A DANGEROUS PLIGHT
Joe Strong was so startled, astonished and altogether taken by
surprise that he did not feel capable of moving for several seconds.
Then he threw himself against the door, but it opened inward, and he
only bruised himself.
“Ha-ha!” laughed the old man on the other side. “You can’t get out
that way. I’ll teach you to take my invention and go flying all over
the country with it. I’ll teach you!”
“Say, are you crazy?” cried Joe, a suspicion that such was the case
entering his mind.
“Crazy? Me? No, I’m not crazy!” was the quick retort. “But most of
the other folks in the world are. You are crazy to try to steal my
invention and think I would not find it out. Now you’ll never do it
again. You’ll die in there.”
Joe knew that he must be cool and keep his head. He had evidently
been made a prisoner by a madman, and perhaps by humoring him he
could get out without using force. He looked around the room and saw
it contained only one window, high up, and that was small and guarded
by iron bars.
“I think you are making a mistake, Mr. Clark,” said Joe as calmly as
he could. “I never stole any of your inventions. In fact I never saw
you before to-day.”
“That makes no difference,” was the retort. “You stole my invention
just the same. Look in that corner and you’ll see a flying machine
like yours. I made it years ago, and you found out about it and made
one like it. You have secured a lot of money by exhibiting yourself
in a machine made from my stolen invention, but this is the end. I
have you where I want you now.”
That was evident enough. But it was a place Joe did not want to be
in, even though the crazy inventor wanted him there.
“That was the meaning of all those looks on the part of persons in
the street,” thought Joe. “They knew he was crazy and they were
probably wondering why he was allowed to be at liberty. I wish I had
not come here.”
But it was too late to wish that now, and the youth had to do the
next best thing--try to get out.
“Why do you say I stole your invention?” he asked, thinking to get
the man to open the door and come in, in which case Joe would have a
fighting chance.
“Because I know you stole it,” was the answer.
“How do you make that out?” demanded Joe. “Isn’t yours just the same
as mine? And didn’t I make mine first?”
“That may be,” Joe admitted. “There is a slight resemblance between
my _Bat_ and your machine in here. But if you’ll come in I can point
out where there’s a whole lot of difference. The only place where
they are similar is the wings, and even there mine are somewhat
different from yours. Come in and I’ll make it clear to you.”
“No, I’ll not come in!” was the answer with a sly laugh. “You are
young and strong. You want to injure me.”
“I promise you I won’t,” Joe said. He only wanted the door opened so
he could flee from the house of mystery.
“I’ll not come in,” said the old man with a chuckle. “I’ll talk to
you from this side of the door.”
Joe was almost in despair. Still he might be able to break his way
out of the room. He resolved to try another appeal.
“Mr. Clark!” he called, “I think you are entirely mistaken in your
idea, and if you’ll let me out, or come in here, I can prove it. I
never had an idea that there was another machine even as little like
mine as yours is. Now I’m willing to bring my machine here, set it
up side by side with yours, and allow any committee of mechanics or
electricians you want to pick out settle the matter. If they decide
that I have taken any of your ideas I’ll pay you for them.”
“Money can’t pay me for what I have lost,” was the snarling answer.
“Besides, I have money enough.”
“Then what do you want?” asked Joe.
“I want revenge!” was the cry of the madman. “I want to pay you back
for what you did!”
“But I did nothing,” Joe insisted.
There was no reply to this.
“Come!” cried Joe, trying to make his voice sound casual. “I must get
out soon to go back to the circus.”
“You’ll never play in the circus again!” cried Mr. Clark. “You have
made your last flight--unless you try to fly in my machine, and there
isn’t room in there.”
Joe looked around the apartment in which he had been made a prisoner.
It was small, and was cluttered up with machinery and, as far as the
boy could judge, useless inventions. A second look at the machine
which slightly resembled his told him that it never would be able to
raise itself from the ground, to say nothing of carrying a passenger.
He resolved to try one more appeal before planning to use force to
free himself.
“Mr. Clark!” he called.
“Well?” answered the voice, from a distance it seemed.
“Have you been able to fly in your machine?” asked Joe.
“No,” was the reply. “But I will soon be able to. It needs only a
few changes. I would have had it done now only I heard about your
stealing my invention, and I had to plan to catch you. Now I have
you, I’m going to work on my machine again--after I dispose of you.”
“But if you’ll come in now,” cried Joe, “I’ll show you several things
that are wrong. I’ll show you how to make it like mine. I have no
patent on mine. I don’t care who makes one like it--or as many as
they want. Come in and we’ll talk it over!”
“Not much I won’t!” was the cry. Then Joe heard retreating footsteps
and knew that he must depend on himself to escape.
His first care was to examine the door. It was of heavy oak, and
without a key or a tool something like a burglar’s jimmy it could not
be forced.
