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The Floating Press - Hyatt Verrill A.

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110 pages

English

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Tom Pauling takes a journey to the tropics in this volume of the popular Radio Detectives series. Always fascinated by new technologies, Tom and his traveling companions check out diving suits and submarines -- and stumble into the midst of a confounding mystery along the way.

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Adventure (Guyana)

Adventure

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 août 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776527762
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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THE RADIO DETECTIVES UNDER THE SEA
* * *
A. HYATT VERRILL

*
The Radio Detectives Under the Sea First published in 1922 ISBN 978-1-77652-776-2 © 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 - In the Bahamas Chapter II - A Mysterious Disappearance Chapter III - Surprises Chapter IV - Radio Magic Chapter V - A Narrow Escape Chapter VI - On the Trail of the Submarine Chapter VII - The Fight with the Octopus Chapter VIII - Lost Chapter IX - Prisoners Chapter X - Radio to the Rescue Chapter XI - The Devil Dancers Chapter XII - Smernoff Pays His Debt Chapter XIII - The Tramp
Chapter I - In the Bahamas
*
"Oh, look, Tom! There's land!" cried Frank Putney as, coming on deckone beautiful morning, he glanced across the shimmering sea and saw alow cloud-like speck upon the horizon ahead.
"Hurrah! it must be the Bahamas," exclaimed Tom Pauling, as he saw thefirst bit of land they had sighted since leaving New York three dayspreviously. "Say, isn't it bully to see land again? And isn't thiswater wonderful?"
To the two boys, the short sea trip had been a constant source ofinterest, for while they had both been on ocean-going steamshipsbefore and Frank had crossed the Atlantic, yet neither had evervisited the tropics. The glistening flying fish which had skitteredlike miniature sea-planes from under the plunging bows of the ship hadfilled them with delight; they had fished up bits of the floatingyellow sargassum or Gulf Weed and had examined with fascination theinnumerable strange crabs, fishes and other creatures that made ittheir home; they had watched porpoises as they played about the shipand they had even caught a brief glimpse of a sperm whale.
The wonderfully rich indigo-blue water of the Gulf Stream was arevelation to them and now that they were rapidly approaching theoutlying cays of the Bahamas, with the surrounding water malachite andturquoise, emerald and sapphire with patches of dazzling purple andstreaks of azure they could scarcely believe it real.
"It doesn't look like water at all," declared Tom, as his fatherjoined them.
"It looks like—well, like one of those futurist paintings or as ifsome one had spilled a lot of the brightest blue and green paint hecould find and had slapped on a lot of purple for good measure:"
Mr. Pauling laughed. "That's accurate if not poetical," he replied,"and you'll find, when you go ashore, that the imaginary man with thepaint pot did not stop at the water. The land is just as gaudy andincredibly bright as the sea."
"Is that Nassau ahead?" asked Tom.
"No, that's a small cay," replied one of the officers who had drawnnear the little group, "Egg Cay they call it. We'll raise Rose Caynext and should sight New Providence and Nassau about two o'clock.Pretty, isn't it?"
So intensely interested and excited were the two boys that they couldscarcely wait to eat their breakfast before they again rushed on deckto find the little islet close to the ship, its cream-colored beachesand purplish-gray coral rocks clear and distinct above the marvelouslytinted water edged by a thread of surf and with a few straggling palmtrees nodding above the low, dull-green bush which covered the cay.
But to the boys, there were more reasons for being interested andexcited than the mere fact that they were gazing for the first time ata tropical island or were about to visit a strange land. They were onan exciting and strange trip, a remarkable mission for two boys andone which promised an abundance of adventure.
Like so many boys, they had become interested in radio and duringtheir experiments with various sets had heard peculiar messages fromsome unidentified speaker. With their curiosity aroused, they hadtried, merely for the fun of the thing, to locate the sending stationby means of loop aerials or radio compasses.
Having decided that the voice came from a certain block on the EastSide of New York, they had reported their discovery to Mr. Henderson,a federal employee and an associate of Tom's father, for their boyishimaginations had been fired with the idea that the speaker was alawbreaker associated with a gang of rum smugglers whom Mr. Paulingwas endeavoring to run down. But when a search of the block by Mr.Henderson's men failed to reveal any trace of a radio outfit the boyshad lost interest in the matter.
