40CHAPTER VPURSUING THE “RADIO” PLANE
Not before they had reached the street did Frank vouchsafe an explanation of his amazing conduct. Then Jack, refusing to be put aside any more, gripped him by the arm and swung him about so that they stood face to face.
“Out with it, now,” he demanded. “Why did you hurry us away from that office? And why didn’t you tell Mr. Higginbotham our reason for trying to discover something about this man who has taken the Brownell place?”
Big Bob quizzically regarded his smaller companion.
“Guess I know,” he said. “Frank had another hunch. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” confessed Frank, “and that’s about all I had to go on, too. But it was a strong one. Something inside of me kept saying that man Higginbotham wasn’t to be trusted. There was a look in his eyes, watchful and cunning. And he made a41little start when we asked him about the Brownell place. I don’t know. There was nothing definite, nothing I can point out to you now. I feel almost ashamed of myself, as a matter of fact.”
Bob put an arm over his shoulder.
“You needn’t,” he said. “Forget it. I’ll put my faith in your hunches every time. Well, what’ll we do now? Look up the Secret Service men, or have lunch first?”
“Let’s eat,” said Jack.
He was a bit out of sorts because his plan to pump Mr. McKay had miscarried. Bob who read him aright, grinned and slapped him resoundingly on the back.
“How much money you got, old thing?” he asked. “I came without any. Do we eat at a Child’s restaurant or at the Knickerbocker Grill.”
They stood on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second street, immediately in front of the Knickerbocker. Toward it Bob, who was fond of good eating, gazed with longing.
“Too high-priced for my purse,” said Jack. “Besides, we haven’t the time to waste over eating there. Takes too long. We must be on our way. However, I can do you better than a lunch counter, so come on. I know a place around here on Forty-second street.”
Taking the lead, Jack led the way through the busy42throng that congests traffic at Times Square at all hours of the day and practically all of the night, too. They turned in at a small restaurant on Forty-second street, and despatched lunch in double-quick time.
During the course of the meal, Bob gave an exclamation.
“I planned to call Dad and tell him we were in town and why,” he said. “But it’s too late now. He’ll have gone out to lunch.”
Jack knew it would be impossible to reach his father by telephone. Mr. Hampton the night before had announced he planned to spend the day going over certain engineering plans with Colonel Graham, and Jack had only a vague idea where they would be in conference.
“Now for the Secret Service men,” said Jack, at conclusion of the meal. “Luckily I have a card of introduction from Inspector Burton in my purse. Also it gives the address—down on Park Row. Well, the Subway again. Only this time, the East Side branch to Brooklyn Bridge.”
Once more stemming the torrent of human traffic flowing along Forty-second street, the boys made their way eastward to the Grand Central station, boarded a southbound express train on the Subway43tracks, and were whisked to their destination at lightning-like speed.
Park Row also was crowded, the noon hour crowds of workers, from the towering skyscrapers of the financial district to the south, loitering in City Hall Park and sauntering up and down the thoroughfare to which the park gives its name. Jack and Bob felt their spirits react to the impulse of the busy life around them, but the sensitive Frank, who hated crowds, became peevish.
He urged his companions to hurry.
“Forget the sight-seeing,” he said, “and let’s move along. The quicker I’m out of this mass of humanity, the better pleased I’ll be. These crowds of New Yorkers don’t give a fellow a chance to take a deep breath for fear he’ll crush in somebody else’s ribs.”
“Here we are,” said Jack, turning in at a tall office building, near lower Broadway, with old St. Paul’s and its churchyard, filled now with loitering clerks spending their dinner hour among the graves, just across the way.
Once more an express elevator whisked the trio skyward. At the fourteenth floor they alighted, made their way to an office, the glass door of which bore no lettering except the number “12,” and entered.
“Inspector Condon, please,” said Jack, to a fat young man, smoking a long black cigar, who sat in44his shirtsleeves at a desk, reading through a mass of papers.
The latter got to his feet, and held out his hand. He had a jolly face which broke into a grin of welcome, as he extended his hand.
“That’s me,” he said.
Jack was rather taken aback. He had not expected to meet so young a man in a position of such responsibility. This man could not have been more than 26 or 28 years of age. Passing over his astonishment, however, Jack introduced himself and his companions and then extended the card of introduction given him a year before by Inspector Burton, when they left Washington, but which heretofore had not been presented.
