The Secret of Pirates' Hill Read online

  “Boy, the real thing!” he remarked in a low voice. “They’re heavy. And look at this edge, Frank.” Taking an old envelope from his pocket he sliced it in half with an effortless motion.

  “I’d say these are more dangerous than the cannon,” Frank murmured. “Maybe that’s why some of the Society members don’t want them on exhibit here.”

  “How about a look at the heavy artillery?” Joe said as the boys replaced the cutlasses in the case.

  They looked about for the custodian to show them the basement entrance, but could not locate him.

  “I guess we can find our way,” Frank said.

  He walked over to a door and pulled it gingerly. Instead of leading to the basement, it opened into the auditorium.

  Aunt Gertrude was on the dais, gavel in hand. “The meeting will come to order,” she said with authority, and the ensuing bang made it plain that she meant every word.

  As the members quieted, Frank saw the custodian seated in the front row. He was a small, thin man with gray hair and a wispy mustache. The boys decided not to bother him.

  “Let’s try this door,” Joe said, walking across the corridor. He turned the knob. The door yawned open into pitch blackness.

  “This is the basement entrance, all right.” He reached inside for the light switch and flicked it on. Nothing happened.

  “I guess the bulb’s burned out,” Joe said. “I’ll get a light from the car, Frank.”

  He hurried outside and brought back a flashlight which the boys carried with them at all times. As he beamed it down the steps, Frank lifted the case of cutlasses to his shoulders.

  “Lead the way, Joe.”

  Joe went slowly down the cellar steps.

  “Careful,” he warned. “They’re steep.”

  The next moment he pitched forward. A blow on the side of his head had knocked him unconscious!

  “Joe, what happened?” Frank cried as the flashlight flew forward and rolled under a table.

  In the feeble glow Frank missed his footing and lost his balance. The case of swords fell from his shoulder and landed with a jangling crash. Frank banged his head on the case and blacked out.

  His outcry and the crash of the case threw the Historical Society meeting into an uproar. Mr. Lightbody jumped to his feet.

  At the same time Aunt Gertrude pounded her gavel for order. “Keep calm. I’ll find out what’s wrong downstairs. Come, Mr. Lightbody. Vice-President, please take the chair!”

  Miss Hardy charged to the basement door ahead of the custodian and groped her way down the steps. “Frank! Joe!” she called.

  She found the flashlight, which was still beaming. Waving it around, she gasped.

  Dashing for the open window was a man in a motorcycle jacket, a mask over his face.

  In his arms were five cutlasses, which had been hurled from the case. The sixth lay on the floor, next to the motionless Hardys.

  Quickly sizing up the situation, Aunt Gertrude reached down for the sword, at the same time crying, “You scoundrel! What have you done to my nephews?”

  With a flailing motion, she slapped the man’s back with the broad side of the cutlass. He shoved her back.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” she cried out.

  Thwack! She hit him again. Terrified, the burglar dropped the five cutlasses and leaped to the sill. As he started to crawl through the window, Aunt Gertrude whacked him again!

  CHAPTER VII

  The Battle of Bayport

  THE next moment the intruder was gone. Miss Hardy turned her attention to Frank and Joe.

  “Where’s the electrical panel, Mr. Lightbody?” she asked.

  “Under the stairs.” He found it and reported that the basement switch had been pulled, probably by the intruder. The custodian flicked the handle up and the place was flooded with light.

  “What happened?” someone called out from the top of the stairs. “Do you need help?”

  “Phone the police,” said Miss Hardy as she began to chafe her nephews’ wrists and the backs of their necks. They soon regained consciousness.

  The only injuries the boys had sustained were bruises on their heads. Joe surmised that he had been hit with a blackjack.

  After Aunt Gertrude had given a brief description of the assailant, Frank said tersely, “Sounds like Latsky. Let’s check for clues to make sure.”

  As they searched, Mr. Lightbody said the basement windows were always locked. The intruder must have forced one open.

