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Show . I V The Phantom Destroyer G; UV FAWKKS hiui-S-.-lf would judder jud-der in th;jl miil. Tnink of it five explosions nn five hhtiu e daya, a ml noL a rio-.v !" Our viiitior had pre-ented a card bearing the name or Donald Marbeod, chief of the Nitrnpolis Hosier company' secret eerviee. U was plain th:i.t he was ' greatly worried over the ra.se about which ho had at last b'-cn forced to consult Kennedy. As he spoke, I remembered having n;l iu thft di:';)at.;h--:i u bout thy explosion, but the' acco.jnrrt ha1 been mt:ag:r that I hurt not realized that Lb-re- was ! finyihlng t-.THii:Ully unuhU.U about them, i'or It v;i h ;it. the lino when if.-'-idnti: in ;uid iiitjKfl of i rni.tur ionri planus '.wn- o! Why," v.'. ml on M.'irLcod, "the w uoh: bilrtliieh:' l.s as m.. :-.! i lo';s us if th'-ie WTi: tioin.; pliauloiu U''.-.liov.-j' ;..t v.-uk! T:ie M.-U are f.j fr:ghi.-n.-d rhat th'-y threat --n to q-i!!. -r;ii Ii.lvh ur-.-ii kili.-d. There's rtuiiiethiii' strange ahuut tint, too. 'l.'hff.: ,,r,- i.g.y nin.ors of poi.sui.uu.i g;i..-:S be lug n-Mpr.iim quite as rnufii a s thf) jilijf-.iufiM. though, -o tar. I' been alile to find nothing m tliat notion." "Whai hort 01" ila; im UV" u.kt:d Kenned", Ken-ned", Inrt.-O'Med at Of i ' e. 'VV-ll. you .s-.:," explained M n l;od, "hi net; t he i ou:pa ji v'w busi n-H h.is 111 -i re;,.s.-d s. fast lat.-ly, U nan b.-en forced to crei-r ;i new plant. IVriuipi ynn h;j.e liM n I or the Old drove Annulment park, v. hb-li i"all.-dV It'a no! tiii" I'roni that." Macr.fod looked ut us lnquirin-'.ly, and U'l i.rnd. nodded to K" on, tltouh 1 am Mir- i j.-i i ot hfi famihiir with i he pi. i "l hey' v railed the new plant Nil ropollH - rather ru-al. nan.e for a pfiivder-Mrl-.s, don't you think?" ro-.sumed ro-.sumed M;n l,:iW. "Kverylliirm' w:nt alotii; all r;.;ht mild ii f'-w dayn no- Tucn one 01 I lie. Puililiuu'.--. ;t h' oicho'ie, was blow li tip. We. rouMli't l.e Silif: that It wan an Hc-i'h-rit, :-:i we redoubled our pro-ciuinnis. pro-ciuinnis. r wan or no use. That t-.Uirted it, The very ii.inI. day another building una blown up, men another, until now them hnv I.mi fie of them. What may hiipjifiu today luaven only knows: I wutit to K''t Uick at, :m-ou a.s I can." "Jtniher too f'i-fqiifnt, I must admit, to br coiiirid.uicoH," n-rnarkod Kennedy. "No- Li icy ran't nil bo accident.'-'," assert as-sert cO ' M a I ,od, r-onfidontly. -"I'liere's too frrent regularity for thnt. I think I've considered con-sidered ah no-1 in-crv thm-. I don't 8o iiow they cm he front honibn placed by workmen. At b-.it. it's not bit likely. J3e-HtdeH. J3e-HtdeH. the rxplntoons all occur in broad itayllKht, not ;it nlj;ht. Wn'ro very careful about t hn men w , employ, and they're walcned a' the llnio. The co:npiny hafl n Kuard of itM own, twenty-five picked men, undrr me all honorably discharged I tiit il Stah-H army men." "Vou have, formed no theory of your own?" queried Ketnicdy. iMn-Und paused, then drew from his pocket the. clipping of a dispalch from the trout in which otic of the war correspondents cor-respondents reported the destruction of wire entanglements with heat supposed to luivo been applied by tho use of reflect re-flect Ihk ndrrorn. "I'm reduced to pure speculation," he remarked. "Toddy Ihey seem to bo reviving re-viving all the ancient practices. Maybe fcoinu one is goiuu at it like Archimedes." "Not impossible," returned Crais, handing hand-ing buck 'be clippinar. "Kufton tested the yirobabilitv of the nchievnment of Arehirn-hleH Arehirn-hleH in wetting firo to the ships of iMar-cpiUus iMar-cpiUus with mirrors and the sun's rays. Ho constructed a composite mirror of a hundred and twenty-eight plana mirrors, and with it he was ablo to Ignite wood at two hundred and tett feet. "However. 1 shrewdly suspect that, oven if this story is true, th-v are nsinq- h yd rope n or acetylene flares over there. But none of thpso things would be feasible in your i u:-e. You'd know It." "Could It bo some one who is projecting a (IchiIIv wiretey.s- force which causes the explosions?" 1 put In, mindful of a previous pre-vious case of Kennedy's. "We all know t IihI Inventor have been working for vphi'm on tho Idea of making explosive? obsolete and .umimh junk. 11 some one. has hit on h way of puiilincr an electric wave through tho atr and concent r, r.l ins at a point, munitions-plants could be wiped out ." MacLeod looked anxiously from me to Kennedy, but On Iff betrayed nornlng by his facfi expect hla interest. ".Soinetitnea T have imagined I heard a peculiar, faint, whirring noise in the air," he tnrnaikcd thoimht fully. "I thought of hnviny the men on the watch for airships, air-ships, but they've never seen a trace of one. tt might, be some power either like this." ho added, shaking the clipping, "or like that which Mr. Jameson suggests." "Tt's something like, that you meant, I pre. mine, when you called It a 'phantom do:- trover' a moment ago?" asked Kon-nedy. Kon-nedy. MacLeod nodded. "If you're interested," he pursued, Tiaa-tilv, Tiaa-tilv, "and feel like, ffolncr flown there to look things over, I think the best placa for vou to go would be to the Sneddens". Thev're some people who have seen a chance to make a little money out of the boom. Mauv visitors are now coming and potnij on business connected with the new works. They have started a. boarding board-ing house or. rather, Mrs. Snedden rms. There's a. daushter. too, who seems to be very l opuku." Kennedy glanced -whimsical I v at me. "Well. Walter," he remarked, tentatively, tenta-tively, "entirely aside from the young lady," this ought to make a pood story for the Star." 