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bottom once more. Now, Mr. Ness, you came on the scene after everything had happened; but even so, as a matter of formality, perhaps you will tell me what you remember?”
    â€œI dunno I can say more than I said at the inquest,” said Ness, gloomily regarding the shining rim of the valve head.
    â€œAfterwards you helped to transfer the body from the ambulance to the hangar, where it lay till the evening?”
    â€œYes,” the ground engineer admitted.
    â€œDid you drive the van back after putting Furnace on it?”
    He nodded.
    â€œDid you watch beside the body at all?”
    â€œNo. Miss Sackbut did that. I went back to stand by the wreckage.”
    â€œDid you go into the hangar again that evening?”
    â€œNo,” he said positively. “I was busy going over the bits with Mr. Sandwich and the insurance man.”
    The Inspector closed his notebook regretfully and left. As he closed the door, Mr. Ness again burst into mournful melody.
    â€œI reckon he knows less about it than I do,” thought the Inspector, “if that is possible.”
    For ten minutes the Inspector sat bolt upright in a chair outside the club-house, waiting for Tommy Vane to descend. Eventually the scarlet-and-white Moth glided over the hangar. Before the wheels touched the ground, however, it shot upwards with a wild bound which made the Inspector clutch the sides of his seat. “Ride her, cowboy!” yelled a youth next to him cheerily.
    â€œWhoopee! That was a good landing for Tommy,” he said communicatively to the Inspector.
    The machine dropped towards the ground a second time. But on this occasion there was a roar from the engine and the ’plane ascended again.
    â€œVery odd,” commented the Inspector.
    At the next attempt the machine landed successfully, and Flight-Lieutenant Winters and Tommy Vane got out.
    Winters was a lean man, with hair greying round the temples, and an air of gentle melancholy easily explicable by the fact that he had been a club instructor for ten years. Tommy Vane was now wearing large flannel trousers which trailed on the ground and an offensive canary-yellow pullover with a bright green scarf.
    â€œI’m pretty ghastly, aren’t I, boss?” he said cheerfully to Winters as they came up.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, Tommy,” answered the other seriously, “you’d be quite good if only you’d get over this casual manner of yours. You don’t seem to have your mind on the job. You’ve got good hands and quick reaction. But there’s something lacking here.” He touched his head.
    â€œThe truth is,” said Tommy confidingly, “I’m so scared all the time I’m up in the air that my mind just goes round and round!”
    Flight-Lieutenant Winters smiled at Vane. “I should say you’re singularly free from nerves.”
    Creighton buttonholed Vane and managed to lead him aside. He gave the same explanation for his enquiries that he had given to the ground engineer.
    â€œCan’t you let poor old Furnace rest in his grave?” protested Vane. “Well, if you want to give me a once-over, let’s do it elsewhere.”
    In spite of the Inspector’s protests, Vane insisted on going into the bar lounge. They sat at a table. The Inspector consented to accept a bitter, and Vane brought back a stiff-looking double Scotch for himself. Creighton was a little staggered to see the youth swallow it neat, almost at a gulp, and follow it with a mouthful of soda-water. In fact, he began to look at Vane more closely. At least he was a more promising suspect than the ground engineer, that quiet, peaceable body. Though the Inspector was a shrewd judge of character, Vane puzzled him.
    He had one of those pale, noncommittal faces, with frank blue eyes and rather babyish red lips which show little trace of age, so that the Inspector found it genuinely difficult to decide whether he was twenty or