The Radio Detectives Part 8

"Some night we'll be listening to that fellow talking about the new under-sea radio," chuckled Frank as the talk ceased and the boys laid aside their receivers. "Say, won't it be sport to hear him telling about us and know all the fellows are listening to it?"

"Well, we won't count our chickens just yet," declared Tom sagely. "Just because that receiving set works isn't any proof the sending set will.

And without being able to talk back a diver isn't any better off-or at least much better off-if he can hear what's going on in the air."

But Tom might have been far more confident, for the following day when the test was made it worked much better than their most sanguine expectations had led them to think possible. To be sure, their experiments came to an abrupt ending right in the midst of the test, for the sending set on Tom's suit leaked and, with a feeble buzz and sputter, his words trailed off to nothingness.

But when, upon reaching the surface, Rawlins reported that he had heard everything Tom had said and Frank and Henry in the shop had also heard him, the boys knew that their plans and the principles of the outfit were all right and that only the question of making the set absolutely watertight remained to be solved.

"I don't see why it should not be inside the suit," declared Rawlins, as the boys were discussing the matter and were at a loss to know how to accomplish their aims. "You say these wireless waves go through everything and we get them through the suit in the receiving set so why shouldn't they go out through everything just as well. Look here, I was thinking over this last night and here's my idea."

As the boys gathered about, the diver rapidly sketched his plan of a new suit in which the sending set could be placed within a receptacle full of compressed air.

"I believe that _would_ work," cried Tom when he grasped Rawlins'

scheme. "I don't see why compressed air should affect the outfit any and it's easy enough to make watertight fittings where the wires come out and there's no tuning to do, We can always use a special wave length and if several men were talking under water each one could have his own wave length. Yes. I'll bet you've solved the puzzle, Mr. Rawlins."

Keen on the new plan the boys started a new set, or rather two new sets, for they wished to make a test to determine if two men under water could converse, while Rawlins busied himself on the special suits and air pockets to be used.

"We'll have to balance the weight of the set against the increased buoyancy of this compressed air," he remarked as he worked. "But I see where that's an advantage. One of your troubles has been the weight of batteries and by this air caisson arrangement weight won't cut any figure under water."

"But suppose the air pocket springs a leak?" queried Frank. "We'd be just as badly off as before."

"Well, I don't calculate to have it leak," replied Rawlins, "but if you make the sets as near watertight as you can, they'd still go on working for some time before they got soaked. And if I can't make a little caisson that'll hold a hundred pounds of air for ten or twelve hours I'll give up diving and drive a taxi."

Several days, however, were required to get the set and the air pocket suits ready and when, after a test in the workshop, everything seemed in perfect working order, Tom and Rawlins donned their suits and prepared to descend the ladder through the trapdoor.

Just before his head dipped beneath the surface of the water Tom spoke into his mouthpiece and Frank, listening at his instruments, gave a start as his chum's voice came clearly to his ears.

"So long, old man," came Tom's cheery voice, which somehow Frank had expected would sound m.u.f.fled. "Keep your ear glued to the set and be ready for great news. I'll bet we give you a surprise."

The next instant only a few bubbles marked the spot where Tom had sunk beneath the surface of the water, and little did he or the others dream how much truth was in his parting words or what an amazing surprise was awaiting not only Frank but himself.

CHAPTER VI

THE RED MENACE

During the weeks while Tom and his friends were busy at their work on the under-sea radio, grave and sinister events were taking place, of which the boys knew little or nothing, but which kept Mr. Pauling, Mr.

Henderson and their men in a perpetual state of worry, and of sleepless nights and unceasing work.

Close upon the heels of the unprecedented influx of contraband liquor, which despite every effort continued undiminished and which had completely baffled the officials, came a flood of Bolshevist propaganda of the most dangerous and revolutionary character. Suddenly, and without warning, it had appeared throughout the country. Every town, city and village was filled with it and so cleverly were the circulars, booklets and handbills worded, so logical were the arguments and statements they contained, so appealing to the uneducated foreign element and the dissatisfied army of the unemployed that they were greedily read, accepted and absorbed until the country was menaced by a red revolution and officials went to bed never knowing what bloodshed and destruction the morrow might hold in store.

Almost coincident with this came a wave of crime. Hold-ups, burglars, murders, kidnaping and incendiarism swept like an epidemic through the big cities. Scarcely a day pa.s.sed that the daily papers did not bear glaring headlines announcing some new and daring crime. Bank messengers, paymasters, cas.h.i.+ers and business men were held up at the point of revolvers or were blackjacked on the public streets in broad daylight.

