Higher and higher Norton went in one spiral after another, those spirals
which his gyroscope had already made famous.
The man with the megaphone in front of the judge's stand announced in
hollow tones that Mr. Norton had given notice that he would try for the
Brooks Prize for stationary equilibrium.
Kennedy and I stood speechless, helpless, appalled.
Slower and slower went the aeroplane. It seemed to hover just like the
big mechanical bird that it was.
Kennedy was anxiously watching the judges with one eye and Norton with
the other. A few in the crowd could no longer restrain their applause. I
remember that the wireless back of us was spluttering and crackling like
mad.
All of a sudden a groan swept over the crowd. Something was wrong with
Norton. His aeroplane was swooping downward at a terrific rate. Would he
be able to control it? I held my breath and gripped Kennedy by the arm.
Down, down came Norton, frantically fighting by main strength, it seemed
to me, to warp the planes so that their surface might catch the air and
check his descent.
“He's trying to detach the gyroscope,” whispered Craig hoarsely.
The football helmet which Norton wore blew off and fell more rapidly
than the plane. I shut my eyes. But Kennedy's next exclamation caused me
quickly to open them again.
“He'll make it, after all!”
Somehow Norton had regained partial control of his machine, but it was
still swooping down at a tremendous pace toward the level centre of the
field.
There was a crash as it struck the ground in a cloud of dust.
With a leap Kennedy had cleared the fence and was running toward Norton.
Two men from the judge's stand were ahead of us, but except for them
we were the first to reach him. The men were tearing frantically at
the tangled framework, trying to lift it off Norton, who lay pale and
motionless, pinned under it. The machine was not so badly damaged, after
all, but that together we could lift it bodily off him.
A doctor ran out from the crowd and hastily put his ear to Norton's
chest. No one spoke, but we all scanned the doctor's face anxiously.
“Just stunned--he'll be all right in a moment. Get some water,” he said.
Kennedy pulled my arm. “Look at the gyroscope dynamo,” he whispered.
I looked. Like the other two which we had seen, it also was a wreck. The
insulation was burned off the wires, the wires were fused together, and
the storage-battery looked as if it had been burned out.
A flicker of the eyelid and Norton seemed to regain some degree of
consciousness. He was living over again the ages that had passed during
the seconds of his terrible fall.
“Will they never stop? Oh, those sparks, those sparks! I can't
disconnect it. Sparks, more sparks--will they never--” So he rambled on.
It was fearsome to hear him.
But Kennedy was now sure that Norton was safe and in good hands, and he
hurried back in the direction of the grand stand. I followed. Flying
was over for that day, and the people were filing slowly out toward the
railroad station where the special trains were waiting. We stopped at
the wireless station for a moment.
“Is it true that Norton will recover?” inquired the operator.
“Yes. He was only stunned, thank Heaven! Did you keep a record of the
antics of your receiver since I saw you last?”
“Yes, sir. And I made a copy for you. By the way, it's working all right
now when I don't want it. If Williams was only in the air now I'd give
you a good demonstration of communicating with an aeroplane,” continued
the operator as he prepared to leave.
Kennedy thanked him for the record and carefully folded it. Joining the
crowd, we pushed our way out, but instead of going down to the station
with them, Kennedy turned toward the barn and the yellow house.
For some time we waited about casually, but nothing occurred. At length
Kennedy walked up to the shed. The door was closed and double padlocked.
He knocked, but there was no answer.
Just then a man appeared on the porch of the yellow house. Seeing us, he
beckoned. As we approached he shouted, “He's gone for the day!”
“Has he a city address--any place I could reach him to-night?” asked
Craig.
“I don't know. He hired the barn from me for two weeks and paid in
advance. He told me if I wanted to address him the best way was 'Dr. K.
Lamar, General Delivery, New York City.'”
“Ah, then I suppose I had better write to him,” said Kennedy, apparently
much gratified to learn the name. “I presume he'll be taking away his
apparatus soon?”
“Can't say. There's enough of it. Cy Smith--he's in the electric light
company up to the village--says the doctor has used a powerful lot of
current. He's good pay, though he's awful closemouthed. Flying's over
for to-day, ain't it? Was that feller much hurt?”
“No, he'll be all right to-morrow. I think he'll fly again. The
machine's in pretty good condition. He's bound to win that prize.
