The Curse of the Ancient Emerald Read online

  “What about dessert?” cried Aunt Trudy as we hurried from the kitchen. “It’s apple pie!”

  “Keep it warm, Aunt T,” I called back. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

  We went into Frank’s room, and he sat down in front of his computer. He typed the URL into his browser. When the page loaded, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a video of the stolen painting!

  Frank pushed play, and we watched in horror as something was sprayed across the painting from off camera. Then we heard a scratching noise, and a match suddenly appeared, flying through the air.

  The painting erupted in flames.

  “No way,” I said breathlessly.

  The canvas started to bubble and peel, the boat and waves turning black. The fire raged for about thirty seconds, and by the end of the clip there was absolutely nothing left of Sun Greets Shipwreck.

  “How much did the tour guide say that painting was worth?” Frank whispered.

  “A hundred thousand dollars.”

  Frank studied the note while I replayed the clip, wondering if it was a fake. But I didn’t think it was. This painting had the exact same section in the upper right-hand corner that Mr. Ramone had spent the past two months cleaning up. That same bright patch of sun contrasted with the rest of the painting, which was still dull and dirty. It was the real deal.

  “What does it mean?” asked Frank. “How could we have prevented this?”

  “By catching the thief at the museum?” I suggested.

  “I don’t think so. It’s like it’s referring to something else—something we should know.” He got up from his desk. “Come on.”

  Frank led the way to the entrance hall table where the mail was stored. Dad was away in Moscow, researching Russian law enforcement techniques for a book, and Mom was preparing for a huge open house this weekend, so the mail had piled up over the past couple of days.

  Frank quickly flicked through letters and pulled one out addressed to Frank and Joe Hardy. He checked the postmark on the front. “This was delivered yesterday,” he said, ripping it open.

  I looked over his shoulder as he unfolded a single piece of paper. Sure enough, it was another note made from mismatched letters.

  The storm will come, the ship will fail,

  The brothers must think, or the art will sail.

  The history of old meets technology of new.

  To protect the ship, this is your clue.

  I looked at Frank in amazement. “And this came yesterday?”

  Frank double-checked the postmark. “It sure did. And our mail is always delivered in the morning.”

  “Then . . . we really could have stopped it?”

  Frank frowned, rereading the riddle. “I don’t know. The riddle’s pretty vague, don’t you think? I mean, would you have known it was talking about the painting?”

  I furrowed my eyebrows. “Probably not. At least, not at first. But if we’d read the riddle beforehand, we might have realized what it meant when the tour guide showed us the painting.”

  “True.”

  “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  “We don’t have a choice. We take this to Chief Olaf.”

  I groaned. “Can’t we just leave it in an envelope at the police station?”

  Bayport Police Chief Olaf had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about the Hardy boys. I never quite figured out what his problem was, but my guess is it’s an insecurity thing. Frank and I had solved more cases in the past few years than he had in his whole life. He seemed to think we were just kids poking our noses into grown-up affairs.

  Which, to be fair, we kinda were. But still, we had nabbed our share of crooks over the years.

  Frank clapped me on the back. “Sorry, bro. Fires? Explosions? This seems like one for the police to handle.”

  I sighed. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”

  THE PHANTOM

  3

  FRANK

  A HALF HOUR LATER, I resisted the urge to lean over Chief Olaf’s shoulders and type the website’s address for him. His one-finger typing was driving me insane. I couldn’t believe people still typed like that in this day and age!

  “This better not be a video about that monkey falling off a tree branch,” said Chief Olaf, giving us a stern look from behind his desk.

  “It’s better than that,” said Joe.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say better,” I added. “But definitely a lot more serious.”

  Chief Olaf finally finished typing the address, then moved the mouse to play the video and sat back with a sigh.

  Joe and I were sitting on the other side of the desk, but I could tell just by watching his face what parts of the video clip he was watching.

  “Is that . . . ?” he began.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Joe.

  The chief’s eyes went wide with shock. He watched the whole thirty-second clip, then tore his gaze away to study the letter that had been couriered to us today.

  “What does it mean, you could have stopped this?”

  Joe and I exchanged looks. This was the bit that was going to be tricky. If Chief Olaf didn’t believe us, we were in big trouble.

  I handed him the riddle, which he read, frowning. Then he rubbed his forehead.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s a riddle,” said Joe. “Telling us that he was going to steal the painting.”

  “It arrived at our house yesterday morning,” I added. I held up my hands as I saw Chief Olaf inflate with anger, getting ready to scream at us. “But we only saw it this afternoon. Promise.”

  Chief Olaf regained control of his breathing, which seemed to take considerable effort. He still looked suspicious of us, though.

  “Seriously, Chief,” I said. “Even if we’d gotten this yesterday, we wouldn’t have had a clue as to what it was about. It’s just gibberish.”

  “That it is,” Olaf agreed grudgingly. He frowned again. “But why was it sent to you?”

  “We have absolutely no idea,” replied Joe.

  “It’s true,” I agreed. “Your guess is as good as ours.”

