As Curlie slipped noiselessly through the door into the secret tower room, he was seized by the arm and dragged into his chair.
"Man! where have you been?" It was Coles Masters. He spoke in an excited whisper. "Listen to that! It's the second message. He'll repeat it again. They always do."
As Curlie listened, his face grew grave with concern. The message came from the head station of the radiophone secret service bureau. That station was located in New York. The message was a reprimand. Kindly, friendly but firmly, it told Curlie that for two nights now someone in his area had been breaking in on 600. Coast-to-ship messages had been disturbed. Once an S. O. S. from a disabled fishing schooner had barely escaped being lost. Something must be done about it at once! By Curlie! In Chicago!
With parted lips and bated breath Curlie listened to the message as it came to him in code. Then, with trembling fingers, he adjusted a lever, touched a button, turned a screw and dictated to a station in another part of the city his answering O.K. to the message.
"Of course," he said to Coles, as he lifted the receiver from his head, "that means that this fellow that races all over the map has been at it again to-night."
"About an hour ago," said Coles, wrinkling his brow.
"What did you do about it?"
"What was there to do? I tried to locate him. He danced about, first here, then there. I marked his locations. They were never the same. See," he pointed to the map. "I numbered them. He spoke from five different points."
"What did he say?"
"It's all written down there," Coles motioned to a pad. "Can't make head nor tail to it. Something about a map, an airplane, a boat and a lot of gold."
"What kind of voice?"
"Sounded young. Some boy in late teens, I'd say. Though it might have been a girl. She might have changed her voice to disguise it. You can't tell. Had two cases like that in the last three weeks. You never can tell about voices."
"No," said Curlie, thoughtfully, "you never can tell. That's about the only thing you can be sure of in this strange old world. You can always be sure that you never can tell. Thing that looks like one thing always turns out to be something else.
"Point is," he continued after a moment's deep thought, "somebody's getting past our guard. Slamming us right in the nose and we're not doing a thing about it. Don't look like we could. I've got a theory but you can't go searching the estate of the richest man in your city just on theory; you've got to have facts to back you up, and mighty definite facts, too."
"Yes, that's right," agreed Coles. "But what do you make out of all that babble about airplane, map, ship and much gold? Do you suppose it's some smuggling scheme, some plan to get a lot of Russian or Austrian jewels into the country without paying duty or something like that?"
"I don't make anything out of that," said Curlie rather sharply, "and for the time, I don't jolly much care. The thing I'm interested in is the fact that we're being beaten; that the air about us is being torn to shreds every night by some careless or criminal person; that we're getting a black eye and a reprimand from the department; that sea traffic is being interrupted; that lives are being imperiled and we can't seem to do anything about it. That's what's turning my liver dark black!" He pounded the desk before him until instruments rattled and wires sang.
"But how you are going to catch a fellow when he goes tearing all over the map," said Curlie, more calmly, "is exactly what I don't know. You go down and get a bite of chow. No, go on home and go to bed. I'll take the rest of the shift. I want to think. I think best when I'm alone; when the wires sing me a song; when the air whispers to me out of the night; when the ghosts of dead radio-men, ghosts of operators who joked with death when the sea was reaching up mighty arms to drag them down, come back to talk to me. That's when I think best. These whispering ghosts tell me things. When I sit here all, asleep but my ears, things seem to come to me."
"Bah!" said Coles Masters, shivering, "you give me the creeps."
Drawing on his coat, he slipped out of the door, leaving Curlie slumped down in his chair already all asleep but his wonderful ears.
For a full hour he sat lumped up there. Seeming scarcely to breathe, stirring now and then as in sleep, he continued to listen and to dream.
Then suddenly he sat up with a start to exclaim out loud:
"Yes! That's it. Catch a thief with a thief. Catch a radiophone with a radiophone. A radiophone on wheels? That's a game two can play at. I'll do it! To-morrow night."
Snapping up a telephone receiver he murmured:
"Central 662."
A moment later he tuned an instrument and threw on a switch; "Weightman there?" he inquired. "Asleep? Wake him up. This is Curlie Carson. Yes, it's important. No, I'll tell you. Don't bother to wake him now—have him over at the Coffee Shop at five bells. The Coffee Shop. He'll know. Don't fail! It's important!"
