he saw--and what he saw made him feel rather sick. The man with the
lantern was quite plainly Professor Kell, bent nearly double with the
weight of a grotesquely big thing on his back, a thing that flung a dim,
contorted shadow on the ceiling. And that thing was a dead man.

* * * * *

A corpse it was--the attitude proved that. With a numb relief O'Hara
realized it was not the body of Skip Handlon. This had been a much
larger man than Skip, and the clothing was different from anything
Handlon had worn.

The light was now disappearing down the stairway. For a moment O'Hara
felt undecided as to his next move. Should he follow Kell and his
burden, or should he not take advantage of this fine opportunity to
continue his search of the upper story? That scream still rang in his
ears; there had been a very evident feminine quality in it, and the
remembrance of that fact reproached him. Had he been guilty of mincing
daintily about in this old house while a woman was being done to death
under his nose, when a little bolder action on his part might have saved
her?

Stepping once more into the hall he advanced to the door just closed
behind the Professor and tried it, only to find it locked. Out of a
pocket came several articles best known to the "profession"--a piece of
stiff wire, a skeleton key and other paraphernalia calculated to reduce
the obstinate mechanism to submission. For a minute, two, three, he
worked at the ancient lock; then, without a creak, the door swung open.
A touch of oil to the hinges had insured their silence. Jimmie O'Hara
believed in being artistic in his work, especially when it came to fine
points, and he was.

* * * * *

He found himself in the same room where the drugged cigars had been
proved the undoing of Handlon and Perry. In order not to alarm the
Professor unduly by chance noises and perhaps invite a surprise attack
upon himself, O'Hara closed the laboratory door behind him and let the
lock spring again. Hastily he made search of the place. No trace of the
missing reporter could he find, except two half-consumed cigars in a
corner whence the Professor had impatiently kicked them.

On the big table in the center of the room, however, was an object which
excited his interest. It was apparently nothing more or less than a
giant Crookes tube, connected in some way with a complicated mechanism
contained in a wooden cabinet under t