While the Clock Ticked (8 page)

“Hear, hear—poetry!” Tony applauded.

“Does anybody know what the Hardys
are
up to?” repeated Phil, gesturing like an orator. “I wait for a reply.”

“I
have one, and it’s not about the harbor thieves.” Jerry grinned. “I think Frank and Joe are going romantic. Did you see ‘em ducking out with their girls in the moonlight last night?”

“Sure enough,” Chet drawled. “I also heard from Iola that soon as they were on the porch, Frank and Joe made a break for the car. Iola says she and Callie don’t know what it was all about, but it had better be mighty important!”

Joe looked noncommittal. “Well, you can tell her it was.”

Their stout friend moved closer, with a glint in his eye. As the Hardys well knew, Chet’s curiosity was almost as great as his appetite.

“Sure, pals,” he went on. “If I can just get a few details, I’m sure the girls will—er—be very much interested. Let’s see—you couldn’t stay at the party because you had to go out to the old Purdy place …”

Frank and Joe smiled at Chet’s effort to coax information from them. Though he was sometimes afraid, he liked nothing better than to be included in their adventures.

“Is that right?” Frank inquired casually. “Tell us more, Chet.”

“You went to the Purdy place because … because … uh … old Purdy buried all his money out there and you’re looking for it!” Chet had to grin at his own bluff.

“Nice try!” Joe laughed.

“Oh, leave ‘em alone,” Jerry Gilroy said good-naturedly. “We’ll wake up some morning and read all about it in the papers.”

But Chet Morton persisted. “Aw, come on, fellows. Aren’t you going to let me in on your case?”

“Guess you’ll have to turn detective yourself,” Joe teased, shaking his head.

“You look out,” Chet warned them. “I might just do that! Meanwhile, it’s suppertime. Let’s go, everybody.”

When he and the other boys had departed in Jerry’s jalopy, Frank and Joe stayed in the lab and discussed the mystery until Aunt Gertrude summoned
them to eat. Afterward, the brothers decided to visit the Purdy house.

“Even if we don’t have a key, we’ll see if there’s any activity out there tonight,” Joe said.

Frank agreed. “Let’s walk. We can take a short cut.”

The brothers waited until it was dark. After equipping themselves with flashlights, they started out at a rapid pace in the bright moonlight. Soon they had left the town behind. Once on Willow River Road, they hugged one side, and when cars passed, the boys melted into the brush to avoid detection.

As they reached the Purdy gate, Joe crouched and looked back. The road lay clear and pale in the moonlight, but the long ivy-covered wall was shadowy and dark.

“Hey, Frank!” he whispered. “Somebody just ducked from one tree to another back there. We’re being trailed!”

“Let him follow,” Frank answered. “We’ll hide in the bushes near the house and spy on
him.”

Quickly the brothers scrambled over the gate. Soon they were well concealed in the same spot from which they had first seen Mr. Dalrymple that afternoon. They could see both the front and back doors of the high old house, with its slate roofs gleaming in the moonlight.

Minutes passed in silence. Then a heavy-set figure sneaked across the open space in front of
the house. Frank and Joe watched tensely. The figure slipped stealthily around to the back. Here the windows were closer to the ground. As the intruder raised his head to peer in, moonlight fell full upon his face.

“Chet Morton!” Joe hissed, astonished. “We’d better get hold of him before—”

“Sh!” Frank signaled tersely. “Somebody else coming!”

A white-shirted figure now came from the woods and approached the back of the house. The man walked swiftly, as though sure of his way. At the same time, Chet backed cautiously away from the window—until he had backed right into the stranger!

“Eeek! Help!”
Chet cried shrilly.

At this outcry the white-shirted figure turned and dashed for the woods.

“After him!” Frank shouted, breaking cover. “He’s heading for the river!”

Frank and Joe plunged down the path they had discovered earlier. But already an outboard motor was kicking into life. The brothers raced to the river’s edge in time to see a small green boat carrying one man put-put out onto the bright, moonlit water.

The man crouched in the stern, anxiously watching the shore. The moonlight revealed his features.

“The limousine driver!” Joe exclaimed.

CHAPTER XI

B
OTH
boys stared after the motorboat, now only a dark spot in the distance. It was headed down the river toward the bay. Soon it had disappeared around a bend.

