“It must have slipped my mind in the excitement,” explained the old man. “Yes, Fred Reade has acted for Barr in many matters that I know of.”
“More than that,” rejoined old Eben Joyce; “there is some mysterious tie between them. I think Reade knows something about Luther Barr that the other is afraid will come out.”
“I don’t know, but such is my impression. At the time of the negotiation for the _Buzzard_ Reade treated Barr as an equal more than if he were employed by him.”
It had grown dusk by this time and Eben Joyce’s daughter lit the lamp and set it down on the cottage table. As she did so there came a loud roar of an approaching motor car down the quiet street and the next moment through the gathering gloom a big auto approached the cottage. As it neared it it slowed down. They all went out on the porch to see who could be driving a car down that little frequented street. It was not very light, but as the car drew nearer Frank recognized it.
But if the boys imagined that they were to get any solution of the car’s mysterious appearance they were mistaken. As it neared the house, and the group on the porch must have been plainly visible to its occupants, the big car suddenly leaped forward and shot away into the darkness.
“What did they do that for?” asked Billy.
“I guess they saw so many if us here that they thought it would be more prudent to stay away,” suggested Frank.
“What can they be after?” wondered Harry.
“The blue prints of my gyroscopic attachment and possibly my experimental machine itself,” declared the inventor, “though if they had the blue prints they could easily manufacture them themselves. Reade has been after me to sell them.”
“That is so,” mused Frank; “undoubtedly such prints would be of great value to them.”
“Will you do something for me?” inquired old Eben Joyce, suddenly.
“Of course,” rejoined Frank; “what is it?”
“Will you take charge of my blue prints for me. It is lonely here and I am old and my daughter unprotected. In case they attacked us in the night we should have little opportunity to keep the prints from them. I would feel quite secure if you had them in your possession, however.”
Frank readily agreed to this, adding that he would place them in a safe deposit vault.