“Well, you have me, I see,” he said, coolly. “I was afraid we were playing for too high a stake.”
“Yes, we’ve got you,” replied Tom,
“But you can’t prove much against me,” went on Peters. “I’ll deny everything.”
“We’ll see about that,” added the young inventor, grimly, and thought of the picture in the plate and the record on the wax cylinder.
“We’ve got to get Mr. Damon to some place where he can be looked after,” broke in Mr. Halling. “Then we’ll hear the story.”
A passing farmer was prevailed on to take the party in his big wagon to the nearest town, Mr. Hailing going on ahead in his airship. Tom’s craft could not be moved, being badly damaged.
Once in town Peters and Boylan were put in jail, on the charges for which Tom carried warrants. Mr. Damon was taken to a hotel and a doctor summoned. It was as Mr. Halling had guessed. His friend had been ill, and so weak that he could not get out of bed. It was this that enabled the plotters to so easily keep him a prisoner.
By degrees Mr. Damon told his story. He had rashly allowed Peters to get control of most of his fortune, and, in a vain hope of getting back some of his losses, had, one night—the night he disappeared, in fact—agreed to meet Peters and some of his men to talk matters over. Of this Mr. Damon said nothing to his wife.
He went out that night to meet Peters in the garden, but the plotters had changed their plans. They boldly kidnapped their victim, chloroformed him and took him away in Tom’s airship, which Boylan and some of his tools daringly stole a short time previously. Later they returned it, as they had no use for it at the lonely house.
Mr. Damon was taken to the house, and there kept a prisoner. The men hoped to prevail on the fears of his wife to make her give up the valuable property. But we have seen how Tom foiled Peters.
The experience of Mr. Damon, coupled with rough treatment he received, and lack of good food, soon made him ill. He was so weak that he could not help himself, and with that he was kept under guard. So he had no chance to escape or send his wife or friends any word.
“But I’m all right now, Tom, thanks to you!” said he. “Bless my pocketbook, I don’t care if my fortune is lost, as long as I’m alive and can get back to my wife.”
“But I don’t believe your fortune will be lost,” said Tom. “I think I have the picture and other evidence that will save it,” and he told of his photo telephone, and of what it had accomplished.
“Bless my eyelashes!” cried Mr. Damon. “What a young man you are, Tom Swift!”
Tom smiled gladly. He knew now that his old friend was himself once more.
There is little left to tell. Chance had aided Tom in a most wonderful way—chance and the presence of Mr. Halling with his airship at just the right moment.
Tom made a diligent effort to find out who it was that had chloroformed him in the telephone booth that time, but learned nothing definite. Peters and Boylan were both examined as to this on their trials, but denied it, and the young inventor was forced to conclude that it must have been some of the unscrupulous men who had taken his father’s patent some time before.
“They may have heard of your prosperity, and thought it a good chance to rob you,” suggested Ned.
“Maybe,” agreed Tom. “Well, we’ll let it go at that. Only I hope they don’t come again.”
Mr. Damon was soon home with his wife again, and Peters and Boylan were held in heavy bail. They had secreted most of Mr. Damon’s wealth, falsely telling him it was lost, and they were forced to give back his fortune. The evidence against them was clear and conclusive. When Tom went into court with his phonograph record of the talk of Peters, even though the man’s voice was hoarse from a cold when he talked, and when his picture was shown, in the telephone booth, the jury at once convicted him.
Boylan, when he learned of the missing button in Tom’s possession, confessed that he and some of his men who were birdmen had taken Tom’s airship. They wanted a means of getting Mr. Damon to the lonely house without being traced, and they accomplished it.
As Tom had surmised, Peters had become suspicious after his last talk with Mrs. Damon, and had fled. He disguised himself and went into hiding with the others at the lonely house. Then he learned that the authorities of another city, where he had swindled many, were on his trail, and he decided to decamp with his gang, taking Mr. Damon with them. For this purpose Tom’s airship was taken the second time, and a wholesale escape, with Mr. Damon a prisoner, was planned.
