The Secret Panel Read online

  Batton refused. The two officers searched him. In his pockets they found a key ring with several keys on it, also a single, new-looking one. He admitted that it fitted the back door.

  “Where did you get it?” Mr. Hardy asked.

  “A friend gave it to me,” Batton replied. “He said the house belonged to him, but he wasn’t using it, and I could stay here whenever I wanted to.

  “Is that the same friend who will buy your loot?”

  “Ah—yes, yes, he is.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jack.”

  “Jack what?”

  “Don’t know. He never told me his last name.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Batton would reveal no more and Mr. Hardy asked Mac to take him into the kitchen for the time being and handcuff him to the door handle of the refrigerator.

  “I don’t believe a word he said about his friend,” the detective muttered. Then he renewed his investigation of the disk behind the oak leaf in the paneling.

  Almost immediately he was startled by the attraction of his stainless-steel watch to the metal piece on the wall. He searched the room for a powerful magnet, lifted the rug, and presently found the loose floor board.

  It was only a matter of seconds before the secret panel moved. Mr. Hardy gazed into the room beyond and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Dad!” Frank and Joe cried in unison.

  “Hi, boys!” Mr. Hardy was thankful to see his sons and Chet unharmed. Quickly he explained about John Mead and greeted Miss Johnson, who was elated about the rescue.

  “I thought we’d be here forever,” she said with a grateful smile.

  Frank introduced the patient on the cot. “Dad, this is Lenny Stryker.”

  The young man, whose fever had diminished greatly in the early-morning hours, sat up. “I feel terrible about the whole thing,” he said weakly.

  “Don’t try to talk,” Frank told him. “I’ll explain.”

  Lenny had revealed his experiences to the boys a little while before, and Frank related them to his father. The boy’s uncle had asked him if he would like a job to earn some money on the side to help his mother. The offer had been a trick.

  After being introduced by his uncle to several men, Lenny realized they were about to rob an appliance warehouse. He wanted no part in it but was forced to go along.

  He was so nervous that he could not carry out his assignment to take away the guard’s gun. He had started to run and the watchman had shot him in the leg.

  “I can’t understand,” Chet put in, “why your uncle should want an inexperienced person along on such a big job.”

  “I guess he was trying to get even with my mother,” Lenny told him. “He’s my father’s half brother and wanted to marry her. But she didn’t like him and now I can see why. I guess she knows he isn’t on the level.”

  Mr. Hardy nodded. “That explains a great deal. Is your uncle Whitey Masco—or rather Judd Merk?”

  “You know!” Lenny cried out in alarm.

  “Masco was an alias?” Frank asked in surprise.

  “Yes. Unfortunately I didn’t find out until yesterday, or we might have cracked this case sooner.”

  “Do I have to go to jail now?” Lenny asked in a frightened voice.

  “I don’t think so,” Mr. Hardy replied. “First you’ll be taken to the hospital. You’ll be in police custody, but I’m sure everything will turn out all right. Don’t worry, Lenny.”

  As for his uncle’s activities, Lenny could offer little. He had no knowledge of Merk’s personal life, and most of the boy’s harrowing experiences after being shot were already known. He had been taken to 47 Parker Street and had overheard Merk say, “We’d better hide the kid behind the secret panel.” Left alone briefly, he had dragged himself to the telephone and called his mother.

  “Good thing you did that,” Mr. Hardy said. Then he turned to the policeman at his side. “Mac, would you take Lenny to the hopital? Then drop our prisoner off at headquarters and explain the details to the chief so he can call off his hunt for the boys.”

  “Sure, Mr. Hardy.”

  Mac and his colleague carried Lenny outside, then led Mike Batton to the police car. The next instant they roared off.

  Mr. Hardy turned to the nurse. “Martha, do me a favor. Drive my car over to our house and tell Laura and Gertrude we’re okay. Take Chet with you, too.”

  “Boy! Will I be glad to get home!” Chet exclaimed. “I’m so hungry I could eat three meals at once!”

  “Are you staying here?” Miss Johnson asked Mr. Hardy.

  “Yes. The boys and I still have a job to do and we may not get back for several hours.”

  The nurse nodded and departed, leaving only the three Hardys and John Mead in the mansion.

  “What are we going to do, Dad?” Joe asked eagerly.

  “Follow a hunch. Frank told me before that he’d like to stay and do some special investigating.” He turned to his older son. “Okay, Frank. Let’s get started.”

  Frank led the way to the paneled wall in the secret room, pushed aside the bird’s wing, and showed his father the three slits which formed the strange Y symbol.

  “We tried to find out what to do with them, but had no success,” he explained. “Can you tell us anything about this, Mr. Mead?”

  The man shook his head. He reiterated his former statement of knowing nothing about the secret devices in the elder Mead’s home.

  “The whole thing is a great mystery to me,” he said.

  Mr. Hardy was staring at the unusual ring on Mead’s finger. He asked the man to take it off so that he could examine it. Mr. Mead watched eagerly as the detective took a magnifying glass from his pocket and studied the Y symbol.

  Suddenly Mr. Hardy smiled and moved something with his fingernail. To the amazement of the onlookers, the three pieces of the Y raised up in the shape of a miniature key.

  Quickly the detective inserted it into the slits on the wall and pulled open a small door.

  The others gasped. Within the opening beyond lay stacks of money!

  “Does—does that belong to my uncle?” Mead asked.

  Mr. Hardy quickly checked the serial numbers of the crisp bills. “No. It’s new. Judd Merk’s haul!”

  “From his television thefts?” Frank asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “But where do they sell the stolen sets?”

  “I found out they have a large operation on the West Coast. The goods are shipped to a factory there, then taken out of their original cabinets, The thieves replace them with cabinets carrying the brand name Soli, which they make themselves, and, with the necessary modifications, export them as their own.

  “But why do they use the Mead house to hide the money?” Frank asked.

  “It’s only temporary. Merk sets up a spot like this in each area where he plans to pull a series of burglaries. Since it is far removed from the actual plant, there is less chance of its being discovered. Also, none of the gang lives here, so it’s really quite safe.”

  Mr. Hardy took a set of ledgers and files out from under the stacks of money. “You see, he used this mansion strictly for the bookkeeping end. If he hadn’t tried to make the place into a hospital for his nephew, he might have gotten away with it.

  “There was a series of television burglaries in Pennsylvania about six months ago, and the police are sure it was Merk’s gang. But they still don’t know where he’s hiding out!”

  “What about his plant at the coast?” Joe inquired.

  “It was closed down by police yesterday. The man who was in charge there never saw Merk, didn’t know his name, and only spoke to him over the telephone.”

  “Where do we go from here, Dad?” Frank wanted to know.

  “I have a hunch Merk will come back for the money, even though he knows that we’re on his trail. There’s a good chance he didn’t keep the house under constant surveillance and that he didn’t see
us.”

  “In other words, the gang might think that Joe, Chet, Martha, Lenny, and I are still safely locked behind the secret panel?” Frank asked.

  Mr. Hardy nodded. “There’s one way to find out. ”Let’s hide and wait until dark!”

  CHAPTER XX

  The Trap

  “SUPPOSE Merk doesn’t show up?” Frank asked.

  “We’ll have the police take over after midnight,” his father replied. “He’s bound to come sooner or later!”

  The detective passed around the sandwiches he had brought from home, then the four settled down to wait. Mr. Hardy and John Mead posted themselves in the inner room behind the secret panel, which was then closed. Frank and Joe turned off all the lights and hid behind furniture in the library.

  Just after dusk there came a barely perceptible sound from the hall. The boys stiffened. A moment later they saw a man enter, faintly outlined in the glow of a flashlight. He carried a tool kit and a cutting torch.

  The man took a drill from the toolbox. After searching for a spot on the wall next to the secret panel, he began to bore through the wood.

  “He’s trying to open the safe from this side,” Frank thought. “But he won’t get very far.” He signaled Joe, and the next instant the boys jumped from their hiding place.

  As they did, the man put a match to the cutting torch and a blue flame shot out with a deadly hiss.

  “Stand where you are,” the intruder snarled, “or I’ll cut you in two!”

  Joe picked up a heavy chair and hurled it across the room. It knocked the man’s legs out from under him and he crashed to the floor. Frank leaped on top of him, and after a brief tussle pinned his arms behind his back. Joe shut off the deadly torch.

  “Turn the lights on and open the panel,” Frank told his brother.

  An instant later Mr. Hardy and John Mead stepped from the secret room.

  “We’ve got him at last,” Mr. Hardy said grimly. “You’re under arrest, Merk!” He informed the prisoner of his constitutional rights.

  “Okay, okay. I know them,” the man said, flashing looks of hate at the detective and his sons. He gazed at Mead without recognition. “Another dick?” he asked.

  Mr. Hardy shook his head. “This is John Mead, the owner of this house.”

  Merk sneered, “John Mead is dead.” Then he added, “He was a clever old man, but I guessed his secrets.”

  “You knew my uncle?” the Englishman asked, astonished.

  “So he was your uncle, eh? Sure I knew him. Met him on a train once and got myself invited here,” the thief bragged.

  Merk could not resist the temptation to boast. He said that the elder Mead had told him about his special hobby of concealed locks and hardware, and even mentioned the safe in the secret room.

  “He didn’t tell me the exact location, but I found it!” he gloated.

  During the conversation Merk had been edging toward the doorway. Now he made a dash into the hall. But Frank and Joe collared him in a second.

  “We’d better get this guy down to headquarters,” Mr. Hardy said. “Frank, let’s tie his hands.”

  Frank produced a length of rope from his pocket and they secured the prisoner’s hands behind his back. Then they all drove to Bayport in Merk’s car. On the way, Mr. Hardy coaxed Merk into telling more about his setup. Merk scowled at first, but then told his story with a sense of pride.

  The scheme for the burglaries and the modification and sale of the equipment had taken years to set up. When he came to Bayport to mastermind the local break-ins, Merk had heard of Mead’s death and remembered the eccentric’s house.

  “So you decided it would be a good place for you?” Frank asked.

  “Couldn’t ask for a better one. Mead had shown me the odd ring with the Y, and I knew about the safe. So, after some investigation and help from a locksmith I had a duplicate made!” Merk smirked.

  “And the rest was easy, eh, Merk?” Mr. Hardy remarked. “Well, here we are at headquarters. I’m sure Chief Collig will be interested in your story, and details about the rest of your gang, too!”

  A few days later the Hardys and Chet assembled in the Hardys’ living room, in anticipation of a celebration dinner Aunt Gertrude was preparing. Questions were asked and answers given.

  Mr. Hardy and the police had rounded up the other members of Judd Merk’s gang. Jeff proved to be the one who had accidentally dropped the list of TV warehouses and stores near Bilks’ garage when he had some work done to his car.

  John Mead, it turned out, had his tire changed by Bilks’ assistant, but since it was so long ago, he refrained from making a complaint.

  When Griff was captured he admitted having taken the old dory from the Mead boathouse and selling it to Chet. He thought Merk did not know about the boat.

  “His boss was furious when he found out about the sale,” Mr. Hardy said.

  “Exactly what made the boat so valuable to him?” Joe asked.

  “One night Merk had made a trip by boat to the mansion to store away some cash, but noticed a parked car in front. He had therefore locked the loot in the dory’s fish box and left. Griff had sold the boat, then retrieved it, and kept it hidden in a garage until he had a chance to bring it back to the boathouse.”

  “I should have known!” Chet said glumly.

  “It was John Mead’s car that Merk had seen,” Mr. Hardy went on. “John had just arrived in Bayport.”

  “Didn’t Merk get suspicious that the Mead place might have another visitor?” Joe asked.

