“Leave me alone!” Benny cried. “This land belongs to the Academy. I got permission!”
The boys were startled. “From whom?” Frank asked sharply.
“Mr. Kurt!” Benny shot back. “He told me a couple of weeks ago I could hunt any time I felt like it. And he’s temporary headmaster—so I guess his word’s good enough!”
Lacking proof to refute Benny’s claim, Joe tried a new tack. “This your car, Benny?”
“Yes, it is. So what?”
“Plenty. I think it’s the one that hit our convertible last evening and almost knocked us into a ditch!” Frank retorted, his eyes blazing.
“You’re crazy! It wasn’t me!” Benny shouted, clenching his fists. “Besides, if it was at night, how could you identify the car?”
Joe pulled out the pad and compared his sketch with the imprint from the left rear tire of Benny’s automobile.
“Your car has the same cut tire that the other one had!” he challenged.
Benny was purple with rage. “I wasn’t even out last night,” he screamed.
“Didn’t you ever notice that cut in your tire?” Joe pressed the attack, pointing to a deep gouge.
“Sure, it’s been there a couple of weeks,” Benny blustered. “Maybe somebody else has a cut tire too. You guys make me sick. I’m getting out of here.”
“Not so fast,” Frank told him.
He looked carefully at both bumpers. It must have been one of them which had crumpled the convertible’s fender. But there seemed to be no new scratches on either of them. Was Frank wrong in his assumption, or had Benny polished the chrome surface to eradicate the evidence?
As Frank paused, Benny jumped into his car and slammed the door. The motor roared, the wheels spun on the snowy ground, and the youth veered off among the trees.
“We may as well head back ourselves,” Joe proposed.
As the propeller sled skimmed over the snow with its four passengers, Frank said, “Even if we couldn’t prove it, I’m sure it was Benny’s car that sideswiped us last night. If Kurt was with him, and Kurt really gave Benny permission to carry a gun, I’d say the two are buddies. Funny combination.”
“And we’d better keep an eye on them,” Joe added.
Back at the Hoopers’ cabin, the quartet broke up. Chet and Biff headed for town. The Hardys drove toward Woodson Academy.
“There’s Skinny Mason!” Joe called out as they went up the long drive to the school. “Let’s stop and talk to him.”
The boy, reporting that he had suffered no ill effects from his icy bath in the river, was so grateful to his rescuers that he embarrassed them with his thanks.
“That’s all right, Skinny,” Joe told him. “Maybe someday you can help us out.”
“Perhaps you can give us some information right now,” Frank suggested. “Do any of the students here at the Academy have hunting privileges?”
“Only one that I know of—Benny Tass. He’s Mr. Kurt’s pet,” the boy replied matter-of-factly. “Everybody in school knows that. Mr. Kurt gave him a scholarship to come here so he could play basketball on our team.”
“I thought Woodson only gave scholarships for good grades!” Frank exclaimed.
“I don’t think anybody had one before Benny,” Skinny said. “And the funny thing is that he is only about the third best player on the team.”
Frank and Joe were puzzled. Why should Kurt have made such an outright exception to regular school policy?
It occurred to Frank that Skinny might become an ally in helping them solve the mystery of the Yellow Feather.
“Did you ever hear of a guy who calls himself the Yellow Feather?” he asked.
“No,” Skinny replied. “What is he—a fighter?”
The Hardys laughed. “We don’t know whether he is or not, but we’d like to find him. If you hear anything about him, let us know.”
“I sure will,” Skinny promised. “Anything else I can do for you?”
As Frank pondered, Joe remarked, “Skinny, ever since Greg Woodson showed up here with a strange letter from his grandfather, this mystery about the Yellow Feather has become more of a puzzle.”
Skinny Mason’s eyes popped. “You wouldn’t be talking about a letter that old Mr. Elias Woodson wrote to young Mr. Woodson, would you?” he asked.
“Why, yes. What do you know about—?”
Before Joe could finish, the boy broke in excitedly, “I’ve been wondering about that letter ever since I mailed it.”
