Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 12 – In the Race to the Moon

Tom was amazed. He did not know whether to believe his midnight visitor or not. Was it just a trick?

“It’s the truth!” the man gasped. “You’ve got to believe me!”

Tom stopped struggling and loosened his wrestling hold just enough to let the man speak

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more freely. “All right, keep talking,” he said grimly.

“I think I’m suspected,” the man explained, “because someone planted a secret radio transmitter in the midget tape recorder I have with me. I found the transmitter turned on. But,” he added quickly, “I turned it off.”

“But why come here if you’re being watched?” Tom demanded.

“Jantree ordered me to,” was the whispered reply. “I’m supposed to threaten you with a gun and force some secrets out of you. Then I’m to hold this under your nose”-he managed to extract a small vial from his pocket-“and put you to sleep.”

Tom’s heart pounded nervously, his thoughts racing. Was this a madman, a spy, a counterspy, or what? Could he be the real Josef Warturo?

Stalling for time, and still suspicious, Tom asked, “How did you get past our alarm system?”

The entire Swift house and grounds were surrounded by a controlled magnetic field. Any person entering the field automatically touched off an alarm inside the house, unless he carried a deactivator mechanism.

“Ames gave me one of your special wrist watches,” the man explained. The watches contained tiny units which neutralized the alarm system. “But Jantree thinks I stole this watch in order to get through the warning zone without being caught.”