While the Clock Ticked (11 page)

“We’d be crazy to dump these kids, Sid,” he muttered. “Kidnaping’s bad enough—it’s a Federal offense.”

“Shut up, Benny. You’re yellow,” sneered his companion. “We’ll sink ‘em right along here somewhere. Get the sea anchor ready. That’ll do it.”

A chill went through the Hardys. Joe’s head
was jammed between the side of the boat and the middle seat. Frantically he rubbed his head against both, hoping to loosen his gag.

“I tell ya I won’t have any part of it!” said Benny.

“Don’t then. I’ll do it myself!”

The muscular crook throttled down and stood up to move forward. Just as he did, Joe finally worked his gag loose.

“
Help
!” he shouted. “
Help! Quick!
”

As the two thieves advanced on the boy, powerful lights flashed on along shore. The full-throated roar of a big launch was heard. A siren wailed, and the motorboat was caught in the long beam of a spotlight.

Instantly the heavily built man leaped back to the stern and jammed his throttle wide open. The boat raced into the darkness.

“That won’t save you,” yelled Joe, fearful that the two desperate men might throw their captives overboard to slow up their pursuers. “The police have stations all along this river. You’re as good as caught.”

In answer, the big-jawed driver slammed the tiller from side to side. The craft lunged crazily, trying to escape the search beam.

“You’ll wreck us!” screamed the tall man in terror.

“Yes—just like you two wrecked the
Napoli
in the bay,” cried Joe on a sudden hunch. “You
don’t know this river any more than you knew the harbor. It’s night and you’re running without lights. The water’s deep here. You won’t get out of
this
wreck alive!”

“He’s right—we haven’t a chance, Sid,” the tall man pleaded. “Stop her!”

There was a quick warning burst of machinegun fire. Muttering, Sid killed his motor. A white glare bathed the whole boat. The heavy hull of the police launch drew alongside, and a stout figure jumped into the thieves’ craft.

“Chet!” Joe cried joyously.

“You’re here—and safe!” Chet cried out in relief. Quickly he freed his two chums, while their captors were handcuffed by two officers and taken aboard the launch.

As the launch turned and headed for Bayport, the Hardys leaned back in relief. Frank said, “Good work, Chet. You and the police got here just in time!”

“I saw those toughs jump you and start up-river,” the plump boy explained. “I ran like mad for the car and raced to the police substation up here. They radioed for a launch. Soon as it arrived, I got on. We started checking all boats and docks. Then we heard you yell, Joe.”

“Lucky for us, partner,” Frank declared gratefully, rubbing his wrists.

The police launch docked briefly at the up-river substation.

“You boys pick up your car here,” said the commander of the boat. “We’ll meet you at Bayport headquarters with these two customers.”

After a bracing cup of hot broth at the substation, Frank, Joe, and Chet left for Bayport in Chet’s car. At police headquarters they found Chief Collig and the officers with him thwarted by the thugs’ refusal to admit anything.

“We don’t know nothin’ about any waterfront robberies,” Sid snarled. “You got evidence? You can’t touch us without evidence!”

“We’ll charge you with kidnaping!” snapped Chief Collig. “That’ll do for a start.”

The man called Benny looked uncertain, but his accomplice taunted, “Yeah? That won’t tell you what you want to know.”

At this point Frank spoke up. “Chief, I have a strong hunch there’s evidence at the Purdy place. Let Chet, Joe, and me get it!”

“Good idea,” agreed the chief. “Tomlin, take a prowl car and go with them.”

For the second time that night the friends drove out to the old house. On this visit they rode up to the house, following Officer Tomlin, and let themselves in through the open window from which the thugs had escaped.

Soon lights were blazing in every room of the old mansion as the three boys and the policeman went from room to room, searching.

“Look here!” Chet yelled, as he pulled open
the door of a corner cupboard in the dining room and revealed a number of cardboard cartons.

Tomlin and the Hardys lifted them down and opened one. It proved to contain carefully wrapped pieces of solid silver imprinted with a foreign hallmark.

“It’s part of the stolen loot, all right,” Tomlin pronounced. “But it wasn’t here the last time we searched.”

Eagerly the four peered into the other boxes, and found an assortment of fine china, expensive jewelry, and a diamond ring and gold articles which matched the description of the crewman’s missing valuables.

