The Ghost at Skeleton Rock

Table of Contents

 

 

A cryptic message from their famous detective father and a note secreted in a ventriloquist's dummy lead Frank and Joe Hardy on a dangerous search to the tropical islands in the Caribbean.

There the teen-age detectives are constantly beset by vicious henchmen of a criminal mastermind. Danger stalks the boys' every move, once in an isolated sugar mill, another time in a shark-infested sea. To add to their hazards, one of the young henchmen closely resembles Joe and fiendishly makes use of this strange coincidence. Through their resourcefulness and deductive reasoning, the brother sleuths ingeniously fit together the pieces of the baffling puzzle.

The climax of this exciting mystery, when Frank and Joe come face to face with the ghost at Skeleton Rock, will be as much of a surprise to the reader as it was to the young detectives themselves.

The boys' last ounce of strength was ebbing fast

Copyright © 1994, 1966, 1957 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam & Grosset Group, New
York. Published simultaneously in Canada. S.A.
THE HARDY
BOYS®
is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

eISBN : 978-1-101-07651-4

2008 Printing

“LET'S see if you can get us down in one piece, Frank!” Blond, seventeen-year-old Joe Hardy leaned forward in the airplane as his brother circled in for a landing at the Bayport airfield.

“Don't worry, Joe. If we crack up the first time, I'll try again,” the dark-haired boy quipped. Frank, who was a year older than Joe, grinned as he eased the craft downward in a graceful turn.

A third occupant of the plane, the regular pilot, smiled and said, “You're doing fine, Frank.” Jack Wayne, lean-faced and tanned, was Mr. Hardy's pilot on all his chartered flights. Today Jack was teaching the boys how to fly the six-place, single-engine plane which their father had purchased recently.

“There's a gusty wind, so come in at a slightly higher airspeed,” Jack reminded his pupil.

Frank's pulse quickened as he lined up on the runway and reduced power. The beautiful blue-and-white craft descended in a normal glide.

The landing strip and parked planes below seemed to rush up at them, the details growing larger as Frank headed toward the ground.

“Watch out for those telephone lines!” Joe cried out.

The wires loomed squarely in front of the plane's nose. If Frank had judged his glide angle correctly, the wires should be dropping below his field of vision. Instead, they seemed to be coming straight at the plane!

Frank gulped with panic.
Would they crash?
Trying hard to keep cool, he eased back on the wheel. With barely a split second to go, the ship nosed upward and cleared the wires!

Moments later, the plane's wheels touched down in a perfect landing and the craft rolled to a stop. Frank climbed out after the others, feeling a bit weak.

“Quick thinking, boy!” Joe slapped his brother on the back. “Only next time, please don't shave it so close!”

Frank heaved a sigh. “I didn't think—I just acted! How come you didn't take over, Jack?”

“I figured you'd do the right thing”—the pilot chuckled—“and you did!” Suddenly his face clouded and he snapped his fingers. “I clean forgot to tell you!”

“What?” the boys chorused.

“A message your father gave me just before I took off from San Juan.” Early that morning Jack had returned after flying Mr. Hardy to Puerto Rico the previous day on a top-secret case. “Sorry. Giving flying lessons must make me absent-minded.” He handed the boys a piece of paper.

“‘Find Hugo purple turban,' ”
Frank and Joe read aloud. They stared at the paper, completely baffled by the cryptic message.

Jack went on to explain that Mr. Hardy had quickly jotted down the strange words, then handed the paper to him. “He did say,” Jack added, “that he couldn't give any more details right then. He'd spotted a man he wanted to shadow.”

The boys racked their brains for a moment in silence. Neither could think of anyone in Bayport named Hugo.

“Oh, well,” Frank said, smiling, “we'll try to figure it out later. Thanks for the flying lesson, Jack.”

After arranging for their next flight, the boys went to the parking lot, where they had left their convertible.

“I'll drive,” said Frank. In a few minutes the boys were headed toward their pleasant, tree-shaded home at Elm and High streets.

The dazzling June sun shone down on them as they talked over the odd message Jack had relayed.

“We'll have to twirl our brains for this one,” Joe commented as they pulled into the Hardys' gravel driveway. “I wonder who Hugo is. Someone in Bayport, maybe?”

