The Secret of the Soldier's Gold (11 page)

“If you're thinking that maybe the German soldier didn't die after all,” Frank said, “then I sure am.”

“But how could that be, Frank?” Joe said. “Frau Rilke said that her father saw the Gestapo officer kidnap the soldier in downtown Lisbon.”

“That's right,” Frank agreed. “But what she
didn't
say is that they received confirmation of his death.”

“Exactly! And how could they?” Joe said. “They left for the United States almost immediately because they feared the soldier would break under
questioning, reveal the hiding place of the gold, and lead the Gestapo to the Fleissner's home.”

“A lot of strange things happened during World War II,” Frank said. “People survived things that nobody would have thought possible.”

“The German soldier could have survived too,” Joe said. “If we had his whole name, we might be able to find out exactly what
did
happen to him.”

“Frau Rilke gave it to us—but I can't recall the whole name,” Frank said. He looked at his watch. “It's still early in Bayport. Let's call her and tell her what we suspect.”

It took only fifteen minutes for the hotel operator to get Frau Rilke on the telephone. Frank told her that they still hadn't recovered the gold bars, that they were close—but that some information had come to light that made them believe that perhaps the German soldier hadn't died after all.

“His name is Heinz-Erich Lüdemann,” Frau Rilke said. “If he's still alive, it's a miracle—and, of course, if he is, half of the gold bars belong to him. Oh, it would be so wonderful to see Heinz-Erich after all these years!”

“Well, we don't know for sure that he's alive—we're just speculating,” Frank reminded her. “But now that we have his full name, we
are
going to do our best to find out what happened to him.”

Frank promised Frau Rilke that he would telephone her as soon as they found out something
more definite. After he hung up the phone, he turned to his brother. “In the morning we need to let Dad know about this too.”

•   •   •

When Mr. Hardy called Frank and Joe the next morning to ask them if they wanted to have breakfast, he was surprised to learn that they were already dressed and waiting for his call.

As everyone headed down to the restaurant Frank and Joe filled Mr. Hardy in on everything that had happened the day before. Since Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude were several paces behind them, engaged in a discussion about what to do first that morning, Frank and Joe decided to include the part about the exploding boat.

“Now we're thinking that the German soldier didn't die after all, Dad,” Joe said. “We called Frau Rilke last night and got his name.”

“I think your theory has some merit,” Fenton Hardy said. “I have a meeting at the Central Police Station later this morning. I can ask about how to start looking for this Heinz-Erich Lüdemann.”

•   •   •

After breakfast Frank and Joe returned to their room, as they had told Isabel they would, while Mr. Hardy went to his meeting and Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude left to go shopping. After finding nothing on television they were interested in—or could understand—they both decided that they
hadn't had enough sleep the night before and that now would be a good time to catch up on it.

Three hours later the telephone awakened them both. Joe picked it up. It was Mr. Hardy.

“Well, right away I was able to find an official who could help me try to locate this Heinz-Erich Lüdemann,” he said, “but unfortunately he didn't come up with anything.”

“Nothing?” Joe said, crestfallen.

“Nothing,” Mr. Hardy repeated. “We even tried a database that contains names in all of the countries in the European Union. There was no Heinz-Erich Lüdemann who would have been a soldier in World War II. Sorry.”

“Okay, Dad. Thanks for trying,” Joe said. “Talk to you later.”

Frank shook his head. “I was certain that would solve the problem for us, Joe,” he said. “Now I don't know which way to turn.”

Joe slammed his fist into his pillow. “We can't go home empty-handed, Frank. Frau Rilke is counting on us.”

“Okay, let's take stock of what we
do
know. And let's forget everything that's happened and put ourselves in Heinz-Erich Lüdemann's shoes for a moment,” Frank said. “Maybe that'll help us come up with a new game plan.”

“Good idea! You've just been captured by the
Gestapo. You're taken to a really horrible place where people do really horrible things to you,” Joe said. “But you will yourself to stay alive. You're not going to let these monsters end your life.”

