Curlie Carson Listens In | Page 2

from the west."
Three times the message had been repeated, then had come silence.
There had been no answer though Curlie had listened long for it on
1200 meter wave lengths and five other lengths as well.
Sudden as had come the message, fleet as had been its passing, it had
not been too fleet for Curlie. He had compassed its direction; measured
its distance. On a map of the city which lay before him he had made a
pencil cross and said:
"It came from there." And he was right for, strange as it may seem, an
expert such as Curlie can sit in a hidden tower room such as his was
and detect the exact location of a station whose message has set his ear
drums aquiver.
The location had puzzled him. There was not a station in the city

licensed to send 1200 meter wave lengths. The spot he had marked was
the location of the city's most magnificent apartment hotel. The hotel
possessed a radiophone set. Its antennae, hung high upon the building's
roof, were capable of carrying that 1200 meter message with all that
power behind it, but the radio equipment of the hotel had no such
power.
"Something crooked about that," he had mumbled to himself.
His first impulse had been to call the police. He did not act upon it.
They might blunder. The thing might get out. This law-breaker might
escape. Not five people in all the world knew of Curlie's detecting
station. He would work out this problem alone.
Now, as he sat thinking of it, he decided to confide this new secret to
his pal, Joe Marion.
"Yes," he told himself, "I'll tell him about it at chow."
At this moment his mind was recalled to other matters. New trouble
was brewing.
"A slight breeze from the west," his mind went over the message
automatically, "and the wind was due east. Don't mean much as it
stands, but I suspect means a lot more than it seems to."
Just above Curlie's head there hung a receiver. To the right and left of
him were two loud-speakers. Before him ranged three others. Each one
of these was tuned to a certain wave length, 200, 350, 500, 600, 1200
meters. Each was modulated down until sounds came to Curlie's
delicately tuned ear drums as little more than whispers. A concert was
being broadcast on 350. The booming tones of a baritone had been
coming in as softly and sweetly as a mother's lullaby. But now Curlie's
ear detected interference.
Instantly he was all alert. The receiver was clamped down over his ears,
a half dozen switches were sent, snap, snap, snap. There followed a
dead silence. Then in a shrill boyish voice, together with the baritone's

renewal of his song, there came:
"I want the world to know that I am a wireless operator, op-er-a-a-tor.
Hoop-la! Tra-la!"
Curlie smiled in spite of his vexation. He acted quickly and with
precision. His slender fingers guided a coil-wound frame from right to
left. Backward and forward it glided, and as it moved the boyish
"Hoop-la" rose and fell. Almost instantly it came to a standstill.
"There! That's it!" he breathed.
Then to Joe Marion, "It's a shame about those kids. They won't learn to
play the game square. Don't know the rules and don't care. Think we
can't catch 'em, I guess."
His hand went out for a telephone.
"Superior 2231," he purred.
"That you, 2231? Just a moment."
He touched a key here, another there. He twisted a knob there, then:
"That you, Mulligan?" he half whispered. "Good! There's a kid on your
beat got a wireless running wild. Yes. Broke in on the concert. Don't be
hard on him. No license? Yes, guess that's right. Take away his sending
set. Give him another chance? Let him listen in. What's that? Location?
Clarendon Street, near Orton Place; about second door, I'd say. That's
all right. Thanks, yourself."
Dropping the receiver on its hook he tossed off his headpiece, snapped
at five buttons, then settled back in his chair.
"These kids'll be the death of me yet," he grumbled. "Always breaking
in, not meaning any harm but doing harm all the same. I don't feel so
very sore about them though. It's the fellows that go in for long wave
lengths and high power, that break in on 500, 1200 and 1800, that do
the real damage. Had a queer case last night. Looks crooked, too." He

was silent for a moment then he said reflectively:
"Guess that's about all till midnight. It's after midnight that the queer
birds come creeping out. I'm going to tell you about that one last night,
over the ham sandwich, dill pickle and coffee. No use to try now--we'd
sure get