Tom’s eyes narrowed. “That’s strange.”
He walked down the corridor a few paces to another door which led to a small apartment adjoining his laboratory. Tom sometimes ate and slept here when working on a round-the-clock experiment.
Flicking his electronic key to a new frequency, Tom beamed it at the lock.
The door opened readily and Tom hurried on through the apartment to an inner door which opened into the laboratory. Tom tried both keys on this. But again neither would work.
Lock trouble at both entrances to his laboratory!
“This isn’t just a coincidence!” Tom thought excitedly.
CHAPTER IX
MYSTERIOUS MARKINGS
“NO SENSE wasting time guessing,” Tom murmured. He picked up the room phone and dialed a plant number.
“Hi, Jack. This is Tom,” he said when a voice answered. “Got a lock job for you, here at my lab.”
“Sure thing, Tom. Be right over.”
Jack, a dark-haired man of thirty-five, arrived in the hall a few minutes later carrying a satchel of tools. Slender and stoop-shouldered, with long sensitive-looking fingers, Tunbridge Jackson was the expert locksmith of Enterprises.
His almost uncanny ability with locks and electronic-eye devices had earned him the nickname of “Open Door Jack.” More than once, outside firms had called him in to crack the combinations of safes or vaults.
“What seems to be the trouble?” he asked Tom.
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“I can’t unlock the door to my lab. The inside door won’t open, either.”
“May I try your keys?”
Tom handed them over. Jackson tried first the electronic one, then the mechanical key. His practiced fingers seemed to be trying to “feel” what was causing the difficulty.
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