As Miss Carter was helping Aunt Mildred up from the bed, Lonnie asked, “Where are your nephews? Are they not here?”
“No, they are with the Professor.” Aunt Mildred didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped out.
“And where is the Professor? We’ve been looking for him for several days. We know he isn’t at his house anymore. Do you know where he’s gone?”
Aunt Mildred shook her head.
“Well, when you see one of your nephews or the Professor, you should mention that the playing-card-in-the-door trick hasn’t worked since 1932. We’ve been visiting his house every day this week. We’ve been all over it, looking for clues to where he could have taken his laboratory. We’ve found no clues yet but we did find something that might be of interest to the Professor. We’re surprised that he hasn’t missed it yet.”
“What is it?”
“I am not at liberty to tell you.”
“May I leave a note for Rodney and Wayne to tell them where I’ve gone?” asked Aunt Mildred, as she put one of her several tubs of night cream into her one allowable shopping bag.
The new police chief nodded. “You may also add the fact that there is now a warrant for your nephews’ arrest.”
“For doing what?”
“For obstructing the law by helping Professor Johnson move his laboratory to a secret location. And as of this afternoon for harboring a fugitive.”
“What fugitive?”
Police Chief Rowe laughed. “Well, Professor Johnson, of course. As of this afternoon he is officially a fugitive from the city nursing home. Mayor Stovall is not a man to be taken lightly, lady.” Downstairs in the cellar, Wayne was about to put the cover housing over the Age Altertron II, which, when properly contained, looked like a large console record player with the doors shut. There was a bank of knobs and buttons inset into its front, and a number of antennas of various lengths sprouting from the top and from both sides. “Do we need to do another inspection, Professor, or is everything okay?”
“It is fine as far as I can tell,” answered the Professor, “and ready for testing to begin first thing in the morning. What is it, Rodney? Is something wrong?”
Rodney chewed upon his lower lip for a moment. He was thinking. “Well, I see the primary beam deflector and there is the secondary beam deflector, but there is no tertiary beam deflector. Your diagram shows that it should be right behind the capacitor.”
“My boy, you’re exactly right. Did we not install it?”
Wayne shook his head. “It isn’t there.”
“Could we actually have left it behind?” The Professor stroked his several-day-old whiskers (which were still not much more than his several-day-old whiskers (which were still not much more than year-old men). “Yet the room was totally empty when we left — not a paper clip, not even the smallest triode prong.”
The Professor thought for a moment, pacing in his chair by moving his feet back and forth. Then it hit him. In that next moment he knew: “Because the tertiary beam deflector wasn’t in the laboratory. I had taken it from the rubble of my first ruined machine and put it into the pocket of my lab coat.”
“Why would you want to do that, Professor?” asked Wayne.
“Oh, I intended to spend the rest of the night scavenging all of the parts that I could use again, but exhaustion overtook me in just the short time it took to deposit the deflector. I suspect it is still in my coat pocket, which I am certain is still hanging in my bedroom closet.”
“I’ll go and get it,” volunteered Wayne.
“Let me go with you, Wayne,” said Rodney. “One of us should serve as look-out for the other in case the police show up.”
“Be careful, boys,” said the Professor, easing back into his chair.
Rodney and Wayne climbed the cellar stairs, opened the door that put them into the hallway broom closet and then the second door that opened onto the hallway itself. “Aunt Mildred!” Wayne called up the stairs. “We have to go to the Professor’s. We’ll be back soon.”
No answer.
“Aunt Mildred! Are you sleeping?”
“Now Wayne, what did I tell you about asking questions that
can only be answered one way?”
“Well, ‘No, I’m not sleeping’ was the answer I was looking for.” Not hearing that answer, the boys climbed the stairs to look in
on their unresponsive great aunt. The room was empty. Aunt Mildred was gone. But her radio was still on. The new mayor of Pitcherville was giving another of his speeches. He was saying, “… know that this is for everyone’s good. Our oldest citizens will be well cared for and there is no cause for concern. You may visit your loved ones on alternate Sundays from 2:15 until 2:30 in the afternoon. Anyone attempting to circumvent this law will be subject to immediate arrest and prosecution.”
“They have taken Aunt Mildred,” said Rodney.
“Along with all the other old people, I’ll bet. All of them, except
for Professor Johnson. What are we going to do, Rodney?” “Get the tertiary beam deflector from his coat pocket and hurry
back here as quickly as we can. I am sure that once we tell the
Professor what is happening, he will not want to wait until
tomorrow night to activate the new Age Altertron. We can run our
tests tonight and be ready to flip the switch by midnight.” Wayne nodded. He noticed a sealed envelope at the foot of the
bed. “What’s this?”
He picked it up. Though the handwriting on the outside was
crabbed and hard to read, it looked as if it were addressed to Rodney
and him.
Wayne tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter that was
inside. He read it aloud to his brother:
My dear Rodney and Wayne:
No doubt you realize by now what has happened to me.
I will miss you, dear boys. Please take good care of yourselves. Eat your vegetables. If you sprinkle some cinnamon on them they will taste even better.
By the way, there is a warrant out for your arrest, so you might want to go back to you-knowwhere and stay there!
Love,
Aunt Mildred
“We can’t go to the Professor’s house now,” said Rodney. “If Lonnie isn’t waiting for us just outside, he’s probably lying in wait somewhere along the way, ready to ambush and arrest us.”
“Then we should go back down to the cellar like Aunt Mildred says.”
“And then what, Wayne? Sit around and do nothing without the tertiary beam deflector?”
“Maybe the Professor can tell us how to make a new deflector.”
“And how long will that take when we’ve never worked with such small components before?