The Pentagon Spy Page 11

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “And that’s why he tried to get us off the case by playing mean and dangerous tricks on us.”

  “I wonder where he and Bryle went,” Joe spoke up. “Do you have any idea, Mr. Hammerley?”

  “The police asked the same thing when I phoned them about the horses. I told them I didn’t know where the scoundrels had gone. I still don’t know.”

  “Let’s check the stable,” Frank suggested. “We might find a clue there.”

  The Hardys left the house and walked past the barn. They looked up at the roof, which seemed bare now that the Flashing Arrow was not there any longer, turning in the wind.

  The stable stood about one hundred yards from the barn in the direction of the pasture. It was made up of a series of stalls, from which horses stared through half-doors marked with their names. Two empty stalls with “Star” and “Bronco” on them showed where Morven and Bryle had obtained their mounts.

  The boys entered the stable and walked along a wall hung with equestrian equipment. As expert riders who often cantered along bridle trails near Bayport, they eagerly examined saddles, boots, and horseshoes.

  But the search was in vain. “I didn’t expect them to leave a road map,” Frank grumbled, “but after we found the paper in the chopper ...” his voice trailed off.

  “I know what you mean,” Joe said. “Too bad we weren’t in luck this time.”

  After they reported their failure to Hammerley, Frank raised a question. “Why did Morven and Bryle take horses, not one of the cars? They could have made much better time in a car.”

  “Not if they were headed for town!” Joe exclaimed, seeing his brother’s reasoning. “They went the shortest way—across the pasture and through the woods. A car couldn’t get through, and they didn’t want to lose time driving around the detour where the bridge is out!”

  “That makes sense, young man,” Hammerley agreed. “I’ll call the police right away and tell them to look for those two crooks!”

  He went to the phone and tried to get a connection. Then he replaced the instrument in its cradle with a despairing gesture. “The phone is dead!” he declared.

  “Morven and Bryle must have cut the line,” Joe guessed. “I just wish we knew where they went. They could be anywhere in town or even at one of the farms around it!”

  The boys sat in glum silence trying to plan their next move. Suddenly Frank had an idea. “Mr. Hammerley, do you have a cassette player?”

  “Sure I do. I record messages for the grain dealers all the time. Why do you ask?”

  “I’d like to try something.” Frank told Hammerley about the tape they had received at the Sunset Motel. “Mind if I play it again?” he asked.

  “Of course not. Follow me.”

  When Hammerley heard the weird voice, he was puzzled. “Who in the world would talk like that?” he wondered.

  “Is there a speed control on this machine?” Frank asked.

  Hammerley showed him where it was, and the young detective turned it down. He replayed the tape, adjusting the speed even further. The voice diminished from the weird squeak to a normal range, and everyone gasped.

  The speaker was Gaspard Clay!

  19

  Caught by the Enemy!

  Frank and Joe stared at one another and Hammerley stood staring, his mouth open, as the cassette spun on to the end of its message.

  “Gaspard Clay!” he gulped. “How did you know his voice was on the tape?”

  “I didn‘t,” Frank replied. “It just occurred to me suddenly that whoever made the recording might have changed the frequency to disguise his voice. When Joe and I experimented with tape recordings in our lab, we did that once.”

  “That’s right,” Joe added. “Lucky you thought of that, Frank. Say, I’ll bet Clay made this recording right after we talked to him at the museum. When we asked him about Chesapeake Crossing, he must have figured we were headed there. So he warned us over the phone first, then took the cassette down there to try to scare us away.”

  “As long as Clay is one of the weather vane gang,” Frank mused, “he’s probably involved with the Pentagon spy, too.”

  “This is all very confusing,” Hammerley said. “Why don’t you bring me up to date on your investigation?”

  Frank explained the connection of the two cases. “Morven and Bryle also worked for Wickerson,” he said. “Since they went into town, they probably have joined Clay.”

  The light dawned on Joe. “The stolen weather vanes might be at the museum!” he exclaimed. “We’d better get over there fast before the gang moves the stuff out!”

