The Mummy Case (14 page)

“They're lost in the desert,” Ali said cautiously.

“Fine,” Kemal grunted. “Now we will drive to my house in Cairo where I will pay for the mummy. You understand, this is necessary for my protection. After all, the truck could get hijacked on the way! Many things of that sort have happened lately. Unfortunately, there are too many crooks in this world!”

Frank and Joe had to suppress an ironic laugh at Kemal's last remark. Joe ducked his head low behind the hillock to stay out of sight and took a deep breath that filled his nose with dusty particles of sand.

The irritation made him want to sneeze. He twitched his nose in an effort to remain silent and squinted his eyes. When this failed, he pushed his knuckles hard against his nostrils. This, too, was in vain.

Before he had a chance to warn Frank, he sneezed loudly!

The gang whirled around, glancing in the direction of the noise. “Somebody's out there!” Norma Jones hissed. “Grab him!”

Londy moved forward followed by his men.

Thinking quickly, Frank got to his feet. Under his breath he said urgently, “Let's pretend we're natives out for a walk!” The boys drew the flaps of their headdresses together and strolled boldly within view of the gang.

Londy stopped as they came near. He peered at them malevolently through the darkness of the desert broken only by eerie moonlight.

Norma Jones snapped on her flashlight. In its beam, she inspected the two figures in native dress.

“It's all right,” she whispered to Londy. “They're Egyptians, probably on their way home. I don't think they noticed what we're doing.”

Stifling another laugh, Frank and Joe moved casually within a few feet of her, bowed slightly, and continued on, deliberately walking slowly to avoid suspicion.

“We should stop ‘em!” Londy was worried.

“That would only make them suspicious,” Norma replied. “Then they might go to the police when they get to Luxor.”

“We could do ‘em in!” the sailor growled. “Bury 'em in one of these tombs. That's what tombs are for, ain't they?”

“And what happens when they don't return home?” Norma retorted sharply. “Their families will go to the police. Either way, we'll have the cops after us. Is that what you want?”

“I guess not,” Londy replied in an embarrassed tone.

That was the last Frank and Joe heard. Feeling secure, they took to their heels and ran off in the darkness. They kept to the narrow road along which they had ridden in the pickup and made their way back toward the Nile.

Frank finally slowed to a walk. “It's at least a couple of miles,” he said. “Let's not get puffed out too soon. Besides, it looks as if we'll have to swim across the river, so save your breath.”

Joe had an inspiration. “We can take their scow, Frank. They left it tied to the bank. It must still be there.”

“That's a terrific idea! We'll make the gang pay for our passage to the Temple of Karnak.”

They hurried along through the desert, walking and running to pace themselves, and finally reached the spot where they had come ashore in the pickup. Two members of the gang were lying on the ground asleep near the stakes that held the scow in place at the riverbank.

“They must have been left here to guard the boat,” Frank said. “But they're not doing a good job. I just heard a snore.”

“Let's sneak the scow away from them,” Joe suggested. “You take the stake on the right, and I'll take the one on the left. All we have to do is lift up the loop of each rope and we're off.”

“Okay. But first I'm getting rid of this Egyptian outfit. It's too confining.”

“Me, too. We don't need it anymore.”

The boys removed their headdresses and gowns and tossed them aside. Then they eased their way down the riverbank to where the stakes were. Slowly and gingerly they lifted the ropes.

Frank's heart skipped a beat as the guard near him moved uneasily in his sleep and appeared on the point of waking. However, the man settled back into a deep slumber. Holding his breath, Frank worked the loop up along the stake, freed the rope, and laid it in the scow. He stepped aboard and picked up the pole used to push off from the bank into deep water.

Joe also got his rope clear and put it inside. As he was about to follow it, he glanced at the guard nearer him. The man was watching him with wide-open eyes!