He snapped down the receiver. Weightman was the radio mechanic assigned to his station. He would have unusual and important work to do that day.
He slumped down again in his chair but did not remain in that position many minutes.
From one of the loud speakers came a persistent whisper:
"Hello. Hello, Curlie, you there?" the girlish voice purred, the one that had whispered to him before. "I saw you to-night. That was dangerous. Why did you do it? Nearly got me in bad. Not quite. He almost got you."
The whisper ceased. Adjusting the campus coil Curlie sat at strained attention.
"I wish I knew you were listening," came again. "It's hard to be whispering into the night and not knowing you're being heard."
Curlie's fingers moved nervously over a tuner knob. He was sorely tempted to tune in and flash an answering "O.K.," if nothing more.
But, no, he drew his hands resolutely back. It was not wise. There was danger in it. This might be a trap. They might locate his secret tower room by that single O.K. Then disaster would follow.
The whisper came again: "You're clever, Curlie, awfully clever. The way you doubled over and turned yourself wrong side out was great! But please do be careful. It's big, Curlie, big!" again the whisper rose almost to speaking tone. "And he is a terribly determined man; wouldn't stop at anything."
The whisper ceased.
For a moment Curlie sat there lost in reflection, then he muttered savagely: "Oh! get off the air, you little whispering mystery, you're spoiling my technique. Your very terrible friend didn't send any message to-night and the one he sent before hasn't got us into any trouble. I've got to forget you and go after this moving fellow who sends 600."
As if in answer to his challenge the loud speaker to his right, the one tuned to 1200, began to rattle. Then, in the full, determined tones of a man accustomed to speak with authority there came:
"Calm night."
Three times, over five thousand miles of air, this great voice bellowed its message.
The silence which followed was ghostly. Cold perspiration stood out on Curlie's brow.
It was not necessary for him to calculate the location from which this message was sent. He knew that it had come from the hotel. And it had.
"Next thing," he told himself with a groan, "the International Service will be on my back for letting that lion roar. I ought to turn that over to the police; but I won't, not just yet."
As the clock in a distant college tower struck the hour of eleven the following night, a flat looking car with a powerful engine stole out into the road that ran by the Forest Preserve. It was the Humming Bird. Joe Marion was at the wheel. Curlie sat beside him.
On the back of the car was a miscellaneous pile of instruments all securely clamped down. Above there hung suspended between two vertical bars a square frame from which there gleamed the copper wires of a coil.
To catch a radiophone on wheels, Curlie had reasoned, one must mount his radio compass on wheels and pursue the offender. How well it would work, he could not even guess, but anything was better than sitting there helpless in the secret tower room listening to this person tearing up the air in a manner both unwise and unlawful.
So here they were, prepared to make the test.
"Of course," Curlie grumbled, "now we've got the trap set, the ghost may decide not to walk on this particular night. That'll be part of our rotten luck."
"Most ghosts, I'm told," chuckled Joe, "prefer to walk when there's someone about, for what's the good of a ghost-walk when there's no one to see. So our radio ghost may show up after all."
Curlie lapsed into silence. He was reviewing the events which led up to this thrilling moment. When the message on 600 came banging to his ears with great power on that first night, he had carefully platted the various locations of the person who had sent the messages. There had been some criss-crosses shown but, in the main, a line drawn through these points had formed an oblong which on the actual surface of the ground must have been some ten miles in length by six in width. One interesting point was that the first and last messages of that night had been sent at points not a quarter of a mile apart.
"Which goes to show," he reasoned, "that this fellow started from a certain point and made his way back to that point, just as a rabbit will do when chased by a hound. And those two points, the start and the finish, are close to the driveway into the million dollar estate. But of course that doesn't prove that the car came from there. Any person could drive to that point, begin operations, race over the square and return to the point."
Coles Masters had platted the points for the second night. A line drawn through these points made a figure quite irregular in form, which was, however, composed of rectangles.
"Which proves," he told himself, "that our friend, the lawless radio fan, drives an auto and not an airplane. An auto follows roads, which for the most part in this section form squares. He passed along two or three sides of these squares and this makes up the figure.
"There's only one thing in common in the two night journeys," he continued. "The start and finish are at almost exactly the same spot, near the entrance of that great estate."
He tried not to allow these facts to cause him to hold undue suspicion against the inhabitants of that mansion, but in this he experienced some difficulty.
