“Where?” shouted Linda, surveying dubiously the ground beneath them, covered with dry bushes. There wasn’t a sign of civilization or cultivation anywhere about, and she had no desire to land.
“Right here in the plane,” returned Dot. “You haven’t forgotten the lunch Lou packed for us?”
“Good idea! And we’ll get to Albuquerque all the sooner. Something tells me that we’re not far off—if my calculations are correct.”
“Well, we can’t be lost,” replied Dot. “For we’ve been following the beacon lights straight along the way. O. K., then. I’ll unpack. Thank goodness Lou fixed a lunch.”
The sandwiches and coffee were delicious, and all the while Linda kept right on flying. But it was still light when the spires and buildings of Albuquerque loomed up in the distance.
They landed at the airport and went to a hotel for the night, thankful that the day, though uneventful, had passed so pleasantly, and hopeful for clear weather to continue for the rest of their journey.
The sun was shining brightly and the day was already hot when the girls took off from Albuquerque the following morning. For hours they flew over this hot, dry plateau region, where the water supply was scanty, and where they could see, even from their height in the air, the bare earth shining between the scattered clumps of grasses and shrubs.
“We have to miss the Grand Canyon,” Linda told Dot as they came down at a small airport town in Arizona, to rest and get their lunch. “It lies up in the north-western part of the state, you know, and if we follow the most direct course to Los Angeles, we miss it.”
“Maybe we can fly over it on our way back,” suggested her companion. “We’ll have more time to enjoy the scenery when we have settled with this impostor.”
“Yes, that’s just what I think. So long as we get home before the first of October, I’m a free woman.”
They continued their flight without any interruptions or disasters all that afternoon. They left Arizona behind and crossed into the great state of California, over the San Bernardino Mountains, where the climate was lovely. Orange groves blossomed everywhere, the air was sweet and delicious; they felt a great envy of the people who could always live in this beautiful region. At last they reached the city of Los Angeles, and spotted the new white city hall, as it rose in its majestic splendor, gleaming in the brilliancy of its electric lights.
“Good old Ladybug!” exclaimed Dot, as the autogiro came to the ground at the airport, and she stiffly climbed out of the cockpit. “Never lets us down!”
“Always lets us down—when we want her to,” corrected Linda, laughingly.
“You’re going to leave her here at the airport while we go on to Hollywood?” asked Dot.
“Yes, I think so. I’ll have the mechanics give her a thorough inspection in the meanwhile. But I don’t want to go tonight. Let’s have a good dinner and get some sleep and start out fresh tomorrow morning. We’ll have our box taken with us this time, and dress for the occasion. We don’t want to look like hicks from a small town.”
While Linda turned to give her instructions to an attendant, a strange young man strolled up to the girls and stopped, evidently waiting for an opportunity to speak to them. It was growing dark, but the beacon searchlight at the airport was bright enough for them to see him perfectly. He looked at the autogiro, and then peered almost rudely into the faces of the two girls. Linda ignored him, but Dot was furious.
“Pardon me, ladies,” he said finally, “but aren’t you the two girls who landed on the top of that newspaper building in Kansas City?—Miss Slocum and Miss Manton, I believe the names were?”
Dot giggled. She couldn’t deny the fact.
“So you’ve been taking a cross-country flight in this boat,” he continued. “I have a friend who is a reporter—he’s around here somewhere, for he stops here every day at the airport for news—and he’d like that story, if you’d give me a few facts.”
“We don’t want publicity,” Dot said, immediately. “So please don’t let him print anything at all about us.”
“Besides,” added Linda, “there’s nothing new in what we’ve done. Girls fly all over the country every day alone. It really doesn’t mean much more than driving a motor-car now-a-days.”
“You’re right about that,” agreed the attendant. “It was a stunt to fly the Atlantic once, but now it seems rather common-place. The first person to go from here to Australia by plane will sure get a head-line.”
“We don’t expect to try that!” returned Dot, laughingly. “That’s a little too far.”