Stores and shops were boldly entered by masked bandits who held up and robbed the clerks and customers alike. Taxis and motor cars were attacked, their occupants beaten into unconsciousness and robbed and the vehicles stolen under the noses of the police. Homes of the rich, banks and business houses were entered and ransacked despite electric burglar alarms and armed guards. Each day the daring criminals grew bolder. From thugs they were changing into murderous bandits; where formerly a man was knocked down or blackjacked the victims were now shot in cold blood.

Murders and homicides were of daily occurrence. Even on crowded thoroughfares within sight of hundreds of pa.s.sers-by men were killed and the bandits escaped and no one felt that life and property were safe.

The police seemed powerless and at a loss. Now and then a bandit was captured. Occasionally one would be shot down, wounded or killed by an officer or by some prospective victim, but still the crimes continued unabated. Indeed, the more the police strove to check the bandits the more they appeared to thrive and increase and the bolder they became.

Lawlessness was rampant and, while the public wondered, criticized, clamored for protection, and countless theories were put forth, those in the inner circle, the secret agents of the government and the trusted ones, knew that, back of it all, the underlying cause and the root of the evil was the red propaganda which they were powerless to check.

Many were the secret meetings, the closely guarded conferences held between the untiring officers detailed to run the menace to earth, to stamp the venomous Bolshevist serpent underfoot, to bring the country to its safe and sane law-abiding state of the past. And prominent in all such closely guarded, mysterious councils were Mr. Pauling and Mr.

Henderson.

"There is some one mind directing it all, in my opinion," declared Mr.

Pauling. "Some arch criminal-a Bolshevist emissary-some man with a tremendous brain, marvelous executive ability, immense personal magnetism, but whose mind, heart and soul are warped and twisted. One who is such a criminal as the world has fortunately never known before.

If we can lay our hands on him the rest will be easy. Without a leader, without a directive brain, these common criminals will be lost. They are arrant cowards, mere tools and yet, by some almost superhuman power, are controlled, directed, moved like p.a.w.ns on a chessboard, by an unseen, mysterious being who so far has completely baffled us."

"I agree with you perfectly," said Mr. Henderson. "I believe the same man, the same arch fiend, is back of the rum-running; that this is merely a tryout, a test, to see if we can detect him and that through it all is a deep-laid, dastardly plot to inflame the people and at the same time enrich himself. To my mind, it savors of some one far greater in brain power, in intrigue and in ability than those unshaven, misguided Russians. It looks far more as if it were German work-perhaps some high officer of the Prussian army or navy-who, afraid of his own republican countrymen and filled with a fiendish desire for revenge, is devoting himself to the destruction of law and order in the United States."

"That is very plausible as a theory," remarked another man, "but it does not get us anywhere. If this is so, where does this master mind stay?

Where are his headquarters? Surely he must have underlings,-lieutenants and trusted emissaries and some place, some headquarters, from which his nefarious schemes are sent forth. Nothing comes in by mail or by pa.s.sengers we know. Every alien who enters is known. Not a word that tends to bear out your theories had been wrung from the men captured even though they were on the verge of death or were about to go to the electric chair. No, I do not agree with you. It's merely the aftermath of the war. Men were taught to handle firearms and to kill their fellow men. They were fed up, encouraged and lived with excitement and constant peril. The war ended; they were out of work, they pined for the thrill of danger and their viewpoint of life, of property and of right and wrong was distorted. Banditry offered an easy way of securing funds; it filled their desire for excitement; it satisfied their grudge against society and their country and, like all crimes which succeed, it became contagious and got a grip on more and more men. It's all the logical outcome of the war and in my opinion the red propaganda has nothing whatever to do with it."

Mr. Henderson smiled. "Perhaps I may be able to change your views, Selwin," he remarked. "I wanted to know your ideas before I came out with it. As you all know, I was on special work during the war-detailed to decode all suspicious messages that came in by radio or cable and to use my vivid imagination to try to find hidden meanings in apparently innocent messages. You all know the result, and there is no need of recalling specific cases, such as the famous sugar s.h.i.+pment to Garcia and the announcement of a baby's birth but which, thanks to my 'hunch'

