Читать книгу Tom Swift and his Television Detector - Howard R Garis - Страница 4
ОглавлениеTHE INTRUDER
Tom Swift grabbed up from the table, where many blueprints were scattered, a portable electric light. This he plugged into a socket, then inserted the bulb into the farthest corner of the interior of the secret niche. From where he stood Ned Newton could look within the tiny hiding place and see that it was empty.
“Yes, it’s gone, all right,” Tom said in a strained voice. “I was pretty sure it had been taken as soon as I put in my hand, but it was best to be absolutely certain. The secret formula is gone!”
“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about, Tom,” Ned remarked, “but if it’s something small it might have been put by mistake into some other niche or box. Why don’t you take a look?”
“Because I’m sure, Ned, that it could be in no other place except this. If it isn’t here—and it isn’t—it’s been taken. But that’s not all.”
“What do you mean, Tom?”
“I mean it’s deplorable enough to think that the secret of the deadly gas may be used by unscrupulous persons to snuff out many lives—that’s bad in itself—but since one thing has been stolen from my secret vault, other things may also be missing. This upsets all my plans. I thought I had this place so well concealed that only a few trusted persons, including my father and myself, knew of it. But this hiding place must have become known, for otherwise access could not have been had here and the gas formula stolen. It’s bad, Ned! Bad!”
“What’s all this about a secret deadly gas, Tom? I didn’t know you went in for that sort of thing.”
“I don’t. It was to prevent the stuff from ever being used that I so carefully hid the formula. Now it’s gone. Well, there’s no use in our staying down here. I’ll look for clues a little later. Let’s go up to the laboratory and I’ll tell you all about it.”
While the boys are ascending the stairs and preparing to shut the secret vault, I will take a brief moment to tell my readers something about Tom Swift and his wonderful achievements.
He lived with his aged father, Barton Swift, and the latter’s housekeeper, Mrs. Baggert, in a fine house not far from the great plant of the Swift Construction Company. It is needless to mention that Tom’s pretty young wife, who was Mary Nestor, also resided in the Swift home. Koku the giant, and Eradicate, an eccentric and aged Negro, were part of the household, and there was intense jealousy between these two as to which one should most often serve their young master. Tom’s mother had been dead a long time. Ned Newton, a boyhood chum and of late years Tom’s financial manager, lived on the other side of the town of Shopton.
In the first volume of this series, “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,” the reader is told how Tom started on his inventive career by the purchase of a motorcycle from Mr. Wakefield Damon of the neighboring town of Waterfield. Mr. Damon bought it for his own use, but when it tried to climb a tree with him the eccentric man, who was continually blessing something, sold the machine in disgust.
Tom repaired it, made it more speedy, and had some surprising adventures with it. From then on this lad did marvelous things with various machines. His motorboat, his airship, his submarine, and his electric runabout, to mention only a few, brought him further adventures. These were continued in his war tank, his sky train, and in the volume immediately preceding this one, entitled “Tom Swift and His Giant Magnet,” is related the story of how he raised a sunken submarine when the government salvagers had failed.
Tom had only recently returned after completing this hazardous undertaking when he again plunged into the activities of some new inventive work. What this consisted of he had not mentioned to Ned Newton, and it was not until the episode of the secret code message and the visit to the looted vault that the young manager realized some new plan was afoot in Tom’s career.
“I don’t see how they did it! I don’t see how they did it!” Tom murmured as he and his chum climbed up into the laboratory.
“Did what?” asked Ned.
“How they got into the vault in the first place,” went on Tom. “It’s a mystery I’ll have to solve. And also I must get that formula back. It means death to many if it is in the hands of unscrupulous men, which I fear it is. That’s why they stole it, though I don’t see how. I must find it.”
“This may be the first use you can make of your television detector, Tom,” ventured Ned.
“What television detector? I haven’t any such apparatus.”
“I know you haven’t, but when I was snapping out that secret code message a little while ago and said I might want to communicate with you if I were kidnapped, you said you’d first have to find me and might do it with a television detector.”
“Oh, that—yes,” and Tom smiled.
“You could make one, couldn’t you, Tom?”
“I haven’t really given it a thought. I just spoke on the spur of the moment. Of course, to find something secret, hidden, stolen or someone kidnapped some such apparatus would be invaluable. But it wouldn’t be easy to construct.”
“I’ve yet to see Tom Swift stop because a thing wasn’t easy,” spoke Ned, and his tone was sincere. “Now, this may be the very chance you need. Develop the television detector, Tom! After all, what is television?”
