farmers were at their wits’ ends when the mystery was suddenly lifted into the region of unadulterated horror.
Alan MacPherson, a young gamekeeper, had been one of a number of men who, stretched out into a line a couple of miles long, had set out at nightfall to search a lonely piece of moorland in which it was thought the strange animal might be hiding. The line of men had gone forward on a prearranged plan for five or six miles and then “pivoted” on the right hand man, swung round and marched homeward, concentrating finally at a big farm known as Kelsie, where the losses had been very serious.
The men, of course, knew the country thoroughly, and similar manoeuvres had been many times repeated without mishap. Always the last man of the line had turned up within a few minutes of the prearranged time.
On this occasion MacPherson was on the extreme left wheel and, having farthest to go, should have been the last man home. No one was uneasy when it was found he was a few minutes late; he was armed and knew the country like the palm of his hand.
But when the minutes slipped by without news his companions began to be anxious. Three hours passed, and, at length, a search party was hastily formed.
Two hours later MacPherson’s body was found lying terribly mangled beside a big rock on the slope of a small tor. His gun, still loaded, was only three feet away. Beside the body lay a filled pipe and a box of matches. Evidently the man had laid down his gun to light his pipe and had been suddenly attacked and killed before he could raise a hand to defend himself.
A few minutes later, Lord Renstoke, Yvette, Dick Manton, and Jules were on the scene. Though all were familiar with the ghastly sights of war, they found themselves in the presence of a horror which overbore all their previous experiences.
Renstoke, whose experience abroad had made him familiar with many wild animals quite unknown to the others, examined the body carefully. At length he rose from his knees with a horrified expression in his eyes, and gave brief orders for the removal of the body to the unfortunate man’s home to await the inquest.
But it was not until they had returned to the Castle that he spoke of what he had seen. And his first words gave his comrades a terrible shock.
“No dog did that!” he said quietly, but in a tone of intense conviction.
“Whatever do you mean, Renstoke?” asked Dick quickly. “What else could have done it? There are no lions or tigers about here, you know.”
“Are you sure?” replied Renstoke. “I think we shall have to see Erckmann about this.” Boris Erckmann, he went on to explain, was a famous zoologist who lived in a big lonely house on the Renstoke estate some ten miles away. He had spent many years in wandering explorations in tropical countries and was known in the inner circles of science as a man of brilliant attainments. He did not advertise himself, however, living the life of a recluse, and to the general public his name meant nothing. Among his Highland neighbours, a dour people who concerned themselves very little with the affairs of other folk, little notice was taken of him. He lived at Lockie, a big house surmounted by a high wall and perched on a gaunt hill-side overlooking a lonely glen. Among his neighbours, who guessed nothing of his wonderful abilities, Erckmann passed for a harmless scientist and was affable and good-natured to those he chanced to meet during his incessant pilgrimages over the wide moorland which stretched for many miles around Lockie.
“Erckmann is said to have a lot of wild animals at Lockie,” Renstoke went on to explain, “and it is possible that one of them may have broken loose. I am perfectly certain MacPherson was not killed by a dog.”
“But what makes you so certain?” Dick questioned. “So far as I could see any big dog could have done it.”
“Did you ever see a dog with hands, Dick?” asked Renstoke quietly.
His hearers started simultaneously with a gasp of horror.
“Whatever do you mean?” they asked.
“Just this,” Lord Renstoke replied. “He was not killed by a dog at all. As you saw, the front of his throat was badly torn. But on the back of his neck were two distinct bruises, one on each side and nearly meeting, which suggested the mark of two thumbs, as if he had been seized from behind by two hands which clasped his neck. Now, no dog could have done that. Moreover no dog could have killed him so quickly that he never had a chance either to fight for his life or to call for help. Remember, he was an extremely powerful man and his nearest neighbour in the line was scarcely more than a hundred yards away. He was killed so suddenly and so swiftly that he had no time even to shout. I have seen many men who had been killed by wolves, bears, and cougars, but never one who had not made a fight for his life.”
“But what could it have been?” asked Yvette in a horrified whisper.