Good-bye.”
As he walked away I remarked, “How do you know Norton will fly again?”
“I don't,” answered Kennedy, “but I think that either he or Humphreys
will. I wanted to see that this Lamar believes it anyhow. By the way,
Walter, do you think you could grab a wire here and 'phone in a story
to the Star that Norton isn't much hurt and will probably be able to fly
to-morrow? Try to get the City News Association, too, so that all
the papers will have it. I don't care about risking the general
delivery--perhaps Lamar won't call for any mail, but he certainly will
read the papers. Put it in the form of an interview with Norton--I'll
see that it is all right and that there is no come-back. Norton will
stand for it when I tell him my scheme.”
I caught the Star just in time for the last edition, and some of the
other papers that had later editions also had the story. Of course all
the morning papers had it.
Norton spent the night in the Mineola Hospital. He didn't really need to
stay, but the doctor said it would be best in case some internal injury
had been overlooked. Meanwhile Kennedy took charge of the hangar where
the injured machine was. The men had been in a sort of panic;
Humphrey could not be found, and the only reason, I think, why the two
mechanicians stayed was because something was due them on their pay.
Kennedy wrote them out personal checks for their respective amounts,
but dated them two days ahead to insure their staying. He threw off all
disguise now and with authority from Norton directed the repairing of
the machine. Fortunately it was in pretty good condition. The broken
part was the skids, not the essential parts of the machine. As for the
gyroscope, there were plenty of them and another dynamo, and it was a
very simple thing to replace the old one that had been destroyed.
Sinclair worked with a will, far past his regular hours. Jaurette also
worked, though one could hardly say with a will. In fact, most of the
work was done by Sinclair and Kennedy, with Jaurette sullenly grumbling,
mostly in French under his breath. I did not like the fellow and was
suspicious of him. I thought I noticed that Kennedy did not allow him
to do much of the work, either, though that may have been for the reason
that Kennedy never asked anyone to help him who seemed unwilling.
“There,” exclaimed Craig about ten o'clock. “If we want to get back to
the city in any kind of time to-night we had better quit. Sinclair, I
think you can finish repairing these skids in the morning.”
We locked up the hangar and hurried across to the station. It was late
when we arrived in New York, but Kennedy insisted on posting off up to
his laboratory, leaving me to run down to the Star office to make sure
that our story was all right for the morning papers.
I did not see him until morning, when a large touring-car drove up.
Kennedy routed me out of bed. In the tonneau of the car was a huge
package carefully wrapped up.
“Something I worked on for a couple of hours last night,” explained
Craig, patting it. “If this doesn't solve the problem then I'll give it
up.”
I was burning with curiosity, but somehow, by a perverse association of
ideas, I merely reproached Kennedy for not taking enough rest.
“Oh,” he smiled. “If I hadn't been working last night, Walter, I
couldn't have rested at all for thinking about it.”
When we arrived at the field Norton was already there with his head
bandaged. I thought him a little pale, but otherwise all right. Jaurette
was sulking, but Sinclair had finished the repairs and was busily
engaged in going over every bolt and wire. Humphreys had sent word that
he had another offer and had not shown up.
“We must find him,” exclaimed Kennedy. “I want him to make a flight
to-day. His contract calls for it.”
“I can do it, Kennedy,” asserted Norton. “See, I'm all right.”
He picked up two pieces of wire and held them at arm's length, bringing
them together, tip to tip, in front of him just to show us how he could
control his nerves.
“And I'll be better yet by this afternoon,” he added. “I can do that
stunt with the points of pins then.”
Kennedy shook his head gravely, but Norton insisted, and finally Kennedy
agreed to give up wasting time trying to locate Humphreys. After that he
and Norton had a long whispered conference in which Kennedy seemed to be
unfolding a scheme.
“I understand,” said Norton at length, “you want me to put this
sheet-lead cover over the dynamo and battery first. Then you want me to
take the cover off, and also to detach the gyroscope, and to fly without
using it. Is that it?”
“Yes,” assented Craig. “I will be on the roof of the grand stand. The
signal will be three waves of my hat repeated till I see you get it.”
