The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “What are you doing?” Tom again asked. He looked around to see where Koku, the giant, was, and beheld the big man walking slowly toward him, for Ned had mentioned what had taken place.

  “What right have you to question my actions?” asked the man, and there was in his tones a certain authority that made Tom wonder.

  “Every right,” retorted our hero. “That is my airship, at which you have been spying, and this is where I live.”

  “Oh, it is; eh?” asked the man calmly. “And that’s your airship, too?”

  “I invented it, and built the most of it myself. If you are interested in such things, and can assure me that you have no spying methods in view, I can show you—”

  “Have you other airships?” interrupted the man quickly.

  “Yes, several,” answered Tom. “But I can’t understand why you should be spying on me. If you don’t care to accept my offer, like a gentleman, tell me who you are, and what your object is, I will have my assistant remove you. You are on private property, as this street is not a public one, being cut through by my father. I’ll have Koku remove you by force, if you won’t go peaceably, and I think you’ll agree with me that Koku can do it. Here Koku,” he called sharply, and the big man advanced quickly.

  “I wouldn’t do anything rash, if I were you,” said the man quietly. “As for this being private property, that doesn’t concern me. You’re Tom Swift, aren’t you; and you have several airships?”

  “Yes, but what right have you to—”

  “Every right!” interrupted the man, throwing back the lapel of his coat, and showing a badge. “I’m Special Agent William Whitford, of the United States Customs force, and I’d like to ask you a few questions, Tom Swift.” He looked our hero full in the face.

  “Customs department!” gasped Tom. “You want to ask me some questions?”

  “That’s it,” went on the man, in a business-like voice.

  “What about?”

  “Smuggling by airship from Canada!”

  “What!” cried Tom. “Do you mean to say you suspect me of being implicated in—”

  “Now go easy,” advised the man calmly. “I didn’t say anything, except that I wanted to question you. If you’d like me to do it out here, why I can. But as someone might hear us—”

  “Come inside,” said Tom quietly, though his heart was beating in a tumult. “You may go, Koku, but stay within call,” he added significantly. “Come on, Ned,” and he motioned to his chum who was approaching. “This man is a custom officer and not a spy or a detective, as we thought.”

  “Oh, yes, I am a sort of a detective,” corrected Mr. Whitford. “And I’m a spy, too, in a way, for I’ve been spying on you, and some other parties in town. But you may be able to explain everything,” he added, as he took a seat in the library between Ned and Tom. “I only know I was sent here to do certain work, and I’m going to do it. I wanted to make some observations before you saw me, but I wasn’t quite quick enough.”

  “Would you mind telling me what you want to know?” asked Tom, a bit impatiently. “You mentioned smuggling, and—”

  “Smuggling!” interrupted Ned.

  “Yes, over from Canada. Maybe you have seen something in the papers about our department thinking airships were used at night to slip the goods over the border.”

  “We saw it!” cried Tom eagerly. “But how does that concern me?”

  “I’ll come to that, presently,” replied Mr. Whitford. “In the first place, we have been roundly laughed at in some papers for proposing such a theory. And yet it isn’t so wild as it sounds. In fact, after seeing your airship, Tom Swift, I’m convinced—”

  “That I’ve been smuggling?” asked Tom with a laugh.

  “Not at all. As you have read, we confiscated some smuggled goods the other day, and among them was a scrap of paper with the words Shopton, New York, on it.”

  “Was it a letter from someone here, or to someone here?” asked Ned. “The papers intimated so.”

  “No. they only guessed at that part of it. It was just a scrap of paper, evidently torn from a letter, and it only had those three words on it. Naturally we agents thought we could get a clue here. We imagined, or at least I did, for I was sent to work up this end, that perhaps the airships for the smugglers were made here. I made inquiries, and found that you, Tom Swift, and one other, Andy Foger, had made, or owned, airships in Shopton.”

  “I came here, but I soon exhausted the possibility of Andy Foger making practical airships. Besides he isn’t at home here any more, and he has no facilities for constructing the craft as you have. So I came to look at your place, and I must say that it looks a bit suspicious, Mr. Swift. Though, of course, as I said,” he added with a smile, “you may be able to explain everything.”

