THE BOYS DRAW A BLANK
Hardly had the door to Mr. Henderson’s office closed behind them before
Frank commenced to dance and caper wildly about.
“Hurrah!” he shouted. “This _is_ great! We’re real detectives and
working for Uncle Sam!”
“Yes, but don’t make such a row,” cautioned Tom. “We don’t want every
one in the place to know it and they’ll think you’re crazy. Come on,
let’s hurry and tell Henry.”
When they reached Gramercy Square and dashed into Henry’s room and told
him of their talk with Mr. Henderson, he was as excited and pleased as
Frank.
“Say, it _was_ funny we didn’t think of that fellow using a telephone!”
he exclaimed, when the boys had told him of Mr. Henderson’s theory. “And
he’s right about that capacity effect of a fellow near a phone. I _was_
a fool not to have thought of it. Why, Jim told me about that long ago.
He even said his brother Ed showed him with his set on the _San
Jacinto_. But I guess it must have been because we were so intent on the
messages that we couldn’t think of anything else. I’ll bet we can hear
folks on the phone through my set right now.”
“That _is_ funny!” declared Tom, when, a moment later, the boys were
listening to a telephone conversation coming to them through Henry’s
set. “Say,” he continued, “there isn’t much privacy nowadays, is there?
Why, if you could amplify that enough, every one could hear everything
that was going on over the telephones.”
“Yes, and to think we were so close to getting that other chap’s talk
and never realized it,” said Frank. “Mr. Henderson must think we are
great radio fans! I’ll bet he had a mighty good laugh at our expense
after we left.”
“Well, we’ll not be fooled again,” declared Tom. “If that fellow begins
talking to-night we’ll nail him, too.”
“But we can’t locate him,” objected Henry. “So what good will it do?”
“That’s so,” admitted Tom. “But the main thing is to hear what he says.
Then perhaps we can make sense out of it.”
“Say,” suddenly exclaimed Henry, “did you fellows notice that every time
we heard those messages the fellow mentioned a flower? First ’twas
‘Azalia’ and then ‘Magnolia’ and then ‘Hibiscus’ and last time ’twas
‘Frangi Pani.’ I’d like to know what that meant.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Tom. “Of course Azalia and Magnolia and
Hibiscus are flowers, but what’s Frangi Pani—sounds like some sort of
Japanese thing to me. I guess this fellow must be talking about boats.
Lots of ships are named after flowers, you know.”
“Well, he must have a whole fleet then,” said Henry.
“Perhaps it’s perfumes or he may be in the flower business,” suggested
Frank with a laugh.
“Perhaps we’ll get the answer to that when we hear his mate,” said Tom.
“Hope we hear him to-night,” remarked Henry. “Say, what do you think of
this scheme?”
For some time the boys forgot all else in examining a new hook-up which
Henry had devised and at last left him with final cautions to be at his
instruments that evening and each night thereafter until they again
heard the unknown speakers.
But it was several nights before the mysterious messages again greeted
their ears. Then Frank and Tom caught them at the same instant and both
boys gave a little start and looked at each other in surprise, for the
first word they heard was “Tuberose.” Once more the name of a flower had
entered into the conversation and mentally wondering what in the world
this meant the two boys slipped the receiver of the desk telephone from
its hook. Hardly had they done so when they almost jumped, as clear and
loud, they heard a human voice; but the next instant their spirits sank
to zero and they glanced at each other with disgusted expressions, for
instead of the voice of the man they had expected to hear they heard a
woman’s voice and her words were: “Number, please?”
With a savage jerk, Tom hung up the receiver.
“Gee!” he exclaimed. “Of course we’d get _her_. I’ll bet Mr. Henderson
knew that and just tried to jolly us. Now what _are_ we going to do? If
we—Hello! What’s that?”
Clearly to his ears, and interrupting the words of the mysterious man
whom they had almost forgotten in their disappointment, came another
voice, evidently that of a woman, and pitched in high tones. “Oh, yes!”
it exclaimed. “I’m _so_ glad, my dear. Do you know—” Tom drew his hand
from the desk phone on which it had been resting and the words trailed
off into a faint indistinct buzz. Tom and Frank grinned.
“Well, it works!” ejaculated Frank. “Of course it doesn’t make any
difference if the receiver is off or not—we aren’t getting waves over
wires. Henry kept the receiver on to-day, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” replied Tom. “But say, we’ve got to get busy. That
chap’s been talking for the last five minutes and we haven’t put down a
thing he’s said.”
