The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-06
remember me, for I was in tho

same t1g.
 What was a roadman doing twenty miles from his beat, pursued by the police? A question or two would put them in the track. Probably they had seen the real Turnbull, probably Ian .cie too, most likely they could link me up with Sir Harry, and then the whole thing would be crystal clear.
 What chance had in this moorland house with three desperadoes and their armed servants? began to think wistfully of the police, now plodding over the hills after my wrath. They at any rate were fellow countrymen and honest men, and their tender mer- cies would be kinder than these ghoul- ish aliens.
 But they wouldn't have listened tc me. That od devil with his eyelids had not taken long to get rid of them. thought he probably had some kind of graft with the constabulary. Most likely he had letters from cabinet min 1sters saying he was to be given every facility for plotting against Britain.
 That's the sort of owlish way we run our politics in the old country.
 The three would be back for lunch, so hadn't more than couple of hours to wait. It was simply waiting OF de struction, for I could see no way out of this mess. 1 wished that I had ScudderIs courage, for I am free to confess didn't feel great fortitude.
 The only thing that kept me going was that I was pretty furious. It made me boil with rage to think of those three spies getting the pull on me like this. I hoped that at any rate I might be able to twist one of their , nofx da
 The more I thought of it the angrier I grew, and I had to get up and move about the room. I tried the shutters, but they were the kind that lock with a key, and I couldn't move them.
 From the outside came the faint clucking of hens in the warm sun. Then I groped among the sacks and boxes. I couldn't open the latter, and the sacks seemed to be full of things like dog biscuits that smelled of cinnamon. But as circsnlnavigated the room founh a handle in the wall which seemed worth Investigating.
 It was the door of a wall cupboard what they call press in Scotland -and it was locked
 I shook it, and it seemed rather film sy. For want of something better to do put out my strength on that door, getting some purchase on the handle by looping my braces round it. Pres, ent1y the thing gave with a crash, which I thought would bring in my warders to inquire.
 I waited for a bit and then started to explore the cupboard shelves. | There was a multitude of queer I things there. found an odd vesta in my trouser pocket and struck light l It went out in a second, but it showed | me one thing. There was a little stock ] of electric torches on one shelf. l picked up one and found it was in i working order.
 1 With the torch to help me I investi- l gated further. There were bottles and cases of queer smelling stuffs. chemi- calls, no doubt, for experiments, and there were coils of fine copper wire and hanks and hanks of a thin oiled | silk.
 l Then away at the back of shelf i found a stout brown cardboard box | and inside it a wooden case. I man | aged to wrench it open, and within ] lay half a dozen little gray bricks, i each about a couple of inches square. took up one and found that it crumbled easily in my hand. Then
 smelled it and put my tongue to it. l not been a mining engineer for noth- i ing, and I knew lentonite when I
 saw it.
 l With one of these bricks could blow 1 the house to smithereens. had used | the stuff in Rhodesia and knew its
 power. But the trouble was that my
 knowledge wasn't exact
 had forgotten the proper charge and
 the right way of firing it, or, rather, | knew that it needed an electric spark,
 but L wasn't sure about the timing. I
 had only a vague notion to add to it's
 power, for though I had used it I had | not handled it with my own fingers. l But it was a chance, the only possi- | bIe chance
 It was a mighty risk, but against it ] was an absolute black certainty. If I
 used it the odds were, as I reckoned,
 about five to one in favor of my blow
 ing myself into the treetops, but if I
 didn't I should very likely be occupy ing a six foot hole in the garden by the evening.
 The remembrance of little Scudder decided me. It was about the beast
 Hest moment of my life, for I'm no
 good at these cold blooded resolutions
 Still, I managed to rake up the pluck 1 to set my teeth and choke back the
 horrid doubts that flooded in on me- simply shut off my mind and pre-
 tended was doing an experiment as
 simple as Guy Hawkes. fireworks. I pulled a couple of the electric
 torches to pieces and with their small
 batteries and coils of wire constructed
 an elementary fuse. Then I took a quarter of lentonite brick and buried