  “No. He thought it was just a young couple parking away from the road. Obviously this had happened before.”

  “Well, what about my dory?” Chet exclaimed. “I want my money back!”

  “Eh—yes, Chet,” Mr. Hardy said somberly, “the police want to talk to you about that. Buying stolen property, you know—”

  The doorbell rang. “I believe an officer may be here for that very reason right now,” the detective concluded.

  Chet turned pale. “B-but I didn’t know the boat was stolen. I—”

  “Please answer the bell, Chet.”

  Confused and a little worried, Chet walked to the door. Officer Riley stood outside.

  “Just the person I want to see!” he said. “Suppose you tell me everything you know about the stolen dory.”

  Chet led the officer into the living room and tried, but the words stuck in his throat. In the midst of his efforts, Riley solemnly pulled an envelope from his pocket and gave it to the youth. When Chet opened it with shaking fingers, he gasped:

  “Why—it’s my money!”

  “Right. That guy Griff handed it over,” Riley explained. “Just sign this receipt for our records.”

  “I don’t have to go to jail?” Chet asked.

  His reaction brought whoops of laughter from Frank and Joe. The little trick they had played on Chet had been worked out beforehand with their father and Riley. For a moment Chet looked blank, then he caught on.

  “You win, fellows,” he said with a grin.

  After Riley had left, Chet turned to Mr. Hardy. “There are still a few questions I’d like answered.”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “Did the same man who stole the records from your files kidnap Martha Johnson?”

  “Yes. It was Jeff, the picklock we saw at the county fair. We got his prints as well as some others, but by the time the police received an FBI report, we were already hot on Merk’s trail.”

  Frank took up the story. “Actually, Merk had given Mike Batton the job of finding a way into our house to steal Dad’s file, because Jeff was out of town. Batton took a wax impression of our back-door lock. Then Jeff returned sooner than expected and Merk sent him over in case there was a lock on the files. It was the night that Martha Johnson was here. When Jeff overheard that she was a nurse, he kidnapped her to take care of Lenny.”

  “As far as Batton is concerned,” Joe explained, “he was a fairly new member of the gang. He was up to his n
eck in financial trouble, and a lot of people were threatening him for money. So he did some stealing on the side, cash and jewelry. When we caught him, he was about to hide the gems in the fireplace until he could get rid of them.”

  “He told me he knew a man named Jack, who would buy them, but it turned out he was lying,” Mr. Hardy added.

  “Did Merk know of Batton’s sideline?” Chet inquired.

  “No. Batton was the security leak in Merk’s organization. He put us on the gang’s trail.”

  At that point Chet gave a sigh. “Security leak or not, how about some food?”

  Frank laughed. “We’ll probably have nothing to do from now on but eat. Not a mystery in sight!”

  “I wouldn’t depend on that,” said Aunt Gertrude, who had just entered the room. “As soon as your convertible which Griff wrecked is repaired, you’ll be off on something new.”

  She was right. They would be asked to take on another case even before Judd Merk was brought to trial. It involved a strange search for The Phantom Freighter.

  “You know, Chet, we almost caught the thieves twice,” Frank told him. “Once when Joe and I were in the Mead house, Merk was there too. Jeff was outside and yelled to his boss, ‘We’d better go now!’”

  “You might have been caught yourselves,” Chet replied dryly.

  “Right. The other time was when I heard the groan,” Joe explained. “It came from Lenny Stryker, while somebody was opening the panel from inside.”

  “Whew! Did the crooks know you were there?”

  “I’m not sure if they were aware of it then, but eventually they found out we were on to them. Merk didn’t remove his loot fast enough, though.”

  “What about the place on Parker Street?” Chet asked.

  “They used that occasionally before you went over there and we all got tricked by Griff,” Frank replied.

  “I’m glad you fellows got me out of that pickle,” Chet said.

  “And I’m thankful you are all safe,” Mrs. Hardy spoke up. “I never know from minute to minute—”

  The doorbell rang again. Mr. Hardy asked Frank to answer it.