Hardly had the door to Mr. Henderson’s office closed behind them before Frank commenced to dance and caper wildly about.
“Hurrah!” he shouted. “Thisisgreat! We’re real detectives and working for Uncle Sam!”
“Yes, but don’t make such a row,” cautioned Tom. “We don’t want every one in the place to know it and they’ll think you’re crazy. Come on, let’s hurry and tell Henry.”
When they reached Gramercy Square and dashed into Henry’s room and told him of their talk with Mr. Henderson, he was as excited and pleased as Frank.
“Say, itwasfunny we didn’t think of that fellow using a telephone!” he exclaimed, when the boys had told him of Mr. Henderson’s theory. “And he’s right about that capacity effect of a fellownear a phone. Iwasa fool not to have thought of it. Why, Jim told me about that long ago. He even said his brother Ed showed him with his set on theSan Jacinto. But I guess it must have been because we were so intent on the messages that we couldn’t think of anything else. I’ll bet we can hear folks on the phone through my set right now.”
“Thatisfunny!” declared Tom, when, a moment later, the boys were listening to a telephone conversation coming to them through Henry’s set. “Say,” he continued, “there isn’t much privacy nowadays, is there? Why, if you could amplify that enough, every one could hear everything that was going on over the telephones.”
“Yes, and to think we were so close to getting that other chap’s talk and never realized it,” said Frank. “Mr. Henderson must think we are great radio fans! I’ll bet he had a mighty good laugh at our expense after we left.”
“Well, we’ll not be fooled again,” declared Tom. “If that fellow begins talking to-night we’ll nail him, too.”
“But we can’t locate him,” objected Henry. “So what good will it do?”
“That’s so,” admitted Tom. “But the main thing is to hear what he says. Then perhaps we can make sense out of it.”
“Say,” suddenly exclaimed Henry, “did you fellows notice that every time we heard those messages the fellow mentioned a flower? First ’twas ‘Azalia’ and then ‘Magnolia’ and then ‘Hibiscus’ and last time ’twas ‘Frangi Pani.’ I’d like to know what that meant.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Tom. “Of course Azalia and Magnolia and Hibiscus are flowers, but what’s Frangi Pani—sounds like some sort of Japanese thing to me. I guess this fellow must be talking about boats. Lots of ships are named after flowers, you know.”
“Well, he must have a whole fleet then,” said Henry.
“Perhaps it’s perfumes or he may be in the flower business,” suggested Frank with a laugh.
“Perhaps we’ll get the answer to that when we hear his mate,” said Tom.
“Hope we hear him to-night,” remarked Henry. “Say, what do you think of this scheme?”
For some time the boys forgot all else in examininga new hook-up which Henry had devised and at last left him with final cautions to be at his instruments that evening and each night thereafter until they again heard the unknown speakers.
But it was several nights before the mysterious messages again greeted their ears. Then Frank and Tom caught them at the same instant and both boys gave a little start and looked at each other in surprise, for the first word they heard was “Tuberose.” Once more the name of a flower had entered into the conversation and mentally wondering what in the world this meant the two boys slipped the receiver of the desk telephone from its hook. Hardly had they done so when they almost jumped, as clear and loud, they heard a human voice; but the next instant their spirits sank to zero and they glanced at each other with disgusted expressions, for instead of the voice of the man they had expected to hear they heard a woman’s voice and her words were: “Number, please?”
With a savage jerk, Tom hung up the receiver.
“Gee!” he exclaimed. “Of course we’d gether. I’ll bet Mr. Henderson knew that and just tried tojolly us. Now whatarewe going to do? If we—Hello! What’s that?”
Clearly to his ears, and interrupting the words of the mysterious man whom they had almost forgotten in their disappointment, came another voice, evidently that of a woman, and pitched in high tones. “Oh, yes!” it exclaimed. “I’msoglad, my dear. Do you know—” Tom drew his hand from the desk phone on which it had been resting and the words trailed off into a faint indistinct buzz. Tom and Frank grinned.
“Well, it works!” ejaculated Frank. “Of course it doesn’t make any difference if the receiver is off or not—we aren’t getting waves over wires. Henry kept the receiver on to-day, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” replied Tom. “But say, we’ve got to get busy. That chap’s been talking for the last five minutes and we haven’t put down a thing he’s said.”
Trying to make up for lost time, the two boys jotted down the words that came in, now and then placing a hand on the desk phone to see if they could hear the other party to the conversation,but each time the nasal voice of the woman, gossiping with a friend, was all that came to them. Then the man’s voice ceased and after a few moments’ wait the boys rose from their seats.
“Darn that old hen!” exclaimed Tom, petulantly. “How the dickens could a fellow expect to hear anything with her tongue going like a house afire?”
“Just think what it’ll be when every one’s talking by radio,” chuckled Frank. “And won’t the women have the time of their lives hearing all their neighbors’ gossip?”
“Government’ll have to license ’em to talk, I guess,” muttered Tom. “Come on, let’s go over to Henry’s and see if he had any better luck.”
But Henry had nothing to tell them. He had heard no conversation over the phone except some man talking business with a friend, but he had written down all the words the mysterious man had spoken and showed them to the boys who had explained how they had forgotten to get the greater part of the conversation.
“Tuberose,” Tom read. “We’ll begin next week. Getting stocked up. I’ll bet it’ll wake things up.Too bad we didn’t know then. Might have been a different tale, eh? Oh, Oscar’s all right. Yes, same old place. Nothing doing, old man. Never a suspicion. Oh, it’s a cinch. I don’t know. Some kids, I expect. Got to see him to-night. So long, old man.”
“Just the same old stuff,” commented Tom when he had finished. “Only no figures this time.”
“And another flower,” added Henry.
“Jim would swear he was crazy if he noticed that,” chuckled Frank. “I’m beginning to think that may be it myself.”
For three consecutive nights the boys heard the conversation and despite all efforts failed to hear anything of interest over the ordinary phones while the radio words were coming in, although they heard various scraps of conversations between other persons.
“Mr. Henderson was off that time,” declared Tom, when the boys rose from their sets on the third night. “His theory was wrong. The other chap’s not talking on a telephone, I’ll bet.”
“Doesn’t look that way at any rate,” agreed Frank. “Let’s go down to-morrow and tell him.”
Accordingly, the three boys visited Mr. Henderson the next day and reported the results of their experiments.
“Thatdoespuzzle me,” exclaimed Mr. Henderson as they finished. “If you heard others it’s pretty conclusive evidence he’s not on a wire. Did you hear those buzzing sounds or words again?”
“I did,” said Henry, “and I heard ’em just as plain and no plainer when I was a long way from the phone as when I was touching it.”
