The Number File (2 page)

Joe pushed off against the car and made like a torpedo for the surface. He, too, was out of air.

"Uaahhhh!" The sound of the two brothers gasping for air seemed unnaturally loud after the deadly underwater silence. They bobbed up and down in the water as they gulped in great lungfuls of air.

They were only a short distance from the embankment and slowly dog-paddled to it. They pulled themselves up onto the rocky slope and collapsed onto their backs.

Their chests were still heaving when Joe spoke. "That was a close one." He coughed, then grinned. "Good thing that car didn't have electric windows!"

Frank finally smiled. "You're all right?"

"Yeah. You okay?"

"Uh - huh—but this was my favorite shirt." Frank looked at the shredded left sleeve, then grinned at Joe.

"Well, now it can be your favorite short-sleeved shirt," Joe offered, and the two brothers laughed.

"Whooaahh," Joe groaned as he tried to stand up, but only toppled back onto the rocks. "I guess I'm a little dizzy from punching the windshield of the car with my head. I wonder how many of my brilliant little gray cells died from the battering and the lack of oxygen?"

"I'd worry more about the damage your head did to the window," Frank said.

"My only worry right now is getting home and getting dry." The bump on the head had done nothing to affect Joe's impatience.

"What's your hurry?" Frank asked. "It's a long climb up and then a long walk back to the village. I think we should just take it easy for a few minutes."

Frank glanced up to the road to see if anyone was observing them. Joe lay back with his eyes closed, still taking long, deep breaths and occasionally rubbing the spot on his forehead, which was working its way into a lump. Frank broke the long silence.

"No one around. Nobody would have even known we went off the bridge."

"Except whoever was in the BMW," Joe reminded him.

"Did you get a look at anyone?" Frank asked.

"Couldn't see a thing through those windows, and he, she, or it was already alongside us by the time I looked. I don't even know if the car followed us from Kruger's. But somebody tried to kill us, and that means we are getting close to something." Joe frowned.

After the brothers had rested, they climbed up over the rocks to the road.

"We can either walk back to those stores we passed and phone Montague, or try to hitch," Frank said.

Joe stuck out his thumb and started walking backward toward Somerset. "I don't think I want to tell Montague on the phone that the car he's loved since 1968 is thirty feet underwater."

"But I don't know who's going to pick us up looking like this," said Frank. "We look so disheveled."

" 'Disheveled'?" Joe repeated. "I think you were underwater too long — you sound like Aunt Gertrude!"

As Joe stretched out his thumb again, a pickup truck bounced by and came to a wobbly stop.

"Need a lift?" the long-faced, unshaven man behind the wheel shouted.

The brothers ran toward the truck and started to jump in the back.

"You can ride up front," the driver insisted. "A little water isn't going to hurt this baby. What happened to you guys?"

"You know how it goes," Joe answered, hoping his vague reply would do.

The lean man nodded his head and grinned. He dropped the brothers at the driveway that led up to Montague's villa.

As they were closing the door to the house, Montague called down from upstairs. "That you, boys?"

Joe cleared his throat, which suddenly had become dry. "Uh, yes, we're back."

"I didn't hear the car pull up. I'll be right down."

Frank and Joe looked at each other in awkward silence. They had no idea how to tell Montague what happened to his "bus." But their host made it easy for them—the moment he walked downstairs he knew something was wrong. He cut off Frank's explanation about the MG. "Never mind the car — are you boys okay?"

"We're fine," the boys assured him, relieved that Montague was more concerned about them than his car. They told him about the attempted killing.

"You'll have to report this to the Hamilton police," Montague told them. "And you'll need some way to get around. There are no rental cars on the island, but you can rent mopeds. There's a place in Hamilton. Let's see ..." He looked at his watch. "Alicia said she'd be back at four — that'll give you time for a wash-up and rest.

"Alicia and I have a five o'clock engagement we can't break, but we can drop you at the ferry to Hamilton."

