And how could the alarm go off by human means when he had made so certain that no one could enter?
He decided to try to get Grover at the hospital where he waited for any word, or murmur, raving or otherwise, from the unconscious astrologer.
Grover was not available, they told him. He had gone out to get a late repast.
Grover would not be available for an hour. Roger could not see the laboratory electrical apparatus ruined. The order to stay away had not taken this development into account.
He got a taxi and was hurried to the vicinity of the lab.
Already he heard the screech of sirens, as at the start of the queer chain of contradictions, impossibilities and misfits.
This time, though, a weird orange-reddish glow came up into the cloudy sky from above their skylight!
As Roger leaped out, flinging the taximan a dollar, the glow was quashed as if by magic. The system of protection had worked.
He stopped the breaking of the door, as before, but this time with no need for argument. The X-Ray and fluoroscope were not going as they had been that former time.
Hastily Roger located the Captain of the first company to have arrived: he knew that the one so scoring a beat was in charge, stayed till last, was responsible. It was “his fire.”