“So,” said Inspector Condon, reading the note on the back of the card; “you are the three chaps who made such a stir in that business in California? Mighty glad to meet you. Sit down. What can I do for you?”
“That remains to be seen,” said Jack. “However, we have run into something rather curious, and we thought you might be interested. So if you have time to listen, we’ll spin the yarn.”
“All the time in the world, friend,” said Inspector Condon, genially. “Shoot.”45
Thereupon, Jack proceeded to relate the story of the secret radio plant, the mysterious plane probably controlled by radio and thus able to operate in silence, and the facts as they had obtained them from Mr. Temple regarding the occupant of the old Brownell place known as the “haunted house.”
“Ha,” said Inspector Condon; “if that fellow is a liquor smuggler, the ‘haunted house’ has spirits in it, all right, all right.”
And he laughed uproariously at his own joke.
“But, now, boys,” he added, sobering; “an investigation into this matter would be somewhat outside of my province. However, I’ll place this information before the prohibition enforcement officials, who will be glad to get it, I can assure you. Let me thank you, in behalf of the government, for coming to us with your information.”
After a few more moments of conversation, during which Inspector Condon made a note of their names and addresses, the boys left.
At the door, Jack turned for a last word.
“If we can be of any help,” he said, “call on us. We have a radio plant and an airplane at our command, and, besides, are admirably situated near the scene.”
“Fretting for more adventure, are you?” asked Inspector Condon, clapping him on the shoulder.46“Well, that’s a kind offer, and I’ll pass it along to the proper people to handle this matter. If they need any help, you’ll hear from them shortly. I expect they won’t let any grass grow under their feet on this case.”
When once more they stood on the sidewalk, Jack’s gaze lifted to the clock in the tower of St. Paul’s. Two o’clock.
“Well, we haven’t gotten very far with our adventure,” he said, a bit dispiritedly. “I thought we would start something that would give us a bit of excitement. But, apparently, all we have done has been to let the whole business slip out of our hands.”
“Oh, forget it,” said Frank irritably. The noise, the heat and the bustle of the city had irritated his nerves. “Come on. Let’s get out of this. I hate all this hurly-burly. If we take the Subway over to the Flatbush Avenue terminal of the Long Island Railroad, we’ll just about have time to make an express to Mineola.”
The roar of the Subway was not conducive to conversation, and little further was said until the trio boarded the train in Brooklyn, and pulled out for the short run to Mineola. Early editions of several afternoon newspapers were purchased at the terminal newsstand, and the boys settled down to47glance at the day’s happenings when once ensconced in the train.
Presently Frank, his irritation forgotten now that the city was being left behind, called the attention of his companions to a first page story under flaring headlines which read:
RUM RUNNERS LANDBIG LIQUOR CARGO;ELUDE “DRY NAVY.”
“Say, I haven’t been reading any of this stuff,” said Frank. “But after what the men told us last night about the size of these operations, and with my interest aroused by developments at Starfish Cove, I’m beginning to see that this defiance of the prohibition law is just about the most stirring thing before the Nation to-day. At least, here on the Eastern seaboard, where these smugglers are organized and have a handy base in the West Indies.”
The others nodded agreement, and the conversation proceeded in similar vein until they tumbled from the train at Mineola. Speeding to the flying field in a taxi, they were soon aboard the plane. This time Frank took the wheel. And to the friendly farewells of the mechanics, they took off and began the homeward journey.48
After forty minutes of speedy flying, Bob, idly scanning the sky through the glass, focussed upon a tiny speck in the distance. All three had clamped on their radio receivers and hung the transmitters by straps across their shoulders. Speaking into the transmitter now, Bob announced:
“I think that radio-controlled plane is flying away from us, out to sea, off to the right. I’m going to tune up to that 1,375-meter wave length, and we’ll see if there’s a continuous dash in the receivers.”
“All right,” answered Jack, “but look out for your eardrums. The interference at that wave length is very sharp and you want to be ready to tune down at once, or your head will feel as if it were ready to burst.”
A moment later the high crashing shriek, with which Jack had become familiar of late, signalled in the receivers, and Bob promptly tuned down.
“Wow,” said he. “That’s it, all right. That’s the continuous dash which is being sent out from the secret radio plant to control that little plane. Let’s keep it in sight, Frank, and see where it goes. Don’t close in on it. Keep just about this distance. I can watch it through the glass, and I’ll give you your bearings if you lose sight of it. Probably there is only one man aboard, and he won’t have a glass, and won’t know we are following him.”49
“All right,” responded Frank. “Here’s where we’d turn toward shore. But we’ll stick to his trail a while.”
