The Mystery of the Fifteen Sounds

by Van Powell

  Chapter 34 TRAGEDY STRIKES AGAIN

  Without consulting his list, because he did not want to have it in sightany more than he wanted its place in the files discovered, Roger usedthe "thinking den" for just what its name implied.

  "Claws on glass," he reflected. "Click of a contact. Voice of Doomupstairs from Balsa-wood speaker. That's what the click was for. Theplug-in that made the connection through the house-wiring from record tospeaker-unit. The Voice again on a record that ought to have beenblank?"

  He went through his list, mentally, to get all fifteen sounds clear inhis brain again.

  "The call of 'Fire' and paper rattle sounding like flames," he completedhis silent inventory.

  "Of course," he told himself, "the last one links up with the Voice ofDoom on the record, and that links up with the Voice out of the speakerupstairs. And the click, as the plug-in was made is a link there too.Then, again, the thump in the corner that made me start the picturemachine--that could have been disconnecting the plug-in. Doctor Ryderhad thought it was going to be more, for he was with me and cried out,'start the machine' or something."

  The clicks that he had first misread as dripping faucets in awashing-sink, that had turned out to be the safe combination beingmanipulated by an expert, he put out of mind as explained.

  "The claws on glass hooks up with the film that showed theghost-kangaroo," he decided. "That can be side-tracked. Now, that leavesthe talk that named Clark, after the Voice of Doom--all three times itcould have been the same record, of course--what is left?"

  He re-pictured his clues.

  "The grind of moving rocks on the records. None in real rocks. A thumpon the record. How do they tell me anything? The record was not reallymade in Tibet. It was made in America. I seem to remember that the Tibetvoice was deeper than the one on the record. But why did the record addsomething not in Tibet? The rock rasp. Is that my real clue?"

  Puzzling about it, and trying to see what link there was between thethump and that additional grinding sound, he got no inspiration.

  His meditation was interrupted by the arrival of a caller, a man fromthe Museum of Natural History.

  He wanted the laboratory to work out some extremely complete system forprotecting the museum's very valuable collections, such as the gemexhibit, and other priceless collections.

  Roger had to explain the absence of his cousin on "business" and toaccept the assignment conditionally on Grover's acceptance.

  "Probably some short-wave system could be worked out," he said, and thecaller left.

  Grover telephoned. Told of the call, he agreed to accept the commissionand would call at the museum before coming to the lab., when relieved byPotts toward nightfall.

  Roger went back to his broken thread of meditation.

  An attempt had been made to get into his room. Millman had been caught.His motive, he had said, was to learn whether Roger played scientifictricks. Did that ring true? Or, as Roger felt, could he have wanted tosilence a tongue able to accuse him about Astrovox?

  Roger tried to fit that theory in.

  "It just won't quite come," he mused, despondently. "But I must beconsidered fair game because I know something. There is the man whothinks I have the Eye. Having it wouldn't make them want to get me outof the way. Only the Tibetans would try that, and _not until_ I saidwhere the Eye is hidden. And I don't know. Still, I have been attackedby some gas in the dark-room. Now what _am_ I supposed to know thatwould reveal the 'who' in this?"

  A shout from the upper floor broke his reflections.

  With a sinking feeling in his stomach and with heart skipping, he openedthe private door and looked, listening, toward the stairs.

  Millman and Ellison, Hope and others, were stampeding toward the steps.

  "What was it?" he called.

  "Doctor Ryder--something has happened----"

  He joined the hurrying group.

  In the partitioned room, among the cages and plant-housing, on thefloor, lay Doctor Ryder, with Toby standing beside him, his face lookinghorrified.

  "What is it?" Mr. Zendt came stamping up the steps.

  Ellison, bending in a crouch over the prone figure, looked up.

  "Did he faint?" he asked Toby sharply.

  "N--no, sir. Just fell down that way."

  "Are you--sure?"

  "Ye--yes-sir."

  Roger moved closer. "Is he--alive?"

  "His pulse is very low, but he breathes. Now," Ellison stood up,organizing them dictatorially, "Toby, bring ammonium--any form."

  It flicked through Roger's subconscious mind that the electrician knewchemicals. He had not used the ordinary, every-day "ammonia" but then hehad not added the word to indicate the chemical nature of an ammoniasolution. It might be because he was excited.

  "Roger, have the stenographer call a doctor--or an ambulance from policeHeadquarters is a quicker call. Zendt, what do you say this is?--Stroke?Coma?" The bio-chemist bent down, squatted.

  "Did he stand in front of that Beta-ray?" he asked Toby.

  The helper, apparently very much frightened, perhaps afraid of beingaccused of something, grasped at this eagerly.

  "Oh, yes-sir. He was right in front of it, working on them new rats hegot in. Why? Will that lamp burn him?"

  "Those rays may have a disintegrative effect, some reaction in the humanbody. I can't say. I saw it was on, and asked."

  If that was a solution, there was tragedy, but not a culprit--a carelessaccident, instead, Roger mused.

  Was Toby's word, he mused, having made the stenographer contact thepolice--was Toby's word to be trusted. Or had he--what?

  The ammonia, and chafing of wrists, had no beneficial effect.

  Almost immediately a police car came; and soon afterward the internefrom the ambulance was examining the man who had been put on thelaboratory's emergency cot.

  The doctor bent close, sniffed at the faint breath.

  "Get the stretcher," he ordered abruptly.

  "What is it?" Roger's voice shook.

  "Poison, I think." He used their medicinal emetics as a first-aidmeasure, but almost without waiting for effects, took the inert figureaway.

  Mr. Zendt, standing reflective among the group of stunned laboratoryworkers, suddenly confronted Toby.

  "Did he--drink anything?"

  "Y--er----"

  "_Did he?_"

  "I--no--yes, sir."

  "Water?"

  "Y--yes, sir."

  "Did he get it himself--where? What glass did he use? A clean one?"

  Under the fire of questions Roger saw Toby redden and then whiten, heardhim stammer and try to evade.

  Out of it all came a sudden declaration.

  "I never give him no poison. He told me to get him a drink. I went tothe cooler, and drawed water in the glass. I knowed it was clean. Ialways get told about washing everything the minute it's done with, andI did it even with the glass."

  If he had washed the glass, no evidence or clue to its former contentswould remain in it. Was that, thought Roger, a way that a person mightbehave who had put something in the water? Or was Toby, as he insisted,innocent. But no one else had been there! Or had Zendt, formerly up withthe doctor, put anything in that glass perhaps intended for either ofthe pair working there?

  It was a maze.

  And out of the staff, two were impotent.

  Roger shuddered. A thought turned him all goose-flesh.

  Might some one else be the next?

  Which of them?

  Maybe he, himself, might be.

  Or--he thought--was it all over? Was the real culprit caught?

  The police arrested Toby, took him away.