“So I’ve got to get a jimmy,” decided Joe.
The door was easier to work at than the window, which was so high
that Joe doubted if he could reach it, as there was nothing in the
room on which he could stand.
At first glance Joe was afraid there was nothing in the place that
he could use for a jimmy, or short lever. It needed to be something
powerful, with a thin wedge-like edge that could be inserted in the
crack between the door and jamb.
“I’ll have to take apart some of this truck machinery, maybe,” Joe
decided. “If I could get a rod out I might use that. But it would be
blunt on the end, and I need something sharp. I might hammer a piece
of pipe together though.”
He sought for some pipe and finally found it. Then with a chunk
of iron for a hammer and another for an anvil, he beat the ends
together. He had a rude sort of lever, but when he tried to insert it
in the crack of the door he found the aperture too small.
“I’ll have to smash through a panel,” the youth decided. “But I’ll
try once more to make him listen to reason. Mr. Clark! Mr. Clark!” he
cried. He waited, but there was no answer.
“If you don’t let me out I’ll have to smash this door!” Joe went on.
There was still no reply, and then he began to hammer on the portal
with the piece of pipe. A few splinters of wood were knocked off, and
then, to his surprise, Joe discovered that there was a middle section
of steel in the wooden door.
“Why, this place was made for a regular prison!” he exclaimed. “I
wonder if he could have gotten this ready on purpose for me?” But the
lad soon decided against that idea.
It was evident that without other tools Joe could not break his way
through the door. There remained only the window. “Unless I can chop
my way through a plaster wall,” Joe reasoned. “They’d hardly have
steel-lined walls.”
It was easy enough to knock off some of the plaster, making a hole
that disclosed the lath. But when Joe broke some of these off he
discovered that the walls were like the door--they had an inner sheet
of steel.
“A regular safety-deposit vault,” said the youth. “I’ve got to try
the window.”
He looked about for something of which to make a ladder. Somehow he
felt strangely ill and dizzy. There was a queer odor in the air. It
had been slowly increasing, and was now very perceptible.
“It smelled--smelled just that way when I was in the hospital,” the
boy remarked, half aloud. “It’s--it’s--Why, it’s ether!” he cried.
“He’s forcing ether in here somehow to make me insensible. If I can
find out how it’s coming in I can stop it.”
But Joe could not find the place where the volatile odor entered. And
every moment he felt weaker. He felt that his senses were leaving
him. Desperately he tried to put together some of the pieces of the
machinery so that he could reach the window. If he could open that
and let in fresh air, even though he could not get out, he might keep
himself from becoming senseless.
But before he could complete the improvised ladder Joe fell over
insensible. And there he lay on the floor, in the midst of the queer
jumble of machinery, the prisoner of a madman who seemed to have
vanished.
* * * * *
Supper time was approaching. Helen was waiting for Joe to come back,
for he and she generally sat at table together, with Benny Turton and
Bill Watson.
“Has Joe come back yet?” asked Helen of Benny.
“I didn’t know he’d gone away,” was the reply.
“Yes, he went off with a Mr. Clark. I was in the dressing tent when
this stranger came in and introduced himself to Joe. I could not help
hearing what was said. It was about Joe’s flying machine. Mr. Clark
said he had a new kind of storage battery he wanted to show Joe, and
Joe went off to his house with him.”
“Oh, well, he’ll be back soon,” said Benny. “There’s half an hour
before supper will be served.”
But Helen, somehow or other, was nervous. She “felt as though
something were going to happen,” she said afterward.
“I don’t see what keeps Joe,” she remarked to Bill Watson.
“Where did he go?” he asked.
“Off with a Mr. Clark, some sort of an inventor.”
“Not old Sam Clark; was it?” cried the clown in such evident
excitement that Helen said:
“Why, yes, I believe that was his name,” and she detailed what she
had heard.
“Well, if it’s old Sam Clark, then Joe has gone off with a dangerous
crank,” said the clown. “I heard of him when we played here once
before. He’s an old resident of this place and has lots of money, but
he’s crazy. Everybody here knows he’s insane. He’s been in the asylum
more than once.”
“Oh, what can we do?” cried Helen, in distress.
“We’ve got to go to Joe’s rescue, that’s all!” declared Bill with
emphasis. “Of course nothing may have happened, and Clark may only
think he can interest Joe in some crazy invention. But it’s best to
be on the safe side. We’ll find out where they went.”
“Are you going alone?” asked Helen, as the clown started off.
“No, I’ll take Benny Turton with me. No use making too much
excitement over the affair, for, after all, it may amount to nothing.”
“Couldn’t I come with you?” pleaded Helen eagerly.
Bill thought for a moment.
“Come on!” he said. “We’ll go to Joe’s rescue.”