Before hanging up, Frank suggested that his father have the FBI check all other firms which had suffered trade-secret leaks to see if they, too, had stuffed animals.
“Good idea, son. I’ll do that.”
The boys managed to get seats on a six-o’clock flight to Bayport. As they were eating dinner on the plane, Joe said, “There’s one thing we still haven’t figured out, Frank.”
“What’s that?”
“Why did Afron have his gang yank the fox out of the Lektrex plant?”
“Hmm. Good question.” Frank gazed thoughtfully out the window at the twinkling lights of a town far below. “Maybe they got worried about us checking into the stuffed animal angle while Dad was investigating these industrial spy cases. If he was called to Lektrex, there was danger we might put two and two together.”
“Could be,” Joe conceded. “But that still wouldn’t explain the other animal thefts.”
“No, you’re right, it wouldn’t.” Frank added, “Maybe we’d better not give up too soon on Jimmy Gordon’s treasure hunt.”
When the boys arrived home, they settled down in the living room with their father to discuss the latest developments in the case.
“The FBI called back a few minutes ago and reported on five firms,” Mr. Hardy said. “Three of them, including that California aircraft manufacturer, had bugged animals in their offices, and two had stuffed sailfishes.”
“Did the FBI find out where the specimens came from?” Frank asked eagerly.
Mr. Hardy nodded as he filled his pipe. “The animals had been presented as a gift by Nils Afron. In every case, a company executive had met him at a hunting lodge in Canada. The sailfishes came from a man named Neil Aaron. In those two cases, an acquaintance had been struck up during a fishing jaunt in Florida.”
“Neil Aaron!” Joe exclaimed. “I’ll bet that’s just an alias for Nils Afron.”
“No doubt about it,” Mr. Hardy agreed. “The description tallies exactly.”
The telephone rang and Joe bounced up to answer it. “This is Chief Collig,” said the caller. “We’ve just picked up Soapy Moran.”
Moron—the small-time swindler who had worked for Elias Batter!
Joe’s pulse quickened at the news. “That’s great, Chief! Where is he?”
“We have him here at headquarters and I think he’s about ready to talk. I thought you fellows and your dad might want to be here.”
“We sure do! We’ll be right down.”
The Hardys sped off in the boys’ convertible and pulled up outside the gray stone building that housed Bayport Police Headquarters.
In the interrogation room Soapy Moran was seated on a chair facing Chief Collig, two detectives, and an FBI agent. The gaunt swindler looked ready to wilt under the blazing light and their relentless questioning.
“You’re free to call a lawyer,” Collig told him.
“Never mind. I’ve told you all I know,” Moran whined. He mopped beads of perspiration from his face. “Just give me a break, will you?”
“What has he confessed to?” Frank asked.
“I’ve admitted I conned your pal out of ten bucks,” Moran said hastily. “Here—give it back to him.” Whipping out a wallet, he extracted a ten-dollar bill and laid it on the table.
“Tell them about the work you did for Elias Batter,” Collig prodded.
Moran said he had often picked up small parcels for Batter at Zetter’s Radio and TV Shop. He had also delivered several stuffed animals from Batter to a certain address in Bayport. Two men there had recently paid him to spy on the Hardys.
“What kind of racket were they up to?” barked a detective.
Moran cringed fearfully. “I told you I don’t know! Batter warned me not to get snoopy!”
“The picture’s clear enough,” Fenton Hardy said. “Zetter made the electronic bugs, and Batter implanted them in the stuffed animals.”
“And it explains why that baldheaded crook picked Zetter’s shop to duck through when he was running away with the wolf’s head!” said Joe.
“We already have an alarm out for Zetter,” put in Chief Collig, “but he’s not at his shop or his house.”
Frank, meanwhile, was scanning a wall map of the Bayport area, locating the address Moran had named. “Look! It’s directly in the path of the scrambler beam!” he exclaimed.
“There’s a squad car standing by,” said Collig. “We were just waiting for you fellows.”
The Hardys’ convertible followed close behind as the police car raced through the streets of Bayport. In minutes they were screeching to a halt outside a shabby-looking frame house in a run-down, older part of town. All the windows were dark, and high hedges separated the house from its neighbors.
