Chapter 16

MIRACLES

Although throughout the day Mr. Crowninshield did not wander far from the telephone no word came from the New York detectives and evening saw him quite discouraged.

"I cannot imagine what those fellows are up to," fretted he. "Now that they know where the yacht is and have had all day to do something about it, it is beyond my comprehension why they haven't. Lola will be dead before they get round to moving on Daly."

"I don't believe they are sitting idle," Bob declared in an effort to cheer his patron. "Probably there will be news to-morrow."

"Maybe," sighed the financier. "But if something does not happen by to-morrow, I shall start myself in my own yacht to chase up Daly."

"I doubt if that would do any good, sir," protested Bob. "It might simply, as you said yourself, precipitate a crisis."

"Well, a crisis is better than having nothing done," fumed the man irritably.

"You must not forget there is O'Connel."

"Much good he is doing. We have only heard from him once and as we have no license you can't talk to him."

"Nevertheless, he is on the job at his end of the line," Bob answered. "He has a lot of common sense, too. You can trust him to keep tabs on how things are moving."

"Maybe I can. I hope so," was the dismal retort.

Evening, however, saw no improvement in Mr. Crowninshield's mood. "Not a yip of any sort from those chaps in New York. One would think they were dead," he growled. "Well, I'll give them one more day and then if they haven't something to show I will send them to blazes and take up the case myself. I almost wish I had done it in the first place. Here I am paying a small fortune and getting no results."

Again Bob struggled to soothe the perturbed mind and raise the capitalist's spirits.

"Oh, we'll hear something to-morrow, I guess," said he with an optimism he did not altogether feel. "Maybe my license will come; or the inspector may appear; or O'Connel may send tidings; or news may come from New York. Something is sure to happen. Why don't we all go over to the station and listen in on the broadcasting to-night. We are sure to get something that will be interesting and now that the 'loud speaker' is in position we shall be able to hear without using individual receivers. You haven't any of you really heard what our wireless can do."

"I know it," acknowledged the gentleman. "You see, just about every night during broadcasting hours we have either had company or I have been busy."

"But are you to be busy to-night?" inquired Bob.

"No, I fancy we're not. Mrs. Crowninshield said there was nothing on."

"Then why don't we light up the boathouse, and all of us listen to what is going on in the world," Bob suggested. "I wish, too, Jerry might come. He has not had a chance to see the outfit at all, much less hear it. If it would not annoy you and the ladies just to let him sit at the back of the room he could hear everything now that the horn is on." Bob hesitated. "He has been so kind about helping us----"

"Sure! Ask him by all means," Mr. Crowninshield assented heartily. "Or better yet, I will ask him myself. I am glad you reminded me of it. Jerry is my right-hand man and I like to give him pleasure when I can. What time will your show begin?"

"Oh, from seven o'clock on there is usually something doing, sir. But the most interesting part of the program begins at eight."

"We'll be on hand, then."

This promise won Bob imparted the tidings to Dick and Walter and the two assistants, as they dubbed themselves, hastened to prepare the new radio building for the reception of guests. Comfortable chairs and gay cushions were brought from the house and in his enthusiasm Dick even went so far as to drape a flag over the entrance of the low room.

"We might have hung out bunting if we'd known sooner they were coming," said he.

"I guess they won't care about the bunting once they are inside the place," Walter asserted in a comforting tone.

"Don't you hope the outfit will show up well? I do," declared Dick. "It would be just our luck to have something act up so we couldn't hear anything. Then Dad, who is feeling pretty much on edge anyway, would announce that a wireless was simply money thrown in a hole."

"We're not responsible for the conditions," laughed Bob. "If static is bothersome it is not our fault."

"Nevertheless, Dad wouldn't understand that. He would just think we did not know how to operate the thing."

"Well, we'll pray for moderate quiet," smiled Bob. "Of course I'd like the apparatus to show off at its best. But like a child, it probably won't. We shall have to take our luck; and if we do not get satisfactory results to-night why the audience will have to come again to-morrow or some other time."

"Maybe it won't--at least maybe Dad won't," Dick answered incoherently. "If he starts off in the yacht to-morrow----"

"Oh, he won't set off to chase Daly to-morrow, don't you fret," put in His Highness. "He was only sputtering. What good could he do? He wouldn't have any right to search the _Siren_ even if he overtook her; nor could he arrest the criminals aboard her. Daly would pitch Lola over the side of the boat before he would stand by and let your father board his yacht and he knows it."

"Maybe he does," admitted Dick. "Still, he was tremendously in earnest this afternoon."

"He has calmed down some now," His Highness replied.

"I hope he'll stay calmed," Dick smiled. "Perhaps, unless our show goes wrong and he gets irate at the radio company, he will."