“Well, we’ve drawn a blank there,” smiled Mr. Henderson. Then, after a moment’s thought, he exclaimed, “Boys, I’m going to take a chance. I’m pretty well convinced something’s going on that’s crooked and I’m going to send some men out and search every building in that block from cellar to garret. You understand, of course, this is a profound secret. No one will know who they are or what they’re after. It must be a surprise visit so don’t even talk it over among yourselves. But I want you to help us a bit. I’m going to start the men out at eight o’clock sharp, to-night.You must be at your sets and listening. If the fellow’s talking, you’ll know when my men find him, either by what he says or the way he shuts off, and if he goes on talking without interruption for half an hour you’ll know you’ve made some mistake and he’s not in that block. Meet me here to-morrow at about this time and we’ll have something to report—or nothing.”
“Oh, and there’s something else,” announced Tom as the boys turned to leave. “Henry called attention to those names of flowers yesterday. We’d almost forgotten about them. Every time that fellow talks he gets a new name of a flower. Have you noticed it?”
Mr. Henderson chuckled. “You’re getting a pretty good training at this, boys,” he replied. “Yes, I’ve noticed that—that’s one thing that influences me more than anything else. There’s some code to those names, I think, and they may prove the key to the whole thing. We’ll find out sometime probably.”
Remembering Mr. Henderson’s injunction about discussing the proposed raid the boys refrained from mentioning it to one another, but couldscarcely restrain their impatience until the time came for them to be at their instruments.
Eight o’clock came and, excited and expectant, the boys listened, hoping to hear the message coming in and to learn from its words or its abrupt ending of the success of the raid. But the minutes ticked by, the hands of the clock pointed to half-past eight, and nine o’clock came and went without a word from the source they so longed to hear.
Anxious to learn the result of the search, the boys hurried to Mr. Henderson’s office the following day.
“Another blank, boys,” he announced when they entered his office. “There wasn’t a sign of a wireless outfit in that block. Did you hear anything last night?”
The boys admitted that they had heard nothing.
“But—but theremustbe a set there,” insisted Tom, utterly unable to believe that they had been mistaken. “Why, we were all around there with our loops and we got cross bearings and knew he was there.”
“It’s a bit mysterious, I grant,” replied Mr.Henderson. “I fully expected we’d locate it, but my men will swear there isn’t even a piece of radio apparatus in the block. They went through it with a fine-tooth comb. Either you boys were mistaken or else the fellow’s moved away. If you hear him again you’ll know whether he’s changed his location. I’m afraid you’ll never locate him by your instruments, though. I’ve used those loops as direction finders at sea and to some extent ashore and I admit I can’t see how you went wrong, but we’ve got to face the fact that he’s not there—at least not now.”
Thoroughly disappointed and discouraged, the boys left the office and for hours discussed the matter with one another, but at the end of the time were no nearer a solution than ever.
“Oh, bother the old thing, anyhow!” exclaimed Tom at last. “We’ve had our fun and now let’s do something else. Dad’s leaving Nassau to-morrow and we can try sending to him when he gets nearer. Wonder what he’ll say about this thing.”
“Yes, but it gets my goat to think that Mr. Henderson will think we’re such dubs,” said Frank.“He thinks we’ve made some big mistake and put him to all that trouble for nothing.”
“Well, let’s forget it,” suggested Henry, and this seeming the best advice the boys followed it and were soon so busy experimenting along new lines that the mysterious conversations almost slipped from their minds, and as no further messages were heard from the same source they decided that by some coincidence the sender had moved bag and baggage from his former location just in time to escape detection by the men Mr. Henderson had sent on the search.
Tom and Frank were overjoyed when, a day before Mr. Pauling’s ship docked, they succeeded in getting a message to him.
“That’s pretty near 300 miles,” declared Tom jubilantly, “and our set’s only supposed to send 100. Say, that’s a real freak message.”
But when, a few moments later, they heard some one calling their letters and this was followed by a question as to their location and the information that the inquirer was the government operator at Fort Randolph, Canal Zone, Panama, the twoboys could only stare at each other in utter amazement.
“Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Frank at last. “We were heard clear down in Panama! Why that’s pretty near 2000 miles!”
“Almost as good as that fellow over in Jersey who was heard in Scotland and Honduras!” cried Tom. “Hurrah, Frank! Let’s try again.”
But despite every effort the boys failed to get a reply from any one more than fifty or sixty miles distant and realized that, by some peculiar atmospheric condition, their dots and dashes had been carried through the ether for twenty times and more their normal sending range.
“That’s something to tell Dad,” declared Tom, and rushing down the stairs he excitedly told his mother of the wonderful feat.
“I suppose it is remarkable, if you say so,” said Mrs. Pauling, “but really, I can’t see why you should not talk to Balboa or Europe or any other point if you can talk to your father’s ship out at sea. One is just as wonderful as the other to me. But I’m proud of you just the same, Tom.”
When, the next day, Mr. Pauling arrived, Tomcould scarcely wait to relate the story of his freak message and his father was enthusiastic enough to satisfy any boy.
“Marvelous!” he declared. “And the operator on theSan Jacintotells me you’ve improved a lot since he first talked to you. Says you can send well and had no trouble in getting his message at regular speed. I’m mighty glad you’ve done so well, Son. Just as soon as I have a chance I’m coming up to see that wonder set of yours. How many have you built since I’ve been gone?”
Then Tom told his father of the mysterious messages and what had come of their attempts to locate the sender.
Mr. Pauling laughed heartily. “Well, if you got old Henderson interested he must have believed there was something in it. I don’t know but what there was. I’ll talk it over with him. But I can imagine your disappointment, and his too—when nothing came of it. No, Son, I can’t offer any explanation and we’re as much in the dark as ever about the smugglers. By the way, I met a chap down at Nassau that was just about as keen on experiments as you boys only he’s not a radio fan.No, he’s a diver. He’s invented a new type of diving suit—self-contained he calls it. Just a sort of rubber cloth shirt and a khaki-colored helmet and lead-soled shoes. He goes down without ropes or life lines or air hose. Gets his air from a little box or receptacle strapped to his body. I don’t know what is in it, but it’s some chemical which produces oxygen and he can walk about where he pleases on the bottom. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen to watch him wade out into the water and disappear and then, half an hour or two hours later, have him bob up somewhere else.”
“Gosh, I’d love to see that,” declared Tom. “Suppose he wants to come up from deep water without walking ashore, how does he manage?”
“He just produces more oxygen so he floats up,” replied Mr. Pauling. “And you’ll have a chance to talk with him next week. He’s returning to New York and I’ve asked him to call and see us. Nice young chap, name’s Rawlins. The only trouble with his outfit is that he can’t communicate with others ashore or on the boats. Of course he can take down a line or even a telephone, but then he at once destroys one of the great advantagesof his invention. A trailing line or wire is as liable to be caught or tangled in a wreck or in coral as an air pipe or any other rope or line and it means some one must be stationed in a boat over him. He claims one big advantage of his suit will be the fact that as no boat or air pump is needed, no one can tell where he is. That would be a fine thing in time of war, of course. Think you’ll take a great fancy to him, Tom.”
For a moment, Tom was silent and then he suddenly let out a yell like an Indian.
