Mystery of the Glowing Eye - Carolyn Keene [46]
“In the beginning Crosson wanted to scare Nancy off the case so she wouldn’t try to solve it. Apparently he knew of your reputation, Nancy, and also where you lived. He said he could make his copter into a robot and that he intended to program it to go directly to your house. He was planting a bomb inside it, which was to roll out when the door opened automatically and blow up part of your home, and he even hoped to injure you and your father so you’d be too scared to try finding me.”
“A bomb!” George exclaimed. “Nothing went off and the police didn’t see it in the copter. What happened to it?”
Ned smiled and said that he had talked Crosson into letting him walk outside to see the helicopter when it was ready.
“I had decided to send Nancy a warning note so I wrote it and put the note into my pocket. When Crosson had everything set to go, I told him I’d heard something in the sky. Maybe somebody was coming after us. Of course he looked up and this gave me a chance to remove the bomb and put the note into the copter.”
“What did you do with the bomb?” Burt spoke up.
Ned said he had taken a chance and hidden it under his coat. The robot copter was taking off from the hiding place in the wilderness.
“After it had gone, I told Crosson I wanted to get a certain plant out of the swamp and he assumed it had something to do with my invention, because he felt sure I was going to give in to his demands. He didn’t want to walk into the mucky area himself, so he told me to go ahead but warned me not to try to escape. I assured him I wouldn’t, but went far enough away so that he couldn’t see what I was doing. I bent down to pull up a plant, but at the same time I gently placed the bomb underwater.” Ned laughed. “I suppose it’s still there. We must tell the police about it.”
As Ned paused, Dave asked, “When Crosson found out the bomb didn’t arrive at the Drew home, what did he think?”
“That during the flight the bomb must have rolled out and dropped off some place. Crosson watched the newspapers to see if there was a report of any accident but he never saw one.”
Ned told his listeners that when the robot copter did not return to the wilderness hideout, Crosson decided to go see what had happened. “It was he who knocked out the police guard at the Drew house, cut the rope which had been used to tie the helicopter down, and flew the craft back where we were staying.”
After glancing at his wristwatch, Ned announced, “Fellows, it’s time for those of you who have classes to leave. Later I’ll tell you more about my abduction.”
Nancy and her special friends went to the guest room and sat down. Fortunately Burt and Dave had no classes so they could stay to hear the rest of Ned’s story. They learned that Crosson had robbed the Emerson lab to equip his own in the wilderness. Also that he had set the bomb in the file drawer of duplicate papers relating to the glowing eye. He didn’t want anyone to see them.
Nancy asked, “Ned, is your invention still a secret, or could you tell us about it now?”
“I sure can, especially after all the great things you have done for me and captured Cyclops. My invention is a new way for a scientist to produce laser light so that even a small source of energy will do great feats. It’s done by converting all of the energy into light.”
“How wonderful!” Nancy exclaimed, feeling particularly proud of her friend.
George agreed, also Burt and Dave.
Bess made no comment for several seconds, then she said, “Ned, your invention sounds marvelous but it’s about as clear as mud to me!”
The others laughed and it was agreed that Ned would have to go into a far deeper explanation in order to make them fully understand his invention.
Before the group broke up, they learned from Ned that Crosson controlled the glowing eye in the museum from his lab there. “His pals, who pretended to be Emerson students, had helped him take it down but left all the active wires,” Ned explained. “By the way, I have the names of all Crosson’s pals. I