TOM SWIFT AND HIS TALKING PICTURES

OR
The Greatest Invention on Record

BY VICTOR APPLETON

AUTHOR OF
“TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTORCYCLE,”
“TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS,”
“TOM SWIFT CIRCLING THE GLOBE,”
“THE DON STURDY SERIES,”
ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1928, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc.

Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures

TOM SWIFT WAS THROWN OVERBOARD.

BOOKS FOR BOYS
By VICTOR APPLETON

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE TOM SWIFT SERIES

TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTORCYCLE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTORBOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON
TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL
TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT OIL GUSHER
TOM SWIFT AND HIS CHEST OF SECRETS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRLINE EXPRESS
TOM SWIFT CIRCLING THE GLOBE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS TALKING PICTURES

THE DON STURDY SERIES

DON STURDY ON THE DESERT OF MYSTERY
DON STURDY WITH THE BIG SNAKE HUNTERS
DON STURDY IN THE TOMBS OF GOLD
DON STURDY ACROSS THE NORTH POLE
DON STURDY IN THE LAND OF VOLCANOES
DON STURDY IN THE PORT OF LOST SHIPS
DON STURDY AMONG THE GORILLAS
DON STURDY CAPTURED BY HEAD HUNTERS

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York.

CONTENTS

TOM SWIFT AND HIS TALKING PICTURES

CHAPTER I

BLASTING FIRE

Entering Tom Swift’s private laboratory from a room farther down the hall, Ned Newton, who seemed somewhat out of breath, glanced at the young inventor and asked:

“Do you seem to be getting anywhere with it, Tom?”

For a moment there was no reply. Tom, who had been leaning over a complicated apparatus of wires, switches, and radio bulbs that glowed dimly, was slowly turning a dial. Ned repeated his question, adding:

“What seems to be the trouble?”

“Trouble?” queried Tom, looking at Ned with eyes, however, that did not see him.

“There must be some trouble,” insisted Ned, “or you’d have been capering around here on one leg when I came in after doing my stuff back there,” and he nodded toward the room farther down the hall. “How about it?”

Tom Swift glanced away from the apparatus, which very much resembled a radio receiving set, to a yard-square burnished sheet of metal hanging in front of him and connected to the other mechanism by several wires. This burnished sheet appeared to be made of a mirror of some metal with a square of heavy plate glass covering it.

“Can’t you answer?” inquired Ned, with a chuckle. “Boy, I certainly did some acting back there all by myself! And I’d like to know whether I got it through to you. Did I? Bet I did that song and dance for the fiftieth time just now. Come on—wake up—did it come through? What’s the matter, anyhow?”

“I—I’m thinking,” said Tom slowly.

“Don’t need an interpreter to tell me that!” and again Ned chuckled. “I can see it with half an eye. But was it a success?”

“Yes, and no,” replied Tom, turning a switch which seemed to cut off some electrical current, for at once a faint hum that had been audible in the laboratory ceased. “Yes, and no. It came through all right; that is, part of it did, but the rest——”

Tom ceased speaking and bent over his apparatus. He adjusted some set screws, turned a couple of dials, and changed three of the radio tubes which, now that the power was cut off, no longer glowed with light beneath the quicksilver coatings on the thin glass.

“Do you want me to go back there and do it over?” asked Ned. “I’m willing, if you say so,” and he started for the room he had just left—a room wherein, under the focused rays of a battery of powerful lights and close to a box containing a strange assortment of tubes and transmitters, Ned had done his “stunt,” which consisted of singing and dancing about on a small stage. He performed alone—there was no audience but the distant one of Tom Swift in his laboratory several hundred feet away.

“Wait a minute, Ned!” Tom Swift called sharply, when his chum, who was also the financial manager of the Swift Construction Company, was about to leave the room. “I guess we might as well call it a day’s work and quit.”

“A night’s work, you mean!” retorted Ned, pointing to the window which reflected the darkness outside. “Must be past twelve.”

“I guess it is,” admitted the young inventor, somewhat wearily. “I didn’t notice. It’s a shame to keep you at it so long, Ned.”

“Oh, I don’t mind!” said the other quickly. “Not as long as it’s going to be a success. But is it?”

Tom Swift hesitated, looked at the complicated machine in front of him and slowly shook his head.

“Frankly, Ned, I can’t say,” he admitted. “You came through in a measure. Of course I heard you plainly enough over the radio—that part is simple enough. But the picture of you was too shadowy to be satisfactory. It’s coming, though. I’ll make it come!” and Tom, in spite of his weariness, showed some fighting spirit in his voice and manner.

“Could you identify me there?” and Ned pointed to that burnished metal mirror with its covering of glass in the lower edge of which were fused several wires.

“Oh, yes, I knew it was you, Ned, of course. But, as I say, the projected picture was too visionary. It didn’t stand out clearly and with depth the way I want it to. It was like a moving picture when the man up in the booth goes to sleep on the job and the projector gets out of focus. I’m rather disappointed.”

“I don’t mind going back and going through my stunt again, even for the fifty-first performance,” offered Ned, with enthusiasm. “I don’t care how late it is. Helen won’t expect me now.”

“Did you have an engagement?” asked Tom, looking sharply at his friend. “And I kept you here doing a song and dance act half the night when Helen expected you! That’s too bad! If I’d known——”

“Keep your hair on!” chuckled Ned. “I didn’t really have a date with Helen. I said I might drop around if there wasn’t anything to do here. But she knows you well enough to make allowances for emergency work—and this was just that.”

