Signal in the Dark Part 27

Suddenly fearful, she jerked open the door and groped for a light. As the tiny room blazed with illumination, she uttered a startled gasp.

Almost at her feet, cheek against the floor, lay Salt Sommers.

CHAPTER 18 _A SECOND TEST_

As Penny knelt beside Salt, he stirred slightly and raised a hand to his head. She saw then that there was a tiny break in the skin which also was slightly discolored. Either the photographer had fallen or he had been slugged.

Before she could go for help, he sat up, staring at her in a bewildered manner. Penny a.s.sisted him to a chair, and dampening a handkerchief with water from the tap above the developer trays, applied it to his forehead.

"What happened?" she inquired anxiously when Salt seemed able to speak.

"Slugged," he answered in disgust.

"By whom?"

"Don't know. The fellow must have been in the darkroom when I came here to develop my films. Fact is, I thought I heard someone moving around. I stepped to the door to see, and bing! That's the last I knew."

"Has anything been taken, I wonder?" Switching on another light, Penny glanced over the room. The drawer of a filing cabinet where old films, and plates were kept, remained open.

"Someone may have been looking in there!" she commented. "Salt, whoever he is, he must be searching for a film he is afraid we'll publish in the paper."

"Maybe so," Salt agreed, holding a hand to his throbbing forehead. "But I don't know of any picture we have that would damage anyone."

Penny stepped to the doorway of the darkroom. In the larger room, the skylight remained closed. It was impossible to tell if anyone had entered the building in that way.

Some distance down the hall was a seldom-used stairway which led to the roof. Finding a door opening into it, Penny climbed the steps to look about. The rooftop was deserted, but in the building directly across from the _Star_, a corridor window remained open.

"How easy it would be for a man to step out onto the roof from there,"

she thought. "If the skylight or the stairway door were unlocked, he easily could enter the _Star_ photography room without being seen."

Across the way, in the adjoining building, a man stood at an office window, watching Penny curiously. Sun glared on the panes so his face was distorted. But from the location of the window, she felt certain it was Mr. Cordell.

After a moment, Penny turned and went back down the stairs. The exit at its base was barred by a door with a rusty key in the lock.

Pa.s.sing through, Penny locked it, and slipped the key into her purse.

"That should stop our prowler for a few days," she thought.

In the photography room again, she checked the skylight, and finding it locked, was convinced that this time the mysterious visitor had entered the building by means of the stairs. She knew the door was usually kept locked, but undoubtedly the janitor had been careless.

By this time Salt was feeling much better. While Penny waited, he explained to the editor why the photos would not be ready until morning, then declared he was ready to start for Blue Hole Lake.

"Do you really feel like going?" Penny asked dubiously.

"Sure thing," the photographer insisted. "It takes more than a little tap on the head to put me out of running."

Salt walked a trifle unsteadily as they went down the back stairs together, but once they were in the press car, he seemed his usual jovial self.

"Now tell me about that plan of yours for tonight," Penny urged as they jounced along the country road.

"It's not much of a plan," the photographer confessed ruefully. "First, we've got to learn exactly what Webb does to those mines to make them explode. Then somehow we'll have to undo the work to cause the demonstration to turn out a flop."

"It sounds like a big order," Penny sighed. "We'll need plenty of luck to carry it out. Especially as we're arriving rather late."

Having no intention of announcing their presence, the pair drew up about a quarter of a mile from the lake, parking in a side road.

Shadows were casting long arms over the ground as they started hurriedly across the fields toward the beach. They had covered two thirds of the distance when Penny suddenly caught Salt's arm, pointing toward the lake.

"Look!" she exclaimed. "There they are now!"

Out on the lake a barge-type boat was being steered toward the beach near the shack where Professor Bettenridge stored the mines. The watching couple recognized three persons aboard the craft, the professor, Mr.

Johnson and Webb. The barge also bore a large mine, similar in type to those Penny had seen inside the shack.

"That must be the mine Mr. Johnson is supplying for the test tonight,"

she whispered.

Hand in hand, Penny and Salt crept closer to the sh.o.r.e. The boat grated on the sand and Webb, with the professor helping him, carried the heavy mine toward the building.

"If the mine is to be exploded tonight, wouldn't it be easier to leave it on the barge ready to drop into the lake?" Penny commented. "Webb and the professor must have a special reason for hauling it ash.o.r.e."

"I think you have something there," Salt observed. "Obviously, they're going to doctor it in some way. We'll see what happens."

Webb unlocked the door of the shack and the two men carried the mine inside. Creeping still closer to the building, Salt and Penny heard Mr.

Johnson say:

"Just a minute. I see you have other mines stored here. How am I to be sure that the one exploded will be the mine I have provided?"

"You may mark it if you wish," the professor replied. "In fact, we prefer that you do, so there can be no possible doubt in your mind. Take this pocket knife and scratch your initials on the covering of the mine. Then tonight, before it is dumped in the lake, you may check again to see there has been no subst.i.tution."

"You understand, I don't distrust you," Mr. Johnson said, ill at ease.

"But so much money is at stake--"

"I understand your att.i.tude perfectly," the professor replied. "Certainly you are ent.i.tled to take every precaution."

A silence ensued, and Penny and Salt a.s.sumed that Mr. Johnson was scratching his initials on the mine.

"Now suppose we have dinner at the village inn," the professor presently suggested. "Then we will have the demonstration."

"Must we wait so long before setting off the mine?" Mr. Johnson inquired.

"Yes, village authorities gave permission for the test to be held at nine o'clock," the professor explained. "My own preference would be to get it over immediately, but I dare not disobey their orders."

Mr. Johnson made no reply, and a few minutes later, the three men walked away. No sooner had they disappeared up the lake than Penny and Salt came out of hiding from among the trees.

"You have to hand it to Professor Bettenridge," commented the photographer with grudging praise. "He's a smooth talker. I'll bet a frosted cookie the test could be held at one time as well as another so far as the village authorities are concerned. He has a special reason for wanting it at nine o'clock."