Later they heard a car pull into the driveway, and in a minute Montague's eighteen-year-old daughter burst in. Her sparkling dark brown eyes widened in concern as she listened to a recap of the boys' story. It left her pale under her smooth tan. Her short black hair danced as she turned from Frank to Joe, her eyes drawn to the bump on Joe's head. "You're hurt!"

"Not enough to slow me down," Joe told her. "We'd better hurry, so we can make the bike rental place before closing."

The quiet of the ferry ride to Hamilton was shattered by the sound of the ferry crunching against the dock. After the brothers left the boat, they walked the three blocks to the moped rental place.

The bikes were all the same—squat-looking scooters with small, fat wheels—so the choice was easy. Frank handed the burly attendant his father's credit card, which had been given to him for emergencies.

"I'm sorry," the salesman said after making a phone call. "I cannot allow you to have the bikes. Your credit card is more than three thousand dollars over the limit, and I've been instructed to cut up your card."

"We haven't spent anywhere near that much!" Frank stared at the man.

"You can't destroy our card," Joe said, leaning into the counter as if he'd push his way right through it. "And you've got to give us those bikes."

"Sorry, chum," the attendant repeated in his flawless British accent. "You must take it up with the credit card company."

"The card!" Joe demanded, his hand stretched out.

"Take it easy," Frank cautioned. "It's not his fault."

"Yeah, well it's not our fault, either, and why should — "

"Come on, Joe," Frank said, interrupting him and grabbing him by the arm. "We'll straighten this out later. It's getting late and we still have to see the police."

Frank and Joe walked through the narrow two-lane streets and watched as the shops were beginning to close. When they were two blocks from the station, they heard the sound of a car behind them picking up speed. A maroon sedan shot past them, then screeched to a halt, its red brake lights flashing on. Then, the two clear backup lights came on as the car roared back to them.

Two large, well-dressed men jumped out of the car and approached them. One of them, a tall black man wearing a conservative pinstriped suit, pulled back his coat to reveal a gun tucked into his belt. The other man, shorter, opened his dark blue suit and drew a small revolver from a shoulder holster.

"Just hold it right there," he said. "Don't do anything stupid."

The blue suit stood in front of the Hardys as the tall man with the hat walked behind them. Joe, standing in front of Frank, could hear the click-clack as the tall man snapped handcuffs on Frank's bare wrists. Two more clicks and Joe, too, was handcuffed. Finally the tall man spoke: "You're under arrest for fraud, conspiracy to defraud, and credit card counterfeiting."

"COUNTERFEITING! WHAT'RE YOU talking about?" Joe turned his head back and forth between the two men.

"Who are you?" Frank asked.

Blue suit holstered his gun with one hand as he reached into his back pocket with the other. "I'm Bill Baylis," he said as he produced identification. "And this is Walt Conway. I'm from the Interagency Banking Commission, and Detective Conway is with the Bermuda police, assigned to work with me."

"We happened to see you leaving Bernhard Kruger's," the man called Conway chimed in. "And we know about the faked credit card you just tried to use."

"There must be some mistake," Frank insisted.

"Where've we heard that one before?" countered Baylis. "Let's go to police headquarters. You can tell your story there."

"We were just on our way there," Joe admitted, realizing how phony it sounded.

"We're private investigators," Frank told them, "staying with Alfred Montague."

"Into the car." The tall man's tone made it clear he wasn't interested in any more conversation. He opened the back door and ushered them in.

Within minutes they were seated in the office of Chief Boulton. The blond police chief with his dark walrus mustache was bigger than Biff Hooper and very impressive in his immaculate, all-white uniform. He seemed out of place in an office where every flat surface was cluttered with papers, books, and boxes. He looked at the boys with cold blue eyes. "May I see some identification, please?"

"We do get one phone call, don't we?" Joe asked, half-joking.

"Of course," the chief responded. "Local or long distance?"

"Local. We're staying with Alfred Montague. He's a retired policeman — do you know him?" The chief nodded. "He'll vouch for us." Joe dialed Montague's number. After the seventh ring, he hung up, remembering Montague's five o'clock appointment.

Frank explained to the three men the purpose of their visit to Bermuda and why they had the Kruger villa under surveillance. He told them about Fenton Hardy's involvement in the case back in the U.S. and how ironic it was that they were now being held for a crime they were trying to stop.

