CHAPTER III THE SKY PATROL ORGANIZES

Amazed, Dick challenged Jeff’s statement.

“Priceless emeralds—destroyed? You mean—robbers, don’t you?”

Jeff shook his head.

“I don’t think so—but I don’t know for sure who it is. But I do mean to ask you if you’d like to help me, and I don’t think it would be against robbers but against somebody that wants to destroy the Everdail Emeralds.”

“The Everdail Emeralds!” Larry repeated the phrase sharply. “Why, Jeff! I’ve read a newspaper story about them, in a Sunday supplement. That’s the matched set of thirty emeralds——”

“Curiously cut stones,” interrupted Sandy. “I read about them too!”

“That’s the ones.”

“Matched stones—and priceless,” added Larry. “The paper said they were a present to one of Mr. Everdail’s ancestors by one of the most fabulously rich Hindu Nabobs who ever lived.”
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“But who would want to destroy them?” Dick wondered.

“That-there is just what I can’t tell you,” Jeff replied.

“How did you get into this?” Sandy’s suspicions came uppermost.

Jeff drew a bulky, registered envelope from his coat, displayed the registration stamps and marks, and his name and address typed on the envelope. Drawing out a half dozen hand written sheets in a large masculine “fist,” he showed the signature of Atley Everdail at the end.

“This-here is what got me going,” he stated. “Want to read it or will I give it to you snappy and quick?”

Sandy extended his hand and Jeff readily surrendered the letter.

“I’m letting you see I am straight with you,” he remarked.

“You said we couldn’t get away to tell anybody anyway,” Sandy said, but he was compelled to admit to himself that although anyone might write such a letter—even Jeff!—the postmark was Los Angeles and the enclosure had every appearance of sincerity.

“Never mind old Suspicious Sandy,” urged Dick. “Let him read that, but you tell us.”

“It will check up, that way, too,” smiled Larry.
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“Suits me!” Jeff crossed his legs, leaning against the metal wall, as he related an amazing and mystifying series of events.

“I’m pretty close to one of the richest men in America,” he began. “You see, we both enlisted in aviation units when the big war tore loose and got Uncle Sam mixed up in it. We were buddies, Atley and me. Well, after we came back I stayed in aviation, knocking around from control jobs to designing new gadgets like superchargers and all. But when he went to California and began to organize some passenger flying lines, I stayed East in a commercial pilot’s job.”

“This letter starts off as if you were old friends,” Sandy had to admit.

“Buddies—closer’n brothers,” nodded Jeff.

“Atley Everdail sold out stocks and stuff here and went West to work out some pet ideas about passenger transport,” he told Dick and Larry. “Of course he bought a big place out there and closed up this estate—put it up for sale. Hard times kept it from selling, the same reason made him hang onto that-there swell yacht he owned.”

“I’ve seen pictures of the Tramp,” Dick nodded. “One fine boat.”
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“She is that!” Jeff agreed. “Well, as Sandy must be reading, about where he’s got in that letter, Mrs. Everdail, who goes in for society pretty strong, got a chance to be presented, this Spring, before the King and Queen of England at one of their receptions.”

“That’s a big honor,” commented Larry.

“Naturally she dug up all her finest jewelry,” surmised Dick.

“And how!” Jeff nodded. “Now, that-there Everdail necklace that was in his side of the family for generations—that wasn’t took out of the safe-deposit box once in a lifetime, hardly. Most generally the missus wore a good paste imitation.”

“But to appear before royalty—” Dick cut in.

“It says, here, she took the real necklace, on the yacht, when she went to England!”

Sandy had lost his suspicious look. His interest, as much as that of his older chums, was caught and chained by the coming possibilities and he put down the letter to listen to Jeff.

“She did take the string, as the letter says,” Jeff nodded. “It was a secret—they didn’t broadcast it that the necklace was in the captain’s cabin, locked up in his safe. Nobody knew it, not even the lady’s personal maid, as far as anybody supposed.”

“Mr. Everdail didn’t go with her,” guessed Larry.
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“He was too busy routing air lines and working out cost, maintenance and operation plans for his big Western lines,” explained Jeff. “But they took all the care in the world of those emeralds. Even on the night of the reception, the imitation string was taken to the hotel Mrs. Everdail stayed at. That-there real necklace was brought to the hotel, in person, by the captain.”

“I don’t see what could happen—did anything happen?”

“That-there is what started things,” Jeff told Dick. “The missus was in her private suite, in the dressing bowdoir or whatever it is, with nobody but her French maid to help, and all the jewels in a box in the room, hid in her trunks.”

“What happened?” Sandy could hardly check his eagerness to learn.

