“Thank you, Mr. Waite,” Givens said, and limped away.
Potter drove at once to the office. As he entered he met Downs, the Secret Service man, coming down the stairs.
“Come up to the office, please,” Potter said. “Something in your line, I guess.”
Potter closed the door and motioned to a chair. “A messenger bringing drawings of the buildings we’re changing over was knocked down on his way out this noon, and the blue prints taken away from him.” He gave the incident to Downs as Givens had given it to him. “By the way,” he added, “a mighty strange thing happened last night. An aeroplane was stolen.”
“Saw it in the paper,” said Downs.
“I’ve been wondering,” Potter said, “if there was any connection between the two thefts. Seems far-fetched, but these are far-fetched days. Who would steal an aeroplane, and what in thunder would he steal it for?”
“An aeroplane is a mighty useful toy,” said Downs.
“A mighty conspicuous toy.”
“I’m not so sure. Easy to hide in some out-of-the-way place. That machine worries me more than the loss of those blue prints. That’s a sort of warning we ought to be thankful for, though it doesn’t tell us much we didn’t feel pretty sure of. We’re working on the certainty that they’ll try to interfere with this plant, and they’ve verified it for us.... But that aeroplane.... We can watch the employees, and we can do a pretty good job of guarding the plant on the ground, but how in thunder, Mr. Waite, are we going to stop anybody from flying over the top of it some night and dropping a ton or so of explosive on the roof? There’s a German with something pretty close to genius running things hereabouts.... You’ve probably eaten dinner with him,” Downs said, with a chuckle.
“Eh? You mean you suspect some one?”