The Radio Detectives Part 11

"Oh, gos.h.!.+ Oh, I _do_ wish they'd hurry!" exclaimed Frank. "Oh, they're terribly slow! And how _will_ they get to him? How do we know where he is?"

Slowly the minutes dragged by. Each tick of the cheap clock on the table seemed to spell Tom's fate and still no sound came from beneath the river. Once, Henry thought he caught a word, an exclamation half suppressed, but he could not be sure. He had called Tom, but no reply had come. Were the two dead? Had some awful calamity overtaken them at the bottom of the river? Was this to be the tragic end of all their experiments? Was Tom's death the reward for their success?

Then, from far up the street, came the clamor of a bell, and the screech of a motor horn sounded from nearer at hand.

At the same instant Henry uttered a glad, joyous cry. "They're all right!" he shouted. "I just heard Rawlins tell Tom to go ahead!"

With a quick motion, he threw in the switch and at that moment Frank's ringing shout of joy filled the room.

But before Henry could call to Tom, before he could utter a sound, hurrying, tramping footsteps echoed from the dock, the door burst inwards with a bang and into the room leaped Mr. Pauling. Beside him was a heavy-jawed man with drawn pistol and over his shoulder through the open doorway the boys saw the visored caps and blue coats of police.

"They're safe!" yelled Frank, trying to make his voice heard above the excited, shouted interrogations of Mr. Pauling. "We just heard them."

Mr. Pauling leaped towards the open trapdoor, the police crowding at his heels. Henry dropped his instruments and joined them and all crowded forward.

A shadow seemed to hover in the dull water and a slender affair of wire broke the surface.

"They're here!" screamed Frank.

"Thank G.o.d!" echoed Mr. Pauling fervently.

Hardly had the words of thankfulness left his lips when he uttered a startled cry, and, throwing himself face downward at the edge of the trapdoor, plunged his arms into the swirling water. The dim shadowy form of the diver whose helmet had just appeared, had swayed to one side; his hands, clutching the upper rungs of the ladder, had loosened their grasp, his arms had wavered and had taken a feeble stroke as if trying to swim and from the receiver on the table had issued a despairing cry, a choking, gurgling groan, ending in a gasp.

Whether the swaying, half-floating form was Tom or Rawlins, Mr. Pauling could not know, for in the suits ident.i.ty was lost, but trained as he was through long years in a service where to act instinctively meant life or death, he instantly dropped to the floor and clutched at the dim figure beneath. Had he delayed for the fraction of a second he would have been too late, but, as it was, his fingers closed on one of the diver's wrists. The next instant he had grasped the other arm and a moment later, with Henderson's aid, he had dragged the dripping, limp form onto the dock and the two men were cutting the suit and helmet from the unconscious form. But they already knew it was Tom. The boy's limbs projecting from the short tunic had proved this and Mr. Pauling's face was white and strained as they dragged the khaki-colored garment and the helmet from his son.

"Thank Heaven Rawlins fixed those suits so he could not breathe flames!"

exclaimed Mr. Henderson, as the helmet was drawn from Tom's head. "He's breathing, Pauling!"

As he spoke, there was a disturbance at the door and the police stood aside as an ambulance surgeon pushed his way hurriedly into the room. He bent over Tom in silence for an instant and then he glanced up and Mr.

Pauling read good news in his eyes.

"Don't worry!" he exclaimed. "He's not hurt. Hasn't breathed any water.

Just in a faint, I think. He'll be around in a moment. h.e.l.lo! Here's another!"

While he had been speaking, another helmeted form had appeared, dragging a limp figure, and, holding to the latter's legs still another diver was climbing up the ladder.

"What the d.i.c.kens!" exclaimed Mr. Henderson glancing up. "Who the devil are these? Two divers go down and four come up!"

Dropping the apparently lifeless diver on the floor Rawlins dragged off his helmet, glanced about in a puzzled way and then, without waiting to ask questions exclaimed, "Here, Doctor! Quick! Get at this chap!"

At his words, the doctor and his a.s.sistant sprang to the side of the form on the floor and rapidly stripped off his helmet and, as the man's face was exposed, even the hardened surgeons could not restrain a gasp of horror and amazement. The face was horrible to look upon. It was scorched, seared, blackened, the eyebrows burned off, the eyelids hanging in shreds, the sightless eyes staring white and opaque like those of a boiled fish. Rawlins gave a single glance at him.

"Oh, Lord!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "He's done for! He's had flames from the chemicals in his helmet! Poor devil, he _must_ have suffered!"

Then, turning to Mr. Henderson, he exclaimed.

"Better get the suit off this other chap. Don't know who he is, but he's something rotten! Guess it's a good thing the police are here."

As Mr. Henderson and Rawlins stepped towards the man who still wore his suit, the fellow raised an arm and leaped, or tried to leap, away, quite forgetting the heavy, lead-soled boots he wore. The result was that he tripped and fell heavily and, before Rawlins or Henderson could reach him, he was twisting and rolling towards the gaping trapdoor. An instant more and he would have been in the water, but just as he reached the edge of the opening, Frank, who with Henry had been staring open-mouthed and dumbfounded at the surprising and incomprehensible events taking place so rapidly before them, sprang forward and slammed shut the door which, in falling, pinned the fellow's legs beneath it. Then, as if fearing the man might wriggle free, the excited boy jumped upon the heavy planks. But there was no fight or attempt to escape left in the fellow and, as several policemen rushed forward and seized him, he submitted without the least resistance and a moment later had been stripped of his suit.

Once more it was Mr. Henderson's turn to be amazed, for, as he caught sight of the man's face, as he saw the closely-cropped, bullet-shaped head, the tiny, close-set piggish eyes and the big loose-lipped mouth he could scarcely believe his eyes and uttered a sharp exclamation of wonder.