“You?” Joe exclaimed.
“Well, the day old Mr. Woodson died,” Skinny related, “I walked past the library and I saw an envelope on the ground.”
“Go on,” Frank urged.
“So I picked it up. The envelope was all addressed and stamped and ready to mail. I could see that it was in old Mr. Woodson’s writing—he had a funny little shaky handwriting. I meant to mail the letter right away, but I forgot.”
“When did you mail it?” Frank asked.
Skinny paused to reflect.
“Oh, right after I found the envelope they told us we’d have three days off from classes because of the headmaster’s death. I got halfway home before I noticed the letter was still in my pocket. Then I dropped it off at the post office.”
“Greg did mention that the address looked washed out,” Joe remarked. “It must have been caused by lying in the snow. But I wonder how it got there.”
“I think I can figure that part out,” Frank said.
Before he could explain, Skinny said he must leave because he had an appointment with one of his teachers. The Hardys thanked him for his help and said they would see him again soon. After the boy had gone, Frank continued:
“Mr. Woodson must have been working on the cutout paper in the library and just finished addressing the envelope when he was interrupted by someone. Apparently he didn’t want this person to see the letter, so he dropped it out the window, meaning to retrieve it as soon as he could.”
Joe nodded. “Only he was so ill he never had a chance to get the letter and died shortly afterward.”
“I wonder if Henry Kurt might have been the one who walked in on him,” Frank mused. “Perhaps we can find out. Let’s go!”
The Hardys headed for the headmaster’s office. As Frank was about to rap on Kurt’s door, he stopped suddenly. Somebody inside was talking excitedly.
“Those Hardys ought to be kept away from here!” shouted a rough, angry voice. It was Benny Tass’s.
“They’re a couple of snoopers, all right,” Kurt agreed. “So is that smart aleck of a grandson.”
“Well, you ought to get ’em all out of here,” Benny told him. “They’re going to make trouble.”
Joe stared at Frank with a quizzical smile at the thought of Kurt and Benny worrying over their detective work. Should they try to talk to Kurt now or postpone the interview?
The boys’ decision was made for them when they heard someone whisper, “H-s-s-st! Frank! Joe!”
Skinny Mason had come up behind them, and was impatiently signaling them.
“Greg Woodson’s awful sick,” he said in a low voice. “He wants you right away. He—he thinks maybe he’s been poisoned!”
Following Skinny, the Hardys rushed off to aid Greg. They found him lying on one of the twin beds in the guest room.
“It’s my stomach!” he said weakly.
“Skinny, get the school nurse,” Frank ordered.
As the boy hurried off, Greg said, “I feel better now. I got only a small amount of the poison, I guess.”
“How?” Joe asked.
Greg pointed to a tray on his desk. It contained a small plate on which was an untouched sandwich and a saucer bearing a nearly full cup of coffee.
“You drank some of this?” Frank queried.
Greg nodded. “Then I saw what was under the cup—too late.”
Frank, curious, reached over and raised the cup. Underneath, lying in the middle of the saucer, was a small yellow feather!
CHAPTER V
An Odd Bookmark
THE Hardys stared at the yellow feather and the poisoned cup of coffee.
“Greg, you’re in real danger. This Yellow Feather guy means business.” Frank paused, then asked, “Where did this tray come from?”
“Why, now that you ask me, I don’t know. It was on the desk when I walked in.”
“This is a school tray,” Frank remarked, seeing the engraved Woodson monogram.
Joe was about to express an opinion when Skinny dashed in to say that the school nurse was on vacation.
“I’m feeling much better,” Greg said. “We’ll forget about nurses and doctors. Thanks, Skinny.”
When the boy left, Joe said, “Before we do anything else, I think we ought to find out what’s in this coffee. Can we get into the chem lab, Greg?”
“Sure. The instructor has a key. I’ll get it.”
“Better not tell him what’s up,” Frank advised.
“Okay. He knows I’m a chem major,” Greg said, “so he’ll probably think I’m working on an assignment.”
