Joe opened the window, reached in, and clipped one of the tiny microphones to the back of one of the drapes.
He had barely pulled the window down when Mr. and Mrs. Steele entered the room. The boys faded around the corner of the house to the back.
A light burned in the kitchen, but shades were drawn over both the window and the glass pane in the back door. Frank tried the door and found it unlocked. Inching the door open, he peered in. No one was in sight.
“Give me the other mike,” he said to Joe.
Joe handed it to him and Frank went inside. He clipped the disk under a kitchen curtain and slipped out again.
The boys retreated behind the garage. Joe flicked on the switch of the receiver. Both put their ears close to it.
Mrs. Steele’s voice came through. “If your friends are coming here tonight, I’m going to my sister’s. I can’t stand them.”
Vincent Steele said patiently, “They’re not friends, merely business associates. And they won’t be staying long.”
“Even five minutes is too long to suit me,” his wife replied sharply. “When they arrive, I leave!”
Just then five shadowy figures moved past the garage. Obviously the other gate was not electrified. It was too dark to see the men’s features. They entered the house by the back door. A few moments later the door opened again, then slammed shut. Mrs. Steele went straight to the garage and drove off.
The voices from inside the house came over the bug distinctly. Someone with an Italian accent said, “Why didn’t you keep the blade, once you had your hands on it?”
“There were two of them,” Steele replied. “Besides, I examined it carefully. There was no will inscribed on it!”
“Then it can’t be the Adalante,” a familiar voice spoke up.
Joe whispered, “I think that’s Charlie.”
“Right,” Frank replied. “Listen.”
“Yes, it is the Adalante,” Steele insisted. “The letters A-N-T-E were clearly visible. But there was nothing else.”
“Why did you let them escape from the cellar?” Homer asked.
“Me?” Steele said. “I wasn’t even here. You locked them in. You can’t seem to do anything right. First you caused poor Ettore Rossi all that trouble for nothing, because you thought he was Russo. Then you can’t even lock up a couple of kids so they stay locked up!”
“Shut up!” It was Kell speaking. “You haven’t done so hot either.”
“I did what I was hired to do. I found the broken blade. So I’ll take my payoff now.”
There was a derisive laugh, then the man with the accent said, “You have not delivered the blade.”
“I only agreed to locate it,” Steele said. “I’ve done that. I walked the boys outside when they left here and got the cab’s number. Then I phoned the taxi company and found out from the dispatcher that he took them to the Northside Plaza Motel in Stockton. You’ll find the blade there.”
The man with the accent said, “Hugo, I wish to speak to you alone. Come with me in the kitchen.”
There was a short silence, then the man said in a whispering voice, “If Steele is right and there is no inscription on the saber, we could put our own on it once we get the blade!”
Hugo replied, “Not a bad idea, Hans. We could have it engraved so as to leave everything to Fabrizio Dente. Shall we pay off Steele?”
“Not until we have the sword!”
A door shut. Apparently they were returning to the others in the living room.
“I wonder who those two are,” Joe said in a low voice.
“Maybe the leaders of the gang,” Frank ventured.
They listened attentively, but nothing more of importance was said. Hans announced they were leaving and promised Vincent Steele he would get his money as soon as the Adalante was in their hands.
“We’ll get it tomorrow,” Hans said. “It should be no problem to find out which room the Hardys are in. We’ll watch until they leave, then break in and steal the blade.”
The five men left by the back door. Joe switched off the receiver and the boys slipped around the comer to the far side of the garage until the shadowy quintet had gone past them and into the alley.
As the back gate clicked behind them, Frank and Joe followed. A car was parked about twenty yards from the house. The men climbed in and drove away without lights. It was impossible to see the license number.
“Too bad we couldn’t get a look at their faces,” Joe said.
“Yes,” Frank agreed. “But we still learned a lot. Now back to the motel and report to Dad.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “But let’s stop at Swanson’s and pick up some hamburgers. I’m hungry.”