Joe frowned. “I don’t see Hurd Applegate’s collection or Captain Stroman’s jade necklace.”

Again the searchers went to work. They examined the third floor, the attic, and the cellar, but found nothing more.

“This is enough evidence to confront those two crooks with, anyhow,” said Tomlin finally. “They must’ve stowed the stuff here right after the chief’s search. I’ll run it in now.”

“Right,” Frank agreed. “We’ll follow you as soon as we pick up our flashlights. We lost them on the riverbank.”

They retrieved the two flashlights at the foot of the river path. The three boys passed the big house, now dark and silent once more, and walked down the driveway.

“That place gives me the willies,” muttered Chet, as Frank closed the gate. “I still have the creepy feeling that somebody’s in there, watching everything that goes on.”

They reached Chet’s car and piled in. While Chet was digging for his keys, the boys heard the roar of an approaching automobile. The vehicle raced toward them without lights, veered sharply, and sped up to the Purdy gate. The driver leaped out, yanked open the gate, jumped back into the car, and drove through.

“After him!” urged Joe.

In a moment Chet had his ancient motor running and his headlights on. He made a quick U-turn and sped in pursuit through the gate, up the driveway to the house, and around to the other side where the road apparently ended.

Quickly the boys jumped out. Before them was the dense brush which covered most of the estate. Saplings, heavily draped with leafy vines, rose up like a wall in the glare of the headlights.

Frank got down and examined the ground. “Tire tracks leading straight into the brush,” he reported, puzzled.

Joe impulsively stepped up to the leafy wall. He grasped a hanging vine and pulled hard. The whole green tangle slid along a tree branch, like a drapery!

“A hidden road!” declared Chet in wonder.

He turned out the lights of his car. Then, cautiously,
the three set out on foot along the mysterious road.

At intervals they could make out bits of sky through the leaves overhead. They halted abruptly when something black and solid loomed up ahead of them. After listening carefully and hearing nothing, Frank risked the use of his flashlight.

In its beam they saw a small tumble-down barn with a gaping doorway. Frank stooped to examine the ground. Tire tracks led straight to the dilapidated building!

Joe flicked on his flashlight and the three boys stepped warily inside the barn. The front of the old structure was empty to the roof, but in the far half of the barn was an old haymow.

The front beam supporting the loft was sagging, and the dusty hay, closely matted together, spilled forward over it like a stationary waterfall. The cascade of hay formed a curtain reaching almost to the floor of the barn.

“Boy!” said Chet. “Bet that hay’s been here since Jason Purdy died.”

“Then why is this pitchfork so new?” Joe pointed to a tool nearby with three slender steel tines, and a clean-grained wooden handle.

“And where’s that car?” asked Frank.

He had a sudden inspiration. Frank pushed his arms through the hanging of old hay. His knuckles rapped wood. Tearing the hay aside, the
boy laid bare a broad sheet of plywood with a handle.

Eagerly Frank grasped the handle. A door rolled smoothly open.

Joe and Chet gasped. There, in a secret garage underneath the hayloft, was the back end of a late-model Meteor Special!

Frank already had penetrated to the other end of the garage. “Motor’s still hot,” he called back. “She must have just been driven in.”

Chet and Joe rushed over. “I get it,” said Joe. “After the car’s in, they pull down some more hay from the loft to hide the plywood. That’s what the pitchfork is for.”

“
Sh!
” Chet put a warning finger to his lips. “Hear something? A kind of moaning?”

Frank played his light around the garage. Nothing. He shone the flash into the back seat of the Meteor Special.

“Good night!” he exclaimed, staring.

On the floor of the car a man lay bound and gagged.

CHAPTER XVI

C
HET
gulped. “S-somebody got him, too!” While he and Joe held the flashlights, Frank reached into the car and cut the groaning man’s bonds. Slowly and painfully he clambered out, smoothing his rumpled clothes.

“Say!” Joe cried. “We’ve seen you before!”

He was the young man in the striped blue jacket they had encountered while chasing the eavesdropper. At this moment, instead of being grateful for the rescue, the man glared angrily. He pulled out a handkerchief to mop his glistening forehead. As he did, something fell to the ground.

Joe recognized the object instantly and scooped it up. “A false beard!”

“
You
were the one listening under Hurd Applegate’s window!” Frank accused the stranger. “Okay. Now spill it! Why the disguise—what’s your game?”

