Chapter I: The Glint in the Darkness

Colonel Vedant and his adjutant, Captain Ormsby Grail, hurried down to the Dolliver Foundry, one of the large industrial plants along Brantford’s bustling seven miles of water front, in response to an urgent message from Otto Schilder, manager of the plant. It was ten o’clock at night, but as the Dolliver people were turning out some castings for a wireless telegraph mast of new design, to be erected at Fort Denton, and required frequent consultations with the commandant, there seemed nothing especially strange in the request.

On the arrival of the officers, however, they learned, to their surprise, that there was no desire for the colonel’s presence, and the manager flatly disclaimed having sent for him. The old soldier stared incredulously, his somewhat florid face taking on a deeper flush behind his gray military mustache.

“Pardon me, Mr. Schilder”--he made little effort to conceal his irritation--“but do I understand you to say that it would have been impossible for any such message to be sent me from the foundry this evening?”

The manager removed his cigar, and rose from his desk to face the other.

“Positively so, colonel.” He spoke emphatically, and with a slight German accent. “There has been nobody in the office since six o’clock except myself and Miss Griffin”--with a wave of the hand toward his stenographer--“and we have been wholly engrossed in making up some arrears in correspondence.”

“You hear, Grail?” The colonel turned toward his adjutant. “Are you responsible for this blunder? Got the name twisted, or something of that sort, eh?”

“Hardly, sir.” The younger officer appeared no less perplexed than his superior, but his tone was one of firm conviction. “The note was written on a letterhead of the Dolliver Foundry, and was ostensibly from Mr. Schilder; I am familiar with his signature. As to the contents, I could not well have been mistaken. You remember, I read the message over to you twice. The contents make small difference, anyhow, since Mr. Schilder denies having sent us a communication of any sort.”

“Small difference,” admitted the colonel, “except as offering a possible clew to the perpetrator of this hoax, for it cannot well be anything else, unless, indeed----” He paused abruptly, the umbrage he had shown giving way to something like concern. “Come, captain!” He addressed his companion a trifle peremptorily, at the same time backing toward the door. “We are detaining Mr. Schilder. Permit us to apologize for the interruption, sir, and let us----”

At this point, a remarkable thing happened. The electric lights went out, cutting short the colonel’s apology, and shrouding not only the office, but the foundry yard outside in darkness.

For a moment Grail was absolutely blinded; then, as his vision cleared and the square of the open doorway became faintly visible, he saw cut across it a tiny flash of fire like the glow of a lightning bug in flight. No other sight or sound punctuated the interval, and almost immediately the lights came on again.

“Ah!” Schilder blinked before the sudden radiance. “The dynamo must have slipped a belt, or----” He halted, with a little gasp. “Why,” he exclaimed, “what has become of the colonel?”

It was certainly astonishing. Not one of the three other occupants of the room had stirred. Grail and the manager stood in exactly the same position as before, and the stenographer still sat at her table with her fingers resting on the keys of her typewriter, but the colonel was gone.

With a common impulse, the two men stepped swiftly to the door, and glanced out across the yard. There had not been sufficient time for any one to cross it and reach the gate, yet the colonel was nowhere to be seen, and his erect, soldierly figure could not possibly have gone unrecognized in that wide-open space, and under the glare of the half dozen or more arc lamps now brightly burning. Nor could there be any question of his having strayed from the direct path in the darkness and being now hidden from their view by a pile of rubbish or material, for the inclosure was remarkably free from obstruction. Indeed, the last of what had been a towering scrap heap was being cleaned up, and, with the aid of an electric crane, loaded on cars by the force of men then at work.

“Well, what do you know about that!” Schilder muttered. Then, closely followed by Grail, he hurried across the yard to interrogate the old watchman at the gate. But the latter was firm in his protestation that no one had passed him. Even with the yard lights all out, he could still, he declared, have seen anybody leaving the place by the illumination from the street lamp on the corner.

“Then,” said Grail, “he must have gone out some other way.”

The manager waved his hand significantly toward the high board fence which completely surrounded the yard, and which was topped with sharp spikes to keep out pilferers. There was but one exit--the gate at which they had already made inquiry; the big doors leading into the foundry building were barred and padlocked.

“Perhaps he is still in the office,” ventured Grail. “He might have had a seizure of some kind in the darkness, you know, and fallen behind a piece of furniture.”

But even as he voiced the suggestion he realized its utter absurdity. Schilder’s office contained nothing except the desk which could have concealed the body of a man, and the desk was pushed back close against the wall. Nevertheless, they made an inspection of the place, but entirely without result. Then, when the manager called in every man working in the yard, and questioned him, to no purpose, the searchers seemed to have come to the end of their tether.

“But it is preposterous, you know!” exclaimed Grail, attempting to throw off his misgivings. “There is, of course, some absolutely simple explanation, and the colonel is, no doubt, out at the post by this time, swearing about me for not putting in an appearance. May I use your telephone, Mr. Schilder?”

Inquiry at the fort elicited that Colonel Vedant had not returned, and no information regarding him could be gained from his quarters, the club, or any of his customary haunts. When Grail had gone through the entire list, and called up the post again, only to receive the same negative answer, he made no effort to conceal his growing anxiety. A suspicion of foul play strengthened in his mind. “If not that,” he asked, “why should the colonel, of his own accord, disappear in this absurdly mysterious manner? Colonel Vedant is not the sort of man to be waylaid or carried off without making at least a show of resistance, and I certainly heard no outcry or sound of a struggle. Did you?”

Schilder shook his head. “No, no; there’s nothing in that,” he said impatiently. “How, please tell me, could such a scheme have been planned in advance, and put into effect, when we allow no strangers hanging around here under any pretext? But, overlooking all that,” he argued, “and even granting that the old gentleman might have been knocked out by the sudden, silent blow of a blackjack or sandbag, how was he so quickly spirited away? The lights were out hardly more than long enough for one to draw a deep breath--surely not a sufficient time to get farther than ten or twelve steps from the door. Is it possible that with all those yard lights going again, the colonel could have been dragged or carried the length of the inclosure, and none of the men at work out there have noticed it?”

Grail made no immediate answer. He stepped to the door, and, leaning over, narrowly inspected the cinder-covered ground about the threshold. But no marks or footprints indicating a struggle rewarded his searching gaze; the surface was absolutely undisturbed. Then, all at once, he espied, a foot or two away, a small object. He glanced back over his shoulder, and, seeing that Schilder had turned to address a word of direction to the stenographer, reached out and quickly transferred it to his pocket.

It was a half-smoked cigarette--a cigarette of dull-gray paper, with a peculiar long pasteboard mouthpiece.