With that he began edging the plane out to sea.
50CHAPTER VIA FALL INTO THE SEA
Out over the shining sea flew the glistening all-metal plane, and the spirits of the boys lifted to the chase. The oldest fever of the blood known to man is that of the chase. It comes down to us from our prehistoric ancestors who lived by the chase, got their daily food by it, wooed and won by it, and fought their battles by it in that dim dawn of time when might was right and the law of tooth and claw was the only rede.
Gone was the irritability that had possessed Frank in the noise and din, the crowding walls and swarming hordes of human beings, back in the city. Below him lay the broad Atlantic, from their height seeming smooth as a ball-room floor, with the surface calm and unruffled. No land was in sight ahead. The water stretched to infinity, over the edge of the world. For a wonder, not a sail broke that broad expanse due south, although to the west were several streamers of smoke where ships stood in for port,51hull down on the far horizon, while closer at hand was a little dot which Bob, swinging the glasses, made out to be a four-masted schooner.
It was a long distance off, ten or fifteen miles, judged Bob. The tiny plane was heading in that direction. Was it bearing away for the schooner? The question leaped into Bob’s mind. He put it into spoken words, into the transmitter.
“There’s a schooner southwest,” he said. “The plane is going in that direction. Bear up a trifle, Frank, and slow her down. Let’s see whether the plane is heading for it.”
Frank slowed the engine and altered the course sufficiently to keep the plane in view on the new tack, but not to bring them so close to it as to arouse suspicion. In a few moments, all could see the tiny speck coasting down on a long slant and Bob, watching through the glasses, exclaimed excitedly:
“The little fellow is going to land. There, he’s on the water now. He’s taxying close to the ship.”
“I’m going to climb,” stated Frank, suiting action to word.
“Good idea,” said Jack. “Let me have the glasses a minute, Bob, will you?”
Bob complied.
“I don’t believe they know of our presence,” Jack presently declared. “Do you fellows consider the52plane was forced to land? Is that how it happened to come down near the schooner? There doesn’t seem to be any attempt to put out a boat and get the pilot.”
“Forced to land, my eye,” said Bob, repossessing himself of the glasses. “Do you want to know what I think? I believe the pilot is holding a confab with the schooner. By Jiminy, that’s right, too. And it’s ended. He’s taxying again, and starting to rise.”
Frank, at Bob’s words, had swung away again to the south. After describing a long circle, which carried them so far aloft and so wide of the ship as to lose it from sight, he again turned the plane toward home.
“I expect they never saw us, either from the schooner or the plane,” Jack said. “There was never any indication of alarm. Of course, we were too far off to tell exactly, even spying through the glass.”
“Somehow, however,” replied Frank. “I have the feeling that they didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” asked Bob.
“Didn’t see us,” answered Frank.
Frank had accelerated the speed of the engine, and was driving at eighty miles an hour, straight for home. Suddenly, an exclamation from Bob, who again was swinging his glasses over the sea below, smote the ears of the boys.53
“Something’s the matter with that little plane. Say”—a breathless pause—“it’s falling. Come on, Frank. We’ll have to see if we can help. Swoop down. There, to the left.”
Rapidly Frank began spiralling and in a very short time was near enough to the small plane for it to be seen clearly with the naked eye. It had been flying at a considerable height. As the boys watched, it went into a dive, with the pilot struggling desperately to flatten out. He succeeded, when not far from the surface of the ocean. As a result, instead of diving nose foremost into the water, the plane fell flat with a resounding smack, there was a breathless moment or two when it seemed as if the little thing would be swamped, then it rode lightly and buoyantly on the little swells.
Descending to the water, Frank taxied up close to the other plane. The figure of the pilot hung motionless over the wheel. Probably, considered the boys, the man had been flung about and buffeted until he lost consciousness.
“I’ll close up to him head on,” Frank said. “Then, if necessary, one of you can climb into the other plane and see what we can do to help. Probably the thing to do will be to get him aboard here, and carry him ashore.”54
“Righto,” said Bob, climbing out to the fuselage, behind the slowly revolving propeller. “Now take it easy. We don’t want to smash. I can drop into the water and swim a stroke or two, and get aboard.”
As the boys swung up close, however, the figure at the wheel of the other plane stirred. Then the man lifted his head and looked at them, in dazed fashion.
