Potiphar Potts, nicknamed Tip, was handy man at the scientific research plant. He slept there. In a moment Roger expected to have him call up to report the reason for the alarm.
“You will never hold your reputation now.” Grover turned at the library door as Roger, inside, stared, baffled, at the annunciator panel.
The reputation his cousin spoke about had come when a chemist, sent to them to help the laboratory develop a new series of dyes for a textile mill, had begun to “hear things.” Deaf, wearing an Amplivox, composed of a chest microphone, batteries and an ear piece, the man had been nearly crazed by a persecuting, accusing voice picked up, it seemed, by his device. Roger, by identifying an odd click he got in a makeshift imitation Amplivox set, gave Grover the clue through which a revengeful enemy who had sought to terrify the man had been discovered. As The Ear Detective, Roger, who was in charge of the laboratory stock-room, had really been the means of solving the mystery.
“I know I heard the laboratory bells,” Roger insisted.
“But the lights on our tell-tale are not lit.”
“I can’t help it. Both the fire alarm bell and the system that warns us if anybody enters——”
“But Potts has not called up, either. Go back to bed.”
Grover turned to leave the room. Roger, who was staying with his cousin while his own father headed an exploring expedition into Borneo for a museum, knew that his ears had not betrayed him.
His cousin, several years before, had secured capital with which to start a scientific research laboratory for the use of small companies unable to maintain equipment and an expensive staff.
Every form of research, electrical, chemical, industrial, and in one instance medical, had been successfully undertaken.