A Figure in Hiding Read online

  As soon as they reached Bayport, the boys drove to police headquarters. They told the chief what had happened at Ocean City and asked him if he knew Malcolm Izmir.

  “I’ve heard of him,” Collig replied. “He’s one of the biggest businessmen in Ocean City—and quite a community leader. Has all sorts of projects. Izmir Motors is just one.”

  Joe shot his brother a puzzled glance. “He doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would be mixed up in anything crooked.”

  Collig chuckled. “Not likely. I’ll check on him, though, with Ocean City police.”

  Frank and Joe had a postponed picnic supper with Iola and Callie and it was close to midnight when they reached home. The hall telephone was ringing. Frank answered it as Joe waited.

  “You’re one of the Hardys?” a muffled voice asked.

  “Yes—Frank Hardy. Who’s speaking, please?”

  “Never mind that. You know a peddler named Zatta? He’s a stoolie for your father.”

  Frank was instantly alert. He signaled Joe to listen in. “What about Zatta?”

  “I’m offering you Hardys a chance to save his life—if you promise not to call in the cops.”

  “What do you mean ‘save his life’?” Frank said.

  There was moment’s silence. Then another voice, which Frank recognized as the one-eyed peddler’s, came on the line.

  “These guys are holding me prisoner!” Zatta croaked fearfully. “You’ve gotta help me! They’ll kill me if you don’t! Do what they ask you—please!”

  Zatta’s voice was choked off suddenly, as if he has been yanked away from the phone. The muffled voice returned. “Okay. You heard him. We’re offering you his life for that glass eye.”

  Frank tried to stall for time, but the voice cut him short. “Yes or no? Is it a deal?”

  “What are the terms?” Frank asked.

  The voice instructed the Hardys to drive to a certain spot atop Lookout Hill, leave their car, and walk down to a meeting spot on the open hillside. The transfer would then be arranged.

  Frank looked at his brother. Joe nodded. “Okay, we accept,” Frank said.

  “Remember—no double cross! You bring in the cops and Zatta’s a dead pigeon! Be there in fifteen minutes—after that, it’ll be too late.”

  Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude had awakened and asked what the message was. After a family conference it was decided that the boys would call Sam Radley, a trusted operative of their father’s. He agreed to approach the hillside cautiously from the opposite direction and be ready to cover them in case of trouble.

  Frank went upstairs for the glass eye, then the brothers hurried outside to their convertible and drove to Lookout Hill. They parked at the appointed spot near a narrow turnoff which led steeply downward to Shore Road, bordering Barmet Bay.

  Frank and Joe left the car and made their way cautiously through a screen of trees. A dark figure on the hillside waved his arms. Hearts thumping, the Hardys walked toward him.

  The figure had glowing eyes!

  CHAPTER XII

  Doom Ride!

  As THE Hardys came close enough to make out the figure, they saw the reason for the glowing eyes. The man was wearing spectacles with bulging phosphorescent eyeballs. His head was shrouded in a stocking mask.

  “Someone from the Goggler gang!” Joe hissed.

  In the midnight silence the boys’ footsteps crunched loudly in the grassy underbrush. Far below them, moonlight glinted on the waters of the bay.

  “Okay. Stop right there!” the man ordered.

  Frank and Joe obeyed. Both thought the masked man’s voice sounded faintly familiar. They wondered if he might be Spotty Lemuel, but neither could be sure.

  “Did you bring the glass eye?”

  “We brought it,” Frank said, “but we’re not handing it over till we have Zatta.”

  The man turned and shone a flashlight down the hillside. He flicked the beam on and off twice.

  The Hardys watched tensely. They saw an answering glow from Shore Road.

  The masked man removed a pair of binoculars which were slung around his neck. He handed them to Frank and pointed toward the light. Frank raised the glasses to his eyes, then gasped.

  “What is it?” Joe whispered.

  “Zatta! They have him tied up down there at the foot of the drive!”

  Frank passed the binoculars to Joe, who peered through them. The light on Shore Road was evidently coming from a bull’s-eye lantern. It was aimed to illuminate the captive peddler. Zatta was lying bound and gagged.

