The balls were piled in a huge pyramid in the middle of the dank cave.
“But I don’t see any gold,” Joe said in disappointment, straining his eyes to catch every detail of the place.
The gloomy tunnel was a natural rock cavern which apparently had been enlarged for use as a storehouse. The Hardys went to the end, about fifty feet ahead. The exit was solidly blocked with stones, bricks, and earth. There seemed no evidence of the Smith fortune or the bank’s gold anywhere in the cavern.
“Unless...” Frank said. “Joe! I have it! You remember the message, ‘Find coin in iron’?”
He dashed back toward the entrance. At the same moment the sunlight was cut off. There came the sound of men’s voices. Chilling words were projected into the tunnel.
“You’ve had your last chance, Hardys! We warned your father! Smiley, light the fuse!”
CHAPTER XX
The Plantation’s Secret
THE screeching of brakes sounded in front of General Smith’s house as a taxi came to a sudden stop. Chet and the officer looked out the window in time to see Fenton Hardy step out, tell the driver to wait, and dash to the front door. Behind him hurried Sam Radley, his operative.
“Frank and Joe!” were the detective’s first words when General Smith opened the door. “Where are they?”
When he heard they had driven out to the lonely plantation, a look of intense worry came into Mr. Hardy’s eyes.
“Their lives are in danger!” he said. The detective quickly introduced Radley, then added, “Come on. We’ve got to get out there!”
The four ran to the taxi and climbed in. When they pulled away, the general and Chet brought the detectives up to date on the Bush case. At the end, Chet said:
“I have a good clue to Dr. Bush, Mr. Hardy.”
“What is it?”
“A picture I took from a plane.” The boy showed the photograph of a tall man running. “That’s Professor Randolph,” he explained. “I’m sure he’s Dr. Bush in disguise! Remember the half-picture of him with a black bag I snapped in Bayport?”
“Good work, Chet! I think you’re right. Bush and Randolph—his right name’s Skagway—are one and the same. He’s not a professor or a medical doctor, and that black bag contains safecracking tools! He’s a bank robber—and deadly.” Mr. Hardy leaned toward the taxi driver. “Take her to the limit. Speed may mean the difference between life and death!”
The group sat tensely as the taxi roared toward the plantation.
“There’s the car!” Chet announced when they reached the bridge.
As the taxi halted, Mr. Hardy asked the driver to wait. The four passengers dashed toward Rocky Run, along whose banks Frank and Joe had been searching.
Once within cover of the thick overhanging trees, Mr. Hardy called for silence. They pressed forward with barely a sound. The detective and Radley, accustomed to the job at hand, noiselessly forged ahead of Chet and the general.
Suddenly Mr. Hardy raised his hand. Sam stopped. Voices sounded near them, barely audible above the gurgling of the stream. Through the foliage they could vaguely see the three men who were talking. The trio seemed to be leaning over a hole in the ground.
“I heard the kid say the gold ain’t down there!” one of them whined.
A tall man angrily kicked a stone. “That settles it.” Then he cried out into the yawning earth, “You’ve had your last chance, Hardys. We warned your father. Smiley, light the fuse!”
Mr. Hardy and Radley leaped toward the trio. Simultaneously a sharp explosion shook the earth. Rocks and debris shot into the air.
The opening into the tunnel was sealed up!
Chet and the general also came running. Ahead of them stood Randolph-Bush, Junior, and Smiley!
The three men whirled when they heard their pursuers. Junior thrust his gun hand into his pocket. It got no farther. The crashing right fist of Fenton Hardy smashed into Junior’s jaw. He sprawled full length.
Randolph took to his heels as Radley made a flying tackle. At the same time Smiley quickly leaned over and snatched a crowbar from the open black bag. He swung at Mr. Hardy. The detective blocked the blow with his left hand. His right slammed against the criminal’s midriff. Smiley folded and sank to the ground.
“Get Randolph!” Chet shouted as he saw the ringleader squirm from Radley’s shoestring tackle and break away.
He and General Smith were hard after the professor when Mr. Hardy called them back. “We need you here. Quick! Tie these two up, Chet! We have to dig, men, and dig fast!”
Using their hands, pieces of flat stone, and Joe’s spade which they had found nearby, they went furiously at the job of freeing Frank and Joe. Fen ton Hardy finally crashed through the barrier.
“Frank! Joe!” A moment of silence followed.
Radley’s light flashed on the boys. They were lying face down. Neither moved.
Mr. Hardy bent close over his sons. “Thank heaven they’re breathing!”
He and Sam Radley carried the boys up the steps. Chet paled. “They’re—they’re not—”
“No,” Mr. Hardy said. “Just knocked out.”
He and Radley applied artificial respiration.
Joe opened his eyes first. Then Frank stirred. In a few minutes both boys were on their feet, shaking their heads dazedly. They tried to smile as they related their experience.
“I thought we were dead ducks,” Joe said. He shot a glance at the two prisoners who also had regained consciousness. Chet had them well bound and had removed a pistol from Junior’s pocket.