'Indeed it ought !" I replied, enthusi-asticallv. enthusi-asticallv. "Then you'll go down to NitropoHs?" queried MacLeod, eagerly. "Vou v can catch a Lain that will got you there about noon. And the company will pay you veil." ' "Mael .cod. wilh the mystery, Mies Sneddon, and the remuneration, you are irresistible," smiled Kennedy. "Thank you." returned the detective. "You won't regret it. I can't tell you how much relieved I feel to have some one else, and, nbove all, yourself, on the casq Von can get a train in half an hour. I think it would bo best for you to go as though you had no connection with me , at least for the present." Kennedy agreed, and MacLeod excused , himself, promising to be on the train, although al-though not to tide with us, in ease we should be tho target of too inquisitive ; eves. 1 For a few minutes, while our taxicab was coming, Kennedy considered thoughtfully what the company detective had said. By the' time the vehicle had arrived he had hurrledlv packed up some aparatus in two large grips, one of which it fell to my lot to carry. The trip down to Nit ropoll.s was uninteresting, un-interesting, and we arrived at the little station shortly after noon. MacT-eod was on the train, but did not j-peak to us, and it was perhaps just as well, for t He 1 cabmen and others hanging about the station wore keenly inching new arrivals ar-rivals and anyone with Mac 1 .eod must have a 1 1 racted n t tent ion. We selected one of the cabmen and were immediately immedi-ately driven to the Sneddon house. The powder company's plant was situated sit-uated oti a large tract of land which was surrounded by a barbed -wire ren. e m feet high and constructed in a manner man-ner very similar to the fences in protecting pro-tecting "prison ca mps in wa r t imes. At various places along the several miles of fence gates were placed. wi;h armed guards. Many other features were sug-' gestive of war times. One that lru-. lru-. pi -ssed us most w as tha t each workman work-man had to carry a r-ass similar, almost, to a passport This entire fence, we learned, was patrolled day and night by armed guards. A mile or ec from the plant, or lust outride the m;:m ga te. quite a settlement settle-ment had grown up, like a mushroom, almost overnight the product of a flood of new money. Originally, there had cei only omc house for .some distance ahoul that . ': e reddens. m;l now there were sth s of houses. mostly t;iose of oifLi.'.ls ai.i managers, some of them really prd en t ions affairs. Mac-Leod Mac-Leod himself l:td in one of them, and we ecu Id see him a head of us. being ur; v n home. Jurt at rj:esent, however, it v33 the j P tied den hou.sA t ha r tr.i'.rs: d cs most, j for we !"'!' the r.eed or g.tmg our-t our-t se! e.MaiL-di.-d in this i-rran.: r-oru- m-niiiy. It was hi- r,,d- fitsic-uied fann-I fann-I hou- ; and ha ' i,e.:n purcnas-d very 'iie;ifiy ',y Sfinlii;.!) several vears be-j be-j fore. He ha j Mte.-d it ;.tid brought it j up to dare, a v o the, , oirdn nat ion of old ; an 1 new proved io be tvpiral of tjle i ov. tier as weli as f t'v: hou.-e. Kennedy carried off well the critical situation of our i ti t rod u"Uon. and we tout i.J oui :-.. veu welcomed rather trum ) Kcrutinied aa intruders. I f;.irfled Sneddon was much oMpt than (ins se'.ond wife, fda. In fact, the did I not :'eern to much older than Sned-j Sned-j den's da lighter, Gertrude, whom Ma- I Lend had already ititint louftd a. dashing i oong Ltd v, never in tended by nam re to w-e!a.te in the rural seclusion that hei lather it ad sought j'-.fore Lbe a'ivent o! i I i i e po'.vder works. .Mrn. Sneddon wa- one of tr.ose t apubU; women i-o ..an ni.Lriag-: a nr-i n without his k::ov. mp P. 1 nde.-d , one feiL that Snedden, who was nr. mi-whaL of both atude-ut and dreamer, needed a manager. "I'm glad our train wa.-: on thr.e." hurtled Mra. Sm-dden. "Luncueon will be ready in a few moments now." I We had barely time to iook about be- fjre Gertrude led uti into tne dining toon: and introduced us to the other bi.ard- et s. Knowing human na hire, Kennedy was carvful to he struck with adm irn t ton and amazement at. everything we had seen in O'-r brief w hirl through Nitropolis. It w as not a difficult or entirely assumed ;eejing, either, when one realized that, (jiiIv a few short months before, the re-Mon re-Mon hwd been nothing betier than an almost al-most hopeless wilderness of scrub pin.