“Right. Now let's say you
do
manage to stay alive until the end of the war, and when the Nazis surrender, you're released,” Frank continued. “You have nothing, you're weak from hunger, and your family is all gone.”

“What sort of life do you go back to?” Joe said.

Frank jumped up from the bed. “Hang on! I just remembered something I saw in an old black-and-white movie,” he said. “This woman was in a concentration camp and she took care of another sick woman. When the sick woman died, the protagonist assumed the other woman's identity because the dead woman had relatives in San Francisco. She'd never seen the relatives, but they'd invited her to come to their home and live with them after the war.”

“Heinz-Erich Lüdemann might
not
have returned to life as Heinz-Erich Lüdemann! He might have come back with another name,” Joe said.

“Right. The most important things you could have back then were papers that would allow you to cross borders,” Frank said. “Let's suppose that somehow he made it back to Portugal because he would want to find out if the Fleissners were still
here—and when he found that they weren't, maybe he somehow convinced Senhora Bragança that the suitcase buried in her backyard belonged to him and the people who used to live there. He dug it up and replaced the gold bars with bricks.”

“That's what I don't understand,” Joe said. “Why would he rebury the suitcase with bricks?”

“To throw the Nazis off track,” Frank said.

“What Nazis?” Joe said.

“Joe, after the war there were a lot of Nazis who escaped from Germany and went into hiding all over the world,” Frank said. “Let's say that one way or another some of the Nazis who captured Heinz-Erich Lüdemann had a pretty good idea of where the gold might be buried. Maybe they got the information out of him. Maybe Heinz-Erich told somebody he trusted and then that person betrayed him. I don't know. He probably thought that if he reburied the suitcase with bricks, then whoever dug it up might think that it had never contained gold bars in the first place—and that the gold that Heinz-Erich Lüdemann said he had buried there could be almost anywhere. They wouldn't even know where to begin.”

“Well, Frank, at least we have a possible solution to what happened to the gold,” Joe said, “but how do we find Heinz-Erich Lüdemann without a name?”

Frank picked up the Lisbon telephone directory
and started thumbing through the yellow pages until he found
“Journais.”
“Newspapers,” he said. “Now, I think there's probably . . . Yes! Here it is.
Die Zeit
!”

“That's German, Frank,” Joe said.

“I know, Joe. I got an A in Mrs. Rolf's class last year, remember?” Frank said. “We're going to put a personal ad in Lisbon's German newspaper:
Die Familie Fleissner sucht Heinz-Erich Lüdemann.
The Fleissner family is looking for Heinz-Erich Lüdemann.”

“Well, it might work,” Joe said. “I bet the concierge could help us do it. He's been able to do everything else for us.”

Thirty minutes later Frank and Joe were back in their room with assurances from the concierge that the personal ad would appear in the next morning's edition of Lisbon's German-language newspaper,
Die Zeit,
along with Frank and Joe's hotel telephone number.

“I don't think I can stand just sitting around anymore,” Joe said. “I'm feeling restless. I've got to get out of this room.”

“You know what Isabel said, Joe,” Frank reminded him. “We need to lie low for another day or so. How about working out in the gym? Judging from the picture in the hotel's guest services magazine, it's top-notch.”

“That might help,” Joe said. “Let's go.”

Just then the telephone rang.

“Maybe it's Isabel,” Frank said, picking it up. “Hello?”

The voice immediately started speaking in German.

“Wait, wait. Slow down! I don't really
speak
German that well,” Frank said frantically. He couldn't believe that someone had already found out about the newspaper ad, but in English he added, “Are you calling about the ad I just placed in
Die Zeit
?”

For just a moment there was silence. Then a woman's voice quietly said, “Perhaps.”

“I don't understand. The newspaper hasn't even printed the ad yet,” Frank said. “How do you know about it?”

“Lisbon's German community is very close-knit,” the woman said. “Someone at the newspaper office called me.”

