Curlie Carson Listens In
R >> Roy J. Snell >> Curlie Carson Listens InCURLIE CARSON LISTENS IN
by
ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
Printed in the United States of America
Copyright, 1922
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved
Curlie Carson Listens In
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A STRANGE MESSAGE 9
II SOMETHING BIG 20
III A WHISPER IN THE NIGHT 34
IV A GAME FOR TWO 46
V IN THE DARK 55
VI A REAL DISCOVERY 64
VII CURLIE RECEIVES A SHOCK 75
VIII CURLIE MEETS A MILLIONAIRE 84
IX A MYSTERIOUS MAP 95
X THE FIRST LAP OF A LONG JOURNEY 107
XI "MANY BARBARIANS AND MUCH GOLD" 117
XII OUT TO SEA IN A COCKLESHELL 126
XIII A GHOST WALKS 134
XIV THE COMING STORM 141
XV S. O. S. 151
XVI A CONFESSION 160
XVII A BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT 170
XVIII THE STORMY PETREL GETS AN ANSWER 177
XIX THE MAP'S SECRET 185
XX A SEA ABOVE A SEA 194
XXI THE BOATS ARE GONE 203
XXII THE WRECK OF THE KITTLEWAKE 211
XXIII THE MIRACLE 219
XXIV THE STORY OF THE MAP 227
XXV OFF ON ANOTHER WILD CHASE 234
CURLIE CARSON LISTENS IN
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE MESSAGE
Behind locked and barred doors, surrounded by numberless
mysterious-looking instruments, sat Curlie Carson. To the right of him
was a narrow window. Through that window, a dizzy depth below, lay the
city. Its square, flat roofs formed a mammoth checker-board. Between the
squares criss-crossed the narrow black streets. Like a white chalk-line,
drawn by a careless child, the river wound its crooked way across this
checker-board.
To the left of him was a second narrow window. Through this he caught
the dark gleam of the broad waters of Lake Michigan. Here and there
across the surface twinkled the lamps of a vessel, or flashed the
warning beacon of a lighthouse.
A boy in his late teens was Curlie. Slender, dark, with coal-black eyes,
with curls of the same hue clinging tightly to his well-shaped head, he
had the strong profile and the smooth tapering fingers that might belong
to an artist, a pickpocket or a detective.
An artist Curlie was, an artist in his line--radio. Although still a
boy, he was already an operator of the "commercial, extra first-class"
type. So far as license and title were concerned, he could go no higher.
A pickpocket he was not, but a detective he might be thought to be; a
strange type of detective, however, a detective of the air; the kind
that sits in a small room hundreds of feet in air and listens; listens
to the schemes, the plots, the counterplots of men and to the wild
babble of fools. His task was that of aiding in the capture of knaves
and the silencing of foolish folks who used the newly-discovered
radiophone as their mouthpiece.
"Foolish people," Major Whittaker, Curlie's superior, who had called
him to the service, had said, "do quite as much damage to the radio
service as crooks. Fools and knaves must alike be punished and your task
will be to help catch them."
Wonderful ears had Curlie Carson, perhaps the most wonderful ears in the
world. In catching the fine shadings of diminishing sounds which came to
him through the radio compass, there was not a man who could excel him.
So Curlie sat there surrounded by wire-wrapped frames, coils, keys,
buttons, switches, motors, dry-cells, storage batteries and all the odds
and ends which made up the equipment of the most perfect listening-in
station in the world.
As he sat there with Joe Marion, his pal, by his side, his brow was
wrinkled in thought. He was reviewing the events of the previous night.
At 1:00 a.m., the witching hour when the crooked ones, the mean ones,
come creeping forth like ghosts to carry on doubtful conversations by
radio, a strange thing had happened. A message had gone crashing out
through space. Wave lengths 1200 meters long sped it on its way. There
was power enough behind it to carry it from pole to pole, but all it had
said was:
"A slight breeze from the west."
Three times the message had been repeated, then had come silence. There
had been no answer though Curlie had listened long for it on 1200 meter
wave lengths and five other lengths as well.
Sudden as had come the message, fleet as had been its passing, it had
not been too fleet for Curlie. He had compassed its direction; measured
its distance. On a map of the city which lay before him he had made a
pencil cross and said:
"It came from there." And he was right for, strange as it may seem, an
expert such as Curlie can sit in a hidden tower room such as his was and
detect the exact location of a station whose message has set his ear
drums aquiver.