“Are you sure it was the limousine driver?” Frank demanded.

“Positive. It’s the third time I’ve seen him. This proves our theory, Frank. The harbor thieves are using this house. Are they responsible for the scream and the warning notes?”

Just then they heard a rustle of brush from the top of the wooded path. “Frank … Joe?” called Chet’s quavering voice. “Is that you I hear talking?”

“No!” Frank shouted laughingly. “We’re two ghosts!”

Switching on their flashlights, the brothers
climbed back up the path. “Hi, detective!” Joe greeted a somewhat crestfallen Chet Morton revealed in the beam of his flashlight. “What’s the big idea of scaring off our quarry?”

“Oh-h,”
Chet moaned. “Me—scaring
him!
I was standing here, and this ghostly white thing—”

“What you’re talking about is a man in a white T-shirt,” Frank wryly informed him. “And, thanks to you, he’s made a clean getaway down the river.”

Joe made a grimace of mock despair. “What were you up to, tailing us?”

In a meek voice Chet explained. “When you said I’d have to turn detective to find out about your case, I took your advice. So I shadowed you out here all the way from your house.”

“Okay, you win, Chet,” Frank sighed.

The three boys started together down Willow River Road for home. “You might as well work with us. Better give us a day or two, though. By then we should have an assignment for you— Detective Morton.”

The chunky boy agreed with alacrity. A block from their house Chet picked up his jalopy.

“We’ll keep you posted,” Frank promised him.

The next morning, immediately after breakfast, the boys drove downtown to the Bayport and Eastern Steamship Company offices.

“Captain Stroman?” repeated the secretary at the reception desk. “Yes, he’s here, boys,
but I’m afraid he’s too occupied to see you.”

“Tell the captain it’s about a jade necklace,” Frank said.

The girl gave the Hardys a startled look and retreated to an inner office. She returned shortly and directed them to go in.

A tall, red-haired man, wearing the black uniform of the merchant marine, with gold bars and stars on the sleeve to indicate his master’s rank, stood behind a heavy mahogany desk. Before the Hardys had a chance to speak, Captain Stroman demanded gruffly:

“What do you boys know about the jade necklace?”

“Nothing yet, sir,” Frank answered. “We were hoping you would tell us about the theft.”

“Why should I? Who are you, anyhow?”

Quickly Frank introduced himself and Joe, then went on, “We have a motorboat here at the harbor, a blue-and-white outboard called the
Sleuth.”

“What?” the captain’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “A blue-and-white boat? Just a minute!” Watching the boys closely, he picked up a telephone. “Give me police headquarters. Chief Collig.”

“Wait! You don’t understand!” Joe protested.

Frank restrained his brother. “Maybe it’ll be easier this way.”

“Chief Collig?” the captain spoke into the
phone. “Two boys named Hardy are in my office. Say they own that boat my mate spotted hanging around the
Sea Bright
the night of the theft. They’re asking about the jade. I’ll hold them till you get here. … What? What’s that you say?”

By the captain’s change of expression from suspicion to amazement, Frank and Joe could tell that Chief Collig was setting him straight on the events of the day in question.

“Right, Chief,” said Stroman and hung up. He turned to the boys and said, “Seems I’ve made a mistake. When you lose a rare collector’s item that has taken you a lifetime to find, you’re apt to be suspicious of people. I apologize.”

“Chief Collig told us you’d gone to the insurance company,” Frank said.

The captain nodded. “They’re putting a private detective on the case immediately.” He paused. “By the way, what
is
your interest in this matter?”

“A friend of ours had a jade collection stolen the night before last,” Joe explained. “We think your necklace may have been taken by the same man. Did you happen to get a look at him?”

“Unfortunately, no. It was the busy time of night and I was superintending the unloading of cargo. Several new dock workers were on board. Any one of them might have slipped unnoticed into my cabin.”

“But what’s this about the
Sleuth?”
Frank queried.

“My mate saw your boat, but thought nothing of it at the time. There were two men aboard. The mate had only a brief glimpse of them.”

Though disappointed at the captain’s lack of further information, Frank and Joe promised to do all they could to recover the precious jade. When they were outside, Frank suggested that they make the rounds of the art and jewelry stores in Bayport to see if the thieves had tried to sell any of the jade. They started near the docks where there were a number of shops specializing in imported and unusual goods. The two made queries in one after another. None of the dealers, however, had bought any jade objects within the past two months.

