Chapter 8 Tom Swift and His Airline Express by Victor Appleton
MR. DAMON’S NEWS
“Bless my gasoline tank, I’m afraid I’ve done some damage!” cried Wakefield Damon.
“If you haven’t damaged yourself you’re lucky,” grimly commented Ned.
“No, I guess I’m all right,” said the eccentric man as he climbed out of his plane. He had managed to bring it to a level landing on the ground, though it was more by good luck than by good management.
He had flown over from Waterfield in the early morning, and either had not seen, or else had forgotten about, Tom’s new mooring mast on the edge of the landing field. Straight for the big steel pole Mr. Damon had steered his craft, to swerve it at the last moment so that only one edge of a wing scraped it.
However, that impact was sufficiently forceful to snap off the top of the mast and crumple the airship’s wing.
“You got out of that pretty well,” commented Ned, as he made sure, half by feeling and half by an inspection of the odd man, that he was not injured. A casual inspection proved, too, that the plane was not as badly damaged as at first feared.
“I’m sorry about that mooring mast,” said Mr. Damon. “You must tell Tom to send me the bill for repairing it, Mr. Swift. By the way, where is Tom? I have some news for him.”
He looked about the assembled group formed by Ned, Mr. Swift, Koku, and Eradicate. Something of their anxiety must have showed on their faces, for Mr. Damon asked:
“Has anything happened to Tom?”
“We don’t know,” answered Ned.
“We can’t find him,” went on Mr. Swift gravely. “Do you know where he is, Mr. Damon?”
“Me? No, I haven’t seen him,” was the answer. “But I have some news, just the same.”
“News!” cried Ned. “What kind of news?”
“Not very good, I’m afraid. I’ll tell you about it.”
“How did you come to be flying so early in the morning?” Ned wanted to know.
“I came over specially to tell Tom the news,” was the answer. “I thought flying would be the quickest way. I tried to telephone, but I couldn’t raise you on the wire, Mr. Swift.”
“We have been using the wires to communicate with different parts of the plant,” said the old inventor. “That is probably why you could not get us. But I am anxious to hear anything about Tom.”
“I wish I could give you direct news of him,” went on Mr. Damon. “Bless my rubber boots! I’m so excited I hardly know which end I’m standing on—what with colliding with the mooring mast and all that! I wonder if I have damaged my new plane much?”
“Not much,” Ned reassured him. “We can soon put it in shape for you. But you can hardly fly back in it, and you might as well come into the private office and tell what you know.”
A little later, Koku and Eradicate having been sent to the house to tell Mrs. Baggert to telephone out to the works in case Tom arrived home, Mr. Swift, Ned, and Mr. Damon faced each other in the private office of the missing young inventor.
“What’s all this about Tom not being found?” Mr. Damon wanted to know.
Quickly Ned told what had happened—that he had seen Tom outside the big fence, that the young inventor was expected to call on Mary, and that he had not appeared at the young lady’s house.
“And since then we can’t find a trace of him,” concluded Ned.
“Well, what I heard a little while ago may serve as a clew,” stated Mr. Damon. “Let me see now, where shall I begin?”
Ned was so impatient that he felt like telling the odd man to put on plenty of steam and begin anywhere that would give news of Tom.
But the “blessing man,” as the old colored servant called Mr. Damon, must do a thing in his own way or not at all, and he was not to be hurried. So, having marshaled in his own mind what he wanted to say, he began:
“I have been away on a business trip and I only arrived home at two o’clock this morning. I got off the sleeper at the station, and, feeling hungry, I went into one of those lunch wagons across the street to get a bite to eat before going home and to bed.
“Well, while I was eating in this lunch wagon, and I must say the cook has a very clever way of frying eggs—while I was there two men came in—no, it was three men—wait a moment now, I can’t quite be sure of that,” and to Ned’s exasperation Mr. Damon began examining his own recollection to make sure whether it was three or two men.
“Now I remember!” he exclaimed triumphantly, to Ned’s great relief. “First two men came in, and then, later, a third. The first two were queer individuals—I thought they might be criminals, ‘stick-up men,’ you know, and I guess the fellow who ran the lunch wagon did, also, for I saw him slip his revolver out from a drawer and put it near the gas stove where he could get it in a hurry.
“But there was no need. The men were quiet enough. They ordered hamburger steak and onions—a vile combination, I’ll say—and coffee. While they were eating the third man came in—now I have it right—and as soon as the two who had previously entered saw him one of them asked:
“What about our quick friend?”
“ ‘The speedy one is chained up where he can’t do any harm,’ is what the third man said. Then they laughed and the third man also ordered hamburger steak and onions and they began to eat as if they were half-starved.
“I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time, for I was in a hurry to get home—I had told my wife I would arrive at midnight, but the train was late and I knew I’d have to explain why I was out at that hour. So I hurried up with my meal and was coming out when one of the men happened to say:
“ ‘Well, this will put the airline express matter right in our hands!’ It wasn’t until then, as I was coming out and heard this remark, that I began to suspect something.”
“The airline express!” exclaimed Mr. Swift. “Why, that’s Tom’s latest idea!”
“I know it is,” said Mr. Damon. “That’s what made me suspicious. Then I put two and two together—they had spoken about ‘our quick friend,’ and the ‘speedy one,’ and now I know by those words that they meant Tom.”
“It begins to look like that!” cried Ned. “But what was it they said about him—that he was tied up?”
“ ‘Chained up,’ was the expression they used,” Mr. Damon said. “I at once made up my mind that some of Tom’s enemies were plotting against him and I decided to come right over and let him know. I waited a moment after coming out of the lunch wagon, and saw the three plotters disappear down a street that led to a wharf on Lake Carlopa. Then I caught a night-cruising taxi and made for my hangar. I decided to try to call you first by telephone, and, if I couldn’t raise you to warn you to look out, I would aeroplane over and give the alarm.
“Well, I couldn’t get you on the wire, so I roused my mechanic and we wheeled the plane out to my landing field. I didn’t even bother to call up my wife, for I knew she wouldn’t let me go, and I started off and—here I am.”
“Lucky to be here, too, after hitting that mast,” murmured Ned. “But what do you think this all means?”
“It means trouble for Tom, I’m sure of that,” said Mr. Swift. “His enemies have captured him, I’m afraid. That’s what that talk about being chained up means.”
“It does look suspicious,” agreed Ned. “We’d better start at the beginning again and make another search. We can do it better now that we have daylight. Tom has certainly disappeared in a very mysterious manner.”
“You can count on me to help!” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my police whistle, but I wish I had grabbed those three scoundrels when I had the chance! They have Tom a prisoner, I’m sure!”
“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Ned, holding up a warning hand. “Some one is coming!”