The Radio Detectives

by A. Hyatt Verrill

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 shore 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-fashioned 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 ejaculation he had heard Rawlins’ voice in his ears asking, “What’s wrong?”