“Gosh, I believe they are!” agreed Frank. “But of course,” he added, “it may not mean your father by ‘P’ and we don’t know the first part of
the message. Maybe they were just talking about a ship—that ‘lear’ might have been something about a ship clearing for some place.”
“You are a funny one,” declared Tom. “Here you’ve been insisting all along that there was some deep mystery or plot behind these messages and I’ve said it was just some amateur and nothing to it and now, just as soon as we get a message which really means something, you shift around and say it’s only about some boat.”
“Well, if it’s anything secret why do they talk plain English?” asked Frank. “That’s what makes me change my views. When they were sending things that sounded like nonsense I thought they might be code messages, but now that they send things that are so plain it doesn’t seem mysterious.”
“Yes, there’s sense in that argument, I admit,” replied Tom. “But perhaps there was just as much sense in the others—if they are bootleggers. Of course as you say, they may not mean anything about Dad, but it would be a mighty funny coincidence if any one or anything else beginning with ‘P’ arrived in Havana yesterday and it happened
to come in with this message and with a ‘get busy’ after it. I’ll bet you, Frank, they’re smugglers and that’s a message to some boat or something that the coast’s clear and to unload their stuff. Let’s go down and tell Mr. Henderson about it.”
“No,” Frank advised. “He’d probably laugh at us and it wouldn’t be any use to him anyhow. We’ll keep the message and all others we hear and if anything else is going on we’ll get some more messages, you can bet. And I’ve a scheme, Tom. I know a fellow down at Gramercy Park and we can go down there and set up a loop aërial and see if this chap that’s talking is still southeast of there.”
“That’s a bully scheme!” cried Tom with enthusiasm. “We can turn radio detectives—that’ll be great! And if we find he’s north or west or east of Gramercy Square we can try some other place. Probably your friend knows fellows who have sets all around that part of the city.”
The next day they visited Frank’s friend and after making him promise secrecy they divulged a part of their plan, omitting, at Tom’s suggestion, any reference to their suspicions of the messages
coming from a gang of bootleggers. Henry fell in readily with the idea of locating the messages, which he had also heard repeatedly, and was deeply interested in the loop aërial. He had an excellent set and numerous instruments and supplies and the three boys soon rigged up a compass set in Henry’s home.