Before the lowered landing wheels of the amphibian touched the private landing field, after a flight delayed by the need of more fuel, Larry saw his chums waiting by the hangar.

As the aircraft taxied to the end of the runway he saw that their expressions were doleful.

“Bad news?” Larry asked, climbing to the turf.

“Our adventure is over and done with,” Dick said. “It has gone ‘poof’ like a bursted soap bubble.”

“But Jeff and I have caught the man who was with the one claiming to be Mr. Everdail——”

“Claiming to be,” Sandy said disgustedly. “I was wrong. He is Mr. Everdail.”

“How did you find out?”

“He came back, Larry.” Dick chuckled.

“Came back? I thought——”
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“He wrote the note for Jeff, and then called up the hospital where the pilot was taken,” Dick stated. “They said the man seemed to be coming out of his sleep and Mr. Everdail went out to the road while we weren’t especially watchful, and got a passing car to take him to the next village. Then he took a taxi to the hospital.”

“And what he heard there made him come home,” Sandy added.

“What did the pilot say?”

“You recall what you thought was part of a word?”

“Yes, Dick—the beginning of ‘Gaston,’ we thought.”

“Larry—it was a whole word.”

“Gast?——”

“It sounds the same, but if I spell it you’ll see.”

Slowly he spelled a word of six letters.

“G-a-s-s-e-d.”

“Gassed?”

“Carbon monoxide—deadly fumes that blew in from the exhaust of the engine—it was an old crate, and the engine didn’t have perfect combustion, he said,” Sandy gave the explanation.
97

“The direction they flew,” Dick added, “across the wind—the fumes blew into his cockpit. It was set low, you know. Well, before he knew what was what, he felt himself going. Then he thought he could snap out of it, loosened his safety belt, tried to lift himself for a breath of pure air—the seaplane dived, and he fell against something that knocked him out!”

“Then the passenger didn’t——”

“No. He didn’t throw anything. The pilot explained all that,” Dick said, while Jeff formed an interested fourth of the group. “You recall, Jeff, the captain of the yacht took out extra insurance on the emeralds?”

“I remember that, too,” Larry said.

“The English company became suspicious,” Dick went on. “They sent a man—we’ve called him ‘the passenger’—to this side, suspecting that some effort was on foot to hide the gems or get rid of them till the insurance was paid—it’s a trick that has been worked.”

“I begin to understand,” said Larry. “The man from England hired the stunt pilot to fly him out to meet the yacht—but how did he know when it would arrive?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“I can,” said Jeff. “That English fellow was that-there ‘spook.’ Maybe he ‘listened in’ on the short wave set in the big house yonder.”

“That’s probably it,” Dick retorted. “Anyway, he flew out, and when he saw the amphibian and the small hydroplane and our airplane, he jumped to the idea that either one or more gangs of robbers had somebody on the yacht to get the jewels and throw them out, or else——”
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“Wait!” urged Larry. “How does the gum fit in with that?”

“That’s so,” said Dick. “Let’s go up to the house and see what Mr. Everdail says.”

“If he is Mr. Everdail, after all,” Larry said.

“Oh, his wife would know any impersonator,” argued Dick. “So will Jeff.”

“That’s so. Come on.”

That the millionaire was genuine, “in person and not a caricature,” as Dick put it, was evident. Both the nurse, his relative, and his wife, were chatting with him as Jeff delivered the heavy packed ball made up of the gum.

“How about this-here?” he asked. “How does this fit in?”

“That’s simple enough,” responded the rich man, breaking the exhibit into its separate pieces. “The special agent from England, watching here, had seen Jeff making his nightly hops over from the airport. He thought, quite naturally, Jeff was working with some jewel robbers.&rd............