“Put that gold in your pocket. Does it fall directly over the burn?”
Standifer cringed and got the metal out as quickly as possible.
“I should say so.”
M. Demetriovich nodded.
“And you slept with the gold under your pillow last night for safe-keeping?”
“Yes.”
“Then that did it.” diagnosed the scientist.
“But how can gold—”
“The stuff must be poisoned somehow. I'll see if I can find how.”
The savant moved to the table containing his chemicals and test-tubes.
To Pethwick, the idea of poisoned gold sounded more like the extravagance of the Middle Ages than a reality occurring in the twentieth century. The engineer stood beside the table and watched the professor pursue his reactions for vegetable and mineral poisons. Standifer limped to the engineer's side. In the silver bowl of an alcohol lamp, the boy caught a reflection of himself. He leaned down and looked at the tiny image curiously. At length he asked:
“Pethwick, is there anything the matter with my hair?”
Then Pethwick realized that the boy did not know his hair was white. And he found, to his surprise, that he hated to tell Standifer. He continued watching the experiment as if he did not hear.
Standifer took up the lamp and by holding its bowl close he got a fair view of his head. He gave a faint gasp and looked for a mirror. At that instant Demetriovich took the only mirror on the table to condense a vapor floating out of a tube. The old man began talking quickly to the engineer:
“Pethwick, this is the cleverest destructive stroke that the Bolshevists have ever invented.”
“What is it?”
“I still don't know, but they have poisoned this gold. They could probably do the same thing to silver. It makes the circulation of money deadly. It will perhaps cause the precious metals to be discarded as media of circulation.”
The engineer looked incredulous.
“It's a fact. Do you recall how the report of ground glass in candies cut down the consumption of confectionery? If a large body of men should persistently poison every metal coin that passes through its hands—who would handle coins? Why, gentlemen,” he continued as the enormity of the affair grew on him, “this will upset our whole commercial system. It will demonetize gold. No wonder that scoundrel offered our secretary so much gold for a book or two. He wanted to test his wares.”
The old man's hand trembled as he poured a blue liquid from one test-tube to another.
“I am constrained to believe that in this Valley of the Infernal River we are confronted with the greatest malignant genius mankind has ever produced.”
“Why should he want to demonetize gold?” interrupted Pethwick.
“It will force mankind to adopt a new standard of value and to use an artificial medium of exchange—‘labor-hour checks,’ perhaps, whose very installation will do more to socialize the world than any other single innovation.”
The two friends stood watching him anxiously. “You can't find what they do it with?”
“Not a trace so far. It seems to defy analysis.”
“Notice,” observed Pethwick, “your electroscope is discharged.”
M. Demetriovich glanced at the gold-leaf electroscope and saw that its tissue leaves were wilted.
Suddenly Standifer interrupted:
“Pethwick, is my hair white? Did that stuff turn my hair white?” He seized the mirror. “Look! Look!” he cried out of nervous shock and a profoundly wounded vanity.
The engineer turned with genuine sympathy for the author, but in turning he saw a man standing in the entrance watching the excitement with a slight smile.
The engineer paused abruptly, staring.
The stranger was a medium-sized Indian with an abnormally developed head and a thickly painted face. He wore the usual shirt and trousers of a cholo and for some reason gave Pethwick a strong impression of Cesare Ruano. Why he resembled Cesare, Pethwick could not state, even after he had inspected him closely. To judge from the Indian's faintly ironic expression, he must have been observing the scientists for several minutes.
M. Demetriovich first regained his self-possession.
“Are you the man who gave my boy this gold?” he asked sharply, indicating the metal with which he was experimenting.
The painted man looked at the heap.
“I gave a boy some gold for some books,” he admitted.
“Well, that's the gold all right,” snapped Pethwick.
“Did you know the gold you gave him was poisoned?” proceeded the savant severely.
“Poisoned? How was it poisoned?”
“That is for you to tell us.”
“I don't know in the least. What effect did it have?”
The man's tones were completely casual, without fear, regret, or chagrin. “You see for yourself what it did.”
The stranger looked at Standifer in astonishment and presently ejaculated:
“Is that the same boy?”
“You see you nearly killed him,” stated the scientist grimly.
“It was quite accidental; I don't understand it myself. Let me look at his trouble.”
He walked over with more curiosity than regret in his manner.
Pethwick watched the fellow with a sharp and extraordinary dislike. It was so sharp that it drove out of his mind the amazing fact of finding this sort of person in such a desolate valley.
Standifer exhibited the burn. The stranger looked at it, touched a spot here and there and finally said, more with the air of an instructor lecturing his inferiors than with that of an Indian talking to white men:
