Air Wonder Stories, August 1929 — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

sir THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. of the police, he found himself, like the rest of us, against a blank wall, and the fact annoyed him. He banged his fist on the table. “This is a case of collusion!” he yelled. “Tt give you one minute to get back your sanity,” I told him. “If you can’t do-it in that time, my friends and I will quit.” “Quit, will you?” he snarled. “If you say another word, I'll haye the three of you detained!” “Tf you say another word like that,” said I, “I’ll have you pushed out of the service for the damned fool youare! You get an account.of this affair from a man so distinguished at his job that his country gives him one of its highest honours. You get.an- other account from another man, equally disting- uished, except-for his age, and a man trained in the most exact observation as well. I'll say nothing of myself, finally, except that until now my honesty has never been questioned. And you have the gall to use such a word to-us as ‘collusion’! As an in- vestigator you're not only crudely impertinent— youre a pitiful vulgar joke!” “Why—why—you. pup! You—you—skinny, mangy pup!” he gasped, livid with rage. “You're a judge of pups. Maybe the kennel you came out of taught you that,” said I, “but it failed to. teach you how to investigate! Come on, Sir Peter. Come on, Danny.” There was no attempt to stop us, and we got into the street. Old Sir Peter took hold of my hand and shook it nearly enough to take my arm from its socket, “I congratulate you, young man!” he cried. “Fifty years at sea, and I never heard.a man ticked off like it before! And only one casual cuss-word in the whole recital. That’s the wonder of it!” It was curious how. the traditional dread of the shipmaster for the police had got the better of the dignified commander of the great liner, and had re- verted Sir Peter back to the innocent seadog, put- ting him at the mercy of a common bully. But by the time we had adjourned to the smoke-room of a neighboring hotel the sailor was himself again. “I won’t forget that, Mr.-Boon,” he said. “That fellow had got me so flummoxed that I thought I had been in league with the pirates.” “You ought not to have gone to the Police Bureau at all, Sir Peter,” I told him. “You should have re- ceived all inquiries on your own deck.” “I wish I had,” he breathed. “I’m at home there—and even my King, bless him, couldn’t order me about!” IT was mad at the treatment of my friends, and we went to the hotel stenographer, who took down a letter to the Chief of Police, in which I ex- _ plained that Sir Peter and Dan had been treated with extreme discourtesy, and that apologies were due to them. They got letters. of apology next morning. The incident, however, was. symptomatic of the exasperation and bewilderment the authorities were experiencing. The newspapers came out with the most wonderful theories, interesting enough to read, but not the least helpful to those whose job it was to solve the problem-of the raids. The country was gone over, as it were, with a fine sieve, without the slightest result. The land and air police were bit- terly attacked by: the press, and even the naval and military authorities came in for condemnation. As time went on the old ground had beefi turned over and the: old facts redressed so often that the public got sick of the affair, and skipped any items in the papers that referred to the raids. But business con- fidence. remained badly shaken. Dan Lamont’s investigations of the gold tarnish- ing resulted in his finding compounds of copper, and a hint of some radio-activity.. This seemed to me absurd, but it fired Danny’s enthusiasm, since he thought it indicated that the raiders had discovered some enlargement of the science of radio-activity as applied to the atomic theory. He had the terrier’s tenacity, and he went after the thing from every possible angle, worrying the facts and himself until he developed between his eyes a permanent furrow of concentration, He bored after an explanation of the mysterious sleep, too, and discovered at least one gas which, if not lethal in its effect, was tre- mendously anaesthetizing in so far as it stunned the olfactory senses. Properly, it might have been called a lachrymatory gas, for its effect on the nose made the eyes. stream! The work on the three Merlins, meantime, pro- gressed rapidly at the workshops near Gardiner Bay, and I had time to devote to social obliga- tions. Dan and I dined two or three times with Lord Almeric-and Miss: Torrance, and we all had a golfing-flying party at Hazeldene during a week- end... The workshops were inspected thoroughly, and. Milliken and Miss Torrance formed a curious compact of friendship that had the effect of making my mechanic go about with a ready grin on his normally formidable countenance. She petted him shamefully, and even: flattered him into letting her take the joy-stick of his beloved Merlin. Nobody could blame Milliken for being enslaved—Miss Torrance had a way-of deserving any little service one might do for her. Hazeldene and the workshops were dull places for quite a while after she went back to New York-on the Monday. Louisville Next! HE establishment at Gardiner Bay was not a large one, but it was fairly well equipped. It had\ a stnall foundry where we did all the castings for the wings and body-work of our planes and, of course, we had a moulding shed. There was a smithy with a good welding plant, drawing-office, pattern-maker’s shop, fitting shop, and in addition to our mooring-shed and landing-stage, we had 2 large field for landing with a one-bay hangar, The only part of the work we did not do our- selves was the building of our engines. These came from a little-known factory in which I had an in- terest near Pittsburgh. Its products were reliable toa degree; and beautifully finished, developing a great horse-power in ratio to their weight. We seated these engines ourselves on the machines we constructed, and we had our own notions of fuel supply and cooling system. With this small establishment working at top speed, we were able to have three Merlins lying in the fitting shop awaiting their engines by the Wednesday of the second week after the Wall Street affair. This last piece of assembling had to wait, It was all to our advantage that our power- units should undergo the very strict tests that, the factory at Pittsburgh considered necessary before passing out any engine. I CO ee ee ee ee ee