The Castle Conundrum (Hardy Boys) Read online

  “Citronella,” Frank said. “You got it. And that has to be the mark left by one of those coils you burn to keep mosquitos away. Chet used them at his beach party a few weeks ago. Remember?”

  “You’re saying somebody had a picnic here?” Joe asked. He glanced around at the high stone walls. “Too much like a prison, if you ask me.”

  Frank pretended not to hear. “The thing with those coils is, they burn a long time,” he said. “Half an hour or more. Yesterday morning our guy used ice to time his stunt. And this time I think he used fire.”

  Joe looked at the mark, then scanned the room. “Let me see if we’re on the same page here,” he said. “Whatever that was we saw last night, it was fastened to the mosquito coil. The coil was lit. It slowly burned. When the fire got to the right spot, it released the thingie.”

  “And by that time, whoever did it had already joined the crowd out on the ledge,” Frank concluded.

  “I wonder if it’s Libby,” Joe said. “She was doing her best to give us all the heebie-jeebies.”

  “She looked really scared to me,” Frank replied. “But that gives me an idea … what if the real perp is getting at her? You know, playing on her fears so she’ll help spook the rest of us.”

  “I hope not,” Joe said. “That would be really nasty.”

  “Dropping big rocks near people isn’t exactly tossing rose petals,” Frank retorted. “We’d better get back. We don’t want to miss breakfast.”

  Most of the others were already at the table when Joe and Frank arrived. Joe took a seat between Marina and Antonio. Frank was near the end on the same side, next to Welly.

  “We have an excursion this morning,” Marina said as Joe poured his coffee and milk. “Today is market day in Vaisac. Do you have a camera? It is very colorful.”

  “I forgot to bring one,” Joe confessed. He reached for a croissant. It was still warm from the oven. “Where’s Vaisac? Near here?”

  “Not far,” Marina said. “At night you can see the lights of the town from the chateau.”

  “You mean you go into the chateau at night?” Joe asked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Oh, not inside,” Marina replied. “I meant from next to the chateau. By the way, I talked to my cousin in the US yesterday. I told her I’d just met two guys from Bayport. I wondered if she knew you.”

  “And?” Joe asked.

  “She doesn’t,” Marina said. With an odd look, she added, “But she thought she’d heard of you.”

  Joe could imagine. Some of his and Frank’s successful cases had caused a lot of stir. Should he ask Marina to keep to herself whatever her cousin had told her? Or would that just make a bigger deal of it? Before he could decide, Luis, on Marina’s other side, started a conversation with her.

  After breakfast everyone gathered at the parking lot. The first ones there smugly installed themselves in Kevin’s air-conditioned van. Joe and Frank followed the others into the rear of the old CitroÎn. They all sat on the floor and leaned back against the metal side walls.

  The drive down the hill reminded Joe of an amusement park ride—an old, rickety ride, long overdue for repairs. Every stone they drove over—and there were lots of them—bounced him into the air. The truck lurched alarmingly to one side, then the other. The engine sounded like the Hardys’ old lawn mower.

  Joe looked around for something to grab on to. The others were laughing as they bounced and lurched. This must be normal, then. He relaxed. After a moment he managed to think of the trip as fun.

  Twenty minutes later the CitroÎn lurched to a halt. The putt-putt of the engine stopped. Narguib, at the very rear, pushed the double doors open. They all climbed out.

  The truck was parked in a wide square with tall trees around the edges. Across the nearest street, the buildings of the old town rose in levels up the side of a hill. Massive old stone walls and a modern-looking chapel crowned the hill.

  The Fréhel twins came over. “This is a very historic place,” Jean-Claude told Joe and Frank. “The counts of Vaisac once ruled all the lands around here. The daughter of one married the king of France.”

  “So where’s this supermarket we’re going to?” Joe asked. He looked around for a store sign. “What makes it so special?”

  Marie-Laure held back a laugh. “Not a supermarket,” she said. “A market. Every Wednesday farmers come to town. They bring their best produce to sell from stands in the streets. People from all around come to shop and to see their friends. For many it is the high point of the week.”

