A Figure in Hiding Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER I - A Blind Lead

  CHAPTER II - Trouble on the Wire

  CHAPTER III - The Gatepost Eye

  CHAPTER IV - Muscle Man

  CHAPTER V - The River Spy

  CHAPTER VI - Oriental Curse

  CHAPTER VII - Beach Battle

  CHAPTER VIII - DZ7—

  CHAPTER IX - A Cruise in the Sea Spook

  CHAPTER X - Dangerous Dobermans

  CHAPTER XI - A Midnight Deal

  CHAPTER XII - Doom Ride!

  CHAPTER XIII - Airport Vigil

  CHAPTER XIV - Sinister Flower Gift

  CHAPTER XV - The Brass Crescent

  CHAPTER XVI - The Walking Mummy

  CHAPTER XVII - Secret Signals

  CHAPTER XVIII - News of a Racket

  CHAPTER XIX - The Figure at the Window

  CHAPTER XX - Mystery Madhouse

  A FIGURE IN HIDING

  A blind peddler’s warning and a weird glass eye plunge Frank and Joe Hardy into one of the most bafiling ’cases they have ever tackled.

  The young detectives’ investigation takes them to a walled estate guarded by savage dogs, where a wealthy businessman is hiding out in fear of his life. Later, a midnight telephone tip leads to a strange encounter on a lonesome hillside-and a hair-raising escape from death at the bottom of Barmet Bay.

  The theft of a valuable Oriental idol called the Jeweled Siva, a daringly designed hydrofoil speedboat the Sea Spook, the strange disappearance at sea of a prime suspect, and a walking mummy all figure excitingly in this complex case.

  In a climax that will hold the reader spellbound with suspense, Frank and Joe find themselves trapped in a sinister house of mystery from which there seems to be no escape!

  “Signals are coming over this glass eye!”

  Copyright © 1993, 1965, 1987 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam & Grosset

  Group, New York. Published simultaneously in Canada. S.A.

  THE HARDY BOYS® is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07630-9

  2008 Printing

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  CHAPTER I

  A Blind Lead

  EXCITED fans were still milling about the Bayport High athletic field as the Hardy boys came out of the dressing room after their team’s post-season win over the Alumni All-Stars.

  “Great pitching, Frank!” a. schoolmate yelled. “You really bore down in the clutches!”

  Dark-haired, eighteen-year-old Frank Hardy grinned and waved. “Don’t think that double of Joe’s with the bases loaded didn’t help!”

  As the boys reached the street, a blind peddler approached them. He was wearing dark glasses and tapping a white cane. “Buy a pencil, please?” he mumbled.

  Joe Hardy, blond and a year younger than his brother, fished in his pocket for a coin and dropped it into the man’s tin cup.

  “Thank you, sir!” The peddler pressed a pencil and a small white card into Joe’s hand as the boys hurried past him toward their red convertible, parked several yards up the street.

  Joe glanced at the card as they were climbing into the car. “Hey! What’s this?”

  “What’s what?”

  “Take a look. The blind man gave it to me.”

  Frank’s joking smile changed to a bewildered frown as he studied the card. It bore the picture of a human eye and a printed plea for better eye care from a national health society.

  The picture had pencil marks over it. The pupil had been changed to a catlike oval shape with zigzag spark lines radiating from it. Some of the words in the printed heading had been crossed out:WATCH OUT

  FOR THE FIRST SIGNS OF

  BAD EYESIGHT!

  Frank turned the card over. Scribbled in pencil on the blank side was the notation: Tell FH!

  “‘FH’ must mean Dad!” Frank exclaimed.

  Fenton Hardy, the boys’ father, had been an ace detective on the New York City police force before he retired to the coastal town of Bayport and became a famous private investigator.

  “But what about those crossed-out words?” Joe queried. “This way, it reads ‘Watch out for bad eye!’ ”

  “Let’s try to find that blind man!” Frank suggested.

  The boys dashed back down the street, but the peddler was already lost to view among the throng outside the field. Frank and Joe circled the block without catching sight of him.

