CHAPTER XXXI A TRIUMPH FOR THE ENEMY

Sandy was first to hear the call and locate it. The others, not expecting a cry for help from within the hangar until they had seen some one go in, when Dick would be only a sort of surprise attacker while they proposed to make the capture, Larry and the detective were confused for an instant.

Then, recovering, and supposing Dick had called from close inside the hangar, they took the quickest way in, and interfered with one another at the small opening in the plates.

Sandy, dashing toward the hangar, correctly supposing Dick had called from its smaller doorway, did not see Jeff emerge from the old house and start on a run in the same direction.

Dick, clinging with all his strength to a wiry, supple powerful body, strove to keep that hold while he captured the hands that were pounding at his neck and averted face.

Hot, quick puffs of breath fanned his cheek.
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Hissing, sibilant gasps marked the throes of the struggle.

Unexpectedly the figure went limp.

Dick clung. He heard the aides coming in through the metal opening. He caught the pound of Sandy’s approaching shoes.

But he did not believe he had made his captive so tamely surrender.

He realized that with a hand at her side the woman was striving to get at something in her skirt.

He slipped his arm down lower so that his hand encountered her wrist.

That lessened his ability to hold with the arm that was already aching from its prolonged strain. His hand gripped convulsively in the folds of the dress at the back; but his grip was not as tight as it had been because his mind was concentrated on stopping that other hand!

He felt a knee coming up.

Involuntarily he shrank back from a possible kick in some vital spot.

Like a cat the figure squirmed, a heel, small and sharp, came down on his foot. He grunted and winced and the figure broke his grip.

Pushing him, leaping backward, only to catch balance, the form wheeled on agile feet and ran for the grove.
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Sandy, within sighting distance, cut into the wood to intersect the path of flight.

Dick pounded after the woman.

From the door of the hangar Larry and Mr. Whiteside emerged to join the chase.

“If I could have held her one second more!—” panted Dick.

“Her?” cried Larry.

The grove had prevented him from seeing the escaping figure.

“It was Mimi, I guess!”

They all disappeared into the grove, and Jeff, coming rapidly closer, paused to listen to the sound of the pursuit.

A smile, inscrutable in the dark, crossed his face, twisted his lips. He turned into the hangar.

Down the wood’s path raced Dick, Larry slightly ahead of him, the detective, older and not so quick, bringing up the rear.

“Scatter!” cried he. “She has turned off!”

“Here she is—” Sandy shouted, but a crash indicated that he had stumbled or missed his footing on slippery sod or pebbles.

The chase turned toward him.

Recovered, he dashed in pursuit of the woman.
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Their quarry was fleet, clever and terrorized: she led them always toward the water, down hill.

Sandy, having hurt his foot somewhat in his stumble, was quickly out of the race.

He decided to go back and see if the hangar, with its door wide, was still deserted. Sandy had a misgiving that the woman might be a decoy and that the hangar ought to be watched.

As Dick passed at a slight distance, Sandy told his idea.

“That’s—so,” panted Dick. He decided that the other two must be both fleeter and more agile than he, with his fat; so he returned with Sandy, to a point where they saw that the door was in the same relative position they had left it—wide.

“I don’t think we need to stay here—both of us,” Sandy said. “And if Jeff went into the house, he may have come out. Suppose he plans to get hold of that life preserver, and the woman was sent ahead to get us all away—” He considered that, then went back to his original idea, “Then it would be a good thing for me to get back to where I can watch that amphibian.”

Dick agreed.

He went inside the hangar, closing the door, and resumed his vigil.
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In a short time two others returned, to knock on the door and to inform Dick, when he opened it, that the woman, clever planner that she proved herself, had arranged the small motor-boat of the estate so that its engine was going; by a ruse she had gotten far enough ahead of them while they stopped to “capture” her discarded coat after she had cried out as if she had stumbled. That enabled her to get to the boat. They had no way to overtake her as she swept out of the inlet. Evidently she had started the boat motor in the afternoon while they were away, or they would have heard the roar of the start though no one had noticed the softer purr of it as it idled.

Then they went into the hangar and Mr. Whiteside, listening to Dick’s report, from Sandy, of Jeff’s movements, swung his flashlamp around.

From each came an amazed, horrified gasp.

The life preserver was gone!