Mystery of the Samurai Sword Read online

  The aide added that General Muramoto was now dead, but that his stock had been inherited by his nephew whom the Hardys had just met.

  “Naturally,” Mr. Oyama concluded, “we find it hard to believe that young Muramoto would cause any scandal that might harm our company. In fact, he would be far more apt to try and cover up any bad news, if he could properly do so.”

  “It is difficult to guess what has given him this wild idea that our employer is an impostor,” said the other aide. “But I think he must sincerely believe it is so.”

  The Hardys drove home from the hotel thoroughly mystified by this latest surprising twist in the Satoya case. Both were eager to find out what would happen the following day.

  Shortly before ten o‘clock the next morning, they returned to police headquarters. Toshiro Muramoto was already waiting in Chief Collig’s office, and Satoya’s two senior aides, Mr. Kawanishi and Mr. Oyama, arrived soon afterward.

  Presently Muramoto glanced at his wristwatch. “It is now almost one minute past ten o‘clock,” he announced. “The deadline has expired.”

  Chief Collig looked at the two company aides, who merely shrugged. Then his gaze turned back to Muramoto. “We’re all waiting to hear what you have to say, sir.”

  “Very well. I had hoped to give the man who calls himself Takashi Satoya a chance to defend himself. Since he is not here, I can only assume that he is afraid to face me. This confirms my suspicion that he is an impostor.”

  “You still haven’t told us why you suspect him in the first place,” Frank Hardy put in.

  “Is the reason not obvious?” Muramoto shot back. “Here is a man who heads one of the world’s greatest corporations—yet he is afraid to be seen in public. For years now he has avoided reporters and cameras and hidden himself away from the outside world. Why else would he be so secretive, except that he fears being exposed as a fake!”

  Joe spoke up. “Then what do you think happened to the real Mr. Satoya?”

  Muramoto’s eyes flashed at the two company aides, and he pointed his finger at them accusingly. “I think those two can answer your question better than I can.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “Because I believe they have done away with the real Takashi Satoya! They were his closest associates, so they are the only ones who could have pulled such a crime and still escaped detection. In his place, they have substituted an impostor who is completely under their control. Through him, they have been able to run the company for their own profit!”

  There was a moment of startled silence as Muramoto finished speaking.

  Then Frank said, “If you’re right, why has this so-called impostor disappeared?”

  “Probably because they knew he would soon be exposed as a fake. So long as they keep him out of sight and pretend he has ‘disappeared,’ no one can prove they’ve committed any crime.”

  All eyes swung toward the two aides. Both looked perfectly calm.

  The tall, burly Mr. Kawanishi spoke first. “You ask why our revered employer became a hermit who prefers to keep out of the public eye. The reason is no mystery. Ten years ago, his wife and children were killed in an air crash.”

  “Their deaths were a terrible blow,” said Mr. Oyama. “For a time he felt he had nothing more to live for. Ever since then he has shunned the outside world and lives mostly at his villa, where he devotes himself to gardening and studying the way of life called Zen.”

  “It is true that he runs the company by issuing orders through us,” Kawanishi went on. “But that is his own wish, because it enables him to keep his privacy. However, he telephoned us last night, and we are happy to announce that he will reappear in Bayport this morning, to answer your charges in person.”

  Mr. Kawanishi, who was seated near the office windows, had been glancing out at the street below, and now he spoke with a slight smile. “In fact, I believe our revered employer has just arrived.”

  There was a stir of excitement. Moments later the telephone rang on Chief Collig’s desk. Soon after he answered, an erect, gray-haired man with a wispy mustache was ushered into the office—the same man Frank and Joe had seen alight from the Satoya jet plane in the Bayport airfield!

  Toshiro Muramoto stared keenly at the elderly newcomer, who responded with a polite bow.

  “I understand you accuse me of being an impostor,” he said to Muramoto.

  “I do, indeed! And I shall now prove my accusation!”

  “Pray do so, by all means.”

