ROGER LISTS HIS CLUES
During Grover's absence at the hospital, the staff began to arrive.
Until the secretary should come to handle the switchboard Doctor Ryder
volunteered to be monitor on calls, being extremely anxious concerning
the condition of the assaulted star-reader, as were the rest.
Roger, as Toby Smith with a heavy suitcase arrived, turned over the few
requisitions for stock to his willing assistant.
He wanted very much to fill up the list of sounds he had begun in the
office before going to Tibet.
"Suits me fine," Toby agreed, "I got a lot more of Doctor Ryder's what
he calls compounds, that he is going to use to medicate the rats he is
going to replace."
The members of the staff, trained under the phlegmatic, scientific
methods of Grover, took very little time to discuss conditions. The
routine work of scientific research had to proceed. They made it do so.
Each took up his task. Mr. Zendt, with his new investigations, and the
electricians and other staff men, left the matter that had no bearing on
their results in the hands of those most interested.
Potts, while Roger located his "sound" list, speculated about the
situation.
"That Ellison come out on top in the chemistry retroactivities," he
began, and when Roger had substituted "reactions," he proceeded:
"But are you so sure, Rog'?"
"Well, the way Grover works, I am not sure and I am not un-sure. I'm
going to dig to the heart of truth. Now, with our clues, we have a lot
of circumstantial evidence-clues; and we have a heap of visible clues;
but I think the audible ones will tell most, just as Grover does."
"Circumstantial evidence? Such as what?"
"People being at certain places. Here, maybe, when something happened.
And like Mister Ellison arriving just when we least expected."
"Then, what about visible ones?"
"The animals on a film taken in a room with no animals in it. The
actions of people, if we could only read them. The picture in the
office, last night, with a man's back turned, Astrovox scared, and the
smoke."
"The others--the vocational clues----"
"Do you mean 'vocal'?"
"Uh-hum. Them I know most of. But there's ol--olle--something about a
factory----"
"Olfactory? Clues coming from smells? I think you've got something. The
powder smell, for one."
"And now, how will we coagulate 'em?"
He was fond of that word, erroneously used, before--but to him a
discovery.
"I don't know," Roger admitted, "there must be some link."
He suggested that inasmuch as the man in the office shot had worn
gloves, as revealed on his outspread hands, no finger prints had been
left when he had inadvertently pressed the desk button.
"But there might be clues on the floor, if they haven't been tracked up
too much," Roger suggested. "You do some micro-photography while I
revise my list."
The list he located in their office file, behind the registrations he
had previously looked up to find the clue, as it had seemed, that Zendt,
with Australian experiences, must know about kangaroos, while
Ellison--there he cropped up again! could know, from India work, about
the ape they had seen in the film of the upper room.
Looking over his list, in the light of what had happened, Roger was
inclined to drop out the seemingly unimportant fact that the case had
begun when both the fire and the protective system alarms had rung. He
felt that it had no discernible connection with his mystery, being so
easily accounted for by the fact that an ape and a kangaroo had
evidently gamboled around in the studio, setting off alarms unwittingly.
Still, half-hesitant, he left it in, but re-wrote his list, so as to put
what seemed important in order, rather than try to follow the succession
of historical order, as he had done before.
His list, thus revised and added to, ran this way:
_Sound_ _Possible Meaning_
1. Frying-grease-like Claws of animal. Radiator valve with steam
clicks and hisses and coming in. A snake, with its scales
pops. rattling. A lizard, like the big Iguanas.
2. Voice of Doom. Tibetans' trick to frighten. A recording made
in Tibet.
3. Voice of Doom again. On a record supposed to be new. Query: how
did Tibetans know all about our stock to
substitute? Query, could Ellison have done
it?
4. Doctor Ryder's talk Voice was his. We thought and he admitted it
with man on record was Mr. Clark he was talking with. Query,
with No. 3. we thought it was to conceal identity that
Mr. Clark wrote; wonder if it was not a
talk with him in room, if he telephoned
instead? Is Mr. Clark completely cleared:
he is a jeweler.
5. Clicks in headset. Could be so many electrical switch noises or
relays, but why was it so close to hearing
Voice of Doom?
6. Drip or click in Was just before safe was opened, but was it
dark. the combination being worked by expert who
could tell by sound when tumblers fell
right? Does that make me think of Clark, a
jeweler? Not Tibetans as we had thought
from circumstances. Is Ellison able to work
a combination "by ear"?
7. Thump or thud sound. Seemed to come in corner of room upstairs
just before I took the film that produced
the animal 'ghosts' after we had heard
Voice of Doom from up there. I wonder how
important it really is, or if it was just
plaster or a film in a can?
8. A sort of thump on We thought he had been knocked down by a blow
Record when Dr. Ryder with recorder operating. But it turned out
vanished. he had gone away with Clark. Or so Clark
said. Has Clark got some hold over Doctor
Ryder that made him go after a telephone
summons? Was that thump the telephone taken
off hook? Not likely as it would be a click
like what I heard in headset. Do these tell
me anything?
9. The cry of fire and No fire, and no reason for cry. Wait! It was
crackle of flame on like what old Astrovox said when we were
unused record in my collecting old papers in upper room? Is it
room. possible anybody made a record of it? But
Potts was the only one who was fixing
protection machines in my room. Yes, and
Potts says he threw away what turns out to
be the real Eye of Om. Oh, it can't be.
10. Both alarms went Can't mean anything but I feel like keeping
off when mystery it on record.
began.
11. Shot recorded in A brain-teaser. It was an explosive sound,
the lab films at same that synchronized with flash in film: and
time as flash. there was the smell of burned powder. How
does it fit? Did Clark or Ellison do it to
try to shoot the man at the desk? Or did
either one do it at the other?
12. The Tibetan talked It _is_ 'sound' and might have some clue, he
English. used English in a Tibet monastery, and in
America again.
13. The whistle and Wind howling as it blew hard or gentle in
moan in Tibet same as tunnel and Buddha-whistle. But no 'grind'
on recordings. in Tibet.
14. Grind as if rocks Missing in real Tibet sound, as rock was
on records, after counter-weighted and moved silently open
Voice of Doom. and shut. Seems important, because it was
on record probably made in Tibet and
brought here by--Tibet lama? Clark?
Ellison? Zendt?
15. Voice of Doom heard Was it record, same as others? Or what? I
by Astrovox. must ask when he recovers if it had grind
at end of moan.
Those, as far as he could recall, were his sound-clues.