Instantly, Joe turned and leaped onto the scow. The man scrambled to his feet with a cry of alarm that wakened his companion. The pair rushed forward and, as Frank poled away from the bank, jumped into the river and waded toward the boat.

Raising the pole, Frank struck the first guard in the chest, knocking him off his feet and leaving him to thresh around in the water. The second man waded closer, but he was left behind clutching at empty air as Joe quickly started the motor. The scow chugged out into the Nile.

“Wow! That was a close call!” Joe said.

“And we're not home free yet,” Frank replied, listening to the irregular drone of the boat's engine. “It's missing a lot!”

They were well out in the river heading for Luxor when the motor suddenly died. The boys tried to start it again, but to no avail.

The swift Nile current took control of the scow, which drifted downstream until it hit a sandbar with a thump.

“We're stuck!” Joe cried morosely. “Now we'll have to swim the Nile after all.”

“Unless we can hitch a ride!” Frank pointed into the distance, where a white speck on the surface of the river was growing larger and larger as it approached in the dawn.

“That's a sailboat,” Frank observed. “Let's see if we can flag it down.”

He took off his jacket and raised it high on the pole. The skipper of the approaching vessel adjusted his sail in the high wind and veered in the direction of the sandbar.

Joe was the first to recognize him. “Lee Mason! He must be coming back from his nighttime sail!”

The young man from Oklahoma stared in surprise when he saw his new friends. “Well, I'll be!” he cried out. “What in the world are
you
doing here?”

“We're sitting on a sandbar.” Joe chuckled. “Do you think you could give us a ride?”

“Of course. Hop aboard.”

The Hardys transferred to the sailboat, then Lee pointed to the scow. “What do you want to do with this?”

“We can leave it here,” Joe said. “The harbor patrol will pick it up.”

“That's what you get for turning down my invitation,” Lee said. “If you'd gone with me instead of striking out on your own, you wouldn't have gotten stranded. ”

“It's not that simple,” Frank said. “We were chasing a bunch of crooks. Matter of fact, the scow is theirs.”

“Crooks?” Lee's eyes popped. “Are you detectives?”

“Just amateurs,” Frank said modestly. “Now if you could get us to Luxor pronto, we'd appreciate it.”

“I'll be glad to. My ship really travels fast in this wind.”

The three boys took turns at the tiller since the Hardys were experienced sailors. Lee was on duty when they reached the dock, and he eased the boat into a slip. Then he went to get his deposit back from the marina, while Frank and Joe raced to their hotel. Frank called the Cairo police and asked to speak to the chief. After identifying himself, he was connected with the officer's home.

The chief had been alerted earlier by Fuad Kemal about the missing mummy and was astonished to hear that the curator himself was involved in the theft.

“He and the gang are on their way to Kemal's house where he intends to pay them off,” Frank concluded.

“It is hard for me to believe that a prominent citizen of our town is a criminal!” the chief said. “But do not worry, we will check out your story.”

“It's true!” Frank urged. “If you want a reference confirming that my brother and I are amateur detectives, you can call Chief Collig of the Bayport Police in the United States!”

“I shall do this,” the chief agreed. “And then we will have a welcoming party ready for the professor and his gang of thieves!”

“The police are staking out Kemal's house,” Frank told Joe as he hung up the phone. “They're hoping he'll walk right into their trap.”

“I'd like to be in on it!” Joe said. “Maybe the mummy we were supposed to bring to Egypt is at his house!”

Frank nodded. “From the way Norma talked, I couldn't tell if he had bought it already or was going to buy it.”

“Trouble is, how can we possibly make it to Cairo in time? Even if we rented a car, we couldn't catch up with the crooks.”

Just then there was a knock on the door. Joe opened it to let Lee Mason in.

“Did you find your criminals?” he asked excitedly. “After you told me that story I couldn't sleep, tired as I am.”

“We called the police and they're staking out the crooks' destination,” Frank said. “But we won't be able to get there in time. It's in Cairo, and the gang has a head start on us.”

