A Figure in Hiding (10 page)

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Authors: Franklin W. Dixon

BOOK: A Figure in Hiding
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“Joe! Something's happened to our brakes!”
The convertible was gathering speed—hurtling straight down toward the helpless peddler!
“You'll go right over him!” Joe gasped.
“And off the cliff!”
The boys were paralyzed with fear. With no way to slow the car, it would be impossible to negotiate a turn onto Shore Road.
Frank shifted into low gear. The car bucked and lost a little speed. Noticing that the narrow drive was high-banked on either side, Frank swung right, scraping the convertible's side against the grassy slope.
Zatta lay less than fifty feet ahead!
As the bank flattened, Frank spun the wheel hard right. The car leaped from the drive onto the grass, bumping and jolting over the uneven ground. It shot across the corner of the hillside, slowing bit by bit. Then it slewed out across Shore Road.
Frank kept it parallel to the pavement, but suddenly there was a hard jolt as the left rear wheel went over the edge of the cliff. With a shudder, the convertible came to a dead halt—its body quivering on its springs!
The two boys sat still, white-faced and gasping. Then Frank slumped over the wheel.
“Whew!” he breathed. “I thought sure we'd had it!”
“We would have,” Joe said, “if you hadn't downshifted and grazed that bank! Man, that was fast thinking!”
Frank shook his head dazedly. “I wouldn't even have known the brakes were gone if you hadn't called out about Sam!”
A streak of light shot up from the hillside, exploding into a starburst of red fire!
“It's Sam firing a Very pistol!” Joe cried out.
Gingerly the boys crawled out of the car, fearful of dislodging it from its poised position on the edge of the cliff. Another spray of light burst overhead revealing the road and the hillside with daytime brilliance. Three figures could be seen, far down the road past the foot of the drive, sprinting toward a parked car. They leaped in and sped away.
Sam Radley came running toward the boys. The muscular, sandy-haired detective's face was taut with worry. “You two all right?” he exclaimed.
“Shaken up but okay,” Frank said. “What about that masked guy and his pals? Can we go after them?”
Sam shook his head “My car's a quarter of a mile back—I didn't dare park closer. By the time we could get to it, we wouldn't stand a chance of catching them. Better call the police!”
Joe hastily radioed an alarm. Then he hurried to join his brother and Sam who had gone to untie Zatta. The one-eyed peddler was unconscious but bore no visible marks of injury.
“Maybe he fainted,” Frank said.
“It's more than that,” Sam murmured. “Looks to me as if he's been drugged.”
The operative went off to get his car and brought it to the spot. They lifted Zatta into the back seat, then sped to the Bayport General Hospital.
While the unconscious man was being examined, the three sat tensely in the waiting room.
“We really walked into a neat setup,” Frank said. “One of those two guys with the masked man was standing by Zatta with the lantern. The other must have been hiding up on the hill, waiting to sabotage our brakes.”
“Right,” Joe agreed. “That screen of trees gave him perfect cover, once we went off to talk to his partner.”
While they waited, the boys gave Sam Radley a complete account of the events leading up to the night's excitement. Sam asked, “Do you have the glass eye with you?”
“Right here.” Frank took the eye out of his pocket and handed it over.
Radley examined it closely. “Hmm. And you have no idea why Lemuel—or whoever's behind all this—is so eager to get it back?”
Frank shook his head thoughtfully. “The thing's fairly light. It could be hollow. I've been wondering if something's hidden inside.”
Radley held the glass eye close to his ear and shook it. “Nothing rattles. Of course that doesn't prove much. It could be wadded in.”
“Trouble is, there's no way to unscrew the eye or pry it apart,” Joe remarked. “The only chance to find out would be to break the glass.”
Conversation stopped as a white-coated intern came into the waiting room to report on Zatta's condition. “He was definitely drugged,” the medic informed Sam and the Hardys. “There's a puncture mark from a hypodermic needle on his right arm. Otherwise he's in good shape, so I think we'll let him sleep it off.”
Radley agreed to stand guard in Zatta's room. He told the boys he knew of another operative with whom he could take turns in shifts.
Frank and Joe left the hospital and found a twenty-four-hour service station open a block away. Luckily it had a tow truck available. The boys rode with the mechanic to Shore Road and had him tow their convertible to his garage. The boys walked home.
“That's funny,” Joe muttered as he tried to turn his key in the side door.
“What's funny?” Frank asked.
“The lock has been jimmied!” he exclaimed.
The Hardys stared at each other in alarm.
“Whoever did it may still be here!” Frank whispered.
Joe gave his brother a startled look, then hastily pushed the door open and snapped on the light.
The boys began a cautious search of the house, switching on the lights in each room as they went along. The first floor was empty. Tensely they mounted the stairs.
When they came to Aunt Gertrude's room, Frank gave a gasp. “She's gone!”
They dashed to their parents' room. Mrs. Hardy, too, had apparently left the house! The brothers' room was also empty—no figure in hiding. Last, they tried their father's study.
“Oh, great!” Frank groaned. “Dad's safe has been cracked!”
CHAPTER XIII
Airport Vigil
 
 
 
