Part 2 (2/2)

CHAPTER III

A WHISPER IN THE NIGHT

The next night found Curlie in the secret tower room alone. Joe Marion was away helping to run down a case of ”malicious interference.”

It was curious business, this work of the radio secret service. Though he had been at it for months, Curlie had never quite got used to it. A detective he was in the truest sense of the word, yet how different from the kind one reads about in books.

He laughed as he thought of it now. Then as his tapering fingers adjusted a screw, his brow became suddenly wrinkled in thought. He was troubled by the two cases which had lately developed: the one at the hotel and that other, the station that moved. How was he to locate that powerful secret station in the hotel? How was he to discover the owner of that mysterious moving radio? He could not answer these questions.

And yet somehow they must be answered. He knew that.

The operator in the hotel was sending on 1200 meter wave lengths. State messages were constantly being sent across the Atlantic on 1200; messages of the greatest importance. There was a conference of nations at that moment going on in Europe. America's representative must be kept in constant touch with the government officials at Was.h.i.+ngton. If this person at the hotel persisted in sending messages on 1200 meter wave lengths an important message might at any moment be blurred or lost.

Not less important was the breaking in of this moving operator on 600.

This was the wave length used by s.h.i.+ps and by harbor stations. Great steams.h.i.+ps sometimes waited for hours to get a message ash.o.r.e on 600. If this person were to be allowed to break in upon them they might wait hours longer. Thousands of dollars would be lost. And then, as we have said before, the message of some s.h.i.+p in distress might be lost because of this person's interference.

”When, oh, when,” sighed Curlie, ”will people become used to this new thing, the radiophone? When will they learn that it is a great, new servant of mankind and not a toy? When will they take time to instruct themselves regarding the rights of others? When will they develop a conscience which will compel them to consider those rights?”

The answer which came to his mind was, ”Perhaps never. But little by little they will learn some things. It is my duty not alone to detect but to teach.”

He s.h.i.+fted uneasily in his chair, then held his ear close to the loud speaker tuned to 200. A message came floating in to him across the air, a mysterious whispered message.

”h.e.l.lo, Curlie,” it said. ”You don't know me, but you have seen me--”

Automatically Curlie's fingers moved the radio-compa.s.s backward and forward while his mind gauged the distance. His right hand scrawled some figures on a pad, and all the time his ears were strained to catch the whisper.

”I have seen you,” it went on, ”and I like your looks. That's why I'm talking now.”

For a second the whisper ceased. There was something awe-inspiring about that whisper. As he sat in his secret chamber away up there against the sky, Curlie felt as if some spirit-being was floating about out there in the sky on a fleecy cloud and pausing now and then to whisper to him.

”I saw you,” the whisper repeated. ”You are in very grave danger. He is a bold and treacherous man. It's big, Curlie, _big_!” The whisper rose shrilly. ”But you must be careful. You must not let him know the place where you listen in. I don't know where it is. But I do know you listen in. Be careful--careful--careful, c-a-r-e-f-u-l-” The whisper trailed off into s.p.a.ce, to be lost in thin air.

Wiping the beads of perspiration from his face, Curlie sat up. ”Well, now,” he whispered softly to himself, ”what do you know about that?

”One thing I do know,” he told himself. ”I'd swear it was a girl's whisper, though how you can tell a girl's whisper is more than I know.

Question is: Which one is it--hotel station or the one that moves?”

For a moment his brow wrinkled in thought. Then with an exclamation of disgust he exclaimed:

”That's easy! I've got their location!”

He figured for a few seconds, then put a pencil point on a certain spot on his map.

”There!” he muttered. ”It's the hotel, the exact spot.”

Suddenly he started. There came the rattle of a key in the door.

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