“Of course,” said Lawrence simply. “I shall enjoy it.”
“Good!” said Mr. Ridgeway. “We will draw up the necessary papers this afternoon. I want you on your past record as an airman, and your youth is a good safeguard to you. Also you are not afraid. Your duties will be whatever the moment calls for. You may have to drive the car, you may be simply a passenger, a messenger, or a boy idling around the hangars. I want you to be ears and eyes and hands and brain for me. Rather a large order? Well, you will be paid well for it.” He paused and then named a sum that made Lawrence catch his breath, so large was it.
“All our transactions are confidential,” he said.
Entering a small but perfect roadster, Mr. Ridgeway drove rapidly out of the city to the aviation field, where he found a group of excited men around the new dirigible.
Well guarded as the place evidently was, someone had entered in the night and completely destroyed the delicate machinery. The propellers too were unscrewed, and the blades hacked.
Lawrence was shocked, and the men around were furious. It rather reflected on their care when such an outrage could occur inside of an area where watchmen were supposed to patrol incessantly. Mr. Ridgeway, however, showed no signs of anger. He ordered an investigation and told the head mechanician to see what could be done with the wreck. Then, pleasant as ever, he drove back to the city. “I am certainly glad that happened,” he said as they left the field behind.
“Glad?” said Lawrence in astonishment. “Glad? Why, it seems terrible to me!”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “The point is this. Now we know that we are suspected. We know that this spying is a serious matter. The knowledge arms us. As for the dirigible—” he paused, and to Lawrence’s amazement laughed a merry, whole-souled laugh as though the loss of a machine worth many thousands of dollars was a matter of no consequence at all.
“Being my right hand man, Lawrence, I will tell you a secret,” he said after a moment. “That dirigible was not as new as it looked. It was an assembled machine, made up of about a dozen old ones that had been picked up here and there. I took good care, however, that all the papers held long accounts of the wonderful new machine that was being built for Hamilton Ridgeway, and as I own a lot of the papers, I assure you the accounts were glowing. Well, whoever tackled that bunch of junk in the night was unable to use more than a small glow from a pocket flash, so, as all the brass work was carefully polished and every part looked spick and span, there was no way for even a tried machinist to tell that the dirigible was not just what had been so widely advertised and photographed: Hamilton Ridgeway’s new dirigible for passenger service and light commercial enterprises.” He laughed again.
Then as though from force of habit he looked over his shoulder.