“By the way,” remarked the stranger who had looked so keenly at the girls, “did you girls know that Linda Carlton is here at Los Angeles—or rather, at Hollywood? You remember her—the first girl to fly from New York to Paris alone?... She has a contract with the Apex Film Corporation.”
Linda and Dot looked at each other in distress. This was a fine situation indeed. What could they say?
“My name is Linda Carlton,” the aviatrix finally announced, quietly.
“Go on! Your name’s Sallie Slocum!” insisted the young man.
“As you please,” shrugged Linda, turning to the attendant. “Nevertheless, I want this autogiro registered here as belonging to Linda Carlton, of Spring City, Ohio.”
“O. K., Miss,” agreed the attendant, making note of the fact.
Summoning a taxi, the girls stepped into it and closed the door without even so much as good-bye to the young man who had forced a conversation with them.
“What gets me,” observed Dot, “is the way reporters seem to bob up anywhere and everywhere—just when they’re not wanted.”
“True, but they have to get news, I suppose. And it was really my fault in the first place, for landing on a newspaper building. I would have to pick that out!”
“Oh, well, who cares?” returned Dot. “It’ll blow over, and be forgotten.... What hotel are we going to?”
“The Ambassador. I’ve heard so much about their ‘Cocoanut Grove’ that I want to see it.”
A few minutes later the taxi stopped at the luxurious hotel, and the girls secured a room. They engaged it for only a couple of days, little thinking that they would have to remain in Los Angeles for a longer period of time.
It was lots of fun to dress in evening gowns and sweep into the dining-room as if they were actresses. Even Linda admitted that she enjoyed taking off her flier’s suit at times, and just being a “regular girl.”
“For tonight we’ll be absolutely care-free,” she said. “As if we hadn’t a thing to worry about!”
“Which we really haven’t,” added Dot.
They ordered an elaborate dinner and ate slowly, watching the people in the dining-room, hoping to catch a glimpse of a famous star or a celebrated flier. But if there were actors and actresses there, neither Linda nor Dot recognized them.
“I wish there were a ‘first-night’ performance that we could attend,” remarked Dot, when, after dinner, they summoned a taxi to go to a moving-picture show.
“Yes, it would be nice. But then, we probably couldn’t get in, anyhow. Unless I pretended to be the Linda Carlton who is in ‘Bride of the Air’.”
Dot laughed.
“That would be a mix-up. The other girl doubling for you—and then your pretending to be the other girl!”
“Sounds kind of like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to me.”
In spite of the fact, however, that nothing unusual happened, the girls spent a pleasant evening, and were glad of the chance to get to bed early.
“For,” remarked Linda, as she undressed in the charming bedroom, “I am tired, even though we didn’t break any records crossing the country.”
“It was fast enough for me,” agreed Dot. “I’d rather rest now and then, than dash off like Frank Hawks. And when you compare it to the way they used to cross the United States, it’s no less than miraculous.”
“I know,” yawned Linda. “What was it that that movie said—twenty-four days in 1850?”
“Yes, that was it, I think. Only I’m too sleepy to remember much now.... Wake me up early tomorrow, Linda. For it’s HOLLYWOOD!”
“It certainly seems queer to be riding along the ground,” remarked Linda, as she and Dot stepped into a bus for Hollywood the following morning. “But we can see so much more.”
“And it’s only eleven miles,” Dot reminded her. “Oh, aren’t you thrilled, Linda?”
“Of course I am. What girl wouldn’t be?”
“If they offer you the contract now, won’t you change your mind and go into pictures?” inquired Dot.
“No,” replied the famous aviatrix, decidedly. “I love the movies, and of course I’m keen to see the stars face to face, but I still haven’t the slightest desire to act. I guess I’m too shy. I get so fussed.”
“But it’ll be kind of a mean trick to haul that girl out of the picture after the Film Corporation have advertised it, and then not take her place. The producer may lose a lot of money.”
“That’s his fault. They should have been more careful about looking up her credentials.”
“Suppose you can’t convince them that you’re the real Linda Carlton?” suggested Dot.