“She was all but ready, dolled up like a circus, I guess,” Jeff grinned, and then became very sober. “All the jewelry was spread out to try how this and that one looked, with her clothes, separate and in different combinations.”

“But what happened?” persisted Sandy.

“There comes a banging on that-there suite door to the hall and a voice hollered, like it was scared to death, ‘Fire! Fire—get out at once!’”

“Didn’t she suspect any trick—was there a trick?”
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“She didn’t have time to think. That French maid went crazy and started to hop around like a flea in a hot pan, and yelling, and it upset the missus so much she forgot all about a fire escape on the end window of the suite, and rushed out, snatching up all the strings of beads and pearls and the pins she could carry. But, because she knew it was only imitation and there wasn’t anybody else around anyway, she didn’t bother about the emerald necklace.”

“It was a false alarm—there was no fire!” Larry decided.

“All she found was a paper of burnt matches outside in the hotel corridor that had been set off so when she opened the door she’d smell smoke. Of course she ran back—and——”

As he reached for the letter, and searched on the fourth page, all three of his listeners were holding their breath in suspense.

“Here it is,” he declared, and they crowded around. “Read it, so you’ll see just what I learned about when she went back.”

Bending close, intent and eager, they read:
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“Some strong, pungent liquid had been poured on the green necklace,” the letter from the millionaire stated. “No alarm was given. My wife did not want to broadcast either the fact that she had the real gems or the trouble in the hotel. But people had heard the ‘fire!’ cry and doubtless some suspected the possible truth, knowing why she was getting ready.

“Captain Parks came up later with the real stones and while he waited for my wife to finish her costume, he examined the fire escape window and was sure that someone had entered and left by that.

“Now Jeff,” the letter concluded, “my caretaker on Long Island has sent me clippings about a ghost scare on the old estate, and somehow I connect that with the attempt to destroy the emeralds. I can’t imagine any motive, but there are fanatics who do such things from a warped sense of their duty or from spite and hatred of rich folks. For old times’ sake, drop everything, get down to bedrock on this thing at your end—do whatever you think best, but get in touch with the yacht, learn their plans, cooperate with Captain Parks and my wife to bring that necklace back to the vaults, and—I count on you!”

“Golly-gracious!” exclaimed Larry, “that’s like a mystery novel!”

“But it’s no novel!” Jeff said morosely.

“What have you done about it?” asked Larry.
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Jeff explained. He had sent a radiogram to the yacht, and as its owner had already sent one identifying Jeff, he was given the information that the real necklace was being brought back, extra heavily insured in a London company, by the captain himself.

“I located and rented this crate we flew here in,” he went on. “I played joy-ride pilot by day at the airport and hopped here of nights. But I couldn’t get a line on anything. I didn’t notice that chewing gum until you, Dick, Larry and Sandy—all of you—started your third degree and showed it to me. But I did think—if anybody was playing ghost here, they might be planning to use the old amphibian for something—maybe to get away to get away with the emeralds if they could get hold of them—in case anybody thought the yacht was due to lay up here.”

“And that’s why you brought us here—to help you watch?” Sandy asked.

“Not exactly. But it came over me that at night I didn’t get anywhere and I thought I’d try coming in the daytime—and being that the yacht is due to make Long Island this afternoon, I thought I might need some help with a plan I’ve worked out.”

“What is it?” eagerly. Sandy wanted details.
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“I’ve sent the caretaker here—he’s as dependable as sunrise!—to a place out near Montauk Point lighthouse, with Mr. Everdail’s fast hydroplane boat and I’ve sent a radio message to the yacht captain to be on the watch to meet the hydroplane pretty well out to sea, and transfer the necklace to the boat. Then, the yacht will come on and make harbor here, as though nothing had happened—and all the time the emeralds will be on the way, down the Sound and East River, to a wharf where I’ll have a motor car, with a dependable chum of mine, to take charge and carry the package to safe deposit, get a receipt—and there you are!”

“I still don’t see how we can help!” Sandy spoke again.

“I mean to hop out in the airplane, sort of oversee the business of the transfer, and escort the hydroplane till she lands the emeralds, and then circle around till my friend, with the receipt, goes up onto the bank roof—it’s pretty high up—fourteen stories—and wig-wags an O.K. And I’d like dependable observers——”

“I’m one!” cried Sandy, his suspicions swept away. “Number two is named Larry.” “Dick is a dependable third!”

“We’ll be a regular Sky Patrol!” exulted Sandy. “And watch what goes on while you do the control job—and, that way—nothing can go wrong!” “Not with the Sky Patrol ‘over’-seeing!” Dick, too, spoke overconfidently.