ONE MYSTERY--OR TWO?
Slowly the table grated back across the floor of the hut.
Then, to Chick's intense relief, a cheerful voice hailed him.
"Ahoy, the boathouse! Who's in there?"
"It's--Chick--Chickering----"
"Gosh-a-mighty!" Chick sensed a familiar ring in the exclamation. "In
the name of all-possessed! What are you doing in my boathouse?"
The door thrust the table back, a dark form showed in the rays of the
moon that peered from the edge of scattering clouds, and Chick, with a
great sense of relief, recognized that his newest companion was Toby
Tew, who operated a small motion picture "palace" in Winter and eked
out a meager living by renting dories to crabbing parties in the Summer.
"Show a light!" he ordered Chick. "What made you blow out the lantern?"
"I didn't. It went out." Chick clutched the arm of the big man in his
heavy oilskins as he thrilled to the touch of human contact. "Mr. Tew,
did you see anything--hear anything?"
The other laughed.
"Sort of spooky, hey? No. I guess I was part of the ghost, and your
excitement furnished the balance. I saw a light when I started down
channel to see to my dories after the blow. 'A light!' thinks I,
'that's a how-dy-do!' So I pushed the door open, and got out of range,
case it was some bootlegger run in out o' the blow. I heard you coming
out so I dodged across and got behind a spile. Thinks I, 'I don't want
any bootlegger to bore me. If he wants to shelter in my boathouse, let
him,' thinks I, 'but I won't try collecting rent--not in the kind of
lead the bootleggers uses to pay their taxes!'"
"I'm glad it was you," Chick said, and on Toby's earnest question as to
his reason for being there, Chick spoke in fullest confidence.
He knew Toby Tew, as did all the youths of Port Washington and its
vicinity, knew him for a kindly, good-humored, open-handed man. No
parent was ever visited because prankish youths "borrowed" dories and
returned them with am oar missing. No party of boys lacking funds had
to forego crabbing expeditions as long as Toby had spare dories not in
demand for pay. Any Winter evening there were plenty of spare seats at
the picture theatre for young men who wanted amusement but were out of
pocket money--and they always paid when they could!
"Um! Gosh-a-mighty!" exclaimed the boatman-picture exhibitor, when
Chick had related the suggestions of Scott, the ensuing flight, the
coming of the mail 'plane, the spectre visitation and its vanishment,
and the events that had followed, "in the name of all--possessed! You
don't say! Doc!--why, Doc never stole in his life!"
"Somebody had to bring those designs here," Chick maintained. "Doc was
here when I came," he gestured toward the bottle and the upset
condition of the hut, revealed by the refilled lantern; Toby, who had
made a foray on his reserve can of kerosine for the lantern, set the
utensil in its place.
"Doc never done that! Gosh-a-mighty! I've known that fellow for a
lifetime, almost! In the name of all-possessed, though, who would of
come up through my trap door with oilskins and green rubber gloves and
a bathing cap on? And what for? And Doc did say he saw the same----"
"It's easy to say you 'saw' something if you mean to 'be it,'" Chick
explained. But Toby shook his head.
"He wouldn't go that far to try to throw a scare into you," he
remonstrated. "And Doe seldom uses alcohol. More'n that, there's some
mighty funny goings-on around this marsh, of late--mighty funny."
"I know it!" Chick agreed. "That spooky airplane and then the two
ghosts crashing together--Scott said some old-timer around the marsh
had seen it and remembered about a crack-up years ago and thinks it's
the ghost of the pilot who caused the smash, unable to rest, haunting
the place; and--from what we saw--I begin to wonder."
"Not me. Gosh-a-mighty, son, there's a whole heap of easier ways to
account for it than that. Supposing the airport beacon was lit,
say--flashing around. Supposing your airplane was to fly across that
ray just when it came onto a cloud. How about the shadow?"
"Don showed how that could be, when he came in," Chick agreed, "but
that won't account for the crash of two airplanes."
"But if Scott had took up the Dart--in the name of all-possessed!"
Sitting in the chair the boatman slapped his knee. "That's what it was.
The Dart flew one way. You was going another."
He paused to emphasize his next words.
"The two shadows showed, coming together!----"
"That won't explain it," Chick interrupted. "The airplanes were of the
old style--like the war Jennies, or old-style biplanes."
"In that queer light, and with your minds keyed up to expect
something----"
"But how would it help if that did explain the spook tonight? We
weren't flying around the other times!" Chick was unconvinced.
"That's so!" Toby rubbed his chin. "Besides, how does that work in with
this about the mysterious airplane design being found here. Let's have
a look, what do you say?"
Chick uncurled the soggy paper, carefully, on the table.
"In the name of all-possessed! Nobody'd steal that! It don't mean a
thing, does it?"
"Well--only the general body design and strut placement. And I don't
see why they sketched in wings and control surfaces, on a structural
skeleton." Chick was puzzled.
"Hum! You know more about that than I would. Son, it's a mystery!"
"Is it one mystery--or two?" Very soberly Chick looked up. "Do you see
how taking this tracing fits in with the spectre in the sky?"
As Toby shook his head and bent again over the tracery, Chick went on,
in the yellow lantern light.
"We thought the haunting might be by some enemy of Don's uncle, to ruin
the airport business," he argued. "If that is so, then this about the
tracing is a different mystery."
"Gosh-a-mighty! You're smart for your age!"
Toby looked up admiringly. "Now, then, what reason would you say made
anybody want to take this--" He put a stubby finger on the tracing,
looking up with a curious intensity in his gaze that surprised and
startled Chick a little.
"I--I guess I give that up."
"I guess you'll have to! Son--look at this thing. Hold it up to the
light!"
Astonished, Chick did so.
"Notice anything odd about it?"
"Some of the ink has run----"
"That's part of it, son. The part that has run is----"
"Wait!" cried Chick, thrilling with a discovery. "The wings and the
struts, and some of the 'empennage'--the tail assembly--is done in
India waterproof ink!----"
"Not alone that." Toby became very serious. "That's no design of an
airplane, my lad. That's--but, here! Gosh-a-mighty! I'm forgetting that
you're sopping wet and cold, and the folks at home will be having a
search party out after you. Let's get my dory and I'll row you down to
the 'base.'" He caught up the lantern as Chick picked up the tracing.
"Wait!" begged Chick. "If it isn't an airplane--what is it?"
Lantern in hand, Toby turned to him.
"It's the hull of an old-time sailing brig!" he declared.
And with that he added a third mystery--or didn't he?