"How can you be sure?"
"Because I have been over the track, and know that it leads to a
secret apartment directly under the furnace in which Dr. Syx pretends
to melt the ore!"
For a minute after hearing this avowal I was speechless.
"Are you serious?" I asked at length.
"Perfectly serious. Run your finger along the rock here. Do you
perceive a seam? Two days ago, after seeing what you have just
witnessed in the Syx tunnel, I carefully cut out a section of the
wall, making an aperture large enough to crawl through, and, when I
knew the workmen were asleep, I crept in there and examined both
tunnels from end to end. But in solving one mystery I have run myself
into another infinitely more perplexing."
"How is that?"
"Why does Dr. Syx take such elaborate pains to deceive his visitors,
and also the government officers? It is now plain that he conducts no
mining operations whatever. This mine of his is a gigantic
blind. Whenever inspectors or scientific curiosity seekers visit his
mill his mute workmen assume the air of being very busy, the cars
laden with his so-called 'ore' rumble out of the tunnel, and their
contents are ostentatiously poured into the furnace, or appear to be
poured into it, really dropping into a receptacle beneath, to be
carried back into the mine again.
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