  Although the aircraft manufacturing plant observed a forty-four hour week, closing down on Saturday afternoons, when the three members of the Sky Squad returned, about two o’clock, they were somewhat startled to discover that their “suspects” were there. Bob, entering the engine section, discovered Griff. The youth was surprised, “caught in the act!” mused Bob as he saw the youth, with furtive, hasty actions, completing the wrappings of a smallish package which he hurriedly slipped into his coat as he turned aside, trying to conceal his action from Bob and then, noting that he was caught, trying to pass it off as an ordinary action. “So that’s where some of the smaller parts are going,” Bob concluded, pretending not to be aware that anything was wrong. “Hello,” he greeted. “I thought I’d come back and take that model engine apart, while no one was here to bother me, so I can get it straight in my head just how the valves operate.” “Yeah?” Griff was inclined to be gruff, and as he tinkered around trying to pretend to be busy, but, to Bob’s notion, watching the member of the Sky Squad, the latter gave every impression he could of ignorance that he was being supervised, studied, observed. Had Griff been intruded upon before he finished what he had been doing? Bob wondered as he took off the cylinder head of a small, roughly assembled model of a new design for a Vee-type motor they were working on. It appeared that Mr. Tredway had been “all for” the newer radial engines, while Mr. Parsons exerted all his influence to introduce the model in which the cylinders, in line, came together in a slanting fashion, like a “V” at the crankcase jointure. Bob took out pistons and pretended to examine the crankpin assembly. Griff watched covertly and appeared to be exceptionally uneasy. Curt entered from the wing assembly rooms. “Hello, Griff.” He nodded, paid little attention to Griff and went over to Bob. “Interesting?” he hinted. Bob nodded, and began to explain the parts. “I see.” Curt, bent close, whispered his next words. “Lang is out in the yard, working on the Golden Dart. He has the plates out and he is——” As he spoke Lang came in. “Say, Curt,” he called, “run up to the offices, and if Mr. Parsons or Barney is around, get me a new—er—length of cable, will you?” “Will they give it to me?” “Sure.” “Supposing there’s nobody around. The office is closed.” “Go to the supply room, on the ground floor. The watchman will let you get what you want. All you have to do is to write out a requisition form and put it on the spindle on the desk. You’ll see it.” “Can you get supplies as easily as that?” Bob asked. “Surely! Why not?” Curt and Bob made no comment. The former went to execute Lang’s request. In the offices, as he neared the open door of the bookkeeper’s little cubby of a room, Curt heard two low voices. He hesitated. He was close enough to be able to recognize in the bent figure leaning over the other, with his back turned, the peculiarly checked brown suit which identified Mr. Parsons. Evidently neither the partner nor his companion heard Curt, so absorbed were they in some discussion or comparison of figures. Curt, wondering why they were so engrossed in that work when the office was closed, and so absorbed that they had not heard him—he had not tried to snoop or to creep along the hall!—decided that it must be legitimate business, and that he would not disturb them. He went on beyond to the rear stairway and down, looking for the watchman. Al found him there. “How do you get into the supply room?” asked Al. “That’s what I’m trying to do. What’s that you’re carrying?” “It’s an earth inductor compass,” Al explained. “You heard Sandy hail me as we came in.” Curt nodded. “He stayed on to check up my work,” Al informed him. “I’m pretty raw, you know, and Sandy is so good-natured that he didn’t want to see me get into any trouble. I was helping one of the mechs this morning”—he had already picked up some of the slang, shortening “mechanic” as did those in the plant—“and Sandy was going over the instruments I had installed. That Golden Dart is going to be used for an overseas hop, he says—and—” he went close to Curt, “Curt, I think Sandy has helped us to get a line on somebody else to suspect—about the stolen parts, anyhow.” “How?” “He called me over and told me, in a joking way, I had a lot to learn. And then he asked me if I knew anything about how this new type compass operated. I knew a little, but not much, and he showed me how little I knew. Curt—” he was very serious—“this is an old, broken thing. Look!” He indicated the failure of the parts to operate correctly. “If we’d let that get to the checker, Monday, I’d have been suspected of getting away with the regular, real one. This must have been substituted by the mechanic who was on that job—the one I helped. Or else it was given out by the clerk who has charge of this room. Anyhow, Sandy says I ought to put in a requisition for another one, and then he is going to help me keep an eye out to see what happens on Monday. He wants to help us. I saw he was so afraid