  “I think I can convince you that I had no part in the smuggling,” spoke Tom, laughing. “I never sell my airships. If you like you may talk with my father, the housekeeper, and others who can testify that since my return from taking moving pictures, I have not been out of town, and the smuggling has been going on only a little while.”

  “That is true,” assented the custom officer. “I shall be glad to listen to any evidence you may offer. This is a very baffling case. The government is losing thousands of dollars every month, and we can’t seem to stop the smugglers, or get much of a clue to them. This one is the best we have had so far.”

  It did not take Tom many hours to prove to the satisfaction of Mr. Whitford that none of our hero’s airships had taken any part in cheating Uncle Sam out of custom duties.

  “Well, I don’t know what to make of it,” said the government agent, with a disappointed air, as he left the office of the Shopton chief of police, who, with others, at Tom’s request, had testified in his favor. “This looked like a good clue, and now it’s knocked into a cocked hat. There’s no use bothering that Foger fellow,” he went on, “for he has but one airship, I understand.”

  “And that’s not much good.” put in Ned. “I guess it’s partly wrecked, and Andy has kept it out in the barn since he moved away.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll be leaving town then,” went on the agent. “I can’t get any more clues here, and there may be some new ones found on the Canadian border where my colleagues are trying to catch the rascals. I’m sorry I bothered you, Tom Swift. You certainly have a fine lot of airships,” he added, for he had been taken through the shop, and shown the latest, noiseless model. “A fine lot. I don’t believe the smugglers, if they use them, have any better.”

  “Nor as good!” exclaimed Ned. “Tom’s can’t be beat.”

  “It’s too late for our noiseless trial now,” remarked Tom, after the agent had gone. “Let’s put her back in the shed, and then I’ll take you down street, and treat you to some ice cream, Ned. It’s getting quite summery now.”

  As the boys were coming out of the drug store, where they had eaten their ice cream in the form of sundaes, Ned uttered a cry of surprise at the sight of a man approaching them.

  “It’s Mr. Dillon, the carpenter whom we saw in the Foger house, Tom!” exclaimed his chum. “This is the first chance I’ve had to talk to him. I’m going to ask him what sort of repairs he’s making inside the old mansion.” Ned was soon in conversation with him.

  “Yes, I’m working at the Foger house,” admitted the carpenter, who had done some work for Ned’s father. “Mighty queer repairs, too. Something I never did before. If Andy wasn’t there to tell me what he wanted done I wouldn’t know what to do.”

  “Is Andy there yet?” asked Tom quickly.

  “Yes, he’s staying in the old house. All alone too, except now and then, he has a chum stay there nights with him. They get their own meals. I bring the stuff in, as Andy says he’s getting up a surprise and doesn’t want any of the boys to see him, or ask questions. But they are sure queer repairs I’m doing,” and the carpenter scratched his head reflectively.

  “What are you doing?” asked Ned boldly.

 
“Fixing up Andy’s old airship that was once busted,” was the unexpected answer, “and after I get that done, if I ever do, he wants me to make a platform for it on the roof of the house, where he can start it swooping through the air. Mighty queer repairs, I call ’em. Well, good evening, boys,” and the carpenter passed on.

  CHAPTER IV

  SEARCHING FOR SMUGGLERS

  “Well, of all things!”

  “Who in the world would think such a thing?”

  “Andy going to start out with his airship again!”

  “And going to sail it off the roof of his house!”

  These were the alternate expressions that came from Tom and Ned, as they stood gazing at each other after the startling information given them by Mr. Dillon, the carpenter.

  “Do you really think he means it?” asked Tom, after a pause, during which they watched the retreating figure of the carpenter. “Maybe he was fooling us.”

  “No, Mr. Dillon seldom jokes,” replied Ned, “and when he does, you can always tell. He goes to our church, and I know he wouldn’t deliberately tell an untruth. Oh. Andy’s up to some game all right.”

