The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER I - Bad News

  CHAPTER II - A Midnight Alarm

  CHAPTER III - Who Is Felix?

  CHAPTER IV - Attack From Above

  CHAPTER V - Dead End

  CHAPTER VI - An Insulting Warning

  CHAPTER VII - Bug Bait

  CHAPTER VIII - New Strategy

  CHAPTER IX - Fake Names

  CHAPTER X - Monkey on a String

  CHAPTER XI - Jailbird Language

  CHAPTER XII - The Protector

  CHAPTER XIII - Surprise Password

  CHAPTER XIV - A Real Sacrifice

  CHAPTER XV - A Lofty Lookout

  CHAPTER XVI - Lower Than Pigs

  CHAPTER XVII - Dangerous Terrain

  CHAPTER XVIII - A Shot-put Blast

  CHAPTER XIX - The Spiral Bridge

  CHAPTER XX - Swinging Tactics

  THE MYSTERY OF THE SPIRAL BRIDGE

  FRANK and Joe Hardy are determined to bring to justice the vicious criminals who kidnapped their detective father while he was investigating sabotage of a road-building project in the Kentucky wilderness.

  After Mr. Hardy’s amazing escape, the boys pick up a clue—the word “Felix” mumbled by their sick father in his delirium. When they discover that the dossier of a notorious ex-convict has been stolen from Mr. Hardy’s files, the two young sleuths are doubly spurred to action.

  The trail leads them to New York City but ends abruptly in a cemetery! Stunned, Frank and Joe come upon another clue—a spiral symbol. Aided by their pals, the boys take jobs on the highway construction crew in Kentucky to try to track down the kidnappers and the nefarious saboteurs. But who among the crew is friend and who is foe?

  In a desperate maneuver that almost costs them their lives, the Hardys bring to a spine-tingling close one of the most action-packed and suspenseful mysteries they have ever solved.

  The huge bear lunged from the cave

  Copyright © 1994,1966 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 : 978-1-101-07658-3

  2008 Printing

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  CHAPTER I

  Bad News

  “CHECKMATE!” said Frank Hardy as he glanced across the chessboard at his brother Joe.

  “Okay. You’ve got me.” Joe frowned at his trapped king. “I can’t keep my mind on the game, waiting for that call and wondering how Dad is.”

  Dark-haired Frank, eighteen, and blond Joe, a year younger, sat in their laboratory next to a short-wave set. The room, filled with the latest scientific and detecting apparatus, was located over the garage behind the Hardy home in Bayport. Suddenly a metallic voice filled the lab. Both boys became tense.

  “Radley calling Frank and Joe! Do you read me?”

  “Roger,” replied Joe. “Where are you, Sam?”

  “Fifty miles from Bayport. We ran into a storm which slowed us down. Jack Wayne is preparing to land. Incidentally, boys, we’ve been tailed all the way from Kentucky! The other plane keeps just far enough away so we can’t identify it.”

  Frank pushed closer to the microphone. “How’s Dad?”

  “Sorry. No change.”

  “We’ll have an ambulance waiting,” said Frank.

  “Roger. Over and out.”

  Immediately Frank phoned Dr. Bates, the family physician, who had already been notified that Fenton Hardy was gravely ill. The doctor promised to arrange for the ambulance to meet the plane.

  The brothers then hastened downstairs and entered the house by the rear door. The boys’ mother and their aunt, Gertrude Hardy, were waiting anxiously in the living room.

  “Dad’s arriving shortly,” Joe announced. “Come on. We’ll all drive to the airport.”

  The four Hardys hurried to the family car and Frank took the wheel. For a while they rode in silence, oblivious of the pleasant air, reflecting on the near tragedy which had overtaken Fenton Hardy.

  Once a famous detective on the New York City police force, Mr. Hardy now had his own successful investigating practice. He had often been assisted on cases by his sons, who had gained renown for their talent as amateur sleuths. Sam Radley was Mr. Hardy’s able assistant, and Jack Wayne was his private pilot and close friend.

