The Jungle Pyramid Read online

  “Joe, nobody knows we’re here,” Frank said. “Too bad we didn’t have a chance to alert Dad before we followed the beard.”

  “Right. We’ll have to get out of this on our own,” Joe replied.

  Three quick knocks sounded on the door, followed by three slow ones, then the three fast ones were repeated. The men at the card table leaped to their feet.

  “Mr. Big!” Jake exclaimed. “That’s his signal. Get ready, and don’t talk out of turn.”

  He unbolted the door without looking through the peephole, and swung it open. Mr. Big entered.

  The Hardys gasped. John Armstrong, the administrative assistant of the Wakefield Mint walked into the room!

  “Everything in order, Jake?” he asked.

  “Sure thing, boss. Except a couple of prowlers came sneaking around the barn.”

  “Prowlers?” Armstrong sounded alarmed.

  “Don’t worry, boss. We caught ‘em and we’ve got ’em.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Over there.” Jake pointed to the comer where the two captives were tied up.

  Armstrong threw up his hands in astonishment. “Don’t you know who they are?” he demanded.

  “Should I?” Jake queried.

  “Well, maybe not. They’re Frank and Joe Hardy!”

  “Fenton Hardy’s sons?” Jake squinted uneasily. “That means the gumshoe is on to us.”

  Armstrong shook his head. “Hardy doesn’t know anything about our operation. And these two don’t matter any more.” He advanced toward Frank and Joe. “Fooled you, didn’t I?” he asked slyly.

  “You sure did,” Frank admitted. “First you steal the gold. Then you send us on a wild goose chase to Switzerland by spreading the rumor that the gold will be sold there.”

  “It would have been sufficient if my friend Rudolf Kling hadn’t picked a loser like Pfeiffer to do the talking,” Armstrong growled.

  Frank nodded. “Pfeiffer was caught in a burglary. And when we left Zurich after that, you sent us to Mexico by dreaming up the clue of the airplane, then insisted on traveling to Palango with Dad to get us and him as far as possible from Wakefield. The gold was here all the time.”

  Armstrong agreed. “The guy I had hired to fly it out gave me trouble on the time schedule. That’s why I had to keep you occupied in distant places. Then the idiot got himself arrested in Mexico City just before we came back. But I got a replacement for him, who’ll do the job tonight and—”

  Frank interrupted him. “Your pilot was arrested? Is his name Hank Corda?”

  “Right. I didn’t know about his connection with Murphy. He had Corda’s name and address on him, and when he was booked the cops found it. That was all I needed! But I fixed it. This is the final case for Frank and Joe Hardy. We’re going to drop you into the sea from our plane and this time tomorrow you’ll be playing with the fishes in the Caribbean!”

  The ringleader turned toward his henchmen. “Forget about these boys,” he said. “Our plane arrives around midnight. The pilot wants this to be a quick job. So do I.”

  “Everything is ready, boss.”

  Armstrong walked over to the gold bars, picked one off the top, and looked at it. It glittered in the glare of the overhead bulb.

  “That’s a beautiful sight,” he said. “I haven’t seen these since they were in the vault at the mint. I was at home when the theft took place, if you recall.”

  Jake grinned. “Best alibi anyone ever had.”

  Armstrong looked pleased. “I think so. Well, these bars have come a long way to get to this barn. From Siberia to Moscow to Zurich to Wakefield. Next stop—an uninhabited island in the Caribbean. We divide the loot there and go our separate ways. If we ever meet again, we don’t know one another.” Armstrong put the bar back on the pile. “Say, how have you fellows been killing time out here?”

  “Playing cards,” Jake replied.

  “How about dealing me in?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  Armstrong occupied the fourth chair at the table. Jake dealt the hands and the game began.

  Frank gently tried to pull his wrists apart. He felt a slight give in the ropes. Tapping Joe’s foot with his, he leaned toward his brother. “I may be able to untie myself,” he whispered. “How about you?”

