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96 pages

English

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After spending years traveling the globe righting wrongs, fighting for justice and solving mysteries, the intrepid detective Johnny Thompson seeks out the refuge of his family's ancestral home, hoping for a break from adventure. But before long, trouble finds him again. Is he up to cracking what just might be the most important case of his life?

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Children's

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776535439
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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MYSTERY WINGS
A MYSTERY STORY FOR BOYS
* * *
ROY J. SNELL

*
Mystery Wings A Mystery Story for Boys First published in 1935 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-543-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-544-6 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Chapter I - The Mysterious Chinaman Chapter II - A Strange Prophecy Comes True Chapter III - The Thought Camera Chapter IV - A Place of Great Magic Chapter V - Johnny's Think-O-Graphs Chapter VI - Beside the Green-Eyed Dragon Chapter VII - Mystery Ship Chapter VIII - Strange Passengers Chapter IX - "Who's Afraid of a Chinaman?" Chapter X - Clues from the Dust Chapter XI - What an Eye! Chapter XII - The Vanishing Chinaman Chapter XIII - Secret of the Pines Chapter XIV - The Steel-Fingered Pitcher Chapter XV - The White Flare Chapter XVI - A Tense Moment Chapter XVII - A Narrow Escape Chapter XVIII - The Flying Ball Team Chapter XIX - A Revelation in Chinese Chapter XX - Ether and Moth-Balls Chapter XXI - Liquid Air—Almost Chapter XXII - The Smoke Screen
Chapter I - The Mysterious Chinaman
*
"Pardon, my young friend!"
Johnny Thompson started at the sound of these words spoken by someoneclose behind him. He had been seated in a corner of the park. It wasearly evening, but quite dark. He sprang to his feet.
"Pardon! Please do not go away." There was something reassuring in theslow easy drawl of the stranger. Johnny dropped back to his place. Nextinstant as the light of a passing car played upon the stranger, he wastempted to laugh. He found himself looking into the face of the smallestChinaman he had ever known. To Johnny the expression "Who's afraid of aChinaman?" was better known than "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?"
But what did this little man with his very much wrinkled face puckeredinto a strange smile, want? Johnny leaned forward expectantly.
"You think hard. You are worried. Is it not so?" The little man took aseat beside him. "All the time you think baseball. You do not play. Butyou think very much. Is it not so? This town, your team, they areeverything just now. Is it not so? And you are troubled." The wrinkles onthe little yellow man's face appeared to crinkle and crackle like veryold parchment.
"Let me tell you," he put a hand on Johnny's arm. "You think ofCentralia. A long time you have thought, 'They will defeat us unless wefind a pitcher, a very good pitcher.' And you have found a pitcher.Perhaps he will do. You are not sure. Is it not so?"
Johnny started. All this was true. Centralia was the great rival of thelittle city he chanced to call home at that moment. He was thinking ofthe coming game. But this new pitcher! That was a closely guarded secret.Only three people knew and they were pledged to silence.
"Ah!" the little man leaned forward, "You are more greatly troubled now.You are thinking, 'Someone has told.' No, my young friend, it has notbeen told. It is given Tao Sing to know many things. Tao Sing can tellyou much."
"Are you Tao Sing?" Johnny fixed his eyes on the dark face beside him.
"I am Tao Sing." The little man blinked strangely. "It is written, Ishall be your friend. Tao Sing shall tell you many things. Ah yes, many,many things."
Johnny was astonished, so much so that for an instant his eyes strayedaway to the deep shadows beyond. When his gaze returned the dark figureof the little yellow man was gone. He had vanished into the night.
"How could he know that?" the boy asked himself in great perplexity. "Ihave only known it three days. It has been a pledged secret." Here indeedwas a mystery.
Johnny Thompson was, at that moment, living in the little city ofHillcrest. Having wandered the world over, sleeping beneath the tropicalmoon and the Midnight Sun, and meeting with all manner of weirdadventures, he had returned to the place that had fascinated him most asa very small boy—his grandfather's home. At the edge of this sleepylittle city, a hundred and fifty miles from any truly great city, Johnnyhad found the rambling old home still standing, and in it, a littlegrayer and slower, but still his kindly old self, was his grandfather.
"You've come for a long stay this time, Johnny," he said with a warmingsmile. "That's fine!"
"Yes," Johnny had replied, "I'm tired of big cities, of adventures andmysteries. I—well, I guess I'd just like to sit in the sun awhileand—well, perhaps play around a little."