  When Chief Collig arrived, Aunt Gertrude told him the story of the attempted theft. “Frank and Joe think it was Latsky,” she concluded.

  The officer agreed. But a search outside failed to reveal any clues.

  The Hardys were still looking in the basement for clues when Chief Collig came downstairs. Suddenly Frank said, “Hey, here’s a button from the fellow’s jacket!” On the floor near the open window lay a triangular black button imprinted with a motorcycle wheel!

  Collig dropped the button into his coat pocket and said, “The motorcycle rider hasn’t come back to the cabin yet, but I’m hoping he’ll show up soon.”

  After the chief had left, Joe turned to his aunt. “We haven’t thanked you for saving us from further damage.”

  “Oh, well, somebody had to look after you!” she said, going out the door. “Mr. Lightbody, lock and bar the window. Boys, take those cutlasses. Let’s see, where will they be safe? There’s a closet upstairs. We’ll lock them in there for the time being.”

  When Mr. Lightbody and the boys climbed upstairs a few minutes later and put away the swords, they found Aunt Gertrude surrounded by members of the Society, praising her for her winning the “Battle of Bayport.”

  “It was nothing,” she insisted. “Now we’ll resume the meeting.”

  All the members followed her into the auditorium except Mr. Lightbody. “I can tell you about a real Battle of Bayport,” he said to Frank and Joe.

  He explained that in reading pirate lore, he had learned that in 1756 a buccaneer ship had attacked two armed merchantmen off Bayport. One of the trading vessels had been sunk with all the officers and crew lost. The other merchantman had managed to sail away.

  “The pirate ship,” Mr. Lightbody continued, “had had so much of her sail raked by the cannon of the merchantmen that she was unable to give chase. Instead, for some unknown reason, she sent a landing party ashore. Some time later the party returned aboard and the pirate ship limped off.”

  “Where did this happen?” Joe asked.

  “Off Pirates’ Hill,” Mr. Lightbody replied. “The hill is really named after that incident.”

  Frank and Joe eyed each other. Maybe this was the basis for Jim Tilton’s account of the cannon buried in the sand!

  “That’s quite a story,” said Frank. “And now we’d like to see the old cannons in the basement.”

  Mr. Lightbody led the way down another stairway and unlocked a door to a dusty, vaultlike room. Three old weapons, green with age, were set up in a row on oak mounts.

  “All three are British pieces,” the custodian said. “They’re a minion, a saker, and a pedrero. And they’re all made of cast bronze.”

  “What interesting names!” Joe exclaimed.

  “The saker was named after the saker hawk, one of the fiercer birds used in falconry. The pedrero—you’ll notice that it’s longer than the others—Is relatively lighter because it was used to hurl stone projectiles. The minion is the smallest.”

  “They have beautiful decorations,” Frank observed.

  The pieces were covered with flower-and-leaf designs. Atop the saker, at its balance point, was a handle in the shape of a dolphin.

  “This handle,” Mr. Lightbody explained, “was used for lashing or lifting the piece. And cannon like these often had colorful nicknames set in raised letters on the barrel.”

  “This first one is marked Wasp,” Joe commented. “The other cannons have no names on them.”

  The boys studied them for a while, then Mr. Ligh
tbody locked the door and led the way upstairs. Reaching the hall, Frank whispered to Joe, “That clue to the demiculverin petered out. Let’s try Pirates’ Hill next.”

  “Right. We’ll go there tomorrow.”

  Just then Aunt Gertrude, followed by the other Society members, came from the meeting room. The boys’ aunt was beaming.

  “The Society has just voted to present us Hardys with one of the cutlasses,” she told them.

  Frank and Joe grinned in delight, “Great!” said Frank, and Joe added, “It’ll be a swell souvenir of the Battle of Bayport! Let’s take the one you used to scare off the thief!”

  He and Mr. Lightbody went to the closet to get it.

  The Hardys returned home directly and Joe made a rack for the prized cutlass. Frank hung the weapon on the stairway wall.

  “Looks good,” Joe remarked. “I think Dad will like it.”

