“Boy, that’s swell news, Arv!” Tom said. “Get this reactor and the gravitex installed as soon as you can, will you? I’m eager to give the kite a tryout.”
“I’m pretty eager myself.” Arv grinned. “If this baby doesn’t fly, I’ll be the second most disappointed guy around here!”
Soon after Tom returned to his office, Felix Wong came hurrying in to him.
“Just heard you got back, Tom, so I thought I’d better see you right away. I have something to report!”
TELEPHONE THREAT 93
Tom’s eyes lighted up with interest. “About that fellow you thought you remembered from somewhere?”
Felix nodded. “Right. You see, I’ve been going back to that Chinese restaurant for the past couple of nights, as you suggested. Well, yesterday at my apartment I got a threatening phone call.”
The unknown speaker, Felix went on, had warned him in English, “Get out of town or it will be too bad for you!” Then the person had hung up.
“Any idea who he was?” Tom asked.
“I’m sure it was the same man I told you about,” Felix said excitedly. “The one who was disguised as a Chinese. I recognized his voice the minute I heard it. He’s a fellow I once knew in Hong Kong, named Olin Whaley!”
“This is great news. Go on,” Tom urged. He felt that Whaley’s Oriental background might be a clue linking him to Li Ching.
“Whaley was a teacher in a school in Hong Kong which I was attending,”
Felix continued. “One day the police came to arrest him on a smuggling charge, but Whaley had disappeared just in time.”
Felix said Whaley was an American about forty-five years old, of medium height, and had a dark complexion. He spoke not only Cantonese but several other Chinese dialects.