“This one works,” he said.
“Sure,” rejoined Phelan. “Now let’s see how well it works.”
He picked up a San Francisco telephone directory and the classified directory and piled them on top of the dollar, and the humming stopped abruptly.
“They’re all the same,” Phelan said sympathetically. “It seems to be possible to bounce some kind of oscillation off different metals, and make it selective according to their atomic structure, but the beam hardly has any penetration. Your lode would have to be practically on the surface, where you could see it anyhow, before a thing like this would detect it at all. I hope you didn’t pay much for it.”
“Only fifty bucks and a couple of drinks, and it was worth that,” said the Saint, and the thought deepened in his blue eyes. “In fact, I think this is just what we needed to square accounts with Brother Rochborne and your swami.”
The Swami Yogadevi had never seen a Doodlebug, but he had his own effective methods of ascertaining the presence of precious metals. His techniques depended for their success upon certain paraphernalia unknown to electronics, such as a large spherical chunk of genuine optical glass; celestial charts populated by crabs, bulls, goats, virgins, and other mythological creatures; and many yards of expensive drapery embroidered with esoteric symbols, the whole enshrined in a gloomy and expensive apartment on Russian Hill.
There was nothing about the place to suggest that the Swami Yogadevi had once been Reuben Innowitz, known to the carnival circuit as Ah Pasha, the Mighty Mentalist. Mr Innowitz’s wants had been simple in those days, expressed mainly in terms of tall bottles and tall blondes, and they were much the same now, under his plush exterior. There were times, the Swami Yogadevi told himself, when he wished he hadn’t met Melville Rochborne, profitable though the partnership had turned out to be. For instance, there was this Professor Tattersall business.
“How should I know who’s Professor Simeon Tattersall?” he asked with asperity.
Mr Rochborne eyed the mystic with some distaste.
“I don’t expect you to know anything,” he said coldly. “All I want you to do is read it — if you can.”