by Van Powell
Chapter 36 A LAW OF NATURE
Roger, in the dark, hearing the echoes of that crash, felt fright thatnearly swept him into unreasoning panic.
Not quite, though!
With every effort of will he held his muscles steady when he wanted torun. Clear faculties would be all he had left to pit against anadversary certainly more than simply vindictive. The unknown was almostas brilliant in mind as was his cousin, Grover.
Grover? Why _he_ would have thought out that one and only way in.
Roger, forcing himself to be calm, realized at once how his extraprotection had been turned against him.
He had wired to the telescope. Some one, climbing the candy factory fireescape, looking down from the roof of that building, could, by the angleof view, have seen him attach that wire, peering down past the bulk ofthe telescope. Thus charged, all the miscreant had to do was to lay awire or rod or any metallic carrier, from the candy factory drains orrainspouts across to the skylight. By pushing it into contact with theheavy charge in the telescope, a short-circuit could be established thatwould blow even the main-line fuses.
Thus, and in no other way, could the devices have been renderedimpotent, the locks be only held by wires which a powerful implement inhands so adroit could easily sever.
Even the alarms would not work. They had undoubtedly operated at theinstant of the break, and in time a Falcon patrol agent and anyone whocalled police from home, would help him. But until then!----
He must, Roger knew, be his own protector.
At ten Grover would arrive, using a pre-arranged signal.
Not for an hour would he come.
"Self-preservation is the first law of Nature," Roger's mind in awhimsical flash reminded him. Instead of throwing his faculties into aturmoil, the imminent danger calmed him. That much Grover had made himlearn.
By opening a way in, the miscreant had, for Roger, made clear a way out.He was, then, in no vital trap.
He could afford to drive back panic, to think carefully what to do.
If the whole building had been short-circuited, the telescope was nolonger charged. He had climbed it. Climb it he could again.
His problem, though, was to trap his unknown adversary if he could.
With no electrical help he must think out a plan.
It must be clever, Roger knew. His menace was from a man as brainy aswas his cousin. And that, Roger felt, was a compliment to a veryunjustified person.
He thought he knew what the crash had been. Something deliberately upsetin the cellar, to scare him. It had come about as long after the flashas would have been consumed in rising to the roof on a rope, scuttlingdown the fire escape, opening the cellar coal chute, and climbing down.
He estimated the time that had since elapsed. The adversary had by nowgotten up the cellar stairway and would be on the ground floor.
Would he come further or try to lure Roger down, the solitary youthwondered.
He must let that become apparent by what his keen ears would detect.
He discarded all but attentive listening, making his mind focus on someplan to trap his adversary.
What his mind had, with seeming whimsicality, obtruded during his momentof terror, came back to Roger. "Law of Nature." seemed to prod at histhoughts. _What_ law of Nature? How would it help?
Almost as though some inner monitor was going to save him, a mentalvisualization of the laboratory seemed to become clear to his mind. Hesaw the ceilings, with the slim pipes that ran here and there toopenings; and he connected the vision with the fact that theirfire-protective apparatus had _not_ functioned, when the alarm had beenset off. The tanks of heavy gas, under pressure, were still charged.
"Gravity!" Roger's mind grasped at an idea, "that's the Law of Nature Iam trying to think up."
As if he had received a key to a tantalizing problem, Roger solved hiscourse of procedure in a flash. In his mind he ran over their stock ofchemicals. Hydrocyanic acid, a stinging, powerful combination ofcyanogen and hydrogen; and hydrochloric acid--and many more.
One of these, akin to a tear gas, would do. But he was cautious, and inspite of the pressing uncertainty he paused to be sure he would not takefor his plan anything that could, in combination with thefire-smothering gas, cause an explosion.
Almost at once he had the solution. Sulphuretted hydrogen--the common,refined gas that comes in the city mains from gas plants to stoves andgas jets--_that_ would not explode in combination with the heavy gas inthe compression-tank system!
He wanted a gas that would stupefy: but he needed to be sure that itwould lie, close to the floor.
The gas in the fire-prevention apparatus was such a heavy gas that onbeing liberated, under pressure, it would settle rapidly, diffusing andspreading, as if it could be likened to a cloud, surcharged withmoisture, settled on the earth, enfolding it like a blanket.
There, in the upper room, was the means of releasing the city gas,which, Roger knew, would stupefy of its own constituents--even kill, intime. He did not intend to give it that much time! He merely had thedesire to put his assailant into a state where he could not leave.
Either the intruder was hesitating because of Roger's silence or he wasvery quiet in his actions.
Roger, equally quiet, was extremely active. He had unlaced and hadslipped off his shoes at once. On stocking feet he tiptoed to the largegas outlet set into the wall for use with Bunsen burners or gas heatersused in experiments where a regulated heat was needed.
This he opened, full, by turning the valve one half a revolution.
Darting swiftly away from its low, humming release of a heavy flow, heran quietly across to the thermostat on the wall, connected into thefire alarm and release system. Under it was a manual lever, one to beoperated by hand, in any emergency where the thermometer failed.
Swiftly Roger threw this on, and with his handkerchief tied over hisnostrils and back of his head, for already he smelled the gas of theopened outlets, he swarmed up the telescope.
The house-lighting gas, he knew, would be held down, running to thelower floor down the stairway, and the amount released would be enoughto stupefy quite soon. Even if the adversary climbed the stairs, hewould be in a bath of the sleep-inducing sulphuretted hydrogen.
With his arms and legs helping him rise, Roger clambered up the inclinedmetal barrel of the telescope. At the top, above the flow of smother-gasto kill fires, he paused, listening.
Not a sound.
To the roof he clambered, and sat on the coaming of their skylight,looking down, waiting a few moments in case the other tried to come up.
Below him all was silence.