"I'm on their trail! Now I'm on their trail!"
"What do you mean?" Tom insisted. "Whose trail? What's it all about?"
"It's about Field and Melling! That's who it's about!" exclaimed Mr. Baxter, with a smothered exclamation. "Look, Tom Swift, this letter is addressed to me from one of the biggest dye firms in the world—a firm that is always looking for something new!"
"But if you haven't anything new to give them, of what use is it?" Tom asked, for he knew that the chemist had said his process, stolen, as he claimed, by Field and Melling, was his only new project.
"But I will have something new when I get those secret formulae away from those scoundrels!" declared Mr. Baxter.
"Yes, but how are you going to do it, when you can't even prove that they have them?" asked Tom.
"Ah, that's the point! Now I think I can prove it," declared Mr. Baxter. "Look, Tom Swift! This letter is addressed to me in care of Field and Melling at the office I used to have in their fireworks factory."
"The office from which you were rescued nearly dead," Tom added.
"Exactly. The place where you saved me from a terrible death. Well, if you will notice, this letter was written only two days ago. And it is the first mail I have received as having been forwarded from that address since the fire. I know other mail must have come for me, though."
"What became of it?" asked Tom.