"Tony, any hot gossip gets discussed among the kids here—and you hear it," Frank said.
Tony shrugged, still deftly twirling the pizza dough. "I suppose so," he admitted.
"So what's the scoop on this gang of jokers?" Joe asked.
"Everybody has been talking about them," Tony said. "You wouldn't believe some of the stories I've been hearing."
"Try us," Frank said.
"I'll just give you the best — I caught a couple of kids saying it's some kind of cult. They have secret meetings around bonfires in the woods, with everyone wearing robes."
"That sounds real secret," Joe said sarcastically, shaking his head. "I mean, who'd notice a bunch of people in robes dancing around afire?"
Frank grinned. "I think somebody's been renting too many scary movies from the video store. Isn't there one about a cult that wears hoods?"
Joe and Tony both broke into laughter. "I'll have to remember that, the next time I hear the kids talking," Tony said.
"But has anybody linked the pranks with any of the usual gangs, or any one group of kids?" Frank asked.
Tony shook his head. "Nobody from around town is bragging," he said.
"How about kids from outside of town?" Joe asked.
"No. I'd remember that. Sorry, guys."
"Well, you can make up for it," Joe said. "Sell us a couple of slices."
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking to friends, trying to get some kind of handle on the prank gang. They got nowhere. Phil Cohen hadn't heard a word, while Chet Morton told them Tony's cult story all over again.
When evening came, it was still raining, and they hadn't really gotten anywhere.
Joe walked into the living room with a jacket in one hand and a folder from the basement tucked under his arm. He tossed the file on the coffee table next to a bowl of fresh flowers.
Frank, dressed to go out, was carrying an extension phone and talking into it as he paced a small circle near the fireplace. "Well, if the doctor doesn't think you ought to go out," he was saying, "then you'd better not."
Joe dropped onto the sofa, tapping his leg with impatience.
"Well, naturally we could use your help on this investigation, Callie," continued Frank.
Joe poked his tongue into his cheek, gazed up at the ceiling as though he were seeing it for the first time.
"Trust me," Frank said into the phone while scowling at his brother. "I'll fill you in on anything we dig up. Sure, of course, I'm sorry you have to stay home and rest up tonight. But, Callie, that's better than staying in the hospital another day, isn't it?"
Joe discovered a fleck of apple skin caught between two of his front teeth and began digging for it with the nail of his little finger.
"I miss you, of course. Right. Me, too. Yes, he is. Uh-huh, sitting right here and gawking at me in his usual dimwit way. I'll tell him. Good night, Callie." Frank hung up and gave his brother a look. "Remind me to explain 'invasion of privacy' to you someday, Joe."
"How's she doing?"
"Better. But her doctor wants her to take it easy for a couple more days."
"What'd she tell you to tell me?"
"It's best you don't know," Frank assured him. "You ready to go?"
Nodding, Joe tapped the folder. "I went over all the newspaper clippings we've compiled on these pranks one more time," he told his brother. "Each time one is pulled off, it gets a little more serious."
"Right. The first one was just somebody spray-painting some dumb, smutty graffiti on the side of the school gym. Now, though, they've worked up to causing car crashes."
"Some of the pranks obviously took a few people to pull off. Last Thursday night there were two separate pranks — the smashed shop windows on Marcus Street and the eggs thrown at the Orange Hall across town. They took place at about the same time."
Frank said, "Maybe we can find out something by talking to the people out at the Cellar," he said. "It gives us a place to start. If one of the staff or customers noticed anyone or anything in the parking lot, we'd finally have a lead."
Joe stared at his brother. "So you want to go back to the place where you have friendly chats with big, husky bouncers?"
Frank held up his forefinger. "Merely one," he answered. "And you're obviously forgetting how diplomatic and persuasive I can be."
"Right, I was forgetting." Joe stood up. "Okay, let's get going — "
"Don't tell me you two boys are actually thinking of going out in this storm?" Their aunt Gertrude was frowning at them from the doorway as she took off her apron.
