“All right, Larry, let that go. But why did Jeff bring us here?”
“He said, this morning, we had helped him a lot and he didn’t have money to pay us,” Larry answered. “He offered us a joy-ride.”
“But why did he come so far out on Long Island, and then get a dead stick so handy to this old estate that hasn’t been lived in for years and that has everybody scared so they won’t come near at night?”
“‘Then get a dead stick!’” Larry shook his head. “Why, Sandy! I know you read detective stories until you think everything is suspicious——”
“So do you read them—and Dick, too!”
“But we read to try to guess the answers to the mystery,” Dick declared. “You’ve got the idea that real life is like those wild stories. Everything looks as if it had some hidden mystery behind it—I know what will be your new nickname——”
He chuckled to show there was no malice as he stated the new name.
“Suspicious Sandy!”
“That’s good,” Larry smiled. “Suspicious Sandy thinks a pilot gets a dead stick to make us land near a haunted hangar——”
“I saw him cut the ignition switch!” declared Sandy defiantly.