“An airship; eh?” mused the foreman of the park laborers. “Maybe it dropped from some of the machines that were flying out at Colton.”
“It didn’t drop, it was torn off,” declared Jerry, looking at the ragged edges. “Some airship went too close to the statue, and a wing tip, or a rudder hit the torch. It was risky flying all right.”
“Then it must have been done at night,” declared the foreman, “for some of the men are on duty in this park all day, and they’d have seen it if anything like that happened.”
“Perhaps it was a night flight,” assented Jerry, as he looked at Bob and Ned. The same thought was in the minds of all of them--the aeroplane of the bank robbers!
“What’s that other thing you found in the torch?” asked Ned of the man who had climbed the ladder.
“I don’t know. It’s pretty heavy. Likely it was dropped by the fellows in the airship. I’ll undo it.”
He took off the wrapping paper, disclosing a small flat stone. As he did so two pieces of white paper fluttered to the ground. Jerry picked them up, and, as he read what was written on them he could not repress a cry of surprise.
For the names that confronted him were those of Noddy Nixon and Bill Berry!
“Don’t talk any more--come away,” advised Jerry in a low voice to his chums, as he handed back the slips of paper. “We want to talk this over among ourselves.”
“The restaurant’s the place,” decided Bob, and neither Jerry nor Ned laughed at him this time.
The three lads talked in guarded tones as they sat at a table in the eating place, waiting to be served. The new turn to the mystery had come with startling suddenness.
“Now whom do you think committed the robbery?” asked Ned. “It begins to look as though Brown and Black were out of it; eh?”
“Not at all,” was the answer of the tall lad. “It was more likely them than Noddy and Bill. Not that the latter wouldn’t do it if they had the chance, but I don’t believe they know enough to drill a safe. Then there are those queer tools we saw in the _Silver Star_. One of them was a safe drill, I’m sure.”
“But do you think there were two airships circling around Harmolet the night of the robbery?” asked Bob.
“It’s possible. We saw Noddy head in that direction, and though Brown and Black left the aviation grounds before we reached them, they might have returned to rob the bank. I’m sure they did it.”