CHAPTER XVIII
A PRISONER
Joe at first thought he had to deal with a dangerous crank, for the old man had a queer manner. The circus performer was about to call for some of the sturdy canvasmen to put him out, but the visitor seemed to read what was in the lad’s mind, for he quickly said:
“Now don’t be rash, young man. I came here at great personal inconvenience to do you a favor, so don’t turn me away. I am not asking for any of your money. I have more than I need, which may seem strange when I tell you I am an inventor.”
“Yes, inventors don’t usually become millionaires,” said Joe, who decided to listen to what the man had to say.
“I did not make my fortune by an invention,” the man went on. “It was left to me, and I have spent many thousands in perfecting several machines. I am much interested in aviation.”
The man’s language was good, and he talked rationally. And as Joe looked more closely at him he saw that his clothing was of fine quality, though carelessly worn. The man’s cuffs showed diamond-studded links, and his watch chain was of heavy gold.
“Perhaps I misjudged him,” thought the youth. “He may be rich and eccentric, and may have discovered something worth while. If he could tell me some way of getting a more powerful storage battery and, at the same time, of less weight, it might be a good thing for the Bat. I’ll hear what he has to say.”
“I don’t want any one to overhear what we say,” the visitor went on.
“They won’t,” said Joe. “But, if you like, you can come into my dressing room.”
“I’d rather, if you will, have you come to my shop,” the inventor replied. “I have fitted up a workroom in my house, and I do my tinkering there. It’s safer, too, for several persons have tried to steal my inventions. But now I keep them locked up. Will you come? It isn’t far.”
“What is the nature of your invention that applies to my flying machine?” Joe asked. “And do you think you can tell me how to improve it?”
“I’m sure I can,” said the man eagerly. “I have watched you fly. I was in Rockport at the aviation meet.”
“Oh, then you know something of heavier-than-air machines?” asked Joe.
“I do. And I have read much about you. I was interested from the first in your Bat, as you call it, and I made up my mind that I would see you as soon as I could. Business called me away from Rockport before I could speak to you, but I knew the circus was coming here, so I waited. I just witnessed your flight in the tent.”
Joe was more and more favorably impressed by the man, and he decided to humor him to the extent of going to his house with him.
“Do you know anything about storage batteries and small motors?” asked Joe. “I depend on them in my machine, Mr.——?”
He paused questioningly.
“Clark is my name—Samuel Clark,” the man said. “I have lived here all my life. I have made a special study of storage battery motors. That is what I want to talk to you about, and show you.”
This suited Joe, for he had a hazy plan for the next year of building a larger flying machine that would carry two. He hoped to induce Helen to fly with him, for that would make a big hit, he was sure.
“All right, Mr. Clark,” Joe said, “I’ll come with you. But I have to be back here for the evening performance.”
“Oh, yes, I understand that,” was the answer. “My place is not far away. I am sorry I haven’t an automobile or a carriage, but I am rather old-fashioned, and prefer to walk.”
“I like walking myself,” Joe admitted. “But with my motor-cycle and my flying machine I don’t get much of it, so I’ll be glad of a little exercise with you.”
Joe and the inventor left the circus grounds, and on the way to Mr. Clark’s house the man talked intelligently about electric energy as embodied in motors and storage batteries.
“I guess maybe he may have invented something worth while,” mused Joe, “and he’s eccentric enough not to try to market it. If I can get a battery powerful enough to make a double machine go up, it may be a great thing.”
One thing struck Joe as being rather queer, but he did not give it much thought until afterward, when it was almost too late: So many persons who passed him and Mr. Clark on the street looked at the latter in a very odd way. Several times persons seemed to be talking about Mr. Clark as he passed them. Joe ascertained this by looking back, and twice he saw men pointing or nodding their heads in the direction of his companion.
“I guess it’s because he’s a bit odd, that’s all,” thought Joe.
And another odd thing was that though Mr. Clark said he had lived in the place all his life he neither bowed nor spoke to any one he passed.
“Another eccentricity,” decided the lad. He was so taken up with his new idea of building a bigger machine, and flying about the circus tent with Helen, that he gave no more heed to the two queer things he had noticed.
“You have seen my machine work,” remarked Joe, to his companion. “Do you think it possible to make one twice as large and that would carry two persons, and yet have the storage battery not twice as heavy in proportion?”
“I’m sure it can be done!” exclaimed Mr. Clark eagerly. “In fact, my battery now, though not perfected, would do that work. But I am going to get it even lighter yet, and I am working on another point that will be more valuable. It is the doing away with the sulphuric acid in storage batteries. I am going to make a dry one.”
“That would be an invention!” cried Joe, who could see the value in that possibility. “That would be just the thing for submarines. For now there is danger that the storage battery may become flooded with sea water. Then chlorine gas is generated, and that is fatal to the crew.”
“My idea exactly!” exclaimed the inventor, and then he plunged into a mass of technical details, rather beyond Joe.
“Here’s my place,” said the aged man some time later. The walk had been a long one, but Joe had enjoyed the exercise.
They had come to a less thickly settled part of the city. Mr. Clark turned into a patch that led toward a large but shabby and gloomy-looking house. All around it was a high hedge, unkempt and untrimmed. The gate was half off the hinges, and the whole place spelled decay. For an instant Joe held back.
“After all, wasn’t my first impression right and isn’t this man a dangerous crank?” Joe asked himself. “I wonder if I hadn’t better pull out of this right now.”
“I don’t waste money keeping my place up,” said the old man. “This is the old homestead, but it is going to be sold soon to a development company which wants the land. The house is to be torn down, so it isn’t worth while to spend money on it. It isn’t so bad inside.”
So that accounted for the looks. Joe kept on. With a key which squeaked rustily in the lock the old man opened the front door. The place smelled musty, as though it was seldom opened, and there did not seem to be any one but themselves in the house. The footfalls of Joe and his companion echoed through the silent rooms.
“I live alone,” explained the man, in answer to Joe’s look of inquiry. “I don’t wish to be bothered with people, and I have no near relatives. I can work better alone.” This feeling was natural enough in an inventor, the lad felt.
“Now for my workshop,” the old man said. “I’ll let you judge of some of my inventions. Come up this way. And look out, for some of the steps have rotted away.”
He started toward a big staircase and the boy followed. One did need to mind one’s step, for there were big holes in the stairs, and some, Joe thought, seemed to have been made with an axe, as if vandals had started to demolish the old building.
“Right in here,” went on Mr. Clark, unlocking the door of a room on the second floor.
He stood aside to let Joe enter first, and our hero unthinkingly did so. He saw before him a queer mass of machinery, some of which he recognized as electrical. In one corner was a big storage battery, but at a glance Joe knew it was too large for his machine. And in another corner was something that rather surprised him.
It was a flying machine, not unlike his own in so far as it had metal wings. But the boy was sure it would never go up. It was too big and clumsy.
He turned to speak to the inventor, and ask about the new light-weight storage battery, when he saw the door being pulled shut, with Mr. Clark on the other side. There was a malicious grin on the old man’s face, and a queer glint in his eyes. He seemed to have changed in an instant.
Joe sprang forward to prevent the door’s closing—for he at once suspected a trap—but he was too late. The lock clicked, and with a laugh that had in it the sound of madness the old man cried:
“Now I’ve got you just where I want you! You won’t steal any more of my inventions!”