THE LOST TELEGRAMS.
On the morning following the departure of Sam and the boys, Mr. Havens
was awakened by laughing voices in the corridor outside his door. His
first impression was that Sam and Jimmie had returned from their
midnight excursion in the _Ann_. He arose and, after dressing hastily,
opened the door, thinking that the adventures of the night must have
been very amusing indeed to leave such a hang-over of merriment for the
morning.
When he saw Ben and Glenn standing in the hall he confessed to a feeling
of disappointment, but invited the lads inside without showing it.
“You are out early,” he said as the boys, still laughing, dropped into
chairs. “What’s the occasion of the comedy?”
“We’ve been out to the field,” replied Ben, “and we’re laughing to think
how Carl bested Sam and Jimmie last night.”
“What about it?” asked the millionaire.
“Why,” Ben continued, “it seems that Sam and Jimmie planned a moonlight
ride in the _Ann_ all by themselves. Carl got next to their scheme and
bounced into the seat with Jimmie just as the machine swung into the
air. I’ll bet Jimmie was good and provoked about that!”
“What time did the _Ann_ return?” asked Havens.
“Return?” repeated Ben. “She hasn’t returned yet.”
The millionaire turned from the mirror in which he was completing the
details of his toilet and faced the boys with a startled look in his
eyes. The boys ceased laughing and regarded him curiously.
“Are you sure the boys haven’t returned?” Mr. Havens asked.
“Anyhow,” Glenn replied, “the _Ann_ hasn’t come back!”
“Did they tell you where they were going?” asked Ben.
“They did not,” was the reply. “Sam said that he thought he might be
able to pick up valuable information and asked for the use of the _Ann_
and the company of Jimmie. That’s all he said to me concerning the
moonlight ride he proposed.”
In bringing his mind back to the conversation with Sam on the previous
night, Mr. Havens could not avoid a feeling of anxiety as he considered
the significant words of the young man and the information concerning
the sealed letter to be opened only in case of his death. He said
nothing of this to the boys, however, but continued the conversation as
if no apprehension dwelt in his mind regarding the safety of the lads.
“If they only went out for a short ride by moonlight,” Glenn suggested,
in a moment, “they ought to have returned before daylight.”
“You can never tell what scrape that boy Jimmie will get into!” laughed
Ben. “He’s the hoodoo of the party and the mascot combined! He gets us
into all kinds of scrapes, but he usually makes good by getting us out
of the scrapes we get ourselves into.”
“Oh, they’ll be back directly,” the millionaire remarked, although deep
down in his consciousness was a growing belief that something serious
had happened to the lads.
He, however, did his best to conceal the anxiety he felt from Ben and
his companion.
Directly the three went down to breakfast together, and while the meal
was in progress a report came from the field where the machines had been
left that numerous telegrams addressed to Mr. Havens had been delivered
there. The millionaire looked puzzled at the information.
“I left positive orders at the telegraph office,” he said, “to have all
my messages delivered here. Did one of the men out there receipt for
them? If so, perhaps one of you boys would better chase out and bring
them in,” he added turning to his companions at the table.
The messenger replied that the messages had been receipted for, and that
he had offered to bring them in, but that the man in charge had refused
to turn them over to him. He seemed annoyed at the fact.
“All right,” Mr. Havens replied, “Ben will go out to the field with you
and bring the messages in. And,” he added, as the messenger turned away,
“kindly notify me the instant the _Ann_ arrives.”
The messenger bowed and started away, accompanied by Ben.
“I don’t understand about the telegrams having been sent to the field,”
Mr. Havens went on, as the two left the breakfast table and sauntered
into the lobby of the hotel. “I left positive instructions with Mr.
Mellen to have all messages delivered here. I also left instructions
with the clerk to send any messages to my room, no matter what time they
came. The instructions were very explicit.”
“Oh, you know how things get balled up in telegraph offices, and
messenger offices, and post-offices!” grinned Glenn. “Probably Mr.
Mellen left the office early in the evening, and the man in charge got
lazy, or indifferent, or forgetful, and sent the messages to the wrong
place.”
While the two talked together, Mr. Mellen strolled into the hotel and
approached the corner of the lobby where they sat.
“Good-morning!” he said taking a chair at their side. “Anything new
concerning the southern trip?”
“Not a thing!” replied Mr. Havens. “Sam went out in the _Ann_, for a
short run last night, and we’re only waiting for his return in order to
continue our journey. We expect to be away by noon.”
“I hope I shall hear from you often,” the manager said.
“By the way,” the millionaire remarked, “what about the telegrams which
were sent out to the field last night?”
“No telegrams for you were sent out to the field last night!” was the
reply. “The telegrams directed to you are now at the hotel desk, unless
you have called for them.”
“But a messenger from the field reports that several telegrams for me
were received there. I don’t understand this at all.”
“They certainly did not come from our office!” was the reply.
The millionaire arose hastily and approached the desk just as the clerk
was drawing a number of telegrams from his letter-box.
“I left orders to have these taken to your room as soon as they
arrived,” the clerk explained, “but it seems that the night man chucked
them into your letter-box and forgot all about them.”
Mr. Havens took the telegrams into his hand and returned to the corner
of the lobby where he had been seated with Mellen and Glenn.