  “I sincerely doubt that,” muttered the chief. “I’ll keep hold of these letters,” he added, getting to his feet.

  “Fine,” I said.

  Chief Olaf picked up his key ring from the desk and clipped it to his belt. He always carried his keys like that. I’d told him before that it wasn’t very secure, but he just waved me away.

  “And if you receive any more riddles, bring them straight to me, understand?”

  “Understood,” said Joe.

  He stared at us as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe us. Then he jerked his head toward the door. “Get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

  Joe and I quickly left his office and made our way through the police station, emerging into the late-afternoon light.

  “What now?” asked Joe.

  “Chief Olaf asked a good question,” I said.

  Joe looked at me in astonishment. “He did? I must have missed that.”

  “Why was the riddle sent to us?” I said.

  “Oh. That one.”

  I sighed. “You know, we never really got a chance to look around the museum.”

  “Surely the police did that,” said Joe.

  “I was watching them. They seemed more concerned with getting statements from us and heading off to lunch than actually looking around.”

  “It’s a crime scene, though,” Joe reasoned. “It will be off-limits.”

  I shook my head. “It can’t hurt to check. If it’s taped off, we don’t go in.”

  Joe shrugged. “As long as we’re done before dinner. I’m starving.”

  I grinned. “You sound like Chet.”

  “Hey, the dude has a point,” Joe said. “If you’ve got a high metabolism, you need to keep your energy up, you know?”

  “Guess I’ll drive, then. Can’t have you passing out behind the wheel.”

  “That’s what I love about you, Frank. Always looki
ng out for your little bro.”

  We arrived at the museum twenty minutes later. It had been reopened, but since it was an hour before closing time, it was pretty much deserted. Joe and I retraced the path our class had taken earlier that day and stopped before the door with the STAFF ONLY sign.

  “We’re not staff,” Joe pointed out.

  “No, but we’re trying to help. If anyone says anything, we’ll just say we got lost.”

  Joe tried the doorknob. Luckily for us, the door was still unlocked from earlier. We hurried down the corridor to the restoration room. My hunch was right. There was no crime-scene tape across the door.

  I peered inside. Deserted. So the police must have already swept the room for evidence. But there was always a chance they’d missed something.

  We searched the room methodically, Joe taking the right side, me the left. We covered the floor slowly, just like our dad had taught us, our eyes moving two inches ahead of our feet, making sure we didn’t miss anything.

  It took us twenty minutes to cover the room.

  “This is hopeless,” complained Joe. “There’s nothing here.”

  “I think you’re right,” I agreed. “Let’s check the roof.”

  We moved along the corridor and through the storage room, then upstairs to the roof. Again, we each took half.

  I studied our surroundings before we started. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the roof was covered in a fine layer of dirt and dust. Not surprising, since Bayport hadn’t seen rain in a while. And perfect for picking up footprints.

  They were everywhere, and most of them seemed to be the heavy-booted imprints of the police from earlier this afternoon. I returned to the door and squatted down, searching for a different impression.

  There. A different shoe from the police boots. It looked like some kind of sneaker imprint.

  I followed the direction of the sneaker footprints to the spot where the robber had escaped.

  I frowned and backtracked. The same set of imprints veered off the path, creating a second trail that headed to a brick structure. I could hear noises coming from inside. The air-conditioning system.

  The footprints stopped before the wall. I knew the robber hadn’t had time to do this when Joe and I were chasing him. So these prints must have been from earlier, when he was setting up his escape.

  But why did he stop here?

  I looked up at the brick wall, which was covered in old graffiti tags. Most of them were faded and flaking away, but there was one piece that was new, sprayed over the top of everything else. It was some sort of symbol: a stylistic painting of a half-closed eye.

  I leaned in close and sniffed, catching the distinctive smell of spray paint.

  “Joe!” I called. “Over here.”

  He hurried over. “Did you find anything?”

  I pointed down. “The robber’s footprints stop here.” I pointed at the wall. “And that looks fresh.”

  Joe studied the wall with interest. “You think he did this?”

  “I do.”

  Joe took out his phone and snapped a photo of the symbol. Then he clapped me on the back.

  “Good work. First clue of the case.”

  “Now it’s Internet search time,” I said.

  Joe frowned. “How are we going to do that? It’s a picture.”

  I grinned at Joe. “Keep up with the times, little bro. You can search with images now.”

  Joe’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”

  “Come on, Joe. You’re too young to get left behind by tech,” I teased. “That’s Mom and Dad’s job.”

  We arrived back home just as the sun started to sink into the horizon. Mom was lifting groceries from the back of her car as we rolled into the driveway.

  “Hello, boys,” she said as Joe and I helped her pull the rest of the stuff from the backseat.

  “Busy day?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Always.” She narrowed her eyes and glanced between Joe and me. “Why are you two looking so lively?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, heading toward the back door.

  “You know exactly what I mean. You’ve got that glint in your eye. Just like your father gets when he’s working on something.”

  “We have no idea what you’re talking about, Mother,” said Joe innocently as we entered the kitchen and dumped the bags on the counter.

