“My dear!” exclaimed the good lady in astonishment.
“Well,” rejoined Peggy with conviction, “I’m almost sure that the man was Jukes Dade, a workman who once was employed in his laboratory and workshop by my father. He was a skillful mechanic, but dad had to discharge him because he drank fearfully. He swore at the time that he would get even with us in some way. But we never heard any more of him. Yet if that really was him with Fanning Harding yesterday I’m awfully afraid that there is some mischief stirring.”
“What you say, my dear, makes me also very anxious,” responded Miss Prescott. “Perhaps we had better communicate with the police at once.”
“Not yet, aunt,” breathed Peggy; “you see, Roy may turn up in time for the race, and if he does, everything will be all right.”
“But, Peggy––”
“On the other hand, if we spread an alarm that he is missing we shall be declared out of the contest.”
“I see what you mean, my dear,” was the response, “and I suppose that what you say is best. I feel positive, somehow, that we shall have news of Roy before long, and that no harm has come to him.”
But the morning wore on, and no word came. In the meantime, every available source of information had been canvassed thoroughly without result. Roy Prescott had totally vanished; or so it seemed.
Peggy, as in duty bound, spent all she could spare of the morning at the aviation field, putting the finishing touches on the Golden Butterfly. The big contest was not to be held till the afternoon, and in the meantime, some of the smaller events were flown off. But Peggy was too heartsick to watch the aeroplanes thunder around the course, which was marked out by red and white “pylons” or signal towers.
Instead, she remained in the hangar and kept a watchful eye on Fanning Harding, who, with some mechanics and the same man she had noticed about the hangar the day before, was very busy over his machine, apparently. But no one obtained even a glimpse of Fanning’s air craft, for it was not wheeled out, and, except when one or the other of his party dodged in or out, the doors of his hangar were closed.