CHAPTER VII
THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS
Kennedy did not wait at Bluffwood longer than was necessary. It waseasy enough now to silence Montgomery Carter, and the reconciliation ofthe Verplancks was assured. In the Star I made the case appear at thetime to involve merely the capture of Australia Mac.
When I dropped into the office the next day as usual, I found that Ihad another assignment that would take me out on Long Island. The storylooked promising and I was rather pleased to get it.
"Bound for Seaville, I'll wager," sounded a familiar voice in my ear,as I hurried up to the train entrance at the Long Island corner of thePennsylvania Station.
I turned quickly, to find Kennedy just behind me, breathless andperspiring.
"Er--yes," I stammered in surprise at seeing him so unexpectedly, "butwhere did you come from? How did you know?"
"Let me introduce Mr. Jack Waldon," he went on, as we edged our waytoward the gate, "the brother of Mrs. Tracy Edwards, who disappeared sostrangely from the houseboat Lucie last night at Seaville. That is thecase you're going to write up, isn't it?"
It was then for the first time that I noticed the excited young manbeside Kennedy was really his companion.
I shook hands with Waldon, who gave me a grip that was both a greetingand an added impulse in our general direction through the wicket.
"Might have known the Star would assign you to this Edwards case,"panted Kennedy, mopping his forehead, for the heat in the terminal wasoppressive and the crowd, though not large, was closely packed. "Mr.Jameson is my right-hand man," he explained to Waldon, taking us eachby the arm and urging us forward. "Waldon was afraid we might miss thetrain or I should have tried to get you, Walter, at the office."
It was all done so suddenly that they quite took away what remainingbreath I had, as we settled ourselves to swelter in the smoker insteadof in the concourse. I did not even protest at the matter-of-factassurance with which Craig assumed that his deduction as to mydestination was correct.
Waldon, a handsome young fellow in a flannel suit and yachting capsomewhat the worse for his evidently perturbed state of mind, seemed toeye me for the moment doubtfully, in spite of Kennedy's cordialgreeting.
"I've had all the first editions of the evening papers," I hinted as wesped through the tunnel, "but the stories seemed to be quite thesame--pretty meager in details."
"Yes," returned Waldon with a glance at Kennedy, "I tried to keep asmuch out of the papers as I could just now for Lucie's sake."
"You needn't fear Jameson," remarked Kennedy.
He fumbled in his pocket, then paused a moment and shot a glance ofinquiry at Waldon, who nodded a mute acquiescence to him.
"There seem to have been a number of very peculiar disappearanceslately," resumed Kennedy, "but this case of Mrs. Edwards is by far themost extraordinary. Of course the Star hasn't had that--yet," heconcluded, handing me a sheet of notepaper.
"Mr. Waldon didn't give it out, hoping to avoid scandal."
I took the paper and read eagerly, in a woman's hand:
"MY DEAR MISS FOX: I have been down here at Seaville on our houseboat,the Lucie, for several days for a purpose which now is accomplished.
"Already I had my suspicions of you, from a source which I need notname. Therefore, when the Kronprinz got into wireless communicationwith the station at Seaville I determined through our own wireless onthe Lucie to overhear whether there would be any exchange of messagesbetween my husband and yourself.
"I was able to overhear the whole thing and I want you to know thatyour secret is no longer a secret from me, and that I have already toldMr. Edwards that I know it. You ruin his life by your intimacy whichyou seem to want to keep up, although you know you have no right to doit, but you shall not ruin mine.
"I am thoroughly disillusioned now. I have not decided on what steps totake, but--"
Only a casual glance was necessary to show me that the writing seemedto grow more and more weak as it progressed, and the note stoppedabruptly, as if the writer had been suddenly interrupted or some newidea had occurred to her.
Hastily I tried to figure it out. Lucie Waldon, as everybody knew, wasa famous beauty, a marvel of charm and daintiness, slender, with big,soulful, wistful eyes. Her marriage to Tracy Edwards, the wealthyplunger and stockbroker, had been a great social event the year before,and it was reputed at the time that Edwards had showered her withjewels and dresses to the wonder and talk even of society.
As for Valerie Fox, I knew she had won quick recognition and even fameas a dancer in New York during the previous winter, and I recalledreading three or four days before that she had just returned on theKronprinz from a trip abroad.
"I don't suppose you have had time to see Miss Fox," I remarked. "Whereis she?"
"At Beach Park now, I think," replied Waldon, "a resort a few milesnearer the city on the south shore, where there is a large colony ofactors."
I handed back the letter to Kennedy.
"What do you make of it?" he asked, as he folded it up and put it backinto his pocket.
"I hardly know what to say," I replied. "Of course there have beenrumors, I believe, that all was not exactly like a honeymoon still withthe Tracy Edwardses."
"Yes," returned Waldon slowly, "I know myself that there has been sometrouble, but nothing definite until I found this letter last night inmy sister's room. She never said anything about it either to mother ormyself. They haven't been much together during the summer, and lastnight when she disappeared Tracy was in the city. But I hadn't thoughtmuch about it before, for, of course, you know he has large financialinterests that make him keep in pretty close touch with New York andthis summer hasn't been a particularly good one on the stock exchange."
"And," I put in, "a plunger doesn't always make the best of husbands.Perhaps there is temperament to be reckoned with here."
"There seem to be a good many things to be reckoned with," Craigconsidered. "For example, here's a houseboat, the Lucie, a palatialaffair, cruising about aimlessly, with a beautiful woman on it. Shegives a little party, in the absence of her husband, to her brother,his fiancee and her mother, who visit her from his yacht, the Nautilus.They break up, those living on the Lucie going to their rooms and therest back to the yacht, which is anchored out further in the deeperwater of the bay.