  Joe tested his own bonds. “Not a chance.”

  Twisting his right wrist against his left, Frank felt the rope stretch. He explored with his fingers until they closed over the knot. Using his escape technique, he figured out how the knot had been tied and rubbed it between his thumb and finger. Gingerly he tugged at the shorter strand.

  It moved. Little by little, in an agonizingly slow process, Frank drew the shorter strand loose. His hands were free! He sat still for a moment, watching the card game. All four players were intent on the betting as the pot grew larger and larger.

  Frank pressed his shoulder against Joe’s to hide his fingers, which were working on his brother’s bonds. The second rope fell away and Joe was released.

  “They may not notice us,” Frank whispered, “if we sneak up into the haymow, go out the window, and shimmy down the drainpipe.”

  “What about the guy at the gate?” Joe asked.

  “We’ll worry about him when we get there. The first thing is to get out. Come on!”

  The Hardys rose slowly to their feet, never taking their eyes off the card game. They tiptoed over to the stairs. Frank led the way up step by step. As he placed his foot on the top rung, it creaked loudly.

  The noise cut through the stillness of the huge barn, setting up echoes in the rafters. Startled, Armstrong swiveled in his chair and looked for its source. He spotted Joe’s feet at the top of the stairs.

  “The Hardys are loose!” he cried angrily. “After them! Don’t let them get away!”

  The other three men scrambled to their feet, tipping over the chairs in their haste. They pounded across the floor to the stairs.

  Now that their escape had been discovered, Frank and Joe plunged forward into the haymow. The atmosphere was hot, the air was dusty, and the hay was slippery. The boys leaped to the right behind a high pile of hay. Staying low, they ran toward the opposite end of the haymow, slipping and sliding all the way.

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Jake and his two henchmen climbed into the loft.

  “Where are they?” Jake bellowed.

  Seeing no movement, he led the way to the left side, where clear boards offered easier footing. Frank and Joe saw them go past, and jumped into the middle of the hay, believing they could cross over and reach the stairs.

  But Joe’s feet shot out from under him. He skidded on the hay—right into Jake, who had doubled back. The unexpected collision caused Jake to tumble into a large haypile. He coughed, wheezed, and sneezed, then came up with wisps of dry weeds sticking from his hair. Before he could extricate himself, Frank and Joe ran down the left side while the other two pursuers came up on the right.

  A tall pole near the stairs at the far end of the loft reached up to a crossbeam. Frank shimmied up the pole onto the crossbeam, and Joe followed instantly. The brothers perched where they could look all the way across the haymow.

  “I hope they think we went downstairs,” Frank muttered.

  The three men gathered beneath them, panting, swearing, and looking around furiously. “They got to be up here!” Jake snarled. “We don’t go down till we find where they’re hiding!”

  “Which way?” said a plaid-shirted searcher. “Left or right?”

  “Left, right, up, and down! Look everywhere.”

  The Hardys were sure to be discovered. Frank signaled Joe. Balancing themselves on the crossbeam, they hurtled down simultaneously, hitting the three men across the shoulders and knocking them down in a heap. Then the boys dived for the stairs, and jumped down three steps at a time. When they reached the bottom, however, they ran straight into the muzzle of a gun!

  “Okay, wise guys,” Armstrong said. “The jig is up!”

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sp; CHAPTER XX

  In the Nick of Time

  As Armstrong gave his command, the Hardys froze in their tracks and raised both hands over their heads. Footsteps pounded down the stairs behind them.

  “Nice going, boss,” Jake called out.

  “Tie them up again,” Armstrong ordered, “and this time see that they stay that way!”

  Frank and Joe were hustled over to a corner and bound with ropes around their wrists and ankles. Jake tested the knots.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “These guys will stick around till we move them.”

  “Good,” Armstrong said. “All we have to do is take them with us and unload them from the plane at five thousand feet. By the way, you’d better bolt the barn door again.”

  Jake walked to the entrance and reached for the bolt. Wham! The door burst open, the edge striking Jake and knocking him off his feet!

