"I know he's a scoundrel!" declared Jerrold with emphasis. "He's a good mechanic, though, and in spite of his shady record I took him on here to help me build my air-ship, the Eagle. After he had been with me for a while, I found he was stealing my ideas and building an air-ship of his own. Then I discharged him. Since then he's been attending to his own operations and I have been attending to mine. There are several important points about my machine, though, which Brady has been anxious to discover. He has tried to bribe Payne, the man who works for me, to give up a set of my blue prints, and he has tried to get them in other underhand ways. At about eleven o'clock, yesterday, three of Brady's men tried out-and-out robbery. That safe was forced"—Jerrold pointed to a small steel safe in one corner of the room—"and the roll of blue prints taken out. Payne and I were in the workshop at the time. We had just put the finishing touches to the Eagle and were inflating the bag for a trial. I heard a suspicious sound from the house and ran into this room. One of the thieves had just cleared an open window, another was getting out and the third was making ready to go. I had a wrench in my hand and I hurled it at the man in the room. He dropped without a groan. Payne came, just then, and we went after the other two. Brady's air-ship was waiting for them in the rear of the house, and the two robbers got into it and were away before we could catch them. Payne and I got a horse and buggy, as quick as we could, but by that time the air-ship was no more than a speck in the sky, off to the south. We followed, keeping the course the air-ship had taken. The men aboard didn't seem to know how to handle the craft very well, and I was hoping some accident would happen, that the craft would come down and that I would be able to get back my blue prints."
Jerrold halted for a little, his face flaming with anger and indignation.
"I haven't my patents, yet," he went on, in a few moments, "and haven't even been able to establish a caveat, so, you see, if Brady should get ahead of me at the patent office he would snatch a fortune out of my hands. For," and here the inventor threw back his head with laudable pride, "I claim to have invented an air-ship that can be used for commercial purposes—the first machine of the kind that will successfully navigate the air against the strongest wind that blows. But if that scoundrel Brady takes from me the fruits of my toil, I shall be ruined!"
Jerrold's body slumped forward in his chair, and he crouched there in an attitude of extreme dejection.
"Where's the fellow you knocked down with the wrench?" asked Harris, his professional mind dealing with the more practicable aspects of the case.
"When Payne and I got back to the room, after pursuing the other two rascals to the Hawk," answered Jerrold, "the man had vanished. I suppose he recovered from the effects of the blow and took himself off."
"He vas der feller vat drove der modor in der Hawk," explained Carl, "und ven he vas pud down und oudt, der odder fellers made poor vork oof triving der machine. Aber dot ain'd vat I got on my mindt, schust now." Carl pulled the roll of blue prints from his pocket. "Dere, Misder Jerrold," said he, "iss vat you lost. Take it mit der gombliments oof Modor Matt—my bard who iss gone I don'd know vere. Oof you hat shtopped a leedle in der puggy, und toldt us vat I haf heardt schust now, den, by shinks, you vould haf got der bapers pack a long dime ago."
A cry of delight broke from Jerrold's lips. For a moment he stared at the roll, then swooped down on it with both hands, caught it away from Carl and began removing the wrapper with trembling fingers.
"Here they are, here they are," he crooned joyfully, pawing the blue prints over and counting them, one by one; "they're all here, and——"
He stopped short and stared blankly at the envelope, which had fallen out of the blue-prints and dropped on the carpet.