Al found him there.
“How do you get into the supply room?” asked Al.
“That’s what I’m trying to do. What’s that you’re carrying?”
“It’s an earth inductor compass,” Al explained. “You heard Sandy hail me as we came in.” Curt nodded. “He stayed on to check up my work,” Al informed him. “I’m pretty raw, you know, and Sandy is so good-natured that he didn’t want to see me get into any trouble. I was helping one of the mechs this morning”—he had already picked up some of the slang, shortening “mechanic” as did those in the plant—“and Sandy was going over the instruments I had installed. That Golden Dart is going to be used for an overseas hop, he says—and—” he went close to Curt, “Curt, I think Sandy has helped us to get a line on somebody else to suspect—about the stolen parts, anyhow.”
“How?”
“He called me over and told me, in a joking way, I had a lot to learn. And then he asked me if I knew anything about how this new type compass operated. I knew a little, but not much, and he showed me how little I knew. Curt—” he was very serious—“this is an old, broken thing. Look!”
He indicated the failure of the parts to operate correctly.
“If we’d let that get to the checker, Monday, I’d have been suspected of getting away with the regular, real one. This must have been substituted by the mechanic who was on that job—the one I helped. Or else it was given out by the clerk who has charge of this room. Anyhow, Sandy says I ought to put in a requisition for another one, and then he is going to help me keep an eye out to see what happens on Monday. He wants to help us. I saw he was so afraid I’d get the blame, and he’s so mad about the way things are being taken that I let him in on our secret——”
“About being detectives?”
“Well, only as far as saying we were crazy about aviation and had formed a sort of order we call the Sky Squad, and naturally, being honest, we saw how things were going here and wanted to do what we could to discover who is taking parts.”