The motorcyclists grinned sheepishly and shrugged.
“No special reason,” one said. “We were just tooling along when we spotted your car. Len Boggs talked us into chasing you. I think he’s still sore ‘cause your brother beat him in the Hare Scrambles race.”
The gang leader reddened at this, but finally and reluctantly came forward to shake hands with the Hardys.
“What’re you guys doin’ out here?” another motorcyclist asked. “Solvin’ another mystery?”
“Trying to,” Frank replied. “We almost had a crook collared before you Gung-Ho’s showed up. Now he’s taken off.”
Suddenly an idea occurred to Frank. “Hey, how would you like to give us a hand?” he said.
“Why not?” a gang member replied. “What’s the deal?”
“Did you notice that green station wagon that was parked near the road when you first got here?”
“Sure, what about it?”
“Have you guys got CB radios on your bikes?”
“Most of us have. Why?”
“How would you like to fan out from here,” Frank proposed, “and see if you can spot where that wagon went?”
“I will pay a one-hundred-dollar reward to the first man who sights it,” Mr. Satoya promised.
The Gung-Ho’s exploded with enthusiasm. They all hurried out to their motorcycles. Soon the gang was roaring off in all directions in pursuit of the fugitive.
Frank and Joe returned to their car with Mr. Satoya. Frank tuned in their radio to the proper frequency, and the three waited tensely for news.
At last a voice crackled over their speaker. “Len Boggs calling the Hardys!”
“Hardys here. We read you,” Frank replied. “Come in, please! Any luck, Len?”
“You betl I’ve spotted your green station wagon!”
20
Black Commandos
The Hardys felt a thrill of excitement at Len Boggs’s report. Both sensed that the case was nearing a climax, and that luck was giving them another chance to trap the traitor inside the Satoya Corporation, the culprit behind the mystery of the samurai sword!
“Where’re you calling from, Len?” Frank spoke into the microphone.
“The Pine Glen area near Shoreham. Know where that is?”
“Sure, west of town. It’s not much built up.”
“Right. Just a few scattered houses and farms. The station wagon’s parked outside a house on Locust Road.”
“You think it’s the same one you saw here?” Frank inquired, trying to avoid a false alarm.
Len Boggs sounded confident. “Sure looks like it. The license number starts with an X7.”
“That’s it!” Joe exclaimed excitedly as the combination clicked in his memory.
“Okay. Give us directions,” Frank said.
Len Boggs complied, describing enough landmarks to make sure they found the spot.
Soon the Hardys sped off in their car with Takashi Satoya. The gray-haired Japanese recluse seemed to be enjoying the adventure thoroughly, coming more and more out of his shell as he traded remarks with Frank and Joe.
In less than fifteen minutes they sighted Len Boggs signaling to them from the road ahead.
“Any signs of life or new developments?” Frank said out the window as he braked to a gentle halt.
“Nope. The station wagon’s the only car parked outside, and no one else has shown up,” Len reported.
“Great! That sounds as though we ought to be able to handle the situation,” Joe opined.
“Let’s not take anything for granted,” Frank cautioned. “Ikeda may have pals inside.”
Satoya nodded. “It is always wise not to rush into danger.”
After a hasty conference, they parked off the road and approached the house on foot. Well screened from view by trees, it was a modest white bungalow, bordered by tall shrubbery.
Len Boggs had agreed to ring the bell, since his face presumably would not be recognized by Haruki Ikeda. The others waited out of sight nearby, huddled behind shrubbery.
Presently the door opened. Ikeda looked out with a suspicious frown. “Yes?”
The next moment he gaped in surprise as the others burst into view. Satoya called out what sounded like a command in Japanese and dashed toward the front door with the Hardy boys. Len Boggs stepped aside.
Ikeda tried to slam the door in their faces, but Satoya flung himself forward to push it open with his shoulder. The Hardys were close behind.
Suddenly Ikeda seemed to stop resisting their push. The door flew open under their combined weight, and all three went plunging inside. Their momentum carried them well into the front room, and they wound up sprawling headlong on the floor.
As Frank and Joe scrambled to their feet, they heard Len Boggs chuckle gleefully as he yanked the door shut behind them. The room seemed to fill with menacing figures, and the Hardys realized they had been lured into a trap!
Takashi Satoya rose calmly to his feet beside them. From his impassive expression, the gray-haired industrialist seemed utterly unperturbed by what had happened. But Frank and Joe felt no such confidence as they eyed the enemies who confronted them.