“I have it!” he fairly screamed. “Radio! Submarine radio! I’ll bet it’ll work.”
Then, filled with enthusiasm, he started to explain his ideas to his father.
“All right! All right!” cried Mr. Pauling, laughing and holding up his hands in protestation. “I’ll take your word for the technical end of it. Wait and tell Rawlins about it. But honestly I don’t know but what there may be something in it. You and Rawlins can work it out.”
So filled with his new idea was Tom, that he fairly rushed to tell Frank when the latter arrived, and for the next ten days the two were ceaselesslyat work, drawing plans and diagrams, making and discarding instruments, purchasing countless rolls of wire and knock-down apparatus, as they strove to put into concrete form the vision in Tom’s brain.
But they found innumerable difficulties to be overcome and were almost discouraged when one evening Rawlins called.
He was such an enthusiastic and interesting man that the boys took a huge liking for him and as soon as Tom told him of his idea he at once fell in with the boys’ plans.
“I do believe it can be done!” he declared, when Tom had shown him the plans and had described his ideas fully. “I don’t know much about radio, but if you are right about the matter there’s no reason I can see why you shouldn’t get it to work. I tell you what, Tom, we’ll fit up a workshop and laboratory down at my father’s dock—it’s down near the foot of 28th St. and we don’t use it except for storage. The old gentleman’s gone out of the wrecking business and has sold all his outfit except the things stored there. It’s a fine place to work and experiment. There are tools and a machine lathe and about ten tons of odds and ends thatmay come in handy. My father had his office and workshop there—did all his repairing of pumps, diving suits and tugs there, and never threw anything away. I learned to dive there—my father and grandfather were deep-sea divers, too—and there’s a trapdoor where the divers went down to test their suits and pumps. I made my suits and even my under-sea motion picture outfit there and it’s private and no one will disturb us. The only way we can test out this idea of yours is by actual trial under water. If we do get it, it will be a mighty big thing—greatest improvement in sub-sea work ever. I’ll get the place ready and cleaned up a bit to-morrow. I’m just as crazy as you are to try it out.”
Mr. Henderson also was deeply interested in the boys’ new experiments and declared he believed their ideas might be worked out successfully.
“You’ll run across a lot of unexpected and unforeseen difficulties,” he warned them. “One never knows what new laws and phenomena one may run up against in a thing of this sort. During the war our government and the Allies, and no doubt Germany also, carried on a good many experimentswith under-water radio, but as far as I know they never came to much. Radio had not progressed so far then and there were more important things to be done and not enough men to attend to it. Wediduse vacuum tubes and amplifiers for detecting submarines, however. By the way, I have a few things that may be of help to you boys and I’ll be glad to let you have them. Among them is a remarkable tuning device of German make and I don’t think it has ever been tried out. You’ll need something that is simple and accurate and easy to control and this may do the trick.”
By the end of a week a snug little laboratory had been set up on Rawlins’ dock and the boys and their diver friend spent every available moment of their time there.
Tom and Frank were as interested in seeing Rawlins go down in his odd suit as he was in their radio work, and the first time he put it on to demonstrate it to the boys they became tremendously excited. Rawlins carefully explained all about it, pointing out its various parts and showing them how the oxygen generator worked.
“You have to be careful about this,” he said, “if a drop of water gets into it, it blazes or flames up and may kill a fellow. That’s the only danger about it. If a man forgets and takes the mouthpiece from his lips to speak without shutting it off and water gets in, he’ll have a red hot flame inside his helmet. It’s easy to get accustomed to it though—comes as natural as breathing, after a bit of practice.”
But even now that it had been explained to them it seemed a most remarkable feat for Rawlins to don the shirtlike suit and helmet and, with only these over his ordinary garments and with no rubber trousers covering his legs, descend the ladder and disappear in the water without lines, pipes or ropes trailing after him. Both Tom and Frank were crazy to go down, but Rawlins refused to permit it until he had made the suits “fool proof” as he put it. Even then, the boys’ parents objected until they had visited the workshop and Rawlins had proved to their satisfaction that the boys were perfectly safe in shallow water when he accompanied them.
“We’ll have to go down to test out the radio,”argued Tom, “so we might as well learn right away.”
At last the fathers gave in and Tom went down first with Rawlins. For a week afterwards he could think or talk of nothing else and never tired relating his sensations and experiences to his parents and his boy friends, and Frank did the same. But after the first few times the novelty wore off and the boys soon became quite accustomed to going to the bottom of the river. Rawlins, however, never allowed them to stay down more than a few minutes at a time and after the first few descents the boys found little fun in it. They had expected to find a smooth, hard bottom and to see fishes swimming about and to be able to look up and see passing boats overhead. To their surprise, they found they could not walk upright, but leaned far forward and had a peculiar dreamy sensation when they attempted to walk, their feet seeming to half-drag, half-float behind them and that, despite the fact that the bottom of the river was soft and muddy, they did not sink into the bottom to any extent. As Tom put it, it was like trying to hurry in a dream when one’s feet seemtied to something and one can’t possibly run. Moreover, they found the water dark and so filled with sediment that they could see but a few feet and even near-by objects, such as the spiles and abutments of the dock, the ladder down which they descended and the figure of their companion were scarcely visible a yard distant and took on strange, hazy, indistinct and distorted forms. Indeed, Rawlins always held their hands when they went down, explaining that should they stray a few yards away they might be lost or might be swept off in some current.
But they were glad of the experience and realized that in order to carry on their experiments with any hopes of success they must learn to use the suits, for Rawlins had not yet mastered the details of radio.
In the meantime, however, they worked at the radio devices and at last Tom announced that he had a set which he believed might work.
“It’s only an experimental set,” he explained to Rawlins. “And it won’t stand up long under water, but if the idea’s all right and we get anyresults we can go to work and make a good outfit on the same principle.”
Rawlins was almost as excited as the boys when the day came to test the new device and at Tom’s suggestion was to go down alone with the receiver in his helmet while the boys remained on the dock and attempted to communicate with him.
“We’ll try receiving under water first,” said Tom. “If it works we’ll get it into good shape and then get busy on the under-water sending set.”
So, with the compact but complicated little set inside his helmet, which was specially made to accommodate it, and with the receivers clamped over his ears, Rawlins backed down the ladder while the boys, feeling like explorers about to set foot on some new and unknown land, watched his head disappear beneath the surface of the river.
It was little wonder that they were wildly excited for now, in a few moments, they would know beyond question whether their ideas had been right and whether all their work and trouble had been thrown away or they had made an advance in radio which might revolutionize under-sea work.
At first the boys had not fully realized whatthe success of their efforts would mean and had gone into it enthusiastically merely as something new and strange.
But as soon as Rawlins had explained the possibilities which a successful under-sea radio telephone would open up, they understood how much might hinge on the triumph or failure of their plans.
