CHAPTER XIX A WHISPER FROM AFAR
Late that afternoon Captain Burns' car came to a stop before the "Houseof Magic."
"Hop in," he said to Johnny when the boy appeared. "Want to take yousomewhere. Been working on clues all day. Tired. Need rest. Need goodcompany. Come along."
Johnny, who had spent a quiet day with Felix, being led further into themagic of the electric eye, but being told nothing at all about themysteries that most intrigued him, was ready enough to go.
"Queer boy, that Felix," he said to the Captain as the car sped onthrough the city. "Didn't really tell me a thing I wanted to know.
"Oh, yes," he corrected himself, "he did say that the light about theplace was made by neon tubes set in the walls and that the light enteredthe room through a million pin-pricks in the canvas covering of thewalls; also that this light came in slowly because it was filteredthrough bulbs very like radio tubes."
"Interesting, but not so terribly important," the Captain rumbled.
"Same with that business of my room getting tall and short," Johnny wenton. "Seems his father thinks there's a lot of waste space in modernhomes. Bed chambers stand empty all day, living-rooms all night, andthere is never enough air space in either. So he's experimenting onfloors built like elevators. You flatten out the bedroom furniture andraise the floor; that gives you a tall living-room during the day. Bylowering the same floor at night you get a tall bedroom."
"In any case," the Captain laughed, "you're not likely to bump yourhead."
"Seems," Johnny concluded, "I had a room intended in the beginning for asort of parlor. They needed the space above, so they let down the floor.Not a bad arrangement, only they ought to have let a fellow know. Theseinventors' heads are so full of things, they forget."
They were now well out of the city, speeding along a country road.
Thirty miles from the heart of the city they swung through a gateway andcame to a stop before a small, low-roofed cottage.
It was now dark. The place seemed cold and deserted.
"You'll not find any ceilings falling on you here," Captain Burnschuckled. "This was my boyhood home."
"Your boyhood home!" Johnny surveyed the narrow yard surrounded byancient maples. He looked at the insignificant dwelling towered over by agiant cottonwood tree.
"And you rose from this," he said in an awed whisper.
"No, Johnny," the Captain replied quickly. "I didn't rise. No one everrises above his boyhood home. It is the grandest place on earth. Come onin."
The place they entered was the kitchen. It had a low ceiling. In a cornerstood a small wood-burning kitchen range with a top that was warped andcracked.
"That's the very stove," the Captain said proudly, touching a match toshavings and watching yellow flames spread. "I cut wood for it more thanthirty years ago.
"I was away from this place a long, long time, Johnny. When I got somemoney I bought it for a sort of retreat. When I am poor again it shall bethe last of my treasured possessions to go--my boyhood home!" he endedreverently.
"When I think--" There was a rumble in the Captain's throat as he beganto speak after some moments of silence. "When I think of the good,simple, happy times we had here, I wonder--" He did not finish, but satsmiling and looking at the glowing hearth of the little, old, crackedkitchen stove.
"I was raised in this one small room," he began once more. "Oh, yes, weslept upstairs. No fire up there, not a spark. Cold!" He chuckled."Twenty below sometimes.
"But this room, it was home to us. Home." He said it softly. "I can seeit now. The table there and the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp. Fatherdozing by the fire. Brother Tom reading. He was a scholar, Tom was. Madea fine man, he would, if--" Once more he did not finish.
"Father was a pious man," he rumbled on after a time. "Wonder how manysons of truly pious men make their mark in the world? Many of them, Ibelieve.
"We always had prayers on our knees before we went upstairs. Father'sprayer was always much the same. One sentence I remember well: 'We thankThee, our Father, that it is well with us as it is.' It wasn't very wellwith us all the time. But we had peace. The doors were never locked.Precious little to steal, and no one to steal it.
"Peace!" he mused. "Sometimes I wonder whether this eternal struggle isworth the cost. When I got older and went out with my father to help withthe work, when we came rattling home in the dark in our old lumber wagon,we had peace. No one wanted to kill us. But now--"
Once again he did not finish. There was no need. Full well Johnny knewthat there were those who wished this faithful officer beneath the sod.
"But when the city gets you--" The Captain's tone had changed. "When itgets you, there's no turning back. The noise, the rush, the excitement oflife that flows on and on like a torrent--it _gets_ you, and you never,never turn back.
"Remember the story of poor old Lot?"
"Yes, I remember." Johnny knew that great old book.
"I've always felt sorry for Lot." The Captain chuckled. "Country chapcome to the city to live. Got his wife turned to salt, he did. Lost aboutall he had. But he couldn't help it. City got him. Sodom got him.Chicago's got you and me, Johnny. And Chicago won't let us go until theybring us out to some spot like the one we passed a mile from here, andput us away where the hemlocks sing and sigh over the marble that iswhite in the moonlight.
"So we'll fight on, Johnny." He prodded the fire. "We won't accomplishmuch. No one ever does. But we'll do our bit--do it like men.
"But, Johnny--" He rose and stretched himself. "It helps to come out herenow and then where I have known so much peace. Just to sit by this old,cracked stove, to listen to the whisper of the wind, the song of the treetoads and the whoo-whooting of some owl, and dream I am a boy again, justa boy. Ah, son, that's good.
"We'll go back to the city in a little while," he went on after a time."Get a good bed somewhere in town.
"And that reminds me, Johnny. I want you out here on Christmas Eve. We'llmake up a party and stay all night. Hang up our stockings just as we boysused to do. We'll bring out Drew and Tom, Joyce Mills, Mrs. LeClare andAlice; yes, and Spider--only we'll have a whole turkey for Spider," hechuckled. "We--we'll have a grand time Christmas Eve and all dayChristmas. And such a dinner! I've bought a turkey, twenty-five pounds,Johnny.
"Come in here." He took up a kerosene lamp and led the way into a secondsmall room.
"This was our parlor. Only lit the fire on Sundays. Such Sundays as thosewere! Happy days, Johnny! Happy days!"
"But what's this?" Johnny asked suddenly. "Surely this does not belong tothose days."
"No." There was a queer look on the Captain's face. "Fellow I know, man Iwould trust with my life, asked permission to put that in here." Theywere looking at a two-foot wide reflector such as was to be found inJohnny's room in the "House of Magic."
"He said," the Captain went on, "that if the time came when I was badlyneeded in the city, a message would come to me through that thing. How? Ican't say. Up until now it hasn't uttered a squawk. It--"
Suddenly Johnny held up a hand. There was no need. The Captain waslistening with all his ears, for, into that room there on the lonelyprairie, had stolen a whisper.
"Captain Burns!" The words were very distinct. "I wish to inform you thata packet of stolen bonds you are seeking have been sold to Joseph Greggof 3200 South Kemp Street. Gregg is an honest man. But back of him--" Thewhisper faded.
"That," exclaimed the Captain, "is all I need to know!"
Racing for his coat and hat, he led the way to his car. A moment more andthey were speeding back to the city.
"Johnny," said the Captain, "do you believe that whisper came all the wayfrom the city?"
"I am sure of it."
"A broadcast?"
"No, not a broadcast. I feel sure no one in the world, save us, heardit."
"Wonderful, if true--a revolutionary idea!" the Captain exclaimed.
"I think," said Johnny, "tha
t I could name the very spot from which thatmessage came--the top of the Sky Ride tower." He told the Captain of hisdiscovery regarding the whisper he had heard that morning.
"We'll have to look into that," was the Captain's only comment.
That very night Johnny attempted to "look into that," with such resultsas you shall see.