A STARTLING DISCOVERY
“WHAT’S the matter?” asked Ned Newton. He had been making the
broadcasting studio ready for the performance he and Mr. Damon would
soon give in there, so Tom could show his assembled party of guests what
the new invention would do. “What’s wrong, Tom?” he asked again,
entering the laboratory just as his chum finished reading the sinister
message that Eradicate had handed him.
“Wrong is the word,” murmured Tom, again reading the warning. “What do
you think of that?” and he handed the paper to his financial manager.
Ned scanned the scrawl—it was only that—words hastily scribbled on a
piece of wrapping paper and enclosed in a dirty envelope.
“Whew!” whistled Ned as he read. And this is what his eyes took in:
“Tom Swift: If you exhibit your new talking pictures your whole
plant will be blown to atoms. Take warning in time.”
“There’s no name signed to it,” remarked Ned.
“There doesn’t need be,” responded his chum. “It’s easy to guess that
this comes from the same crowd who kidnapped you and me—the same men
who tried to blow me up. There’s no need for a name.”
“No, I guess you’re right,” Ned agreed. “Still, if we could trace these
fellows——”
“Oh, I’m going to try!” exclaimed Tom. “I’m not going to sit idly down
and let them think they have us scared. Eradicate, show me just where
you met this man and tell me what he looked like.”
The negro did his best, but he was getting old and his memory was not
what it had been. He gave a rather hazy description of the bearer of the
sinister warning, but he was able to point out the place where he had
come upon the intruder. Intruder was exactly what the messenger was,
for, since beginning work on his latest invention, Tom had taken
precautions to admit none but his own men to the plant.
“He met me heah,” said Eradicate pointing to a clump of bushes near the
electrically charged fence. That is, it was electrically charged at
night. During the day, when many watchmen were on the alert, Tom did not
have the current turned on.
“But I’m going to have it on after this,” he decided, when a search of
the grounds in the vicinity of the place where Eradicate had received
the note revealed no one. “He must have gotten over the fence in some
way, didn’t he, Rad?”
“I didn’t see him shinny ober de fence, no, Massa Tom.”
“Well, I think he must have come in that way. Where did he go after he
left the note with you?”
“He jes’ disappeared, dat’s whut he done! He jes’ vanished like!”
“He must be a voodoo man,” suggested Ned jokingly.
Eradicate’s eyes grew round and his jaw dropped.
“No,” said Tom glancing warningly at Ned, “what I think happened was
that when Rad was looking at the note and trying to adjust himself to
the life or death twist the fellow gave to it, the scoundrel jumped back
over the fence before Rad saw him.”
“He’d have to be a pretty good jumper to get over this fence,” Ned
commented.
“Yes, but it could be done,” said Tom. “But from now on the electric
current will be on duty twenty-four hours a day. I’ll put a stop to this
nonsense!”
“What are you going to do?” asked Ned.
“Well, I’m going to take no chances, for one thing,” was the reply. “I
don’t know whether this message is genuine or a hoax. But I can’t afford
to take any chances. There are too many men in this plant to risk having
even one of the smaller buildings blown up. If only my own laboratory
were involved I wouldn’t think so much of it. Though of course a lot of
damage could be done to my new invention now that it’s practically
finished. However, we’ll have the most thorough investigation possible.
I’ll shut down work for the rest of the day and turn the force into an
investigating body.”
“I think it’s a wise thing to do,” agreed Ned.
A little later the big factory whistle sounded the signal of alarm. Men
dropped their tools, shut down their machines, and gathered at the
appointed places. It was as if, on a ship, the signal had been given for
boat drill. Tom had organized his men this way to respond to the alarm
in case of emergency.
In a short time several hundred indignant employees of the Swift
Construction Company were listening to Tom tell of the latest outrage.
He did not need to go into details of his secret invention which, until
it was perfected, he would not give to the world. It was enough to state
that enemies were trying to intimidate the head of the firm in an
endeavor to steal some of the valuable secrets.
