Trouble Starts
The fact that he was stopped by a footpad smote Tom Swift's mind as not
a particularly surprising adventure. He had heard that several of that
gentry had been plying their trade about the outskirts of the town. To
a degree he was prepared for this sudden event.
Then there flashed into Tom's mind the thought of what Mr. Richard
Bartholomew had said regarding the spy he believed had followed him
from the West. Could it be possible that some hired thug sent by
Montagne Lewis and his crooked crowd of financiers considered that Tom
Swift had obtained information from the president of the H. & P. A.
that might do his employers signal service?
Tom Swift had fallen in with many adventures--and some quite thrilling
ones--since, as a youth, he was first introduced to the reader in the
initial volume of this series, entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor
Cycle." His first experiences as an inventor, coached by his father,
who had spent his life in the experimental laboratory and workshop, was
made possible by his purchase from Mr. Wakefield Damon, now one of his
closest friends, of a broken-down motor cycle.
Through a series of inventions, some of them of a marvelous kind, Tom
Swift, aided by his father, had forged ahead, building motor boats,
airships, submarines, monoplanes, motion picture cameras, searchlights,
cannons, photo-telephones, war tanks. Of late, as related in "Tom Swift
Among the Fire Fighters," he had engaged in the invention of an
explosive bomb carrying flame-quenching chemicals that would, in time,
revolutionize fire-fighting in tall buildings.
The matter that Mr. Richard Bartholomew, the railroad magnate, had
brought to Tom's and his father's attention had deeply interested the
young inventor. Thought of the electric locomotive, the development of
which the railroad president stated was the only salvation of the
finances of the H. & P. A., had so held Tom's attention as he walked
along the street that being stopped in this sudden way was even more
startling than such an incident might ordinarily have been.
Tom was a muscular young fellow; but a club held over one's head by a
burly thug would have shaken the courage of anybody. Dark as it was
under the archway the young fellow saw that the bulk of the man was
much greater than his own.
"That's right, sonny," said the stranger, in a sneering tone. "You got
just the right idea. When I say 'Stick 'em up' I mean it. Never take a
chance. Ah--ah!"
The fellow ripped open Tom's overcoat, almost tearing the buttons off.
Another masterful jerk and his victim's jacket was likewise parted
widely. He did not lower the club for an instant. He thrust his left
hand into the V-shaped parting of the young fellow's vest.
It was then that Tom was convinced of what the fellow was after. He
remembered the notes he had made regarding the contract that was to be
signed on the morrow between the Swift Construction Company and
President Richard Bartholomew of the H. & P. A. Railroad. He
remembered, too, the figure he thought he had seen in the dark porch of
the house as he so recently left it.
Mr. Bartholomew had considered it very possible that he was being spied
upon. This was one of the spies--a Westerner, as his speech betrayed.
But Tom was suddenly less fearful than he had been when first attacked.
It did not seem possible to him that Mr. Bartholomew's enemies would
allow their henchman to go too far to obtain information of the
railroad president's intentions. This fellow was merely attempting to
frighten him.
A sense of relief came to Tom Swift's assistance. He opened his lips to
speak and could the thug have seen his face more clearly in the dark he
would have been aware of the fact that the young inventor smiled.
The fellow's groping hand entered between Tom's vest and his shirt. The
coarse fingers seized upon Tom's wallet. Nobody likes to be robbed, no
matter whether the loss is great or small. There was not much money in
the wallet, nor anything that could be turned into money by a thief.
These facts enabled Tom, perhaps, to bear his loss with some fortitude.
The highwayman drew forth the wallet and thrust it into his own coat
pocket. He made no attempt to take anything else from the young
inventor.
"Now, beat it!" commanded the fellow. "Don't look back and don't run or
holler. Just keep moving--in the way you were headed before. Vamoose."
More than ever was Tom assured that the man was from the West. His
speech savored of Mexican phrases and slang terms used mainly by
Western citizens. And his abrupt and masterly manner and speech aided
in this supposition. Tom Swift stayed not to utter a word. It was true
he was not so frightened as he had at first been. But he was quite sure
that this man was no person to contend with under present conditions.
He strode away along the sidewalk toward the far corner of the wall
that surrounded this estate. Shopton had not many of such important
dwellings as this behind the wall. Its residential section was made up
for the most part of mechanics' homes and such plain but substantial
houses as his father's.
Prospering as the Swifts had during the last few years, neither Tom nor
his father had thought their plain old house too poor or humble for a
continued residence. Tom was glad to make money, but the inventions he
had made it by were vastly more important to his mind than what he
might obtain by any lavish expenditure of his growing fortune.
This matter of the electric locomotive that had been brought to his
attention by the Western railroad magnate had instantly interested the
young inventor. The possibility of there being a clash of interests in
the matter, and the point Mr. Bartholomew made of his enemies seeking
to thwart his hope of keeping the H. & P. A. upon a solid financial
footing, were phases of the affair that likewise concerned the young
fellow's thought.
Now he was sure that Mr. Bartholomew was right. The enemies of the H. &
P. A. were determined to know all that the railroad president was
planning to do. They would naturally suspect that his trip East to
visit the Swift Construction Company was no idle jaunt.
Tom had turned so many fortunate and important problems of invention
into certainties that the name of the Swift Construction Company was
broadly known, not alone throughout the United States but in several
foreign countries. Montagne Lewis, whom Tom knew to be both a powerful
and an unscrupulous financier, might be sure that Mr. Bartholomew's
visit to Shopton and to the young inventor and his father was of such
importance that he would do well through his henchmen to learn the
particulars of the interview.
Tom remembered Mr. Bartholomew's mention of a name like Andy O'Malley.
This was probably the man who had done all that he could, and that
promptly, to set about the discovery of Mr. Bartholomew's reason for
visiting the Swifts.
Without doubt the man had slunk about the Swift house and had peered
into one of the library windows while the interview was proceeding. He
had observed Tom making notes on the scratch pad and judged correctly
that those notes dealt with the subject under discussion between the
visitor from the West and the Swifts.
He had likewise seen Tom thrust the paper into his wallet and the
wallet into his inside vest pocket. Instead of dogging Mr.
Bartholomew's footsteps after that gentleman left the Swift house, the
man had waited for the appearance of Tom. When he was sure that the
young fellow was preparing to walk out, and the direction he was to
stroll, the thug had run ahead and ensconced himself in the archway on
this dark block.
All these things were plain enough. The notes Tom had taken regarding
the offer Mr. Bartholomew had made for the development of the electric
locomotive might, under some circumstances, be very important. At
least, the highwayman evidently thought them such. But Tom had another
thought about that.
One thing the young inventor was convinced about, as he strode briskly
away from the scene of the hold-up: There was going to be trouble. It
had already begun.