“Oh—my shoulder!” the man cried out in sudden anguish. ([Page 93])

THE
HAUNTED HANGAR

By VAN POWELL

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Akron, Ohio New York

Copyright MCMXXXII
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
The Haunted Hangar
Made in the United States of America

CONTENTS

[I “Suspicious Sandy”] 5 [II Ghosts, Gum—and Gems] 13 [III The Sky Patrol Organizes] 21 [IV Mystery Over the Ocean] 30 [V Mystery in the Fog] 42 [VI The End of the Chase] 50 [VII The Swamp Gives Up a Clue] 54 [VIII Sandy Meets a “Suspect”] 64 [IX Jeff Encounters a “Jinx”] 73 [X Larry’s Capture] 82 [XI “Pop! Goes Our Mystery!”] 95 [XII The Hoodooed Airplane] 103 [XIII The “Hoodoo” Strikes] 112 [XIV Dick Handles a Control Job] 121 [XV A Trap is Baited] 131 [XVI The “Bait” Vanishes] 139 [XVII A Fight for a Fortune] 146 [XVIII Outwitted!] 155 [XIX A Baffling Discovery] 160 [XX Sandy Turns Over a New Leaf] 168 [XXI The Sky Patrol Gives Up] 176 [XXII The “Ground Crew” Takes Hold] 182 [XXIII Larry “Solos”] 190 [XXIV A Puzzling Development] 196 [XXV High Wings!] 204 [XXVI The Race] 212 [XXVII Sandy’s Discovery] 220 [XXVIII Night in the Hangar] 228 [XXIX Sandy’s Trail] 239 [XXX Dick Encounters the “Ghost”] 245 [XXXI A Triumph for the Enemy] 250 [XXXII A Double Pursuit] 255 [XXXIII A Battle Above the Clouds] 263 [XXXIV The Emeralds Are Found] 270

THE HAUNTED HANGAR

CHAPTER I
“SUSPICIOUS SANDY”

“Steady, all! Engine’s quit and left us with a dead stick! No danger.”

Neither sixteen-year-old Larry Turner nor Dick Summers, a year his junior, had any more fear than had Sandy Maclaren, hardly thirteen and seated just back of the pilot who, in flying the four-place, low-wing airplane, had called back reassuringly.

“Jeff’s a war ace and knows his stuff,” Larry mused, “and the engine couldn’t have died in a better spot. We are high enough and within gliding distance of that old, abandoned private field.”

Dick, who saw something to make light of in any situation, turned with his plump face cracked by a broad grin.

“I always said whether you fly a crate full of passengers or handle one full of eggs, you get a good break sometimes!”

Larry nodded in his calm, half-serious way.

Only the youngest member of the trio, as the craft nosed into a gentle glide and banked in a turn to get in position to shoot the private landing spot on the old estate, took the occasion as anything but a lark.

Dick joked, Larry admired the skill of the pilot.

And Jeff, chewing his gum casually, justified their confidence.

Sandy Maclaren, with narrowed eyes and an intent frown, bent his gaze on the pilot’s back and muttered under his breath.

“That engine didn’t die. I saw what Jeff did. He was as quick as a cat—but he didn’t fool me.”

His expression altered to a puzzled scowl.

“But why did he shut off the ignition and pretend the engine had stopped—so handy to this old, abandoned estate?”

No answer rewarded his agile thoughts as Jeff skilfully shot the small field, compelled to come in to one side because of tall trees directly in their line of flight, over which his dead engine made it impossible to maneuver. Nor did he get a solution to his puzzle as Jeff cleverly side-slipped to lose momentum, and to get over the neglected, turf-grown runway down which, a little bumpily but right side up, he taxied to a standstill.

“Well,” Jeff said, with a grin, swinging around in his seat and drawing off his helmet, “here we are!”

“If I ever get the money to take flying lessons,” Larry said, “I know the pilot I’m going to ask to give me instruction! When I can make a forced landing like that one, Jeff, I’ll think I’m getting to be a pilot.”

“If ever I get taken into my uncle’s airplane passenger line,” Dick spoke up, “I know who’ll be Chief Pilot—until Larry gets the experience to crowd Jeff out.”

Sandy, his face moody, said nothing.

The tall, slim pilot, grinned at the compliments and then went on working his jaws on the gum he habitually chewed.

“Guess I’ll have to trace my gas line and ignition to see if a break made this trouble.” Jeff began removing his leather coat. “Say! By golly! Do you know where I think we’ve set down?”

“Yes,” Sandy spoke meaningly. “This is the old Everdail estate—the one that’s been in the newspapers lately because the people around here claim the hangar is haunted.”

“I believe it is!” agreed Jeff. “Why don’t you three take a look. Yonder’s a hangar and the roll-door is lifted a little. Maybe you’d spot that there Mister Spook and clear up the mystery while I work.”

