“I’m not worrying,” Larry said.
“And say—here’s a queer one.” Jeff changed the subject. “I notice them chunks of gum wasn’t in the amphibian! Did you take ’em out when you stayed back in the hangar, Sandy?”
“No—or, if he did, somebody else put the same kind in the seaplane.” As Larry spoke he withdrew from his pocket a dark, hard object.
“Give that here!” cried Sandy, snatching at it.
He tore at the hard substance with finger-nails, working it flatter, and then, with an exultant screech, boy-like but not good practice for an amateur detective, he pointed to something dark, green, glowing.
“There’s one of the Everdail Emeralds!” he exulted.
CHAPTER X
LARRY’S CAPTURE
“How did you ever guess the gem was in the gum?” Dick stared admiringly at Sandy, exultantly at the green light flashing from that hidden emerald as Sandy scraped aside the clinging substance from it.
“First the gum was in the amphibian,” Sandy said, trying to be as modest as the discovery would let him, “then it was gone. We thought we saw somebody in the hangar when first we went in—but he got away somehow. Then we saw the amphibian flying and it flashed over me that whoever we had seen before had been working on the amphibian and had chewed up all those pieces of gum—but I didn’t see why he had left it there. Then, when we found out that the man calling himself ‘Everdail’ didn’t look for or miss the gum, I guessed that he hadn’t been the gum chewer—but who had, then, I wondered. And why. It must have been for some reason, because if he had found the gum when he came to play ghost, keep everybody away from the estate by scaring them, and get the amphibian ready, he’d have throw any gum he found into the waste can.”
“The gum was there for some reason,” agreed Dick. “This is one time when being suspicious has paid,” he added.