“Why,” Rawlins had exclaimed, “think what it will do if it works! A man can go down and walk about any place he chooses and yet can talk back and forth with men on a ship or on shore. In wrecking, he could go all through a ship with no danger of getting his life-line or air-hose tangled and he could direct the fellows on the tug or lighter, telling them just where to lower chains or tackle or anything else. And think what it would mean in time of war! Why, a man could walk out from shore anywhere, go under a ship and fasten a mine to her and blow her up and hear all that was going on aboard the enemy’s ship. And just think what a dangerous sort of spy a man would be—out of sight under the sea and yet able to hear all the talk and messages of the enemy! Itell you, boys, up to now diving’s been like blind man’s work—mostly feeling and signaling by jerks on a line. Of course the ordinary phone was a big advance, but with that you still had to trail a wire along and there was a visible connection between the diver and the surface. With my suits and your radio the country that owned the secrets would be mighty near masters of the sea, I’ll say.”
As soon as Rawlins was out of sight the boys commenced to talk, Tom speaking through the transmitter while Frank wrote down what he said, for of course they could not know if Rawlins heard them, and the only means of determining if he had received all the words was to keep a record for comparison when he came up. They were busily engaged at this and tremendously interested and excited, when the telephone bell rang. Telling Rawlins to wait a moment, and explaining the reason, Tom ceased speaking while Frank answered the call.
“Hello, Frank,” came Henry’s voice. “I just rang up to be sure you were there. How’s everything going?”
“Fine!” replied Frank, “come on down, we’re just testing it out for the first time. When did you get back?”
“Last evening—but didn’t have a chance to run around to see you. I called up, but the maid said you were out with Tom. Didn’t she tell you? I’ll be right down, you bet. Say, I’ve some news for you. So long.”
“I’m glad he’s back from that trip with his father and is coming down,” said Tom, “Won’t he be interested and surprised if this works? Wonder what the news is.”
Then, turning to his set, he continued his interrupted talk, or attempt to talk, with Rawlins until, five minutes later, Henry was pounding at the door.
“Gee, but you’ve a fine place here!” he cried as he glanced about the little laboratory, “and you’ve diving suits and helmets and everything. Say, I was just crazy to get back when I got your letter telling about your experiments and everything. Where’s the diver fellow? Oh say, you’re not really talking to him under water! Crickety! Isn’t that wonderful to think he can hear you down under the river!”
Tom laughed. “Don’t know if he can,” he replied. “We’ll have to wait for him to come up andtell. You see we haven’t got an under-sea sending set rigged up yet and the one he’s got is just a sort of makeshift for experimenting.”
“Have you fellows heard anything more of that mystery chap?” cried Henry, suddenly changing the subject.
“Not a word,” Tom assured him.
“Well, I have then,” declared Henry triumphantly. “I heard him last night and I got him again to-day just before I called you fellows. He was in the same old place, too.”
“Honest? Say, thatisfunny!” exclaimed Frank. “What was he saying?”
“Don’t know,” replied Henry, “He was talking some foreign lingo that I couldn’t make out, but I got one word. Bet you couldn’t guess what ’twas—another flower—Oleander this time.”
The boys were so interested in Henry’s news that they had temporarily forgotten their under-water companion until Henry uttered a half surprised exclamation and jumped away from the square opening in the floor over the river.
“Gosh, there he comes!” he cried, as overcoming hisfirst surprise at a gurgling splash he glanced through the trapdoor and saw the diver’s helmet appearing. “Don’t he look like a regular sea monster?”
A moment later, Rawlins was removing his suit and helmet.
“Did you hear us?” cried Tom the moment Rawlins’ face was visible.
“Did I!” exclaimed the diver. “Did I! Let me tell you I wished I had cotton stuffed in my ears. You must think I’m deaf,—yelling like that. Did you think you had to shout loud enough to have your voice go through the water? And I’ll tell you I thought a tornado’d struck the place when your friend here arrived. I even heard the telephone bell.”
Tom and Frank fairly danced with delight. “Hurrah! It works! It’s a success! We’ve solved it! It’s under-sea radio!” shouted the excited boys.
“I’ll say it works!” declared Rawlins. “But what the deuce were you trying to talk Dutch for?”
“Talk Dutch?” cried Tom in a puzzled tone.“We weren’t talking Dutch or anything but United States.”
It was Rawlins’ turn to be amazed. “Well, who in thunder was then?” he asked. “I heard some one jabbering Dutch or some other foreign language—don’t know what ’twas except it wasn’t French or Spanish.”
Henry gave a whoop. “It was that other fellow!” he cried excitedly. “I’ll bet ’twas. He was talking just before I rang up as I told you. Jehoshaphat! Mr. Rawlins must have heard him under water.”
“I guess that’s it,” agreed Tom. “Funny it didn’t occur to me. Of course there’s no reason why he shouldn’t have been heard under water. We’re using a tiny little wave length and so’s he, and he’s close to here, you know. Did you hear him loudly, Mr. Rawlins?”
“Well, not so as to deafen me the way you did,” replied the diver with a grin, “but if I’d understood his lingo I could have told what he was talking about. The only word that sounded like sense to me was something like Oleander.”
“Then ’twas him!” fairly yelled Henry ungrammatically.“That’s the name he was using when I heard him.”
“Well, it just proves this new thing is a peacherino,” declared Tom. “Now let’s get busy and fix it up in good shape and make a sending set to try out.”
Now that the boys’ first experiment had been such a huge success they were more enthusiastic and excited than ever. They had been confident that the diver would be able to hear sounds or that he might even distinguish words under water, but they had not dared to hope that their very first efforts would result in the sound being carried to the ears of the man beneath the water as clearly and loudly as though he had been present in the same room with the speaker.
“I’ll bet water carries electromagnetic waves better than air,” declared Tom. “Why, if this little set can respond to these short five watt waves in this way, think what it would mean to a submarine with big amplified sets and getting messages sent with hundreds of watts. Why a fellow could sit in Washington and talk to submarines and divers all over the Atlantic.”
“You’ve hit on a wonderful possibility,” Rawlins assured him. “Of course I was pretty close—I didn’t go over a hundred yards from the dock and it’s shoal water. I’m anxious to try it down a hundred feet or so and a mile or two from the sender. We’ll do that after we get things right—go down to my hangout in the Bahamas and give it a real honest-to-goodness tryout.”
“It’s all in that new amplifying arrangement and that single control tuner Frank hit upon,” said Tom. “And we’re not really responsible for either. Mr. Henderson gave us the idea for the tuner and a friend of Dad’s invented the tube, but couldn’t get any one interested. You see, Henry, this tube is just about 400 times as much of an amplifier as the other tubes, and we get a detector and amplifier all in one. Look here—it’s the smallest bulb you ever saw—about the size of a peanut and we operate it on a flashlight battery with a special little dry cell for the filament. Of course they don’t last long, but a fellow can’t stay down more than an hour or two anyway and the batteries will run the set steadily for five hours. For under-sea work the cost don’t count. Whatwe’re up against now is to make the sending set to go with it. The receiver was easy. That fits in this special helmet all right and don’t have to be waterproof, but the sending set’ll have to be outside and it’ll be an awful job to keep the water from short circuiting it.”
