The next morning nobody was astir on the submarine till long after the
sun had risen and was shining brightly down on the sparkling waters of
Sound and harbor. When Ned and Herc climbed out of the conning tower
for a look about them, the beach about the yard, however, was already
dotted with curious sight-seers, some of them armed with field glasses,
the better to see what was going forward on the submarine.
The launching of the Lockyer had furnished the biggest excitement that
Grayport had known for a long time. The early train had brought into
town several staff correspondents from New York evening papers, the
local men at Grayport having all telegraphed in “stories” the night
before.
As Ned and Herc stood gazing shoreward, they saw a gasoline launch,
which plied for hire, put out from one of the wharves. Several
passengers could be seen on board her, some of whom carried square
black boxes and other paraphernalia.
“Good gracious,” laughed Ned, “here comes the first enemy we have
encountered since we have been in commission.”
“Who is that?” inquired Herc, not unnaturally puzzled by Ned’s remark.
“The reporters and photographers from the New York papers,” laughed
Ned. “Look yonder, there’s a whole boatload of them on their way out.”
“Thunder and turtles, and I forgot to part my auburn hair!” gasped
Herc, hastily diving below. He was followed more leisurely by Ned. By
this time the rest of the party was up and about, and in the galley Tom
Merlin was setting about his preparations for breakfast, aided by Sim,
who had been pressed into service as “first deputy assistant cook and
bottle washer in ordinary,” as Tom described it.
“How about letting the reporters on board?” asked Lieutenant Parry, as
soon as Ned had apprised him of the imminent invasion of the boarding
party from shore.
“Of course, it will be impossible to allow them the run of the craft,”
rejoined Mr. Lockyer. “I think, however, that we can extend them all
the courtesies in our power, provided, of course, that it will not
conflict with the navy regulations.”
“I don’t think that it will do any harm to let them have a few pictures
of the boat from the outside, and a general description,” was the
reply. “I’m pretty sure that if we ask them not to mention certain
things about the boat, they won’t. Reporters are a mighty decent class
of fellows, as a rule, and if they promise you not to do a thing, they
won’t break their words. Besides, it would be too bad if they had all
this trip down here for nothing.”
So it was arranged that the press was to be allowed a view of the
outside of the boat and to be permitted to snapshot her exterior to
their heart’s content. But the interior of the novel craft and her
wonderful machinery and devices were, as yet, to remain a sealed book
to the public.
“Good morning, gentlemen, can we come aboard?” hailed a tall, young
fellow in the bow of the press boat, as she drew alongside and her
occupants shot keen, interested glances at the odd-looking craft.
“By all means,” was the rejoinder from the inventor, who, with
Lieutenant Parry, Midshipman Stark, and the others, now stood on the
deck; “but before you set foot on board I want you to promise not to
pry into anything that we ask you not to, nor to print anything but the
facts we will tell you.”
“All right, sir; we’ll promise,” came back from another reporter. “I
suppose you’ll show us all over the craft?”
“From stem to stern?” put in a nautically inclined pressman.
“I’m afraid not,” rejoined the inventor, with a smile, as the eager
horde hung on his words. “You see, there are several secrets about the
boat that we can’t give out to the public, as yet.”
“We’ll have to be content with what we can get, then,” was the
rejoinder. “But can our photographers get a snap of you gentlemen as
you stand on deck?”
“Go ahead,” laughed Lieutenant Parry, with the air of a man resigned to
the inevitable.
Click! Click! Click!
A perfect fusillade of photographic shutters snapped, and then the
photographers begged for “just one more.” With great good nature
this was given, the submarine party grouping themselves as directed.
While this was going on, the shore boat had run in quite close to the
submarine and, unnoticed in the excitement, a man had jumped from her
upon the steel deck of the diving craft. He was a stout, fleshy man, of
middle age, who, despite his weight, had displayed this alertness. His
eyes, which were keen and shifty, glanced about him eagerly, as he set
foot on the Lockyer’s deck.
For a minute he was not noticed, but presently the inventor spied him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stepping up to him, “but I shall have to ask
you gentlemen to come on board in a party or not at all. You will
understand me when I say that we wish to keep you under our eyes.”
He spoke with a laugh that removed any of the sting the words might
otherwise have had.
A chorus of:
“That’s all right, sir.” “We’re agreeable,” and so on, greeted his
words.
“That being the case, I shall have to ask you to step back into the
press boat,” said Mr. Lockyer firmly to the fleshy man, who showed no
disposition to move.
“And who are you, may I ask?” shot out the intruder in an offensive
tone.
