by Van Powell
Chapter 42 CLOSING TIME
The Ear Detective, more favored than ever because he had been the meansof listing sound-clues, one of which had completely linked Ryder intohis crime, was busy.
Astrovox, well recovered from his blow on the temple, was going to"shoot" the stars as they crossed over the lens of his telescope andRoger was getting a sound-film into a camera.
"Why in the world did Ryder have to go to all that trouble?" the oldstar-reader inquired. "How much simpler to have come in his own clothes.More freedom for his hands, that way, and no need to bring the ape tounlace his animal skin."
"He knew," Roger explained, "about out protective device, and by wearingthe skin and bringing the dancing ape, he would never be photographedand he would fool us all the more."
"Well," remarked Astrovox, "you'll remember that Neptune--the planet ofdeception--was opposed by Saturn, the planet of obstruction, and therewas an opposition of Mars, ruling explosives, with Uranus, which is, youmight say, the planet that brings up the unexpected."
Roger smiled to himself.
Good old Astrovox, he mused, with his oppositions and "aspects" and all,was, still, a very clever scientist, and must be humored.
"Yes," he chuckled, "and if I remember all you told me, something likethis was in the 'horoscope' that day. The 'sixth house' has to do withanimals--smaller animals, and Neptune with larger ones."
"That is my astrological teaching."
"Well, Neptune is in that sixth house, and if Saturn is the planet ofobstruction it shows why the false doctor in his deceptive disguises,would be obstructed or caught."
"Rats!" Tip snapped.
"Rats are under the sixth house," Astrovox seriously persisted inapparently preposterous ideas, "and Neptune showed how the gas was usedand also how the acid test, when Grover applied it to the shoes Ryderhad worn, revealed in the paraffin cast the exploded gas of the torpedohe had stepped on to attract attention just when I ran in and recognizedhim."
"What explains _my_ denseness?" Grover arrived, with a special quartzlens for some prism-and-spectroscope color work, "I was put off thetrack at first because Ryder knew my favorite axiom, 'dig pastappearances that can be falsified, to find truth which is ever thesame.' He deliberately hid the culture tubes in his own racks, and Ifell into his trap, trusting him, thinking he was being victimized bysome one else. It made it possible for him to be here, operate the trickwith the Voice of Doom and hand Roger the prepared film supposed to beunexposed, carrying his animal pictures that he took at a specialperformance given him for good pay by the animal trainer."
"Your density was because Mercury was in the twelfth house, and squaredthe moon in the third--wrong deductions."
"Maybe those 'houses' are true," chuckled Grover, "I know one house _I_am going to occupy. My own home. For a good sleep. How about you,Roger?"
"After I see that all our apparatus is fixed for the night."
"You go ahead," Potts grinned fondly at his chum, all suspicionsforgiven, "I'll see that everything er--uh--coagulates!"
THE END