-s. Wo did not have to wait long before the .subject, uppermost ir, 0ur minds was biount. ut) the explosions. Among i ho boarders there were at least two who, from the start, promised to be interesting as well as important. One was a tall, ulender chap named Garret-son, Garret-son, whose connection with the com-pa com-pa ny, 1 gathi:red fr om t he conversaLion. io ik him often on important matters to New York. l ite other was an older man, .Jackson, who seemed to be connected wilh tlie manage men t of the works, a reticent fellow, more given to listening to nthens than to talking himself. "Noi hi ng lias ha ppened so far today, anyhow," remarked Garretson, tapping the back of his chair with his knuckle, as a token of respect for that evil spirit who see m a to be exorcised by knocking wood. "Oh." exclaimed Gertrude, with a little ha I f -suppressed shudder. "I do hope those terrible explosions are at last over." "If I had my way," said Garretson, savagely, "I'd put this town under martial mar-tial Jaw until they were, over." "It may come to that," put in Jackson, Jack-son, quietly. 1 "Quite in keeping with the present tendency ten-dency of the age," agreed Snedden in a tone of philosophical disagreement. "I don't think it makes much difference differ-ence how you accomplish the result, i Jarfiekl," chimed in his wife, "as long as you accomplish it. and it is one that should be accomplished." Snedden retreated into the refuge of silence. Though this was only a bit of the conversation, we soon found out that he was an avowed pacifist. Garretson. on the other hand, was an ardent militarist, mili-tarist, a great deal of a fire-eater. I wondered whether there might not be a good deal of the poseur about him, too. It needed no second sight to discover that both he and Gertrude were deeply interested in each other. Garretson was what Broadway would call "a live one," and, though Ihere is nothing essentially wrong in that fact, I fancied that 1 detected, de-tected, now and then, an almost maternal ma-ternal solicitude on the part of her stepmother, step-mother, who seemed to be watching both tho young man and her husband alternately. alter-nately. Once Jackson and Mrs. Snedden exchanged glances. There seemed to be root e ii n rlers I a nd 1 n p Viet pii I h om The time to return to the works was approaching, and we all rose. Somehow, Gertrude and Garretson seemed naturally to gravitate toward the door together. Some rli stance from the house there was a large bam. Part of it had been turned into a garage, where Garretson kept a fast car. Jackson also, had a roadster, T.n fact, tn this new community, wit h its superabundant new wealth, everybody ev-erybody had a car. Kennedy and I sauntered out after the rest. As wo turned an angle of the house we came suddenly upon Garretson In his racer, talking to Gertrude. The crunch of the gravel under our feet warned them before we saw them, but not before we could catch a glimpse of a warning finger on the rosy lips of Gertrude. As she saw us nho blushed ever so slightly. "You'll be late !" she cried, hast My. "Mr. Jackson has been gone five minutes." min-utes." "On foot," returned Garretson. nonchalantly. noncha-lantly. "I'll overtake him in thirty seconds." sec-onds." Nevertheless, he did not wait longer, but swung up the road at a pace which was tho admiration of all speed-loving speed-loving Nitropolitans. Craig had ordered our taxicab driver to stop for us after lunch, and, without exciting suspicion, managed to stow away the larger part of the contents of our grips in his car. Still without openly showing our connection con-nection with MacLeod, Kennedy sought out the manager of the works, and, though scores of correspondents and reporters re-porters from various newspapers had vainly applied for permission to inspect the plant, somehow we seemed to receive the freedom of the place and without exciting ex-citing suspicion. Craig's first move was to look the plant over. As we approached it our attention was Instantly attracted to the numerous one -story galvanized -Iron buildings that appeared to stretch endlessly in every direction. di-rection. They seemed to be of a temporary tempo-rary nature, though the power-plants, offices of-fices and other necessary buildings were very substantially built. The framework of the factory buildings was nothing but wood, covered by iron sheathing, and even . the sides seemed to be removable. The floors, however, were of concrete. "They serve their purpose well," ob-served ob-served Kennedy, as we picked our way about. "Explosions at powder mills are frequent, anyhow. After an explosion there is very little debris to clear away, as you may imagine. These buildings are easily repaired or replaced, and they keep a large force of men for these purposes, pur-poses, as well as materials for any emergency." emer-gency." One felt instinctively the hazard of the employment. Everywhere were signs telling tell-ing what not and what to do. One that stuck in my mind was, 'Tt is better to be careful than sorry." Throughout the plant at frequent intervals were first-aid stat ions wit h kits for all sorts of accidents, acci-dents, including respirators, for workmen were often overcome by ether or alcohol , fumes. Everything was done to minimize minim-ize the hazard, yet one could not escape