He called for his cousin.
Then, with every light going, in spite of queer terrors, Roger made a thorough search of the lower floor.
That brought no result. Nothing seemed to have been moved and as far as he could tell the safe was all right and the device that now made it sink into a channel in the cellar, so that a steel plate could slide over and make it impregnable, seemed to be in working condition.
Reluctantly, forcing his dragging feet, he crept upstairs.
No one was in sight. The old star-gazer was gone also!
Roger stood, uncertainly glancing around.
Had this been tragedy? A shot? At whom? Where were the rest?
Of a sudden the threat in the note became his uppermost thought. Had someone—or something!—drawn the rest away, and lured him there?
Roger, nervously, glanced around him.
The innocent squirrels and rabbits and mice curled up in their temporary respite from the ray-baths. The machines set up earlier hummed quietly, recording, slowly moving the telescope, casting spectra of a star’s light in bands of greenish-brown, yellow and indigo on a flat paper-table. Everything seemed innocent enough.