  “I’ll bet he’s one of Dad’s underworld informers,” Frank stated. “He didn’t want to be seen talking to us, so he got lost in a hurry.”

  “That’s probably the answer,” Joe agreed as the boys headed back to their parked car. “But if the peddler was so afraid of being spotted, why didn’t he phone his message?”

  “Maybe he tried and got no answer, so he tracked us down. Let’s go home and see if Dad’s back from his trip yet.”

  Frank and Joe hopped into their car and Frank drove off.

  Two blocks farther on, as they stopped for the traffic light, a truck owned by the Prito Construction Company pulled up alongside. Tony Prito, a lanky, black-haired school chum, was at the wheel.

  “How’d the game come out?” he called.

  “Frank handcuffed ’em! Three-nothing shut-out!” Joe waved his clasped hands in a victory sign.

  “Nice going! Wish I could’ve seen it!” As Tony shifted gears to start up again, he added, “If you fellows want to see something pretty, take a spin out on the bay. Bill Braxton has his Sea Spook on a shakedown run.”

  “Hey! That’d be worth watching,” Joe said.

  Frank toed the accelerator. “Maybe we can catch it if we hurry.”

  The Sea Spook, a new, rakish hydrofoil craft, was the talk of Barmet Bay. Bill Braxton, a young mechanic and stock-car racing driver, had designed and built it in his spare time.

  A few minutes later the convertible turned up the driveway of the Hardys’ pleasant, tree-shaded house. Frank and Joe leaped out and bounded up the front steps. The door was locked. Frank quickly opened it with his key.

  “Anyone home?” he called. His voice echoed emptily through the house.

  “I guess Mother and Aunt Gertrude aren’t back from that bazaar yet,” Joe said. “We can leave a note for Dad.”

  He hurried to the hallway telephone stand and began jotting a message on the memo pad.

  “Tell him we’ll be out in our boat so he can call us,” Frank suggested. “Then we can give him the details over our radio.” The Hardy boys’ motorboat, the Sleuth, was equipped with a powerful marine transceiver.

  After pausing in the kitchen for glasses of milk and a handful of cookies, the brothers locked up and headed in the convertible for the Bayport waterfront. As they rolled along through the hot June sunshine, Joe flicked on the dashboard radio. A newscaster was saying:

  “A daring robbery in New York City last night netted thieves a small Oriental idol called the Jeweled Siva, valued at over twenty thousand dollars. The owner of the art curio shop from which it was taken said the ivory figure stood only six inches high but was studded with valuable gems.”

  “Wow! That’s some haul!” Joe murmured. “I wouldn’t mind working on a case like that.”

  The two boys, who had inherited their father’s zest for crime puzzles, had already solved a number of baffling mysteries starting with The Tower Treasure. On one of their most challenging cases, The Sinister Signpost, they had restored a stolen race horse to its owner.

  When they reached the waterfront, Frank pulled i
nto a parking lot and the brothers strode off toward the Hardy boathouse. In a few minutes the Sleuth was knifing through the harbor toward open water.

  Joe grinned in delight at the feel of their boat leaping along through the waves. Frank was scanning the blue expanse of the bay through binoculars. Presently he picked out a fast-moving hull that was throwing up plumes of spray.

  “There’s the Sea Spook! Man, look at that baby go!”

  Joe gunned the Sleuth. Soon it was close enough for them to view the Sea Spook clearly without the glasses. The hydrofoil was streaking over the surface at a speed that made the boys’ eyes pop.

  “She must be doing fifty knots!” Joe gasped.

  The Spook’s hull stood well above the waves, on struts connected to her curved foils. They were planing along through the water.

  “Watch your course!” Frank cautioned Joe.

  The Sea Spook began to execute a graceful figure eight, so tightly and smoothly that the Hardys could scarcely believe their eyes. It rounded the final turn, then headed seaward again.

  Joe opened the throttle wide, trying not to lose the other craft, but it sped off. “It’s hopeless!” he groaned.

  A moment later the hydrofoil reversed course again. Apparently its pilot was going to do another figure eight. This time, the execution was not nearly so smooth.

