A DEFEAT FOR SCIENCE!
Shudders of superstitious fear shook Roger's nerves as he flung on his
clothes.
Rooms that were locked and barred he had read about in detective
stories; they had been entered. A room not only so sealed but, far
better, sealed by locks that not even Potts or Roger could have
unsealed, was as impenetrable as a solid block of metal.
Yet some uncanny, mysterious thing, force or creature had penetrated!
Unless, and he caught at the idea, unless Doctor Ryder had been
worked-up and nervous, and had dreamed some nightmare that had made him
hide.
No matter what had happened, no matter what force had beaten the
scientific measures employed, they would know the facts, because the
registering devices could not have been stopped by the doctor himself,
let alone any outside person or power. While that current flowed in the
circuits, the devices must operate; and even if any wires were cut,
still the automatic mechanical springs would run the recorder and the
camera.
Driving on speeding wheels, Roger and Grover got there in quick time.
The Falcon man rushed up as they leaped out of the car.
"Every fifteen minutes," he reported, "the way you said, I put my copper
key in the slot on the plate over the observation port you had cut in
his room door, so the plate would move aside as long as I needed to look
to see him in bed. Last time he wasn't there. Up to then he'd looked to
be sleeping sound."
They hurried to the room door, on the second floor, down a hall.
Swiftly, while Roger watched, helping as he could, Grover took an
observation, let Roger see the empty bed and vacant room. The next move
was to test, with ammeter and test-circuit, every electrical wire that
had been necessarily exposed outside the room.
Not a circuit was broken. Not a wire had been cut.
"Very strange," even Grover was baffled, "the current is on, full
strength, in each circuit. Try to get in."
Roger, at a signal from the Falcon man, worked on the door locks with
the keys that rightfully opened them; while the man, on a ladder outside
a window, tried to pry open catches or shift the burglar stopper built
into the casing. No success.
"The man may be dying," the Falcon agent grumbled, "and we stay out
here, testing."
Roger, too, wondered at such callous but methodically exact procedure.
Grover, paying no attention to their tell-tale faces, calmly inserted
his key in the secret cable-slot, and cut out the circuits.
At once Roger was able to turn his door key.
They hurried in.
As he looked around, at the crumpled bed sheets, at the hollow on the
pillow, Roger knew that a man had slept there. How had he been spirited
away? The closet was wide open, and although clothing had been flung
down, although bureau and chifforobe drawers had been upset as if in a
search for something, no signs of violence showed.
"Get the record from the phonograph," Grover had made swift inspection,
"and the camera film. They operated, of course. You can see the grooved
track on the record. We cannot waste time looking for clues here. They
will come from our spies, the film and record, at the studio."
Rapidly they assembled the things needed and drove to the lab.
With Tip, ready, eager, and quick to help, Roger got the film into the
tank waiting on their arrival, and set the screening room turntable for
the playback. In no time after their arrival they listened to the
revealing details--and were again baffled.
The record, after running along for a few seconds, suddenly spoke that
weird warning, "The Voice of Doom!"
As before, it was repeated and was followed by the uncanny and shrill
screech that ran down the scale to a groan that died in a sudden sharp
grinding stop.
"Let it run!" begged Roger as Grover was about to stop the motor, "maybe
he gave us a clue after that waked him up."
There was a scraping of the recording needle running without vibration
over the disk for a few seconds, and then they heard, very faintly
recorded:
"_You_--Clark!----"
"Who's Clark, Cousin Gro----"
"Sh-h-h!"
The recording was again audible:
"How did you get in? What do you want?"
A few instants of silence. How could the answer fail to be recorded?
Roger thought swiftly that a whisper should have left a faint report of
its existence.
"It isn't here.... Look, then.... What do _you_ know about any
laboratory?... I don't know the combination to any safe!... Yes, let's
go there. I will be very glad to go with you, Clark! The great Joseph Z.
Clark----"
Only Doctor Ryder's very easily identified voice gave the responses and
although Roger cut in more output power and added a stage of
transformer-coupled audio, the speakers gave no intermediate words.
They were easily guessed at, of course.
Potts, bringing the film, still sopping, groaned.
"Not a thing on it. Wasn't even exposed."
Grover and Roger looked.
When light acts on a silver-bromide emulsion, it develops dark grains of
silver where light has fallen, leaving the shadows unaffected within the
degree that they lack light, thus giving the shadings that become a
picture in the positive print.
All over, and for its whole length, the film that had run fully three
minutes showed as clear of developed silver as if it had not run through
the machine as evidence proved that it had done.
"A card over the lens," Grover grunted. "Of course! This Joseph Z. Clark
is a clever man."
"And so is Doctor Ryder, for he must have guessed that the recording was
going ahead, and he told us all he could."
"Yes, Roger. And they haven't been here yet."
"So they will walk into a trap," finished Tip.
They made hurried preparations, hiding the Falcon guards and finding
concealment for themselves.
Doctor Ryder had said he would "gladly" bring the man. How wise! He
would know that they would get him, there.
They did not have a long vigil.
In the tell-tale shadow-box panel of lights wired for all entrances, the
one to the cellar coal chute died out.
Roger felt his nerves quiver, his muscles grow taut.
All they had to do was to wait.
When the pair got in, came up the stairs, walked over to the safe, the
infra-red beam would break, tripping relays that set off small
water-streams that would go all ways around the safe, charged with a
current that could chain a marauder in his tracks. Doctor Ryder, knowing
about it, would stay out of range, sending his captor, the miscreant
they wanted, to his defeat.
They crouched, Roger behind the recording device, Grover in the office,
Tip near the stairs to the upper floor, the Falcon guards at three
strategic points near ground-floor windows.
There was the silence of a deserted building as they waited.
Minutes passed. The intruding thief was careful, Roger decided.
Still more time passed draggily.
Roger began to grow cramped, and also very uneasy in his mind.
What was going on? Was it so wise to wait? Why not throw on some light.
Better sidle over and ask Grover? No. Better wait.
He strained his ears.
He heard only what seemed to be the drip of a faucet in the chemical
washing-sinks. Tick! Tick-et-y--tick. Silence. Tick! Tic-tic--tick-y. A
wait. Tick-tick.
He tried to focus his hearing on any other possible sound. The drip-drip
effect seemed to cease. He wondered about it, but decided that it had
not been a faucet but had been a few drops of collected water running
down the drain and striking in the trap.
But as he wondered about it, he began to feel that it had been a
metallic sound, not so much a soft drip.
Risking censure, in his growing uneasiness, he leaped to his feet and
threw into circuit his small pocket flash. Its beam stabbed the
darkness, here, there.
He shouted in dismay and horror.
The safe door, caught in a flick of the beam, stood wide open!
Tip threw a wall switch. No light came.
Then, suddenly, the lights leaped on, water flowed from the hose.
Too late!
Science had been cheated of its guarded treasure!