Besides Ikeda, there were five men, ranged in strategic fighting positions. Two were Americans-Krunkel and another man, no doubt his partner in crime, Darbold. The other three were tough-looking Orientals with tattooed arms—obviously Yakuza, or Japanese gangsters. Among them the Hardys recognized the crook who had tried to shadow them in New York.
Satoya spoke coldly in Japanese, but his words drew a jeering response.
“Let’s not waste time!” Krunkel growled in English. “Just grab‘em and tie’em up—then we can figure out what to do with them!”
One of the Yakuza reached inside his suitcoat, as if to draw a weapon from a shoulder holster and cover the three prisoners.
But Satoya moved like lightning. He swept up a small table that stood within reach and hurled it through the air! It caught the threatening Japanese gangster on the side of the head and knocked him off his feet!
With angry oaths, the other crooks swarmed into action. But the Hardys and their gray-haired companion did not wait helplessly to be seized. They met the attack with flying fists and swirling aikido counter-moves.
In a minute the room was a bedlam of noise and violent activity. Ikeda, the gangsters and the two American burglars were far more dangerous opponents than the awkward, roughneck Gung-Ho gang had been. Also, the Orientals were expert enough in the martial arts to offset Satoya’s fighting skill.
Whether the outnumbered trio could survive the battle looked doubtful. Frank and Joe realized the odds were heavily against them.
But suddenly the front door flew open and three black-clad figures burst in! A man in a business suit was with them.
“It’s Sam Radley—and the ninja!” Joe cried.
The newcomers waded in, swinging punches and karate chops in all directions. In a few minutes the fight was over, and all six crooks, including Haruki Ikeda, were being lined up against the wall and frisked.
“What a break!” Frank panted. “You sure showed up at the right time, Sam! How’d you find this place?”
“Easy.” Sam grinned. “Krunkel returned to the motel, then he and his partner came out again about an hour after you and Joe left. I think they may have gotten a phone order to come to this house. Anyhow, I trailed them here and then went off to find your dad.”
“Where is he?” Joe asked.
“Three guesses,” said a familiar voice.
One of the black-clad figures peeled off his hood, and the boys saw that the speaker was none other than their father, Fenton Hardy!
“Good night!” Frank exclaimed in astonishment. “When did you become a ninja, Dad?”
Mr. Hardy chuckled and gestured toward his black-clad associates. “I’m not sharp enough to call myself a ninja yet, son. But these two gentlemen have been giving me some mighty useful training. They’re old army buddies of Mr. Satoya’s. He uses
them as his private security team.”
“So that’s where they came from!” said Joe.
Mr. Satoya explained that because at first he had suspected either Kawanishi or Oyama of being the traitor in his company, he had also been suspicious of the American detective whom they had hired to protect him.
The two ninja had been sent to the USA before his own arrival in order to prepare for his “disappearance.” Later they had been instructed to keep an eye on the Hardys, and after Humber’s newspaper interview, the wealthy collector had also been placed under observation, in case he might have been involved in the gallery theft.
It was through Satoya’s secret request to the Japanese ambassador in Washington that the FBI had pulled Fenton Hardy off the case. Eventually, however, the famed private eye had convinced the two ninja agents of his trustworthiness—and since then he had been cooperating with them.
“But there’s still a good deal we don’t know about this case,” Mr. Hardy concluded. “I’m hoping you boys can clear things up.”
“I think we can explain part of the puzzle,” Frank volunteered. “Ikeda hired the three gangsters to come over to this country beforehand, just like Mr. Satoya sent his two ninja. My guess is that the gangsters then hired Krunkel and Darbold to steal the sword from the Palmer-Glade Galleries.”
“Right,” said Joe. “But they also had a duplicate made, so they could switch it for the real sword and make Mr. Satoya look like a phony when he couldn’t open the secret compartment, because the hilt of the fake sword had no secret compartment!”
The ransom ploy, so the Hardy boys reasoned, had been a clever way of getting the fake sword accepted by the police without anyone questioning its authenticity.
Had Warlord bought the fake sword, the police would no doubt have been tipped off by a secret phone call that they would find the stolen weapon in his possession.
When this move failed to work, the Hardy boys and Dobert Humber had been lured to Lookout Rock for a second ransom ploy. This time the crooks had taken no chances on anything going wrong, or themselves being trapped by the police. The siren trick had been used to make it look as though the thief had fled in panic, with the fake sword being left at Lookout Rock, where the Hardys would be sure to discover it.