"I know of your father," the chief said, lightening up a little. "Shall I ring him?"

The boys hated to use their dad to bail them out, but after exchanging a brief look, they nodded their agreement.

Chief Boulton called Fenton Hardy, spoke briefly with him, and turned the phone over to Frank. Frank filled his father in on everything that had happened so far. He learned that his father hadn't put more than two hundred dollars on the credit card that the merchant confiscated.

The chief got back on the phone. "Makes sense to me," he said after listening silently for a long time. "Fine, then. I'll call Chief Collig in Bayport. Then if everything checks out, I'll be happy to release your boys and give them all the help I can." After a quick goodbye, the chief hung up.

Frank asked why they had been arrested when they hadn't done anything but try to use a card over its limit. And Chief Boulton confessed that they thought Frank and Joe might be couriers for the counterfeit credit card gang because they had been seen leaving Kruger's earlier. And then, when they tried to use the overdrawn card, they had decided to bring the Hardys in with the hope of sweating information out of them about Kruger.

Before they were released, Frank and Joe officially reported the incident with the black BMW. Although they couldn't connect the attempt on their lives with their investigation of Kruger, there didn't seem to be any other explanation.

Chief Boulton gave Frank and Joe some additional information about the counterfeiting racket. The police thought that stolen blank cards were being shipped to Bermuda—possibly from Puerto Rico. They were "punched" in Bermuda and then sent to the U.S. for distribution. The police suspected Kruger, but they didn't have enough evidence to search the man's house.

"That's it," the chief said. "That's everything I have on Kruger. I can't get your credit card back, but if you're going to continue your investigation, I'll call the moped agency and arrange for you to rent two bikes. Meanwhile, your father said he would arrange to get you a different card."

"Thanks," the brothers replied. "And if you're short of cash in the meantime, just let me know."

Frank and Joe smiled, pleased that the chief had turned out to be so good-natured.

"Now just fill out these accident report forms," the chief continued. "And list everything that was in the car when it sank."

"Oh no!" Joe blurted out. "I completely forgot about the stuff in the trunk." Joe's face fell as he realized out loud that both cameras were thirty feet underwater. "And the binoculars," Frank added. "You can rent scuba gear across the street," the chief suggested, "if you're in the mood for a do-it-yourself rescue. But I don't know how good the cameras will be after that dunking!"

"One of them was an underwater camera," Joe explained. "We used it when we went diving near Kruger's dock a couple of days ago."

"I'll ring the scuba shop and make the arrangements."

It was almost six-thirty by the time Frank and Joe loaded rented scuba gear on the back of the mopeds to ride out to the MG. It was a pleasant ride. The summer light made the pastel ice-cream colors of the houses outside Hamilton shimmer. The temperature was still warm, even though an ocean breeze blew across the narrow highway.

"Here's the spot," shouted Frank, pointing down to where he knew the little car lay. Joe pulled up next to Frank, parking beside a pile of rocks.

"Do you want to set up on the flat rock down there?" Joe asked, extending his arm toward a flat rock below them.

"Looks good." Frank nodded.

In fifteen minutes the boys were ready. Joe had stuck a spare key to the trunk into a small pouch attached to his weight belt.

"The water's so still," Frank said.

"Yeah. It's hard to believe it almost buried us."

Frank and Joe slipped into the warm water and dived. It didn't take long to spot the MG, which had sunk another two feet into the soft sand. Joe motioned to Frank to check the inside of the car for the binoculars while he swam around to the trunk.

Frank was able to force the passenger door open very slowly, granting him easy access to the car's interior. He found the binoculars and was looking to see if anything else had been left inside when he heard a sharp bang against the metal frame of the car. He turned to see Joe waving his arm for Frank to come. Joe's eyes were opened wide under the small mask, and Frank knew instantly something was wrong. He swam to Joe at the rear of the MG.

The trunk lid was wide open and bent out of shape. Frank saw that the lid hadn't gotten twisted from the accident. Someone had forced it open. The two cameras were gone!