THE MYSTERY
OF THE
FIFTEEN SOUNDS
By Van Powell
[Illustration: Title page graphic]
The Goldsmith Publishing Company
CHICAGO
Copyright 1937 by
The Goldsmith Publishing Company
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOREWORD
"_No wonder I'm blue," Roger told his father, "You're packing to head a
museum expedition into the heart of Borneo._ You'll _have thrills_."
"_Probably I will get my sort of excitement in plenty, Roger. It won't
be what you are always dreaming about--the 'good old days' of Pirates
and Cowboys and Stage-Coach Bandits._"
_"No," Roger agreed, "the real thrills are all gone. But you can go on
an expedition, instead of having school and_----"
"_There will be vacation time--baseball_----"
"_But I want real excitement. I'd like to be a Modern Pioneer. You are
one, going off to Borneo for the museum just the way Columbus set out
for Queen Isabella._"
_His father looked up._
"_You can be a Modern Pioneer. I will show you a House of Mystery, and
once you step into its door you are in a land where there are more
exciting activities packed into one day than you could get being a
combination cow-hand, bad man, pirate and pony express rider. You may
not be able to convoy an ox-team across a prairie, carry a squirrel gun
and stand off scalping Sioux; but you will help battle against Pirate
Fire, and Bad Man Erosion, and Bandit Microbe._"
"_You mean--work in cousin Grover's research lab?_"
_That was it, he found. And under the brilliant training of his older
cousin, as he came to be the supply clerk and learned more about the
work of the active place, Roger saw how truly his father had spoken._
_There was fun, and mystery, and excitement, even in the work. Also,
there was the feeling of being a Modern Pioneer, one who belonged to the
band that had substituted electricity and wings for ox-wagon and
candles, who gave the world instead of the pony rider carrying news, the
radio and radio-telephone. Science was the Modern Pioneer._
_Where their forefathers sought new borderlands, these modern
way-showers explore the stratosphere. As their trail-blazing ancestors
fought Indians and hardship and poor crops, these men battle against
disease germs, and soil erosion, and eye-straining light and every other
detriment to safer, happier existence._
_As great as the feat of Columbus, Roger found the announcement that a
cure had been found for a terrible disease._
_On a par with Daniel Boone's fame was the renown of the research worker
who extended the range of compact radio receivers._
_In such privately owned laboratories as that of his cousin, Grover
Brown, and in those associated with universities and colleges and other
institutions, the work of the Modern Pioneers went on._
_They loved it, found adventure in it, and joy of achievement._
_Not always was there the sort of mystery usually read about in
detective stories; but when such problems did come up, Roger realized
how the equipment of scientific research could be a useful aid to the
clever deductive brain in solving the puzzle._
_It is to show how much of adventure and thrill, excitement and romance
can hide behind electrical transformers and tubes of germs, bags of
sodium carbonate and humming motors that this experience of a boy in a
scientific research laboratory is offered. Perhaps some boy, who has
almost decided that the only "real" life involves guns and "rackets,"
will be shown how the useful life of the fellow who fights for humanity
and not against it brings more thrill and joy and contentment than any
of the risky, falsely stimulating adventures that only lead to
discredit, sorrow and punishment._
Van Powell
NOTE
Names used in this story are purely fictitious and if any name is like
that of a real person it is coincidence and no libel or aspersion on
character is intended or implied. However, every scientific device,
process and theory herein is based on electrical, chemical and other
data of developed apparatus and procedure or on theories so far
perfected as to be acceptable to Science.
Contents
PAGE
Foreword 9
CHAPTERS
1. "Them Mouses Is Extraverted!" 17
2. A Creeping Thing! 23
3. A "Sound" Clue 29
4. An Electrical Trap 38
5. What Electricity Could Not Catch 44
6. A Weird Story 52
7. Science to the Rescue 60
8. Basketball and Brains 66
9. The Voice in the Silence 72
10. A Defeat for Science! 78
11. A Puzzling Thump 84
12. Detective Roger 90
13. Scientist Roger 97
14. Captive Roger 102
15. In the Lamasery 107
16. The Image Speaks 113
17. Black Silence 117
18. A Letter Roger Had Not Sent 121
19. Disquieting Deductions 127
20. Ghost Voices 131
21. Tragedy! 137
22. What Happened to the Eye of Om 143
23. The Acid Test 147
24. An Impossible Camera "Shot" 151
25. Score One for the Mystery Wizard 154
26. Roger Lists His Clues 159
27. A "Thermal" Trick 166
28. The Fuse 172
29. A Surprising Capture 176
30. The Voiceless Warning 184
31. The Hidden Menace 188
32. Science Fights Craft 191
33. A New Suspicion 195
34. Tragedy Strikes Again 201
35. The Stalking Terror 206
36. A Law of Nature 212
37. Revelation! 217
38. The Vigil 223
39. The Ape and the Kangaroo 227
40. The Mystery Wizard's Solution 235
41. Man and Beast 241
42. Closing Time 246
Chapter 1
"THEM MOUSES IS EXTRAVERTED!"