“I’ll have to stay there till I do. But I have my licenses with me. I only wish I had my Distinguished Flying Cross, but unfortunately Daddy put it away in his safe-deposit box.”
The bus was luxurious and the girls settled down in delighted comfort. All the other passengers looked prosperous and well dressed; from their appearance they might easily be moving-picture stars. But of course they weren’t, the girls decided, for even the humblest star has her own car.
The country through which they were travelling was lovely, and as they approached Hollywood, the girls noticed charming, well-kept bungalows and homes of every description. As if everyone who lived there were wealthy. The fresh green lawns, the tall palm trees shading the streets, the vivid blue sky above formed a striking picture. No wonder most girls were wild to go to Hollywood!
Linda and Dot went on to Culver City, where most of the studios were located, and found the Apex Film Corporation, housed in a large and imposing building. As they ascended the steps Linda became exceedingly nervous, almost to the point of wishing that she hadn’t come.
“Suppose they take us for extras—applying for jobs—and throw us out!” she whispered, fearfully.
“Don’t be silly, Linda! Your name would get you in anywhere!”
“I’m not so sure of that. We fliers aren’t much here, where they have a world of their own and so many celebrities.”
The girls walked through a hall to a beautiful reception room, where a “publicity” girl, who looked like an actress herself, took Linda’s card and passed into an office to the right.
In a moment she returned with the information that the girls might go into the office.
“Mr. Von Goss is out, but his secretary will see you,” she said. “Mr. Leslie Sprague.”
“You do the talking, Dot,” begged Linda, as they left the room.
“Be yourself!” commanded her companion. “You can fly over the Atlantic Ocean alone, and you’re afraid of an insignificant little secretary!”
Linda laughed. What would she ever do without Dot to restore her courage whenever a fit of shyness overtook her? Holding her head high, she marched into the office where the secretary was sitting.
The latter, a young man of medium height, with a blond moustache, stood up as the girls entered. He opened his mouth to speak—but continued to keep it open without saying anything for a moment.
“There’s some mistake,” he finally managed to stammer.
Linda laughed, quite at ease.
“There’s been abigmistake,” she said. “And your director, Mr. Von Goss, I believe his name is, has made it. I am the real Linda Carlton, and he has signed up an impostor for the flying part in his picture!”
A slight sneer spread over the young man’s features.
“I suppose you have proof, Miss—er—?” he asked in a tone that plainly showed that he did not suppose anything of the sort. How nasty he was, not even to call Linda “Miss Carlton” and at least give her the benefit of the doubt!
Dot’s chin shot up in the air.
“You don’t suppose we’d come here, without some proof, do you, Mr. Sprague?” she demanded, haughtily. “Miss Carlton is a very busy person, as you’d know if you read the newspapers.”
The man flushed at Dot’s high-handed manner; he was not used to being rebuked by others. Little as she was, Dot Crowley had a masterful way of driving straight at the mark.
Linda opened her handbag and held out her licenses.
“Just have these verified,” she said, calmly.
The young man stared at them.
“Where did you get hold of these?” he asked, slyly. “Find Miss Carlton’s handbag?”
Linda made no reply, but turned her face aside in haughty disdain, as Sprague rang a bell and summoned a young woman from another office, to whom he made a slight explanation.
“And now,” he continued after the girl had left with the cards, “what do you propose to do about it—if your identity should be established?”
“Simply have proof that you will remove my name from the pictures, and print a statement saying that you had been misled.”
Mr. Sprague smiled sarcastically.
“You want the part yourself, I suppose?”
“I do not,” replied Linda, firmly. “I have neither time nor inclination to go into the moving pictures. Your actress can play the part—under her own name, whatever it is.”
“Mr. Von Goss would never consent to that. The girl isn’t much of an actress. He just engaged her for the value of the publicity. And, if she should prove to be an impostor, I’m sure he wouldn’t want her.”
“Well, that’s not my affair,” concluded Linda, rising. “Please get my licenses back for me now, Mr. Sprague, and when you have proof, Mr. Von Goss can communicate with me at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.”
