Frank walked over to the shelf Peterson had indicated. He looked up at the box. It was not very large, but difficult to reach.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Joe said, coming over.
They stepped closer and began lifting the box. The next instant there was a click, and suddenly the floor beneath their feet gave way! A trap door! The boys plunged helplessly into a dark hole. Landing with a thud on soft ground some ten feet below, the Hardys scrambled up just as the door slammed shut above them. At once they became aware of a hissing sound in the darkness.
“What’s that odor?” Joe asked frantically.
“It must be some kind of gas, Joe!”
In the room above they heard the two men break into raucous laughter. As the hissing sound continued, the boys realized with horror that they were losing consciousness!
CHAPTER XX
Runway Victory
MEANWHILE, Chet and the two men had arrived back at the plane. Jerry was amazed to hear that Peterson and Lieber had been captured.
“And more members of the gang are expected to land here at any time,” Chet added. “Frank says to hide the plane.”
“We’d better push it under the trees,” Jerry said.
Together, they rolled the aircraft deep into the little grove. Then they watched the sky and waited.
“I hope there aren’t too many of them,” Chet said nervously.
Nearly an hour passed before the droning sound of an airplane was heard in the distance.
“There it is!” Jerry shouted. “Let’s take cover!”
They watched the craft as it circled and headed in for a landing. The pilot set the plane down gently, then taxied toward the grove. The plane came to a stop and three men climbed out.
“One of those men is Rodax,” Vogel whispered. “He worked at the Stanwide plant.”
“And I’ve seen the short guy around the plant too,” added Lerner. “Name’s Unger—he’s one of the shipping clerks.”
Neither he nor Vogel recognized the third man, who had piloted the plane.
“I don’t recognize him, either,” said Jerry.
The three men started walking toward the trees. When they sighted the amphibian, they came to an abrupt stop.
“I didn’t know we had another plane working with us,” Rodax was heard to say.
The men walked forward for a closer look.
“Let’s get them!” Chet whispered.
He and the others leaped on the thieves. Rodax and his companions were caught completely unawares. They were quickly subdued, almost without a struggle.
“What is this?” bellowed Rodax.
At that instant Chet had an idea. He realized that Rodax and the other two henchmen had never seen him before. However, they did recognize Jerry Madden, Lerner, and Vogel as employees of Stanwide. Perhaps if the thieves were led to believe that Peterson and Lieber had talked them into coming in on the deal without their confederates’ knowledge, it might make Rodax and the others angry enough to talk.
“You might call it a double cross!” Chet said.
“Double cross? What do you mean?” Rodax demanded.
The man Lerner had recognized as the shipping clerk appeared greatly alarmed.
“Maybe Peterson has brought these guys in on the deal,” he said, “and plans to push us out!”
“Is that right?” Rodax shouted angrily.
“Why don’t you ask Peterson and Lieber about that?” Chet taunted with a grin. “Ask them about the little—er—agreement we made with them.”
Jerry and the others quickly caught on to what Chet was trying to do, and played along.
“If those guys did double-cross us, it’ll be just too bad for them!” shouted Rodax. He was now in a furious mood.
The three thieves were marched off to the shack. As they approached, Peterson and Lieber, who had freed themselves from their bonds, came running out the door.
“It must be true!” growled Rodax. He leaped toward Peterson with clenched fists and knocked him to the ground. The shipping clerk rushed at Lieber. The pilot did not attempt to join in, but merely stood watching nervously.
“Let them fight it out among themselves!” yelled Chet. Concerned about the Hardys, he ran into the shack. “Frank!” he called in a worried voice. “Joe!”
Chet rushed outside.
“Jerry!” he cried out. “Frank and Joe are gone!”
Exhausted from their violent struggle, the four thieves painfully got to their feet.
“What has happened to the Hardys?” Chet demanded angrily.
Peterson and Lieber remained silent.
“Let’s tie them up!” said Jerry.
Peterson and the others were taken into the shack, firmly bound and seated in chairs.
Chet searched the room. He was in a frenzy.
“You’d better tell us where the Hardys are,” Jerry said angrily, addressing Peterson and Lieber. “Otherwise—”
Still the men refused to speak. The strange pilot, who had been getting more nervous by the minute, finally broke down.
“I was dragged into this racket!” he yelled. “I don’t want to go to jail! I’ll turn state’s evidence!”
“What’s your name?” Chet asked him.
“Kyle Rodney,” he responded. “And I’ve been in this shack before. They have a trap door in the floor, over by those wood shelves, with a special catch that automatically releases when anyone steps on the door. Lieber designed it that way, in case snoopers did come here. Before stepping on it himself, he locked it. Your friends are probably down below.”