“Who’s he, Dad?” Frank asked.
“Harold Maskey—called Junior because he looks so young. He’s a bad actor.”
While Chet was telling the brothers how his picture had identified Randolph as Dr. Bush, that the criminal had been there but had escaped, and that the gang were wanted West Coast bank robbers, Mr. Hardy started back toward the taxi.
“I’m going to advise the State Police to comb this whole area for Bush,” he declared.
Suddenly Frank called out, “I’ll bet his loot is hidden in the cellar of the Rocky Run Museum. Bush will probably head right there!”
Using the taxi radio, Mr. Hardy was able to get a message through to the police. An officer promised to send men to the museum and a patrol car to pick up the prisoners at Rocky Run. After thanking and paying the taxi driver, the detective returned to the boys.
The captors remained silent. It was not long before three troopers crashed through the woodland to the tunnel. One said news had just come over his car radio that the notorious leader of the bank robbers, posing as Dr. Bush and Professor Randolph, had been found in the cellar of the museum. Secreted in the walls was the West Coast loot. Hank also had confessed. Hearing this, Smiley groaned.
“The jig’s up,” he said. “If we tell ’em everything, they may go easier on us, Junior.”
The two related their part in the plot to get the Smith gold and keep the Hardys out of the case. Their boss, they said, was married to a woman who used to live in the Centerville area and had told him the story of the lost gold. She had not known about her husband’s criminal activities until recently, thinking he was off on business trips.
When she had overheard his plans to help himself to the plantation treasure and even go to Bayport to prevent General Smith and the Hardys from coming to Centerville, she had tried to stop him.
“But before she could get the fuzz, he ran off,” Smiley smirked.
“So it was Bush’s wife who made the phone calls to us,” Frank said.
Smiley nodded.
Randolph had helped himself to the secluded museum and threatened the old Negro caretaker and his family. Whenever the robber and his gang wanted to be alone they had locked the old man in a back room.
“How did you find the clue to Pleasanton’s Bridge?” Joe asked. “You never saw the message in the bandoleer.”
Smiley told them that Randolph, instead of going to town to find out about the deed, had retu
rned to the museum through the cellar and climbed up beneath the old fireplace. There he had eavesdropped, and had heard them mention the bridge.
“Mr. Hardy, I really ain’t got no hate against your boys,” Smiley concluded. “I got to admit they’re smarter’n me.”
Such was not the case with Junior. As Sam Radley and the troopers led the two men away, hatred for the Hardys flashed in the youthful-looking criminal’s eyes.
When the police car had roared off, Frank said excitedly, “I think we’re going to solve the most important mystery—the mystery of the lost tunnel! Follow me!”
By this time the sulphurous air in the cavern had begun to clear. Frank scrambled down the steps, climbing over the debris scattered by the explosion. Joe, Chet, General Smith, and Mr. Hardy followed.
“I still don’t get it,” Joe said, looking inquiringly at his brother. “There’s nothing resembling gold anywhere in here.”
Frank led them over to the pile of cannon balls, then stopped. “Remember the message, ‘Find coin in iron’? Hold the flashlight, Joe.”
Frank opened his knife and scratched the corroding surface of one of the balls. An outer layer began to fall away. Suddenly a glint of gold appeared. Feverishly he scraped off more iron until there was no doubt.
“The treasure!” cried General Smith.
The others gasped in amazement.
Mr. Hardy scraped another ball until the gold winked through. Joe attacked another, Chet a third.
“Great-grandfather’s name is vindicated!” the general exclaimed, after examining several more cannon balls to be sure. “The bank will get back its money. And Beauregard’s heirs will be able to restore the plantation and can come back to live here!”
Putting his hands on the Hardy boys’ shoulders, he turned to their father. “Fenton, you’re the luckiest man in the world to have such sons!”
The detective smiled broadly. “You won’t find me contradicting you!” He turned to Chet. “Mr. Morton’s got a son—and a photographer—to be proud of, too.”
Chet beamed as the general slapped him affectionately on the back.
It was not as a photographer, however, that Chet was soon to figure in the Hardys’ next adventure, The Wailing Siren Mystery.
“Hey! How’d they get the gold inside the cannon balls?” Chet asked.
“They probably melted the gold bars in the blacksmith shop,” General Smith answered. “The melting point of gold is very low, you know. Then they either made balls of it and covered them with the iron shells, or else cast hollow cannon balls first and poured in the gold.”
“And then plugged the holes,” Joe added.
Each of the Hardys and their friends lifted one of the gold cannon balls. As they carried load after load from the lost tunnel, the group chattered gaily.
“I feel so good, I think we ought to have a celebration,” Chet asserted.
“With atom crackers?” Frank grinned.
“Or one of Claude’s dinners,” Joe suggested, his eyes twinkling.
“Oh boy!” Chet exclaimed. “I can hardly wait!”
The Secret of the Lost Tunnel Page 11