“Hey, I know a guy in Luxor who owns a plane!” Lee volunteered. “He flies tourists around Egypt. Maybe he'll take you to Cairo.”

“That's a terrific idea!” Frank exclaimed. “What's his name?”

“Abdel Jimad. He has an American-made four- seater. Got his pilot's license in the States. I've been up with him. If you want to, I'll call him for you.”

“Please do!”

Lee phoned the pilot and apologized for waking him up. Then he explained the situation and Jimad offered to take the Hardys to Cairo as soon as they could make it to the small airstrip where he kept his plane.

Gratefully, the boys said good-bye to Lee, promising to get in touch with him once they were all back in the United States. Then they went to the airfield and met Abdel Jimad, who was already there. He was a young man wearing corduroy pants, a green blazer, and dark glasses. Frank edged into the seat next to him, while Joe sat in the back. A few moments later, the plane took off.

Circling over Luxor, Jimad straightened his aircraft into a flight down the Nile toward Cairo. In the rising sun, they could see how the river created a ribbon of green through the desert. Irrigation systems carried its water to fields on both sides. In many villages, the houses were built in the desert away from the river.

When Joe asked why, Jimad said, “The reason is to keep all the irrigated land for agriculture. The population can live in the desert, but fruit and grain cannot. So, the people move into the sand, and their crops get the water.”

They flew above the highway between Luxor and Cairo that paralleled the Nile. Traffic was sparse.

“There aren't many cars,” Frank noted.

“Not like in the United States.” Jimad chuckled. “We don't have as many cars or use as much gasoline!”

At one point where the river made a slight bend to the right and then to the left, the Hardys saw a complex of ruins extending for several miles. “That must have been some city,” Joe guessed.

“It is Amarna, built by the Pharaoh Ikhnaton,” Jimad replied. “Your city of Washington was built as a new capital. Ikhnaton built Amarna for the same reason, only about three thousand years earlier.”

Amarna fell behind, and the flight continued down the Nile. Joe noticed a pickup truck moving along the highway at top speed. One car was ahead of it, two others brought up the rear.

“That looks like the gang we're after!” he exclaimed. “Jimad, can you drop a little lower so we can see them better?”

The pilot nodded and went into a shallow dive.

“It's the gang, all right,” Frank burst out. “I recognize the tarpaulin over the mummy case in the back of the pickup!”

“The lead car is Kemal‘s,” Joe added, “and the two behind are the ones we saw Londy and his crooks driving.”

By now the plane had roared past the four vehicles and started to loop upward again. “Anything else you'd like me to do?” the pilot asked.

“No, there's nothing we can do now that we've identified the gang. We can't tail the pickup in a plane. Just drop us off at Cairo airport, please.”

The delta of the Nile came in sight, and soon Abdel Jimad landed. The Hardys paid him, congratulated him on his skillful flight, and took a taxi to police headquarters.

“Our highway patrol has been radioing reports on the gang,” the chief revealed. “We are not having them picked up because Professor Kemal might pretend he is bringing the mummy to the museum. We wish to catch him red-handed at his house.”

“We'd like to join the stakeout,” Frank declared.

The officer nodded. “You boys have done such good detective work, you have the right to be there. You may come with me.”

A number of unmarked squad cars drove to Kemal's house in a suburb of Cairo. Plainclothesmen kept watch at strategic points nearby.

At last the professor arrived and drove into the driveway and around to the back, closely followed by the pickup and the other two cars. As soon as the gang had gone inside, the police converged on the house and rang the doorbell. When Kemal answered, the chief thrust a search warrant into his hand and arrested him. The other officers burst through the door and cornered the rest of the gang in the living room. Frank and Joe followed.

“The Hardy boys!” Norma Jones screamed. “I thought they were lost in the desert!”

“I should've done ‘em in!” Londy snarled at Ali. “But you wouldn't let me. This is the last job I ever do with you!”