THE AIRLINE EXPRESS
Like a flash Tom Swift realized that this warning had come from those
daring enemies of his who were still at large—the same men, Kenny and
Schlump and the two masked ones, who had kidnapped him. He could realize
their rage at his escape, their anger at the foiling of their plot to
blow the place up by bombs, or, if their intention was not to cause
serious damage, but only confusion, during which they might rob—this,
too, had been frustrated.
For a moment the sinister character of all that had taken place stunned
the young inventor. The danger under which he was, came to him with a
sickening realization and he sat for a moment holding the receiver in
his nerveless hand.
He was brought back to a sense of realities by hearing the somewhat
distant voice of the operator asking:
“What number, please?”
That stirred Tom into action.
“Look here!” he cried into the instrument. “You don’t realize how
important this is! I’ve received a threat over the wire! I must
trace——”
“Hold the line,” interrupted the girl in a matter-of-fact tone, and, for
a moment, Tom felt hopeful that he could thus get on the trail of those
who sought to injure him. But while he was even thus hoping another
voice broke in on his thoughts saying:
“This is the manager, have you any complaint to make?”
“Oh—no!” exclaimed Tom in despair, realizing how useless it was to try
to trace the call thus. He was going through much the same experience
Ned had gone through the time Tom called him from the farmhouse and then
fainted. “I’ll call and explain. This is Tom Swift speaking,” he told
the manager. “I want to trace a call that came over my private wire, but
I can do it best by a personal visit, I believe.”
“We will do all we can for you,” the manager said, for she knew the
Swift concern was a large and important one. “It is often difficult to
trace stray calls that may be made from any of a hundred pay stations.
But I will help you all I can.”
“Thank you,” said Tom, and hung up the receiver. Then he fell into deep
thought.
As he had feared, the danger was not over. His enemies were only biding
their time. They had failed in their first efforts, but they were not
going to give up. The sinister threat was enough to disclose that.
Deciding that quick action was the best way to trace the mysterious
call, Tom at once summoned Ned and they visited the local telephone
exchange. There the records were gone over, but aside from establishing
the fact that the call was put through from the Waterfield central,
nothing was established. From just what station the threatening man had
spoken, Tom could not find out. That it was a man’s voice he was
certain, but whether or not it was one of the four or five who had held
him prisoner in the lonely house Tom could not decide.
“But there’s something in the fact that the call came from Mr. Damon’s
town,” said Ned. “And he overheard men talking about you the time he was
eating in the lunch wagon. It begins to look, Tom, as if the
headquarters of the gang was in or near Waterfield.”
“Yes, it does,” agreed Tom. “I think we’ll take a run over there. I want
to see Mr. Damon on business, anyhow. And we can take in that old house
where they had me tied up. I want to see if I can get any clews there.”
However, a visit to the lonely shack, which Tom located after some
difficulty, was without result. It had long been uninhabited, and the
owner, when found, said he knew nothing of the men who had been in it.
This Tom and Ned could well believe. A search through the premises
revealed nothing of any value as a clew. The ropes which Tom had
discarded when he made his escape had been taken away, or it might have
been possible to trace the place where they had been bought.
“I guess Waterfield is our next and best hope,” remarked Ned, as he and
Tom came away from the lonely house.
“I think so,” agreed the young inventor. “Mr. Damon may have heard
something more.”
They found the odd man contemplating his new plane, which had been
repaired and taken back to his own private hangar.
Mr. Damon led his visitors to his private office, and there Tom told the
latest happenings. But Mr. Damon was unable to throw any light on this
new development, nor was he able to trace the men he had overheard
talking in the lunch wagon. He had tried to get the police to locate
them, but without avail.
“Well, we’ll let that go for the present,” decided Tom. “Now for
something else—my latest idea, so to speak. I heard you say, the other
day, Mr. Damon, that you had some loose funds you wished you could
invest in a paying undertaking.”