tho conviction that human life and limb were as much a cost of production in this industry as fuel and raw material. Once, in our wanderings about the i plant, 1 recall we ran across both Garret- 1 son and Jackson in one of the offices. They did not see us, but seemed to be t1 Iking very earnestly about something. ; What it was we could not guess, but this time it seemed to be Jackson who was doing most of the talking. Kennedy i watched them as they parted. " "'There's something peculiar under the ' surface with those people at the boarding house," was all lie observed. "Come: I over there, about an eighth of a mile, I think 1 see evidences of the latest of the explosions. Let's look at it." MacLeod had ev;drnt:y reasoned that, sooner or later, Kennedy would appear in this part of tlie grounds, and as we passed one of the shops he joined us. "Vou mentioned somet binp about rumors ru-mors of poisonous e asses," hinted Craig, as wo walked along. "Yes." assented MacLeod: "T don't know what there is in it. I su noose you know that there is a very poisonous pas, carbon monoxide. aibonic oxide! formed in considerable uuantitv by the explosion of several of the powder. common com-mon iy used in sheds. The gas hag Die curious power of combining with Lie blood and ret using to let go, thus ke.-pin out the oxygen necessary for life. It mav be tit.it that is what accounts for what MMm ill MMh The phantom destroyer had delivered his blow again. we've seen that it is actual poisoning to death of men not killed by the immediate explosion." We had reached the scene of the previous pre-vious day's disaster. No effect had yet been made to clear it up. Kennedy went over it carefully. What It was he found I do not know, but he had not spent much time before he turned to me. 'Walter," he directed, "I wish you would go back to the office near the gate, where I left that paraphernalia we brought down. Carry It over let me see there's an open space there on that knoll. T'U join you there.' Whatever was in the packages was both bulky and heavy, and 1 was glad to reach the hillside he had indicated. Craig was waiting for me there with MacLeod, and at once opened the packages. pack-ages. From them he took a thin steel rod. which he set up in the center of the open space. To it he attached a frame and to the frame what looked like four reversed megaphones. Attached to the frame, which was tubular, was an oak box with a ( little arrangement of hard rubher and 'metal which fitted into the ears. For some time Kennedy's face wore a set, far away expression, as if he were studying something. "The explosions seem always to occur in the middle of the afternoon." observed MacLeod, fidgeting apprehensively. Kennedy motioned petulantly for silence. 'Then suddenly he pulled the tubes out of his ears and gazed about sharply. "There's something in the air," he cried. "I can hear it!" MacLeod and I strained our eyes. There was nothing visible. "This is an anti-aircraft listening post, such as the French use," , explained Craig, hurriedly. "Between the horns and the microphone in the box you can catch the hum of an engine, even when it is muffled. muf-fled. Tf there's an aeroplane or a Zeppelin Zep-pelin about, this thing would locate it- Still, tli ere was nothing that we could see. though now the sound was just perceptible per-ceptible to tlie ear if one' st mined his attention a bit. I listened. It was plain In the detector; yet nothing was visible. What strange power could it be that we could not see or feel in broad daylight? Just then came a low rumbling, and then a terrific roar from the direction of the plant. We swung about in time to see a huge cloud of debris lifted literals liter-als into the air above the treetops and dropped to earth again. The silence that succeeded the explosion was eloquent. The phantom destroyer had delivered his blow again. "The distillery where we make the denatured de-natured alcohol !" cried MacLeod, gazing with tense face as from other buildings we could see men pouring forth, panic-stricken. panic-stricken. The silence was punctured by shouts. Kennedy bent over his detector. "That same mysterious buzzing," he muttered, "only fainter." Together we hastened now toward the distillery, another of those corrugated -iron buildings. It had been completely demolished. Here and there lay a dark, still mass. L shuddered. They were men ! As we ran toward the ruin we crossed a baseball field which the company had given the men. 1 looked hack for Kennedy. Ken-nedy. He had paused at the wire backstop back-stop behind the catcher. Something caught in the wires interested him. By the time I reached him he had secured it a long, slender metal tube, cleverly weighted so as to fall straight. "Not a hundred per cent of hits evidently." evi-dently." he muttered. "Still, one was enough." "What is it?" asked MacLeod. "An incendiary pastille. On contact, the nose burns away anything it hits, goes right through corrugated iron. It carries a charge of thermit ignited by this picce of magnesium ribbon. You know what thermit will penetrate with Its thousands of degrees of heat. Only the