Chapter 11 - Page 2

amazement around him. The room, which may have
been some thirty feet square, was paved and walled with gold. Great
brick-shaped ingots, closely packed, covered the whole floor, while on
every side they were reared up in compact barriers to the very
ceiling. The single electric lamp which lighted the windowless chamber
struck a dull, murky, yellow light from the vast piles of precious
metal, and gleamed ruddily upon the golden floor.

"This is my treasure house," remarked the owner. "You see that I have
rather an accumulation just now. My imports have been exceeding my
exports. You can understand that I have other and more important duties
even than the making of gold, just now. This is where I store my output
until I am ready to send it off. Every night almost I am in the habit
of sending a case of it to London. I employ seventeen brokers in its
sale. Each thinks that he is the only one, and each is dying to know
where I can get such large quantities of virgin gold. They say that it
is the purest which comes into the market. The popular theory is, I
believe, that I am a middleman acting on behalf of some new South
African mine, which wishes to keep its whereabouts a secret. What value
would you put upon the gold in this chamber? It ought to be worth
something, for it represents nearly a week's work."

"Something fabulous, I have no doubt," said Robert, glancing round at
the yellow barriers. "Shall I say a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?"

"Oh dear me, it is surely worth very much more than that," cried Raffles
Haw, laughing. "Let me see. Suppose that we put it at three ten an
ounce, which is nearly ten shillings under the mark. That makes,
roughly, fifty-six pounds for a pound in weight. Now each of these
ingots weighs thirty-six pounds, which brings their value to two
thousand and a few odd pounds. There are five hundred ingots on each of
these three sides of the room, but on the fourth there are only three
hundred, on account of the door, but there cannot be less than two
hundred on the floor, which gives us a rough total of two thousand
ingots. So you see, my dear boy, that any broker who could get the
contents of this chamber for four million pounds would be doing a nice
little stroke of business."

"And a week's work!" gasped Robert. "It makes my head swim."

"You will follow me now when I repeat that none of the great schemes
which I intend to simultaneously set in motion are at all likely to
languish for want of funds. Now come into the laboratory with me and
see how it is done."

In the centre of the workroom was an instrument like a huge vice, with
two large brass-coloured plates, and a