by Van Powell
Chapter 12 DETECTIVE ROGER
After further consideration of the sound clues, and discussion of theuncanny appearance of animals on a film, and other points, and withoutseeing any light, Grover rose.
"The staff will be arriving any time, now," said he. "Let's look up thatfellow, Joseph Z. Clark, because I want you to do a littleSherlock-Hawkshaw work if we locate his address."
They took first the telephone book. He was listed, and his address wasin a section of the suburbs given over to large private estates. Hisbusiness also was listed. He was a jeweler, and the reason he could ownan estate was shown by his business address in fashionable Fifth Avenue.
"A man would seem to be a suspicious character loitering around aprivate estate," Grover looked up, "but a boy----"
"I could wear my old sweater and cap, and ride my bicycle, and it wouldbe natural for me to rest anywhere along the road, or even go anywhereto ask my way." Roger caught the spirit of the idea.
"I merely want you to 'look over the land,' and see how things look,"Grover insisted. "Then after the staff goes, come back and report. Thatgives you time for rest between riding out and back."
"After the staff goes--Do you still think?----"
"I have to think everything and nothing until I get a lead."
Roger took his time riding the dozen miles to the easily located pointof espionage. To get there by mid-morning was best.
The estate itself, walled in with ivy-covered stone, quite an extensiveacreage, he reached as the sun approached the zenith.
Near what seemed to be a servants' gateway he sat down by his recliningbicycle.
From the grass beside the gateway he could see, along the driveway, thebeautifully rolled tennis court, the sweep of lovely lawn, from the maingateway, winding up to a grand, white mansion, people moving about onwide verandas or swimming in a distant pool.
"Pretty swell," Roger told himself musingly. "Not the sort of a place tolook for kidnapers or jewel thieves. Unless--as Grover is always so fondof saying: 'I dig past appearances that can be falsified, to the heartof truth that can't be changed.'"
He turned it over in his mind. Of course, it would not be past reasonthat a prosperous man, with a millionaire's residence, might smugglegems, even make a man his prisoner to secure a gem with the world-widereputation Doctor Ryder had ascribed to the Eye of Om.
Om--Roger had looked it up--was the reverent name by which the Tibetansreferred to the All Highest, to Our Eternal Father.
It was sometimes spelled A-u-m, also, he had found out.
From his view of the rich, scintillating gem, the unbelievably many,tiny, flat, facet surfaces, turned in every direction, well symbolisedthe name, the Eye of Aum or Om, the All-seeing Gaze of the Supreme God.
Well, for that jewel, what would not some characters do?
He wondered, gazing idly, behind which window Doctor Ryder might be aprisoner; and he thought how he might discover it.
If the man could look out, he thought, Doctor Ryder might give him somesignal.
He stood up, pretending to stretch, facing the house. He got up on thewall, and knew that he was noticed, for a footman moved out toward him.He jumped down, watching the upper windows.
No response. No signal. If only he could be seen from all four sides ofthe house, he reflected, it might be different!
"Private property, son," said the footman, arriving at the gate.
Some remembrance of detectives who had "taken the bull by the horns" andhad "bluffed" people into telling the truth, who had tricked suspectedpeople into revealing things they tried to hide, made Roger act withoutfully canvassing what the possible outcome might be.
"Private, yes," he said, grinning mysteriously, "but you'd better askDoctor Ryder whether I'd be called a trespasser or not."
His bold stroke brought him a revealing response.
"Huh? Doctor Ryder? Do you know him?"
"I know him," Roger said loftily, "better than he knows the Eye of Om."
"The what of who?"
"Oh, of course--I ought not to have mentioned----" Roger pretended to bedisconcerted, "I--uh--well, never mind."
"How comes it you're out here? Why'n't you ride right on in if you wantthe Doctor?"
"I just stopped to rest."
If Roger's words were carelessly intoned, his heart was doingspeed-pulsations. Doctor Ryder was there!
"Well, all right. They didn't know who you were, climbing on our wall."(_Our_ wall--Roger hid a grin.)
"Guess I'll walk up. Want to bring my machine?"
Might as well enjoy some of the luxury of having servants to wait onhim, Roger chuckled merrily to himself.
"Certainly, sir. You will find Doctor Ryder with Mister Clark, overbeyond the pool, at the first tee of the golf links. Or, would yourather be announced?"
"'Station O.B.Y's,'" Roger pretended to be a radio announcer, playing onthe phrase, "Oh, be wise," as he shook his head.
"No, thank you. I'll go see the doctor without being heralded."
He walked ahead of the servant, across the lawn.
