THE STARTLING NEWS

"Well," said Frank, with a frown on his face. "It's puzzled me a whole
lot, let me tell you, Andy. Because, of course, my first thought was
that it must have been Percy Carberry's work; but now that you tell me
he was here, and knew we hadn't fetched our hydroplane home, I hardly
know what to think."

"Did you say you worked till about eleven at the shop?" asked Andy,
quickly.

"Three minutes after when I quit, locked up, and went home," Frank
replied.

"That was just about the time they showed up here," the other went on to
say. "Unless one of us is wrong about the time, they couldn't well be in
two places at the same minute, now, could they? Seems like it might have
been some other crowd that broke into our hangar, Frank!"

"But why? Did they want to play fast and loose with our machine, and
force an entrance just for that purpose? Listen to something I'm going
to tell you, Andy. I found several things on our work bench where
somebody had left them, without meaning to do it, I guess. Here's one."

Frank while saying this held something up which he had taken from the
package he carried under his arm.

"Why, that's a splendid electric torch, looks like to me?" exclaimed
Andy.