“Wait a minute—wait a minute,” cautioned Sprague, smugly. “We can’t verify that license in five minutes. The other girl also had licenses in the name of Miss Linda Carlton, and the two will have to be compared, in order to find out which is a counterfeit!”
“Why, that’s ridiculous!” exclaimed Dot. “People can’t counterfeit U. S. Government licenses!”
The secretary smiled in his superior manner.
“Real counterfeiters can counterfeit anything,” he informed them.
“Then let me have mine back until we can place them side by side with this other girl’s,” demanded Linda.
Sprague shook his head.
“I’m sorry, madam, but it’s too late to do that now. They have already been handed over to our private detective, I’m sure.”
“How soon will he give them back?” asked Dot.
“Tomorrow, probably.”
“Where is this double of mine?” questioned Linda, with astonishing directness. “On the lot?”
“No. She’s at Spring City now—or rather, on her way to the coast. She’s due here tomorrow afternoon, flying into the Los Angeles airport, to begin her part in the rehearsals.”
“We’ll be there to meet her,” announced Linda, with determination. “What time?”
“Three o’clock. I’ll—meet you.”
Reluctantly the girls left the building, for they hated to go without the licenses, and walked out into the bright sunshine.
“What a pest that man is!” exclaimed Dot. “Of all the smug, self-satisfied, little tin-gods, he’s the worst I ever met.”
“He was rather unpleasant,” agreed Linda. “But he probably likes the false Linda, and believes in her. So he treats us as criminals.”
“I suppose that’s it. But he didn’t have to be so nasty about it. And the ridiculous way he tried to trip you up, asking where you got hold of Miss Carlton’s licenses. It made my blood boil.”
“He’s not worth getting excited over, Dot, for after all, it will be Mr. Von Goss who will decide the thing. Let’s forget him now, and go to one of these spiffy restaurants for lunch. Don’t you hope we see some of the stars?”
They sauntered along leisurely, looking at the people they passed, wondering whether they were actors and actresses. But it was confusing, for every girl here seemed to be pretty, and every man handsome. Indeed, the stenographers and waitresses were no doubt girls who had won beauty contests at home, only to come to Hollywood to find that beauty was as common as blades of grass, and that there was more to getting into the films than that. But of course these girls with the jobs—any jobs—were the lucky ones. Thousands of others must have returned home penniless.
The restaurant Linda and Dot selected was a charming one, not far from several of the studios, and the girls entered it with subdued excitement. Although it was crowded, the head waiter succeeded in finding them a little table by the wall, where they could eat and watch their fellow-diners.
For a few minutes, while they sipped their tomato cocktails, their eyes wandered about the softly lighted room, recognizing nobody in particular. Then, all of a sudden, Dot pinched Linda’s arm.
“That’s Joan Crawford!” she whispered.
“Where?”
“Over there—to the left.”
“That girl with glasses?”
“Yes. She wears them a lot in public, they say, so that people won’t recognize her. But I’m sure it’s she. And there’s her husband, sitting down beside her now. Anybody’d know him.”
Linda nodded, and feasted her eyes on one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and charming couples.
“And here comes Marlene Dietrich!” exclaimed Linda. “With that director she’s so fond of. She is pretty, isn’t she?”
“Yes, only I like our own actresses better than those foreigners. They always seem so affected.”
“How about Claudette Colbert? You like her, don’t you?” asked Linda, jealously. She had a great admiration for the French ever since her delightful reception in Paris.
“Yes, of course.... Oh, look, Linda—there’s Dimples!”
“Dimples? You mean June Collyer?”
“No, Stupid! A masculine Dimples. Gable, of course.”
“So it is! Wouldn’t Sara Wheeler be thrilled if she were here? She’s wild about him.”
“I heard he was getting a divorce. If you stayed around here, Linda, and took that part, you might have a chance.”
Linda laughed.
“The last thing I’d ever want to do is marry a movie actor!”
“I guess you’re right at that,” agreed Dot, sensibly. “Their marriages don’t often take.”
