Joe Strong and his wings of steel or, A young acrobat in the clouds
much thought until afterward, when it was almost too late: So many
persons who passed him and Mr. Clark on the street looked at the
latter in a very odd way. Several times persons seemed to be talking
about Mr. Clark as he passed them. Joe ascertained this by looking
back, and twice he saw men pointing or nodding their heads in the
direction of his companion.
“I guess it’s because he’s a bit odd, that’s all,” thought Joe.
And another odd thing was that though Mr. Clark said he had lived
in the place all his life he neither bowed nor spoke to any one he
passed.
“Another eccentricity,” decided the lad. He was so taken up with his
new idea of building a bigger machine, and flying about the circus
tent with Helen, that he gave no more heed to the two queer things he
had noticed.
“You have seen my machine work,” remarked Joe, to his companion. “Do
you think it possible to make one twice as large and that would carry
two persons, and yet have the storage battery not twice as heavy in
proportion?”
“I’m sure it can be done!” exclaimed Mr. Clark eagerly. “In fact, my
battery now, though not perfected, would do that work. But I am going
to get it even lighter yet, and I am working on another point that
will be more valuable. It is the doing away with the sulphuric acid
in storage batteries. I am going to make a dry one.”
“That _would_ be an invention!” cried Joe, who could see the value in
that possibility. “That would be just the thing for submarines. For
now there is danger that the storage battery may become flooded with
sea water. Then chlorine gas is generated, and that is fatal to the
crew.”
“My idea exactly!” exclaimed the inventor, and then he plunged into a
mass of technical details, rather beyond Joe.
“Here’s my place,” said the aged man some time later. The walk had
been a long one, but Joe had enjoyed the exercise.
They had come to a less thickly settled part of the city. Mr.
Clark turned into a patch that led toward a large but shabby and
gloomy-looking house. All around it was a high hedge, unkempt and
untrimmed. The gate was half off the hinges, and the whole place
spelled decay. For an instant Joe held back.
“After all, wasn’t my first impression right and isn’t this man a
dangerous crank?” Joe asked himself. “I wonder if I hadn’t better
pull out of this right now.”
“I don’t waste money keeping my place up,” said the old man. “This is
the old homestead, but it is going to be sold soon to a development
company which wants the land. The house is to be torn down, so it
isn’t worth while to spend money on it. It isn’t so bad inside.”
So that accounted for the looks. Joe kept on. With a key which
squeaked rustily in the lock the old man opened the front door. The
place smelled musty, as though it was seldom opened, and there did
not seem to be any one but themselves in the house. The footfalls of
Joe and his companion echoed through the silent rooms.
“I live alone,” explained the man, in answer to Joe’s look of
inquiry. “I don’t wish to be bothered with people, and I have no near
relatives. I can work better alone.” This feeling was natural enough
in an inventor, the lad felt.
“Now for my workshop,” the old man said. “I’ll let you judge of some
of my inventions. Come up this way. And look out, for some of the
steps have rotted away.”
He started toward a big staircase and the boy followed. One did need
to mind one’s step, for there were big holes in the stairs, and some,
Joe thought, seemed to have been made with an axe, as if vandals had
started to demolish the old building.
“Right in here,” went on Mr. Clark, unlocking the door of a room on
the second floor.
He stood aside to let Joe enter first, and our hero unthinkingly did
so. He saw before him a queer mass of machinery, some of which he
recognized as electrical. In one corner was a big storage battery,
but at a glance Joe knew it was too large for his machine. And in
another corner was something that rather surprised him.
It was a flying machine, not unlike his own in so far as it had metal
wings. But the boy was sure it would never go up. It was too big and
clumsy.
He turned to speak to the inventor, and ask about the new
light-weight storage battery, when he saw the door being pulled shut,
with Mr. Clark on the other side. There was a malicious grin on the
old man’s face, and a queer glint in his eyes. He seemed to have
changed in an instant.
Joe sprang forward to prevent the door’s closing--for he at once
suspected a trap--but he was too late. The lock clicked, and with a
laugh that had in it the sound of madness the old man cried:
“Now I’ve got you just where I want you! You won’t steal any more of
my inventions!”
CHAPTER XIX
A DANGEROUS PLIGHT
Joe Strong was so startled, astonished and altogether taken by
surprise that he did not feel capable of moving for several seconds.
Then he threw himself against the door, but it opened inward, and he
only bruised himself.
“Ha-ha!” laughed the old man on the other side. “You can’t get out
that way. I’ll teach you to take my invention and go flying all over
the country with it. I’ll teach you!”
“Say, are you crazy?” cried Joe, a suspicion that such was the case
entering his mind.
“Crazy? Me? No, I’m not crazy!” was the quick retort. “But most of
the other folks in the world are. You are crazy to try to steal my
invention and think I would not find it out. Now you’ll never do it
again. You’ll die in there.”
Joe knew that he must be cool and keep his head. He had evidently
been made a prisoner by a madman, and perhaps by humoring him he
could get out without using force. He looked around the room and saw
it contained only one window, high up, and that was small and guarded
by iron bars.