But fate was against the plotters. Two of them did manage to get away, but they were not really wanted. The big fish were Peters and Boylan, and they were securely caught in the net of the law. Peters was greatly surprised when he learned of Tom’s trap, and of the photo telephone. He had no idea he had been incriminating himself when he talked over the wire.
“Well, it’s all over,” remarked Ned to Tom, one day, when the disabled auto and the airship had been brought home and repaired. “The plotters are in prison for long terms, and Mr. Damon is found, together with his fortune. The photo telephone did it, Tom.”
“Not all of it—but a good bit,” admitted the young inventor, with a smile.
“What are you going to do next, Tom?”
“I hardly know. I think—”
Before Tom could finish, a voice was heard in the hall outside the library.
“Bless my overshoes! Where’s Tom? I want to thank him again for what he did for me,” and Mr. Damon, now fully recovered, came in. “Bless my suspender button, but it’s good to be alive, Tom!” he cried.
“It certainly is,” agreed Tom. “And the next time you go for a conference with such men as Peters, look out for airships.”
“I will, Tom, I will!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “Bless my watch chain, I will!”
And now, for a time, we will say good-bye to Tom Swift, leaving him to perfect his other inventions.
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
Or, THE NAVAL TERROR OF THE SEAS
CHAPTER I
TOM IS PUZZLED
“What’s the matter, Tom? You look rather blue!”
“Blue! Say, Ned, I’d turn red, green, yellow, or any other color of the rainbow, if I thought it would help matters any.”
“Whew!”
Ned Newton, the chum and companion of Tom Swift, gave vent to a whistle of surprise, as he gazed at the young fellow sitting opposite him, near a bench covered with strange-looking tools and machinery, while blueprints and drawings were scattered about.
Ranged on the sides of the room were models of many queer craft, most of them flying machines of one sort or another, while through the open door that led into a large shed could be seen the outlines of a speedy monoplane.
“As bad as that, eh, Tom?” went on Ned. “I thought something was up when I first came in, but, if you’ll excuse a second mention of the color scheme, I should say it was blue—decidedly blue. You look as though you had lost your last friend, and I want to assure you that if you do feel that way, it’s dead wrong. There’s myself, for one, and I’m sure Mr. Damon—”
“Bless my gasoline tank!” exclaimed Tom, with a laugh, in imitation of the gentleman Ned Newton had mentioned, “I know that! I’m not worrying over the loss of any friends.”
“And there are Eradicate, and Koku, the giant, just to mention a couple of others,” went on Ned, with a smile.
“That’s enough!” exclaimed Tom. “It isn’t that, I tell you.”
“Well, what is it then? Here I go and get a half-holiday off from the bank, and just at the busiest time, too, to come and see you, and I find you in a brown study, looking as blue as indigo, and maybe you’re all yellow inside from a bilious attack, for all I know.”
“Quite a combination of colors,” admitted Tom. “But it isn’t what you think. It’s just that I’m puzzled, Ned.”
“Puzzled?” and Ned raised his eyebrows to indicate how surprised he was that anything should puzzle his friend.
/> “Yes, genuinely puzzled.”
“Has anything gone wrong?” Ned asked. “No one is trying to take any of your pet inventions away from you, is there?”
“No, not exactly that, though it is about one of my inventions I am puzzled. I guess I haven’t shown you my very latest; have I, Ned?”
“Well, I don’t know, Tom. Time was when I could keep track of you and your inventions, but that was in your early days, when you started with a motorcycle and were glad enough to have a motorboat. But, since you’ve taken to aerial navigation and submarine work, not to mention one or two other lines of activity, I give up. I don’t know where to look next, Tom, for something new.”
“Well, this isn’t so very new,” went on the young inventor, for Tom Swift had designed and patented many new machines of the air, earth and water. “I’m just trying to work out some new problems in aerial navigation, Ned,” he went on.
