"What did it look like?" asked Chief Coy.
"There came a big flash and a loud bang in the same instant, and Mr. Garwood was hurled over on his side. The queer part of it was that the explosion didn't do any real damage to the bench, though there wasn't a piece of the glass mortar left that was big enough to see."
"The explosion all went upward. It didn't work sideways or downward?" asked Chief Coy.
"That's the way we saw it," Dick replied. "And it didn't hurt either you or Darrin?"
"Not beyond the big scare, and the shock to our ear-drums."
"I wonder what the explosive could have been?" mused the chief aloud.
"I don't know what was in the mortar in the first place, sir," Dick Prescott went on. "All Amos Garwood put in the mortar after we got there was some chlorate of potash. Then he put the pestle in and began to grind."
"And then the explosion happened?" followed up Chief Coy.
"Chlorate of potash, eh?" broke in a local druggist, who had halted and was listening. "Hm! If Garwood ground that stuff with a pestle, then it doesn't much matter what else was in the mortar!"
"Is the chlorate explosive, sir?" questioned Dick.