“Mr. Higginbotham,” exclaimed Frank, under his breath. “Well, what do you know about that?”
It was, indeed, the man they had interviewed earlier that day in the McKay realty offices, back in New York.
“How in the world did he get here?” asked Jack, who also had recognized the other.
Frank had brought their plane to a halt. It bobbed up and down slowly on the long ground swell, not far from the smaller machine.
Bob was still astride the fuselage.
“Hello,” he called. “We saw you fall and came over to see if we could help. Engine gone wrong, or what was it?”
Higginbotham was rapidly recovering his senses. He stared at his interlocutor keenly, then at the others. Recognition dawned, then dismay, in his eyes. But he cloaked the latter quickly.
“Why, aren’t you the lads who were in my office to-day?” he asked, ignoring Bob’s proffer of help.55
“You’re Mr. Higginbotham, aren’t you?” answered Bob. “Yes, we are the fellows you spoke to.”
“What in the world are you doing out here?” Higginbotham demanded, sharply.
“Why, we told you we lived near here. We had flown to Mineola and then motored to the city. And we were just flying home when we saw you fall, and came over to do what we could.”
“Oh.”
Higginbotham stared from one to the other. Had he seen them pursue him and spy on him as he visited the schooner? That was the question each boy asked himself. Apparently, he had not done so, for his next question was:
“Do you fly around here often in your plane?”
Frank took a hand in the conversation. If big Bob were left to carry on alone, he might blunderingly give this man an inkling of what the boys knew or suspected about their mysterious neighbors. Frank felt that his chill of suspicion, experienced when he encountered Higginbotham in New York, was being justified. Decidedly, this man must be in with the mysterious inhabitant of the old Brownell place. Equally certain was it that he had lied in stating he did not know the name of the man who had bought the property.
“Oh,” said Frank, “we haven’t had the plane out56for weeks until a day or two ago, when we made a trial spin, and again to-day. We’ve been busy for a month overhauling it.”
That, thought Frank, ought to stave off Higginbotham’s suspicions. Evidently, the other was feeling around to learn whether they had flown sufficiently of late to have spied out the secret radio plant or seen the radio-controlled plane in operation.
“And I’ll bet,” Frank said himself, “that it is a complete surprise to him to find there is a plane in his neighborhood. Probably, he thought he could operate without fear of discovery in this out-of-the-way neighborhood, and it’s a shock to him to find we are here.”
Some such thoughts were passing through Higginbotham’s mind. How could he get rid of these boys without disclosing to them that his was a radio-controlled plane?
“I’m very much obliged to you, gentlemen,” he said, smoothly, “for coming to my aid. As it is, however, I do not need help. This is a plane of my own design, I may as well state, for I can see its surprising lines have aroused your curiosity. I would prefer that you do not come any closer but that, on the other hand, you would leave me now. I want to make some minor repairs, and then I shall be able to fly again.”57
“Very well, sir,” answered Bob composedly, climbing back from the fusilage to his seat in the pit. “We don’t want to annoy you. Good day.”
With that, Frank swung clear, the propeller to which Bob had given a twist began anew to revolve, the plane taxied in a circle, then rose and started for the shore.
“We certainly surprised him,” chuckled Jack. “He didn’t know what to say to us. In his excitement and his fear of discovery of some secret or other, he acted in a way to arouse suspicion, not dispel it. Well, Frank, you win the gold medal. Your hunch about Higginbotham being untrustworthy certainly seems to have some foundation.”
“I’ll say so, too,” agreed Bob. “But what do you imagine happened to him?”
Bob sat with the glasses trained backwards to where the little plane still rode the sea.
“That’s easy,” answered Jack. “Something went wrong at the secret radio plant and the continuity of the dash which provides the juice for the plane’s motor was broken. That’s the only way I can figure it. I say. Let’s tune up to 1,375 meters, and see whether that continuous dash is sounding.”
“It’s not there,” Bob announced presently. “Not a sound in the receivers. Neither does the plane show any signs of motion. Look here. Suppose58that whatever has happened at that fellow’s radio plant cannot be fixed up for a long period, what will Higginbotham do? Ought we to go away and leave him?”
“Well,” said Jack, doubtfully, “it does look heartless. He’s four or five miles from shore. Of course, we might shoot him a continuous dash from our own radio plant.”
