“What happened?” asked Tom, when he had sent several men to find out, if possible, how Greenbaum had eluded the guard and the electrically charged fence and so had gained entrance to the private laboratory.
Then the giant, whose immense bulk was proof against any ordinary means of making him unconscious, told what had taken place. He had been sitting in his chair on guard near Tom’s door after the little talk he had with the young inventor about his desire to have a fash melon once more. Then, as Koku explained it, a little later, there came rolling along the corridor toward his chair one of the very same fruits for which he had such a longing.
In a transport of joy at the sight and smell of the dainty, not stopping to consider how strange it was that the fruit should have appeared at such an opportune time, Koku stooped to pick it up. But he never got his hands on it, so he said, for a moment later he “went to sleep,” as he expressed it.
“You were drugged,” declared Tom. “Whoever rolled that fash in to attract your attention and keep you from being suspicious, whoever did that, must have sprayed some chloroform or ether up your nose. You went down and out.”
“Maybe so, Master,” admitted the giant humbly. “Koku very sorry.”
“Greenbaum brought it,” declared Tom. “He wanted to get Koku out of the way and then he thought he’d get me. Guess he didn’t count on Ned and Mr. Damon being so near.”
“He didn’t figure on Eradicate’s shoe, either,” chuckled Mr. Damon. “Bless my trolley fare, but that was a good shot!”
“But look here,” persisted Ned. “It’s all right enough for you to say that Greenbaum brought that fash here to tempt Koku. So much is evident and plain. What isn’t plain is how Greenbaum knew about the fash and where he got it. That’s what puzzles me.”
“It’s a small problem compared to the others we have to solve,” said Tom, with a serious look on his face. “What worries me is how Greenbaum passed the guard lines. It also worries me to know that the men who seem bent on preventing me from completing this invention are still on my trail.”
“Those are greater problems,” agreed Ned. “Very likely we are wrong in thinking these peculiar melons grow only in Koku’s country. This may have come from South America or Africa in a shipment of fruit. You know we get pears, or maybe it’s peaches I’m thinking of—anyhow, it’s something, from Australia. And if they can ship things that far, it wouldn’t be impossible to bring fash from where we got Koku. Only what puzzles me is how anybody knew of these melons.”