The Short-Wave Mystery Read online

  Joe nodded. “Sure. Aardvark calling Bulldog. And the barking is Bulldog’s response, meaning ‘I read you.’ So what?”

  “So ‘sheep’ and ‘hairs’ may be animal names, too—for other members of the gang. Not h-a-i-r-s but h-a-r-e-s. I just wrote it down wrong.”

  “Wow!” Joe’s eyes lit up excitedly. “I’ll bet you’re right. And that may explain why ‘sheep’ and ‘hares’ have no numbers in front of them. Bulldog already knows those names, so he doesn’t need any codebook numbers to look up their meaning.”

  “Whoa! You’re jumping way ahead of me,” Frank said, “but I think we’re on the same track. You’re implying that the other words do have to be looked up.”

  “Sure. Maybe not in a regular codebook, but some other book they’re using as a key. Bulldog uses the numbers to locate each message-word in the key. Then he decodes by taking the first word that follows each of the message-words—or maybe the second word, or the word just before each message-word.”

  Joe paused and frowned. “What about ‘lek,’ though? No numbers in front of that, but I never heard of any animal called a lek.”

  Frank grinned. “Neither did I, but it could still be a code name that Bulldog already knows. Getting back to this code-key book, what do you suppose they might be using?”

  “Boy! Ask me something easy!” Joe grumbled. “It might be any book—any one they’d agreed on beforehand.”

  “Wait a second. Maybe the numbers don’t refer to a book at all,” Frank said.

  “Why not?”

  “If they were using a book, they’d only need a single number, not a pair of numbers,” Frank argued. “For instance, take the opening of the first message ‘7 2 progress.’ You might turn to page seven, find the word progress on that page, and then translate by taking the next word that follows. Where would the ‘2’ come in?”

  “Simple,” said Joe. “Take the second word after progress.”

  Frank stared at his brother. “You know, that may be the answer! But it sure leaves us up a tree. Without knowing the book, we can’t possibly hope to crack the code.”

  For more than an hour, the young sleuths continued to pore over the messages, but neither could think of any other possible solution. Fenton Hardy had not returned home when they finally gave up and prepared for bed. Joe had switched off the light and settled back on his pillow when Frank exclaimed, “Hey! We’re prize dopes!”

  “How come?” Joe demanded sleepily.

  “The code key could be a newspaper—not a book! The two numbers could stand for the page and column!”

  Joe was instantly wide awake. Switching on their bedside light again, the boys consulted the two code messages, which they had brought down from the attic.

  “Look! This bears me out!” Frank said. “The second number is always small, just as it would be if it stood for a column.”

  “Now all we have to do is figure out which paper,” Joe said wryly.

  “I’d say a New York paper’s the best bet,” Frank conjectured. “They’re the most widely circulated in this part of the country.”

  “Hmm. Let’s see,” Joe mused. “One of the numbers in the second message is 97. If that’s a page number, it would have to be a pretty thick newspaper.”

  “Right.” Frank scowled intently, then snapped his fingers. “None of the column numbers is higher than 5—which sounds like a tabloid. Full-sized newspapers run to eight or nine columns. And tabloids are often pretty thick, too. I’m sure the Star runs to about a hundred pages.”

  “Man, oh man! Let’s whip down to the station first thing tomorrow and see if we can still get a copy of today’s Star!”

  Next morning when the boys came down to breakfast, they learned that their father had already left the house—this time for another flying trip to New York. Disappointed at missing him, Frank and Joe ate their bacon and eggs, then drove to the Bayport railroad station.

  “Got a Wednesday Star left?” Frank asked the newsdealer.

  “Sure.” The man reached down behind the counter and brought up a copy. Frank paid for it and hurried back to their car.

  “Let’s check out the first word in the message,” Joe said eagerly. “Page twenty-four, column one—‘arrested.’ ”

  Frank leafed to the right page and ran his finger down the first column. Almost at once he came to a sentence using the word arrested: Three suspected smugglers were arrested in a raid on a Lower East Side warehouse early this morning.