“I thought there weren’t any more,” spoke Ned, soberly enough.
“Come, now, none of that!” exclaimed Tom, with a laugh. “Why, the surface of aerial navigation has only been scratched. The science is far from being understood, or even made safe, not to say perfected, as water and land travel have been. There’s lots of chance yet.”
“And you’re working on something new?” asked Ned, as he looked around the shop where he and Tom were sitting. As the young bank employee had said, he had come away from the institution that afternoon to have a little holiday with his chum, but Tom, seated in the midst of his inventions, seemed little inclined to jollity.
Through the open windows came the hum of distant machinery, for Tom Swift and his father were the heads of a company founded to manufacture and market their many inventions, and about their home were grouped several buildings. From a small plant the business had grown to be a great tree, under the direction of Tom and his father.
“Yes, I’m working on something new,” admitted Tom, after a moment of silence.
“And, Ned,” he went on, “there’s no reason why you shouldn’t see it. I’ve been keeping it a bit secret, until I had it a little further advanced, but I’ve got to a point now where I’m stuck, and perhaps it will do me good to talk to someone about it.”
“Not to talk to me, though, I’m afraid. What I don’t know about machinery, Tom, would fill a great many books. I don’t see how I can help you,” and Ned laughed.
“Well, perhaps you can, just the same, though you may not know a lot of technical things about machines. It sometimes helps me just to tell my troubles to a disinterested person, and hear him ask questions. I’ve got dad half distracted trying to solve the problem, so I’ve had to let up on him for a while. Come on out and see what you make of it.”
“Sure, Tom, anything to oblige. If you want me to sit in front of your photo-telephone, and have my picture taken, I’m agreeable, even if you shoot off a flashlight at my ear. Or, if you want me to see how long I can stay under water without breathing I’ll try that, too, provided you don’t leave me under too long, lead the way—I’m agreeable as far as I’m able, old man.”
“Oh, it isn’t anything like that,” Tom answered with a laugh. “I might as well give you a few hints, so you’ll know what I’m driving at. Then I’ll take you out and show it to you.”
“What is it—air, earth or water?” asked Ned Newton, for he knew his chum’s activities led along all three lines.
“This happens to be air.”
“A new balloon?”
“Something like that. I call it my aerial warship, though.”
“Aerial warship, Tom! That sounds rather dangerous!”
“It will be dangerous, too, if I can get it to work. That’s what it’s intended for.”
“But a warship of the air!” cried Ned. “You can’t mean it. A warship carries guns, mortars, bombs, and—”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Tom, “and I appreciate all that when I called my newest craft an aerial warship.”
“But,” objected Ned, “an aircraft that will carry big guns will be so large that—”
“Oh, mine is large enough,” Tom broke in.
“Then it’s finished!” cried Ned eagerly, for he was much interested in his chum’s inventions.
“Well, not exactly,” Tom said. “But what I was going to tell you was that all guns are not necessarily large. You can get big results with small guns and projectiles now, for high-powered explosives come in small packages. So it isn’t altogether a question of carrying a certain amount of weight. Of course, an aerial warship will have to be big, for it will have to carry extra machinery to give it extra speed, and it will have to carry a certain armament, and a large crew will be needed. So, as I said, it will need to be large. But that problem isn’t worrying me.”
“Well, what is it, then?” asked Ned.
“It’s the recoil,” said Tom, with a gesture of despair.
“The recoil?” questioned Ned, wonderingly.
“Yes, from the guns, you know. I haven’t been able to overcome that, and, until I do, I’m afraid my latest invention will be a failure.”
Ned shook his head.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you any,” he said. “The only thing I know about recoils is connected with an old shotgun my father used to own.
“I took that once, when he didn’t know it,” Ned proceeded. “It was pretty heavily loaded, for the crows had been having fun in our cornfield, and dad had been shooting at them. This time I thought I’d take a chance.
