The Flying Boys in the Sky

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Pendar shared his secret with no one. The surety of a magnificent money reward, the glory of succeeding where others of his profession had failed, and his deep sympathy with the victims of the unspeakable cruelty, inspired him to do everything in his power to right one of the most diabolical wrongs to which society has been forced to submit in these later days.

It may be said that the greatest difficulty of all confronted the detective when he had thus located the miscreants. The letters which they sent at intervals to the afflicted family were accompanied by terrifying threats and the demand for an increase of the ransom rose until it reached the stupendous total of fifty thousand dollars. To prevent the criminals from carrying out their threats of vengeance, cunning attempts were made to convince them that the father was doing all he could to comply with their terms. The difficulty of transferring so large a sum made the delay seem reasonable if not unavoidable. In one instance, a large package of genuine bills was placed where directed, but unfortunately for the success of the scheme two carefully disguised detectives were hidden in the vicinity. They were certain they had managed the affair so skilfully that they were not suspected, but the claimants did not go forward and a day later a letter reached Mr. Hastings telling him the trick had been detected and one more repetition of anything of that nature would close all dealings between them, with the certainty that they would never see their child again. A last chance was offered him. He was to place the money in large unmarked bills inside of a traveling bag and throw it off from the rear of the midnight train on a date named, two miles west of Chesterton, at a point indicated so clearly by a pile of towering rocks that no mistake could be made. A failure to comply with this proposal would end all dealings between the kidnappers and the parent.

The night fixed upon was the one succeeding the talk which Detective Pendar held with Harvey Hamilton as related in the preceding chapter. Thus the crisis was at hand,—so near indeed that Pendar had with him the bag and its enormously valuable contents, prepared to carry out, if it could not be avoided, the plan of the miscreants. He had promised that if success was not reached by him before the hour set, he would throw off the money at the point named. Mr. Hastings assured him that if he did not make such a pledge, he himself would do so. He could not suffer the torture any longer, and his wife was already at death’s door under the pressure of the grief that was crushing her to the dust.

These frightful letters were mailed from different points, the first reaching the family from a substation in Philadelphia. The last was postmarked at Chesterton, as if the senders wished it to be known they were near the spot where the deal was to be consummated.

A test of Detective Pendar’s acumen came in the same hour that he reached the town on the train. At the hotel he quickly fixed upon the two Italians who were registered under the names of Amasi Catozzi and Giuseppe Caprioni, and who spent most of their time in smoking cigarettes and lounging in the sitting-room or on the front porch. Pendar, as has been stated, assumed the character of a commercial traveler for a hardware house, and with no unnecessary delay entered energetically upon his duties. Like a true artist he did not over-do his part, and it is no small proof of his ability to say that he succeeded where almost any other one would have failed. The alert Italians agreed that he was what he represented himself to be, though they by no means relaxed their vigilance.

A point had been reached in the delicate business where a mistake was certain to be fatal. The detective must succeed or fail disastrously. Convinced that the child was held at some point in the adjoining forest, she must be rescued, if rescued at all, by a rush,—a charge, as might be said, that would scatter the wretches in such headlong flight as to compel them to abandon their little prisoner, whom they would not be likely to harm, since their own peril would be increased thereby.

It will be seen, however, that to carry out this coup, the officer must know the exact spot to assail. He could not spend hours in groping through the wood in search of the place, with the certain result that the abductors would take alarm and carry their captive to a secure refuge.

Such was the situation when the arrival of Harvey Hamilton in his aeroplane gave an unexpected turn to affairs. The plan of an aerial hunt for the kidnappers had never occurred to the detective until it forced itself upon him. Here was the means thrust into his hands, and it has been shown how he turned it to account, or, more properly, how he tried to turn it to account, for its success was alarmingly problematical.

The bag with its treasure was deposited in the big safe at the hotel, no one suspecting its contents. Before this time Pendar had reached the pleasing certainty that the two Italians felt no suspicion of him. When he strolled down the long, broad street, smoking a cigar, and now and then halting to look into the store windows, neither of the men shadowed him, as they had done earlier in his visit to Chesterton. The couple were warranted in believing that since Mr. Pendar was all he claimed to be and there were no other suspicious characters in town, they had nothing to fear, the game was still their own.

Thus matters stood when the detective reached the end of the street, and still leisurely walking, passed into the open country. It will be remembered that the moon was near its full and the sky was still unclouded. It was all-important at this point that the kidnappers should not have their attention drawn to him. A scrutiny of the road to the rear removed all doubt on that point.