“Yes,” Sandy admitted. “When the life preserver was found and no gems were in the oilskin tied to it, and Dick showed me the gum, the reason for the big chunks of old gum came to me. The passenger had been getting it ready. He had to chew a great lot to get enough.”
“We mustn’t waste any more time,” cried Larry, eagerly. “There are twenty-nine more chunks in the seaplane. Let’s fly there, Jeff, and get it.”
“That-there is good sense.” Jeff started toward the flying field. “The fellow we didn’t find might come back for the emeralds.”
Going with them, to help out, Dick told Larry that he proposed to go at once to the various airports and flying fields, to learn, if he could, who had engaged the seaplane.
“The new Floyd Bennett field is the best chance,” argued Jeff. “They have got water and seaplane facilities there. It’s on Barren Island, and that’s where a man could have gone, in about the time between your seeing the ‘spook’ and the time the seaplane got where the yacht was.”
“I’ll wait for the yacht,” Sandy said, accompanying them. “Mrs. Everdail will be glad to see what I discovered.”
That gave each of the members of the Sky Patrol something to do.
Dick had no difficulty in learning, when he got the executives of Bennett field interested that the seaplane was an old one belonging to a commercial flying firm operating from the airport.
“The pilot who handled the control job,” the field manager told him, “was a stunt man who has been hanging around since he stunted on our opening day. I’ve questioned some of the pilots for you, but no one seems to know who the pilot had with him. A stranger, one says.”
That brought Dick’s quest to a dead stop.