“Zowie,” shrieked Bob, snatching the receiver from his head, and twisting the controls at the same time, in order to reduce from the 1,375-meter wave length. “There’s his power. No need for us to worry now. Oh, boy, but wasn’t that a blast in the ear?”
Ruefully, he rubbed his tingling ears. Jack was doing the same. Poor Frank, whose eardrums had been subjected to the same shock, also had taken a hand from the levers at the same time and snatched off his headpiece.
“She’s rising now,” cried Bob.
Without his headpiece, Frank could not hear the words and kept his eyes to the fore, as he swung now above the line of the shore. Jack, however, also was straining his eyes to the rear, and he snatched the glasses from Bob and trained them on the plane.
True enough, Higginbotham was rising.
59CHAPTER VIIA CALL FROM HEADQUARTERS
It was not yet five o’clock when, the airplane safely stowed away and the doors of the hangar closed and locked, the boys once more stood on the skidway.
“What say to a plunge before we go up to the house?” proposed Frank. “There’s nobody to see us. We can strip down at the beach, splash around for ten minutes, and then head home. It’s a hot, sticky day and that trip to the city left me with the feeling that I wanted to wash something away.”
The others agreed to the proposal and they started making their way to the shore, discussing the latest turn of events on the way.
“It certainly looks as if your hunch about Higginbotham, when we met him in his office, was justified,” said Jack, clapping Frank on the shoulder.
“The boy’s a wonder,” agreed Bob. Then, more seriously, he added:60
“But, I say. Higginbotham isn’t the man who flew the radio-controlled plane before. I mean the fellow whose tracks I found in the sand. That chap was peg-legged.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jack. “And where does Higginbotham figure in this matter, anyhow? It’s some mystery.”
“Well, let’s see what we do know so far,” suggested Frank. “It’s little enough that we have found out. But I like mysteries. First of all, Bob finds a secret radio plant, and––”
“No,” interrupted Jack. “First of all, I discover interference in the receivers at a 1,375-meter wave length.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Frank. “Well, second is Bob’s find of the radio plant to which he is led by tracks in the sand made by a peg-legged man. Look here. Bob thought at the time that man had arrived in a boat. He saw marks on the sand indicating a boat had been pulled up on the shore. Might not that have been the indentation made by the radio plane?”
“Just what I was thinking to myself a minute ago,” said Bob.
“Anyhow,” continued Frank, “we then discovered the radio plane in Starfish Cove. From Uncle George we learned a mysterious stranger had recently bought61the Brownell place, the ‘haunted house,’ and had built a fence about the property and set armed guards to keep out intruders. The plot was thickening all the time.”
By now the boys had reached the shore and well above the tide mark they began to strip, dropping their clothes in heaps. Frank continued talking as he shed his garments:
“So we decided to go up to the city and ask Mr. McKay who it was had taken the Brownell place. Instead of Mr. McKay we found his secretary, Higginbotham, who professed to know nothing about the matter. Yet, when we arrive down here, we find Higginbotham in the radio plane, visiting a schooner well off shore.
“Say, fellows,” he added, as having dropped the last article of clothing, he stood prepared to plunge in; “that man Higginbotham must have left his office immediately after we interviewed him, and probably came down by motor car. We spent two or three hours longer in the city, which gave him the chance to beat us. Now what brought him down here?”
“Search me,” said Bob. “There may be a big liquor plot, and he may be in it. Probably, is. Perhaps he was alarmed at our inquiries and hurried down to keep things quiet for a while.”62
“That’s just what he did, Bob, I do believe,” said Jack, approvingly. “I believe you’ve hit it.”
“Oh, well, come on,” said Bob. “Let’s have this plunge.”
Scooping up two handsful of wet sand he flung it at his companions. Then the fight began.
Forty-five minutes later, as they strolled across the lawn of the Temple home, Della came running to join them from the tennis court where she was playing with a girl visitor.
“Where have you been?” she cried. “Some man has been calling for the three of you on the telephone. Two or three times in the last hour.”
“Calling for us, Sis?” said Bob. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He hasn’t given his name. I believe he’s calling from New York.”
The boys looked at each other, puzzled. Who could it be?
“Oh, there’s Mary again,” said Della, pointing to a maid who at that moment emerged on the side veranda, overlooking the tennis court.
“Mister Robert, you’re wanted on the telephone,” came the maid’s voice.
Bob hurried indoors, Jack at his heels. Frank hung behind.
