“Hello, Sandy! How are you, Dick?” Larry met the returning chums as they climbed to the small estate wharf from the yacht tender, and while they strolled up the path he asked eagerly:

“Anything new? Anything suspicious?”

“Not even our Sandy could discover a thing,” Dick confided.

“Those emeralds aren’t on the yacht,” Sandy declared. “Captain Parks helped us by sending most of the crew ashore while Mr. Everdail took his wife to their woods camp. We went over the yacht——”

“With a fine-tooth comb!” Dick broke in. “We did make one big discovery, though.”

Larry turned toward him quickly.

“What?”

Dick tried to conceal the twinkle in his eye, but it got the better of him as he explained.

“We found a string of beautiful, perfect emeralds in the stewardess’ cabin, hung up on a nail.”

“Honestly?”
113

“Positive-ully, Larry! The finest that ever came out of a ten-cent store!”

“Oh—you——”

“Sandy suspected her right away!” went on the jovial one, “but no arrest was made.”

“What have you discovered?” Sandy asked Larry quickly, to cover his impulse toward assaulting the teasing chum.

“Not a thing—except I learned that the injured pilot was able to sit up and I went to see him.” Dick and Sandy waited anxiously for a revelation, but Larry was unable to give one.

“He is named Tommy Larsen,” Larry informed them. “He’s getting well fast. He was glad that his passenger had been wrong in suspecting the Everdails——”

“You didn’t tell him the emeralds we found were the imitations?”

“No, Sandy. He thinks they were the real ones.”

“What did he say to explain about his passenger not helping him, and then taking the boat?”
114

“The man came while I was there,” Larry told Dick. “He is named Deane, and he’s a nice-looking, quiet chap. It seems that when he landed with his ’chute, he came down and struck some driftwood or an old log, and it knocked the wind out of him. When he got back strength to cut himself loose, he tried to get to the seaplane but his landing, as I explained the location—well, you saw it when you flew over—his landing was made a couple of hundred yards away. I got the gardener to take me to the place, yesterday, in the hydroplane. There was a big, sunken log close to the torn ’chute.”

“Did he see you, that day?”

“No. He tried to swim over, turned sick, crawled onto some mud that was out of water and stayed there. I guess he fainted. When he managed to get there, we had taken Tommy Larsen away—so he’s cleared!”

“I don’t see that!”

“Why—Sandy! We left with the pilot—I mean, Jeff did. Then the hydroplane came for me, and when he got there, afterward, don’t you see that if he was guilty of anything, he’d have taken the chewing gum?”

“He might have seen that one chunk was gone, suspected that the hiding place was discovered and left the rest——”

“Suspicious Sandy!” Dick laughed. “With twenty-nine lovely emeralds to recover—and a rubber boat to get away in!”

“All right! All right! He’s an innocent man.”
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“As innocent as the man I helped capture—Mr. Everdail’s friend, that man we put on the wrecking tug for five hours.”

“Everybody is innocent,” declared Dick. “Sandy, my advice to you, for your birthday, tomorrow, is to turn over a new leaf and instead of looking for people to suspect, try to think where those emeralds can be.”

“They’re not on the yacht, you say,” Larry said to take away the sting to Sandy’s pride. “They aren’t in the old house. They were taken from the captain’s safe—where did they go?”

“You tell me who knew the way to get into the captain’s safe and I’ll try to get the emeralds.”

“Captain Parks says no one ever was told that combination.”

“All right, Dick,” Sandy replied to the chum who had just spoken. “You’ve answered Larry’s question.”

“Golly-glory-gracious! It does look that way!”

“Who else could be safer? He says the emeralds were gone and his word is his bond! Oh, yes!”

“Then the emeralds won’t be found,” concluded Dick. “Captain Parks has been ashore, and away, hours at a time, here and in Maine.”

“Let’s see if Mr. Everdail won’t listen to us about that, now.”
116

Dick’s suggestion was followed.

The millionaire listened gravely to their statement and broke into a hearty laugh.

“As I live and breathe!” he said. “You members of Jeff’s Sky Patrol are working for the wrong side. You ought to be with that London lad, who suspects my wife and her cousin, Miss Serena, and me! Oh—this is great! You’re helping me a whole lot. I think I must increase the allowances for Suspicious Sandy, Detective Dick and—er—Follow-the-Leader Larry.”

He turned his frowning lips and smiling eyes on the latter.

“I’m amazed at you, though. Jeff says you’ve got good judgment.”

“Captain Parks had opportunity—he knew you would t............