Watching him closely, Ben saw Mendoza take something from his left-hand vest pocket, drop it to the ground and move forward to crush it under his foot. The boy sprang forward and rescued the object, which was wrapped in thin tissue paper.
The boy tore the paper away and held a diamond ring with four small diamond settings showing. There was a place for the fifth setting, but it was empty. Havens took the ring into his hand and examined it carefully. Then he faced Mendoza with a smile.
“No proof against you?” he exclaimed. “This is the ring you wore on the night you burglarized the Buyers’ Bank and murdered the watchman. All the criminal officers in New York know the ring as well as they know your ugly face.”
“And what has the ring to do with it?” demanded the prisoner.
“And here,” Havens continued taking a slender roll of tissue paper from his pocket, “are the stone and the gold claw broken from the ring on the night of the robbery and murder. They were found by the police on the rug in front of the desk in the bank where you divided the stolen securities. And so,” continued the millionaire, “you are convicted at last by the Clue Above the Clouds!”
For the purposes of this narrative the famous murder case closed there. It is of little interest to explain how the Flying Machine Boys returned to New York, or how they received a goodly portion of the reward offered for the capture of the smugglers. In fact, the boys were so busy planning another trip that they nearly lost interest in the murder case as soon as they reached Havens’ hangar in Westchester county!
They appeared as witnesses at the trial of the man who had been shot on the night the destruction of the hangar was attempted, and were well satisfied when he received a sentence of five years at Sing Sing.
The man’s confession revealed the names of the New York parties who had been concerned in the attempt to prevent the Flying Machine Boys from departing on their mission to the Pacific coast.
These criminals were all arrested and punished with the DeMott gang, and, after the electrocution of Phillips and Mendoza, the famous criminal combination was heard of no more.
With all the cases settled, the boys pushed their arrangements for another trip in their machines. Kit, of course, assisted in all the preliminaries, and the boys often declared that the finding of him was worth the trip to the Pacific!