  “May we borrow two of your horses, Mr. Hammerley?” Frank asked.

  “Sure. Take Red and King. They’re the best saddle mounts I own.”

  The Hardys raced to the stable, took down bridles and saddles of burnished leather from pegs on the wall, and hurried into the stalls. Frank took Red, while Joe saddled King. Then they led the animals out of their stalls. The horses champed at the bit and pawed the ground as the boys mounted them.

  Frank patted Red on the shoulder and tugged on the bridle. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Let’s see what you can do!”

  The horse cantered a few steps then broke into a fast gallop. Joe was right behind his brother as they neared the pasture and urged their horses forward at top speed. They took the fence in flying leaps. When they came to the boulders the boys had passed on their way to Juniper Field before, they fell into single file and rode along the narrow path through the woods. Arriving at Juniper Field, they circled the airport then slowed their horses to a canter in the town.

  Night was falling when they drew rein within sight of the county historical museum. Frank maneuvered close to Joe. “The gang might hear us coming,” he warned. “We’d better go the rest of the way on foot.”

  They dismounted and tied the horses to a tree, then they sneaked through to the edge of the woods. The museum was dark except for a light in one room.

  “That’s the west wing,” Joe noted. “The one Clay said was closed for repairs.”

  “Well, something’s going on in there now,” Frank pointed out.

  Reaching the museum grounds, they climbed a picket fence and crawled toward the building on their hands and knees. They moved along cautiously in case a member of the gang was standing guard. Judging that the coast was clear, they rose to their feet and flattened themselves against the wall on either side of the lighted window. Gingerly they peered around the frame into the room.

  It was filled with weather vanes!

  “There’s the Flashing Arrow!” Joe whispered, “and the Galloping Rider is right next to it!”

  Crow Morven and Ed Bryle were shifting the weather vanes and stacking them near the door. “We can load these up in a hurry,” Bryle declared as he placed the Flashing Arrow at the end of one stack.

  “We sure fooled the Hardys,” Morven gloated with an evil grin. “They never caught on when I cut the phone line from the barn to the house. And they didn’t figure out that I sneaked into the house and doped Hammerley’s cocoa. Too bad I couldn’t get into the kitchen and destroy the evidence. But that dratted Mrs. Smith locked the window after I unlocked it.”

  “Those nosy kids!” Bryle complained. “I’d feel better if my time bomb had gone off sooner and done away with them. As long as they’re around, there’s no telling where they’ll turn up next!”

  Morven nodded. “That’s true. But there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  Having finished shifting the weather vanes over to the door, the men returned to the center of the room where there was a table flanked by a number of chairs. They sat down. Morven tilted his chair onto its back legs and placed his feet on a corner of the table. “Wanna play a game of poker while we’re waiting?” he asked.

  “Why not?”

  Frank nudged Joe. “We’ve got enough evidence to blow the whistle on them. Let’s get the police before they clear out of here!”

  The Hardy
s were about to move when Frank pulled Joe back against the wall. A beam of light flashed past them. Instinctively, they froze to avoid being seen.

  “It’s a headlight,” Frank whispered. “A truck’s coming.”

  The vehicle eased up to the museum through the darkness and stopped at the door of the west wing. The driver got out. He was the tall man wearing a black beard and dark glasses!

  Climbing the stone steps, he knocked on the door; first three slow knocks, then two rapid ones, and finally three slow ones again.

  “That must be the gang’s signal,” Joe thought to himself.

  A chair scraped on the floor inside. Footsteps approached the door. When it opened, Morven was standing there.

  “Hi, boss,” he said.

  The newcomer went into the museum. The Hardys returned to their post at the window and watched him sitting down. Unlacing his heavy shoes, he took them off and pushed them under the table, revealing as he did so that they were specially built with soles about three inches thick.

