He spied around the hall. It, too, was silent. He tiptoed down to the library, telephoned the laboratory, and got no reply.
Once again—something was wrong—in two places! He must go to that laboratory. Grover should have answered—or Tip—or Astrovox!
Chapter 21
TRAGEDY!
Half way to the laboratory, Roger pulled up in his stride, half ready to laugh at his stupidity. A joke? Of course.
Potts, on Grover’s instructions, had made the room installation. To “get back” at his chum for the suspicion about the Eye of Om, the handy man could have made that “Fire” cry on a record, could have known how to break a light beam. He, alone, could have prepared the impregnable place so that it might be entered, it seemed to Roger.
A recording, he also knew, was the other end of a reproduction. To print a sound-track on a disk, one used a microphone; its diaphragm sent vibrations through a selenium cell and other apparatus until it actuated the recording diamond: to play it back, the process was reversed.
The use of the diamond, instead of a smooth reproducing needle on a hardened surface, could cause that high, thin, scratchy voice.
“But Cousin Grover was not at home,” his mind prompted, “and the door was open, and the light would not work. The lab. telephone was dead, too!”
Perhaps Potts had tried a joke; but it seemed as if it had turned into a warning, a summons; because, when he reached the building, the door was not secured, no protective beam had been set; and in the main office, he smelt the sharp, acrid odor of burned powder.
A gun must have been fired in there, he reasoned. By whom? For what? His mind raced to terrifying impressions. Explosion! Shot!