As he talked, Tom was showing Henry the set and pointing out its many novel features.
“This single tuner is great,” he continued. “It’s fixed so it’s set at a certain spot for the normal wave lengths sent from the diver’s home station. See, here in the middle at zero. Then, if he wants to get a shorter wave he turns it to the left which gives him a range down to half his normal wave length, or for longer waves he turns it to the right and gets twice his normal length. If he wants to go to long wave lengths—for example, if he was a spy or something and wanted to get the big sending stations—he’d turn the knob clear to the left and then back to the right and around to opposite the zero point. Then he’d be on about 2500 meters and that being his utmost length he just has to tune slowly towards zero again. And the rheostat works automatically with it and sodoes the variable condenser and it’s not very complicated either.”
“But what does he do for an aërial?” queried Henry.
“Doesn’t use one,” replied Tom. “Just has this sort of wire cage sticking from his helmet, like a loop, but made of two grids set at right angles to each other. But gosh! I never thought about there being interferences under water.”
“I suppose Henry understands all that,” interrupted Rawlins laughingly, “but it means about as much to me as that Dutch talk I heard. Somehow or other I can’t get on to this radio a little bit. When you get that sending outfit rigged you’ll have to go down and test it. I’d probably bungle something. I didn’t even dare meddle with this gadget for tuning. I tried it once and when your voice stopped I just shoved her back and let it go at that. That’s when I heard that Dutchman.”
“Then he’s on a different wave length and it proveswecan tune out under water,” declared Tom gleefully. “That’s another feather in our caps.”
Henry quickly grasped the boys’ ideas and togetherthe three worked diligently until sundown while Rawlins busied himself devising the fittings for his suit to accommodate the sending apparatus and helped the boys tremendously with suggestions for rendering a set watertight and with advice as to mechanical and other details.
By the time they were obliged to stop their work the plans for the under-sea transmission set were well worked out and, with high hopes and flushed with the success of their achievements, they locked up the workshop and walked up town discussing plans for the morrow.
The following day they went to the dock right after breakfast, for school was over for the season and they had all their time to themselves. Rawlins was already there and before they left that night they had the set nearly completed and Tom declared they would be able to give it a test the next day.
Mr. Pauling was of course deeply interested and enthusiastic over the boys’ work and promised to go down himself as soon as the instruments were perfected. He listened to the boys’ glowing accounts of their work and their success and later,when Mr. Henderson called, he too became most optimistic regarding their under-sea radio.
“It’s merely a question of experimenting, boys,” he declared. “We were on the right track during the war, but radio’s jumped ahead a lot since then and whatever the government experts accomplish is kept mighty quiet. I’m glad that single control works out so well. We’ll have to thank the Huns for that. We found one on a captured U-boat, but as far as I know the government never took it up seriously—don’t know why unless it was because there was no particular need of it. We never did find out what the Germans used it for—for all we know they may have been experimenting along under-sea lines too. And if that new tube of Michelson’s proves good he’ll make a fortune and have you boys to thank for it. I’m coming down to see your outfit just as soon as we get a breathing space. We’re rushed to death just now.”
With nothing else to do the boys amused themselves listening at their sets which, with so many other interests, had been sadly neglected of late, and, out of pure curiosity and never expecting tohear anything, Tom turned his loop aërial to the southeast and tuned for the short wave lengths used by the mysterious talker they had once followed and tried to locate so persistently. To his surprise, the sound of words came clearly over the set.
“There he is again!” Tom exclaimed to Frank who was listening to a broadcasted speech. “Get him and we’ll see what he says.”
But despite the fact that the boys could both hear the man plainly his words were meaningless, for he was speaking some guttural, harsh-sounding tongue.
“Oh, pshaw!” ejaculated Tom disgustedly after a few minutes of this. “Who cares what he’s saying. I guess it’s some crazy foreigner.”
So saying, he again picked up the broadcasting station and forgot all about the incident in his interest as he listened to a lecture on new developments in radio.
“Some night we’ll be listening to that fellow talking about the new under-sea radio,” chuckled Frank as the talk ceased and the boys laid aside their receivers. “Say, won’t it be sport to hearhim telling about us and know all the fellows are listening to it?”
“Well, we won’t count our chickens just yet,” declared Tom sagely. “Just because that receiving set works isn’t any proof the sending set will. And without being able to talk back a diver isn’t any better off—or at least much better off—if he can hear what’s going on in the air.”
But Tom might have been far more confident, for the following day when the test was made it worked much better than their most sanguine expectations had led them to think possible. To be sure, their experiments came to an abrupt ending right in the midst of the test, for the sending set on Tom’s suit leaked and, with a feeble buzz and sputter, his words trailed off to nothingness.
But when, upon reaching the surface, Rawlins reported that he had heard everything Tom had said and Frank and Henry in the shop had also heard him, the boys knew that their plans and the principles of the outfit were all right and that only the question of making the set absolutely watertight remained to be solved.
“I don’t see why it should not be inside the suit,“ declared Rawlins, as the boys were discussing the matter and were at a loss to know how to accomplish their aims. “You say these wireless waves go through everything and we get them through the suit in the receiving set so why shouldn’t they go out through everything just as well. Look here, I was thinking over this last night and here’s my idea.”
As the boys gathered about, the diver rapidly sketched his plan of a new suit in which the sending set could be placed within a receptacle full of compressed air.
“I believe thatwouldwork,” cried Tom when he grasped Rawlins’ scheme. “I don’t see why compressed air should affect the outfit any and it’s easy enough to make watertight fittings where the wires come out and there’s no tuning to do, We can always use a special wave length and if several men were talking under water each one could have his own wave length. Yes. I’ll bet you’ve solved the puzzle, Mr. Rawlins.”
Keen on the new plan the boys started a new set, or rather two new sets, for they wished to make atest to determine if two men under water could converse, while Rawlins busied himself on the special suits and air pockets to be used.
“We’ll have to balance the weight of the set against the increased buoyancy of this compressed air,” he remarked as he worked. “But I see where that’s an advantage. One of your troubles has been the weight of batteries and by this air caisson arrangement weight won’t cut any figure under water.”
“But suppose the air pocket springs a leak?” queried Frank. “We’d be just as badly off as before.”
“Well, I don’t calculate to have it leak,” replied Rawlins, “but if you make the sets as near watertight as you can, they’d still go on working for some time before they got soaked. And if I can’t make a little caisson that’ll hold a hundred pounds of air for ten or twelve hours I’ll give up diving and drive a taxi.”
Several days, however, were required to get the set and the air pocket suits ready and when, after a test in the workshop, everything seemed in perfect working order, Tom and Rawlins donned theirsuits and prepared to descend the ladder through the trapdoor.
Just before his head dipped beneath the surface of the water Tom spoke into his mouthpiece and Frank, listening at his instruments, gave a start as his chum’s voice came clearly to his ears.
