“Oh, no, nothing like that,” laughed Tom. “I just want you to listen to what’s said so, if need be, you can be a witness later. I don’t know what their game is, but I don’t trust Peters and his crowd. They may want to get control of some of my patents, and they may try some underhanded work. If they do I want to be in a position to stop them.”
“All right,” agreed Ned, and he took his place.
But Mr. Boylan’s errand was not at all sensational, it would seem. He bowed to Tom, perhaps a little distantly, for they had not parted the best of friends on a former occasion.
“I suppose you are surprised to see me,” began Mr. Boylan.
“Well, I am, to tell the truth,” Tom said, calmly.
“I am here at the request of my employer, Mr. Peters,” went on the caller. “He says he is forming a new and very powerful company to exploit airships, and he wants to know whether you would not reconsider your determination not to let him do some business for you.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t care to go into anything like that,” said Tom.
“It would be a good thing for you,” proceeded Mr. Boylan, eagerly. “Mr. Peters is able to command large capital, and if you would permit the use of your airships—or one of them—as a model, and would supervise the construction of others, we could confidently expect large sales. Thus you would profit, and I am frank to admit that the company, and Mr. Peters, also, would make money. Mr. Peters is perfectly free to confess that he is in business to make money, but he is also willing to let others share with him. Come now, what do you say?”
“I am sorry, but I shall have to say the same thing I said before,” replied Tom. “Nothing doing!”
Mr. Boylan glanced rather angrily at the young inventor, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, remarked:
“Well, you have the say, of course. But I would like to remind you that this is going to be a very large airship company, and if your inventions are not exploited some others will be. And Mr. Peters also desired me to say that this is the last offer he would make you.”
“Tell him,” said Tom, “that I am much obliged, but that I have no business that I can entrust to him. If he wishes to make some other type of airship, that is his affair. Good-day.”
As Mr. Boylan was going out Tom noticed a button dangling from the back of his caller’s coat. It hung by a thread, being one of the pair usually sewed on the back of a cutaway garment.
“I think you had better take off that button before it falls,” suggested Tom. “You may lose it, and perhaps it would be hard to match.”
“That’s so. Thank you!” said Mr. Boylan. He tried to reach around and get it, but he was too stout to turn easily, especially as the coat was tight-fitting.
“I’ll get it for you,” offered Tom, as he pulled it off. “There is one missing, though,” he said, as he handed the button to the man. And then Tom started as he saw the pattern of the one in his hand.
“One gone? That’s too bad,” murmured Mr. Boylan. “Those buttons were imported, and I doubt if I can replace them. They are rather odd.”
“Yes,” agreed Tom, gazing as if fascinated at the one he still held. “They are rather odd.”
And then, as he passed it over, like a flash it came to him where he had seen a button like that before. He had found it in his airship, which had been so mysteriously taken away and returned.
Tom could hardly restrain his impatience until Mr. Boylan had gone. The young inventor had half a notion to produce the other button, matching the one he had just pulled off his visitor’s coat, and tell where he had found it. But he held himself back. He wanted to talk first to Ned.
And, when his chum came in, Tom cried:
“Ned, what do you think? I know who had my airship!”
“How?” asked Ned, in wonder.
“By that button clue! Yes, it’s the same kind—they’re as alike as twins!” and Tom brought out the button which he had put away in his desk. “See, Boylan had one just like this on the back of his coat. The other was missing. Here it is—it was in the seat of my airship, where it was probably pulled off as he moved about. Ned, I think I’ve got the right clue at last.”
Ned said nothing for several seconds. Then he remarked slowly:
“Well, Tom, it proves one thing; but not the other.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it may be perfectly true that the button came off Mr. Boylan’s coat, but that doesn’t prove that he wore it. You can be reasonably sure that the coat was having a ride in your Eagle, but was Boylan in the coat? That’s the question.”
“In the coat? Of course he was in it!” cried Tom.
