The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  Mr. Damon was an enthusiastic photographer, and he had a dark room adjoining his library. It was in this dark room that Tom planned to develop the photo telephone plate.

  On this occasion he was not going to use the metal plate in which, ordinarily, the image of the person talking appeared. That record was but a fleeting one, as in a mirror. This time Tom wanted a permanent picture that could, if necessary, be used in a court of justice.

  Tom’s plan was this: If the person who had demanded the papers came to one of the photo telephones, and spoke to Mrs. Damon, Tom would switch on the receiving apparatus. Thus, while the man was talking, his picture would be taken, though he would not know of the thing being done.

  His voice would also be recorded on the wax cylinder, and he would be equally unaware of this.

  When Tom had imprinted the fellow’s image on the prepared plate, he would go quickly to the dark room and develop it. A wet print could be made, and with this as evidence, and to use in identification, a quick trip could be made to the place whence the man had telephoned. Tom hoped thus to capture him.

  To this end he had his airship in waiting, and as soon as he had developed the picture he planned to rush off to the vicinity of the sawmill, and make a prisoner of the man whose features would be revealed to him over the wire.

  It was a hazardous plan—a risky one—but it was the best that he could evolve. Tom had instructed Mrs. Damon to keep the man in conversation as long as possible, in order to give the young inventor himself time to rush off in his airship. But of course the man might get suspicious and leave. That was another chance that had to be taken.

  “If I had thought of it in time,” said Tom, musingly, as he paced up and down in the library waiting for the ’phone to ring, “if I had thought of it in time I would have rigged up two plates—one for a temporary, or looking-glass, picture, and the other for a permanent one. In that way I could rush off as soon as I got a glimpse of the fellow. But it’s too late to do that now. I’ll have to develop this plate.”

  Waiting is the most wearisome work there is. Tom and Ned found this to be the case, as they sat there, hoping each moment that the telephone bell would ring, and that the man at the other end of the wire would be the mysterious stranger. Mrs. Damon, too, felt the nervous strain.

  “This is about the hour he called up yesterday,” said Tom, in a low voice, after coming back from a trip to the window to see that his airship was in readiness. He had brought over to help in starting it, for he was using his most powerful and speedy craft, and the propellers were hard to turn.

  “Yes,” answered Mrs. Damon. “It was just about this hour, Tom. Oh, I do hope—”

  She was interrupted by the jingle of the telephone bell. With a jump Tom was at the auxiliary instrument, while Mrs. Damon lifted off the receiver of her own telephone.

  “Yes; what is it?” she asked, in a voice that she tried to make calm.

  “Do you know who this is?” Tom heard come over the wire.

  “Are you the—er—the person who was to give me an address where I am to send certain papers?”

  “Yes. I’m the same one. I’m glad to see that you have acted sensibly. If I get the papers all right, you’ll soon have your husband back. Now do as I say. Take down this address.”

  “Very well,” assented Mrs. Damon. She looked over at Tom. He was intently listening, and he, too, would note the address given. The trap was about to be sprung. The game had walked into it. Just which telephone was being used Tom could not as yet tell. It was evidently not the one nearest the planing mill, for Tom could not hear the buzzing sound. It was well he had put his attachment on several instruments.

  “One moment, please,” said Mrs. Damon, to the unknown at the other end of the wire. This was in accordance with the pre-arranged plan.

  “Well, what is it?” asked the man, impatiently. “I have no time to waste.”

  Tom heard again the same gruff tones, and he tried in vain to recognize them.

  “I want you take down a message to Mr. Damon,” said his wife. “This is very important. It can do you no harm to give him this message; but I want you to get it exact. If you do not promise to deliver it I shall call all negotiations off.”

  “Oh, all right I’ll take the message; but be quick about it. Then I’ll give you the address where you are to send the papers.”

  “This is the message,” went on Mrs. Damon. “Please write it down. It is very important to me. Have you a pencil?”

  “Yes, I have one. Wait until I get a bit of paper. It’s so dark in this booth—wait until I turn on the light.”