Something was wrong at the laboratory! Ringing bells, long before dawn,
awakened Roger Brown.
Dazed at first, he became alert as a strange, cold foreboding made him
leap out of bed.
"Just the telephone," his thirty year old cousin, head of the
laboratory, called from his room beyond the adjoining bath. Roger, who
was already on his way to the downstairs library of his cousin's home,
paused.
"No!" Well built and athletic, sharp-eyed, keen minded, a worthy student
under his brilliant scientific cousin, Roger spoke earnestly, "It wasn't
just the protective beam system, or just the fire alarm, either. Grover,
it was _both_!"
"Impossible! Why have they stopped ringing?" Tying his robe cord, the
older cousin followed Roger. He knew that "Ear Detective's" reputation
for reading sounds, even if his own incisive reasoning made him feel
that this time Roger had been too drowsy to live up to his nickname.
Just the same, he followed.
"As long as the beam was broken," he insisted, "The bells ought to
continue to ring. I think your fame as a sound interpreter is done."
Roger did not try to defend himself.
"It was probably a wrong number on the telephone." Grover was five steps
behind his younger relative, "If you are so sure it was our alarm
system, especially both bells, why aren't you dressing to rush to the
lab?"
"I'm getting down to be ready when Tip calls."
Potiphar Potts, nicknamed Tip, was handy man at the scientific research
plant. He slept there. In a moment Roger expected to have him call up to
report the reason for the alarm.
"You will never hold your reputation now." Grover turned at the library
door as Roger, inside, stared, baffled, at the annunciator panel.
The reputation his cousin spoke about had come when a chemist, sent to
them to help the laboratory develop a new series of dyes for a textile
mill, had begun to "hear things." Deaf, wearing an Amplivox, composed of
a chest microphone, batteries and an ear piece, the man had been nearly
crazed by a persecuting, accusing voice picked up, it seemed, by his
device. Roger, by identifying an odd click he got in a makeshift
imitation Amplivox set, gave Grover the clue through which a revengeful
enemy who had sought to terrify the man had been discovered. As The Ear
Detective, Roger, who was in charge of the laboratory stock-room, had
really been the means of solving the mystery.
"I know I heard the laboratory bells," Roger insisted.
"But the lights on our tell-tale are not lit."
"I can't help it. Both the fire alarm bell and the system that warns us
if anybody enters----"
"But Potts has not called up, either. Go back to bed."
Grover turned to leave the room. Roger, who was staying with his cousin
while his own father headed an exploring expedition into Borneo for a
museum, knew that his ears had not betrayed him.
His cousin, several years before, had secured capital with which to
start a scientific research laboratory for the use of small companies
unable to maintain equipment and an expensive staff.
Every form of research, electrical, chemical, industrial, and in one
instance medical, had been successfully undertaken.
The "lab" prospered, and enjoyed a reputation for scientific and human
thoroughness and dependability.
Priceless secrets, formulae, data and results were always in the
laboratory, and its owner had devised seemingly perfect methods for
safeguarding the secrets which rivals, or competing firms, might covet.
A completed series of experiments to find a synthetic substitute for
camphor gum, an industrial formula almost beyond price, was reposing in
the safe on this early morning of Spring.
The safeguards comprised two:
There was a series of light-beams, interconnected with microphones and
tiny speed cameras, at every possible entrance. Any broken beam, telling
of wrongful entry, set off a laboratory bell in the room where Potts
slept; and it also was wired to ring a bell at the owner's home; and on
a panel, numbered lights would show, by the one that glowed, which
entrance had been used.
To protect the laboratory from fire, and warn of its existence, a bell
of a higher tone with a thermostat connection in the laboratory, in each
section, would give warning; and if the blaze was in the cellar, a green
bulb would glow; if in the main floor, a red bulb, and for the upper
section a blue bulb would be lit.
