by Van Powell
Chapter 39 THE APE AND THE KANGAROO
Whatever was in the laboratory, it was coming straight up to the secondfloor. Roger, crouched beside the floor outlet to await a signal to plugin and electrify that chair, wondered why Grover did not move the filmcan, make contact and light the signal lamp to summon the police and theTibetans.
Instead, Grover spoke, low and meaningly.
"The first man who gets up is the guilty one!"
Zendt, who had started to rise, sank back abruptly. Ellison and Millmanstayed as they were, half bent forward.
"Guilty nothing!" Toby spoke in a rasping voice. "Think I'll sit hereand let something attack me?"
"You heard me," snapped Grover.
Roger knew that it would be a question of seconds only; and they wouldthen see the approaching creature.
There in the dark it was a tense moment, and a nerve racking one.
Louder, thudding on the floor, with a strange dragging sound at the endof each pause, came the approach.
"Roger--that bag."
"The shoes, Grover?" in dismay. What was the matter with Grover?
"Quickly. That bag."
Roger lifted it, and Grover, snatching it, opened the paper sack,dragged out a bulky object, just discernible in the dim light they hadfrom the tell-tale panel.
Roger gasped.
"Boxing gloves!"
"Lights!" snapped Grover; and as Potts, lifting an arm, snapped on thewall switch just above the place his chair occupied, Roger saw hiscousin pulling on the padded mitten-like objects.
Whether the rest knew or not, that told Roger what to expect, if not thewhole situation. A kangaroo. A boxing kangaroo. The one he hadphotographed when he had questioned its attendant who had said no pet ortrained animal had left the stable.
In the next room something stopped, and there came, not loudly, a lowcommand.
There was an interval of suspense. What, Roger wondered, was thecondition in that partitioned place adjoining their waiting room?
After a momentary wait, and more seemingly guttural commands, thethumping was resumed; and the animal, in short hops, came to theentrance door.
There it paused as if dazzled or surprised at the light or by the crowd.
Behind it, in the other, darker room, shown by their own light, Rogersaw a hairy, man-like creature, either chimpanzee or some other largemammal it seemed to be. The kangaroo's keeper, he assumed.
Just as in the under-exposed film, where the ghostly ape and itsAustralian companion had seemed to dance, the kangaroo hopped in, whilethe ape, grimacing and beating its chest, danced in behind it.
Straight at Grover leaped the kangaroo. It wore boxing gloves!
Roger, crouched, tense and frightened, saw his cousin, with a typicalboxer's stance, prepare to carry the coming battle to his astonishinglyexpert antagonist.
In that room, while the company shrank back, against walls, pushingtheir chairs out in front of them, leaving a clear space, the animal andthe man closed in as fast and as bizarre a contest as Roger had everviewed. Not clumsily, but with lightning-quick jabs of its shortforearms the beast lunged, taking blows without a sound.
Grover, clever through gym training, fast on his feet, evaded the fairlyclumsy leaps and lunges. At every chance he got in a blow.
If, as Roger inferred, the ape was indeed the trainer, the bulkycreature bore out the idea. Grover had to watch the skipping, leapinghairy thing that tried to get around and catch him; and also, as far asRoger could discern his cousin's tactics, Grover seemed to be sohandling his leaps and side-wise ducking that the ape would be mostlynear to Potts who sat, tense, but still, in that chair; and Roger,crouched by the wall outlet, wondered if he, the handy man, meant totake part and if Grover had foreseen it.
"No you don't!" Grover seemed to be talking to the kangaroo, but ofcourse it was the ape he really meant to have hear, Roger knew.
"You keep far from the cabinet. What if it is ... och--oh! Missed me,old fellow ... even if it is unlocked."
As though telling a story as he dodged and ducked, Grover always talkedas he maneuvered, his breath well conserved by his ease of action.
"So there _was_ a scientific student who turned to jewel theft! ... hedid want to get rich quickly ... he was clever ... made a specialty oflocating ... prized gems.... Through a jeweler named Clark, he ... hegot into contact with those ... who would pay well ... got the gems ...used the jewelry place as a clearing house...."
In that fashion he began outlining a solution.
"Heard of the Eye of Om, didn't he?... Went to Tibet, taking Toby ...didn't dare make a stab for it, though...."
Grover jumped back so that the monkey missed grabbing him.
"Got through Clark a man ... who would pay fabulous price for that Eye.And ... worked out plan to have it so cleverly stolen _for him_ that hewould never be suspected by Tibetans or other gem thieves ... oh, youwould, eh?..." as the ape made a lunge and Roger, avoiding it, had todrop to his haunches to avoid the boxing kangaroo's leap and stroke,"Would, eh?... try to get to that cabinet.... Like to paw the Eye of theBuddha, eh, would you?" as the ape started to take a part by coming upto grasp him from behind. Roger was about to shout, but he saw thatGrover, like an eel, slipped aside. He did not strike at the ape.
