by Van Powell
Chapter 2 A CREEPING THING!
It took Roger a moment only to realize the enormous danger that wasbehind the loss of those inoculated rats.
When Doctor Ryder had been allotted space in which to conduct hisexperiments to see if he could perfect a cure for a horribly deadlyspinal affliction, he had decided to experiment, first, on animals.
Such experiments had been gotten under way the night before.
The rats, inoculated, were carriers of the deadly germs. If someignorant person had taken them, and the public was not warned to becareful, anything might happen!
One of Grover's constantly repeated axioms about laboratory work was:
"Do the first thing first!"
All life, the scientific student always had insisted, was like thechemical compounds they handled. No matter what the problem might be, nomatter how it looked, it could be analyzed the way compounds would beanalyzed, the elements could be isolated, and the base--the guide to thewhole condition--could be known. Sodium, a metal, very unstable,combined with chlorine, a gas, turned into sodium chloride, and that wasa salt--common table salt, in fact. Yet the restrainer used inphotography, a dissolved salt, was sodium bromide, another gas and themetal, and to find out what a compound held, one had to separate allparts by test and find the base or original element.
But first, one must do the first thing--and in this situation Roger knewthat the first thing was to get busy on the telephone.
White rats had been inoculated with dangerous germs. A bite from such ananimal was ten times more terrible than that of a plain rat, poisonousthough that would be. Therefore, if those inoculated animals were nowmissing, Grover, up where their cage had been, would know it already;but the public, exposed to possible contamination, must be warned.
Roger plugged in the upstairs telephone so that the policeman couldreach his headquarters and start a widespread search of all cars on theroads, all suspicious people carrying sacks or other possible packagesor cases that could hide the rats. The Health Department and news andradio agencies must be asked to broadcast public warnings. And the ownerof the rats, Doctor Ryder, should be called.
Therefore, when Roger went upstairs, his report made his cousin nodapprovingly. Roger had done all he could to avert danger if the rats hadbeen taken ignorantly by some idiot who might let one or more escape andspread disease germs.
With his story told, Potts was busy doing what Grover had ordered as oneway to secure clues: a motion picture camera using non-flam film,flashbulbs of the latest type, tripod for time exposing, and bothwide-angle and micrometric lenses, to give large views of big spaces orvastly magnified details of practically invisible things, formed the kitthat the handy man worked with.
Because he had used his wit Grover had no orders for Roger as thefiremen, police and officers departed.
Nothing could be done until Potts developed his "takes" so they could berun in the laboratory screening-room.
Grover, in his small, private "thinking den," would want to be left tothink out and separate all the mysteries, so that he could get to theheart of the affair and thus decide what to do about it.
Alone, wide-awake, with the dawn just beginning to lighten the skylightin the roof over his stock-room, Roger stood thinking.
He knew that if the small, partitioned space set aside for Doctor Ryderhad held clues, Grover would have told him.
The germs supposed to have been injected into rats the night beforecould not have produced much effect that past night. The doctor had notfelt that he had to observe, personally, as he would have done later.
Instead, automatic "observers" had been set up.
Inside the empty cage, a dictagraph microphone showed, fixed to theglass inside the cage top. That, Roger knew, led to a device like theseismograph which registers earthquake tremors. Its purpose was to show,by the vibration of a pen across a moving tape, when the rats developedany unusual excitement or stress, which was not expected but wasprovided for in that way.
A camera of the moving picture type, but set to snap one take at minuteintervals, would check also; and if the seismograph got to zig-zaggingsharply, it would make contact on one side with a relay, and throw onthe "continuous" mechanism of the marvelous camera.
To discover by calculating how much of the tape had been unreeled whensomething had stopped it, was easy; and in that way Roger knew the timethat the mechanism had stopped, although he did not dare fix that as thetime the rats had vanished, because the tape had started at five in theafternoon, and had unreeled to the point to show that it had stopped atfour in the morning; but the alarm had not sounded until half an hour orso later.
The tape showed excited swerves of the recording stylus, but notapparently enough to start the continuous takes, because Grover had leftthe magazine as it was until Potts should be ready to develop all printsat one time.
With his snapshots and time exposures of wide-angles of windows, doors,floors, air-conditioning intake, exhaust, cellar openings and floors,and his micrometric detail close-ups of parts of all these, Potts wentto the dark-room adjoining Roger's stock-room. The film he had takenwould fill all tanks, so he left the other till later.
The authorities had been warned; and nothing more could be done.
Roger, as the sun rose, telephoned for light breakfast to be sent from anearby restaurant, taking Potts his share in the dark-room.
As he ate, Roger tried to bring some sense into the baffling set ofconditions:
The white rats, in their cage, with the observation apparatus and chartwith notations, should have been recognized by anybody who could see andwho could read, as dangerous to handle, much more to remove.
With the protecting system set, it should have been impossible to enter,at all, and more impossible to get out.
Yet the rats had not by any magic been evaporated into thin air.
Furthermore, Roger mused, why had the fluoroscope and X-ray machinerybeen put into operation?
The entire situation seemed to be too bizarre to be true: more than allthe rest, the mad story of Potts that he had felt a hand as "big as aham," hit him before he had lost his senses!
Nothing fitted anything else.
Doctor Ryder, arriving, was as much a contrast to cold, unexcited Groveras could be imagined. He sputtered his fears for the public, his dismaythat this should have brought discredit on the laboratory that had beenknown to safeguard its precious data.
Roger, watching the pudgy, stout little germ experimenter who excitedlymixed wild theories with wilder plans of procedure, thought to himselfthat if anybody or anything would upset his cousin, the man's emotionalexcitement would be the thing.
Grover was not stirred out of his quiet manner.
The staff began to arrive. They had all seen in newspapers or had heardby radio the warnings and the brief story of the lost rats.
Mr. Millman, the electrical engineer, asked immediately of Dr. Ryder:"Have you any enemies?"
The experimenter thought that he might have antagonists among thescientists who disagreed with his theories; but they would not be menwho would endanger the public for so small a revenge as could come fromcriticism of his laxness in not watching his experiment more closely.
Mr. Ellison, the laboratory's electrical research specialist who workedwith Mr. Millman, agreed; and so did the bio-chemist, Mr. Zendt; theanalytical chemist, Mr. Hope, and Grover.
They were discussing the many contradictory and unexplainable pointswhen Potts called, from the darkroom:
"Hi, Rog'--come quick!"
As soon as his eyes were accustomed to the dull rosy glow after hepassed the light-trap, Roger saw Tip clipping non-flam film positives todrying drums.
"What have you got, Tip?"
"Look!"
Potts snapped a strip in place in a vision tunnel: Roger applied his eyeto the lens, and saw, enlarged on the viewing-plate, what appeared to bethe edge of a cellar step. With side-lighting, magnified ridges an
ddepressions in dust looked like a range of hills and vales.
"It was a snake!"
"A--did you say 'snake'?" Roger gasped, "How do you get that?"
Potts changed films under Roger's gaze; an enlarged wide-angle ofseveral steps was before his eyes, and the snake-slide of some body thathad dragged across just the step-edges, and had made no track of hand orfoot on the level of the steps showed!
"It certainly looks like something that creeps, Tip."
"Well, a snake creeps. A snake! What else?"