“There is only one animal in the world that could have done it,” replied Renstoke, “and that is a gorilla. You know the strength of the gorilla compared with that of a man is enormous. It has enormously powerful hands and teeth. A man seized unawares, as MacPherson must have been, would be dead in a few seconds; he wouldn’t have the smallest chance either to defend himself or to shout. And I happen to know, though it is not generally known, that Erckmann actually has a gorilla at Lockie. I am going over to see him after the inquest and I mean to see the gorilla as well. Erckmann is a tenant of mine, though, as it happens, I have never seen him.
“But there is one thing that puzzles me,” Renstoke went on after a pause. “The sheep-killing has been going on for several months, and I don’t see where such an animal as a gorilla, assuming that it has been at large for so long, can have been hidden without being seen. But, of course, the country is very wild and there are some big woods that may have screened it during the daytime.”
“What are you going to say at the inquest?” Dick asked abruptly.
“Nothing at all until I know a lot more,” answered Renstoke deliberately. “Remember, we don’t know anything positively yet. I am only giving you my personal opinion.”
All agreed that Renstoke’s plan was best. But they had yet to learn how far the appalling reality outstripped the horror of their suppositions.
The inquest, held the following afternoon, was almost formal. There was no real evidence, of course, as to how the unfortunate man was killed, and what amounted to an open verdict was found. Neither the doctor who examined the body, nor the detectives from Glasgow who made every possible inquiry, struck the chain of reasoning which had led Renstoke to his strange theory, and it was generally assumed that MacPherson had been killed by some ferocious dog which had been lurking unseen for months in the wild country around Renstoke.
Next morning all four started for Lockie. Erckmann’s house, though only ten miles away in a direct line, was at least thirty by road, and as the day was fine they decided to motor for about five miles, leave the car, and walk across country for the remainder of the distance. It was this decision which led them to the first strange clue in the solution of the terrible mystery.
At the point where they left the car, the road, which had been leading westward, made an abrupt turn at the summit of a desolate hill, and stretched away southward as far as they could see. Their destination was further west, and as Dick ran the car on to the grass at the side of the road, they prepared for their tramp.
They had walked some four miles over rough heather-clad country when Renstoke pointed to a big building a mile away and facing the top of the steep rise they had just breasted.
“That is Lockie?” he said.
For the most part, the country was dry. Below them, however, was a shallow valley, along the bottom of which a rippling burn wound its way. Descending the hill they crossed the brook and soon found themselves at a tiny bridge beside the only gateway they could see in the high stone wall, surmounted by a formidable barrier of barbed iron, which surrounded the building.
In response to Renstoke’s knock the door was opened by an ill-favoured individual, evidently a foreigner, who stared at them in blank surprise.
“I want to see Mr Erckmann; is he at home?” Renstoke demanded.
The man made some reply in a language which neither of them understood. Renstoke repeated his question.
Turning to a telephone which stood on a small table in the lodge the man spoke a few words. A moment later he signed to them to enter and conducted them to the entrance door of the big house.
As they approached a big, powerfully built man, heavily bearded and wearing round horn spectacles, met them on the steps of the front door.
Renstoke bowed courteously. “Mr Erckmann?” he inquired.
“Yes, I am Mr Erckmann,” was the reply. “What can I do for you?”
Renstoke as briefly as possible explained what had happened. Erckmann listened patiently and carefully. Only at the end of the story, when Renstoke told him quite frankly his suspicions, the man’s eyes hardened ominously and his lips tightened under his heavy grey moustache.
“Yes, I have a gorilla,” he admitted. “But if you suggest that it has escaped you are quite wrong. It has never left its cage since it was brought here, quite young, six years ago. It would be a bad thing for some one if it did,” he added.
“May we see it?” asked Renstoke quietly.
“Yes—if you doubt my word,” snapped the scientist. He was evidently, for some reason, much annoyed and was controlling himself with obvious difficulty.
During the conversation Dick had once or twice glanced at Yvette and was surprised at the fixity of the gaze she directed at Erckmann. She was regarding him almost as if fascinated, with every sign of horror and apprehension.
Without further words Erckmann led the way through a small paddock to a row of cages, heavily barred with iron, which stood at the rear of the house. Before one of the strongest he halted.
“There you are,” he said grimly.
Inside the cage, erect on its hind legs, stood an enormous ape, shackled by a huge chain round its neck to a heavy stake driven into the ground. Nearly seven feet high, it was so horribly repulsive in its perverted likeness to humanity, that Yvette, Dick, and Jules turned away sick with disgust and horror. It snarled and chattered at the sight of the strangers.