“I’d rather go down by the water and see if it’s cooler there,” Sandy said, trying to catch Larry’s eye. “Since we got down out of the cool air it’s the hottest day this June.”

“I’m for the hangar!” voted Dick. “If there’s any specters roaming through that hangar you’ll get more chills there than you will by the Sound.”

“I could stand a shiver or two,” commented Larry, leading the way toward the large, metal-sheathed building at the end of the runway.

Facing them was a wide opening, sufficiently spacious to permit airplanes to be rolled through: in grooved slots at either side the door, made of joined metal slats working like the old-fashioned roll-top desk, could be raised or lowered by a motor and cable led over a drum.

Sandy gave in, and as they walked toward the hangar they discussed the stories that had come out in the news about queer, ghostly noises heard by passers-by on the state road late at night, accounts of the fright the estate caretaker had received when he investigated and saw a queer, bluish glow in the place and was attacked by something seemingly uncanny and not human.

The door, when they arrived, was seen to be partially open, lifted about three feet.

“There’s an airplane in there—it looks to be an amphibian—I see pontoons!” Larry stated.

“Let’s go have a look at it,” suggested Dick.

“Don’t!” Sandy spoke sharply. “Don’t go in there!”

Larry and Dick straightened and stared in surprise. It was very plain to be seen that Sandy was not joking.

“Why?” asked Larry, in his practical way.

“Think back,” said Sandy. “When school vacations started and we began to stay around the new Floyd Bennett airport that had opened on Barren Island, Jeff had his ‘crate’ there to take people around the sky for short sight-seeing hops, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” admitted Larry, “and we got to be friendly because we are crazy to be around airplanes and pilots, and Jeff let us be ‘grease monkeys’ and help him get passengers, too.”

“Surely he did! But when we brought them to go up with him, did he take their money and fly them around, the way others did? Or——”

“No,” Dick admitted. “He generally had something wrong with the crate, or the wind was too high, or he had stubbed his left foot and met a cross-eyed girl, or saw a funeral passing, and thought something unlucky might happen from those signs.”

“Do you really believe anybody can be as superstitious as Jeff tries to make us believe he is?”

“Yes. Lots of pilots are—they think an accident will happen if anybody wears flowers in their ‘planes——”

“All right, Larry, let that go. But why did Jeff bring us here?”

“He said, this morning, we had helped him a lot and he didn’t have money to pay us,” Larry answered. “He offered us a joy-ride.”

“But why did he come so far out on Long Island, and then get a dead stick so handy to this old estate that hasn’t been lived in for years and that has everybody scared so they won’t come near at night?”

“‘Then get a dead stick!’” Larry shook his head. “Why, Sandy! I know you read detective stories until you think everything is suspicious——”

“So do you read them—and Dick, too!”

“But we read to try to guess the answers to the mystery,” Dick declared. “You’ve got the idea that real life is like those wild stories. Everything looks as if it had some hidden mystery behind it—I know what will be your new nickname——”

He chuckled to show there was no malice as he stated the new name.

“Suspicious Sandy!”

“That’s good,” Larry smiled. “Suspicious Sandy thinks a pilot gets a dead stick to make us land near a haunted hangar——”

“I saw him cut the ignition switch!” declared Sandy defiantly.

“You thought you did!”

“I know I did—and, what’s more, here we are at a spot where nobody comes because of the ghost story—and he tells us to go into the hangar and—the door is left up a little way——”

“Oh, Sandy, you’re letting wild imagination run away with you!”

“Am I? All right. You two go on in—and be held for ransom!”

“Ho-ho-ho-ho! That’s good. Suspicious Sandy—is that somebody inside the hangar?” Dick changed his tone suddenly, dropping his voice to a whisper as he stooped and saw something move behind the old amphibian at the back of the building.

“I thought I saw—but it’s gone!” Larry retorted, lowering his voice also.

By a common impulse of curiosity they stooped and went in. Sandy, his own impulse following theirs, was inside almost as quickly.

“There isn’t anybody!” Larry’s eyes became used to the duller light that filtered through the thick dust on the roof skylight.

To their startled ears came a muffled clang, a queer, hollow sound—and as they turned to run back under the rolled-up door, it slid rapidly down in its grooves, dropping into place with a hollow rumble.

“Good gracious golly!” gasped Dick.

“That’s queer!” Larry was a little puzzled.

Sandy, half frightened, half triumphant, spoke four words:

“I told you so,” he whispered.

CHAPTER II
GHOSTS, GUM—AND GEMS

For a long minute Dick, Larry and Sandy stood in a compact group, feeling rather stunned by the sudden springing of the trap, as they considered the closed hangar.