The location had puzzled him. There was not a station in the city
licensed to send 1200 meter wave lengths. The spot he had marked was the
location of the city's most magnificent apartment hotel. The hotel
possessed a radiophone set. Its antennae, hung high upon the building's
roof, were capable of carrying that 1200 meter message with all that
power behind it, but the radio equipment of the hotel had no such power.
"Something crooked about that," he had mumbled to himself.
His first impulse had been to call the police. He did not act upon it.
They might blunder. The thing might get out. This law-breaker might
escape. Not five people in all the world knew of Curlie's detecting
station. He would work out this problem alone.
Now, as he sat thinking of it, he decided to confide this new secret to
his pal, Joe Marion.
"Yes," he told himself, "I'll tell him about it at chow."
At this moment his mind was recalled to other matters. New trouble was
brewing.
"A slight breeze from the west," his mind went over the message
automatically, "and the wind was due east. Don't mean much as it stands,
but I suspect means a lot more than it seems to."
Just above Curlie's head there hung a receiver. To the right and left of
him were two loud-speakers. Before him ranged three others. Each one of
these was tuned to a certain wave length, 200, 350, 500, 600, 1200
meters. Each was modulated down until sounds came to Curlie's delicately
tuned ear drums as little more than whispers. A concert was being
broadcast on 350. The booming tones of a baritone had been coming in as
softly and sweetly as a mother's lullaby. But now Curlie's ear detected
interference.
Instantly he was all alert. The receiver was clamped down over his ears,
a half dozen switches were sent, snap, snap, snap. There followed a dead
silence. Then in a shrill boyish voice, together with the baritone's
renewal of his song, there came:
"I want the world to know that I am a wireless operator, op-er-a-a-tor.
Hoop-la! Tra-la!"
Curlie smiled in spite of his vexation. He acted quickly and with
precision. His slender fingers guided a coil-wound frame from right to
left. Backward and forward it glided, and as it moved the boyish
"Hoop-la" rose and fell. Almost instantly it came to a standstill.
"There! That's it!" he breathed.
Then to Joe Marion, "It's a shame about those kids. They won't learn to
play the game square. Don't know the rules and don't care. Think we
can't catch 'em, I guess."
His hand went out for a telephone.
"Superior 2231," he purred.
"That you, 2231? Just a moment."
He touched a key here, another there. He twisted a knob there, then:
"That you, Mulligan?" he half whispered. "Good! There's a kid on your
beat got a wireless running wild. Yes. Broke in on the concert. Don't be
hard on him. No license? Yes, guess that's right. Take away his sending
set. Give him another chance? Let him listen in. What's that? Location?
Clarendon Street, near Orton Place; about second door, I'd say. That's
all right. Thanks, yourself."
Dropping the receiver on its hook he tossed off his headpiece, snapped
at five buttons, then settled back in his chair.
"These kids'll be the death of me yet," he grumbled. "Always breaking
in, not meaning any harm but doing harm all the same. I don't feel so
very sore about them though. It's the fellows that go in for long wave
lengths and high power, that break in on 500, 1200 and 1800, that do the
real damage. Had a queer case last night. Looks crooked, too." He was
silent for a moment then he said reflectively:
"Guess that's about all till midnight. It's after midnight that the
queer birds come creeping out. I'm going to tell you about that one last
night, over the ham sandwich, dill pickle and coffee. No use to try
now--we'd sure get broken in on."
Joe Marion, who had been taken on as an understudy by Curlie, was at the
present time working without pay. At times when trouble developed on
two different wave lengths at once, he took a hand and helped out. For
the most part he merely looked, listened and learned.
His pal he held in the greatest admiration. And who would not? Had he
not, when this great big new thing, the radiophone, came leaping right
into the world from nowhere, been able to take a hand from the very
beginning and become at once a valuable servant of his beloved country?
Had he not at times detected meddlers who were endangering the lives of
men upon the high seas? Had he not at one time received the highest of
commendations from the great chief of this secret service of the air?
To Joe there was something weirdly fascinating about the whole business.
Here they were, two boys in the tower of the highest building in a great
city. Five people knew of their presence. These five were high up in the
radio secret service. No message sent out by them could ever be traced
back to its source. They did not use the air. That would be dangerous,
easily traced. They did not use the telephone alone. That, too, would be
dangerous. But when a radiophone had been connected to the telephone
wire and tuned to a certain wave length, then they talked and not even
the person they talked with would ever know whence came the message.
