The Clue of the Broken Blade (6 page)

“Probably the old man's cat,” Chet mused. “I understand that all hermits have some kind of pet. They'd go nuts living absolutely alone. Take Robinson Crusoe for example. He—”

“Sh, sh!”
Frank commanded.

“What's up?” Chet whispered, stopped short in his philosophical observation.

“I heard something.”

“Like what?”

The three stood still and listened. From inside came a loud noise. This was followed by a shrill high-pitched voice. “Go away! Go away!”

The shriek sent shivers through the boys.

 

 

 

“IF that's old Jimenez, he sounds like a fiend,” Chet whispered.

A cracked voice behind them said, “That's not old Jimenez, young man. It's Don Quixote.”

The boys turned to face an elderly but straight-backed man with snow-white hair. His deep-set eyes burned at them.

“You heard Don Quixote,” he said. “Get going!”

“Are you Mr. Jimenez?” Frank asked.

“What's it to you, boy?”

“I'm Frank Hardy. This is my brother Joe, and Chet Morton. We're trying to get some information on Giovanni Russo, and his sword Adalante. We heard you know all about it.”

The old man glared at him for a second before saying, “I have no information. Go away.”

“Help! Help!” the shrill voice shrieked from inside.

“Por dios!”
Jimenez exclaimed. “Don Quixote!”

He started up the plank, but moved so stiffly that it was obvious he would not arrive in time to save Don Quixote from whatever danger he was in. Frank leaped past him, jerked open the screen door, and rushed inside.

A large black myna bird was perched on a bookcase, flapping his wings and screeching in terror. The tiger-colored cat crouched on a table, ready to spring.

Frank's outstretched arm blocked the cat's leap. It dropped to the floor, hissing, then fled between the legs of Miguel Jimenez as the old man pulled open the door.

“You saved Don Quixote,” he said gratefully. “Thank the young man, Don Quixote!”

The bird ruffled his feathers and squawked, “Good-by and good riddance!” Then he cocked his head at Frank and said, “Welcome aboard, mate!”

“Thanks, Don Quixote,” Frank replied with a grin.

Jimenez glanced over his shoulder at Joe and Chet, who had paused in the doorway. “Come on in,” he invited them.

The rescue of his bird completely changed the recluse's attitude. When the Hardys offered to mend the hole in his screen door, he mellowed even more. He produced a piece of wire screening and they patched the hole. As they were working, he told them the true story of the so-called duel in which the sword Adalante had been broken and lost.

“There never was a duel,” the old man began. “That's a story told to conceal what really happened. Giovanni Russo was kidnapped by a bandit and was held for ransom in a secret place in his own vineyard.”

He paused, then continued thoughtfully. “Fearing death, Giovanni wrote his will on his saber. Or so he later said, anyway. The blade was broken when he fought his way free. Then he swam from the island on which his vineyard was located to another island.”

“Where was his property?” Frank asked.

Jimenez explained that it was near a place called Paradise Point, and described how to get there.

As he finished, the myna bird suddenly flapped his wings and shrieked toward a window, “Go away! Go away!”

“Someone must be out there!” the old man declared. “Don Quixote never says that unless we have a visitor.”

The boys rushed outside to investigate. But there was no sign of anyone around.

When they returned to the houseboat, Joe asked, “How do you know all about the kidnapping, Mr. Jimenez?”

In a sad voice the recluse replied, “To my shame the bandit who kidnapped Giovanni Russo was named Miguel Jimenez, too. He was my great-uncle.”

“We heard there's a book about Russo in the Stockton Public Library,” Chet put in. “Do you know about that, Mr. Jimenez?”

The old man nodded. “It's in the school library of the College of the Pacific in Stockton, not the public library. It has a description of the sword Adalante in it.”

The recluse eyed the boys curiously. “Why are you so interested in all this?”

Frank quickly told him the reason. Jimenez shook his head doubtfully and said, “I can't imagine how you expect to find the saber. But good luck, anyway.”

The boys thanked him for his information and left. When the skiff chugged out of the lagoon, Frank shifted the motor into neutral and glanced up at the sky. It had become quite overcast.

“Looks as if a storm's brewing,” he said.

“The mailman only warned us against fog,” Chet remarked. “Rain shouldn't stop us.”

“I guess so,” Frank agreed and headed away from shore.

As they neared the center of the lake, a speedboat emerged from a hidden cove near the mouth of the lagoon and arrowed straight for them.

“That's the one that swamped us before!” Chet exclaimed.

“There's another boat coming from the opposite direction!” Joe called.

Frank and Chet turned to look. A sixteen-footer with a powerful outboard motor was also heading toward them.

The speedboat reached them first. This time, even though he was crouched low, the boys could see the driver's face because he was hatless. It was a coarse, brutal face surmounted by red hair!

On the previous occasion Frank had not realized until too late that the man was deliberately trying to swamp them. But this time he was prepared. As the boat zoomed near, Frank cut sharply left to aim the bow at the point he judged the speedboat would swing in front of them.

There was a near collision. The speedboat curved no more than a foot from the skiff's bow. Then, as it swept past, the skiff nosed over the crest of the wave and plunged down its other side without capsizing.

But just as the water began to calm, the speedboat roared toward them again! By now the other boat had reached the spot, too. The boys recognized mailman Herbert Shay. Realizing what was happening, he came to their rescue. He headed for the approaching craft at full throttle.

Although smaller than the speedboat, Shay's seventy-five-horsepower outboard motor made his boat just as fast. And the mailman showed reckless courage. He bore head-on at the larger craft, forcing the redhead to spin his wheel in panic to the right.

Then Shay swung sharply left as the speedboat was turning. The two canted side by side, showing their bottoms to each other and almost touching before veering apart again.