Larry, calm and cool in an emergency, was first to recover.

“Even if Jeff did want to catch us and demand ransom to let us go,” he remarked quietly, “he wasn’t outside that rolling door—and I don’t think he could pull it down anyhow.”

“No,” Dick agreed, seeing no fun in the situation for once. “See! There is a motor connected to a big drum up in the top of the hangar, and the door is counterbalanced so that turning the drum winds up the cable that pulls it up. I suppose the motor reverses to run it down and——”

“What was that?”

Sandy’s voice was tense and strained.

They heard the strange, hollow sound again, seeming to come from the metal wall, but impossible to locate at once because of the echo.

Rap—tap—tap!

“Somebody’s knocking,” Dick gasped.

“Not somebody—something!” corrected Sandy. “The same ‘something’ that worked the door and shut it!”

“Gracious-to-gravy!” exclaimed Larry, “you don’t believe in ghosts, do you, Sandy? Not really!”

“No human hand touched the switch that ran that door down!”

“I think it did!” challenged Larry. “We thought we saw somebody at the back of the hangar—that’s why we came in! I’m going to see where he is, what he’s doing and why he’s trying to fright—frighten us!”

He broke his sentence in the middle of a word because the queer knocking repeated itself, but with quick presence of mind he completed his phrase to steady Sandy, whose face was growing drawn with dismay.

Larry took a swift, sharp look around the enclosure.

“There’s a big, closed can for waste and oily rags,” he commented, “but anyone would suffocate who hid in that!”

“Well, there’s a clothes cupboard—in the back corner,” Dick said. “Let’s look in that, you and I. Sandy, you stay back and keep watch.” Dick, quick to see Larry’s attitude toward Sandy, wanted to have a dependable chum at his side as he investigated while he hoped to give Sandy more confidence by leaving him in the lighted part of the building, under the smudged, dusty skylight.

“Come on!” agreed Larry.

With Dick he walked boldly enough to the built-in wooden cupboard, protected from dust by a heavy burlap hanging.

Throwing the curtain aside sharply, both youths peered in.

“Nothing but old overalls and some tools on the floor,” Dick commented.

“It’s peculiar,” Larry said doubtfully. “Nobody here—but—” a new idea struck him. Quietly he gestured toward the amphibian, old, uncared for, looking almost ready to fall apart, its doped wings stained with mould, its pontoons looking as if the fabric was rotting on them.

Dick, instantly catching Larry’s notion, went to the forward seat, while Larry took the second compartment behind the big fuel tank.

“Nobody here,” he reported, and investigated, by climbing in the vacant part of the fuselage toward the tail.

“This place is empty, too,” Dick agreed. “Where could?——”

“Oh!”—Sandy almost screamed the word as the dull, hollow knocks came again.

Larry leaped from the wing-step, sent his sharp gaze rapidly around the enclosure and, of a sudden, gripped Dick’s arm so tightly that the plump youth winced and grew chilly with apprehension.

At once he saw Larry’s amazed, relieved expression and followed the older comrade’s eyes.

With an instant return of his old amused self he threw back his head and let out a deep howl of delight.

“Oh—ho-ho-ho-ha-ha! Oh, my!—ho-ho——”

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Sandy. “Have you gone silly?”

“Oh—ho-ho! Suspicious Sandy!—ho-ho!”

Larry explained.

“You got us all worked up and worried,” he told Sandy, “with your suspicions. And all the time——”

“Ho-ho-ha-ha! All the t-time, we were like mice racing around a treadmill.” Dick had to speak between chuckles. “All the time we ran around in circles so fast we didn’t see the end of the cage. Sus—suspicious Sandy! Thinking we would be trapped and held for ransom! Ho, golly-me! Look around you, Sandy!”

Sandy looked.

His face slowly changed, gradually became red.

“Oh!” His voice was sheepish. “You mean the switch for the motor over by that small metal door they use when they don’t want to run up the big one?”

“That runs the motor,” Larry agreed. “The cable must have slipped on the drum and let the door go down——”

“But,” Sandy clung obstinately to his theories, “why did Jeff pick this haunted place and cut the ignition—and why was the door up in the first place?”

“What do we—ho-ho—care?” Dick chuckled. “Another thing—even if the electric current is off and the motor doesn’t work—look at that small, hinged door—do you see that the knob of the spring lock—is on—our—side!” He broke out in a fresh cackle of laughter.

“But—those raps——”

For reply Larry strode over to the metal door set in the wall for use when anyone chose to enter or leave the hangar.

Throwing it open, he faced Jeff.

“Took you long enough to answer!” grumbled Jeff. “What made you fool with that door and shut yourselves in?”

“What made you cut the ignition!” snapped Sandy, working on the idea he had read in so many detective stories that a surprise attack often caused a person to be so startled as to reveal facts.