“So long, old man,” came Tom’s cheery voice, which somehow Frank had expected would sound muffled. “Keep your ear glued to the set and be ready for great news. I’ll bet we give you a surprise.”
The next instant only a few bubbles marked the spot where Tom had sunk beneath the surface of the water, and little did he or the others dream how much truth was in his parting words or what an amazing surprise was awaiting not only Frank but himself.
During the weeks while Tom and his friends were busy at their work on the under-sea radio, grave and sinister events were taking place, of which the boys knew little or nothing, but which kept Mr. Pauling, Mr. Henderson and their men in a perpetual state of worry, and of sleepless nights and unceasing work.
Close upon the heels of the unprecedented influx of contraband liquor, which despite every effort continued undiminished and which had completely baffled the officials, came a flood of Bolshevist propaganda of the most dangerous and revolutionary character. Suddenly, and without warning, it had appeared throughout the country. Every town, city and village was filled with it and so cleverly were the circulars, booklets and handbills worded, so logical were the arguments and statements they contained, so appealing to the uneducated foreign element and the dissatisfiedarmy of the unemployed that they were greedily read, accepted and absorbed until the country was menaced by a red revolution and officials went to bed never knowing what bloodshed and destruction the morrow might hold in store.
Almost coincident with this came a wave of crime. Hold-ups, burglars, murders, kidnaping and incendiarism swept like an epidemic through the big cities. Scarcely a day passed that the daily papers did not bear glaring headlines announcing some new and daring crime. Bank messengers, paymasters, cashiers and business men were held up at the point of revolvers or were blackjacked on the public streets in broad daylight. Stores and shops were boldly entered by masked bandits who held up and robbed the clerks and customers alike. Taxis and motor cars were attacked, their occupants beaten into unconsciousness and robbed and the vehicles stolen under the noses of the police. Homes of the rich, banks and business houses were entered and ransacked despite electric burglar alarms and armed guards. Each day the daring criminals grew bolder. From thugs they werechanging into murderous bandits; where formerly a man was knocked down or blackjacked the victims were now shot in cold blood. Murders and homicides were of daily occurrence. Even on crowded thoroughfares within sight of hundreds of passers-by men were killed and the bandits escaped and no one felt that life and property were safe. The police seemed powerless and at a loss. Now and then a bandit was captured. Occasionally one would be shot down, wounded or killed by an officer or by some prospective victim, but still the crimes continued unabated. Indeed, the more the police strove to check the bandits the more they appeared to thrive and increase and the bolder they became. Lawlessness was rampant and, while the public wondered, criticized, clamored for protection, and countless theories were put forth, those in the inner circle, the secret agents of the government and the trusted ones, knew that, back of it all, the underlying cause and the root of the evil was the red propaganda which they were powerless to check.
Many were the secret meetings, the closely guarded conferences held between the untiring officersdetailed to run the menace to earth, to stamp the venomous Bolshevist serpent underfoot, to bring the country to its safe and sane law-abiding state of the past. And prominent in all such closely guarded, mysterious councils were Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson.
“There is some one mind directing it all, in my opinion,” declared Mr. Pauling. “Some arch criminal—a Bolshevist emissary—some man with a tremendous brain, marvelous executive ability, immense personal magnetism, but whose mind, heart and soul are warped and twisted. One who is such a criminal as the world has fortunately never known before. If we can lay our hands on him the rest will be easy. Without a leader, without a directive brain, these common criminals will be lost. They are arrant cowards, mere tools and yet, by some almost superhuman power, are controlled, directed, moved like pawns on a chessboard, by an unseen, mysterious being who so far has completely baffled us.”
“I agree with you perfectly,” said Mr. Henderson. “I believe the same man, the same arch fiend, is back of the rum-running; that this ismerely a tryout, a test, to see if we can detect him and that through it all is a deep-laid, dastardly plot to inflame the people and at the same time enrich himself. To my mind, it savors of some one far greater in brain power, in intrigue and in ability than those unshaven, misguided Russians. It looks far more as if it were German work—perhaps some high officer of the Prussian army or navy—who, afraid of his own republican countrymen and filled with a fiendish desire for revenge, is devoting himself to the destruction of law and order in the United States.”
“That is very plausible as a theory,” remarked another man, “but it does not get us anywhere. If this is so, where does this master mind stay? Where are his headquarters? Surely he must have underlings,—lieutenants and trusted emissaries and some place, some headquarters, from which his nefarious schemes are sent forth. Nothing comes in by mail or by passengers we know. Every alien who enters is known. Not a word that tends to bear out your theories had been wrung from the men captured even though they were on the verge of death or were about to go to theelectric chair. No, I do not agree with you. It’s merely the aftermath of the war. Men were taught to handle firearms and to kill their fellow men. They were fed up, encouraged and lived with excitement and constant peril. The war ended; they were out of work, they pined for the thrill of danger and their viewpoint of life, of property and of right and wrong was distorted. Banditry offered an easy way of securing funds; it filled their desire for excitement; it satisfied their grudge against society and their country and, like all crimes which succeed, it became contagious and got a grip on more and more men. It’s all the logical outcome of the war and in my opinion the red propaganda has nothing whatever to do with it.”
Mr. Henderson smiled. “Perhaps I may be able to change your views, Selwin,” he remarked. “I wanted to know your ideas before I came out with it. As you all know, I was on special work during the war—detailed to decode all suspicious messages that came in by radio or cable and to use my vivid imagination to try to find hidden meanings in apparently innocent messages. You all know the result, and there is no need of recallingspecific cases, such as the famous sugar shipment to Garcia and the announcement of a baby’s birth but which, thanks to my ‘hunch’ or imagination or whatever you wish to call it, led to the apprehension of the most dangerous female spy of the time and the confiscation of those incriminating documents which saved theLeviathanfrom destruction, prevented several thousand of our boys from going to the bottom of the sea, kept Brooklyn bridge from being blown to bits, thus blocking the Navy Yard, and prevented countless women and children from being widows and orphans. But perhaps you do not all know that, back of that stupendous plot, that greatest attempted coup of the enemy to terrorize and cripple the United States, that supreme effort of a dying, beaten nation to turn the tide of war and transform her from the vanquished to the victor, was the work of one man. To him was entrusted this almost superhuman task. The reward, if he succeeded, was to be honors and riches beyond conception. Had he won he would to-day be seated upon the throne of England—the despotic, iron-handed governor of a German colony with his feet upon the neck of theBritish people and with the colossal indemnity, which it had been planned to exact from our country, as his monetary reward. If he failed, his life was to pay the forfeit. Not only his life was to be sacrificed, but his lands and property were to be confiscated, his family imprisoned, degraded and exiled. It was, I think, the greatest, the most stupendous gamble ever known. And the gambler lost! By the merest chance, by pure accident, by a coincidence which no human being could have foreseen, his messages—the vital message—came into my hands and, through a tiny mistake, an error which might have passed a thousand eyes unnoticed, the conspirator—this gambler in nations and life—was betrayed and all his efforts, his widespread plots, his carefully organized plans came to nothing. But yet he escaped. Evidently he considered a gambling debt one that could be disregarded. His country, or rather his emperor, had overlooked a most important matter. He had failed to provide for getting hold of the gambler to collect his debt. No doubt, had Germany been victorious, some emissary of the Kaiser would eventually have found this man and would haveexacted payment in full. But with Germany’s downfall he was safe—at least as long as he remained out of Germany—and so completely did he efface himself that we came to the conclusion that he had committed suicide. But, gentlemen, I am willing to wager my reputation that he still lives. I have evidence which to my mind is absolutely conclusive that he is at the bottom of this Bolshevist propaganda, this influx of liquor, this wave of crime.”