“Smart thinking, boys,” Mr. Hardy congratulated his two sons.
“A brilliant explanation, indeed!” Mr. Satoya agreed. “And now I think it is time to hear what my dishonest, worthless aide has to say for himself.”
Haruki Ikeda seemed to shrivel under his employer’s scorn as Satoya berated him bitterly in Japanese.
He confessed that for some time he had been engaged in crooked double-dealing, selling company secrets to its business competitors-especially Gorobei Motors. The latter had used every means possible, including attempted murder, to keep the Satoya Corporation from merging its motorcycle division with the Road King Company.
In a last-ditch effort to prevent this from happening, Gorobei Motors had been pressing Ikeda to do something drastic. This had led to his clever scheme to have Takashi Satoya branded an impostor and removed from control of his own company.
The scheme had occurred to Ikeda partly because Toshiro Muramoto was worried that the company might already be in the hands of some crook who was merely impersonating the real Satoya. In fact, Muramoto had already been paying Ikeda for inside information on the company. He had done this in a sincere attempt to uncover any plot to take over the Satoya Corporation, without knowing that Ikeda was crookedly conniving with business competitors against his own firm.
But Ikeda admitted that the main motive for his scheme had been to make as much money as possible. He had planned to buy a lot of company stock after leaking the news story that Satoya was an impostor. This announcement would drive down the value of the company stock, so that he would be able to buy it cheaply.
He would then deliver the real sword to Satoya for a hundred thousand dollars in “ransom money.” Once Satoya was able to clear himself and prove that he was the rightful head of the firm, the value of the stock would rise again. Ikeda would then be able to sell at a huge profit.
“How do these two birds fit into the picture?” Sam Radley asked the boys with a jerk of his thumb toward Krunkel and Darbold. “I mean, why were they hanging around this area after they’d pulled the museum heist and delivered the loot to Ikeda or his hired gangsters?”
“He probably promised them a share of the ransom money, besides whatever he paid them to steal the sword in the first place,” Frank replied.
“Of course he’d have kicked in part of the ransom,” Krunkel growled. “You think we’re stupid enough to let him keep it all for himself?”
“Being criminals at all is stupid enough,” Frank retorted coolly.
As Krunkel and his accomplice began talking, the Hardys learned that it was Sam Radley who had scared them into hiding the sword down the well. Once Krunkel started worrying that Sam might have identified him, the two thieves became alarmed that the sword might be found in their possession while they were waiting for Ikeda to take it to his employer under the pretense of having paid out the hundred thousand dollars in ransom money.
And as Joe had guessed, it was the news story about the recovery of the sword that had prompted Krunkel to check the well, because he and his partner had been told nothing about Ikeda’s scheme involving the fake sword.
“Well, that seems to clear up the whole mystery,” said Fenton Hardy.
“Except for a certain document hidden in the hilt of Mr. Satoya’s sword,” Frank put in with a glance at the Japanese tycoon.
“Which I am quite impatient to check on,” Satoya admitted.
After fleeing from the deserted farm in his rented station wagon, Ikeda had brought the sword into the house on Locust Road. It was lying in plain sight on the mantel.
The tycoon’s expression was tense as he took down the sword. Frank and Joe watched in fascination as he gave the pommel cap a slight twist, then pressed two small metal decorations on the hilt, called menuki. Instantly the mother-of-pearl inlay on one side of the hilt swung open like a flap!
With a smile of relief, Satoya reached two fingers into the opening and plucked out a folded piece of paper. Without opening the paper, he borrowed a pipe lighter from Mr. Hardy and held a flame to the document. In seconds it caught fire and shriveled to ashes!
Frank watched him, suddenly feeling depressed. This was the end of their case. Would there ever be another one? He did not know that soon the boys would be called upon to work on The Pentagon Spy.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he turned to his father. “Dad, you didn’t happen to see a motorcyclist riding away from here, did you, or notice where he was going?”
“Matter of fact I did,” said Fenton Hardy, “and the answer is nowhere—at least not for a while, till he spends some time under a pump, cleaning up.”
“How come?” Frank queried.
“Because he ran into a farm truck and got trampled by a load of very annoyed pigs.”
Once again the detective was mystified as he saw his sons burst out laughing!
Mystery of the Samurai Sword Page 12
