Chapter 2

And there was another result, for early the following week I received a
letter from Professor Gerrish, of the Harvard Observatory, stating that
he had read about the meteor in the paper, and requesting that I send
him a small piece—or, if possible, the whole meteor—by express, collect,
for purposes of analysis.

Anything for dear old Harvard! Unfortunately all the black splinters had
been carried away by tourists. So I set the men to work digging out the
main body. Quite a hole was dug before we came to the meteor, a black
pear-shaped object about the size of a barrel. With rock tongs, chains
and my pair of Percherons, we dragged this out onto the level. I had
hoped that it would be small enough so that I could send the whole thing
up to Harvard and perhaps have it set up in front of the Agassiz Museum,
marked with a bronze plate bearing my name; but its size precluded this.

My wife, who was present when we hauled it out, remarked: “It looks just
like a huge black teardrop or raindrop.”

And sure enough it did. But why not? If raindrops take on a streamline
form in falling, why might not a more solid meteor do so as well? But I
had never heard of one doing so before. This new idea prompted me to
take careful measurements and to submit them to Professor O. D. Kellogg,
of the Harvard mathematics department, who was summering at West Chop
near by. He reported to me that the form was as perfectly streamlined as
it was possible to conceive, but that my surmise as to how it had become
so was absurd.

While making these measurements I was attracted by another feature of
the meteor. At one place on the side, doubtless where it had struck the
big rock, the black coating had been chipped away, disclosing a surface
of yellow metal underneath. Also there was to be seen in this metal an
absolutely straight crack, extending as far as the metal was exposed, in
a sidewise direction.

At the time the crack did not attract me so much as the metal. I vaguely
wondered if it might not be gold. But, being reminded of Professor
Gerrish’s request for a sample of the meteor, I had one of the men start
chiseling off some pieces.

The natural spot to begin was alongside of the place where the covering
was already chipped. It was hard work, but finally he removed several
pieces, and then we noticed that the crack continued around the waist of
the meteor as far as had been chipped. This crack, from its absolute
regularity, gave every indication of being man-made.

Our curiosity was aroused. Why the regularity of this crack? How far did
it go? Could it possibly extend clear way around? Was it really a
threaded joint? And if so, how could such a phenomenon occur on a
meteorite dropped from the sky?

Forgotten was the second crop mowing we had planned to do that day.
Hastily summoning the rest of the help, we set to work with cold chisels
and sledges, to remove the black coating in a circle around the middle
of the huge teardrop. It was a long and tedious task, for the black
substance was harder than anything I had ever chipped before. We broke
several drills and dented the yellow metal unmercifully, but not so much
but what we could see that the threaded crack did actually persist.

The dinner hour passed, and still we worked, unmindful of the appeals of
our womenfolk, who finally abandoned us with much shrugging of
shoulders.

It was nearly night when we completed the chipping and applied two chain
wrenches to try and screw the thing apart. But, after all our efforts,
it would not budge. Just as we were about to drop the wrenches and start
to chisel through the metal some one suggested that we try to unscrew it
as a left-handed screw. Happy thought! For, in spite of all the dents
which we had made, the two ends at last gradually untwisted.

What warrant did we have to suppose that there was anything inside it? I
must confess, now it is all over, that we went through this whole day’s
performance in a sort of feverish trance, with no definite notion of
what we were doing, or why; and yet impelled by a crazy fixed idea that
we were on the verge of a great discovery.

And at last our efforts had met with success, and the huge teardrop lay
before us in two neatly threaded parts. The inside was hollow and was
entirely filled with something tightly swathed in silver colored felt
tape.

Breathless, we unwound over three hundred feet of this silver tape, and
finally came to a gold cylinder about the size and shape of a gingersnap
tin—that is to say, a foot long and three inches in diameter—chased all
around with peculiar arabesque characters. By this time Mrs. Farley and
my mother-in-law and the hired girl had joined us, attracted by the
shouts which we gave when the teardrop had come apart.

One end of the cylinder easily unscrewed—also with a left-handed
thread—and I drew forth a manuscript, plainly written in the English
language, on some tissue-thin substance like parchment.

Everyone clustered around me, as I turned to the end to see who it was
from, and read with astonishment the following signature: “Myles S.
Cabot.”

But this name meant nothing to anyone present except myself.

I heard one of the hands remark to another:

“’Twarn’t no shootin’ star at all. Nothin’ but some friend of the boss
shootin’ a letter to him out of one of these here long-range guns.”

“Maybe so,” said I to myself.

But Mrs. Farley was quivering with excitement.

“You must tell me all about it, Ralph,” said she. “Who _can_ be sending
you a message inside a meteor, I wonder?”

My reply was merely: “I think that there is a clipping in one of my
scrapbooks up in the attic which will answer that question.”

There was! I found the scrapbook in a chest under the eaves, but did not
open it until after chores and supper, during which meal I kept a
provoking silence on the subject of our discovery.

When the dishes were finally all cleared away, I opened the book on the
table and read to the assembled household the following four-year-old
clipping from the _Boston Post_.

CITIZEN DISAPPEARS
Prominent Clubman Vanishes from Beacon Street Home

Myles S. Cabot of 162 Beacon Street, disappeared from his bachelor
quarters late yesterday afternoon, under very mysterious
circumstances.

He had been working all day in his radio laboratory on the top floor
of his house, and had refused to come down for lunch. When called to
dinner, he made no reply: so his butler finally decided to break down
the door, which was locked.