  “It looks as if he’s unconscious!” Joe muttered. “His eyes are closed!”

  “Don’t worry—he’s alive,” the masked man said.

  “He’d better be,” Frank said. “You’ll get the glass eye when we have him in the car and we’re sure he’s all right. Not before.”

  “And you two had better not try pulling any fast ones,” the masked man retorted. “Wait right here till I get down the hill. Then drive your car there. You can load Zatta aboard and hand over the glass eye. After that, clear out and don’t look back. Get me?”

  Frank nodded. “Check.”

  The gangster strode off into the darkness, picking his way down the incline.

  “I wonder if Sam got here,” Joe whispered.

  “I sure hope so,” Frank replied. “Goggle Eyes could be pulling us right into a trap!” He added, “We’d better go through with it, though, for Zatta’s sake. He must have stuck his neck out, giving Dad that tip.”

  Crickets chirped in the stillness. The eerie call of a night bird sounded somewhere overhead. Presently the light on Shore Road went out.

  “That must be the signal,” Frank murmured. “Let’s go!”

  The boys hurried back to their convertible and climbed in. The engine roared to life. Frank swung out from the curb, then turned right into the long, steep drive leading to Shore Road. Beyond was nothing but a gleam of water as the cliff sheered abruptly into the bay.

  The car headlights revealed Zatta’s motionless figure still lying across the foot of the drive. The masked man and whoever had come with him were nowhere in sight.

  Joe glanced over at the grassy hillside. In the distance his eye caught a darting figure.

  “Sam Radley!” Joe guessed.

  Frank toed the brake pedal as he turned to look. The pedal caught for an instant—then sank to the floorboard without slowing the car!

  Horrified, Frank pumped the pedal. No response! He yanked the hand brake and it gave easily without the slightest effect!

  “Joe! Something’s happened to our brakes!”

  The convertible was gathering speed—hurtling straight down toward the helpless peddler!

  “You’ll go right over him!” Joe gasped.

  “And off the cliff!”

  The boys were paralyzed with fear. With no way to slow the car, it would be impossible to negotiate a turn onto Shore Road.

  Frank shifted into low gear. The car bucked and lost a little speed. Noticing that the narrow drive was high-banked on either side, Frank swung right, scraping the convertible’s side against the grassy slope.

  Zatta lay less than fifty feet ahead!

  As the bank flattened, Frank spun the wheel hard right. The car leaped from the drive onto the grass, bumping and jolting over the uneven ground. It shot across the corner of the hillside, slowing bit by bit. Then it slewed out across Shore Road.

  Frank kept it parallel to the pavement, but suddenly there was a hard jolt as the left rear wheel went over the edge of the cliff. With a shudder, the convertible came to a dead halt—its body quivering on its springs!

  The two boys sat still, white-faced and gasping. Then Frank slumped over the wheel.

  “Whew!” he breathed. “I thought sure we’d had it!”

  “We would have,” Joe said, “if you hadn’t downshifted and grazed that bank! Man, that was fast thinking!”

  Frank shook his head dazedly. “I wouldn’t even have known the brakes were
gone if you hadn’t called out about Sam!”

  A streak of light shot up from the hillside, exploding into a starburst of red fire!

  “It’s Sam firing a Very pistol!” Joe cried out.

  Gingerly the boys crawled out of the car, fearful of dislodging it from its poised position on the edge of the cliff. Another spray of light burst overhead revealing the road and the hillside with daytime brilliance. Three figures could be seen, far down the road past the foot of the drive, sprinting toward a parked car. They leaped in and sped away.

  Sam Radley came running toward the boys. The muscular, sandy-haired detective’s face was taut with worry. “You two all right?” he exclaimed.

  “Shaken up but okay,” Frank said. “What about that masked guy and his pals? Can we go after them?”

  Sam shook his head “My car’s a quarter of a mile back—I didn’t dare park closer. By the time we could get to it, we wouldn’t stand a chance of catching them. Better call the police!”

