The Short-Wave Mystery Page 4

  “Hold those kids!” someone shouted

  “Guess you’re out of luck, Chet,” Joe said as they collected in a group again.

  “Great!” Chet groaned. “Ten bucks gone. Think of the hamburgers that would’ve bought!”

  “You’re telling us,” one of the urchins said wistfully. “I could sure use one right now.”

  “We might’ve earned a handout at the hot-dog drive-in stand if that cop hadn’t shown,” Jimmy grumbled.

  Riley gave a snort. “Earn a handout? That’ll be the day, any time you sidewalk cowboys do a lick of honest work! Just wait’ll the sergeant hears what you’ve been up to!”

  “If they’re hungry,” Frank said diplomatically, “why not let them go home for a decent meal? We’ll take them—it’s almost suppertime.”

  “Not for us it ain’t,” Jimmy muttered.

  “Why not?”

  “My ma doesn’t get home from work till after eight. Mike and Tommy have to get their own meals, too—when they get ’em at all.”

  Frank was taken aback. He drew Policeman Riley aside and whispered earnestly.

  Riley nodded. “Okay, I’ll give ’em a break this time.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Frank then made for a nearby telephone booth and dialed the Hardys’ number. Aunt Gertrude, who by now had returned home, answered his call.

  At first, when Frank suggested bringing the street waifs home to dinner, she was horrified. But after he had explained the situation, Miss Hardy softened. “Humph! Well, of course, if they’re really hungry, that’s different. I’ll set some extra places.”

  The youngsters looked flabbergasted at Frank’s invitation. Mike, a happy-go-lucky type with tousled black hair, and Tommy, scrawny, with big blue eyes, seemed ready to accept, but both glanced at Jimmy before speaking. Evidently he was the ringleader.

  “What’s the catch?” Jimmy demanded gruffly.

  Frank rumpled his hair. “Stop looking for catches, wise guy. Here’s a chance for some free chow. Better take it.”

  “Well... okay.”

  At the Hardy house, Aunt Gertrude took one shocked look at the dirty urchins, then set her jaw firmly. “March them right up to the bathroom and get them cleaned up!” she ordered. “Soap and plenty of hot water—but don’t use the good guest towels! Chet, you’re staying too, of course, so you can help.”

  Grinning, the older boys obeyed. By the time dinner was served, their three young charges had been scrubbed until they glowed, and their hair combed neatly. Mr. Hardy, meanwhile, had arrived from the airport. He was somewhat astonished at the array of guests but made no comment.

  When Aunt Gertrude saw how the youngsters, once their shyness had worn off, attacked their plates of delicious hot roast beef and mashed potatoes, she beamed with pride. “Well,” she murmured across the table to her brother, “at least they know what to do with good food.”

  Later, as they waited for Miss Hardy to serve dessert, the detective said to Frank and Joe:

  “The FBI’s becoming more and more concerned about these industrial thefts. That code message you picked up may be a real lead. Before we talk about it, though, how are you two crook-chasers making out on the Batter case?”

  Mr. Hardy’s words seemed to have an electric effect on Jimmy Gordon. His eyes blazed. “Crook-chasers? Batter case?” He glared at Frank and Joe. “So it’s just like I thought—you two are nothing but stooges for the cops!”

  Almost knocking over his chair, he sprang up and darted for the door with a wave to Mike and Tommy. “Come on! This whole deal’s some kind of a dirty frame-up! Scram, guys—scram!”

  CHAPTER VI

  Tip-off Note

  THE Hardy boys acted fast and managed to restrain Mike and Tommy before they could leave the table. But Jimmy was already streaking into the hallway. Aunt Gertrude, however, had heard the uproar from the kitchen and took prompt action.

  She darted into the hall, snatched an umbrella from the closet, and charged aftei him. As Jimmy yanked open the front door, she snagged his arm with the crook of the umbrella.

  “Stop right there, young man! I want to have a word with you!”

  Jimmy was about to flare back, bu one glimpse of Aunt Gertrude’s wrathful expression changed his mind. “Let me go!” he whined.

  “Don’t talk back to me, you imp! Just where did you leave your manners? Get to the table this instant!”

