Chapter 4 Tom Swift and His Sky Train by Victor Appleton
SUSPICIONS
“Hello, Tom!” greeted his pretty wife Mary, as she waved to him, approaching up the slope that led to the clubhouse.
“Oh, hello!” he replied. “How was your game?” he went on, trying to shake off the unpleasant feeling engendered by Willam’s curt refusal.
“Very good,” Mary answered. “But what are you doing out here? When I asked you to come golfing this morning you said you couldn’t—that you were too busy—and now I find you here after the day is done and I can’t play any more. What’s the idea?”
“I had to come out here in a hurry on business, Mary,” Tom answered as she came up on the verandah. “I had to see a man, so I ran out. Besides I said I’d call for you. I’m sorry I couldn’t play golf with you, but—you know how it is.”
“That sky train of yours, I suppose?” she asked with a little laugh. “How is it working? I remember you said you were going to make a trial today.”
“Yes, we did.” Tom did not feel much like talking about it.
“Well, go on,” his wife teased. “Do I have to drag every word out of you? Tell me all about it or I shan’t tell you anything about my game today and I made some wonderful shots—one birdie!”
“No! Did you?” exclaimed Tom in delight. “That’s fine! I’ll have to take you on. Have you your car or do you want to drive back with me?” he went on, as Mary’s girl friends, after greeting Tom, went into the clubhouse to get some refreshments, leaving the two alone on the verandah.
“I came with Helen Morton, but I’ll drive back with you. Don’t think you are going to get out of telling me about your new invention. I want to hear all about it. Oh, Tom!” she went on in a more serious tone as she noted the gravity of his face, “did anything happen? Was anybody killed—an accident?”
“No one was killed—not even much hurt,” Tom replied in a low voice. “And nothing much happened—no more than always happens when one is experimenting with a new device. I’ll tell you about it on the way home. Are you ready to go along now?”
“Yes, as soon as I tell the girls I’m going with you instead of with them. Here, take my clubs to the locker, will you, and I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“All right,” Tom answered, and, accepting the bag of clubs he walked around the corner of the main building to the caddy house where the members kept their clubs. It was in this short journey that Tom heard, coming from an open window of the club tea room, some talk which made him suspicious. The way to the caddy house led down a little slope beneath a tea room casement, and some one at a table near the window was talking loudly enough to be heard outside.
“Yes,” said a booming voice which Tom had no difficulty in recognizing as that of Lester Willam, “that was Tom Swift the inventor I was just talking to.”
“Looks like a capable young chap,” responded the other voice, which Tom did not recognize.
“Oh, yes,” Willam admitted. “But this time I think he has bitten off more than he can chew.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he claims to have invented a sky train—a sort of arrangement of a lot of gliders, without motors, towed along by a big, motored airplane—wants to make cross-country flights, just like a railroad train. Passengers in the gliders—a car, or glider, dropped off here and there at big cities—other gliders filled with passengers hoisted up into the air by small, auxiliary motored planes and hitched to the rear of the sky train in flight—that sort of thing.”
“Well, did you let him have the money?”
“I did not. At first I was rather inclined to, for I know Tom Swift and his father have had some big successes to their credit. But, just in time, I got word that all wasn’t so well with the sky train proposition.”
“What do you mean—not so well?”
“It doesn’t work—something wrong with the coupling device that is vital to the success of the idea. I got a tip over the telephone that, just before he came to me for a loan, Tom Swift had a serious accident to his sky train.”
Tom passed on with Mary’s clubs, but his heart was beating fast. So that was what caused Lester Willam to refuse the loan—the mysterious telephone message he received during the conversation. Some one had called up the banker at the golf club and had imparted the information. It had not come in a natural way, news filtering out of the big plant as it often did, concerning Tom’s inventions. Some one in or near Shopton who had seen, or heard about the accident, had lost little time in telephoning word of it to Willam.
“Who could it have been?” mused Tom as he gave the bag of clubs to the professional to put away. “The news got here almost as soon as I did, and I didn’t waste any time on the road. Maybe the telephone message came from my own plant, though I didn’t think I had any traitors there now. I’ve got to look into this. It’s bad business!”