“You can’t be sure. Someone may have borrowed his coat to take a midnight ride in the airship.”
“Mr. Boylan doesn’t look to be the kind of a man who would lend his clothes,” remarked Tom.
“You never can tell. Someone may have borrowed it without his knowledge. You’d better go a bit slow, Tom.”
“Well, maybe I had. But it’s a clue, anyhow.”
Ned agreed to this.
“And all I’ve got to do is to find out who was in the coat when it was riding about in my airship,” went on Tom.
“Yes,” said Ned, “and then maybe you’ll have some clue to the disappearance of Mr. Damon.”
“Right you are! Come on, let’s get busy!”
“As if we hadn’t been busy all the while!” laughed Ned. “I’ll lose my place at the bank if I don’t get back soon.”
“Oh, stay a little longer—a few days,” urged Tom. “I’m sure that something is going to happen soon. Anyhow my photo telephone is about perfected. But I’ve just thought of another improvement.”
“What is it?”
“I’m going to arrange a sort of dictaphone, or phonograph, so I can get a permanent record of what a person says over the wire, as well as get a picture of him saying it. Then everything will be complete. This last won’t be hard to do, as there are several machines on the market now, for preserving a record of telephone conversations. I’ll make mine a bit different, though.”
“Tom, is there any limit to what you’re going to do?” asked Ned, admiringly.
“Oh, yes, I’m going to stop soon, and retire,” laughed the young inventor.
After talking the matter over, Tom and his chum decided to wait a day or so before taking any action in regard to the button clue to the takers of the airship. After all, no great harm had been done, and Tom was more anxious to locate Mr. Damon, and try to get back his fortune, as well as to perfect his photo telephone, than he was to discover those who had helped themselves to the Eagle.
Tom and Ned put in some busy days, arranging the phonograph attachment. It was easy, compared to the hard work of sending a picture over the wire. They paid several visits to Mrs. Damon, but she had no news of her missing husband, and, as the days went by, she suffered more and more under the strain.
Finally Tom’s new invention was fully completed. It was a great success, and he not only secured pictures of Ned and others over the wire, as he talked to them, but he imprinted on wax cylinders, to be reproduced later, the very things they said.
It was a day or so after he had demonstrated his new attachment for the first time, that Tom received a most urgent message from Mrs. Damon.
“Tom,” she said, over the telephone, “I wish you would call. Something very mysterious has happened.”
“Mr. Damon hasn’t come back; has he?” asked Tom eagerly.
“No—but I wish I could say he had. This concerns him, however. Can you come?”
“I’ll be there right away.”
In his speedy monoplane Tom soon reached Waterford. Ned did not accompany him this time.
“Now what is it, Mrs. Damon?” asked the young inventor.
“About half an hour before I called you,” she said, “I received a mysterious message.”
“Who brought it?” asked Tom quickly.
“No one. It came ove
r the telephone. Someone, whose voice I did not know, said to me: ‘Sign the land papers, and send them to us, and your husband will be released.’”
“That message came over the wire?” cried Tom, excitedly.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Damon. “Oh, I am so frightened! I don’t know what to do!” and the lady burst into tears.
CHAPTER XVIII
ANOTHER CALL
Tom Swift, for the moment, did not know what to do. It was a strange situation, and one he had never thought of. What did the mysterious message mean? He must think it all out, and plan some line of action. Clearly Mrs. Damon was not able to do so.
“Now let’s get at this in some kind of order,” suggested the youth, when Mrs. Damon had calmed herself. It was his habit to have a method about doing things. “And don’t worry,” he advised. “I am certain some good will come of this. It proves one thing, that’s sure.”
“What is it, Tom?”
“That Mr. Damon is alive and well. Otherwise the message would not have said he would be ‘released.’ It wasn’t from anyone you know; was it?”
“No, I’m sure I never heard the voice before.”
