“It was a laboratory, all right,” I said to Dorothy, who nodded and passed by into the third room. She crossed directly to the rear window.
“Look here, Jim,” she called softly.
Tom and the agent were left behind in the large centre room. I followed Dorothy’s pointing finger with my eyes, as I reached her side. There, between the buildings, showed a narrow, open strip, which ended in the shadow of a dark arch, crowned by a rudely carved horse’s head. It was the arch where the sign of the “Three Horses” had hung.
“If this was the man’s laboratory, his destructive power could have escaped from this window,” murmured Dorothy, “gone straight through, and attacked that sign, without meeting iron anywhere else on the way. Oh, Jim, do you suppose this room corresponded to Dr. Heidenmuller’s wooden room? The man might have wooden panels to the windows and a double door, and taken them down when he left.”
I shook my head. “If enough of that deadly stuff got away to destroy the iron of the sign, it would destroy every nail inside the room, and here are iron nails holding the window casing together.”
“That’s right,” said Dorothy, as she inspected the nail heads. “Those do look like iron nails.” Then she broke square off. “Got your knife in your pocket, Jim?”
Silently I produced and opened it.
“Now try to pry out that nail,” she commanded, pointing to one on the window casing.
I obeyed, with the full expectation of breaking my knife short off. To my utter surprise, the blade cut straight through the nail, with less resistance than the wood around it offered. The nail head was shorn away. Dorothy and I sprang at the same moment to pick it up, and we met in a sudden collision. Only by the extraordinary presence of mind which I showed in clasping Dorothy closely in my arms was a complete spill averted. A soft tendril of the sweet spring woods swept my cheek, the velvet petal of a flower brushed by my lips, and my whole body was aflame. Scarcely the fraction of a second was Dorothy in my arms, yet it seemed as if eons of life had passed. As we scrambled to our feet, I could feel my face blazing. I looked at Dorothy. Her face was as suffused as mine felt. Just then Tom entered and stood gazing at us with a quizzical smile. “Head on collision,” he exclaimed, in mock alarm. “Another big accident.” Not a word did Dorothy reply to his badinage. She walked in an especially stately fashion to the window and stood gazing out, while I busied myself energetically in hunting once more for the end of the nail which my knife had shorn off. It was lying just by my side, and as I picked it up, it crumbled.
“Why, these nail heads are putty,” I cried in amazement. “They’re simply imitations of nails.”