“I know,” Chet admitted.
When they arrived at the restaurant, Chet showed the boys where the truck had been parked.
“Are these marks in the mud from your tires?” Joe asked.
Chet nodded. “Yes. They’re plain enough, because those rear tires were new.”
The Hardys easily traced the tracks to the road, when they discovered that the truck had headed north.
Frank continued along the highway for nearly two miles, slowing down at each intersection to see if there were any tire marks along the soft sides of the roadway.
At a dirt crossroad Frank stopped to look at some tire prints on the left. After a careful examination, he shouted:
“I see them! But say, another car followed in the truck’s tracks. Wonder if that means anything.”
Chet was not listening. “Come on!” he shouted.
They hopped into the car and followed the country road. The double tracks continued for some distance; then the boys saw only one set of tire marks.
“Now what?” Frank asked, perplexed.
Joe jumped out. Reason told him the truck had turned off, but where? There was no side road.
In a moment Joe began tearing at some bushes along the road. His trained eye had noted they were wilting; probably torn up a little while before and piled there as a screen.
“Look!” he shouted, pulling the bushes away.
A lumberman’s road, which had not been used for years, forked from the dirt country road. Weeds between the logs clearly showed the two crushed trails that the wheels had made.
“Wait here,” said Joe.
He disappeared into the woods, but returned in a couple of minutes.
“I found your truck, Chet,” he said.
“Hooray!” Chet shouted. “Gee, that’s super! Now Uncle Ty can go to Africa and we can take that camping trip!”
“The truck is empty!”
“Oh, no!” Chet’s jaw dropped.
Frank had an idea. “I believe the driver of the other car was a pal of the truck thief. They must have known about this wood road where they could work without being seen.”
“And loaded the guns, tools, and camping stuff into the car and drove off,” Joe said. “A stolen truck’s hard to get rid of, but loot isn’t.”
“What about the canoe?” Frank asked.
“It could have been fastened to the roof. A lot of cars have ski racks on top, you know,” Joe replied.
Chet was distressed. A truck thief was bad enough, but going after two men with rifles in their possession was more than he had bargained for.
“I guess we’d better let the police handle this,” he said.
“What! Let those thieves get away now, when we’re on their trail!” Joe protested. “I’ll back the truck out,” he offered, “and then we’ll go after ’em!”
With Chet’s help he maneuvered the truck onto the dirt road, then trailed Frank and Chet for a mile and a half. During the ride Chet was told about the wallet the Hardys had found.
“Wow!” Chet exclaimed. “Two thousand dollars!”
Frank stopped suddenly. Joe pulled up in the truck right behind him and jumped out.
“Trail end?” he asked.
“No. But the car stopped here,” Frank replied. “See these marks?”
“You’ve got good eyesight to catch that,” Joe said.
The Hardys concluded that the loot might have been carried into the woods at this point. Bushes were beaten down here and there, and near the edge of a brook footprints were clearly visible. The boys searched up- and downstream, but no further trace of the thieves could be found.
“No point in going any deeper in the woods,” Frank said. “We’re only guessing that the stolen stuff is here. Anyway, this is North Woods.” He winked at Joe. “You know what that means.”
Chet’s eyes bulged. “You mean the place where people say they’ve heard wild dogs?”
“The same.” Frank nodded. “And a wild dog can be mean.”
“I don’t want to meet any of ’em,” Chet said.
“Not even to get the stolen stuff back?”
“Let the police find it,” Chet advised. “And if they don’t ... Say, you fellows got all that money. How about letting me have some of it to pay for the stolen rifles and everything?”
“Not on your life,” Joe replied, laughing. “It doesn’t belong to us.”
Chet groaned. He realized now that it had been a mistake to order the camping equipment without the Hardys’ consent. Too often in his life he had made similar mistakes and had had to pay for them with hard work, to which he was allergic.
The Hardys returned to their car. This time Chet drove the truck. Twenty minutes later they came to the intersecting macadam road, Black Horse Pike, where they lost the trail.
“We’d better report that we found the truck,” Frank said as he headed back to Bayport.
A couple of miles farther on they came to a State Police substation. Frank went in. After telling the desk sergeant of the recovery of the truck, he reported that a box of valuable big-game rifles, a set of tools, a canoe, and other camping equipment had been removed from it.
The sergeant, a tall, broad-shouldered man, frowned. “High-powered rifles are dangerous weapons in the hands of criminals,” he said. “We’ll make a careful search right away.’
“Thanks,” Frank said and went outside. Then Chet said good-by to the brothers and drove off.
When the Hardys arrived home, they found their friends Biff Hooper and Tony Prito waiting. Biff was a tall, lanky boy whose chief delight was his secondhand jeep. Tony, olive-skinned and dark-eyed, could usually be found on Barmet Bay racing his bright-red motorboat the Napoli.
“Hi, fellows!” Joe called out.
“What about our camping trip?” Biff asked. “Made any plans?”
“I think we ought to postpone the long trip we had in mind,” Frank said. “Let’s go to North Woods this weekend instead.” He told about the theft of Mr. Morton’s truck and the things in it.
“You mean you want us to search North Woods for the rifles and other stuff?” Tony asked.
