CHAPTER XI.
THE MARKED BILL.
Some two days after the events narrated in our last chapter, Lieut. Bradbury, sitting in the library of the New York Aero Club, on West Fifty-fourth Street, received a telegram from Eugene Mortlake. He was considerably astonished, when on tearing it open, he read as follows:
"Must see you at once. Have positive proof that young Prescott is about to sell out his secrets to foreign government."
"Phew!" whistled the young officer. "This is a serious charge. If it is proved, it will bar Prescott from bidding for the United States government contract. But I can hardly believe it. There must be some mistake. However, it is my duty to investigate. Let's see—three o'clock. I can get a train to Sandy Beach at four. Too bad! Too bad!"
The young officer shook his head. He had come to have a sincere regard for Roy and his pretty sister, as well as admiration for their resourcefulness and pluck.
When it is explained that during the time elapsing between his lucky lift in the Prescott machine and the reception of the note, that Lieut. Bradbury had notified Roy that he would be expected to report at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, his feelings on learning that there was suspicion directed against his young protegé, may be imagined. Mortlake, too, had received a notice that his machines were eligible for a test, so that there would have seemed to be no object for his acting treacherously. Otherwise, the young officer might have been suspicious. What he had seen of Mortlake had not particularly elevated that gentleman in his opinion. But if he had desired to wrong the Prescotts, reasoned the officer, such a resourceful man as he had adjudged Mortlake to be, would have sought a deeper and more subtle way of going about it.
"And I'd have staked my word on that boy's loyalty; aye, and on his sister's too," muttered the officer, as he made ready for his hasty trip to Long Island.