  “I thought he must be hanging around here the way he has been, instead of being home. But I admit I may have been wrong about the police being after him. If he’d done something wrong, he would hardly hire a man to work on the house while he was hiding in it. I guess he just wants to keep out of the way of everybody but his own particular cronies. But I wonder what he is up to, anyhow; getting his airship in shape again?”

  “Give it up, unless there’s an aero meet on somewhere soon,” replied Ned. “Maybe he’s going to try a race again.”

  Tom shook his head.

  “I’d have heard about any aviation meets, if there were any scheduled,” he replied. “I belong to the national association, and they send out circulars whenever there are to be races. None are on for this season. No, Andy has some other game.”

  “Well, I don’t know that it concerns us,” spoke Ned.

  “Not as long as he doesn’t bother me,” answered the young inventor. “Well, Ned, I suppose you’ll be over in the morning and help me try out the noiseless airship?”

  “Sure thing. Say, it was queer, about that government agent, wasn’t it? suspecting you of supplying airships to the smugglers?”

  “Rather odd,” agreed Tom. “He might much better suspect Andy Foger.”

  “That’s so, and now that we know Andy is rebuilding his old airship, maybe we’d better tell him.”

  “Tell who?”

  “That government agent. Tell him he’s wrong in thinking that Andy is out of the game. We might send him word that we just learned that Andy is getting active again. He has as much right to suspect and question him, as he had you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” began Tom slowly. He was not a vindicative youth, nor, for that matter, was Ned. And Tom would not go out of his way to give information about an enemy, when it was not certain that the said enemy meant anything wrong. “I don’t believe there’s anything in it,” finished our hero. “Andy may have a lot of time on his hands, and, for want of something better to do, he’s fixing up his aeroplane.”

  “Look!” suddenly exclaimed Ned. “There’s that agent now! He’s going to the depot to get a train, I guess,” and he pointed to the government man, who had so lately interviewed Tom. “I’m going to speak to him!” impulsively declared Ned.

  “I wouldn’t,” objected Tom, but his chum had already hastened on ahead, and soon was seen talking excitedly to Mr. Whitford. Tom sauntered up in time to hear the close of the conversation.

  “I’m much obliged to you for your information,” said the custom officer, “but I’m afraid, just as you say your chum felt about it, that there’s nothing in it. This Foger chap may have been bad in the past, but I hardly think he’s in with the smugglers. What I’m looking for is not a lad who has one airship, but someone who is making a lot of them, and supplying the men who are running goods over the border. That’s the sort of game I’m after, and if this Andy Foger only has one aeroplane I hardly think he can be very dangerous.”

  “Well, perhaps not,” admitted Ned. “But I thought I’d tell you.”

  “And I’m glad you did. If you hear anything more. I’ll be glad to have you let me know. Here’s my card,” and thanking the boys for their interest Mr. Whitford passed on.

  Tom and Ned gave the noiseless airship a test the next day. The craft, which was the stanch Falcon, remodeled, was run out of the shed, Koku the giant helping, while Mr. Swift stood looking on, an interested spectator of what his son was about to do. Eradicate, the old colored man, who was driving his mule Boomerang, hitched to a wagon in which he was carting away some refuse that had been raked up in the garden, halted his outfit nearby.

  “I say, Massa Tom!” he called, as the young inventor passed near him, in making a tour of the ship.

  “Well, Rad, what is it?”

  “Doan’t yo’-all want fo’ ma an’ Boomerang t’ gib yo’-all a tow? Mebby dat new-fangled contraption yo’-all has done put on yo’ ship won’t wuk, an’ mebby I’d better stick around t’ pull yo’-all home.”

  “No, Rad, I guess it will work all right. If it doesn’t, and we get stuck out a mile or two, I’ll send you a wireless message.”

  “Doan’t do dat!” begged the colored man. “I neber could read dem wireless letters anyhow. Jest gib a shout, an’ me an’ Boomerang will come a-runnin’.”

  “All right, Rad, I will. Now, Ned, is everything in shape?”

  “I think so, Tom.”

  “Koku, just put a little more wind in those tires. But don’t pump as hard as you did the other day,” Tom cautioned.