“Yes, it is an emergency all right,” returned Tom slowly. “But I shall give it up for the night. No use keeping you any longer, Ned. Go on home and I’ll try it again to-morrow with a different wave length. I think that’s where the difficulty is. We’ll tackle it again in the morning.”

“All right,” assented Ned Newton, and he could not keep out of his voice a little note of satisfaction and relief. Truth to tell, he was a bit tired. For several weeks now he had been helping Tom Swift on the latter’s newest idea—an invention, Tom declared, that would be the greatest on record and one that would tend to revolutionize the radio and moving picture industries.

This was a daring plan Tom had conceived of making a radio machine, both sending and receiving, that would enable a person or any number of persons not only to hear a distant performance in their own home, but also see those taking part.

“I’ll make it possible,” declared Tom Swift, “for a man to sit in his easy chair, smoking a cigar in his library, and, by a turn of a switch, not only to hear the latest opera but also to see each and every performer and witness the whole play.”

When Ned had asked how the vision would appear to the man, Tom had replied:

“On an electrified screen attached to his radio receiver by which he listens to the songs and music.”

As Tom said, the problem of transmitting an entire opera through the air was simple enough. That had been done many times. So had the transmitting of photographs by wireless. Also, in a limited way, television had made it possible for a person in a dark room to be visible to lookers-on in another apartment some distance away.

“But I am going to combine the two!” declared Tom Swift. “I want to make it possible for a synchronized performance of seeing and hearing to take place. Thus when a theater is equipped with my sending apparatus and I have perfected my receiver, one need never go outside the house to enjoy a theatrical performance or a concert.”

“But even if you’re successful, you won’t make any money out of it,” declared Ned Newton, after first hearing of his chum’s ambitions. “Look at the radio people! The air is free. Anybody who wants to can tune in and listen to a million dollar concert without paying a cent. They don’t even have to buy any special kind of receiver—they can roll their own, so to speak. What’s to prevent them from stealing your stuff—your—what do you call it, anyhow?”

“I haven’t settled on a name,” Tom said, with a smile. “Call it talking pictures for the time being. Of course it’s entirely different from moving pictures with phonograph attachment.”

“Well, what’s to prevent any one from tuning in on your talking pictures?” asked Ned.

“This,” answered Tom, pointing to a small tube on one side of the receiving apparatus. “This is a new device. Without it no one can see and hear my pictures that will talk. This is protected by patents and no one can use it without my sanction. That’s the secret.”

“Well, maybe you’ve got something there,” Ned admitted.

So, during the past months, he had helped Tom Swift bring the new apparatus to such perfection as it now had.

The present night’s performance was only one of many. At first there had been only blank failure. But by using different kinds of receiving screens, finally settling on a mirror covered with electrified glass, Tom had achieved a measure of success. Still, even now, the projected image of the singing or talking performer in a distant room was too dim to be commercially successful.

“We’ll go at it again to-morrow,” Tom told his chum as he let him out of the laboratory and locked the door after him.

“It’s the biggest thing I ever attempted,” he said to himself, when Ned had gone and he was alone in the room, “the very biggest, and I’m not going to have it stolen from me. No one suspects as yet what I am working on—no one except dad and Ned. But I wish I were nearer success. I thought the image would come through clear to-night, but there was that same haze—that same haze. I wonder——”

He paused and listened intently. Outside his door he heard footsteps—cautious footsteps.

“Is that you, Ned?” he called. “Anything wrong?”

Tom did not open the door—he was taking no chances.

“That you, Ned?” he asked again, more sharply.

“No, Mr. Swift,” came back a voice with a foreign accent. “I am just leaving my own laboratory. I think I have perfected that new magnetic gear shift we have been working on.”

“That’s good,” Tom responded. He recognized the voice of Jacob Greenbaum, a clever inventor whom he had recently engaged to work on some side lines that occupied the Swift factory. Tom had an idea for a new device to make easier the shifting of gears on automobiles. It was an adaptation of the old magnetic selection that has often been tried and which, up to date, had not been successful.

“Do you want to take a look at it?” asked Greenbaum, and from the nearness of the voice Tom knew that the man was just outside the locked door.

“No, thank you, Greenbaum, not now,” the young inventor replied. “I am busy at something else. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You are working late, Mr. Swift,” went on the man. “Could I be of any service to you? I should be glad——”

“No, thank you,” Tom said. “As for lateness, you are doing a bit of overtime yourself.”

“Oh, yes; but I do not mind. I think I am on the right track. If you would take a look——”

“No, not now,” and Tom’s voice was a bit sharp. “I am busy. Good night!”

There was no response for a moment, and then came a short:

“Good night!”

Greenbaum, however, did not immediately move away from the door and a look of annoyance passed over Tom’s face as he bent over his secret apparatus.

“What’s he hanging around for?” thought Tom. “I wonder if he can be a spy? Two or three times I’ve caught him lurking around my private laboratory. But he can’t get in since I put on the new lock, and I know he hasn’t so much as poked his nose in during the times I have been here experimenting. Still, I wonder——”

He was about to call out, to tell the man to go away when footsteps were heard moving down the corridor and toward the outer door of the small shop where most of the experimental work was carried on.