  As the boys prepared for bed, they speculated about the masked thief’s reason for wanting the cutlasses. But they could come to no conclusion and finally they fell asleep.

  Next morning after breakfast the boys made plans for their trip to Pirates’ Hill.

  “Bowden seemed pretty sure the demiculverin’s somewhere around there,” Frank mused. “Let’s try to get a little more information from him before we leave.”

  He went to the phone and called the Garden Gate Motel.

  “Bad news,” he said, returning to Joe. “Bowden checked out early this morning!”

  Joe stared at his brother. Then he asked, “Florida?”

  “He left no forwarding address. Bowden must really be scared of somebody.”

  Frank and Joe decided to postpone their trip to Pirates’ Hill and look for Bowden instead. They would go the rounds of local gas stations, hoping to find that the man had stopped at one and might have mentioned his destination.

  They visited one after another without result. As they were about to return home, Joe said:

  “Frank, there’s a gas station about two miles out of town on Route 7. Maybe Bowden stopped there.”

  They headed for the place and a few minutes later pulled in. A boy was in attendance.

  “Say,” Frank said to him, “did a man stop here this morning in a green Pontiac hardtop?”

  “Yes,” the attendant replied.

  “Was he about thirty-five years old, stocky build, and did he have wiry black hair?

  “Yes.”

  Frank said they were trying to find him and wondered where he had gone.

  “Said he had a business deal in Taylorville.”

  Elated, the Hardys grinned broadly and thanked the boy.

  “I hope we can make Taylorville before Bowden pulls out of there too,” Frank said.

  He kept the convertible at a steady pace and they reached Taylorville at twelve o’clock. The town was a fair-sized one, and the streets swarmed with cars and people during the lunch-hour rush.

  The boys began a systematic search for Bowden’s car, going up one street and down another. After they had exhausted the business area, they started on the residential section.

  “I see it!” Frank cried out presently.

  Bowden’s green hardtop was parked in front of an old-fashioned house which advertised that luncheons and dinners were served there.

  “Maybe he’s eating,” Joe remarked. “Let’s park our car around the corner so he won’t spot it.”

  Frank agreed this was a good idea and kept going. He pulled into a secluded, dead-end street and locked the convertible. As they walked back toward the restaurant, Frank suddenly grabbed his brother’s arm. “We’d better duck. Here he comes!”

  “Where?” Joe asked.

  “From that house down the street—the big white one.”

  They stepped in back of a hedge and watched the suspect. He went directly toward his car but did not get in. Instead, he turned into the walk which led to the restaurant and disappeared inside.

  “What a break!” said Frank. “Joe, you watch the restaurant. I’ll go over to that big white house and see if I can find out what Bowden was doing there.”

  Fortunately the restaurant was almost completely screened from the street by tall trees and shrubbery. There was little chance of Bowden seeing the Hardys.

  “You can’t just walk into that house and ask about him,” Joe said. “Suppose whoever lives there is in league with him?”

  “I’ll have to do a little acting,” Frank agreed. “Pose as a salesman, for instance, and just try to get a conversation going.”

  “Okay. Now what’ll I do if Bowden suddenly comes out?”

  “Run for our car and give two blasts on the horn. I’ll come over right away so we can follow him.”

  Frank hurried across the street and rang the bell of the big white house, planning his strategy as he waited.

  A thin, white-haired man answered the door. Smiling, Frank inquired if he were Mr. Chestnut. When the man shook his head, Frank asked if he knew where Mr. Chestnut lived.

  “Never heard of anybody by that name around here,” the elderly man said. He chuckled. “But you came close, son. My name’s a tree one, too, It’s Ash.”

  Frank laughed. Then he said, “I’m Frank Harber from the Nationwide Insurance Company. You see, we are introducing a new medical plan and Mr. Chestnut had inquired about it. The girl on our switchboard must have gotten the address wrong. Anyway, since I’m here, would you like to hear some more about it yourself?”

  Mr. Ash smiled. “Sorry, but I’m already covered sufficiently. Besides, I just spent all my money. A salesman was here a few minutes ago and sold me some stock.”