"The thing for us to do," he had said to Joe, "is to run out there and back our car into an unfrequented, wooded road running into the forest preserve. We don't dare go too near the original starting place. If we're seen with this load of junk it will give us dead away. Thing is to be ready to move quickly when he lets loose with his message. Ought not to be more than a mile away, I'd say. He's got a powerful car. You can tell that by the fact that he sent a message at this corner, then raced over here, four miles distant, and got another message off in eleven minutes, which is quick action."
They backed into the grass-grown road of the Forest Preserve, then settled down in their places to wait.
The night was dark. There was no moon. Clouds were scurrying overhead. Only the rustle of leaves and the startled tweet-tweet of some bird surprised in his sleep disturbed the utter silence of the woods.
"Ghostly," whispered Joe, then he lapsed into silence.
With his slim legs stretched out before him, Curlie was soon asleep, all but his ears. Joe insisted that those ears never slept.
A half hour, an hour, an hour and a half dragged by. Joe had gone quite to sleep when Curlie suddenly dug him in the ribs and uttered the shrilly whispered warning:
"Hist! There she blows!"
A flashlight was snapped on. Curlie's fingers flew from instrument to instrument. The voice of the mysterious operator could be heard. Now rising, now falling, it filled the woods with echoes, yet the speaker was more than a mile away, as near as the boys could guess.
The words spoken by him were now of no importance. Location was everything.
"Same place," exclaimed Curlie, "exactly the same! You know where! Drive like mad!"
Instantly the car lurched forward. Coming out of the bush on two wheels, she sent a shower of gravel flying as she rushed madly down the road.
Quick as they were, the quarry had been quicker. As they rounded a corner, they caught the red gleam of a tail-light disappearing at the next turn.
"Heck!" said Curlie, then, "Let her out! Show him some speed."
The motor of the Humming Bird sang joyously. Fairly eating up the road, she took the corner with a wide swing. But when they looked down the long stretch of highway there was no red tail-light to be seen.
"Heck!" said Curlie again, "he's reached the next crossroad and turned the corner. Can't tell which way he went. It's a hard, dry gravel roadbed—won't tell a thing. Best we can do is to rattle along up there, then sit it out for another listen-in."
Disappointed but not disheartened, Curlie adjusted his instruments, then sat in breathless expectation.
He did not have long to wait, for again the voice in the loud speaker boomed out into the night.
"Huh," he grumbled a few seconds later, "he's got three miles lead on us. To the right. Quick, give her the gas."
Again they were off. For two miles and a half straight ahead they raced. The Humming Bird quivered like a leaf, instruments jingling in spite of their lashings.
"Make it all the way," said Curlie, as Joe slowed up. "He's not there. Given us the slip again."
Six times this program was gone through with. Not once in all that time did they catch sight of that tail-light.
"Some car he's got!" said Curlie when the farce was ended. "Bet he never even guessed he was being chased. But you wait; we'll get him yet."
When they were once more in the secret tower room Curlie plotted the route of the mysterious operator.
"Only significant thing about that," he commented, when he had finished, "is that he starts and finishes within a quarter of a mile of the same place as on the other two nights."
"And that place—" suggested Joe.
"Is near old J. Anson's driveway."
"Looks mighty suspicious to me," said Joe.
"Does to me, too; but, as I have said before, you can't raid a man's private castle on any such flimsy proof as that. You've got to have the goods.
"Tell you what," he said after a moment's silence, "sometimes our natural ears and eyes are better than all these instruments and wires. I'm going out there to-morrow night alone and on foot."
"Might work," said Joe thoughtfully, "but whatever you do, you must be careful."
"Careful?" said Curlie scornfully. "There are times when a fellow can't afford to be careful. This thing's getting serious." He glanced over a second message from the head office of his bureau. It was couched in no gentle terms. He was told that this intruder must be caught and that at once if he, Curlie Carson, wished to hold his position as chief of the secret tower room station.
Darkness found Curlie again on the edge of the Forest Preserve. This time he was on foot and alone. Apparently he carried nothing. His right hip pocket bulged, the handle of a flashlight protruded from his coat pocket, that was all.