This was a necessary precaution for, from this very tower, dangerous
bands of criminals, gangs of smugglers, and all other types of
law-breakers would ultimately be brought to justice. And if these but
knew of the presence of this boy in his tower room, some dark night that
tower would be rocked by an exploding bomb and the boy in his room would
be shaken to earth like a young mud-wasp in his nest.
"I'll tell you," said Curlie, as he rose to answer a tap on the door, "I
believe that affair last night was some big thing; but what it was I
can't even guess."
He opened the door to let in Coles Masters, his relief, then motioning
to Joe he took his cap and left the room. Down the winding stairs which
led to the elevator several stories lower down they made their way in
silence, at last to enter a cage and be silently dropped to the ground
hundreds of feet below.
CHAPTER II
SOMETHING BIG
"You see," Curlie began as he crossed his slim legs beside a small table
in an all-night lunch room, buried somewhere in the deep recesses of
this same skyscraper, "that fellow sent the message about the easterly
breeze that blew west and I located the station at that hotel. This
morning I went over to see how the place looked. It's a wonderful hotel,
that one; palm garden in the middle of it, marble columns, fountain,
painted sheet iron ceiling that'd make you dizzy to look at, and the
finest dressed people you ever saw walking around everywhere.
"Well, I found my way to the sending room of the radiophone and right
away the operator wanted to throw me out; said I was a fresh kid and
all that. But when I showed him my papers, he calmed down a lot and
showed me everything he had.
"I saw right away it wasn't his equipment that had sent that
message--that'd be like sending a Big Bertha bomb into Paris with a
twenty-two caliber rifle. He just naturally didn't have the power,
that's all. So I didn't tell him anything about it; just walked out and
went around back to where I could see the way his wires ran from the
sending room to the antenna.
"I hadn't any more than got there and had one look-up when along strolls
a man who wants to know what I'm looking at. I saw right away that he
wasn't a hotel employee for he didn't wear either a bandmaster's uniform
nor a cutaway coat, so I just smiled and said:
"Got a girl friend up there on the sixteenth floor. She's leaving this
morning and arranged to drop her trunk down to me so's not to have to
tip the porter.
"Well, sir, I hadn't more than said that than a girl did pop her head
out of a sixteenth floor window and stare straight down at me.
"The fellow actually dodged. Guess he thought the trunk was due any
minute.
"Funny part of it was the girl actually seemed interested in me, just as
if she had met me somewhere before. Of course she was too high up for me
to tell what she was like, but it made me mighty curious. I counted the
windows to right and left so I could find that room if I wanted to. The
window was only the third to the right from where the lead wire to the
antenna went up.
"Well, then, that fellow--"
"Mr. Carson?" a voice interrupted Curlie. "Anyone here by the name of
Carson?" It came from the desk-clerk of the eating place.
"That's me," exclaimed Curlie, jumping up.
"Telephone."
"All right. Be back in a minute, Joe." Curlie was away to answer the
call.
"'Lo. That you, Curlie?" came through the receiver. "This is Coles
Masters. Got a bad case--extra bad. Can't understand it. Fellow's
sending 600 meter waves, with enough power to cross the Atlantic."
"Six hundred!" exclaimed Curlie in a tense whisper. "Why, that's what
they use for S.O.S. at sea! It's criminal. Endangers every ship in
distress. Five years in prison for it. Get him, can't you?"
"Can't. That's the trouble. Every time I think I've got him spotted he
seems to move."
"To move!"
"Yes, sir."
"That's queer! I'll be up right away."
"Come on," exclaimed Curlie, grabbing his hat and dragging Joe to his
feet. "It's a big one. Moves, he says. Sends 600; big power. Bet it's
that same hotel fellow. Gee whiz! Supposing it turned out to be that
sixteenth story girl and she caught me spying on her. I tell you it's
something big!"
Impatient at the slowness of the up-shooting elevator, Curlie at last
leaped out before the iron door at the top was half open, then two
steps at a time sprang up a flight of stairs. Out of breath, he arrived
at the final landing, sprang through the door to the secret tower room,
then seizing his headpiece, sank into a chair.
By a single move of the hand, Coles Masters indicated the radio-compass
he had been listening in on.