“Well, Mr. Frank Merrick,” said Della pertly. “Give an account of yourself, if you please. What63were you boys doing in the city to-day? You think you’re grand, don’t you, to go flying off in your airplane, on the very day I invite a girl down here to meet you?”
“Is she good looking, Della?” asked Frank, anxiously. “I won’t meet her if she isn’t good looking.”
Della realized he was merely teasing, but she made a cruel thrust in return.
“You don’t expect a good looking girl to be interested in you, do you?” she said.
Frank laughed, then reached out to seize her by the shoulders, but she eluded his grasp and went speeding off across the lawn with him in pursuit. They reached the tennis court, laughing and flushed, Della still in the lead. There Della beckoned the other girl to them, and managed introductions.
“This is that scatter-brained Frank Merrick, I told you about, Pete,” she said. “Frank, this is my own particular pal at Miss Sefton’s School, Marjorie Faulkner, better known as Pete. If you can beat her at tennis, you will have to play above your usual form.”
“That so?” said Frank, entering into the spirit of badinage. “Give me a racquet, and I’ll take you both on for a set. About 6-0 ought to be right, with me on the large end. Never saw a girl yet that could play passable tennis.”64
“You scalawag,” laughed Della. “When it was only my playing that enabled us to beat Bob and Jack last light. Well, here’s your racquet, all waiting for you. Come on.”
Della was a prophet. The slender, lithe Miss Faulkner, with her tip-tilted nose, freckles, tan and all, proved to be almost as good a player as Della herself. The result was that, although both games were hotly contested, Frank lost the first two of the set. He was about to start serving for the third game, when Bob and Jack, giving evidences of considerable excitement, approached from the house.
“Hey, Frank, come here,” called Bob.
Frank stood undecided, but Della called to her brother:
“He’s a very busy boy, Bob. You and Jack better come and help him.”
Noting the presence of the other girl, Bob and Jack came forward, whereupon Della once more managed introductions. Bob, usually rather embarrassed in the presence of girls, seemed at once at ease, and apparently forgot entirely his urgent business with Frank. He and Miss Faulkner fell into the gay chatter from which the others were excluded. Jack seized the opportunity to pull Frank aside.
“Look here,” he said. “Something has happened already. That call was from one of the government65prohibition enforcement agents up in New York. He said Inspector Condon had carried our information and surmises about our neighbors to him immediately after seeing us. He’s coming down to-night to the house. Said he thought he could make the trip in about three hours, and would be here at 9 o’clock.”
“Is that so?” said Frank. “Has Uncle George come home yet?”
“No, and he won’t be home. It seems he telephoned earlier that he was running down to Philadelphia on business for a day or two. He always keeps a grip packed at his office, you know, for such emergencies.”
Frank nodded, then looked thoughtful.
“He ought to be here, however,” he said. “Well, anyway, there’s your father.”
Jack shook his head.
“No, Dad planned to stay in town to-night at his club.”
“Well,” said Frank. “We’ll have to handle this alone. I suppose, however, this man just wants to talk with us at first hand and, perhaps, by staying until to-morrow, get an idea of what’s down here for himself. He might even ask us to take him up in the plane over the Brownell place, to-morrow.”
“What did Bob say to him?”66
“Told him to come on down,” said Jack. “What else could he say? We had told Inspector Condon that we placed ourselves at the government’s service. I expect I had better put him up at our house overnight. Then we won’t have to make any useless explanations to Mrs. Temple.”
Frank nodded. Mrs. Temple, though kindly soul enough, was so involved in social and club duties that she had little time to give the boys. As a matter of fact, Frank was not at all certain that she would be at home for dinner that night. As to putting up the stranger at Jack’s home, that would be an easy matter. Jack’s mother was dead, and a housekeeper managed the house and servants for himself and his father. She was an amiable woman, and all Jack would have to do would be to prefer a request that a guest room be prepared, and it would be done.
“Hey, Frank,” called Bob, interrupting their aside; “see how this strikes you? Miss Faulkner and I will play you and Della. We shall have time for a set before dressing for dinner.”
“Righto,” agreed Frank, taking up his racquet, while Jack sank to the turf bordering the court, to look on.
Bob really outplayed himself, and several times, when he approached Della, Frank whispered to her that her brother was smitten and trying to “show67off” before the new girl. Della, well pleased, nodded agreement. Nevertheless, Frank and Della played their best, and the score stood at three-all when Jack hailed them from the sidelines with the information that, unless they preferred being late to dinner, it behooved them to quit playing and hasten indoors. Dinner at the Temples was served promptly at 7 o’clock, and never delayed. Accordingly, the game was broken up.