Tom paused a moment to think how useful his photo telephone and phonograph arrangement might have been in this case.
“How did the telephone call come in?” inquired the young inventor.
“In the usual way,” answered Mrs. Damon. “The bell rang, and, as I happened to be near the instrument, I answered it, as I often do, when the maid is busy. A voice asked if I was Mrs. Damon, and of course I said I was. Then I heard this: ‘Sign the land papers, and send them to us, and your husband will be released.’”
“Was that all?” Tom asked.
“I think so—I made a note of it at the time.” Mrs. Damon looked into a small red book. “No, that wasn’t all,” she said, quickly. “I was so astonished, at hearing those strange words about my husband, that I didn’t know what to say. Before I could ask any questions the voice went on to say, rather abruptly: ‘We will call you again.’”
“That’s good!” cried Tom. “I only hope they do it while I am here. Perhaps I can get some clue as to who it was called you. But was this all you heard?”
“Yes, I’m sure that was all. I had forgotten about the last words, but I see I have them written down in my note book.”
“Did you ask any questions?” inquired Tom.
“Oh, indeed I did! As soon as I got over being stunned by what I heard, I asked all sorts of questions. I demanded to know who was speaking, what they meant, where they were, and all that. I begged them to tell me something of my husband.”
“And what did they say?”
“Not a thing. There wasn’t a sound in the telephone. The receiver was hung up, breaking the connection after that message to me—that mysterious message.”
“Yes, it was mysterious,” agreed Tom, thoughtfully. “I can’t understand it. But didn’t you try to learn from the central operator where the call had come from?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, Tom! As soon as I found out the person speaking to me had rung off, I got the girl in the exchange.”
“And what did she say?”
“That the call came from an automatic pay station in a drug store in town. I have the address. It was one of those telephones where you put your money for the call in a slot.”
“I see. Well, the first thing to do is for me to go to that drug store and find out, if I can, who used the telephone about that time. It’s a slim chance, but we’ll have to take it. Was it a man’s voice, or a woman’s?”
“Oh, a man’s, I’m sure. It was very deep and heavy. No woman could speak like that.”
“So much is settled, anyhow. Now about the land papers—what was meant?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Mrs. Damon. “You know part of our property—considerable land and some buildings—is in my name. Mr. Damon had it fixed so a number of years ago, in order to protect me. No one could get this property, and land, unless I signed the deeds, or agreed to sign them. Now all of Mr. Damon’s fortune is tied up in some of Mr. Peters’s companies. That is why my husband has disappeared.”
“He didn’t disappear—he was taken away against his will; I’m positive of that!” exclaimed Tom.
“Perhaps so,” agreed Mrs. Damon, sadly. “But those are the papers referred to, I’m sure.”
“Probably,” assented Tom. “The rascals want to get control of everything—even your possessions. Not satisfied with ruining Mr. Damon, they want to make you a beggar, too. So they are playing on your fears. They promise to release your husband if you will give them the land.”
“Yes, that must be it, Tom. What would you advise me to do? I am so frightened over this!”
“Do? Don’t you do anything!” cried Tom. “We’ll fool these rascals yet. If they got those papers they might release Mr. Damon, or they might not—fearing he would cause their arrest later. But we’ll have him released anyhow, and we’ll save what is left of your fortune. Put those land papers in a safe-deposit box, and let me do the rest. I’m going to catch those fellows!”
“But how, Tom? You don’t know who they are. And a mere message over a telephone won’t give you a clue to where they are.”
“Perhaps not an ordinary message,” agreed Tom. “But I’m going to try some of my new inventions. You said they told you they were going to call again?”
“That’s what they said, Tom.”
“Well, when they do, I want to be here. I want to listen to that message. If you will allow me, I’ll take up my residence here for a while, Mrs. Damon.”
“Allow you? I’ll be only too glad if you will, Tom. But I thought you were going to try to get some clue from the drug store where the mysterious message came from.”