Trying to make up for lost time, the two boys jotted down the words that
came in, now and then placing a hand on the desk phone to see if they
could hear the other party to the conversation, but each time the nasal
voice of the woman, gossiping with a friend, was all that came to them.
Then the man’s voice ceased and after a few moments’ wait the boys rose
from their seats.
“Darn that old hen!” exclaimed Tom, petulantly. “How the dickens could a
fellow expect to hear anything with her tongue going like a house
afire?”
“Just think what it’ll be when every one’s talking by radio,” chuckled
Frank. “And won’t the women have the time of their lives hearing all
their neighbors’ gossip?”
“Government’ll have to license ’em to talk, I guess,” muttered Tom.
“Come on, let’s go over to Henry’s and see if he had any better luck.”
But Henry had nothing to tell them. He had heard no conversation over
the phone except some man talking business with a friend, but he had
written down all the words the mysterious man had spoken and showed them
to the boys who had explained how they had forgotten to get the greater
part of the conversation.
“Tuberose,” Tom read. “We’ll begin next week. Getting stocked up. I’ll
bet it’ll wake things up. Too bad we didn’t know then. Might have been a
different tale, eh? Oh, Oscar’s all right. Yes, same old place. Nothing
doing, old man. Never a suspicion. Oh, it’s a cinch. I don’t know. Some
kids, I expect. Got to see him to-night. So long, old man.”
“Just the same old stuff,” commented Tom when he had finished. “Only no
figures this time.”
“And another flower,” added Henry.
“Jim would swear he was crazy if he noticed that,” chuckled Frank. “I’m
beginning to think that may be it myself.”
For three consecutive nights the boys heard the conversation and despite
all efforts failed to hear anything of interest over the ordinary phones
while the radio words were coming in, although they heard various scraps
of conversations between other persons.
“Mr. Henderson was off that time,” declared Tom, when the boys rose from
their sets on the third night. “His theory was wrong. The other chap’s
not talking on a telephone, I’ll bet.”
“Doesn’t look that way at any rate,” agreed Frank. “Let’s go down
to-morrow and tell him.”
Accordingly, the three boys visited Mr. Henderson the next day and
reported the results of their experiments.
“That _does_ puzzle me,” exclaimed Mr. Henderson as they finished. “If
you heard others it’s pretty conclusive evidence he’s not on a wire. Did
you hear those buzzing sounds or words again?”
“I did,” said Henry, “and I heard ’em just as plain and no plainer when
I was a long way from the phone as when I was touching it.”
“Well, we’ve drawn a blank there,” smiled Mr. Henderson. Then, after a
moment’s thought, he exclaimed, “Boys, I’m going to take a chance. I’m
pretty well convinced something’s going on that’s crooked and I’m going
to send some men out and search every building in that block from cellar
to garret. You understand, of course, this is a profound secret. No one
will know who they are or what they’re after. It must be a surprise
visit so don’t even talk it over among yourselves. But I want you to
help us a bit. I’m going to start the men out at eight o’clock sharp,
to-night. You must be at your sets and listening. If the fellow’s
talking, you’ll know when my men find him, either by what he says or the
way he shuts off, and if he goes on talking without interruption for
half an hour you’ll know you’ve made some mistake and he’s not in that
block. Meet me here to-morrow at about this time and we’ll have
something to report—or nothing.”
“Oh, and there’s something else,” announced Tom as the boys turned to
leave. “Henry called attention to those names of flowers yesterday. We’d
almost forgotten about them. Every time that fellow talks he gets a new
name of a flower. Have you noticed it?”
Mr. Henderson chuckled. “You’re getting a pretty good training at this,
boys,” he replied. “Yes, I’ve noticed that—that’s one thing that
influences me more than anything else. There’s some code to those names,
I think, and they may prove the key to the whole thing. We’ll find out
sometime probably.”
Remembering Mr. Henderson’s injunction about discussing the proposed
raid the boys refrained from mentioning it to one another, but could
scarcely restrain their impatience until the time came for them to be at
their instruments.
Eight o’clock came and, excited and expectant, the boys listened, hoping
to hear the message coming in and to learn from its words or its abrupt
ending of the success of the raid. But the minutes ticked by, the hands
of the clock pointed to half-past eight, and nine o’clock came and went
without a word from the source they so longed to hear.
Anxious to learn the result of the search, the boys hurried to Mr.
Henderson’s office the following day.
“Another blank, boys,” he announced when they entered his office. “There
wasn’t a sign of a wireless outfit in that block. Did you hear anything
last night?”
The boys admitted that they had heard nothing.