“All right,” Frank consented.
They left by the driveway gate and made their way back to where they had parked the car. It was nearly midnight when Frank pulled into the drive-in restaurant and gave their order. As they were waiting, a green Buick drove in next to them.
Both boys turned to look. “Well, well,” Frank said. “If it isn’t our buddy Harry Madsen!”
“Are you guys still hanging around here?” Madsen snarled.
“Have you been following us?” Frank demanded.
“None of your business,” the bulldozer operator snapped. “You’d better just watch your step.”
The carhop came with their sack of hamburgers. Joe paid and Frank started the car.
As they backed out, Madsen called after them, “Remember what I said! Watch out!”
The boys did not reply and Frank drove toward the Northside Plaza.
“You think he’s in with that mob?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know. He could have stayed outside Steele’s house tonight and kept watch, then followed us here.”
Joe thought about this for a moment, then said, “I doubt it. If he was tailing us, why did he make himself known?”
“True, too.”
As they neared the motel, they saw the blinking red lights of three police cars parked in front.
“Holy Toledo!” Joe exclaimed. “More trouble!”
Frank parked the car in front of their parents’ room. Three policemen were standing there, guarding the door!
CHAPTER XX
Duel in the Dumps
“WE’RE Mr. Hardy’s sons,” Frank said to the patrolmen. “What happened?”
“Your father can tell you,” one of the officers replied. “He’s inside.”
They found the motel room crowded with people—Mr. and Mrs. Hardy, Chet, two more policemen and four handcuffed prisoners.
Frank and Joe identified Charlie, Homer, Kell and the fake Signor Zonko, mastermind of the Bayport bank robbery.
“His real name is Hugo Hausner,” Mr. Hardy said. “He’s a Swiss citizen and an international thief, according to the police here.”
“How did you catch them?” Joe asked.
“Chet and I arrived just after five of them entered to steal the sword Adalante,” Mr. Hardy replied. “We rushed in when we heard your mother scream. I knocked out Charlie with a karate chop. Chet got Homer with an uppercut and your mother banged Kell on the head with the telephone. Then Chet and I subdued Hausner. Unfortunately, in all the confusion, the fifth man escaped taking the broken blade.”
“We’ll catch up with him,” one of the officers declared. “From your description, he must be Hugo’s brother Hans. He’s got an Italian accent. Hugo sometimes speaks with an accent, too, but his is phony. We’ve put out an all-points bulletin on Hans.”
The other policeman said, “Let’s get these guys down to headquarters. Maybe one of them will talk.”
The suspects were hustled into a police car. Mr. Hardy and the three boys followed in the Plymouth. Mrs. Hardy remained at the motel.
At headquarters the bank robbers were informed of their legal rights to consult a lawyer, then were put in separate cells. It was not long before Charlie agreed to turn informer in return for a recommendation of leniency when he came to triaL
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sp; “Hans Hausner came to the States because some guy in Switzerland had hired him to locate the guard end of the sword Adalante,” Charlie began. “Also, he was supposed to prevent Ettore Russo from going to Tessin to claim his grandfather’s estate.”
Joe said, “But Hans chased the wrong man at first!”
“Right. Then a publicity story on Ettore Rossi appeared in the newspaper and pointed out the similarity in names,” Charlie said. “So he realized his mistake.”
“What about Hugo Hausner?” Frank asked.
“He pulled a number of bank robberies. The last one was in Bayport. Somehow his voice was taped, so he cut out. Came to the Coast and worked with Hans.”
“And how does Steele fit into all this?” Mr. Hardy inquired.
Charlie said Hans had contacted the writer to help him locate the sword because Steele knew a lot about the area that had once been Russo’s vineyard. Steele agreed, for a price, to try to find the blade.
Charlie added, “I understand Steele’s wife didn’t know anything about this.”