Tom Swift paused a moment to recover himself after hearing this momentous bit of news. He did not want his wife to see the concern that must be manifest on his face. She would scent something wrong at once. And there was something wrong—something vitally wrong—when bad news leaked out of the Swift plant as soon as this.
“It’s just as if,” mused Tom, “some one had a direct object in not letting me get the money I need so I can’t go on with this sky train work. I almost had Willam sold when, at the wrong moment, some one telephoned him about my accident. Who could it have been?”
There was no time, now, to solve this perplexing problem. Tom Swift had many other matters that needed his attention. The first, though not the most important, was to get Mary home. Then he must have a talk with Ned about money matters—cash must be raised soon—and after that the young inventor planned to try and get at the bottom of the mystery about the telephone message. He might be able to discover something through the telephone company. Tom was on good terms with some of the officers who helped him work out the details of his photo-telephone invention which created a sensation.
“Well, are you ready?” asked Mary who was waiting for Tom on the verandah again.
“All ready to go home with you, yes.”
“Then you transacted all your business?”
“Transacted it in a way, yes,” Tom answered, but he could not keep all the disappointment out of his voice and Mary quickly guessed.
“Then you didn’t succeed in what you came out here after?” she asked as Tom helped her into his car.
“Not exactly,” he replied with a wry smile.
“Was it—money, Tom?” Mary knew considerable about the Swift business and was shrewd. “Was it?” she persisted.
“Yes,” Tom replied. “I came out here to see Mr. Willam about a bank loan to finance the new sky train, but he couldn’t see my point of view, so he wouldn’t agree.”
“Then he refused to let you have the loan?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Tom! I’m so sorry!” Mary reached over and patted one of her husband’s firm, brown hands on the steering wheel. “But why don’t you ask daddy?” she went on. “He isn’t a bank, of course, but I think he has a little spare cash.”
“It’s good of you to think of this, Mary, but it would take more money than I would be willing to accept from your father, even if he would lend it to me. This is a big proposition and only a large concern like a bank, or a financier used to taking large risks, would be able to handle it. Don’t worry. Ned and I will cook up some scheme to get the money—even if I have to sell my house on wheels!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, Tom! You wouldn’t sell that wonderful auto, would you?” asked Mary, for the house on wheels had served to rescue Mary from dire peril at one time and in it she and Tom had gone on their honeymoon.
“I’d hate, like everything, to sell that big car,” Tom confessed, “but I’ve got to get money somehow and Willam has turned me down.”
“Why?”
“Oh, he heard about a little accident we had out at the plant this morning and it made him doubtful of the success of my sky train. I wish I knew,” the young inventor murmured, “who it was that telephoned to him that time.”
“Who, Tom? Who telephoned and to whom?”
“Lester Willam. Oh, I see you’re going to get it all out of me,” he went on with a laugh, as he looked at his pretty wife. “So I may as well tell you,” which he did, from the beginning of the test of the sky train to the accident and his final unsatisfactory talk with the bank president.
“That’s a shame!” exclaimed Mary with energy. “I’d like to tell that Mr. Willam what I think of him!”
“He’d hear plenty!” remarked Tom with a chuckle. “But I think Ned and I can work it out by ourselves, Mary. Only we have to work fast. I want to make a successful flight out to the Pacific coast so when my sky train is put on exhibition at the World Exposition it will create a sensation and bring in enough orders to pay off the loan I’ll have to raise.”
“Are you going to fly out there in the sky train yourself, Tom?”
“I expect to, Mary.”
“Then I’m going with you!”
“Oh, I—I’m not so sure about that,” Tom said.
“Well, I am!” his wife declared. “Don’t you think I’ll add a nice tone to the exhibit at the Exposition?” she added slyly, with a laugh.
“Oh, you’ll add tone all right—but—well, I’ll see about it. Look out there, you! What’s the matter? Don’t you know how to drive a car?” Tom suddenly yelled, for a young man, in an old roadster, came around the curve in the road at such speed and so recklessly that Tom had to swing his wheel over sharply to avoid a collision.
“Oh, Tom! Look out! You’re going in the ditch!” screamed Mary.