Dorothy’s face was clouded as Tom came up to the spot where we were standing a little apart, Hamerly and Swenton had already started up the stairs. “I’m not sure that you are doing right in this, Tom,” said Dorothy swiftly, in a low voice. “I don’t like to bribe a servant to let us into a place where we don’t belong.”
Tom’s face became serious in a minute. “I don’t like it either, Dorothy,” he answered gravely, “but I’m going to do it. Do you remember the little German middy lying down at the bottom? As long as the man who is trying to stop all war is at large there are thousands of men in hourly peril. I honestly believe we are the only ones who can run the man down. I am convinced we shall be wholly justified in such action.”
Dorothy stood for a moment in silent thought. “I think you are right, Tom,” she said quietly. “In this case I hope and believe the end will justify the means. We must find ‘the man.’ Go ahead.”
Stumbling through the darkness, we reached the top, where the flame of a match showed a strong oak door with two Yale locks upon it. Tom had the keys in immediately and threw the door open. Once within, Swenton passed with accustomed step to the wall, turned a switch, and incandescents lighted the whole place.
We were in a sort of anteroom, with desks and chairs. “The outer office,” said Swenton briefly. We passed through an inner door. “The main laboratory,” remarked Swenton. This was similar to any other laboratory. A good sized motor generator in one corner, covered by a rubber sheet, a couple of tile-topped tables, a set of shelves on one side, filled with labelled reagent bottles, a set of glass cases, supported on a base filled with drawers, on the other. In the cabinets were glass ware and apparatus of various sorts. Tom started for the case, but Dorothy laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“Wait till we have seen it all. Then we’ll go over the whole, piece by piece.”
Tom nodded, and we went on. There were three doors on the opposite side of the wall. Swenton passed to the first and opened it. “The storeroom,” he explained. Within were wooden cases of glassware, large carboys of acid, glass tubing on racks and wire on spools. In one corner was apparently a hospital for broken or disused pieces of apparatus. We turned from this to the second door. “The balance room,” said Swenton, as he threw open the portal. Three balances in polished wood and shining glass met our eyes. There was nothing else in the room. Swenton opened a third door. “The spectroscope room,” he said. “Beyond is the doctor’s private laboratory.” A big piece of apparatus on the table was covered with a green cloth. Beyond was a wooden door. Despite myself, I felt a queer, nervous tremor pass over my frame, as I looked at the commonplace wooden panels, behind which Dr. Heidenmuller had sat dead, killed by the same mysterious power which had slain the men I had seen lying quietly at the bottom of Portsmouth Harbor. Tom and Hamerly were as keen as hounds on a scent, Swenton interested but more indifferent, Dorothy pale, her eyes glittering with excitement. Hamerly reached the door first, tried it and it swung back. The incandescent had not been turned on in the spectroscope room, and the only light which entered was the golden lane, which came through from the main laboratory. It seemed like a stage setting. The light fell on a heavy wooden table and a couple of Windsor chairs. The rest was but faintly outlined.
A moment’s pause on the threshold, as if we expected to meet some horror, we knew not what, and then we rushed in together. There was nothing to be seen. Wood panelled walls; windows sealed by wooden shutters; the wooden table and the two wooden chairs; that was all. We stood there silent, until Tom broke the quiet.
“Nothing to do but to Sherlock Holmes it,” he said. “We have all day to run this thing down. Swenton, there’s a piece of apparatus here that I need. The doctor may never have had it outside his room as a whole, yet we may find traces of it in the laboratory or the storeroom. Are you willing to help us hunt?”