By the time they returned to the Batter estate, the auction was over and most of the crowd had left. Chet was waiting patiently at the parking area, perched in his high-sprung yellow jalopy, the Queen, near a Bayport police car. In the Queen’s back seat, with the aardvark and taxidermy kit, stood a black bear cub.
“What happened?” The chubby youth hopped out anxiously from behind the wheel. “Did you catch those thieves?”
Frank shook his head. “No, but we got their license number.”
“Don’t tell us you added another prize to your collection!” Joe said, grinning at the bear cub.
“Sure, that was my first buy—before you two got here,” Chet said proudly. “It was a bigger bargain than the aardvark!”
“It’s big enough, all right. Where do you plan to keep this stuffed zoo of yours?”
Chet gave a slight cough. “Well, er, as a matter of fact that’s why I—”
“Hold it!” Frank said. “That squad-car officer just motioned to us, Joe.”
The policeman who had beckoned was conferring with the tall, dapperly dressed auctioneer and a smaller, gray-haired man near the garage-stable while another officer took notes.
The Hardys hurried over, bringing the broken antenna, and reported their fruitless chase. “Here’s the license number,” Joe added, handing over the scrap of paper. “We’ve already alerted the highway patrol.”
“Good work, boys,” the policeman said. “This antenna may help us get a line on the thieves.”
“We suspect it’s a handmade job,” Frank said. “By the way, what did they take?”
“Not much, luckily,” the auctioneer replied. “Just nine stuffed animals.”
“That’s the queerest haul I ever heard of,” Joe put in. “Why in the world would the thieves want them?”
The auctioneer gave a puzzled laugh. “Good question. They certainly weren’t worth a lot. The bids on all nine didn’t amount to more than a hundred dollars.”
He explained that after being auctioned off, each item had been taken to the garage, to be claimed later by the high bidder. It was there that the gray-haired clerk had been held up.
Apparently the two thieves had arrived at the auction late, when the nine animals had already been sold but not yet picked up. The men had first offered to pay the clerk more than the amounts bid. When he refused, they had seized the animals at gunpoint and fled.
“Too bad. I hope they’re caught,” Joe said.
As the Hardys walked back to Chet, Frank said thoughtfully, “You know, Joe, this robbery has the makings of a real mystery. There must be some reason for pulling such a crazy holdup.”
Joe nodded. “Unless we were chasing a couple of nuts!”
Chet was struck with a sudden idea when he heard about the deer. “Gee, good study specimens are hard for us taxidermists to come by,” he said. “I wonder if the game warden would let me have the head for mounting.”
“Probably.” Frank climbed into the Hardys’ convertible. “We’ll call him when we get home.”
“Great! But—er—what’s the hurry? Wouldn’t you guys like some lunch?”
“That’s where we’re going—home to eat.”
“Come on to the Hot Rocket,” Chet said, “and I’ll stand treat for hamburgers and malts.”
Joe looked at his brother in surprise and burst out laughing. “Wow! We don’t get an offer like that every day! It’s a deal, pal!”
Later, as they were finishing lunch at their high school crowd’s favorite eating spot, Chet cleared his throat nervously. “Say, fellows, how are you fixed for lab space at your house?”
“Lab space?” Frank raised his eyebrows.
“Uh-huh. You see, Mom’s not too happy about me doing this taxidermy at home, and—well, I thought...” Chet’s voice trailed off and he looked at his pals beseechingly.
The Hardys joined in peals of laughter.
“Now it comes out!” Joe exclaimed. “I knew there was a catch to this free lunch!”
“Not to mention inviting us to that auction!”
“I wouldn’t take up much room—honest!” Chet looked so wistful that the Hardys relented.
“Well, okay, if Aunt Gertrude doesn’t object,” Frank said. “I guess she won’t mind as long as you’re working up in our garage lab.”
“On second thought,” Joe said with a grin, “maybe we’d better call the game warden from here, where she can’t listen in. Somehow I don’t think she’d care much for a deer’s head.”
Mr. Dorsey, the warden, readily promised that Chet could pick up the head and pelt at the game preserve later that day. After Joe emerged from the phone booth, the Hardys drove home to Elm Street in their convertible, followed by Chet’s backfiring jalopy.
Aunt Gertrude peered suspiciously out a back window as the stuffed animals were being unloaded and soon emerged to give advice to the boys.
“Humph! Taxidermy, eh?” she commented. “Very well. I daresay it has some educational value. But don’t let me see any messy stuffing being tracked into the house, or I’ll have three scalps mounted over the door! Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Chet gulped.
