Roger tried to fit that theory in.
“It just won’t quite come,” he mused, despondently. “But I must be considered fair game because I know something. There is the man who thinks I have the Eye. Having it wouldn’t make them want to get me out of the way. Only the Tibetans would try that, and not until I said where the Eye is hidden. And I don’t know. Still, I have been attacked by some gas in the dark-room. Now what am I supposed to know that would reveal the ‘who’ in this?”
A shout from the upper floor broke his reflections.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach and with heart skipping, he opened the private door and looked, listening, toward the stairs.
Millman and Ellison, Hope and others, were stampeding toward the steps.
“What was it?” he called.
“Doctor Ryder—something has happened——”
He joined the hurrying group.
In the partitioned room, among the cages and plant-housing, on the floor, lay Doctor Ryder, with Toby standing beside him, his face looking horrified.
“What is it?” Mr. Zendt came stamping up the steps.