Larry and Dick turned their eyes to Jeff.

The older pilot, staring at his accuser for an instant, as though hesitating about some sharp response, suddenly began to chuckle.

“That-there is one on me!” he admitted. “You must have mighty quick eyes.”

“I don’t miss much!” Sandy said meaningly.

“None of us do!” Dick caught the spirit of Sandy’s accusing manner. “I know you’ve been here before, too. There are lots of chunks of old chewing gum stuck around in that front compartment of the amphibian—and someone has been working on it, too. I saw the signs.”

“Chewing gum?” Jeff was startled. Swiftly he strode across the dimly sunlit floor, got onto the forward step, peered into the cockpit.

“That-there certainly is queer,” he commented. “You’re right. Gum is stuck every place, wads of it.”

“And you chew gum!” snapped Sandy, unwilling to be left out of the suddenly developing “third degree” he had begun. Jeff made a further inspection, touched a bit of the dried gum curiously, stepped down and stood with a thoughtful face for a moment.

Presently he walked to an old soap box holding metal odds and ends, washers, bolts and so on. This he up-ended. He sat down, his lean jaws working as he chewed his own gum slowly. Around him, like three detectives watching the effect of a surprise accusation, stood the chums.

Presently Jeff looked up at them.

“Looks bad, this-here, don’t it?” He grinned.

Dick, Larry and Sandy were silent.

“I guess I better explain,” Jeff decided. “I didn’t think you was so suspicious and quick or I’d of done different.”

“You can’t trap us!” challenged Sandy.

“Trap you?——”

“Well, didn’t you make friends with us and let us work on your crate and help get passengers that you never took up? Didn’t you say you’d give us a joy-ride, then come straight here, cut out your ignition and make believe you had a dead stick, land and then try to get us into this haunted hangar?” Sandy ran out of breath and stopped.

“I do think you ought to explain!” Larry said quietly.

“Yes, I did all that—and I guess I will explain. I meant to, anyhow—or I wouldn’t have brought you here.”

They waited, neither convinced nor satisfied.

Fixing accusing eyes on Sandy, Jeff spoke:

“I never dreamed you’d be suspicious of me! I made friends with you all and tried you out to be sure you were dependable and honest and all that—and I did bring you to this place because it is so far from telephones and railroads. But I didn’t think you’d get the wrong idea. I only wanted you in a place it would take time to get away from if you refused to help me.”

“Help you—help you with what?”

Speaking seriously, Jeff replied to Larry’s challenge.

“Help me save the most valuable set of emeralds in the world from being—destroyed!”

CHAPTER III
THE SKY PATROL ORGANIZES

Amazed, Dick challenged Jeff’s statement.

“Priceless emeralds—destroyed? You mean—robbers, don’t you?”

Jeff shook his head.

“I don’t think so—but I don’t know for sure who it is. But I do mean to ask you if you’d like to help me, and I don’t think it would be against robbers but against somebody that wants to destroy the Everdail Emeralds.”

“The Everdail Emeralds!” Larry repeated the phrase sharply. “Why, Jeff! I’ve read a newspaper story about them, in a Sunday supplement. That’s the matched set of thirty emeralds——”

“Curiously cut stones,” interrupted Sandy. “I read about them too!”

“That’s the ones.”

“Matched stones—and priceless,” added Larry. “The paper said they were a present to one of Mr. Everdail’s ancestors by one of the most fabulously rich Hindu Nabobs who ever lived.”

“But who would want to destroy them?” Dick wondered.

“That-there is just what I can’t tell you,” Jeff replied.

“How did you get into this?” Sandy’s suspicions came uppermost.

Jeff drew a bulky, registered envelope from his coat, displayed the registration stamps and marks, and his name and address typed on the envelope. Drawing out a half dozen hand written sheets in a large masculine “fist,” he showed the signature of Atley Everdail at the end.

“This-here is what got me going,” he stated. “Want to read it or will I give it to you snappy and quick?”

Sandy extended his hand and Jeff readily surrendered the letter.

“I’m letting you see I am straight with you,” he remarked.

“You said we couldn’t get away to tell anybody anyway,” Sandy said, but he was compelled to admit to himself that although anyone might write such a letter—even Jeff!—the postmark was Los Angeles and the enclosure had every appearance of sincerity.

“Never mind old Suspicious Sandy,” urged Dick. “Let him read that, but you tell us.”

“It will check up, that way, too,” smiled Larry.

“Suits me!” Jeff crossed his legs, leaning against the metal wall, as he related an amazing and mystifying series of events.