  Joe raised his head and sniffed the air. “Speaking of high points, I could swear I smell pizza,” he announced.

  Jean-Claude indicated a van parked nearby. The rear was open, with a counter across it. A metal chimney protruded through the roof. “Baked to order in a wood-fired brick oven,” he said proudly. “Before we leave, you must try it.”

  “Why wait?” Joe replied. Frank grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

  The narrow, winding streets of the old town had been closed to cars. Two thick streams of shoppers flowed between the lined-up stalls. When one stout man stopped to buy purple onions, he brought everyone to a halt.

  Joe took the moment to look around. The nearest stall was heaped with colorful fruit—plums, peaches, and dark red cherries. At the next one, cages of live chickens and rabbits were stacked three high. Beyond that was a stand draped with cowboy-style shirts in blinding colors and patterns.

  Traffic started moving again. Around the next bend, Frank stopped at a stand that displayed a dozen different varieties of honey. The woman behind the counter dipped bits of bread in a pot labeled Miel de Lavande. She offered them to Frank and Joe. It tasted like a cross between honey and fresh flowers.

  “What do you think?” Frank asked. “Get some for Mom and Dad?”

  Joe imagined how good the honey would taste on pancakes and English muffins. “Sure,” he said with a grin. “But they’ll have to work fast if they want any of it!”

  Frank bought a jar of the honey. The woman insisted on wrapping it in colorful paper. While they waited, Joe scanned the crowd. All the others from TVI had drifted away. Was that Marie-Laure up ahead, turning into a side street?

  “I’ll be right back,” Joe told Frank. He started walking. He tried to move faster than the crowd, but it was no good. Even his skills as a broken field runner were of little help. By the time he got to the side street, the girl he had spotted was out of sight.

  Joe shrugged and turned back to rejoin Frank. As he walked past a shadowy archway, he was sure he heard someone say something about TVI. He stopped and looked around. A few feet away, a young woman he didn’t recognize was standing with her back to him. She seemed to be talking, in accented English, to someone inside the arched passage.

  Joe started to walk on, but at that moment he heard the woman say, “You must frighten them off. TVI must fail—and quickly. Whatever it takes, do it. Do you understand? If someone is hurt, too bad!”

  7

  Head-on Collision

  The ominous words echoed in Joe’s head. “If someone is hurt, too bad!” This was his chance to find out who had rigged those booby traps. He tried to get a glimpse of whomever the woman was talking to. No luck. His eyes were too adapted to the bright sunlight of the street. All he could see inside the dark passage was the vague form of a person. He or she was starting to move away, down the passage.

  Desperately, Joe darted forward. At that moment, a little knot of shoppers crossed in front of him. He crashed into a woman with a straw basket of vegetables on her arm. A paper bag of carrots flew out and burst on the cobblestones.

  “Sorry!” Joe exclaimed. He bent down to collect the carrots. “Excuse me!”

  The woman glared at him. She grabbed the carrots out of his hand and thrust them in her basket. As she stalked away, she said something loudly to a man near her. The only word Joe caught was “touriste.” He could guess from her tone that the rest was not friendly.

  The young woma
n he had overheard was still standing at the mouth of the passage. She had obviously noticed Joe’s collision with the shopper. She seemed to think it was funny.

  Joe pretended to look past her while he quickly memorized her appearance. She was wearing a dark blue skirt, a white silk blouse, and a blue print scarf knotted in her blond hair. Designer sunglasses hid her eyes. Her face was carefully made up, and the dark red polish on her nails had been applied by a skilled hand.

  The woman started up the street, past Joe. Still not looking at her, he took a few steps in the opposite direction. Then he turned. She was well ahead, with a big clump of people between them. Joe went after her. He walked slowly. He did not dare get so close that she might notice him. She was his only lead at this point.

  Twice Joe was sure he had lost her in the crowded, narrow streets. Each time his height let him peer over the heads of the crowd and spot the blond hair and blue scarf. At last she turned under a carved archway that led out onto the main square. She walked over to a glossy late-model sports car, climbed in, and drove off.