nose of this went through the netting and never touched a thing. This didn't explode anything, but another one did. Thousands of gallons of alcohol did the rest." Kennedy had picked up his other package pack-age as we ran, and was now busily unwrapping un-wrapping it. 1 looked about at the crowd thi t had collected, and saw that there-was there-was nothing we could do to help. Once I caught sight of Gertrude's face. She was pale, and seemed eagerly searching for someone. Then, In the crowd. I lost her. I turned to MacLeod. He was ! plainly overwhelmed. Kennedy was grimly grim-ly silent and a t work on something he had jammed into the ground. "Stand back !" he cautioned, as he touched a match to the thing. With a muffled explosion, something whizzed and shrieked up into the air like a skyrocket. sky-rocket. Far above, T could now sec a. thing open out like a parachute, while below it trailed something that might have been the stick of the rocket. LOagerly Kennedy followed the, parachute as the wind wafted waft-ed it along and It sank slowly to the earth. When, at last, he recovered it J saw that between the parachute and the st Ick was fastened a small, peculiar camera. "A Scheimpflug multiple camera," h explained as ho seized it almost ravenously. raven-ously. "Is there a place in town where I can pet. the films in this developed quickly?" Mad jeod, himself excited now, hurried 1 us from the scene of the explosion to a local drug store, which combined most of the functions of a general store, even being able to Improvise a darkroom in which Kennedy could work. It was some time after the excitement over the explosion had quieted down that MacLeod and I, standing impatiently before be-fore the drug store, saw Snedden wildly tearing down the street in his car. He saw us and pulled up at the curb with a jerk. "Wrhere's Gertrude?" he shouted, wildly. wild-ly. "Has anyone seen my daughter?" Breathlessly he explained that he had been out, had returned to find his house deserted, Gertrude gone, his wife gone, even Jackson's car gone, from the barn. He had been io the works. Neither Garretson Gar-retson nor Ja.ekson had been seen since the excitement of the explosion, they told him. Garretson'? racer was pone. too. There seemed to have been a sort of family explosion, also. Kennedy had heard the loud ta.lking and had left his work to the druggist to carry on and Joined us. There was no concealment now of our connection with MacLeod, for it was to him that everyone every-one in town came when in trouble. In almost no time, so accurately did he keep his fingers on the fevered pulso of Nitropolis, MacLeod had found out that Gertrude had been seen driving away from the company's grounds with someone some-one in Garretson's car, probably Garretson Garret-son himself. Jackson had been seen hurrying hur-rying down the street. Someone else had seen Ida Snedden In Jackson's car alone. Meanwhile, over the wire, MacLeod had sent out descriptions of the four people and the two cars, in the hope of intercepting inter-cepting them before they could be plunged Into the obscurity of any nearby city. Not content-, with that, MacLeod a.nd Kennedy started out in the former's car while I climbed in with Snedden, and we began a sysema tic search of the roads out of Nitropolis. As we sped along. I could not help feeling, though I said nothing, that, somehow, some-how, the strange disappearance must have something to do with the mysterious phantom destroyer. I did not tell even Snedden about the little that Kennedy had discovered, for I had learned that it was best to let Craig himself tell, at his own time and in his own way. But the man seemed frantic in his search, and I could not help the Impression that there was something, perhaps only a suspicion, that he knew which might shed some light. We were coming down the river, or rather, the bay. after a fruitless search of unfrequented roads and were approaching approach-ing the deserted Old Grove amusement I-Lrk. to which excursions used, years ago, to come in boats. No one could make it pay, and it was closed and going to ruin. There had been some hint that Garretson's racer might have disappeared down this unfrequented river road. As we came to a turn in the road. we could see Kennedy and MacLeod in their car, coming up. Instead of keeping on. however, they turned into the grove, Kennedy leaning far over the running board as Maoljeod drove slowly, following follow-ing Jiis directions, as though Craig were tracing something. With a hurried exclamation of surprise, Snedden gave our car the gas a.nd shot ahead, swinging around after them. They were headed, following some kind of tire tracks, toward an old merry -go-round that had been dismantled and all boarded board-ed tip. They heard ub coming end stopped. "Has any one told you tha t Garretson's Garret-son's car went down the river road, too?" calling to Snedden, anxiously. "No, but some on a thought; he saw Jackson's car come down here," called back MacLeod. "Jackson's?" exclaimed Snedden. "Maybe both are right," I ventured, as we came closer. "What made you turn in here?" "Kennedy thought