“Good riddance,” murmured Tom Swift. “I don’t want to be unjust to a good workman, and Greenbaum is all of that, but I must confess I don’t like the way he hangs around me. As soon as he finishes that magnetic gear shift I’ll pay him well and let him go. Now let’s see if I can think up another way of doing this. Perhaps if I hooked up the wave distributor to the vibratory selector instead of to the polarizer we’d get better vision. I’ll try that and have Ned perform again to-morrow. Now I’ll take a look to see that my wire connections are all right and then I think I’ll go to bed. I’m tired.”

Tom spent perhaps another half hour in getting things in readiness for some new experiments, and, having made sure that everything connected with his secret was put out of sight of possible prying eyes, the young inventor started toward the door.

He inspected the new combination lock he had had put on, noting that it was properly set, and then opened the door to step out. The experimental laboratory was only a short walk from Tom’s home, the back of the Swift Construction plant being some distance away.

As Tom opened the door there was a click, followed at once by a blinding flash of blasting fire. Then a dull explosion shook the building. Tom had no chance to leap back. The force of the blast hurled him forward, across the corridor and out through a wire-screened window into the yard. He fell heavily, uttered an inarticulate cry, and then seemed to be sinking down into a pit of dense blackness.

CHAPTER II

NED DISAPPEARS

Scarcely had the echoes of the explosion in Tom Swift’s laboratory died away, being swallowed up in the blackness and silence of the night, than members of the Swift household began stirring.

Mr. Swift, Tom’s aged and rather infirm father, sat up in bed and called:

“What was that? Thunder?”

“No, Massa Swift,” answered Eradicate, the faithful colored servant, who, now that Mr. Swift had declined so, was his personal attendant, sleeping in the next room. “No, Massa Swift,” he repeated. “Dat wa’n’t no thunder.”

By this time Eradicate was moving about and fumbling for a light. Mr. Swift, however, had reached up and switched on the reading lamp attached to the head of his bed.

“What was it then?” asked the aged inventor, for Mr. Swift had begun invention work when Tom was a mere baby.

“I spects, Massa, dat it was somethin’ Tom been doin’ out in his lab’tory,” the colored man answered. He had his own light on now and was beginning to dress, preparatory to making an investigation.

“If Tom was in the midst of anything that made a noise like that he must be hurt!” declared Mr. Swift. “That was a sharp explosion. Hurry, Rad, and see what it was.”

“Yes, sah, Massa Swift, I’s a-hurryin’!” answered Eradicate.

From a room farther down the hall in the Swift home came a deep, heavy voice exclaiming:

“Fire! Fire! Koku see much blaze!”

Koku was a gigantic specimen of a man whom Tom had brought back with him from an airship trip to a distant, mysterious land. The giant was rather simple, and never seemed to be able to master the English language. But he was a faithful servant and, because of his enormous strength, Tom frequently used Koku as a guard about the plant.

“Fire?” cried Mr. Swift, fumbling for his clothes. “Is there a fire, Koku?”

“Much blaze in Master Tom’s workshop,” the giant replied. He could not twist his tongue around “laboratory.”

“Dey suah is a fire!” cried Eradicate, running to his window. “By golly, whole place looks like it was burnin’!”

By this time Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, several other servants, and Garret Jackson, the shop manager and superintendent, who was spending the night at the Swift home, had been aroused. Several workmen in the Swift plant, who lived not far from the experimental laboratory, had also been aroused by the explosion and the glare of flames and were now running to help, adding their voices to the others giving the alarm.

By this time Mr. Swift, with Eradicate and Koku, had descended to the yard that was between the laboratory and the house, and by the glare of the flames Tom’s inert body was seen stretched out on the grass.

Eradicate and Koku bent over the body of the young inventor. Koku felt for the heart and found it beating.

“Master Tom no dead,” said the giant simply.

“Then carry him into the house, and send for a doctor at once,” directed Mr. Swift. “Oh, what could have happened? The whole place will go up in flames and Tom’s valuable new invention will be destroyed!”

“Dat fire’ll soon be out!” predicted Eradicate, and Koku, lifting Tom like a child, started toward the house with him. “Fire not so bad, after all, Massa Swift!”

While the injured inventor is being ministered to I shall take a brief moment to acquaint new readers with, a few facts regarding Tom Swift.

He was a young man, well set up physically, and in spite of the fact that he was young, had to his credit many important inventions, not a few of which had been adopted by the United States Government.

Tom’s mother was dead, but he and his father, were well looked after by Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper. As related in the first volume of this series, entitled “Tom Swift and His Motorcycle,” the youth began his inventive activities early. Wakefield Damon, who lived in the neighboring town of Waterfield, had, some years before this present story opens, bought a motorcycle. Not knowing much about such machines, Mr. Damon soon found himself climbing a tree near Tom’s home.

Tom rescued the eccentric individual and, “blessing” many animate and inanimate objects from his rubber boots to his collar button, Mr. Damon declared he was through with motorcycles. Tom bought the damaged machine, repaired and improved it and had several thrilling adventures on it. From then on his inventions followed one another and they were not yet ended. In the volume immediately preceding this and named “Tom Swift Circling the Globe,” you may read of the further doings of the young inventor.

Tom had many friends and not a few enemies, the latter chiefly unscrupulous men who had tried to steal his inventions but who had been worsted by Tom, with the aid of Mr. Damon, Ned Newton, Eradicate and Koku.