The Hardys gripped the man’s arms. His angry manner changed to one of sullen defeat. “All right, all right. Let go of me,” he muttered. “So I
was
the eavesdropper. A fat lot of good it did me! Even this jacket didn’t help except once.” He pulled open the jacket. “See? Tan on the inside. When you guys came after me I just reversed it and took off my beard.”

“And sent us on a false trail,” Joe scowled. “Keep talking!”

“I’m a private detective—at least, I
thought
I was. After this, I feel like giving up the business!”

Frank’s mind raced. “Private detective, eh?
You’re
the ‘Mr. Smith’ who questioned our Aunt Gertrude!”

The young man nodded. “Sam Allen is my real name. I’m supposed to find out about Captain Stroman’s stolen necklace. I heard you’d been to see him—that’s why I was checking on you. Well, I learned old Applegate had lost some jade, too. That big guy with the glasses—Arthur Jensen—was the one who took ‘em. That much I found out.”

“Arthur Jonsen?” repeated Frank, exchanging glances with Joe. It was the first time the Hardys had heard the name. But each wondered if Jensen and Mr. Dalrymple’s double were the same man.

“Yeah. I’ve been tailing him all over town,” Allen went on. “Finally I hid under a rug in the back seat of his car. I thought he’d lead me to
Stroman’s necklace. Then I sneezed. Next thing, Jensen conked me and I was out like a light. When I came to, there I was all trussed up, with a lump on my head. Some detective!”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Frank smiled, satisfied that Sam Allen was telling the truth. “Let’s combine forces and search the estate for Jensen.”

Allen brightened. “You bet!”

The three boys and the humbled “private eye” entered the Purdy house through the still-open window, and made a thorough, but unsuccessful, search of the interior.

“He could be hiding anywhere in the underbrush,” Frank observed as they left the house. “We probably wouldn’t find him tonight. I suggest we report this to headquarters.”

The four drove back to town in Chet’s car.

“You can let me off at my motel,” Sam Allen told them. “I’ve had all the detective work I can stand for one night.”

Frank, Joe, and Chet headed for police headquarters. They found Chief Collig and his officers considerably more cheerful. The two thugs, Benny and Sid, sat uncomfortably on straight chairs in Collig’s office. A police clerk was taking notes rapidly in shorthand.

“These birds have been singing ever since I brought in the loot we found,” Officer Tomlin told the Hardys in an undertone. “The husky one is Sid Bowler. The string bean is Benny Vance.”

The boys took seats and listened intently.

“Yeah, we used to ‘borrow’ motorboats,” Bowler was saying. “We used ‘em to see if the coast was clear, and then to steal from the ships.”

“Steal what?” Collig prodded.

“Everything.”

“Including jade?” Frank Hardy suddenly broke in.

Bowler gave him a baleful glare. “Jade, too.”

“Who’s your leader?” Joe demanded.

“There ain’t any leader,” was the sullen answer. “There’s just me and Benny.”

“You mean you and Benny stole thousands of dollars’ worth of jade and other stuff on your own?” Joe snorted. “What a laugh! We know all about your big boss—Jensen.”

The two prisoners almost jumped from their chairs. “H-how did you find—”Benny began.

Sid turned on him. “You fool!
Shut up
!”

As Benny slumped in his seat, Frank pressed, “No use denying it, Bowler. Now, where’s Jensen—and the jade?”

“Find out yourself,” Bowler muttered. “If you do, you can pin the whole idea on Jensen.”

Chief Collig and his men were looking at the Hardys in amazement. The chief signaled them to continue questioning, if they wished.

Joe nodded. “What were you doing in the boat the night I chased you and Bowler?” he demanded of Benny Vance.

“We—we were looking for a chance to get on board the
Sea Bright
again that night and steal some stuff we’d missed.”

“Stuff you missed when you borrowed the
Sleuth
?”

“Yes. It was a double job, see,” Benny Vance explained, evidently eager to co-operate. “We stole Stroman’s jade necklace and old Applegate’s collection, too. Sid and I robbed the
Sea Bright
, Jensen and Black went to Applegate’s.”

“So Black’s in your gang?” Joe interrupted.

“Sure. Jensen went in and got Applegate to show him some of his best jade. Then he ran off with it, see? The old man chased him, and left his house empty.”