  Joe hastily radioed an alarm. Then he hurried to join his brother and Sam who had gone to untie Zatta. The one-eyed peddler was unconscious but bore no visible marks of injury.

  “Maybe he fainted,” Frank said.

  “It’s more than that,” Sam murmured. “Looks to me as if he’s been drugged.”

  The operative went off to get his car and brought it to the spot. They lifted Zatta into the back seat, then sped to the Bayport General Hospital.

  While the unconscious man was being examined, the three sat tensely in the waiting room.

  “We really walked into a neat setup,” Frank said. “One of those two guys with the masked man was standing by Zatta with the lantern. The other must have been hiding up on the hill, waiting to sabotage our brakes.”

  “Right,” Joe agreed. “That screen of trees gave him perfect cover, once we went off to talk to his partner.”

  While they waited, the boys gave Sam Radley a complete account of the events leading up to the night’s excitement. Sam asked, “Do you have the glass eye with you?”

  “Right here.” Frank took the eye out of his pocket and handed it over.

  Radley examined it closely. “Hmm. And you have no idea why Lemuel—or whoever’s behind all this—is so eager to get it back?”

  Frank shook his head thoughtfully. “The thing’s fairly light. It could be hollow. I’ve been wondering if something’s hidden inside.”

  Radley held the glass eye close to his ear and shook it. “Nothing rattles. Of course that doesn’t prove much. It could be wadded in.”

  “Trouble is, there’s no way to unscrew the eye or pry it apart,” Joe remarked. “The only chance to find out would be to break the glass.”

  Conversation stopped as a white-coated intern came into the waiting room to report on Zatta’s condition. “He was definitely drugged,” the medic informed Sam and the Hardys. “There’s a puncture mark from a hypodermic needle on his right arm. Otherwise he’s in good shape, so I think we’ll let him sleep it off.”

  Radley agreed to stand guard in Zatta’s room. He told the boys he knew of another operative with whom he could take turns in shifts.

  Frank and Joe left the hospital and found a twenty-four-hour service station open a block away. Luckily it had a tow truck available. The boys rode with the mechanic to Shore Road and had him tow their convertible to his garage. The boys walked home.

  “That’s funny,” Joe muttered as he tried to turn his key in the side door.

  “What’s funny?” Frank asked.

  “The lock has been jimmied!” he exclaimed.

  The Hardys stared at each other in alarm.

  “Whoever did it may still be here!” Frank whispered.

  Joe gave his brother a startled look, then hastily pushed the door open and snapped on the light.

  The boys began a cautious search of the house, switching on the lights in each room as they went along. The first floor was empty. Tensely they mounted the stairs.

  When they came to Aunt Gertrude’s room, Frank gave a gasp. “She’s gone!”

  They dashed to their parents’ room. Mrs. Hardy, too, had apparently left the house! The brothers’ room was also empty—no figure in hiding. Last, they tried their father’s study.

  “Oh, great!” Frank groaned. “Dad’s safe has been cracked!”

  CHAPTER XIII

  Airport Vigil

  MR. HARDY’s safe door had been blown open. The door hung lopsided and the contents lay strewn about. Frank and Joe rushed to examine the situation.

  “Anything missing?” Joe asked.

  “Doesn’t seem to be,” Frank replied.

  Joe said worriedly, “I wish we knew what happened to Mom and Aunt Gertrude. You don’t suppose they—were kidnapped?”

  “No,” Frank said. “My hunch is they were lured away by some phony message—to give the safecracker a clear field. If they don’t come back soon, though, we’d better phone an alarm. Now we’d better check Dad’s list of secret papers.”

  The brothers got this from Mr. Hardy’s desk, and when they had gathered up the scattered documents, took inventory. “They’re all here,” said Frank in relief. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Wait! Dad stowed some cash in the safe when he left town, but I sure don’t see it now!”

  “The safecracker probably took it,” Joe said, “but I’ll bet that’s not what he came for.”

  Frank agreed. “Ten to one he was after the glass eye.”

