“And if we don’t get Martins the tests will be off, won’t they. And before the world we’ll be labeled an unreliable branch of the Service, ships uncertain, can’t even get them a few hundred miles to Langham, to say nothing of being sure they’d ever get a hundred miles out to sea to drop bombs. “Suppose Marston has become so bitter that he’s off his nut a little, and wants to crab the Air Service every way. If he could burn down the Martin factory the tests would be off, wouldn’t they? And he lied about being in bed at the time the fire happened, didn’t he? He did get rid of the first two ships, holding us up several days, and now he’s got rid of two more. “He didn’t figure the wrecks would happen so quickly. He figured we’d come down in the mountains somewhere, dead as doornails, with the ships so smashed up that no one could tell anything. And if he wasn’t under suspicion at all, back at Langham, some fine night he could see to it that whatever ships finally got there, after you and I were grease spots on the side of a West Virginia mountain somewhere, could be destroyed some way--fire--anything.” Les took a long drag of his cigaret, and his steady eyes narrowed. Along the road, a hundred yards from the riverbank where we were standing, continuous lines of cars were passing. Several rowboats were out on the river, swarming around the gradually sinking Martin like waterbugs. Finally he said slowly: “By ----, it sounds right, Slim. He might be getting even with you and the Air Service at one swoop. But you’re claiming, of course, that he’s a nut. No sane man could cold-bloodedly do what he did to Bailey and me, anyway. Maybe to you.” “If he destroyed the ships at the field here, he’d be almost convicted before he started,” I pointed out. “By his method, he figured on getting away free and clear.” “He’s convicted now,” Les returned. “Sure, because the cables broke too quickly. But not, Les my boy, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, at that. In fact, we might be wrong. There may be some one or company or even country who wouldn’t like to see these tests come off. Listen to my idea of how to proceed to nail Marston right to the cross.” Les listened, demurred a bit, argued, and finally we came to a decision. He finally agreed whole-heartedly with me on all points. The combination of circumstances was such as to make merely a cluster of coincidences seem very unlikely. Marston’s past, and his present attitude; the fires at the Martin factory; the filed wires; and above all, the convenient sickness which made it impossible for him to go up in the crippled ships, all pointed one way.