The larger boat nearly capsized before its pilot managed to get it back under control. Unable to stomach the dangerous game, he opened his engine wide and roared away.

The mailman pulled alongside the Hardys. “Who was that idiot?” he asked.

“Don't know,” Frank called out. “The same kook gave us some trouble on the way out to the Jimenez houseboat.”

“It's getting to be a wacky world,” Shay said, throttling down to keep his boat abreast of the boys' skiff. “Some people take pleasure in hurting others for no good reason.”

Joe said, “I think there's a reason behind this.”

“And we'll find out what it is, too!” Chet said emphatically.

“Take care,” Shay said. “By the way, what luck did you have with Jimenez?”

“We saved his myna bird,” Frank said with a grin. “There seems to be a shortage of cat food around here.” He told what had happened.

The mailman grinned. “Your good deed for the day!” Then he glanced up at the sky. “You'd better get across the lake fast. It's going to storm any minute.”

With a good-by wave, he sped off. Frank headed the skiff for the far end of the lake.

A few seconds later there was a light patter of rain, accompanied by a distant rumbling sound. Then came a blinding flash of lightning and almost simultaneously an earsplitting crack of thunder!

 

 

 

THE lightning bolt hit so dose in front of them that they could smell the ozone. Frank instinctively steered around the spot.

This was a lucky move. The lightning's target had been a nearly submerged log, now split in two by the bolt. Both halves were large enough to drive a hole in the bottom of the skiff.

The trio reached the marina without further incident, turned in their boat, and drove back to Stockton. They checked into a motel on the outskirts of town.

Saturday morning, while breakfasting in the motel dining room, they discussed plans for the day. It was decided that Joe and Chet would check out the vineyard once owned by Giovanni Russo while Frank investigated the book old Miguel Jimenez had told them was in the library of the College of the Pacific. Joe and Chet dropped Frank off at the campus, then drove on to Paradise Point.

The college was coeducational and had an enrollment of only about fifteen hundred students. It had a beautiful campus, with a mixture of ancient vine-covered buildings and recently constructed modem ones. The school was open because summer sessions were being held.

In the library Frank checked the card catalog. Under
Russo, Giovanni
he found listed a book titled
Master of the Vineyards
by an author named José Flores. It was in the basement stacks, in the rare-book section.

Frank went downstairs. At the end of an alcove formed by floor-to-ceiling shelves he spotted a girl seated at a reading desk. Her back was to him, but there was something familiar about her slim figure and red hair. He walked over for a closer look.

Hearing his footsteps, the girl looked up. It was June Fall from the girls' camp!

“What are you doing here?” Frank asked in surprise.

“I have a summer job as a research assistant for one of the professors,” June replied with a smile. “He's doing a paper on early vineyards in the delta area. But what about you?”

“Oh, just looking for a book,” Frank said vaguely. He glanced at the heavy, leather-bound volume open on the desk before the girl. “What's that?”

“It's called
Master of the Vineyards
and is about an Italian Swiss named Giovanni Russo, who was once the richest vineyard owner in the delta. Professor Von Stolk is particularly interested in him.”

Was this just coincidence? Frank wondered. Or was the professor also on the trail of the sword Adalante?

Before he could ask any questions, a tall, thin, aesthetic-looking man with a distinguished head of gray hair appeared at the end of the alcove. He wore a sports coat and an elaborately knotted scarf around his throat.

“Oh hi, Professor,” June said. “I think I've found something.”

The man gave Frank a suspicious look, so the young detective said good-by and discreetly departed. He went into the next alcove and stood with his ear to the shelf. All he could hear was a low murmur of conversation.

Then the professor and the girl left. As soon as they disappeared up the stairs, Frank returned to the first alcove. The book still lay open on the reading desk.

The left page was 254. The right page was numbered 2591 Frank realized four pages were missing!

Checking the index, he discovered that the missing pages contained a description and a photograph of the sword Adalante, plus the story of how the sword had been lost.

Professor Von Stolk must be on the trail of the guard end of the sword, too, Frank thought. Was the girl an accomplice, or merely an unwitting tool? He decided the quickest way to find out was to ask her and hurried outside.

Frank roamed up and down the shaded walks of the campus looking for either the professor or the pretty redhead. Finally he spotted her walking along a few yards ahead of him.

He strode up behind her and called, “Hey, wait a minute!”

Halting, the girl turned around, smiled, and said, “Yes?”

She was just as pretty as June, but Frank had never seen her before in his life!

“Sorry,” he stammered. “I thought you were someone else.”

“I am someone else,” the girl replied, still smiling. “I'm Holly Brewer.”

Frank smiled back. “My name is Frank Hardy. Can you tell me where the administration building is?”

“I'll show you. I work there. I'm the faculty records clerk.”

“Oh?” Frank said. “Then you are the one I'm looking for. Where will I find Professor Von Stolk?”

Holly looked puzzled. “We have no one by that name.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. We have a hundred and twenty-three instructors, and I keep the records of all of them.”

Frank described the man, but Holly could think of no one on the faculty that fitted the description. When Frank explained that he had seen the professor in the library, the girl suggested that perhaps he was from another college or university, and merely had been doing research here.

After thanking her, Frank decided to return to the motel. There was a bus stop across the street from the campus.

Frank stood at the curb waiting and idly watching traffic, when a motorcycle approached at high speed on his side of the street.

Just before it reached the corner, someone butted Frank hard in the back. He stumbled to hands and knees, directly into the path of the oncoming cycle!

It swerved in time, missing Frank by inches, and roared on across the intersection.

Leaping to his feet, the boy spun to see a broad-shouldered, thin-hipped man with red hair running down a side street. Frank raced after him.