“That’s been my opinion all along,” echoed Hiram promptly. “You can speak right out,” he added to Dave. “The fellow’s out of sight. I followed him purposely to the door, for he looked as if he might be thinking of sneaking around to overhear what we might say. He noticed me, and bolted for it. Say, did you see him prick up his ears and act sort of rattled, when you told him that we were going to leave here?”
“That struck me,” acquiesced Mr. Brackett. “As I said, he is palpably a fraud.”
“Why do you say that, Mr. Brackett?” inquired Dave.
“Because I happen to know something about the aircraft situation in England. The big operating point for military aviation requirements is not at Aldershot, but at the Brookland Motor Course and Flying Grounds, which has been taken over by the government for tests and speed trials, the general public being strictly excluded.”
“Huh!” bristled up Hiram, thinking hard—“what’s coming along now?”
“Another thing,” resumed the manufacturer, “when this lieutenant of yours speaks of Benoists and Gyro Motors, he is talking about something he does not understand. The principal flyers adopted by the admiralty are American models, and the Green water cooled engine has just won the two hundred and fifty thousand dollar prize in the national test in England.”
“Why, what can the man’s object be in going to all this trouble and duplicity?” asked Dave.
“It doesn’t look clear, nor right, to me, Dave,” answered Mr. Brackett. “If this is another part of some plot to do you, or your machine harm, it is high time that you were away from here and,——”
“It is!” startlingly interrupted Hiram. “Say, I’ve got the key to the whole business!”
Both Mr. Brackett and Dave stared at the speaker in wonderment. Hiram was very much excited. He was waving something in his hand, but it was not the “key” to which he alluded. It was, in fact, the piece of paper on which Lieutenant Montrose Mortimer had been figuring that Hiram had picked up from the floor of the hangar.