The Secret Wireless Part 7

But look as they would, they could see nothing further of a suspicious nature. Another hour pa.s.sed. Dinner time had long gone by. The one o'clock whistle had blown. And their own stomachs told them accurately what time it was; but they would not leave their post. Now that they had once scented their quarry, as it were, or believed that they had, they were like hounds on the trail. Their training at Camp Brady now showed its effect.

But the hours pa.s.sed, the afternoon waned, and nothing further occurred to draw their attention to the little house. Gradually their vigilance relaxed. Their eyes wandered again to that fascinating harbor scene, to the never-ending moving picture spread before them. Again they saw tugs and ferry-boats plying busily back and forth, and the flas.h.i.+ng sails of great schooners. But presently they saw something like nothing they had ever beheld. Far in the distance was a line of moving objects, gliding through the waves in stately fas.h.i.+on, approaching one behind the other at equal distances. Just what was approaching the two scouts could not at first determine, so indistinct in outline were the moving bulks. But presently, as the oncoming objects drew nearer, the watchers saw that they were great s.h.i.+ps. But they looked unlike any s.h.i.+ps they had ever seen or heard of. They seemed to be of no color and of every color. They were streaked and splotched in the most curious way. They looked as though some giant hand had flung eggs of different colors against their sides.

The boys looked at one another in astonishment. "Well, what in the mischief ails those boats?" demanded Roy.

They were silent a moment, becoming more amazed than ever.

"I know," cried Willie suddenly. "They're camouflaged. They must be transports." He turned his head for a glance at the house. "Quick!"

he said. "There's the man at the window again."

For some minutes the figure before them stood motionless except for the movement of his field-gla.s.ses, with which he swept the oncoming fleet of transports. Then he drew back from the window again. The boys kept their eyes fastened on the little house. For a long time nothing occurred. Then a grocer's boy came in sight, struggling up the highway with a basket of supplies on his arm. The watchers paid small attention to him until he turned suddenly into the driveway leading up to the house. A moment later he had disappeared within the building.

"He's only a grocery boy," said Roy.

"We'll have to watch him, anyway," said Willie. "I'll follow him when he comes out and you watch the house."

They had not long to wait. In a few minutes the boy came out, his basket empty, and went skipping down the hill. Quick as a flash Willie scrambled to the roadway above, and, screened by the shrubbery, followed on the higher level. A quarter mile toward the ferry the two highways came together. Willie reached the intersection at almost the same time as the grocer's boy. Each took a glance at the other and kept on his way, Willie dropping a few yards behind the other lad.

A quarter of a mile further on the slope changed and the district was thickly built up. The errand boy soon entered a store. Willie had just time for a quick glance at the sign on the window. It read, "Fritz Berger, Fancy Groceries." Then Willie opened the door and followed the errand boy into the place.

A florid, burly man with upturned mustaches stood behind the counter.

The errand boy was talking to him. In his hand he held a silver dollar.

"Here is the money for Mr. Baum's sugar," he was saying.

"Good!" said the grocer, seizing the coin, which he dropped in his pocket. Then he turned to Willie. "Well?" he said inquiringly.

"Sugar," said Willie. "I want five pounds of sugar."

"I have no more," said the grocer. "It is all sold."

"Pshaw!" said Willie. "Where can I get some?"

"I don't know," said the grocer.

"Got any candy?" asked Willie.

"Sure. In that case."

Willie walked to the show-case and slowly examined the stock. "Give me ten cents' worth of those chocolates," he finally ordered.

The storekeeper weighed out the candy and dumped it in a bag. He took the proffered dime, dropped it in his till, and turned away.

Willie left the store and stood for a moment undecided as to which way to go. "Nothing doing there," he said to himself. Then he turned a corner and started down the hill. The supper hour was approaching.

People were coming up the street from the ferry, homeward bound from Manhattan. A motor-car came chugging up the road and drew close to the curb. The driver turned his car about, clamped on the brake, and stepped out, leaving his engine running. Willie went on down the street and was soon in the midst of a throng coming up from the ferry.

He stopped to look at a jeweler's clock, turned about, and started on his way to rejoin Roy. Suddenly he heard the softly whistled signal of the wireless patrol. He turned sharply about and saw Captain Hardy across the street. He dodged a motor-car that was rooming down the hill and crossed to his captain. There had been no sign of life about the little house since the grocer's boy came out.

"Come," said the leader. "I have seen the Chief and he is going to arrange it so that we can watch this place in comfort. We will go back home now."

