AFTER A SPY
Curious as it may seem, Eradicate, the oldest and certainly not the
most energetic of the party assembled in the experiment room, was the
first to recover himself and arise. Tottering to his feet he gave one
look at the testing block, whence the motor had torn itself. Then he
looked at the prostrate figures around him, none of them hurt, but all
stunned and very much startled. Then the gaze of Eradicate traveled to
the hole in the roof. It was a gaping, ragged hole, for the motor was
heavy and the roof of flimsy material. And then the colored man
exclaimed:
"Good land ob massy! Did I do dat?"
His tone was one of such startled contrition, and so tragic, that Tom
Swift, rueful as he felt over the failure of his experiment and the
danger they had all been in, could not help laughing.
"I take it, hearing that from you, Tom, that we're all right," said Ned
Newton, as he recovered himself and brushed some dirt off his coat. Ned
was a natty dresser.
"Yes, we seem to be all right," replied Tom slowly. "I can't say what
damage the flying motor has done outside, but--"
"Bless my insurance policy! but what happened?" asked Mr. Damon. "I saw
Eradicate pull on that lever as you told him to, Tom, and then things
all went topsy-turvy! Did he pull the wrong handle?"
"No, it wasn't Rad's fault at all," said Tom. "The trouble was, as I
guess I'll find when I investigate, that I put too much power into the
motor, and the muffler didn't give any chance for the accumulated
exhaust gases to expand and escape. I didn't allow for that, and they
simply backed up, compressed and exploded. I guess that's the whole
explanation."
"I'm inclined to agree with you, Son," said Mr. Swift dryly. "Don't
try to get rid of all the noise at once. Eliminate it by degrees and it
will be safer."
"I guess so," agreed Tom.
By this time a score of workmen from the other shops had congregated
around the one though the roof of which the motor had been blown. Tom
opened the door to assure Jackson and the others that no one was hurt,
and then the young inventor saw the exploded motor had buried in the
dirt a short distance away from the experiment building.
"Lucky none of us were standing over it when it went up," said Tom, as
he made an inspection of the broken machine. "We'd have gone through
the roof with it."
"She certainly went sailing!" commented Ned. "Must have been a lot of
power there, Tom."
And this was evidenced by the bent and twisted rods that had held the
motor to the testing block, and by the cylinders, some of which were
torn apart as though made of paper instead of heavy steel. But for the
fact that all the force of the explosion was directly upward, instead
of at the sides, none might have been left alive in the shop. All had
escaped most fortunately, and they realized this.
"Well," queried Ned, as Tom gave orders to have the damaged machine
removed and the roof repaired, "does this end the wonderful silent
motor, Tom?"
"End it! What do you mean--"
"I mean are you going to experiment any further?"
"Why, of course! Just because I've had one failure doesn't mean that
I'm going to give up. Especially when I know what the matter was--not
leaving any vent for the escaping gases. Why this isn't anything. When
I was perfecting my giant cannon I was nearly blown up more than once,
and you remember how we got stuck in the submarine."
"I should say I did!" exclaimed Ned with a shudder. "I don't want any
more of that. But as between being blown through a roof and held at the
bottom of the sea, I don't know that there's much choice."
"Well, perhaps not," agreed Tom. "But as for ending my experiments, I
wouldn't dream of such a thing! Why, I've only just begun! I'll have a
silent motor yet!"
"And a non-explosive one, I hope," added Mr. Damon dryly. "Bless my
shoe buttons, Tom, but if my wife knew what danger I'd been in she'd
never let me come over to see you any more."
"Well, the next time I invite you to a test I'll be more careful,"
promised the young inventor.
"There isn't going to be any next time as far as I'm concerned!"
laughed Ned. "I think it's safer to sell Liberty Bonds."
And, though they joked about it, they all realized the narrow escape
they had had. As for Eradicate, once he knew he had not been the one
who caused the damage, he felt rather proud of the part he had taken in
the mishap, and for many days he boasted about it to Koku.
True to his determination, Tom Swift did not give up his experimental
work on the silent motor. The machine that had been blown through the
roof was useless now, and it was sent to the scrap heap, after as much
of it as possible had been salvaged. Then Tom got another piece of
apparatus out of his store room and began all over again.
He worked along the same lines as at first--providing a chamber for the
escaping gases of the exhaust to expend their noise and energy in, at
the same time laboring to cut down the concussion of the explosions in
the cylinder without reducing their force any. And that it was no easy
problem to do either of these, Tom had to admit as he progressed. All
previous types of mufflers or silencers had to be discarded and a new
one evolved.
"Jackson, I need some one to help me," said Tom to his chief
mechanician one day. "Haven't you a good man who is used to
experimental work that you can let me take from the works?"
"Why, yes," was the answer. "Let me see. Roberts is busy on the new
bomb you got up, but I could take him off that--"
"No, don't!" interposed Tom. "I want that work to go on. Isn't there
some one else you can let me have?"
"Well, there's a new man who came to me well recommended. I took him on
last week, and he's a wonderful mechanic. Knows a lot about gas
engines. I could let you have him--Bower his name is. The only thing
about it, though, is that I don't like to give you a man of whom I am
not dead certain, when you're working on a new device."
"Oh, that will be all right," said Tom. "There won't be any secrets he
can get, if you mean you think he might be up to spy work."
"That's what I did mean, Tom. You never can tell, you know, and you
have some bitter enemies."
"Yes, but I'll take care this man doesn't see the plans, or any of my
drawings. I only want some one to do the heavy assembling work on the
experimental muffler I'm getting up. We can let him think it's for a
new kind of automobile."
"Oh, then I guess it will be all right. I'll send Bower to you."
Tom rather liked the new workman, who seemed quiet and efficient. He
did not ask questions, either, about the machine on which he was
engaged, but did as he was told. As Tom had said, he kept his plans and
drawing under lock and key--in a safe to be exact--and he did not think
they were in any danger from his new helper.
But Tom Swift held into altogether too slight regard the powers of
those who were opposed to him. He did not appreciate the depths to
which they would stoop to gain their ends.
He had been working hard on his new device, and had reached a point
further along than when the other motor had exploded. He began to see
success ahead of him, and he was jubilant. Whether this made him
careless does not matter, but the fact was that he left Bower more to
himself, and alone in the experimental shop several times.
And it was on one of these occasions, when Tom had been for some time
in one of the other shops, where he and Jackson were in consultation
over a new machine, that as he came back to the test room unexpectedly,
he saw Bower move hastily away from in front of the safe. Moreover, Tom
was almost certain he had heard the steel door clang shut as he
approached the building.
And then, before he could ask his helper a question, Tom looked from a
window and saw a stranger running hastily along the side of the
building where his trial motor was being set up.
"Who's that? Who is that man? Did he come in here? Was he tampering
with my safe?" cried Tom. He saw Bower hesitate and change color, and
Tom knew it was time to act.
The window was open, and with one bound the young inventor was out and
running after the stranger he had seen departing in such a hurry. The
man was but a short distance ahead of him, and Tom saw he was stuffing
some papers into his pocket.
"Here! Come back! Stop!" ordered Tom, but the man ran on the faster.
"That's a spy as sure as guns!" reflected Tom Swift. "And Bower is in
with him!" he added. "I've got to catch that fellow!" and he speeded
his pace as he ran after the fellow.