"Put the bracelets on him and don't give him a chance!" he ordered the police and, as the s.h.i.+ning irons snapped with a click about the man's wrists and the officers led him to one side, the small piglike eyes glared at Mr. Henderson with such mingled hatred, brutality and ferocity that the boys s.h.i.+vered.

Rawlins was now bending above Tom beside Mr. Pauling and when, a moment later, the boy took a long, deep breath and his eyes fluttered open, the anxious, strained expression upon the diver's face vanished.

"I'll say he's a good sport!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Poor kid! Don't wonder he went clean off! And he saved my life too-with his under-sea radio at that!"

CHAPTER VIII

ASTOUNDING DISCOVERIES

Perhaps it may seem as if the boys had met with success too easily and had accomplished far more in a short time than would be possible. But as a matter of fact they had encountered innumerable difficulties, had made numbers of mistakes, had been faced with failure or negative results time after time and would have given up in despair had it not been for the encouragement of Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson and the never-ceasing optimism of Rawlins. Indeed, Rawlins had done fully as much to make the under-sea radio a success as had the boys.

Although he did not or could not become an adept at radio and insisted that it was all Greek to him, yet he was a born inventor and a mechanical genius. He had been diving since he was a mere boy, his father and grandfather had made deep-sea diving their profession, and he felt as much at home under water as on land. Hence, to him, there was nothing mysterious or baffling about the depths and he could see no valid reason why anything that could be accomplished on sh.o.r.e should not be accomplished equally well under water. He had distinguished himself by devising a submarine apparatus for taking motion pictures at the bottom of the sea and it was while engaged in making a sub-sea film that he had invented and perfected his remarkable self-contained diving suit.

To him, with his experience, the shortcomings of the suit-the danger of the chemicals flaming up if they came in contact with water-were of no moment, for, as he had explained to the boys, he automatically shut the valve if for any reason he removed his lips from the breathing tube, the action being as natural and unconscious as holding one's breath when swimming under water.

But he at once realized that if the suits were to become a commercial or practical thing, or if the under-sea radio was to be used, it would be necessary to make the apparatus absolutely safe and fool proof. He therefore set to work at once to devise an entirely new system and absolutely refused to allow the boys to don suits and go down until he had thoroughly tested out and proved the new equipment. It was not an easy matter, but in the end he succeeded, and, risking his own life in the experiment, he gave the safety suit a most severe tryout. It fulfilled his greatest expectations and feeling sure that no matter how careless or inexperienced the wearer might be there could be no accident, as far as the suit and oxygen generator were concerned, he was satisfied.

He freely expressed his satisfaction and his indebtedness to the boys, insisting that if it had not been for them and their radio he never would have improved the suit and made it practical for any one to use without danger. In addition, there were innumerable other changes and alterations which had to be made to adapt the suits to radio work, and so, by the time the boys were ready to make their tests, they were using suits which bore but little resemblance to those Rawlins had first shown them.

Upon the helmets were the odd grids of wire at right angles like some great crown; the compressed air receptacles containing the sending sets were attached to the shoulders like old-fas.h.i.+oned knapsacks, and the front of the helmet resembled some grotesque monster's head with the protuberance which contained the compact little receiving set like a huge goiter. Indeed, as Henry had remarked when he first saw Rawlins appearing dripping from the river, they looked like weird and fearful sea monsters. So, if the reader imagines that the boys and Rawlins had had an easy time or that their success was of the phenomenal kind which occurs only in fiction, he is greatly mistaken and the impression is due wholly to the fact that their failures and troubles have not been chronicled.

And now, having explained this, let us return to the boys when, their sub-sea sending set complete, the test was about to take place. As Tom sank beneath the water and slowly descended the ladder he was more excited and thrilled than ever before, for he was about to try an experiment which, if successful, would mark a new era in radio telephony and he was keyed up to a high pitch when at last he dropped from the final rung of the ladder and settled, half-floating like some big, ungainly fish upon the river bottom. Through the half opaque green water he could see the irregular, grotesquely distorted and hazy form of Rawlins appearing gigantic and phantomlike. He might have been fifteen or fifty feet away, for despite the fact that Tom had been down several times he could never accustom himself to the deceptive effects of distance under water and when he stretched his hand towards the indistinct figure he gave an involuntary start when he found Rawlins within arm's length. As his hand touched the clammy rubber surface he uttered an exclamation of surprise and the next instant gave a joyful yell, for at his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n he had heard Rawlins' voice in his ears asking, "What's wrong?"

"For heaven's sake, don't yell so!" came Rawlins' words in response to Tom's, "Hurrah, it's working!"

"I'll tell the world it's working!" continued the diver, "but don't shout. I'm talking in my lowest tones. Here, how do you like this?"

Tom's ears were almost split as a thunderous bellow filled his helmet, and involuntarily he clapped his hands to the outside of his helmet over his ears.

"That's a lesson," he said in his lowest tones. "Sorry I didn't know, Mr. Rawlins. It won't happen again. I guess these helmets act like sounding boards or something. h.e.l.lo, there's Frank's voice."

Clear and distinct they could hear Frank asking if there was trouble and Tom barely checked another outburst as he realized that the boys on sh.o.r.e could talk with them and could hear what was going on under the water.

"We can hear everything you say," went on Frank's voice. "Can you hear us and each other?"

"Gee, you bet we can!" replied Tom. "Isn't this just great?"

"Say, are you whispering?" inquired Frank. "I can hardly hear your voice."

"No, but don't shout so," answered Tom. "Down here everything just roars. We have to talk low or we'll deafen each other. I'll bet we don't need head phones on our ears under water."

"Henry's going to talk with you," Frank announced, "he's just crazy to try."