At once the hydroplane was manned and sent away, the yacht took up its own course, and Mr. Everdail—to give him his own claimed title—pointed the airplane’s nose for his estate. Sandy occupied the time of the flight by trying to piece together the strangely mixed jig-saw bits of their puzzle—or was it only one puzzle?
By the time they sighted the hangar and field, he had all the bits joined perfectly. Sandy’s solution fitted every point that he knew, and was so “water tight” and so beautiful that he landed with his face carrying its first really satisfied, and exultant grin.
The beautiful part of it, to Sandy, was that he could sit by and watch, do nothing, except “pay out rope and let them tie themselves up in it.”
For Sandy’s suspects would certainly incriminate themselves.
“Let them guy me and call me ‘Suspicious Sandy,’” he murmured as he followed Dick toward the wharf on the inlet by the shore of the estate. “If I untangle this snarl the way I expect to, I may not bother to go in for airplane engineering. There might be as much money in a private detective office.”
Mr. “Everdail” proceeded at once to tie himself in his first knot.
“Well—hm-m!” he remarked to Dick, “feels good to be on the old place again. First time I’ve set foot on it for three years.”
“And he told us, on the beach, he’d been here this morning,” Sandy whispered to himself.
He decided to pay out another bit of rope.
“Mrs. Everdail will be glad you’re here when she lands,” he remarked.