"It's just a light drizzle, Aunt Gertrude," said Joe, smiling.
Lightning crackled just then and thunder rattled the windows. Joe sighed.
"No, it's a bad storm. You'll have another accident, for certain."
"That wasn't an accident, Aunt Gertrude," Frank reminded her. "Somebody deliberately fouled up Callie's tire."
"And look where the poor girl ended up — in the hospital."
"She's home now, and fine," he said.
"And didn't I hear both you boys sneezing just before dinner?"
Joe laughed. "We were trying out some different kinds of sneezing powder, Aunt Gertrude."
"It sounded like colds coming on to me. Of all the colds you can suffer from, there's none worse than a summer cold. So my advice would be to forget — "
The phone began ringing. "Maybe it's Biff," said Frank, picking up the receiver. "I've been trying to get in touch with him all day. Hello?"
The caller spoke in a muffled, anxious whisper. "Get over to the old Hickerson Mansion. Right now!"
"Who is this?" Frank said.
The voice cut him off. "Just show up there. The prank tonight is going to be worse — much worse!"
Chapter 4
Joe drove the van up the road along the cliffs over Barmet Bay. "We took a field trip to the Hickerson Mansion years ago," he said, watching the headlights cut two short swatches in the rain and fog. "But I don't remember much about the place." "Elias Hickerson was a big wheel around Bayport about a hundred and fifty years ago," Frank said. "He was a rich merchant. They say he built his mansion up here so he'd be the first to see his ships come into the harbor. Anyway, his family left the house to the town. It's full of Victorian furniture and is being kept in trust as sort of a museum." Joe rolled his eyes. "Sounds real exciting."
"It's history," Frank said. "I just hope I don't mean that literally."
Lightning suddenly lit up the whole road, turning the cliffsides a brief, intense electric blue. Thunder slammed and rumbled, the few stunted trees shook.
"You know," Frank went on, "there was something familiar about that voice. I have this feeling I heard it recently."
"It was a girl, you thought, trying to disguise her voice."
Frank nodded. "I'm pretty sure it was."
"The voice may have belonged to someone I met last night even," Frank said, thinking about it. "All I know is that I can't seem to identify it. I hope it'll come to me."
"The man with the computer brain," Joe murmured mockingly.
They drove higher, onto the top of the cliffs. The rain kept hitting hard at the van, and the wind gave it a powerful shove every now and then.
"Whoever she was," said Frank, "she warned that the prank was going to be rough tonight."
"They've gone beyond pranks and into vandalism."
Frank shook his head. "I've got a very bad feeling about this whole business."
After a moment Joe said, "You know, being summoned to this old mansion by a mystery woman might be a prank itself. I mean, what if these jokers want to lure us out here to put something over on us—or worse?"
"That's a possibility." Frank nodded grimly. "But we have to check it out. We'll just have to be very careful."
"There's the mansion, coming up on that knoll to our right."
"We'll drive on by, then park in that patch of trees up ahead."
"Good idea. I - Frank, look!"
"What?"
<
br /> "Didn't you see it? The beam of a flashlight inside the place as we drove by."
Carefully Frank and Joe worked their way down along the slippery cliff walk that led to the rear of the three-story wooden mansion.
Frank held an unlit flashlight in his right hand, swinging it at his side. He suddenly stopped, wrestling with a thornbush beside the path to get his jacket sleeve loose.
Coming up from behind, Joe touched his brother's shoulder. "There's definitely somebody in there," he whispered.
"Right — I saw the flashlight shining around in there, too. It seems to be near the front rooms of the place."
"This doesn't look like a trap then, does it? I mean, they wouldn't be this obvious if they were all in there waiting to jump us with base-ball bats."
"We'll be careful, anyway."
There was a narrow white gravel parking lot at the rear of the Hickerson Mansion. The Hardys stopped beside the safety fence and watched the big white house.
