"I'm up to the neck in this thing now," Henry explained, as he joined us in the car, "and no one can render me more valuable assistance than Mr. McGinity. I've asked him to help me in making up a statement for the press, which I've promised to hand out, first thing in the morning."
McGinity insisted on riding in the front seat with the chauffeur. One look at Pat convinced me that she was very pleased to have him with us, even if he rode astride the radiator hood, which was hardly possible, with the chauffeur's usual rocket-like speed as we rushed through the dark countryside.
It was long past midnight when we rolled through the lodge-gate at our Sands Cliff estate. During the drive from the city, many meteors had flashed across the sky. We had just stepped up to our front door when there was a sudden flash of prismatic colors almost directly over our heads, a soft whirring noise, like a plane makes in the dead of night, followed by a heavy thud, indicating that perhaps some heavy object had struck the ground. Then everything became dark and quiet again.
The incident had an electrical effect on Henry. "That was a meteorite, as sure as shot!" he exclaimed. "Looks like it fell somewhere along the water-front. What about going down, and having a look round?"
"Let's go," said McGinity, eagerly.
It took some argument on the part of Jane and myself to keep them from making the search, but at last we managed it. Half an hour later, we were all in our beds. I was so dead tired, I felt that I would never wake up once I got to sleep.
It was bright daylight, seven o'clock in the morning, when I was wakened by Niki knocking loudly at my bedroom door.
XIII
Niki was an early bird; he always took a walk round the castle grounds long before the rest of the household was up. His walk that morning had taken him along the water-front. On the beach, about a mile from our private dock, he had discovered a strange-looking object, something that resembled a huge sky-rocket, as he described it to me afterwards. On close inspection, he thought he heard a tapping sound inside the metal tube, as though some one was imprisoned there. This had alarmed him greatly, and he had taken it on the run back to the castle.