“Then why on earth are we shooting off in the opposite direction?”
“Because, young Master Mind, it’s a lead-pipe cinch we’re being watched—from the woods, probably. Maybe they’ll think we’re out for a transatlantic record—I hope so. The last place we want them to think of at the present time in connection with this plane is Clayton!”
Bill kept the amphibian headed out to sea for the next half hour. Convinced at last that they were well beyond the ken of Mr. Evans’ enemies, he banked to starboard and headed his airbus on a course at right angles to the last leg. He continued to fly in this direction for some twenty miles, then turned back toward the coast again.
When at last they passed over the shore line once more, it was at a point thirty miles along the coast from Twin Heads and the Evans house. Bill steered his craft inland, turned right again and came in sight of their destination as the hands of his wristwatch marked ten o’clock.
“Clayton has a small airport,” said Charlie tentatively.
“Thanks for that! If you’d told me before, you’d have saved me some worry. The last thing we want to do is to advertise the Loening in this neck of the woods. If we’d had to come down in a farmer’s meadow, it would have been all over town in half an hour.”
They were over the landing field now, and as Bill circled the plane, preparatory to their descent, he saw that it was little more than a meadow, a mile out of town, with hangar capable of housing three or four planes. The flat roof of this building was painted black. Large block letters in white paint proclaimed the legend
PARKER’S AIRDROME
CLAYTON ME.
Near the highway that led into the town, and separated from the landing field by a white picket fence, stood a small farmhouse. As Bill swung his bus into the wind and nosed over, he saw a man open the gate in the fence and walk toward the hangar.
The wheels of the Loening’s retractable landing gear touched the ground. The plane rolled forward, and came to a stop on the concrete apron of the hangar, before its open doors.