Chapter 4 Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures by Victor Appleton
A STRANGE MESSAGE
Tom Swift sank wearily into a chair, facing his damaged talking-picture machine. That it was very seriously damaged was plainer to the eyes of the young inventor than to those even of his father, who was one of three persons aware of what great changes the new machine was destined to bring about. But Tom rallied and from the ruins of his invention saw mentally, rising like the fabled Phoenix from its own ashes, a new and better piece of apparatus.
“Maybe, after all,” mused Tom, “this will turn out better than it looked at first sight. I already have an idea for some improvements in the new machine I’m going to start—as soon as I’m able,” he added somewhat grimly.
“Tom, you’d better go back to bed!” exclaimed his father anxiously. “You know Dr. Layton said——”
“Oh, I’m all right!” protested the young inventor. “I’m going slow. I do feel a bit pulled out, but I don’t intend to do any work. However, I’m on the track of something, and it’s got to be followed up.”
“Then you think this was deliberately done, Tom?” asked Mr. Swift as he finished sending a message to have Jim Clark sent to Tom’s private quarters.
“I’m almost positive of it,” was the reply. “And I have under suspicion a certain man.”
“Who?” asked Mr. Swift in a low voice, making sure no one was near the shattered door.
“Greenbaum,” was the equally low answer.
“Why, I thought he was one of your best workers, Tom!” exclaimed Mr. Swift in surprise.
“So he is, in his own particular line. But now that I think matters over, I see that there is a chance he had something to do with this explosion. He was here in the laboratory just before it happened. He and I and Ned Newton were the only ones here, as a matter of fact. Ned has disappeared, and that’s worrying me, but I’ll come to that feature in due time. I guess Ned can look after himself, though his disappearance is certainly mysterious, coupled with everything else that’s happened. But when I stop to think about Greenbaum being here just before the explosion——”
“But, Tom,” interrupted his father, “I thought you said Greenbaum went before you locked up and came home.”
“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.
“Give what up, Dad? You mean trying to find out who blew me up and why Ned is missing? Give those problems up?”
“No, I mean work on this new talking-picture machine of yours. I don’t believe it will ever work, Tom.”
“But it has worked, Dad!” exclaimed the young man, with enthusiasm. “Only about an hour before Ned left and the explosion happened, I got a pretty fine record of what Ned did in the theater room,” for so Tom called the apartment with its battery of bright lights where the young manager had sung and danced.
“You heard Ned’s voice?” asked Mr. Swift.
“Perfectly,” declared Tom. “Saw him, too. But the vision was not as clear as it’s got to be to make this a commercial success. But I know how to improve it, and I’m going to. I can’t give that up, Dad!”
“It might be better if you did, Tom.”
“Better? How?”
“Well, for your own safety. You’re using powerful electrical currents and you’ve had one explosion already; so——”
“But didn’t I tell you, Dad,” and Tom smiled tolerantly, “that this explosion was none of my doing? Nothing went wrong with the wires. They were all in shape and I was just opening the door when something went off. It was something that was set, too—a bomb, if I guess aright.”
“All the more reason for giving it up, Tom.”
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“I mean that perhaps some one, or perhaps a number of persons, don’t want this new invention to succeed. Think what it will mean to the moving picture industry if you can give people in their own homes entertainment such as the big theaters present. And where will the theaters come out if their high-priced shows can be picked up by every one who buys one of your machines?”
“That’s their lookout,” said Tom. “It was said that the radio would kill the phonograph; and it nearly did, but the phonograph folks came back strong.”
“This is different, Tom.”
“Yes, I know it is—different and better. No, I’m not going to back out, bombs or no bombs! Besides, Dad, you must realize that we are in this thing pretty deep.”
“Deep, Tom? What do you mean?”
“I mean we have a large amount of money tied up in this thing—more than I like to think about. I’ve just got to come through with it to break even.”
“Well, Tom, I suppose you know best,” said the aged inventor, with rather a weary smile. “But be careful of yourself.”
When Mrs. Baggert had put new bandages on some of Tom’s burns and he had taken a little rest, he called up Ned’s home, only to learn that no word had come from him. His parents were greatly worried, for Ned was not selfish and was not the kind of young man to remain long away from home without sending word.
“He may have decided to take a little unannounced vacation,” Tom told Mr. Newton, “and have gone to the country. He may have sent word and the letter or the message has failed to arrive. Shall I notify the police?”
“No, not yet,” decided Mr. Newton. “Ned may be all right and he’d hate any police notoriety. We’ll wait a few days.”
The few days that followed were anxious ones, not only for Ned’s parents, but also for Tom Swift. He had a double worry, divided between the disappearance of his trusted chum and manager and concern over the wreck of his new apparatus. The latter worry was more easily disposed of, however, though it meant hard work and delay.
Tom set some of his most trusted men at the labor of reconstructing the new apparatus, but in such a way that the secret could not be come at. Only certain unimportant parts were given out, and Tom and his father would make the more vital sections.
Since Tom already had on the market a telephoto machine and had also made several varieties of moving picture projectors, it was not a hard matter to let it casually be known that the new apparatus was an attempt to improve either or both of the old inventions. Thus was gossip stilled about the big Swift plant.
