EIGHT HOURS' LEEWAY
Taking their cue from the abrupt, antagonistic attitude of those who
could overhear the Inspector's words, the crowd began to mutter and to
mill around, held back only by the lack of a leader. The lack might be
supplied by any chance word of any among them.
"This is a pretty bad spot," murmured Garry, softly, to Don.
"How about some football tactics?" hinted Chick. "We could break
through the few between us and the helicopter. It would be warm enough
to start easily."
"We're not flying any more tonight." Don made a prediction he might
find impossible to keep. "Here comes Doc Morgan, and the handling crew."
Working their way through the crowd, the sturdy men who took the
airplanes in charge, as well as several shop workers, led by the
airport man-of-all-jobs, came around the edge of the staging, while
Toby Tew pushed forward to join the group.
Toby, the theatre manager, with his sense of the way to handle an
audience, stepped forward. The leader had arrived; but he was on the
side of the threatened chums.
His brief speech, begun with a half-laughing, "Well, gentlemen, the
show's over," and ending with a cleverly suggested hint that they might
see something in the morning papers that would compel them to come to
the Palace to see "Red Blood and Blue," caused the crowd to suppose the
whole affair was what theatre folks call "a publicity stunt," devised
to attract attention, bring about talk and advertise the picture.
"Thanks for the way you handled that," Mr. McLeod remarked as the
crowd, looking a trifle sheepish, thinking itself hoaxed into attending
and helping along a publicity drive, melted away.
"Thanks for the 'ad,'" Toby chuckled. "I saw a way to turn it to my own
advantage--but, of course, I thought of it to get our young friends out
of hot water."
"Thanks, a lot," Garry said. "They might have thought it would be a
good time to give some harum-scarum fellows a ducking--or worse." He
became very earnest. "But, honestly, Mr. Tew--and all of you folks--"
Doc, the handlers, the control chief and many friends, heard his
statement at the hangar door, "--we meant only to try to lay the ghost
of the spectre in the clouds, that was all, by showing how it was done."
He was believed, and presently the group dwindled to the chums, the
airport executive, Doc and Toby.
To their great surprise they were joined by the pilot whose liking for
"spooks" had started the chums into the whole affair.
Limping badly, with a heavy swathing of bandages visible even under his
loose trousers, on his left thigh, Scott came slowly in.
"Well!" he greeted them, "I see there's been some excitement."
"Why, Scott! We thought you were pretty bad when Uncle took you to the
hospital last night. Glad you came out so quickly," cried Doc.
"Oh--I had a good 'break,'" the pilot said, but his face showed his
strain, for he winced and drew wrinkles around his set lips as pain
seemed to attend each halting step.
He had been grazed, he told them, by the flying propeller, when it had
flung itself loose from its shaft on the Dart, the night before. The
doctors and nurses, he explained, had patched him up--"Battered, but
not busted!" was his summing up of his condition.
"They let me out tonight, and when I heard the siren I got a lift, but
couldn't get to you through the crowd."
He was optimistic about the situation as it was explained to him by
Don, Garry and Chick.
"I don't think they'll do more than suspend Don's license for six
months, at most," he said, "and then only if the postal authorities see
fit to notify the Licensing Bureau. Nobody got hurt, you see."
"But six months would be a long time without any flying." Don was
despondent.
"Not very!" argued Doc Morgan. "It would soon go past."
"But so will the eight hours between now--it's near one o'clock--and
the time we have to be at the Inspector's office," Chick declared. "If
we could find the real ghost, and take him--or it--along, we'd be able
to keep Don in the air--where he loves to be!"
"If the detectives can't work it out, and the rest of us can't make
head or tail of things," Scott grinned and then winced, dropping to a
chair in the shop doorway, "how do you expect to manage it--in eight
hours or so?"
"I don't know," Chick looked very serious, "but we've got an awful lot
of clues if we can fit them together--there's the rubber outfit, if we
can locate it--oilskins, gloves--they'd have finger prints to test."
