A DOUBLE PURSUIT
"Keep your heads, boys," counseled Mr. Whiteside.
"We will--but come on--Jeff's making for the amphibian--let's----"
"Sandy went back to guard it," Dick told Larry who had spoken.
"Not alone is Sandy on watch, but I arranged to have Tommy Larsen bring
his airplane to the golf green Jeff used this afternoon," Mr. Whiteside
told them, as he walked, recovering breath, toward the hangar door.
"Tommy is to keep his engine warm, idling, and to be ready, at the first
sign of escape, to take the air and overtake Jeff," he added.
"But maybe Sandy might get into trouble," urged Larry. "He'd fight to
stop Jeff, and that man is in a dangerous mood if he'd do what he has
done."
"It will do no harm to go over," agreed Mr. Whiteside, slamming the door
behind them. "It's shorter down along the water."
At a jog trot they went down the slope and at the wharf Dick gave a cry
of surprise.
"There's the motor boat--drifting just off the dock!"
"Then that woman--Mimi--came back to rejoin Jeff!" argued Larry, and
broke into a run. "Come on, fellows!"
Down the wharf path they ran, turning into the shell-powder path that
skirted the inlet on the far side of which the amphibian lay moored.
"Sandy will stop them," panted Dick, a little to the rear because of his
weight. Larry called, over his shoulder, that with two to give battle
to, Sandy might need them before they could arrive.
"There's somebody--on the lawn!" cried Dick, swinging off in that
direction. From behind a large tree emerged a figure. Larry and the
detective followed at a run. But the man who came quickly forward to
meet them gave all three a surprise.
"Tommy!" Larry recognized the pilot.
"Larsen, why aren't you by your airplane?" demanded Mr. Whiteside.
"I came over to report and get instructions, sir."
"Why, I gave----"
"Something new has come up, sir. I was waiting there by my ship a good
while back, and I heard another one cruising and spiraling, shooting the
field, I guess, because he came in and set down. My crate, just the way
you ordered, was down by the grove, not in plain sight in the middle of
the course. But Jeff set his ship down, left the engine running, and
went off. I stayed hid to see what would happen, but when he didn't come
back, I thought I'd better go and find you--and see if it meant anything
to you."
"Jeff's working with his wife, we think," volunteered Larry. "Anyhow a
woman slipped in and led us out of the hangar and started away in a
motor boat, and then she must have come back, because yonder's the
boat----"
"See anything of Mimi?" asked Mr. Whiteside eagerly.
"Haven't laid eyes on the lady."
"She must have met Jeff and gone with him. We're going to see."
"I have orders, at that," Mr. Whiteside told the pilot. "You go back and
get into the air and then cruise around--just in case Jeff does get
started."
"I will that."
"It would take him some time," argued Dick.
"He could start his motor and taxi while it warmed up, and be half
across the Sound before he took off if he wanted to, in that 'phib,'"
the pilot said. Turning, he called that he would get going, and returned
beyond their view beyond the trees.
Dick, Larry and Mr. Whiteside, listening for a call from Sandy, went
hurrying along. But no call from Sandy. He had decided that it would be
a wiser thing to hide than to risk doing battle with the pilot if he was
actually as bad as they suspected; with that in mind he had crawled in
through the opening from the back, into the fuselage of the amphibian.
There, fairly comfortable, he lay, full length, listening. The open top
allowed air to come because a strong, puffy breeze had gotten up,
driving great, black thunderclouds before it.
Sandy regretted his ruse presently, because he heard a boat and realized
that he could not see who occupied it: furthermore, while his position
would enable him to be hidden and to go along if Jeff took off, he would
be helpless in case of an accident to the craft.
When he decided to get out, it was almost too late--but not quite.
Jeff got his engine going by setting it on a compression point when he
had primed the cylinders and using his booster magneto to furnish the
hot sparks that gave it its first impulse.