Renstoke, however, carefully examined the monster. But he soon realised that this creature had certainly not been at large, at any rate for some considerable time.
The clue had failed. Whatever the truth might be it was clear the gorilla could have had no part in the terrible tragedy of Alan MacPherson.
“A wonderful specimen,” said Renstoke, turning to Erckmann. “Have you had him long?”
“About six years,” the scientist replied. “Would you like to see what it can do?” Without waiting for a reply, he spoke softly to the raging beast in some language the others did not understand.
Instantly the brute calmed down, shuffled to the bars of the cage and laid its head on the ground close to where Erckmann was standing. It was just as though a dog were fawning on its master. Erckmann fearlessly thrust a hand between the bars and scratched the repulsive head while the great ape lay with closed eyes evidently in keen enjoyment of the sensation.
Still talking quietly in the strange language, Erckmann put the beast through a number of tricks which it performed, clumsily, of course, but with obvious understanding of what was required of it. It was, as Renstoke realised, a wonderful example of animal training, for the gorilla is perhaps the most intractable of all living animals.
“Perhaps as you are here you would like to see the rest of my menagerie,” said Erckmann, as he led the way to a series of cages adjoining.
They gazed in astonishment at what they saw. There was a superb tiger, several leopards of different species, and at least a dozen wolves. The animals were all clean and well cared for and it was obvious at a glance that none of them could have been wandering for an indefinite period about the country.
“I hope you are satisfied, Lord Renstoke,” said Erckmann at last, “that none of my pets is responsible for what has happened?”
“Quite,” replied Renstoke. “And I am sorry we had to trouble you. But I am sure you will understand why I came. The affair is so mysterious that I could not leave any possibility unexplored.” Erckmann had puzzled them all. The man was perfectly courteous and apparently quite open in his replies to their questions. None the less all sensed that he was ill at ease and that he quite certainly resented their intrusion.
Yvette, more sensitive and keenly strung than the others, shuddered violently as they left the house.
“That man is bad, all bad,” she declared vehemently. “He has the eyes of the snake.” She had put into words what all had felt, yet had been half ashamed to confess. There was something repulsively snake-like in the steady glare of Erckmann’s eyes behind the thick round glasses.
“I confess I feel like Yvette,” said Dick, “the man gave me the creeps.”
Renstoke looked grave.
“He didn’t strike me as being quite aboveboard,” he admitted. “At the same time, I don’t see what he has to conceal. All the cages were occupied and it is certain none of the animals had been loose recently, and if one had broken out there is no reason why he should not say so. But he may have another ape which he has not shown us?”
They walked a few hundred yards in silence until they had got to the bottom of the hill and approached the little burn that ran down the valley. There was no path, and as chance would have it, they deviated a few yards from the way along which they had come. They were crossing the brook when Yvette gave a slight exclamation.
“Oh, look here,” she said.
The bed of the burn was stony throughout, but at one point, at the very edge of the water was a tiny patch of sand, smooth and firm and hardly larger than a handkerchief. Yvette pointed to it.
There, sharply and clearly defined, was the unmistakable imprint of a naked, misshapen foot! It was human beyond all question. It pointed in the direction of the house they had just left, and it was dear that the barefooted walker, whoever he may have been, had stepped from the heather just on to the patch of firm sand and been carried by his next stride through and beyond the rivulet on to the heather and stones where no footprints would remain. By some strange chance that one tell-tale footprint had been left in perhaps the only square foot of ground for miles where an impression could be left!
They examined the footprint with eager curiosity. Evidently the walker, or rather runner, had come fast down the hill, for the front part of the foot was driven deeply into the sand while the heel was only just showing.
“He must have been running,” said Renstoke, “and what kind of man could run over such a country as this?”
The question was natural, for the heather grew thick and deep round there and they had found walking difficult enough; running would have been out of the question for any of them.
They were puzzled by the strange footprint, but how little they guessed that it held the key to the terrible tragedy of Renstoke!
Late that night, Renstoke, Dick, and Jules sat yarning in the great old drawing-room at the Castle. The night was close and sultry, with a threat of thunder in the air, and the big French windows which opened on to the spreading lawn were flung wide.
They were discussing Erckmann.
