SOMETHING BIG
"You see," Curlie began as he crossed his slim legs beside a small table in an all-night lunch room, buried somewhere in the deep recesses of this same skyscraper, "that fellow sent the message about the easterly breeze that blew west and I located the station at that hotel. This morning I went over to see how the place looked. It's a wonderful hotel, that one; palm garden in the middle of it, marble columns, fountain, painted sheet iron ceiling that'd make you dizzy to look at, and the finest dressed people you ever saw walking around everywhere.
"Well, I found my way to the sending room of the radiophone and right away the operator wanted to throw me out; said I was a fresh kid and all that. But when I showed him my papers, he calmed down a lot and showed me everything he had.
"I saw right away it wasn't his equipment that had sent that message—that'd be like sending a Big Bertha bomb into Paris with a twenty-two caliber rifle. He just naturally didn't have the power, that's all. So I didn't tell him anything about it; just walked out and went around back to where I could see the way his wires ran from the sending room to the antenna.
"I hadn't any more than got there and had one look-up when along strolls a man who wants to know what I'm looking at. I saw right away that he wasn't a hotel employee for he didn't wear either a bandmaster's uniform nor a cutaway coat, so I just smiled and said:
"Got a girl friend up there on the sixteenth floor. She's leaving this morning and arranged to drop her trunk down to me so's not to have to tip the porter.
"Well, sir, I hadn't more than said that than a girl did pop her head out of a sixteenth floor window and stare straight down at me.
"The fellow actually dodged. Guess he thought the trunk was due any minute.
"Funny part of it was the girl actually seemed interested in me, just as if she had met me somewhere before. Of course she was too high up for me to tell what she was like, but it made me mighty curious. I counted the windows to right and left so I could find that room if I wanted to. The window was only the third to the right from where the lead wire to the antenna went up.
"Well, then, that fellow—"
"Mr. Carson?" a voice interrupted Curlie. "Anyone here by the name of Carson?" It came from the desk-clerk of the eating place.
"That's me," exclaimed Curlie, jumping up.
"Telephone."
"All right. Be back in a minute, Joe." Curlie was away to answer the call.
"'Lo. That you, Curlie?" came through the receiver. "This is Coles Masters. Got a bad case—extra bad. Can't understand it. Fellow's sending 600 meter waves, with enough power to cross the Atlantic."
"Six hundred!" exclaimed Curlie in a tense whisper. "Why, that's what they use for S.O.S. at sea! It's criminal. Endangers every ship in distress. Five years in prison for it. Get him, can't you?"
"Can't. That's the trouble. Every time I think I've got him spotted he seems to move."
"To move!"
"Yes, sir."
"That's queer! I'll be up right away."
"Come on," exclaimed Curlie, grabbing his hat and dragging Joe to his feet. "It's a big one. Moves, he says. Sends 600; big power. Bet it's that same hotel fellow. Gee whiz! Supposing it turned out to be that sixteenth story girl and she caught me spying on her. I tell you it's something big!"
Impatient at the slowness of the up-shooting elevator, Curlie at last leaped out before the iron door at the top was half open, then two steps at a time sprang up a flight of stairs. Out of breath, he arrived at the final landing, sprang through the door to the secret tower room, then seizing his headpiece, sank into a chair.
By a single move of the hand, Coles Masters indicated the radio-compass he had been listening in on.
"That's where he was, last time he spoke," he grumbled, "but no telling where he'll be next. He's been dodging all over that stretch of country."
Curlie's fingers moved rapidly. He adjusted the coil of a radio-compass here, another there and still another here. He twisted the knob of each to the 600 mark, then, twisting the tuning knobs, lined them all up to receive on the same wave length. The winding of each was set at a slightly different angle from any other.
"That about covers him," he mumbled. "Get the distance?"
"Near as I could make out," said Coles Masters, "it was from ten to fifteen miles. He moves toward us, then away at times, just as he does to right and left."
"Hm," sighed Curlie, resting his chin on his hands. "That's a new dodge, this moving business. Complicates things, that does."
For a time he sat in a brown study. At last he spoke again, this time quite as much to himself as to the other:
"Folks don't move unless they have a way to move. That fellow has some means of locomotion. Anyway," he sighed, "it's not our friend of the big hotel unless—unless he or she or whoever it is has taken to locomotion, and that's not likely. Not the same side of the city. Out near the forest preserve."
"Yes, or a little beyond," said Coles.
"What do you think," asked Curlie suddenly, "has he got an automobile or an airplane?"
"Can't tell," said Coles thoughtfully. "You can't really judge distances in air accurately. There are powerful equipments which might be mounted on either automobiles or airplanes."
"The thing that puzzled me, though, was his line of chatter. All about some 'map, old French,' and a lot of stuff like that. I—"
Suddenly he broke off. A grinding sound had come from one of the loud speakers. There followed in a clear, strong voice:
"Map O.K. Old French is amazing. Good for a million."
Curlie's fingers were busy once more as a tense look drew his forehead into a scowl.
"About fifteen miles," he whispered.
Then the voice resumed:
"Time up the bird. When?"
A tense silence ensued. Then, faint, as if from far away, yet very distinctly there came the single word:
"Wednesday." This was followed by three letters distinctly pronounced: "L.C.W."