“My name is Channing Lockyer. I’m the owner and builder of this boat,”
was the quiet reply.
“Oh, you are, are you,” rejoined the other, with a harsh laugh. “Well,
when do you expect to submerge her?”
“I can’t answer that question,” replied the inventor good-naturedly.
“That is one of the things I warned you gentlemen about asking.”
“Seems to me you’re pretty well stuck up for a poverty-stricken
inventor with a gim-crack boat,” returned the other, coolly drawing
out a cigar and lighting it with an easy manner, but betraying not the
slightest haste to leave the boat.
By this time the attention of the other reporters had been drawn to
this argument and their voices began to rise in protest at the stout
man’s behavior.
“Say, cut it out there, will you?”
“Why don’t you do as we agreed to?”
“Yes, do what Mr. Lockyer says.”
“That fellow must think he’s a big league reporter,” muttered Herc
savagely.
Sullenly the fleshy man obeyed the chorus of protest and withdrew,
stepping back on board the press boat.
“Say, who is that fellow?” whispered one of the reporters to another.
“Ever see him before?”
“No, I never did,” was the answer. “I’ll ask Brown.”
But Brown had never seen the stranger, either. Nor, it transpired, had
any of the other reporters, all of whom were known to each other.
“Better ask him his name,” suggested Brown. “He’s pretty fresh and may
offend these submarine fellows.”
“No, leave him alone. He may be some magazine chap,” put in another.
“There’s no knowing how they’ll behave. They think they own the earth.”
And so the fleshy, offensive stranger boarded the craft with the rest
when the time came, without being questioned. While Lieutenant Parry
and Midshipman Stark were showing the rest of the newspaper men about
the deck and explaining such harmless things as the periscope and the
torpedo tubes to them, this stranger sought out Channing Lockyer.
“I guess I owe you an apology Mr. Lockyer,” he said, “for my
brusqueness. I’m sorry. Will you accept my apology?”
“Of course, of course,” said Mr. Lockyer pleasantly enough, but turning
away. Somehow he felt an instinctive repulsion to this person.
But the fleshy man pressed after him.
“Have a cigar, won’t you?” he urged, drawing out a case of the weeds.
“Thank you, I don’t smoke,” was the rejoinder.
“Is that so,” remarked the other; “well, you don’t know what you’re
missing. But while the others are nosing about, I’ve got a bit of
information that may interest you, Mr. Lockyer. Do you know a man named
Gradbarr?”
The inventor, who had been trying to think of some excuse to get away
from the fleshy man, became interested at once.
“Yes,” he rejoined, “I do. What of him?”
“He is a rascal, I gather,” went on the other coolly. “I assume this
both from your manner of speaking of him and from a conversation I had
with him myself this morning.”
“You had a conversation with him?” gasped Mr. Lockyer, genuinely
interested now. “Where?”
“Right here in Grayport,” was the response.
“But I thought he had left town.”
“That’s where you are wrong. He is living in some well-concealed place
on the outskirts of the town, or so I gathered. But that is not the
point. What I wanted to tell you was that he came to me this morning
and, after some beating about the bush, requested me to furnish him
with some detailed drawings of what I saw on the completed submarine,
and also with any other information concerning her I could gather.”
“Did he say what he wanted this for?” asked Mr. Lockyer, in great
astonishment.
“No. But, as he offered me a big price for the information, I gathered
he was in the employ of persons who are interested in obtaining the
information.”
“And did you make an appointment with him?” asked Mr. Lockyer, with
keen interest.
“You appear anxious to know if I did or not,” parried the other. “May I
ask why, outside, of course, of your natural interest in learning if I
acceded to his wishes?”
“Why,” burst out the inventor, whose strong point was not worldly
wisdom, “if I knew where he was I’d have the scoundrel arrested. He
attempted to destroy my craft before she was launched, and--but never
mind that. I would feel deeply grateful to you, however, if you could
tell me where I could lay my hands on him.”
“I don’t know myself,” replied the other, “but I tell you what,
Mr. Lockyer, I won’t be going back to the city to-night. Suppose
this afternoon I try to get track of him. If I succeed I’ll make an
appointment with you this evening, and we’ll get the local police and
run him down.”
“The very thing!” exclaimed the inventor warmly. “I really don’t know
how to thank you, Mr.--Mr.----”
“Armstrong--James Armstrong, of the United Magazines Association,” was
the glib reply. “Mind you, I don’t know if I will be able to succeed in
finding the man again, but if I do, be assured I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you, Mr. Armstrong,” warmly replied the inventor. “It’s very
good of you.”
