JIMSY'S SUSPICIONS ARE ROUSED.
Peggy, after a moment in which the entire world seemed spinning about her
crazily, sat up. She had landed in a ditch, and partially against a clump
of springy bushes, which had broken the force of her fall. In fact, she
presently realized, that by one of those miraculous happenings that no one
can explain, she was unhurt.
The automobile, its hood crushed in like so much paper, had skidded into
the same ditch in which Peggy lay, and bumped into a small tree which it
had snapped clean off. But the obstacle had stopped it.
One wheel lay in the roadway. Evidently it had come off while the machine
was at top speed, and caused the crash. But Peggy noted all these things
automatically. She was looking about her for Roy.
From a clump of bushes close by there came a low groan of pain. The girl
sprang erect instantly, forgetting her own bruises and shaken nerves in
this sign that her brother was in pain. In the meantime, Fanning and
Regina Mortlake had stopped and turned the Blue Bird. They came back to
the scene of the wreck with every expression of concern on their faces.
Roy lay white and still in the midst of the brush into which he had been
hurled. There was a great cut across his forehead, and in reply to Peggy's
anxious inquiries, the lad, who was conscious, said that he thought that
his ankle had been broken. Peggy touched the ankle he indicated, and light
as her fingers fell upon it, the boy uttered an anguished moan.
"Oh, gee, Peg!" he cried bravely, screwing up his face in his endeavor not
to make an outcry, "that hurts like blazes."
"Poor boy," breathed Peggy tenderly, "I'm so sorry."
"I'm so glad you're not hurt, Sis," said the boy, "I don't matter much. I
wish you could stop this bleeding above my eye, though."
Peggy ripped off a flounce of her petticoat and formed it into a bandage.
"Can I help. I'm so sorry."
The voice was Fanning Harding's. He stood behind her with Regina at his
side.
"Oh, how dreadful." exclaimed the dark-eyed girl, with a shudder, "my--my
poor car."
"And my poor brother," snapped out Peggy, indignantly, "if it hadn't been
for your stupid idea of racing this wouldn't have happened. I just knew
we'd have an accident."
"It's too bad," repeated Fanning, "but can't I do something?"
"Yes, get me some water. There's a brook a little way down this road.
You'll find a tin cup under the rear seat in our machine."
Fanning, perhaps glad to escape Peggy's righteous anger, hastened off on
the errand. Regina flounced down on a stone by the roadside and moaned.
"Oh, this is fearful. Why can't we get a doctor? Oh, my poor car. It will
never be the same again."
"Nonsense," said Peggy, sharply, "it can easily be repaired. But you don't
think I'm worrying about your car now, do you?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," quavered Regina, "I know it's all terrible. Is
your brother badly hurt?"
"No. Fortunately he only has this cut in his head and a broken ankle. It
might have been far worse."
Regina wandered away. Somehow she felt that Peggy had taken a sudden
dislike to her. She sauntered toward the car. Suddenly she stopped and her
large eyes grew larger. In the middle of the road, just as they had been
hurled from Roy's pocket, lay a side-comb studded with brilliants and an
old battered wallet.
"Oh!" cried the girl, with an exclamation that was half a sob, "oh, what
good fortune. So he was keeping that as evidence against me, eh? Well,
perhaps this accident was providential, after all."
She picked up the comb and then turned her attention to the wallet. Giving
a quick glance around to see that she was unobserved the girl plunged her
white fingers into the pocket case. They encountered something crisp and
crackly. She drew the object out.
"A twenty-dollar bill!" she exclaimed wonderingly, "and nothing else. I
wonder if this can have anything to do with----."
She was turning it over curiously as she spoke. Suddenly a red spot flamed
up in her either cheek.
"It's marked with a red round O," she exclaimed, "what a bit of evidence.
So Master Roy Prescott, you were planning to unmask me by that side-comb,
were you? Well, I shall play the same trick on you with this bill."
Fanning Harding was coming back at that moment with the cup full of water.
The girl checked him with an excited gesture.
"Fortune has played into our hands," she cried, "look here!"
"Well, what is it?" asked Fanning, rather testily.
"This bill. Don't you see it's one of the stolen ones. Look at the red
circle upon the back."
"Jove! So it is. But, what, how----"
"Hush! Don't talk so loud. This wallet, which contained it, was jolted out
of Roy Prescott's pocket when he was hurled from the machine. The wallet
and--and something else. But don't you see what power that gives us?"
"No. I confess I'm stupid, but----"
"Oh, how dense you boys are," exclaimed Regina, with an impatient stamp of
the foot, "don't you see that this bill will come pretty close to proving
Roy Prescott a thief, if we want to use it that way? You are a witness
that I found it in his wallet which had been jerked out of his pocket.
Isn't that enough?"
"Well, men have been sent to prison on less evidence," said Fanning, with
a shrug; "but I've got to hurry up with this water or they'll suspect
something. I'll talk more with you about this later on. Your father and
mine need every bit of fighting material they can get hold of, if we are
to win the big prize for the Mortlake aeroplane."