“I’m pretty close to one of the richest men in America,” he began. “You see, we both enlisted in aviation units when the big war tore loose and got Uncle Sam mixed up in it. We were buddies, Atley and me. Well, after we came back I stayed in aviation, knocking around from control jobs to designing new gadgets like superchargers and all. But when he went to California and began to organize some passenger flying lines, I stayed East in a commercial pilot’s job.”

“This letter starts off as if you were old friends,” Sandy had to admit.

“Buddies—closer’n brothers,” nodded Jeff.

“Atley Everdail sold out stocks and stuff here and went West to work out some pet ideas about passenger transport,” he told Dick and Larry. “Of course he bought a big place out there and closed up this estate—put it up for sale. Hard times kept it from selling, the same reason made him hang onto that-there swell yacht he owned.”

“I’ve seen pictures of the Tramp,” Dick nodded. “One fine boat.”

“She is that!” Jeff agreed. “Well, as Sandy must be reading, about where he’s got in that letter, Mrs. Everdail, who goes in for society pretty strong, got a chance to be presented, this Spring, before the King and Queen of England at one of their receptions.”

“That’s a big honor,” commented Larry.

“Naturally she dug up all her finest jewelry,” surmised Dick.

“And how!” Jeff nodded. “Now, that-there Everdail necklace that was in his side of the family for generations—that wasn’t took out of the safe-deposit box once in a lifetime, hardly. Most generally the missus wore a good paste imitation.”

“But to appear before royalty—” Dick cut in.

“It says, here, she took the real necklace, on the yacht, when she went to England!”

Sandy had lost his suspicious look. His interest, as much as that of his older chums, was caught and chained by the coming possibilities and he put down the letter to listen to Jeff.

“She did take the string, as the letter says,” Jeff nodded. “It was a secret—they didn’t broadcast it that the necklace was in the captain’s cabin, locked up in his safe. Nobody knew it, not even the lady’s personal maid, as far as anybody supposed.”

“Mr. Everdail didn’t go with her,” guessed Larry.

“He was too busy routing air lines and working out cost, maintenance and operation plans for his big Western lines,” explained Jeff. “But they took all the care in the world of those emeralds. Even on the night of the reception, the imitation string was taken to the hotel Mrs. Everdail stayed at. That-there real necklace was brought to the hotel, in person, by the captain.”

“I don’t see what could happen—did anything happen?”

“That-there is what started things,” Jeff told Dick. “The missus was in her private suite, in the dressing bowdoir or whatever it is, with nobody but her French maid to help, and all the jewels in a box in the room, hid in her trunks.”

“What happened?” Sandy could hardly check his eagerness to learn.

“She was all but ready, dolled up like a circus, I guess,” Jeff grinned, and then became very sober. “All the jewelry was spread out to try how this and that one looked, with her clothes, separate and in different combinations.”

“But what happened?” persisted Sandy.

“There comes a banging on that-there suite door to the hall and a voice hollered, like it was scared to death, ‘Fire! Fire—get out at once!’”

“Didn’t she suspect any trick—was there a trick?”

“She didn’t have time to think. That French maid went crazy and started to hop around like a flea in a hot pan, and yelling, and it upset the missus so much she forgot all about a fire escape on the end window of the suite, and rushed out, snatching up all the strings of beads and pearls and the pins she could carry. But, because she knew it was only imitation and there wasn’t anybody else around anyway, she didn’t bother about the emerald necklace.”

“It was a false alarm—there was no fire!” Larry decided.

“All she found was a paper of burnt matches outside in the hotel corridor that had been set off so when she opened the door she’d smell smoke. Of course she ran back—and——”

As he reached for the letter, and searched on the fourth page, all three of his listeners were holding their breath in suspense.

“Here it is,” he declared, and they crowded around. “Read it, so you’ll see just what I learned about when she went back.”

Bending close, intent and eager, they read:

“Some strong, pungent liquid had been poured on the green necklace,” the letter from the millionaire stated. “No alarm was given. My wife did not want to broadcast either the fact that she had the real gems or the trouble in the hotel. But people had heard the ‘fire!’ cry and doubtless some suspected the possible truth, knowing why she was getting ready.

“Captain Parks came up later with the real stones and while he waited for my wife to finish her costume, he examined the fire escape window and was sure that someone had entered and left by that.

“Now Jeff,” the letter concluded, “my caretaker on Long Island has sent me clippings about a ghost scare on the old estate, and somehow I connect that with the attempt to destroy the emeralds. I can’t imagine any motive, but there are fanatics who do such things from a warped sense of their duty or from spite and hatred of rich folks. For old times’ sake, drop everything, get down to bedrock on this thing at your end—do whatever you think best, but get in touch with the yacht, learn their plans, cooperate with Captain Parks and my wife to bring that necklace back to the vaults, and—I count on you!”

“Golly-gracious!” exclaimed Larry, “that’s like a mystery novel!”

