“Was that clever? You know it was. To plan to steal a sacred gem under the pretext of replacing a fake one with the true Eye.”
Roger had not guessed that, nor, by the exclamations, had the rest of the group—or most of them.
“The mystery of the white rats, supposed to be deadly menaces because we thought they were inoculated with germs of a spinal malady, got our attention turned to every possible idea but the real one.
“To add to our consternation, give a ghostly touch with the animal ‘spooks’ on a film, this clever thief made a record of what he recalled about the Tibetan Buddha’s ‘Voice of Doom.’ Like most criminals, he overshot his mark, adding the grind of rocks, when in truth there was no such grind. The sound was caused by wind, always howling across the Himalayas, coming through a wind-tunnel cut in rock from the base of a cliff to the lamasery temple on its crest.
“He made a record, with moans, cries and groans, and added the effect of the rock closing, from his imagination of what would be right.”
That record he had managed to slip onto their own recorder-reproducer machine, with a hookup which Roger knew all about, Grover went on. The weird manifestation had startled them, while watching for the man, one night. With a Balsa-wood speaker hidden flat on a dusty shelf, he had caused a spooky voice to draw them up where the prepared film, in a can carefully re-sealed, was handy to be taken and, later, developed, to complicate mysteries further with the spooky animals, he added.
“That was all for the reason that he had to bring in Tibet, logically,” went on Grover, “he had to prepare us for the fact that he was in danger from the Tibetan vengeance. Of course, by this time, the staff knows, as we do, who I refer to.”
Of course, Roger decided. The others nodded. Who, but the guilty man he accused, could be meant? He had said the man was menaced.
“Doctor Ryder was the only one who claimed he was threatened,” said Millman, “and I suspected Roger of playing jokes!”
“Well, I suspected you when you came to my room,” retorted the youthful listener.