TANGLED THREADS
On a former occasion Bob had related news to an audience composed of Al
and Curt.
As the trio rode homeward, Curt to share supper with the brothers, Al
was the spokesman.
“Did you ever see so many people to suspect and so many clues that don’t
lead anywhere?” asked Curt when Al had told his story and had shown his
evidence.
“The Sky Squad has a mystery, and there’s no mistake about it,” declared
Al. “We got what we wanted, but now—what can we do with it?”
“You mean the mystery?”
“No, Bob. I mean the autograph.”
“Well, it proves one thing, anyway,” Bob asserted. “The single word
matches our ‘Everything O.K.’ note. That proves that the man who wrote
the note is at that roadhouse, The Windsock.”
“It does,” Curt agreed. “But—is it the man named Jones? Did he write
it?”
“Did he write either one?” Bob was puzzled as he spoke.
“He left the room, you said.” Curt turned to Al, who nodded.
“Maybe he didn’t write anything!”
“What does all that matter?” Bob said. “The point is that we have proof
that the man who used the brown ‘plane is staying at The Windsock. Now
our job is to discover who he is.”
“Let’s see those autographs again.” Curt drew his wheel to the roadside
and took the book from Al. “‘T. J.’ is written with a plain leadpencil,”
he remarked. “The ‘J. T.’ one is the one written in indelible pencil.
‘J. T.’” he repeated thoughtfully. “Do you suppose Jones transposed his
initials and then got a waiter or a clerk to write the other and sign
what Al would take for his initials?”
“It’s too tangled up to suppose about,” argued Bob. “Two things we do
know from it.”
“One is,” Al remarked, as they resumed their ride, “one is that we know
the brown airplane man is at The Windsock. What’s the other?”
“Well, whether it’s Jones or not—Jones has something to hide, this
proves. Otherwise he’d have scribbled a word or two for Al, and thought
no more about it.”
“That’s so.”
“It simplifies things, doesn’t it?” Al, speaking after Curt’s agreement,
was not so sure as his words indicated.
“It makes them more complicated,” Bob retorted. “Let’s see what we know
and where we stand.”
As they rode slowly, he tabulated their clues and theories and
discoveries, with many interruptions from his companions.
“First of all,” he began, “we saw a mysterious brown airplane hidden in
the woods. Then, when we went there, it was gone—and this note was flung
aside. The crate took off in a hurry because we saw heavy tracks, and
made in a hurry, by the way they looked. Then there was a crack-up at
Rocky Lake and we found out Mr. Tredway was in the Silver Flash that
crashed.”
“And we saw a man come to try to help, swimming across the lake,” Curt
broke in.
“And then we met Barney and he and Father called us in to help solve the
Mystery Crash,” added Al.
“We learned there was more mystery than just the fall of the crate,” Bob
went on. “That was bad enough; but there was more! Parts were being
stolen from the aircraft plant, and ‘planes had been tampered with—after
tests showed them to be perfect!—and——”
“When we went there to work in the plant,” Curt was eager to add his
contribution to the sum of their recollections. “We saw Mr. Parsons
acting suspiciously, and Griff, too.”
“And we have suspected Langley was in bad company with Griff, and Lang
got mad at us about Griff—but we haven’t found any reason to suspect
Lang, since,” Al declared. “But now we’ve got more people to suspect—the
stranger who came to the plant and this ex-pilot.”
“But all this hasn’t brought us any closer to knowing anything
definite,” Bob objected. “I begin to wonder if Father was right, after
all, when he told us to ‘drop those unimportant things and locate that
brown airplane.’”
“But we can’t!” defended Al. “There’s no way to start hunting. I’m for
keeping on disobeying until something happens to help us.”
“And I’m for getting in to supper,” Curt changed the subject as they
dismounted at the cottage. “Let’s give what brains we have a good rest
while we eat.”
“Well, one thing more and we will.” Bob paused, thoughtful and serious.
“Al said we had no cause to suspect Lang. Well—today, I was wondering
why Griff was so nervous and fidgety and furtive, and Lang came in and
took me out, to give me a lesson in handling the controls, he hinted. He
really did, but before he took me up while he tested the new sport
speedster, he said, ‘I see you’re bothering Griff again,’ and he gave me
‘down the banks’ about it.”
“What’s suspicious about that?” Curt asked.
“Not that, so much. But—he told me to go on home, that it was closing
time, and I put on my cap and punched the time-clock, and then I
recalled that I had left the baseball we were playing ‘catch’ with at
noon, in my bench drawer. I went back, and there was Griff, all excited,
and Lang, with his head close to Griff’s, acting as upset and as uneasy
as Griff when I came in and surprised them. Lang snapped at
me—I—don’t—like it——”
“Well,” Curt was quiet, a little hesitant, but firm. “If Lang is mixed
up in something wrong—we ought to—at least we ought to try to save him!”
“That’s good,” agreed Bob, quickly. “I thought you were going to say ‘we
ought to catch him with the rest.’”
“No, indeed, I think more of Lang than that.”
“But how could we save him?” asked Al.
To that they had no answer as they went in to eat.
As they sat at the table Al mentioned the morning’s chat with
Jimmy-junior, and suggested that they really ought to go and spend an
evening with him as he had urged them to do; if the others liked him,
they could communicate by nods and take him into the Sky Squad, not as a
full member, but just to please him and have a fourth member to call on
if an emergency arose where he would be needed. Al vouched for his
innocence and good nature, eagerness to please and willingness to work
without asking for explanations of why he did a certain thing.
“He’d be a good one to send to watch anybody—Griff, or the ex-pilot,” Al
spoke as the trio rode toward Jimmy-junior’s home.
“We’ll see——”
Bob did not finish. He applied his coaster brake, made a quick signal
for silence, swerved into a garage driveway, followed by his companions,
and dismounted, dropping his bicycle on the lawn.
“What happened?” asked Al, thrilling to some possible mystery.
“Lang turned the corner!”
“You didn’t want him to see us?”
“Certainly not!” Bob answered Al.
“Wonder where he’s going.” Curt slipped along the side of the house by
which they had stopped. “He’s in a terrible hurry,” he reported, coming
back. “In a second he’ll be passing this house. Get back—behind the
house. I don’t think he’ll notice the bikes on the grass in the dusk.”
They hid from the view of anyone on the sidewalk. Peering cautiously out
in turn they saw Langley hurrying by.
“Now—where’s he going?”
“And what shall we do about it?”
“See where he goes,” Curt answered the other two.
Lang turned the next corner.
“I’ll bet he’s going to Griff’s house!”
Al was correct in his guess. As they trundled their bicycles, keeping as
far behind Lang as they thought necessary, they saw him turn in at
Griff’s gate. Five minutes later, from carefully chosen points of
concealment they saw Lang come out, take Griff’s repaired motorcycle and
ride off in haste.
Consulting one another with dismayed eyes, the chums, by common consent,
mounted and pedaled for dear life along the street, around the corner,
back to the main highway.
They seemed to sense where Langley was going.
They did not, however, divine what he planned to do!