He did not pause at the spot where they had hid their car the night before, but continued down the main road for a half mile farther. There he plunged into the forest, to continue his journey under cover. Eleven o'clock found him concealed in a clump of bushes in the woods that lay opposite the millionaire's driveway.
"If they come to-night," he whispered to himself, "I'll know whether they belong on that estate or not, and if they do I'll know who it is. Anyway, I'll know it's one of J. Anson's folks. And we'll see if it is a boy or the girl?"
The question interested him. He had no relish for getting a girl into trouble, especially that frank-faced, smiling girl he had seen on horseback.
"But the thing must stop," he told himself sternly, taking a tight grip on something in his hip pocket.
The night was clear. He could see objects quite plainly. The trees, the shrubbery, the stone pillars at the entrance to the driveway, stood out in bold relief. For a time he sat staring at them in silence. At last he closed his eyes and slept, as was his custom, all but his ears.
He was startled from this stupor by a sudden flash of light which made its presence felt even through his eyelids.
As his eyes flew open, he found himself staring at two glowing headlights. The next instant he had flattened himself in the grass.
"Wow! Hope they didn't see me!" he whispered.
A low-built, powerful car had come purring so quietly down the driveway of the estate that it had rounded a sudden curve before he had been aware of its presence.
Now, with undiminished speed, it turned to the right, entered the public highway and sped straight on.
As Curlie rose from the grass to stare after it, a low exclamation escaped his lips. Supported by high parallel bars, which were doubtless in turn supported by strong guy wires, were the aerials of a radiophone. The whole of this rose from, and rested upon, the body of the powerful roadster.
"And I missed them!" he exploded, then:
"No, I didn't. They're stopping."
It was true. Some eighty rods down the road the car had slowed up. He had no means of telling what they were doing but felt quite warranted in supposing they were sending a message.
Like a flash he was away through the brush. Speed and the utmost caution were necessary. If a limb cracked, if he fell over a hidden ditch, the quarry would be frightened away. He must see what was going on, see it with his own eyes.
Fairly holding his breath, he struggled forward. Now he had covered a third of the distance, now half, now three-quarters and now—
His lips parted in an unuttered groan. He leaped out of the bush. Something flashed in his hand. For a second that thing was pointed down the road where the speedy car had suddenly resumed its journey. Then his hand dropped to his side.
"No," he said slowly, "it won't do. Too risky. Guess they haven't seen me. If not, they will be back. And next time," he shook his fist at the vanishing car, "next time my fair lad or lady, you won't escape me."
Turning back, he again disappeared into the brush.
In the meantime things were happening in the air. Coles Masters, who was in charge of the secret tower room, had his hands full. He switched on this loud-speaker and lowered that one to a whisper. He tuned in this one and cut that one out.
"Whew!" he exclaimed, mopping his brow, "what a night! Wish Curlie were here."
To start the night's entertainment a boy had broken in on the radio concert. Then a crank had come shouting right into the middle of a speech by a politician. A few moments later a message on 1200 had fairly burst his ear-drums. The message had been short, composed of just three words:
"Dark, cloudy night."
"Regular thunderbolt behind that!" he muttered as he measured the location and found it to come from the city's great hotel. "Enough there to send it round the world. Shouldn't be surprised to get the echo of it in a few seconds myself. The nerve of the man!"
In strange contrast to this was the whisper which followed within five minutes. It was sent on 200.
"Hello, Curlie. Did you get that? Terrible, wasn't it?" came the whisper. "But, Curlie, I don't think you need to bother about him. He's leaving in a day or two. He's going, far, far away. He's going north; out of your territory entirely. I know you'd love to catch him, Curlie, but it would be dangerous, awfully dangerous! So don't you try, for he is going far, far away."
Coles Masters' fingers had worked rapidly during this whispered message. Not only had he measured the distance and taken the location, but he had written down the message word for word.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" he muttered. "That was a girl, a young girl and a pretty one too, or I miss my guess. Anyway she has an interesting whisper. She's at that same hotel and seems to know Curlie. She must have broken in on my 1200 friend. So he's going north? Can't go any too soon for me. Mighty queer case. Have to turn it over to Curlie. It's all Greek to me."
"Hello, there! What—"
He wheeled about to snap a button. A message was being shouted out on 600.
"That's the chap Curlie's after. So he hasn't got him yet? Well, here's hoping he hurries." His pencil began rapidly writing the message.