"There's a fine ball team," the old man had said enthusiastically. "Lotsof interest in it this summer."
"Baseball—" Johnny said the word slowly. "I'm rather poor at that. Mightbe ways I could help though."
And there had been ways. When their best pitcher's arm went bad and theirhopes of winning the Summer League pennant promised to go aglimmering, hehad marched bravely into the office of Colonel Chamberlain, the town'smost resourceful business man, and said, "Colonel, it's up to you to helpus out."
To Johnny's vast surprise the Colonel replied, "Sure I will, Johnny." Atthe same time the Colonel had smiled a mysterious smile. "Truth is," hesaid, "I've been sort of holding out on you boys. I've got a man righthere in the laboratories who can throw circles all around any pitcher inthe League."
"Here in the lab—"
"Wait and see!" the Colonel stopped Johnny. "You bring Doug Danby aroundtomorrow night." (Doug was Captain of the team.) "I'll have him throwover a few for you, just in private." He had kept his promise.
"Mysteries," Johnny thought, sitting there in the park in the dark afterthe little Chinaman had vanished. "They're not just in big cities nor intropical jungles either. You find them everywhere. Take that pitcher—oneof the most mysterious persons I ever saw. Such a strange looking chaptoo—dark-skinned as some priest from India. And can he pitch!
"Boy, oh boy!" He spoke aloud without meaning to. "Will we win!"
"No, my friend!" So startled this time was Johnny, at once more hearingthe sound of the little yellow man's voice that he sprang to his feet,wild-eyed and staring.
"No, my friend, you will not win," the little man repeated quietly."There is a reason. Soon I shall tell you the reason, my young friend."
"Why you—"
Johnny saw a yellow hand waving before him for silence.
"One more thing I will tell you," the little man continued. "There is apep meeting tomorrow night. You will not go."
"No, I—"
Johnny did not finish. Once more the little yellow man had disappeared.
"How could you know that?" Johnny called into the darkness.
"I have a picture of your thoughts," came drifting back. "You will notbelieve. Sometime I shall show you this picture of your thoughts."
"A—a picture of my thoughts." Johnny dropped back to his place on thebench. "A picture of my thoughts? How could that be? And yet—
"How could he know?" he repeated after a long period of silence. Andindeed how could this little man know all he had told? In regard to themysterious pitcher the Colonel had discovered for the team, there was abare chance that someone had talked. They, the three of them, Doug Danby,Colonel Chamberlain, and Johnny, had agreed to keep this a secret for atleast one more day.
"Yes," he thought slowly, "someone might have talked. But that pepmeeting! I only decided last night that I'd better not go. And yet he, astrange Chinaman I have never seen before, he comes and tells me what Ihave thought. How strange! How—how sort of impossible. And yet—
"He said he had a picture of my thoughts. I—I hope he brings it roundfor me to see." Laughing a short uncertain laugh, the boy rose from thebench to walk slowly toward his grandfather's home.
A rather strange city was this one where, for the time, Johnny had ahome. No city of its size has a more unusual population. A dozen or moreyears back it had been a mere village. Only native-born Americans livedthere. Then it began to grow. The Chinese people came first. For somereason all his own, a very rich Chinese merchant, Wung Lu, had settledthere. In almost no time at all, he had gathered about him a large groupof the strange little yellow men. They had erected a Chinese Chamber ofCommerce. Men came from afar to bargain here for Oriental goods fromacross the sea.
"They're queer, these little yellow men," Johnny told himself now, "butsomehow I like them."
Yes, though he was not very conscious of it, this was one of Johnny'sgreat gifts. He had a way of "somehow liking" everyone. And because theysomehow came to know this, they liked him in turn. He and Wung Lu, theChinese merchant who, rumor had it, was immensely rich, had become greatfriends.
"But this little fellow with the wrinkled face," he thought, "now who canhe be? I supposed I had seen them all. And he is one I could neverforget, yet I've never seen him before.
"Strange sort of fellow," he mused. "Said he had a picture of mythoughts. How could he have? But then how could he know those things hetold me?"
Johnny had read books about the way people think. He remembered readingsomething about one person being able to read another's thoughts. Couldthis little man do that? Had he read his thoughts? He shuddered a little.It was so mysterious, so sort of ghost-like.
"He couldn't have read my mind, at least not when he found out I wasn'tgoing to the pep meeting. I hadn't thought of it once, at least nottonight."
The whole affair was so baffling that he gave it up and turned histhoughts to Saturday's baseball game.
Johnny had known for a long time that Centralia, nine miles away, andHil