THE MYSTERY WIZARD'S SOLUTION
While the beast shackled in the chair kept up its hoarse growls and
struggles, Grover outlined, for the benefit--it seemed--of a
kangaroo--or the one in the chair--his deductions.
"Was that clever? You know it was. To plan to steal a sacred gem under
the pretext of replacing a fake one with the true Eye."
Roger had not guessed that, nor, by the exclamations, had the rest of
the group--or most of them.
"The mystery of the white rats, supposed to be deadly menaces because we
thought they were inoculated with germs of a spinal malady, got our
attention turned to every possible idea but the real one.
"To add to our consternation, give a ghostly touch with the animal
'spooks' on a film, this clever thief made a record of what he recalled
about the Tibetan Buddha's 'Voice of Doom.' Like most criminals, he
overshot his mark, adding the grind of rocks, when in truth there was no
such grind. The sound was caused by wind, always howling across the
Himalayas, coming through a wind-tunnel cut in rock from the base of a
cliff to the lamasery temple on its crest.
"He made a record, with moans, cries and groans, and added the effect of
the rock closing, from his imagination of what would be right."
That record he had managed to slip onto their own recorder-reproducer
machine, with a hookup which Roger knew all about, Grover went on. The
weird manifestation had startled them, while watching for the man, one
night. With a Balsa-wood speaker hidden flat on a dusty shelf, he had
caused a spooky voice to draw them up where the prepared film, in a can
carefully re-sealed, was handy to be taken and, later, developed, to
complicate mysteries further with the spooky animals, he added.
"That was all for the reason that he had to bring in Tibet, logically,"
went on Grover, "he had to prepare us for the fact that he was in danger
from the Tibetan vengeance. Of course, by this time, the staff knows, as
we do, who I refer to."
Of course, Roger decided. The others nodded. Who, but the guilty man he
accused, could be meant? He had said the man was menaced.
"Doctor Ryder was the only one who claimed he was threatened," said
Millman, "and I suspected Roger of playing jokes!"
"Well, I suspected you when you came to my room," retorted the youthful
listener.
"And I did not know whom to suspect," Grover took up his story. "Clues
pointed this way and that. Appearances are easily falsified and I tried
to dig past them to truth--only, I lacked the right hint, and never
dreamed that a gem was to be stolen under the pretext of restoring it!
That was easily planned, for once the gem had been seen, perhaps
photographed with a watch-camera or some small photographic device, a
man like Clark, working with him for a share of the profit from various
gem sales, could reproduce in imitation the green jewel."
Toby, he inferred--and the youth eagerly attested the truth of the
inference--had been paid well, being a former helper at the Clark store
on Fifth Avenue, but out of work--had been paid to sell the supposedly
"real" Eye, its facsimile, for an absurd amount, as he had accepted a
movie camera.
"I fell into the lure," Grover hurried along, "because, for a time, the
Tibetan Voice of Doom manifestation, and the robbery of our safe,
confused me. It was easy to do that last by de-fusing our cellar
switch-boxes, a point I had never thought of. Scientists, like
criminals--or average people--trip up often enough on some minor point
in a plan."
Because the radio would allow him to be in touch, and for the sake of
the travel, adventure and scientific aid Roger would get and give, his
older cousin confessed that he had been glad to see Roger help the
supposed replacement of a sacred relic.
"Clark was brought in cleverly by use of a record. It was the same one
that had been used for the Voice here, and when the needle was dropped
onto the unused part, it made a thump that was one of the sounds of a
series of clues which puzzled Roger and me, because the _appearance_ was
that it was all one recording.
"The trip to Tibet went off as scheduled. Roger, really a sort of 'bait'
because of his youth, was, as hoped, taken up to the lamasery as a sort
of curiosity--a young American well up in scientific methods and
operations. Innocently he played the thief's plans, and still the very
apparatus that he insisted on taking there made the lamas suspicious,
especially one of their wiser men who had been out of their country, who
understood English, and who had read Roger's memoranda of radio talks to
and from lamasery and camp.
"With Tibetan vindictiveness, they let him hear the Voice of Doom,
probably operated by a concealed priest in the hollow image, and then
consigned him, and Potts, to the tunnel. By sheer wit and scientific
knowledge Roger found that he was in a sort of whistling tube, operated
when the rock door was opened, by wind. He worked out, with Tip's wise
help, the secret, and they escaped.
"Clark, when Roger got to camp, took the supposed Eye and with Roger
watching and unsuspicious, actually replaced the true Eye with the false
one he and Ryder had brought along. He had another, and to make Roger
think he was genuinely through with the stone, so as to be clear if any
Tibetan revenge developed, he threw away one more imitation. Potts,
worried about the levers having been wedged which he considered an error
of judgment, went back to repair it."
So interested were the men in following the developing solution that
they had forgotten how bizarre was this relation of a mystery and its
unveiling--to a beast.
The animal seemed fascinated, or cowed, or subdued in some way. Perhaps,
thought Roger, the plight of the hidden keeper made it tame.
Grover drew his theories into shape.
"Naturally, with the real gem, Clark and Ryder made all speed to radio
the prepared airplane. It met them. In Bombay, as he had no desire to be
further involved, Potts discarded the false gem he had picked up."
Then, proceeding on pure deduction, Grover felt that the Tibetans had
discovered their real loss, had discerned that Roger and Tip had solved
the intricate tunnel secret and had escaped. To write, with Roger's
discarded note book as a guide, in a semblance of his writing, was easy.
The letter had come by fast mail steamers and had further confused him.
"Then the thief, with the gem in his fellow-worker's possession,
encountered difficulties," went on Grover; "the man who had been
intending to buy the jewel probably became frightened, afraid of the
danger that the stone might bring around him. So many priceless jewels
carry curses, or bring disaster, that he must have gotten 'cold feet'
and a new buyer had to be sought. The gem, also, had to be secured, in
case the Tibetans actually put into action their vengeful methods.
"Toby was working here. Ryder thought it a clever plan to have this
former aide help him, and so he concealed the gem and had it innocently
delivered here, but Toby, not as dumb as he was considered, suspected
the truth, discovered the hidden gem, and on his own hook offered to
sell it to a buyer he had known at Clark's store.
"That made it necessary for Ryder to recover the gem quickly from the
concealment no longer unsuspected here. He tried to get people away from
upstairs, by detonating with his foot a torpedo under our office desk;
but Astrovox, our scientific star-student, had been about to go home,
frightened by some foolish combination of star-positions and a
manifestation planned to scare him away. He walked in before Ryder could
hide, recognized him--and the desperate man struck him.
"Soon thereafter he realized that in a list of some fifteen sounds made
by Roger there lay the actual clue that incriminated him and no one
else!"
"What was it?" asked Ellison anxiously or eagerly, Roger told himself.
"What Roger thought was claws-on-glass. His very first sound-clue. With
that on a list, and in the clever head of the stock-room clerk, Ryder
had two things to do quickly. He must get the gem, and he must either
find a way to throw suspicion elsewhere or get Roger out of the way."
Roger realized why many attempts had been made, like the one in the
dark-room.
"I warned Roger. Ryder, when Toby--who knew where the gem
was--telephoned him that he had left explosives out in the open--Ryder
tried to use that as a way to lure Roger here to open up, because we had
so arranged things that actually no one could even enter and not be
caught--he was deadly afraid of being electrocuted too soon.
"But Roger is still safe, the gem is available, and so--as you well
know, there is no more mystery, except this:
"How do you think you are going to get the Eye of Om--now?"
Roger stared at his cousin. Saying that. To a beast!