“Come along, Jack,” said Frank, linking an arm in that of his pal; “your father’s not at home, and we won’t let you dine in solitary splendor. You are coming to dinner with us.”
68CHAPTER VIIIA CONSULTATION
“This man Higginbotham is not the chief figure in the liquor smuggling ring,” stated Captain Folsom emphatically.
Captain Folsom sat in the Temple library, with the boys grouped about him. The time was nearing ten o’clock. From the moment of his arrival, shortly after the hour of nine, he had been in conference with the boys, and they had explained to him in detail all that they had discovered or surmised about their neighbors of the old Brownell place.
An army officer with a distinguished record, who had lost his left arm in the Argonne, Captain Folsom upon recovery had been given a responsible post in the prohibition enforcement forces. His was a roving commission. He was not attached permanently to the New York office, but when violations of the law at the metropolis became so flagrant as to demand especial attention, he had been sent on from Washington to assume command of a special squad69of agents. Lieutenant Summers, U. S. N., in command of the submarine division known as the “Dry Fleet,” was operating in conjunction with him, he had told the boys.
Still a young man in his early thirties, he had a strong face, an athletic frame and a true grey eye, and had made a good impression on the boys.
“No,” he repeated emphatically, “this man Higginbotham is not at the bottom of all this devilment. There is somebody behind it all who is keeping utterly in the dark, somebody who is manipulating all the various bands of smugglers around this part of the world. I believe that when we unearth him we shall receive the surprise of our lives, for undoubtedly, from certain evidences that have come to my attention so far, he will prove to be a man of prominence and importance in the business world.”
“But why should such a man engage in liquor smuggling?” asked Jack, astonished.
Captain Folsom smiled.
“My dear boy,” he said, “wherever ‘big money,’ so to speak, is involved, you will find men doing things you would never have suspected they were capable of. And certainly, ‘big money’ is involved in bootlegging, as liquor smuggling is termed.
“Evidently, you boys have not been interested in watching developments in this situation, since the70country became ‘dry.’ Well, it’s a long story, and I won’t spin out the details. But, as soon as the prohibition law went into effect, in every city in the country bootleggers sprang up. Many, of course, were of the lawless type that are always engaged in breaking the laws. Others, however, were people who ordinarily would not be regarded as law-violators. In this case, though, they felt that an injustice had been done, that human liberty had been violated, in the foisting of prohibition on the country. They felt it was a matter the individual should be permitted to decide for himself, whether he should take a drink of liquor or not, you know.
“These people, therefore, did not regard it as a crime to break the law.
“Another salve to conscience, moreover, was the fact that tremendous sums of money were to be made out of bootlegging. Liquor was selling for prices that were simply enormous. It still is, of course, but I am speaking about the beginnings of things. People who never had drunk liquor in any quantities before, now would buy a case of whiskey or wine, and pay $100 a case and up for it, and consider themselves lucky to get it. They would boast quietly to friends about having obtained a case of liquor.
“The bootlegging industry, accordingly, has grown to astonishing proportions to-day. Right in New71York City are men who are rated as millionaires, who a few years ago did not have a penny, and they have acquired their money through liquor smuggling.
“At first these bootleggers operated individually, and elsewhere in the Nation that is still largely their method. But here in New York there have been increasing evidences lately that some organizing genius had taken charge of the situation and was swiftly bending other bootleggers to his will. For some time, we have been of the opinion that a syndicate or ring, probably controlled and directed by one man, was responsible for most of the liquor smuggling here.”
“And do you believe,” interrupted Frank, “that this man who has bought the old Brownell place may be that central figure?”
Captain Folsom nodded.
“It is entirely possible,” he said. “Moreover, what you have told me about the construction of a secret radio plant, and about the appearance of this radio-controlled airplane, fits in with certain other facts which have puzzled us a good deal lately.”
“How so?” asked Jack.
“For one thing,” said Captain Folsom, “my colleague, Lieutenant Summers of the submarine division, tells me that his radio receivers aboard the boats of his fleet have picked up any number of mysterious series of dots and dashes lately. Code72experts have been working on them, but they have proved meaningless.