"Some time in the middle of the night her maid, Juanita, finds that sheis not in her room. Her brother is summoned back from his yacht andfinds that she has left this pathetic, unfinished letter. But otherwisethere is no trace of her. Her husband is notified and hurries outthere, but he can find no clue. Meanwhile, Mr. Waldon, in despair,hurries down to the city to engage me quietly."
"You remember I told you," suggested Waldon, "that my sister hadn'tbeen feeling well for several days. In fact it seemed that the sea airwasn't doing her much good, and some one last night suggested that shetry the mountains."
"Had there been anything that would foreshadow the--er--disappearance?"asked Kennedy.
"Only as I say, that for two or three days she seemed to be listless,to be sinking by slow and easy stages into a sort of vacant, moodystate of ill health."
"She had a doctor, I suppose?" I asked.
"Yes, Dr. Jermyn, Tracy's own personal physician came down from thecity several days ago."
"What did he say?"
"He simply said that it was congestion of the lungs. As far as he couldsee there was no apparent cause for it. I don't think he was veryenthusiastic about the mountain air idea. The fact is he was like agood many doctors under the circumstances, noncommittal--wanted herunder observation, and all that sort of thing."
"What's your opinion?" I pressed Craig. "Do you think she has run away?"
"Naturally, I'd rather not attempt to say yet," Craig repliedcautiously. "But there are several possibilities. Yes, she might haveleft the houseboat in some other boat, of course. Then there is thepossibility of accident. It was a hot night. She might have beenleaning from the window and have lost her b
alance. I have even thoughtof drugs, that she might have taken something in her despondency andhave fallen overboard while under the influence of it. Then, of course,there are the two deductions that everyone has made already--eithersuicide or murder."
Waldon had evidently been turning something over in his mind.
"There was a wireless outfit aboard the houseboat," he ventured atlength.
"What of that?" I asked, wondering why he was changing the subject soabruptly.
"Why, only this," he replied. "I have been reading about wireless agood deal lately, and if the theories of some scientists are correct,the wireless age is not without its dangers as well as its wonders. Irecall reading not long ago of a German professor who says there is noessential difference between wireless waves and the X-rays, and we knowthe terrible physical effects of X-rays. I believe he estimated thatonly one three hundred millionth part of the electrical energygenerated by sending a message from one station to another near by isactually used up in transmitting the message. The rest is dispersed inthe atmosphere. There must be a good deal of such stray electricalenergy about Seaville. Isn't it possible that it might hit some onesomewhere who was susceptible?"
Kennedy said nothing. Waldon's was at least a novel idea, whether itwas plausible or not. The only way to test it out, as far as I coulddetermine, was to see whether it fitted with the facts after a carefulinvestigation of the case itself.
It was still early in the day and the trains were not as crowded asthey would be later. Consequently our journey was comfortable enoughand we found ourselves at last at the little vine-covered station atSeaville.
One could almost feel that the gay summer colony was in a state ofsubdued excitement. As we left the quaint station and walked down themain street to the town wharf where we expected some one would bewaiting for us, it seemed as if the mysterious disappearance of thebeautiful Mrs. Edwards had put a damper on the life of the place. Inthe hotels there were knots of people evidently discussing the affair,for as we passed we could tell by their faces that they recognized us.One or two bowed and would have joined us, if Waldon had given anyencouragement. But he did not stop, and we kept on down the streetquickly.
I myself began to feel the spell of mystery about the case as I had notfelt it among the distractions of the city. Perhaps I imagined it, butthere even seemed to be something strange about the houseboat which wecould descry at anchor far down the bay as we approached the wharf.
We were met, as Waldon had arranged, by a high-powered runabout, thetender to his own yacht, a slim little craft of mahogany and brass,driven like an automobile, and capable of perhaps twenty-five or thirtymiles an hour. We jumped in and were soon skimming over the waters ofthe bay like a skipping stone.
It was evident that Waldon was much relieved at having been able tobring assistance, in which he had as much confidence as he reposed inKennedy. At any rate it was something to be nearing the scene of actionagain.
The Lucie was perhaps seventy feet long and a most attractive craft,with a hull yachty in appearance and of a type which could safely makelong runs along the coast, a stanch, seaworthy boat, of course withoutthe speed of the regularly designed yacht, but more than making up incomfort for those on board what was lost in that way. Waldon pointedout with obvious pride his own trim yacht swinging gracefully at anchora half mile or so away.
As we approached the houseboat I looked her over carefully. One of thefirst things I noticed was that there rose from the roof the primitiveinverted V aerial of a wireless telegraph. I thought immediately of theunfinished letter and its contents, and shaded my eyes as I took a goodlook at the powerful transatlantic station on the spit of sand perhapsthree or four miles distant, with its tall steel masts of the latestinverted L type and the cluster of little houses below, in which theoperators and the plant were.
Waldon noticed what I was looking at, and remarked, "It's a wonderfulstation--and well worth a visit, if you have the time--one of the mostpowerful on the coast, I understand."
"How did the Lucie come to be equipped with wireless?" asked Craigquickly. "It's a little unusual for a private boat."
"Mr. Edwards had it done when she was built," explained Waldon. "Hisidea was to use it to keep in touch with the stock market on trips."
"And it has proved effective?" asked Craig.
"Oh, yes--that is, it was all right last winter when he went on a shortcruise down in Florida. This summer he hasn't been on the boat longenough to use it much."
"Who operates it?"
"He used to hire a licensed operator, although I believe the engineer,Pedersen, understands the thing pretty well and could use it ifnecessary."
"Do you think it was Pedersen who used it for Mrs. Edwards?" askedKennedy.
"I really don't know," confessed Waldon. "Pedersen denies absolutelythat he has touched the thing for weeks. I want you to quiz him. Iwasn't able to get him to admit a thing."