The girls made their lunch last as long as they could, and when they had finished they decided to go to a movie. For although Hollywood is the town where they make pictures, they also have many gorgeous picture palaces. Both Linda and Dot felt proud to know that they were having first chance at seeing a show which their friends in Spring City probably could not view until many months later.
After the performance was over they took the bus back to Los Angeles and went straight to their room to dress elaborately for dinner. They were almost ready when the telephone on the tiny table between their beds jingled impatiently.
It was Mr. Von Goss, the director of the Apex Film Corporation, the man whom they had hoped to see instead of that unpleasant secretary.
“May I come over and see you right after dinner, Miss—er—Carlton?” he asked. “Sprague has just told me the news, and I want to learn all I can about it at once.”
“Certainly,” agreed Linda. “I shall be glad to see you as soon as possible.”
Linda replaced the receiver and turned to Dot.
“You know what I’ve been thinking? This girl can’t look exactly like me, or Mr. Sprague wouldn’t have noticed the difference at once. Instead, he’d have greeted me more like a friend. But you remember—he opened his mouth in surprise.”
“That’s right. Of course we couldn’t judge much from her picture, with that helmet on. She was your build and your type, Linda. Light curly hair, and the same kind of nose.”
“I’m dying to see her.”
“So am I. But we shall tomorrow.”
“Well,” continued Linda, “it’s going to be interesting to get Mr. Von Goss’s reaction. At any rate, he was a lot more polite over the telephone than his secretary.”
The man arrived about nine o’clock, and Linda heard herself being paged just as she and Dot came out of the dining-room.
“Hadn’t I better slip off?” suggested the latter, in a whisper.
“No, indeed!” protested Linda. “I need your moral support.”
Mr. Von Goss was a stout man of past middle-age, heavy set, with a big jaw and a pair of keen blue eyes—obviously a man of power in his own field. Nevertheless, he looked thoroughly disturbed over the matter which had just been brought to his attention by his secretary.
“You claim to be Miss Carlton?” he inquired, as Linda came up to him in the hotel lobby.
“Yes,” replied Linda. “And this is my friend, Miss Crowley. Shall we go into one of those little parlors where we can talk?”
The director nodded, and Linda led the way into a small room that was unoccupied at the moment.
“Er—will you have a cigarette, Miss—er—Carlton?” he inquired.
“No, thank you,” answered Linda. “But you go ahead and smoke, Mr. Von Goss.”
The man lighted a cigar.
“This is bad business,” he said. “If what you claim is true, and we have signed up the wrong young lady.”
“You are satisfied with my proofs?” asked Linda, hoping that he had brought back her licenses.
“Can’t tell yet. The other girl certainly looks like all the newspaper pictures I’ve ever seen of the famous aviatrix. If she isn’t Linda Carlton, she certainly fooled me—and my secretary, too.”
“Do I look like my pictures?” inquired Linda, demurely.
Mr. Von Goss surveyed her critically.
“Not so much as the other girl,” he replied, with a smile. “But of course you’re in evening dress, and the other girl always wears flying suits.”
“She would,” put in Dot, cryptically.
“And, as Mr. Sprague suggested,” added Mr. Von Goss, “there’s the possibility that the real Miss Carlton’s licenses were stolen—and that by you—or anyone else!”
“Oh, that Mr. Sprague!” exclaimed Dot, with the utmost disdain.
“There are two things to do,” announced Linda, who had already come to a definite conclusion. “Get the two of us together, and have some one who knows us in aviation pick out the real Linda Carlton—or—”
“But Mr. Sprague, and some fliers he knows, have already identified our Miss Carlton,” interrupted the director. “It was Sprague who looked her up, and brought her into the production.”
“Then we’ll have to resort to the only other suggestion I have, if you can’t decide on our license cards.... It so happens that I am the only woman in the United States to hold an airplane mechanic’s license.... Now, my cards could be stolen, but not my knowledge. So my idea is this: Have some good airplane mechanic give us both an examination, and only the real Linda Carlton will pass.”
The director smiled broadly at the suggestion. It was an ingenious plan, and it appealed to his sense of the dramatic.