Tom always insisted that Mary Nestor, a beautiful girl to whom the young inventor was practically engaged, had a lot to do with his success, but Mary always smiled tolerantly when her friend said this.

“What do I do, Tom?” she would ask.

“You give me inspiration,” he would answer, “and that, to an inventor, is the one thing needed.”

Whether Mary Nestor was the inspiration for Tom’s latest talking-picture invention does not matter, but the fact remains that Tom was in the midst of perfecting that machine when the explosion occurred.

While the fire was being brought under control by several of the shop men, under the direction of Mr. Jackson, the young inventor was hurriedly carried into his home and laid on a bed. Mrs. Baggert, sensing that medical aid might be needed, had, almost as soon as she got up after the alarm, telephoned for the nearest doctor. So it was not long after the explosion before Tom was in the care of the medical man.

“Is he badly hurt?” asked Mr. Swift, anxiously hovering around the room.

“I think not,” was the cheerful reply of Dr. Layton. “He has had a shock and is suffering more from that than from actual injuries, though he is cut and bruised and has some nasty burns. But we will soon make him comfortable.”

“He is still unconscious, though, isn’t he?” asked Mr. Swift.

“Yes,” Dr. Layton admitted. “But that is nothing to worry about. Nature will take care of that. It is better to let his senses come back gradually rather than to give some strong stimulant that will shock him into wakefulness and perhaps do more harm than good. I’ll make him as comfortable as I can and we’ll just wait for him to rouse.”

The burns and cuts were dressed, Koku being of great service because he could lift and move Tom as if the young man were a baby. Yet Tom was of husky build, strong and muscular. The giant made an ideal nurse in a case like this, though Eradicate, who had a deep love for Tom Swift, fluttered eagerly about, anxious to do something to help. Mrs. Baggert had him bring hot water and bandages, and this gave Eradicate as much pleasure as Koku found in ministering more personally to his young master.

After the first alarm over Tom’s condition was over and when it was apparent that there was no immediate danger, Mr. Swift went out to see what damage had been done and if there was any further danger from the fire and explosion.

The flames, by this time, were subdued. There had been a second but slight, explosion. This, however, did little damage, as the force of it was directed toward the outer corridor, part of the wall of which was blown away. The greatest force of the first explosion, likewise, had been in the same direction, and though the door of Tom’s private laboratory had been stove in and some of his valuable apparatus scattered about and burned, fortunately no great damage was done to the secret room.

Ascertaining this and knowing how jealously Tom guarded the new secret, Mr. Swift had some of the men nail the laboratory up, an improvised door being made and boards being fastened over the shattered windows.

Tom had been blown through a window in the corridor outside his laboratory. But, luckily, the window was up at the bottom, and Tom had shot through a wire mosquito screen instead of through the glass. In spite of this, and the fact that he had landed in a clump of deep, thick grass, the young inventor had not come off scatheless from the accident.

“Things aren’t as bad as they seemed at first, Mr. Swift,” reported Mr. Jackson a few hours after the explosion. “The fire is all out now and Tom’s things don’t seem to be much damaged. I’ve got several men on guard. They’ll stay there the rest of the night.”

“It will soon be morning,” murmured the old gentleman. “Thank you, Jackson.”

“I wonder how much longer Tom will remain unconscious?” Mr. Swift said, entering the sickroom and glancing toward the bed on which his son lay.

“I think he is coming around now,” said the doctor softly, as he moved to his patient’s side. “Yes, he is coming out of it,” he added. “How do you feel?” he asked as Tom opened his eyes and stared about.

“Pretty—pretty—rocky,” was the husky answer. “What—what happened?” he asked in a stronger voice. Then, as recollection came back to him, Tom went on: “I remember now. There was an explosion just as I was coming out of my laboratory. Is it gone? Is everything gone?” and he tried to get up. Dr. Layton pushed him back.

“Now lie still,” said the doctor. “Things aren’t half as bad as you think, and you’re not much hurt.”

“I don’t care about myself!” declared Tom fiercely. “But if that new—that machine is blown up—” He looked anxiously at his father, the only other person in the room who knew about the secret of the talking-picture invention.

“It’s all right, Tom,” the aged inventor made haste to say. “The door and windows of your laboratory were blown out and some of your apparatus damaged by the fire and explosion. But your—the main object is all right,” he finished, and Tom understood.

Before Tom could ask any more questions, Dr. Layton administered a sedative to quiet his patient’s nerves, and, after a few more questions had been answered to the satisfaction of the young inventor, he sank back into a sleep.

Not before, however, he had told his father and the others that he had no idea what had caused the explosion and fire.

“Was it an electrical blast?” Mr. Swift wanted to know. He was aware that often a high tension current may act almost like a blast of dynamite.

“I think not,” Tom had said. “I examined my wires the last thing, after Greenbaum had left the building, and they were all right. The explosion seemed to be coincident with my opening of the door.”

“It were a bomb! Dat’s whut it were—a bomb!” declared Eradicate. “An’ ef I kotches de feller whut done planted it I——”

“That will do now, Rad,” whispered Mrs. Baggert. “Tom must be kept quiet.”

The injured young inventor was now sleeping quietly, and Dr. Layton said he would remain until morning to see how Tom was when he awakened again. Then, the fire being out and no more danger appearing, the house became quiet.

