“Well,” continued the managing editor, “this chap Johnnie was watching. Rand presently went to the office in his hangar. Johnnie strolled over that way and peeped in. Rand was standing by a closet in the rear of the office. The door was open only part way, but Johnnie could see that Rand was talking into a telephone receiver that stood on a shelf in this closet. This seemed queer to Johnnie, because there on the desk was the regular instrument. Johnnie tiptoed close to a window, which was open a crack for ventilation. He was in the dark and could not be seen. He heard Rand say something about ‘skis on a plane’ and ‘flying farther north from there.’ Johnnie of course couldn’t make anything out of that, and quite naturally he never connected the message with your flight.” Jimmy drew a long breath. “I understand the whole story now,” he said. “Not quite, Jimmy. Let me go on. Rand got off eventually and the force at Rand’s hangar went home. Johnnie came back to our hangar. But there wasn’t a thing to do, aside from making frequent inquiries at the radio office, and he got to wondering about that queer telephone he had seen Rand use. So he picked up a flash-light, slipped into Rand’s office, which was unlocked, and went to the closet. It was locked. Johnnie had his keys and with one of them was able after a little effort to unlock the closet. There was the telephone, on a separate wire, which came up through the floor. You know how ramshackle those hangars are. Well, Johnnie was able to trace that wire. And where do you think it ran?” “I don’t know,” said Jimmy. “It was spliced to our own telephone wire. In short, Rand had tapped the wire in our hangar, so he could overhear our conversations.” “Quite evident,” said Jimmy. “But what I don’t understand is why Rand was _tallying_ on our wire. That would give him away, sure.” “I couldn’t have understood it either, had it not been that I had occasion to talk to a Western Union man. I had already arranged to have the wire at Smithville opened for you, Jimmy, but about three hours after you took off I had to call the telegraph people again. And it was only by the merest chance that the matter was mentioned then. The fellow I was talking with remarked that he had just come down from Canada and that unless my reporter was going pretty far north, he would have trouble landing on skis. I didn’t know what he meant. That brought out the fact that a second telegram had been sent about the matter of a landing ground at Smithville. I knew you had no skis on your plane now and I said there must be a mistake about the message. The telegraph official assured me that you had sent a second message from Long Island. When I checked up on the time the message was sent, I saw right away what had happened. Some one had sent a message in your name. We traced the call and it came over our wire.” The managing editor paused. “Please go on,” said Jimmy, who was sitting tensely on the edge of his chair.