“Ten to one the place is empty,” said Mr. Hardy as he and the boys leaped from the convertible. “The gang probably pulled out right after the bug was discovered.”
The investigator’s guess proved correct. Two camp cots, a rickety table, and chairs had been left behind, as well as a litter of empty food cans, but there were clear signs of a hasty exit. Lengths of ripped-out wiring and scattered, broken electronic components in an upstairs room showed where their radio gear had been set up.
“This was their listening post, all right,” said the FBI agent.
“Get the fingerprint boys busy!” Collig snapped to a detective-sergeant.
The room, evidently the master bedroom, had a fireplace in one corner. Joe noticed a small heap of ashes on the hearth, as if papers had been burned hastily. One scrap, although charred beyond recognition, was still intact.
“Hey, Dad!” Joe exclaimed. “Think we might get anything from this?”
Fenton Hardy squatted down to examine the paper remnant. “It’s worth a try.”
Chief Collig willingly agreed to leave the task in the Hardys’ skilled hands. The charred paper was gently swept onto a glass plate, then sprayed with fixative, and flattened under another plate. Later, in the boys’ crime lab at home, the scrap was photographed on an orthochromatic plate and printed on high-contrast paper.
Three words could now be made out in a ghostly scrawl:
Aardvark to Canada
CHAPTER XIX
A Wrecked Canoe
“I’LL bet this was part of a code message!” Joe exclaimed, staring at the photograph of the burnt paper.
“And ’Aardvark’ may be Nils Afron,” said Frank.
“Yes, it’s not hard to guess what happened,” their father said thoughtfully. “The gang members in Bayport no doubt radioed Afron as soon as the bug was discovered. Then he sent back this code message saying to clear out and that he himself was going to Canada.”
“Canada!” Joe echoed excitedly. “If he wants to lie low, he might go back to that hunting lodge in Ontario!”
Mr. Hardy nodded. “It’s a good possibility. Let’s find out exactly where the lodge is located.”
All three hurried to Fenton Hardy’s study. Checking an atlas, they discovered that Lake Okemow lay in the James Bay area and that the nearest town appeared to be Moosonee.
Mr. Hardy glanced at his watch. “Almost ten-thirty. Hmm. I suppose it’s possible we might learn something by calling there, even at this hour.”
Frank and Joe stood by tensely as their father picked up the telephone on his desk and dialed long-distance. He asked to be put through directly to the operator in Moosonee, Ontario.
When the connection was made, the detective asked, “Can you tell me any way to contact the Lachine Hunting Lodge on Lake Okemow?”
“There is no phone service, sir. The only way to reach the lodge directly is by radio.”
“Radio?” Mr. Hardy shot a glance at the boys. “You mean over the ham bands?”
“Yes, sir.” In answer to the detective’s question, she gave the lodge owner’s call letters and the usual frequency for local-area hams. “Mr. Lachine’s on the air every night about this time, if you want to try contacting him.”
“Thank you. We
shall,” Fenton Hardy replied.
The Hardys went to the attic radio shack and warmed up their rig. Frank tuned in a number of conversations on the 40-meter band until he caught Lachine’s call sign. Then he zeroed in on the lodge owner’s frequency and waited for his transmission to end.
“I have not much hope for him, mon ami,” Lachine was saying, “but keep your eyes open when you are tending your trap line. The bush pilots will all be looking, of course.”
“Sounds as if someone’s lost,” Joe muttered.
As soon as they heard Lachine ending his conversation with the local ham, Frank called and quickly made contact. He introduced himself and asked about Nils Afron.
“Afron? Bon tonnerre!” The lodge owner sounded deeply shaken. “What a sad coincidence that tonight you should call to inquire for him. I am much afraid that M’sieu Afron may be dead.”
“Dead!” Frank gasped. “What happened to him? You mean some sort of accident?”
“Oui, it appears he has drowned.” Lachine explained that Afron had flown in that very day from Timmins, Ontario, arriving just before one o’clock. After a brief lunch, he had started upriver on a fishing trip, without a guide.