“We’ll move uptown,” Joe said.

Doggedly they went to two large stores of the same type in the center of Bayport. Still no results.

“If I’d stolen a valuable collection,” Joe said suddenly, “I wouldn’t try to sell it here, either.”

“Well—where would you go?”

“To Mr. Swarts!” Joe declared.

“Of course!” Frank exclaimed. “Just the place! Let’s go!”

Quickly he headed their car across town to a little out-of-the-way antique shop which the
boys had checked for stolen goods on several occasions. Frank parked in front of the drab brick building, and the boys hurried down the steps to a small store below street level. In the window piles of odds and ends were jumbled with genuine treasures.

As they entered, a gray-haired man with steel-rimmed spectacles looked at them across a wooden counter.

“Hello, boys!” he called in greeting.

“Good morning, Mr. Swarts,” said Joe. “Say, has anybody tried to sell you some fine jade lately?”

The man started. “Funny you should ask that. Fellow was in just this morning, early. He had a nice set of chessmen and a necklace with him.”

“Did you buy them?” Joe asked eagerly.

“Ho, ho! No.” Mr. Swarts laughed. “He wanted too much for them. Needed money, he said. So? Am I supposed to overpay him out of charity?”

“What did he look like, Mr. Swarts?”

The owner considered a moment. “Oh, big tall fellow, middle-aged, wore rimless glasses. Had on a summer suit and straw hat.”

“Sounds like Mr. Dalrymple!” Frank exclaimed.

“Oh—you know him?” asked the proprietor, mistaking the reason for their outburst. “Good. I just remembered these.”

He fished in his pocket, then laid on the counter
a little chain with three keys. “See that he gets these back, will you?”

Joe glanced at the keys quickly and pocketed them. “I certainly will!”

After thanking the man, the Hardys hastened from the store to the convertible.

“How do you like that!” Joe exclaimed. “Must have been Mr. Dalrymple’s double.
He
had the chessmen
and
the necklace! That proves one gang pulled both thefts!”

“Let’s see those keys,” Frank said, starting the car. “Hey! I recognize one.”

“You bet!” his brother crowed. “It’s the key to the old lock on the
Sleuth!
We’ll soon find out about the other two. Make tracks fast to our laboratory, driver!”

“Yes,
sir!”
responded Frank in high spirits.

Soon the car pulled into the Hardy driveway. Before they could start upstairs to the lab, however, the kitchen door slammed. The thin, energetic figure of Aunt Gertrude fairly flew at them.

“There
you are! What are you up to? Oh, I knew when your parents went to Maine, there’d be trouble. Don’t stand there gaping. Out with it!”

“Aunt Gertrude,” Frank begged, “out with what?”

“No use trying to hide it. A private detective has just been here—to investigate you boys!”

CHAPTER XII

S
PEECHLESS
, Frank and Joe could only stare at each other. Nervously Aunt Gertrude continued:

“Imagine! A strange man coming to this house and asking all kinds of questions as though you were criminals!”

The boys piloted their excited aunt into the kitchen and made her sit down.

“What kind of ‘investigation’ do you think this is?” Joe asked his brother with keen curiosity.

“Maybe the fellow was from the insurance company,” Frank suggested. “Captain Stroman probably reported the
Sleuth
incident to him. Can you tell us more about it now, Auntie?”

Miss Hardy composed herself. “I was dusting the living room when the doorbell rang. A young man stood there and said his name was Mr. Smith.”

“Mr. Smith!” Joe hooted. “How phony can you get?”

Aunt Gertrude continued, “He said, ‘I’m a private eye.’ Then he flashed a wallet at me and showed his credentials.”

“Private eye!” Joe repeated indignantly. “He’s been reading too many corny detective stories.”

“What does this Mr. Smith look like, Aunt Gertrude?” Frank asked.

“Well he’s about thirty, I’d say. Not tall, not short. He wore a nice suit, and a gray fedora hat. And … he had a little toothbrush mustache!”

“Was it false?” Joe queried.

“How should I know?” their aunt snapped, her energetic self again. “I didn’t study him through a magnifying glass!”