Meanwhile Curlie in his woods retreat had moved silently over to the other side of the driveway.
"Probably will come back the other way," he concluded.
He did not remain behind the fence this time but threw himself into the shallow depths of a dry ravine. He remained keenly alert. His eyes were constantly on the road, which lay like a brown ribbon a full mile straight before him.
He was thinking of his various cases. Equal in interest to the one which he was now hunting down was that big hotel case. He was thinking of the girl. Why had she whispered those messages to him? Was she merely a tool of the man behind the powerful radio machine? Was she simply leading him on? He could not feel that she was. Somehow her whisper had an accent of genuine interest in it.
"Wonder what she's like," he asked himself. Then, with a smile playing about his lips, he tried to guess.
"Small, very active, has dark brown hair and snappy black eyes." After a moment's thought he chuckled: "Probably really a heavy blonde; something like two hundred pounds. You can't tell anything by a voice. You—"
Suddenly he braced himself up on his elbows. His keen ears had caught a distant purring sound. Two yellow balls of fire were rapidly approaching—the headlights of a fast-moving automobile.
"He comes! Now for it!" He prepared to spring.
In an amazingly short time the car was all but upon him. Leaping to his feet, he let out a wild whoop and, brandishing his automatic threateningly, stood squarely in the middle of the road.
His heart beat wildly. There could be no mistake. He saw the wires and rods swaying above the car.
For a second the car slowed up, then, with a snort it leaped right at him. Nimble as he was, he barely escaped being run down.
As the car flashed past him, he wheeled about and almost instantly his automatic barked three times. Simultaneous with the last shot there came a louder explosion.
"Tire! Got you," he muttered.
Instantly the car swerved to the side of the road. A tire had gone flat. The car had skidded.
The rods which carried the aerials caught in a tree top. The car, jerked back like a mad horse caught by a lariat, reared up on its hind wheels, threatened to turn turtle, then crashed over on its side with its engine still racing wildly.
Sudden as had been the catastrophe, it had not been too quick for the driver. Just as the car crashed over, Curlie caught sight of a figure in long linen duster and with closely wrapped head, dashing up the bank, over the fence and into the brush.
"Go it," he exclaimed, making no attempt to catch the fugitive, "you know the country better than I do. I'd never catch you in that labyrinth of trees. Besides, I don't need to. Your equipment is pretty well smashed up and you've left me enough evidence to make out a beautiful case."
Walking over to the machine, he reached over and shut off the engine. After that, in a very leisurely manner he collected various odds and ends from the radiophone equipment. Having stuffed these into his pockets, he wrenched the back number plate from the machine and tucked it under his arm.
"Guess that's enough," he murmured. "Now I can take my own time in springing the thing. He probably thinks I was a hold-up man, but even if he guessed the truth he couldn't escape me and couldn't get his equipment back in shape short of a week, so that's that."
Turning, he started toward the nearest interurban line a good five miles away.
When he had walked a mile, he stopped suddenly in his track.
"Say!" he exclaimed. "Was that the son or the daughter? All muffled up that way I couldn't tell."
"Ho, well," he resumed his march, "that'll come out in time. Only I hope it wasn't the girl. I sort of liked her looks."
Having boarded an interurban car, Curlie slept his way into the city. Once there he hurried over to the secret tower room, where the news of his night's adventure was received with great joy.
"So you got him!" exclaimed Coles Masters. "Smashed him up right? Bully for you. That's great!" He slapped Curlie on the back.
Dropping into his chair, Curlie dictated a message by secret wire to headquarters in New York. The message stated in modest, concise terms that the nuisance on 600 in the secret tower region was at an end; that the station had been effectively broken up and that the offender would no doubt soon be in the hands of the law.
A half hour later he received a highly commendatory message, congratulating him on his achievement and bidding him keep up the good work.
After glancing over Coles' reports for the evening and making mental notes from them, Curlie prepared to seek his bed and indulge in a good, long sleep, the first in several days.
"There isn't a bit of hurry in going after that rich young fellow or girl, if it is a girl," he said to Coles. "That'll keep. We've got plenty of proof." He jerked a thumb toward the corner where was a box into which he had tossed the various small parts of a sending set and the number plate of the car. "All we need to do now is to saunter out there some fine morning and have a heart-to-heart talk with J. Anson himself."