  It was Muramoto’s turn to bow. “Very well. I shall do so by means of a test—using that beautiful samurai sword, which has belonged to the Satoya family for over four hundred years.”

  As Muramoto moved to pick up the sword from the police chief’s desk, Frank asked if the sword had been dusted for prints. Chief Collig reported that this had been done, but that no fingerprints had been found, indicating that sheath, hilt and blade had all been carefully wiped clean.

  Muramoto then proceeded with his demonstration. “It is well known to many close friends and business associates of the real Takashi Satoya,” he went on, “that this sword has a secret compartment concealed in its hilt. It was designed centuries ago by the expert swordsmith who forged the blade.”

  The gray-haired tycoon nodded. “That is so. The secret knowledge of how to open it was passed down only to male members of the family.”

  His two aides murmured their agreement.

  “Good!” said the bespectacled Muramoto. “If there is no argument on that score, it will give you a way to prove that you are, indeed, the real Takashi Satoya. I suggest you show us that you can open the secret compartment.”

  He held out the sword.

  “Of course! I am happy to accept your challenge,” said the tycoon, taking the weapon.

  His face was calm as he began to finger certain points on the hilt. But his expression slowly changed—at first to a frown of surprise, then to bewilderment, and finally to outright dismay.

  “Something is wrong!” he exclaimed.

  “So it appears,” said Muramoto sarcastically.

  Satoya’s two aides appeared dumbfounded.

  Their employer made one or two final desperate attempts to open the secret compartment before giving up. “This cannot be the real sword!” he declared. “Someone has substituted a forgery!”

  “Indeed?” Muramoto sneered. “How strange that you did not notice the switch until it turned out that you were unable to discover the mechanism of the secret compartment!”

  Glancing at the Hardy boys and Police Chief Collig, he added, “I believe these impartial witnesses will now agree that I have proved my accusation beyond any doubt.”

  All three stared at the man who called himself Satoya. His only response was a helpless, tight-lipped shrug.

  “In that case,” Muramoto continued, “I shall now issue an announcement to the press, telling how I have proved this man to be an impostor. I shall then cable the Japanese government in Tokyo, officially requesting that they take over control of the Satoya Corporation, until the police can find out what happened to the real Satoya.”

  Kawanishi and Oyama both sprang to their feet, with looks of consternation on their faces.

  “Wait! If you do that, it will play havoc with the operation of the company!” one cried.

  “Not only that—the value of our company stock will plunge disastrously on the stock exchange! People who have invested heavily in shares of the Satoya Corporation will lose millions of yen!”

  “You are quite right, gentlemen,” Muramoto said regretfully. “As a major stockholder, I myself shall be one of the biggest losers. But my honor demands no less. My late uncle, General Akira Muramoto, was a longtime friend of Takashi Satoya’s. If you two or anyone else have harmed him or done away with him, my uncle would certainly wish justice to be done and the guilty parties punished, no matter how many millions of yen it might cost.”

  Suddenly Frank cut in. “Mr. Muramoto, may I make a request?”


  The bespectacled young Japanese said, “I promise nothing, but I am certainly willing to listen.”

  “From what my brother and I have just heard, it may wreck the company if you go ahead and make your accusation public. But I think even you will admit that this whole situation is a mystery.”

  “The only mystery, I’m afraid, is what has happened to the real Takashi Satoya.”

  “Put it that way if you like,” Frank said. “But at least give Joe and me a chance to solve the mystery. All we ask is twenty-four hours before you take such a drastic step.”

  Chief Collig added, “What they’re asking certainly sounds reasonable to me, sir. I can assure you these young fellows are no mean sleuths. They’ve been trained by their father—who’s probably the greatest criminal investigator in America—and they’ve solved a number of important cases.”

  Muramoto hesitated before replying, his forehead creased in a frown. But at last he nodded reluctantly. “Very well. I shall wait until this same time tomorrow morning before calling in the press or cabling my government—but no longer!” Bowing to everyone, he turned on his heel and strode out of the office.