He went for the key and led the Hardys upstairs to the laboratory. It did not take long to find out that the coffee, indeed, contained poison.
“But why is the Yellow Feather so determined to get you out of the way?” Frank wondered.
“Don’t forget, this fiend has threatened Kurt, too,” Joe reminded the others.
“It can’t be just because of this school,” Frank said. “Woodson couldn’t be a big money-maker, no matter who was headmaster. I believe there’s a lot more to this mystery than any of us knows.”
Greg was thoughtful. “Do you suppose some treasure’s hidden here?” he asked.
“It’s anybody’s guess,” Frank replied. “But one thing I’m sure of. You shouldn’t stay at the Academy. Your life’s in danger.”
“Why not go back to Myles and leave us here to take care of things?” Joe proposed.
“I was going today, anyway,” Greg told them. “Classes start tomorrow.”
The boys returned to his room and waited while he packed his suitcase. Then the Hardys accompanied Greg to his car. With a promise to keep him posted, they waved until he was out of sight.
“Let’s question Mrs. Teevan and see if we can find out anything,” Frank proposed.
“Good idea,” Joe replied.
The cook, a stout, elderly lady with white hair, was washing dishes when the boys entered the kitchen. They introduced themselves as friends of Greg.
“We just came to ask about a tray that was sent to the guest room,” Frank said.
“Oh, that,” Mrs. Teevan answered. “Well, there was a note on the counter that told me to send a sandwich and coffee to Mr. Greg’s room,” she explained. “It was here when I came in from my last checkup in the dining hall.”
“Who left it?” Joe asked.
Mrs. Teevan shrugged. “It wasn’t signed.”
“Have you got the note?” Frank asked.
“No. I put it in the incinerator a few minutes ago. I didn’t see any point in keeping it.”
“The handwriting could have been a clue,” Frank mused. “After you read the note, what did you do?”
“I prepared the tray and my helper—a young girl who comes in for part-time work—carried it to the guest room. She said nobody was there so she left it on the desk.”
“Did you put a little yellow feather under the coffee cup?” Joe shot the question at her.
Mrs. Teevan looked so puzzled the boys knew that she was innocent, and explained about Greg’s sudden illness and the discovery of the tiny yellow feather beneath the cup of poisoned coffee.
The woman was aghast. “Surely you don’t think I would try to poison Mr. Greg!”
Mrs. Teevan sank into a chair. The Hardys hastily assured her that she was not suspect, but by now she was very upset.
“Yellow feather! Where did I hear that before?” she repeated over and over again. “Was it old Mr. Woodson who mentioned it? I wonder—”
Frank and Joe urged Mrs. Teevan to try to remember.
“I can’t seem to,” the woman replied finally. “Why don’t you talk to my husband? He’s custodian of the grounds. Right now he’s at our cottage.”
The boys said they would question Mr. Teevan at once. First, though, they spoke to the cook’s helper. The girl denied any knowledge of what had happened to the coffee after she had put the tray on the desk.
Frank and Joe hurried to the caretaker’s cottage.
“Hello, boys,” he greeted them affably. “I don’t believe I know you. But come in.”
The Hardys told him who they were and followed him inside.
“I’ve been relaxing with a mystery story,” Mr. Teevan remarked as he invited the boys to sit down. “I’ll just mark this page so I’ll know where I am. Then we—”
“Wait! I mean, pardon me!” Joe exclaimed. “May I see that marker, please?”
Mr. Teevan passed the book to him. Joe showed the marker to his brother.
It was a small yellow feather!
“What’s wrong?” the old man asked as he watched their tense faces.
“This bookmark!” Frank burst out. “How do you happen to be using a yellow feather, Mr. Teevan?”
“Oh, that! Why, we had a pet canary,” the caretaker explained. “The bird died over a year ago, and after I buried it I found one little feather near its cage. I kept it for sentimental reasons.”
His explanation had such a ring of sincerity that the Hardys accepted it without question. They mentioned that Mrs. Teevan had suggested their coming to see him, and gravely described the series of incidents that had preceded the attempt to poison Greg Woodson.