"That's where he was, last time he spoke," he grumbled, "but no telling
where he'll be next. He's been dodging all over that stretch of
country."
Curlie's fingers moved rapidly. He adjusted the coil of a radio-compass
here, another there and still another here. He twisted the knob of each
to the 600 mark, then, twisting the tuning knobs, lined them all up to
receive on the same wave length. The winding of each was set at a
slightly different angle from any other.
"That about covers him," he mumbled. "Get the distance?"
"Near as I could make out," said Coles Masters, "it was from ten to
fifteen miles. He moves toward us, then away at times, just as he does
to right and left."
"Hm," sighed Curlie, resting his chin on his hands. "That's a new dodge,
this moving business. Complicates things, that does."
For a time he sat in a brown study. At last he spoke again, this time
quite as much to himself as to the other:
"Folks don't move unless they have a way to move. That fellow has some
means of locomotion. Anyway," he sighed, "it's not our friend of the big
hotel unless--unless he or she or whoever it is has taken to locomotion,
and that's not likely. Not the same side of the city. Out near the
forest preserve."
"Yes, or a little beyond," said Coles.
"What do you think," asked Curlie suddenly, "has he got an automobile or
an airplane?"
"Can't tell," said Coles thoughtfully. "You can't really judge distances
in air accurately. There are powerful equipments which might be mounted
on either automobiles or airplanes."
"The thing that puzzled me, though, was his line of chatter. All about
some 'map, old French,' and a lot of stuff like that. I--"
Suddenly he broke off. A grinding sound had come from one of the loud
speakers. There followed in a clear, strong voice:
"Map O.K. Old French is amazing. Good for a million."
Curlie's fingers were busy once more as a tense look drew his forehead
into a scowl.
"About fifteen miles," he whispered.
Then the voice resumed:
"Time up the bird. When?"
A tense silence ensued. Then, faint, as if from far away, yet very
distinctly there came the single word:
"Wednesday." This was followed by three letters distinctly pronounced:
"L.C.W."
A second later came the strong voice in answer: "A.C.S."
"That," said Curlie as he settled back in his chair, "in my estimation
ends the night's entertainment. But the nerve of the fellow!" he
exploded. "Sending that kind of rot on six hundred. Why, at this very
moment some disabled ship might be struggling in a storm on the Great
Lakes or even on the Atlantic, and this jumble of words would muddle up
their message so its meaning would be lost and the ship with it. The
worst I could wish for such a fellow is that he be dropped into the sea
with some means of keeping afloat but with neither food nor drink and a
ship nowhere in sight."
If Curlie had known how exactly this wish was to be granted in the days
that were to come, he might have experienced some strange sensations.
He straightened up and placed a dot on the map before him.
"That's where he was. I'll motor out in the morning and have a look at
things. May discover some clew."
Curlie was a bright American boy of the very best type. Like most
American boys who do not have riches thrust upon them, when he wanted a
thing he made it or made a way to get it. Three years previous he had
wanted an automobile--wanted it awfully. And his total capital had been
$49.63. He had been wanting that car for some time when an express train
hit a powerful roadster on a crossing near his home.
Having flocked in with the throng to view the twisted remains of the
car, he had been struck with an idea. This idea he had put into action.
The railroad had settled with the owner for the car. They had the wreck
of it on their hands. Curlie bought it for twenty-five dollars.
To his great delight he had found the powerful motor practically
uninjured. The driving gear too, with the exception of one cog wheel,
was in workable order. The remainder of the car he sold to a junk dealer
for five dollars. It was twisted and broken beyond redemption.
He had next searched about for a discarded chassis on which to mount his
gears and motor. This search rewarded, he had proceeded to assemble his
car. And one fine day he sailed out upon the street with the "Humming
Bird," as he had named her.
"Better call her 'Gravel Car,'" Joe had said when he saw that she had no
body at all and that he must ride with his feet thrust straight out
before him in a homemade seat bolted to a buckboard-like platform.
But when, on a level stretch of road, Curlie had "let her out," Joe had
at once acquired an immense respect for the Humming Bird. "For," he said
later, "she can hum and she can go like a streak of light, and that's
about all any humming bird can do."
No further messages of importance having drifted in to him from the
outer air, Curlie, an hour before dinner, made his way down to the
street and, having warmed up the Humming Bird's motor, muttered as he
sprang into the seat: "I'll just run out there and see what I see."
