The Hidden Harbor Mystery (2 page)

Suddenly a huge hand and burly forearm stretched across the Hardys' table. “How about the ketchup?” demanded a rasping voice from the next table just behind Joe.

For the second time that night the boys heard heavy, wheezing breathing. They looked up and saw that the hand belonged to the husky man they had noticed near the gangplank.

“Sure. Help yourself,” Joe said.

The stranger grunted and took the bottle.

A few moments later the young editor returned, and the three began to eat. Later, as they left the restaurant, Worth asked, “Well, will you take my case?”

He and the boys stood together on the sidewalk in front of the lighted window. A few customers, including the powerfully built man, came out the door and then disappeared down the dark street.

“Someone in there is hurt!” Frank exclaimed

“We'll have to think about it, Mr. Worth,” Frank answered, “and let you know.”

Immediately the Southerner's face registered his disappointment. “I'm sorry,” he said a little stiffly. “I had hoped at least that Mr. Hardy would give me some advice. Since I couldn't reach him, I thought you'd help me. However, here is my New York address.” He wrote it on a piece of paper from a pocket notebook.

Then he said good night and walked away briskly. The Hardys started off in the opposite direction.

Huge warehouses lined the street on both sides. A single street light burned dimly on a distant corner. Suddenly, as the brothers came abreast of a dark doorway, a hoarse groan from inside reached their ears.

“Someone in there is hurt!” Frank exclaimed.

The boys stepped cautiously into the building. No sooner had they entered than the door slammed abruptly behind them. Four strong arms seized the Hardys, and rough palms were clapped over their mouths. The boys heard heavy, wheezy breathing.

“I'll teach you to mind your own business!” a threatening voice rasped.

Then came two quick, hard blows. Frank and Joe had been struck on the head. They slumped, unconscious, to the floor!

JoE was first to revive in the pitch-black warehouse. He listened tensely for the wheezy breathing of one of their attackers. Hearing nothing, Joe groped for his brother and shook him slightly.

“Joe ... you all right?” Frank stammered, still groggy.

“Sure. We were decoyed in here by that groan and then knocked out. Remember?”

“Of all the greenhorns!” Frank murmured in disgust. “Caught by a trick like that!”

Joe rubbed his head gingerly. “At least it didn't leave a lump,” he reported. “The fellows were experts. And did you hear that rasping breathing? Sounded like the tough guy we saw at the pier and in the clam house. He must have overheard Bart Worth talking to us, and tried to scare us off the case. But why?”

“Don't know. He picked the best way there is to encourage us,” Frank retorted grimly. “We'll make that gorilla and his pal sorry they ever tangled with the Hardy brothers!”

This was no empty threat. Since solving their first mystery,
The Tower Treasure,
the brothers had built up a solid reputation as detectives by their shrewd sleuthing and resourcefulness in the face of danger. A recent case,
The Mark on the Door,
was their thirteenth successful adventure.

The boys picked themselves up, and made their way from the warehouse into the street. Luckily, an all-night cruising taxicab came by in a few minutes, and took them to their hotel.

Ten o‘clock the next morning found Frank at the room telephone. “We've decided to accept your case, Mr. Worth,” he told the editor. “We'll start by car for Larchmont early tomorrow, and probably arrive in two days.”

“Fine! And thanks. I'm flying back tomorrow. Come to my office when you get there.”

Next, Frank called the telegraph office and dictated a cable to Fenton Hardy in Jamaica:

Joe now took over the phone and dialed the Bayport number of their plump, good-natured friend, Chet Morton. His cheerful voice answered. “Ready to go camping, now that your mother and dad have left?” he asked.

“Sure thing, Chet,” Joe replied heartily. “Only, instead of Maine, we're going to the coast of Georgia. How's that sound?”

Several seconds of silence followed. Then came a suspicious query, “How come the switch?”

“A little business matter turned up.”

“Business matter!” exploded Chet. “You don't fool me. Another mystery is what you mean. Another crazy, dangerous wild-goose chase that you're trying to drag poor ole Chet into!”

Chet Morton always insisted he hated danger, though he had shared most of the Hardy boys' hair-raising adventures.

“Then we can count you out?” asked Joe with a smile.

“Well ...” came the grudging answer. “I've never been to Georgia. I could lie on the beach and leave you two to your narrow escapes.”

“We'll pick you up at dawn tomorrow.”

After a late breakfast in the hotel cafeteria, Frank and Joe, eager to start their sleuthing, took a train to Bayport. As soon as they reached home, the boys kissed their tall, angular aunt, then told her the plans. Aunt Gertrude, at times sharp-tongued and peppery despite her pride in her nephews, gave her opinion of the whole expedition.

“Foolishness,” she declared. “It'll end in trouble, you mark me. And then Fenton will have to rush away from the Caribbean to help you. My poor brother!”

“Oh, Auntie! You know Dad wouldn't want us to turn down a challenging case!” Joe said.

“Humph! I guess not. Well, you'd better have a good meal, anyway. And maybe you'd like to invite Chet.”

This was done, and it was decided that Chet and his gear would spend the night at the Hardys' because of the early start. Then Frank backed the boys' powerful yellow convertible into the driveway. He and Joe packed sleeping bags, tents, cooking equipment, spare clothing, and the Hardys' skin-diving equipment into it.

Aunt Gertrude prepared one of her delicious dinners. Chet, as usual, had second helpings of everything.

“You'd better know,” Miss Hardy told them later, “that there was a big, tough-looking man hanging around here this afternoon before you boys returned. He even came up our driveway. I called out to see what he wanted. Apparently that scared him away.”

