A boy ran up the ladder to the roof. Kennedy unfolded the note and shoved it into my hands. It was from the operator.
“Wireless out of business again. Curse that fellow who is butting in. Am keeping record,” was all it said.
I shot a glance of inquiry at Kennedy, but he was paying no attention now to anything but Norton. He held his watch in his hand.
“Walter,” he ejaculated as he snapped it shut, “it has now been seven minutes and a half since he stopped his propeller. The Brooks Prize calls for five minutes only. Norton has exceeded it fifty percent. Here goes.”
With his hat in his hand he waved three times and stopped. Then he repeated the process.
At the third time the aeroplane seemed to give a start. The propeller began to revolve, Norton starting it on the compression successfully. Slowly he circled down again. Toward the end of the descent he stopped the engine and volplaned, or coasted, to the ground, landing gently in front of his hangar.
A wild cheer rose into the air from the crowd below us. All eyes were riveted on the activity about Norton’s biplane. They were doing something to it. Whatever it was, it was finished in a minute and the men were standing again at a respectful distance from the propellers. Again Norton was in the air. As he rose above the field Kennedy gave a last glance at his ondometer and sprang down the ladder. I followed closely. Back of the crowd he hurried, down the walk to the entrance near the railroad station. The man in charge of the Pinkertons was at the gate with two other men, apparently waiting.
“Come on!” shouted Craig.
We four followed him as fast as we could. He turned in at the lane running up to the yellow house, so as to approach the barn from the rear, unobserved.
“Quietly, now,” he cautioned.
We were now at the door of the barn. A curious crackling, snapping noise issued. Craig gently tried the door. It was bolted on the inside. As many of us as could threw ourselves like a human catapult against it. It yielded.
Inside I saw a sheet of flame fifteen or twenty feet long—it was a veritable artificial bolt of lightning. A man with a telescope had been peering out of the window, but now was facing us in surprise.
“Lamar,” shouted Kennedy, drawing a pistol, “one motion of your hand and you are a dead man. Stand still where you are. You are caught red-handed.”
The rest of us shrank back in momentary fear of the gigantic forces of nature which seemed let loose in the room. The thought, in my mind at least, was: Suppose this archfiend should turn his deadly power on us?
Kennedy saw us from the corner of his eye. “Don’t be afraid,” he said with just a curl to his lip. “I’ve seen all this before. It won’t hurt you. It’s a high frequency current. The man has simply appropriated the invention of Mr. Nikola Tesla. Seize him. He won’t struggle. I’ve got him covered.”
Two burly Pinkertons leaped forward gingerly into the midst of the electrical apparatus, and in less time than it takes to write it Lamar was hustled out to the doorway, each arm pinioned back of him.
As we stood, half dazed by the suddenness of the turn of events, Kennedy hastily explained:
“Tesla’s theory is that under certain conditions the atmosphere, which is normally a high insulator, assumes conducting properties and so becomes capable of conveying any amount of electrical energy. I myself have seen electrical oscillations such as these in this room of such intensity that while they could be circulated with impunity through one’s arms and chest they would melt wires farther along in the circuit. Yet the person through whom such a current is passing feels no inconvenience. I have seen a loop of heavy copper wire energised by such oscillations and a mass of metal within the loop heated to the fusing point, and yet into the space in which this destructive aerial turmoil was going on I have repeatedly thrust my hand and even my head, without feeling anything or experiencing any injurious aftereffect. In this form all the energy of all the dynamos of Niagara could pass through one’s body and yet produce no injury. But, diabolically directed, this vast energy has been used by this man to melt the wires in the little dynamo that runs Norton’s gyroscope. That is all. Now to the aviation field. I have something more to show you.”
We hurried as fast as we could up the street and straight out on the field, across toward the Norton hangar, the crowd gaping in wonderment. Kennedy waved frantically for Norton to come down, and Norton, who was only a few hundred feet in the air, seemed to see and understand.
As we stood waiting before the hangar Kennedy could no longer restrain his impatience.
“I suspected some wireless-power trick when I found that the field wireless telegraph failed to work every time Norton’s aeroplane was in the air,” he said, approaching close to Lamar. “I just happened to catch sight of that peculiar wireless mast of yours. A little flash of light first attracted my attention to it. I thought it was an electric spark, but you are too clever for that, Lamar. Still, you forgot a much simpler thing. It was the glint of the sun on the lens of your telescope as you were watching Norton that betrayed you.”
Lamar said nothing.
“I’m glad to say you had no
