White Fire Page 2

  CHAPTER II JOHNNY'S TRAP WORKS

  Closing time that afternoon found Johnny in a cubby-hole just back of themain entrance. He was peering through a crack which appeared to have beenleft between the boards by accident. It had, in fact, been made forJohnny's benefit that very day.

  He was watching the long line of workmen, each swinging in his right handhis paper lunch-box, file out of the building. A clicking, turnstile gateallowed only one to pass out at a time. The factory had other exits, butthis was the only one close to the spot where the strange and precioussteel bars had been stored.

  Beside the narrow board-walk over which the single-file line traveled,lay a circular affair of iron. Some three feet across and two feet thick,it appeared but a crude lump of metal carelessly left there. A closeobserver, however, would have noted that electric wires led away from theback of it. This was Johnny's electro-magnet. When suspended in air froma cable this innocent-appearing affair could lift a half-ton of steel toa freight car platform as easily as a child might pick up a handful ofstraw.

  "It isn't likely that the fellow who took that steel would attempt totake it from the building at once. He'd hide it in the factory and carryit out some other night. Sooner or later I'll get him. Sooner or--"

  Johnny's thoughts were cut short by a hand lightly laid on his shoulder.

  "Thought I'd find you here." It was his employer. "Some things in thefactory I want to show you when the men are gone. They're about out now.I'll just wait here. Don't let me disturb you."

  But Johnny _had_ been disturbed; his eyes for the moment had been drawnfrom that passing string of men and the electro-magnet. As he againfocused his eyes on the crack, he gave an involuntary start. Clinging tothe face of the electro-magnet as if glued there, was an oblong paperbox--a lunch-box. And the man who owned it? He had passed on out of sightwithout any apparent attempt to regain possession of his property.

  "Rotten luck!" Johnny's lips framed the words but did not say them. Thetrap had worked. There was iron or steel in that box; that was why thepowerful electro-magnet had drawn it to itself. He had recovered theproperty, but his man had escaped. The precious steel was safe. That muchwas good. He heaved a sigh of relief; watched the last workman march by,touched the switch, saw the box drop from the magnet as the current wasshut off, then turned toward the door.

  At this point a doubt came to his mind. What if the metal in the boxproved to be some other metal than the precious steel? He had been aboutto display his catch in triumph. He decided to make sure first, and somerely said: "In just a moment I'll be ready."

  Stepping outside, he secured possession of the mysterious lunch-box and,carrying it as if it were dynamite, again entered the cubby-hole and saidcheerfully: "All right; I'm ready now."

  As they walked slowly back into the factory Johnny's eyes turned first tothe right, then to the left. For the time the baffling mysteries of thehour were forgotten, and for the hundredth time he was lost in admirationof this marvel of modern industry, a vast manufacturing plant. Here theypassed through the forge-room where, by the dull light of dying fires,one might see trip-hammers, looming like giants, resting from theirlabors. Now again they passed through a sand-strewn room wherecrater-like heaps were smoking--the foundry. And now they emerged intothe assembly-room, where were automobiles partly put together, andfurther down, airplanes poised like giant birds ready for flight.

  "The things I am to show you to-night"--the voice of his employer rousedhim from the spell which the place had put upon him--"are secrets,secrets known only to myself and two other men. This factory was rebuiltand enlarged during the World War. Our entire output was then being takenby the Government. In those days every precaution was necessary. Spies ofthe enemy were all about us and in our very midst, seeking out our mostvaluable secrets, ready to destroy our plants and so cripple our army. Itwas such a time as this that I had installed in this plant thecontrivances which I am about to show you and which may, perhaps, be ofassistance to you. Your work from now on will be done at night. You sleptthis afternoon as I instructed?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Then you will be all right for tonight."

  "Easy," answered Johnny slangily.

  "Now, here," they had paused in the center of an aisle, "please note yourexact position. Got it?"

  "Yes."

  Johnny's employer nodded approval.

  "Have you a watch and flashlight? It's dark where you're going."

  "No flashlight." In spite of his best efforts, Johnny's knees trembled.

  "Here's a small one. Now prepare yourself for a surprise. In five minutesstand up. Watch me."

  The magnate reached up and gave a pull on an electric lamp wire justabove his head. The next instant Johnny felt himself shoot rapidlydownward, to land at last with no perceptible shock upon some flatobject. All about him was pitch darkness. At once his trembling handsnapped on the flashlight. As its welcome gleam shot out before him, hesaw that he was in a narrow, cement-walled chamber. One glance downwardand his tense muscles relaxed.

  "Humph!" he grunted. "The scrap-conveyor!"

  It was true. Beneath this up-to-date factory, a tunnel had been cut,through which a broad, flat conveyor ran. On this conveyor, from everypoint in the factory, scraps of iron, steel, brass, cloth, wire, rubberand what-not were carried without the lifting of a human hand, direct tothe scrap-room.

  "It's a clever exit, nevertheless," thought Johnny, "and worthremembering. 'Five minutes,' he said, 'then stand up.'"