“I didn’t like him,” said Renstoke, “though it is recognised that he possesses genius in a marked degree.”
“Oh! You’ve heard something then?” asked Dick quickly.
“Yes. The general public know nothing of him, but I hear that he has an amazing theory that it is possible, by an operation on the brain, to abolish almost entirely the ordinary characteristics of a man or an animal, and by the injection of an appropriate serum to substitute the mental, and to some extent the physical, characteristics of another species. He believes that you can, for instance, take a puppy-dog, operate on its brain, inject a serum prepared in some way from the brain of a monkey, and the puppy will grow up with the mentality and habits of a monkey and with its bodily characteristics so transformed that it can do many things—such, for instance, as climb a tree—which no dog could do. I believe he has actually succeeded in doing this!”
“How weird and extraordinary!” remarked Yvette.
“More than this, he believes you could do the same with a human being—destroy its human attributes and give it, for example, the ferocity, and something of the speed, of a wolf or a tiger.”
“How on earth did you learn this, Renstoke?” asked Dick.
“From perhaps the only person who ever knew Erckmann really well,” was the reply. “Some years ago Erckmann was the resident doctor at a lunatic asylum in Prague. He made a particular crony of his chief assistant, a young doctor named Chatry, who afterwards went to Canada, where I met him. Chatry told me something of Erckmann’s views and experiments. I was, of course, tremendously interested, but I little thought I should ever run against the man in the flesh. Erckmann was undoubtedly a very able man, but there was a scandal. On some pretext or other he performed a remarkable operation on an insane person. The patient, who had previously been quite tractable, developed extraordinary characteristics. He growled and snapped at all who approached him, insisted on eating his food on the floor instead of at table, barked like a dog, and finally would only sleep curled up on a rug. In fact, he developed strikingly dog-like habits. How much of anything Erckmann let out generally Chatry never knew. But he was asked to resign, and he left Prague.”
“A very curious story!” Dick remarked.
“Now Chatry had no doubt whatever on the subject,” said his host. “Amazing as it may seem, he was firmly convinced that Erckmann had deliberately made this extraordinary experiment and that it had succeeded. Chatry died just before I left Canada, but before he died, he gave me a little manuscript book in which he has related the whole story. I’ll show it to you to-morrow.”
They said good-night and went to bed, leaving Renstoke, who sometimes suffered from insomnia, to read himself sleepy.
It was about two o’clock when Dick, who was a light sleeper, was roused by a shout for help, apparently from the drawing-room which was directly below his bedroom. Instantly he sprang out of bed, and snatching up a revolver, rushed downstairs.
But he was just too late.
As he entered the brilliantly lighted drawing-room he caught sight through the open window of a heavy misshapen body disappearing into the gloom beyond the bright patch of light cast by the electric lamps on the lawn outside.
Renstoke lay on his back on the floor, dying beside his favourite chair. Close by was the book he had been reading and on the carpet near it was his pipe, the tobacco still smouldering.
Dick knelt hastily by the side of his friend and sought frantically to revive him. But it was in vain. The young peer died in his arms. It was evident that he had been attacked without the slightest warning, and mercilessly strangled.
And in the side of his throat, just above the jugular vein, was a deep wound, horribly lacerated, from which the blood flowed in a heavy stream.
The Castle was speedily aroused, and in a few minutes half a dozen men were busily searching the surrounding country. But it was in vain—the mysterious assailant of the unfortunate Lord Renstoke had vanished completely.
The following day Dick, Jules, and Yvette, almost overcome with grief, were discussing the loss of their friend.
“There is some devilry at work,” Dick declared. “And I shall never rest till it is cleared up, if I spend the rest of my life here.”
Yvette burst into a furious philippic against Erckmann. “That man is at the bottom of it all,” she insisted.
“But, Yvette,” Dick remonstrated, “we have no kind of evidence of that.”
“I don’t care,” she replied vehemently, “Erckmann knows all about it. I should like to choke it out of him,” she ended viciously in French.
“Well,” said Jules, “we can’t go to Lockie and accuse him. How about trying a trap of some kind?”
“We might do it in that way,” Dick admitted. “But what kind of trap?”
Long and eagerly they discussed the matter, and at length a plan was evolved.
The next morning brought them a visit from Inspector Buckman, one of the ablest men of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard, to whom, utterly baffled, the police had very wisely applied for help. He was well known to all of them as a keen, capable man of infinite resource and undaunted courage.
