Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/236

 And he's either a genius or one of the cleverest gay-cats, as they call them over here, that ever scouted ahead of a foreign spy."

"Whadda yuh mean by genius?" contemptuously inquired Sadie, coming out of her trance. Kestner noticed that she ignored the snapshot which Wilsnach was endeavoring to pass on to her.

"A man has surely some claim to being called a genius when he can walk up to Lieutenant-Commander Hellweg, who is in charge of the government's proving-grounds at Indian Head, and quietly but unequivocally inform him that both his ordnance and his explosives are out of date!"

"Or a nut!" interjected Sadie.

"Well, that's what this mild-eyed little man did, and, what's more to the point, he seems to have come dangerously near to proving it!"

Kestner took up the photograph which Wilsnach had placed on the table and stared down at it as he continued to speak.

"I'm not an expert on such things, so I'm not going to give you an expert's report on the case. But as Brubacher explains it to me, this man has invented a new explosive. No, it's not exactly a new explosive, but it's an adaptation of the form