“Any news of Ned?” Nancy asked immediately.
“Not a word,” Burt replied. “But Dave and I tracked down a bit of information that might link a certain man with Ned’s disappearance.”
“Tell me about him,” Nancy begged.
Burt said that in one of Ned’s engineering courses there was a graduate student with fiery red hair who worked next to Ned in the lab. “He disappeared at the same time Ned did.”
“We also learned,” Dave added, “that this Zapp Crosson had his pilot’s license.”
Nancy was intrigued by this information. “So he could have flown the mysterious copter and known how to program the craft to fly itself.”
The boys nodded and Burt said, “Nancy, we thought you’d probably know what to do next.”
“Any clues about where the copter went?” she asked.
Dave said no one in the vicinity of Emerson knew anything about a helicopter which had the same registration number as the pilotless craft. The local police had made inquiries at a small airfield on the outskirts of Emerson, and also talked with members of a balloon club nearby. No one had a lead.
“It’s still early enough to do some exploring before dinner,” Dave said. “While you girls are in Emerson you can stay here in our first-floor guest room.”
Bess giggled. “I didn’t know you had one.”
Dave grinned. “Oh, old Omega Chi Epsilon aims to keep up to date,” he said.
The girls were led to a charming room with three beds in it and an adjoining bath.
“I’ll take your car, Nancy, and fill it with gas,” Burt offered. “Meet you all in front in ten minutes.”
While the girls were washing their hands and combing their hair, George asked Nancy, “What are your thoughts about Zapp Crosson?”
Nancy replied, “I’ve been wondering if there was any connection between Zapp’s project and an experiment on which Ned might have been working. Ned may have been keeping his own a secret until he had completed the experiment.”
Just then the boys returned. They knew where the nearby airfields were located, so the five young people climbed into the car. Bess and George told them the story of the glowing eye.
Nancy felt lonesome without Ned, and started worrying even more about him than she had before. Sensing this, Dave said lightly, “Speaking of glowing eyes, I learned in bio class today that a crayfish’s eye has four thousand parts. Each one is a separate eye.”
George grinned. “I didn’t know the bottom of the sea had enough to see to require that many eyes.”
“Oh, George,” said her cousin Bess, “that’s a horrible pun.”
The others laughed. Burt, who was at the wheel, asked, “Where to?”
Nancy smiled. “Directly northeast from my home in River Heights.”
“Emerson is slightly northeast,” Burt replied, “so suppose we go due east.”
Everyone agreed. Within ten minutes they came to a private flying field. A helicopter was just coming in. Burt turned into the driveway and went directly toward the whirlybird’s landing spot.
A pleasant-looking young pilot leaped down. “Hi!” he said. “Want a ride?”
Nancy jumped from the car. “Do you take people sightseeing?” she asked as an idea flashed into her mind.
“Sure thing. Any place within a radius of a hundred and fifty miles. My rates are low.”
Nancy thought so too when she heard what they were.
“How many passengers can you take?”
“Three.”
“We’ll go,” Nancy said. “Are you ready?”
“In a few minutes. I’ll fill ’er up with fuel, and take you up for an hour.”
While the pilot was doing this, Nancy quickly explained to her friends that she thought it was a marvelous opportunity to view the countryside near Emerson. “Which two of you want to go?”
Bess and Dave offered to stay on the ground. “I’d like to look around and see the planes here,” Dave said.
Quarter of an hour later the three passengers climbed aboard and the helicopter rose.
“I’m Glenn Munson,” the pilot said. “Anything in particular you’d like to see?”
Nancy introduced herself and her friends. “Yes. As many airfields public and private that you have time to show us.”
Glenn raised his eyebrows. “For any special reason?”
Nancy told of the mysterious helicopter landing on the Drews’ lawn. “Have you ever seen or heard of a robot copter around this area?” she asked.
“Sure. A friend of mine who’s a computer expert has one. Want to meet him?”
