“Well, come to think—one nation practically controls the camphor gum output, and if they want to raise the price——”
“Or forbid export to any other country, in war——”
“I can see how much it would be worth to have what we developed for one client. Maybe some foreign nation wants the secret.” Tip was alert. His pale blue eyes and almost albino-white hair made him seem, usually, washed-out and not very bright. But with this thrilling possibility of intrigue and excitement brewing, he was as alert and intelligent as anyone could be.
“We don’t know. But Cousin Grover thinks he will draw them on, and he publishes in the evening papers quite a write-up about the completion of the data. A friend, a newspaper fellow, will help us get it into good space.”
“And so the Chief thinks this fellow with the ape and the mouses and the kangaroo is a criminal and made them criminals?”
Roger nodded.
They waited until the staff checked up with Grover all results from the day’s experiments, and departed. Doctor Ryder, assured that his rats were not a menace, left with the rest.
Then, carrying from the doors, windows, coal-chute, skylight and all other available openings, wires from microphones set there, Roger and Potts led them all to a three-stage amplifier, having a delicately diaphragmed headset in circuit.
With that headset on, if a heart beat within a foot of any mike, a drum-beat could be heard in the headset.
Light-beams criss-crossed the entrances so that they must be interrupted by anybody or any thing that came along. Each was in circuit with one lamp of a number in a shadow-box, and the one that would stop glowing would show which beam had been broken.