The story continued to unfold. After the Bayport robbery, Red Bowes was ordered to shadow the Hardys. Two more of Hugo’s men had gone to Chicago, where they successfully shook down a top racketeer for a large sum by selling him his own voiceprint from Mr. Hardy’s file. From there they had continued on to New Orleans for the same reason.
Homer, Charlie, and Kell had come to San Francisco to work on gang boss Rocky Morgan. But instead of paying off, Morgan had sent his gang after them, with the resulting gunfight in Chinatown.
“Do you know anything about the three hundred thousand dollars the gang stole in Bayport?” Mr. Hardy asked.
“That’s hidden at our motel, the Sundance,” Charlie replied.
A police team was dispatched immediately to recover the loot.
“What do you know about Harry Madsen?” Frank asked.
“Who?” Charlie looked blank. “Never heard of him.”
When the boys explained to the police who Madsen was, they decided to bring the bulldozer operator in for questioning. But since it was now long past midnight, they agreed to wait until the morning.
Mr. Hardy and the three boys drove back to the Northside Plaza, where the boys picked up their rented Chevrolet and headed for their own motel. It was not until they were almost there that Joe remembered something.
“Hey!” he said. “That sack of hamburgers we bought is still in the Plymouth!”
“You forgot our food?” Chet said in an outraged voice. “And I haven’t eaten since dinner-time!”
“Forget it,” Frank told him. “Unless you like cold hamburgers!”
Next morning the trio was up early.
“Let’s drive to the Northside Plaza and have breakfast with Mom and Dad,” Frank suggested.
“Good thought,” Chet agreed.
As soon as they were seated in the motel restaurant, Mr. Hardy reported that he had already talked to the police by telephone.
“Steele has been arrested for allowing his property to be used by kidnappers,” he said. “Also they questioned Madsen but released him.”
“They should have held him for attempted murder!” Joe said, eyes blazing.
“Well, he had no connection with the Hausner gang. He was merely teed off because you beat him at fencing,” Mr. Hardy replied.
“Didn’t he put the rattler in our car?” Joe demanded.
“He did. But it was not venomous because its poison sacs had been removed,” Mr. Hardy replied. “He just wanted to scare you. He told us where he got the snake and the police checked out his story.”
“And he shorted our horn and called Mrs. Steele telling her we were thieves, right?” Frank said.
“Yes.”
“I just love that guy!” Joe grumbled.
“We ran into him a couple of times at the drive-in restaurant and last night he told us to watch our step!” Frank said.
“That was coincidence,” Mr. Hardy stated. “He stops there for a sandwich now and then, and the threat was just talk.”
“Did he phone our motel one time and tell us to get out of the state?” Joe asked.
Mr. Hardy nodded. “But he was not the one who called you at the Steeles’ house.”
“Then who was it?” Frank wanted to know.
“Hugo Hausner. I found out from Chief Collig. He had the voiceprint you sent him checked against the ones you made in Bayport. Mr. Dollinger let him have the whole set. It matched Hausner’s.”
Mr. Hardy went on to say that the police had also informed him that his voiceprint file, minus the two spectrograms that had been peddled in Chicago and New Orleans, had been recovered from the gang’s motel. The Bayport bank loot had been found there intact, too. Hugo Hausner’s two hoods who had sold the spectrographs were arrested in New Orleans.
“There will be a good-sized reward for recovering the bank money,” Fenton Hardy said. “And you boys are entitled to most of it.”
After breakfast they discussed the problem of the missing Hans Hausner. The police had not found a trace of him yet. Suddenly Joe recalled something.
“Frank, remember when Hans took Hugo into the Steele kitchen for a private talk? He said once they got hold of the blade, they could have a will engraved on it!”
“Of course!” Frank exclaimed. “If we check local engravers in the classified telephone directory, we might get a lead on him!”
Quickly they made a list from the yellow pages of places where engraving was done in the Stockton area. Then they divided the list, Mr. Hardy and Chet taking half, Frank and Joe taking the rest. They agreed to meet again at the motel around noon.