I’d get the blame, and he’s so mad about the way things are being taken that I let him in on our secret——” “About being detectives?” “Well, only as far as saying we were crazy about aviation and had formed a sort of order we call the Sky Squad, and naturally, being honest, we saw how things were going here and wanted to do what we could to discover who is taking parts.” “And what did he say about it?” “He said not to be too hasty to jump to conclusions. He told me that this substituting of the old inductor compass looked like the work of the mech, but it could be the supply clerk, or, maybe, somebody outside the plant entirely who had sent it in, boxed, in a new consignment. He said the safest way would be to put in a new requisition, then we’d see who acted guilty when it was discovered. If the supply clerk is guilty he would never mention it for fear of being caught. If the mech is the culprit, the clerk will raise a howl about the exchange. If they are both innocent, you’ll hear from both of them, and we can trace it to somebody who sent the consignment.” “Good stuff!” agreed Curt. “But didn’t the mechanic notice it was a broken model of the compass?” “He gave me the instructions how to assemble it and told me to be careful, and then went over to work on that small speed craft that Griff is testing out. Griff called him, so it looks all right. If the mech noticed this old compass, before he went home, he’ll tell me, first thing Monday. If he knew about it and had taken the other, the good one——” “He’ll lay low. I see.” The watchman, making his rounds, observed the pair. Readily enough he admitted them to the supply department. Either he was of too unsuspicious a nature, being rather dull, to wonder or question; or he had been told by Barney that the youths were especially privileged. In either case he made no comment as they found the cable Curt wanted for Lang and the several extra inductor compasses, neatly boxed, among the stacked instruments in the shelves. Making out two of the slips he saw in a pad, and fixing them on the upstanding spike of a file, Curt handed Al his box and with the cable went to find Lang. Handing the strand to his chum’s cousin, Curt decided to return to the office building to see what he might see. The excuse that he was studying the blue prints of an airplane would furnish reason for his presence in the office if Mr. Parsons was still there and asked. Bob, as Lang left, found Griff suddenly and unaccountably pleasant. “Funny about that cable,” he remarked. “Sure is,” admitted Bob, watchful, quiet, but willing to follow Griff’s unexpected lead. “Lang says you had your suspicions of me,” Griff grinned, quite pleasantly. Had he, Bob wondered, been “tipped” by Lang to cultivate friendship? Was there something really underneath the friendship of the partner’s son and Bob’s pilot cousin? Was there something else? “Why, I suppose when we got excited about that broken rudder pull, we thought of anything and everything,” Bob grinned also. “Well, you thought wrong, friend. Would you try to do any harm to your buddy, Curtis, if you knew he was to fly a certain crate?” “No,” Bob admitted, honestly and fervently. “But some other pilot, jealous, maybe—might! Eh?” Bob had not in any way considered that possible solution. There was another test pilot, not as popular as his cousin. He gave the most serious attention, but Griff evidently felt that he had said enough, adding only: “But I don’t mean to accuse anybody. Let’s forget it. Come on, let’s forget motors and go up and have a look at them little fleecy clouds.” He caught Bob’s arm, after slipping the cylinder head over the pistons of the model with Bob’s help. “Ever fly a crate?” he asked. “Not solo!” Bob admitted, “but Lang has let me take the controls six or seven times when he used to take us up, before we came here to——” “To what?” “To learn all there is about building airplanes,” Bob continued without the flicker of an eyelash. “Hm-m-m! Well, come on, kidlets! I’ll take you up in the prettiest little crate you ever sat in—what’s more, I’ll give you some experience so you can fly them crates after you get wise to how they’re assembled.” It was evidently a genuinely friendly offer. If it had any hidden motives, Bob, on that sunny Saturday, with a gentle, warm vacation wind blowing, with bonny clouds drifting slowly, gave up watching and went in for air experience. Al, finally deserted by Sandy, who had errands down town, saw Bob and Griff warm up the little speed sportster he had been rigging. A little envious he watched the check-up, the trial spurts of the fast little engine, the take-off and the soaring of the handsomely designed craft. Then he went on to visit Jimmy-junior, whose father, Sandy, had given him a special invitation to spend the afternoon and to stay to dinner with Jimmy-junior. Lang, taking the cabin monoplane for a test of his rudder performance, called Curt to go along; so the trio lost interest in detective work and concentrated on enjoyment—— Until evening! |
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