CHAPTER XVII

“THE CASE IS ‘SEWED UP’”

Sitting on the Wright porch, early the next morning, Curt and Al listened eagerly to Bob’s recital of the past night’s events.

“After Griff ran off—what, then?” Al demanded.

“A taxi came racing along and stopped at The Windsock.”

“What did you do?”

“What could I do, except keep hidden and watch?” Curt’s question brought the counter-question from Bob. “The taxi door opened—and who do you suppose jumped out?”

“Who?” Curt and Al spoke at once.

“The very man Al and I saw in the supply room.”

“I saw him hail the taxi,” Al exclaimed. “Everything is beginning to fit together.”

“Yes, it is,” Bob agreed, “and, what’s more, it fits tightly. As soon as the stranger paid his fare he recognized Mr. Parsons who was halted on the roadhouse veranda, watching. They began to talk, and stood there for a minute.”

“They knew each other!” Curt exclaimed. “They must be working together to loot the supply room. That’s probably how the mystery man got in: he had a key from Mr. Parsons.”

“It looks like that,” admitted Bob.

“What then?” Al wanted the story. “Did they find Griff?”

“No—but the stranger saw his motorcycle. He got awfully excited about it and he went with Mr. Parsons to look at it. They went close to where I was hiding back of the shrubs, but they didn’t say anything until they were close to the motorcycle. They were too far away for me to hear, then.”

“I’d have crept closer,” declared Al.

“Oh—yes! You would!” Bob was scornful. “Right out across an open yard!”

Al subsided, crestfallen.

“What then?” Curt asked quickly, to avoid any quarrel.

“They talked for about ten minutes—then the man made some notes of things Mr. Parsons said—I wish I could have heard! Then he hopped onto his motorcycle and rode off, and Mr. Parsons stood thinking for awhile and then——”

“Yes? Don’t keep us waiting. What?”

“Curt—he turned the car and went back toward town!”

“Didn’t look for Griff?” Al had recovered his usual interest.

“No! He drove away. Griff must have been watching, too. He came out, and shook his fist toward the roadhouse and then walked off, and—that’s all.”

They discussed the incidents of the past night, coupling them with the strange actions and uneasiness of Mr. Parsons and of Griff on former occasions, riding, as they talked, toward the plant.

Barney’s cabin airplane was again on the field, and as soon as they arrived and he saw them, from an office window, Barney summoned them.

“Well,” he greeted them, closing the door, “how goes the study of airplane building?”

“Oh, we know how they lay down the framework for the fuselage and how careful they are to see that every longeron and brace and strut and guywire and turnbuckle fits exactly in place and is well fastened,” Al exclaimed. “And we’ve helped put on the wings and the tail assembly, and Bob is going to help install an engine, today, and we will watch.”

Bob laughed and Curt joined him. They saw the amused light in Barney’s eyes.

“Well—you asked!” Al defended his enthusiasm.

“It was just a ‘polite opening’,” Bob grinned. “Barney wants to know about—other things we’ve learned.”

Interrupting one another, they gave him the details of their experiences.

“Hm-m-m! Well!” Barney’s face became very serious. “So that’s it!”

“What?”

Barney smiled at Al.

“The partner and his son are working with an outsider. I thought so. But what about the brown ’plane? Any news of that?”

“We left it out entirely,” Bob said.

“We disobeyed Uncle,” Curt admitted. “Bob said Uncle wanted us to drop things here and concentrate on trying to find the brown ’plane, but——”

“We can’t find that ‘crate’ I feel sure.” Bob was earnest.

“Not only that, but if a crime is being committed under your nose you won’t go off looking for something else to do while it is going on, will you?” Al wanted their course confirmed.

“You did just right,” Barney commended them. “You lads stick to this end of it. I’ve suspected that Parsons and his son were ‘up to’ something, and I don’t agree with your father, Bob, about the brown crate at all! I think you fellows deserve a ‘raise’ and if you can only catch one or all of the crowd doing something—catch them ‘red-handed’ in a way of speaking, I’ll hand out a little private reward. I feel that it’s due to—to the memory of Mr. Tredway. He was mighty good to me and—and I want to—get everything cleared up here, because I think the ones who have been doing wrong right here at the plant got found out by him and they either hired that airplane from some distant place and flew out and rode down Tredway or else they paid some unscrupulous pilot——”

He paused as he saw Al squirming in his chair with eagerness.

“What is it, Al?”

“Unscrupulous pilot!” reiterated Al. “Why—the man at The Windsock is a—an ex-pilot.”

“Glory be! That’s so!” Barney nodded.

“Well, from what I saw of him, his face shows that he’s unscrupulous,” added Bob.

“It looks to me, from here,” Barney said, slowly, “it looks to me as though we’ve got the case ‘sewed up.’ All you need to do is to find out, some way, about that ex-pilot—what he does with his time, if he owns a crate yet, and so on.”

“You think?——”

Barney turned to Curt.

“I think,” he nodded, “that ex-pilot might know a lot about a brown ’plane, and about what it did to force another one down——”

“Then we have got the case ‘sewed up’,” Al declared. “We came here last night to see if we could compare a little scrap of writing we found where the ‘plane had been, with the books of letters and things to see if the writing agreed.”

“And what did you find?”

“We had no time to find anything,” Curt admitted. “The other things came up——”

“Let’s see that note? Where is it?”

Al produced the much-folded, dirty scrap and handed it to Barney.

“No!” he shook his head after a careful study. “Don’t recognize it!”

“The supply clerk?” hinted Bob.

“Not at all like his writing.”

“Well,” said Curt, “it’s done with an indelible pencil. Now that we know the ex-pilot is under suspicion, we can find out if he has an indelible pencil that he carries around—or, he might destroy it, considering what has happened since the note was written.”

“But who’s the note written to?” asked Bob. “It says ‘everything O.K.’”

“To whoever hired him. To Parsons, maybe—or to Griff——”

“That’s so!” Bob became very thoughtful.

“We ought to get a sample of the ex-pilot’s handwriting,” suggested Al, eagerly. “Shall I? I can try! They don’t know me out at The Windsock. Couldn’t I take my autograph album—and——”

“I’ll make inquiries about the brown ‘plane, from around The Windsock,” added Curt.

“Then I can keep tabs at this end,” argued Bob.

“Fine!” agreed Barney. “Fine! Yes, sir! Boys—we’ve got the case ‘sewed up’ or circumstantial evidence never pointed true.”

“Did you see Dad, again?” asked Bob as they rose.

“Yes, but he’s awfully busy on that other case. He must trust you fellows pretty well.”

“Well,” Al swelled with pride, “maybe we’ve disobeyed orders, but if this comes out as good as we think it will, we’ll have no trouble making Father see that he was wrong and we were right to disobey.”

“Right you are!” agreed Barney.

Griff seemed to be getting ready to work himself into danger for their special benefit, it seemed to Bob in the engine assembling rooms. The youth was angry, upset, uneasy, fidgety; he hurried out when he heard his father’s voice approaching down the hall and the older man betrayed as much uneasiness and concern as did his son.

But that night, when they thought they had the last stitches taken to “sew up” the case, as Barney said, Fate ripped out the whole thing—and they were left without a thread of a clue!—until the unexpected thing happened that gave Bob his “hunch!”