CHAPTER I

A heavy fog pressed down upon the city of Washington. To the boy watching it from the vantage point of the window in the top floor of the apartment in which he stood, it spread as mysterious and as sodden as a flood, enveloping streets, parks, houses, indeed all but the tops of the highest structures, the domes and roofs of public buildings and spires of churches, and here and there a dark, drowned mass of foliage.

The apartment stood on a height and as the boy looked he saw a glow in the east, followed quickly by thin banners of red and orange. Then the Sun rose and turned the domes and spires swimming on the sea of mist into fairy flotillas wrought of pearl and gold.

Just as a churned and angry tide swirls into some still cove and seems to melt and dissolve into transparency, the opaque-fog slowly vanished. Buildings and statues seemed to lift themselves out of it and finally, broad and placid in the desertion of dawn, the streets themselves appeared, winding here and there in the wonderful curves designed by the master-mind which make Washington one of the beauty spots of the world.

Because he had looked down on most of the cities of the world, because, young as he was, he had seen thrilling shy views of towers and spires and mosques and temples lifting under many skies, the boy stood looking at the beautiful Capitol of his native land with a swelling heart.

Suddenly from somewhere, everywhere, nowhere came a faint, peculiar humming. Louder and louder it grew. The boy flung open the window and, leaning far out, scanned the cloudless sky with practiced gaze. Far away in the west appeared a thing of wings and sound flying far above those other birds, the troubled buzzards, that dipped and swayed and hung so easily in the invisible tides of the air.

As the boy watched, another and still another airplane appeared, close in the wake of the first, until eleven of them, all light biplanes, dashed headlong across the sky. Then, their pace slackening somewhat, they formed in twos and again strung out to compose the wide V of migrating geese.

The eleventh plane detached itself from the others which now swung wide and swept around in a graceful circle, while the single one, an instruction plane, commanded the manoeuvers by means of wireless telegraphy. Twice the ten planes circled. Then the leader, turning sharply, led the others in the direction of Mount Vernon until they vanished. The single plane, lazy as the buzzards below, hung almost motionless, waiting, effortless and serene, until once more with a faint hum the planes returned, lined up and hung at attention for a moment, when the instruction plane turned and in a wild rush of speed led its charges away in the direction whence they had come.

Not until distance had stilled the final hum of the last motor did the boy realize that he was clinging precariously to the hard granite facing outside the window, while leaning far out, too far out for safety even for a young aviator who felt no dread of falling.

“A great bunch of students,” he reflected, withdrawing and turning to look at the room in which he stood. It was the usual “beautifully furnished bachelor apartment” of commerce. Wall paper dark, in order not to show soil, odds and ends of well-worn, not to say shabby mission furniture, a table, chairs, a desk with a soiled blotter firmly skewered down on its flat top, a crex rug. Beyond was a small bedroom, and out of that any sleuth of a de-tec-a-tive would have guessed there was a bathroom if he had taken time to listen to the mournful drip, drip of a leaky faucet.

Lawrence Petit looked the bare, unpretentious, unhomelike room over with a smile. He had never been so “well fixed,” as he said, but he did not approve. Like everything else, the apartment was an incident, a stepping-stone to something better.

He went to his suitcase and took out a pocket portfolio and with a look of distaste at the soiled blotter, sat down at the table, tried his fountain pen and commenced to write. And while he is busy, we will glance at the past of the young aviator.

His own beginning he did not know. His first remembrance was of a sordid, poverty-stricken cabin where, with a group of other children, he played and quarrelled and starved, and where a slatternly woman gloomed or passed from one screaming rage into another until quieted by a black bottle brought her by an evil looking, leering man at whose approach all the children scattered and hid themselves. The children, when they spoke to the woman at all, called her Moll. Lawrence could not remember a time when the question of his parentage had occurred to him. At this period of his life he was little more than a healthy little animal, content to sleep and play and fight for the scanty food he was given, and, that failing, to steal from the more fortunate neighbors.