  Satoya, or the man who was impersonating him, flashed Frank and Joe a grateful look.

  “Young men, I am much indebted to both of you—perhaps even more than you realize,” he declared. “If you care to accompany me back to my hotel, I shall explain the reason for my disappearance.”

  17

  Jungle Nightmare

  Frank and Joe were eager to hear Satoya’s story and readily accepted his invitation. His black limousine was waiting at the curb, with the stony-faced chauffeur at the wheel. The Hardy boys rode in the back seat with the tycoon, while his two senior aides—Kawanishi and Oyama—followed in a separate car.

  “My story begins many years ago, in the closing months of World War II,” Satoya told them. “Your General MacArthur had begun to recapture the Philippines, and it was only a question of time before the Americans would invade Japan herself.”

  A certain group of Japanese officers, he related, felt that an honorable surrender was the best course to take, rather than wait for their country to be devastated by bombing and invasion.

  One of the group was Takashi Satoya. Although he was only a young lieutenant, he volunteered to carry the group’s written, signed surrender offer to the Americans, concealed in the secret compartment of his sword hilt. But on the way he was badly wounded during a strafing attack by American fighter planes, and then taken prisoner.

  “For weeks I lay unconscious or delirious in a jungle hospital,” the tycoon went on. “By the time I recovered, my sword was gone. Either it was still lying back at the spot where I was wounded, or perhaps it had been picked up by some American GI or Filipino resistance fighter.”

  “And the surrender offer was lost with it?” Frank inquired.

  “Precisely.”

  “Didn’t you tell the Americans who captured you about the surrender document you’d been carrying?” asked Joe.

  “I tried to, but no one would believe me. I imagine they thought I was still out of my head with fever, or else that my story was a trick to help me gain special treatment.”

  Because the surrender offer never reached the proper U.S. authorities, the war wound down to its grim conclusion, including the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  “Later, after the war was over,” Satoya said, “the officers who had taken part in the surrender plan met in Tokyo and agreed to keep the whole story secret.”

  “But why?” said Frank. “By that time I should think most people would have felt you were absolutely right.”

  “So it may seem to you now, in the United States, but there were still many in Japan who felt otherwise, especially among the samurai class. Some of the older, stiff-necked military men thought we should all have died for the Emperor. They would have called us cowards and traitors had the truth leaked out.”

  Even today, the Japanese tycoon told the Hardys, some of his countrymen might react the same way.

  “For myself, I do not care,” Satoya added. “I am an old man. What other people think of me is no longer important. For that matter, most of the senior officers who were involved in the surrender attempt, such as General Muramoto—are now dead. But even so, the truth might cause shame to their families if it became known.”

  “Then in a way,” said Joe, “you’re actually protecting the general’s nephew, Toshiro Muramoto, who’s over here calling you a faker.”

  Satoya smiled dryly at Joe’s remark. “That is so. Life plays strange tricks at times. In any case, the only way I could make sure that the story never came out was to find my lost sword and destroy the surrender document hidden inside the hilt.”

  “So that’s why you were so eager to buy the sword!” Frank commented.

  “Exactly. It was also my main reason for coming to the United States, rather than risk entrusting the job to someone else. I intended to make sure that no one outbid meat the auction, and then to destroy the surrender document as soon as the sword was in my hands.”

  The limousine had now arrived at the Bayport Chilton Hotel. Frank and Joe accompanied Mr. Satoya inside and went up in the elevator to his private suite. He telephoned room service to order tea and resumed his story without inviting Mr. Kawanishi or Mr. Oyama to join them.

  “You still haven’t told us how or why you disappeared,” Frank reminded the gray-haired industrialist.

  “I was just coming to that,” Satoya replied. “The fact is, I had begun to suspect that there was a traitor in the company—probably a top-rank executive.”

  The Hardys were startled. The tycoon’s words seemed to confirm their father’s theory!

  “What gave you that idea?” Joe asked.