“Okay, then. Please listen carefully. Don't hang up,” Frank said. He tried to tell Frau Rilke's story as quickly and as concisely as possible. When he finished, he said, “Do you know Heinz-Erich Lüdemann?”

“I think we should talk,” the woman said. “I will meet you but only in public.”

“Name the place,” Frank said.

“Sua Excêlencia. It's a popular restaurant,” the
woman said. She gave Frank the address. “Tonight at eight o'clock. I'll have a table reserved under the name ‘Santana.'”

“We'll be there,” Frank said.

When Frank got off the telephone with the woman, immediately he called Isabel.

“She wants to meet us at Sua Excêlencia at eight o'clock tonight,” he said. “The address is . . .”

“Oh, I know where it is. It's one of Lisbon's nicest restaurants,” Isabel said. “I go there a lot. It's not close to your hotel, so I'll drive you.”

“Great! Thanks for offering,” Frank said. “What time will you pick us up?”

“Half past seven,” Isabel said. “That'll give us time to get there, park, and then find this woman.”

“See you then,” Frank said. He hung up the phone and turned to Joe. “Now if we can just find
something to keep us occupied for the rest of the day, we'll be okay.”

“The gym!” Joe said. “That'll get rid of some of this excess energy.”

“Right,” Frank said. “Let's change and head on up there.”

For the next couple of hours the Hardy boys worked their way through every piece of equipment in the state-of-the-art gym. By the time they were through, they were exhausted.

“We might have overdone it,” Joe said. He looked around the gym. “I wish we had some of this equipment back in Bayport.”

“Me too,” Frank agreed.

When they got back to their room, they took turns with the shower. Then Frank called guest services and asked for a wake-up call at six o'clock.

“That should give us plenty of time to nap and get ready,” he said to Joe.

“I don't know, Frank,” Joe said with a yawn. “It may take me that long just to wake up.”

But when the wake-up call came, both Frank and Joe bounded out of bed with no trouble and got dressed.

“We'd better call Dad, just to keep him informed,” Joe said. “I think he was a little anxious about what happened on the river.”

Frank picked up the phone and called their
parents' room. When his father answered, Frank told him the latest news. “We might have found Heinz-Erich Lüdemann, Dad,” he said. He gave his father a shortened version of the personal ad they had placed in
Die Zeit
. “It turns out that somebody on the newspaper staff called this woman even before the ad printed, and now she wants to talk to us. Isabel is going to drive us to the restaurant.”

“I'm impressed with your detective work,” Fenton Hardy said proudly. “You seem to have this well under control.”

“I guess we'll know more after we talk to the woman, Dad,” Frank said. “We'll call you as soon as we get back.”

Frank and Joe dressed for dinner in a nice restaurant and then headed downstairs to wait for Isabel. As usual, she was right on time.

“How do you do it, Isabel? Once again you're here on the dot,” Joe said, climbing into her sports car. “I'm always either a few minutes ahead of time or a few minutes late.”

Isabel grinned. “I just know how long it's going to take me to get to places in Lisbon,” she said. She shrugged. “I never thought of it before.”

After they got to Sua Excêlencia, parked Isabel's car, and walked through the front door of the restaurant, Joe glanced down at his watch. “Wow—on time again!” he said.

Isabel laughed. “Don't tell me that was a test!”

“No, I'm just trying to figure out what the secret is to being on time,” Joe said, smiling.

Frank told the maître d' that they were meeting the party seated under the name “Santana.”

“Ah, yes,” the maître d' said. “This way, please.”

The three of them began to follow him into the main room of the restaurant. They had gone no more than a few feet, though, when the maître d' stopped.

“What's wrong?” Frank asked.

“Well, that's Senhora Santana over there,” the maître d' said, pointing, “but I don't understand why she's leaving with those men.”

Joe looked. A woman with dark black hair was being led toward the rear of the restaurant by two men. “Frank—it's Captain Matos!” he said. “I don't recognize the other man.”