In the woodshed, back of the shanty, a lean-to scarcely worse than the house itself, stood a broken-down bureau crammed with odds and ends of rags and clothing too unspeakable for use. In this one day, while Moll was digging through its confusion, she chanced on a worn, black shopping bag. She tossed it to Lawrence, known wholly at that time as Snooks.

“That’s yourn,” she said. “You keep a-hold of that and don’t let those kids git it.” Then on second thought she snatched it away from the child and hung it on a rafter far out of his reach. For a little it tantalized him, then it was forgotten until a memorable morning when the welfare worker appeared with a couple of officers, a patrol wagon and an ambulance. Into the ambulance Moll was hurried, to the children’s amazement. They had failed to distinguish the ravings of fever from the outcries attending the frequent visitation of the black bottle. The dark man had disappeared.

As the welfare worker rounded the reluctant children into the patrol wagon, Snooks ran back and with a long stick knocked down the handbag.

“What’s that?” asked the welfare lady.

“It’s mine,” said Snooks in his hoarse, unchildish voice. “Moll she give it to me and said to keep it because it’s mine.”

The welfare worker scented one of the strange clues that often lie hidden for so long before they appear to clear up a mystery, but the bag, a very shabby, cheap affair, held nothing but a small photograph wrapped up in a piece of newspaper, and on another piece that had evidently been about some small change as the shape of the money still marked the scrap, was the name Lawrence, written over and over as though to try a pen point.

Snooks was put in a home and once more the bag passed out of his possession into the keeping of the authorities who had him in charge. A name was needed, and Snooks was asked to find one for himself, a feat he was incapable of doing. So one of the teachers, remembering the scrap of paper, called him Lawrence and added Petit as the child was so very small.

So Snooks, dirty, unkempt and blankly ignorant, became Lawrence Petit, a ward of the city of Louisville.

Bathed, clipped, and neatly clad, the boy changed almost at once. He seemed possessed by an overpowering ambition. He learned rapidly,—so rapidly that he forged ahead of all his classmates. Lectures on health and strength that bored the other children held him spellbound. He became quick and wiry as a cat, with lean limbs and perfectly trained muscles. As time passed, he heard stories of homes and of mothers and fathers that filled him with sick longing, but finally he accepted his fate and as he grew older made up his mind that he must remain Lawrence Petit, with no people, no home, no age, no past; just a nameless waif in an orphanage.

Two great passions consumed the boy. He was bound to fly; he was bound to succeed in life.

If any of us want a thing badly enough and long enough, we always find that we are given a chance to get it. There was a young teacher in the Home who spent much time with Lawrence and made it possible for him to read everything that was written about airplanes and balloons and all sorts of aircraft. When an aircraft factory was started in Louisville to supply the growing demands for private machines, this teacher secured employment for Lawrence, and soon he was dismissed from the Home as perfectly able to care for himself. With him went the shabby bag; and now for the first time the boy took time to look at its contents. He had had no desire to do so before. He looked long at the scrap with the name Lawrence scrawled over it, and the other scrap around the photograph he read carefully, but evidently it had been torn from the advertising page of a newspaper and had to do with “Help Wanted, Female.”

The picture was that of a most beautiful young woman. Perfect features and masses of glorious hair made the face seem almost unreal, but its chief charm was the look of happiness that filled it.

“Who can she be?” the boy Lawrence asked himself. She did not seem over fifteen or sixteen years of age. Lawrence put the bag and its contents back in his trunk but could not forget the lovely, laughing face. He buckled down to work with a new ambition. Past he had none. He determined to make for himself a future that he could be proud of. And because he had no one, actually no one in the whole world to call his own, he adopted the picture for his “folks.” He never named her sister or mother; he just worked for her and looked at her when the way seemed hard.