“But it’s no novel!” Jeff said morosely.

“What have you done about it?” asked Larry.

Jeff explained. He had sent a radiogram to the yacht, and as its owner had already sent one identifying Jeff, he was given the information that the real necklace was being brought back, extra heavily insured in a London company, by the captain himself.

“I located and rented this crate we flew here in,” he went on. “I played joy-ride pilot by day at the airport and hopped here of nights. But I couldn’t get a line on anything. I didn’t notice that chewing gum until you, Dick, Larry and Sandy—all of you—started your third degree and showed it to me. But I did think—if anybody was playing ghost here, they might be planning to use the old amphibian for something—maybe to get away to get away with the emeralds if they could get hold of them—in case anybody thought the yacht was due to lay up here.”

“And that’s why you brought us here—to help you watch?” Sandy asked.

“Not exactly. But it came over me that at night I didn’t get anywhere and I thought I’d try coming in the daytime—and being that the yacht is due to make Long Island this afternoon, I thought I might need some help with a plan I’ve worked out.”

“What is it?” eagerly. Sandy wanted details.

“I’ve sent the caretaker here—he’s as dependable as sunrise!—to a place out near Montauk Point lighthouse, with Mr. Everdail’s fast hydroplane boat and I’ve sent a radio message to the yacht captain to be on the watch to meet the hydroplane pretty well out to sea, and transfer the necklace to the boat. Then, the yacht will come on and make harbor here, as though nothing had happened—and all the time the emeralds will be on the way, down the Sound and East River, to a wharf where I’ll have a motor car, with a dependable chum of mine, to take charge and carry the package to safe deposit, get a receipt—and there you are!”

“I still don’t see how we can help!” Sandy spoke again.

“I mean to hop out in the airplane, sort of oversee the business of the transfer, and escort the hydroplane till she lands the emeralds, and then circle around till my friend, with the receipt, goes up onto the bank roof—it’s pretty high up—fourteen stories—and wig-wags an O.K. And I’d like dependable observers——”

“I’m one!” cried Sandy, his suspicions swept away. “Number two is named Larry.” “Dick is a dependable third!”

“We’ll be a regular Sky Patrol!” exulted Sandy. “And watch what goes on while you do the control job—and, that way—nothing can go wrong!” “Not with the Sky Patrol ‘over’-seeing!” Dick, too, spoke overconfidently.

CHAPTER IV
MYSTERY OVER THE OCEAN

Three youths, thrilled by the prospect of a mysterious adventure, and a war pilot, intent on a friendly service, discussed plans for protecting the Everdail Emeralds.

“I don’t see how anything can slip up,” Larry gave his opinion.

“I don’t know,” Jeff spoke dubiously, uncertainly. “We’ve gone over all the things we can think of that might go wrong—but——”

“But—what?” demanded Dick.

“I had a fortune teller read the cards for me,” Jeff told him. “The nine o’ spades—the worst card of warning in the pack—was right over me and that means trouble—and the ace of spades, a bad card——”

“Crickety-Christmas!” Larry was amazed. “Are you really telling us you believe in all that?”

“I’ve seen that-there card fortune work out before.”

“You’ve twisted things that happened to fit what you wanted to believe,” argued Larry.

“Oh, well,” Jeff did not want to discuss his superstitions, “maybe it won’t come out so bad. I met a pair of colored twins yesterday. That’s a good-luck sign——”

“Look here!” Dick began to chuckle. “We’ve got a queer combination to work with—our Sky Patrol has! Suspicious Sandy—and—Superstitious Jeff!” Sandy grinned ruefully, a little sheepishly. Larry smiled and shook his head, warning Dick not to carry his sarcasm any further, as Jeff frowned.

“How will you know when the yacht is due?” Larry asked.

“I fixed up Atley’s old short-wave radio, in the old house—and I’ve been getting dope from the yacht the last couple of nights. In about an hour we’ll take off, fly out beyond the lighthouse and patrol.”

“Will you have enough gas?” Larry inquired.

“Had some delivered in cans early this morning—down at the boathouse,” Jeff told him. “We can fill up the main tank and get a reserve in my small wing-tanks—enough for ten hours altogether.”

“Let’s get busy!” urged Sandy.

The three comrades were busy from then on.

Only when Jeff was warming up the engine, checking carefully on his instruments, taking every precaution against any predictable failure, was there time for a moment together and alone.

“Now what do you think of your suspicions?” Dick demanded. Sandy shook his head.

“Most of the time I think I was letting imaginitis get the best of me—but every once in awhile I wonder—for one thing, why doesn’t the yacht sail right on to the New York wharf and let the captain take those emeralds to safe deposit?”

“Golly-to-goodness, you’re right, at that!” Larry nodded his head.

