Far up in the sky he caught the hum of an aeroplane motor. He leaped from the cab and listened. The sound was unmistakable. He had been on the Congressional committees and witnessed a hundred experiments by the Army Aviation Corps.
“What the devil can that mean at one o’clock at night?” he muttered.
He leaped into the cab, calling to his driver:
“Go back to Times Square and drop me at the Times Building—quick.”
He made up his mind to report this extraordinary discovery to the night editor and try by his wireless plant to get in touch with Waldron’s tower.
The cab was just sweeping down Broadway between two famous restaurants and the orgies inside were at their height. The shouts and songs and drunken calls, the clash of dishes, the pop of champagne corks and twang of music poured through the open windows.
The cab suddenly lurched, and rose into the air, lifted on a floor of asphalt. An explosion shook the earth and ripped the sky with a sword of flame.
The cab crashed downward and lit squarely on the flat roof of a low-pitched building right side up.
Vassar leaped out in time to hear the dull roar of the second explosion.
The first had blown up and blocked the subway and elevated systems. The second had destroyed the power plants of the surface lines.