“But—but there _must_ be a set there,” insisted Tom, utterly unable to
believe that they had been mistaken. “Why, we were all around there with
our loops and we got cross bearings and knew he was there.”
“It’s a bit mysterious, I grant,” replied Mr. Henderson. “I fully
expected we’d locate it, but my men will swear there isn’t even a piece
of radio apparatus in the block. They went through it with a fine-tooth
comb. Either you boys were mistaken or else the fellow’s moved away. If
you hear him again you’ll know whether he’s changed his location. I’m
afraid you’ll never locate him by your instruments, though. I’ve used
those loops as direction finders at sea and to some extent ashore and I
admit I can’t see how you went wrong, but we’ve got to face the fact
that he’s not there—at least not now.”
Thoroughly disappointed and discouraged, the boys left the office and
for hours discussed the matter with one another, but at the end of the
time were no nearer a solution than ever.
“Oh, bother the old thing, anyhow!” exclaimed Tom at last. “We’ve had
our fun and now let’s do something else. Dad’s leaving Nassau to-morrow
and we can try sending to him when he gets nearer. Wonder what he’ll say
about this thing.”
“Yes, but it gets my goat to think that Mr. Henderson will think we’re
such dubs,” said Frank. “He thinks we’ve made some big mistake and put
him to all that trouble for nothing.”
“Well, let’s forget it,” suggested Henry, and this seeming the best
advice the boys followed it and were soon so busy experimenting along
new lines that the mysterious conversations almost slipped from their
minds, and as no further messages were heard from the same source they
decided that by some coincidence the sender had moved bag and baggage
from his former location just in time to escape detection by the men Mr.
Henderson had sent on the search.
Tom and Frank were overjoyed when, a day before Mr. Pauling’s ship
docked, they succeeded in getting a message to him.
“That’s pretty near 300 miles,” declared Tom jubilantly, “and our set’s
only supposed to send 100. Say, that’s a real freak message.”
But when, a few moments later, they heard some one calling their letters
and this was followed by a question as to their location and the
information that the inquirer was the government operator at Fort
Randolph, Canal Zone, Panama, the two boys could only stare at each
other in utter amazement.
“Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Frank at last. “We were heard clear down in
Panama! Why that’s pretty near 2000 miles!”
“Almost as good as that fellow over in Jersey who was heard in Scotland
and Honduras!” cried Tom. “Hurrah, Frank! Let’s try again.”
But despite every effort the boys failed to get a reply from any one
more than fifty or sixty miles distant and realized that, by some
peculiar atmospheric condition, their dots and dashes had been carried
through the ether for twenty times and more their normal sending range.
“That’s something to tell Dad,” declared Tom, and rushing down the
stairs he excitedly told his mother of the wonderful feat.
“I suppose it is remarkable, if you say so,” said Mrs. Pauling, “but
really, I can’t see why you should not talk to Balboa or Europe or any
other point if you can talk to your father’s ship out at sea. One is
just as wonderful as the other to me. But I’m proud of you just the
same, Tom.”
When, the next day, Mr. Pauling arrived, Tom could scarcely wait to
relate the story of his freak message and his father was enthusiastic
enough to satisfy any boy.
“Marvelous!” he declared. “And the operator on the _San Jacinto_ tells
me you’ve improved a lot since he first talked to you. Says you can send
well and had no trouble in getting his message at regular speed. I’m
mighty glad you’ve done so well, Son. Just as soon as I have a chance
I’m coming up to see that wonder set of yours. How many have you built
since I’ve been gone?”
Then Tom told his father of the mysterious messages and what had come of
their attempts to locate the sender.
Mr. Pauling laughed heartily. “Well, if you got old Henderson interested
he must have believed there was something in it. I don’t know but what
there was. I’ll talk it over with him. But I can imagine your
disappointment, and his too—when nothing came of it. No, Son, I can’t
offer any explanation and we’re as much in the dark as ever about the
smugglers. By the way, I met a chap down at Nassau that was just about
as keen on experiments as you boys only he’s not a radio fan. No, he’s a
diver. He’s invented a new type of diving suit—self-contained he calls
it. Just a sort of rubber cloth shirt and a khaki-colored helmet and
lead-soled shoes. He goes down without ropes or life lines or air hose.
Gets his air from a little box or receptacle strapped to his body. I
don’t know what is in it, but it’s some chemical which produces oxygen
and he can walk about where he pleases on the bottom. It’s the weirdest
thing I’ve ever seen to watch him wade out into the water and disappear
and then, half an hour or two hours later, have him bob up somewhere
else.”