“For another thing,” Sandy went on, “anybody could write that letter Jeff showed me—and who is Jeff, when all is said and done?”

“Oh, I think he’s all right,” argued Larry.

“Well, then, let that go. But—he chews gum and there’s gum stuck all over in this amphibian—he’s been here, nights——”

“Suspicion may be all right,” Larry commented, “but what does it bring out, Sandy? What is your idea——”

“This is my idea! Nothing is what it seems to be. Jeff pretends to be a joy-ride pilot, but he never takes up passengers—hardly ever. The engine dies, only it’s Jeff stopping the ‘juice.’ This old amphibian crate looks as though it’s ready to come to pieces and yet, somebody has been working on it—that chewing gum wasn’t stale and hard, because I made sure. Well—suppose that Jeff was in a gang of international jewel robbers——”

“Next you’ll be saying the letter was in a registered envelope from California and was written in Cairo!” laughed Dick.

“Or in New York!” corrected Sandy meaningly.

“Jewel robbers,” Larry was serious. “I don’t think that holds water, Sandy. First of all, Jeff claims to know that the emerald imitations had acid poured on them—acid to destroy them. That must be some chemical that corrodes or eats emeralds. Now, robbers wouldn’t——”

“Why not?” Sandy was stubborn. “Suppose they had gone to all that trouble to get into the suite and discovered the false emeralds? What would you do?”

“I might rip them apart—but do you think robbers carry acids along to eat up emeralds if they think they are going to profit by taking them?”

“Suspicious Sandy,” Dick began to chant a rhyme he invented on the spur of the moment, “Suspicious Sandy, Suspicious Sandy, he thinks everything is like April-Fool candy! Nothing is what it seems to be and soon he’ll suspect both Larry and me!”

Sandy turned away, hurt, and strolled to the amphibian with its retractable wheels for land use and its pontoons for setting down on water.

Jeff called and signaled that all was ready. Larry summoned Sandy but the latter lingered, while Dick, a little sorry he had taunted so much, followed Larry toward the waiting airplane. But Sandy, scowling, hesitated whether he would go or be angry and refuse to join the Sky Patrol. Then, as he clambered onto the forward bracing of the under wing and leaned on the cockpit cowling, his face assumed a startled, intent expression.

There was no chewing gum in the craft!

His first impulse was to rush out and declare his discovery.

His next was to keep silent and avoid further taunting.

“Jeff chews gum,” he mused. “He pretended not to know any was in this amphibian. But it’s gone! Well,” he told himself, “I’ll watch and see what he’s up to. He’ll give himself away yet!”

Assuming an air of having forgotten all about Dick’s rhyme, he went to his place in the seat behind Jeff and the instant his safety belt was snapped Jeff signaled to a farmer who had come over to investigate and satisfy himself that the airplane had legitimate business there; the farmer kicked the stones used as chocks from under the landing tires and Jeff opened up the throttle.

With wind unchanged the trees which had complicated their landing were behind them. Jeff’s only problem, Larry saw, was to get the craft, heavier with its wing tanks full, off the short runway and over the hangar.

“If he gets a ‘dead stick’ here,” Larry mused, “it will be just too bad!”

He had no trouble lifting the craft and flying for seconds just above the ground to get flying speed after the take-off, then giving it full gun and roaring up at a safe angle to clear the obstruction.

“We’re off!” exulted Dick.

They were—off on an adventure that was to start with a mad race and terminate—in smoke!

Down the backbone of Long Island, not very high, they flew. The farms, landscaped estates and straight roads of the central zone were in striking contrast to the bay and inlet dented North Shore with its fleets of small boats, its fishing hamlets, rolling hills and curving motor drives and the seaside with its beach resorts, yellow-brown sand and tall marsh grass clustered between crab-infested salt water channels.

Passing over the fashionable Summer homes of wealthy people at Southampton, they held the course until Montauk Point light was to the left of the airplane, then Jeff swung in a wide circle out over the desolate sand dunes, the ooze and waving eel-grass of marshes and the tossing combers of the surf.

“There’s the hydroplane!” Dick, leaning over the left side, made a pointing gesture. Larry, watching seaward, had not been looking in the right direction. Sandy, alert to pass signals, touched Jeff and received a nod from the pilot.

The first step of the plan was taken. They had made contact with the small, speedy craft which, on a later signal that they had “picked up” the incoming yacht, would speed out to sea to meet her.

“Now we’ll climb!” decided Sandy.

Climb they did, until the sea dropped down to a gray-green, flat expanse and only the powerful binoculars Larry was using could pick out the cruising hydroplane slowly verging away from the shore in an apparently aimless voyage.

