The Black Mask — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

we 16 : ‘ The Man Who Was Seven who built this boulevard made it sizable” enough for a, man to squeeze through, or I sure would have been up against it taking part in this expedition. We ought to be nearly there. Keep your eye peeled for signs of their work. Watch the ceiling.” “About four hundred feet more, if my estimate of the distance was correct. Look out for a big snag here.” “Chain” was called three more times and Peiperson had dragged out more than half the length of the tape again when Carranaugh heard a muffled shout from the darkness ahead, where he could just make out the flare of his friend’s torch. Dropping his end of the tape, Jim plunged ahead at as near a run as he could achieve in the, for him, cramped quarters, until he joined Peiperson, who was pointing dramatically with his hand holding the torch at something over his head and with the other at something else evidently lying in the darkness at his feet, “Was I right?’ panted Carranaugh as he came up. “Right as the seventh son of a sev- enth son, you son of a gun of a prophet! Look!” ; Carranaugh looked up. Directly above their heads was an opening, similar to what miners call a “raise,” roughly squared six feet by six, cut through the stave pipe and continu- ing upward as far as the light of their torches penetrated. At one side was the lower end of a crude but strong ladder, rising into the darkness. At their feet, upon a mix- ture of mud, rotted planks and sawdust, broken concrete and general. débris, lay several hand drills, short-handled sledges, picks, shovels, a hand pneumatic pump, what looked like a complicated variety of plumbers’ blowpipe, a head- piece such as is used by electric welders, _ a V-shaped trough about five feet long and a foot deep made of some highly glazed material resembling porcelain, a broken electric torch, and odds and ends of tools—axes, saws, braces and bits, nails, a small iron pot for melting glue or lead, all the miscellany of a small workshop. “Our friends the Samuel Smiths evi- dently knew what they wanted when they wanted it,” commented Peiperson. “And you're a wiz for doping out their plan of campaign, Jim. regards.” My kindest — Carranaugh only grunted in reply as he heaved himself up the ladder, gin- gerly testing each rung to see if it would bear a weight not usually required of such a makeshift. — - “Well! Tl be eternally and ever- lastingly—” floated down to Peiperson from the regions above as he scrambled quickly upward. He found Carranaugh standing on 2 small platform of heavy timbers, set’ solidly into the earth at either end. In the center of this there was raised an- — other box-shaped structure about five feet square, and upon this were set four jacks such as are used by contractors for raising and upholding buildings. The upper ends of the jacks, thrust through a space that had been filled with the reinforced concrete that extended from the hole in all directions, were resting against or, rather, were rested upon by a steep plate. And if any iden- tification of that plate had been neces- sary, it was supplied by a narrow streak on all four sides, outlined in dirty, steel- colored grease ! “So this is what holds up that vault plate,” said Carranaugh, as he patted one of the jacks. “I wondered how they had managed that. Now let’s see if my other guess was as good as this one.” They descended the ladder, went some twenty feet deeper into the abandoned sewer, and then saw that Carranaugh had guessed right both times.