“Shut up!” growled Lieber.
Chet, with the aid of Lerner and Vogel, pushed hard on the trap door. It swung downward. “I smell gas!” Chet exclaimed.
“It’s harmless,” Lieber said. “When the trap door opens, it uncorks a bottle rigged to the underside.”
Chet peered into the hole. “There they are!” he shouted. “They’re unconscious!”
“Only asleep,” Peterson put in. “That gas wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
Chet grabbed a length of rope, handed one end of it to Lerner and Vogel, then lowered himself to where Frank and Joe were lying. He quickly looped the rope under Frank’s arms, and called to the men to haul the young sleuth up. Then it was Joe’s turn.
The boys were carried outside the shack. After several minutes in the fresh air, the Hardys began to regain consciousness.
“What happened?” Frank murmured in a weak voice.
“You and Joe fell through a trap door in the shack,” explained Chet. “Some kind of gas was released that knocked you both out.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now,” Frank said, holding his head. Then he sat bolt upright. “How’s Joe?” he asked.
“Okay,” Chet assured him. “He’s just a little groggy. Lucky that gas wasn’t deadly!”
Within a few more minutes the boys had fully recovered. They went into the shack and questioned their prisoners.
“Why did you steal Clint Hill’s airplane—the one we found in the cave?” Frank asked.
The captured men glared at the young sleuth in silence.
Frank decided to play a hunch. “That hoist in the plane—you used it to transfer the stolen goods while in flight, didn’t you?” Slyly he played on Peterson’s vanity. “I have to hand it to you. That was some trick! How did you manage it?”
“It was simple! I got the idea after watching some newsreel films on air-to-air refueling,” Peterson boasted. Too late, he realized that he had been tricked into confessing. With nothing further to lose, he began to spell out the details of the scheme, as if wanting the boys and their friends to admire his cleverness.
“I stole Hill’s plane to use in the operation, and we rigged a hoist to it. When we planned a job, I’d arrange to fly the shipment at night so we wouldn’t be seen. Then Kyle Rodney, in the hoist plane, would rendezvous with me over some predetermined point, lower a light cable, and we’d transfer a few boxes of platinum parts from the Stan
wide plane to his.”
“I had to do it!” exclaimed Rodney. “Peterson found out that I had once been in trouble with the law and served a prison term. I was afraid I’d lose my pilot’s license!”
“Your hoisting operation was pretty risky, wasn’t it?” Jerry asked.
“It was the only way,” Peterson confessed. “If I had had to land the cargo plane to unload the stuff, the delay would have shown up on my flight plan. That would have been a dead giveaway.”
Lieber stared at Peterson. He was flushed with anger at his partner’s betrayal.
“After the air-to-air heist,” continued Peterson, ignoring him, “Rodney would fly the stuff to our cave hideout. Bush Barney and Anchor would then set up a roadblock to prevent motorists from using the road near the cave, for fear they might see the plane land in the pasture. If a motorist ignored the roadblock, they would set off flares to warn Rodney not to come in.”
“So it was you who hit our car with the wheels of your plane the night we drove along the road!” Frank said accusingly to Rodney.
“That was an accident,” Rodney answered. “Bush Barney was late in lighting the flare, and I was too low to pull up and go around.”
Peterson then asked the Hardys a question. “How did you learn about this hideout?”
“That was easy,” Frank replied. “We found an air chart on Ile de la Mer with a course to this place marked on it.”
“You fool!” Lieber bellowed at Peterson. “Why did you have to forget that chart!”
“What were you doing on Ile de la Mer?” Frank asked Peterson. “Did you hide any loot there?”
“No,” Peterson responded. “We had planned to use it as a hideout. But then we changed our minds—we were afraid Mr. Allen might decide to send another exploratory team there.”
“Bunglers!” mumbled Rodax.
“Then I remembered this spot,” Peterson continued. “My grandfather used to bring me hunting here when I was a kid. I thought it would make a perfect hideout. We high-tailed it from Ile de la Mer so fast that I forgot to take the chart I had plotted the flight on.”
“Who threw the hand grenade at us?” asked Joe angrily, remembering their close call in the Stanwide hangar.
“That was Rodax,” Peterson said quickly, eager to disclaim responsibility for the brutal attack. “And it was his idea to get you boys to my office so he could have Lieber steal your camera and films from the plane. You’ll find the camera in a Bayport pawnshop.”
“Shut up!” shouted Rodax.
Joe, taking a guess, said, “Zimm, too, worked with you. He spied on us, and covered Clint Hill’s prints in the hangar in case he was still alive and we might trace him. Also, Zimm tried to drop that hunk of machinery on us in the warehouse.”
“Yes,” Peterson replied.