  There was a chuckle from Fenton Hardy. “Better do as she says.”

  Scowling, with his lower lip outthrust, Jimmy plodded sullenly back to the dining room.

  “Sorry if I frightened you lads,” Mr. Hardy said, resuming his place at the table. “Didn’t Frank and Joe mention that I’m a private investigator?” The youngsters shook their heads.

  “And the Batter case has nothing to do with you, Jimmy,” put in Frank. “Your aunt asked Joe and me to recover some stuffed animals that were stolen from the auction at your uncle’s place.”

  Jimmy gave the Hardy boys a surprised stare. “Is that why you were nosing around out there?”

  “Right,” Joe acknowledged. “The thieves’ getaway car grazed a tree and we were checking the bark for paint traces.”

  “Hey! That’s keen!” said Mike.

  Tommy murmured, “Private eyes!” His blue ones were big with amazement.

  “Now that that’s settled, let’s get on with the apple pie à la mode,” Frank said, grinning.

  By the time dessert was finished, even Jimmy looked relaxed and heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. Chet took the youngsters out to his taxidermy workshop and offered to give them lessons in preparing stuffed animals. All three promised to come back the next day. “You can help me mount my deer’s head, too,” Chet added.

  “My uncle Elly did a lot of that kind of work,” Jimmy said. “There’s still some stuffed animals over at the house.” Frank and Joe traded startled looks.

  Chet finally left in his jalopy. Jimmy and his two pals got into the Hardy boys’ convertible and were driven home.

  After Mike and Tommy had been dropped at their doors, Jimmy murmured:

  “That guy you were chasing today-I know him.”

  “You know him?” Joe exclaimed in surprise.

  Jimmy nodded. “I got a look at his face when he ran in the ten-cent store. His name’s Moran—Soapy Moran. He used to work for Uncle Elly.”

  “What sort of work?” Frank asked.

  “Nothing much—odd jobs, running errands.”

  A moment later Jimmy pointed ahead to a shabby tenement building. “Here’s my place.”

  The convertible drew up to the curb and the freckle-faced boy climbed out. Frank said, “Will your mother be home by now?”

  “Sure, the light’s on, up there in our window. Thanks for the swell feed.”

  Joe waved. “Don’t mention it. See you tomorrow!”

  As the brothers drove off, Joe turned to Frank. “Does it strike you as odd that this Soapy Moran should have been connected with Elias Batter?”

  “It sure does,” Frank agreed. “I’d say it’s no coincidence. That whole business about the dead deer may have been just a cover-up.”

  “A cover-up for what?”

  Frank shook his head helplessly. “Search me. Maybe just an excuse for snooping around our place.”

  Joe gave a startled whistle. “If you’re right, then he may be a member of the gang—or at least. a pal of those two auction thieves!”

  “Could be. And speaking of the auction thieves, do you remember what Jimmy said about more stuffed animals at the house?”

  “Yes, I’ve been wondering about them. Seems funny they weren’t auctioned off.”

  “Not only that,” Frank pointed out, “but the thieves may not even know about them. If we could see them, they might give us a clue to what was so valuable about the other animals—the ones that were stolen.”

  Joe was excited over this possibility. “Let’s drive out to Batter’s house right now and take a look at them. We could borrow Jimmy
’s key.”

  “I think we should get permission first.”

  “Okay, let’s stop somewhere and phone. We can probably find Crowell’s home number in the book.”

  Frank parked the car at a drugstore and the two boys hurried to a telephone booth inside. Leafing through the Bayport directory, they soon found the attorney’s residential listing.

  Crowell was unexpectedly cool to the idea of the Hardys paying an unsupervised visit to the mansion. “I’m afraid I couldn’t take responsibility for that,” he said. “Mrs. Batter would have to be consulted.”

  “Perhaps I could call her,” Frank suggested. “Is she still living in Bayport?”

  “Yes, in a small apartment. But right now she’s out of town. Suppose I ask her as soon as she returns and then get in touch with you.”

  Joe’s face showed disappointment when he heard the news. “Did Crowell explain why some of the animals weren’t sold?”

  “He said they were all supposed to be included in the auction, but a few hadn’t been brought out of the house yet when the theft occurred. Right after that, Mrs. Batter gave orders not to sell the rest of them.”

