FORDNEY SEES THE LIGHT

For some days considerable mystery surrounded the emergency landing of Otto Freund and Ernst Wagner in a single-motored plane near an Army post at 11:05 PM two nights before the Pearl Harbor atrocity.

With a group of Army officers and War Department officials, Professor Fordney was observing a demonstration of the latest development in anti-aircraft searchlights. Mounted on an Army truck in a camp field the searchlight was shooting its infrared beam more than fourteen miles into the sky when suddenly a plane roared out of the starless night and with a sputtering roar landed in a rough field a few hundred yards distant.

One of the plane’s occupants, Ernst Wagner, was dead, the other, pilot Otto Freund, only slightly injured. Freund bitterly blamed his crash landing and Wagner’s death on the Army demonstration.

A check of the plane’s instruments was made without results, as they were badly damaged.

“How,” the Professor asked after Freund’s tirade ended, “did you get nine miles off your course?”

“How! How!” the excited pilot exclaimed. “Because I mistook the beam of your searchlight for an emergency landing field just after my motor began acting up. Naturally I headed for your light instead of trying to keep on my course. If only I had tried to maintain my course I would have made the emergency field at Oakdale.”

Fordney stared into the moonless night, turned his collar up against the biting west wind. He nodded to the commanding officer who barked: “Take this spying liar to the guardhouse, Sergeant!”

Why did Fordney and the officer disbelieve Freund’s account? Why did they suspect him of espionage? A single clue, which the well-informed should know, answers both questions. Turn page for solution.