  Joe hurried to their garage laboratory and returned, bringing their fingerprint kit. He and Frank dusted the safe carefully but found no traces of prints.

  “It has been wiped clean,” Joe said in disgust.

  Just then they heard a car pull up outside the house. Frank dashed to the window.

  “It’s a taxi,” he reported. “Mother and Aunt Gertrude!”

  The boys, vastly relieved, went down to meet them.

  “Oh! Thank goodness you’re safe!” Mrs. Hardy exclaimed, as first she, then Aunt Gertrude gave Frank and Joe a hug.

  Frank said, “We were worried about you.”

  “We received a phone call from a man at about twelve-thirty that you boys had had a car accident over in Riverville,” Mrs. Hardy explained. “I knew that wasn’t where you planned to go and we were frightened out of our wits.”

  She said that after taking a taxi to Riverville, she and Aunt Gertrude had been unable to find any trace of the boys. Finally, after checking by telephone with the Bayport police, the women had learned about the Shore Road incident and had returned home at once.

  Upon hearing of the blown-out safe, the boys’ mother and aunt were greatly upset. Frank telephoned headquarters and gave a full report. It was almost three A.M. when the weary family at last retired for the rest of the night.

  “Joe, it’s a cinch what happened here at the house and that business on Lookout Hill were all part of the same plan,” Frank remarked thoughtfully as the brothers undressed for bed.

  “Sure. The timing proves that,” Joe agreed.

  Frank frowned as he went on, “Lemuel, or the Goggler gang, was out to get rid of us tonight and also seek revenge on Zatta. But I still don’t see how the glass eye figures.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if they’re really after the glass eye, they must have sent the safecracker for it in case we hadn’t brought the eye along.”

  Joe stretched out on the bed and clasped his hands under his head. “So?”

  “So it doesn’t make sense. For all they knew, we had the glass eye with us. And if we’d gone over the cliff, the glass eye would’ve wound up at the bottom of Barmet Bay.”

  “Hey, that’s right!” Joe sat up. “Then maybe it’s not the eye they’re after!”

  Frank took the glass eye out of his trouser pocket and studied it again. “That wouldn’t explain the attack on us at the empty house,” he reasoned.

  “Okay!” Joe exclaimed. “So maybe it is the glass eye they’re concerned with—but not because it’s valuable.” />
  “Then why so much trouble to get hold of it?”

  “Because there may be something about it that would incriminate them—evidence that would put the gang behind bars! That way, they’d be just as happy to have it sunk in the bay!”

  Frank gave his brother a startled glance. “Joe, you may have hit the answer!” He held the glass eye up to the light. “If there is something inside,” he speculated, “the opening may have been covered up with the iris. Then the whole thing was glazed over smoothly.”

  Joe switched off the light and settled back. “When Dad gets home, maybe he’ll agree to breaking the eye open.”

  “Right. In the meantime, I’ll keep it under my pillow at night until the safe is repaired.”

  Exhausted by their strenuous activity, the Hardys slept late Sunday morning and awoke just in time for church. After that, Frank and Joe went to the service station. Their car was ready. They were told that both the hydraulic brake lines and the hand brake cable had been cut.

  As they reached home, Mrs. Hardy came out to tell them their father was radioing from St. Louis.

  “We’ll be right there,” Frank said, and dashed inside.

  Fenton Hardy listened with keen and worried interest as his sons related everything that had happened since he had left Bayport. “Be on guard at all times, boys,” he advised.

  The private investigator told Frank and Joe that Ace Pampton, the swindler whom he was after, might be doubling back to Bayport.

  “An airline clerk says a man answering Pampton’s description bought a ticket to Bayport via New York,” Mr. Hardy explained. “He took off on the noon flight. I hate to leave here in case it’s a false alarm. So I’d like you boys to cover the airport and keep watch.”

  “Sure thing, Dad,” said Frank. “What does he look like?”

  “Medium height—quite bald—and he’s been growing a brown beard as disguise. He was wearing a light-blue summer suit and no hat.”

  “Should be easy to spot,” Joe put in. “What time is he due in Bayport?”