“Mr. De Lorme stored the infernal machines and the dynamite in small cases in a cave out at the Camp at Knox. No one would think to look for anything of that sort right in the bounds of a military camp. We had friends, members of our Order, who came in and took the stuff out there.
“They are preparing for a great dynamite plot on the thirteenth. All the material out there will be taken away and distributed, and all the public buildings in many cities will be destroyed. But you will let me go, and I will tell you where it is.”
“You needn’t trouble about that,” said the detective. “We know. What did you use that wireless for?”
“We did all our communicating by means of wireless,” said Zip. “We have a network of plants all over the city and throughout the country so we can use one short circuit after another, and communicate from sea to sea.
“It was too dangerous ever to write, and still more so to telephone. No one knew that our wireless was anything more than a lot of boys talking. A great many boys have little wireless plants.”
“What about this boy Marion that De Lorme has been calling his son? And what about his blindness?”
“The blindness was his safeguard. Everyone who saw him thought him half helpless. It was for that reason that he made Marion make friends all over the neighborhood. The ladies around here sent him jellies and good things, because they like the boy, and are sorry for his father. Not a soul suspected us. I don’t see how you got on.”
The detective smiled, but said nothing. Zip went on.
“About Marion; he is Mr. De Lorme’s stepson. Mr. De Lorme married Marion’s mother when he was only a baby. She died soon, and the boy has been a care and a drag, and yet a great safeguard. We have travelled widely, and everywhere the boy has made friends, and people have pitied him because of his half blind father and his apparent loneliness. The boy was never abused, although Mr. De Lorme hated him. And he was getting beyond us. He did not tell what his pursuits were, or where he spent his time. Then all at once he heard the hidden wireless in my room, and answered it. And Mr. De Lorme put him up in the attic, and told me to get rid of him.”
“How?” asked the detective, his steely eyes hypnotizing the man into the truth.