  “Two things. First, someone has recently been leaking information on our business to a competitor, a company called Gorobei Motors. The information included data that was only known to me and my two top aides.”

  “You mean Mr. Kawanishi and Mr. Oyama?”

  Takashi Satoya nodded grimly. “Correct. Also there have been several attempts on my life.”

  “Wow!” Joe blurted. “You actually think one of them might have tried to kill you?”

  “To tell the truth, I do not know what to think. But one thing seemed clear. This trip to the USA would give the guilty party a good chance to have me murdered—and then to blame the crime on American terrorists or assassins. That is why I decided to disappear. It seemed the best way to ensure my own safety. Also, by secretly watching Kawanishi and Oyama, I hoped to discover which one was the traitor.”

  To accomplish this, Mr. Satoya had arranged to have the hotel rooms of his two senior aides electronically bugged.

  “When your limousine arrived at the hotel from the airport,” Frank put in, “your other aide, Mr. Ikeda, was unconscious. Did you anesthetize him somehow?”

  The gray-haired Japanese nodded. “Yes, I must confess that I did. While he was busy looking out the window on the other side of the car, I suddenly jabbed him with a hypodermic needle, using a quick-acting anesthetic. It started to take effect almost immediately, before he could collect his wits enough to make any outcry. I am ashamed to tell you this, but it seemed the best way to carry out my scheme.”

  Once Ikeda was unconscious, the tycoon had vanished exactly as the Hardy boys had deduced. He had hidden in the limousine’s secret compartment and then had his chauffeur let him out of the car when it was halfway down the ramp, out of sight from both the street and the basement parking garage. The chauffeur, in fact, had been his only confidant, and was the one who had bugged Kawanishi’s and Oyama’s hotel rooms.

  “One more question, sir,” said Frank. “Have you any idea at all as to how or why a duplicate sword could have been substituted for your family sword?”

  Mr. Satoya shook his head helplessly. “I am relying on you two young men to solve that mystery. I can only assume that it is part of a plot to wrest the company away from my c
ontrol.”

  The Hardys promised to do their best to solve the case as soon as possible. Satoya’s chauffeur drove them back to police headquarters to pick up their car.

  As they headed homeward, Joe switched on the car radio to check the time. An announcer was reading the news. Suddenly he said:

  “A flash has just been handed to me. That missing Japanese businessman, Mr. Takashi Satoya, has now turned up again—or at any rate, a person who calls himself Satoya has turned up. He’s reported to have walked into Bayport police headquarters just a short time ago. But now he’s accused of being an impostor! A major stockholder in the Satoya Corporation has flown here from Japan to make the charge.”

  The announcer added, “This is the second report to come over the news wires this morning on this strange case. For those of you who missed our earlier story—it was learned this morning that the valuable Japanese samurai sword stolen from the Palmer-Glade Auction Galleries in New York was found last night somewhere near Bayport. According to one unconfirmed report, this sword belonged to the real Takashi Satoya. We will keep you posted on any further developments in the story as they come in.”

  “Sufferin’ catfish!” Joe exclaimed. “I wonder if Muramoto broke his promise about giving us twenty-four hours to crack the case?”

  “Sure sounds that way,” Frank gritted. “This means we’ve really got to work fast!”

  When they arrived home on Elm Street, Aunt Gertrude was waiting eagerly to quiz them about what had happened at police headquarters. Before the boys could satisfy her curiosity, the telephone rang. Frank answered. The caller was Sam Radley.

  “What’s up, Sam?” Frank inquired.

  “I’ve finally run down Krunkel and his partner!”

  “You mean you’ve got them under arrest?”

  “Not yet. I figured it might be better to keep them under observation for a while and see what we can learn from them.”

  “Smart idea!” Frank agreed.

  Radley explained that he had shown Krunkel’s photo to the desk clerks of various hotels and motels in the Shoreham area, and had finally located the place where the squint-eyed burglar was staying. He and another man named Darbold, who was a known accomplice of Krunkel‘s, had registered at the Seneca Motel on Main Street.