“I believe you, Miss Carlton. I think you must be the right girl, or you would never make such a suggestion. We’ll try the thing out tomorrow. When the other girl arrives at two o’clock, as she wired, I’ll take you to the airport to meet her.”
“Two o’clock?” repeated Linda. “But Mr. Sprague said ‘Three’!”
“He must have made a mistake. He told me two.... Now, how would you girls like to go to a reception with me? One of the stars is giving a house-warming at her new place at Beverly Hills, and I think I can ring you in on it, if you’d care about it.”
“We’d love it!” cried Dot, jumping up excitedly. “But please wait until we put on our very best dresses, Mr. Von Goss.”
The home of the star where the reception was held was the most gorgeous place that Linda and Dot had ever seen. It was more like a palace than a home—out in the rich, exclusive Beverly Hills section, among those of other famous actors and actresses whose salaries soared into the thousands. Compared to it, the Claverings seemed almost paupers, yet they were the wealthiest people Linda had ever known.
“It’s just like a fairy-tale,” whispered Dot, as the girls left their evening cloaks in a beautiful blue satin boudoir. “But what is there for a girl like this to look forward to? Why, she has everything!”
“Almost too much,” said Linda.
“But her fame probably won’t last more than ten years at the most. I read somewhere that even that is a long time for an actress. After that she has to take character parts, and ‘what have you’.”
“That seems tragic—giving up what you like to do best. I expect to fly till I die.”
“That’s just what your Aunt Emily says—only she means it differently. That you’ll meet your death in the air.”
Linda laughed, and she and Dot hastened to join Mr. Von Goss, who was waiting for them at the foot of the marble staircase.
“I sort of feel as if we were butting in,” whispered Linda. “Do I look terribly countrified—or small-townish?”
“My dear, you’re as pretty as any star here, and lots prettier than some,” replied Dot, reassuringly.
“Well, you surely look sweet in that peach chiffon, Dot. You look like Paris itself.”
“Of course I do!” laughed the other girl. “I’m not going to have any inferiority complex. And don’t you, either, Linda!”
Taking them into his charge, Mr. Von Goss led the girls about the luxurious rooms, introducing Linda to everybody as the most famous girl flier in the world. It was evident from his manner that he was entirely convinced that she was the real Linda.
The effect of the reception as a whole was startling, overpowering. Linda felt almost as if she wanted to gasp for breath, so overcome was she by the brilliancy of it all. It was only when she met Ann Harding, her favorite actress, that she really felt at home.
Miss Harding was amazingly beautiful—far lovelier than she seemed on the screen, if such a thing were possible. Her rich, low voice was charming, her complexion perfect, her golden hair like the pictures of a fairy queen. Yet there was something sad in her beautiful brown eyes. She and her husband had recently parted.
“Oh, I am so thrilled to meet you, Linda Carlton!” she said, holding Linda’s hand in hers. “I am only an amateur flier, but I love it so. And I have read about every single thing you have ever done.”
Linda blushed deeply at the praise; she wished she could summon courage to tell Miss Harding that she was her favorite star, but she was too shy to utter the words. She was afraid it might sound like idle flattery, thought up on the spur of the moment.
Dot, however, came to her rescue.
“You’re Linda’s favorite actress, Miss Harding,” she announced, calmly. “She goes to see all your pictures—two or three times. Especially the one where you played a character named ‘Linda.’ Do you remember?”
“Indeed I do,” replied Miss Harding. “And I loved that part.”
The three girls sat down in a corner and actually were able to talk flying without any interruption for about ten minutes. Then someone came to claim Miss Harding, and Mr. Von Goss appeared for his protegees.
Nothing was said, during the entire reception, of the trouble Linda was in, or of the fact that another girl was actually playing her part. The director had asked the girls not to mention the fact, and they were glad to accede to his wishes.
He took them to another room, a spacious hall with a beautiful shiny floor and a marvellous orchestra, and introduced some younger men to them, so that they could enjoy the dancing. Then a sumptuous supper was served, and the party broke up before midnight.
