"I tell you I won't be a party to that launching scheme," I heard the man's voice. "I wash my hands of it. I told you that all along."

"Then you're going to desert us?" came back the woman's voice, rather tartly. "It's for that girl. Well, you'll regret it. I'll turn the whole organization on you--I will--you--you--" The voices trailed off, and, try as I could to get the operator to find out who it was, I could not.

Who was it? What did it mean?

Kennedy had finished with the manicure some time before and was waiting for me impatiently.

"I haven't been able to get Marlowe," I hastened, "but I've had an earful." He listened keenly as I told him what I had heard, adding also the account of my encounter with Gavira.

"It's just as I thought--I'll wager," he muttered, excitedly, under his breath, taking a hurried turn down the corridor, his face deeply wrinkled.

"Well! Anything new? I expected to hear from you, but haven't," boomed the deep voice of Marlowe, who had just come in from an entrance in another direction from that which we were pacing. "No clue yet to my crank?"

Without a word, Kennedy drew Marlowe aside into a little deserted alcove. Marlowe followed, puzzled at the air of mystery.

Alone, Craig leaned over toward him. "It's no crank," he whispered, in a low tone. "Marlowe, I am convinced that there is a concerted effort to destroy your plans for American commerce building. There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that it is more serious than you think--perhaps a powerful group of European steamship men opposed to you. It is economic war! You know they have threatened it at meetings reported in the press all along. Well, it's here!"

Half doubting, half convinced, Marlowe drew back. One after another he shot a rapid fire of questions. Who, then, was their agent who had fired the shot? Who was it who had deserted, as I had heard over the wire? Above all, what was it they had planned for the launching? The deeper he got the more the beads of perspiration came out on his sunburnt forehead. The launching was only eighteen hours off, too, and ten of them were darkness. What could be done?

Kennedy's mind was working rapidly in the crisis as Marlowe appealed to him, almost helplessly.

"May I have your car to-night?" asked Craig, pausing.

"Have it? I'll give it to you if it'll do any good."

"I'll need it only a few hours. I think I have a scheme that will work perfectly--if you are sure you can guard the inside of the yard to-morrow."

"I'm sure of that. We spent hours to-day selecting picked men for the launching, going over everything."

Late as it was to start out of town, Craig drove across the bridge and out on Long Island, never stopping until we came to a small lake, around the sh.o.r.es of which he skirted, at last pausing before a huge barn-like structure.

As the door swung open to his honking the horn, the light which streamed forth shone on a sign above, "Sprague Aviation School." Inside I could make out enough to be sure that it was an aeroplane hangar.

"h.e.l.lo, Sprague!" called Kennedy, as a man appeared in the light.

The man came closer. "Why, h.e.l.lo, Kennedy! What brings you out here at such an hour?"

Craig had jumped from the car, and together the two went into the hangar, while I followed. They talked in low tones, but as nearly as I could make out Kennedy was hiring a hydro-aeroplane for to-morrow with as much nonchalance as if it had been a taxicab.

As Kennedy and his acquaintance, Sprague, came to terms, my eye fell on a peculiar gun set up in a corner. It had a tremendous cylinder about the barrel, as though it contained some device to cool it. It was not a machine-gun of the type I had seen, however, yet cartridges seemed to be fed to it from a disk on which they were arranged radially rather than from a band. Kennedy had risen to go and looked about at me.

"Oh, a Lewis gun!" he exclaimed, seeing what I was looking at. "That's an idea. Sprague, can you mount that on the plane?"

Sprague nodded. "That's what I have it here for," he returned. "I've been testing it. Why, do you want it?"

"Indeed I do! I'll be out here early in the morning, Sprague."

"I'll be ready for you, sir," promised the aviator.

Speeding back to the city, Kennedy laid out an extensive program for me to follow on the morrow. Together we arranged an elaborate series of signals, and that night, late as it was, Craig returned to the laboratory, where he continued his studies with the microscope, though what more he expected to discover I did not know.

