CHAPTER XXIV A PUZZLING DEVELOPMENT

“Hooray!” Dick slapped Sandy’s shoulder. “The ‘man higher up’ has come down to earth! Here comes Larry!”

“You’re a sight for sore eyes!” Sandy exclaimed as the youthful amateur pilot joined his friends.

“I haven’t seen much of you, I know.” Larry sat down on the swing by Dick on the latter’s veranda. “Daytimes I’ve been studying rigging and checking up on an airplane, because Tommy thinks a pilot ought to know everything there is to know about his ship because he may have to do things himself if he gets hold of a careless rigger.”

“If the pilot didn’t know the right way he couldn’t say if his helper was doing things the wrong way,” agreed Sandy.

“But that hasn’t kept you away evenings,” objected Dick.
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“Tommy has been very good to me, giving me his time, in his room, so he could tell me all the ‘fine points’ he has picked up about flying.”

“Sky Patrol’s report received, considered and accepted,” Dick stated.

“Now for yours,” Larry smiled. “What has the Ground Crew done?”

“Watched, evenings, turn and turn about, till midnight,” Dick told him. “Mr. Whiteside took the day shift and came on to relieve us every midnight.”

“What progress have you made?”

“None at all!”

Sandy, responding to Larry, added:

“But you wouldn’t expect anything to happen if you’d seen all the reporters who have been ‘hanging around’ the old estate. Why, one has slept in that hangar a couple of nights.”

“No ghost with any self-respect would make a show of himself for newspaper publicity!” Dick chuckled.

“Almost all we needed to do was to watch the reporters,” Sandy said. “But they have given up, I guess. There was only one out last night, and he told me he thought the paper that ran that ‘box’ had played a trick on the others and on the readers.”

“That’s good,” Larry remarked. “Now the coast will be clear, the ghost can walk, and I will be with my trusty comrades to trip him up.”
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“It seems queer to me,” Dick spoke. “I’ve thought a lot about it. The fellow who played ghost must be searching for something. What can it be?”

“The emeralds?”

“But he was there before they were lost, Dick,” Larry objected.

“That’s so, Larry.”

“Here’s something that just came to me.” Sandy bent forward in the lounging chair. “Nothing has happened at night, for ten days. But all that time, Mr. Whiteside has been on the ‘day watch,’ as he calls it.”

“Golly-gracious!” Larry exclaimed. “Do you think?——”

“When Jeff flew us there, the first time, there seemed to be somebody in that hangar when we started in,” Dick added to Sandy’s idea.

“You’re right,” Sandy admitted. “By the way, Jeff is back at Bennett Field, taking up passengers for hire again.”

“I’m not worrying about Jeff.” Larry was caught by the suspicious action of their “detective” in taking the day watch while nothing occurred at night.

“What do you think of going out there to the hangar now?” he asked.

They thought very well of the idea.
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It was close to noon when the ’bus deposited them at the town from which they had to walk to the estate.

Strolling down the quiet street toward the main highway, Sandy’s alert eyes, always roving, caught sight of the estate caretaker. They hailed him and ran to the corner where he had turned to wave to them.

He greeted them sourly. Plainly the caretaker was out of sorts.

“Humph!” he grunted. “More dern amachoor detectives!”

“What makes you say that?” Sandy’s grin of salutation changed to a look of hurt surprise.

“Why wouldn’t I say it? Ain’t it enough I had reporters an’ all rampagin’ through the place without you three got to come, on top o’ that Whiteside feller and Jeff——”

“Mr. Whiteside—and Jeff?” repeated Larry.

“Yep! Nights it’s been bad enough—now it’s daytimes! Ghosts! Reporters! Snoopers! And now you fellers in the daytime!”

“What about Mr. Whiteside—and Jeff?” Dick wanted to get to the bottom of a startling situation.

“Well, if you must know—that Whiteside feller was there, as per usual, and along come Jeff, limpin’——”
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“Limping? Was he hurt?”

“Had his foot tied up, Master Larry. Said he was flyin’ and his power quit and he had to come down in a bad spot and a lot more.”

Once started on his troubles and their cause, the caretaker needed no more prompting. Jeff, he went on, had met Mr. Whiteside and said that if he wanted to fly he’d have to go in that other thing that they put in the water——”

“The hydroplane boat?” Sandy broke in to ask.

“No, the ampibbian——”

“The amphibian!”

The man nodded as they walked down toward the highway. After he helped the others to get the water-and-land ’plane onto the field, he grumbled, and had turned the propeller blades till his arms ached, the superstitious pilot, saying he had stumbled and fallen that morning and knew something would go wrong, had decided that they had no time to repair or find the trouble in the amphibian.

They must get going, he reported that Mr. Whiteside had declared, and Jeff had argued that if he had a six-B slotted bolt, he could fix his motor.
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“I never did hear of a six-B slotted bolt—or any slotted bolt,” declared Dick, while Sandy and Larry assented.

“Neither did the hardware man here in town after that Whiteside feller gave me five dollars to walk in the four miles and—back!”

Dick consulted his comrades with his eyes.

“That sounds to me like sending a new machine shop hand to the foreman for a left-handed monkey wrench,” he chuckled. “They’ve played a joke——”

“That doesn’t fit in,” argued Larry. “A bandaged foot, a limping pilot, an engine that wouldn’t start—and sending this gentleman on an errand that would take him away for a good while——”

“Where did Jeff say he set down?”

The caretaker turned and scowled at Sandy.

“He never set down nowhere. He leaned against the hangar!”

“I mean—where is his own airplane?”

“He never told me.”

All three comrades wished heartily that Jeff had revealed the information. Since he had not, each cudgeled his brains for some likely place within walking distance of the estate.

“That ‘six-B slotted bolt’ makes me think his engine hasn’t anything wrong with it at all,” Larry stated, finally. “Furthermore, I think he put down his crate in some handy—good—spot!”
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“A crackerjack pilot like Jeff could get in on a pretty small field,” Larry argued. “One place I can think of that isn’t a bad landing spot is the fairway of the ninth hole on that golf course yonder.” He indicated the grounds of a golf club. “It’s away from everything, and he might fly over the course, see that no foursome or twosome was likely to get there for some time—” Dick nodded, agreeing; but Sandy shook his head.

“What bothers me,” he stated, “is that if his engine is all right, Mr. Whiteside would have met him and gone in Jeff’s ship.”

“Unless—unless they wanted to make a water landing!”

“Golly-gracious, Dick! I think you’ve found the reason——”

“But, Larry—why wouldn’t they use the hydroplane boat?” Sandy was not convinced.

“I think the amphibian would be quicker—and maybe they don’t want to land but need the pontoons in case of——”

Dick, laying a hand on Larry’s arm, stopped him.
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“I have guessed the answer,” he cried. “They wanted to get rid of this gentleman,” he nodded toward the caretaker. “Then they could search that hangar——”

But they, themselves, had done that thoroughly! Larry made the objection but Dick waved a hand to dismiss it.

“The ghost hadn’t found anything. We hadn’t!” he argued. “Maybe they’ve decided there is something—and if it isn’t there when they make a good search, they think they know where else to look—and it’s either in the water—or over the water—or——”

“In the swamp where the seaplane crashed!” shouted Sandy, complimenting Dick with a sound smack on his back.

“Then let’s look on that fairway and see if the airplane is there, and if the engine runs.”

The airplane was there. The engine operated readily.

While they discussed these proofs of Dick’s quick wit, the sound of an airplane engine turned all eyes skyward.

“It’s the ‘phib’!” Sandy exclaimed.

“Come on—get in!” Larry urged. “I can fly this crate—and we’ll see what they’re going to do!”