“Tele—afar,” murmured Tom. “Vision—to see. To see something that is far off. You know how it’s done, Ned. Light travels in waves. Waves are impulses. There are sound waves, light waves and electrical waves. In television, light waves transmitted from living persons moving in one room are sent through the ether in a sort of X-ray manner, are transformed into wireless electrical impulses, and so enter a suitable reproducing machine in another room, perhaps in a distant city. To enable the receiver to see the persons at a distance, the electrical impulses are transformed back again into light waves, and we have television.”
“Just as you did it in your photo telephone, eh, Tom?”
“Something like that, Ned, yes.”
“And as you did it in your talking pictures, where I performed some stunts in one room, and you and Mr. Damon not only saw me upon a screen in another room but also heard me?”
“Yes, both my photo telephone and my talking pictures embodied features of television.”
“And it isn’t saying too much that both of them were ahead of their times,” Ned added.
“Yes, they were somewhat,” admitted Tom with a smile. Those of you who are interested in knowing what Tom Swift accomplished with the telephone which enabled a person to see to whom he was talking, and the apparatus by which persons moving and talking in one room could be viewed by an audience some distance away, are referred to those respective volumes in this series.
“No, Ned,” went on the young inventor, “I wouldn’t balk at a thing because it was hard. But just now I’m so upset about the theft from my secret vault that I can’t think of much else. The television detector may come in time, but just now I want to get hold of the man who took that gas formula.”
“You may need a television detector to do that,” Ned argued.
“I may. But first I’m going to try ordinary clues such as looking for fingerprints and other detective stuff. This surely is tough luck.”
“I’m sorry about it, Tom. But it’s a good thing you have discovered the theft in time. You can take precautions.”
“I’m not so sure I have discovered it in time, Ned. There’s no telling when the place was entered. I haven’t been in it myself for several weeks. This robbery may have taken place right after my latest visit when the formula was there, or it may have happened today.”
“Is there no way of telling, Tom?”
“None that I know of. I haven’t any time-lock on my vault. I wish I had. I thought it was secure enough as it was, and I don’t see how in the world the thieves ever got in. I’ll have to make a careful examination tomorrow.”
“I’ll help,” Ned offered. “But this thing about a secret formula for a deadly war gas is new to me.”
“I know it is, Ned, and I’m going to tell you about it. It’s rather a simple story. Some time ago, through one of my agents, I learned of a foreigner who had invented a deadly, poisonous gas. It was just before the World War and he intended to sell it to one of the European governments. I heard of it, and the stories telling of its almost instantaneous and deadly effect were hardly believable.
“I managed to get into communication with this foreigner. He was in this country at the time and gave me a demonstration of the gas.”
“You mean he let it kill a lot of people for you, Tom?”
“Of course not! Don’t be silly! We used it on a horde of rats, and the way those rodents keeled over was enough to show me what it could do if used on humans. The result was that I bought the full rights from him, Ned. The formula became mine to do with as I pleased and this man agreed, after I paid him a large amount of money, never to disclose the secret to anyone or to use it himself in any way.”
“Could you trust him, Tom? I mean, he might have sold the formula to you and later sold it to someone else.”
“That possibility occurred to me, and I was trying to devise ways of protecting myself when this man died, and, I have reason to believe, before he had a chance to disclose the secret formula to anyone. It was very complicated. It wasn’t a formula you could write on a small piece of paper. There were many processes involved.”
“But what in the world did you want of it, Tom? You weren’t going into the poison gas business, were you?”
“Not in a thousand years. I bought it to save and protect humanity. I figured that if I had the formula safe in my secret vault no one could use it, not even our own United States. It was too horrible! You should have seen those rats die!”
“I’m glad I didn’t!”
“Well, I bought the gas formula, put the papers—there were a lot of them—in a peculiar looking box this foreigner gave me. It had a secret catch and you might try for a week to open it without any result. One who didn’t know the combination would have to break the box to get at the papers. I put the chest into the hiding place and only today decided that I had better take a look at the documents. I got to thinking the vault might be damp and might affect the ink. So I went down with you. You know what happened.”
“The deadly gas formula is gone.”
“Stolen! And I must find the man who took it or he may kill off whole countries or states if he is a fanatic. Ned, I’ve my work cut out for me.”
“Then you won’t be interested in my secret code or in making a television detector?”
“Not until I get this formula back. Hello! What’s that?”
A noise was heard in the corridor outside the laboratory. Then Koku’s voice was heard shouting:
“Master! Come quick! Someone try to get in! Come quick, Master!”
Tom and Ned leaped for the door outside of which came a scuffling sound and then a wild, ringing cry.