"Yes--" Doc glanced suggestively toward Toby, "and the owner of a
boathouse and dories, who would be likely to wear oilskins--he might be
questioned." Tew glowered at him.
"There's that tracing, if we could locate it," Garry added. "There
might be fingerprints on it, too."
Toby took his revenge.
"Yes," he admitted, "they might be on the bottle--the one a certain
person emptied or spilled, the night he was where the tracing was
found!"
"When it comes to that," Doc flashed back, "somebody had his initials
on that--er--tracing, I recall," he glanced meaningly toward the
control chief.
"Casting suspicion and making mean remarks won't get the boys along,"
Scott hinted. "Have you any other clues? I don't suppose you searched
the boathouse thoroughly--or the helicopter, maybe?"
"We were too excited." Garry turned quickly. "That makes me think--we
might bring in the projector and the film cases--there might be a clue
we didn't notice in the dark. They ought to be kept in a locker,
anyway--like the others----"
"What others?" Scott leaned forward, and then, perhaps recalled by pain
to his injuries, he groaned, and slumped back, his lips set.
"We found--well, never mind," Chick was about to tell their whole story
when he caught sight of Don's expression.
His eyes swung to follow those of his chum.
At the hangar doorway, on either side, were two intent, coppery-red
faces, one old and seamed, the other young and alert.
The others followed the line of Don's gaze.
"In the name of all-possessed!" exclaimed Toby Tew, "if it isn't the
Indians!"
Out rushed the crowd--down the runways toward the line of cottages
backing onto yards near the swamp edge, raced the quarry.
They outdistanced the pursuit.
Old though he was, Ti-O-Ga kept pace with his son. The black dark of
swamp, where none knew of any existing path, stopped the chase.
"Funny, wasn't it," remarked Don, as he returned to find Scott, unable
to join them, waiting eagerly for results. "I never thought much about
those two Indians--not in connection with this. But--that old one is
smart--only---why would they haunt the swamp, around here? I can't
imagine they have any grudge against my uncle. Uncle Bruce doesn't know
them, I'm sure."
"Maybe Tew wasn't so far off, earlier--how about it, Toby?--saying this
was all a 'publicity stunt' for his picture!"
The theatre owner smiled a strange, unrevealing smile.
"I wonder--" reflected Scott. "Good stuff for the newspapers, if he did
work it--but dangerous for the pilots! Man who Never Lived! A queer,
disappearing map. Ghosts in clouds. When do you 'spring' the
advertising part, eh, Toby?"
Toby was not permitted to reply.
Don, turning, saw Chick rush excitedly up from the staging where the
helicopter was securely staked and tied to the waterside posts.
"Look!" Chick was so excited that he galloped toward them, capering and
waving a large, round container, of some shiny metal, as he advanced.
In the case where they had found the projector and lamp, he cried, he
had, on searching, discovered a can of film.
"I opened it to see if it was the same film we used," he reached the
group.
Scott started up from his chair, Doc came close, his face set and
eager. Toby, with a muttered, "Gosh-a-mighty!" became very attentive.
The injury of the pilot must have reminded him of its pain, for he sat
down quickly again, wiping his brow.
"What did you find?" demanded Garry.
"Unexposed film!"
"Un--film that hasn't been exposed?"
Chick nodded.
"But how do you know?" Don cried. "Film is all of the same yellowish
color till its been developed. It could be exposed--and--oh, dear! I
suppose you opened the can and there might have been enough light to
fog the film--and we may have lost a very telling clue!"
"Maybe not!" cried Scott. "Take it up, and develop the first few
'frames' and see. You know how to handle the time-and-temperature tank
powders, Chick. You go and develop some of that film. Don, will you and
Garry help me to my boarding place? I'm--all in!"
They took him, limping painfully, to his bedroom. There he turned.
"Good glory!" he muttered, "fellow--I forgot! Doc--and Toby--and
Vance--and those two Indians--are about the place--and Chick's all
alone with that--maybe it's a clue! Sorry I brought you. Go back,
fellows! Run!"
They ran!