Frank and Joe had fitted up the entire second story of the garage as a detective laboratory and clubhouse. Leaving Chet to arrange a working space, the Hardys hurried into the house to their father’s study and checked his criminal files for pictures of the auction thieves.
“No luck,” Frank said at last. “But let’s keep in touch with Chief Collig on this case, Joe. I have a hunch there may be some interesting angle we don’t know about yet.”
Chief Collig, a veteran of the Bayport police force, was a long-time friend of the Hardys. The two young sleuths stopped in to see him on their way back from the game preserve with Chet.
“Have you traced the auction thieves’ license number yet?” Joe inquired eagerly.
The husky officer replied with a quizzical grin, “We tried to, but we got a surprise. No license plates with that number were ever issued. Sure you didn’t read it wrong?”
“Positive! I was using binoculars.”
Collig rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Then it sounds as if those hoods were no amateurs—not if their car’s equipped with fake plates.”
“What about the radio antenna?” Frank asked.
“No use. That turned out to be homemade too, as you suspected, so there’s no way to trace it.”
Frank had an idea. “May we have it?”
“Sure, why not?” Collig pulled the antenna from one of his desk drawers and handed it over. “Want to use it on the rig in your convertible?”
“No, but it’s an odd design,” Frank explained. “If Joe and I mount it on our car, it may attract attention. Someone might even recognize it and give us a lead on the owner.”
On Sunday, after church, Aunt Gertrude said good-by to her nephews and went off with a ladies’ group to visit sick members of the congregation. The boys were alone in the house when the telephone rang. Frank answered and was delighted to hear his father’s voice.
“Dad! What a swell surprise! Where are you?”
“At Bayport Airport, son. Just landed from Paris this morning and then hopped a plane from New York. Think you and Joe could pick me up?”
“You bet. We’ll be there in a jiffy!”
Fifteen minutes later the tall, broad-shouldered investigator was embracing his two sons.
“Boy, you look great, Dad!” Joe said. “How’d you make out on your case in Europe?”
“Tell you about it later. Right now I could use some of Aunt Gertrude’s home cooking.”
“You’re out of luck,” Frank said. “She won’t be home until three o’clock.”
Mr. Hardy chuckled wryly. “In that case I’ll settle for ham and eggs at the nearest diner.”
After stowing their father’s luggage in the trunk of the convertible, the boys took him to a roadside restaurant just outside Bayport. Soon the three were settled in a comfortable booth, enjoyin
g their meal. “Okay, let’s hear about your case, Dad,” Frank urged.
Mr. Hardy explained that he had been investigating the theft of secret data from a California aircraft company. Certain features of its latest commercial jet plane had been copied by two European firms. “A clear case of industrial espionage,” the detective went on. “And some of those features are usable on military aircraft.”
“Any clues?” Joe asked.
“Just one, so far. The gang that peddled the data uses ’aardvark’ as a code word.”
“Aardvark?” Frank echoed. He glanced at Joe and both laughed. “There’s a funny coincidence! Chet Morton bought a stuffed one yesterday.”
“What’s Chet up to now?” Mr. Hardy inquired.
Before Frank could reply, Joe bolted from his seat with a startled gasp.
“Hey! What’s wrong?” Frank asked.
“That bald auction thief!” Joe exclaimed, pointing out the window. “I just saw him out there on the parking lot!”
CHAPTER III
Ghost Light
FRANK sprang up at Joe’s mention of the auction thief, and both boys dashed to the door. A stout couple were entering the restaurant. Joe tried to skid aside, but Frank barged into him and they collided heavily with the man and woman.
“Well, of all the fresh young ruffians!” The woman glared at the two boys as she tried to straighten her hat which had been knocked askew in the impact.
“We’re terribly sorry, ma’am,” Frank apologized. “My brother just spotted a thief on the parking lot—we were running out to catch him!”
“Er, better stand aside, dear!” the woman’s husband said hastily as he saw tall, husky Fenton Hardy striding to join the two youths.
“Please excuse my sons,” the detective said.
As the woman gave a mollified smile, the Hardys squeezed past her. Outside, Joe gazed around, then exclaimed, “There he goes!”
A thin, baldheaded figure in a flapping tan raincoat was sprinting off the lot.
A green sedan was waiting at the edge of the highway, engine racing. The baldheaded man leaped into it. Joe, Frank, and Mr. Hardy were still weaving their way among the parked cars when the sedan roared off into the stream of traffic. There was no chance to note its license number.
“Rats!” Joe panted. “We lost ’em again!”
“Did you notice that fat-necked thug at the wheel?” Frank said.