Tom, however, did not know what to think about Greenbaum. The day after the explosion the man was lamenting loudly that some of his own experimental apparatus, which he was working on for the Swift firm, had been destroyed in the fire and blast.
“And,” said Tom, telling his father about it, “since I have promised him a large bonus if he works out that magnetic gear shift, it doesn’t seem reasonable that he would set a bomb that might destroy the results of his own hard work.”
“No, Tom, it doesn’t.”
“And yet I can’t help suspecting him,” mused the young inventor. “He is as friendly as ever, and seems anxious to help me. But there is something furtive in his manner and in his looks.”
“Did Clark find out anything?”
“Only that Greenbaum went straight to his boarding place from here and did not go out again that night. He was at home when the explosion took place.”
“Then that clears him, Tom.”
“No, Dad, it doesn’t. He could easily have planted a time bomb or rigged one up that was operated when I opened the door. I shall still suspect him. But I’ve got something else to do now.”
“What is that?”
“I want to see how Jackson is coming on with the new radio tubes he is making for the talking-picture machine and I’ve got to do something about Ned. His unexplained absence for so long a time is getting serious now. It doesn’t seem possible that he is remaining away voluntarily without sending some word.”
“No, Tom, it doesn’t. What do you think?” and Mr. Swift looked up from his work. He was making some delicate tests with a galvanometer in the laboratory, which had been cleaned out and temporarily fitted up to be used again.
“I’m thinking, Dad, that perhaps Ned, in some way, was concerned with the fire and explosion.”
“Tom! You don’t mean that Ned——”
“Oh, of course I don’t mean that he set it, Dad!” and Tom laughed at his father’s shocked face. “I mean that the same rascals who tried to blow me up kidnapped Ned.”
“Kidnapped a young man like Ned Newton! A strong, husky chap——”
“They may have caught him napping,” said Tom. “Anyhow, I’ve got to do something. Ned’s folks are much worried.”
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
“I think a private detective would be better. Or, best of all, I’ll get Clark and set out on the trail myself. I’ve got things begun on the rebuilding of my new machine now, and I’ve really got to do something about Ned.”
“I agree with you, Tom. I was just wondering——”
What he wondered Mr. Swift never stated, as at that moment a voice was heard out in the corridor, saying:
“Bless my storage battery, you needn’t show me the way in, Eradicate! I guess I can find Tom Swift, or what’s left of him! My! My! It must have been terrible! Bless my stick of dynamite! So they tried to blow Tom up!”
“It’s Mr. Damon!” said Mr. Swift, smiling at his son.
“No need for him to send in a card!” chuckled the young inventor. “His voice and talk give him away. Come in, Mr. Damon!” he called, and the door opened to give entrance to the eccentric, kindly old gentleman who, indirectly, had been the means of Tom’s starting on his great inventive career.
“Bless my handkerchief, Tom!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, vigorously mopping his face with the linen article in question, while he held out one hand to the young inventor. “What’s all this I hear about you? I just got back from a Western trip and my wife tells me you were blown sky high, that your plant was demolished, and that the whole business is in ruins. Bless my insurance policies! Whew!”
“Not quite so bad as that,” Tom answered, with a laugh.
“But something happened, bless my thermometer if it didn’t!” declared Mr. Damon, pointing to a bandage on Tom’s left hand.
“Yes, there was an accident,” and in a few words Tom told what had happened, without, however, making mention of the new machine, which was too deep a secret as yet for even so close a friend as the eccentric man to share. “But it might have been worse,” concluded the young man. “And, as a matter of fact, that isn’t the worst that’s happened.”
“No, Tom? What else? Bless my spectacles!”
“Ned Newton has mysteriously vanished,” said Tom, with a serious face, and he told as much as he knew about the strange occurrence.
“That’s terrible!” declared Mr. Damon. “It’s the worst outrage I ever heard of! But I came back just in time, Tom Swift.”
“Time for what?”
“To help you hunt for Ned! Now, don’t stop me! I’m going to do it. I’ll devote all my time and half my fortune to finding my young friend and your chum. Tell me more about it.”
“I’ve told you all I know, which isn’t much,” Tom answered. “But suppose we go to the house. I’m about through here,” and he looked around the laboratory, asking his father to close and lock it when he left. “We’ll go over to the house, Mr. Damon.”
“Yes, I want to pay my respects to Mrs. Baggert. But I can’t get over your accident and the kidnapping of Ned. Why, bless my——”
But Mr. Damon had no time to complete his pet phrase, for half way up the path to the house Tom and his friend saw an old man coming toward them, ragged and unkempt—a veritable tramp. He held in his outstretched hand a dirty piece of paper.
“Is this Mr. Tom Swift?” asked the ragged man, looking at Mr. Damon.
“No, I am,” answered the owner of the name.
“Then I have a strange message for you,” went on the tramp in whining tones. “And if you see fit to reward me for bringing it, I’d be glad, for I’m a poor old codger and I’m hungry——”
Tom Swift hastily took the dirty piece of paper and uttered an exclamation of surprise as he read what was scrawled on it.