A GAME FOR TWO
As Curlie slipped noiselessly through the door into the secret tower
room, he was seized by the arm and dragged into his chair.
"Man! where have you been?" It was Coles Masters. He spoke in an excited
whisper. "Listen to that! It's the second message. He'll repeat it
again. They always do."
As Curlie listened, his face grew grave with concern. The message came
from the head station of the radiophone secret service bureau. That
station was located in New York. The message was a reprimand. Kindly,
friendly but firmly, it told Curlie that for two nights now someone in
his area had been breaking in on 600. Coast-to-ship messages had been
disturbed. Once an S. O. S. from a disabled fishing schooner had barely
escaped being lost. Something must be done about it at once! By Curlie!
In Chicago!
With parted lips and bated breath Curlie listened to the message as it
came to him in code. Then, with trembling fingers, he adjusted a lever,
touched a button, turned a screw and dictated to a station in another
part of the city his answering O.K. to the message.
"Of course," he said to Coles, as he lifted the receiver from his head,
"that means that this fellow that races all over the map has been at it
again to-night."
"About an hour ago," said Coles, wrinkling his brow.
"What did you do about it?"
"What was there to do? I tried to locate him. He danced about, first
here, then there. I marked his locations. They were never the same.
See," he pointed to the map. "I numbered them. He spoke from five
different points."
"What did he say?"
"It's all written down there," Coles motioned to a pad. "Can't make
head nor tail to it. Something about a map, an airplane, a boat and a
lot of gold."
"What kind of voice?"
"Sounded young. Some boy in late teens, I'd say. Though it might have
been a girl. She might have changed her voice to disguise it. You can't
tell. Had two cases like that in the last three weeks. You never can
tell about voices."
"No," said Curlie, thoughtfully, "you never can tell. That's about the
only thing you can be sure of in this strange old world. You can always
be sure that you never can tell. Thing that looks like one thing always
turns out to be something else.
"Point is," he continued after a moment's deep thought, "somebody's
getting past our guard. Slamming us right in the nose and we're not
doing a thing about it. Don't look like we could. I've got a theory but
you can't go searching the estate of the richest man in your city just
on theory; you've got to have facts to back you up, and mighty definite
facts, too."
"Yes, that's right," agreed Coles. "But what do you make out of all that
babble about airplane, map, ship and much gold? Do you suppose it's some
smuggling scheme, some plan to get a lot of Russian or Austrian jewels
into the country without paying duty or something like that?"
"I don't make anything out of that," said Curlie rather sharply, "and
for the time, I don't jolly much care. The thing I'm interested in is
the fact that we're being beaten; that the air about us is being torn to
shreds every night by some careless or criminal person; that we're
getting a black eye and a reprimand from the department; that sea
traffic is being interrupted; that lives are being imperiled and we
can't seem to do anything about it. That's what's turning my liver dark
black!" He pounded the desk before him until instruments rattled and
wires sang.
"But how you are going to catch a fellow when he goes tearing all over
the map," said Curlie, more calmly, "is exactly what I don't know. You
go down and get a bite of chow. No, go on home and go to bed. I'll take
the rest of the shift. I want to think. I think best when I'm alone;
when the wires sing me a song; when the air whispers to me out of the
night; when the ghosts of dead radio-men, ghosts of operators who joked
with death when the sea was reaching up mighty arms to drag them down,
come back to talk to me. That's when I think best. These whispering
ghosts tell me things. When I sit here all, asleep but my ears, things
seem to come to me."
"Bah!" said Coles Masters, shivering, "you give me the creeps."
Drawing on his coat, he slipped out of the door, leaving Curlie slumped
down in his chair already all asleep but his wonderful ears.
For a full hour he sat lumped up there. Seeming scarcely to breathe,
stirring now and then as in sleep, he continued to listen and to dream.
Then suddenly he sat up with a start to exclaim out loud:
"Yes! That's it. Catch a thief with a thief. Catch a radiophone with a
radiophone. A radiophone on wheels? That's a game two can play at. I'll
do it! To-morrow night."
Snapping up a telephone receiver he murmured:
"Central 662."
A moment later he tuned an instrument and threw on a switch; "Weightman
there?" he inquired. "Asleep? Wake him up. This is Curlie Carson. Yes,
it's important. No, I'll tell you. Don't bother to wake him now--have
him over at the Coffee Shop at five bells. The Coffee Shop. He'll know.
Don't fail! It's important!"
He snapped down the receiver. Weightman was the radio mechanic assigned
to his station. He would have unusual and important work to do that day.
He slumped down again in his chair but did not remain in that position
many minutes.
From one of the loud speakers came a persistent whisper:
"Hello. Hello, Curlie, you there?" the girlish voice purred, the one
that had whispered to him before. "I saw you to-night. That was
dangerous. Why did you do it? Nearly got me in bad. Not quite. He almost
got you."
The whisper ceased. Adjusting the campus coil Curlie sat at strained
attention.
"I wish I knew you were listening," came again. "It's hard to be
whispering into the night and not knowing you're being heard."
Curlie's fingers moved nervously over a tuner knob. He was sorely
tempted to tune in and flash an answering "O.K.," if nothing more.
But, no, he drew his hands resolutely back. It was not wise. There was
danger in it. This might be a trap. They might locate his secret tower
room by that single O.K. Then disaster would follow.
The whisper came again: "You're clever, Curlie, awfully clever. The way
you doubled over and turned yourself wrong side out was great! But
please do be careful. It's big, Curlie, big!" again the whisper rose
almost to speaking tone. "And he is a terribly determined man; wouldn't
stop at anything."
The whisper ceased.
For a moment Curlie sat there lost in reflection, then he muttered
savagely: "Oh! get off the air, you little whispering mystery, you're
spoiling my technique. Your very terrible friend didn't send any message
to-night and the one he sent before hasn't got us into any trouble. I've
got to forget you and go after this moving fellow who sends 600."
As if in answer to his challenge the loud speaker to his right, the one
tuned to 1200, began to rattle. Then, in the full, determined tones of a
man accustomed to speak with authority there came:
"Calm night."
Three times, over five thousand miles of air, this great voice bellowed
its message.
The silence which followed was ghostly. Cold perspiration stood out on
Curlie's brow.
It was not necessary for him to calculate the location from which this
message was sent. He knew that it had come from the hotel. And it had.
"Next thing," he told himself with a groan, "the International Service
will be on my back for letting that lion roar. I ought to turn that over
to the police; but I won't, not just yet."