by Van Powell
Chapter 31 THE HIDDEN MENACE
Instead of shouting, beating on the door and otherwise wasting energyand using up the available oxygen of the room, Roger paused, taking onlythe precaution of mounting on a high developing table, to avoid anyfloor accumulation of poisonous fumes.
Such mice, he remembered, could detect a dangerous fume long beforehuman nostrils caught the odor; and this made them life-savers onsubmarines. They gave the crews time to trace gas fumes and suppress ornullify their effect.
"Now, there isn't any gas I know of in what I am using," Roger spoke,under his breath, to his tiny companion, just as most people willdiscuss an emergency with a dog or cat.
Fumes of such chemicals as he might use for "reducing" and"intensifying" improperly exposed negatives gave off offensive odors incertain mixtures; but he had mixed none. Hypo was not dangerous: and theventilating system should have sucked away any fumes of whatever sort,he knew.
Nevertheless, the animal grew still more excited.
Roger lighted the white, glaring dome light, ignoring possible ruiningof the developing plates in his trays.
He knew every content of that room.
Nothing was out of place except what he had been using.
There was the extra paraphernalia of the oxygen apparatus. Nothing elsewas visible.
It came to him that no odor or fume could be liberated that would causesuch frenzy in the little white savior unless it was introduced from anoutside source.
He would find out.
He went to the intake of the ventilator, and with litmus paper, andother handy agents, he made several tests, keeping his nose and lipswithin the tight folds of a handkerchief as he did it.
The litmus did not at once indicate anything. But when he thought ofwhat he had sometimes read of closed garages, with car engines running,in which people had been overcome by exhaust fumes such as carbonmonoxide, he made a hasty test, with what he had available, and was verysure that the gas or one of that nature, was in the air.
A tiny animal might be going to save his life. Roger knew his next move.He would shut the ventilator, prevent the inflow of any more fumes,leaving the exhaust openings to suck clear the accumulation which wouldlie near the floor. He got his oxygen equipment, and climbing onto thehighest table, he made an improvised airman's outfit such as they usedwhen ascending beyond the human range of breathable air. He used hisoxygen and mixed it with air inhaled only through a handkerchiefstrainer.
He thought in this way he could hold out, and then whoever had come soclose to being in line for the electric chair----. He watched the mousefor signs.
After a few minutes the animal, at his level, quieted.
Roger, allowing still more time, finally laid aside his protective "gasmask" arrangement, and quietly tried the door. It had been unwedged. Hedid not emerge, however, but went into a corner to wait.
Whoever might open that door, he thought----
A criminal would haunt the scene, to see the effect of his plan.
Would it, he wondered, be Clark? He had threatened. Or--Toby? OrMillman? Of course not the Tibetans. They were not chemists: they werepriests.
He grew tense, watchful.
The outer light-trap door was being opened.