“I never thought the reception would be over so early, Mr. Von Goss,” remarked Dot, as the director drove the girls back to their hotel in his car. “I always thought Hollywood went in for wild parties.”
The man shook his head.
“No. If anything, the stars keep earlier hours than ordinary people. Many of them have to be on location early in the morning, and their work is long and tiring. All the considerate hostesses arrange for their parties to be early affairs.”
“One more mistaken idea shot to pieces,” laughed Dot.
“We’ve had a marvellous time, Mr. Von Goss,” said Linda, as the car stopped at the Ambassador. “We never can thank you enough. And I’m so glad we could go tonight, for we’ll probably be flying home tomorrow.”
The man raised his eyebrows.
“I’m not so sure we can clear things up by then. But I hope so. At any rate, I’ll meet you both at the airport at two o’clock in the afternoon.”
The girls said good night to Mr. Von Goss and went to their room, but they found that they were not sleepy. The party had been too exciting to settle down and forget it so soon.
“It does kind of get into your blood,” remarked Linda, as she took off her most elaborate evening gown. “All the rush and splendor and excitement, I mean.”
“Weakening?” teased Dot.
“You mean go into pictures myself, if I had the chance? No—never! Why, you can’t tell me Ann Harding’s happy. Or Joan Crawford.... No, it’s not satisfying, like flying. I know what I love best, and I mean to stick to it!”
“Wise girl!” was the comment. “But you surely have Mr. Von Goss worried.”
“No wonder. He says he advanced that other girl fifteen thousand dollars, just for the use of my name, and he’s already spent at least a hundred thousand on the story and the sets.”
“It seems as if you just couldn’t let him down, Linda.”
“I’m not letting him down. I never made any promises to him. He’s being let down because he was so careless.”
For at least an hour the girls continued to discuss the party and the stars, until at last they settled down to sleep, thankful that they had no need to get up early in the morning.
They combined breakfast and lunch the following day at noon, and went to the flying field a little before two o’clock to be on hand when the false Linda should arrive.
Linda was intensely excited. She tried over and over to picture to herself what this meeting would be like, whether the girl would be humble and sorry, whether she would try to work on Linda’s sympathies by telling of some pressing need she had for money, or whether she would be flippant and self-assured, still insisting that she was the real Linda Carlton.
Mr. Von Goss’s car appeared shortly after Linda and Dot arrived, and they recognized Mr. Leslie Sprague in the back seat. Both men nodded to the girls, who had dismissed their taxi and were standing beside one of the hangars, talking to an attendant.
“See your names in the paper, girls?” he was asking them.
“No. When?” inquired Dot.
The mechanic picked up a newspaper and handed it to them. There was a picture, somewhat poor, to be sure, of Linda and Dot in their flying suits and an account of their arrival, recalling the incident of their strange landing at Kansas City. Underneath were the names, “Miss Sallie Slocum and Miss May Manton.”
“How did they ever get that picture?” demanded Dot.
“Snapped it when you weren’t looking. Those newspaper reporters are up to all sorts of tricks. The beacon light is bright, and he had a special camera.”
Linda looked serious.
“This may make trouble for us, Dot,” she said, in a low voice.
The director and his secretary got out of the car and advanced towards the girls just as an airplane loomed into view. Linda stared excitedly at the sky, trying to make out what kind of plane it was. It was not an autogiro.
“There she is!” shouted Mr. Von Goss, and Mr. Sprague took off his hat and waved it violently into the air.
“The secretary’s pretty keen about the false Linda, or I miss my guess,” whispered Dot, in her companion’s ear. “Look how excited he is! How wildly he’s waving!”
The aviatrix, who was just overhead, suddenly banked her plane, and made a turn to the left. Then she nosed her plane higher into the air.
“Doing some stunts for us!” exclaimed Mr. Von Goss. “She’s a great little flier, all right—”
“She’s—she’s going away!” faltered Linda, in deepest disappointment.
“Probably forgotten something,” remarked Leslie Sprague, casually. “I was almost certain, anyhow, that she said three o’clock—not two. She’ll most likely be back at three.”
