He smiled. "No, I won't tell. Unless it becomes necessary."
"Thank you so much! Well, to continue: I bought a new autogiro and flew down here to report to a company in Atlanta about a job spraying crops, and the newspapers printed the route of my flight. Early in the evening of June 22nd I lost my way over the Okefenokee Swamp, and finally landed on an island. A plane had been chasing me, as I later learned after it landed—or rather crashed—beside mine. The man in it held me at the point of a gun and compelled me to fly my autogiro to their camp on Black Jack Island, where I was to be held for a ransom. That man was the chief of the gang of bandits that robbed the Jacksonville bank."
She paused a moment for breath, and the Captain leaned forward eagerly. The story, which might have seemed incredulous to an ordinary person, was perfectly believable to him. He was used to the ways of criminals.
"But how did you get away?" he demanded.
"I never should have, if it hadn't been for this bank robbery," she explained. "While the men went off, I escaped, and was picked up by a couple of Jacksonville boys in a canoe."
Linda went on to relate the happenings of the afternoon, concluding with the death of the ring-leader of the gang, whom she knew only as "Slats." She spoke lightly of Susie, showing her merely as a weak pawn in her husband's hands.
The criminals' method of disposing of their stolen valuables was another interesting point in her story, and she told Captain Magee about the barren island in the ocean.
"Now whether this stuff is still on the island or at the camp," she concluded, "I don't know. But I am ready to go and help you find out."
"You mean you are actually willing to go back into that swamp?" the officer asked. "To show us the way?"
"Of course! That's why I came to you tonight. So that we can make arrangements for tomorrow."