A second later came the strong voice in answer: "A.C.S."
"That," said Curlie as he settled back in his chair, "in my estimation ends the night's entertainment. But the nerve of the fellow!" he exploded. "Sending that kind of rot on six hundred. Why, at this very moment some disabled ship might be struggling in a storm on the Great Lakes or even on the Atlantic, and this jumble of words would muddle up their message so its meaning would be lost and the ship with it. The worst I could wish for such a fellow is that he be dropped into the sea with some means of keeping afloat but with neither food nor drink and a ship nowhere in sight."
If Curlie had known how exactly this wish was to be granted in the days that were to come, he might have experienced some strange sensations.
He straightened up and placed a dot on the map before him.
"That's where he was. I'll motor out in the morning and have a look at things. May discover some clew."
Curlie was a bright American boy of the very best type. Like most American boys who do not have riches thrust upon them, when he wanted a thing he made it or made a way to get it. Three years previous he had wanted an automobile—wanted it awfully. And his total capital had been $49.63. He had been wanting that car for some time when an express train hit a powerful roadster on a crossing near his home.
Having flocked in with the throng to view the twisted remains of the car, he had been struck with an idea. This idea he had put into action. The railroad had settled with the owner for the car. They had the wreck of it on their hands. Curlie bought it for twenty-five dollars.
To his great delight he had found the powerful motor practically uninjured. The driving gear too, with the exception of one cog wheel, was in workable order. The remainder of the car he sold to a junk dealer for five dollars. It was twisted and broken beyond redemption.
He had next searched about for a discarded chassis on which to mount his gears and motor. This search rewarded, he had proceeded to assemble his car. And one fine day he sailed out upon the street with the "Humming Bird," as he had named her.
"Better call her 'Gravel Car,'" Joe had said when he saw that she had no body at all and that he must ride with his feet thrust straight out before him in a homemade seat bolted to a buckboard-like platform.
But when, on a level stretch of road, Curlie had "let her out," Joe had at once acquired an immense respect for the Humming Bird. "For," he said later, "she can hum and she can go like a streak of light, and that's about all any humming bird can do."
No further messages of importance having drifted in to him from the outer air, Curlie, an hour before dinner, made his way down to the street and, having warmed up the Humming Bird's motor, muttered as he sprang into the seat: "I'll just run out there and see what I see."
A half hour later, just as the first gray streak of dawn was appearing, he curved off onto a gravel road. Here he threw his car over to one side and, switching on a flashlight, steered with one hand while he bent over the side to examine the left-hand track.
There had been a light rain at ten that night. Since that time a heavy car with diamond-tread tires had passed along the road, leaving its tracks in certain soft, sandy spots.
"Maybe that's him," Curlie murmured.
A little farther on, stopping his machine, he got out and walked along the road. Examining the surface closely, he walked on for five rods, then wheeled about and made his way back to the car.
"He was over this road three times last night. That looks like a warm scent. Can't tell, though. My friend might not have been in a car at all; might have been in a plane.
"We'll have a look at the very spot." He twirled the wheel and was away.
A half mile farther down the road, he paused to look at a map. "Not quite here," he murmured. "About a quarter mile farther."
The car crept over another quarter of a mile. When he again came to a halt he found himself on a stretch of paved road. "This is the spot from which the last message was sent. Tough luck!" he muttered. "Can't tell a thing here."
Glancing to his right, he sat up with a start. He had suddenly become aware of the fact that he was just before the gate of the estate of J. Anson Ardmore, reputed to be the richest man of the city.
"Huh!" Curlie grunted. "Car must have stood about here when that last message was sent. Maybe it went up that lane. Maybe it didn't, too. J. Anson's got a son, about my age I guess. Vincent they call him. He might be up to something. There's a girl, too, sixteen or so. Can't tell what these rich folks will do."
He stepped down the rich man's private drive, but here the surface of crushed stone was so perfectly kept that no telltale mark was to be seen.
He did not venture far, as he had no relish for being caught trespassing on such an estate without some good explanation for his conduct. Just at that moment he had no desire to explain.
As he turned to go back, he caught the thud-thud of hoof beats along the private drive.
Fortunately the abundant shrubbery hid him from view. Hardly had he reached the machine and assumed the attitude of one hunting trouble in his engine when a girl rounded a corner at full gallop.
Dressed in full riding costume and mounted on a blooded horse, she swung along as graceful as a lark. As she came into the public highway she flashed Curlie a look and a smile. Then she was gone.
Curlie liked the smile even if it did come from one of the "four hundred."
"Gee! Old Humming Bird," he exclaimed as he patted his car, "did she mean that smile for you or for me? So there might be a girl in the case, same as there seems to be in that one over at the hotel? Girl in most every case. What if she sent those messages and I found her out? That would sure be tough.
"But business is business!" He set his mouth grimly. "You can't fool with old Uncle Sam, not when you're endangering the lives of some of his bravest sons at sea."
He threw in the clutch and drove slowly along the road. Twice he paused to examine the tracks made the night before. Each time he discovered marks of the diamond tread.
"That radiophone was mounted on a car," he decided; "I'll stake my life on that. Now if he keeps it up, how am I to catch him?"