Inside I saw a sheet of flame fifteen or twenty feet long—it was a veritable artificial bolt of lightning. A man with a telescope had been peering out of the window, but now was facing us in surprise.
“Lamar,” shouted Kennedy, drawing a pistol, “one motion of your hand and you are a dead man. Stand still where you are. You are caught red-handed.”
The rest of us shrank back in momentary fear of the gigantic forces of nature which seemed let loose in the room. The thought, in my mind at least, was: Suppose this arch-fiend should turn his deadly power on us?
Kennedy saw us from the corner of his eye. “Don’t be afraid,” he said with just a curl to his lip. “I’ve seen all this before. It won’t hurt you. It’s a high frequency current. The man has simply appropriated the invention of Mr. Nikola Tesla. Seize him. He won’t struggle. I’ve got him covered.”
Two burly Pinkertons leaped forward gingerly into the midst of the electrical apparatus, and in less time than it takes to write it Lamar was hustled out to the doorway, each arm pinioned back of him.
As we stood, half dazed by the suddenness of the turn of events, Kennedy hastily explained:
“Tesla’s theory is that under certain conditions the atmosphere, which is normally a high insulator; assumes conducting properties and so becomes capable of conveying any amount of electrical energy. I myself have seen electrical oscillations such as these in this room of such intensity that while they could be circulated with impunity through one’s arms and chest they would melt wires farther along in the circuit. Yet the person through whom such a current is passing feels no inconvenience. I have seen a loop of heavy copper wire energised by such oscillations and a mass of metal within the loop heated to the fusing point, and yet into the space in which this destructive aerial turmoil was going on I have repeatedly thrust my hand and even my head, without feeling anything or experiencing any injurious after-effect. In this form all the energy of all the dynamos of Niagara could pass through one’s body and yet produce no injury. But, diabolically directed, this vast energy has been used by this man to melt the wires in the little dynamo that runs Norton’s gyroscope. That is all. Now to the aviation field. I have something more to show you.”
We hurried as fast as we could up the street and straight out on the field, across toward the Norton hangar, the crowd gaping in wonderment. Kennedy waved frantically for Norton to come down, and Norton, who was only a few hundred feet in the air, seemed to see and understand.
As we stood waiting before the hangar Kennedy could no longer restrain his impatience.
“I suspected some wireless-power trick when I found that the field wireless telegraph failed to work every time Norton’s aeroplane was in the air,” he said, approaching close to Lamar. “I just happened to catch sight of that peculiar wireless mast of yours. A little flash of light first attracted my attention to it. I thought it was an electric spark, but you are too clever for that, Lamar. Still, you forgot a much simpler thing. It was the glint of the sun on the lens of your telescope as you were watching Norton that betrayed you.”
Lamar said nothing.
“I’m glad to say you had no confederate in the hangar here,” continued Craig. “At first I suspected it. Anyhow, you succeeded pretty well single handed, two lives lost and two machines wrecked. Norton flew all right yesterday when he left his gyroscope and dynamo behind, but when he took them along you were able to fuse the wires in the dynamo—you pretty nearly succeeded in adding his name to those of Browne and Herrick.”
The whir of Norton’s machine told us he was approaching. We scattered to give him space enough to choose the spot where he would alight. As the men caught his machine to steady it, he jumped lightly to the ground.
“Where’s Kennedy?” he asked, and then, without waiting for a reply, he exclaimed: “Queerest thing I ever saw up there. The dynamo wasn’t protected by the sheet-lead shield in this flight as in the first today. I hadn’t risen a hundred feet before I happened to hear the darndest sputtering in the dynamo. Look, boys, the insulation is completely burned off the wires, and the wires are nearly all fused together.”
“So it was in the other two wrecked machines,” added Kennedy, coming coolly forward. “If you hadn’t had everything protected by those shields I gave you in your first flight today you would have simply repeated your fall of yesterday—perhaps fatally. This fellow has been directing the full strength of his wireless high-tension electricity straight at you all the time.”
“What fellow?” demanded Norton.
The two Pinkertons shoved Lamar forward. Norton gave a contemptuous look at him. “Delanne,” he said, “I knew you were a crook when you tried to infringe on my patent, but I didn’t think you were coward enough to resort to—to murder.”
Lamar, or rather Delanne, shrank back as if even the protection of his captors was safety compared to the threatening advance of Norton toward him.
“Pouff!” exclaimed Norton, turning suddenly on his heel. “What a fool I am! The law will take care of such scoundrels as you. What’s the grand stand cheering for now?” he asked, looking across the field in an effort to regain his self-control.
A boy from one of the hangars down the line spoke up from the back of the crowd in a shrill, piping voice. “You have been awarded the Brooks Prize, sir,” he said.
X. THE BLACK HAND
Kennedy and I had been dining rather late one evening at Luigi’s, a little Italian restaurant on the lower West Side. We had known the place well in our student days, and had made a point of visiting it once a month since, in order to keep in practice in the fine art of gracefully handling long shreds of spaghetti. Therefore we did not think it strange when the proprietor himself stopped a moment at our table to greet us. Glancing furtively around at the other diners, mostly Italians, he suddenly leaned over and whispered to Kennedy:
“I have heard of your wonderful detective work, Professor. Could you give a little advice in the case of a friend of mine?”
“Surely, Luigi. What is the case?” asked Craig, leaning back in his chair.
Luigi glanced around again apprehensively and lowered his voice. “Not so loud, sir. When you pay your check, go out, walk around Washington Square, and come in at the private entrance. I’ll be waiting in the hall. My friend is dining privately upstairs.”
We lingered a while over our Chianti, then quietly paid the check and departed.
True to his word, Luigi was waiting for us in the dark hall. With a motion that indicated silence, he led us up the stairs to the second floor, and quickly opened a door into what seemed to be a fair-sized private dining-room. A man was pacing the floor nervously. On a table was some food, untouched. As the door opened I thought he started as if in fear, and I am sure his dark face blanched, if only for an instant. Imagine our surprise at seeing Gennaro, the great tenor, with whom merely to have a speaking acquaintance was to argue oneself famous.
“Oh, it is you, Luigi,” he exclaimed in perfect English, rich and mellow. “And who are these gentlemen?”
Luigi merely replied, “Friends,” in English also, and then dropped off into a voluble, low-toned explanation in Italian.
I could see, as we waited, that the same idea had flashed over Kennedy’s mind as over my own. It was now three or four days since the papers had reported the strange kidnapping of Gennaro’s five-year-old daughter Adelina, his only child, and the sending of a demand for ten thousand dollars ransom, signed, as usual, with the mystic Black Hand—a name to conjure with in blackmail and extortion.
As Signor Gennaro advanced toward us, after his short talk with Luigi, almost before the introductions were over, Kennedy anticipated him by saying: “I understand, Signor, before you ask me. I have read all about it in the