But Mrs. Farley was quivering with excitement.
“You must tell me all about it, Ralph,” said she. “Who can be sending you a message inside a meteor, I wonder?”
My reply was merely: “I think that there is a clipping in one of my scrapbooks up in the attic which will answer that question.”
There was! I found the scrapbook in a chest under the eaves, but did not open it until after chores and supper, during which meal I kept a provoking silence on the subject of our discovery.
When the dishes were finally all cleared away, I opened the book on the table and read to the assembled household the following four-year-old clipping from the Boston Post.
CITIZEN DISAPPEARS
Prominent Clubman Vanishes from Beacon Street HomeMyles S. Cabot of 162 Beacon Street, disappeared from his bachelor quarters late yesterday afternoon, under very mysterious circumstances.
He had been working all day in his radio laboratory on the top floor of his house, and had refused to come down for lunch. When called to dinner, he made no reply: so his butler finally decided to break down the door, which was locked.
The laboratory was found to be empty. All the windows were closed and locked, and the key was on the inside of the door. In a heap on the floor lay a peculiar collection of objects, consisting of Mr. Cabot’s watch and chain, pocket knife, signet ring, cuff links and tie pin, some coins, a metal belt buckle, two sets of garter snaps, some safety pins, a gold pen point, a pen clip, a silver pencil, some steel buttons, and several miscellaneous bits of metal. There was a smell in the air like one notices in electric power houses. The fuses on the laboratory power line were all blown out.
The butler immediately phoned to police headquarters, and Detective Flynn was dispatched to the scene. He questioned all the servants thoroughly, and confirmed the foregoing facts.
The police are working on the case.
WAS PROMINENT RADIO ENTHUSIAST
Myles S. Cabot, whose mysterious disappearance yesterday has shocked Boston society, was the only son of the late Alden Cabot. His mother was a Sears of Southboro.
The younger Cabot since his graduation from Harvard had devoted himself to electrical experimenting. Although prominent in the social life of the city, and an active member of the Union, University, New York Yacht, and Middlesex Hunt Clubs, he nevertheless had found time to invent novel and useful radio devices, among the best known of which is the Indestructo Vacuum Tube.
He had established at his Beacon Street residence one of the best equipped radio laboratories in the city.
His most recent experiment, according to professional friends, had been with television.
Mr. Cabot substituted two circuits for the usual television circuit, one controlling the vertical lines of his sending and receiving screens, and the other the horizontal, thus enabling him to enlarge his screen considerably, and also to present a continuous picture instead of one made up of dots. The effect of perspective he obtained by adding a third circuit.
The details of this invention had not been given out by Mr. Cabot prior to his disappearance.
His nearest relatives are cousins.
The last was a particularly gentle touch, it seemed to me. Well, his cousins hadn’t yet inherited his property, although they had tried mighty hard; and perhaps this mysterious message from the void would prevent them from ever doing so. I hoped that this would be the case, for I liked Myles, and had never liked those cousins of his.
Myles had been a classmate of mine at Harvard, though later our paths drifted apart, his leading into Back Bay society and radio, and mine leading into the quiet pastoral life of a farm on Chappaquiddick Island off the coast of Massachusetts. I had heard little of him until I read the shocking account of his sudden disappearance.
The police had turned up no further clues, and the matter had quickly faded from the public sight. I had kept the Post clipping as a memento of my old college chum.
I was anxious to learn what had become of him these four years. So I opened the manuscript and proceeded to read aloud.