Chapter 5 Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures by Victor Appleton
ON A MYSTERIOUS TRAIL
“What’s the matter, Tom?” asked Mr. Damon, for he could not fail to note the agitation of the young inventor on reading the strange message brought by so strange a messenger. “Bless my favorite detective story, but you act as though you had news!”
“I hope it proves to be good news and true news,” said Tom, looking sharply at the whining old man. “Read that, Mr. Damon!”
Tom thrust the dirty piece of paper into the extended hand of the eccentric man. Slowly, for the writing was not very clear, Mr. Damon read:
“Take this to Tom Swift and receive ten dollars. Help. Am prisoner at Smith place. Brick house—flat roof—three cherry trees—old stone well. Ned Newton.”
“Why—why—” faltered Mr. Damon, turning the paper over, “it’s from—from Ned Newton, who’s missing. It’s from him!”
“It purports to be,” said Tom in a low voice, looking at the old man who was rubbing with a lean hand a chin very much in need of the good offices of a razor. “But it may be a hoax.”
“Is it Ned’s writing?” asked Mr. Damon.
“Let me look at it again,” suggested the young inventor. “I was so surprised by the import of the message that I didn’t pay much attention to the handwriting.” He scrutinized it closely and said in a low voice to his odd friend: “It’s Ned’s scribbling all right. No one else makes a capital N just like Ned. Where did you get this?” he asked the old man sharply.
“In a field, boss. I picked it up and I made out to read it. I saw your name on it and I made some inquiries and folks directed me here. It’s been a long walk, and I’m tired and hungry and——”
“We’ll see that you don’t lose anything by what you did if this turns out to be no fake,” said Tom, still a bit sternly. “It will be worth a good deal more than ten dollars to you if this leads to the finding of my helper. Now tell me straight, where did you get this?”
“In the field, boss, I told you.”
“What field?”
“About five miles from here, over Cherry Valley way. I’m on the tramp—there’s no use lying to you—I’m a sort of a bum, but it ain’t all my fault. I work at helping on a farm when I can, but there’s been so much rain lately I couldn’t get much to do.”
“He’s right there—it has rained a lot,” said Mr. Damon.
“Sure it has, boss. I’ve been tramping around and I was cooking a little meal in a field over Cherry Valley way when I picked up this paper. I can read—I went to school once,” he said, with a flash of pride, but it was only a brief flash. “I read what it said and I asked my way here.”
“How did the paper get in the field?” asked Tom. “Did it blow there?”
“No, boss, it come down on a kite.”
“On a kite?” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my phonograph, but he’s hoaxing you, Tom! Pay no attention to him. It’s all a trick to get money out of you.”
But the old man did not appear to be one who would play a joke, and his face was grave as he made the surprising statement about the kite. Also there was about him a pathetic, hungry, hoping look as he glanced at Tom Swift.
“You say this message came down in a field on a kite?” asked Tom, and his voice though at first stern, was now kinder, for he felt sorry for the old codger.
“Yes, boss, in a field where I was roasting some ears of corn a farmer said I could have. They was almost roasted when down out of the air swooped this kite. First I thought some boys must ’a’ been playing around there and it got away from them. But I didn’t see no boys. Then I picked up the kite and this message was on it.”
“You mean this message was tied to the tail or to the string of the kite itself?”
“No, it wasn’t tied on. It was part of the kite—part of the paper the kite was made of. There wasn’t no string to speak of. Looked to me like the kite broke away. This message was writ right on the paper of the kite. It was partly tore off so I finished ripping it loose, and put it in my pocket.”
“Where’s the remainder of the kite?” asked Tom. He was going to prove this strange tale to the very bottom.
“Here ’tis.” The shuffling old tramp drew from a pocket of his ragged coat a tangled mass of broken sticks, brown paper and string.
Tom took the tattered stuff and smoothed it out. Slowly he assembled it into a small kite of the kind that needs no tail to be sent up, a curve of the cross stick and the consequent bellying of the loose paper serving to hold the wind against the kite’s surface. From the center of the kite a piece of the paper had been torn. This piece was represented by the fragment containing the message appealing for help. Tom fitted it in and proved that this part of the old tramp’s tale was true.
“It looks as if there might be something in it, Tom,” said Mr. Damon.
“Yes. But whether this will help us find Ned or not is another question. You say this kite was blown to where you were in the field?” Tom asked the old fellow.
“Yes, boss. It come down right near my fire.”
“From which direction?”
The tramp considered for a moment and answered.
“Right from the south.”
Tom knew that the prevailing winds at this time of year in the vicinity of Shopton, where he lived, were from the south. So far the tramp had not tripped himself up.
“What do you make of it, Tom?” asked the eccentric man as he began an examination of the remains of the kite.
“I don’t know what to think,” was the reply. “This is most certainly from Ned, and he seems to be a prisoner on the ‘Smith place,’ wherever that is.”
“Maybe I can help you out there,” broke in the tramp. “I asked some questions before I started off to locate you, and I heard that about a mile from Cherry Valley is an abandoned farm known as the Smith place.”