A half hour later, just as the first gray streak of dawn was appearing,
he curved off onto a gravel road. Here he threw his car over to one side
and, switching on a flashlight, steered with one hand while he bent
over the side to examine the left-hand track.
There had been a light rain at ten that night. Since that time a heavy
car with diamond-tread tires had passed along the road, leaving its
tracks in certain soft, sandy spots.
"Maybe that's him," Curlie murmured.
A little farther on, stopping his machine, he got out and walked along
the road. Examining the surface closely, he walked on for five rods,
then wheeled about and made his way back to the car.
"He was over this road three times last night. That looks like a warm
scent. Can't tell, though. My friend might not have been in a car at
all; might have been in a plane.
"We'll have a look at the very spot." He twirled the wheel and was away.
A half mile farther down the road, he paused to look at a map. "Not
quite here," he murmured. "About a quarter mile farther."
The car crept over another quarter of a mile. When he again came to a
halt he found himself on a stretch of paved road. "This is the spot
from which the last message was sent. Tough luck!" he muttered. "Can't
tell a thing here."
Glancing to his right, he sat up with a start. He had suddenly become
aware of the fact that he was just before the gate of the estate of J.
Anson Ardmore, reputed to be the richest man of the city.
"Huh!" Curlie grunted. "Car must have stood about here when that last
message was sent. Maybe it went up that lane. Maybe it didn't, too. J.
Anson's got a son, about my age I guess. Vincent they call him. He might
be up to something. There's a girl, too, sixteen or so. Can't tell what
these rich folks will do."
He stepped down the rich man's private drive, but here the surface of
crushed stone was so perfectly kept that no telltale mark was to be
seen.
He did not venture far, as he had no relish for being caught trespassing
on such an estate without some good explanation for his conduct. Just at
that moment he had no desire to explain.
As he turned to go back, he caught the thud-thud of hoof beats along the
private drive.
Fortunately the abundant shrubbery hid him from view. Hardly had he
reached the machine and assumed the attitude of one hunting trouble in
his engine when a girl rounded a corner at full gallop.
Dressed in full riding costume and mounted on a blooded horse, she swung
along as graceful as a lark. As she came into the public highway she
flashed Curlie a look and a smile. Then she was gone.
Curlie liked the smile even if it did come from one of the "four
hundred."
"Gee! Old Humming Bird," he exclaimed as he patted his car, "did she
mean that smile for you or for me? So there might be a girl in the case,
same as there seems to be in that one over at the hotel? Girl in most
every case. What if she sent those messages and I found her out? That
would sure be tough.
"But business is business!" He set his mouth grimly. "You can't fool
with old Uncle Sam, not when you're endangering the lives of some of
his bravest sons at sea."
He threw in the clutch and drove slowly along the road. Twice he paused
to examine the tracks made the night before. Each time he discovered
marks of the diamond tread.
"That radiophone was mounted on a car," he decided; "I'll stake my life
on that. Now if he keeps it up, how am I to catch him?"
CHAPTER III
A WHISPER IN THE NIGHT
The next night found Curlie in the secret tower room alone. Joe Marion
was away helping to run down a case of "malicious interference."
It was curious business, this work of the radio secret service. Though
he had been at it for months, Curlie had never quite got used to it. A
detective he was in the truest sense of the word, yet how different from
the kind one reads about in books.
He laughed as he thought of it now. Then as his tapering fingers
adjusted a screw, his brow became suddenly wrinkled in thought. He was
troubled by the two cases which had lately developed: the one at the
hotel and that other, the station that moved. How was he to locate that
powerful secret station in the hotel? How was he to discover the owner
of that mysterious moving radio? He could not answer these questions.
And yet somehow they must be answered. He knew that.
The operator in the hotel was sending on 1200 meter wave lengths. State
messages were constantly being sent across the Atlantic on 1200;
messages of the greatest importance. There was a conference of nations
at that moment going on in Europe. America's representative must be kept
in constant touch with the government officials at Washington. If this
person at the hotel persisted in sending messages on 1200 meter wave
lengths an important message might at any moment be blurred or lost.
Not less important was the breaking in of this moving operator on 600.
This was the wave length used by ships and by harbor stations. Great
steamships sometimes waited for hours to get a message ashore on 600. If
this person were to be allowed to break in upon them they might wait
hours longer. Thousands of dollars would be lost. And then, as we have
said before, the message of some ship in distress might be lost because
of this person's interference.