CHAPTER XITHE TRIAL
Ned Newton took dinner at the Swift house that evening, and in the course of the meal he asked Tom:
“Did you chance to see a man in a frock coat, a gardenia in his buttonhole, and wearing a top hat at the lake to-day? Little peaked black mustache and a whisp of goatee? Rather Frenchy looking.”
“He is just the chap I have been worrying about!” exclaimed the young inventor.
“Why worry about him?” demanded Ned, while even Mr. Swift looked at his son in some surprise.
“Because it worries me to know that I’ve seen a man but am unable to place him. Do you have any idea, Ned, who he is?”
“That is what I was asking you—or attempting to,” returned Ned.
“He knows seaplanes, at least,” observed Tom. “I must have seen him—or his picture, perhaps.”
“He was a complete stranger to me,” declared Ned.
“His face is familiar to me. And I am a bit scary of him,” confessed Tom. “He looked the new boat over as though he understood everything about her. Humph! There are some unpatented parts that I would not care to have stolen.”
“The man could scarcely steal themin his eye,” remarked Mr. Swift.
“I am not so sure of that. But it may be that because of trouble we have had in the past, I am suspicious with little cause.”
“You have caught that from Koku,” laughed Ned Newton.
“Maybe the boy is more than half right,” rejoined Tom, referring to the giant. “Carney, in the shops, has said he ‘had a feeling in his bones’ that there was a ‘jinx’ on the boat. Humph! I have to say I don’t believe in such things—”
“Whether you do believe in evil spirits or not?” interposed Ned.
“Well, that may be so. After all, admitting the existence of bad luck is to encourage it, they say. But that has nothing much to do with the dapper little man with the spike mustache and goatee and the flower in his buttonhole. He was spick and span——”
“Like most Frenchmen? That is one reasonwhy I almost always like the French,” declared Ned.
“I’d just like to know who he is,” repeated Tom. “Anyway, I am going to ask you, Ned, to increase the special guards about the cove over there where the plane rests. I am not yet ready to give other people the benefit of my discoveries.”
“So Koku is not guard enough?” chuckled Ned Newton.
“He has to sleep once in a while. Besides, a well dressed man awes Koku a whole lot,” and Tom smiled. “And this chap you speak of could put it all over the innocent savage.”
They decided to have a special number of guards who should remain at the cove where the launching had taken place, at least, until the time of the try-out. And Tom and his men strained every effort to complete the flying boat and send it into the air as quickly as possible.
Tom kept three shifts a day at work. But only the most skilled of his men could be trusted on the job, so the crews were small. However, there was not an hour of the twenty-four save from Saturday evening until Monday morning when the hammers did not ring or the steam drills puff or the riveters clatter on theWinged Arrow.
That shore of Lake Carlopa became a verypopular resort for sightseers during the ensuing fortnight. The newspapers had got hold of the idea that Tom Swift was about to reveal to the world another marvel, and the reporters would have annoyed the young inventor a good deal had it not been for Ned Newton.
Ned believed in a certain amount of publicity, and the stories he furnished the newspaper reporters, if not particularly scientific, were at least interesting. Tom Swift’s new flying boat was a first page leader for several days before the test day.
Tom was watchful for the reappearance of the man whose presence at the launching had disturbed him; but the French looking person did not again come to the cove. At least, Tom did not see the stranger. And as the hour approached when theWinged Arrowwould be ready for her trial flight the young inventor gradually forgot all outside matters. He did not even go to the Nestor house to learn if the invalid and Mr. Damon had been heard from again. He began to sleep aboard the flying boat, as the cabin was practically finished.
This central portion of the pontoon, or boat, was arranged so as to utilize every inch of space. There were folding berths for eight. The cabin could be divided by a curtain if passengers of opposite sexes were included in any party. Mealsfor officers and passengers would be served here, too, the galley being directly aft.
In contradistinction to the ordinary sailing craft, the quarters of the crew of theWinged Arrowwere in her tail, or after-part. These machinists would be furnished hammocks to sleep in. The prow of the boat, where the mechanism of the powerful searchlights was housed, was built of well-leaded glass so that an unobstructed view ahead and above, as well as below and on either side, could be obtained.
As the huge machine floated on the water of the lake cove, it seemed very awkward and as though it would be unmanageable. The opinions of sightseers who came to stare were as amusing as they were often silly. It seemed to be the consensus of these opinions that Tom Swift never intended to try to fly the huge boat, but that it was merely a “stock jobbing” scheme. It was told that stock in the Swift Construction Company was being sold at fabulous prices on the strength of this flying boat that was doomed to failure.
