Part 43 (1/2)

Rather alarmed at the strange disappearance of Elaine after I brought her home, I had started out along the road to the sh.o.r.e to look for her, thinking that she might perhaps have returned there.

As I walked along a young tough--at least at the time I thought it was a young tough, so good was the disguise she had a.s.sumed and so well did she carry it off--slouched past me.

What such a character could be doing in the neighborhood I could not see. But he was so noticeably tough that I turned and looked. He kept his eyes averted as if afraid of being recognized.

”Great Caesar,” I muttered to myself, ”that's a roughneck. This place is sure getting to be a hang-out for gunmen.”

I shrugged my shoulders and continued my walk. It was no business of mine. Finding no trace of Elaine, I returned to the house. Aunt Josephine was in the library, alone.

”Where's Elaine?” I asked anxiously.

”I don't know,” she replied. ”I don't think she's at home.”

”Well, I can't find her anywhere,” I frowned wandering out at a loss what to do, and thrusting my hands deep in my pockets as an aid to thought.

Somehow, I felt, I didn't seem to get on well as a detective without Kennedy. Yet, so far, a kind providence seemed to have watched over us.

Was it because we were children--or--I rejected that alternative.

Walking along leisurely I made my way down to the sh.o.r.e. At a bridge that crossed a rather turbulent stream as it tumbled its way toward the sea, I paused and looked at the water reflectively.

Suddenly my vagrant interest was aroused. Up the stream I saw some one struggling in the water and shouting for help as the current carried her along, screaming.

It was Elaine. The hat and mustache of her disguise were gone and her beautiful t.i.tian hair was spread out on the water as it carried her now this way, now that, while she struck out with all her strength to keep afloat. I did not stop to think how or why she was there. I swung over the bridge rail, stripping off my coat, ready to dive. On she came with the swift current to the bridge. As she approached I dived. It was not a minute too soon. In her struggles she had become thoroughly exhausted. She was a good swimmer but the fight with nature was unequal.

I reached her in a second or so and took her hand. Half pulling, half shoving her, I struck out for the sh.o.r.e. We managed to make it together where the current was not quite so strong and climbed safely up a rock.

Elaine sank down, choking and gasping, not unconscious but pretty much all in and exhausted. I looked at her in amazement. She was the tough character I had just seen.

”Why, where in the world did you get those togs?” I queried.

”Never mind my clothes, Walter,” she gasped. ”Take me home for some dry ones. I have a clue.”

She rose, determined to shake off the effects of her recent plunge and went toward the house. As I helped her she related breathlessly what she has just seen.

Meanwhile, back of that wall of water, the wireless operator in the cave was sending the messages which Del Mar's emissary dictated to him, one after another.

With the high resistance receiving apparatus over his head, Arnold was listening to the wireless signals that came over his ”radio detective”

on the yacht, moving the slider back and forth on a sort of tuning coil, as he listened. Woodward stood close beside him.

”As you know,” Arnold remarked, ”by the use of an aerial, messages may be easily received from any number of stations. Laws, rules, and regulations may be adopted by the government to shut out interlopers and to plug busybody ears, but the greater part of whatever is transmitted by the Hertzian waves can be s.n.a.t.c.hed down by this wireless detective of mine. Here I can sit in my wireless room with this ear-phone clamped over my head drinking in news, plucking the secrets of others from the sky--in other words, this is eavesdropping by a wireless wire-tapper.”

”Are you getting anything now?” asked Woodward.

Arnold nodded, as he seized a pencil and started to write. The lieutenant bent forward in tense interest. Finally Arnold read what he had written and with a peculiar, quiet smile handed it over. Woodward read. It was a senseless jumble of dots and dashes of the Morse code but, although he was familiar with the code, he could make nothing out of it.

”It's the Morse code all right,” he said, handing it back with a puzzled look, ”but it doesn't make any sense.”

Arnold smiled again, took the paper, and without a word wrote on it some more. Then he handed it back to Woodward. ”An old trick,” he said.