“There may be a spy and traitor among us,” declared Tom. “I doubt that.
But there is some way for my enemies to gain entrance to the plant that
I can’t discover. Now I want you to go over the place. Look for a secret
means of entering. Look for hidden wires that may connect with planted
mines. In short, go over the plant with a fine toothed comb and let me
know what you find.”
“That’s what we’ll do, Mr. Swift!” came the reassuring chorus.
“And if we find any of the scoundrels we’ll string ’em up!” yelled one
enthusiastic and indignant workman.
“No, don’t do anything rash or unlawful!” warned the young inventor.
“Make any intruder you catch a prisoner and bring him to me.”
The men scattered to make a thorough search, and then Tom went into his
private laboratory where his father and Ned had preceded him. He wanted
to talk the situation over with them.
“What do you think, Dad?” asked Tom, when he had related to his parent
the latest attempt.
“Well,” was the careful answer, “to me it looks like a deep-laid plot
against you. They don’t want you to put these talking pictures on the
market.”
“But how is it their business?” asked Ned. “I mean the business of
whoever is doing these tricks.”
“It concerns them vitally,” replied Mr. Swift. “Why, just think what it
would mean if a whole theatrical performance could be thrown on the
screen in private homes!”
“That’s what I’m going to make possible!” declared the young inventor.
“Those who buy my machine will not only hear but, on the screen attached
to the apparatus, they will see the performers!”
“It may mean ruin to many regular theaters and moving picture houses,
Tom,” warned Mr. Swift. “Those people have millions of dollars invested
in their projects. They evidently mean business,” and he tapped the
warning letter Eradicate had received.
“Yes, they mean business; but so do I!” cried Tom in a ringing voice.
“The question is who means the most business. You don’t want me to quit,
do you, Dad?”
“No, Tom, I can’t say I do. Yet I want you to be careful.”
“What’s your idea, Ned? Should I knuckle under to these scoundrels and
tell them I’ll throw overboard the machine I’ve been working on so hard
for the last year? Shall I admit I’m beaten?”
For a moment Ned Newton did not answer. Then something of Tom’s ringing
spirit was communicated and, banging his fist on the table with such
force that he knocked over a rack of test tubes, the manager cried:
“No, Tom! We’ll fight ’em to a finish!”
“I thought you’d say that,” was Tom’s quiet comment.
“And you can count on me,” said Mr. Swift, “though I’m not much good
when it comes to a fight.”
“Oh, I’ve got men enough to fight for me physically,” said Tom. “What I
need is moral backing, and now that I have it I’m going ahead. I’ve been
trying to fight this thing too much in the dark. From now on I’ll use
not only my own men, but also the regular police force of Shopton. Ned,
get the chief on the wire!”
In a short time a squad of police were on guard around Tom’s big plant,
while, as the day drew to a close and the hour approached for the test
demonstration, the regular workmen searched for anything that might give
color to the threat to blow the place up.
Just when it seemed that nothing would be found, several of the men,
under the leadership of Mr. Jackson, made a startling discovery.
They found where the big outside fence had been tunneled under and,
working from there, came upon several mines that were planted near
important buildings in a manner that would have done credit to a wartime
mining party. From the mines buried wires led outside the fence to a
little gully. There, beneath a clump of bushes, the ends of the wires
lay. All that remained was to connect them to a detonating battery. Then
the mines could all be set off at once and the Swift plant surely would
be terribly damaged, if not wholly destroyed.
“They’re regular fiends!” gasped Ned, when the extent of the vile plot
had been laid bare.
“Yes, they could easily have blown us up but for that warning,” Tom
admitted. “Yet it may all have been a bluff. They might not have gone to
extremes. But I dared not take a chance.”
“No,” agreed his chum. “Well, what’s the next move?”
Tom Swift did not answer immediately.