Naturally, Grover felt that his younger cousin had mistaken the sound
that had awakened both.
Roger, still feeling his weird and unexplainable sense of hidden danger,
picked up the telephone.
The laboratory, when he dialed repeatedly and waited long, did not
respond. Tip, trusted, loyal, paid extra salary because he was counted
on not to leave the mechanical devices to give the sole protection,
should have answered his extension telephone.
"I tell you there is something wrong," insisted Roger.
His cousin, partly convinced, taking on some of Roger's concern, began
to dress.
Just as he came down Roger knotted his tie.
In the car kept handy in the garage, they drove the several blocks to
the two-story building.
Before they got near it, Grover put on speed.
Fire sirens and the scream of the warning signal on a police car made
both cousins wonder what terrible situation they might face.
Had some one, entering the laboratory, set off the first alarm as fire
broke out? Had Potts, fighting either fire or intruder, been rendered
incapable of responding to their telephone call?
"Oh, I hope nothing has happened to Tip."
Roger was very fond of the dull-witted, but dependable man, almost an
Albino with his sandy hair and light eyes, who loved to use big words
whether they fitted his idea or not, and who helped in the many
mechanical, photographic and other activities involved in their work.
The car, racing forward, turned into the proper street and they saw fire
apparatus gathering in front of the building. Roger, as the car slowed,
leaped out, crouching and running to avoid being thrown down by the
momentum.
"Don't break in!" he shouted to firemen, "Our protective gas will
prevent damage--and water would ruin our electrical things."
The company captain paused as he saw, behind the youthful caller, the
taller laboratory owner striding forward.
His men, with a battering ram, delayed.
The helmeted men, some with axes, others with scaling ladders, hose, or
the rubber covers used by the emergency squad from the Fire
Underwriters, paused.
"What-da-ya mean, nothing more won't burn?" growled a policeman from the
patrol car standing nearby.
His finger pointed toward the glass panel of the main door.
Roger, looking in, saw the curious orange glow and the weirdly
bluish-violet splaying out across the office from the inner spaces.
"Who--what set off the flouroscope and the X-rays?" he gasped, while
Grover reassured the gathered people.
Unobtrusively setting one foot well to the side on the top step, so that
his toe, pressed forward, found the small protecting pin, he unlocked
the door, careful to keep the knob turned toward the left, instead of in
the natural hand-turn to the right.
That, Roger knew, cut out that particular light-beam system, so that
they could enter without altering the present status of the tell-tale
panel inside that would reveal where entry had been made, and by which
magnetized plate the marauder would be held in trying to escape.
They rushed in. His first rush took Roger to the panel.
Not a bulb glowed! He stared, unable to accept the story it
told--somebody had set off every light-beam-trip! That put out the
lights.
Not one of the row connected-in with the magnetized plates was lit,
either, and yet no living person should have walked or crept or climbed
away through door, window, coal-chute or other exit without getting
caught. But Roger did not pause. He ran to Tip's room.
Tip, tied tightly to a bedpost, his lips taped shut, his eyes rolling as
he sweated in his frantic effort to escape, saw him.
Roger first took the tape off as gently as haste allowed.
Just as soon as he was able to speak, Tip gasped:
"Tell Grover them mouses ain't is."
"Ain't _is?_----"
He knew that Potts used queer phrases, trying to fit big words in, and
this might be his way of leading up to some puzzling declaration.
"What happened? Stop being smart, and tell me!" ordered Roger.
"If mouses is here, you say they _is_ here?"
"Well?----"
"They ain't is."
"Gone?" Roger stared, "The white rats. Gone?"
"They done extraverted."
Roger had to study that out. He knew that the psychological word was
used by analysts of human minds to indicate people whose outlook on life
was normal, while introverts were shy, timid people who were afraid of
life. "Extraverted" must mean that the animals had turned outward toward
the world--run away, or escaped.
"But those white rats--Doctor Ryder's--were in a cage with a trap door
on top, and they'd been inoculated with cultures of a spinal disease,"
cried Roger. "How do you know?"
"I was up lookin' at 'em, and somethin' with a hand like a ham hit me
back of the ears, and when I come to, tied, them rats was evacuated. I
was drug down here by a ape and tied. An' there was somethin' else I
didn't get a look at, behind the ape."
Was the man crazed? It worried Roger.
But a call from Grover, upstairs, quickly told him that Potts had not
been talking wildly.
"Roger," called his cousin, "The white rats' cage is empty!"