Chapter VII: Jerrold, Brady's Rival

"Thunder!" cried the policeman, catching the Dutch boy's drift, "you're right, as sure as my name is Sam Harris! Your friend went off in that air-ship."

"He ditn't vent," protested Carl, in a temper, "he vas dook."

"Well, he was carried off in the thing, no matter whether he went of his own free will or was taken by force. If we each of us had a pair of wings we might follow the flyin' machine, but we ain't got 'em, so we'll have to do what we can on the ground."

"Dere iss a palloon house oudt on der roadt py der rolling mills," suggested Carl. "Meppy der Hawk vas dere. Dot's vere Prady keeps him ven he ain'd sky-hootin' t'roo der clouds. Meppy ve go und take a look at der palloon house, eh?"

"I know the place, and it won't do any harm to go there and look--but the fellow who ran off with your friend would be foolish to drop down there."

"Vell, foolish or nod, ve look efery blace vat ve can."

The balloon house was not a great way from that part of Hoyne Street, and Harris and Carl reached it after a cross-lots walk of five minutes.

They found the great doors open, but there was no air-ship in the place and no one on watch around it. Furthermore, an examination of the interior showed that an extensive clean-up had been made of the various tools which Matt and Carl had seen in the place during the afternoon. Everything of value had been removed.

Carl explained all this for the officer's benefit.

"It's a cinch the owner of the air-ship has changed his headquarters," commented Harris. "Brady, you say, the fellow's name is? Well, he's an inventor. One of his inventions is a patent 'jimmy'--which, of course, he wouldn't dare to patent. We've been watching his air-ship operations, here in South Chicago, but they seemed straight and legitimate enough."

"Do you know dot feller, Hamildon Jerrold?" asked Carl.

"Sure, I know him. He's all right, Jerrold is, although everybody looks on him as a harmless sort of crank."

"He don'd lif in dot blace vere der chimney fires iss?"

"No; he hangs out in a different part of town."

"Den, you see, it vas a put-oop chob all aroundt. It vas Prady, I bed you, vat sendt dot delegram, got Matt in a drap, und den flew off mit him in der Hawk. Meppy ve make a call on Jerrold?"

"I'll call up the department and report," said Harris, "so they can send another man on my beat while I'm fooling around on this case."

They hurried back into town and the officer unlocked one of the lamp-post boxes and reported to headquarters.

"All right," said he as he rejoined Carl. "Now we'll put in the rest of the night, if we have to. If Brady has had a hand in the robberies that have been going on here, this is liable to be good and profitable work for me."

Jerrold lived almost a mile from the place where Harris had done his telephoning. He had a large, rambling old house set far back in a dense mass of trees and shrubbery.

"He's a good deal of a hermit," explained Harris, as he and Carl proceeded along the walk to the front door. "A harmless old skate, but he's pretty broad between the eyes, at that."

It was after midnight, and, as might be supposed, the house was dark. A knock on the door brought a night-capped head from an upper window.

"Who's down there?" demanded a voice. "Is it you, Payne?"

"No, Mr. Jerrold," answered Harris, "it's a police officer. I've come to see you on important business."

"Have you found the Hawk?" cried Jerrold; "did you get back the plans those rascals stole from me?"

"Come down and let us in," said the officer. "We want to talk with you."

"Wait a minute."

The head was withdrawn and the window dropped. A little while later, the front door opened and Jerrold showed himself, carrying a candle. Carl recognized him as one of the two men who had been pursuing the Hawk in the buggy.

"Don'd you know me, Misder Jerrold?" asked Carl.

The inventor stared at him and shook his head. Thereupon Carl explained where and when they had met. Jerrold's brows wrinkled in a frown.

Leading his callers into a small sitting room he asked them to sit down.

"What do you know about this fellow Brady, Jerrold?" asked Harris, by way of getting at the business in hand.