 
MR. HARDY's safe door had been blown open. The door hung lopsided and the contents lay strewn about. Frank and Joe rushed to examine the situation.
“Anything missing?” Joe asked.
“Doesn't seem to be,” Frank replied.
Joe said worriedly, “I wish we knew what happened to Mom and Aunt Gertrude. You don't suppose they—were kidnapped?”
“No,” Frank said. “My hunch is they were lured away by some phony message—to give the safecracker a clear field. If they don't come back soon, though, we'd better phone an alarm. Now we'd better check Dad's list of secret papers.”
The brothers got this from Mr. Hardy's desk, and when they had gathered up the scattered documents, took inventory. “They're all here,” said Frank in relief. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Wait! Dad stowed some cash in the safe when he left town, but I sure don't see it now!”
“The safecracker probably took it,” Joe said, “but I'll bet that's not what he came for.”
Frank agreed. “Ten to one he was after the glass eye.”
Joe hurried to their garage laboratory and returned, bringing their fingerprint kit. He and Frank dusted the safe carefully but found no traces of prints.
“It has been wiped clean,” Joe said in disgust.
Just then they heard a car pull up outside the house. Frank dashed to the window.
“It's a taxi,” he reported. “Mother and Aunt Gertrude!”
The boys, vastly relieved, went down to meet them.
“Oh! Thank goodness you're safe!” Mrs. Hardy exclaimed, as first she, then Aunt Gertrude gave Frank and Joe a hug.
Frank said, “We were worried about
you.”
“We received a phone call from a man at about twelve-thirty that you boys had had a car accident over in Riverville,” Mrs. Hardy explained. “I knew that wasn't where you planned to go and we were frightened out of our wits.”
She said that after taking a taxi to Riverville, she and Aunt Gertrude had been unable to find any trace of the boys. Finally, after checking by telephone with the Bayport police, the women had learned about the Shore Road incident and had returned home at once.
Upon hearing of the blown-out safe, the boys' mother and aunt were greatly upset. Frank telephoned headquarters and gave a full report. It was almost three A.M. when the weary family at last retired for the rest of the night.
“Joe, it's a cinch what happened here at the house and that business on Lookout Hill were all part of the same plan,” Frank remarked thoughtfully as the brothers undressed for bed.
“Sure. The timing proves that,” Joe agreed.
Frank frowned as he went on, “Lemuel, or the Goggler gang, was out to get rid of us tonight and also seek revenge on Zatta. But I still don't see how the glass eye figures.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if they're really after the glass eye, they must have sent the safecracker for it in case we hadn't brought the eye along.”
Joe stretched out on the bed and clasped his hands under his head. “So?”
“So it doesn't make sense. For all they knew, we had the glass eye with us. And if we'd gone over the cliff, the glass eye would've wound up at the bottom of Barmet Bay.”
“Hey, that's right!” Joe sat up. “Then maybe it's
not
the eye they're after!”
Frank took the glass eye out of his trouser pocket and studied it again. “That wouldn't explain the attack on us at the empty house,” he reasoned.
“Okay!” Joe exclaimed. “So maybe it is the glass eye they're concerned with—but not because it's valuable.”
“Then why so much trouble to get hold of it?”
“Because there may be something about it that would incriminate them—evidence that would put the gang behind bars! That way, they'd be just as happy to have it sunk in the bay!”
Frank gave his brother a startled glance. “Joe, you may have hit the answer!” He held the glass eye up to the light. “If there is something inside,” he speculated, “the opening may have been covered up with the iris. Then the whole thing was glazed over smoothly.”
Joe switched off the light and settled back. “When Dad gets home, maybe he'll agree to breaking the eye open.”
“Right. In the meantime, I'll keep it under my pillow at night until the safe is repaired.”
Exhausted by their strenuous activity, the Hardys slept late Sunday morning and awoke just in time for church. After that, Frank and Joe went to the service station. Their car was ready. They were told that both the hydraulic brake lines and the hand brake cable had been cut.
As they reached home, Mrs. Hardy came out to tell them their father was radioing from St. Louis.
“We'll be right there,” Frank said, and dashed inside.
Fenton Hardy listened with keen and worried interest as his sons related everything that had happened since he had left Bayport. “Be on guard at all times, boys,” he advised.
The private investigator told Frank and Joe that Ace Pampton, the swindler whom he was after, might be doubling back to Bayport.
“An airline clerk says a man answering Pampton's description bought a ticket to Bayport via New York,” Mr. Hardy explained. “He took off on the noon flight. I hate to leave here in case it's a false alarm. So I'd like you boys to cover the airport and keep watch.”
“Sure thing, Dad,” said Frank. “What does he look like?”
“Medium height—quite bald—and he's been growing a brown beard as disguise. He was wearing a light-blue summer suit and no hat.”
“Should be easy to spot,” Joe put in. “What time is he due in Bayport?”
“Three-ten if he makes the connection in New York,” Mr. Hardy replied. “If he doesn't show up, stick around and watch for the next flight.”
“Roger!” Frank acknowledged.
The brothers set off for the Bayport airfield minutes later and arrived at 2:57. Presently a loud-speaker blared:
“Flight 401 from New York is now arriving at Gate 12.”
Frank and Joe joined a stream of people hurrying out to the apron to watch the plane discharge its passengers. Suddenly Frank spotted a burly, mash-nosed figure in a chauffeur's uniform.
“Hey, Joe,” he muttered, “that's Rip Sinder from the health farm!”
“He must be here to meet a new guest,” Joe whispered.
The apelike ex-pug saw them looking at him. He nodded and casually scratched his jaw with an odd gesture, using the forefinger and little finger of his clenched hand.

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