CHAPTER III
THE RADIO DETECTIVES
The instant the boys recognized the long-awaited signals, Frank calledHenry and notified him as agreed and, to their delight and satisfaction,the mysterious stranger continued to talk, evidently paying no heed tothe seemingly innocent words of the boys, if indeed he had heard them.
As heretofore, much that was said meant nothing to the boys, but wiselythey jotted every thing down nevertheless. However, both Tom and Frankwere more puzzled than ever, for now that their minds were concentratedon the messages they suddenly realized that a true conversation, aninterchange of messages, was going on, but, for some inexplicablereason, they could hear but one of the speakers. It was like listeningto one individual talking to another over an ordinary telephone and theboys could merely guess at the words of the inaudible speaker.
"Yes, it's all right," came the words on the easily recognized shortwaves, "thirty-eight fifty seventy-seven; yes, that's it. Still there.Gave them the ha, ha! Azalia. Can't get anything on her. How aboutColon? French Islands? Sure, they're just about crazy. No, no fear ofthat. Good stuff. No, no rough stuff. Expect her at same place about thetenth. No, don't hang around. Cleared the third. Fifteen seconds west.I'll tell him. Good bottom. Good luck! Don't worry, we'll see to that.No risk. So long!"
As the conversation ceased Tom jumped up. "Gee!" he exclaimed. "That'sthe most we've heard yet. I wonder if Henry got it."
Hurrying to the telephone, he was about to call Henry when the belltinkled. "Hello!"--came the greeting in Henry's voice as Tom took downthe receiver. "This is Henry. Say, did you get it?"
"You bet we did!" Tom assured him gleefully. "What did you make out? No,guess you'd better not tell over the phone. We'll be down there rightaway."
"He's east of here," declared Henry, when Tom and Frank reached hishome.
"Golly, he must be in Brooklyn or out on the river!" exclaimed Tom."What did you make out that he said?"
Henry showed them the message as he had jotted it down and which, withthe exception of one or two words, was identical with what they hadheard.
"I couldn't catch some of the words," explained Henry. "There was afunny sort of noise--like some one talking through a comb with paper onit,--the way we used to do when we were little kids--say, what's it allabout anyway?"
"We don't know," replied Frank. "Did you hear any one else talking oranything?"
"And, Henry, were the sounds weak or faint to you?" put in Tom.
"Only that queer sound I told you about. The words were fine and stronghere."
"Then he's nearer here than he is to us," announced Tom. "But I wouldlike to know who the other fellow was and what he said and why thedickens we can't hear him when we hear this chap. Couldn't you make outany of the words that the fellow said--those that sounded like talkingthrough a comb, I mean?"
"No, they were just a sort of buzzy mumble," replied Henry.
"Well if he's east of here it ought to be easy to locate him," remarkedFrank. "Do you know any fellows around here who have sets, Henry?"
"Sure there are lots of 'em," Henry assured him. "Tom Fleming over atBellevue has a dandy set and there's 'Pink' Bradley down on 19th St.,and Billy Fletcher up on Lexington Ave., and a whole crowd I don'tknow."
"Well, let's try it out at Fleming's place next, then," cried Frank. "Doyou s'pose you can see him to-morrow and tell him the scheme? And say,ask him if he's heard the same talk."
"I can phone over to him now--I guess he's home," said Henry, "but what'sback of all this? You fellows aren't so keen just because you want tolocate this fellow that's been talking, I'll bet."
Tom hesitated, but in a moment his mind was made up.
"I suppose we might just as well tell you," he said at last. "But it's asecret and you'll have to promise not to tell any one else."
Henry readily agreed and Tom and Frank told him all they knew and whatthey suspected.
"Whew!" ejaculated Henry. "I shouldn't be surprised if you're right. Icouldn't see any sense to all that talk about boats and the West Indiesand numbers, but I can now. I'll bet those numbers were places out atsea--fifteen seconds west--and 'Azalia' may be the name of the ship. Say,won't it be bully if we can find out something--radio detectives--Gee,that's great!"
"Well, go on and call up Fleming," said Frank. "Tell him to come overhere."
"He's on the way now," Henry announced when he returned to the room."Are you fellows going to let him in on the bootlegger stuff?"
"Better not," advised Tom. "If he's heard the fellow talking we can tellhim we're just anxious to locate him. We can make a mystery out of nothearing the person that was talking back, you know."
"It's a mystery all right enough," put in Frank. "If that other chap canhear him, why can't we? There's something mighty queer about it."
"Search me," replied Tom laconically. "Maybe he talks on a differentwave length."
"I never thought of that," admitted Frank. "Say, next time they'retalking one of us will listen while the other tunes to try and pick upthe other man."
