Mystery Wings by Roy J. Snell

Author:Roy J. Snell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620138199
Publisher: Duke Classics

Chapter XII - The Vanishing Chinaman

*

On his way home Johnny met Goggles. "Great work, Goggles!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "That stunt of yours sure drew a crowd."

"Ye-a," Goggles said with a drawl. "There was a time, though, when it looked as if the old ump and I'd be mobbed. That Fairfield bunch played a mean trick on us. Ought to be thrown out of the League."

"Oh I don't know." Johnny paused for thought. "You couldn't prove a member of their team did it. We licked 'em good and plenty. That should be enough. Anyway, they don't stand high in the League. Centralia—there's the team we've got to watch out for!"

"Say!" Goggles' big eyes bulged. "I think Hop Horner and I have got a new pitcher for you."

"A new pitcher?" Johnny stared. "What's the matter with the 'Prince'?"

"Nothing. Only—" Goggles' voice dropped to a low, mysterious note, "this pitcher's different."

"He'll have to go some if he's as different as the 'Prince.'"

"You'll be surprised! Tell you what." The young inventor's tone changed. "You know that open space out in the center of the pine grove?"

"Yes, sure."

"Meet me there day after tomorrow about two in the afternoon. I—I'll bring this—this er—pitcher round. Let—well, sort of let him throw over a few."

"All right, I'll be there. But I don't see—" Johnny looked up. Goggles was gone.

"Now what's he up to!" Johnny muttered as he turned toward home.

"I'll wander over to that Chink spice shop," he told himself with sudden resolve. "See if Tao Sing's there." He felt in his pocket. Yes, the latest think-o-graph of the wise Wung Lu's thoughts was there. He would give it to Tao Sing and then go right home.

"You want Tao Sing?" the clerk behind the counter asked as Johnny entered the shop.

"Sure."

"No can do." The Chinaman showed all his yellow teeth in a broad grin. "Tao Sing gone velly fast, velly far, mebby not come back velly quick." He laughed a dry mirthless laugh.

"Oh!" Johnny's eyes swept the place nervously.

"I—maybe I'll come back some other time." As he slid out of the place Johnny barely escaped bumping into two slim young men who had an air of watchful waiting about them.

"Federal agents, like as not," was the thought that struck him all of a heap. Experience had taught him that the best detectives of today were likely to be young, slender and quick. These were of that sort.

Finding himself still free, he hurried away.

"Perhaps I ought to tell them," he thought. And then, a moment later, "Tell them what?" What, indeed? What did he know about Tao Sing that Federal agents should know? Little enough, that was certain. "Know he wants to salt down some of Wung Lu's wisdom," he chuckled. Then of a sudden it occurred to him that the sort of knowledge he had secured from Wung Lu's thoughts might not be that which wise men would record in a book of Chinese philosophy.

"Like to read just one of them," he told himself. He fingered the small metal box in his pocket.

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