“Not at all, not at all,” was the hasty response. “In this case, as the
copy-books used to say, ‘Virtue is its own reward.’”
With this he strolled off and mingled with the other news-getters.
“Now just see how one can be mistaken in a man,” thought the inventor
to himself. “I had quite a prejudice against that fellow, and yet it
turns out that he may be able to do me a good turn, after all. I’d give
a lot to get my hands on Gradbarr, for, since I have been thinking it
over, it seems to me that there was more behind that gas explosion than
appeared on the surface. And then coupling his attempt to destroy the
Lockyer with the previous attempt, it looks very much as if he were
the agent for somebody else. Somebody powerful and wealthy, who wishes
to harm me--those Atlas people, like as not, though I hate to suspect
anybody of such dirty work. If he can be arrested, we may solve the
mystery and at the same time put a rascal where he belongs.”
At this point of his meditations, the inventor was besieged by
requests for an interview. But he was firm on that point.
“Write all you like about what you have seen of the boat, gentlemen,”
he said, “but please leave me out of it.”
“We can’t very well do that, Mr. Lockyer, since she is your creation,”
said a reporter. “But we’ll let you down as easy as we can.”
“Thanks. The less said about me, the better,” was the reply.
Soon after, the reporters left, having warmly thanked the submarine
party for their courtesies. Thanks to Lieutenant Parry and Midshipman
Stark, they had obtained good stories, with just enough of a dash of
mystery in them to make them all the better reading. As Mr. Armstrong
went over the side, he took occasion to speak to Mr. Lockyer in a low
voice.
“I must ask you to keep quiet about this,” he said. “It would get me in
a lot of trouble with the paper if they knew I was spending my time in
any one else’s interests. But I like you, and I don’t want to see such
a rascal as Gradbarr get off scot free.”
The inventor could only thank this disinterested benefactor once
more. That afternoon, while work was actively going on on board
the submarine--for after her trial trip there was quite a lot of
overhauling and setting to rights to be done--a boat from the
shore came alongside. Ned was on deck at the time and answered the
heavily-bearded oarsman’s hail.
“Note for Mr. Lockyer,” said the boatman, coming alongside and handing
Ned a missive. “From the gent at the hotel,” he added, “and will you
ask Mr. Lockyer what time I’m to come off for him?”
Ned hastened below and handed the note to the inventor. He took it and
scanned the missive eagerly. It was from Armstrong, and read:
“Know where Gradbarr can be found. Meet me ashore at the old Banta
House at eight p. m. Police will be there. Yours for justice,
Armstrong.”
The inventor hastily scribbled an answer in reply and handed it to
Ned. The Dreadnought Boy hastened back on deck with it and found
the bearded boatman resting easily on his oars, idly regarding the
submarine’s structure.
“Here’s the answer,” said Ned, handing the note to him.
“Is he going to come?” asked the man, with a sudden flash of eagerness.
The next instant, at Ned’s start of surprise, he checked himself,
evidently realizing he had made a mistake.
“I mean what time am I to come for him?” he asked.
“How do I know,” rejoined Ned, but Mr. Lockyer, who had come on deck
unnoticed, answered for him.
“Be here at seven-thirty, my man,” he said. “By the way, how far is it
to the Banta House?”
“Why,” exclaimed Ned, in some surprise, “the Banta House is that old
hotel away up the beach. They built it for a big summer resort, but it
never paid. Too lonesome, I guess. Herc and I walked out there one day
to see it. It’s a curious sight to see that fine building all going to
rack and ruin in the woods.”
The bearded man in the boat had been eyeing Ned with great disfavor
while he volunteered these details, and he now struck in in a gruff
voice.
“It ain’t so lonesome,” he said. “I’ve bin there many a time. I’ll be
here for you at seven-thirty, then, sir?”
“Yes, my man,” said Mr. Lockyer. As the boat was rowed off, the
inventor turned to Ned.
“Then you think the Banta House is a queer place for a man to make an
appointment?”
“Unless it’s on some secret sort of business, sir, I do,” answered Ned
frankly. “If I were going to meet any one there, I’d want to know what
kind of folks they were.”
“Well, as you may have gathered, I have an appointment there this
evening myself,” rejoined the inventor. “I’m not at liberty to tell
what it is, but it may have very important results.”
Ned nodded. But his thoughts were elsewhere. Something about the
heavily bearded man in the boat seemed familiar to him. He had met
him or seen him before, he was certain. But where? He could not think.
A short time later he drew Herc off in a corner and described the man
fully to him, imitating his manner as well as he could, but Herc could
come no nearer to placing him than could Ned.