"And perhaps he's in a different direction," suggested Henry. "If he isof course we wouldn't hear him with our loops pointed towards thisfellow."
"Of course!" agreed Tom. "We _have_ been boobs. Just as like as not theone we didn't hear is over to the west or the north and we were alllistening to the southeast. Say, you've got sense, old man. Next time wehear this chap we'll nab the other one, I bet. Hello! There's the bell."
Henry hurried from the room and returned presently, accompanied byanother boy whom he introduced as Jim Fleming. Jim was undersized andround-shouldered with damp, reddish hair and big blue eyes behindhorn-rimmed glasses. He had a most disconcerting manner of staring atone and constantly blinking and gulping--like a dying fish Frank declaredlater--and his hands and wrists seemed far too long for his sleeves. Hewas such a queer, gawky-looking chap that the boys could scarcely resistlaughing, but before they had talked with him five minutes they hadtaken a great fancy to him and found he knew a lot about radio.
While the boys told him of their interest in the strange conversations,he stood listening, his long arms dangling at his sides, his big eyesblinking and his half-open mouth gulping spasmodically until Tom becameabsolutely fascinated watching him.
Mentally, Frank and Tom had dubbed him a "freak," a "simp," a "bookworm"and half a dozen far from complimentary names and they had expected tohear him speak "like a professor," as Tom would have expressed it.Instead he uttered a yell like a wild Indian, danced an impromptu jigand to the boys' amazement exclaimed:
"Hully Gee! So youse's onto that boid too! Say, fellers, isn't he thecandy kid though? Spielin' on that flapper wave an' cannin' his gab ifyouse ask his call. Say, that boid oughter be up to the flooey ward--he'sbughouse I'll say, with all his ship talk and numbers jazzed up an'chinnin' to himself. Say, did youse ever hear a bloke talkin' to him?"
"No, we never did," replied Tom. "Did you?"
"Nix!" answered Jim. "That's why I say he's got rats in hisgarret--flooey I'll say--" Then, suddenly dropping his slangy East Sideexpressions, he continued: "Say, he's had me guessing, too. But I cantell you one thing. He's west of my place--I'm over at Bellevue, youknow--Dad's stationed there--and that'll bring him somewhere between East27th St. and Gramercy Square."
"But, how on earth do you know that?" queried Tom in surprise.
Jim grinned and blinked.
"Same way you found out he was east of here," he replied. "You needn'tthink you fellows have got any patent on a loop, I've been usin' one forsix months. Ed--he's my brother--is 'Sparks' on a big liner and showed meabout it. But honest, if that fellow isn't crazy an' talkin' to himself,why don't we get the other guy sometimes?"
"That's the mystery to us," said Frank. "We decided just before you camein that the other fellow must be sending on a different wave length orelse was in some other direction. We were just planning to pick him upby one of us tuning and turning the loop while the others listened tothis fellow, but i
f you hear this man west of your place that knocks oneof our theories out. If the other chap was west you'd get him, too."
"Yep, and 'tisn't because he's on a different length," declared Jim."Hully Gee, I've tuned everywhere from 1500 meters down trying to gethim, and nothin' doin'."
"Didn't you ever hear a funny sound like talking through a comb withpaper on it?" asked Henry.
"Sure, sometimes I do," admitted Jim, "but you can't bring it in aschatter--I put it down to induction or somethin'--but Gee, come to thinkof it, it always does come in just right between this looney'ssentences."
"I'll bet 'tis the other fellow," declared Henry. "Only if 'tis he's gotan awful wheeze in his throat or his transmitter's cracked."
"Well, let's drop that and plan how we can locate this fellow we dohear," suggested Frank.
"Yes, now we know he's between your place and here we ought to find someplace where we can set up a loop to the north and south," said Tom.
"Sure, we can fix that," declared Jim. "I've got a cousin that livesover on 23d St. and there's a good scout named Lathrop over on 26th. Wecan take sets to their places and put 'em up. They haven't anything butcrystal sets, and most likely they'll know other guys and by trying outat different places we can spot his hangout all right. But say, what areyou fellows so keen about findin' him for?"
"Oh, nothing except the fun of it," replied Tom, trying to act and speakin a casual manner. "You see we're just experimenting to find out whatwe can do with loop aerials--call ourselves radio detectives--and wepicked on this fellow because his messages seemed sort of mysterious andare so easily recognized."
"Yea, I understand," said Jim. "Say that's a lulu of an idea--radiodetectives. Well, I'll bet we can detect this bughousey guy O. K."
It was soon arranged that Jim was to see his cousin and that one of theboys' loops would be set up in his home the following evening and that,while Jim and Frank listened there, Henry and Tom would be at their setsand would call out as soon as they heard the messages from themysterious speaker. All was arranged, but to the boys' intense chagrinnot a sound came to any of them which remotely resembled the well-knownvoice and short wave lengths of the man they were striving to locate.But they were not discouraged, for they knew from past experience thatthey could not expect to hear him every night.
The following day was Saturday and the boys devoted their holiday toputting up a set in Lathrop's home. They now had four loop aerial setsready to receive and located within a comparatively small area. Theywere sure that the station they were trying to find was within the fewblocks between 20th and 27th Sts., but they were not at all sure whetherit would be found to the east or west of Third Avenue. Moreover, as Jimpointed out, for all they knew he might be on 27th St. or 20th St. oreven slightly north or south of one or the other, for he stated that hisbrother had told him that when close to a sending station the loopaerial could not be depended upon to give very accurate directions andthat only by taking cross bearings could a certain point be definitelylocated. This was exactly what the boys had in view, to take crossbearings, and then, by means of a map of the city, to locate the man orthe station.
It may seem as if the boys were devoting a great deal of time andtrouble to something of little importance, but they were, or at leastTom, Frank and Henry were, thoroughly convinced that the messagesemanated from some one connected with a rum-running gang and they wereas keen on finding his location and as interested as if they had beenreal detectives detailed to discover a fugitive from justice.
So on that Saturday night they sat at their various instruments, waitingexpectantly and with high hopes. No one was stationed at Tom's home,for, in order to provide two sets for the test, Tom's and Frank's hadbeen dismantled and reinstalled at the houses of Jim's cousin and ofPaul Lathrop.
Henry was the first to pick up the sounds and instantly he hurried tothe telephone and called Jim. But by the time he had Jim's number thelatter had also picked up the signals and had called the others, for Tomhad not disturbed his transmission set and ordinary phoning was the onlymeans of communicating with one another at the boys' disposal. For sometime Tom, at the 23d St. house, could not pick up the sounds, but atlast, with his loop pointed to the northeast, they came clear."Congratulations," was the first word he heard, instantly followed bythe queer buzzing sound which Henry had described. "Golly, 'tis justlike some one talking through a comb," was Tom's mental comment anddeeply interested and tremendously puzzled he strained his ears and mindstriving to formulate words or meanings from the strange sounds. Once ortwice he was sure that the sounds were words--he thought he could makeout "last night" following a query of "When was it?" from the otherspeaker but, as he told the others later, it was like trying to hearwhat a mosquito was saying.
So intent was he on this that he quite forgot to jot down the plainwords of the other speaker and did not realize it until the soundsceased and the conversation was over.
But he knew that the others would have it and he had the direction,which was the main thing, and, a few minutes later all the boys weretogether and eagerly discussing the results of their experiment.
"He's southeast of my set!" announced Frank, when Tom had told them whathe had discovered. "That puts him in between the river front and ThirdAvenue and between 23d and 26th Sts."
"Well, we're getting him narrowed down to a few blocks now," said Henryjoyfully. "Say, what did you fellows make of the talk? Here's my slip."
The words that Henry had written down were as follows: "Everything O. K.Yes, haven't an idea. Sure, Fritz told me about it. Must be careful. No,but price will drop. No use killing the goose, you know. Golden eggs isright. Not a chance in the world of their getting wise. Nonsense, no oneelse has anything like it. Amateurs. Oh, forget it. Well, let 'em guess,guesses don't prove anything. Well, if they did they'd never findanything. Magnolia. Yes, same place thirty fifteen west. Oh, yes, theFrench stuff went like hot cakes. Sure, get all you can. Yes shecleared. Regards to Heinrich. Expect you the eighteenth. Don't forgetMagnolia. Good-by."
"It's just the same as I made it," announced Frank.
"Same here," said Jim. "Sufferin' cats! Do you mean to say that nutisn't bughouse now?"
"It _does_ sound a bit crazy, I admit," replied Tom. "Say, did any ofyou fellows try tuning to different wave lengths to see if any one elsecame in?"
"I did," declared Frank, "but all I got was some one who said 'for thelove of Mike get off the air.'"
"Me, too," chimed in Jim. "No one's talking to him, he's just nutty andchins to himself."
"Well, then, we have all the more reason for finding him," said Tom. "Ifhe's really crazy the authorities ought to know it. Now we know he's soclose we ought to be able to locate him."
So, day after day, the boys, their interest and enthusiasm at high pitchowing to the success of their experiments, shifted their instrumentsfrom house to house, gradually drawing their radio net about themysterious sender until they were positive that he was located in acertain block, a district of small, old-fashioned buildings, warehousesand garages.
