by Van Powell
CHAPTER XXIX
CLUES IN CAMOUFLAGE
Smelling still of the fumes from the smoke flare, which someone--DocMorgan probably--had cleared out, the dark room was close andunpleasant as Chick closed its door and, switching on the whiteprinting lamp, faced his two friends.
"Let's be very quiet," he said, earnestly. "I was only half listeningto the arguments. While they went on I thought of a way to draw thereal 'Ghost of Mystery Airport' into the open--or--into the darkroom!"
"I don't understand," Garry spoke softly, although the door was tight.
"You mean by showing what we had clipped out of the film?" Don asked."It was just put in the fixing bath--how do you know the fumes of thechemicals in the smoke bomb didn't ruin it--stain it or fog it?"
"I don't care a whack of a stick about the clippings," Chick stated."This is my plan. When I was in here before, I put the bits of film inthe wash water, but they were all dirt, and chemicals. I don't believethey're worth bothering with. But--I know that the 'ghost' is among thepeople in the designing room. Doc followed Toby. Mr. Tew volunteered tocome and listen. The air mail pilot was loitering around, listening.The two Indians----"
"Oh, I'm sure it's one or the other," Garry agreed, "but that doesn'ttell us your plan or how we can see which one it is. For my part, I'min favor of looking at the film clippings. If they show us that we havethe right idea, that a flyer has been taking pictures over the swamp,it will prove he is looking for the treasure, and not just trying toruin Don's uncle----"
"Oh, we know the motive--treasure hunting," Chick retorted. "That'sbeen our trouble, before. We've tired so hard to show what was beingdone, and how, that we couldn't take time and brains to discover--who!"
Garry was a trifle nettled.
"I suppose you are going to discover 'who' without even looking at theclue Scott thought might be in that undeveloped film."
"I'm going to make him--discover himself!" Even Don stared.
Garry laughed, a little scoffingly.
"All right!" Chick took the implied unbelief good-humoredly. "Thinkthis over: If you had flung a smoke bomb, and gotten away withevidence, and you heard somebody say they had some alreadydeveloped--what would you do?"
"Run!" chuckled Garry.
"I wouldn't!" Don saw Chick's argument.
"I'd be uneasy, and uncertain, and I'd worry until, finally, I mightfeel compelled to come and see just how much you had against me!"
"That's my plan!" retorted Chick.
Garry agreed with Don. It was clever of the youngest chum.
"While we wait, we might as well see if we have evidence, or whateverit may be--against anybody!" Don added.
Chick lifted the wet film from its washing bath, handling it carefullyby the edges to avoid spoiling the wet, swollen, delicate surfaceemulsion containing the pictures.
Holding it up to the light, he showed a smoky, already somewhatdistorted image in one piece of the clipped film.
"I can see--letters," Don said, peering toward the light. "There's an'A' followed by a figure 'one' and then--it's spoiled by scraping onthe floor when the fixing trap got upset."
"Just on the edge of the last 'frame' of moving picture film, you cansee a flat, opaque blur," Garry commented. "That's an aerial picture,taken from above! I've seen those air photographs in the movies. What'sto prove this is a picture of our swamp? It's all fogged!"
"I count more on our 'ghost' coming here than on that film," Chickdeclared. "I'll put that in a drying clip, and hang it behind the tanksin case we can use it sometime. Now, here's the other clipping!"
The second one he exhibited was more clear.
"That's the swamp, all right," Garry commented. "The first one is oneof the smoked-up parts we threw away after the first trial. But thisone is the swamp, and no mistake. That is," he corrected himself, "it'sa section of it, along the water front. See how the shore curves in andout--and the beginnings of Crab Channel and the other smaller inlets?"
Chick and Don assented; but the pictures gave them nothing new to goby, more than assurance that somebody had flown over the swamps to takeair films. Of course, as Chick argued, that fitted in with the ideathat the mysterious "somebody" had put the projector head and the otherthings into a locker of the pilots' quarters as a means to throwingsuspicion on another, as the key in the control chief's old coat andvest proved. The film with it was not the same as that used for theapparition in the cloud. It was only a "blind," as Chick argued.