  Laura Hardy spoke up. “I had a strong feeling this case would prove unusually dangerous when Fenton agreed to accept it.”

  Mr. Hardy’s assignment had been to investigate suspected sabotage on part of a road being built by the Prito Construction Company in the Kentucky wilderness. Mr. Prito was the father of one of the Hardy brothers’ best friends, Tony.

  A bridge on which the Prito’s crew were working had collapsed. The county inspector was accusing the firm of having used faulty material, although this had been ruled out by tests. However, Mr. Prito had discovered that bolts had been removed from supporting steel girders. Inquiries among the workers had shed no light on the identity of the saboteurs.

  The detective had flown to Kentucky in his personal plane, piloted by Jack Wayne. But the day after his arrival Mr. Hardy had mysteriously disappeared. Sam Radley had been summoned to help on the case and was to have met his boss for a briefing at the construction site that same day.

  When Mr. Hardy did not appear, Sam had gone to the neighboring small town of Boonton, sure that the investigator would soon return. But Fenton Hardy was gone for almost a week.

  His family recalled vividly Sam’s account of the detective finally stumbling into Boonton, his hands manacled behind his back, gravely ill and delirious. The small local hospital had diagnosed pneumonia, but with baffling complications, and urged that he be returned home immediately.

  Sam had reported, too, that no clue had been found to explain who had held Mr. Hardy prisoner, or where. Also, his brief case was missing.

  As Frank swung into the parking area of the airport, Joe leaned excitedly out the window.

  “There’s Dad’s plane. Jack’s bringing her in!”

  Minutes later the family stood near the ambulance, waiting alongside the apron. The four watched the blue-and-white, single-engine plane glide to a landing and taxi up to the ambulance.

  Two white-coated attendants hopped out and joined Frank and Joe as they rushed to the craft. The cabin door opened. Sam Radley poked his head out. “Your dad’s already on a stretcher,” he told the boys.

  They leaped aboard. Both gasped at first view of their father. A rugged man, Fenton Hardy’s face normally had a healthy glow. Today he looked pale and drawn, and his eyes were closed. Gently the brothers and Sam lowered the stretcher to the attendants.

  Laura Hardy wept softly as her husband was carried toward the ambulance, and Aunt Gertrude tried hard to hold back her own tears.

  Joe bent over the stretcher. “Dad, can you hear me?” Mr. Hardy’s eyelids fluttered. His lips moved feebly, but no intelligible words came out.

  “Still delirious,” said Radley. “He’s been mumbling like this on and off. I couldn’t catch a thing.”

  “If only we could get a few words,” Frank said. “They might give us a clue to the fiends who did this to Dad.”

  The stretcher was placed in the ambulance. The Hardys and Sam looked back to the plane. Jack Wayne, somber-faced, peered out of the cockpit and waved. Then the pilot taxied the craft to its hangar.

  It was decided that Frank
and Mrs. Hardy would accompany the patient, while Aunt Gertrude, Joe, and Sam would go in the car. Soon the ambulance was speeding toward Bayport.

  Joe, at the wheel of the Hardy car, asked Radley, “I didn’t notice any plane landing before we left the airfield. You have any idea who was tailing you?”

  “No. The guy was dever—kept a safe distance all the way.”

  Joe looked troubled. He was thinking hard. “Sam, I have an idea,” he said. “I’ll stop home for our tape recorder. We can set it up by Dad’s bed in the hospital, just in case he says something understandable when we’re not there. We need a due desperately.”

  “It’s worth a try. Maybe we’ll get some answers to vital questions in this mystery. For instance, who masterminded your father’s kidnapping? Where was he held? And how did he get back to Boonton, handcuffed and sick the way he was? Somebody must have brought him there, but why?”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this!” Joe vowed. He turned off the highway and headed for the Hardy residence on Elm and High streets.

  Aunt Gertrude, usually critical of her nephews’ detective work, for once agreed.

  “Oh, I’d like to get hold of those—those terrible creatures myself!” she declared vehemently. “But please, Joe, you and Frank be very careful. We don’t want you in the hospital, too.”