Before he had passed the girls with gay frocks, joking with theirescorts, and the quartet of laughing, splashing swimmers, he saw the manhe had supposed to be a prisoner.
Doctor Ryder, his bald head and plump frame easily discernible, wascertainly as free as the tall, sallow, thin-cheeked, hatless man inwhite flannels who was swinging a golf club over a ball.
"Why--Roger!" The doctor, turning, recognized him as he approached,"How'd you locate me so soon?"
Roger, coming up, on guard, hiding his surprise at the unexpectedfreedom of the man, took on a careless air of wisdom.
"Science!"
"Oh, you laboratory people!" Doctor Ryder smiled. "So my voice _did_make a record." He turned to the other man, "I told you thatdisconnecting the selenium cell wire wouldn't stop the sound fromgetting onto the film, any more than you could stop the motor, even ifyou did keep it from taking your picture by holding the card by a rubberband snapped over the lens barrel."
The other man laughed.
"They may have your voice, and welcome," he chuckled, giving the ratherflabbergasted young detective a cheerful grin of welcome, "but theydidn't get my picture, and they won't have my voice, because--well,young man, how do you imagine I beat that?"
"Wrote your answers," said Roger after an instant of thought.
The man nodded.
"I told you he was clever--who wouldn't be under the Mystery Wizard, ashis older relative is sometimes referred to." Doctor Ryder slappedRoger's left shoulder.
Roger, cautious, eyes alert, saw no signs of duplicity.
The situation puzzled him.
After all of the mysterious, baffling, weird and unexplainedcircumstances, after the strain and excitement, here was the victim ofcapture and jewel robbery, about to play golf, laughing, free.
Were "appearances" cheating his common sense? He decided to pretend toaccept conditions, but he watched alertly for clues.
"But I expect you are surprised to see this situation," the man whoowned these acres of wealth declared.
Roger could not dissemble well enough.
"No fair keeping him in the dark," Doctor Ryder prompted. "I was goingto telephone, but we had some details to work out over a few holes ofScotch Croquet," he laughed at his own allusion to golf. "So yousleuthed me anyhow. Well, let's put our cards on the table."
"All right," Mr. Clark--the footman's identification--said.
"I was getting the Voice of Doom manifestation again when--how, only hecan reveal--this old traveling chum, who has gone further in makingmoney than I have in curing spinal disease," Doctor Ryder was speaking,"stalked into my room."
"Well, I knew you were in danger," the other remarked. "So I just wentin through a cellar window and up the stairs, and just as the Tibetanswere getting the hang of the slotted cable trick to shut off the currentso they could walk in, I knocked down the ring-leader."
Could that have been the thump on the record, Roger asked himself.
"They had a copperized gadget, and so I chased the other two, and usedthe gadget, walked in, and brought my old chum out here."
"You might have saved us a lot of worry," Roger spoke abruptly. "Wethought all sorts of terrible things about you, doctor."
"But I said, at the end of the record, that we would go to the safe, andif all was well there we would come here and communicate."
"The record ran out before it was spoken," said Roger, and he added:
"Well--did you find the jewel safe?"
"Just as Clark drove us up near the laboratory," Doctor Ryder informedhim, "we saw the Tibetans emerge. How they had worked it is beyond me.But we let them start in a car, trailed it, and when they got out wejumped them, and after a tussle, sure enough!--they had this, so we tookcharge."
There, in his palm, lay the great, flashing emerald!
"Matter of fact," Clark spoke up, "as long as your laboratory Chiefwon't help my friend to restore this to Tibet and escape all thedanger--and worse--that those Tibetans can stage, I am going to financehis trip back to Tibet, and may even go along."
"All right," said Roger, swinging on the soft turf, "I'd better tellGrover to stop worrying himself about your protection and all."
"You can call from the house--a servant will show you where," the estateowner suggested, and Roger saw no trickery or exchange of glances totell him anything was deceptive in their manner. "While you are tellinghim, if you like the idea, you might ask if he can give a good youngradio operator a leave-of-absence to go along. We have had a Roger, theEar Detective, so far. We'd be willing to pay expenses and salary to aRoger, the Scientist, on our trip to restore a priceless religioussymbol."
Roger's jaw dropped, sagging with his astonishment.
"Straight goods," added Doctor Ryder. "The Tibetan priests are bugsabout scientific cleverness. You'd be a help."
"Name your own salary, too," added Mr. Clark.
Roger may have set his feet on greensward; but to him it was as if hewalked on clouds.
But he did not ask Grover over the telephone.
_He_ was not so sure about that frank offer.