"The gem robber knew he would be suspected if he ... took the Eye ...returned to America ... made an elaborate plan ... would use science ...chose our lab...."
Grover, his cousin saw, as did the rest, kept maneuvering so as to keepthe lunging paws approaching as he backed around. For some unseenpurpose he seemed to be manipulating his actions so that he could getthe ape and the kangaroo into some desired relationship or position.
Roger, still at his place, not daring to desert his post, saw the apeback toward Potts.
Instantly, as though by some previous order, Potts snapped his body outof the chair, and with his arms, catching the thing that walked uprightlike a man around its torso, he dragged its shaggy body backward off thehuge feet and flung it into the chair.
"Plug in!"
Still dancing backward from the leaping kangaroo, Grover shouted. Roger,checking the tremble and shake of his excited hands, swiftly drove homethe prepared plug and at the same instant from the thus electrifiedchair rose a sheer animal howl of pain and fright and fury.
Still alert, Grover had a moment to catch his breath.
As if startled, the kangaroo paused. On haunches, its forepaws werehanging down over its pouch--it was a female with the pouch to carry itsyoung!--while from the chair came the most ferocious grunts andscreeches. The trainer, thought Roger, was an actor in spite of hissurprise. He maintained the animal voice well.
As if prepared for the situation, Potts dragged from a pocket somelight, strong electric wire, and with gloves of rubber which Roger hadseen him getting ready, he managed to get the wire around the beast, orrather, as Roger put it to himself, the man in the animal hide.
"You can cut the plug out, now, Roger."
Grover, with a wary eye on the still quiet kangaroo, which had notmoved, spoke the command. Roger obeyed.
Released from the shocking cycles of current, the thing in the chairgrowled and struggled against the bonds which Potts had cleverly woundto prevent use of arms or legs. So powerful, though, was the beast, thatit once upset the chair and had to be righted, growling and usingguttural imprecations or shouts of hatred.
"To go on with my story," Grover calmly confronted the quiet kangaroo,"the man chose our laboratory as the base of his plans. He came here. Tostart his operations, he watched his chance one night, and hid in ourlarge refrigerating unit, that is in the spare-stores room, since weused it to test chilling processes for food shipments.
"Being unsuspected, he had been able to make certain preparations.First, he put the culture intended to inoculate some white rats, intoour chemical section, half-hidden, but purposely left where it couldthrow suspicion on a certain person. Then, when the ra
ts had beeninoculated, but with a harmless drug that made them sleep, he was readyfor his next step."
To Roger's surprise, everyone had been so amazed and so startled by thiscalm recital aimed, apparently, at a dumb brute that sat back withdrooping, glove-shrouded forepaws and listened!--or was too baffled bythe capture of the trainer to continue the battle--the staff had settledin the chairs again.
"This mysterious, clever criminal," Grover coolly proceeded to tell theanimal his theories and deductions. "This former student of variousbiological, chemical and related subjects, bribed an animal trainer whohad a vaudeville animal act, to let the animal used in the act comehere. He wanted it to be caught if any plan failed, so he coulddisappear but the animal could not tell on him."
He bent forward, and quietly removed the laced ham-like gloves from thebeast's relaxed paws, and it seemed not to resent the act, but let thefree forearms hang loosely across its stomach, and pouch.
"Borrowing the white rats from the act, this miscreant prevented themfrom being inoculated by exchanging labels on the culture, laterrecovering the labels as the bottles emptied were thrown to the fire.The labels, on the real culture again, were put where they would seem toclear someone by incriminating him through circumstantial position inthe racks. Really, though, they had a different purpose."
He startled all but Roger.
"The appearance was that the man whose rack they occupied was beingpersecuted. In reality, he did it himself, to make me suspect everyother staff man."
"Not Doctor Ryder!" Millman gasped.
"You have named the culprit."
"But he's poisoned, in the hospital----"
Grover went right on, ignoring Ellison's shout.
"He confused us by 'stealing' the rats, and in other ways, because hewanted us to think of every possibility but the real one."
"And that was?----" prompted Hope.
"He wanted us to help him take a false imitation of the Eye of Om to aTibetan temple, replace it for the true one, which he could then sellfor a great sum. In other words, what we thought we were doing, helpingrestore the true jewel, was exactly the reverse!
"We innocently helped remove the True Eye of Om!"