Amazed, the others gazed at Mr. Henderson as he paused after this surprising announcement.
“Jove! That’s some statement!” cried one. “If you’re right, Henderson, we’ve got our work cut out for us. I can see why he might do it though. I know who you mean—there’s no use mentioning names even here. And if it is he I can understand why he has picked on Uncle Sam. But, by Jove, old man, if ’tis he, then watch your step! He’s no man to forgive or forget. He’ll have his eye on you and mark you for a come-back, I’ll wager.”
Henderson smiled grimly. “He has already,” he remarked dryly. “That’s my proof that he’sthe man. Like all of his kind he’s so confoundedly conceited, so cocksure of himself, so puffed up with his own importance that, sooner or later, he’s bound to overdo himself. He cannot resist the temptation to let some one know what a big toad in the puddle he is. He must boast or bust and such men always hang themselves if you give them rope enough. Here’s the rope he’s hung himself with!”
As he finished, Mr. Henderson tossed a sheet of paper on the table and the others crowded close to examine it.
To the casual observer, it would have meant little. A sheet of ordinary note paper with a single line written by a typewriter across it. There was no date, no signature, merely the words: “Remember Mercedes and Garcia.” But to these keen-eyed, square-jawed, quiet men those words carried grave import. To them, it meant more than pages of writing might have carried.
“I guess you’re right,” exclaimed Selwin. “That is, as far as his being alive and this coming from him is concerned. But why do you think he or this has any connection with the other matters?”
“Another coincidence—or perhaps you’ll say imagination,” replied Mr. Henderson. “Examine this pamphlet—the latest effusion of our red propagandists. Do you notice anything peculiar about it?”
Each man shook his head as the flimsy pamphlet passed from hand to hand.
“Very well,” commented Mr. Henderson. “You notice that it’s not printed—that is, with type. It’s a zincotype impression from typewriting. And if you look closely you’ll also see that the small “a” has a broken tail, the capital “T” has a little twist in one arm of the top, the small “e” is flattened or battered and the “B” always shows a tiny smudge above it where the character on the same key struck the paper owing to the type bar being bent slightly. Now, kindly examine this terse note I showed you and see if you do not find the identical defects in the same letters.”
“By Jove, yes!” cried one, as they again studied the paper. “Henderson, you’re a winner. The machine that wrote one wrote the other. Not a shade of a doubt of it. But how about the rest ofthese dirty sheets and how about the bandits and the liquor?”
“I’ve examined several thousand circulars and pamphlets,” replied Mr. Henderson, “and all that are typewritten are the same. Our friend is doing all the writing on one machine. I imagine he is hanging out somewhere and takes no chances by entrusting his work to outsiders. A man could do all the typing and could make zinc photo plates in a single small room. As for my hunch that the rum-runners are connected with the same gang, it’s based on this.”
As he spoke, he placed a small metal object on the table, a bit of lead about half an inch in diameter and resembling a small coin. The others picked it up and examined it curiously.
“Well, what’s this to do with the matter?” asked one.
“This note,” replied Mr. Henderson, “was left at my door and to prevent it from blowing away this bit of lead was placed upon it. You don’t see anything suspicious about it, but you may when I draw your attention to the fact that this is a metal seal from a particular brand and make of an extremelyhigh-priced French West Indian liquor. Until the day after I received this reminder of Mercedes and Garcia, there was not, to the best of our knowledge and belief, a single bottle of that Pére Kerrman liqueur in the United States—except possibly in the private stock of some millionaire or exclusive club. Two days later, the country was flooded with it.”
“You win!” cried Selwin. “Now about the bandits. Have you got them dead to rights, too?”
“Ask Pauling,” replied Mr. Henderson. “He’s the next witness.”
“Here’s my exhibit A,” said Mr. Pauling, as he drew a creased paper from an inside pocket and placed it before the assembled officials.
“H-m-m, another threat, eh?” remarked the first one who examined it.
“Yes, commanding me to drop investigation of that hold-up gang that the police nabbed on West 16th St. last week. Nothing was said while the police were at it, but as soon as I took hold I received this.”
“And written with the same old machine!” exclaimed Selwin. “All right, Pauling, I may befrom Missouri, but you and Henderson have shown me. Now let’s plan a campaign.”
“If these two notes were sent by the same man, as they appear to have been,” remarked a quiet man who heretofore had said nothing but had been steadily consuming one black cigar after another by the process of chewing them between his strong white teeth, “then our game is right underfoot, so to speak—right in little old Manhattan probably.”
“Bully for you, Meredith!” cried a small, wiry, nervous man, clapping the other familiarly on the back. “‘The mills of the gods,’ etc., you know. Where did you fish that idea from?”
“From some place you lack—a brain,” retorted Meredith continuing to bite savagely at his cigar. “But, fooling aside,” he went on, “it’s a cinch he is. Henderson and Pauling get their notes only two days apart and, what’s more, Pauling gets his within twenty-four hours after he starts that investigation. No time for word to get any other place and have a bit of typewritten paper get back.”
“Huh! Then, according to you, all this red rubbish is also written right in the old home-town, eh?” snorted the thin man.
“Yep,” replied Meredith. “Expect that’s why we haven’t nailed its source yet. Fact is, I believe there isn’t any rum being smuggled in. Been stored here and just being distributed now. Bet we’ve all been walking over the trail star-gazing. So darned sure it was all coming in from outside we never thought of it being right alongside of us.”
“That’s a possibility,” admitted Henderson and then, dropping their voices, the half dozen men earnestly discussed plans, offered suggestions, examined mysterious documents stored in a hidden and massive safe in the wall and pored over maps and diagrams which no one, outside of this inner circle, would ever see.
At the end of two hours, the conference broke up. The papers and documents were replaced in their secret vault, the maps and diagrams were locked in a steel box and thrust in another safe and the men chatted on various matters, discussing the latest news, arguing the respective merits of motor cars, expressing opinions as to the next pennant winner, telling jokes and thoroughly enjoying themselves as if they had not a care in the worldand were not literally carrying their lives in their hands day and night.