In spite of his late hours, it was Craig who wakened me in the morning, already prepared to motor out to the aviation school to meet Sprague.

Hastily he rehea.r.s.ed our signals, which consisted mostly of dots and dashes in the Morse code which Craig was to convey with a flag and I to receive with the aid of a powerful gla.s.s.

I must admit that I felt somewhat lost when, later in the morning, I took my place alone on the platform that had been built for the favored few of the launching party at the bow of the huge Usona, without Craig.

Already, however, he had communicated at least a part of his plan to Marlowe, and the captain and Marjorie were among the first to arrive.

Marjorie never looked prettier in her life than she did now, on the day when she was to christen the great liner, nor, I imagine, had the captain ever been more proud of her.

They had scarcely greeted me when we heard a shout from the men down at the end of the slip that commanded a freer view of the river. We craned our necks and in a moment saw what it was. They had sighted the air-boat coming down the river.

I turned the gla.s.s on the mechanical bird as it soared closer. Already Kennedy had made us on the platform and had begun to signal as a test.

At least a part of the suspense was over for me when I discovered that I could read what he sent.

So fixed had my attention been that I had not noticed that slowly the members of the elect launching party had arrived, while other thousands of the less favored crowded into the s.p.a.ces set apart for them. On the stand now with us were Fitzhugh and Miss Hillman, while, between glances at Kennedy, I noticed little Rae Melzer over at the right, and Doctor Gavira, quite in his element, circulating about from one group to another.

Every one seemed to feel that thrill that comes with a launching, the appreciation that there is a maximum of risk in a minimum of time.

Down the slip the men were driving home the last of the huge oak wedges which lifted the great Usona from the blocks and transferred her weight to the launching ways as a new support. All along the stationary, or ground, ways and those which were to glide into the water with the cradle and the ship, trusted men were making the final examination to be as sure as human care can be that all was well.

As the clock neared noon, which was high water, approximately, all the preparatory work was done. Only the sole pieces before us held the ship in place. It was as though all bridges had been burned.

High overhead now floated the hydro-aeroplane, on which I kept my eye fixed almost hypnotically. There was still no signal from Kennedy, however. What was it he was after? Did he expect to see the fast express cruiser, lurking like a corsair about the islands of the river?

If so, he gave no sign.

Men were quitting now the work of giving the last touches to the preparations. Some were placing immense jack-screws which were to give an initial impulse if it were needed to start the ship down the ways.

Others were smearing the last heavy dabs of tallow, lard oil, and soft soap on the ways, and graphite where the ways stretched two hundred feet or so out into the water, for the ship was to travel some hundreds of feet on the land and in the water, and perhaps an equal distance out beyond the end of the ways.

Late comers still crowded in. Men now reported that everything was ready. Steadily the time of high water approached.

"Saw the sole pieces!" finally rang out the order.

That was a thing that must be done by two gangs, one on each side, and evenly, too. If one gang got ahead of the other, they must stop and let the second catch up.

"Zip--zip--zip," came the shrill singing tone of the saws.

Was everything all right? Kennedy and Sprague were still circling overhead, at various alt.i.tudes. I redoubled my attention at the gla.s.s.

Suddenly I saw Craig's flag waving frantically. A m.u.f.fled exclamation came from my lips involuntarily. Marlowe, who had been watching me, leaned closer.

"What is it--for G.o.d's sake?" he whispered, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Stop them!" I shouted as I caught Kennedy's signal. At a hurried order from Marlowe the gangs quit. A hush fell over the crowd.

Kennedy was circling down now until at last the air-boat rested on the water and skimmed along toward the ways.

Out on the ways, as far as they were not yet submerged, some men ran, as if to meet him, but Kennedy began signaling frantically again.

Though I had not been expecting it, I made it out.

"He wants them to keep back," I called, and the word was pa.s.sed down the length of the ship.