“This isn’t such a bad scheme, at that,” Dick concluded mentally. “If there should be anybody on the lookout—robbers or somebody who wants to see what’s going on—no one will see any connection between us passing here and then climbing to get a good wind for a run down the coast toward Maine, and a hydroplane that’s acting as if it had some engine trouble.”

Higher and higher they went, probably out of sight of anyone without strong field glasses, and while they swung in a wide circle, Larry’s binoculars swept the horizon.

“Smoke!” He turned the focusing adjustment a trifle. “Too soon to signal—it may be an oil-burning steamer and not the yacht—or a rum-runner of a revenue patrol—it’s thick, black oil smoke, the sort the yacht would give—it is a small boat—yes——”

His signal, relayed through Dick and Sandy to Jeff, shifted the gently banked curve into a straighter line and swiftly the lines of the oncoming craft, miles away, became clear.

Larry verified his decision that the low, gray hull, with its projecting bowsprit, the rakish funnel atop the low trunk of the central cabin, and the yacht ensign, identified the Tramp.

The signal went forward.

Jeff, glancing back, caught Sandy’s nod.

“Now we’ll dive to where the hydroplane can see us, and the dive will signal the yacht that we’re the airplane they’ll be watching for,” Dick decided.

The maneuver was executed, ending in a fairly tight circle after Jeff had skilfully leveled out of the drop.

“Smoke was trailing over the yacht’s stern,” Sandy murmured. “Now it’s blowing off to the starboard side. She’s swinging toward us.”

Through his glasses Larry saw the hydroplane awaken the sea to a split crest of foam, saw a cascade of moiling water begin to chase her, and knew that the tiny craft was racing out to the meeting.

“All’s well!” he grinned as Dick looked back.

Dick nodded and passed the report to Sandy.

Sandy did not smile. Instead, as they swung, he scanned the sky. That was not his instructions, but it was his determined plan.

“I’ll see the amphibian Jeff was working on, nights,” he mused. “It ought to be in sight now——”

Convinced that both the hydroplane and the yacht would have located the spot on the sea where they would meet, Jeff broke the tedium of his tight circle by a reverse of controls, banking to the other side and swinging in a climbing spiral to the right.

Closer and closer together came the swift turbine propelled yacht and the surface-skimming hydroplane.

“I was right!” shouted Sandy, unheard but triumphant—and also a little startled that he had so closely guessed what would happen.

He swung his head, signaled Dick, waved an arm, pointing. Dick and Larry stared, while Sandy poked Jeff and repeated his gestures.

On the horizon, coming at moderate speed, but growing large enough so that there could be no error of identification, came the amphibian. Its dun color and its tail marking were unmistakable.

“The amphibian!” cried Larry. “I wonder why——”

“I wonder who’s in it?” Dick mused as Jeff cut the gun and went into a glide, the better to get a look at the oncoming craft low over the seashore.

Larry realized with a pang that he was neglecting Jeff’s plan.

He looked down.

No glass was needed to show him the yacht, swiftly being brought almost under them by its speed and theirs. A quarter of a mile away was the hydroplane, coming fast. A mile to the south flew the approaching amphibian. And in every mind—even Jeff’s, had they been able to read it—was the puzzled question, “Why?”

Jeff began to climb in a tight upward spiral to keep as well over the scene of activity as he could without being in the way.

“And to be high enough to interfere if something has slipped,” Larry decided on the purpose in Jeff’s mind. Then, as the amphibian came roaring up a hundred yards to their left, and in a wide swing began to circle the yacht, Sandy screeched in excitement and pointed downward.

“Something’s happening!” he screamed.

Swiftly Larry threw his binoculars into focus as he swept the length of the yacht to discover what caused Sandy’s cry, for with a wing in his way he did not see the stern. They swung and he gave a shout of dismay and amazement.

“Somebody’s overboard!”

Instantly he corrected himself.

“No—but there’s a life preserver in the water—it was thrown over but the yacht isn’t stopping.” His glasses swept the bridge, the deck.

“No excitement—now, I wonder——”

The lenses brought the stern and after cabin into view.

Turning away, back to his view, in a dark dress, a woman who had been at the extreme after rail was racing out of sight behind the cabin.

“There’s a life preserver in the water!” Dick could see it without glasses. Sandy looked.

“The amphibian is making for it!” he yelled.

“The hydroplane can’t get there in time!” shouted Larry.

None of them realized that Jeff’s roaring engine drowned their cries.

“Jeff! Look——” Wildly Sandy gesticulated.

Fast and high, in a swift glide, coming like a hawk dropping to its prey, a light seaplane, skimming the edge of an incoming fog bank, showed its slim, boatlike fuselage and wide wingspan, with two small pontoons at wingtips to support it in the surf.

There was a swift drop of their own craft as Jeff dived, came into a good position and zoomed past the yacht, close to it.