  Frank’s heart leaped. He was learning more than he had bargained for!

  CHAPTER VIII

  Spies

  WITHOUT seeming to be too inquisitive, Frank asked Mr. Ash, “Was it oil stock you bought?”

  The elderly man shook his head. “It was mining stock. The Copper Slope Mining Company. Ever hear of it?”

  Frank said he had and in fact his father owned some.

  “I’ll bet Dad will be surprised to hear what Bowden is selling,” Frank thought, then said aloud, “Where could I find the salesman if I should want to buy some stock?”

  Mr. Ash told him the man’s name was Bowden and he was staying at the Garden Gate Motel in Bayport. “That’s where he told me to phone him if I wanted more.”

  Frank was so amazed that he almost blurted out the fact that Bowden was no longer at the Garden Gate Motel. He thanked Mr. Ash for his courtesy, then walked quickly down the street. Joining his brother, he told him what he had learned. Joe was equally amazed and puzzled. Though the stock was high grade, Bowden’s method of transacting business seemed strange. Both boys surmised that the stock certificate he had given Mr Ash was probably a phony one.

  “We’ll wait for Bowden and trail him,” Frank stated.

  It was not long before the suspect came out of the restaurant and got into his car. Frank and Joe dashed around the corner and hopped into their convertible. The trail led toward Bayport, and when they reached the outskirts, Bowden not only turned into the Garden Gate Motel, but went to Room 15, unlocked it, and stepped inside.

  “Well, can you beat that!” Joe said.

  The boys parked and went into the office to speak to the clerk who had given Frank the information about Bowden’s leaving. The man looked surprised.

  “I thought you said Mr. Borden on the phone,” he explained. “Sorry. Mr. Bowden is still in Room 15.”

  The boys went to see him and held a casual conversation about Pirates’ Hill, saying they were going to start searching that area. Frank asked Bowden if he had any suggestions for them.

  “No, I haven’t,” he replied. “But I’m glad to hear you’re going to start work. I don’t know how long I can wait around here.”

  “Are you thinking of leaving soon?” Joe asked casually, hoping for information.

  “Oh, not right away,” Bowden answered. “But staying here to locate that demiculverin is taking
a lot of my valuable time.”

  “I understand,” said Frank. “Well, we’ll let you know what we find out.”

  Since it was too late to search on Pirates’ Hill that day, the boys went home. They gathered the various tools which they would use for their digging and put them in the convertible.

  “We’ll have to take time out from the beach party tomorrow to make a search,” said Frank.

  Shortly after breakfast the next morning the phone rang. Frank answered the call. It was from Mr. Lightbody. In a highly excited voice the curator cried out:

  “The Historical Society building was broken into late last night, and the cutlasses have been stolen!”

  “Stolen!” Frank exclaimed. “How did the thief get in? Didn’t you secure all the windows?”

  “Yes, of course. This time a rear door of the building was forced.”

  “Joe and I will be right over,” said Frank.

  The entire family was upset by the news. Aunt Gertrude declared that she was going along.

  “I feel a personal responsibility for those cutlasses,” she said.

  Miss Hardy and the boys set off at once. By the time they reached the Historical Society building, Chief Collig was there.

  “This certainly is unfortunate,” he said. “I can’t understand how that thief got in here so easily.”

  “Don’t forget, Latsky is a safecracker,” Joe reminded the chief.

  “Wait a second,” Frank said. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know for certain that it was Latsky who broke in here the second time.”

  Chief Collig agreed with Frank’s reasoning. He said he would put extra men on the case and notify the State Police to be on the lookout for Latsky.

  “Neither he nor anyone else has shown up at the cabin in the woods,” the officer reported. “I believe the fellow knows we’re watching the place and won’t return.”

  At that moment there was a loud booming of the old mortar in the town square. Frank and Joe looked at each other and smiled. They had completely forgotten that it was Independence Day! They had planned to watch the parade, then start off for the beach party.