“I’ll let Ned Newton do that. I want to stay here.”
Tom telephoned to Ned to meet him at Mrs. Damon’s house, and also to bring with him certain things from the laboratory. And when Ned arrived in an auto, with various bits of apparatus, Tom put in some busy hours.
Meanwhile Ned was sent to the drug store, to see if any clues could be obtained there as to who had sent the message. As Tom had feared, nothing could be learned. There were several automatic ’phones in the place, and they were used very often during the day by the public. The drug clerks took little or no notice of the persons entering or leaving the booths, since the dropping of a coin in the slot was all that was necessary to be connected with central.
“Well, we’ve got to wait for the second call here,” said Tom, who had been busy during Ned’s absence. He had fitted to Mrs. Damon’s telephone a recording wax phonograph cylinder, to get a record of the speaker’s voice. And he had also put in an extension telephone, so that he could listen while Mrs. Damon talked to the unknown.
“There, I guess we’re ready for them,” said Tom, late that afternoon. But no queer call came in that day. It was the next morning, about ten o’clock, after Mrs. Damon had passed a restless night, that the telephone bell rang. Tom, who was on the alert, was at his auxiliary instrument in a flash. He motioned to Mrs. Damon to answer on the main wire.
“Hello,” she spoke into the transmitter. “Who is this?”
“Are you Mrs. Damon?” Tom heard come over the wire in a deep voice, and by the manner in which Mrs. Damon signalled the young inventor knew that, at the other end of the line, was the mysterious man who had spoken before.
CHAPTER XIX
THE BUZZING SOUND
“Are you Mrs. Damon?” came the question again—rather more impatiently this time, Tom thought.
“Yes,” answered the lady, glancing over at Tom. The extension telephone was in the same room. Softly Tom switched on the phonograph attachment. The little wax cylinder began to revolve noiselessly, ready to record the faintest word that came over the wire.
“You got a message from me yesterday,” went on the hoarse voice. In vain Tom tried to recall whether or not he had heard it before. He could not place it.
“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Damon. She and Tom had previously agreed on a line of talk. “Tell me your name, please.”
“There’s no need for any names to be used,” went on the unknown at the other end of the wire. “You heard what I said yesterday. Are you willing to send me those land title papers, if we release your husband?”
“But where shall I send them?” asked Mrs. Damon, to gain time.
“You’ll be told where. And listen—no tricks! You needn’t try to find out who I am, nor where I am. Just send those papers if you want to see your husband again.”
“Oh, how is he? Tell me about him! You are cruel to keep him a prisoner like this! I demand that you release him!”
Tom had not told Mrs. Damon to say this. It came out of her own heart—she could not prevent the agonized outburst.
“Never mind about that, now,” came the gruff voice over the wire. “Are you willing to send the papers?”
Mrs. Damon looked over to Tom for silent instructions. He nodded his head in assent.
“Yes, I—I will send them if you tell me where to get them to you—if you will release Mr. Damon,” said the anxious wife. “But tell me who you are—and where you are!” she begged.
“None of that! I’m not looking to be arrested. You get the papers ready, and I’ll let you know tomorrow, about this time, where to send them.”
“Wait a minute!” called Mrs. Damon, to gain more time. “I must know just what papers you want.”
“All right, I’ll tell you,” and he began to describe the different ones.
It took a little time for the unknown to give this information to Mrs. Damon. The man was very particular about the papers. There were trust deeds, among other things, and he probably thought that once he had possession of them, with Mrs. Damon’s signature, even though it had been obtained under a threat, he could claim the property. Later it was learned that such was not the case, for Mrs. Damon, with Tom’s aid, could have proved the fraud, had the scoundrels tried to get the remainder of the Damon fortune.
But at the time it seemed to the helpless woman that everything she owned would be taken from her. Though she said she did not care, as long as Mr. Damon was restored to her.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 213