After a quick luncheon we went up to our vantage-point. On the way
Kennedy had spoken to the head of the Pinkertons engaged by the
management for the meet, and had also dropped in to see the wireless
operator to ask him to send up a messenger if he saw the same phenomena
as he had observed the day before.
On the roof Kennedy took from his pocket a little instrument with a
needle which trembled back and forth over a dial. It was nearing the
time for the start of the day's flying, and the aeroplanes were getting
ready. Kennedy was calmly biting a cigar, casting occasional glances at
the needle as it oscillated. Suddenly, as Williams rose in the Wright
machine, the needle swung quickly and pointed straight at the aviation
field, vibrating through a small area, back and forth.
“The operator is getting his apparatus ready to signal to Williams,”
remarked Craig. “This is an apparatus called an ondometer. It tells you
the direction and something of the magnitude of the Hertzian waves used
in wireless.”
Five or ten minutes passed. Norton was getting ready to fly. I could see
through my field glass that he was putting something over his gyroscope
and over the dynamo, but could not quite make out what it was. His
machine seemed to leap up in the air as if eager to redeem itself.
Norton with his white-bandaged head was the hero of the hour. No sooner
had his aeroplane got up over the level of the trees than I heard a
quick exclamation from Craig.
“Look at the needle, Walter!” he cried. “As soon as Norton got into the
air it shot around directly opposite to the wireless station, and now it
is pointing--”
We raised our eyes in the direction which it indicated. It was precisely
in line with the weather-beaten barn.
I gasped. What did it mean? Did it mean in some way another accident to
Norton--perhaps fatal this time? Why had Kennedy allowed him to try it
to-day when there was even a suspicion that some nameless terror was
abroad in the air? Quickly I turned to see if Norton was all right. Yes,
there he was, circling above us in a series of wide spirals, climbing
up, up. Now he seemed almost to stop, to hover motionless. He was
motionless. His engine had been cut out, and I could see his propeller
stopped. He was riding as a ship rides on the ocean.
A boy ran up the ladder to the roof. Kennedy unfolded the note and
shoved it into my hands. It was from the operator.
“Wireless out of business again. Curse that fellow who is butting in. Am
keeping record,” was all it said.
I shot a glance of inquiry at Kennedy, but he was paying no attention
now to anything but Norton. He held his watch in his hand.
“Walter,” he ejaculated as he snapped it shut, “it has now been seven
minutes and a half since he stopped his propeller. The Brooks Prize
calls for five minutes only. Norton has exceeded it fifty per cent. Here
goes.”
With his hat in his hand he waved three times and stopped. Then he
repeated the process.
At the third time the aeroplane seemed to give a start. The propeller
began to revolve, Norton starting it on the compression successfully.
Slowly he circled down again. Toward the end of the descent he stopped
the engine and volplaned, or coasted, to the ground, landing gently in
front of his hangar.
A wild cheer rose into the air from the crowd below us. All eyes
were riveted on the activity about Norton's biplane. They were doing
something to it. Whatever it was, it was finished in a minute and the
men were standing again at a respectful distance from the propellers.
Again Norton was in the air. As he rose above the field Kennedy gave
a last glance at his ondometer and sprang down the ladder. I followed
closely. Back of the crowd he hurried, down the walk to the entrance
near the railroad station. The man in charge of the Pinkertons was at
the gate with two other men, apparently waiting.
“Come on!” shouted Craig.
We four followed him as fast as we could. He turned in at the lane
running up to the yellow house, so as to approach the barn from the
rear, unobserved.
“Quietly, now,” he cautioned.
We were now at the door of the barn. A curious crackling, snapping noise
issued. Craig gently tried the door. It was bolted on the inside. As
many of us as could threw ourselves like a human catapult against it. It
yielded.
Inside I saw a sheet of flame fifteen or twenty feet long--it was a
veritable artificial bolt of lightning. A man with a telescope had been
peering out of the window, but now was facing us in surprise.
“Lamar,” shouted Kennedy, drawing a pistol, “one motion of your hand
and you are a dead man. Stand still where you are. You are caught
red-handed.”
The rest of us shrank back in momentary fear of the gigantic forces of
nature which seemed let loose in the room. The thought, in my mind at
least, was: Suppose this arch-fiend should turn his deadly power on us?