“That’s right, Tom, so I have, bless my bank-book!”
“Well, I’m thinking of forming a company to exploit my airline express.
I find that a large part of Father’s funds and mine are tied up in such
a way, in our other inventions, that I can’t get enough ready cash in a
hurry, and I need considerable to start this new method of travel. I
thought perhaps you might be interested.”
“I think I may be, Tom,” said Mr. Damon. “Tell me about it.”
“Well, it’s like this,” began the young inventor. “You know over in
Europe and here, too, though to a much more limited extent, great
interest is being manifested in travel by aeroplane—I mean travel by
private parties. They have aeroplanes now that carry ten or twelve at a
time over the English Channel. You can also fly from Paris to Berlin and
between other European cities. In fact, they have regular routes of
travel there. But here we have only a few which might be called
experimental if we exclude the air mail which is a great success between
New York and Chicago and western points. Now what I plan is this: An
airline express from New York to San Francisco, a
straight-across-the-continent flight by daylight—say from sunrise to
sunset.”
“What do you mean, Tom?” cried Wakefield Damon. “Do you mean to tell me
you can build an aeroplane that will cross the continent in twelve
hours?”
“Not in twelve hours, perhaps,” replied Tom, with a smile. “Though I’m
not ready to admit that’s impossible. But there are more than twelve
hours from sunrise to sunset—or rather, from dawn until dark. I’ll set
the time at sixteen hours. That ought to be easy.”
“But you spoke of making the trip continuously—without change,” said
Mr. Damon, to whom Tom’s idea was not altogether new. “None of the
aeroplanes we have at present can do that—it’s all of three thousand
miles. The British transatlantic fliers didn’t make as long a journey as
that, though of course they were in more danger, flying over the ocean.”
“Probably it wouldn’t be a non-stop flight,” said Tom. “The air mail
doesn’t do that—different planes are used. It’s just the same in making
a transcontinental trip in a railroad train. No one engine makes the
entire trip, nor does a single train crew. But it is possible to get in
a sleeping car in New York and stay in the same car until you get to San
Francisco. The car is merely coupled to different engines, made up into
different trains at certain designated places.”
“Is that your plan?” asked the odd man. “I thought you said you were
going to run aeroplanes, not railroad cars.”
“I am, if I can make a go of it,” replied the young inventor. “But it
will be a combination aeroplane and railroad coach. Here is my idea in a
rough form.”
He laid before Ned and Mr. Damon a sketch of a large and powerful plane
and also a sort of coach on wheels. The two were shown separately and in
combination.
“You see,” went on Tom, pointing out the different features, “the
passengers would take their places in this coach—a sort of glorified
automobile—at the first landing field, on Long Island. There this car,
which will hold half a dozen or more, will be fastened to the aeroplane
by clamps. The aeroplane will take off, and make an airline for Chicago,
which will be the first of two stops to be made between New York and the
Pacific coast. Landing on the Chicago field, the autocar will be
detached and rolled, under its own power, to the second aeroplane which
will be in waiting. It will be clamped fast to the chassis, and if the
passengers happen to be asleep they will not be awakened, any more than
they would when a Pullman sleeper is taken off one train and put on
another.
“As soon as the car is clamped to the second plane that one starts and
flies to Denver. There it descends, the car is rolled to the third
plane, in waiting, and that sets off, landing in San Francisco about
sixteen hours from the time the start was made—a daylight trip across
the continent.”
“Can it be done?” asked Mr. Damon.
“I think so,” Tom answered. “I plan now on making one trip each way
every week. There will be three laps of approximately one thousand miles
each. Figure five hours to a lap, that would mean a flying rate of two
hundred miles an hour—not at all impossible. We’ll charge a fare of one
thousand dollars each way. There’ll be money in it, Mr. Damon. Do you
want to go in with us?”
Instead of answering Mr. Damon rose and tiptoed his way softly to the
door, where he stood intently listening.