  Closing time that afternoon found Johnny in a cubby-hole just back of the main entrance. He was peering through a crack which appeared to have been left between the boards by accident. It had, in fact, been made for Johnny’s benefit that very day. He was watching the long line of workmen, each swinging in his right hand his paper lunch-box, file out of the building. A clicking, turnstile gate allowed only one to pass out at a time. The factory had other exits, but this was the only one close to the spot where the strange and precious steel bars had been stored. Beside the narrow board-walk over which the single-file line traveled, lay a circular affair of iron. Some three feet across and two feet thick, it appeared but a crude lump of metal carelessly left there. A close observer, however, would have noted that electric wires led away from the back of it. This was Johnny’s electro-magnet. When suspended in air from a cable this innocent-appearing affair could lift a half-ton of steel to a freight car platform as easily as a child might pick up a handful of straw. “It isn’t likely that the fellow who took that steel would attempt to take it from the building at once. He’d hide it in the factory and carry it out some other night. Sooner or later I’ll get him. Sooner or—” Johnny’s thoughts were cut short by a hand lightly laid on his shoulder. “Thought I’d find you here.” It was his employer. “Some things in the factory I want to show you when the men are gone. They’re about out now. I’ll just wait here. Don’t let me disturb you.” But Johnny had been disturbed; his eyes for the moment had been drawn from that passing string of men and the electro-magnet. As he again focused his eyes on the crack, he gave an involuntary start. Clinging to the face of the electro-magnet as if glued there, was an oblong paper box—a lunch-box. And the man who owned it? He had passed on out of sight without any apparent attempt to regain possession of his property. “Rotten luck!” Johnny’s lips framed the words but did not say them. The trap had worked. There was iron or steel in that box; that was why the powerful electro-magnet had drawn it to itself. He had recovered the property, but his man had escaped. The precious steel was safe. That much was good. He heaved a sigh of relief; watched the last workman march by, touched the switch, saw the box drop from the magnet as the current was shut off, then turned toward the door. At this point a doubt came to his mind. What if the metal in the box proved to be some other metal than the precious steel? He had been about to display his catch in triumph. He decided to make sure first, and so merely said: “In just a moment I’ll be ready.” Stepping outside, he secured possession of the mysterious lunch-box and, carrying it as if it were dynamite, again entered the cubby-hole and said cheerfully: “All right; I’m ready now.” As they walked slowly back into the factory Johnny’s eyes turned first to the right, then to the left. For the time the baffling mysteries of the hour were forgotten, and for the hundredth time he was lost in admiration of this marvel of modern industry, a vast manufacturing plant. Here they passed through the forge-room where, by the dull light of dying fires, one might see trip-hammers, looming like giants, resting from their labors. Now again they passed through a sand-strewn room where crater-like heaps were smoking—the foundry. And now they emerged into the assembly-room, where were automobiles partly put together, and further down, airplanes poised like giant birds ready for flight. “The things I am to show you to-night”—the voice of his employer roused him from the spell which the place had put upon him—“are secrets, secrets known only to myself and two other men. This factory was rebuilt and enlarged during the World War. Our entire output was then being taken by the Government. In those days every precaution was necessary. Spies of the enemy were all about us and in our very midst, seeking out our most valuable secrets, ready to destroy our plants and so cripple our army. It was such a time as this that I had installed in this plant the contrivances which I am about to show you and which may, perhaps, be of assistance to you. Your work from now on will be done at night. You slept this afternoon as I instructed?” “Yes.” “Good. Then you will be all right for tonight.” “Easy,” answered Johnny slangily. “Now, here,” they had paused in the center of an aisle, “please note your exact position. Got it?” “Yes.” Johnny’s employer nodded approval. “Have you a watch and flashlight? It’s dark where you’re going.” “No flashlight.” In spite of his best efforts, Johnny’s knees trembled. “Here’s a small one. Now prepare yourself for a surprise. In five minutes stand up. Watch me.” The magnate reached up and gave a pull on an electric lamp wire just above his head. The next instant Johnny felt himself shoot rapidly downward, to land at last with no perceptible shock upon some flat object. All about him was pitch darkness. At once his trembling hand snapped on the flashlight. As its welcome gleam shot out before him, he saw that he was in a narrow, cement-walled chamber. One glance downward and his tense muscles relaxed. “Humph!” he grunted. “The scrap-conveyor!” It was true. Beneath this up-to-date factory, a tunnel had been cut, through which a broad, flat conveyor ran. On this conveyor, from every point in the factory, scraps of iron, steel, brass, cloth, wire, rubber and what-not were carried without the lifting of a human hand, direct to the scrap-room. “It’s a clever exit, nevertheless,” thought Johnny, “and worth remembering. ‘Five minutes,’ he said, ‘then stand up.’” Focusing the flashlight on his watch, he