After a while, returning, the man ushered in—Grover.
“How did you come here?” cried Roger.
“So they got you.”
“But you shouldn’t——”
“I didn’t exactly walk into a trap, Roger. The Chief of Police knows where I came in answer to a note handed me while I was trying to trace Astrovox. If I do not telephone within an hour, somebody will come to see what’s what.”
He explained what Roger had not known (after hearing the strange events of the opened door, the screeching table radio and seeing the smoke-filled office).
“I stayed to watch Astrovox make spectra-graphs of color bands,” Grover explained, “sending Tip here to be on guard. An excited call seeming to come from him brought me to the house just as a note he got started him to the laboratory. We passed, not knowing. I found your safeguards apparently working, and returned. Potts was trying to reassure the star-gazer who had heard that Voice of Doom. But Tip was frightened also. We sent the astrologer to lie down on Tip’s bed, while we investigated. He came back to us after a few minutes saying he was too much upset to stay there. He thought the Tibetans had involved him in some manner.”
Tip, it appeared, had agreed to go along to be sure the man got going and reached home safely.
Tip had bidden him wait, in the chemical section, while he went to his own room to get a weapon for safety’s sake.
“I suppose he must have heard something or started into the office, Roger. At any rate, suddenly, we heard the shot. I was down those stairs in a bound, and beat Tip by ten feet getting in where the smoke still hung in the air.”