Dorothy Dixon and the Mystery Plane Read online

  Chapter IV

  THE THUNDERHEAD

  Dorothy telephoned the Walters next morning, to learn from a maid thatTerry was still missing, and that Mr. Walters was down in the village,putting the matter in the hands of the police.

  "May I speak to Mrs. Walters?" she asked.

  "I'm afraid not, miss. Mrs. Walters has been up all night. Doctor Brownhas given her a sleeping powder and issued orders that she is not to bedisturbed."

  "If there is anything that I can do," said Dorothy, "telephone me."

  "Thank you, miss. I'll tell Mr. Walters when he comes home."

  Dorothy rang off and went about her household duties with a heavy heart.

  Later on she motored to the village to do her marketing, and upon herreturn found that her father had telephoned. She immediately called upthe New Canaan Bank, of which he was president.

  "Any news, Daddy?" she inquired anxiously, as soon as she was putthrough to him.

  "That you, Dorothy?" she heard him say. "Yes--Terry's car has beenfound."

  "_Where_, Daddy?"

  "On a wood road in the hills back of the Norwalk reservoir. The car wasempty. A farmer driving through there found it early this morning andphoned the license number to the police."

  "But what in the world could Terry have been doing way over there? Iknow that road. It's no more than a bridle path--the reservoir is threeor four miles beyond Silvermine."

  "My opinion is that Terry was never anywhere near the place," explainedher father. "He was undoubtedly held up, removed to another car and hisown run over to the spot where it was found."

  "No sign of him, I suppose?"

  "No. I've talked with Walters. The poor man is nearly off his head withworry. We're getting up searching parties to cooperate with the police.I'll see you at dinner tonight. It will be impossible for me to get homeat noon."

  "I'll hope to have some news for you, then," said Dorothy.

  "Going up in spite of the rain?"

  "I've got to. We can't afford to waste time--the weather's not so bad."

  "There are storm warnings out all along the coast."

  "I'll be careful, Daddy."

  "All right. Bye-bye till dinner time."

  "Bye."

  She hung up the receiver and for the rest of the morning, busied herselfabout the house, determined not to let her mind dwell upon the darkerside of this latest development. After lunch she changed into flyingclothes and went out to the hangar.

  Unlocking the doors, she set to work filling the amphibian's gasolinetanks. Then she went over the engine carefully and gave it a shortground test. After that, the instruments came under her inspection.Altogether, she gave her plane a thorough overhauling, which was notentirely necessary, but kept her from thinking and helped to kill time.

  About twenty minutes to five she ran the amphibian out of the hangar andtook off into the teeth of a fine rain. It was no part of her plan tofly in the neighborhood of the Beach Club until the plane she wasseeking should put in an appearance. Her self-imposed duty was to spotthe mysterious amphibian and to follow it to its destination withoutallowing the pilot or an understudy to spot her.

  So instead of banking and heading for Tokeneke, when her bus hadsufficiently topped the trees, she continued to keep the stick back soas to maintain a proper climbing angle. Back in her first thirty hoursof early flight training, it would have been difficult for her to keepWill-o'-the-Wisp (more often termed Willie or Wispy) at the correctangle safely below the stalling point, unless she could first recognizethat angle by the position of the plane's nose relative to the horizon.On a wet day like this with an obscured horizon it would have beenwell-nigh impossible: at best, a series of bad stalls would have beenthe result. But now her snapping gray eyes sparkled with exhilaration;she no longer needed the horizon as a guide. Between leveling off everythousand feet or so, to keep the engine from overheating, she shotWill-o'-the-Wisp up to six thousand, maintaining the proper angle ofclimb by the "feel" of the plane alone.

  With her altimeter indicating the height she wanted, she leveled offagain; then, executing a sharp reverse control or "flipper" turn to theleft she resumed straight flight again by the application of up aileronand opposite rudder. The plane was now headed south, several points tothe west of the Beach Club.

  The visibility was even poorer than at a lower level, but the youngpilot knew this part of the country as she knew her own front lawn.Either dropping or swerving her plane's nose at frequent intervals so asto get an unimpeded view ahead, she passed over the wooded ridges towardthe shore, over the city of Stamford and out over the slate grey watersof Long Island Sound.

  That body of water is some six or eight miles wide at this point, andupon reaching the opposite shore, Dorothy commenced a patrol of the LongIsland shore line from Lloyds' Neck, which lies just west of Oyster Bay,to the farther side of Smithtown Bay, a distance of fifteen or sixteenmiles. And as she flew, she kept a sharp lookout for planes appearingout of the murk toward the Connecticut shore.

  Since she knew it was the bearded aviator's practice to fly at acomparatively low altitude, Dorothy chose to keep Will-o'-the-Wisp atthis greater height for two reasons. An airplane flying far aboveanother plane is much more unlikely to be noticed by the pilot of thelower plane than one flying at his own level or below him. Then again,by keeping to the higher air, Dorothy, under normal weather conditions,was bound to increase her range of vision proportionately. Her plan wasa good one. But weather is not a respecter of plans. The visibility,poor enough when she started, gradually grew worse and worse. Althoughwhat wind there was seemed to have died, long curling tongues of mistcrept out of the east, while above her head she saw black thunderclouds, sinking lower and lower.