  Fenton Hardy stepped into the barn, followed by the Wakefield chief of police and a number of officers. “Drop the gun, Armstrong!” the detective commanded.

  Armstrong hesitated for a second, then the rifle clattered to the floor. The police disarmed his henchmen, who sullenly refused to say anything.

  “We’d like to join the party,” Joe called out, “but we’re tied up.”

  Fenton Hardy walked over and unfastened the ropes. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” Frank replied. “But we wouldn’t have been for long. These men were going to let us take a long-distance swan dive into the Caribbean.”

  “You got here just in the nick of time,” Joe said, relieved.

  Armstrong swung around at the words. “Hardy,” he grated, “how did you figure out my little scheme?”

  “It hit me while I was keeping the front gate of the mint under surveillance. The guards at the mint had been hypnotized. And from the way my sons described Carlos Calderón, he, too, must have been in a trance.”

  “We wondered who did it,” Frank put in, “but never guessed the truth.”

  “Neither did I, Frank,” Mr. Hardy said. “For the longest time I suspected a third person who might have tailed us to Mexico. Yet Armstrong had the opportunity to hypnotize both the guards and Carlos! Of course, the theory seemed ridiculous. The administrative assistant to the director robbing his own mint! Nevertheless, I decided to shadow him, and it paid off.”

  “Dad, why didn’t you let us know?” Joe asked.

  “By the time I realized all this, you two had left your post at the rear gate of the mint. I presume you had good reason?”

  Frank described how they had seen the hypnotized man with the beard and decided to follow him.

  “Good thinking,” Mr. Hardy said. “Anyway, I went to a pay phone and called Chief Erikson, and he came on the run with his men to help me make this arrest.”

  “Glad to round them up, Fenton,” Erikson replied. “I know how often you’ve been right about criminals.”

  Mr. Hardy turned to Armstrong. “We saw you come out of the mint. You didn’t know it, but you had a police escort every step of the way through the woods to the barn.”

  “We collared the man with the rifle at the gate,” the chief took up the story. “Then we came up the road and watched the action in the barn for a while.”

  “You took a chance, Erikson,” Armstrong declared. “As Hardy just said, the hypnotism theory was just a hunch. If you had made a mistake, I could have had your badge.”

  Erikson shook his head. “Not really. You see, I come from Chicago, and I remember a stage hypnotist who called himself the Great Gordino. His pitch was to call for volunteers from the audience. He’d put them in a trance and make them perform odd antics, like playing leapfrog onstage, and so on. The Great Gordino got into trouble. He bet on the horses, lost heavily, and disappeared from the windy city one jump ahead of the sheriff.”

  “What was his real name?” Joe asked.

  “John Armstrong! I never connected Gordino with the Wakefield Armstrong until your father told me he suspected this man of being a hypnotist. Then I was sure. I felt we should go all out after this suspect.”

  Armstrong caved in. “Sure, I was Gordino in Chicago before I arrived in Wakefield and got a job at the mint. And I had debts. Then I became greedy and wanted some of this gold.”

  “So you figured out a way to rob the mint?” Frank prodded him.

  “I took a vacation in the Caribbean last winter. When I met Hank Corda, I made a deal with him. He put me in touch with Jake, who, with his men, cut the airstrip in the woods.”

  Jake glared at Armstrong, but did not deny the charges.

  “Then you hypnotized the mint guards, told them to turn off the alarm system and the cameras, and to let Jake in,” Frank deduced.

  Armstrong nodded. “It worked like a charm. I’m still a pretty good hypnotist.”

  “You’re a pretty good actor, too,” Fenton Hardy said. “You fooled me completely when you engaged me to handle the case. And here you were simply using me to divert suspicion from yourself.”

  “Of course. If anyone asked me what I was doing about the gold heist, I could say I hired the famous private investigator from Bayport to run down the clues. But you ran down too many, Hardy!”