Then, as soon as he heard Jeff drop the mooring rope and get in, Sandy
backed to a point where he could crawl to hands and knees, poked his
head up carefully, saw Jeff, adjusting his helmet as the engine roared,
and was able to climb over the seat back into the place behind the tank
before Jeff decided they were warmed up enough, got the craft on the
step and lifted it into the darkness, lit by intermittent flashes of
approaching lightning.
Sandy snapped his safety belt.
"Now, Mister Jeff," he remarked, safe behind the roar of their climb.
"Go anywhere you like--life preserver and all. I'll make the tracks
'sandy' for you if you want to stop!" He employed a railway expression,
whimsically applying it to the airplane instead.
Dick, Larry and the detective, hearing the roar of the engine, delayed
not a moment in their dash around the rest of the inlet shore.
They found that the amphibian was well out on the Sound, saw it lift.
It climbed in a northerly direction.
As they reached the vicinity of its starting point and called and
searched for Sandy, they heard the drone of another engine and saw the
red-and-green and the white flying lights of what must be Tommy's craft,
also going northerly in pursuit.
"There he goes!" Larry cried. "There must be some place in Connecticut
that Jeff and the woman with him know about--remember, Tommy's passenger
had him flying in that direction when the seaplane crashed, and the
hydroplane boat went that way--by gracious-golly-gravy! Do you suppose
it could have been the woman who ran off with that other life preserver,
while Jeff pretended he was too sick to take up a ship?"
"It could be," Dick replied. "I'm wondering more about Sandy."
"Let's go back to the house and make sure he didn't stop there to see
what Jeff had been doing before," Larry suggested. "He may have missed
going with Jeff. If the woman had been along he'd have had no place and
they would have left him here. But there isn't a trace."
"No signs of any struggle either," said the detective who had
investigated with his flash.
They returned to the house.
In the library, where Sandy had told Dick he had seen a glimmer of
light, they saw nothing especially unusual, unless they could attach
importance to an old photograph album, lying open on a corner settee
with several small snapshots removed and only the gummed stickers left
to show they had been there and what their size was.
"No Sandy," said Dick, worried. "Do you suppose they?----"
"I wonder if he saw two people coming and crawled into the fuselage,"
Larry said.
"He might have. I wish we could follow and see."
"I'm ready--and I think I'd be safe to fly, even if it does look like
storms. We could outfly Jeff, anyhow, catch up with him----"
He pointed to an open telephone book beside the instrument on the side
table.
"It's a Long Distance book, too--and its open at the E's!" Dick glanced
swiftly down the pages, "Evedall--Ever--Everdail!" he looked up with a
surprised face.
Instantly Larry caught up the receiver.
"Long Distance Operator, please," he spoke into the transmitter.
"Yes?"
"Long Distance?" He gave the number of the Everdail Maine estate,
secured from the open book. "Has that number been called recently? Can
you tell me?"
"Just a moment," came back to him.
The moment became two--three----
"Hello! It has! At ten o'clock. Thank you. Someone has been using our
house telephone, then. Goodbye!"
"It was called!" the detective showed a baffled face.
"And by Jeff!" Larry consulted his watch. "The time checks with the
report Sandy gave that Jeff was here. He called Mr. Everdail--why?"
"To tell him about the life preserver--and maybe to deliver it!"
"But Dick--he would never take it there if he means to----"
"I begin to think he doesn't mean to make away with it."
"But it had to be a pilot who did all the things we have evidence of,
Dick."
"Well--there's another pilot!"
"And he's flying after Jeff!" gasped the detective--leaping up he
started out. "Come, boys--Larry, will you try to fly us? I've been on
the wrong angle all along. Will you take us in Jeff's airplane, Larry?"
Larry would!
Jacketed from the supply Jeff kept for passengers, two of the Sky Patrol
and a discomfited detective rose in the air and joined the pursuit.
It was to have an unexpected outcome.