Nancy was so excited she could hardly keep her voice calm. But she managed to say, “We’d love to.”
Munson steered his craft in a half circle, flew a few miles, then descended. “There’s Jerry now,” he said, “just tuning up his robot copter to take off.” Jerry’s helicopter was much smaller than the one which had landed on the Drews’ front lawn, and Nancy assumed this was the reason the police had not mentioned it.
She and the others jumped down from their craft and were introduced to Jerry Faber, a tall, lanky young man with twinkling eyes.
“Nancy’s looking for a certain robot copter,” Glenn said.
“One that’s larger than yours,” she told Faber.
Jerry grinned. “Sorry I can’t help you. But come, I’ll show you my real beauty of a copter.”
He led the group to a barn at one edge of the field and opened the door. Before them stood a big, shiny new helicopter.
“There’s Emmy,” Jerry said proudly. “She’s not a robot but I can take ten passengers in her. And she has a long range—three hundred and fifty miles.”
Nancy was disappointed that neither helicopter was the one she had hoped to find, but said, “This big one certainly is beautiful. Do you use it just for pleasure?”
“No, I fly executives of nearby companies on short business trips, and sometimes other people. I had a mysterious passenger a week ago. He didn’t even give me his full name. He just said, ‘Call me Crossy.’ ”
“Crossy?” Burt burst out. “What did he look like?”
“Had bright red hair.”
“He’s the one!” Burt exclaimed. “We think—” A warning look from Nancy kept him from saying, “We think he’s a kidnapper.”
“Do you know him?” Glenn asked in surprise.
Burt replied that the man in question might be a graduate student at Emerson who had disappeared.
“Where did you fly him?” Nancy inquired.
Jerry thought a moment. “Oh, I remember now. It was over River Heights.”
The visitors exchanged glances. Nancy asked why Jerry thought Crossy was mysterious. She was told that the man took binoculars from his pocket when they reached River Heights and trained them on every house in town.
“I finally laughed and asked him, ‘You got a girl friend down there?’ He said, ‘Sort of. She’s a smart one. Knows the law like a lawyer’!”
Nancy started. Could the girl be Marty King? If so, what did she know about Crosson? Was she playing up to him to get information concerning the mystery of the glowing eye?
“Did Crossy tell you anything else?” Nancy asked.
“No. He talked very little, but he did ask me a lot of questions about complicated computer programming.”
Burt said the graduate student from Emerson was a whiz in this subject. “If you ever hear from Crossy, or see him, please let us know.”
“I sure will,” Jerry replied, “and now I must go to keep an appointment. Look around all you like.”
The group thanked the pilot and said good-by. Jerry hurried back to his small helicopter and got in. He spun the rotors and took off. The others watched intently.
Suddenly George cried out, “Oh my goodness! Jerry’s in trouble!”
Everyone gazed in horror at his whirlybird which was spiraling toward the ground!
CHAPTER V
A Strange Prison
As th
e group watched Jerry’s helicopter, which apparently was out of control, Glenn suddenly began to laugh. The others looked at him in amazement.
“Jerry had me fooled too for a few minutes. He’s not in trouble. Jerry’s doing some acrobatics for you. Pretty intricate flying maneuvers for a copter. He’s really good.”
“I’ll say he is,” Burt spoke up.
Jerry leveled his craft and flew off. Those on the ground could visualize him grinning over his trick. Then they turned and walked back to look again at the helicopter in the hangar. Nancy climbed up to look inside.
“What a battery of gadgets!” she exclaimed. “There must be a hundred push buttons and levers and lights on this instrument panel!”
As her eyes wandered over the intricate setup, Nancy noticed a penny on the floor.
“I wonder if Jerry dropped this,” she thought, “or some passenger—perhaps Crosson!”
Nancy picked up the penny and examined it. The coin bore the date 1923 S. “Mm, that’s old and valuable,” she said to herself. “It’s like one Dad has. Shall I leave it here?”
