Chapter 9 THE VOICE IN THE SILENCE
"Had your sleep out?" Grover shook his cousin. "It's almost eight andAunt Ella has the bacon on."
Roger rubbed his eyes, snapped awake.
"Is it all right at the lab.?"
"I knew it would be. We left Tip to take turns watching with the menfrom the Falcon Patrol Agency. Two at a time, one on each floor. But Inever count on human watchmen alone. They can be careless," Grovertalked as Roger dressed.
"I know. Capacity-overloading plates all around, so that anybody oranything that got near any apparatus would overload an aerial field andupset a delicate tube and open a relay, stamping the time, and startingcameras with sound-films in them."
"Exactly. Just talked to Potts. Nothing at all happened."
Arriving at the laboratory, earlier than the staff, Roger and the Chiefverified the static condition.
"What do you think of this?" Grover took his cousin to thesound-recording mechanism, the type that uses a large phonograph recordfor the sound that synchronizes with a film in certain motion picturestudios.
He explained that as a double-check on any possible development, he hadhooked up the recorder to a separate microphone system, all concealedflat-disk, super-sensitive diaphragm models, that were set in operationby any interruption of infra-red beams.
"That's something!" commended Roger, examining the arrangements, "ofcourse, with the reports in, I may as well put away the record to keepdust off it during the day."
Grover agreed.
Roger moved aside the recorder which had rested on the outer edge of thedisk, just past the polished edge of the wax.
"Here!" he cried out in surprise, "this isn't right. There is asound-track cut!"
"There can't be!"
"Well, look, Grover."
The older cousin stared at the abraded surface, the cuts in the surfaceof the composition.
"But that is impossible," he stared, unbelievingly.
"Let's give it a playback," urged Roger. He hurried to give the surfacea good brushing with a soft brush, exchanged the diamond-pointedrecorder for the type that hooked up with the electrical amplifiers andspeaker in the screening room.
He adjusted the mechanism to run a minute before lowering the pickuponto the disk, to give him and his cousin and Tip time to get into theirtiny theatre.
The low rasp of the needle as it ran over ungrooved parts was all theyheard, for several breaths.
Then:
Out of the speakers, amazing, booming like the hollow groans that hadfollowed the voices--as they now did!--came the ghostly salutation andwarning:
"Hear me! I am the Voice of Doom."
Again, while they stared at each other with dilated eyes, the needle ranwith no pickup. Then, again:
"Hear me! I am the Voice of Doom."
There rose that whining, shrieking moan of the demented and torturedpuppy, lowering in pitch until it became a hoarse and strident howl,slowly falling away in volume but dropping in pitch until it soundedlike the moan of wind through stretched silk, ending, as had ended theoriginal, spooky manifestation upstairs, in a grinding, abrupt rumbleand silence.
Before the staff got there Roger had developed the sound-films of allthe small cameras, but not one had been impressed with picture oraudible sound record.
It was uncanny and inexplicable.
The Falcon men and Potts declared solemnly, and with sincerity, thatthey had seen nothing, had heard nothing.
This supernatural appearance startled even Grover. Though he did notdepart from his usual calm or drop his cold poise, he looked more thanever solemn, and even mistrusted human watchers and hiselectricity-and-water protective device so far as to search the safe.
The jewel, as well as the camphor data and other precious things, tohis, and Roger's, relief, were intact.
Doctor Ryder, who was given a demonstration of the spectral recording,looked dismayed.
"If I do not return that stone," he gasped, "my life is not worthinsuring. This is the third warning, and conveyed in a way that makes mevery certain that we are dealing with a sinister and very occult body ofpriests."
"How do you propose to return the jewel?" Grover was practical.
"I dare not let it be known that I have it," the medical experimenterdeclared. "I have thought of going to Tibet--but how shall I get intothat temple, and how give back the gem? White people will be all themore forbidden access to the place; and I am already suspected of havingtaken the Eye."
Grover considered it seriously.
Roger, too, gave his best thought to the puzzling complications.
"I don't suppose they'd have radios in temples in Tibet," Roger said,half-hopefully.
"In the Dalai Lama's palace there is a radio, yes."
"Short-wave?"
"Probably of the best. We cannot resort to broadcasting, Roger," hiscousin objected, "the international gem thieves might pick it up."
"That's so----"
"Besides, to ask them to come and take it, as I suppose you had in mind,would bring every gem hunter, in disguise or otherwise. And it mightlead to worse consequences than theft. They are fairly desperate, coldblooded people," was the doctor's objection.
Tip, listening, put in a suggestion.
"Let one o' them that's been fetchin' kangaroos and apes take it. _Then_radio who's in the possessive case. Let _them_ get the Voice of Doomafter them."
Grover smiled, shaking his head.
"Tip and I could take it in an airplane," Roger hinted eagerly.
"There is only one logical course open," Grover gave final decision,"hold everything static. Make no move. Safeguard Doctor Ryder, with thesame type of protection we have given the safe, in a modified form.Then, when the promised Doom arrives, its emissaries can be informedthat if they furnish proper credentials they may have their Eye of Om."
Tip looked as disappointed as did Roger.
No Tibet? No adventure? No thrills?
"I suppose," Doctor Ryder shrugged, "it is the sure way, though not toosafe for me, no matter what devices you arrange. If you knew the hiddenforces of Nature that those Lamas can call into play, modern scientificprotection would be as useful as a child's toys to combat unseen dangersthat strike through the air."
"I will pit my laboratory equipment against any force you can tell meabout," Grover spoke confidently.
"Well--as one example--how would you guard against mental suggestionssent by a powerful will, in my sleep, perhaps causing me to leap out ofa window?"
"I have heard of such powers," Grover admitted. "I have never seen themverified. However, for any occult science I am sure that we can find amaterial 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. "Ishan't say what will be set up, and then there can not be any way foryou to frustrate my plan to keep you safe."
Potiphar, with Roger, heard some quiet instructions. The sketch andspecifications they got made both of them chuckle.
Any secret schemer, thief, priest of Tibet, or what, must "go some" tocheat the mass of light-beams, selenium cells, the recording phonograph,a camera, and electrified door and window seals that as long as currentheld them tight, could open only to Grover's own secret key, filed totouch only certain contacts in a tiny slot on the circuit-cable justoutside the rooms of the doctor.
Tired and full of content after saying good-night to their protege,Roger saw the switch set "on" and went home with Grover to sleepsoundly. Nothing could enter or leave that sealed place!
And to show the fallibility of human wisdom, Roger waked again in thehour before dawn to hear Grover answering a wild summons from a FalconPatrol Agency guard at the Ryder home.
"Better come," he was telephoning, "I can't rouse him or get him toanswer; and fro
m the observation port I can't even see him in thatroom!"