“For good, I hope,” Frank said. The same thought occurred to him and Joe. Had their hoarse-voiced attacker preceded them to Bayport? The boys changed the subject, however, not wanting to worry Aunt Gertrude unnecessarily.

Just at dawn the next morning, after breakfast and good-bys to Miss Hardy, the yellow convertible, with Frank, Chet, and Joe in the front seat, purred through the quiet Bayport streets. Soon it entered the superhighway heading north.

“Now,” said Frank, who was driving, “if anybody's watching us, he'll think we're still going to Maine!”

“I wish we were,” declared Chet. The brothers had given him the details of their new case.

About ten miles farther, however, Frank sent the car down an exit ramp, passed underneath the thruway, and entered the highway on the other side. Now they were bound for Georgia!

The remainder of that day, and the next, they sped along the smooth concrete under a warm sun and blue sky. About noon on the last day of the boys' journey, a cluster of police cars, with red lights winking, warned of an accident ahead. Passing by slowly, the brothers and Chet saw a yellow convertible, the same model as the Hardys‘, turned upside down on the center grass strip.

“Gives me the creeps!” Chet shuddered. “It might have been us!”

When Frank reached the next service area, he pulled in to have lunch at the counter. The boys had just finished eating when two state troopers came in and took seats nearby.

“A bad smashup,” said the first officer. “The driver and passenger thrown clear, lucky for them. It was deliberate, too. A blue sedan forced them right off the road. The driver of the car behind them saw the whole thing, but didn't catch a glimpse of the license number.”

“Can't our boys stop the sedan farther along?” asked the other trooper.

“No. It must have turned off at the next exit. The witness caught a glimpse of the driver, though. Big, flat-faced fellow. Had a blond-haired man with him.”

Frank, Joe, and Chet paid their check and filed out quietly. They climbed into the convertible with serious faces.

“That ‘accident' was meant for us!” declared Joe as they started once again. “The driver sounds like our suspicious friend with the wheezy breathing.”

Constantly alert, the young detectives continued their journey. Joe, now at the wheel, turned off the highway and continued south on the secondary road, to throw off pursuit.

Late that afternoon they rolled into Larchmont, an old town built around a main square containing the courthouse and a Civil War monument. Stores lined the edges of the square, and the boys soon spotted the building which housed the
Record's
offices, which were on the second floor. While Frank and Chet waited in the car, Joe ran inside and came back with a smiling Bart Worth.

“Glad to see you!” said the young editor. He was, introduced to Chet and shook hands with him. “Joe says you all want to camp. I'll take you out now and show you the best spot.”

He directed Frank to follow the same road by which the boys had entered town. About a mile out of town, he said, “Turn right on this lane. It leads to the beach about a mile away. Only fishermen use the lane.”

Bart Worth explained that half a mile farther along the main road was the entrance to the Blackstone home. “It's about halfway between the shore and the public road. Professor Rand has his own driveway some distance from Blackstone's.”

The lane made its way among scrubby pine trees. Finally the car came to the beach where the fishermen's road, barely discernible, turned left.

“Boy, that ocean smells good!” Chet declared.

Presently Bart Worth said, “This road ends at the dunes ahead. They spread along the shore and I figured it would be an ideal spot for you all to camp out. Nobody will know you're around.”

The boys selected a secluded spot between two high dunes, then quickly pitched their camp. Leaving Chet to unpack provisions, Frank and Joe drove the editor back to town.

A tall, pale man with blond hair, wearing a linen suit and straw hat, stopped them as they entered the newspaper office.

“Hello there, Mr. Worth,” he said. “I see you have company.”

“Yes, a couple of visitors from up North,” Worth responded. “Boys, this is Mr. Henry Cutter—a Yankee like yourselves. Mr. Cutter and his partner, Mr. Stewart, are in the antique business. They're down here looking over business opportunities.”

“That's right,” agreed Cutter, appraising the Hardys with hard blue eyes. “Once in a while we put an ad in the Record for people interested in helping us start a profitable business. We make trips into the countryside around Larchmont.”

After shaking hands, the Hardys followed Worth into his private office. Here they discussed the Blackstone case and how the young sleuths would first tackle it.

“We'll take a little tour of the grounds tonight,” Frank decided.

“Okay,” Bart said. “Keep me posted.”

When the brothers were driving back on the lane, Joe asked, “What did you think of Mr. Cutter?”

“Seemed to me we got a good once-over from Cutter for just a casual meeting,” Frank commented.

Back at camp, Chet and the Hardys took a swim. Then, using their camp stove, they prepared a tasty meal of hash and brown bread. After eating, and burying the debris, the three sat and talked in low tones until dusk came on. The continually moving sea had darkened, as the sunset's afterglow gave way to stars. The air grew close and murky.

“I think it's time to inspect the Blackstone property,” Frank proposed. “It's dark enough now.”

“You two go,” Chet suggested quickly. “I'll stay and guard camp.”

A few minutes later the brothers set off on foot among the dunes toward the Blackstone house. It was difficult walking through the high grass and loose sand. Here and there a lone scraggly pine endeavored to exist.

Presently the earth became less sandy. The scraggly pines gave way to thick vegetation, more and more tangled.

“According to Bart's directions, we ought to come to the pond soon,” muttered Joe, beaming his flashlight ahead.

The thick, forbidding tangle made hard going, even with flashlights. At last the brothers struck a path through clumps of swamp grass, matted vines, and huge rotting trees. Then an open space appeared ahead. Their lights shone on an expanse of still, brackish-looking water.