“Well, I fired the gun. But it must have had a double charge in it and been rusted at that. All I know is that after I pulled the trigger I thought the end of the world had come. I heard a clap of thunder, and then I went flying over backward into a blackberry patch.”
“That was the recoil,” said Tom.
“The what?” asked Ned.
“The recoil. The recoil of the gun knocked you over.”
“Oh, yes,” observed Ned, rubbing his shoulder in a reflective sort of way. “I always thought it was something like that. But, at the time I put it down to an explosion, and let it go at that.”
“No, it wasn’t an explosion, properly speaking,” said Tom. “You see, when powder explodes, in a gun, or otherwise, its force is exerted in all directions, up, down and every way.”
“This went mostly backward—in my direction,” said Ned ruefully.
“You only thought so,” returned Tom. “Most of the power went out in front, to force out the shot. Part of it, of course, was exerted on the barrel of the gun—that was sideways—but the strength of the steel held it in. And part of the force went backward against your shoulder. That part was the recoil, and it is the recoil of the guns I figure on putting aboard my aerial warship that is giving me such trouble.”
“Is that what makes you look so blue?” asked Ned.
“That’s it. I can’t seem to find a way by which to take up the recoil, and the force of it, from all the guns I want to carry, will just about tear my ship to pieces, I figure.”
“Then you haven’t actually tried it out yet?” asked Ned.
“Not the guns, no. I have the warship of the air nearly done, but I’ve worked out on paper the problem of the guns far enough so that I know I’m up against it. It can’t be done, and an aerial warship without guns wouldn’t be worth much, I’m afraid.”
“I suppose not,” agreed Ned. “And is it only the recoil that is bothering you?”
“Mostly. But come, take a look at my latest pet,” and Tom arose to lead the way to another shed, a large one in the distance, toward which he waved his hand to indicate to his chum that there was housed the wonderful invention.
The two chums crossed the yard, threading their way through the various buildings, until they stood in front of the structure to which Tom had called attention.
“It’s in here,” he said. “I don’t mind admitting that I’m quite proud of it, Ned; that is, proud as far as I’ve gone. But the gun business sure has me worried. I’m going to
talk it off on you. Hello!” cried Tom suddenly, as he put a key in the complicated lock on the door, “someone has been in here. I wonder who it is?”
Ned was a little startled at the look on Tom’s face and the sound of alarm in his chum’s voice.
CHAPTER II
A FIRE ALARM
Tom Swift quickly opened the door of the big shed. It was built to house a dirigible balloon, or airship of some sort. Ned could easily tell that from his knowledge of Tom’s previous inventions.
“Something wrong?” asked the young bank clerk.
“I don’t know,” returned Tom, and then as he looked inside the place, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Koku?” he asked, as a veritable giant of a man came forward.
“Yes, master, it is only Koku and your father,” spoke the big chap, with rather a strange accent.
“Oh, is my father here?” asked Tom. “I was wondering who had opened the door of this shed.”
“Yes, Tom,” responded the elder Swift, coming up to them, “I had a new idea in regard to some of those side guy wires, and I wanted to try it out. I brought Koku with me to use his strength on some of them.”
“That’s all right, Dad. Ned and I came out to wrestle with that recoil problem again. I want to try some guns on the craft soon, but—”
“You’d better not, Tom,” warned his father. “It will never work, I tell you. You can’t expect to take up quick-firing guns and bombs in an airship, and have them work properly. Better give it up.”
“I never will. I’ll make it work, Dad!”
“I don’t believe you will, Tom. This time you have bitten off more than you can chew, to use a homely but expressive statement.”
“Well, Dad, we’ll see,” began Tom easily. “There she is, Ned,” he went on. “Now, if you’ll come around here...”
But Tom never finished that sentence, for at that moment there came running into the airship shed an elderly, short, stout, fussy gentleman, followed by an aged colored man. Both of them seemed very much excited.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 217