  Joe had a felt-tip pen in his pocket. He grabbed it and wrote the number of the car’s license plate on his bare forearm. He wasn’t likely to lose that!

  The next job was to find Frank and fill him in. Joe retraced his steps. The market was nearly over. The farmers and other stallholders were starting to pack whatever they hadn’t sold. The stream of shoppers had turned to flow downhill. The terraces of the cafés were jammed with people enjoying little cups of espresso or brightly colored cold drinks.

  At one of the cafés, Joe noticed Manu, Marina, and Libby. They waved and pointed to an empty chair. Joe smiled and shook his head. “Have you seen my brother?” he called.

  Marina thought a moment. Then she nodded and gestured up the street. Joe waved his thanks and started edging his way through the oncoming crowd. It was slow going. He wondered if he should return to the van and wait for Frank there. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “What happened to you?” Frank’s familiar voice asked. “Get lost?”

  Joe turned. “No. But I think I almost got a look at the booby trapper.” He explained and showed Frank the license plate number.

  “I wonder how we find out who that belongs to,” Frank said. “Maybe Dad knows somebody who could help. Do you have his new number with you?”

  Most American cell phones used a different system than in Europe. Before leaving Bayport, Fenton Hardy had got a multistandard cell phone that would work abroad.

  Joe dug through his wallet and found the number. “I saw some phone booths in the post office,” he said. “A block or so back that way.”

  The telephone in the wood-lined booth felt as solid as a tank. It had one old-fashioned feature Joe appreciated—a second earphone. Frank made the call, but Joe could listen to both sides of the conversation.

  Their father answered right away. Frank explained what they wanted.

  “Oof!” Fenton said. “French bureaucrats are famous for being surly and uncooperative. They don’t even help each other if they can avoid it. But I’ll see what I can do. There’s a fellow in the S°reté who owes me a favor. How do I get back to you?”

  “We’re in town now, but we’re heading back to TVI pretty soon,” Frank replied. “Could you call the office and leave a message for us to call you? Tell them you’re our dad. They’ll be sure to pass it on.”

  “Will do,” Fenton said. “And I expect to hear all about whatever you’ve got yourselves into.”

  “For sure!” Frank told him. “How’s your conference going?”

  “It’s fascinating,” Fenton said. “Every time the UN eliminates one way of getting illegal diamonds into Europe, the smugglers come up with two or three new ones. The only real cure will be to make dealers check the origin of every single stone they buy. If the smugglers can’t sell their goods, they’ll have to close up shop.”

  “Any chance that’ll happen?” Frank wondered.

  “It’s happening already,” Fenton replied. “If I were a diamond smuggler, I’d start looking for a new line of work.”

  Joe and Frank returned to the square. Most of the others were already waiting near the two vans. Jean-Claude noticed Frank’s packages. “Oho!” he chuckled. “I am glad to see you are supporting the economy of Provence with American dollars.”

  “What did you buy?” Marie-Laure asked.

  “A wooden herb grinder and two jars of lavender honey,” Frank replied. “They’ll make great gifts.”

  “I love lavender honey,” Marie-Laure enthused. “I love anything with the scent of lavender. I use lavender cologne all the time.”

  Joe nodded to himself. When he had tasted the honey, he thought it reminded him of something. Now he knew what—Marie-Laure’s perfume.

  “Look what I found,” Narguib said. He held up a black T-shirt with the familiar emblem of the Chicago Bulls. “Isn’t that something? I’m a very big fan.”

  Joe noticed the words on the T-shirt. They read, Chicago Bills. Should he tell Narguib his new shirt was a fake? Not without thinking it over, that was for sure.

  The rest of the group straggled up. Joe clambered into the back of the CitroÎn and sat next to Marie-Laure. He noticed her scent. It was very nice, not too heavy, like a stroll through a field. He should ask where she got it and take some home for presents.

  Everybody settled down for the trip back to Fréhel. “So what did you guys do at the market?” Joe asked. He hoped the answers would give a clue to the name of the person in the passageway.

