As soon as the papers were on the street, men went out of their way to get a look at the new light. There it was, sure enough, and as the darkness gathered it displayed a beautiful green pear, with a red streak in the centre, a gleaming reproduction of the famous candy. It was pronounced a great advertisement, but one scarcely necessary in a locality where the confection itself was already in the mouth of everybody. However, the reward offered was tempting, and not only did every policeman and fireman immediately become a night watchman for the Torreton works, but every man and boy as well who could invent any pretext for being out.
But while thus, in one sense, subjected to closer espionage than ever, Torreton's factory was no longer troubled by the spies of his rivals, and his business increased even beyond his expectations. Still he labored regularly as ever, and lived with his wife and niece just as quietly, his only extravagance being frequent additions to his greenhouses.
The light in the cupola burned steadily, and the tempting reward seemed destined to remain unclaimed, until one evening more than two years after the completion of the building, when a newsboy lingering late in the endeavor to dispose of an overstock of "extrys" suddenly saw a blurred halo surrounding the green and red beacon. It trembled, grew pale and—
The light went out!
Dropping his papers, the boy took the shortest route to Park Avenue, but soon found he was not alone in the race for the Torreton residence, as he passed men and boys and even women, all silently striving for the promised reward. A watchful and active fireman was the first to arrive in the presence of Mrs. Torreton to claim it, and she, with her niece, who acted as confidential secretary to her uncle at the factory, were already in a carriage swinging out of the grounds when the great body of panting messengers arrived.
During the anxious drive to Sumach Park, the girl explained that, rather earlier than usual, her uncle told her he was going to the city and would not return to the works. When she started for home she had noticed that the door to a small inner laboratory vault, in which Mr. Torreton kept his most important chemicals and papers, was open. She had closed and locked it. What connection this incident might have with the extinguishing of the light she could not imagine, yet she felt that something was wrong, as any attempt to enter the building by night would put out the beacon and give an alarm.
Followed by Mrs. Torreton and a policeman from the crowd assembled about the factory, the niece led the way through the building. Although this was four stories high, all the stairways and elevators stopped at the third floor. The private laboratories on the top floor were never entered by any one but Torreton and his niece, who went there daily, drawing themselves up by an ingenious contrivance like a dumb waiter built into the wall and concealed behind a panel in the private secretary's office. To this she now went, and under her direction the others ascended one at a time to the floor above. The laboratory was in darkness, and the electric light would not work. But as they approached the door of the vault by lantern light, strange noises were heard. Tremblingly the girl worked the combination and released the heavy door. Torreton was there and alive, and without speaking he stumbled blindly toward the light, and then fell unconscious.
Before closing the vault again, the niece looked wonderingly in. Burned matches and paper ashes attracted her attention. They lay on the floor, beneath the electric light bracket. On a shelf lay a note hastily scrawled on a Joy Drop wrapper:
"Locked in—suffocating. Secret shall die with me. Have burned the formula. Wife has enough—she shall not be persecuted as I have been. Good-bye."
Beneath this was written: