The Tower Treasure (12 page)

With this parting remark he turned and hobbled back along the corridor, the sheet of stamps still in his gnarled hand.

The Hardy boys looked at each other. “Not very encouraging, is he?” Joe remarked.

“He doesn't deserve to get his stuff back,” Frank declared flatly, then shrugged. “Let's get up into the tower and start the search.”

Frank and Joe first examined the dusty stairs carefully for footprints, but none were to be seen.

“That seems queer,” Frank remarked. “If Jackley was here recently you'd think his footprints would still show. Judging by this dust, there hasn't been anyone in the tower for at least a year.”

“Perhaps the dust collects more quickly than we think,” Joe countered. “Or the wind may get in here and blow it around.”

An inspection of the first floor of the old tower revealed that there was no place where the loot could have been hidden except under the stairs. But they found nothing there.

The boys ascended to the next floor, and entered the room to the left of the stair well. It was as drab and bare as the one they had just left. Here again the dust lay thick and the murky windows were almost obscured with cobwebs. There was an atmosphere of age and decay about the entire place, as if it had been abandoned for years.

“Nothing here,” said Frank after a quick glance around. “On we go.”

They made their way up to the next floor. After searching this room and under the stairway, they had to admit defeat.

The floor above was a duplicate of the first and second. It was bare and cheerless, deep in dust. There was not the slightest sign of a hiding place, or any indication that another human being had been in the tower for a long time.

“Doesn't look very promising, Joe. Still, Jackley may have gone right to the top of the tower.”

The search continued without success until the boys reached the roof. Here a trap door which swung inward led to the top of the tower. Frank unlatched it and pulled on the door. It did not budge.

“I'll help you,” Joe offered.

Together the brothers yanked on the stubborn trap door of the old tower. Suddenly it gave way completely, causing both boys to lose their balance. Frank fell backward down the stairway.

Frank grabbed a spindle of the balustrade and kept himself from sliding farther down the steps. He had seen Joe's plunge and expected the next moment to hear a sickening thud on the floor five stories below.

“Joel” he murmured as he pulled himself upright. “Oh, Joel”

To Frank's amazement, he heard no thud and now looked over the balustrade. His brother was not lying unconscious at the bottom of the tower. Instead, he was clinging to two spindles of the stairway on the floor below.

Frank, heaving a tremendous sigh of relief, ran down and helped pull Joe to the safety of the steps. Both boys sat down to catch their breaths and recover from their falls.

Finally Joe said, “Thanks. For a second I sure thought I was going to end my career as a detective right here!”

“I guess you can also thank our gym teacher for the tricks he taught you on the bars,” Frank remarked. “You must have grabbed those spindles with flash-camera speed.”

Presently the boys turned their eyes upward. An expression halfway between a grin and a worried frown crossed their faces.

“Mr. Applegate,” Joe remarked, “isn't going to like hearing we ruined his trap door.”

“No. Let's see if we can put it back in place.”

The boys climbed the stairway and examined the damage. They found that the hinges had pulled away from rotted wood. A new piece would have to be put in to hold the door in place.

“Before we go downstairs,” said Joe, “let's look out on the roof. We thought maybe the loot was hidden there. Remember?”

Frank and Joe climbed outside to a narrow, railinged walk that ran around the four sides of the square tower. There was nothing on it.

“Our only reward for all this work is a good view of Bayport,” Frank remarked ruefully.

Below lay the bustling little city, and to the east was Barmet Bay, its waters sparkling in the late afternoon.

“Dad was fooled by Jackley, I guess,” Frank said slowly. “There hasn't been anyone in this tower for years.”

The boys gazed moodily over the city, then down at the grounds of Tower Mansion. The many roofs of the house itself were far below, and directly across from them rose the heavy bulk of the new tower.

“Do you think Jackley might have meant the
new
tower?” Joe exclaimed suddenly.

“Dad said he specified the old one.”

“But he may have been mistaken. Even the new one looks old. Let's ask Mr. Applegate if we may search the new tower, too.”

“It's worth trying, anyway. But I'm afraid when we tell him about the trap door, he'll say no.”

The brothers went down through the opening. They lifted the door into place, latched it, and then wedged Frank's small pocket notebook into the damaged side. The door held, but Frank and Joe knew that wind or rain would easily dislodge it.

The boys hurried down the steps and through the corridor to the main part of the house.

Adelia Applegate popped her head out of a doorway. “Where's the loot?” she asked.

“We didn't find any,” Frank admitted.

The woman sniffed. “I told you so! Such a waste of time!”

“We think now,” Joe spoke up, “that the stolen property is probably hidden in the new tower.”

“In the new tower!” Miss Applegate cried out. “Absurd! I suppose you'll want to go poking through there now.”

“If it wouldn't be too much trouble.”

“It
would
be too much trouble, indeed!” she shrilled. “I shan't have boys rummaging through
my
house on a wild-goose chase like this. You'd better leave at once, and forget all this nonsense.”

Her voice had attracted the attention of Hurd Applegate, who came hobbling out of his study.

“Now what's the matter?” he demanded. His sister told him and suddenly his face creased in a triumphant smile. “Aha! So you didn't find anything after all! You thought you'd clear Robinson, but you haven't done it.”

“Not yet,” Frank answered.

“These boys have the audacity,” Miss Applegate broke in, “to want to go looking through the
new
tower.”

Hurd Applegate stared at the boys. “Well, they can't do it!” he snapped. “Are you boys trying to make a fool of me?” he asked, shaking a fist at them.

Frank and Joe exchanged glances and nodded at each other. They would have to reveal their reason for thinking the loot was in the new tower.

“Mr. Applegate,” Frank began, “the information about where your stolen stuff is hidden came from the man who took the jewels and the bonds. And it wasn't Mr. Robinson.”

“What! You mean it was someone else? Has he been caught?”

“He was captured but he's dead now.”

“Dead? What happened?” Hurd Applegate asked in excitement.

“His name was Red Jackley and he was a notorious criminal. Dad got on his trail and Jackley tried to escape on a railroad handcar. It smashed up and he was fatally injured,” Frank explained.

“Where did you get your information then?” Mr. Applegate asked.

Frank told the whole story, ending with, “We thought Jackley might have made a mistake and that it's the new tower where he hid the loot.”

Hurd Applegate rubbed his chin meditatively. It was evident that he was impressed by the boys' story.

“So this fellow Jackley confessed to the robbery, eh?”

“He admitted everything. He had once worked around here and knew the Bayport area well. He had been hanging around the city for several days before the robbery.”

“Well,” Applegate said slowly, “if he said he hid the stuff in the old tower and it's not there, it must be in the new tower, as you say.”

“Will you let us search it?” Joe asked eagerly.

“Yes, and I'll help. I'm just as eager to find the jewels and bonds as you are. Come on, boys!”

Hurd Applegate led the way across the mansion toward a door which opened into the new tower. Now that the man was in a good mood, Frank decided that this was an opportune time to tell him about the trap door. He did so, offering to pay for the repair.

“Oh, that's all right,” said Mr. Applegate. “I'll have it fixed. In fact, Robinson—Oh, I forgot. I'll get a carpenter.”

He said no more, but quickened his steps. Frank and Joe grinned. Old Mr. Applegate had not even reprimanded them!

The mansion owner opened the door to the new tower and stepped into a corridor. Frank and Joe, tingling with excitement, followed.

THE rooms in the new tower had been furnished when it was built. But only on rare occasions when the Applegates had visitors were the rooms occupied, the owner stated.

In the first one Frank, Joe, and Mr. Applegate found nothing, although they looked carefully in closets, bureaus, highboys, and under the large pieces of furniture. They even turned up mattresses and rugs. When they were satisfied that the loot had not been hidden there, they ascended the stairs to the room above. Again their investigation proved fruitless.

Hurd Applegate, being a quick-tempered man, fell back into his old mood. The boys' story had convinced him, but when they had searched the rooms in the tower without success, he showed his disgust.

“It's a hoax!” he snorted. “Adelia was right. I've been made a fool of! And all because of Robinson!”

“I can't understand it!” Joe burst out. “Jackley said he hid the stuff in the tower.”

“If that fellow did hide the jewels and bonds in one of the towers,” Applegate surmised, “someone else must have come in and taken them—maybe someone working with him. Or else Robinson found the loot right after the robbery and kept it for himself.”

“I'm sure Mr. Robinson wouldn't do that,” Joe objected.

“Then where did he get the nine hundred dollars? Explain that. Robinson won't!”

On the way back to the main part of the mansion, Hurd Applegate elaborated on his theory. The fact that the loot had not been found seemed to convince him all over again that Robinson was involved in some way.

“Like as not he was in league with Jackley!” the man stated flatly.

Again Frank and Joe protested that the ex-caretaker did not hobnob with criminals. Neverthe-: less, the Hardys were puzzled, disappointed, and alarmed. Their search had only resulted in implicating Mr. Robinson more deeply in the mystery.

Back in the hallway of the main house they met Adelia Applegate, who crowed triumphantly when she saw the search party returning empty-handed. “Didn't I tell you?” she cried. “Hurd Applegate, you've let these boys make a fool of you!”

She escorted the Hardys to the front door, while her brother, shaking his head perplexedly, went back to his study.

“We sure messed things up, Frank,” Joe declared, as they walked toward their motorcycles. “I feel like a dud rocket.”

“Me too.”

They hurried home to tell their father the disappointing news. Fenton Hardy was amazed to hear that the stolen valuables had not been located in either tower. “You're sure you went over the place thoroughly?”

“Every inch of it. There wasn't a sign of the loot. From the dust in the old tower, I'd say no one had been there for ages,” Frank replied.

“Strange,” the detective muttered. “I'm sure Jackley wasn't lying. He had absolutely nothing to gain by deceiving me. ‘I hid it in the old tower.' Those were his very words. And what could he mean but the old tower of Tower Mansion? And why should he be so careful to say the
old
tower? Since he was familiar with Bayport, he probably knew that the mansion has two towers, the old and the new.”

“Of course, it may be that we
didn't
search thoroughly enough,” Joe remarked. “The loot could be hidden under the flooring or behind a movable wall panel. We didn't look there.”

“That's the only solution,” Mr. Hardy agreed. “I'm still not satisfied that the stolen property isn't there. I'm going to ask Applegate to permit another search of both towers. And now, I think your mother wants you to do an errand downtown.”

Mrs. Hardy explained what she wanted and Frank and Joe were soon on their motorcycles again. When the boys reached the business section of Bayport they found that Jackley's confession had already become known. The local radio station had broadcast it in the afternoon news program and people everywhere were discussing it.

Detective Smuff walked along the street looking as if he would bite the head off the first person who mentioned the case to him. When he saw the Hardy boys he glowered.

“Well,” he grunted, “I hear you got the stuff back.”

“I wish we had,” Frank said glumly.

“What!” the detective cried out, brightening at once. “You didn't get it? I thought they said on the radio that this fellow Jackley had told your father where he hid it.”

“He did. But how did the news leak out?”

“Jackley's door wasn't closed all the time. One of the other patients who was walking by the room heard the confession and spilled it. So you didn't find the loot after all! Ha-ha! That's a good one! Didn't Jackley say the stuff was hidden in the old tower? What more do you need?”

“Well, it wasn't there!” Joe retorted hotly. “Jackley must have made a mistake!”