The wind spun the rusted weathervane up on its cupola perch. The faded brown shutters creaked, the back door was open and flapping.
"Now we know how they got in," said Frank. "Shall we follow?" After tapping Joe on the arm, he wiped the rain from his face and started running for the wooden steps to the historic mansion.
Joe trailed just behind him.
They went up the stairs single file, Frank first. He pointed up at the cut wires above the i doorway. "That's where they took care of the alarm."
Frank stepped across the threshold, then stopped dead.
Lightning flashed, and for a few seconds he could see a length of carpeted corridor in the crackling light. The hallway was empty, but there were two sets of muddy footprints on the faded carpeting and running through the doorway at the far end.
Clicking on his flash, Frank said, "Come on, they must be somewhere up at the front of the house."
On both sides of the hallway stood a row of shoulder-high pedestals. Each of them held a marble bust of one of the Hickerson clan.
Making his way along the shadowy corridor in the wake of his brother, Joe chanced to bump against one of the wooden pedestals. The heavy bust of a gentleman with substantial whiskers began to teeter.
"Oops," said Joe quietly, making a grab for the swaying pedestal.
He caught it, but the marble bust went sliding off the top. It did a wobbly somersault, then fell to the floor to crash into three pieces.
Frank swung his flashlight back at Joe. "Want to bet they heard that?" he whispered, but his tone of voice showed that he didn't think there was any need for secrecy—now.
"Sorry. I didn't see him."
From the front of the mansion came the sounds of feet running and then of a door slamming.
"They're taking off." Frank charged for the doorway that led to the front.
"Catch you later, sir," Joe told the fallen bust and took off after Frank.
Frank reached the heavy oak sliding doors, slid them open, and dived into the next room.
Joe followed him but stopped short just inside the room, next to his brother.
The room they'd burst into was on fire.
The crackling flames were a glaring orange, They were climbing up the brittle old curtains that were hanging at the windows across the front of the parlor.
Paintings had been removed from walls and dumped on top of the sofa. Then the whole pile had been doused with gasoline — the dirt-smeared red can still lay on the floor — and set on fire. Over near the small fireplace, three cane-bottomed chairs had been smashed up and were blazing away, too.
Joe spotted a fire extinguisher, sprinted across the room and grabbed it off its peg. He turned the thing upside-down and started spraying chemicals on the blazing curtains. "If these walls catch fire, the whole place will go Up.
"I saw another extinguisher back in the hall." Frank went running back for it.
The flames leapt from the burning sofa and started eating at the dry, dusty drapes. Smoke spiraled up until the air of the room was visible as black soot.
Frank put the second fire extinguisher to work on the pile of smashed chairs.
In the distance outside, they could hear sirens steadily growing louder.
Joe had succeeded in pulling the curtains down and dousing them. Wiping the perspiration from his forehead, he started on the burning sofa. The only sound in the room was the rasp of harsh breathing, cut by hacking coughs as the smoke did its best to choke the two brothers.
"How're you doing?" Frank called hoarsely after a moment. He had the pile of broken furniture under control, and the last of the flames had just been smothered.
"I got this mess put out. You?"
"This one's out, too."
"Good thing we got here in time," said Joe, setting the extinguisher on the floor.
Frank picked up the flashlight he'd put aside. He surveyed the room. The walls around the windows were black, and much of the paint and wallpaper had burned away. There were black gouges in the hardwood floors, a large charred hole in the rug, and splotches of soot everywhere. A bitter, acrid smell hung over all the room.
The shrieking of the sirens flared up once right outside the house, then died.
"If we hadn't gotten that phone call, this whole place would've been just so much charcoal," said Joe, still wiping his face.
"Let's take a look around," suggested Frank, "and see if our phantom arsonists left any other clues besides that gas can."
"If I were you, boys," said a deep, unfriendly voice from the dark doorway, "I wouldn't move so much as an inch."
They turned to see the gleam of a pistol barrel pointed at them.