  “By the way,” Sam asked as they pulled into the driveway, “have you heard from my wife?”

  “Yes,” Joe answered. “She phoned yesterday, asking about you. She’s fine.”

  Sam and his wife lived in an apartment near the center of town, about half a mile from the Hardys.

  Joe hurried to get the tape recorder. He tested it and put on a new tape. He and Sam were about to leave when a taxi screeched to a stop in front of the house. To their amazement, Frank leaped out and rushed inside.

  “Hey, what happened?” Joe greeted him.

  “A clue, our first one!” his brother announced. He reached into a pocket, pulled out an envelope, and held it open to reveal a white, gritty substance.

  “Where’d you find this?” Joe asked quickly.

  “In the cuffs of Dad’s trousers. Come on. We’ll examine this stuff right away.”

  The boys and Sam ran up the stairway to the garage lab. First the Hardys studied the white grains under a microscope. “Looks like tiny bits of rock,” Frank observed.

  “This could be limestone,” Joe said. “Let’s run a chemical test.”

  As Sam looked on, Frank shook the particles into a flask while Joe filled a beaker with clear limewater, then connected the two containers with glass tubing. Frank next picked up a bottle of dilute hydrochloric acid and poured it onto the grains. Bubbles appeared in the beaker and the limewater turned cloudy, then clear again.

  “Limestone it is!” Joe exclaimed. “Sam, do you know of any limestone quarries around where you and Dad were in Kentucky?”

  “Not offhand. But there are plenty of unusual rock formations. In fact, plans are underway for developing an immense park—sort of a tourist attraction—featuring the peculiar formations.”

  “Near the highway construction site?” Frank asked.

  “Quite near.”

  As the Hardys put away the apparatus, the extension phone rang. Frank answered. “Hello.... What was that? ... I can’t understand you.... Wait a minute.” He turned to Sam. “Sounds like your wife, but she’s awfully upset.”

  Sam grabbed the phone. “Hello? ... Ethel?” A frightened look came into his eyes. “I’ll be right over. Try to keep calm!”

  He wheeled about to face the boys. “Something’s happened to my wife. Let’s hurry!”

  The three pounded downstairs. While Joe sped into the house to pick up the tape recorder, Frank and Sam ran to the car.

  “Aunt Gertrude!” Frank exclaimed, “We have to rush over to Sam’s. Something’s wrong. Wait here at the house, and don’t let anybody in until we return!”

  Miss Hardy got out of the car. “Very well. But what about Mr. Kenfield? He’s coming to inspect the roof today.”

  “Okay. But he probably won’t have to come into the house. He’ll use a ladder to get to the roof.”

  The Hardys and Sam sped to the Radley apartment. It was located on the second floor. The door was slightly ajar and Radley burst in, the boys at his heels. “Good grief!” Sam cried out.

  His wife was lying on the living-room floor, her feet bound together and her hands secured in front of her with stout twine.

  “This could be limestone,” Joe said

  “Sam! Sam!” she sobbed. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!”

  Frank whipped out his pocketknife and cut the bonds. Mrs. Radley, still trembling with fright, was helped to her feet. Joe hastened to get her a glass of water, while Sam insisted she rest in an easy chair. When Mrs. Radley had regained her composure, she told them what happened.

  “I’d been out shopping for about an hour. When I returned, I was surprised to find our door unlocked, but thought I’d absent-mindedly left the catch off. I went inside and almost fainted when I saw a strange man in the living room.”

  The intruder had clapped a hand over her mouth, bound her, and warned her to make no outcry.

  Frank wondered whether the prowler had anything to do with the Hardys’ case. “What did he look like?” Frank asked.

  “He was tall, dark and—Oh, I can’t tell you any more! I was so frightened.”

  “He was here for a purpose, that’s sure,” Sam said as he inspected the door lock. “It’s been jimmied.”

  Nothing seemed to be disturbed in the living room. Then the Hardys accompanied Sam into his study. One drawer of a filing cabinet was partly opened. Radley quickly examined the contents. “None of these files are missing,” he said, perplexed.