The Hardy boys went to engraver after engraver with no luck. At eleven o’clock, with only a couple of places remaining on their list, they entered a small jewelry store.
When they told the middle-aged proprietor who they were and what they wanted, he said, “A man with an Italian accent? Why, you just missed him. He left no more than a minute ago, as soon as I finished the work. He had me inscribe on a broken blade that the Russo fortune would go to somebody named Fabrizio Dente.”
“Which way did he go?” Joe asked eagerly.
“He said he wanted to catch a noon plane, so I imagine he headed for the airport. I noticed him getting into a dark sedan parked out front.”
“Thank you,” Frank said. “Let’s get moving, Joe.”
Joe took the wheel of the Chevy, started the engine, and shot away from the curb. He took the most direct route to the airport, reasoning that Hausner, who had plenty of time before his plane took off, would not be hurrying. The boys spotted the dark sedan halfway to the airport.
“That’s his car,” Frank said. “I recognize it. The one they used to transport us to Steele’s after the kidnapping.”
“Right,” Joe said and poured on the gas.
The fugitive gave a startled look when the Hardys’ car pulled up alongside of him. Joe slowed, cut in, and forced the sedan off the road onto the shoulder. Hausner panicked.
He jumped out and started to run across the city dump which stretched to the right. Frank and Joe took after him, scrambling across mountains of trash. They gained steadily.
“Hausner! You can’t get away!” Frank called out.
The fugitive turned his head to utter an oath, but kept climbing over the mounds of debris.
The gap narrowed with each step, however. Now Hausner’s labored breathing could be heard by his pursuers.
“Halt! Stop!” Joe cried. The Swiss was nearly in his grasp.
Hausner spun around. In his right hand he held the broken saber, with which he lashed furiously at Joe while making guttural noises.
Frank spied a stripped umbrella lying in the junk. He picked it up and leaped in front of Joe, brandishing the handle like a sword.
The Swiss turned and slashed at him with the saber. Nimbly skipping aside, Frank thrust and lunged. Hausner let out a grunt as the tip of the umbrella poked him in the stomach. Then Frank cracked the
umbrella frame across Hausner’s wrist and knocked the saber from his hand.
Frank and Joe subdued their quarry without any further resistance. After they turned him over to the police, they drove back to the motel.
They found their father, mother, and Chet waiting. Quickly they told what had happened.
“Great job!” Mr. Hardy praised his sons. “Now let’s have a look at that saber.”
He examined the hilt under a powerful magnifying glass. Nothing besides the letters A-N-T-E and the inscription was on either side of the stubby blade.
“Can I see it, Dad?” Frank asked. He studied the hand guard carefully. It had a leather protective lining. Frank pulled it out. Nothing was hidden beneath it.
Suddenly Joe said, “Hey, what’s that?”
“Where?” Frank asked.
“Something’s written on the underside of that piece of leather.”
Frank examined it. “It’s the will! Dad, we’ve found it!”
Mr. Hardy took a close look. “It sure is,” he confirmed. He read the tiny inscription. It left three-fourths of Russo’s fortune to his first grandson.
“That’s Ettore Russo!” Chet exclaimed. “We’ve solved our case!”
The boys sent a cable to the fencing master, telling him the good news. They included the information that Mr. and Mrs. Hardy would personally deliver the saber to Russo in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
“You haven’t finished your vacation,” Frank said to his parents. “This way you can tour Switzerland.”
Mr. Hardy smiled. “We might just do that!”
“There’s still one loose end that bothers me,” Joe said. “I wonder if it was June Fall who tore those pages from the book about Giovanni Russo.”
“Why don’t you phone the college library and ask if they know the pages are missing?” Mr. Hardy suggested. “Now that the big mystery is solved, you’ve got plenty of time.”
Joe went to the telephone, little knowing that more excitement would soon come their way in The Flickering Torch Mystery. When he had finished the call, he grinned.
The Clue of the Broken Blade Page 11
