Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone Part 28

"Yes," answered Mrs. Damon. "It was just about this hour, Tom. Oh, I do hope--"

She was interrupted by the jingle of the telephone bell. With a jump Tom was at the auxiliary instrument, while Mrs. Damon lifted off the receiver of her own telephone.

"Yes; what is it?" she asked, in a voice that she tried to make calm.

"Do you know who this is?" Tom heard come over the wire.

"Are you the--er--the person who was to give me an address where I am to send certain papers?"

"Yes. I'm the same one. I'm glad to see that you have acted sensibly. If I get the papers all right, you'll soon have your husband back. Now do as I say. Take down this address."

"Very well," a.s.sented Mrs. Damon. She looked over at Tom. He was intently listening, and he, too, would note the address given. The trap was about to be sprung. The game had walked into it. Just which telephone was being used Tom could not as yet tell. It was evidently not the one nearest the planing mill, for Tom could not hear the buzzing sound. It was well he had put his attachment on several instruments.

"One moment, please," said Mrs. Damon, to the unknown at the other end of the wire. This was in accordance with the pre-arranged plan.

"Well, what is it?" asked the man, impatiently. "I have no time to waste."

Tom heard again the same gruff tones, and he tried in vain to recognize them.

"I want you take down a message to Mr. Damon," said his wife.

"This is very important. It can do you no harm to give him this message; but I want you to get it exact. If you do not promise to deliver it I shall call all negotiations off."

"Oh, all right I'll take the message; but be quick about it. Then I'll give you the address where you are to send the papers."

"This is the message," went on Mrs. Damon. "Please write it down.

It is very important to me. Have you a pencil?"

"Yes, I have one. Wait until I get a bit of paper. It's so dark in this booth--wait until I turn on the light."

Tom could not repress a pleased and joyful exclamation. It was just what he had hoped the man would do--turn on the light in the booth. Indeed, it was necessary for the success of the trap that the light be switched on. Otherwise no picture could be transmitted over the wire. And the plan of having the man write down a message to Mr. Damon was arranged with that end in view.

The man would need a light to see to write, and Tom's apparatus must be lighted in order to make it work. The plot was coming along finely.

"There!" exclaimed the man at the other end of the wire. "I have a light now. Go ahead with your message, Mrs. Damon. But make it short. I can't stay here long."

Then Mrs. Damon began dictating the message she and Tom had agreed upon. It was as long as they dared make it, for they wanted to keep the man in the booth to the last second.

"Dear Husband," began Mrs. Damon. What the message was does not matter. It has nothing to do with this story. Sufficient to say that the moment the man began writing it down, as Tom could tell over the sensitive wire, by the scratching of the pencil--at that moment Tom, knowing the light was on in the distant telephone booth, switched on the picture-taking apparatus. His receiving apparatus at once indicated that the image was being made on the sensitive plate.

It took only a few seconds of time, and with the plate in the holder Tom hastened to the dark room to develop it. Ned took his chum's place at the telephone, to see that all worked smoothly.

The photo telephone had done it's work. Whose image would be found imprinted on the sensitive plate? Tom's hands trembled so that he could scarcely put it in the developing solution.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ESCAPE

Ned Newton, listening at the auxiliary telephone heard the man, to whom Mrs. Damon was dictating her message to her husband, utter an exclamation of impatience.

"I'm afraid I can't take down any more," he called. "That is enough. Now you listen. I want you to send me those papers."

"And I am willing to," went on Mrs. Damon, while Ned listened to the talk, the phonograph faithfully recording it.

"I wonder whose picture Tom will find," mused Ned.

The unknown, at the other end of the wire, began giving Mrs. Damon a description of just what papers he wanted, and how to mail them to him. He gave an address that Ned recognized as that of a cigar store, where many persons received their mail under a.s.sumed names.

The postal authorities had, for a long time, tried to get evidence against it.

"That's going to make it hard to get him, when he comes for the papers," thought Ned. "He's a foxy criminal, all right. But I guess Tom will turn the trick."

Mrs. Damon was carefully noting down the address. She really intended to send the papers, if it proved that there was no other way in which she could secure the release of her husband. But she did not count on all of Tom's plans. "Why doesn't he develop that plate?" thought Ned. "He'll be too late, in spite of his airship.

That fellow will skip."

It was at that moment that Tom came into the library. He moved cautiously, for he realized that a loud sound in the room would carry to the man at the other end of the wire. Tom motioned for Ned to come to him. He held out a dripping photographic plate.

"It's Peters!" said Tom, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Peters?" gasped Ned. "How could it be? His voice--"

"I know. It didn't sound a bit like Peters over the 'phone, but there's his picture, all right!"

Tom held up the plate. There, imprinted on it by the wonderful power of the young inventor's latest appliance, was the image of the rascally promoter. As plainly as in life he was shown, even to his silk hat and the flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole. He was in a telephone booth--that much could be told from the photograph that had been transmitted over the wire, but which booth could not be said--they were nearly all alike.

"Peters!" gasped Ned. "I thought he was the fellow, Tom."

"Yes, I know. You were right, and I was wrong. But I did not recognize his voice. It was very hoa.r.s.e. He must have a bad cold."

Later this was learned to have been the case. "There's no time to lose," whispered Tom, while Mrs. Damon was doing her best to prolong the conversation in order to hold the man at the other end of the wire. "Ned, get central on the other telephone, and see where this call came from. Then we'll get there as fast as the airship will take us."

A second and temporary telephone line had been installed in the Damon home, and on this Ned was soon talking, while Tom, putting the photographic plate away for future use, rushed out to get his airship in shape for a quick flight. He had modified his plans.

Instead of having a detective take a print of the photo telephone image, and make the arrest, Tom was going to try to capture Peters himself. He believed he could do it. One look at the wet plate was enough. He knew Peters, though it upset some of his theories to learn that it was the promoter who was responsible for Mr. Damon's disappearance.

The man at the other end of the wire was evidently getting impatient. Possibly he suspected some trick. "I've got to go now,"

he called to Mrs. Damon. "If I don't get those papers in the morning it will be the worse for Mr. Damon."

"Oh, I'll send you the papers," she said.

By this time Ned had gotten into communication with the manager of the central telephone exchange, and had learned the location of the instrument Peters was using. It was about a mile from the one near the sawmill.

"Come on!" called Tom to his chum, as the latter gave him this information. "The Firefly is tuned up for a hundred miles an hour!

We'll be there in ten minutes! We must catch him red-handed, if possible!"

"He's gone!" gasped Mrs. Damon as she came to the outer door, and watched Tom and Ned taking their places in the airship, while Koku prepared to twirl the propellers.

"Gone!" echoed Tom, blankly.