“I did not like him going alone,” Lachine added, “but he is an old and valued guest. When he insists, what can I say? He had trouble on his mind, I believe, and wished to be away from everyone. Then tonight an Indian comes running to the lodge and tells us he has sighted M’sieu Afron’s wrecked canoe. It washed ashore upriver from here. Sacrebleu! A terrible tragedy!”
“You think there’s no hope for him?” Frank asked. “Maybe he went ashore and the canoe drifted loose.”
“Perhaps. Time alone will tell, but I fear the worst,” Lachine said sadly.
After talking a while longer, Frank signed off and turned to Joe and Mr. Hardy. “Well, what do you think?”
“Sounds fishy to me!” Joe declared.
“Could be a trick, all right,” Mr. Hardy agreed. “Just a clever way for Afron to make the police think he’s dead.” The investigator scowled and rubbed his jaw. “Well, from here on it’s a job for the Canadian Mounties, I guess.”
Frank and Joe glanced at each other, both struck with the same impulse.
“Dad,” Frank spoke up, “why couldn’t Joe and I go up there and look around? You still have plenty to do running down the rest of the gang. In the meantime, we might be able to pick up a clue that would prove whether Afron’s really dead.”
Joe chimed in. “That’s a swell idea, Dad! What do you say? We’d only miss two days of school and get back right after the weekend!”
Mr. Hardy was thoughtful a moment, then smiled. “All right. Why not? You two have certainly earned a trip, with your work on this case!”
Chet Morton stopped at the house early the next morning on his way to school. He had heard on a breakfast newscast about the raid on the gang’s listening post and was avid for a firsthand account from the Hardys. Frank and Joe gave him the details, then told about their projected trip to Canada.
“We’ll be catching the two-o’clock flight,” Frank ended.
“You lucky ducks!” The stout boy added darkly, “All the same, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. What if you run into Afron out in the woods somewhere?”
“Don’t worry, we plan to stalk him in our moose disguise,” Joe said with a wink at his brother. “Remember, the Hardys always get their man!”
Much of the morning was spent in frantic packing, amid worried advice from Aunt Gertrude. Each of the Hardy boys loaded a good-sized duffel bag with his bedroll, heavy woolen clothing, boots, socks, and other needed items. Frank crammed their father’s small, portable battery transceiver into his bag, while Joe stowed away a compact, inflatable rubber life raft.
Shortly after one o’clock they were surprised by a visit from Jimmy Gordon and his mother. “I saw Chet on the way to school this morning and he told me where you’re going,” Jimmy explained. “When I told Ma at lunchtime, we decided to come over and say good-by.”
“I—Well, I just thought I should apologize for being so short with you boys the other day,” Mrs. Gordon said hesitantly.
“That’s all right,” Frank said. “We understand.”
“I wanted to thank you, too, for being so kind to Jimmy. His teacher says he’s perked up wonderfully in school.” Mrs. Gordon’s eyes moistened and she gave Jimmy a hug. “I’m changing to a different job next week, so I’ll be able to spend more time with him.”
Jimmy pulled out a package and handed it to Frank and Joe. “Here’s a present to take with you. I paid for ’em with my own dough!”
The parcel contained two small jackknives. They were flimsy in quality and not likely to be useful for much more than sharpening pencils, but the Hardys assured Jimmy they were exactly what was needed for the trip.
“You really like ’em?” The boy’s face beamed. “I’m sure glad! I figured hunting knives would come in handy up there in the woods.”
Soon after the Gordons left, Frank and Joe gave Aunt Gertrude a final hug and set off for the airport with their father. Their route included Toronto, then over a vast, lonely, region, splashed with lakes and carpeted with spruce.
The plane landed briefly at Sudbury, where the boys glimpsed the white domes of a radar station standing out against the night sky. Two hours after leaving Toronto, they set down near the rugged mining town of Timmins.
They registered at a hotel for the night and arranged by telephone for a bush pilot to fly them on to Lake Okemow. At daybreak the two sleuths were up and breakfasting on a hearty meal of Canadian bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes. Then they taxied off in a four-seater amphibian.