“Gee!” ejaculated Ned Newton, hearing this, “I wish it was as easy to sell shares in a bona fide invention as these people seem to think it is in a fake. Money would be easy enough to raise.”
It was true that a fortune—and not a smallfortune—had been expended upon the building of theWinged Arrow. The treasurer of the Swift Construction Company might well be anxious.
“If she’s a fizzle, Tom, my boy,” he said mournfully, “we’ll all have to go into bankruptcy.”
“She may not be an unqualified success right at the start,” rejoined the young inventor, with confidence. “But I mean to make her fly and sail and make a proper landing on the earth and water before I am through.”
The morning of the day on which the test flight of the new plane was to occur, Tom Swift was awakened at eight o’clock, a late hour for him, by the ringing of his private radio-telephone. He rolled over in bed and grabbed the instrument, removed the receiver and sleepily shouted:
“Hullo!”
“Tom Swift?” came the voice over the wire—a voice that was quite unfamiliar to the inventor.
“Speaking,” replied Tom, yawning. “Excuse me. Who is it?”
“That does not matter—just now,” said the voice clearly. “I want you to do me a favor.”
“What is that?”
“I understand you mean to try out your new seaplane to-day?”
“That is a private matter,” returned Tom, awakened now to full caution.
“Agreed. But I would like the chance of going with you on the try-out.”
“What’s that?” demanded Tom, in amazement “You want to join my mechanics and myself on what may be a dangerous voyage?”
“Exactly. I am interested in your invention. I may be more interested when I see personally how it works. And if that is so——”
“Well, sir?” shot in Tom, not at all pleased.
“If the plane acts as you seem to think it will, I may be able to finance your building several of the machines and under circumstances that will make it well worth your while to sign a contract.”
Tom got a grip on himself almost at once. He replied in a most casual way:
“I am not at all sure that you could interest me in any such proposition, even if I knew who you were and was assured of your good intent. In the first place, this is an entirely private venture, and I have no thought of selling the plane, or any like it. It may be some time before I consider the machine perfect. In any case, I do not know you——”
“Tell me that I am to be one of your sailing party and I will present my credentials,” interrupted the strange voice quickly.
Naturally Tom Swift had thought, as soon as he was fully awakened, of the dapper man whose presence at the launching of theWinged Arrowhad puzzled both Ned Newton and himself. Although the man had the appearance of a foreigner, this voice betrayed not the least accent. The English used seemed meticulously correct, which is, however, a mark sometimes of the speech of well educated foreigners.
“I can make no arrangements over the telephone,” Tom said bluntly. “Especially with people of whose identity I know nothing. In addition, in the present case, and regarding your request, I must refuse absolutely. Nobody goes with me on the test trip save chosen workmen and Mr. Newton. I must distinctly say No!” concluded Tom.
“If ready cash would be an object?” began the voice again, but Tom said once more: “No, sir!” and closed the receiver.
But all the time he was bathing and dressing, and even while he was eating Rad Sampson’s cakes and chops, the young inventor puzzled his brain over the incident and the possible identity of the person who had awakened him.
“He is keeping mighty close tabs on me, whoever he is,” thought Tom. “Even knew I had this radio-telephone installed on the boat. And he must represent somebody with plenty ofmoney. Humph, I wonder what the game really is!
“Business rivals, I presume. And yet, that’s queer, too. I know no one who’s in desperate need of my ideas and plans just now. Humph! queer’s no word for it.”
As he said, he had already selected his crew for the first flight of theWinged Arrow. The men were volunteers, of course, and they had signed off their personal indemnity before he accepted them.
It was true, Ned Newton was to accompany him. Ned was almost as able to pilot the boat as Tom himself. Mr. Swift merely came down to the lake to bid them good-bye and watch the flight of the craft. He helped and advised Tom, but he left the active work wholly in his son’s capable hands now.
The crowd that gathered numbered several hundred Shopton folk and probably some strangers. But as the preparations for the test were concluded Tom scrutinized the groups of spectators sharply for a sight of the man who had previously interested him.
Whether it was that individual who had got in communication with Tom early that morning or not, the young inventor did not see him in the crowd.
“Did you see him?” he asked Ned Newton, asthe treasurer of the company came aboard at the last moment.
“See who?” demanded Ned, in some surprise.
“The Frenchman, as you called him.”
“No, I had forgotten all about him.”
“I have an idea that he has not forgotten about us—or about theWinged Arrow,” Tom said reflectively.