  Now one of the first things any aviator learns is that fog must beavoided at all costs. Any attempt to land in it is attended byconsiderable danger. Dorothy knew only too well that in case of a fogbank cutting the plane off from its destination, the flight must bediscontinued by a landing, or by return to the point of departure.

  She glanced overside again. Long Island Sound was no longer visible.

  "He's late now, unless I've missed him," she said to herself. "I'llfinish this leg of the patrol and if he doesn't show up by the time I'mover Oyster Bay, Willie and I will head for home."

  Pushing her stick slightly forward to decrease her altitude, shecontinued along her course.

  Three minutes later, she realized her mistake. The wisps of fog seemedto gather together, and Will-o'-the-Wisp sank into an opaque bank thatblinded her.

  "Gee, but I'm stupid!" she mumbled. "What was it that text-book I readonly yesterday said? 'In the event of general formation of fog below, animmediate landing must be made before it becomes thick enough tointerfere seriously with the approach.' Heavens, what a fool I am! Nowthat we're in it, though, I might as well see if it thins out nearer thewater."

  Her compass told her she was flying almost due west. Throttling down theengine, she pushed her stick still farther forward, at the same timeapplying right aileron and hard right rudder. As the proper glidingangle was reached, she neutralized her elevators and held the nose up asnecessary. Next, she checked her wing with the ailerons and eased herrudder pressure. Then having made a quarter-spiral with a change incourse of 90 degrees, she applied left aileron and hard left rudderuntil the wings were level laterally, and with her stick still heldforward, continued to descend in a straight glide until she was withinfifteen hundred feet of the water. The plane was heading directly backacross Long Island Sound toward the Connecticut shore.

  But each moment the fog seemed to grow more dense. To land blindly meanta certain nose-in and was out of the question. And even if the mist didnot hold to the water's level, to fly lower meant the chance of strikingthe mast or spar of a ship, a lighthouse, perhaps, or anything else thatcame her way.

  "We're up against it, Wispy," she murmured, opening the throttle andpulling back her stick. "If
we can't go down, at least we can 'goabove,' as they say in the Navy. Beat it for the heavens, my dear. Thisbeastly fog can't run all the way to Mars!"

  Dorothy was not frightened, although she knew how serious was herpredicament. No pilot likes flying blind in a fog. With the knowledgethat what one sees, one hits, it is a nerve-wracking experience.

  But Dorothy's nerves were good--none better--and she sent her plane intoa long, steady climb, hoping for the best and keeping her vividimagination well within control.

  Headed into the north, she continued her climb, leveling off every fewthousand feet to ease the strain on her engine. When the altimetermarked thirteen thousand she began to worry, for the service ceiling ofher plane was but two thousand higher. The cold damp of the thick mistpenetrated like a knife. Hemmed in by the dank grey walls, she couldbarely distinguish the nose of her ship. The active needles of thealtimeter and rate of climb indicator were the only visible signs thatWill-o'-the-Wisp was moving at all.

  Fourteen thousand feet--intense physical discomfort, added to thenervous strain, were becoming intolerable. Dorothy clenched herchattering teeth in an effort to retain her control. Then with asuddenness astonishing, the fog parted and she sailed into clear air.

  Below her the heavy mist swirled and rolled like a sluggish sea,grey-yellow streaked with dirty streamers, while directly ahead loomed atowering mass of cotton-like clouds rising tier upon tier as far as shewould see.

  A quick glance over her shoulder and to the sides, brought forth thefact that this small pocket of free air was entirely surrounded bysimilar cloud formations. There was no time for thought. Automatically,her hand clasping the stick shot forward, bringing down the nose to theposition of level flight, and she drove the amphibian straight at thethunderhead. Immediately afterward the plane passed into the cloud, andlike a leaf caught in an inverted maelstrom, it was whipped out of hercontrol.

  Gripped by tremendous air forces, the amphibian was shot up andsideways, at a speed that burned Dorothy's lungs. Tossed about like arag doll, with her safety-belt almost cutting her body in two, she wasthrown hither and yon with the plane, blind, and without the slightestidea as to her position.

  Never in her wildest nightmares had she dreamed that a heavy plane,weighing close to four thousand pounds when empty, could be tossed aboutin such fashion by currents of the air.

  For a space of time that seemed years, she was entirely away from thecontrols. But gradually, with infinite effort and in spite of thewhirling jolts of her air steed, Dorothy managed to hook her heels underthe seat. A second later she had caught the stick and was pushing itforward into the instrument board.

  Will-o'-the-Wisp reared like an outlawed bronco, then dived until theairspeed indicator showed one hundred and sixty-five miles per hour.Still her downward speed was less than the rate of the upward draft, forthe rate of climb indicator told the frenzied girl that the plane wasbeing lifted fourteen hundred feet per minute.

  Still diving at 45 degrees, the phenomenal force of the updraft carriedthe plane to the mushroom top of the cloud, where with a jar like anelevator hitting the ceiling, it was flung forth into the outer air.