Curlie Carson Listens In Part 7

A half hour later he received a highly commendatory message, congratulating him on his achievement and bidding him keep up the good work.

After glancing over Coles' reports for the evening and making mental notes from them, Curlie prepared to seek his bed and indulge in a good, long sleep, the first in several days.

"There isn't a bit of hurry in going after that rich young fellow or girl, if it is a girl," he said to Coles. "That'll keep. We've got plenty of proof." He jerked a thumb toward the corner where was a box into which he had tossed the various small parts of a sending set and the number plate of the car. "All we need to do now is to saunter out there some fine morning and have a heart-to-heart talk with J. Anson himself."

Had Curlie but known it, there was to be a great deal more than that to it. There was to be an adventure in it for him such as he had never before experienced, an adventure which was destined to take him thousands of miles from the secret tower room and which was to throw him into such dangers as would cause the bravest to shrink back in terror.

Since he was blissfully ignorant of all this he was also blissfully happy in the consciousness of having achieved success in the thing he had undertaken.

"This," he laughed as he said it, "is going to bring me face to face with one of America's greatest millionaires. It's like going before a king in some ways. In others I fancy it's more like meeting a lion in the street. Anyway, I've always wanted to meet a king, a lion and a millionaire and here's where I meet one of them. Ever meet one?" He turned to Coles.

"Meet which?" Coles smiled. "King, lion or millionaire?"

"Millionaire."

"No, can't say that I have, though I doubt if we'd either of us recognize one if we should meet him on the street. Someone has said that humanity is everywhere much the same and I fancy that's true even of very rich folks. They may try to bluff you with their power but if they find they can't do that, I guess they'll turn out to have the same dreams, the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows as the rest of us."

"Do you think so?" said Curlie thoughtfully. "I hope that's true. It would be a good thing for the world if it were true and if all the people in the world knew it.

"Well, good night." He drew on his cap. "See you in about sixteen hours.

Guess it'll take me that long to catch up my sleep. After that I'm going after that fellow who's breaking in on 1200, that fellow over at the hotel with the whispering friend, or enemy, whichever she may turn out to be."

Had he but known it, it was to be many days before he was to go after that offender on the 1200 meter wave lengths and then it was to be in ways of which he had not yet dreamed. And so he slept.

When he awoke after fourteen hours of refres.h.i.+ng sleep, it was to hear the newsies crying their evening papers. For some time he lay there listening to their shrill shouts and attempting to catch what they were saying.

"Ex-tree! All about--" He could get that far, probably because he had heard it so often before, but no further could he go. The remainder was a jumble of meaningless sounds.

Suddenly, as he listened, a shrill urchin shouted the words out directly beneath his very window:

"Wul--ex-tree! All about the mur-der-ed millionaire's son!"

"Here! Here!" exclaimed Curlie, thrusting his head out of the window.

"What millionaire's son? Give me one of those papers." He tossed the boy a nickel and received a tightly wrapped paper. Sent through the window as if shot from a catapult, it landed with a b.u.mp on the floor.

His hand trembled so he could scarcely unroll the paper. His head whirled.

"Murdered?" he said to himself. "Millionaire's son murdered? Can it be Vincent Ardmore? Did a bullet from my automatic, glancing from the wheel, inflict a mortal wound?"

He saw himself behind prison bars in murderer's row.

Cold perspiration stood out on his brow as he read in staring headlines:

"J. ANSON ARDMORE'S SON BELIEVED MURDERED."

"Believed?" He caught at that single word as a camel in a desert snaps at a straw. So they were not sure.

Hastily he read the column through, then dropped limply into a chair.

"Oh! What a shock!" he breathed.

He was vastly relieved. The article stated that the car belonging to the millionaire's son had been found by a laborer employed on the estate as he came to his work very early in the morning. The car, which was badly smashed up, bore the mark of a bullet in a rear tire and one in the lower part of the body. It was believed that the young man, being pursued by bandits and having attempted to escape, had had his car riddled by bullets and had been thrown into the ditch.