“Let's try the phone book,” Frank suggested. “Hugo could be someone's last name.”

As the boys strode in through the kitchen door, their mother was trimming the crust on an apple pie. Each son gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then Frank said, “We're trying to figure out a code message from Dad. Have you any idea who ‘Hugo purple turban' might be?”

Mrs. Hardy, slim and pretty, shook her head as she slid the pie into the oven. “Not the faintest, but it sounds like the start of another interesting case.”

Her husband, Fenton Hardy, had been a crack detective for years in the New York City Police Department. Later, when he retired and moved to the coastal town of Bayport, Mr. Hardy had become internationally famous as a private investigator. His two sons had skillfully assisted him on many of his cases.

Frank, intrigued by his father's newest assignment, hurried to the telephone book, Joe at his heels, and leafed through the pages of names beginning with H.

“Let's see now.” Frank moistened his finger. “Hugo ... Hugo ... Here we are! Just three of them,” he added after a moment. “It should be simple to find the right man.”

Joe dialed the first number. The quavering, high-pitched voice of an elderly woman answered the phone. In reply to Joe's question, she snapped suspiciously, “A purple turban? What on earth are you talking about?”

Joe tried to explain. But the woman's reaction was unfriendly, as if she suspected some kind of a hoax.

“Young man, I can't make head nor tail of what you're saying. Sounds to me as if you're trying to be funny—or else you've got the wrong number!”

With a loud sniff, she hung up.

“Whew! Guess I didn't do too well on that one,” Joe told his brother. “Next time remind me not to sound like such a crackpot!”

Joe dialed another number. The listing on this one was “Hugo's Meat Market.”

“Yah,
I'm Hugo,” said a voice in a heavy German accent.

Joe explained that he was doing some private detective work and was trying to locate a person named Hugo who had some connection with a purple turban—or maybe someone known as “Hugo Purple Turban.”

“Ach,
no, I never hear of anyone like that,” the butcher replied. “But if you like some good knackwurst, just drop around any time!”

Frank chuckled as Joe hung up the phone. “We're getting nowhere fast. Let me try.”

The third Hugo listed was a Wilfred K., a jeweler and watch-repair expert.

“‘Hugo purple turban?' Hmm,” the man responded thoughtfully. “Sounds to me as if it might refer to that fortuneteller.”

“Fortuneteller?”

“The Great Hugo, he calls himself—at least that's the name painted on his trailer. He has a tent pitched beside the road, on Route 10, just north of town.”

“Thanks a lot, sir!” Frank exclaimed, with a surge of excitement. “Sounds like a swell lead!”

As he cradled the phone, a peppery feminine voice spoke up from behind the boys. “Before you get too deep in another mystery, take my advice and—”

“Oh, hi, Aunt Gertrude!” Joe smiled and turned around.

Frank said mischievously, “Aunt Gertrude's just jealous, Joe, because she doesn't know all the facts!”

“Nonsense!” retorted their aunt, a tall, angular woman, who was Mr. Hardy's maiden sister.

Although Aunt Gertrude would never admit it, Frank and Joe knew that she was just as deeply intrigued by the Hardys' cases as the boys and their father.

Frank told her about Mr. Hardy's puzzling communication “Hugo purple turban” and went on, “The man I just talked to on the phone seemed to think it might refer to some fortuneteller called The Great Hugo.”

“The Great Hugo! Why, of course!” Aunt Gertrude's eyes narrowed with a look of suspicion.

“Do you know him?” Joe asked eagerly.

“I've heard about him—and what I've heard isn't good!” Miss Hardy explained that two women she knew had gone to have The Great Hugo tell their fortunes. After leaving his tent, they had discovered money missing from their handbags, which they had hung on the backs of their chairs.

“You mean Hugo stole it?” Frank asked.

“Who else? Naturally, the women couldn't
prove
it,” Miss Hardy added, pursing her lips, “but there's no doubt in their minds.”

The two boys exchanged glances. “He could be the man we're looking for,” Frank remarked.

Joe nodded. “Let's check with Chief Collig.”

As head of the Bayport Police Department, Chief Collig had cooperated with the Hardys on many of their cases. When Frank telephoned him, the chief said that he was acquainted with The Great Hugo and had had complaints about him.