“There seems to be a hoodoo in the air concerning my telegrams,” he said
with a smile, as he began opening the envelopes. “The messages which
came last night were not delivered to my room, but were left lying in my
letter-box until just now. In future, please instruct your messengers,”
he said to the manager, “to bring my telegrams directly to my room—that
is,” he added, “if I remain in town and any more telegrams are received
for me.”
“I’ll see that you get them directly they are received,” replied the
manager, impatiently. “If the hotel clerk objects to the boy going to
your room in the night-time, I’ll tell him to draw a gun on him!” he
added with a laugh. “Are the delayed telegrams important ones?”
“They are in code!” replied the millionaire. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go
to my room and get the code sheet.”
Mr. Havens disappeared up the elevator, and Mellen and Glenn talked of
aviation, and canoeing, and base-ball, and the dozen and one things in
which men and boys are interested, for half an hour. Then the
millionaire appeared in the lobby beckoning them toward the elevator.
Mr. Mellen observed that the millionaire was greatly excited as he
motioned them into his suite of rooms and pointed to chairs. The
telegrams which he had received were lying open on a table near the
window and the code sheet and code translations were not far away.
Before the millionaire could open the conversation Ben came bounding
into the room without knocking. His face was flushed with running, and
his breath came in short gasps. As he turned to close the door he shook
a clenched fist threateningly in the direction of the elevator.
“That fool operator,” he declared, “left me standing in the corridor
below while he took one of the maids up to the ’steenth floor, and I ran
all the way up the stairs! I’ll get him good sometime!”
“Did you bring the telegrams?” asked the millionaire with a smile.
“Say, look here!” Ben exclaimed dropping into a chair beside the table.
“I’d like to know what’s coming off!”
Mr. Havens and his companions regarded the boy critically for a moment
and then the millionaire asked:
“What’s broke loose now?”
“Well,” Ben went on, “I went out to the field and the man there said
he’d get the telegrams in a minute. I stood around looking over the
_Louise_ and _Bertha_, and asking questions about what Sam said when he
went away on the _Ann_, until I got tired of waiting, then I chased up
to where this fellow stood and he said he’d go right off and get the
messages.”
“Why didn’t you hand him one?” laughed Glenn.
“I wanted to,” Ben answered. “If I’d had him down in the old seventeenth
ward in the little old city of New York, I’d have set the bunch on him.
Well, after a while, he poked away to the little shelter-tent the men
put up to sleep in last night and rustled around among the straw and
blankets and came back and said he couldn’t find the messages.”
The millionaire and the manager exchanged significant glances.
“He told me,” Ben went on, “that the telegrams had been receipted for
and hidden under a blanket, to be delivered early in the morning. Said
he guessed some one must have stolen them, or mislaid them, but didn’t
seem to think the matter very important.”
The millionaire pointed to the open messages lying on the table.
“How many telegrams came for me last night?” he asked.
“Eight,” was the reply.
“And there are eight here,” the millionaire went on.
“And that means——”
“And that means,” the millionaire said, interrupting the manager, “that
the telegrams delivered on the field last night were either duplicates
of these cipher despatches or fake messages!”
“That’s just what I was going to remark,” said Mellen.
“Has the _Ann_ returned?” asked Glenn of Ben.
“Not yet,” was the reply.
“Suppose we take one of the other machines and go up and look for her?”
“We’ll discuss that later on, boys,” the millionaire interrupted.
“I would give a considerable to know,” the manager observed, in a
moment, “just who handled the messages which were left at the hotel
counter last night. And I’m going to do my best to find out!” he added.
“That ought to be a perfectly simple matter,” suggested Mr. Havens.
“In New York, yes! In Quito, no!” answered the manager. “A good many of
the natives who are in clerical positions here are crooked enough to
live in a corkscrew. They’ll do almost anything for money.”
“That’s the idea I had already formed of the people,” Ben cut in.
“Besides,” the manager continued, “the chances are that the night clerk
tumbled down on a sofa somewhere in the lobby and slept most of the
night, leaving bell-boys and subordinates to run the hotel.”
“In that event,” Mr. Havens said, “the telegrams might have been handled
by half a dozen different people.”
“I’m afraid so!” replied the manager.
“But the code!” suggested Ben. “They couldn’t read them!”
“But they might copy them for some one who could!” argued the manager.
“And the copies might have been sent out to the field for the express
purpose of having them stolen,” he went on with an anxious look on his
face. “Are they very important?” he asked of the millionaire.
“Very much so,” was the answer. “In fact, they are code copies of
private papers taken from deposit box A, showing the plans made in New
York for the South American aeroplane journey.”
“And showing stops and places to look through and all that?” asked Ben.
“If that’s the kind of information the telegrams contained, I guess the
Redfern bunch in this vicinity are pretty well posted about this time!”
“I’m afraid so,” the millionaire replied gloomily. “Well,” he continued
in a moment, “we may as well get ready for our journey. I remember now,”
he said casually, “that Sam said last night that we ought to proceed on
our way without reference to him this morning. His idea then was that we
would come up with him somewhere between Quito and Lake Titicaca. So we
may as well be moving, and leave the investigation of the fraudulent or
copied telegrams to Mr. Mellen.”
“Funny thing for them to go chasing off in that way!” declared Ben.
But no one guessed the future as the aeroplanes started southward!