“Good!” cried Tom. “I’m beginning to believe you, my man. If this works out it will be the best day’s work you’ve done for a long time.”
“But, Tom!” objected Mr. Damon who, in spite of his eccentricities was hard-headed when it came to business. “Assuming, Tom, that Ned is a prisoner on the Smith place, how could he fly this kite to ask for help? Maybe this man is just making up that part of the story. He may be one of those who helped kidnap Ned and have brought this message from the captors.”
“No, boss, honest to goodness I don’t know nothin’ about no kidnappin’!” cried the tramp, with vehement earnestness. “It was just as I told you—I picked that kite up in the field at Cherry Valley.”
“It may have happened as this man says,” Tom said to Mr. Damon. “If Ned is a prisoner in some old farmhouse, he may be confined in an upper room. From there he could loose this kite and, on a windy day, it might be blown several miles.”
“But how could he make a kite and fly it without being seen?” asked Mr. Damon. “And, when it comes to that, how could he make a kite, anyhow, if he’s a prisoner?”
“It wasn’t much of a trick to make this kite,” replied Tom as he examined the remains of it again. “It’s made of a section torn from a paper bag, with sticks whittled off a window casing, I should say. Ned could do the whittling with his knife—he always carries one. Probably they brought him food in a paper bag, tied with a string. This looks like grocery store string,” he added, pulling out some strands from the tangled mess of sticks and paper.
“I see, Tom.”
“Well, having decided to the best of our knowledge that this message really comes from Ned and that he is a prisoner at the Smith place, the next thing to do is to rescue him. Will you come with us and show us just where you picked up this message kite?” he asked the old tramp.
“Sure I will, boss, but I’m——”
“I know! You’re tired and hungry!” interrupted the young inventor. “I’ll see that you get a rest and some food, and you’ll be paid well. We can’t start at once—a few preparations are necessary. We’ve got to organize a searching party and hit the trail after Ned.”
“And I’m going with you!” cried Mr. Damon. “No, not a word—don’t forbid me!” he begged as he saw Tom hesitate. “I’m going!”
“As you think best,” Tom Swift agreed. “But we’ll have to do considerable before we can get ready. I think I’ll take Koku along,” he said.
“Good idea!” chuckled Mr. Damon. “He’ll be a match for any four men that may be holding Ned a prisoner. But why did they capture him, Tom? Answer me that!”
“I wish I could,” was the musing answer. “I don’t know what to think. I’m afraid there’s a deeper plot in all this than I had any idea of at first. Starting with the attempt to blow me up, then Ned’s disappearance—I’m afraid it means that some one objects, very strongly, to my perfecting—well, what I am perfecting,” Tom concluded, not wishing to name his latest invention.
“Well, let’s get going!” begged Mr. Damon, with the eagerness and enthusiasm of a boy. “Now don’t you run away!” he playfully ordered the old tramp.
“Not much chance of that, boss. I’m too weak hardly to walk, let alone running.”
“We’ll soon fix you up,” declared Tom, “in the way of food, anyhow. And you won’t need to walk. We’ll go in my electric runabout to the Smith place and get Ned out of the hands of these scoundrels.”
In spite of Tom’s haste in making preparations, it was not until the next morning that he was able to take the mysterious trail that he hoped would lead to his kidnapped chum. In the first place, the old tramp was really so weak from lack of food and from his long walk that Dr. Layton said it would not be wise to start out with him as a guide until he had had a night’s rest and plenty of nourishing food.
Then a slight accident occurred in one of the shops and Tom had to straighten that out. It was not serious, however. So, early the morning following the receipt of the kite message, Tom, with Mr. Damon, Koku and Bill Tagg, as the tramp called himself, started off in the speedy electric runabout for Cherry Valley.
Just as they were about to leave, Jacob Greenbaum came hurrying out of the private laboratory.
“Are you going away, Mr. Swift?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Tom answered, though he gave no further particulars. The attempt to rescue Ned was being kept secret. No information was given out concerning the identity of the strange tramp, Bill Tagg, and, aside from a private message conveyed to Mr. and Mrs. Newton that Ned had been heard from, nothing was said about the strange clue. “Yes, Greenbaum, I am going away for a little trip. Is there anything you wanted to see me about?”
“Yes, Mr. Swift, there is. I’ve reached a critical point in this magnetic gear shift model and if you could come in my room——”
There was a strange look in the man’s eyes—a look Tom Swift did not like. The man seemed unduly eager to get Tom out of the auto and back into the laboratory.
“I haven’t time, Greenbaum,” the young inventor said. “I’ll see you when I get back. That gear shift will keep.” With that Tom turned on the current and the runabout speeded down the drive. A look back over his shoulder showed the man still standing there, with that same eager, tense look on his face.
“I think,” said Tom to himself, “that my suspicions of you will soon be justified, Greenbaum. But just now I’m on the trail of Ned Newton!”
The motors hummed more shrilly as the runabout gathered speed.