But Mr. Swift had a worried, anxious air. He could not account for that explosion. Some more of Tom’s enemies must be at work, was the conclusion of the aged inventor.

The sun was rising and Tom was just awakening again when the telephone rang. Mrs. Baggert, answering it, brought word that Mary Nestor was on the wire and wanted to know how badly Tom was hurt.

“How’d she hear about it?” Tom demanded when he was prevented from answering the call in person.

“Why, it seems,” reported the housekeeper, “that the town fire-department responded to the alarm. However, they weren’t needed, as your own men put out the blaze, Mr. Swift. However, it was rumored that you were hurt and Mary heard of it. What shall I tell her?”

“Tell her I’m all right and that I’ll be over as soon as I can get dressed,” Tom answered.

“No you won’t!” chuckled Dr. Layton. “You’re not badly hurt, but I’m taking no chances with you and you’ll stay in bed all day. Miss Nestor can call here if she likes,” he conceded, with a smile.

“Thanks for that favor,” and Tom smiled in answer. “Tell her, please, Mrs. Baggert.”

“I will,” and the housekeeper hurried back to the telephone.

A further inspection of Tom’s injuries by daylight did not reveal them as any worse than the first diagnosis indicated and Dr. Layton said that his patient would be up and about in a few days.

“And when I am things are going to hum!” declared Tom.

He had finished a light breakfast and the medical man was preparing to depart when the telephone rang again.

“If that’s Mary I’m going to speak to her!” exclaimed Tom.

“But it isn’t,” said Mrs. Baggert, with a smile, coming in from the hall outside Tom’s room, the telephone being installed in a booth in the corridor. “It’s Mr. Newton.”

“Ned?” exclaimed Tom Swift.

“No, not Ned—his father,” replied the housekeeper. “He wants to know when Ned will be home.”

“When Ned will be home!” exclaimed Tom, in bewildered surprise. “Why, I thought he was at home now. He left me before midnight to go home.”

“He isn’t there,” said Mrs. Baggert. “Mr. Newton says Ned hasn’t been home all night and he thought he must be here, as he often stays all night, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” admitted Tom, with a puzzled look on his face. “But he didn’t stay last night. He started for home. He was dead tired from helping me. Ask Mr. Newton if he is sure Ned isn’t sleeping soundly in his own room.”

Mrs. Baggert went back to the telephone. In a few moments she came back.

“Ned seems to have disappeared,” she announced. “He didn’t come home or send any word. Mr. Newton is quite worried. He wants to talk to you.”

CHAPTER III

SUSPICIONS

Tom Swift looked at Dr. Layton. The medical man had paused in his departure on hearing the telephone bell and the ensuing talk.

“Doctor,” began Tom, “I don’t want to disobey your advice, but I’ve simply got to talk to Ned’s father. Something may have happened. I’m beginning to get worried. There may be more at the bottom of this than just an accidental explosion in my laboratory.”

“I’d rather you stayed in bed,” said the physician. “You oughtn’t to move around so soon after such a shock. Can’t you move the telephone in here?”

“I’ll get an extension wire that I have in my room and plug it in,” offered Mr. Swift, and while Mrs. Baggert was telling Mr. Newton that Tom would soon speak to him, Mr. Swift, with the help of Eradicate, quickly had an extension telephone rigged up at Tom’s bedside. Then the young inventor talked to the father of his business manager.

“Are you sure, Mr. Newton, that Ned isn’t in the house, sleeping his head off?” was Tom’s first question.

“No, he isn’t here,” was the worried answer. “When he didn’t come down to breakfast we didn’t think anything of it at first, as he was going to be at your place late, he said, and we wanted to let him get as much rest as he could.

“But when we looked into his room a little while ago to see how he was sleeping, he wasn’t there. His mother said that she hadn’t heard him come in during the night, but even then we weren’t alarmed. We thought he had spent the night with you, as he so often does.”

“No,” Tom said slowly, “Ned isn’t here. He left my laboratory somewhere around midnight and I thought he was going straight home. But wait a minute!” Tom exclaimed as a new idea came to him. “I just happened to think. He might have gone to see Miss Morton and have stayed there all night, being too tired to pull up and head for home.”

Ned Newton was engaged to Miss Morton and, more than once after calling there and finding himself stormbound, he had been persuaded by her parents to remain over night.

“I think you’ll find him there,” suggested Tom, though in his heart he remembered that Ned had said it was too late to go to see Helen. Besides, he had had no positive engagement with her. “Call up the Mortons,” was Tom’s final suggestion.

“I will,” agreed Mr. Newton. “Thanks.”

Tom had no sooner finished his breakfast, following the departure of Dr. Layton, than the extension telephone rang again, and once more Mr. Newton was on the line.

“Ned wasn’t at Helen’s,” the father of the mysteriously missing young man reported. “Oh, Tom, what do you think could have happened?”

The young inventor was at a loss for an answer. Rapidly he reviewed the situation in his mind. Ned had left the laboratory, he was sure of that—or, wait a moment, was he? He had not seen Ned go out, but had taken it for granted that such had occurred. Then Tom had puzzled a bit over his latest invention before starting for his house. Then had come the explosion and——

Perhaps Ned had not left the laboratory. He may have gone to one of the private rooms and turned in there. Tom kept two bedrooms in this building for the use of himself and his manager when they were working late at night and did not want to disturb the main household. That might be it. Ned might be asleep in the laboratory.

