Air Wonder Stories, August 1929 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

3 ‘ : ae 7 tsing the compass attachment on my wrist watch. “Secretly I called on him, carefully disguised, fear- ing the criminal might be after the plans himself and would be watching the inventor closely with the ray. In that I was right, for I detected the ray every few minutes while I was there... Taking advantage of a moment when the tay was off I slipped his plans. into my brief case and substituted some others in their place. Then, instructing him to take the air liner to London the next morning, I left him, and, again changing makeup, left New York the same eventing on your eight-thirty cruiser. You know the rest, how the police plane that was escorting’ one of your cruisers was coaxed away. from the ship which was brought down, and only the papers of the inventor were taken.” — “Then why did he jump to-his death during the trip, if he knew that the stolen papers were worthless, and that you still had his genuine ones: safe?” “He didn’t jump to his death,” Riel replied quietly, “he was murdered.” “What!” The eyes of the air line official opened with amazement. ‘Why man, there were at least a dozen passengers that witnessed the act. He deliber- ately swung his window down and jumped out.” “Listen, Wallace, P've told you-before that I am sure that a power-is being used that is many: times as deadly as the vision ray and the voice wave detector “combined. It is this power that brings down your liners, the reason why no police are ever on the job when a robbery occurs, the same reason why the police escort planes leave your cruisers just before they are brought down. And it was due to this deadly power that the inventor was made to leap from the ship into the ocean below. He was murdered by the wizard, who thinking that he had the only copy of the plans, caused the man’s death to prevent him from drawing a dupli- cate set. With the death of the inventor, the criminal would be in possession of the only. set of the plans. on earth. But there the man made his first mistake for the papers that he got were worthless, and the inventor being dead, there was only one thing that he could do, and that was to obtain the only set that was in ex- istence. Just how he discovered that I was in possession of them, I don’t know.. But knowing that I was track- ing him down, it is quite natural that he would Suspect me, : “The theft of the vision ray appatatus, some time ago in Paris, the invention of a young Frenchman, was undoubtedly the work of this man. Probably the possession of that was the start of his mad career, and he has improved the tay and used it along with some of his own inventions, stich asthe sound wave detector, to serve him-in his lust for power. With it, he has probably been able to learn many of the world’s secrets, for there is little that is closed to him. The vision ray inventor, however, was able to’make a duplicate model of his device which is used universally to-day, but as you know, it only has a range of about fifty miles. So you:see the stolen one must have been greatly improved. The one our criminal uses has a range of two thou- sand miles.” » Riel Explains 66 PUT why does he value this light wave receiver so high? Of what use would it be to him?” - “Tt is believed that the signals detected by this. device are coming from another planet, and undoubtedly he_ believes that possibly he could learn many important secrets with it, once he learned to decipher the mes- THE PLANET'S AIR MASTER 169 sages. It would be dangerous to allow the plans to fall into his hands, for if his-clever brain ever did-unravel the messages that the device received, the knowledge that he might learn would be of great assistance to him in his attempt to become ruler of the earth, which I believe is his sole aim, “But to get back to the subject of importance, Wal- lace, I will need your help to-morrow in making a test.” “T'll do anything I can,” was the ready reply. “Well, then, in the morning we will both put on dis- guises. I must hide my identity, in the future, to hide myself from the ray so I can work in secret. Now you are the one that will return to New York on the special in place of me. I will tip off the Yards that it is I, however. This is to be positive that no one knows that I remain here. You are of my build and will-pass for me in disguise. I will give you my iden- tification disc, for some of our men will beat the sheds to see that no. one else gets aboard. When you get to New York you are to take the papers that you will find in the control room of the cruiser and. place them in a safety vault so that they are safe. Then keep out of sight for a day or so-and keep away from your: old haunts. Then when you are sure that the ray ish’t following you, return here under a different makeup. However, do not come up to this house unless you are sure that the ray is not watching you or the house. Your return must-be made secretly. “What I want the wizard to do is to try and take the papers that you will be carrying. I am sending in the package a complete set of drawings of the Light Wave Receiver with the exception of a chemical formula that the drawings are useless without. Some of the sheets of the drawings will be laid out on the desk of my assistant at headquarters while the ray is on, so that the wizard can see for himself that they. are the real ones. He will no doubt keep track of them, until they are placed in the control room, of the cruiser or given to you, and he will most likely try to bring the cruiser down to get the papers. “Now here is where you come in. You are to see that he does’ not bring you down, that’s your job, Wallace, and unless Iam wrong you have a big job on your hands, You will ride in the control room be- side the pilot, who will obey your slightest order no matter what it is. The reason that you are riding as a switchboard tester is so that you will be close to the operator all the way over, and can prevent any attempt by him to bring the liner down. When you step on board at the sheds, make up your mind that you will not allow the ship to leave the upper beam from the time you start until you arrive over New York. If, im spite of all you can do, the. ship is brought down and the plans are taken a from you, we will gain more than we lose, for I will have learned something of great importance and he will have gained little.” “You can depend my doing my best, Riel,” replied Wallace. “But, by the way, who was the visitor you referred to when talking to your police officer?” “We were trailed on’the train by a man in working clothes carrying a lunch-bucket. My suspicions were aroused when I noticed during our wait for the train, that he handled the lunch box as if it was unnaturally heavy. The suspicions were confirmed when I pur- posely brushed against it in the crowd and felt the weight of it. Later he was near us on the car, reading a paper, and all the way out to where we got off the train, I noticed that he gazed at the same corner of the comic books:co) Mae hw re) es ‘‘dae Ad