  Frank snatched up the binoculars. “That’s not Braxton at the wheel,” he reported. “He turned it over to another fellow.”

  The new pilot was sweeping a much wider curve that brought the Sea Spook almost abeam of the Sleuth. He closed the top half of the eight so erratically that Joe was taken by surprise.

  “Look out!” Frank yelled. “We’re on a collision course!”

  The hydrofoil was bearing down on the Sleuth at blinding speed. Joe glimpsed two frantic faces at the cabin window. Frank could see Braxton pushing his shipmate aside to take over as Joe swerved the Sleuth hard a-starboard.

  In the nick of time, the Sea Spook banked to port. But the turn threw up a sheet of spray that hit the Sleuth like the slap of a giant hand. Already heeling, the motorboat turned turtle and both boys were thrown into the water!

  Frank and Joe swam to the surface, gasping and blinking. The hydrofoil’s hull was slowly settling into the waves as Braxton reduced speed. He brought the craft around and halted it near the Hardys. Then he dashed out of the cabin to the open afterdeck, his passenger at his heels, to haul Frank and Joe aboard. In a few moments they stood on deck.

  “Are you okay?” Bill Braxton asked anxiously. He was a tanned, muscular young man, wearing a seaman’s jersey and faded dungarees.

  “Sure. No harm done,” said Frank. “Just soaked to the skin. Good thing it’s such a hot day.”

  Braxton started to apologize for the accident, but the man with him interrupted. “What in blazes is wrong with you punks?” he stormed at the Hardys. “Haven’t you got brains enough to keep out of the way? This thing isn’t a paddle boat, you know!”

  Joe’s quick temper flared. “A paddle boat’s all you should handle, mister!” he retorted.

  “Relax, Joe,” Frank cut in. “We probably did come closer than we should have. Got too interested in watching, I guess.”

  “Let’s all forget it,” Braxton said hastily. “We’d better do something about your boat.”

  He maneuvered the Sea Spook close to the Sleuth and helped the brothers right it. But the motorboat had shipped too much water to be used again immediately, so a towline was attached and the hydrofoil started back to port.

  “By the way,” Braxton told his passenger, “these two boys are Frank and Joe Hardy. Their dad’s a famous detective. Maybe you’ve heard of him.... Boys, meet Mr. Lambert.”

  The man gave a surly grunt. Frank and Joe nodded coolly. Lambert was about forty, with a gaunt, hard-looking face that seemed strangely pale. His long, thin nose was slightly crooked, as if it had once been broken.

  On the way into the harbor, the Hardys asked Bill numerous questions about his interesting craft. He explained that as it got up speed, the water exerted an upward lift on the foils, just like air on the wings of a plane.

  “Is this an ocean-going job?” Joe asked.

  “Sure, except that it jolts a bit’ in heavy seas,” Braxton replied. “Most designers use submerged foils for that type of service, but I’ve worked out ones that are pretty smooth.”

  He added that Mr. Lambert was interested in buying the craft and that today’s run had been a demonstration.

  After they had pulled alongside the dock, Lambert said curtly, “I’ll get in touch with you later, Braxton.” He picked up his sports jacket which had been flung on one of the seats, put it on, and scrambled up the dock ladder.

  “Nice guy,” Joe muttered. “Not even a thank-you for the ride!”

  Bill grinned wryly. “He’s a possible customer, so I had to be nice to him. Actually, it was his fault your boat got swamped. He froze at the wheel.”

  “I know—I saw you take over,” Frank said. As he spoke, Frank saw something glittering on the deck and stooped down to pick it up. “Say, is Lambert blind in one eye?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “Someone dropped a glass eye. It isn’t yours, is it?”

  Braxton shook his head. “Good grief, no. That thing doesn’t even look wearable!”

  He stared at the object in puzzlement. So did Joe. It seemed larger than a glass eye should be and had a queer-shaped pupil with reddish vein lines radiating outward.

  Suddenly Joe gasped. “Jumpin’ catfish, Frank!” he exclaimed. “That looks just like the eye on the blind man’s card!”