In fact had the three young wireless operators been willing to admit it they were far more perturbed when they heard the invited company approaching than they would have been willing to confess. In the heart of each of them was the same thought: the new radiophone must justify itself and prove that it was worth all the money that had been expended upon it.

"Well, here we are! And here's Jerry, too. He said he couldn't possibly come--tried to make me believe he was too busy, the rascal. But I labored with him and finally got him here," announced the master triumphantly.

Very hot and very uncomfortable under the general banter Jerry blushed.

"Now where do you wish to put us, Dick?" inquired the boy's mother. "We are under your orders to-night--yours and Bob's."

"I think you will be able to hear in any of these chairs--that is, if we hear at all," Dick responded nervously.

"What do you mean by _able to hear at all_?" put in his father sharply.

"Why--eh--sometimes conditions vary," was the ambiguous answer. "One does not always hear equally well." It seemed wiser to prepare his father's mind for possible disappointment.

In the meantime Bob was tinkering with the plugs.

"Everybody ready?" he asked.

"All on deck!" came from Mr. Crowninshield whose depression, it was plain to be seen, had momentarily vanished.

"Then here goes!" cried Bob.

Instantly the quiet of the room was transformed into a chaos of sound. There was a shrill piping as of a singing wind, and a wail that echoed hauntingly through the air as the tuner revolved.

"What in the name of goodness----?" began Mr. Crowninshield.

"Hush, Dad! It is always like that," explained Dick hastily.

"But it's horrible."

"Yes, I know. But wait."

"Isn't something out of order?"

"No." Dick smiled patronizingly.

"My soul and body," whispered Jerry from his corner, "did anybody ever hear such a sound? Ain't it the wind outside. Seems as if a gale must have come up--a hurricane, tornado, or something. If a storm's coming I can't sit round here. I'll have to be seeing to the awnings or they'll be ripped to pieces." He half rose from his chair.

"Don't worry, Jerry; everything's all right outside," interrupted Walter reassuringly.

"You mean to say it's just in here?" murmured the bewildered Jerry. Enjoying the old man's confusion, Walter nodded.

"What you hear is the rise of our pitch," explained Dick.

"I should think it was the rise of something," grumbled Mr. Crowninshield.

"We are running up our meters in order to catch the higher tuned waves," Bob added. "That is part of the bedlam."

"And the rest?"

"It is static interference."

"What's that?"

"Well, static is the big bugbear of radio," answered Bob, pausing a moment in regulating his tuner and detector. "It is caused by stray waves moving in various directions through the atmosphere, and by electrical conditions. It is the defect all wireless people have to fight. Sometimes it is worse than others and unfortunately to-night it promises to be pretty bad. You see it has been a close, heavy day and no doubt thunderstorms are in the air. A thunderstorm will kick up no end of a rumpus with wireless."

"But we haven't had any thunderstorm," Nancy called above the hubbub.

"No, but somebody else's thunderstorm would bother us almost as much," Bob explained good-humoredly.

"Never mind the thunderstorms now," put in Mr. Crowninshield. "Aren't we going to hear anything but this whistling and groaning? Whee! There it goes again. It is for all the world like a chorus of cats."

"It is more like a siren horn tooting up and down," laughed Nancy.

A spluttering crackle blotted out the wail.

"You would think they were frying doughnuts," grinned Dick, "wouldn't you?"

"And you really believe a thunderstorm would cause a noise like this?" queried Mrs. Crowninshield incredulously.

"It might. We have no way of knowing exactly what is raising the trouble."

"Do you mean to say that a storm that wasn't round here at all could----" burst out Jerry, then stopped embarrassed.

"Indeed it could," replied Bob, answering the unfinished question. "You see thunderstorms cause powerful electrical waves that affect apparatus miles and miles distant. Of course such waves vary in length but nevertheless they act on all aerials to a greater or less degree. Then, too, the atmospheric conditions are never quite identical, changing with the hour of the day, the season of the year, and local weather disturbances. Fortunately, since the air is positively electrified and the earth negatively, certain of these differences are remedied by the aerial that connects the two, the current discharges partially seeping off through the ground. Sometimes, however, in spite of every device used, such currents are strong enough to cause a roar in the receiver. In addition there is the interference from other radio stations which are busy transmitting messages, and although there are rules that aim to reduce this annoyance, it is, to a certain extent, always to be reckoned with."

"I should think somebody ought to invent something to prevent such troubles," declared Nancy.

"Why don't you, Sis?" asked Dick wickedly.

"But it is terrible to have the air so full of noise," continued the girl, as she made a little face at her brother. "I've always thought of the air as being still."

"It is still in a general sense," smiled Bob. "It is only when the amplifier of the wireless magnifies the sounds that we realize how many of them our ears fail to hear."