A shadow fell athwart the road as Fanning, an evil smile on his flabby,
pale face, hastened down into the depression in which Roy, with Peggy
bending above him, still lay. The girl looked swiftly up. A big, red
aeroplane was hovering on high. Presently one of its occupants, a girl
peered over the edge. The next minute she turned and said something in an
excited tone to her companion. The aeroplane began to drop rapidly. In a
few seconds it came to earth in the roadway, not a stone's throw from the
wrecked auto and its uninjured Blue Bird comrade.
The new arrivals were Jimsy and Jess. They had set out on a sky cruise to
the Prescott home, and Jess's bright eyes had espied the confusion in the
road beneath them as they flew over. The swift descent had been the
result.
Hardly noticing Regina, who regarded them curiously, the young sky sailors
hastened toward the spot in which, from on high, they had seen the injured
boy lying. A warm wave of gratitude swept over Peggy as she looked up at
the sound of footsteps and saw who the newcomers were. In an emergency
like the present one she could not wish for two better helpers than the
Bancrofts.
Jess and Jimsy had been off on a visit and so had not been made aware of
the fact that Fanning had returned to Sandy Beach. Their astonishment on
seeing him may be imagined. Jess regarded him with a tinge of disdain, but
the frank and open Jimsy grasped the outstretched hand which the son of
the Sandy Beach banker extended to him. Evidently Fanning's policy was one
of conciliation and he meant to press it to the uttermost.
"Well, this is a nice fix, isn't it?" murmured Roy, smiling pluckily, as
the Bancrofts came toward him with pitying looks, "but where in the world
did you come from?"
"From yonder sky," grinned Jimsy, trying, not very successfully, to assume
an inanely cheerful tone, "not badly hurt, old man, are you?"
"No. Just this wallop over my eye and a twisted ankle. Thought it was
broken at first, but I guess it isn't."
"How did it all happen?"
Peggy explained. Jimsy whistled.
"What make of machine is your car, Fanning?" he asked.
"A Dashaway," was the rejoinder.
"The same type as ours," exclaimed young Bancroft. "They are the best and
stanchest cars on the market. I can't understand how such an accident
could have happened, unless----," he paused and then went on resolutely,
"unless the car had been tampered with."
"What an idea!" shrilled Regina, who had now joined the group, "you don't
surely mean to insinuate? Why the damage done to my poor machine will
cost a lot to repair, and----."
"Don't mind if I have a look at it, do you?" asked Jimsy in his most
careless manner, "I'm interested, you know. A motor bug is what dad calls
me."
"Well I----," began Fanning.
But Regina interrupted him with strange eagerness.
"Oh, by no means. Look at it all you wish. I only hope you can find some
explanation for this regrettable accident."
"I hope so, too," said Jimsy gravely, "but in the meantime let's make Roy
comfortable in the Blue Bird. Then, if we can fix your car up, Miss----."
"Oh, I beg your pardon," struck in Peggy, "Jimsy, this is Miss Mortlake,
Fanning you know. Miss Mortlake these are our particular chums, Jess and
Jimsy Bancroft."
"Indeed. I have heard a great deal about you," vouchsafed Regina, as Jimsy
and Fanning lifted Roy and carried him to the Blue Bird and made him
comfortable on the cushions.
"I'll attend to the other car," volunteered Fanning, readily. But Jimsy
was not to be put off in this way.
"I'd like to have a look at it before we try to put the wheel back," he
said; "it may be a useful bit of experience."
"All right," assented Fanning, rather sullenly, "if you insist; but I
think we ought to hurry back at once."
"By all means," quoth the bland Jimsy, "but--hullo, what's this!" He was
stooping over the wheels now. "This wheel has been tampered with. The
holding cap must have been partially unscrewed. Look here!"
He held up the brass cap which was supposed to keep the wheel on its axle.
"Some of the threads have been filed out of this," he said positively.
"Let's have a look," said Fanning eagerly. He leaned over and scrutinized
the part which Jimsy was examining.
"Those threads haven't been filed," he said, "they've worn. Very careless
not to have noticed that. It's surprising that it held on so long."
"It might have held for a year if the car was run at average speed," said
Jimsy slowly, "but the minute it was raced beyond its normal rate the weak
part would have gone."
"What do you mean to imply?" blustered Fanning, though his face was pale
and his breath came quickly.
"I don't imply anything," said Jimsy slowly, "but I'd like to know who
filed this cap down."
"Pshaw! You are dreaming," scoffed Fanning.
A dull flush overspread Jimsy's ordinarily placid face.
"After a while I'll wake up, maybe," he said, "and then----." He stopped.
"Well, let's see about getting Roy home," he said, "Peggy, you can drive
the Blue Bird and Fanning and Miss Mortlake can sit in the other machine
as soon as we get the wheel back. Then Jess and I will go ahead in the
_Red Dragon Fly_ and break the news to Miss Prescott."
Shortly thereafter the two autos moved slowly off, while the aeroplane
raced above them, going at a far faster speed.
Regina turned to Fanning.
"Do you think that odious boy suspects anything?" she asked.
"I guess he does. But he can't prove a thing, so that's all the good it
will do him," scoffed Fanning, "and besides, if they get too gay we've got
a marked bill that will make it very unpleasant for a certain young
aviator."