They climbed cautiously to the road above. "By George!" exclaimed Captain Hardy suddenly. "You boys haven't had a bite to eat since breakfast. I forgot all about that."

"How about yourself?" asked Roy.

"Well, I haven't either, but that's different. I've had a chance to get something if I had thought of it. We won't wait until we get home to eat. There's a restaurant at the ferry-house. We'll have a good dinner there."

More than an hour pa.s.sed before the three rose from their table.

Another hour had gone by before they reached their headquarters. They were tired and sleepy. But their drowsiness vanished when Henry rushed into the living-room of their apartment and thrust a sheet of paper into Captain Hardy's hands.

"It's another message," he said, "and we deciphered it ourselves."

Captain Hardy stepped to the light and read the message aloud. "Five more transports sailed late this afternoon. All camouflaged."

"We know the man who sent that message," cried Willie. "We've been watching him all the afternoon, down on the hillside at Staten Island."

"But this message didn't come from Staten Island," said Henry. "The detector points straight east over Brooklyn, and the message was sent from a long way off. It was very faint."

CHAPTER VIII

WHERE MONEY TALKED

For a full minute the members of the wireless patrol stared at one another in speechless amazement. Then Willie broke the silence.

"I don't care where it came from," he said. "I just know that the man we were watching sent it."

"But how could he have sent it, when the wireless pointed to Brooklyn?"

demanded Henry.

"Oh! I don't mean that he actually sent it with his own fingers," said Willie. "But we saw him watching the s.h.i.+ps and there isn't any other place in the whole harbor where you can get such a good view of them.

I just know he had something to do with that message."

"I'll bet the Germans have got a string of wireless outfits and that what he does is to stay in that house and spy on s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.s through the Narrows and then telephone to one of these secret wireless stations," said the nimble-witted Roy. "And if that's the case he hasn't any wireless at all himself."

"If Roy is right," said Henry, "it's a pretty clever scheme. The secret service could take his house to pieces and not find a wire in it. Yet he's the man that's sending the messages, or at least starting them."

"Roy is doubtless correct," said their leader. "We know they have at least three stations and they may have many more. The object of that, of course, is to baffle any wireless man who may be on their track. If we hadn't stumbled on this spy post at Staten Island, we should have been completely blocked ourselves. But we've got something definite to work on now. We've got a definite clue. And sooner or later we will uncover some of their hidden stations. From now on we've got to watch this man on Staten Island as well as listen for messages. I don't see how we are to do it unless we send for more of the boys or move to Staten Island."

When the matter was laid before Chief Flynn he said no more boys were needed. Too many boys in one house would attract attention. So he arranged to transfer the wireless patrol to Staten Island. Living on the slope above the suspected house was a well-to-do but childless couple with a rather large house, who were warm friends of the Chief's; and they readily agreed, as a matter of service to their country, to take the wireless patrol into their home. So a wireless outfit was installed, with a concealed aerial, and the boys found themselves situated even more pleasantly than they had been before.

And it was well that they were pleasantly situated, for though their task was not difficult in one sense, in another it was extremely trying. Six hours a day each boy sat at the wireless listening in.

Had it been possible to tune to longer wave lengths and pick up the interesting news with which the air was fairly alive, the task would have been anything but irksome. But to sit hour after hour with their instruments tuned to the short wave lengths used by the German agents and hear nothing, was trying enough. The watch on the spy's nest proved hardly less tedious. From a gable-window in the attic a very fair view could be had of the little house below. Here, on rainy days, a watcher sat during all the hours of daylight; and on other days the sheltering pines hid an observer. But day followed day, night succeeded night, and no message was registered on the wireless instrument nor did anything suspicious occur in the house under surveillance.

Indeed the fact that nothing did occur was in itself suspicious. For there was hardly a sign of life about the house. No man left it in the morning bound for business. No woman emerged from its door to go shopping of an afternoon. For days at a time n.o.body entered or left the place, excepting the grocer's boy who came with food.

Then one day a motor-car, with its top raised, chugged up the highway and climbed the steep driveway to the house on the cliff. Henry was in the attic gable on watch and he promptly notified his comrades. There was a rush for the third story, and four heads crowded close together as four pairs of eyes sought to identify the make and number of the car. But the name-plate was missing, and the license tag was so dusty that the number could not be read.

"Run down to the pines with this, quick," said Captain Hardy, thrusting his field-gla.s.ses into Willie's hand, "and get the number of that car.