  Focusing the flashlight on his watch, he waited. The conveyor was moving.He could see the shadows of cement beams slowly rise and pass by him. Theplace was fairly spooky--"like a tomb," he said to himself. It was deadstill, too. Nothing save the almost noiseless motion of the conveyorbroke the silence. "What a spot for a tragedy," he thought. "A fight herein the night; the victor escapes; the dead body is carried silently on tothe scrap-pile."

  One minute passed, two, three, four. The silence grew oppressive. Five!Then came a sudden flood of light from above him. Leaping to his feet, hereached up to the edge of a cement floor and vaulted up to it. Silently asecond trapdoor closed behind him. His employer stood beside him.

  "Have a nice ride?" he smiled.

  "Fine! A bit spooky, though," Johnny grinned back.

  "Could you use it in an emergency?"

  "I think so. It's the wire of the lamp hanging directly above it, isn'tit?"

  "Right. Works electrically. Pulling that wire does the trick. There aresome others, though. We must hurry on. I have a directors' meeting ateight."

  The marvels, the tricks of magic which Johnny witnessed during the tensehalf-hour that followed, thrilled, charmed and at times frightened him.Now he caught himself leaping aside, as if to avoid the blow of a hiddenforce, and now frozen in his tracks, he felt chills race up and down hisspine, while cold perspiration stood out upon his brow. Convinced as hewas that he was in the hands of a friend, he could not fully overcome thespell of this seemingly magic factory. While standing idly leaningagainst a wall, he would suddenly become conscious of a movement in frontof him, and there, not three feet before him, a second wall towered.Whether it had risen from the floor, dropped from the ceiling ordeveloped out of thin air, he could not tell, so sudden and silent wasits motion. Again, he was standing talking to his employer and, havingbeen attracted by a sound in the distance, turned away for an instant,only to find on turning again to his friend that he had vanished; thepillar beside which he had been standing had swallowed him up.

  After initiating him into the secret mysteries of six of these strangedevices, his employer promised him more in the future, then took him overto the front of a massive vault built into the wall of the factory.

  "Here," said Mr. McFarland, "we keep our most valuable tools and thediamonds used in giving to shaftings their finishing touches. Here alsorest the six bars of steel of the mysterious, unknown formula. We hopesoon to rediscover that formula, or that
its inventor, through theagencies of the doctor of the sanitarium, will be restored to his normalmind and memory. An old and trusted employe presides over the vaultduring the day. It will be your task to guard it nights. At any time youfeel yourself in danger, there are the secret doors, walls and passages Ihave shown you. They may be of great service to you in securing aid, ifit is needed. And now I must bid you good night."

  "Good night." Johnny's own voice, as if coming from a cavern, soundedhollow to him.

  As his employer disappeared from sight, however, he shook himself andattempted to remember something he had postponed, something of which hissubconscious memory was striving to tell him.

  Suddenly he started.

  "The box! That lunch-box caught by the electro-magnet!"

  The next instant he was hastening away to the cubby-hole where the boxstill rested.

  As he put his hand to the door, a sinking feeling seized him. What if itwere gone? The next instant found him reassured; with the handle of thebox in his own right hand, he was hurrying back to his post of duty.

  But what was that? Had his well-trained ear caught the sound of afootstep? With heart beating double-time, he stood in the shadow of agreat punch-press and listened. Yes, there it was; a stealthy, glidingfootstep.

  Stooping, with a silent, tiger-like motion he crept forward until thesteel door of the vault was within his view. There, in the shelter of amilling machine, he paused and crouched motionless as a cat.

  He did not have long to wait, for out of the shadows there crept thedark, crouching form of a man.

  Direct as an arrow the man glided forward. Now he was ten feet from thesteel door, and paused to listen. Two steps more, and a second pause. Andnow his hand was nearing the shining metal knob that controlled thecombination lock of the vault. Again he appeared to listen.

  At that second, Johnny's eyes fairly popped out of his head--a strangething was taking place. The knob which had been white in thesemi-darkness, had turned a dull red!

  "The mysterious fire!" he whispered, almost aloud.

  The next instant there came a strange hissing cry of pain. The personcrouching there, without noting the red glow, had grasped the knob.

  For a second he appeared to study the knob; then, without as much aslooking backward, he turned and darted away.

  Frozen in his tracks, Johnny stood staring at the knob until the red glowhad faded out and the knob shone white once more.

  A long time he stood there, his mind rife with wild wonderings. What wasthis white fire? Whence its origin? Johnny was not superstitious; he feltthat some human being was back of it all. But that human being, was hefriend or foe? If friend, then he had frightened the enemy away! Ifenemy, then he had known of Johnny's presence and had used this means towarn his confederate.

  Presently, when his mind was again composed, he thought of the lunch-boxand with trembling fingers reached down to lift it from the floor.

  What would it disclose? How would its contents affect the mystery he wastrying to solve?

  Johnny drew a deep breath, and grinned happily.