  “Wow! How do you like that?” Joe exulted.

  Frank glanced at his wristwatch. “Sufferin’ snakes! We’re almost late for class!”

  With a roar of exhaust, the convertible headed for Bayport High School. Not until they returned home that afternoon were the Hardys able to resume work on the code message.

  “Did you look up the other words?” Frank asked as Joe spread the Star on the dining-room table.

  “I sure did—and they all check out.” Joe leafed through the paper and pointed to three more sentences which he had circled in pencil:In a news conference today, the NASA flight director revealed that a plant was being built in Wyoming to assemble the new rocket booster.

  Commissioner Mason stated that the new freight rates would go into effect immediately.

  “We plan to overhaul our whole setup,” Barnes announced at yesterday’s stockholders’ meeting.

  “So far so good!” Frank said with a cautious grin. “Now let’s see what we can make of the whole message. Try writing down the first word that follows each of the code words.”

  “Okay.” Joe picked them out of the newspaper sentences and jotted them down, including “lek” in its proper position. The result read:

  IN LEK THAT THAT OUR.

  Joe snorted in disgust. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Let’s try the second word after each code word.”

  This time the result read:

  A LEK A THE WHOLE.

  “Still no sense,” Joe commented. “Let’s try the third words.”

  Just then, Chet Morton’s jalopy pulled into the drive and he shouted “Hello” to the Hardys. Frank went to the back door to answer his greeting and invited the stout youth inside. The two boys found Joe looking excited as they entered the dining room.

  “Take a look at this, Frank! I think we’ve got something this time!” Joe pointed to the latest result which he had written down:

  RAID LEK PLANT NEW SETUP.

  “What gives?” Chet inquired. “You guys working on another mystery or something?”

  “We’re trying to crack a code message.” As Frank explained, Chet’s eyes took on a sudden gleam of interest.

  “Lek plant ... Hey! That could mean the Lektrex plant where Biff Hooper’s working!” the stout lad exclaimed.

  Biff Hooper, a high school chum, had recently taken a weekend job as watchman at an electronics company. Its factory was located near Willow River outside Bayport. Joe and Frank looked at Chet in astonishment.

  “Morton, you’re a genius!” Joe said. “Lektrex just added a new addition, didn’t it, Frank?”

  “That’s right—which would explain the ‘new setup’ part of the message!”

  The Hardy boys were impatient to report their discovery to their father. When he arrived home that evening, Mr. Hardy listened keenly as Frank and Joe told how they had decoded the message.

  “Hmm. That’s pretty convincing,” the detective said. “It certainly seems more than a coincidence that you found each of the message-words in the correct page and column. But are you sure this is the only possible translation?”

  “We’ve tried other arrangements, Dad, just to double-check,” Frank said. “For instance, we tried taking words that come before the code words. But this is the only version that makes any sense.”

  Mr. Hardy paced about the room. “ ‘Raid’ sounds as if they’re planning a robbery,” he mused. “But the industrial spy gang has never done that. They seem to have gleaned their trade secrets by inside leaks.�
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  “Maybe that’s what this message means, Dad,” Joe suggested. “It could be an order to some inside man at Lektrex to snitch data about what’s going on in the new plant wing.”

  The detective nodded slowly. “Yes, that may be it. I’d better get in touch with Jason Warner right away. He’s the president.”

  Mr. Hardy telephoned and managed to reach the company official at his home. When he hung up, the detective told Frank and Joe, “Warner didn’t seem much alarmed. He’ll see us at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  The next day the Hardy boys drove from school to the Lektrex plant. They met their father in the lobby. A secretary ushered them into a conference room adjoining the president’s office.

  Jason Warner, brisk and gray-haired, shook hands with the Hardys and invited them to sit down. “Good of you to take so much trouble on our account,” he said. “I’d like to hear more about this spy threat.”

  Frank and Joe explained the code message. Mr. Hardy gave a brief rundown on the other industrial espionage cases he had investigated.