“What’s that boy of yours doing in radio now?” asked Meredith, addressing Mr. Pauling when the conversation finally turned towards wireless. “Henderson was telling me about their ‘radio detective’ stuff. Great kid—Tom.”
“Oh, he and Frank Putney are working on a submarine radio scheme. I met a young chap at Nassau with a new-fangled diving suit and he and the boys are trying to work out a radio outfit to use under water. Say, they’re succeeding, too.”
“Jove! that’s a great scheme!” exclaimed another. “Under-sea wireless! Well, I’ll be hanged, what won’t our kids be up to next!”
“Wish we’d had anything as good to tinker with when we were kids,” declared Selwin. “I remember how every one laughed at Marconi when he first started wireless. My boy’s crazy over it now. Well, I must be getting on.”
Rising, Selwin slipped from the room, sauntered casually about the corridor, noted the seemingly inattentive janitor brushing imaginary dust from a window frame, knew that the lynx-eyed guard wason his job, and without a sign of recognition made his way to the elevator and the street. At intervals of half an hour or so the others left, some by the same corridor, others through an outer room, where an office boy seemed dozing in a chair over a lurid, paper-covered novel—but upon whose boyish, freckled cheeks a closely-shaven, heavy beard might have been detected by a near examination—while still others took a roundabout route and descended to the street on the opposite side of the building. At last, only Mr. Pauling and Henderson were left and the two friends, glad of a chance to have a quiet smoke and to be free from care for a short time, sat chatting and talking over Mr. Pauling’s last trip to the West Indies.
“It was positively baffling,” stated Mr. Pauling in reply to a question. “I knew they were filled to the gunwales with liquor and I knew as well as I wanted to that the cargo was going to the States and yet, when they got here and our men boarded them they were either empty or carried legitimate cargoes or else they never touched our ports and came back empty. It’s common talk that the stuff is going to us, but no one has given away how it’sdone yet. Why, I even had one trailed—shadowed by a disguised cutter—and they kept her within sight for days and then I’ll be hanged if she didn’t come back without a sign of cargo. Now where did they land it? Only solution is they got cold feet and heaved it overboard.”
“More likely they met some other craft during the night and transhipped,” suggested Mr. Henderson. “I imagine that’s how they get it in. Have some prearranged signal and spot and ship the stuff in at another port while they sail boldly into harbor. Of course we’re watching for them and let up on other places and while we’re boarding the suspect the other craft gets in on some unfrequented bit of coast and meets a truck or car. It’s not hard. We can’t guardallthe coast with our force and I’m sure that game’s played sometimes, if not always. We’ve taken a lot of stuff that afterwards proved to be colored water or cane-juice and of course they didn’t bring that from Cuba or the Bahamas just for the sake of getting our goats.”
“And then there were the Chinese,” resumed Mr. Pauling. “Of course there we’ve another difficultybecause, once set ashore or near shore, John can look after himself and doesn’t need a truck to carry him out of our sight. Just the same I’d give a lot to know the secret of their putting it over on us.”
“I’ve often wondered if those boys—Tom and Frank—weren’t right about that strange conversation they overheard,” ruminated Mr. Henderson. “I’m morally certain they were all right in their cross bearings with their loops, although I didn’t tell them so—and yet we found nothing there. Have you asked the boys if they’ve heard anything more of it lately?”
“No, but I will,” Mr. Pauling replied. “They’ve been so busy with this new idea I expect they’ve forgotten all about it. I promised I’d go down to see their— Hello, there’s the phone. Wonder who ’tis.”
Leaning forward, Mr. Pauling drew the extension phone towards him, lifted the receiver and placed it at his ear.
“Yes, this is Mr. Pauling speaking,” he said. Then his face blanched, his cigar dropped from his fingers and in anxious, frightened tones hecried, “What’s that you say? Frank! What’s that? Tom under water! Calling for help! Having a fight with—with what? Never mind! Calling through the radio! Yes, I’ll be down instantly!”
Slamming the receiver on its hook Mr. Pauling leaped to his feet.
“It’s Frank!” he cried. “Says Tom’s calling for help from under water. Lord knows what’s up! Send Jameson and a bunch of men. Order a patrol down. Rawlins’ dock, foot of 28th. You know the place. Come yourself, too!”
Jerking open a drawer, Mr. Pauling grabbed up a heavy revolver, shoved it into his pocket, dashed through the door and as he passed the supposed janitor gave a terse order. “Get inside!” he exclaimed, “Henderson needs you.” The next instant he was plunging down the stairs. With a bound he cleared the last few steps, hurtled like a football player through the pedestrians on the sidewalk, leaped into his waiting car and the next instant was violating every traffic law as he drove madly through the streets. Once only did he slacken speed when, as he rounded the corner,he caught a glimpse of one of his men and with a gesture summoned him. Instantly, the man obeyed, leaped on the running board and as the machine again darted ahead clambered in beside Mr. Pauling.
Before Mr. Pauling’s footsteps had sounded on the stairs, before the secret service man in the janitor’s overalls could dodge inside the room, Mr. Henderson was talking over a private wire to the nearest police station. Ten seconds later, he was rushing downstairs with the erstwhile janitor at his heels and hard on the wake of Mr. Pauling’s car his runabout went tearing in the same direction.
As they swung from Fourth Avenue into 28th St., gaping crowds lined the sidewalks craning their necks and peering down the street where, far ahead, the police patrol was startling the neighborhood with its clanging bell as it followed the lead of Mr. Pauling’s car.
What had happened, what danger was menacing his boy, Mr. Pauling could not guess. But that Tom was in deadly peril he felt sure. Frank’s agonized tones proved that, and while his incoherent,stammering words carried no explanation Mr. Pauling knew that his son was calling for aid from under the water, that something terrible had occurred. Through his mind had instantly flashed the threat of the bandit chief, the threat to make him sweat blood if he continued his investigations. Could it be that? Had the thugs captured or attacked Tom to injure his father? And where was Rawlins? With nerves already strained from overwork and failure to accomplish what the government demanded of him, Mr. Pauling, who was noted for his self-possession, his calmness and clear-headedness in the most trying and perilous moments, was now mad with fear and his teeth actually chattered with nervousness. His car, racing at break-neck speed, seemed almost to crawl. Every corner seemed to be purposely blocked by traffic. He thought he had never seen so many persons crossing the streets, so many slow-moving, horse-drawn vehicles impeding his progress. He cursed aloud, handled his levers with savage jerks, gritted his teeth and mentally prayed he would not be too late. Now, behind him, he could hear the clanging, oncoming patrol truck—he knew Hendersonhad lost no time. Before him lay the end of the street, the river and the docks. With a reckless twist he swung the car into the waterfront street, took the turn on two wheels, drove it diagonally, regardless of cursing truck-men, across the cobbled road, and with squealing brakes, brought it to a skidding stop by Rawlins’ dock. Before it had lost headway he had leaped out, the detective at his side, and as he burst into the boys’ workshop a crowd of blue-clad policemen were jumping from the still moving patrol and were crowding at his heels.