This being the case, there was nothing to be done but to turn back and make with all haste for the inventor’s plant. They reached it without further event and found the inventor awaiting them outside the palings. He had bound a white cloth around his wound, which he declared did not hurt him much.
“We have good news for you,” cried Jack, waving the papers; “I guess we’ve recovered what that rascal took.”
A brief examination showed Mr. Dancer that the papers recaptured were the identical ones taken from his desk. He explained that he had once been associated in the machinery business with Duke, but that the latter had proved dishonest and that he had closed all negotiations and dealings with him. Duke in revenge had made one or two attacks on him before, and this time had almost succeeded in injuring him seriously, besides stealing the plans of the diving torpedo boat.
“He must have known, however, that they would be useless to him,” the inventor continued, “for most of my ideas are patented and I used a secret method of calculation of my own. Without the key nobody could understand what was on the papers.”
“And in any event the boat is not yet completed?”
“No,” sighed the inventor, “I am afraid that all my time and expense has gone for naught unless some means of making the boat dive can be found.”
“Well, I will promise to do all I can,” Jack promised him; “I’ll lay the case before my father to-night.”
“Thank you very much,” was the rejoinder; “there is nothing like putting a fresh young mind to work on such problems. Often the very fact that one has devised a thing makes one blind to its defects and thus unable to remedy them.”
“I hope we shall hit on a way of solving your difficulties,” struck in Tom. “By the way, we pass a police station on our way home; do you wish us to ask them to send protection to you to-night?”
“No, I have no fear of Duke returning. But if he should do so, I shall have my assistant, Silas Hardtack, with me to-night, and as he is a former man-o’-war’s man and afraid of nothing, I shall be well protected.”