  “We wandered and looked,” Marina replied. “Then we sat and watched the people go by.”

  “It’s so interesting,” Libby added. “I could spend whole days at a French café!”

  “As for me,” Siri said, “I became very lost. By luck, I found Welly and Luis. They showed me the way back.”

  Frank picked up on Joe’s cue. “How did you guys manage to stay together?” he asked. “That crowd was really thick.”

  “I kept my eye on Welly,” Luis replied. “Not so many people here are very tall and black.”

  Joe thought back. Had the person in the passage been much taller than average? He didn’t think so. They could probably cross Welly off their list of suspects. That pleased him. He liked the big South African. And if Welly and Luis were together the whole time, that eliminated Luis as well.

  Before Joe or Frank could pose any more questions, Narguib and Luis started a conversation about the pétanque tournament that was to start after lunch.

  “Jean-Claude will win easily,” Luis proclaimed. “He is the only one who has played boules before this summer.”

  “He is not!” Marie-Laure said indignantly.

  “Oh—sorry,” Luis said. “I meant he and you, of course. But he is partnered with Libby. At least she has played since she came to TVI. No offense, Joe, but you do not become good at boules in one day.”

  “What’s boules?” Joe asked.

  “Another name for pétanque,” Marie-Laure explained. “Pétanque is the word in ProvenÁal. That’s the language people used to speak in this region.”

  “Some people still speak it,” Jean-Claude added. “When I go to the university, I intend to study ProvenÁal. The old poetry is very beautiful.”

  At lunch Sophie made an announcement. “On Friday evening the children of the colonie de vacances near Vaissade will visit us. They will tour Fréhel and see what we do here.”

  Siri raised her hand. “Excuse me, but what is this colonie?”

  Marie-Laure answered. “It is a place for children from the city to be in the countryside during the school vacation.”

  “Summer camp,” Frank muttered under his breath. Joe flashed him a grin.

  “In the evening,” Sophie continued, “we will make an entertainment for them. Kevin will organize it.”

  Kevin stood up. “This is your big break, people,” he said. “We need volunteers to be part of the show. Who plays an instrument?”

  Libby slow
ly raised her hand. “I play guitar,” she said. “I could sing some English folk songs.”

  “Great. Who else?” Kevin’s gaze made the rounds of the table. “Siri? What about you?”

  “Oh, I do not sing at all,” Siri said quickly. “I could tell a story from my country, if that would be interesting.”

  “You’re on,” Kevin said, jotting on a notepad. “But we need more.”

  “I am a clown,” Luis offered.

  “We know that already,” Welly cracked.

  “No, I mean it,” Luis told him. “At home I put on a costume and makeup. I go to the children’s hospital. I juggle and fall over and do funny walks. Then I make things from balloons and give them to the children.”

  “Wonderful,” Sophie said. “Perfect!”

  Kevin nodded and made another note. “So far we’ve got a folksinger, a storyteller, and a clown. This is shaping up nicely. Does anybody dance?”

  “I know some ProvenÁal folk dances,” Marie-Laure said. “I could teach them to the children. And my brother is a wonderful whistler.”

  Jean-Claude gave her a dirty look, then said, “Okay, sure.”

  “And how about a demonstration of martial arts?” Joe suggested. “Frank and I could do that.”

  Frank cleared his throat loudly. Joe refused to look at him.

  “Okay,” Kevin said. “The rest of you have a couple of days to get over your shyness. Just let me know. Believe me, the kids from Vaissade will love whatever you do.”

  After lunch everyone went out to the square. Kevin tacked up a schedule for the first round of the pétanque tournament. The others crowded around to study it. Joe saw that he and Marie-Laure were matched with Manu and Marina.

  “Do they play this game in Belgium or Greece?” he whispered to Marie-Laure. “If not, we’ve got a shot.”

  “We are going to win,” Marie-Laure replied. Her gaze dared him to disagree. “Simply do whatever I tell you.”

  Before the game could start, Sophie came back up the hill. She beckoned to Joe and Frank. They went over to her.