Buckman listened closely while Dick ran over the story, putting in a keen question here and there.
“We have got to keep the real facts quiet,” he said at length. “Erckmann must not suspect that we have the smallest inkling of the evidence of Lord Renstoke’s death. I will fix that up with the coroner.”
It was an easy matter. Renstoke Castle was a remote spot, and while the affair, of course, could not be entirely concealed, it was a simple matter to keep the exact details secret. All the public learned was that Lord Renstoke had been attacked and murdered presumably by a burglar for whom a close search was being made.
But behind all and working in secret the keen brains of Dick, Yvette, Jules, and Buckman were busy.
Two or three nights later the word went round to the scattered farms that every single head of stock was to be driven in to the farms and rigidly confined in the buildings from dusk to daybreak. So far as they could ensure it not a single living thing was at large.
Dick’s trap was arranged on the hill-side a mile from Renstoke.
Four inches above the ground, in a circle fifty yards in diameter, ran a thin electric wire supported at intervals on small insulated posts. Just inside the circle, on the side away from Renstoke, a sheep was tethered to a strong stake. In the centre of the circle from a tall pole hung a powerful magnesium flash, electrically connected so that it would be at once exploded by any pressure on the encircling wire, and momentarily light up with day-time brilliance a large patch of the surrounding country.
As dusk fell, Dick, Yvette, Jules, and Buckman carefully crossed the wire and took up their positions in the centre of the circle, lying full length in the sheltering heather, and each with a revolver ready to hand. In a leash beside Dick lay Spot, his favourite Airedale, who could be trusted to give warning of the approach of any intruder, and afterwards to track him remorselessly.
As the leaden moments dragged by it grew darker and darker until the country-side was plunged in pitch blackness. The strain on the watchers was terrific. They could not smoke or talk, they hardly dared to move.
Hour after hour dragged by. Midnight passed. Dick, half asleep, was gently stroking the back of the Airedale.
Suddenly he felt the animal stiffen, and the hair along its back bristled ominously. A moment later the dog gave a low, half-audible growl and rose to its feet. Instantly the party were keenly alert.
Dick clapped his hand over the dog’s muzzle, and the well-trained animal subsided into silence. But Dick could feel that it was strainingly alert; obviously it sensed an intruder.
Keenly at attention, with every faculty strained to the utmost, the silent watchers heard not a sound. But a few moments later there was a vicious snap in the air above them as the magnesium flash exploded, turning the inky blackness for a fraction of a second into a blaze of dazzling light.
In that brief outburst of radiance the four caught a glimpse of a horror that photographed itself indelibly on their memories.
Twenty-five yards away a bestial, hideous face loomed out in the glare of light. It was the epitome of all things evil, with wild matted hair, staring eyes and a horrible misshapen mouth drawn back in a snarl which showed two rows of monstrous teeth. The body they could not see. Apparently the creature was crouching in the heather so that only its ghastly head was visible.
Had it been a wild animal not one of the four, their nerves steel-hardened by the war, would have felt a tremor. But that ghastly face, vile and brutal as it was, was unmistakably human, and for an instant the watchers were paralysed with uncontrollable terror.
But it was only for a moment.
Four revolver shots rang out almost simultaneously, fired in the darkness at the spot where the apparition had appeared. A crackling volley followed as the four automatics were emptied. Almost with the last shot came a howl of mingled rage and pain from the darkness. Evidently a bullet had got home.
A few moments later Dick, with Spot barking madly and tugging wildly at his leash, had plunged into the blackness in hot pursuit at the fiendish intruder. Close behind him came Yvette, Jules, and Buckman.
The hunt had begun!
Of that wild dash across country in the darkness Dick afterwards remembered but little. Spot plunged ahead without hesitation and Dick followed, intent only on making the best speed possible and careless of constant falls as he stumbled blindly along. He dared not loose the dog, for without it he would have been helpless, and he plunged blindly forward, his reloaded pistol grasped in his right hand, careless of himself and intent only on overtaking the horror which he knew lay somewhere ahead of him. Behind him toiled the others, guided by Spot’s frantic barks.