But beyond this they could not go. There were no boys so far as theyknew within the area and, satisfied that they had done all they couldand that they had proved the value of their loops in locating theunknown speaker, all but Tom, Frank and Henry lost interest and devotedtheir attention to other matters.
But Tom, Frank, and, to a lesser degree, Henry were still deeplyinterested in the mysterious messages and were convinced that they cameeither from a gang of rum-runners or from some other law-breakers, forwhile there was nothing really suspicious in the messages they could notrid themselves of the idea, once it had entered their minds.
"I vote we go and tell Mr. Henderson all we know," said Tom. "Dad won'tbe back for two weeks or more yet and if Mr. Henderson thinks there'sanything in it he can have that block searched and find out who owns theset."
"Well, perhaps 'twould be a good plan," admitted Frank, and accordinglythe two boys went to Mr. Henderson's office and related the sto
ry oftheir experiments and told of their suspicions.
"H-m-m," remarked the keen-eyed man when they had ended, "this is veryinteresting, boys. Let me see the notes you made."
For a time he examined the slips of paper bearing the various messagesthe boys had scribbled down and his forehead wrinkled in a frown ofperplexity.
"It's very indefinite," he announced at last, half to himself, "but Iagree with you that the whole matter has a suspicious appearance. Toobad you didn't take down the earlier messages you heard. Now, let's see.You say you have never heard the other party to the conversations andyet you have been listening in within a block of this chap. Very odd,yes, most extraordinary. There are several explanations that occur tome, however. For example, if they wished the conversation to be secretand unintelligible they might have arranged that one man was to talkthrough an ordinary phone and the other by radio. Or they might havearranged this because the second man had no sending set--exactly as youboys communicated with one another with only one transmission set amongyou."
"Gee, but we _are_ dumb-bells!" exclaimed Tom. "Why the dickens didn'twe think of that? Why we are doing the same thing ourselves. It was sosimple we overlooked it."
Mr. Henderson smiled. "That's often the way," he declared. "During thewar a lot of messages passed our censors as perfectly innocent andharmless and yet they were of the utmost importance--they were so frankand simple we overshot the mark."
"Yes, Dad told us about some of those," said Tom.
"As I was saying," went on Mr. Henderson, "if one man was talking over atelephone you would not have heard him under ordinary conditions, but itoften happens that through capacity inductance a phone message may comein over a radio set. That might account for your occasionally hearingthose sounds which you describe as resembling words coming through apaper-covered comb. Do you remember the conditions under which you heardthose sounds? Were you near telephone receivers, touching any part ofyour sets or doing anything unusual?"
The boys thought deeply, trying to revisualize the conditions that hadexisted on the few occasions when they had heard the odd buzzing sounds.
"I'm not sure," said Tom at last, "but it seems to me that when I heardthem the first time--that time I was on 23d St., I was sitting close tothe telephone receiver on the table--I'd just been called up by Jimand--yes, I am sure now, I remember distinctly--I had my hand touchingthe stand while I was listening to the messages. You see, I was halfinclined to phone to the others to find out if they heard the sounds andI reached out to pick up the phone and then changed my mind--but sort ofkept my hand there."
"Then that's solved, I think," declared Mr. Henderson. "If you had takendown the phone receiver and had kept your hand upon it you wouldprobably have heard the other speaker's voice plainly."
"Gosh, why didn't we think of that!" interrupted Frank. "And come tothink of it, the phone _is_ on the same table with the radio set atHenry's house."
"Well, we've laid one ghost, we'll assume," went on Mr. Henderson, "butthat does not solve the mystery of the other speaker nor does iteliminate the possibility that these fellows may be crooks. In our work,you know, we always assume that every suspect is guilty until we proveour theory wrong and so we'll assume that your mysterious speaker is acrook until we find we're mistaken. However, before I take any activesteps I think it will be a good plan to try another test. Suppose youlisten in for a few nights more and, as soon as you hear this fellow,take down your phone receivers and hold the instrument against your bodyor arm and see if you get the voice of the other chap. Let me know theresults and then we can plan our next move."
"Hurrah! Now we _are_ real radio detectives working for the government!"cried Tom enthusiastically. "Do you really think they're bootleggers?"
"I make it a point never to form a hard-and-fast opinion," replied Mr.Henderson with a smile at the boys' excitement. "However, I should notbe in the least surprised if they are, and if so and we round them up,Uncle Sam will have to thank you boys. Go to it, boys! Perhaps we mayhave to organize a radio detective corps yet, and I'm not sure that boysmay not be able to show us old hands a few tricks at our own game."