The Moon Metal

  VII

  A MYSTERY INDEED!

  When President Boon had heard our story he promptly approved Hall'sdismissal of the men. He expressed great surprise that Dr. Syx shouldhave resorted to a deception which had been so disastrous to innocentpeople, and at first he talked of legal proceedings. But, afterthinking the matter over, he concluded that Syx was too powerful to beattacked with success, especially when the only evidence against himwas that he had claimed to find artemisium in his mine at a time when,as everybody knew, artemisium actually was found outside themine. There was no apparent motive for the deception, and no proof ofmalicious intent. In short, Mr. Boon decided that the best thing forhim and his stockholders to do was to keep silent about their lossesand await events. And, at Hall's suggestion, he also determined to saynothing to anybody about the discovery we had made.

  "It could do no good," said Hall, in making the suggestion, "and itmight spoil a plan I have in mind."

  "What plan?" asked the president.

  "I prefer not to tell just yet," was the reply.

  I observed that, in our interview with Mr. Boon, Hall made noreference to the side tunnel to which he had appeared to attach somuch importance, and I concluded that he now regarded it as lackingsignificance. In this I was mistaken.

  A few days afterwards I received an invitation from Hall to accompanyhim once more into the abandoned tunnel.

  "I have found out what that sidetrack means," he said, "and it hasplunged me into another mystery so dark and profound that I cannot seemy way through it. I must beg you to say no word to any one concerningthe things I am about to show you."

  I gave the required promise, and we entered the tunnel, which nobodyhad visited since our former adventure. Having extinguished our lamp,my companion opened the peep-hole, and a thin ray of light streamedthrough from the tunnel on the opposite side of the wall. He appliedhis eye to the hole.

  "Yes," he said, quickly stepping back and pushing me into his place,"they are still at it. Look, and tell me what you see."

  "I see," I replied, after placing my eye at the aperture, "a gang ofmen unloading a car which has just come out of the side tunnel, andputting its contents upon another car standing on the track of themain tunnel."

  "Yes, and what are they handling?"

  "Why, ore, of course."

  "And do you see nothing significant in that?"

  "To be sure!" I exclaimed. "Why, that ore--"

  "Hush! hush!" admonished Hall, putting his hand over my mouth; "don'ttalk so loud. Now go on, in a whisper."

  "The ore," I resumed, "may have come back from the furnace-room,because the side tunnel turns off so as to run parallel with theother."

  "It not only may have come back, it actually has come back," saidHall.

  "How can you be sure?"

  "Because I have been over the track, and know that it leads to asecret apartment directly under the furnace in which Dr. Syx pretendsto melt the ore!"

  For a minute after hearing this avowal I was speechless.

  "Are you serious?" I asked at length.

  "Perfectly serious. Run your finger along the rock here. Do youperceive a seam? Two days ago, after seeing what you have justwitnessed in the Syx tunnel, I carefully cut out a section of thewall, making an aperture large enough to crawl through, and, when Iknew the workmen were asleep, I crept in there and examined bothtunnels from end to end. But in solving one mystery I have run myselfinto another infinitely more perplexing."

  "How is that?"

  "Why does Dr. Syx take such elaborate pains to deceive his visitors,and also the government officers? It is now plain that he conducts nomining operations whatever. This mine of his is a giganticblind. Whenever inspectors or scientific curiosity seekers visit hismill his mute workmen assume the air of being very busy, the carsladen with his so-called 'ore' rumble out of the tunnel, and theircontents are ostentatiously poured into the furnace, or appear to bepoured into it, really dropping into a receptacle beneath, to becarried back into the mine again. And then the doctor leads his gulledvisitors around to the other side of the furnace and shows them themolten metal coming out in streams. Now what does it all mean? That'swhat I'd like to find out. What's his game? For, mark you, if hedoesn't get artemisium from this pretended ore, he gets it from someother source, and right on this spot, too. There is no doubt aboutthat. The whole world is supplied by Syx's furnace, and Syx feeds hisfurnace with something that comes from his ten acres of Grand Tetonrock. What is that something? How does he get it, and where does hehide it? These are the things I should like to find out."

  "Well," I replied, "I fear I can't help you."

  "But the difference between you and me," he retorted, "is that you cango to sleep over it, while I shall never get another good night's restso long as this black mystery remains unsolved."

  "What will you do?"

  "I don't know exactly what. But I've got a dim idea which may takeshape after a while."

  Hall was silent for some time; then he suddenly asked:

  "Did you ever hear of that queer magic-lantern show with which Dr. Syxentertained Mr. Boon and the members of the financial commission inthe early days of the artemisium business?"

  "Yes, I've heard the story, but I don't think it was ever madepublic. The newspapers never got hold of it."

  "No, I believe not. Odd thing, wasn't it?"

  "Why, yes, very odd, but just like the doctor's eccentric ways,though. He's always doing something to astonish somebody, without anyapparent earthly reason. But what put you in mind of that?"

  "Free artemisium put me in mind of it," replied Hall, quizzically.

  "I don't see the connection."

  "I'm not sure that I do either, but when you are dealing with Dr. Syxnothing is too improbable to be thought of."

  Hall thereupon fell to musing again, while we returned to the entranceof the tunnel. After he had made everything secure, and slipped thekey into his pocket, my companion remarked:

  "Don't you think it would be best to keep this latest discovery toourselves?"

  "Certainly."

  "Because," he continued, "nobody would be benefited just now byknowing what we know, and to expose the worthlessness of the 'ore'might cause a panic. The public is a queer animal, and never getsscared at just the thing you expect will alarm it, but always atsomething else."

  We had shaken hands and were separating when Hall stopped me.

  "Do you believe in alchemy?" he asked.

  "That's an odd question from you," I replied. "I thought alchemy wasexploded long ago."

  "Well," he said, slowly, "I suppose it has been exploded, but then,you know, an explosion may sometimes be a kind of instantaneouseducation, breaking up old things but revealing new ones."