PIE QUERR SIDE OF T71TNVGS,

cover: there was onlv o wide road bhordered by short turl: there was no hole in the carth - but John had cone, and T never saw him agai.

lFor days T sat in my room, or paced about i waiting for the moment when niv bram should give way and leave me a nuttering idiot = but T must have a strong bram, or a lethargic one, for T retained my reason. Then L determined to fathom this horrible mystery and until that moment I had never known the real meaning ol the word determina- tion,”

I went straight o my uncle’s house and et mysell in: and T went strarght to the laboratory and un- locked the door. Dust was upon evervthing, and T shuddered so as 1 Jooked round the place that T had to go awav nto the dining-room and sit down fora time. Then I returncd to the laboratory.

I had come (o cxamine that old desk s for T felt a con- viction that it con- tamned a seeret drawer, and that this secret drawer contained the cluce to the mystery. I may have heard ol a sceret drawer in the desk i my - hoy- hood : that is quite possible, although [ did not remember the crreumstance,

Anvhow, T took up that desk and re- moved its cover, made ol o plece ol any uncles craze the grev eloth and | pushed anck pulled at iton every side, until a faint vecollection scemed to come 1o me, and | pulled out and foreibly depressed the sliding

A SHELT o

stamp-box in the corner of the desk : and the sceret drawer flew open. There was @ sheet of foolscap in it. covered with

writing in my uncle’s hand.

It deseribed the composition of an o plosive (many times moroe potent than dvnamite), the rapidite of whose aetion caused e to ber firsthv, inaudible 1o the human car by reason of the nunber of the resultant air-waves s and, sccondly, to he ‘xtremely local inits action. Another

PoOoLsCAl Covkdeh

073

peculiarty the centripetal direetion of 1t Jines ol energy, by means of which the violence of its particles would he cxerted towards @ common centre. Thus, if an object should he surrounded with o laver of the explosive, the object would he wholly destroved, while objects o actual contact with the outside of the laver would remain absolutehy unaffected. Further, the violence of the naudible explosion was so intensc as toreduce the object surrounded o a Laseous ostate, and s action caused no visible flash. The process would, there- fore, 1n any place sulficienthy open to allow of the free expansion of the destroved object INto a gascous state, be absolutely unde- tectable by the senses

WS

of a person a little cistanee away. Then were jotted RAWIN . . T g, down some con-

i

venient methods of usig the stuff: and once of these was to saturate any material partly woollen with the explosive in solu- tion, and, having wrapped the material round the object to be destroved, to ex- plode the substance cither by friction, or concussion, or clee- tricity. "T'he writing went on o to sav that for some weeks, or cven months, after being applied 1o the material, the explosive might be handled, or Sll}')ju(‘t.('d to shocks, with punity, its - explosive (qualitics heing slowly developed by exposure to the gir,

[ cortim cases, after a lapse of tme, the composition might become so sensitive as {0 be exploded by an clectrie condition of the: atmosphere, or by a touch cven. The solu- tion would in no way affect the colour of a material - chemically adapted to reccive it provided that material were frequentlvesposed to-the Tight s hut that, if kept in the dark, the material would soon hecome vellowish and dequire 1 pungent odour,

L v upstairs to the press where, as T knew, a stock of the * health-material ° used o be kept, and threw open the door. A strong pungent odour came out; and there

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