“What did you find?” asked Tim breathlessly.
“Signs of a hard scrap,” said the managing editor. “Ralph must have stumbled on Sam and Pierre or they might have been trailing him. It was along a lonely road with lots of underbrush nearby.”
“Anything to show that Ralph was hurt?”
“There were several bullet marks in the body of the car but there was no sign of blood,” said the managing editor.
“Find anything else?”
“Some peculiar marks in a clearing nearby. They were similar to those you reported at railroad fire and bank robbery.”
“I was sure those marks would be there,” mused Tim. “Well, one thing sure,” he added, “Sam and Pierre are about at the end of their string. I know what they’ve been using to make their escapes and have the means of detecting them the next time they come into the open.”
Tim told Carson and Hunter of his visit to the aircraft company in New York and how the chief designer and Mac Giddings had helped him, of the discovery of the secret airplane factory in the Jersey woods and of the marvelous plane that they had developed. Then he explained the radio detector which Mac Giddings had perfected and his plan for catching Shanghai Sam and his companion.
“It sounds O. K.,” said the managing editor enthusiastically.
“I’ve got a plane here at the field you can equip,” volunteered the field manager. “I’ll have the mechanics start getting it in shape.”