The flight proved to be bumpy. Below lay a dense wilderness of black spruce, poplar, birch, and tamarack. Glittering lakes and snakelike streams slashed the forest. Farther north came barren patches, frosted white with snow. Then again they were flying over heavy timber.
“Here we are!” the pilot said at last. He brought the plane down to a choppy landing on the not-yet-frozen lake and taxied to a wooden pier. On the shore lay the stout log hunting lodge. Smoke feathered from its chimney.
A biting wind clawed at their faces as a bearded, red-haired man in a plaid Mackinaw came crunching across the snow to meet them.
“Bonjour!” he boomed. “I was not expecting guests, but welcome to my lodge!”
“We’re the Hardy boys,” Frank said as they shook hands. “I’m Frank and this is my brother Joe. I talked to you on the radio. Remember?”
“Ah, mais oui! And I am Jacques Lachine!” He bellowed an order, and a big, dark-skinned man came out to get the boys’ duffel bags.
As Lachine led the way to the lodge, he remarked that guests were usually few at this time of year but that business suddenly appeared to have picked up. “First, M‘sieu Afron comes on Wednesday. Now you two, and today I hear by radio another gentleman will arrive tomorrow from New York, a M’sieu Ardmore.”
The boys looked at each other but said nothing until they were alone in their room at the lodge. Then Joe said, “Did you get that name Ardmore?”
Frank nodded thoughtfully. “I sure did. Sort of close to ‘Aardvark,’ isn’t it?” Both wondered if they had made a mistake about Afron being the leader of the gang.
As they ate lunch in front of a roaring fire, Lachine reported that there was still no news of Afron. Frank explained that they had come expressly to help search for him and would like to make a trip upriver to look for clues.
Lachine shook his head doubtfully. “The weather looks bad, mes amis, but if you insist upon going, my man René will be your guide.”
Within an hour after the meal, the boys had loaded their duffel bags into a canoe and were pushing off, up the mouth of the nearby river, into the wilderness. René, the dark-skinned man, rowed astern while Frank and Joe took turns wielding the bow paddle.
On both sides of them lay a dense forest of towering evergreens. Ice was forming along the banks, which in places
were strewn with rugged boulders or rose in steep, rocky upthrusts.
As the afternoon wore on, the wind grew stronger and more bitter. Dark clouds closed in from the northwest. René muttered, “The snow, she come soon, I think.”
The first flakes came in gusts but gradually the storm increased to a howling blizzard. Soon after dark the trio reached the clearing where Afron had planned to camp.
René beached the canoe against the hilly bank. He ordered the boys to go ahead while he unloaded the camping gear. Shouldering their duffel bags, Frank and Joe clambered up the slope.
There were signs that the spot had been used as a frequent campsite by hunting and fishing parties. The two boys selected a sheltered spot close to the trees and began looking for firewood. Minutes went by.
“Wonder what’s keeping René,” Joe said.
In the snowy darkness it was difficult to see more than a few yards. Puzzled by the guide’s delay, the Hardys made their way back toward the shore to see if he was having trouble.
Frank was the first to reach the riverbank. His eyes widened in dismay as he peered all around. “Joe!” he gasped. “The canoe’s gone!”
CHAPTER XX
The Right Spots
THE boys were thunderstruck to find themselves alone on the night-shrouded, icy shore.
“You don’t suppose René got swept downriver somehow while he was unloading?” Joe faltered.
“Not a chance! He had the canoe too well beached,” Frank said.
The Hardys shouted the guide’s name frantically, but knew their voices could not carry far in the shrieking blizzard. Bit by bit the realization grew that they had been deserted!
“Either René’s in cahoots with Afron,” Frank said bitterly, “or he and Lachine both are.”
Joe nodded. “Now we know why Afron used the lodge for drumming up spy-ring victims.”
“Also why he came here to hide from the law!”
The boys debated whether to try trekking back downriver. For long stretches the banks were impossible to negotiate on foot, yet once out of sight of the stream they might quickly become lost! Without food or matches, their plight seemed desperate.
The Short-Wave Mystery Page 11