“Wait a few minutes, Mr. Newton,” Tom advised over the wire. “I have just thought of something. It is barely possible that Ned didn’t start for home after all last night. He isn’t at our house, but he may be in the laboratory. I’ll send out and have a search made. I’ll call you up in a few minutes.”

“All right, Tom. But what’s this I’ve heard about a fire at your place last night?”

“Oh, there was a little blaze—it didn’t amount to anything,” was the reply. Tom said nothing about the explosion. He wanted to minimize the damage, and he believed what had been told him, that it really did not amount to much.

“Koku,” he called to the giant, “you and Rad hurry out to my laboratory and look for Mr. Newton. He may be in one of the bedrooms, asleep.”

“Asleep, Tom, after that explosion?” exclaimed Mr. Swift incredulously.

The telephone receiver had been hung back on the hook, so Mr. Newton heard none of this talk.

“It doesn’t seem possible,” Tom had to admit to his father; “but still I can’t account for Ned’s disappearance in any other way. He was dead tired and he may have slept through the fire and explosion. We’ll soon find out. I wish I could go and take a look for myself.”

“No, you stay here!” his father ordered. “Obey the doctor’s advice. Koku and Rad will find Ned if he’s to be found.”

The giant and negro came back soon, to report that there was no sign of Ned in the laboratory.

“Perhaps he may have returned home by this time,” suggested Mr. Swift. “Better call up and find out.”

“There is just a bare possibility—” said Tom musingly, as he reached for the ’phone, “there is just a bare chance that Ned took the midnight train for New York to get the selenium.”

“Took the midnight train to get selenium!” exclaimed Mr. Swift. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I needed some more sensitive selenium for my—for my—new experiment,” Tom said, knowing his father would understand he was speaking of the talking-picture machine. “Ned knew about it and planned to go after it to-day. When he left me last night he may have decided suddenly to keep right on to New York. I think I’ll tell his father that.”

“Do you really believe it, Tom?”

“No, Dad, I don’t. But I don’t want Mr. Newton to give up hope until I can get on the job myself and help hunt for Ned. Even at that there is a bare chance he did go to New York. I’ll suggest that to his father.”

Mr. Newton received this ray of hope gratefully and Tom was glad he had thought of it, though he knew it was only a shadow. If Ned really had taken the midnight train, which was possible, there ought to come a message from him soon reporting on the selenium matter. Also, Ned, being a home-loving young man, would naturally be expected to send word to his family about his return.

“It will only hold matters back for a short time at best,” said Tom to his father. “But I didn’t imagine my laboratory was burned enough to destroy the bedrooms. Do you think there is much more damage, Jackson?”

“Not to your laboratory,” was the reassuring reply. “You see, after the explosion the flames shot up at the back before we knew it, and the draft sucked them in through the bedroom windows. So the upper part of the place was worse burned than the lower. But Ned Newton was not in there.”

“I’m glad of that,” Tom said.

He was beginning to feel the strain of what he had gone through, and he was glad when, a little later, Mary Nestor and her father motored over to see him.

Mr. Nestor had some time before taken a long trip North for his health, a trip that had greatly improved his condition.

“Oh, Tom, what happened?” exclaimed Mary when she saw him in bed, all bandaged up.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” he answered, with a smile. “It was like a premature Fourth of July celebration.”

“Are you much hurt?” the girl faltered.

“Nothing more than shock and scratches,” Tom answered. “I’ll be up and around in another day.”

However, it was three days before Dr. Layton would allow Tom to get out of bed. Meanwhile nothing had been heard from Ned Newton. He had not gone to New York, that was evident, unless something had happened to him there, and he was not around Shopton, the town on Lake Carlopa where the Swifts’ large plant was located.

“It’s mighty queer,” said the worried Mr. Newton, when Tom was forced to admit that his New York theory was useless. “Where could he be keeping himself?”

“I can’t imagine,” Tom said. He was much broken up over the disappearance of his chum. He knew Ned well enough to know that he was not staying away from choice, though Tom did not communicate his suspicions to Mr. Newton.

As soon as Tom was able, he went out to the laboratory. The scene of ruin on the lower floor was not so bad as he had feared, but the back and upper part of the laboratory was pretty well burned away. Then Tom had the improvised nailed-up door removed so he might enter the room where he had set up his talking-picture machine.

“I hope it’s all right,” the young inventor murmured as he approached the apparatus. “They said it was, after the fire and explosion, but——”

He gave a cry of dismay as he saw that, though the main part of the marvelous new machine was intact, the force of the explosion had wrecked the delicate mechanism that he depended on to prevent any but authorized owners of the apparatus from using it. Tom’s secret invention was badly damaged. In addition, all the new radio tubes, of a kind never before used, had been shattered by the blast.

“This sure is tough luck!” murmured Tom Swift. “This knocks me out! The fire wasn’t so bad, but the explosion—whew! This certainly is tough! But I’ll work double time and soon have it in shape again, and better than ever. Luckily, I have duplicate parts of that secret check apparatus, and I can get new tubes, though it will take time.”

“You’d better go slow, Tom,” advised his father, who had come into the partly wrecked private room with his son. “First thing you know, you’ll blow yourself to pieces with these experiments of yours.”

