This was incomprehensible conduct from a guilty conscience! What could it mean? Surely Mr. Wrenn, of the Clarion, was either the coldest and deepest-dyed rogue in the world or a man entirely innocent!
"How did you know that we had an airplane like yours?" asked John sharply.
The fat man broke into renewed chuckles at this question, and it was a moment or two before he could find words. Then he said:
"There's a little story connected with this, and now that we're right on the eve of the race and there's nothing to be gained by further secrecy, I'll tell it to you. You see, about a year and a half ago, possibly two years, a young man came to me for a job as sporting reporter; said he had been a flyer in France and that the Government wanted him as an Air Mail pilot, but he would rather take up the newspaper game. I put him to work, and he proved very good in gathering news of sports, especially aviation stuff. A week or so after you challenged me to this race—which I would have liked to back out of, but couldn't and save my honor—this chap showed me some blue-prints of a novel kind of airplane which he claimed to have co-devised with a flyer friend who, he said, was helping to make you a machine of the same type for this contest. He—"
"What is this young man's name?" inquired John Ross excitedly.
"Peter Deveaux."
"Peter Deveaux!" exclaimed John and Paul at once. And John added: "Mr.
Wrenn, that fellow did not refuse to fly in the Air Mail service; he
did fly, and was dishonorably discharged for drunkenness.
Furthermore, he stole those plans from our hangar!"
The publisher of the Clarion opened his eyes wide. "Can you prove those assertions?" he inquired. "That last one is a serious charge, sir."
"Nevertheless we can prove it when we get back to New York," declared
John warmly.
"Well," said Mr. Wrenn, "I'll finish my story, and then we can talk over this new development more understandingly. As I said, Deveaux claimed to have a half-right in the plans, and having no reason to doubt it, I told him to proceed, when he proposed to make an airplane for us from the designs and to head a crew for the Clarion in this race around the world. Now you will understand my position in the matter."