“He was puzzled by them. He still is puzzled. But, we have noticed that after every such flooding of the ether with these dots and dashes, a shipment of liquor has appeared on the market. And one theory advanced is that the liquor was landed along the coast of Long Island or New Jersey in boats controlled by radio from a powerful land station. The boats, of course, according to this theory, were launched from some liquor-laden vessel which had arrived off the coast from the West Indies. Radio-driven boats, automobiles or planes, Lieutenant Summers tells me, are directed by a series of dots and dashes. So you see, our theory sounds plausible enough, and, if it is correct, the direction probably has come from this secret radio station.”
Big Bob’s brow was wrinkled in thought. He seldom spoke, but usually when he did so, it was to the point.
“In that case,” he asked, “what would be the necessity for this radio-driven airplane? Apparently, the airplane is for communication from ship to shore. But, with a radio land station, why can’t such communications be carried on by radio in code?”
Captain Folsom looked thoughtful.
“There is something in that,” he said.73
“Perhaps, these plotters are playing safe,” suggested Frank. “They may figure that code would be intercepted and interpreted. Therefore, they confine their use of radio to the transmission of power waves, and do not employ it for sending messages. The airplane is the messenger.”
Jack nodded approvingly.
“Yes,” he agreed, “Frank’s idea is a good one. Besides, by using a radio-controlled plane, the plotters can scout over the surrounding waters for miles whenever a ship is about to land a cargo. The plane can make a scouting expedition over the shore, too, for that matter. You see a radio-controlled plane has an immense advantage for such scout work, inasmuch as it proceeds practically without noise.”
Captain Folsom slapped his knee resoundingly with an open palm.
“By George,” he cried, “I believe you boys have hit it. This scout plane is the answer to what has puzzled us the last few weeks. We know liquor is being landed somewhere from ships, but despite our best efforts both ashore and on the water, we have been unable to run down the smuggling ships or the receiving parties ashore. Well, this plane warns the ships away from the vicinity of the sub chasers, and also directs the landing of the radio-controlled boats with their cargo at lonely spots where there are no74guards. Yes, sir, I believe that is the way it has been worked.”
He fell silent, and sat with brow wrinkled in concentrated thought. The boys respected his silence, and also were busied with their own thoughts.
“There is one thing that has got to be done,” said Captain Folsom, presently.
There was a gleam of determination in his eye.
“You mean the radio-controlled plane must be put out of commission?” asked Frank quickly.
“You have read my thought,” accused Captain Folsom. “Yes, that is just what I was going to suggest. But how to do it, with no evidence against Higginbotham or this mysterious individual living at the Brownell house, is beyond me.”
“Jack’s a shark at the use of radio,” declared Bob. “Perhaps he can suggest some method.”
All turned toward Jack.
“It wouldn’t do, of course, to make a raid and capture the plane and their radio plant?” Jack asked.
Captain Folsom shook his head.
“No,” he said. “That wouldn’t do, for a number of reasons. In the first place, as I said, we have no evidence that would stand in court that Higginbotham or anybody else connected with the matter is a law-breaker. It may even be that whoever is behind the plot has obtained a government license75for the operation of the radio station. The power of these bootleggers reaches far, and goes into high places. Therefore, we cannot afford to make an open attack.
“But, in the second place,” he added, leaning forward and uncrossing his legs; “what good would that do? It would only warn the Man Higher Up that we were on his track. We don’t want him warned. We want to close in on him. For I do believe you boys have given us a lead that will enable us to do so. At the same time—we do want to put that plane out of commission.”
“Look here,” said Jack, suddenly. “It’s strange, if with our airplane and our own radio plant, one of the most powerful private plants in the world, certainly in America, it’s strange, I say, if with this equipment we are not enabled to work out some method for accomplishing your ends.
“But, let’s think it over. Let’s sleep on it. I have the glimmerings of an idea now. But I’m tired. It’s been a hard day. Suppose we all turn in and talk it over to-morrow morning.”
“Good idea, Jack,” declared Bob, yawning unrestrainedly. “I’m tired, too.”
“Very good,” said Captain Folsom. “Meanwhile, I shall have to take advantage of your kind offer to put me up for the night.”76
“No trouble at all,” said Jack, heartily. “Come along. Night, fellows. Come over to my house after breakfast. Night.”
With mutual farewells the party broke up, Frank and Bob retiring to their rooms, and Jack and his guest starting to make their way to the Hampton home. On the part of none of them was there any prevision of the strange events the night would bring forth.