As time passed he developed a perfectly amazing sense of balance and direction, coupled with more common sense than falls to the lot of most, and one day he left the factory and went out to the nearest aviation field as assistant mechanician. From this he rose by bounds until he was accounted the best airman on the field. After he found that most of his time was to be spent far above the earth, he commenced to worry about the picture. What if his things should be burned up? What if the picture should be stolen? So, cutting a piece of cardboard the exact size, he went down and bought a leather pocket case in which he placed the picture, and always after that he wore it buttoned securely in his pocket. He felt better then; his “folks” were with him. Back of the picture he placed the two scraps of paper, and with this frail safeguard spread his wings and took flight courageously toward the goal he had set for himself.

Five years had passed since the signing of the Armistice and many of the wounds of that unforgettable war had healed. Many things had happened, both in America and abroad.

Aircraft had changed both in nature and construction. Mufflers were in widespread use, indeed were required by law, and now the wing-filled sky did not rattle and reverberate with the roar of engines unless on special class or instruction work. Traffic machines went with silent, steady directness along their uncharted courses, while dainty troops of pleasure craft flitted everywhere, their brightly painted wings and hulls glistening in the sun.

To Lawrence Petit the upper air seemed his home. He remained on the earth only so long as it was positively necessary; and now, writing busily on his tablet, he felt that he was on the eve of an adventure which promised to carry him higher and farther than any which he had yet attempted. He referred to the letter before him. It was long and typewritten on handsome paper. Hamilton Ridgeway, the writer, was one of the greatest powers in the United States. It was in obedience to his summons that Lawrence had come to Washington and was now waiting impatiently for the hour of his interview with the great man.

Young as he was, Lawrence had learned to respect that powerful personality who numbered the kings and princes of the earth as his friends, who handled millions as other men handle pennies, who always stood ready to finance any great national undertaking, yet who was so simple and kindly that he never failed to send back a cheery hello to the newsie who happened to know and speak his name. Hamilton Ridgeway had been told of the remarkable feats of the young aviator, and with his shrewd ability to pick men he was about to interview the boy to see of what material he was really made.

It was an ordeal that would have made most boys so nervous that they would have appeared ill at ease, but Lawrence, as he noted that it was almost time to start for his appointment, calmly put up his writing, brushed his hair, glanced at his wrist watch, and seeing that he still had five minutes to spare, sat down by the window and opened the pocket case. Long and tenderly he gazed at the pictured face.

“I will do the very best I know, just for you,” he said, smiling back at it. “I don’t suppose I will ever know who you are, but we belong to each other somehow, don’t we? And I am going to make good just so I can always like to look at you. Gee, you are sweet! You must be old enough to be my mother because you have looked just like you do now ever since I first saw you back there at Moll’s. Too bad she died! I always thought she could have told me something about you, you Pretty, but I reckon I will never get to know any more of you than I do now.”

He shook his head sadly. “You are so pretty,” he murmured. “A fellow would do anything for a mother like you; live clean and keep straight, and work his head off besides, to make you proud of him. Tell you what I will do, Pretty. I am going to make believe that you are waiting for me somewhere, and I have got to make good before we meet. How’s that? A bargain?” he smiled back at the smiling pictured eyes and, placing the case carefully in his pocket, put on his hat and overcoat and started off to meet Mr. Ridgeway.

CHAPTER II

A little later, sitting in the plain but convenient office opposite the great man he had come to see, Lawrence was impressed by the power and force in the steady eyes that looked so straight into his own, and in the kind mouth and forceful broad brow saw a promise of clean dealing and deep wisdom.

“I cannot get over my surprise at your youth,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “It seems a foolish procedure to give such a great enterprise into the hands of a boy like you. Are you sure,” he added, laughing, “that you have not a father or brother to whom I should be talking?”

“No, sir; I am the one you sent for,” replied Lawrence. “I have been fooling with airplanes and balloons ever since I graduated from kites.”

“How old are you?” asked Mr. Ridgeway.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Lawrence, a flush mounting to his brow. “I am a waif. I do not know my own name, or my age. I was taken from one of the worst parts of the city to the Home where I was partly brought up. I have no hope of ever finding anyone belonging to me.”

“Have you no clues?” asked Mr. Ridgeway.

