Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1916-05-24
Continued from previous issue.l


ing that intimidating mausoleum with
out due and definite preparation. With
him he took a powerful pocket flash
light, a Colt automatic pistol and a
couple of extra clips of cartridges.
Dut the instrument on which he re-
posed the most confidence was a gun
metal disk little bigger than a pocket
aneroid, some three inches in diane
ter and no thicker than a mans hand.
This innocent-looking disk, which
could be slipped into a vest pocket as
easily as a timepiece, was known to
the habitues of the Owls Nest as the
Black Watch.
While actually nothing more than
a small-sized hand grenade, its claim
to distinction lay in the tremendous
explosive power which stood con-.
pressed between it's slender metal
walls.
Legar was not a coward. Yet as he
stood in the clammy midnight air of the
Golden mausoleum and quietlyremoved
the screws that held the top on the
black casket beside him, he found that
combination of silence and gloom and
unsavory surroundings a little more of
strain on his nerves than he had
anticipated. Yet as he lifted back the
! sable cover of the casket he did so
/ with a hand that was still steady
Thence he took up his fiashlight, and
pressing close TO the collins side,
stood studying the pallid face that lay
surrounded by its even more pallid
drapery of white satin
He stared at that pallid face long
and intently. He stared at it with stu
dious and narrowing eyes. Then he
did a strange and an inexplicable
thing.
Lifting his manned right arm that
ended in its shank of steel, he brought
| it down with a crash on the glass
cover OF the casket. Then, as though
Infatuated by some unreasoning hatred
for the pallid face still staring so i'm
| passiyely up at him. he struck again.
| This time the blow fell directly on the
head between the white satin swath-
| ings. But that failing arm, instead OF
striking a human head of flesh and
bone, crashed down through thin
shell of fiber and tinted wax.
Legar, focusing his light on that
shattered mask, emitted a short bark
| OF triumph as the meaning of it all
| came home to him He leaned for
| several minutes over the violated cas-
| ket, staring at it with insolent yet alb
| stracted eyes, bordering just what
| move could lie beyond so intricately en-
| gineered a subterfuge. And the an
| swer to that question came more
promptly and more directly than he
| had anticipated For as he stood
| there, turning a piece of the waX-coy-
| cred tissue meditatively over in his
! fingers, the electric bulbs that strung
| the nausoleum roof broke into sudden
| light From different quarters of that
| shadowy building. at the Same time,
| stepped group of hidden officers,
| headed by David Manley himself
So quickly and so quietly did that
| transformation take place, indeed,
| that the man leaning over the casket
| had neither time nor chance to change
| his position. He merely blinked a lit.
| tie stupidity at the revolver which
| glimmered in Manley's hand. Then,
| with a gesture that seemed equally
| stupid, he reached for his watch and
held the heavy gun-metal case medi,
tatively between his fingers.
| stick 'em up, Marley was at the
| same time commanding with a curt
| head movement towards Legar's
/ hands 1T may have taken some
work, but this is the time we gather
you I'M"
I.egar laughed as he confronted his
| enemies.
do you want to take me alive?'
| Alive or dead, I'm going to take
you'll"
Then take this first" cried Legar.
At the same moment that he spoke
| the left hand in which he still held
| what seemed to be a black metal
| watch case swung forward. And as
| that object which so closely resembled
black watch hurtled through the air,
| Legar flung himself fiat on his face
along the vault flooring. Then the
| black watch struck.
/ Inc next moment the Wills VI Indt
| ponderous structure Of marble and
sandstone seemingly built to defy time
| itself, lifted bodily in the air, like the
hull of a torpedoed dreadnaught.
| Then, following the roar and rumble
| OF that vast defamation, came the mo!
| mentary catastrophe silence which
| so strangely and yet so inevitably sue
ceeds a calamity too gigantic and too
| abrupt to be understood.
That ominous silence, however, last
| ed only for a few seconds. Out OF 1t
arose muffled calls and thin cries for
help, followed by answering shouts
| from many different points in the
darkness as rescuing hands set to
work on the ruins.
| And out of those ruins, while this
| work was going on, emerged two
| bruised and tattered figures strangely
divergent in appearances. The first
| figure, worming its way out through
| the interstices of crumbled rock and
cement, as cautiously and as silently
as wounded blacksnake might crawl
from a cave. bore an iron claw at the
end of its right arm and betrayed an
Il 80 s,,-