Had Curlie but known it, there was to be a great deal more than that to it. There was to be an adventure in it for him such as he had never before experienced, an adventure which was destined to take him thousands of miles from the secret tower room and which was to throw him into such dangers as would cause the bravest to shrink back in terror.
Since he was blissfully ignorant of all this he was also blissfully happy in the consciousness of having achieved success in the thing he had undertaken.
"This," he laughed as he said it, "is going to bring me face to face with one of America's greatest millionaires. It's like going before a king in some ways. In others I fancy it's more like meeting a lion in the street. Anyway, I've always wanted to meet a king, a lion and a millionaire and here's where I meet one of them. Ever meet one?" He turned to Coles.
"Meet which?" Coles smiled. "King, lion or millionaire?"
"Millionaire."
"No, can't say that I have, though I doubt if we'd either of us recognize one if we should meet him on the street. Someone has said that humanity is everywhere much the same and I fancy that's true even of very rich folks. They may try to bluff you with their power but if they find they can't do that, I guess they'll turn out to have the same dreams, the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows as the rest of us."
"Do you think so?" said Curlie thoughtfully. "I hope that's true. It would be a good thing for the world if it were true and if all the people in the world knew it.
"Well, good night." He drew on his cap. "See you in about sixteen hours. Guess it'll take me that long to catch up my sleep. After that I'm going after that fellow who's breaking in on 1200, that fellow over at the hotel with the whispering friend, or enemy, whichever she may turn out to be."
Had he but known it, it was to be many days before he was to go after that offender on the 1200 meter wave lengths and then it was to be in ways of which he had not yet dreamed. And so he slept.
When he awoke after fourteen hours of refreshing sleep, it was to hear the newsies crying their evening papers. For some time he lay there listening to their shrill shouts and attempting to catch what they were saying.
"Ex-tree! All about—" He could get that far, probably because he had heard it so often before, but no further could he go. The remainder was a jumble of meaningless sounds.
Suddenly, as he listened, a shrill urchin shouted the words out directly beneath his very window:
"Wul—ex-tree! All about the mur-der-ed millionaire's son!"
"Here! Here!" exclaimed Curlie, thrusting his head out of the window. "What millionaire's son? Give me one of those papers." He tossed the boy a nickel and received a tightly wrapped paper. Sent through the window as if shot from a catapult, it landed with a bump on the floor.
His hand trembled so he could scarcely unroll the paper. His head whirled.
"Murdered?" he said to himself. "Millionaire's son murdered? Can it be Vincent Ardmore? Did a bullet from my automatic, glancing from the wheel, inflict a mortal wound?"
He saw himself behind prison bars in murderer's row.
Cold perspiration stood out on his brow as he read in staring headlines:
"J. ANSON ARDMORE'S SON BELIEVED MURDERED."
"Believed?" He caught at that single word as a camel in a desert snaps at a straw. So they were not sure.
Hastily he read the column through, then dropped limply into a chair.
"Oh! What a shock!" he breathed.
He was vastly relieved. The article stated that the car belonging to the millionaire's son had been found by a laborer employed on the estate as he came to his work very early in the morning. The car, which was badly smashed up, bore the mark of a bullet in a rear tire and one in the lower part of the body. It was believed that the young man, being pursued by bandits and having attempted to escape, had had his car riddled by bullets and had been thrown into the ditch.
"There are grave reasons for supposing," the article went on to state, "since no trace of the young man has yet been found, that he has been either kidnapped for ransom or, having been killed by a stray bullet, has been buried somewhere in the forest preserve.
"Bands of armed men are searching the woods and every available police officer and detective has been put on the case. A reward of $5,000 has been offered by the father for any information which may lead to the discovery of the whereabouts of his son."
"Whew!" exclaimed Curlie, mopping his brow. "What a rumpus!"
Suddenly he sat up straight. "Doesn't say one word about that wireless apparatus in the car. How about that?"
He sat with wrinkled brow for a moment.
"Ah!" he slapped his knee, "I have it! The laborer of course came directly to his master. The shrewd old millionaire, guessing that his son had been breaking radio laws, had all of that equipment removed before the public was let in on the deal. He bribed the laborer to secrecy on that point and there you are."