he saw fresh tire-tracks tire-tracks running into the grove." We were all out of our cars by this time, and examining the soft roadway with Craig. It was evident to any one that a car had been run in, and not so very long ago. in the direction of the merry-go-round. We followed the tracks on foot, bending bend-ing about t he huge circle of a building until we came to the side away from the road. The tracks seemed to run right in under the boards. Kennedy approached and touched' the boards. They were loose. Some one had evidently been there, had ta.ken them down, and put them lip. In fact, by the marks on them, it seemed as though he had made a practice of doing so. MacLeod and Kennedy unhooked the board ing. while Snedden looked on In a sort of daze. They had taken down only two or tli re e sections, which indicated that that whole side might similarly be removed, w:hen I heard a low, startled exclamation from Snedden. We peered in. There, in the half-light of the gloomy' interior, we could see a car. Before we know it Snedden had darted past us. An instant later I distinguished dis-tinguished what his more sensitive eye had seen a woman, all alone in the car, motionless. '"Ida I" he cried. There was no answer. "She she's deadl" he shouted. Tt was only too true. There was Ida Snedden, seated in Jackson's car In the old deserted building, all shut up dead. Yet her face was as pink as If she were alive and the blood had been whipped into her cheeks by a walk In the cold wind. We looked at one another, at a loss. How did she get there and why ? She must have come there voluntarily. No one had seen any one else with her in the car. Snedden was now almost beside himself. him-self. "Misfortunes never come singly," he wailed. "My daughter Gertrude gone now my wife dead. Confound that young fellow Garretson and Jackson, too! Where are they? Why have they fled? The scoundrels they have stolen my whole family. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?" Trying to quiet Snedden, at the same time we began to look about the building. build-ing. ' On one side was a small stove, in which were still the dying coals of a fire. Near by were a work bench, some tools, pieces of wire and other material. Scattered about were pieces of material that looked like celluloid. Some one evidently evi-dently used the place as a secret workshop. work-shop. Kennedy picked up a piece of the celluloid-like stuff and carefully touched a match to it. It did not, burn as rapidly rap-idly as celluloid does, and Craig seemed more than ever interested. MacLeod himself was no mean detective. Accustomed Accus-tomed to action, he had an idea of what to do. "Wait here!" he called bark, dashing out. "I'm going to the nearest house up tho road for help. I'll be back In a moment." We heard him back and turn his car and shoot away. Meanwhile, Kennedy was looking over carefully Jackson's roadster, lie tapped the gas tank in the rear, then opened it. There was not a drop of gas in it. He lifted up the hood and looked inside at the motor. Whai -ever he saw there, he said nothi'. Finally, by siphoning some gas fro . i i m'tkir" some adjust--omi lion (! it :o run. m Tve .el.' ! to ; s' r c. an.i 1 U.troweJ !'' . .!A .:ei:.er I.K- k-im is .-.ny Pi"--''- ."p . ", .r ,- - ,. on the '" ivm-Uani'- :... to w:..-h it narrow. Move than .-v.-r ::p in 'he jr " f . , h, :m :. I oouM unlv w.iu-h , m,i Ma.LeoJ. e.ioh ttfliownw; l ''Tt ',ni tit. remaps, has e K'Ci ton min-i,.,S;ui min-i,.,S;ui .Maol.ooJ ivunno, , anl dtt " -ih.it time ho hud nowr taken -oft i''ie hint when I in tian io tool a m" A oU fro.,. -MaoLooJ rouse, j me. , , . air 1 , "There's carbon monoxide in the . , Kemu-dv!" he esclaimed. "iou know , how thus gas affects birds. ; "it must be that this stove is the." pursued MacLeod, picking up I e pour little bud and carrying i'K; imo the fiesh air. where it could regain Its former liveliness. Then, when he returned, re-turned, he added. "There nuiit be some deleft in the stove or the draught imu makes it send out the poisonous "There's-sumo gas." agreed Kenned. "It must have cleared away mostli, or we couldn't stand it ourselves. i Ora'.g continued to look about the cai , and the building in the vain hope ot dis-, covering .some other clue. thid Mis. . Snedden been- killed by the carbonic, oxide? Was it a cas-o of g;us poisoning. i Then, too, w hv had she been here at all. Who had shut her up? Had she been overcome fit sr and. in a st upor, been unable to niovo m save herself.' Above ah, what had this to do with the mysterious mys-terious phantom slayer that had wrecked so much of the works in less than a week? It was quite late in the afternoon when, at last, people came from the town and took awav both, the body of Mrs. Snedden Sned-den and Jack.un's car. Snedden could oidv stare and work his fingers,, and after only stare and work his fingers, and, aster someone we could trust. Kennedy. MacLeod Mac-Leod and 1 climbed into MacLeod's car silently. "Surely that folio w must have my pictures pic-tures developed by this time." considered Kennedv. "Shoot back there." "They came out beautifully all except