  “What happened then?” asked Ned.

  “Oh, Koku forgot that he had so much muscle, and he kept on pumping air into the bicycle wheel tires until he burst one. Go easy this time, Koku.”

  “I will, Mr. Tom,” and the giant took the air pump.

  “Is he going along?” asked Ned, as he looked to see that all the guy wires and stays were tight.

  “I guess so,” replied Tom. “He makes good ballast. I wish Mr. Damon was here. If everything goes right we may take a run over, and surprise him.”

  In a little while the noiseless airship was ready for the start. Tom, Ned and Koku climbed in, and took their positions.

  “Good luck!” Mr. Swift called after them. Tom waved his hand to his father, and the next moment his craft shot into the air. Up and up it went, the great propeller blades beating the air, but, save for a soft whirr, such as would be made by the wings of a bird, there was absolutely no sound.

  “Hurrah!” cried Tom. “She works! I’ve got a noiseless airship at last!”

  “Say, don’t yell at a fellow so,” begged Ned, for Tom had been close to his chum when he made his exulting remark.

  “Yell! I wasn’t yelling,” replied Tom. “Oh, I see what happened. I’m so used to speaking loud on the other airships, that make such a racket, that I didn’t realize how quiet it was aboard the new Falcon. No wonder I nearly made you deaf, Ned. I’ll be careful after this,” and Tom lowered his voice to ordinary tones. In fact it was as quiet aboard his new craft, as if he and Ned had been walking in some grass-grown country lane.

  “She certainly is a success,” agreed Ned. “You could creep up on some other airship now, and those aboard would never know you were coming.”

  “I’ve been planning this for a long time,” went on our hero, as he shifted the steering gear, and sent the craft around in a long, sweeping curve. “Now for Waterford and Mr. Damon.”

  They were soon above the town where the odd man lived, and Tom, picking out Mr. Damon’s house, situated as it was in the midst of extensive grounds, headed for it.

  “There he is, walking through the garden,” exclaimed Ned, pointing to their friend down below. “He hasn’t heard us, as he would have done if we had come in any other machine.”

  “That’s so!” exclaimed Tom. “I’m g
oing to give him a sensation. I’ll fly right over his head, and he won’t know it until he sees us. I’ll come up from behind.”

  A moment later he put this little trick into execution. Along swept the airship, until, with a rush, it passed right over Mr. Damon’s head. He never heard it, and was not aware of what was happening until he saw the shadow it cast. Then, jumping aside, as if he thought something was about to fall on him, he cried:

  “Bless my mosquito netting! What in the world—”

  Then he saw Tom and Ned in the airship, which came gently to earth a few yards further on.

  “Well of all things!” cried Mr. Damon. “What are you up to now, Tom Swift?”

  “It’s my noiseless airship,” explained our hero. “She doesn’t make a sound. Get aboard, and have a ride.”

  Mr. Damon looked toward the house.

  “I guess my wife won’t see me,” he said with a chuckle. “She’s more than ever opposed to airships, Tom, since we went on that trip taking moving pictures. But I’ll take a chance.” And in he sprang, when the two lads started up again. They made quite a flight, and Tom found that his new motor exceeded his expectations. True, it needed some adjustments, but these could easily be made.

  “Well, what are you going to do with it, now that you have it?” asked Mr. Damon, as Tom once more brought the machine around to the odd man’s house, and stopped it. “What’s it for?”

  “Oh, I think I’ll find a use for it,” replied the young inventor. “Will you come back to Shopton with us?”

  “No, I must stay here. I have some letters to write. But I’ll run over in a few days, and see you. Then I’ll go on another trip, if you’ve got one planned.”

  “I may have,” answered Tom with a laugh. “Good-bye.”

  He and Ned made a quick flight home, and Tom at once started on making some changes in the motor. He was engaged at this work the next day, when he noticed a shadow pass across an open window. He looked up to see Ned.

  “Hello, Tom!” cried his chum. “Have you heard the news?”

  “No, what news? Has Andy Foger fallen out of his airship?”