As the implications of the case sank in, Mr. Teevan paled visibly. “But Martha and I wouldn’t have anything to do with—” he protested. “Why, my wife and I have been here at the Academy for more than ten years.”
“We’re simply trying to track down every clue we can to the identity of the Yellow Feather,” Frank told him quietly. “Can you help us at all?”
When the elderly man failed to speak, Joe prompted him. “Have you ever heard anything that might help us? Your wife seemed to remember some connection with a yellow feather and old Mr. Woodson. Does that sound familiar to you?”
He pressed his hand to his forehead. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “It does seem familiar, but—Let me think.”
For several moments the elderly man remained motionless and silent. Then he raised his head.
“Yes, I remember now. It was about a month before Elias Woodson died. He came here to leave an order for me to get in town and happened to see my little feather bookmark lying on the table.”
“Yes?” Joe asked tersely.
“Mr. Woodson picked up the feather and examined it, then gave me a very strange look,” Mr. Teevan went on. “He mumbled something about a yellow feather getting people into trouble. I didn’t understand what he meant.”
“He never explained?” Frank prompted.
“No. He was getting pretty feeble. I thought it was just a case of his mind wandering, so I didn’t press him for an explanation.”
Frank was about to ask for more details when the door of the cottage opened and Mrs. Teevan walked into the room. Weakly she groped for a chair.
“Martha, what’s wrong?” her husband cried, helping the tottering woman to a seat.
“I’m so upset about this yellow feather business that I feel sick,” she wailed. “I couldn’t stay in that kitchen another minute. The girl will have to get dinner alone tonight.”
“I’m very sorry we disturbed you,” Frank said apologetically. “Please forget the whole thing.”
“Forget!” she sobbed. “To think I was almost implicated in nearly causing Mr. Greg’s death!”
“But everything turned out all right,” Joe assured her.
“Yes, thank goodness. But I’m going to be accused,” Mrs. Teevan sobbed. “I fixed that coffee and it had poison in it!”
The Hardys’ concern for her welfare mounted as they realized the woman was close to hysteria.
“We’d better call a doctor,” Frank advised, and moved across the room to the telephone.
“I’ll stay here until he arrives,” Joe offered. “Frank, you go back to the Academy and see what else you can find out.”
“All right. Meet me near the gym in an hour,” Frank agreed.
He left the cottage and headed for the main building. H took a little-used trail and was deep in thought when he gave a sudden start. The young sleuth had heard the rustle of branches in a large cluster of rhododendron which he had just passed.
He turned quickly but was too late. His arms were pinned to his sides and he was dragged from the path, struggling helplessly.
Frank glimpsed two masked faces as a gag was shoved into his mouth!
CHAPTER VI
Framed!
ONE hour later Mrs. Teevan was resting comfortably under the doctor’s care, so Joe strode up to the gymnasium to meet his brother. Seeing Skinny Mason, he called to him, “Have you seen Frank?”
“No. But there’s a pickup hockey game on the pond. Maybe he went over there. I’ll show you where it is.”
“I doubt it,” Joe thought. Where could his brother have gone? And what was he doing? Had he run into trouble?
“Well, I’ll take a look on the pond anyway,” Joe decided.
Skinny led him to a ravine in which a frozen pond afforded a fine ice rink. There was no sign of Frank.
“Say, Skinny, we’d better start searching,” Joe said apprehensively. Worried that perhaps the Yellow Feather had caught up with Frank, he led the way back to the Teevans’ cottage.
“Frank intended to go straight to the gymnasium from here,” Joe told Skinny “That would mean this way.”
With his young assistant, Joe walked slowly along the flagstone path, trying to pick out his brother’s footprints in the few patches of snow that were left. Suddenly Skinny stopped at a large planting of rhododendron.
“Hey, look at this!” he cried, pointing.
All around the front of the bushes were clusters of footprints.
“It seems there’s been a real struggle here,” Joe said. “And I’m sure Frank was involved in it.”
The Yellow Feather Mystery Page 3