  Tom could not repress a pleased and joyful exclamation. It was just what he had hoped the man would do—turn on the light in the booth. Indeed, it was necessary for the success of the trap that the light be switched on. Otherwise no picture could be transmitted over the wire. And the plan of having the man write down a message to Mr. Damon was arranged with that end in view. The man would need a light to see to write, and Tom’s apparatus must be lighted in order to make it work. The plot was coming along finely.

  “There!” exclaimed the man at the other end of the wire. “I have a light now. Go ahead with your message, Mrs. Damon. But make it short. I can’t stay here long.”

  Then Mrs. Damon began dictating the message she and Tom had agreed upon. It was as long as they dared make it, for they wanted to keep the man in the booth to the last second.

  “Dear Husband,” began Mrs. Damon. What the message was does not matter. It has nothing to do with this story. Sufficient to say that the moment the man began writing it down, as Tom could tell over the sensitive wire, by the scratching of the pencil—at that moment Tom, knowing the light was on in the distant telephone booth, switched on the picture-taking apparatus. His receiving apparatus at once indicated that the image was being made on the sensitive plate.

  It took only a few seconds of time, and with the plate in the holder Tom hastened to the dark room to develop it. Ned took his chum’s place at the telephone, to see that all worked smoothly. The photo telephone had done it’s work. Whose image would be found imprinted on the sensitive plate? Tom’s hands trembled so that he could scarcely put it in the developing solution.

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE ESCAPE

  Ned Newton, listening at the auxiliary telephone heard the man, to whom Mrs. Damon was dictating her message to her husband, utter an exclamation of impatience.

  “I’m afraid I can’t take down any more,” he called. “That is enough. Now you listen. I want you to send me those papers.”

  “And I am willing to,” went on Mrs. Damon, while Ned listened to the talk, the phonograph faithfully recording it.

  “I wonder whose picture Tom will find,” mused Ned.

  The unknown, at the other end of the wire, began giving Mrs. Damon a description of just what papers he wanted, and how to mail them to him. He gave an address that Ned recognized as that of a cigar store, where many persons received their mail under assumed names. The postal authorities had, for a long time, tried to get evidence against it.

  “That’s going to make it hard to get him, when he comes for the papers,” thought Ned. “He’s a foxy criminal, all right. But I guess Tom will turn the trick.”

  Mrs. Damon was carefully noting down the address. She really intended to send the papers, if it proved that there was no other way in which she could secure the release of her husband. But she did not count on all of Tom’s plans. “Why doesn’t he develop that plate?” thought Ned. “He’ll be too late, in spite of his airship. That fellow will skip.”

  It was at that moment that Tom came into the library. He moved cautiously, for he realized that a loud sound in the room would carry to the man at the other end of the wire. Tom motioned for Ned to come to him. He held out a dripping photographic plate.

  “It’s Peters!” said Tom, in a hoarse whisper.

  “Peters?” gasped Ned. “How could it be? His voice—”

  “I know. It di
dn’t sound a bit like Peters over the ’phone, but there’s his picture, all right!”

  Tom held up the plate. There, imprinted on it by the wonderful power of the young inventor’s latest appliance, was the image of the rascally promoter. As plainly as in life he was shown, even to his silk hat and the flower in his button-hole. He was in a telephone booth—that much could be told from the photograph that had been transmitted over the wire, but which booth could not be said—they were nearly all alike.

  “Peters!” gasped Ned. “I thought he was the fellow, Tom.”

  “Yes, I know. You were right, and I was wrong. But I did not recognize his voice. It was very hoarse. He must have a bad cold.” Later this was learned to have been the case. “There’s no time to lose,” whispered Tom, while Mrs. Damon was doing her best to prolong the conversation in order to hold the man at the other end of the wire. “Ned, get central on the other telephone, and see where this call came from. Then we’ll get there as fast as the airship will take us.”

  A second and temporary telephone line had been installed in the Damon home, and on this Ned was soon talking, while Tom, putting the photographic plate away for future use, rushed out to get his airship in shape for a quick flight. He had modified his plans. Instead of having a detective take a print of the photo telephone image, and make the arrest, Tom was going to try to capture Peters himself. He believed he could do it. One look at the wet plate was enough. He knew Peters, though it upset some of his theories to learn that it was the promoter who was responsible for Mr. Damon’s disappearance.

  The man at the other end of the wire was evidently getting impatient. Possibly he suspected some trick. “I’ve got to go now,” he called to Mrs. Damon. “If I don’t get those papers in the morning it will be the worse for Mr. Damon.”

  “Oh, I’ll send you the papers,” she said.

  By this time Ned had gotten into communication with the manager of the central telephone exchange, and had learned the location of the instrument Peters was using. It was about a mile from the one near the sawmill.

  “Come on!” called Tom to his chum, as the latter gave him this information. “The Firefly is tuned up for a hundred miles an hour! We’ll be there in ten minutes! We must catch him red-handed, if possible!”

  “He’s gone!” gasped Mrs. Damon as she came to the outer door, and watched Tom and Ned taking their places in the airship, while Koku prepared to twirl the propellers.

  “Gone!” echoed Tom, blankly.

  “Yes, he hung up the receiver.”

  “See if you can’t get him back,” suggested the young inventor. “Ask Central to ring that number again. We’ll be there in a jiffy. Maybe he’ll come to the telephone again. Or he may even call up his partners and tell them the game is working his way. Try to get him back, Mrs. Damon.”

  “I will,” she said.

  And, as she hurried back to the instrument, Tom and Ned shot up toward the blue sky in an endeavor to capture the man at the other telephone.

  “And to think it was Peters!” cried Tom into Ned’s ear, shouting to be heard above the roar of the motor exhaust.

  “I thought he’d turn out to be mixed up in the affair,” said Ned.

  “Well, you were right. I was off, that time,” admitted Tom, as he guided his powerful craft above the trees. “I was willing to admit that he had something to do with Mr. Damon’s financial trouble, but as for kidnapping him—well, you never can tell.”

  They drove on at a breath-catching pace, and it seemed hardly a minute after leaving Mrs. Damon’s house before Tom called:

  “There’s the building where the telephone is located.”

  “And now for that rascal Peters!” cried Ned.

  The airship swooped down, to the great astonishment of some workmen nearby.

  Hardly had the wheels ceased revolving on the ground, as Tom made a quick landing, than he was out of his seat, and running toward the telephone. He knew the place at once from having heard Ned’s description, and besides, this was one of the places where he had installed his apparatus.

  Into the store Tom burst, and made a rush for the ’phone booth. He threw open the door. The place was empty!

  “The man—the man who was telephoning!” Tom called to the proprietor of the place.

  “You mean that big man, with the tall hat, who was in there so long?”

  “Yes, where is he?”

  “Gone. About two minutes ago.”

  “Which way?”

  “Over toward Shopton, and in one of the fastest autos that ever scattered dust in this section.”

  “He’s escaped us!” said Tom to Ned. “But we’ll get him yet! Come on!”

  “I’m with you. Say, do you know what this looks like to me?”

  “What?”

  “It looks as if Peters was scared and was going to run away to stay!”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  ON THE TRAIL

  Such a crowd had quickly gathered about Tom’s airship that it was impossible to start it. Men and boys, and even some girls and women, coming from no one knew where, stood about the machine, making wondering remarks about it.

  “Stand back, if you please!” cried Tom, good-naturedly. “We’ve got to get after the fellow in the auto.”

  “You’ll have hard work catching him, friend, in that rig,” remarked a man. “He was fracturing all the speed laws ever passed. I reckon he was going nigh onto sixty miles an hour.”

  “We can make a hundred,” spoke Ned, quietly.

  “A hundred! Get out!” cried the man. “Nothing can go as fast as that!”

  “We’ll show you, if we once get started,” said Tom. “I guess we’ll have to get one of these fellows to twirl the propellers for us, Ned,” he added. “I didn’t think, or I’d have brought the selfstarting machine,” for this one of Tom’s had to be started by someone turning over the propellers, once or twice, to enable the motor to begin to speed. On some of his aircraft the young inventor had attached a starter, something like the ones on the newest autos.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Ned, as Tom looked to the priming of the cylinders.

  “I’m going to get on the trail of Peters,” he said. “He’s at the bottom of the whole business; and it’s a surprise to me. I’m going to trail him right down to the ground now, and make him give up Mr. Damon and his fortune.”

  “But you don’t know where he is, Tom.”

  “I’ll find out. He isn’t such an easy man to miss—he’s too conspicuous. Besides, if he’s just left in his auto we may catch him before he gets to Shopton.”

  “Do you think he’s going there?”

  “I think so. And I think, Ned, that he’s become suspicious and will light out. Something must have happened, while he was telephoning, and he got frightened, as big a bluff as he is. But we’ll get him. Come on! Will you turn over the propellers, please? I’ll show you how to do it,” Tom went on to a big, strong man standing close to the blades.

  “Sure I’ll do it,” was the answer. “I was a helper once at an airship meet, and I know how.”

  “Get back out of the way in time,” the young inventor warned him. “They start very suddenly, sometimes.”

  “All right, friend, I’ll watch out,” was the reply, and with Tom and Ned in their seats, the former at the steering wheel, the craft of the air was soon throbbing and trembling under the first turn, for the cylinders were still warm from the run from Mrs. Damon’s house.

  The telephone was in an outlying section of Waterford—a section devoted in the main to shops and factories, and the homes of those employed in various lines of manufacture. Peters had chosen his place well, for there were many roads leading to and from this section, and he could easily make his escape.

  “But we’ll get after him,” thought Tom, grimly, as he let the airship run down the straight road a short distance on the bicycle wheels, to give it momentum enough so that it would rise.

  Then, with the tilting of the elevation rudder, t
he craft rose gracefully, amid admiring cheers from the crowd. Tom did not go up very far, as he wanted to hover near the ground, to pick out the speeding auto containing Peters.

  But this time luck was not with Tom. He and Ned did sight a number of cars speeding along the highway toward Shopton, but when they got near enough to observe the occupants they were disappointed not to behold the man they sought. Tom circled about for some time, but it was of no use, and then he headed his craft back toward Waterford.

  “Where are you going?” asked Ned, yelling the words into the ear of his chum.

  “Back to Mrs. Damon’s,” answered Tom, in equally loud tones.

  It was impossible to talk above the roaring and throbbing of the motor, so the two lads kept silent until the airship had landed near Mrs. Damon’s home.

  “I want to see if Mrs. Damon is all right,” Tom explained, as he jumped from the still moving machine. “Then we’ll go to Shopton, and cause Peters’s arrest. I can make a charge against him now, and the evidence of the photo telephone will convict him, I’m sure. And I also want to see if Mrs. Damon has had any other word.”

  She had not, however, though she was more nervous and worried than ever.

  “Oh, Tom, what shall I do?” she exclaimed. “I am so frightened! What do you suppose they will do to Mr. Damon?”

  “Nothing at all!” Tom assured her. “He will be all right. I think matters are coming to a crisis now, and very likely he’ll be with you inside of twenty-four hours. The game is up, and I guess Peters knows it. I’m going to have him arrested at once.”

  “Shall I send those land papers, Tom?”

  “Indeed you must not! But I’ll talk to you about that later. Just put away that phonograph record of Peters’s talk. I’ll take along the photo telephone negative, and have some prints made—or, I guess, since we’re going in the airship, that I’d better leave it here for the present. We’ll use it as evidence against Peters. Come on, Ned.”

  “Where to now?”

  “Peters’s house. He’s probably there, arranging to cover up his tracks when he lights out.”

  But Shallock Peters did better than merely cover up his tracks. He covered himself up, so to speak. For when Ned and Tom, after a quick flight in the airship, reached his house, the promoter had left, and the servants, who were quite excited, did not know where he had gone.