Again his brow wrinkled. "Five thousand dollars!" he whispered. "That's a lot of money. I could supply some valuable information which might entitle me to the five thousand. Question is, do I want to risk it? The thing that's happened is about this, far as I can figure it out: Our young amateur radio friend, when his auto turned turtle, hiked off into the woods. For a time he stayed there. Then, when nothing happened for some time, he came sneaking back. When he found I'd taken his number plate and some parts of his radio equipment, he guessed right away that I was connected with the radio secret service. He's hiding right now, unless I miss my guess, with some of his rich young friends.
"I might tell all that and I might get the reward, but supposing something really had happened? Oh, boy, what a mess!
"And yet," he mused, after a moment, "I've done nothing to be ashamed of. I'm an officer of the law. I did what I did because a fellow was resisting arrest. Ho, well, I'll just let things stand and simmer. Something may come to the top yet."
It was a tense situation for Curlie. He spent an uneasy night and that in spite of the fact that the air was particularly free from trouble.
"Hang it all," he exclaimed once as, dashing the receiver from his head, he sprang from his chair to pace the floor of the secret tower room, "I'd welcome something in the line of trouble. This eternal thinking—thinking—thinking, drives me wild. What to do, that's the question. Suppose I'd ought to go out and tell Ardmore what I know. If a millionaire father's like any other father, I guess he's pretty well wrought up by now. But if I go, and if I tell him the whole truth, I'm as sure as I am of anything that it will get me into a mess and that's the sort of thing I don't like."
Glancing down, his eye was caught by Coles' report of the night before. Dropping once more into his chair, he began going through the messages written there. When he came to the one sent out by the boy whose car he had wrecked, he pondered over it for a long time.
"'Island, airplane, map, much gold; airplane, map, island, gold,'" he repeated. "What does one make out of that? It might be that this boy has been planning a secret voyage with some other chap. Certainly sounds like it. Other messages were the same kind. By Jove! Perhaps he's skipped out and gone on that trip and is not hiding out at all! Let's see."
Taking down a file he drew forth a bunch of message records clipped together. They were those sent by the moving operator on 600, the millionaire's son.
A long time he studied over these.
"Seems to sort of prove my theory," he muttered once. "Can't be sure though."
Then, suddenly he sat up straight. "That's the idea." He slapped his knee. "The very thing! Why didn't I think of that before? If he doesn't shew up by morning I'll do it. I'll just take these records over to Ardmore and suggest to him that they may shed some light on the subject. Don't need to tell him I was in on the wrecking of the car at all. That wouldn't help any. These records might. And if I can help to find him and bring him back, then, oh, boy! Oh you baby fortune! Five thousand big, red, round dollars!"
He sat back trying to measure the meaning of the possession of five thousand dollars which did not have to be spent for bed, board and clothing. At last he gave it up in despair.
The morning papers assured the interested city that the son of their money king was still missing. To make sure that this report was correct, Curlie called up the mansion and inquired about it. When he learned that it was indeed true, he requested the servant who answered the telephone to inform the millionaire that a representative of the Secret Service of the Air would arrive at his residence with copies of certain radiophone messages sent out by his son previous to his mysterious disappearance, which might shed some light on the subject.
Shortly after that he leaped into the driver's seat on the Humming Bird and motored away to the west.
Arrived at the Forest Preserve, he backed the car into the deserted roadway in the forest at the very spot where he and Joe had concealed themselves the night of the race.
"Have to leave you here, old thing," he whispered. "If a fellow were to pull up that driveway in such a rakish craft as you are, they might think him crazy and throw him out.
"Well here goes," he whispered to himself, as, having rounded the last clump of decorative shrubbery, he came in sight of the red stone mansion.
"Whew! What a stunner!" whispered Curlie to himself.
The sun was tipping the parapets of that mansion with gold; the dew sparkled on the perfectly kept green. It was indeed a beautiful picture.
Tiptoeing up the steps, he was about to lift the heavy bronze knocker when a porter opened the door and motioned him to enter.
"Are you the man?" he asked in a low tone.
"I'm the boy who wired about the messages."
"Step right this way. He's waiting."
Curlie's heart beat fast. Was he to be ushered at once into the august presence of the magnate? He had pictured to himself hours of waiting, interviews by private secretaries and all that.