"I know he's a scoundrel!" declared Jerrold with emphasis. "He's a good mechanic, though, and in spite of his shady record I took him on here to help me build my air-ship, the Eagle. After he had been with me for a while, I found he was stealing my ideas and building an air-ship of his own. Then I discharged him. Since then he's been attending to his own operations and I have been attending to mine. There are several important points about my machine, though, which Brady has been anxious to discover. He has tried to bribe Payne, the man who works for me, to give up a set of my blue prints, and he has tried to get them in other underhand ways. At about eleven o'clock, yesterday, three of Brady's men tried out-and-out robbery. That safe was forced"--Jerrold pointed to a small steel safe in one corner of the room--"and the roll of blue prints taken out. Payne and I were in the workshop at the time. We had just put the finishing touches to the Eagle and were inflating the bag for a trial. I heard a suspicious sound from the house and ran into this room. One of the thieves had just cleared an open window, another was getting out and the third was making ready to go. I had a wrench in my hand and I hurled it at the man in the room. He dropped without a groan. Payne came, just then, and we went after the other two. Brady's air-ship was waiting for them in the rear of the house, and the two robbers got into it and were away before we could catch them. Payne and I got a horse and buggy, as quick as we could, but by that time the air-ship was no more than a speck in the sky, off to the south. We followed, keeping the course the air-ship had taken. The men aboard didn't seem to know how to handle the craft very well, and I was hoping some accident would happen, that the craft would come down and that I would be able to get back my blue prints."

Jerrold halted for a little, his face flaming with anger and indignation.

"I haven't my patents, yet," he went on, in a few moments, "and haven't even been able to establish a caveat, so, you see, if Brady should get ahead of me at the patent office he would snatch a fortune out of my hands. For," and here the inventor threw back his head with laudable pride, "I claim to have invented an air-ship that can be used for commercial purposes--the first machine of the kind that will successfully navigate the air against the strongest wind that blows. But if that scoundrel Brady takes from me the fruits of my toil, I shall be ruined!"

Jerrold's body slumped forward in his chair, and he crouched there in an attitude of extreme dejection.

"Where's the fellow you knocked down with the wrench?" asked Harris, his professional mind dealing with the more practicable aspects of the case.

"When Payne and I got back to the room, after pursuing the other two rascals to the Hawk," answered Jerrold, "the man had vanished. I suppose he recovered from the effects of the blow and took himself off."

"He vas der feller vat drove der modor in der Hawk," explained Carl, "und ven he vas pud down und oudt, der odder fellers made poor vork oof triving der machine. Aber dot ain'd vat I got on my mindt, schust now." Carl pulled the roll of blue prints from his pocket. "Dere, Misder Jerrold," said he, "iss vat you lost. Take it mit der gombliments oof Modor Matt--my bard who iss gone I don'd know vere. Oof you hat shtopped a leedle in der puggy, und toldt us vat I haf heardt schust now, den, by shinks, you vould haf got der bapers pack a long dime ago."

A cry of delight broke from Jerrold's lips. For a moment he stared at the roll, then swooped down on it with both hands, caught it away from Carl and began removing the wrapper with trembling fingers.

"Here they are, here they are," he crooned joyfully, pawing the blue prints over and counting them, one by one; "they're all here, and----"

He stopped short and stared blankly at the envelope, which had fallen out of the blue-prints and dropped on the carpet.

"What's that?" asked Harris.

"I don't know," replied Jerrold; "it's nothing of mine and wasn't in the safe, to my recollection, at the time the blue prints were taken."

"Well, it may be yours, for all that. If it was in the roll, it stands to reason it must have been in the safe. Better open it. Probably you can tell from the contents whether it is yours or not."

Harris picked up the envelope and handed it to Jerrold. The latter took it from him with a puzzled expression on his face.

"I'm pretty sure this isn't mine," said he, turning the envelope over and over.

"Well, you've got to be absolutely sure," returned Harris.

Jerrold, thus urged, tore open the envelope, drew out the sheet and cast his eyes over it.

"No," he declared, "it doesn't belong to me. The thieves must have put it in with the blue prints."

"Let's have a look at it," said the officer.

Drawing closer to the candle, Harris proceeded to read the letter. While he read, his face brightened and a look of surprise and exultation rose in his eyes.

"Another clue, and a hot one!" he cried. He whirled on Carl. "With this as a guide," he went on, "it's dollars to doughnuts we can trace your friend and get him away from that scoundrel, Brady!"

"Ach, vat a habbiness!" expanded Carl. "Readt it oudt to me, Harris, und be kevick ad it."