Frank turned to Lieber. “Your brother-in-law is innocent, isn’t he? You just used him for a dupe?”
“Yes.”
The Hardys asked Peterson the location of the dry well where he and Lieber had hidden the loot that they intended keeping for themselves. On hearing this bit of treachery, Rodax and the shipping clerk were ready to tear Peterson and Lieber apart.
Frank whispered to Jerry Madden that he should summon the State Police on the plane’s radio, and also request them to relay word to Bayport Police Headquarters to have Zimm arrested. The pilot left the shack. A few minutes later he returned and nodded to the young sleuth that he had been successful.
Before long, a large Montana police helicopter arrived and the thieves were taken into custody. As Peterson left, he stopped for an instant and turned to the boys.
“Remember,” he said threateningly, “Clint Hill’s ghost is still on the loose! You never solved that mystery!”
“No, but we mean to learn the truth,” Frank answered, and added, “You left a note to Lieber in that cabin saying the ghost knew too much, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I got a lot of radio messages that were—er—too revealing. They came over my office set that was always tuned to unicom.” Peterson would not explain any further.
When the Hardys and their friends returned to Bayport, they received a joyous homecoming. Mr. Allen was overwhelmed by the sleuthing ability of the boy detectives. Frank and Joe refused to accept the handsome check he offered them, but said that their friend Chet would settle for the biggest meal he could find in Bayport!
Two days later the brothers received a telephone call from Mr. Allen, asking them to come to his office. When they arrived, his secretary looked at them with a big smile.
“Go right in,” she said.
As the boys opened the door to Mr. Allen’s office, they were astounded to hear someone whistling “High Journey”!
“Come in!” said Mr. Allen as he rose from behind his desk. He nodded toward a bearded young man at the end of the room. “Meet Clint Hill, boys!”
The Hardys stood speechless for a moment, unable to believe their ears. Clint Hill shook hands with them, then after they all sat down, he began to relate his story.
“As you know, Peterson and I and our passengers crashed at sea during a return flight from Ile de la Mer. After we hit the water, the three mineralogists drowned almost instantly. Peterson took the one available life raft and left me clinging to the wing of the plane. I was slightly injured and couldn’t swim after him.”
“What did Peterson hope to gain by abandoning you?” Frank asked curiously.
“As he paddled off in the raft, he shouted to me that now he would become chief pilot of Stanwide. And that he would fix Mr. Allen. Then I fainted. I must have unconsciously clung to a piece of wreckage, because the next thing I knew I was on an island, being cared for by some natives. They spoke only their own language, which I couldn’t understand.”
“Lucky the natives were friendly,” Frank said.
“Oh, yes,” Clint replied. “After I recovered, they took me to another, bigger island in a dugout canoe. It was there that I managed to get a job and earn enough money to buy boat passage back to the United States. I decided to keep my identity a secret and stay in hiding until I found out what Peterson was up to. I didn’t even get in touch with Mr. Allen—I wanted to be sure of my ground before making any accusations.”
“When did you decide to become a ghost?” asked Joe, grinning.
“I knew Peterson was superstitious,” the pilot said, “so I got a job with the ground crew at a field near Bayport. I began to bug him with the ghost business, hoping to make him confess not only that he had left me to die, but what he was doing to ‘fix’ Mr. Allen.”
“Great idea!” Frank said with a chuckle. “It even had us worried for a while. I guess Peterson asked us to work for him to throw us off the track. By the way, was it you who wore a mask one night at Zimm’s house and gave me a punch?”
“Was that you?” Hill asked, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I thought it was one of Peterson’s pals!”
“No harm done.” Frank grinned. “Go on with your story.”
“After I’d been here a while,” Clint continued, “I took the airport operator I was working for into my confidence. He allowed me the use of an airplane to do some investigating, and I succeeded in tracking Peterson to Anchor’s cabin, but I couldn’t find the cave. I see you boys did, though! And when he skipped, I phoned your house to find out where he’d gone. But you tried to bargain with me and of course I couldn’t do that.”
“No.” Frank laughed. “Of course you couldn’t.”
The young pilot congratulated the Hardys on the fine job they had done in uncovering Peterson’s scheme against Mr. Allen. The boys felt gratified, but longed to solve another mystery. It was to come as they worked to find out the riddle of a story about What Happened at Midnight.
Mr. Allen heartily echoed Clint Hill’s praise. “And since you Hardy boys are the best sleuths in the business,” Mr. Allen added, “you’ve probably figured out that you are now looking at Stanwide’s permanent chief pilot! That is,” he added, with a grin in
Clint’s direction, “if our ghost gets around to shaving off those whiskers!”
The Great Airport Mystery Page 11