Also, as Don added, the film could have been taken by the control chiefas well as by another, except that he was seldom away daytimes.
"But Doc Morgan is," Garry remarked. "And Toby Tew is in and around theswamps all Summer, and could easily hire some pilot from anotherairport to fly him--nobody would have paid much attention, because theengineers were using airplanes, too. And I think it was to stop theengineers from draining the swamp before he had taken the treasure thatour 'ghost' worked his spectre-in-the-clouds!" he added.
"Sh-h-h-h!" Chick caught each by an arm. "Listen!"
Footsteps sounded on the floor outside, approaching. Were theyhesitating? Did they echo with such caution because they belonged to aguilty body? Slowly they came closer.
There was a knock on the door.
"When I open the door--grab him!" Chick urged.
He waited. A hand tested the door knob. The door rattled a little.
"Open up!" came a muffled voice.
"Wait! Let him get anxious!"
A thumping came on the door.
Garry and Don grew tense. Chick's hand was on the bolt.
It shot back.
"Now!"
Out they dashed, to encircle, to grapple with a figure standing offguard.
"Here! Stop that!"
The voice, deep and curt, made them draw back, look up at the form andface they released in amazed disappointment.
They had captured the Chief of Police!
"Uh--er--" Don stammered, "we--we expected--the--the 'ghost!'"
"If you can prove you've caught him you can have my badge," thegood-natured officer chuckled. "As a matter of fact, I came in to seewhat was the result of your investigations. My men are all in theswamp, awaiting orders. We saw you bring in the Indians--they're allout in the other room still, waiting for a report; your folks are, Imean.
"What have you got in the way of evidence, clues or proofs?" he asked.
They told him and showed him their bits of film.
"Wouldn't stick in any court," he stated. "Any finger prints are washedoff long since, and the pictures could be cut from any news reelpicture of airplane flights for observation purposes. No, boys----"
"We thought the 'ghost' would come to see what we had discovered,"Chick said lamely.
"Well, I'm not the 'ghost.' You'll have to try some other scheme."
"Don't you think this 'A' and the figure 'one' might help?" askedGarry, indicating the smoked film, dimly showing the letters.
"It might--if there was anything to tie it up with."
"If only we had the tracing of the Indian's map," Don said ruefully."Or the blue-print Chick made--that had some sort of complicatedfigures on it--"
"Where is it--where is either one?"
"They were stolen, Chief."
"Yes!--" Chick's face became suddenly vivid with excitement,"yes!--but--when I made the blue-print, I picked up two pieces of paperand only discovered it after I had exposed the paper under the tracing!"
Hastily he switched off the white lamp, putting on the ruby light.
"I put the other sheet back, because it didn't show much--but, you allknow, there is a way to force up a stronger image--with intensifierchemicals."
Feverishly Chick searched in the laboratory cupboard.
Garry aided him, while Don got the trays cleaned, and the Chief came inand closed the door.
Half an hour later Mr. McLeod caused the door to be opened to him.
"What's going o
n?"
"Look!" Don's trembling finger indicated a faint, but clearlydiscernible figure on a sheet of printing paper. The blue-print hadbeen developed as far as it was possible to bring out the figure. Thena greatly under-exposed camera photograph had been made, on sensitivefilm, and this, by process of development known to Chick and the rest,intensified the lights and shadows which were more "contrasty" becauseof deliberate under-exposure. The result was a readable print.
There was the camouflaged map, apparently the hull outline of someold-fashioned ship, seagoing brig or privateer, with its sharplycut-under prow and overhanging stern, its roughly outlined deck andwavering waterline. Over that, distinguishable because in an ink thatwas dark and printed out whiter, was the outline of the airplane sketch.
"Camouflage!" Mr. McLeod agreed, "but----"
"Excuse me, Uncle!" Don interrupted. "If you will study that design,carefully, the way we have been doing for the past three minutes, andremember all that has happened, you'll see that there are two clues inthe camouflage. But we don't want to stop to explain them. We want the'ghost' to play his last 'engagement'--and--we think he will!"
Then they walked out, in a group, to the larger room where theunsuspecting culprit waited.