  He drew a regular pair from beside the chair, put them on, and stood up. Now he was of medium height. He grabbed hold of his black beard on one side and stripped it off with a single motion. Then he removed his dark glasses and replaced them with steel-rimmed spectacles, which he pushed up on his forehead.

  “Joshua Korbo!” Frank and Joe gasped the name as they recognized the auctioneer.

  Korbo tossed his beard and dark glasses aside. “I won’t need these anymore,” he said. “Our weather vane caper in this county is over. I’ll use a different disguise the next time. We go into action again a hundred miles from here after the heat’s off.”

  “Good idea,” Morven said. “I could use a little vacation in between.”

  “We’ll use the same system,” Korbo went on. “Each time, I’ll prepare a paper with a hex sign identifying the weather vane and the place to hide it. Then we truck it on to Chesapeake Crossing.”

  He took a list from his pocket, went over to the weather vanes, and checked them off with a pencil. Morven and Bryle watched him in silence. They seemed afraid of an explosion if Korbo found any of the stolen items missing.

  “All here,” he said with satisfaction after a moment or so. “I’ll bring in my fence now so we can move our goods.”

  He went to the door and called out, “Bucky! Come in and have a look!”

  A man got out of the truck, walked up the stairs, and entered the room. He was the desk clerk from the Sunset Motel!

  Clay didn’t have to sneak into the motel with the cassette, Joe now realized. All he had to do was walk in and hand it to Bucky! Some motel clerk—he’s an international smuggler!

  Bucky looked over the stacked weather vanes. “This is a good haul. The Flashing Arrow and the Galloping Rider will go for about twenty grand apiece. The rest are nearly as valuable. I’ll be able to fence them abroad. My contacts will buy every American weather vane I can send them. And all the classified Pentagon documents from Washington!” Bucky added with a grin.

  “No more documents from now on,” Korbo said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Wickerson got caught and arrested last night. Not only that, the Hardys were at Barren Island and freed Clifford Hunter!”

  “What!” Morven and Bryle were flabbergasted.

  “If you hadn’t failed with your bomb plot,” Korbo said to Bryle, “we’d be in better shape. Wickerson is a real threat to us now if he talks, and so is Hunter, not to mention those nosy detectives!”

  Bucky became nervous. “Let’s load up as fast as we can. I have a cabin on the beach at Chesapeake Crossing where we can store the goods safely until we see the midnight signal out on the bay. Then I’ll deliver them by powerboat.”

  Korbo turned to Morven and Bryle. “Okay, start moving the stuff out to the truck.”

  Frank and Joe put their heads together underneath the window. “You go for the police,” Frank said in a low tone to his brother. “I’ll watch the crooks.”

  “Oh no!” boomed a voice behind them. “You’re both going, ahem, inside!”

  20

  The Flashing Arrow Clue

  Whirling around, the Hardys were confronted by Gaspard Clay and two other men brandishing ax handles at them.

  “Up the steps!” Clay commanded. “And no tricks or we’ll use these on you!”

  Frank and Joe, seeing they had no alternative, entered the west wing of the museum, closely followed by their captors.

  “The Hardys!” Korbo exploded. “Where’d you find them?”

  Clay explained how he had caught the boys listening outside the window.

  “Then they must have heard everything we said!” Korbo grated.

  “Doesn’t matter, boss,” Morven rasped. “Now we can get rid of them for good.”

  Bryle scowled at the boys. “The time bomb I planted on your powerboat should‘a done you guys in a couple of days ago!”

  “You made the mechanism too loud,” Frank told him. “We heard it when we cut the engine.”

  “Well, you only postponed your fate,” Clay smirked. “I tried to warn you off the weather vane case and told you the hex was on you, but you wouldn’t take the hint. Now you’ll pay for it!” He turned to Morven. “Tie ‘em up. We’ll drop them into the Chesapeake Bay!”

  Morven produced a rope and shoved the boys against the far wall next to the door to the main building. He tied their ankles and bound their hands behind their backs.