“You mean to say we’ll have to wait a whole hour?” demanded Dot, as the plane disappeared in the distance.
“That’s up to you,” returned Sprague, nonchalantly.
Mr. Von Goss reached into his pocket and extracted a clipping. It was the newspaper picture of Dot and Linda, with the fictitious names under it.
“Sprague showed me this,” he said, handing the clipping to Linda, with a suspicious look in his eyes.
Linda trembled in spite of herself, but Dot immediately explained how it had happened. Mr. Von Goss, however, looked doubtful of the truth of the story, and Sprague listened with a nasty grin on his face.
“We’ll have to talk this over later,” the director said finally. “I have an appointment now. As soon as the girl arrives, you better all come straight to the studio, where we can compare licenses, and so on.”
“Where is mine?” demanded Linda.
“Sprague’s keeping it. He’ll hand it over when the time comes.”
With a brief nod of good-bye, the two men drove away together, and the girls stood watching them in dismay.
“Something tells me that that young lady won’t be back here,” Dot said dismally.
“I’m afraid not. Maybe she even saw us, for her plane was pretty low. And if she had glasses—”
“Of course she had glasses! No girl who plays a tricky game like this one is going to go about unprepared. It would be like a gangster without a gun.”
They waited impatiently for over an hour, but nothing happened, and even the men did not return. Other planes flew into the busy airport, landed and took off, but there was no sign of Linda’s “double.”
Bored with the inactivity, they strolled over to the hangar where the Ladybug was housed, and looked her over.
“I’d fly over to the studio if I only had my licenses,” said Linda. “But I hate to break laws—even though it isn’t my fault.”
“That man has no right to keep them!” stormed Dot. “I’ll bet Sprague’s at the bottom of this.”
“He’s still trying to protect his girl-friend, I’m sure of that.... Well, Dot, we may as well go back to the hotel, for if she should arrive, I feel confident that Mr. Von Goss would call us there.”
Linda’s confidence, however, was sadly misplaced. For no one at the studio called to inform her that the other girl landed her plane right on the set a little after three o’clock.
With the neatness of a born flier, she brought her plane to the ground, climbed out of the cockpit and strolled into Mr. Von Goss’s office. The director had not yet returned, but Sprague was sitting at his desk. In a few words he explained the situation, but before the girl could make any reply, Mr. Von Goss walked in.
“You’ve heard the story, Miss—Carlton?” he asked, hesitating a little over the name.
The girl, who really resembled Linda to a remarkable degree, laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m used to things like that,” she said. “It used to worry me at first, but I never pay any attention to them now. Why, Mr. Von Goss, you can see for yourself how absurd the claim is! The girl’s real name—Sallie Slocum—has been printed in the newspaper twice.”
“Yes, of course that’s true. But how about those license cards?”
“Your detective will soon prove them counterfeits. And the signatures forged.”
Still, the man hesitated.
“The other girl said something about taking a test. Said she was the only licensed mechanic in the country. That made it sound pretty genuine to me.”
Again the girl laughed.
“That was a clever ruse,” she said. “But probably Miss Slocum has passed that test since I did, and thinks she knows more than I would.... No, Mr. Von Goss, I haven’t time to fool around here taking tests. I’ve got to be on my way tomorrow. So if you want me in the picture, you’ll have to let me go through my stunts now.”
“I don’t see how it can be done—” began the director.
“Very well, then,” agreed the girl. “I’d better give you back your check, because I’m really too busy to wait around here. After all, the money doesn’t mean much to me—and I don’t need the publicity!”
Mr. Von Goss looked at her keenly. She must be the real Linda, he thought, or she certainly wouldn’t talk like this. It never occurred to him that she was acting.
“No—I don’t want to give up now. We’ll go through with your part of the show.... Sprague, get the people on the wire....”
And so, while Linda and Dot were patiently waiting for their telephone call at the hotel, the impostor almost completed her part in the picture, promising to return for only a couple of hours’ work in the morning.