“That’s right.”
“If there’s anything to those stories about wild dogs out there, we’d better not take any chances,” Biff suggested.
“I don’t think there’s anything to the rumor,” Tony scoffed.
After mapping plans for the weekend trip, Biff and Tony left. Then Joe telephoned Chet. He whistled in alarm at the thought of going into North Woods.
“Okay, if you don’t want to go,” said Joe. “But it’s your stuff that was stolen. What are you going to tell your uncle?”
“You win.” Chet sighed. “I’ll go.”
After an early supper Joe busied himself getting out their sleeping bags. Frank hurried downtown to the newspaper office. There was a remote chance, he thought, that somebody already had answered the ad about the mysterious wallet.
The clerk on duty, a high school friend who worked there evenings, handed Frank an envelope.
“A stranger left this in your box a few minutes ago.”
Frank tore it open eagerly. Then he frowned. The message was brief and mystifying.
Don’t give the money to anyone until you hear from me again.
The strange note was signed “Rainy Night.”
CHAPTER IV
Followed!
“WHAT did the man look like, Ken?” Frank asked excitedly.
The clerk grinned. “Another Hardy mystery, I’ll bet. Well, the fellow was short and dark. Had a slight limp. Wore dark glasses.”
Frank suspected the stranger might have worn the glasses as a partial disguise. “Did you notice anything special about them?” he asked.
Ken shook his head, then a second later said, “A piece of the frame was broken off.”
“Which eye?”
“Listen, Frank, I’m no detective.”
“Think!” Frank insisted. “It’s important.”
“Okay, teacher. I gu
ess it was the left eye,” he said slowly as he tried to remember.
“That’s swell. Thanks, Ken. It will help a lot.”
“Want me to call the cops if he returns?” the clerk asked.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Something tells me that man won’t show up here again.”
Frank said this loud enough to be heard by several persons standing near the counter. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched for any sign of interest, in case the mysterious fellow with the dark glasses might have a pal posted to watch for the person who had placed the ad. A man who had his back turned seemed to be listening.
“Somebody ought to follow him,” Frank thought.
Moving quietly to a telephone booth at one end of the office, he dialed his home. Joe answered.
“Frank, what’s up?”
“I’m at the News office. A strange note was left for us. I think that the man who wrote it or a pal of his may try to follow me. Come down and watch, will you?”
“Right.”
Frank stepped from the booth and resumed his conversation with his friend Ken. A few minutes later he saw Joe walk past the door. Shortly afterward, Frank said good night to the clerk and ambled out.
A woman who had been thumbing through some back issues in the newspaper file immediately started after Frank. She wore a hat which shaded her face most effectively, so that Frank could not distinguish her features.
Frank lingered a moment in front of the building to look at some photographs in the display window. The woman crossed the street and went into a store.
As Frank started on, a tall, blond-haired man, intently reading a newspaper which partially concealed his face, emerged from the store.
Frank saw Joe’s reflection in a store window across the street. Joe was following him at a discreet distance. Frank tried to act as though he was unhurried. The man, looking up from his newspaper, but keeping his face turned as if still looking in the shopwindows, followed at the same gait.
Frank walked faster. So did the man. A few moments later Frank looked back. To his dismay, he saw that the woman was now following Joe!
Frank turned from South Street into Market Street. Glancing over his shoulder a few seconds later, he noticed that no one else had rounded the corner. He retraced his steps, gazing here and there on the sidewalk as if he had dropped something. Joe, the man, and the woman had vanished.
Frank peered down side streets and through open doorways. There was no sign of any of them. He was just beginning to feel worried, when far down the block he saw Joe wave at him.
Frank halted while Joe caught up. “Where’d they go?” Frank asked. “And where have you been?”
“Chasing ’em.”
Joe reported that he had heard a whistle behind him. Turning, he had seen the woman. Both she and the man had ducked into a service driveway and disappeared.
“Sure seems as if they’re working together,” Frank commented. “I wonder if they’ve stopped following us.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Joe. “Too bad I didn’t get a good look at that man’s face.”
His brother nodded. “If those people are after the two thousand dollars we found, they’ll try something else to learn who has it.”
“Maybe I was dumb to signal you,” Joe said. “That man and woman probably are watching us right now.”
The Hardys decided to separate and take zigzag routes home to throw any possible pursuers off the track. Fifteen minutes later they reached the house. For nearly an hour they discussed the affair with their mother and aunt.
“It’s a good thing you shook those brassy creatures,” Aunt Gertrude declared. “Why, they might have murdered us all in our beds! And to no avail, either, with the money locked up at police headquarters.”
Next morning, as the boys were eating breakfast, Aunt Gertrude, who had been out for an early-morning walk, bustled into the house.
“Look at this!” she cried. “I found these glasses under the porch window. They don’t belong to us. Somebody must have been looking in and dropped them. Somebody has been spying on our house!”
“The man at the newspaper office!” Joe exclaimed.
“Let’s see’em,” Frank asked.
A piece had been broken out of the left side of the frame!
“Our man, all right, Joe,” he said. “We were followed, sure enough. Aunt Gertrude, what window was he looking in?”
