The failure of the amphibian to return to its home field he disposed of by deciding that its pilot meant to take something to some rendezvous in Connecticut, the one, no doubt, the hydroplane boat had made for.
The thing that came into his mind and stuck there, offering neither explanations nor a solution was the mystery of how that man had disappeared out of the hangar on their first visit.
“I’d like to find out how the ‘ghost’ gets in and out again,” he reflected.
Deep in the problem he looked up at a sound.
To his surprise, astonishing him so much that he stopped in the middle of a stride, the lodgekeeper’s gate of an estate he was passing opened suddenly and Sandy found himself staring at the last person in the world he expected to meet.
Facing him with a grin was Jeff!
“Hello, buddy,” the pilot said, without any show of dismay.
“Why—uh—hello, Jeff!”
“On your way to solve that-there spook business?”
“I—” Sandy made up his mind to see if he could startle Jeff into a change of expression and changed his stammering indecision into a cool retort: