Chapter 5 Tom Swift and His Airline Express by Victor Appleton
A CRASH
Adventures in plenty had befallen Tom Swift, and in many of them Ned Newton had had a share. But always the young inventor had come out “on top of the heap,” so perhaps Ned was justified in his feeling that everything would be all right. Still he could understand and appreciate Mr. Swift’s worry.
Mr. Swift began looking for his hat and neck scarf, this last on the suggestion of his housekeeper.
A little later Mr. Swift, Ned, and Eradicate, the aged colored servant who had been in the Swift family many years, were on their way to the big plant, almost a mile distant. Ned had brought around to the door one of the small cars Tom used to make trips between his home and the shop, and it did not take long to reach the main gate in the big fence surrounding the place.
So many and varied had been the attempts to rob Tom of the fruits of his and his father’s brains that drastic measures to guard the place had been put into effect. The big fence, impossible to scale without long ladders, was one protection. In addition there were burglar alarm wires along the fence, which wires would give warning of any attempt to get under it or over it. In addition there was a strip of metal, charged with a high-power current which could be turned on at will, and this would give unauthorized trespassers a severe shock. It would not kill, but would disable for a time.
In addition there were other forms of protection, and so well guarded were the different gates, by night and day, that not even Tom himself could get in without due formality. So it was when the party of searchers arrived, they were not at once let in. The guard at the gate must first be certain who he was admitting.
“Good lan’!” exclaimed Eradicate. “Dish is plum’ foolishness! Cain’t yo’ look an’ see dat ole Massa Swift hisse’f am heah?”
“They have to be cautious, Rad,” said Ned, as he got out of the machine to give the password which was used each night. He saw Koku, the giant, coming down the path inside the fence, and the big man at once recognized the visitors.
Between Eradicate and Koku there was rivalry and jealousy because each one wanted to serve Tom without having the other called on. And no sooner had the colored man caught sight of the giant, as the latter told the watchman to open the gate, than Eradicate burst out with:
“Hu! Dat’s jest laik de big ninny! Don’t know his own folks! It’s a wonder to me dat Massa Tom keep him, he’s so dumb!”
“Black man talk much—not do anything!” growled the giant. “Look out or um be squashed,” and he opened and closed his enormous hands as if he wanted to clutch the old servant in them.
“That will do now, you two!” warned Mr. Swift. “We came to find Tom. Are you sure he isn’t here, Koku?”
“Not too sure, master; Not sure much about Master Tom—he go—he come—no can tell—no can do.”
“That’s about right,” agreed Ned, with a laugh. “Tom certainly goes and comes without telling any one much about it. But I gathered, from what he said to me just outside the fence, that he would be right along. There didn’t seem to be anything special he had to do.”
“Just where was it you met him?” asked Mr. Swift. “Let us start the investigation from there, you and I, Ned. Meanwhile, I will have all the other shops called by telephone from the central here.”
He gave orders to this effect to one of the watchmen and then with Ned went to the place, outside the fence, where Tom had last talked with his chum. But it was dark, and Ned, naturally, could not point out the exact spot, even with the aid of a flashlight.
“I think it was here, near this rock and bush,” he said, throwing the gleam of his little electric torch about.
But the dry, hard ground gave no clews to this superficial examination, and, as a matter of fact, Ned was about twenty-five feet off in his calculations, as was demonstrated later. Otherwise he and Mr. Swift might have seen the hole in the ground and the flight of stairs, for it was not until some time later that night—near morning, as a matter of fact—that the plotters replaced the planks and spread earth over them, thus hiding the secret entrance.
“Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything here,” said Mr. Swift, with an uneasy sigh as they made a hasty examination of the place. “We had better go inside and look there.”
But the search in and about the many buildings of the great Swift plant was no more successful. Every office and shop telephone had been rung. Some were answered by guards or watchmen who happened to be in the vicinity at the time the bell rang. But one and all said they had not seen Tom.
Then there was a check-up of every gate and entrance in the big fence, and at no place had Tom been admitted. Granting that his protective plans worked, he could not have entered his own plant without a record having been made of it, and there was none.
“There’s only one answer to this, then,” said Ned, when the search had ended.
“What’s the answer?” asked Mr. Swift.
“Tom didn’t come in here after he left me. He must have gone somewhere else.”
Mr. Swift looked at his watch.
“Do you suppose he could be at Mary’s now?” he asked.