or imagination or whatever you wish to call it, led to the apprehension of the most dangerous female spy of the time and the confiscation of those incriminating doc.u.ments which saved the _Leviathan_ from destruction, prevented several thousand of our boys from going to the bottom of the sea, kept Brooklyn bridge from being blown to bits, thus blocking the Navy Yard, and prevented countless women and children from being widows and orphans. But perhaps you do not all know that, back of that stupendous plot, that greatest attempted coup of the enemy to terrorize and cripple the United States, that supreme effort of a dying, beaten nation to turn the tide of war and transform her from the vanquished to the victor, was the work of one man. To him was entrusted this almost superhuman task. The reward, if he succeeded, was to be honors and riches beyond conception. Had he won he would to-day be seated upon the throne of England-the despotic, iron-handed governor of a German colony with his feet upon the neck of the British people and with the colossal indemnity, which it had been planned to exact from our country, as his monetary reward. If he failed, his life was to pay the forfeit. Not only his life was to be sacrificed, but his lands and property were to be confiscated, his family imprisoned, degraded and exiled. It was, I think, the greatest, the most stupendous gamble ever known. And the gambler lost! By the merest chance, by pure accident, by a coincidence which no human being could have foreseen, his messages-the vital message-came into my hands and, through a tiny mistake, an error which might have pa.s.sed a thousand eyes unnoticed, the conspirator-this gambler in nations and life-was betrayed and all his efforts, his widespread plots, his carefully organized plans came to nothing. But yet he escaped. Evidently he considered a gambling debt one that could be disregarded. His country, or rather his emperor, had overlooked a most important matter. He had failed to provide for getting hold of the gambler to collect his debt. No doubt, had Germany been victorious, some emissary of the Kaiser would eventually have found this man and would have exacted payment in full. But with Germany's downfall he was safe-at least as long as he remained out of Germany-and so completely did he efface himself that we came to the conclusion that he had committed suicide. But, gentlemen, I am willing to wager my reputation that he still lives. I have evidence which to my mind is absolutely conclusive that he is at the bottom of this Bolshevist propaganda, this influx of liquor, this wave of crime."

Amazed, the others gazed at Mr. Henderson as he paused after this surprising announcement.

"Jove! That's some statement!" cried one. "If you're right, Henderson, we've got our work cut out for us. I can see why he might do it though.

I know who you mean-there's no use mentioning names even here. And if it is he I can understand why he has picked on Uncle Sam. But, by Jove, old man, if 'tis he, then watch your step! He's no man to forgive or forget.

He'll have his eye on you and mark you for a come-back, I'll wager."

Henderson smiled grimly. "He has already," he remarked dryly. "That's my proof that he's the man. Like all of his kind he's so confoundedly conceited, so c.o.c.ksure of himself, so puffed up with his own importance that, sooner or later, he's bound to overdo himself. He cannot resist the temptation to let some one know what a big toad in the puddle he is.

He must boast or bust and such men always hang themselves if you give them rope enough. Here's the rope he's hung himself with!"

As he finished, Mr. Henderson tossed a sheet of paper on the table and the others crowded close to examine it.

To the casual observer, it would have meant little. A sheet of ordinary note paper with a single line written by a typewriter across it. There was no date, no signature, merely the words: "Remember Mercedes and Garcia." But to these keen-eyed, square-jawed, quiet men those words carried grave import. To them, it meant more than pages of writing might have carried.

"I guess you're right," exclaimed Selwin. "That is, as far as his being alive and this coming from him is concerned. But why do you think he or this has any connection with the other matters?"

"Another coincidence-or perhaps you'll say imagination," replied Mr.

Henderson. "Examine this pamphlet-the latest effusion of our red propagandists. Do you notice anything peculiar about it?"

Each man shook his head as the flimsy pamphlet pa.s.sed from hand to hand.

"Very well," commented Mr. Henderson. "You notice that it's not printed-that is, with type. It's a zincotype impression from typewriting. And if you look closely you'll also see that the small "a"

has a broken tail, the capital "T" has a little twist in one arm of the top, the small "e" is flattened or battered and the "B" always shows a tiny smudge above it where the character on the same key struck the paper owing to the type bar being bent slightly. Now, kindly examine this terse note I showed you and see if you do not find the identical defects in the same letters."

"By Jove, yes!" cried one, as they again studied the paper. "Henderson, you're a winner. The machine that wrote one wrote the other. Not a shade of a doubt of it. But how about the rest of these dirty sheets and how about the bandits and the liquor?"

"I've examined several thousand circulars and pamphlets," replied Mr.

Henderson, "and all that are typewritten are the same. Our friend is doing all the writing on one machine. I imagine he is hanging out somewhere and takes no chances by entrusting his work to outsiders. A man could do all the typing and could make zinc photo plates in a single small room. As for my hunch that the rum-runners are connected with the same gang, it's based on this."

As he spoke, he placed a small metal object on the table, a bit of lead about half an inch in diameter and resembling a small coin. The others picked it up and examined it curiously.

"Well, what's this to do with the matter?" asked one.

"This note," replied Mr. Henderson, "was left at my door and to prevent it from blowing away this bit of lead was placed upon it. You don't see anything suspicious about it, but you may when I draw your attention to the fact that this is a metal seal from a particular brand and make of an extremely high-priced French West Indian liquor. Until the day after I received this reminder of Mercedes and Garcia, there was not, to the best of our knowledge and belief, a single bottle of that Pere Kerrman liqueur in the United States-except possibly in the private stock of some millionaire or exclusive club. Two days later, the country was flooded with it."