“Gosh, I’d love to see that,” declared Tom. “Suppose he wants to come up
from deep water without walking ashore, how does he manage?”
“He just produces more oxygen so he floats up,” replied Mr. Pauling.
“And you’ll have a chance to talk with him next week. He’s returning to
New York and I’ve asked him to call and see us. Nice young chap, name’s
Rawlins. The only trouble with his outfit is that he can’t communicate
with others ashore or on the boats. Of course he can take down a line or
even a telephone, but then he at once destroys one of the great
advantages of his invention. A trailing line or wire is as liable to be
caught or tangled in a wreck or in coral as an air pipe or any other
rope or line and it means some one must be stationed in a boat over him.
He claims one big advantage of his suit will be the fact that as no boat
or air pump is needed, no one can tell where he is. That would be a fine
thing in time of war, of course. Think you’ll take a great fancy to him,
Tom.”
For a moment, Tom was silent and then he suddenly let out a yell like an
Indian.
“I have it!” he fairly screamed. “Radio! Submarine radio! I’ll bet it’ll
work.”
Then, filled with enthusiasm, he started to explain his ideas to his
father.
“All right! All right!” cried Mr. Pauling, laughing and holding up his
hands in protestation. “I’ll take your word for the technical end of it.
Wait and tell Rawlins about it. But honestly I don’t know but what there
may be something in it. You and Rawlins can work it out.”
So filled with his new idea was Tom, that he fairly rushed to tell Frank
when the latter arrived, and for the next ten days the two were
ceaselessly at work, drawing plans and diagrams, making and discarding
instruments, purchasing countless rolls of wire and knock-down
apparatus, as they strove to put into concrete form the vision in Tom’s
brain.
But they found innumerable difficulties to be overcome and were almost
discouraged when one evening Rawlins called.
He was such an enthusiastic and interesting man that the boys took a
huge liking for him and as soon as Tom told him of his idea he at once
fell in with the boys’ plans.
“I do believe it can be done!” he declared, when Tom had shown him the
plans and had described his ideas fully. “I don’t know much about radio,
but if you are right about the matter there’s no reason I can see why
you shouldn’t get it to work. I tell you what, Tom, we’ll fit up a
workshop and laboratory down at my father’s dock—it’s down near the foot
of 28th St. and we don’t use it except for storage. The old gentleman’s
gone out of the wrecking business and has sold all his outfit except the
things stored there. It’s a fine place to work and experiment. There are
tools and a machine lathe and about ten tons of odds and ends that may
come in handy. My father had his office and workshop there—did all his
repairing of pumps, diving suits and tugs there, and never threw
anything away. I learned to dive there—my father and grandfather were
deep-sea divers, too—and there’s a trapdoor where the divers went down
to test their suits and pumps. I made my suits and even my under-sea
motion picture outfit there and it’s private and no one will disturb us.
The only way we can test out this idea of yours is by actual trial under
water. If we do get it, it will be a mighty big thing—greatest
improvement in sub-sea work ever. I’ll get the place ready and cleaned
up a bit to-morrow. I’m just as crazy as you are to try it out.”
Mr. Henderson also was deeply interested in the boys’ new experiments
and declared he believed their ideas might be worked out successfully.
“You’ll run across a lot of unexpected and unforeseen difficulties,” he
warned them. “One never knows what new laws and phenomena one may run up
against in a thing of this sort. During the war our government and the
Allies, and no doubt Germany also, carried on a good many experiments
with under-water radio, but as far as I know they never came to much.
Radio had not progressed so far then and there were more important
things to be done and not enough men to attend to it. We _did_ use
vacuum tubes and amplifiers for detecting submarines, however. By the
way, I have a few things that may be of help to you boys and I’ll be
glad to let you have them. Among them is a remarkable tuning device of
German make and I don’t think it has ever been tried out. You’ll need
something that is simple and accurate and easy to control and this may
do the trick.”
By the end of a week a snug little laboratory had been set up on
Rawlins’ dock and the boys and their diver friend spent every available
moment of their time there.
Tom and Frank were as interested in seeing Rawlins go down in his odd
suit as he was in their radio work, and the first time he put it on to
demonstrate it to the boys they became tremendously excited. Rawlins
carefully explained all about it, pointing out its various parts and
showing them how the oxygen generator worked.
“You have to be careful about this,” he said, “if a drop of water gets
into it, it blazes or flames up and may kill a fellow. That’s the only
danger about it. If a man forgets and takes the mouthpiece from his lips
to speak without shutting it off and water gets in, he’ll have a red hot
flame inside his helmet. It’s easy to get accustomed to it though—comes
as natural as breathing, after a bit of practice.”
