“I will pit my laboratory equipment against any force you can tell me about,” Grover spoke confidently.
“Well—as one example—how would you guard against mental suggestions sent by a powerful will, in my sleep, perhaps causing me to leap out of a window?”
“I have heard of such powers,” Grover admitted. “I have never seen them verified. However, for any occult science I am sure that we can find a material device to counteract at least the effect on your safety.”
Although Doctor Ryder was skeptical, he shrugged and submitted.
“I will arrange your room so that nothing can get in, you cannot creep, crawl, run, jump, push or otherwise escape,” smiled the scientist. “I shan’t say what will be set up, and then there can not be any way for you to frustrate my plan to keep you safe.”
Potiphar, with Roger, heard some quiet instructions. The sketch and specifications they got made both of them chuckle.
Any secret schemer, thief, priest of Tibet, or what, must “go some” to cheat the mass of light-beams, selenium cells, the recording phonograph, a camera, and electrified door and window seals that as long as current held them tight, could open only to Grover’s own secret key, filed to touch only certain contacts in a tiny slot on the circuit-cable just outside the rooms of the doctor.
Tired and full of content after saying good-night to their protegé, Roger saw the switch set “on” and went home with Grover to sleep soundly. Nothing could enter or leave that sealed place!
And to show the fallibility of human wisdom, Roger waked again in the hour before dawn to hear Grover answering a wild summons from a Falcon Patrol Agency guard at the Ryder home.
“Better come,” he was telephoning, “I can’t rouse him or get him to answer; and from the observation port I can’t even see him in that room!”