  Warner smiled and said skeptically, “This whole thing sounds pretty far-fetched to me. We’ve never had any trouble at Lektrex.”

  “Exactly what is going on in your new plant wing?” Fenton Hardy inquired.

  “We’re producing a new type of thin-film circuitry,” Warner replied. “It’s fairly confidential, but the same electronics engineers who design our other products are working on it.”

  “They’ve all undergone security checks?”

  “Absolutely! I’m confident none of them would do anything underhanded.” The Lektrex president frowned and drummed his fingers on the conference table. “However, to make absolutely certain, I’d like to engage you to double-check the clearance on all our key personnel.”

  “Very well,” Mr. Hardy agreed.

  Frank had noticed a stuffed fox, mounted on a shelf, attached to one wall of the conference room. He gave Joe a nudge and pointed it out. While Mr. Warner called his secretary and asked her to send for the personnel manager, the two boys got up from the table to examine the animal.

  The fox was crouched in a dramatic, lifelike pose, fangs bared as if about to spring on its prey. Frank’s eyes suddenly widened. “Joe,” he whispered, “look at this double stitching!”

  “Oh, oh!” Joe’s face reflected his brother’s excitement. “Just the way Mr. Roundtree described Batter’s work!”

  Was the fox another of Elias Batter’s mysterious stuffed specimens?

  CHAPTER X

  Mysterious Cries

  “MR. Warner, where did this stuffed fox come from?” Frank asked.

  The company president looked up absently. From a friend of mine in New York who’s in the decorating business. Quite a striking specimen, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” Frank said. “We thought it might be the work of a taxidermist we know of—a man named Elias Batter.”

  The Hardy boys waited expectantly to see if Batter’s name would evoke any response. Warner merely shook his head. “I never heard of him.”

  An hour later, after reviewing the files on various key people at the plant with Jason Warner and his personnel manager, the detective stood up to leave. “This may have been a false alarm,” he told them, “but it won’t hurt to make sure.”

  Mr. Hardy, who had come to Lektrex in a taxi, walked out with Frank and Joe to their convertible on the plant parking lot. On the way home Joe said, “It’ll take a while to run checks on all those people, won’t it?”

  His father nodded. “I’ll put Sam Radley and some of my other operatives on it right away. We’ll cross-check all names with the FBI, too.” He turned to Frank at the wheel. “I’m wondering why you asked Mr. Warner about the fox.”

  “It just seemed like an odd coincidence if it was Batter’s work. But I guess we were wrong.”

  “That reminds me, Dad,” Joe put in, “do you recall a robbery a few years ago at the Crescent Jewelry Store?” He related what Jimmy Gordon had said about the suspicion against his uncle.

  “Hmm. It comes back to me vaguely,” Mr. Hardy replied. “A valuable diamond necklace was taken—a necklace with perfectly matched pear-shaped stones. The case was never solved.”

  Joe gave a low, excited whistle and Fenton Hardy narrowed his eyes shrewdly. “You think the necklace may have something to do with those animals that were stolen from the auction?”

  “It’s a possibility, Dad,” Frank spoke up. “If the crooks thought Batter still had the stones, they might figure one of his stuffed animals would be a likely hiding place.”

  Joe added, “They might even know he had the stones—especially if they were on the robbery with him. What’s more, Batter told Jimmy that he had something secret hidden away, something that was ‘worth plenty,’ and he wanted Jimmy to have it if anything happened to him.”

  “Hidden in the house?” Mr. Hardy asked.

  “I guess so, but Jimmy doesn’t know. His uncle apparently intended to tell him, but they never saw each other again before Batter died.”

  Reaching Elm Street, Frank garaged the car and they went into the house. Aunt Gertrude was testing a roast chicken in the oven.

  “Humph! About time you three were getting home!” she said severely. “I was beginning to think this bird might go to waste.”

  “No danger.” Fenton Hardy grinned. “If the boys aren’t hungry, I’ll eat it all myself.”