Kennedy saw us from the corner of his eye. “Don't be afraid,” he said
with just a curl to his lip. “I've seen all this before. It won't hurt
you. It's a high frequency current. The man has simply appropriated the
invention of Mr. Nikola Tesla. Seize him. He won't struggle. I've got
him covered.”
Two burly Pinkertons leaped forward gingerly into the midst of the
electrical apparatus, and in less time than it takes to write it Lamar
was hustled out to the doorway, each arm pinioned back of him.
As we stood, half dazed by the suddenness of the turn of events, Kennedy
hastily explained:
“Tesla's theory is that under certain conditions the atmosphere, which
is normally a high insulator; assumes conducting properties and so
becomes capable of conveying any amount of electrical energy. I myself
have seen electrical oscillations such as these in this room of such
intensity that while they could be circulated with impunity through
one's arms and chest they would melt wires farther along in the
circuit. Yet the person through whom such a current is passing feels no
inconvenience. I have seen a loop of heavy copper wire energised by such
oscillations and a mass of metal within the loop heated to the fusing
point, and yet into the space in which this destructive aerial turmoil
was going on I have repeatedly thrust my hand and even my head, without
feeling anything or experiencing any injurious after-effect. In this
form all the energy of all the dynamos of Niagara could pass through
one's body and yet produce no injury. But, diabolically directed, this
vast energy has been used by this man to melt the wires in the little
dynamo that runs Norton's gyroscope. That is all. Now to the aviation
field. I have something more to show you.”
We hurried as fast as we could up the street and straight out on the
field, across toward the Norton hangar, the crowd gaping in wonderment.
Kennedy waved frantically for Norton to come down, and Norton, who was
only a few hundred feet in the air, seemed to see and understand.
As we stood waiting before the hangar Kennedy could no longer restrain
his impatience.
“I suspected some wireless-power trick when I found that the field
wireless telegraph failed to work every time Norton's aeroplane was in
the air,” he said, approaching close to Lamar. “I just happened to catch
sight of that peculiar wireless mast of yours. A little flash of light
first attracted my attention to it. I thought it was an electric spark,
but you are too clever for that, Lamar. Still, you forgot a much simpler
thing. It was the glint of the sun on the lens of your telescope as you
were watching Norton that betrayed you.”
Lamar said nothing.
“I'm glad to say you had no confederate in the hangar here,” continued
Craig. “At first I suspected it. Anyhow, you succeeded pretty well
single handed, two lives lost and two machines wrecked. Norton flew all
right yesterday when he left his gyroscope and dynamo behind, but when
he took them along you were able to fuse the wires in the dynamo--you
pretty nearly succeeded in adding his name to those of Browne and
Herrick.”
The whir of Norton's machine told us he was approaching. We scattered to
give him space enough to choose the spot where he would alight. As the
men caught his machine to steady it, he jumped lightly to the ground.
“Where's Kennedy?” he asked, and then, without waiting for a reply,
he exclaimed: “Queerest thing I ever saw up there. The dynamo wasn't
protected by the sheet-lead shield in this flight as in the first
to-day. I hadn't risen a hundred feet before I happened to hear the
darndest sputtering in the dynamo. Look, boys, the insulation is
completely burned off the wires, and the wires are nearly all fused
together.”
“So it was in the other two wrecked machines,” added Kennedy, coming
coolly forward. “If you hadn't had everything protected by those shields
I gave you in your first flight to-day you would have simply repeated
your fall of yesterday--perhaps fatally. This fellow has been directing
the full strength of his wireless high-tension electricity straight at
you all the time.”
“What fellow?” demanded Norton.
The two Pinkertons shoved Lamar forward. Norton gave a contemptuous look
at him. “Delanne,” he said, “I knew you were a crook when you tried
to infringe on my patent, but I didn't think you were coward enough to
resort to--to murder.”
Lamar, or rather Delanne, shrank back as if even the protection of his
captors was safety compared to the threatening advance of Norton toward
him.
“Pouff!” exclaimed Norton, turning suddenly on his heel. “What a fool I
am! The law will take care of such scoundrels as you. What's the grand
stand cheering for now?” he asked, looking across the field in an effort
to regain his self-control.
A boy from one of the hangars down the line spoke up from the back of
the crowd in a shrill, piping voice. “You have been awarded the Brooks
Prize, sir,” he said.