She led the way to the far window on the porch which opened into the living room. Both boys began an examination of the spot. Finding no visible clues, Joe went for a magnifying glass. With it he spotted fresh fingerprints on the window sill.
“We’d better photograph these pronto,” he said, and went to the boys’ laboratory for the equipment.
Mr. Hardy had taught his sons the latest method of using powder, camera, and developers. In a few minutes the fingerprints of the mysterious prowler were recorded. Frank and Joe hurried to Chief Collig with them. They told the chief of their adventure of the evening before and requested that the prints be checked out.
The result was disappointing. The fingerprints did not belong to any wanted well-known criminal, nor to any local person with a police record.
“I’ll send these prints along to the FBI in Washington if you want me to,” Collig said.
“No, thanks,” said Frank. “We’ll wait till Dad comes back.”
Upon reaching home, the boys looked for matching fingerprints on the frames of the glasses. But unfortunately the only clear ones were Aunt Gertrude’s. The glasses were placed on a shelf in the laboratory marked Visible Evidence.
On their way to the second floor the boys met their mother on the stairway. “Do you suppose that snooper will come again?” she asked anxiously. “Oh dear! I wish your father were home!”
“Don’t worry, Mother,” Frank said quickly. “I think the fellow wanted to find out if we had the money at home. He probably overheard us talking and learned it’s at police headquarters.”
That afternoon Frank and Joe dropped into the News office for more mail. In all, they were handed four letters. None had any bearing on their case. Each one named a smaller sum of money and obviously referred to some other loss.
“Well, we haven’t found the owner of the two thousand yet,” Frank said. “Now I’m convinced.”
“Of what?”
“The money really was stolen. That’s why the person who lost it won’t openly claim it.”
“I’ll bet you’re right, Frank,” his brother said. “So we can expect more trouble.”
“Exactly.”
They agreed not to mention their concern to Mrs. Hardy or Aunt Gertrude. There was no need of frightening them. During the leisurely evening meal they discussed various other matters, including the night ball game they planned to attend, also the trip to North Woods.
“How is Callie?” Mrs. Hardy asked, smiling at Frank, who was taking the girl to the game. Her son thought that Callie Shaw was the nicest girl at Bayport High.
“All right, I guess,” he answered. “I haven’t talked to her since yesterday.”
“Tsk, tsk!” Joe spoke up. “Such neglect!”
“Cut it,” Frank begged. “And you’d better get busy soon, Joe, or Iola will go with someone else.”
Joe glanced at the clock. He barely had time to drive out to the Morton farm to pick up Chet’s sister Iola. Excusing himself, he left the table.
“See you at the ball park in three-quarters of an hour, Frank,” he called.
Frank set off on foot thirty minutes later. Callie’s house was only a few blocks from the Hardy home and was on the way to the ball field. The sun had set, and a cool evening breeze stirred the leaves of the big trees which shaded the avenue.
The boy was deep in thought about the mystery which he and Joe had stumbled upon. Would they hear again from the letterwriter who signed himself Rainy Night?
Reaching a wooded section where the houses were far apart, he heard a slight rustle behind a hedge.
Almost immediately, a dark figure came hurtling over the evergreen hedge. Before Frank could dodge, the man flung himself upon him in a diving tackle.
Frank was blindfolded and gagged before he could attempt to defend himself or cry out. His head was still spinning when he became aware of another man on the scene.
“You got him, eh? Good!”
“What now?” asked the second man.
“Into the car.”
Four hands dragged Frank along the ground and heaved him onto the floor in the rear of a sedan!
CHAPTER V
The Ransom Demand
JOE HARDY, meanwhile, drove happily along the highway toward the Morton farm. The prospect of a good ball game pleased him, especially since he was to see it with Iola. Iola was as slim as her brother was chubby, but she had the same kind of tilted nose and twinkling eyes. Glossy black hair fell softly to her shoulders.
It was not long before Joe drew up to the Morton home. Iola and Chet came out to meet him.
“Ready for some grand-slam homers?” Joe asked.
“I’ll settle for a couple of triple plays,” Iola replied, dimpling.
“Let’s go,” Joe said. “We’ll save you a seat, Chet. Frank’s taking Callie.”
Soon they were on the outskirts of the ball field. Joe parked the car, bought two tickets, and found seats.
“I thought Frank and Callie would be here by this time,” Joe said, looking around. “We’ll hold three seats as long as we can.”
The Oakmont Blues trotted onto the field for their warmup. After they had batted a few times and chased a few fungoes, the Bayport Bears replaced them on the diamond.
“I don’t like this,” Joe said, beginning to feel uneasy.
Iola touched his arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Maybe they wanted to sit by themselves.”
Joe knew Frank would not do this without telling him. He kept surveying the faces of new arrivals. Finally he spotted Chet and waved him over to where they were sitting.
“Hiya, kids!” Chet bubbled. “Glad you saved a seat for me. Say, where are the others?”
“They haven’t arrived,” Joe said.
He tried not to appear anxious, but the strange happenings of the past two days made him apprehensive. Joe could not keep his mind on the game.
The Wailing Siren Mystery Page 2