  “I’ll bet you don’t,” said Mom wryly. “Just be careful, whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “Always,” I assured her, giving her a peck on the cheek.

  Joe and I hurried to my room, and I booted up my computer. Joe connected his phone to the USB cable, and I transferred the picture he’d taken of the symbol.

  “Not bad,” said Joe, checking out his handiwork. “I could be a photographer if this whole detective thing falls through.”

  I rolled my eyes. After I hit the search button, a stream of results flooded the screen.

  “Look at that,” said Joe proudly. “Imagine how Dad would have done this. He’d have sketched the image, then he’d have to go talk to all his contacts, or search through hundreds of crime records to try and find what he needed to know. While we—”

  “While we have to trawl through a list of half a million hits,” I finished, scrolling down through the results with a groan.

  Most of the results were related to Egyptian hieroglyphs, but I didn’t think those were what we were looking for. The eye we had seen was drawn differently, not quite so stylized as the hieroglyphs.

  Another big result was the evil eye. The drawing looked similar enough to an evil-eye illustration that I printed out one of the result pages for later, just in case we needed it.

  “Can’t we narrow the search down a bit?” asked Joe.

  “Good idea,” I said, adding keywords like theft and burglary.

  The search page loaded, and I clicked on the first link.

  “Bingo,” I whispered.

  It was a newspaper report about a series of Bayport-area robberies committed fifteen years ago by a burglar called the Phantom. This Phantom left the image of the eye as a sort of calling card at each of the crime scenes.

  I clicked on another article about a theft committed against some wealthy art collector in New York.

  We found more articles along the same lines, each one detailing yet another crime.

  “He always seems to hit rich people,” Joe observed.

  We’d seen that kind of thing before: criminals convincing themselves that they weren’t really doing anything wrong, that they were committing “victimless crimes” because those targeted could afford it or were insured.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said, hitting the link to load up the next article. “Why did he send us the riddle?”

  “Uh . . . maybe that’s why,” said Joe, pointing at the computer screen.

  I looked at the headline.

  PRIVATE DETECTIVE FENTON HARDY CATCHES THE PHANTOM

  “No way,” I said softly, scrolling down to read the article.

  Private investigator Fenton Hardy has caught the infamous thief known as the Phantom. Hardy was brought onto the case when the Phantom, responsible for a string of high-profile burglaries, sent a riddle to local police detailing his next crime targeting a local art collector. Hardy cracked the riddle and arrived at the scene, surprising the Phantom mid-robbery.

  The Phantom, whose real name is Jack Kruger, is now serving fifteen years in a Bayport correctional facility.

  “Go Dad!” cheered Joe.

  “Yeah, Dad was hard-core back in the day,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t help us. If the Phantom really committed these crimes, who’s sending us the riddles now? The guy’s locked away.”

  “Maybe not,” said Joe. “Check the date.”

  “Fourteen years ago,” I said. “If he behaved himself in prison, he could easily be out on parole.”

  “And wanting revenge,” said Joe darkly.

  RIDDLE ME THIS

  4

  JOE
r />   I LEAPED OUT OF BED the next morning. Not even the prospect of school could kill my mood.

  I was excited; I’ll admit it. Nothing gets the blood flowing more than a case. I’ve read the same thing about race car drivers and mountaineers, or anyone who does extreme sports. When they’re doing what they love, time loses meaning. They feel alive.

  I know that’s how Dad felt when he was a PI. I think it’s how Frank feels, but he won’t admit it. I know it’s how I feel.

  I could smell the aroma of bacon coming from downstairs, so I pulled on a T-shirt and jeans and ran barefoot to the kitchen before Frank could eat it all.

  I gave Aunt Trudy a peck on the cheek and slid into my chair across from Frank.

  “You try Dad again?” I asked, pouring myself some orange juice. We’d tried calling him yesterday, but it was the middle of the night in Russia.

  Frank shook his head. “Thought we’d try after breakfast.”

  We dug into our food, but before we could finish, there was a knock on the door. I frowned and looked at Frank, my mouth full. “I’ll get it,” he said.

  He came back a minute later, just as I snatched back my fork from where I had been about to commandeer one of his strips of bacon. “Who was it?” inquired Aunt Trudy.

  “No one,” mumbled Frank. “Wrong address.”

  “What—” I started to say, but Frank shook his head sharply, and I shut up. Obviously something was going down, but he didn’t want Aunt Trudy to know about it.

  After we finished our breakfast in record time and were heading to the car, I asked Frank what was going on.

  He handed me an envelope.

  I turned it over. All it said on the front was Frank and Joe Hardy, written in black Sharpie. No stamp, no address.

  “You didn’t see anyone?” I asked.

  “No one. Clear both ways. He must have had a car.”

  I opened the envelope and pulled out the now-familiar sheet of paper with words and letters cut from magazines.

  Let’s play a game. Three nights. Three riddles. Three robberies. Let’s see how clever you really are. But keep the police out of it unless you want those closest to you hurt. Chet Morton. Amber Arlington. Your mother. Your aunt. I know all about your lives.

  The Phantom