But even now that it had been explained to them it seemed a most
remarkable feat for Rawlins to don the shirtlike suit and helmet and,
with only these over his ordinary garments and with no rubber trousers
covering his legs, descend the ladder and disappear in the water without
lines, pipes or ropes trailing after him. Both Tom and Frank were crazy
to go down, but Rawlins refused to permit it until he had made the suits
“fool proof” as he put it. Even then, the boys’ parents objected until
they had visited the workshop and Rawlins had proved to their
satisfaction that the boys were perfectly safe in shallow water when he
accompanied them.
“We’ll have to go down to test out the radio,” argued Tom, “so we might
as well learn right away.”
At last the fathers gave in and Tom went down first with Rawlins. For a
week afterwards he could think or talk of nothing else and never tired
relating his sensations and experiences to his parents and his boy
friends, and Frank did the same. But after the first few times the
novelty wore off and the boys soon became quite accustomed to going to
the bottom of the river. Rawlins, however, never allowed them to stay
down more than a few minutes at a time and after the first few descents
the boys found little fun in it. They had expected to find a smooth,
hard bottom and to see fishes swimming about and to be able to look up
and see passing boats overhead. To their surprise, they found they could
not walk upright, but leaned far forward and had a peculiar dreamy
sensation when they attempted to walk, their feet seeming to half-drag,
half-float behind them and that, despite the fact that the bottom of the
river was soft and muddy, they did not sink into the bottom to any
extent. As Tom put it, it was like trying to hurry in a dream when one’s
feet seem tied to something and one can’t possibly run. Moreover, they
found the water dark and so filled with sediment that they could see but
a few feet and even near-by objects, such as the spiles and abutments of
the dock, the ladder down which they descended and the figure of their
companion were scarcely visible a yard distant and took on strange,
hazy, indistinct and distorted forms. Indeed, Rawlins always held their
hands when they went down, explaining that should they stray a few yards
away they might be lost or might be swept off in some current.
But they were glad of the experience and realized that in order to carry
on their experiments with any hopes of success they must learn to use
the suits, for Rawlins had not yet mastered the details of radio.
In the meantime, however, they worked at the radio devices and at last
Tom announced that he had a set which he believed might work.
“It’s only an experimental set,” he explained to Rawlins. “And it won’t
stand up long under water, but if the idea’s all right and we get any
results we can go to work and make a good outfit on the same principle.”
Rawlins was almost as excited as the boys when the day came to test the
new device and at Tom’s suggestion was to go down alone with the
receiver in his helmet while the boys remained on the dock and attempted
to communicate with him.
“We’ll try receiving under water first,” said Tom. “If it works we’ll
get it into good shape and then get busy on the under-water sending
set.”
So, with the compact but complicated little set inside his helmet, which
was specially made to accommodate it, and with the receivers clamped
over his ears, Rawlins backed down the ladder while the boys, feeling
like explorers about to set foot on some new and unknown land, watched
his head disappear beneath the surface of the river.
It was little wonder that they were wildly excited for now, in a few
moments, they would know beyond question whether their ideas had been
right and whether all their work and trouble had been thrown away or
they had made an advance in radio which might revolutionize under-sea
work.
At first the boys had not fully realized what the success of their
efforts would mean and had gone into it enthusiastically merely as
something new and strange.
But as soon as Rawlins had explained the possibilities which a
successful under-sea radio telephone would open up, they understood how
much might hinge on the triumph or failure of their plans.
“Why,” Rawlins had exclaimed, “think what it will do if it works! A man
can go down and walk about any place he chooses and yet can talk back
and forth with men on a ship or on shore. In wrecking, he could go all
through a ship with no danger of getting his life-line or air-hose
tangled and he could direct the fellows on the tug or lighter, telling
them just where to lower chains or tackle or anything else. And think
what it would mean in time of war! Why, a man could walk out from shore
anywhere, go under a ship and fasten a mine to her and blow her up and
hear all that was going on aboard the enemy’s ship. And just think what
a dangerous sort of spy a man would be—out of sight under the sea and
yet able to hear all the talk and messages of the enemy! I tell you,
boys, up to now diving’s been like blind man’s work—mostly feeling and
signaling by jerks on a line. Of course the ordinary phone was a big
advance, but with that you still had to trail a wire along and there was
a visible connection between the diver and the surface. With my suits
and your radio the country that owned the secrets would be mighty near
masters of the sea, I’ll say.”