She decided to ask Glenn to return it to Jerry. Nancy stepped down and handed the penny to their pilot. She made her request, then added, “If Jerry knows who dropped it, please call me.” She wrote down the telephone number of the fraternity house.
Glenn promised that he would and said they had better leave. “I have another job in half an hour,” he explained.
The pilot took his passengers back to the airfield, then hurried off. Nancy’s car was not in sight.
“Bess and Dave must have taken it,” Nancy remarked.
The couple had driven off in the convertible soon after their friends had left.
“Let’s do some sleuthing in this area,” Dave suggested as they headed for the road.
“Where do we start?” Bess asked. “This is farming country. I’m getting one of Nancy’s hunches that Zapp Crosson or whoever kidnapped Ned would pick a secluded section like this one to hide out.”
“Right.”
After traveling a few miles they came to an old, dilapidated two-story farmhouse. Bess went up on the porch of rotting floorboards. The windows had no curtains and she could see there were only a few pieces of half-broken furniture inside the house.
“I guess no one lives here,” she called out to Dave.
He hopped from the car and came to take a look. “I wonder if the house is locked.” Dave tried the front door. It opened without a key.
“Let’s explore,” he urged.
“No thanks,” said Bess. “Deserted houses with unlocked doors aren’t my idea of safe places to investigate.”
Dave made no comment and walked in. “If I don’t return in thirty minutes, get the police,” he teased, tossing Bess the car keys.
“Oh, I’ll come,” she decided. Bess was fearful but did not want Dave to think her a coward.
There was a narrow center hall with a steep stairway. A room opened onto it from either side. The rear of the hallway led into the kitchen, which was stocked with canned food. A knife, fork, and spoon lay in the sink alongside an unwashed plate.
“Someone’s probably camping out here,” Dave remarked.
“And I’ll bet,” Bess replied, “it’s someone who has no business here. But I don’t want to be caught trespassing. Let’s go!”
“No,” said Dave. “I’d like to find out who the intruder is. I’m going upstairs. You stay here on guard.”
Bess felt uncomfortable being left alone but knew she would be more ill at ease on the floor above. She closed the front door and posted herself near it, but presently began to walk from window to window.
Suddenly she jumped in fright as something heavy fell overhead. Bess rushed to the stairway and called up.
“Dave! Are you all right?”
There was no answer. Putting her fears aside, Bess vaulted up the steps two at a time, all the while calling Dave’s name. He did not reply. She hurried through the scantily furnished bedrooms but found no sign of her friend. She could not figure out what had fallen. There was no stairway to a third floor.
“Oh, Dave, where are you?” Bess wailed.
She began opening one closet door after another, each time with a shudder as to what she might find. Finally Bess reached the last closet. As she opened the door she could hear muffled sounds. Nobody was inside. Bess stepped forward to put her ear to the wall.
“0-o-oh!” Bess exclaimed as the floor suddenly opened and she plummeted downward.
The startled girl landed in the pitch darkness on something soft. It moved under her. She heard a groan.
“Dave!” Bess murmured. “Oh, I must have hurt you!”
“You sure knocked the wind out of me. Good thing I’m used to tackle football!”
“Where are we?” Bess asked.
“At the bottom of a clothes chute,” Dave answered. “It was lucky there were some things in it to cushion my fall.”
Bess asked how they were going to escape. “Besides, I don’t want to get caught by that person who comes here. He might be dangerous.”
Dave admitted he had not yet found an opening, but was sure there was one.
The two captives felt every inch of the wall and floor of their prison. When they could find no doorknob nor a bolt, they began to push and press the wood.
“I’m sure of one thing,” said Dave. “We’re below the first floor in a cellar. There must be an opening in this wooden chute.”
“Sh!” Bess whispered as he finished. “Listen!”
She had heard the front door slam. Now there were footsteps overhead.
Bess clung to Dave’s arm. “We’ll be found!” she whispered tensely.