And yet here he was. In a large room furnished in rich mahogany, seemingly the rich man's home office, he was being greeted by a stout, broad-shouldered, brisk and healthy-looking man who was assuring him that he was speaking to J. Anson Ardmore himself and inviting him to sit down.
With his head in a whirl, he managed to get himself into a chair. And all this while he was telling himself things; things like this: "Curlie, old boy, this is going to be strenuous. This man is powerful, magnetic, almost hypnotizing. He will find out as much as he can from you. He will tell as little as is necessary to attain his end. To him all life is a game, a game in which he conceals much and discovers all that lies in his opponent's hand. He probably knows you have the goods on his son. Perhaps he is merely playing a game about this vanishing son. He may know where he is all the time. If so, he'll want to know what you know, and what you are going to do. You must be wise—wise as a serpent."
"Well?" the magnate spoke in a brisk way. "My butler tells me you have some messages."
"Yes, sir."
"Sent by my missing son?"
"Yes, sir."
"And may I ask," the magnate's face was a mask, not a muscle moved, "how you happened to be in possession of these messages?"
Curlie could hear his own heart beat, but he held his ground. "Since I am attached to the government radiophone staff, it is my duty to catch and record all unfair and illegally sent messages, to record them as evidence and for future reference."
Curlie fancied he saw the man start. The words that followed were spoken still in a cold, collected tone.
"These messages you say were unfair?"
"Unfair and illegally sent."
"How illegal?"
"They were sent with exceedingly high power and on 600 meter wave lengths. Such high power is unlawful for all amateurs and the use of 600 is granted to ships and ship stations alone.
"Ah!"
For a second the man appeared to reflect. Then suddenly:
"We are wasting time. My son has mysteriously disappeared. I have reason to fear foul play. Let me assure you that I know nothing about his whereabouts and, previous to this moment, that I have known nothing regarding these illegally sent messages."
"But—" began Curlie.
"You doubt my word," his voice grew stern and hard as he read the incredulity in Curlie's eyes. "Young man," he fairly thundered, "fix this in your mind: No man ever has risen or ever will rise to my present position through treachery or deceit. When I say a thing is so, by thunder it is so!"
He struck his desk a terrific blow.
"But a—"
Curlie caught himself just in time. He had been about to reveal the fact that he was aware of the presence of the wireless set in the auto the night the millionaire's son disappeared.
"I can't see just how your messages could aid us in finding my son." The magnate spoke more calmly. "However, all things are possible. May I see the copies?"
"Of course," said Curlie, hesitatingly, "this is a private matter. Few persons know of our service. It is the desire of the government that they should not know. These are not for publication. Do you understand that?"
"You have my word."
Curlie passed the sheath of papers over the desk.
Slowly, one by one, the great man read them. His movement was not hurried. He digested every word. Like many another great man he had formed the habit of gathering, as far as possible, the full meaning of any set of facts by his own careful research, before allowing his opinion to be influenced by others.
He had gone half through the pack when a door over at the right opened and a girl, dressed in some filmy stuff which brought out the smoothness of her neck and arms and the beauty of her complexion, entered the room.
Curlie caught his breath. It was the girl he had seen on the horse that morning, the magnate's daughter.
She had advanced halfway to her father's desk before she became aware of Curlie's presence. Then she started back with a stammered: "I—I beg your pardon."
"It's all right." The first smile Curlie had seen on the great man's face now curved about his mouth. "You may remain. This is no secret chamber."
"Fa—father," she faltered, gripping at her throat, "does he know—know anything—about—about Vincent?"
"I can't tell yet. I am going over the messages. Please be seated."
The girl sank into a deep leather-cushioned chair. Without looking at her Curlie was aware of the fact that she was studying him, perhaps trying to make up her mind where she had seen him before. This made him exceedingly uncomfortable. He was greatly relieved when at last the magnate spoke.
"Gladys," he addressed the girl, "did you say you found some sort of map in Vincent's room?"
"Oh, yes," she sprang to her feet. "A photograph of a very strange looking map and also one of some queer foreign writing."
"Will you run and get those photographs?"
"Yes, father."
"It's strange," the older man mused after she had gone. "I don't understand it at all. These messages, they are—"
"If you please—" Curlie broke in.
"Wait!" commanded the other, holding up his hand for silence. "Let us have no opinions before all of the evidence is in. That map may aid us in forming correct conclusions."