Then, when Mr. Pauling had returned from a mission to the Bahamas andCuba, he had told the boys of a young man named Rawlins who haddevised a remarkable type of diving suit which required no life lineor air hose, the oxygen for the diver to breathe being produced bymeans of certain chemicals. Mr. Pauling had mentioned that theinventor of the suit had stated that its one fault was that the usercould not communicate with those on a ship or on shore and Tom; hismind ever on his favorite hobby, had suggested that radio might beused. Later, when Rawlins met the boys in New York and Tom told himhis ideas, the diver fell in with the scheme and declared that hebelieved it would be feasible to make a radio telephone apparatuswhich could be used under water.
Fitting up his father's dock on the East River front as a workshop andlaboratory, Rawlins and the boys worked diligently at Tom's inventionand at last succeeded in devising a radio set with which the divercould talk freely and easily with people on shore or with others underthe sea.
While trying out the device Tom and Rawlins discovered two otherdivers whose actions were suspicious, and watching them, were amazedto see the men enter an old disused sewer. Following them into thesewer Tom and his companion were startled at hearing a conversation insome foreign tongue and Rawlins insisted it came from the other diversand that they too possessed undersea radio telephones. Hiding in theshadows the two saw the strangers standing under a trap-door intowhich they disappeared, taking with them a mysterious, cigar-shaped,metal object like a torpedo.
A little later, as Tom and Rawlins were about to return to their owndock, they again saw the men and following them were thunderstruck todiscover that they were about to enter a submarine lying at the bottomof the river. Curious to find out more about the undersea craft,Rawlins approached it and was suddenly attacked by the two men. Tomunconsciously screamed and at the sound Frank, who was anxiouslywaiting at the receiver on shore, asked what was wrong. Suddenly,realizing that he was in touch with his friends, Tom called for helpasking Frank to send for the police. At his cries the submarinequickly got under way, deserting the two strange divers who, seeingtheir craft had left, surrendered to Rawlins.
In his excitement one of the men had been careless and as a result thechemicals in his suit had flamed up at the touch of water and the manhad been seriously injured. With the captured diver, Tom and Rawlinshad made their way to the dock, carrying the wounded man and hadarrived just as Mr. Pauling with Mr. Henderson and the police arrived.Tom had fainted from strain and excitement and when he recoveredconsciousness found that the captive had been recognized as adangerous escaped criminal, a Russian "red" and that the other man wasat the point of death.
Mr. Pauling, having heard Rawlins' tale, suspected a connectionbetween the deserted sewer, the strange divers, the submarine and themysterious messages the boys had heard and at once sent the police tosurround the block and search the buildings. As a result of the raid,a garage had been found with a secret passage connecting with thesewer and in which were stored vast quantities of liquor, contrabandgoods, Bolshevist propaganda and loot taken from hold-ups androbberies in New York.
Feeling that they had stumbled upon the key to a wave of crime and"red" literature which had been sweeping the country, Mr. Hendersonquestioned the captive, Smernoff, who confirmed the suspicions andconfessed that the submarine had been used for smuggling liquor andother contraband into the united States and taking the ill-gotten lootout and that the contraband had been picked up by the sub-sea boat inmid ocean at spots where it had been dumped overboard from sailingvessels by previous arrangements.
He insisted, however, that he knew nothing of the headquarters of thegang or of their leader whom Henderson and his associates believed wasa master criminal, an unscrupulous, fiendish character who, during thewar, had undertaken to destroy the Leviathan , Brooklyn Bridge,the Navy Yard and many buildings as well as thousands of people inAmerica and England, but who, failing in this, dared not return toGermany. The government officials felt confident that this same mastermind was responsible for the wave of crime, the flood of Bolshevistliterature and the threatening letters which had baffled them.
Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson were also most anxious to secure astatement from the other man, who was still unconscious in thehospital, and when at last he was able to speak Mr. Pauling hurried tohis side. The dying man, thinking that his comrades had betrayed him,related an astounding story, admitted the existence of the mastercriminal and was on the point of revealing his headquarters when hedied.
At almost the same time word was received that the submarine had beenpicked up, drifting at sea, by a destroyer despatched to find her, butthat she was absolutely deserted. When at last she was towed into NewYork and was exam