“In here? I doubt it,” he said, trying to reassure her with a little hug.
The two waited in silence. Floorboards creaked as the heavy stepping person trudged all through the house. Bess and Dave assumed he had spotted the car in front and had come to investigate. Evidently satisfied the place was vacant, the man slammed the front door again. In a few moments Bess and Dave heard an automobile drive off.
“Probably a policeman,” Dave suggested. “At first I thought he might be the person who’s using this place.”
Once more he and Bess began to push on the walls of the clothes chute. Finally Dave put his finger in a small knothole and was able to move a concealed door to one side. The couple stepped out into a cellar dimly lighted by the sun streaming through a small window. The place was empty except for two musty washtubs and a stack of dusty newspapers.
“How do we get out of this prison?” Bess asked Dave, after glancing around. No door or other exit was visible.
While she searched for a hidden exit in a wall, Dave’s eyes roved back and forth across the ceiling. It was thick with dirt and cobwebs, but he thought he could detect a movable section under the kitchen. He mentioned his discovery to Bess.
“Climb up to my shoulders and try to open this,” Dave said. “The people who lived here must have used a ladder.”
Dave leaned over. Bess pulled herself onto his shoulders and stood up. She quickly found that a section of the ceiling could be pushed upward. With a little effort Bess eased herself through.
“How are you going to get out?” she asked Dave.
“Don’t worry. The first thing I want to do is examine these clothes in the chute. There might be a clue for Nancy to work on.”
Bess quickly looked for a stepladder and found one in a closet.
Dave reported with a laugh, “All men’s clothes in the chute and nothing in them but a penny in a shirt pocket.”
Bess giggled. “Bring it up here. Might be a good-luck penny. Here’s a ladder. I’ll hand it to you.”
Dave took it and in a moment he was beside Bess. Then he reached down and pulled up the ladder.
“We’d better go,” Bess said. “Nancy and George and Burt may be back and wondering where we went.”
The two hurried outside without meeting any one and drove back to
the airfield. Their friends were waiting.
“Where have you been?” George said petulantly. “We thought you’d been kidnapped too.”
“Try to open it,” Dave said.
Dave replied, “We were prisoners. It’s lucky we got back here. Bess, shall we tell them where we were being held?” There was a twinkle in his eye.
Bess smiled. “After they tell us where they went.”
Nancy knew there was no use coaxing, so she briefed the couple on the helicopter trip, and mentioned the 1923 S penny she had found in Jerry Faber’s big copter.
“I found a penny also,” said Dave. He took the coin out of a pocket in his jeans. After looking at the date on it, he exclaimed, “This is a 1923 S penny too!”
CHAPTER VI
Mysterious Burglary
FINALLY Nancy said, “I have a hunch that Zapp Crosson owns both pennies.” After hearing Bess and Dave’s story, she said, “He could have dropped the first one in the copter on his trip to look over River Heights, and left the other one at the farmhouse.”
George spoke up. “In other words, you think he put the second penny in the pocket of his shirt and then changed clothes.”
Nancy told her she thought Crosson had done more than this. “I believe the farmhouse is a hideout for him.”
Bess was sure the suspect was not carrying on any kind of experiments at the house. “Dave and I looked over the place thoroughly and didn’t find anything unusual until we fell down the clothes chute.”
George laughed. “I’ll bet he doesn’t go there just to wash his clothes.”
Burt said, “More likely he goes there to put on a disguise of some kind to fool the police. For one thing, he’d want to cover that fiery red hair of his.”
There was a great deal of discussion among the young people as Burt drove along. Nancy said she thought the farmhouse should be guarded. “But I don’t like to notify the police until we know for sure that Crosson is our man.”
Dave said he had a suggestion. “How about Burt and me staying at the house for the night? I saw plenty of canned food. If there’s no car around, Crosson won’t suspect anyone is there. When he comes in, we’ll give him a football rush before he can escape.”