I one," reported the druggist, who was : somewhat of a camera' fiend himself. ! "That's a wonderful system, sir." Kennedy thanked him for his trouble and took the prints. With care he pieced them together, until he had several suc-1 suc-1 cessi ve panoramas of the country ta ken from various elevations of the parachute. Then, with a magnifying glass, he went over each section minutely. "Look at that"' he pointed out at la-st with the sharp tip of a pencil on one picture. In what looked like an open space among trees was a tiny figure of a man. It seemed as if he were hacking at something; some-thing; with an ax. What the something was did not appear in the picture. ! ' should say that it was half a mile, perhaps a mile, farther away than that i grove," commented Kennedy, making a j rough caleula t ion. j "On the old Davis farm," considered MacLeod. "ljook and see if you can't ; make out the ruins of a house somewhere ! near-by. It was burned many years ago." ' "Yes, yes," returned Kennedy, excitedly; excited-ly; "there's the place! Do you think we can pet there iu a car before it's dark?" "Easily," replied MacLeod. It was only a matter of minutes before we three were poking about in a tangle of wood and field, seeking to locate the spot where Kennedy's apparatus had photographed pho-tographed the lone axnian. At last, in a large, cleared field, we came upon a most peculiar heap of debris. As nearly as 1 could make out, It was a pile of junk, but most interesting j.ink. Practically all of it consisted of broken I ' bits of the celluloid -like stuff we had seen in the abandoned building. Twisted inextricably about were steel wires a.nd bits of all softs of material. In the midst of the wreckage was something that looked for all the world like the remains of a gas motor. It was not rusted either, which indicated that it had been put there recently. As he looked at it , Craig- s face displayed dis-played a smile of satisfaction. "Looks as though it might have been an accident," objected MacLeod. "No aviator could have lived through it, and there's no body." "No; it was purposely destroyed," continued con-tinued Craig. "It. was landed here from somewhere else for that purpose. That was what the man in the picture was doing do-ing wilh the ax. After the last explosion something happened. He brought the machine here to destroy the evidence." "But," persisted MacLeod, "if. there had been an aeroplane hovering about we should have seen it in the air, passing pass-ing over the works at the time of the explosion." Kennedy kicked the pieces, signifi-ca signifi-ca ntly. "Some one about here has kept abreast of the times, if not ahead. See; the planes were of this non-inflammable celluloid that made it virtually transparent transpar-ent and visible only at a few hundred feet in the air. The aviator could fly low and so drop those pastilles accur-a accur-a tely and unseen. The engine had one of those new muffler boxes. He would have been unheard, too, except for that delicate airship detector." MacLeod and I could but stare at each other, aghast. Without a doubt it was in the old merry-go-round building that the phantom aviator had established his hangar. Wha t the connection was between be-tween the tragedy in the Snedden family-and family-and the tragedy in the powder works we did not know but, at least, now we knew that there was some connection. Tt was growing dark rapidly, and, with some difficulty, we retraced our steps to the point where we had left the car. We whirled back to the town, and, of course, to the Snedden house. Snedden was sitting in the parlor when we arrived, by the body of his wife, staring, star-ing, speechless, straight before him, while several neighbors were gathered about, trying to console him. We had scarcely entered when a messenger boy came up the path from the gate. Both Kennedy and MacLeod turned toward him, ex pecting some reply to the numerous vn$. sages of alarm sent out earlier in the afternoon. "Telegram for Mrs. Snedden," not; need the boy. "Mrs. Snedden?" queried Kennedy, sUr prised, then quickly. "Oh. yes, that's all pght. I'll take care of It." j He signed for the message, tore It open, and read it. For a moment his : face, which had been clouded, smoothed : out. and he took a couple of turns up ard 1 down tho hall, as though undecided Finn II v he crumpled the telegram ab." Istractedly and shoved it into his pocket j e followed him as ho went into the par-i par-i lor and stood for several moments, look-I look-I iug fixedlv on the strangely flushed faca v M rs. snedden, I "Maclod," he said, finally, turning ! gravely toward us, ami for the present seeming to ignore the presence of th! ! iuhers.""this amazing series of crimes has ! luousht home to me forcibly the alarm", j ing possibilities of applying modern seien. j tific devices to criminal uses. New modes and processes seem to bring new men-1 men-1 aces." "Like rarbon-monoxido poisoning?" sup. posted MacLeod. "Of course It has long been known as a harmful gas but" - Let us see." interrupted Kennedv, "Walter, you were there when I examined Jackson's car. There was not a drop of