  “Why did you have our father kidnapped?” Joe asked.

  “Because he brought you into the act. That spoiled my plans because with that many people working on the case, it became too dangerous. So we wanted to get him out of the way before he could tell you anything he might have found out.”

  “But when he escaped,” Frank said, “you left the note instructing your men to deep six F.H. in the glove compartment of the car used to transport the gold to the barn. You were giving Jake his orders.”

  Armstrong nodded. “Jake didn’t like this, so I tried to keep you all away until the gold was safely out of this country.”

  Joe turned to his father. “He sent us to Zurich and had the rumor spread about the Wakefield gold being sold there,” he said. “When that didn’t keep us there long enough, he dreamed up the clue about the plane with ‘Mexico City’ on it.”

  Mr. Hardy chuckled. “It must have been a surprise for you, John, when we actually found such a plane.”

  “It fit right into his plans,” Frank put in.

  “So you hypnotized Carlos Calderón in Palango to have another suspect who would take up our time,” Mr. Hardy said to Armstrong. “And when we came back to Wakefield earlier than it suited you, you gassed us in the motel. It was all part of your plot!”

  Armstrong became angry. “Nothing would have happened to you if you had listened to me! Why wouldn’t you stay in Mexico? When you refused, I had no alternative!”

  Frank chuckled. “You probably figured you had everything under control when you came out to the barn tonight. You must have been surprised to see Joe and me trussed up like a couple of chickens ready for the spit!”

  “Armstrong, your pilot will get a surprise, too,” Fenton Hardy said. “The police will have a welcoming committee waiting for him when he lands at the airstrip.”

  “The getaway plane is due very soon,” Frank reported. “We heard Armstrong say at about midnight.”

  “Put a stakeout at the airstrip at once,” Erikson directed his lieutenant. “Impound the plane, bring in the pilot, and have these prisoners taken away.”

  “Would you also call the Zurich police and have them arrest a man named Rudolf Kling,” Frank added. “He was Armstrong’s accomplice, who hired Pfeiffer to spread the rumor about the gold being sold in Switzerland.”

  Armstrong, Jake, and their two henchmen were led out in handcuffs. Mr. Hardy and Erikson walked over to the corner where the gold was stacked. The boys joined them. The bright shimmer of the bars dazzled them, and the hammer and sickle imprint was clearly visible.

  “I’ve always wanted to know what a million in gold looked like,” the police chief confided. “Now I do.”

  “If Armstrong’s plan had succeeded, it would have been one of the century’s mos
t notorious crimes,” Fenton Hardy observed.

  “But it failed, thanks to you Hardys,” Erikson pointed out. “By the way, Director Wadsworth of the mint returned from his vacation today. He’s upset about the whole thing and will be relieved to hear that you’ve solved the case.”

  “I’ll bet he won’t be pleased to hear who the culprit is,” Frank said.

  “True. On the other hand, the three guards who were arrested are vindicated now and will be back at their jobs soon.”

  The gold bars were loaded into the pickup, and two officers guarded them while a third took the wheel. Chief Erikson gave the Hardys a lift to their motel.

  The following morning Mr. Hardy spoke to Director Wadsworth on the telephone. He confirmed that the pilot had been arrested and thanked Mr. Hardy profusely for his help.

  “I would never have suspected John Armstrong,” the director said with a sigh. “I trusted him completely. Well, I’m glad he hired you to recover the gold.”

  The Hardys packed their bags and were soon on their way to Bayport. Frank felt a little disappointed, as he usually did when they wound up a case and the excitement was over. He did not anticipate their next thrilling adventure, Mystery of the Firebird Rocket.

  When they arrived home, they were greeted anxiously by Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” Mr. Hardy said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything is great!” Joe replied with a grin.

  “I’m sure it was dangerous,” Aunt Gertrude put in.

  “Oh no, Aunty, it was no trouble at all. By the way, we brought you a souvenir.”

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “You have a choice. Either a jaguar god or a feathered serpent!”