“What time is it?”
“Three.”
“No, he wouldn’t be there at this hour!” declared Ned.
“He might,” replied Mr. Swift hopefully. “When Tom’s mind is busy on his inventions he forgets all about time. It would be just like him to forget that it was three o’clock in the morning and go to call on Mary.”
Ned shook his head, but Mr. Swift went on:
“I’m going to call her presently. But there is just one more place I want to search. It’s in the vault where we keep the Chest of Secrets, as Tom calls it. There is a private entrance to that he could come in by and not register the alarm nor be seen by any of the guards. He can switch off that alarm from his room at the house. I’ll look there. He may have gone there to see if there isn’t some way out in the trouble we’re in over the airline express patents.”
“Trouble?” questioned Ned, as they walked toward the vault.
“Yes. Tom and I haven’t spoken of it even to you, Ned, for the thing really isn’t in such shape that it can be talked about. But Tom has an idea, it may be nothing more than a dream, that he can establish a line of travel to cross our continent from New York to San Francisco between dawn and darkness. In other words, a coast-to-coast service, from ocean to ocean, by daylight—say sixteen hours—with no change.”
“No change!” cried Ned. “What’s the idea—refueling the planes in the air? Of course that has been done. But from coast to coast in sixteen hours without change! It can’t be done!”
“Tom thinks so,” said Mr. Swift. “That’s what he’s working on now. He has had some new models made, but there is trouble over the patent rights. Some one is trying to get his idea away from him. It may be that Tom came to the secret vault after he left you to make sure everything was all right, and he may be there yet.”
But the vault was unoccupied, nor had it been disturbed. Mr. Swift gave a hasty glance at several complicated and odd-looking models of aircraft in the concrete room, looked over a pile of papers, and said:
“Well, they haven’t been disturbed since Tom and I were here last, which proves my son hasn’t been here. But where is he? I’m beginning to get worried, Ned. More worried than ever!”
“Oh, he’ll be all right,” was the answer, though in his own heart Ned Newton could not help feeling apprehensive. “It may be, as you say, that he made a very late call on Mary, and her folks have probably asked him to stay all night, as they have done before.”
“I think the matter justifies me in calling Mr. Nestor on the telephone,” said Mr. Swift, as they emerged from the vault where the Chest of Secrets was stored. “It’s rather early to ring up anybody, but I guess they will understand.”
It was about four o’clock now, and already, in the east, a light was appearing, the sun was heralding the dawn. The early birds were beginning to sing. It would soon be morning, though not yet time for the wheels to begin humming in the Swift plant.
Going back to the office, where Koku reported that a second check-up had failed to disclose the whereabouts of the young inventor, Mr. Swift called the Shopton central operator and gave her the number of the Nestor house.
There was some little delay, as was natural when a call is made at that hour of the morning, but at length Mr. Nestor’s voice was heard.
“Who? Tom? No, he isn’t here—hasn’t been here,” was the message the aged inventor received. “What’s the matter?”
There was some further talk, and Mr. Swift briefly outlined what had happened.
“Don’t alarm Mary yet,” Mr. Swift cautioned his friend. “But I fear something has happened to Tom. I wish you would come over.”
“I will!” Mr. Nestor promised. “I’ll be over as soon as I can dress.”
“Tell him I’ll call for him,” Ned said to Mr. Swift, and this message went over the wires.
It was fully light when they went down into the yard where the small auto had been left. And suddenly the silence of the dawn, made musical by the twitterings of the birds, was broken by an increasing roar and throbbing noise.
“Airship!” grunted Koku.
“Suah enough!” exclaimed Eradicate, pointing up. “Dere she am!”
The throbbing sound became louder, and a moment later they saw the plane, a large one, approaching from the west.
“It’s Mr. Damon’s machine!” cried Ned. “What in the world is he flying so early for? He isn’t sure enough of himself to take that big plane out alone—he only got it the other day. Great Scott! Look! He’s going to hit your mooring mast!”
At one end of the big landing field outside the fence Tom had recently erected a tall steel mast, to which he moored a small dirigible balloon with which he was conducting experiments. As all looked up they saw Mr. Damon in his new machine headed straight for this mast.
“He doesn’t know it’s there!” cried Ned. “He’s sure going to hit!”
A moment later there was an alarming crash, and the top of the mast was seen to break off while one edge of the aeroplane’s left wing crumpled.