“It was no experiment of mine, Dad, that caused the explosion here!” said Tom decidedly.

“It wasn’t?”

“No. All my wires were in good shape. It was some outside force that did the damage. I believe some one planted an infernal machine in here, Dad!”

“You do, Tom? Whom do you suspect?”

“I—I hardly know what to say,” was the slow answer. “But I have one man in mind. Where’s Clark?” he asked suddenly, naming a young workman who was much in Tom’s confidence.

“I’ll send him to you,” Mr. Swift offered. “What’s the matter, Tom? What are you going to have Clark do?”

“Some detective work,” was the low answer.

CHAPTER IV

A STRANGE MESSAGE

Tom Swift sank wearily into a chair, facing his damaged talking-picture machine. That it was very seriously damaged was plainer to the eyes of the young inventor than to those even of his father, who was one of three persons aware of what great changes the new machine was destined to bring about. But Tom rallied and from the ruins of his invention saw mentally, rising like the fabled Phoenix from its own ashes, a new and better piece of apparatus.

“Maybe, after all,” mused Tom, “this will turn out better than it looked at first sight. I already have an idea for some improvements in the new machine I’m going to start—as soon as I’m able,” he added somewhat grimly.

“Tom, you’d better go back to bed!” exclaimed his father anxiously. “You know Dr. Layton said——”

“Oh, I’m all right!” protested the young inventor. “I’m going slow. I do feel a bit pulled out, but I don’t intend to do any work. However, I’m on the track of something, and it’s got to be followed up.”

“Then you think this was deliberately done, Tom?” asked Mr. Swift as he finished sending a message to have Jim Clark sent to Tom’s private quarters.

“I’m almost positive of it,” was the reply. “And I have under suspicion a certain man.”

“Who?” asked Mr. Swift in a low voice, making sure no one was near the shattered door.

“Greenbaum,” was the equally low answer.

“Why, I thought he was one of your best workers, Tom!” exclaimed Mr. Swift in surprise.

“So he is, in his own particular line. But now that I think matters over, I see that there is a chance he had something to do with this explosion. He was here in the laboratory just before it happened. He and I and Ned Newton were the only ones here, as a matter of fact. Ned has disappeared, and that’s worrying me, but I’ll come to that feature in due time. I guess Ned can look after himself, though his disappearance is certainly mysterious, coupled with everything else that’s happened. But when I stop to think about Greenbaum being here just before the explosion——”

“But, Tom,” interrupted his father, “I thought you said Greenbaum went before you locked up and came home.”

“Apparently he did. But he may have come back. That’s what I want Clark to do—a bit of detective work to find out if Greenbaum went to his boarding house and stayed there. If he did——”

The entrance, at that moment, of the young workman in whom Tom placed much confidence brought a sudden end to the talk.

“You sent for me, Mr. Swift?” asked Clark, with a smile. “Is it about the new negative gravity machine I’m working on?”

“Not this time, Clark,” answered Tom, motioning the young fellow to take a chair near the scorched desk which was not far from the shattered talking-picture machine. That apparatus had, however, been covered from prying eyes. “I want you to do a bit of detective work, if you will,” went on the young inventor.

Without telling just why he wanted the information, Tom instructed his agent to find out in secret something about Greenbaum, seeking to learn just what the man did on the night of the explosion.

“I get you!” exclaimed Clark, with ready wit. “I’m wise all right. I’ll shadow him if you want me to.”

“No, don’t dog him,” objected Tom. “Just trace his movements. You can tell your foreman you’re working for me and it will be all right.”

With Clark dispatched on this mission, Tom took from the partial wreck of his new apparatus such pieces as were vital for rebuilding it and then, asking his father to have the laboratory cleaned up and put in working shape again, Tom went back to his bedroom.

Truth to tell, he was pretty well fagged out, not so much physically as mentally. The shock both to his hopes and his body, as well as worry over Ned’s disappearance, was beginning to tell.

“Hadn’t you better give this up, Tom?” asked his father as, having set men to putting the laboratory to rights, he went to his son’s room where he found Tom stretched out on a long sofa.

“Give what up, Dad? You mean trying to find out who blew me up and why Ned is missing? Give those problems up?”

“No, I mean work on this new talking-picture machine of yours. I don’t believe it will ever work, Tom.”

“But it has worked, Dad!” exclaimed the young man, with enthusiasm. “Only about an hour before Ned left and the explosion happened, I got a pretty fine record of what Ned did in the theater room,” for so Tom called the apartment with its battery of bright lights where the young manager had sung and danced.

“You heard Ned’s voice?” asked Mr. Swift.

“Perfectly,” declared Tom. “Saw him, too. But the vision was not as clear as it’s got to be to make this a commercial success. But I know how to improve it, and I’m going to. I can’t give that up, Dad!”

“It might be better if you did, Tom.”

“Better? How?”

“Well, for your own safety. You’re using powerful electrical currents and you’ve had one explosion already; so——”

“But didn’t I tell you, Dad,” and Tom smiled tolerantly, “that this explosion was none of my doing? Nothing went wrong with the wires. They were all in shape and I was just opening the door when something went off. It was something that was set, too—a bomb, if I guess aright.”