  “Who said we aren’t hungry?” Joe retorted, sniffing the delicious aroma. “Mmm! Aunt Gertrude, you sure know how to cook poultry.”

  “Never mind buttering me up,” she said. “You boys had a phone call, by the way.”

  “From whom, Aunty?” Frank inquired.

  “That lawyer, J. Sylvester Crowell. Said he’d be in this office till six, and if he didn’t hear from you, he might call back this evening.”

  Joe snapped his fingers eagerly. “Maybe he’s been in touch with Mrs. Batter!”

  “There’s still time to reach him,” Frank said, glancing at the clock. “Let’s try.”

  The boys hurried to the telephone and Frank dialed the attorney. Crowell himself answered.

  “I called in regard to your request to visit the Batter house,” he told Frank.

  “You’ve spoken to Mrs. Batter about it?”

  “Yes. She thinks it very unlikely that you can gain any dues from the remaining stuffed animals. However, she’s willing to have you take a look at them—on condition that you don’t disturb anything else in the house.”

  “Of course not,” Frank promised. “When could we go over?”

  “It would have to be tonight, I’m afraid. Mrs. Batter is only back in town for one day, and she’s leaving again in the morning to visit her sister.” Crowell added that the boys would have to pick up the key at Mrs. Batter’s apartment, and gave her address.

  “Right, sir,” Frank said, jotting it down. “We’ll stop there about a quarter to eight.”

  Mrs. Batter received the boys with a cold, beady-eyed stare. “Just what is it you expect to find?” she demanded.

  Frank smiled and shrugged. “Maybe nothing. But if there’s anything special about the stuffed animals your husband made, the ones still at the house may give us a clue.”

  “What do you mean by ‘anything special’?”

  “If we knew the answer to that,” said Joe, “we’d probably have this case solved.”

  “You certainly don’t seem to be making much progress,” the widow snapped. “However, if you think it’ll do any good, go ahead and look. The electricity is still on. But I shall expect to have the key back tonight. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Batter,” Frank said.

  As the boys drove away, Joe grumbled, “You’d think she was doing us a favor!”

  Frank chuckled. “Maybe she is, if this trip helps us turn up any clue to Jimmy’s treasure.”

  The temperature had dropped sharply since sunset, and the boys drove with their convertible top raised and
the heater on. Joe noticed his brother watching the rear-view mirror. “What’s the matter? Someone on our tail?”

  “I thought so for a while,” Frank said. “Guess I was mistaken, though.”

  On Hill Road they turned up the gravel driveway to the Batter house and climbed out of their car. The boys mounted the porch and Frank inserted the key in the front-door lock. The door creaked open. Both Hardys switched on flashlights and probed the darkness until Joe located a wall switch. The blaze of light revealed a huge, drafty hallway with a winding staircase at the far end.

  “Let’s take a look upstairs first,” Frank suggested.

  “Okay.” The boys could see their breath in the chilly atmosphere. The wind outside echoed through the house and rattled the shutters.

  On the second floor the young sleuths moved from room to room, playing their flashlight beams into each one. All seemed bare and empty except for worn carpeting and a few items of old furniture.

  “It would sure take more than one evening to tap for hollow walls and check the flooring in a house this size,” Joe murmured.

  Frank nodded gloomily. “We’ll just have to keep our eyes open for anything unusual.”

  One room with a workbench and a musty odor appeared to have been Batter’s taxidermy shop. A scarred desk stood in one corner. Joe pulled open the drawers. They seemed to contain only odds and ends, such as old receipted bills.

  “Let’s go through these papers before we leave,” Frank said, “to be sure we don’t miss anything.”

  The attic and downstairs rooms were also largely empty. At the rear, the boys discovered what might have been intended originally as a game room. Mounted heads of a deer, a moose, a rhinoceros, and a Canada lynx glared eerily from the walls.

  On the dusty fireplace mantel were a stuffed owl and a snake. Joe picked up the latter. On its wooden base was a metal plate which read: