The Genius Thieves (9 page)

Sarah grinned slyly. "That's three promises. Do I get to choose which two to keep?"

"Picky, picky," Frank said. He explained the whole story to her. She listened with wide-eyed amazement.

"So what happens now?" she asked when he finished talking.

Frank paced the room again. "Well, just before you got here I was thinking. Now the thief is obviously using a computer to transfer the money. He must have intimate knowledge of the Bayport Bank and Trust. And he must also have a modem, which he uses to send signals through the phone to the bank computer — "

"And," Sarah said, cutting in, "if you find out which students have modems, you narrow the field!"

"I can tell already that you're detective material!" Frank said. "Now, from what I've researched, there's only one computer store in Kirkland. For starters, I can find out how many modems have been sold to Chartwell students from there."

"The trick will be getting the store owner to cooperate with you," said Sarah.

"Which is where a famous detective father comes in handy." Frank picked up the phone and dialed his father's number. For once, Fenton Hardy was there.

"Hello? Dad, it's Frank - Well, I'm trying a new tactic. Can you meet me in an hour at a store called Campus Computer in Kirkland? . .. Good! . . . See you there!"

Frank hung up the phone and slapped his palms together. "He says he'll drive right there and explain everything to the proprietor. I'd better get ready."

Sarah put her hands on her hips. "You don't plan on going alone, do you?"

"You want to come?"

Sarah nodded enthusiastically.

Frank smiled. "Why not? You're involved already!"

Together they took the long walk into Kirkland. The air had become brisk, and it Whipped against them as they passed by open fields. Sarah snuggled up against Frank. She looked up at him with sparkling eyes. "Did anyone ever tell you that from a certain angle you look like," — she searched for a name — "you know, what's his name?"

"The guy who played Superman in the movies?"

"Yeah! How did you know that's what I was thinking?"

Frank blushed. He wished Joe had been here to hear that.

When they reached Main Street, Frank saw Fenton's car parked in front of a small store. Bolted into the gray, wooden shingles above the front door was the Campus Computer sign. Frank and Sarah walked inside and saw Fenton talking to the store owner.

"Ah, Mr. Dodd," said Fenton. "This is my son Frank and — "

"Sarah Waterbury. This is my dad, Fenton Hardy," said Frank. "She's a friend from school. She knows everything."

Frank could sense his father wasn't happy he had told Sarah about the mission, but Fenton's attention was soon drawn back to Mr. Dodd.

"I'd be glad to show you my modem sales, Mr. Hardy," he said. "But I might as well save you the trouble. You see, Chartwell Academy does not allow its students to own modems. They tried it last year, but found there was too much cheating. Students there are-very competitive, and they were finding creative ways to steal each other's work."

Frank felt deflated. "You mean there are no modems at all at Chartwell?"

"None that are legal—and certainly none that were bought here by students."

"What about nonstudents?" said Fenton. "You know, faculty, administration — "

"Come to think of it," Mr. Dodd replied, flipping through his list, "I did sell one to the — uh — ah, here it is! The admissions office!"

Frank, Fenton, and Sarah thanked Mr. Dodd and left the store. "Not much of a help, is it?" said Sarah.

"Unless there's some crooked admissions official," answered Frank.

"Can you get into the admissions office?" asked Fenton.

"I've done it before and botched it," Frank said. "But it looks like I'm going to have to try again."

"Come on," said Fenton. "I'll give you kids a ride back."

That night, around ten o'clock, Frank waited in his room until he saw the Hardy van pull around to the back of Mansfield Hall. He rushed out to meet Joe.

Joe hopped out of the van, dressed all in black. "This time there'll be no mistakes," he said.

"There'd better not be," Frank remarked. "Or we can kiss this whole case goodbye."

In the cool autumn night they walked through the empty campus to the administration building. Again, the door was open.

"You'd think they'd have learned their lesson by now," Joe said.

"Maybe they've tried, but someone outsmarted them," Frank said. He pointed to the floor. There, lying near the base of the door, were five bobby pins. Obviously, someone had used them to pick the lock.

"Somebody's in there!" said Joe.

"Brilliant! Now keep it quiet for a while!"

They tiptoed up the stairway to the third floor. The hallway was dark except for a dim light coming from under the admissions office. They crept closer and began to hear a hum.

"It's a computer," said Frank.

"No kidding!"

Just then they heard the scraping of a chair against the floor, and then footsteps.

"Quick! In here!" said Joe, opening up a door beside them. They popped inside and closed the door softly behind them. They were in a small closet. All around them were brooms and mops, and on a shelf above were paper products and cleaning supplies. They heard the footsteps come out into the hallway. Then they became muffled. A water faucet was turned on.

"The bathroom," Joe said. Frank listened as the footsteps became louder again.

"Typical Chartwell bathroom — no paper towels ... " The voice they heard muttering in the hallway was a male voice, familiar to Frank. The footsteps came closer.

Frank and Joe froze as they heard the doorknob in front of them move. Get ready to run, Joe thought to himself.

But the door didn't open. The voice cursed softly, and the footsteps retreated.

"I don't believe it," whispered Joe. "We're locked in! What a stroke of dumb luck. How long is our air going to last?"

"Shhh," answered Frank. "It's open."

"Then how come he couldn't — "

"Simple. I just held the knob tight. He just thought the door was locked." He grinned. "Sometimes the oldest tricks are the best."

Frank pushed open the door slowly. The hallway was empty. The Hardys walked silently along the wall beside the admissions office. They heard the clicking of a computer keyboard. Joe stayed back while Frank carefully looked into the half-open doorway.

There, sitting at the office computer with his back to them, was Dwight Trilby.

FRANK BACKED AWAY from the door and gestured for Joe to follow. "It's Trilby's son," he whispered.

"Let's get him!" said Joe.

"Not so fast. He's a real moose—six-feet-four. We've got to plan this."

"Why don't we make some noise? As soon as he gets to the door—wham-mo! You wrestle him to the ground—and I help!"

"All right," said Frank. He moved closer to the door and took out his key ring. Joe hopped around to the other edge and did the same.

Frank shook his keys gently. They made a soft metallic jingle. He paused and then repeated the motion.

Joe waited for a moment and then began to jingle his keys, too.

As they continued, they could hear that the computer clicking had stopped.

"What the — " said Dwight.

There was silence for a few seconds. Then the clicking started up again.

"Any more bright ideas?" whispered Frank. He and Joe walked away from the door.

"Forget the finesse," said Joe. "Let's just confront him. What's he going to do against two of us?"

As the brothers talked over what to do next, neither of them noticed the sound of a window opening from within the office.

Dwight's voice again broke the stillness. "Hey, who are you?" he asked. Frank and Joe froze. They heard the scraping movement of the chair again. Frank went to the door and looked through the crack.

His mouth dropped open. A man wearing a ski mask had climbed in through the window. In his hand was a gun, pointed straight at Dwight.

Dwight stood up from his chair. The man stepped toward him. Slowly, Dwight put his hands in the air. "You know you're not going to get away with this," he said.

The man answered him with a slam to the stomach. Dwight let out a cry of pain and doubled over. In one swift move, the man reached into his pocket, pulled out a small aerosol spray can, and grabbed Dwight by his hair, forcing his head up.

Then he sent a mist of spray into his victim's face.

"Now let's go!" said Joe.

"We can't," answered Frank. "He'll blow our brains out."

The masked man heard their voices. He wheeled around and stepped toward the door, but then decided to back out through the window.

Frank and Joe rushed in. Dwight was leaning helplessly against the wall, coughing. Frank brought the chair over to him and made him sit down. "Can you talk?" Frank said.

"Yeah," Dwight answered in a surly voice. "What do you want? Is he one of your stooges?" He indicated the open window with a head movement.

"No," answered Joe. "He doesn't look like anyone we know. Of course, it was hard to tell behind the mask."

"Why don't you begin explaining what you're doing here, Dwight," said Frank. "The administration's not going to look too kindly on this."

"I'll call your bluff," Dwight said. "You're not going to say a thing to anyone. I know all about your little tribunal last week, and the fire in your room. I think you're the one who should do the explaining."

"Okay, fair enough," Frank answered. "We're private investigators looking into a scam involving computer transfers of money from your father's bank. And you, my friend, are currently our number-one suspect. What do you have to say to that?"

Dwight looked at Frank in disbelief. Then he started to laugh. "You're looking into those thefts? How can I believe you?"

"Your father called us in on the case," said Frank. "He contacted our father, Fenton Hardy, who's a detective. We're Frank and Joe Hardy."

Dwight's eyes suddenly became friendlier. "You're the Hardy brothers! Why didn't you tell me? We could have worked together! I'm trying to get to the bottom of this, too." He looked at Frank. "I've felt so angry about the transfers because no one seemed to be doing anything."

"Is that why you were looking for a fight at the party last week?" Frank asked.

Dwight turned red. "Oh, sorry about that. I get a little hotheaded sometimes — "

"That's okay," said Frank, secretly happy to see Dwight squirm a little. "Tell me, you didn't have anything to do with that fire in my room?"

"No, but I remember your little roommate — Arno, or whatever his name is—looking around for his keys at the Young Turk that same night."

Joe spoke up. "You may be on the level, Trilby, but you still haven't told us what you're doing here."

Dwight pointed over to the computer. "It's obvious someone's been getting at the bank through the computer system. I figured I'd keep track of the bank's records through the computers at Chartwell. My dad doesn't know it, but I made a copy of the bank's system disk."

"So why the admissions office in the middle of the night?" Frank asked.

"Well, I began realizing how many computer nerds there were in this school. One kid even has his own company. And the other night, when I was home for dinner, I overheard my dad saying that this guy's company had gotten a mysterious twenty-five-thousand dollar transfer through the bank's computers. So I decided to check on some student records, to see if I could come up with anything at all that would help me get a lead on this scam." He pointed over to the computer.

"Right now, though, I'm keeping an eye on the bank records." On the screen was a spreadsheet of account numbers and balances. Frank and Joe went to look.

All at once, Dwight whacked Joe on the arm. The brothers whipped around. Dwight was facing them with his fists clenched and his eyes glaring wildly.

"I knew we couldn't trust him," Joe said. Dwight came at them, arms flailing. Frank squared off against him as Joe dove at his feet. Dwight fell to the ground. Joe maneuvered around to lock Dwight in a wrestling hold, but Dwight was too strong. He broke away and stood up. Jumping around in circles, he began striking everything in sight — tables, file cabinets, chairs. Joe went after him.

"Stop, Joe!" Frank called out. "Something's wrong."

"What's he saying?" Joe panted. Dwight was yelling nonsense words now and swinging his arms wildly. His eyes darted rapidly in all directions.

"He's going wild!" said Joe.

"It's that spray the masked guy used on him," Frank said. "He's hallucinating."

"What should we do? He's going to destroy himself and this whole office!"

"Let's try to hold him down before he hurts himself."

They approached Dwight from both sides. But as soon as he noticed them, he let out a scream and ran out the open door.

He bounded down the stairs and out the front door, with Frank and Joe in hot pursuit. With the speed of a sprinter, he ran across campus. Most of the buildings were dark, except for Van Cott Hall, where a party to celebrate no school the next day was in progress. Dwight dashed through the hedge that Frank had flattened in the van the night before. When Frank and Joe got to the street, Dwight was nowhere to be seen.

"You go left and I'll go r — " Frank started to say, but he stopped short when he heard the wild barking of a dog. They ran through a wooded area toward the sound.

In seconds they were in the backyard of a large old house. A black Labrador retriever was snarling at Dwight. Lights in the second-floor windows began to pop on.

Dwight stood stock-still for a moment. Then he saw something in a wood pile near the house. He ran over to it and pulled out an ax.

He lifted the ax above his head and ran toward the dog.

"Dwight! No!" shouted Frank. At the sound of his voice, Dwight spun around and came toward Frank and Joe with the ax.

"Split!" Frank said as Dwight swung the ax at him. The blade came down and embedded itself in a tree.

"I think he took you literally," said Joe. The two of them backed away as Dwight yanked the ax out. With crazed determination, he chased Frank and Joe back into the street. The brothers ran out to the main road.