“I fear not, sir,” he replied. “At least they are too slight to be considered. I speak of this because I think you ought to know that whatever becomes of me, there is no one to rejoice and no one to grieve.”

“I am sorry,” said Mr. Ridgeway simply. “Yet for my purpose, that simplifies everything. You will embark on a desperate enterprise if you attempt what I have in mind for you to do. And I cannot tell you, indeed I cannot guess the outcome. It depends largely on your own daring, caution and ability. Your youth is your best safeguard because no one would ever believe you to be embarked on anything like this.”

“I am willing to take the risks,” said Lawrence simply.

“Then you may try it,” decided the great man. “I believe there were two other men coming to see me this morning on this same errand. Step into my private office until I see them. Perhaps one or both will do to work in as mechanicians.”

Still in the dark as to what Mr. Ridgeway wanted him to undertake, Lawrence was about to go into the other room when a clerk rapped on the outer door and entered without waiting for a summons. His face was pale, and his eyes rolled wildly. “M-m-m-ister Ridgeway, sir,” he stuttered, “those two gentlemen who were waiting outside for you, they are both asleep.”

“Both what?” asked Mr. Ridgeway sharply.

“Both asleep, and we can’t wake either of them.”

“Drugged!” exclaimed Mr. Ridgeway, glancing at Lawrence. “Come on, you may as well see this thing out before you decide to cast your fortune in such dangerous places.” He rushed to the door, followed by Lawrence and the agitated clerk.

On a broad settee in the waiting-room two men were sprawled. Mr. Ridgeway took one keen glance at their pallid faces and half closed lids, between which their pupils, contracted to pin points, glared strangely.

“Drugged!” he said again. Then stepping to the telephone, he called the office of the great building and asked sharply, “Office, is the house doctor there? Ask him to come to Mr. Ridgeway’s office, nineteenth floor, immediately.”

He returned to the settee, where the men still sprawled. “Lay them flat on the floor,” he ordered.

Scarcely had this been done when the doctor, a small, keen young man, entered with a little bag in his hand. His sharp eyes swept the group and he nodded to Mr. Ridgeway as he hastened to the two men on the floor and dropped on one knee beside them.

“Drugged,” he said, glancing up.

“I thought so,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “They couldn’t get enough whiskey in as dry a land as this is now to affect them like this. Besides, their pupils; do you see them?”

“Contracted to nothing,” said Doctor Lansing. He prepared a hypodermic needle and made an injection in each left forearm.

“If there is no response of the heart action after fifteen minutes,” he said, “I will know that they are suffering from one of the three newly discovered anesthetics which are so deadly in the hands of a criminal.”

“Don’t you think we had better get them to the hospital at once?” asked Mr. Ridgeway.

“Not until the fifteen minutes pass,” said the doctor. “If the needle takes effect, they will be all right in an hour or two; at least they could be taken home, but if it is the other, we will have a long tussle with them.”

“Well, this settles one thing,” said Mr. Ridgeway decidedly. “We have had every office building in this and every other large city supplied with house physicians for the last three years, but another law must be made requiring every building over a certain size to equip a hospital room for first-aid.”

“It would be a great thing,” said Doctor Lansing, his keen eyes on his two patients, “both for the patients and the doctors. I have had to send many a sufferer home or to the hospital when some slight surgical or electrical care would have finished the matter within a short time, and with a great deal less suffering.” He took out his stethoscope, listened to each heart, and rose. “Well, Mr. Ridgeway, these men are suffering from administration, by themselves or others, of one of the new poisons. Do you know who they are?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “I can tell you about them, but first get them to the hospital.” He called for an ambulance, and as soon as he had seen the unconscious victims of an unknown villain’s dastard hand carried away, he turned and beckoned Lawrence to follow him into his private office. Sinking down in his chair, he passed a hand through the thick masses of grey hair and sighed.

“There you have it, Lawrence,” he said.

“I don’t believe I understand,” replied Lawrence.

“Sit down then,” said Mr. Ridgeway, “and I will explain.”