CHAPTER XVIII.
INTO THE STORM.
"Carry him into the house and get him to bed," cried Mrs. Bagley, the housekeeper, wringing her hands distractedly. "Oh dear! poor gentleman, he's bin a-workin' too hard, that's what's the matter."
Jupe and Hank Hawkins, the handy man, picked the unconscious man up and carried him to bed, where he was made comfortable.
Jack and Tom made an investigation of the workshop. At first the cut on Mr. Chadwick's head had given Jack the impression that he might have been the victim of foul play.
But a brief survey of the place soon dispelled these conclusions. When he fell, the inventor struck his head against the sharp corner of a table right behind him, Jack concluded, and in this way inflicted the wound.
The letter that his father had been reading when he was stricken still lay on the floor. Jack picked it up. It was from the brokers in New York, the same missive Mr. Chadwick had referred to over the radio 'phone just before the silence that so alarmed Jack.
Glancing over it Jack's eyes widened. He perceived at once that the cause of his father's sudden attack no doubt lay in the shock he had received when he opened the envelope. The letter was curt and to the point.
"Your securities wiped out in panic," it said. "Wire us and advise what to do."
That was all, but it was enough. Jack knew that most of his father's money was invested with the firm that had written the letter, and now they had been wiped out in a money panic. Jack had no idea how much of his father's fortune was affected, but it was evident from Mr. Chadwick's collapse that he had been dealt a heavy blow.
He was in the midst of talking to Tom about the letter when the housekeeper came running from the house.
"Oh, here you boys are!" she exclaimed. "You must get Dr. Mays at once. Those red drops he gave your father are finished and I can't find any more."
"I'll telephone," said Jack promptly, stuffing the letter into his pocket.
"I've already tried that," said Mrs. Bagley, "but the line is out of order."
"Can't we get some other doctor?" asked Tom.
Mrs. Bagley shook her head.
"Dr. Mays is the only one who understands your father's case," she said. "You must get him as soon as possible."
"Is dad conscious yet?" asked Jack anxiously.
"Yes, he has been trying to tell me something but I won't let him talk."
"We'll get Dr. Mays right away," said Jack, but then he suddenly recollected that the electric car was slightly out of order. There would be no time to stop and repair it then.
Luckily the Wondership still stood outside the shed. Five minutes later the boys were soaring aloft, bound for the doctor's house, which was some distance away. It was not till they had fairly started that they noticed the change in the weather.
The thunderheads they had seen earlier in the day now spread and covered the whole sky with a dark pall. The air was very still, as if nature was holding her breath. Far off, though in plain view, the sea was lying like a smooth sheet of steel-gray velvet. A sailing ship, with sails flapping, was becalmed some distance from shore.
"Going to rain," said Tom.
"Worse than that, I think," said Jack. "We're in for the storm that's been making up for two days now."
"Well, we can get there and back before it breaks."
"Easily. Let those motors out, Tom, we want to make good time."
It was oppressively hot, and had it not been for Jack's anxiety he would have enjoyed the swift cooling passage through the thundery air. But he was strangely troubled. Did that letter mean that his father was on the verge of ruin?
Suddenly he bethought himself of Ned Nevins' letter. He opened it, having pushed it into his pocket when they entered the workshop, where Mr. Chadwick had placed it before opening the ominous epistle from his brokers. It was a friendly, chatty note from the boy, and enclosed the checks covering the joint dividends of Jack and Tom in the Hydroaëroplane Company.
"Well, at any rate, that's something," declared Jack to Tom, as he handed him the letter and his check.
"Yes, but if Uncle Chester is ruined, it's only a drop in the bucket," said Tom.
"Well, it's no use crossing your bridges till you come to them," said Jack, "and anyhow, that letter may be only a false alarm. I've heard they get these financial panics in Wall Street just like kids get the measles, and they get over them as quickly."
"I trust it will be so in this case," said Tom.
"So do I," said Jack hopefully, but a cold fear that his father was ruined possessed him, and made his heart feel heavy as lead.
Suddenly, from the purple firmament, came the sound of distant thunder. Following it a puff of wind, hot as the exhalation of an opened oven, blew in their faces. In the distance they saw a ragged streak of lightning tear the cloud curtains.