  “Sounds as if she got the same idea we did.”

  As the boys returned to their car, Joe said, “Hey, what’s that on the windshield?”

  A piece of paper had been slipped under the wiper. Frank pulled it out. The paper bore a penciled message:BROWN STATION WAGON DITCHED OFF

  HORTON RD. ¼ MI. E. OF ROCKCREST DRIVE

  “Wow! A tip-off on the thieves’ getaway car!” Joe exclaimed.

  “Maybe and maybe not,” Frank said cautiously.

  “Think it’s phony?”

  “Depends on where it came from.” Both boys glanced up and down the street. No pedestrians were in sight on the block. “Someone may have been trailing us before we went in the drugstore,” Frank conjectured.

  “Well, there’s one way to find out if this note’s on the level,” said Joe, “and that is to ride to the spot and see. We can notify the police on the way.”

  “Okay, let’s go!”

  As the convertible sped in the direction of Horton Drive, Joe radioed the Bayport police.

  “Roger! I’ll send a car to meet you there,” the police operator responded after taking down the location.

  Horton Road ran through the hills west of Bayport. Sparsely traveled at night, it connected with several of the busier highways. As they passed Rockcrest Drive, Frank slowed so they could keep a lookout for the abandoned station wagon. The hillside rose steeply on their right, while to the left of the road the ground fell away in a brush-clad slope.

  “There it is!” Frank said, slamming on the brakes.

  In the moonlight they could see the getaway car clearly. It lay on a broad rocky shelf jutting out from the slope below them, its nose rammed against a tree.

  The Hardys took flashlights, piled out of their convertible, and ran to the edge of the road. A swath had been battered through the high brush —evidently marking the course of the station wagon as it hurtled down the slope.

  Joe plunged recklessly forward, then exclaimed, “Oops!” and almost went sprawling.

  “Hey, watch it!” Frank cautioned, following more slowly. “Think you’re a mountain goat?”

  “I tripped on a vine or something,” Joe said.

  The boys proceeded, shining their flashlights ahead. As they reached the shelf, the rays of their flashlights revealed a large metal drum in the back of the station wagon. A vague feeling of alarm prickled Frank’s scalp. He clutched Joe’s arm.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Don’t know exactly, but I don’t like the looks of that drum,” Frank said. “You sure that was a vine you tripped over?”

  “How do I know? What difference does it make?” Joe returned impatiently.

  “Plenty, maybe. That could’ve been a trip wire for a delayed-action fuse!” As he spoke, Frank’s fear swelled to panic. “Come on! Let’s get back up on the road and wait for the police!”

  Yanking Joe’s arm, he scrambled up the slope. They had taken only a few paces when a loud whoomp rent the air.

  A huge pillar of fire shot up, engulfing the whole station wagon!

  CHAPTER VII

  Wolf’s Trail

  HEAT searing their backs, Frank and Joe clambered up to the road. Then they turned for a moment and peered below, shielding their eyes from the blaze. The station wagon was barely visible in the roaring orange column of flames.

  “Jumpin’ Jupiter!” Joe gasped. “We’d have been fried to a crisp if you hadn’t stopped us!”

  “Come on! Get back!” Frank warned curtly. “That brush is blazing!”

  The fire was sweeping up the slope, reddening their faces in its glow. Frank backed their convertible out of range, deftly made a U-turn in the narrow roadway, and drove the car a safe distance away. Joe, meanwhile, radioed a fresh report to the police.

  A squad car soon arrived, followed by a fire crew. Fortunately the blaze was already burning itself out, checked by the wetness of the brush from the previous night’s rain.

  Chief Collig had come in the squad car. “Lucky you lads got away in time,” he observed.

  “It sure was,” Joe said. “There must have been gasoline in that drum, and some sort of electrical sparking device to ignite it.”

  “The setup was a cinch,” Frank added. “Anyone going down there was bound to follow the car’s trail through the brush—and the trip wire would never be seen in the dark.”

  Collig nodded grimly. “The timer was evidently set to allow just enough delay for you boys to get close to the station wagon after tripping the wire. Really a fiendish setup!”