  “Can’t we at least sit down?” Joe spoke up. “It’s not our intention to make you comfortable,” Korbo replied sarcastically. “Not only are you going to stand up, you’re going to shut up!” He turned to Morven. “Gag‘em, Crow!”

  Morven tied handkerchiefs across the boys’ mouths. Then he drew a four-pronged grappling iron from under a table. “This is what we used the night we snatched the Flashing Arrow,” he said with an evil grin. “It’ll sink you in the bay when we get there!” He looped the rope with which he had tied their ankles around the prongs of the grappling hook so it served as an anchor holding them in place.

  “Now we’d better start loading the truck,” he suggested. “We don’t want to waste any more—”

  A police siren in the distance interrupted Morven’s sentence.

  “The cops!” Korbo exploded as the sound grew louder. “They’re coming this way. Everybody duck!” He ran to the door and locked it, then snapped off the light, plunging the room into darkness. Seconds later several squad cars roared up and surrounded the museum.

  “You cannot escape!” Mr. Hardy announced through a bullhorn. “Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up!”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then Korbo recovered his wits. “We have Frank and Joe Hardy in here, and we’ll blow their heads off unless you let us go to our truck and get out of here!”

  “You want a murder rap against you in addition to all the other charges?” Mr. Hardy demanded.

  “I want to get out of here and I have enough bullets for all of you!” Korbo screamed in rage.

  “What if your bluff doesn’t work?” Morven hissed. “Maybe we should try to escape through the east wing!”

  “Shut up!” Korbo grated. “Don’t you realize they’ve surrounded the whole place?”

  Frank tugged on his bonds in frustration. If only he could tell his father that the gang was unarmed! As he moved, he felt something scraping his back. “Feels like a light switch,” he thought. He remembered a signal he had once worked out with his father when they were staking out a hut in the woods. “The coast is clear” was transmitted by turning his flashlight on, off, and on again in equal intervals. His heart pounded as he manipulated the switch behind him. Would it work?

  Suddenly the room was bathed in light. Before the gang could figure out what had happened, Frank turned the light off, then on again. Mr. Hardy instantly recognized the message, and moments later the police broke through the door. “Hands over your heads!” they commanded. Stunned a
nd dazed, the criminals obeyed.

  Mr. Hardy and John Hammerley had followed the officers, and the Bayport sleuth untied his sons.

  “After dropping Clifford Hunter off in Washington, I flew out to Lancaster and called Mr. Hammerley,” their father explained while he took off their gags. “He told me you had ridden into town and he asked me to meet him at police headquarters. Then we decided to check on the museum.”

  “Good thing you did,” Frank said with a sigh of relief. “We were to be dropped into the bay after the crooks got away.”

  The police chief was amazed when he recognized the members of the gang. “Joshua Korbo and Gaspard Clay were two of the most respected men in the county!” he exclaimed.

  “That’s how they got away with it,” Joe pointed out. “Nobody suspected them, including us.”

  An idea struck Frank. “Clay,” he addressed the curator, “I bet you followed us that day we found you crabbing.”

  Clay looked sullen. “Why should I tell you anything?”

  “Because if you cooperate, things will go easier for you,” Mr. Hardy said. “However, I want you to understand that you don’t have to answer without consulting with your attorney first.”

  Clay realized he was defeated. With a helpless shrug, he looked at Frank. “Yes, I followed you. I saw your powerboat explode and realized you swam ashore. So I stopped to crab, ahem, where I thought you’d hear me and come down for a look. If you had ridden back with me to the marina, I might have disposed of you on the way. Unfortunately, you refused.”

  “Not so unfortunate for Clifford Hunter,” Frank said pointedly.

  Clay glared at the boys. “You knew about Chesapeake Crossing from the paper Bryle dropped in the helicopter. But how did you know enough to come to the museum tonight?”

  “Easy,” Joe replied. “You told us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Joe described how Frank had discovered that the squeaky voice on the cassette was Clay’s. “So,” he added, “we thought something must be up at the museum.”

  Korbo seethed. “You guys know everything, don’t you!”