gasoline in the tank, you will recall. hCven the water in the radiator was low. 1 lifted the hood. Some one must hava tampered, with the carburetor. It was'S"-insted was'S"-insted so that the amount of air in tlTe mlxture was reduced. More than that I don't know whether you noticed It or not, but the spark and gas were set so that, when I did put gasoline in the tank, 1 had but to turn the engine over and it went. In other words, that car hod been standing there, the engine running, until it -simply stopped for want of fuel." He ! paused 'while we listened Intently, then resumed. "The gas engine and gas motor have brought with them another of thosa unanticipated menaces of which I spnkc Whenever the explosion of the combn?" tlble mixture is incomplete or of moderated moder-ated intensity a gas of which little in know n may be formed In considerable quantities, "In this case, as in several others that have come to my attention, vapors arising aris-ing from the combustion must hava emitted certain noxious products. The fumes that caused Ida Snedden's death were not of carbon monoxide from the stove, MacLeod. They were splitting products of gasoline, which aro so new to science that they have not yet been named. "Mrs. Snedden's death, I may say for the benefit of the coroner, was due to tho absorption of some of these unidentified gaseous poisons. They are as deadly as a knife thrust through the heart, under certain conditions. Due to the nonoxida-tion nonoxida-tion of some of the elements of gasoline, they escape from the exhaust of ever,' running gas engine. . Tn the open air, where only a whiff or two would be inhaled in-haled now and then, they are not dangerous, dan-gerous, But in a close droom they mav kill in an in'crebidly short time. In fart, the condition has given rise to an entirely new phenomenon which some one has named 'petromortis.' '" "Petromortis?" repeated Snedden, who, for the first time, began to show Interest in what, was going on about him. "Then it war- an accident?" 'T did not say It wan an accident," corrected cor-rected Craig. "There is an old adae tha t murder will out. And this expression expres-sion of human experience is only repealed in wdiat we modem scientific detihos are doing. No man bent on the coin-sion coin-sion of a crime can so arrange the cii-1 cum stances of that crime that it will afterward appear, point by point, as an accident.'- f Kennedy had all of us following him, breathlessly now. "I do not consider It an accident, "Te went on, rapidly piecing together the facts as we had found them. "Ida Snedden Sned-den w as killed because she was get tine: too close to someone's secret. lven at luncheon, T could see that she had discovered dis-covered Gertrude's attachment for Garretson. Gar-retson. How she heard that, following the excitement of the explosion this afternoon, after-noon, Gertrude and Garretson had disappeared, disap-peared, T do not pretend to know. But It is evident that she did hear, that she went out and took Jackson's car. probahlv to pursue them. If wo have heard that they went by the river road, she might have heard it, too. "In all probability she came along jtift in time to surprise someone working on 1 the other side of the old merry-go-roini1 J structure. There can be no reason to oon- ceal the fact longer. From that desertl I building someone wa? daily launching a ! newly designed invisible aeroplane. A Mrs. Sneddon came along, she must ha'-e been .iut in time to see that person at hh secret hangar. What happened I do nt know, except that she must have run ti"1- car rjff the river road and Into the build-, build-, Ing. The person whom she found must 1 have suddenly conceived a method of get-i get-i ting her out of the way and making it look like an accident of some kind. Me perhaps persuaded her to stay in the car with the engine running while he went I off and destroyed the aeroplane whkli i was damning evidence now." j Startling as was the revelation of an actual phantom destroyer our minds wer j i more aroused as to who might he tlm ! criminal who had employed such an en-1 en-1 gine of death. 1 Kennedy drew from his pocket the telegram tele-gram whiclv had just arrived, and spread it out flat before us on a table. It was dated Philadelphia, and read : Mrs. Tda Snedden, Nitropolis: j Garretson and. Gertrude were marrM today. Have traced them to the Wolcott. Try to reconcile Mr. Snedden. HITNTKR JACKSON. I saw at once that part of the ston Tt was lust a plain love affair that had ended in an elopement at a convenient J time. The fire-eating Garretson had hPA afraid of the Sneddens and Jackson, -7 w-as their friend. Before I could evjri think further, Kennedy had drawnit. the films taken bv the rocket camera. "With the aid of a magnifying glass," he was saying. "I can get just enoueh of the lone figure in this picture to identify it. These are the crimes of a crazed pacifist, one whose mind had so long dwelt on the horrors of " The strain of the revelation had been too much. Snedden a raving maniac-had maniac-had reeled forward, wildly and Impotent-ly. Impotent-ly. at the man who had "exposed him. |