"Nope," the voice went on. "What I'd do is just raise my hands, real slow and easy."
Chapter 5
Joe raised his hands, but he laughed while he did it. "You've got the wrong firebugs, Officer Riley."
"Joe Hardy?" A large flashlight clicked on.
"And me, Con," said Frank.
The heavyset policeman entered the room, putting away his gun. "Okay, you don't have to keep your hands up, boys," Officer Con Riley said. "But I would like to know what you're doing here."
Three uniformed firefighters came trudging into the parlor.
"We've already put the fire out," said Joe hopefully.
"Let us decide that, kid."
Con Riley gestured toward a door that led to the front porch. "We'll talk out there," he said.
There was a broad wooden roof over the wide porch, and the rain was drumming down on it relentlessly.
Riley took his cap off, running thick fingers through his hair. "This was obviously arson," he said. "So you can start off by telling me just what you know about it."
"Not as much as we'd like." Joe glanced over at the fire engines and police car.
Frank said, "We got a phone call, Con."
"Who from?"
"I'm not sure. The person didn't identify— herself."
"But it was a girl."
"I'd guess it was," said Frank. "All she said was that there was going to be trouble here at the Hickerson Mansion. She wanted Joe and me to get over here right away."
"Why did she call you?"
Joe said, "Well, people — some people anyway — think of us as being able to handle trouble of this sort."
"Yeah? Me, if I was expecting a fire—I'd phone the fire department."
"I have a theory as to why she couldn't do that," offered Frank.
"Theories I don't need just now," said Riley. "What I'd like is the names of the people who tried to burn this place down."
"I'm afraid we can't help you much," said Frank. "We don't even know who telephoned us."
Joe added, "And we didn't get a look at them after we got here."
"But somebody was in the house when you two arrived?"
"We heard noises from the front," replied Frank. "See, we'd come in the back way, where they'd disabled the alarm. You might mention to whoever takes care of this place that they'll need a much mo
re sophisticated security system than the one they've got. Otherwise — "
"Yeah, I'll whip off a memo to them first thing in the morning," the impatient policeman cut him off. "So, you didn't see anyone. Did you hear anything?"
"Running feet," said Joe, shaking his head. "That's all."
"How many kids would you say?"
"Two," said Frank. "But we can't be sure they were kids, Con. Every case of vandalism that happens around here isn't necessarily pulled by some kid."
Riley scowled at each of them in turn. "In the past month we've had more vandalism in Bayport than we get in a whole year," he told them. "Now, maybe a little old lady sprayed that obscene graffiti on the side of the school, and it's possible a middle-aged banker dumped powder in the Cellar's air conditioners. But somehow, I'm betting it was kids. And when we finally nab them, don't be surprised if the perpetrators turn out to be some kids you know."
"Did you investigate what happened at the Cellar last night?"
"That I did, Frank."
"And?"
"We haven't tied it on anyone yet," Con said. "Do you figure this fire was set by the same bunch?"
"Seems like a good possibility," said Joe.
Frank asked, "Would you mind, Con, if we took a look around inside—after the fire department is through?"
"As a matter of fact, I would. What I want you boys to do now is go home," he said, nodding toward the street. "Have some cookies and hot cocoa and go to bed."
"But if we could — "
"Nope, I'm handling this investigation."
Frank gave a resigned shrug. "It might be better if we cooperated."
"That's just what I'm saying — so why don't you guys cooperate with me?" he said. "If you get any more loony phone calls, get in touch with me."
"But — " Joe tried again.
"Look, the chief is biting our heads off because a bunch of kids is making the force look stupid." Con Riley's face showed annoyance. "I'll try to make it really simple for you." Con jerked his thumb, pointing off the porch and into the darkness outside. "Do you understand?"
Joe said, "Sure, we get you, Con." He started down the steps.
"Listen," said the police officer, "I do appreciate the way you put out the fire. Okay?"
The Deadliest Dare Page 2
