Something was wrong at the laboratory! Ringing bells, long before dawn, awakened Roger Brown.
Dazed at first, he became alert as a strange, cold foreboding made him leap out of bed.
“Just the telephone,” his thirty year old cousin, head of the laboratory, called from his room beyond the adjoining bath. Roger, who was already on his way to the downstairs library of his cousin’s home, paused.
“No!” Well built and athletic, sharp-eyed, keen minded, a worthy student under his brilliant scientific cousin, Roger spoke earnestly, “It wasn’t just the protective beam system, or just the fire alarm, either. Grover, it was both!”
“Impossible! Why have they stopped ringing?” Tying his robe cord, the older cousin followed Roger. He knew that “Ear Detective’s” reputation for reading sounds, even if his own incisive reasoning made him feel that this time Roger had been too drowsy to live up to his nickname.
Just the same, he followed.
“As long as the beam was broken,” he insisted, “The bells ought to continue to ring. I think your fame as a sound interpreter is done.”
Roger did not try to defend himself.
“It was probably a wrong number on the telephone.” Grover was five steps behind his younger relative, “If you are so sure it was our alarm system, especially both bells, why aren’t you dressing to rush to the lab?”
“I’m getting down to be ready when Tip calls.”