“All the more reason for giving it up, Tom.”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

“I mean that perhaps some one, or perhaps a number of persons, don’t want this new invention to succeed. Think what it will mean to the moving picture industry if you can give people in their own homes entertainment such as the big theaters present. And where will the theaters come out if their high-priced shows can be picked up by every one who buys one of your machines?”

“That’s their lookout,” said Tom. “It was said that the radio would kill the phonograph; and it nearly did, but the phonograph folks came back strong.”

“This is different, Tom.”

“Yes, I know it is—different and better. No, I’m not going to back out, bombs or no bombs! Besides, Dad, you must realize that we are in this thing pretty deep.”

“Deep, Tom? What do you mean?”

“I mean we have a large amount of money tied up in this thing—more than I like to think about. I’ve just got to come through with it to break even.”

“Well, Tom, I suppose you know best,” said the aged inventor, with rather a weary smile. “But be careful of yourself.”

When Mrs. Baggert had put new bandages on some of Tom’s burns and he had taken a little rest, he called up Ned’s home, only to learn that no word had come from him. His parents were greatly worried, for Ned was not selfish and was not the kind of young man to remain long away from home without sending word.

“He may have decided to take a little unannounced vacation,” Tom told Mr. Newton, “and have gone to the country. He may have sent word and the letter or the message has failed to arrive. Shall I notify the police?”

“No, not yet,” decided Mr. Newton. “Ned may be all right and he’d hate any police notoriety. We’ll wait a few days.”

The few days that followed were anxious ones, not only for Ned’s parents, but also for Tom Swift. He had a double worry, divided between the disappearance of his trusted chum and manager and concern over the wreck of his new apparatus. The latter worry was more easily disposed of, however, though it meant hard work and delay.

Tom set some of his most trusted men at the labor of reconstructing the new apparatus, but in such a way that the secret could not be come at. Only certain unimportant parts were given out, and Tom and his father would make the more vital sections.

Since Tom already had on the market a telephoto machine and had also made several varieties of moving picture projectors, it was not a hard matter to let it casually be known that the new apparatus was an attempt to improve either or both of the old inventions. Thus was gossip stilled about the big Swift plant.

Tom, however, did not know what to think about Greenbaum. The day after the explosion the man was lamenting loudly that some of his own experimental apparatus, which he was working on for the Swift firm, had been destroyed in the fire and blast.

“And,” said Tom, telling his father about it, “since I have promised him a large bonus if he works out that magnetic gear shift, it doesn’t seem reasonable that he would set a bomb that might destroy the results of his own hard work.”

“No, Tom, it doesn’t.”

“And yet I can’t help suspecting him,” mused the young inventor. “He is as friendly as ever, and seems anxious to help me. But there is something furtive in his manner and in his looks.”

“Did Clark find out anything?”

“Only that Greenbaum went straight to his boarding place from here and did not go out again that night. He was at home when the explosion took place.”

“Then that clears him, Tom.”

“No, Dad, it doesn’t. He could easily have planted a time bomb or rigged one up that was operated when I opened the door. I shall still suspect him. But I’ve got something else to do now.”

“What is that?”

“I want to see how Jackson is coming on with the new radio tubes he is making for the talking-picture machine and I’ve got to do something about Ned. His unexplained absence for so long a time is getting serious now. It doesn’t seem possible that he is remaining away voluntarily without sending some word.”

“No, Tom, it doesn’t. What do you think?” and Mr. Swift looked up from his work. He was making some delicate tests with a galvanometer in the laboratory, which had been cleaned out and temporarily fitted up to be used again.

“I’m thinking, Dad, that perhaps Ned, in some way, was concerned with the fire and explosion.”

“Tom! You don’t mean that Ned——”

“Oh, of course I don’t mean that he set it, Dad!” and Tom laughed at his father’s shocked face. “I mean that the same rascals who tried to blow me up kidnapped Ned.”

“Kidnapped a young man like Ned Newton! A strong, husky chap——”

“They may have caught him napping,” said Tom. “Anyhow, I’ve got to do something. Ned’s folks are much worried.”

“Why don’t you go to the police?”

“I think a private detective would be better. Or, best of all, I’ll get Clark and set out on the trail myself. I’ve got things begun on the rebuilding of my new machine now, and I’ve really got to do something about Ned.”

“I agree with you, Tom. I was just wondering——”

What he wondered Mr. Swift never stated, as at that moment a voice was heard out in the corridor, saying:

“Bless my storage battery, you needn’t show me the way in, Eradicate! I guess I can find Tom Swift, or what’s left of him! My! My! It must have been terrible! Bless my stick of dynamite! So they tried to blow Tom up!”

“It’s Mr. Damon!” said Mr. Swift, smiling at his son.

“No need for him to send in a card!” chuckled the young inventor. “His voice and talk give him away. Come in, Mr. Damon!” he called, and the door opened to give entrance to the eccentric, kindly old gentleman who, indirectly, had been the means of Tom’s starting on his great inventive career.

“Bless my handkerchief, Tom!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, vigorously mopping his face with the linen article in question, while he held out one hand to the young inventor. “What’s all this I hear about you? I just got back from a Western trip and my wife tells me you were blown sky high, that your plant was demolished, and that the whole business is in ruins. Bless my insurance policies! Whew!”

“Not quite so bad as that,” Tom answered, with a laugh.

“But something happened, bless my thermometer if it didn’t!” declared Mr. Damon, pointing to a bandage on Tom’s left hand.