  CHAPTER II

  Trouble on the Wire

  FRANK was startled. “You’re right, Joe. The eye has the same oval-shaped pupil.”

  “And these veins are just like the spark lines penciled on the picture.”

  Braxton was mystified. “I suppose you two know what you’re talking about,” he said dryly, “but it makes no sense to me.”

  The Hardys grinned. Frank explained briefly about the blind peddler’s card. Then he asked if the young mechanic knew Lambert’s address.

  “No, and he doesn’t live in Bayport,” Braxton replied. “He came here just to see the Spook. I believe he’s staying at the Bayview Motel.”

  “Joe and I will take the glass eye there and see if it’s his,” Frank said.

  The Hardys changed into swimming trunks, which they got from their car, then wrung out their drenched clothing and spread it to dry while they bailed out the Sleuth. By the time they were ready to start for home, the boys looked fairly presentable again.

  “Good thing this wash-and-wear stuff dries so fast,” Joe said, “or we’d get a lecture from Aunt Gertrude.”

  Frank chuckled. “She’d have us turning blue with pneumonia, and then bawl us out for going near such a crazy contraption as the Sea Spook!”

  The boys parked in the Hardy driveway and hurried into the house. Their pretty mother and tall, angular Aunt Gertrude Hardy had returned. Mrs. Hardy informed her sons that their father had sent a telegram saying he would not return home until the next morning.

  Aunt Gertrude, though strict, was very fond of her nephews and always interested in the mysteries they were solving. “What’s that card you boys left on the telephone stand?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing very important,” Frank said, his eyes twinkling. “It’s just something a peddler gave us for Dad.”

  “Humph.” Aunt Gertrude pursed her lips.

  The boys smothered grins, knowing she had already gleaned as much from Joe’s note and was curious to know more.

  Mrs. Hardy laughed. “Now stop teasing, you two,” she admonished.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter, Laura,” her sister-in-law said airily, and started for the kitchen.

  Frank and Joe followed her and related the whole episode of the blind peddler.

  “The fellow probably spotted a one-eyed murderer in town,” Miss Hardy said. “In fact, t
he killer may be after him and he wants your father to rescue him.”

  The boys became serious. “Honestly, Aunty,” Joe said soothingly, “we did pick up a clue. It’s sort of gruesome.”

  Curiosity overcame Miss Hardy. “I don’t scare easily. Show it to me.”

  Joe took out a folded clean handkerchief and unwrapped it, disclosing the glass eye. Aunt Gertrude gasped, but quickly demanded, “Where did you get that?”

  When Frank explained, Aunt Gertrude wagged her head. “This is a sinister omen. You two be careful.”

  After supper the boys drove to the Bayview Motel. The manager, a fat, balding man, shook his head when they inquired for Lambert.

  “Sorry, boys. You just missed him. He checked out not more’n fifteen minutes ago.” The manager frowned. “Certainly looked upset.”

  “How come?” Joe asked.

  “Search me. When he stopped in after dinner and told me to get his bill ready, he looked calm enough. Then about half an hour later when he came to check out, he was red in the face and acted sore at something. Kind o’ worried, too.”

  “Maybe he got a disturbing phone call,” Frank suggested.

  Again the manager shook his head. “No—if he’d had a call, I’d know it because they all come through this switchboard here.”

  Frank explained that he and Joe were the sons of Fenton Hardy, the private investigator, and asked if Lambert had left any forwarding address.

  The manager leafed through the card file of registrations. “No. He left that space on his card blank.”

  The boys thanked him and walked out. As they drove away, Frank said, “When Lambert went to pack, he may have discovered he’d lost the glass eye. That could be what upset him.”

  “Maybe,” Joe agreed. “But so what?”

  “He may go back to Braxton’s boathouse to find out if he dropped it on the Sea Spook.”

  “Hey, that’s an idea! Step on it, Frank!”

  “There’s an easier way.” Frank swung off the road toward a hamburger drive-in. “I’ll give Bill a ring. He’s probably still tinkering.”