"It's a downright mercy they do!" exclaimed Jerry.

"You're right there, Jerry!" agreed Mr. Crowninshield.

"But how do messages come through such a chaos?" Dick inquired.

"Sometimes they don't," laughed Bob. "But nine cases out of ten they do because there are ways of combating static interference. You can, for instance, tune your apparatus to a higher or lower pitch and thereby escape from the zone where the noise is. That whine you hear is produced by my turning the tuning knob and increasing our range of meters. Already with the higher vibration you will notice the hubbub has lessened."

"Yes, things are ever so much clearer," agreed a chorus of voices.

"That is one way, then, out of the difficulty. There are, in addition, other mechanical means that can be resorted to when you learn more about handling the outfit. Suffice it to say that in a general way whatever tends toward inertia, or a lack of electrical activity, decreases static interference."

There was a pause in which above the crackling and the wailing of the instrument a faint sound became audible.

"Gee! Did you hear that?" cried Walter.

"Hush!"

"But I heard a voice quite distinctly."

"Keep still, can't you?" Dick remarked unceremoniously.

Then plainly into the room came the words:

"Station (WGI) Amrad Medford Hillside, Mass. 360 meters. Stand by for Boston Police reports."

"That is the police news," whispered Dick to Nancy. "Among other things it gives the automobiles that are lost, their numbers, and a description of each."

"Want to hear it?" asked Bob of his audience.

"Not unless they can tell us they have found Lola," responded Mr. Crowninshield promptly.

"Oh, no," his wife hastened to add, "let's not listen to a long string of crimes. Goodness knows there are enough of them to read in the papers."

She shook her head warningly at Bob and motioned toward her husband.

"I'd rather hear some music," put in Nancy. "Can't we?"

There was an ascending wail from the tuner.

"Ain't that a band?" cried Jerry excitedly.

"It's an orchestra!" Nancy ejaculated in the same breath.

"It's gone!"

"We'll get it again," was Bob's confident answer as he twirled the knobs of both tuner and detector.

"There it is!" burst out Jerry. "It's a brass band, as I live!"

"Where do you suppose it is?" speculated Mrs. Crowninshield.

"Pittsburgh or Chicago; or perhaps Newark."

"Not Chicago--out West! You're fooling," observed Jerry with scorn.

"Indeed I'm not. Wait and you'll hear in a few moments exactly who it was."

"I'll not believe it unless I do," the old man announced, with a zest that provoked a general laugh.

"What time is it? Can any one tell?" asked Bob.

"What difference does that make," Walter inquired.

"It will give us a cue as to who it is," was the explanation. "All these broadcasting stations have certain hours for their programs."

"I've seen those lists published in the papers, but I never took any stock in them," growled Jerry.

"You'll have to now, Jerry," said Nancy mischievously.

She saw him scratch his head.

"Well, I dunno," was his laconic reply. "The whole thing beats me. If that band was in Chicago----"

"Hush!"

The crash of instruments had come to an end and over the wire in accents unmistakably distinct came the words:

"Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company KYW Chicago, Illinois. Stand by fifteen minutes for----" but the rest of the sentence was lost, for with a mighty slap of his knees Jerry roared:

"It was in Chicago--that band! Well, I'll be buttered!"

Overwhelmed the Cape Codder had risen to his feet.

"Chicago! Pittsburgh! Medford! My eye, but this will do me to talk about until the day of my death. It don't seem possible; I'm beat if it does."

Helplessly he dropped back into his chair again, silenced by very wonder.

In the meantime out of the wailing and whining and piping the sharp, clear-cut click of a telegraph instrument could be discerned.

"That's the Morse code," explained Bob. "Some commercial station is sending a message. It seems to be about a shipment of lumber and isn't particularly interesting."

"I suppose you can read it," said Dick enviously.

"Naturally. That is part of my job, you know."

"What is a commercial station?" inquired the still bewildered Jerry.

"A station that sends only messages for the general public. Probably this load of lumber started out of port without the captain of the ship having the least idea in the world where he was to market it. In the interval since it left, however, the company's shore agents have secured a customer for it, perhaps in New Bedford, Boston, Providence, or some other coast city and they are now notifying the ship where to deliver it. Such an arrangement is quite common nowadays. Were the captain obliged to hold his cargo in port until he had a purchaser, as was the usual rule in the past, he would be wasting much precious time. By this method he can set forth the moment the vessel is loaded and during his voyage let his managers search for buyers. In all probability by the time he nears New England harbors his wares will be sold and orders sent him where to deposit them."

"That's a neat little scheme!" observed Walter.

But poor Jerry was too much overcome by the marvels he had witnessed to comment on this added miracle. All he could do was to reiterate feebly: "It beats me--hanged if it don't!"