The Flying Machine Boys on Duty; Or, The Clue Above the CloudsWalton, Frank
General
The Flying Machine Boys on Duty; Or, The Clue Above the Clouds
Walton, Frank
Aeronautics -- Juvenile fiction; Mystery and detective stories
After exacting the promise from the surgeon and the night matron, Havens
ordered every workman about the place to remain on guard until morning
and, calling his chauffeur, departed for New York in a high-powered
touring car. Worn out with the anxiety and exertions of the night, he
fell asleep on the soft cushions of the machine, and awoke only when the
chauffeur shook him gently by the shoulder and announced that they were
at the Grand Central station.
“And I’d like to ask you a question, sir,” the chauffeur said, as Havens
stepped out of the car. “It’s about what took place on the way down.”
“What took place on the way down!” laughed the young millionaire. “It
has all been a blank to me. I must have slept very soundly.”
“Indeed you did, sir,” replied the chauffeur, “and that’s why I didn’t
wake you. You seemed to need the sleep very much, sir.”
“Well, tell me what happened?” Havens said impatiently.
“Why, sir,” the chauffeur went on, “a big car picked us up half a mile
this side of the hangar and followed on down to within three blocks of
this place. When I drove fast, they drove fast; when I slowed up, they
slowed up, too. Very strange, sir.”
“Why didn’t you investigate?” asked Havens angrily.
“You see that marble column at the corner of the building,” declared the
chauffeur, pointing. “Well, I stopped once to ask questions of the
chauffeur in the other car, and that marble column I’m pointing out,
sir, would be just as communicative as that other chauffeur was. He only
grunted when I asked questions and kept right on as before.”
Havens thanked the man for the information and went on about the
business which had brought him to the city. He was busy all day with
lawyers and brokers and real estate managers, and was very tired and
sleepy when night fell. It had been his intention to take an afternoon
train for St. Louis, but his business had not permitted of so sudden a
departure from the city.
He regretted extremely that he had not arranged with the boys to wire
their address in the Missouri city. However, he thought, the boys would
wait at least twenty-four hours at the point selected, and this delay
would enable him to overtake them by train at Denver. He was positive
that he could do so if he could catch the Overland Limited at Chicago.
Eight o’clock found him sound asleep in the stateroom of a Pullman car
due to start for the west in an hour. He was so tired that the noises of
the station; the arrival and departure of trains; the calls of the train
starters; the rattling of the couplings under vestibules, soon died away
into a dull blur, and then he passed into a dreamless sleep.
His last memory was of a powerful light shining through a slender crack
in the drawn blind of a stateroom window. When he awoke again the
slender finger of light had become a deep red glow the size of a pail,
and the perfumed air of the stateroom had, somehow, taken on the close
and unsavory smell of a riverside basement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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