"There are grave reasons for supposing," the article went on to state, "since no trace of the young man has yet been found, that he has been either kidnapped for ransom or, having been killed by a stray bullet, has been buried somewhere in the forest preserve.

"Bands of armed men are searching the woods and every available police officer and detective has been put on the case. A reward of $5,000 has been offered by the father for any information which may lead to the discovery of the whereabouts of his son."

"Whew!" exclaimed Curlie, mopping his brow. "What a rumpus!"

Suddenly he sat up straight. "Doesn't say one word about that wireless apparatus in the car. How about that?"

He sat with wrinkled brow for a moment.

"Ah!" he slapped his knee, "I have it! The laborer of course came directly to his master. The shrewd old millionaire, guessing that his son had been breaking radio laws, had all of that equipment removed before the public was let in on the deal. He bribed the laborer to secrecy on that point and there you are."

Again his brow wrinkled. "Five thousand dollars!" he whispered. "That's a lot of money. I could supply some valuable information which might ent.i.tle me to the five thousand. Question is, do I want to risk it? The thing that's happened is about this, far as I can figure it out: Our young amateur radio friend, when his auto turned turtle, hiked off into the woods. For a time he stayed there. Then, when nothing happened for some time, he came sneaking back. When he found I'd taken his number plate and some parts of his radio equipment, he guessed right away that I was connected with the radio secret service. He's hiding right now, unless I miss my guess, with some of his rich young friends.

"I might tell all that and I might get the reward, but supposing something really had happened? Oh, boy, what a mess!

"And yet," he mused, after a moment, "I've done nothing to be ashamed of. I'm an officer of the law. I did what I did because a fellow was resisting arrest. Ho, well, I'll just let things stand and simmer.

Something may come to the top yet."

CHAPTER VIII

CURLIE MEETS A MILLIONAIRE

It was a tense situation for Curlie. He spent an uneasy night and that in spite of the fact that the air was particularly free from trouble.

"Hang it all," he exclaimed once as, das.h.i.+ng the receiver from his head, he sprang from his chair to pace the floor of the secret tower room, "I'd welcome something in the line of trouble. This eternal thinking--thinking--thinking, drives me wild. What to do, that's the question. Suppose I'd ought to go out and tell Ardmore what I know. If a millionaire father's like any other father, I guess he's pretty well wrought up by now. But if I go, and if I tell him the whole truth, I'm as sure as I am of anything that it will get me into a mess and that's the sort of thing I don't like."

Glancing down, his eye was caught by Coles' report of the night before.

Dropping once more into his chair, he began going through the messages written there. When he came to the one sent out by the boy whose car he had wrecked, he pondered over it for a long time.

"'Island, airplane, map, much gold; airplane, map, island, gold,'" he repeated. "What does one make out of that? It might be that this boy has been planning a secret voyage with some other chap. Certainly sounds like it. Other messages were the same kind. By Jove! Perhaps he's skipped out and gone on that trip and is not hiding out at all! Let's see."

Taking down a file he drew forth a bunch of message records clipped together. They were those sent by the moving operator on 600, the millionaire's son.

A long time he studied over these.

"Seems to sort of prove my theory," he muttered once. "Can't be sure though."

Then, suddenly he sat up straight. "That's the idea." He slapped his knee. "The very thing! Why didn't I think of that before? If he doesn't shew up by morning I'll do it. I'll just take these records over to Ardmore and suggest to him that they may shed some light on the subject. Don't need to tell him I was in on the wrecking of the car at all. That wouldn't help any. These records might. And if I can help to find him and bring him back, then, oh, boy! Oh you baby fortune! Five thousand big, red, round dollars!"

He sat back trying to measure the meaning of the possession of five thousand dollars which did not have to be spent for bed, board and clothing. At last he gave it up in despair.