  “It gets rid of the car, too,” Frank pointed out, “with no risk of fingerprints or other clues being left behind.”

  A twisted, blackened shell was all that remained after the flames died out. Any traces of the timing mechanism had been fused and obliterated by the intense heat. Somewhat shaken by the experience, Frank and Joe drove home.

  Mr. Hardy frowned worriedly upon hearing of their narrow escape. “This proves you’re up against highly dangerous criminals, sons.”

  “More than petty thieves,” Frank agreed.

  “Definitely—which points back to the industrial spy ring again. From now on, I want you both to be on your guard at all times.”

  “We will, Dad,” Joe promised. He told of their hunch about Soapy Moran’s visit.

  “Soapy Moran, eh?” Mr. Hardy strode to his criminal file, leafed through a number of photographs, and finally pulled out a pair of mug shots. “Is that the man?”

  Both boys recognized the swindler at once.

  “He has a record as a small-time con man and pickpocket,” Mr. Hardy told them. “Offhand, I wouldn’t think he’s the type to be mixed up in anything bigger—but I’ll ask the FBI to put out a dragnet for him, just in case.”

  The evening was too far spent to allow much time for work on the code message. All three Hardys puzzled over it for a while, but finally went to bed with no glimmer of a solution.

  The next day Mike and Tommy arrived promptly after school, eager for a taxidermy lesson. “Jimmy said he had a lot of work to do for his ma,” Mike explained.

  Later, Frank and Joe found the two youngsters watching with close attention as Chet smoothed out a paper head form.

  “It’s made to the exact measurement of the deer’s head,” Chet was saying. “When the skin comes back from the tanner’s, we shall apply that over the form. Then Professor Morton will demonstrate how much better this is than the older stuffing methods. It’s all a matter of expert judgment and know-how, of course.” Chet cleared his throat importantly.

  The Hardys suppressed grins. “Don’t let us interrupt, Professor,” Frank said.

  “Matter of fact, I was about to break off for an errand,” the stout youth announced. “Have to pick up a couple of glass eyes in town.”

  Joe glanced around the cluttered work space. Scrap
lumber, cotton batting, galvanized wire, and an old oil-paint set lay strewn about the floor. Along with books and tools on the bench were a partly mounted duck and rabbit supplied by hunter friends, a pasty substance, and lumps of unfired clay. Various chemical bottles were lined up on a shelf in back of Chet.

  “Boy, this looks like a warehouse for a mad scientist,” Joe remarked. “You are going to clean up in here some time, aren’t you?”

  “Natch. What do you think I have a staff for?” Wiping borax-covered hands on his apron, Chet added, “Mike, I hereby appoint you vice-president in charge of cleanup. Tommy, you finish sanding the wood base for this duck. And when you’re done”—Chet pulled a sack of fudge out of a bench drawer and popped a piece into his mouth —“help yourselves to some of this yummy confection. Made it myself!”

  As the youngsters set about their tasks eagerly, Joe shot an amused glance at Frank. “What an operator! Maybe we Hardys should get a cooking staff in case Aunt Gertrude goes visiting and doesn’t leave any pie, cake, or cookies for Chet.” The stout boy grimaced.

  Frank grinned and declined Chet’s invitation to help pick out glass eyes for his deer, preferring to work on the code message. Joe, however, was willing to go. He and Chet strode out to the Queen and soon the yellow jalopy was clattering noisily toward downtown Bayport.

  Roundtree’s Taxidermy Shop was as dark as a cave and twice as mysterious. From the shadows of its dim interior, white fangs and sharp claws gleamed menacingly at the two boys. Near the door, a huge grizzly bear reared on its hind legs as if ready to pounce on any customer who caused its master displeasure.

  Mr. Roundtree, a short, plump man, shuffled about in flapping slippers. As the boys entered, he was completing the sale of a mounted wolf’s head to a man in a tan raincoat and slouch hat. Joe glanced curiously at the animal, then turned with Chet to a display case of glass eyes.

  “Don’t you want me to crate it?” Joe heard Mr. Roundtree ask the customer.

  “Don’t bother!” The man snatched the wolf’s head off the counter and turned to leave.