Progress, of course, was slow; falls and stumbles every few moments checked the pace; the darkness was baffling. It was with feelings of intense relief that Dick at length saw the silvery edge of the moon lifting itself above the hills behind him. He had lost all sense of direction, but the moon rising behind him told him he was travelling westward.
Half an hour later the country was bathed in soft light and Dick was able to pick up his bearings. Suddenly he realised with a shock that he was heading straight for Lockie!
Dick halted to let the others come up. Without being afraid he felt instinctively that something terrible lay ahead of them and that for safety’s sake it were best that they should be together.
They were a sorry-looking party—hatless, their clothes torn, their faces and hands bruised and scratched by constant falls, almost exhausted by their tremendous efforts. But none of them thought of giving up the chase.
For another mile they pushed onward, making better progress in the growing moonlight.
Suddenly Buckman gave a tremendous shout. “Look there!” he roared, pointing to a low hill which ran across their path.
Not five hundred yards away, on the top of the rise and clearly silhouetted against the sky, they caught a glimpse of a monstrous figure which, even as they looked, vanished over the crest and was gone. It was, unmistakably, a man of giant stature! It moved stiffly as though in pain; evidently one of the shots fired in the trap had got home.
They hurried on. When they reached the crest of the rise Lockie lay before them, and they could see the monstrous figure crossing a tiny stream in the valley below.
They were gaining rapidly now. Dawn was breaking and the cold pale light allowed them a dear view.
The creature ahead of them was toiling painfully up the slope which led to Lockie. Suddenly a man issued from the house. It was Erckmann and in his hand he carried a formidable whip.
Less than two hundred yards away Dick and his companions halted spellbound. In some mysterious fashion they realised that they were to witness the last act in the terrible drama.
The end came swiftly. More and more slowly, almost crawling at last, the strange creature approached Erckmann and at length, evidently utterly exhausted, collapsed at his feet in a heap.
They heard the scientist shout something unintelligible. Then he raised his heavy whip and struck with fearful force at the unfortunate thing which lay before him.
It was a fatal mistake. With the speed of lightning the misshapen heap on the ground flashed into furious activity. All the horrified spectators saw was an instantaneous leap and a brief struggle, and Erckmann and the Thing locked in a deadly grapple and then drop motionless.
Dick covered the last hundred yards in a furious dash. But he was too late. Erckmann lay dead, with his adversary dead on top of him. The zoologist had been killed almost instantly by the grip of two large hands that still encircled his neck in a vice-like clutch, and in his throat the misshapen fangs of the creature were still buried deeply. Only with infinite trouble was the body of the scientist freed from that deadly grapple, and they were able to examine the monster that had spread terror and death through Argyllshire.
Unmistakably the body was that of a man, but incredibly dehumanised and ape-like. The muscular development was tremendous; the hands and arms were knotted masses of titanic muscle. But the crowning horror was the face—low-browed, flat-nosed, with a tremendous jaw and long pointed teeth, utterly unlike anything human. The body, stark naked, was covered thickly with hair and in the side was a terrible wound evidently made by the impact of a soft-nosed bullet from one of the automatic pistols. No normal human being could have survived it for more than a few minutes.
It was only later, when they searched Lockie, that they realised fully that Erckmann had fallen a victim to a monster he had himself created. His diaries proved that Chatry had spoken the truth. They were a repellent but horribly fascinating account of his experiments. Of the results he had written in a wealth of detail, but of the process he employed there was not even a hint. That awful secret he had kept to himself, and had taken with him to his grave.
They found that he had, as Chatry had said, taken a human being, obviously of low mental development—possibly an asylum patient—and practically, by some devilish discovery, converted it into a human ape, endowed with the blood-lust of the tiger. But whether the fearful creature was capable of receiving and acting upon instructions, or whether Erckmann simply let it loose to follow its terrible instincts until the “homing” instinct brought it back they never learned.
Of Lockie, the police decided to make a clean sweep. The animals were shot and the half-dozen evil-looking foreign servants were paid off and sent to their homes, mostly in the wilder parts of Transylvania. They one and all refused to say a word. Whatever they were, they were at least faithful to their dead master.
Then, in the magnificent chemical laboratory with which the house was equipped, Dick, who found himself Renstoke’s sole executor, easily arranged an “accident.” Fire broke out, there was no help for miles around and in a couple of hours the ill-omened house was a heap of ashes. The Spectre of Lockie had been finally laid.