I was connected with the radio secret service. He's hiding right now,
unless I miss my guess, with some of his rich young friends.

"I might tell all that and I might get the reward, but supposing
something really had happened? Oh, boy, what a mess!

"And yet," he mused, after a moment, "I've done nothing to be ashamed
of. I'm an officer of the law. I did what I did because a fellow was
resisting arrest. Ho, well, I'll just let things stand and simmer.
Something may come to the top yet."

CHAPTER VIII

CURLIE MEETS A MILLIONAIRE

It was a tense situation for Curlie. He spent an uneasy night and that
in spite of the fact that the air was particularly free from trouble.

"Hang it all," he exclaimed once as, dashing the receiver from his head,
he sprang from his chair to pace the floor of the secret tower room,
"I'd welcome something in the line of trouble. This eternal
thinking--thinking--thinking, drives me wild. What to do, that's the
question. Suppose I'd ought to go out and tell Ardmore what I know. If a
millionaire father's like any other father, I guess he's pretty well
wrought up by now. But if I go, and if I tell him the whole truth, I'm
as sure as I am of anything that it will get me into a mess and that's
the sort of thing I don't like."

Glancing down, his eye was caught by Coles' report of the night before.
Dropping once more into his chair, he began going through the messages
written there. When he came to the one sent out by the boy whose car he
had wrecked, he pondered over it for a long time.

"'Island, airplane, map, much gold; airplane, map, island, gold,'" he
repeated. "What does one make out of that? It might be that this boy has
been planning a secret voyage with some other chap. Certainly sounds
like it. Other messages were the same kind. By Jove! Perhaps he's
skipped out and gone on that trip and is not hiding out at all! Let's
see."

Taking down a file he drew forth a bunch of message records clipped
together. They were those sent by the moving operator on 600, the
millionaire's son.

A long time he studied over these.

"Seems to sort of prove my theory," he muttered once. "Can't be sure
though."

Then, suddenly he sat up straight. "That's the idea." He slapped his
knee. "The very thing! Why didn't I think of that before? If he
doesn't shew up by morning I'll do it. I'll just take these records over
to Ardmore and suggest to him that they may shed some light on the
subject