The War Terror | Page 7

allowing those further on only to attract it, and preventing those behind
from pulling it back."
He paused to study the scraps of plans. "Fortescue had evidently also
worked out a way of changing the poles of the coils as the projectile
passed, causing them then to repel the projectile, which must have
added to its velocity. He seems to have overcome the practical
difficulty that in order to obtain service velocities with service
projectiles an enormous number of windings and a tremendously long
barrel are necessary as well as an abnormally heavy current beyond the
safe carrying capacity of the solenoid which would raise the
temperature to a point that would destroy the coils."
He continued turning over the prints and notes in the drawer. When he
finished, he looked up at us with an expression that indicated that he
had merely satisfied himself of something he had already suspected.
"You were right, Burke," he said. "The final plans are gone."
Burke, who, in the meantime, had been telephoning about the city in a
vain effort to locate Baron Kreiger, both at such banking offices in
Wall Street as he might be likely to visit and at some of the hotels most
frequented by foreigners, merely nodded. He was evidently at a loss
completely how to proceed.
In fact, there seemed to be innumerable problems--to warn Baron
Kreiger, to get the list of the assassinations, to guard Miss Lowe against
falling into the hands of her anarchist friends again, to find the
murderer of Fortescue, to prevent the use of the electro- magnetic gun,
and, if possible, to seize the anarchists before they had a chance to
carry further their plans.
"There is nothing more that we can do here," remarked Craig briskly,
betraying no sign of hesitation. "I think the best thing we can do is to

go to my own laboratory. There at least there is something I must
investigate sooner or later."
No one offering either a suggestion or an objection, we four again
entered our cab. It was quite noticeable now that the visit had shaken
Paula Lowe, but Kennedy still studiously refrained from questioning
her, trusting that what she had seen and heard, especially Burke's report
as to Baron Kreiger, would have its effect.
Like everyone visiting Craig's laboratory for the first time, Miss Lowe
seemed to feel the spell of the innumerable strange and uncanny
instruments which he had gathered about him in his scientific warfare
against crime. I could see that she was becoming more and more
nervous, perhaps fearing even that in some incomprehensible way he
might read her own thoughts. Yet one thing I did not detect. She
showed no disposition to turn back on the course on which she had
entered by coming to us in the first place.
Kennedy was quickly and deftly testing the stub of the little thin,
gold-tipped cigarette.
"Excessive smoking," he remarked casually, "causes neuroses of the
heart and tobacco has a specific affinity for the coronary arteries as
well as a tremendous effect on the vagus nerve. But I don't think this
was any ordinary smoke."
He had finished his tests and a quiet smile of satisfaction flitted
momentarily over his face. We had been watching him anxiously,
wondering what he had found.
As he looked up he remarked to us, with his eyes fixed on Miss Lowe,
"That was a ladies' cigarette. Did you notice the size? There has been a
woman in this case--presumably."
The girl, suddenly transformed by the rapid-fire succession of
discoveries, stood before us like a specter.
"The 'Group,' as anarchists call it," pursued Craig, "is the loosest sort of

organization conceivable, I believe, with no set membership, no
officers, no laws--just a place of meeting with no fixity, where the
comrades get together. Could you get us into the inner circle, Miss
Lowe?"
Her only answer was a little suppressed scream. Kennedy had asked the
question merely for its effect, for it was only too evident that there was
no time, even if she could have managed it, for us to play the "stool
pigeon."
Kennedy, who had been clearing up the materials he had used in the
analysis of the cigarette, wheeled about suddenly. "Where is the
headquarters of the inner circle?" he shot out.
Miss Lowe hesitated. That had evidently been one of the things she had
determined not to divulge.
"Tell me," insisted Kennedy. "You must!"
If it had been Burke's bulldozing she would never have yielded. But as
she looked into Kennedy's eyes she read there that he had long since
fathomed the secret of her wildly beating heart, that if she would
accomplish the purpose of saving the Baron she must stop at nothing.
"At--Maplehurst," she answered in a low tone, dropping her eyes