“Apparently he did. But he may have come back. That’s what I want Clark to do—a bit of detective work to find out if Greenbaum went to his boarding house and stayed there. If he did——”
The entrance, at that moment, of the young workman in whom Tom placed much confidence brought a sudden end to the talk.
“You sent for me, Mr. Swift?” asked Clark, with a smile. “Is it about the new negative gravity machine I’m working on?”
“Not this time, Clark,” answered Tom, motioning the young fellow to take a chair near the scorched desk which was not far from the shattered talking-picture machine. That apparatus had, however, been covered from prying eyes. “I want you to do a bit of detective work, if you will,” went on the young inventor.
Without telling just why he wanted the information, Tom instructed his agent to find out in secret something about Greenbaum, seeking to learn just what the man did on the night of the explosion.
“I get you!” exclaimed Clark, with ready wit. “I’m wise all right. I’ll shadow him if you want me to.”
“No, don’t dog him,” objected Tom. “Just trace his movements. You can tell your foreman you’re working for me and it will be all right.”
With Clark dispatched on this mission, Tom took from the partial wreck of his new apparatus such pieces as were vital for rebuilding it and then, asking his father to have the laboratory cleaned up and put in working shape again, Tom went back to his bedroom.
Truth to tell, he was pretty well fagged out, not so much physically as mentally. The shock both to his hopes and his body, as well as worry over Ned’s disappearance, was beginning to tell.
“Hadn’t you better give this up, Tom?” asked his father as, having set men to putting the laboratory to rights, he went to his son’s room where he found Tom stretched out on a long sofa.