"Get back into the meadow grass, Danny boy," Darrin whispered, giving his friend's arm a hard grip. "If the 'loot'nant' comes back, get up fearfully drowsy when he orders you. Gape and look too stupid to apologize!"
Lieutenant Adams, however, had other matters to occupy his attention. There was a genuine puzzle for him in the corridor. Just out, side the door of Midshipmen Farley and Page there lay on the floor tiny glass fragments of what had been an efficient sixty-candle-power tungsten electric bulb. It was one of the lights that illuminated the corridor.
Now one of these tungsten bulbs, when struck smartly, explodes with a report like that of a pistol.
At this hour of the night, however, there were none passing save Naval officers on duty. None other than the lieutenant himself had lately passed in the corridor. How, then, had this electric light bulb been shattered and made to give forth the sound of the explosion?
"It wouldn't go up with a noise like that," murmured the lieutenant to himself. "These tungsten lights don't explode like that, except when rapped in some way. They don't blow up, when left alone. At least, that is what I have always understood."
So the puzzle waxed and grew, and Lieutenant Adams found it too big to solve alone.
"At any rate, I've questioned all the young gentlemen about the window episode, and they all deny knowledge of it," Lieutenant Adams told himself. "So I'll just report that fact to the O.C., and at the same time I'll tell him of the blowing up of this tungsten light."
Two minutes later Lieutenant Adams stood in the presence of
Lieutenant-Commander Henderson, the officer in charge.
"So you questioned all of the midshipmen who might, by any chance, have entered by a window?" asked the O.C.
"Yes, sir."