“I think you are making a mistake, Mr. Clark,” said Joe as calmly as
he could. “I never stole any of your inventions. In fact I never saw
you before to-day.”
“That makes no difference,” was the retort. “You stole my invention
just the same. Look in that corner and you’ll see a flying machine
like yours. I made it years ago, and you found out about it and made
one like it. You have secured a lot of money by exhibiting yourself
in a machine made from my stolen invention, but this is the end. I
have you where I want you now.”
That was evident enough. But it was a place Joe did not want to be
in, even though the crazy inventor wanted him there.
“That was the meaning of all those looks on the part of persons in
the street,” thought Joe. “They knew he was crazy and they were
probably wondering why he was allowed to be at liberty. I wish I had
not come here.”
But it was too late to wish that now, and the youth had to do the
next best thing--try to get out.
“Why do you say I stole your invention?” he asked, thinking to get
the man to open the door and come in, in which case Joe would have a
fighting chance.
“Because I know you stole it,” was the answer.
“How do you make that out?” demanded Joe. “Isn’t yours just the same
as mine? And didn’t I make mine first?”
“That may be,” Joe admitted. “There is a slight resemblance between
my _Bat_ and your machine in here. But if you’ll come in I can point
out where there’s a whole lot of difference. The only place where
they are similar is the wings, and even there mine are somewhat
different from yours. Come in and I’ll make it clear to you.”
“No, I’ll not come in!” was the answer with a sly laugh. “You are
young and strong. You want to injure me.”
“I promise you I won’t,” Joe said. He only wanted the door opened so
he could flee from the house of mystery.
“I’ll not come in,” said the old man with a chuckle. “I’ll talk to
you from this side of the door.”
Joe was almost in despair. Still he might be able to break his way
out of the room. He resolved to try another appeal.
“Mr. Clark!” he called, “I think you are entirely mistaken in your
idea, and if you’ll let me out, or come in here, I can prove it. I
never had an idea that there was another machine even as little like
mine as yours is. Now I’m willing to bring my machine here, set it
up side by side with yours, and allow any committee of mechanics or
electricians you want to pick out settle the matter. If they decide
that I have taken any of your ideas I’ll pay you for them.”
“Money can’t pay me for what I have lost,” was the snarling answer.
“Besides, I have money enough.”
“Then what do you want?” asked Joe.
“I want revenge!” was the cry of the madman. “I want to pay you back
for what you did!”
“But I did nothing,” Joe insisted.
There was no reply to this.
“Come!” cried Joe, trying to make his voice sound casual. “I must get
out soon to go back to the circus.”
“You’ll never play in the circus again!” cried Mr. Clark. “You have
made your last flight--unless you try to fly in my machine, and there
isn’t room in there.”
Joe looked around the apartment in which he had been made a prisoner.
It was small, and was cluttered up with machinery and, as far as the
boy could judge, useless inventions. A second look at the machine
which slightly resembled his told him that it never would be able to
raise itself from the ground, to say nothing of carrying a passenger.
He resolved to try one more appeal before planning to use force to
free himself.
“Mr. Clark!” he called.
“Well?” answered the voice, from a distance it seemed.
“Have you been able to fly in your machine?” asked Joe.
“No,” was the reply. “But I will soon be able to. It needs only a
few changes. I would have had it done now only I heard about your
stealing my invention, and I had to plan to catch you. Now I have
you, I’m going to work on my machine again--after I dispose of you.”
“But if you’ll come in now,” cried Joe, “I’ll show you several things
that are wrong. I’ll show you how to make it like mine. I have no
patent on mine. I don’t care who makes one like it--or as many as
they want. Come in and we’ll talk it over!”
“Not much I won’t!” was the cry. Then Joe heard retreating footsteps
and knew that he must depend on himself to escape.
His first care was to examine the door. It was of heavy oak, and
without a key or a tool something like a burglar’s jimmy it could not
be forced.
“So I’ve got to get a jimmy,” decided Joe.
The door was easier to work at than the window, which was so high
that Joe doubted if he could reach it, as there was nothing in the
room on which he could stand.
At first glance Joe was afraid there was nothing in the place that
he could use for a jimmy, or short lever. It needed to be something
powerful, with a thin wedge-like edge that could be inserted in the
crack between the door and jamb.
“I’ll have to take apart some of this truck machinery, maybe,” Joe
decided. “If I could get a rod out I might use that. But it would be
blunt on the end, and I need something sharp. I might hammer a piece
of pipe together though.”
He sought for some pipe and finally found it. Then with a chunk
of iron for a hammer and another for an anvil, he beat the ends
together. He had a rude sort of lever, but when he tried to insert it
in the crack of the door he found the aperture too small.
“I’ll have to smash through a panel,” the youth decided. “But I’ll
try once more to make him listen to reason. Mr. Clark! Mr. Clark!” he
cried. He waited, but there was no answer.
“If you don’t let me out I’ll have to smash this door!” Joe went on.
There was still no reply, and then he began to hammer on the portal
with the piece of pipe. A few splinters of wood were knocked off, and
then, to his surprise, Joe discovered that there was a middle section
of steel in the wooden door.
“Why, this place was made for a regular prison!” he exclaimed. “I