waited. The conveyor was moving. He could see the shadows of cement beams slowly rise and pass by him. The place was fairly spooky—“like a tomb,” he said to himself. It was dead still, too. Nothing save the almost noiseless motion of the conveyor broke the silence. “What a spot for a tragedy,” he thought. “A fight here in the night; the victor escapes; the dead body is carried silently on to the scrap-pile.” One minute passed, two, three, four. The silence grew oppressive. Five! Then came a sudden flood of light from above him. Leaping to his feet, he reached up to the edge of a cement floor and vaulted up to it. Silently a second trapdoor closed behind him. His employer stood beside him. “Have a nice ride?” he smiled. “Fine! A bit spooky, though,” Johnny grinned back. “Could you use it in an emergency?” “I think so. It’s the wire of the lamp hanging directly above it, isn’t it?” “Right. Works electrically. Pulling that wire does the trick. There are some others, though. We must hurry on. I have a directors’ meeting at eight.” The marvels, the tricks of magic which Johnny witnessed during the tense half-hour that followed, thrilled, charmed and at times frightened him. Now he caught himself leaping aside, as if to avoid the blow of a hidden force, and now frozen in his tracks, he felt chills race up and down his spine, while cold perspiration stood out upon his brow. Convinced as he was that he was in the hands of a friend, he could not fully overcome the spell of this seemingly magic factory. While standing idly leaning against a wall, he would suddenly become conscious of a movement in front of him, and there, not three feet before him, a second wall towered. Whether it had risen from the floor, dropped from the ceiling or developed out of thin air, he could not tell, so sudden and silent was its motion. Again, he was standing talking to his employer and, having been attracted by a sound in the distance, turned away for an instant, only to find on turning again to his friend that he had vanished; the pillar beside which he had been standing had swallowed him up. After initiating him into the secret mysteries of six of these strange devices, his employer promised him more in the future, then took him over to the front of a massive vault built into the wall of the factory. “Here,” said Mr. McFarland, “we keep our most valuable tools and the diamonds used in giving to shaftings their finishing touches. Here also rest the six bars of steel of the mysterious, unknown formula. We hope soon to rediscover that formula, or that its inventor, through the agencies of the doctor of the sanitarium, will be restored to his normal mind and memory. An old and trusted employe presides over the vault during the day. It will be your task to guard it nights. At any time you feel yourself in danger, there are the secret doors, walls and passages I have shown you. They may be of great service to you in securing aid, if it is needed. And now I must bid you good night.” “Good night.” Johnny’s own voice, as if coming from a cavern, sounded hollow to him. As his employer disappeared from sight, however, he shook himself and attempted to remember something he had postponed, something of which his subconscious memory was striving to tell him. Suddenly he started. “The box! That lunch-box caught by the electro-magnet!” The next instant he was hastening away to the cubby-hole where the box still rested. As he put his hand to the door, a sinking feeling seized him. What if it were gone? The next instant found him reassured; with the handle of the box in his own right hand, he was hurrying back to his post of duty. But what was that? Had his well-trained ear caught the sound of a footstep? With heart beating double-time, he stood in the shadow of a great punch-press and listened. Yes, there it was; a stealthy, gliding footstep. Stooping, with a silent, tiger-like motion he crept forward until the steel door of the vault was within his view. There, in the shelter of a milling machine, he paused and crouched motionless as a cat. He did not have long to wait, for out of the shadows there crept the dark, crouching form of a man. Direct as an arrow the man glided forward. Now he was ten feet from the steel door, and paused to listen. Two steps more, and a second pause. And now his hand was nearing the shining metal knob that controlled the combination lock of the vault. Again he appeared to listen. At that second, Johnny’s eyes fairly popped out of his head—a strange thing was taking place. The knob which had been white in the semi-darkness, had turned a dull red! “The mysterious fire!” he whispered, almost aloud. The next instant there came a strange hissing cry of pain. The person crouching there, without noting the red glow, had grasped the knob. For a second he appeared to study the knob; then, without as much as looking backward, he turned and darted away. Frozen in his tracks, Johnny stood staring at the knob until the red glow had faded out and the knob shone white once more. A long time he stood there, his mind rife with wild wonderings. What was this white fire? Whence its origin? Johnny was not superstitious; he felt that some human being was back of it all. But that human being, was he friend or foe? If friend, then he had frightened the enemy away! If enemy, then he had known of Johnny’s presence and had used this means to warn his confederate. Presently, when his mind was again composed, he thought of the lunch-box and with trembling fingers reached down to lift it from the floor. What would it disclose? How would its contents affect the mystery he was trying to solve? Johnny drew a deep breath, and grinned happily. |
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