“Of course—and no one else wears a chain and charm,” agreed Zendt, “we all have wrist-watches.”
“Well, what’s the use of holding me for all this?” growled the man by the skin. He picked it up.
“I’ll just return this—go on and arrest me if you have any charge you can support with evidence that a clever lawyer can’t break down,” snarled the man.
“A sound record, through your own Balsa-wood device, and down to our recorder, will do the trick,” Grover smiled. “Made by you, just now, when you admitted all my previously recorded accusations.”
“All right. I’m licked. Good night, all.”
He turned as if to give himself up to a policeman.
“He’s got the Eye, in with that compound!” cried Roger, as Toby pointed at the pouch in the Kangaroo skin.
“Oh, no he hasn’t,” Grover actually chuckled in triumph, “in the same way that he substituted the prepared can of film for a blank strip when he handed Roger the can to load the magazine—so his animal ghosts would seem to appear on an unexposed film when developed, I substituted a can of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and a trace of ozone, perhaps, and a few other gases——”
“Air?” gasped Ryder, shaking the can taken from the skin.
“A free sample of air that is no longer contaminated by the gas Roger so cleverly used to drive you out—a ruse that enabled me to get here before you could return in disguise.”