  Frank pointed to the top drawer. “How about that card index?”

  Sam pulled out the drawer. “You’re right! There are a couple of cards sticking up, as if someone had riffled through them.”

  With painstaking care, the three sleuths checked the cross index of a long list of criminals which Sam had catalogued.

  “You know there’s a duplicate set in your dad’s office,” he told the boys.

  By this time they had reached the names listed under M. “Mander—Manning—Matlack. Wait!” said Sam. “I’m missing the run-down card on Milo Matlack.”

  “Who’s Matlack?”

  Radley gave a low whistle. “He’s an ex-convict, a dangerous character—one of the worst!”

  CHAPTER II

  A Midnight Alarm

  “IF Matlack’s the bird we want, we’ll clip his wings,” said Joe, “no matter how tough he is!”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” cautioned Frank.

  Sam went through the rest of the file. No other card was missing.

  “We’ll check the duplicate file right after we visit Dad,” Frank said.

  Satisfied that Mrs. Radley was feeling all right, the Hardys left the couple. “We’ll keep in touch with you about developments, Sam,” Frank promised.

  The boys hastened outside to their car and soon reached the hospital’s parking lot.

  “I hope Dad is better,” Joe murmured as they rode the elevator to the third floor. But he and Frank found Mr. Hardy’s condition the same. Mrs. Hardy was quietly talking with Dr. Bates. Both were looking gravely at the detective, who was breathing irregularly and still in delirium.

  Noting Frank’s and Joe’s alarmed expressions, the medic assured them everything was under control. “Your dad is very ill, of course. The pneumonia we can treat, but we’ll have to conduct further tests to determine the exact cause of his prolonged loss of memory.”

  “How did he ever catch pneumonia?” asked Joe, stepping close to the bedside and looking down at his father’s face, now flushed with fever.

  “Possibly through extreme mistreatment,” the doctor said. “Mr. Hardy might have been kept in a dark, damp place without food and sufficient water.”

  Frank set his jaw
grimly. “Could’ve been an underground prison,” he declared, “which might explain the limestone in Dad’s trouser cuffs.”

  Just then Mr. Hardy turned his head on the pillow. His eyes were still closed. He mumbled, but as before, the words were unintelligible.

  Mrs. Hardy sighed. “He’s been doing that all the time I’ve been here,” she told her sons.

  Joe placed the tape recorder on the night table next to his father’s bed, and explained what he had in mind. Frank plugged in the machine. Just then a pleasant-looking nurse came into the room. She introduced herself as Miss Tice.

  “I’ll be on night duty here,” she said. “Is there anything special you’d like me to do?”

  “Yes, please.” Frank showed her how to turn off the recorder and change the tape. He left a spare reel on the table.

  “When you put on the new tape,” Frank went on, “please put the used one in the drawer so it won’t be damaged.”

  The boys and their mother were assured by the doctor that Mr. Hardy would respond to treatment.

  “Your husband needs complete rest, Mrs. Hardy,” the physician added. “If there should be any change, we’ll call you immediately.”

  Joe switched on the recorder, then the three Hardys left the hospital and drove home. They found Aunt Gertrude setting the table for supper and gave her the latest report on her brother’s condition.

  “See anybody prowling around while we were gone?” Joe asked.

  “Goodness no!” Miss Hardy said tartly. “Didn’t we have enough worry for one day?” Then she added, “Mr. Kenfield was here, of course. I heard his ladder being propped against the side of the house, and I saw his truck parked in front.”

  Frank only half heard his aunt’s words. His memory was suddenly jogged by another thought. “Joe! Let’s check Dad’s files!”

  Aunt Gertrude fixed her nephews with a stern gaze. “Don’t be late for supper!” she ordered. “We’re having lamb stew and I don’t want it to get cold!”

  “Aunty,” Joe said, “we’re never late for lamb stew.”

  He winked at his brother and followed him upstairs to Mr. Hardy’s study on the second floor. From a secret compartment under a desk drawer, Frank withdrew the key to his father’s extensive files.