“I sure did—he’s the same man who was driving the station wagon yesterday!”
“Suppose you two fill me in,” said Mr. Hardy.
The boys related their adventure at the auction.
“Maybe we ought to check our convertible,” Frank added.
“Just what I was thinking,” Joe said. “I have a hunch Baldy may have been tampering with it.”
The Hardys hurried toward their car. Frank exclaimed as they reached it, “Look! The antenna’s gone—that’s what he was after!”
The thieves’ odd-shaped short-wave antenna, which the boys had mounted on their convertible, was now missing.
Mr. Hardy frowned. “Rather odd to encounter those two again the very next day. Did you tell anyone about coming to meet me?”
Frank shook his head. “Nobody. When you called, we jumped into the car and took off.”
“Maybe they were just driving along the highway and spotted the antenna on our car,” Joe suggested.
“What was the baldheaded guy doing when you noticed him?” Frank asked.
Joe gave a shrug. “I couldn’t see well enough to tell. A car drove up and blocked my view.”
On a hunch, Frank walked around to the trunk. “Oh, oh! Look here!” He pointed to some bright metal scratches around the keyhole.
“Looks as if he tried to jimmy it!” Joe said.
“Better unlock the trunk, Frank, and see if anything else is missing,” Mr. Hardy advised.
Frank did so. Neither his father’s suitcases nor the brief case had been disturbed.
“Guess the guy didn’t have time to finish breaking in,” Frank said, closing the trunk lid.
“Carrying anything valuable, Dad?” Joe asked.
“Not especially—except for my case reports. They deal with the aircraft theft and several other recent industrial espionage cases. I’ve a theory they’re all the work of the same gang.”
Frank and Joe exchanged excited glances.
“If Baldy was after those case reports,” Joe reasoned, “he may be one of the gang!”
“It’s a possibility,” his father agreed.
That afternoon Chet Morton dropped over to work on his taxidermy project, and again the next day Frank and Joe saw the light burning in the garage crime lab when they arrived home from school.
“Boy, I guess Chet’s really serious about this taxidermy kick,” Joe remarked.
After putting down their books and washing their hands, Frank and Joe went to the kitchen for a snack.
“I’m afraid Chester is missing meals and living on grapefruit out in your lab,” Aunt Gertrude fretted.
“Grapefruit?” Frank murmured, pouring milk.
“Yes, he borrowed a knife from me yesterday. It’s not good for him, not getting a well-balanced diet. You’d better take him out a sandwich.”
“Good idea. We’ll see how he’s making out.”
The Hardys found their chum hunched over an array of chemical bottles, tools, a bag of salt, and a nearly finished stuffed squirrel which he was preparing for a high school exhibit.
“How’s it going, Chet?” Frank asked, handing him the sandwich.
“Oh, swell! The deer’s already at the tanner’s, and I’ve ordered a head form from Roundtree’s shop. Did the skin-fleshing myself.”
“So I see,” Joe said, picking up a soiled grapefruit knife. “Did you flesh it with this?”
“Yes, your aunt lent it to me.” Seeing the Hardys’ expressions, Chet’s eyes widened innocently. “Do you think she’ll mind? Gee, it’s for a scientific cause!”
Frank nudged his brother, then looked threateningly at Chet. “Morton, old boy, if we find deer meat in our grapefruit tomorrow morning, we’ll personally stuff you.”
“With breakfast? You’ve got a deal!”
Joe threw up his arms. “We can’t win!”
A shrill summons from Aunt Gertrude brought the Hardys hurrying back to the house. “A man wants to speak to you two on the phone,” she reported. “Says his name’s Crowell—J. Sylvester Crowell.”
Joe looked at his brother blankly as they strode toward the hall telephone and muttered, “Wonder who he is.”
When Frank answered, Crowell explained that he was the attorney for the wife of the late Elias Batter. “Mrs. Batter has asked me to thank you boys for your efforts to catch those thieves who stole the stuffed animals,” Crowell went on. “We understand you two are already following in your father’s footsteps—as detectives, I mean.”
“We’ve solved a few cases,” Frank admitted.
“Well, even though you’re amateurs, she thought you might like to undertake a little more—shall we say, practice work at detecting?”
“Such as?” Frank inquired cautiously.
“She herself will tell you all about it. Could you come to my office in half an hour?”
Joe, who was listening in, nodded eagerly.
“We’ll be there,” Frank told the lawyer.
Crowell proved to be a balding, long-nosed man in a pinstripe suit. He introduced the boys to a short, dowdily dressed woman. “Mrs. Batter, I’d like to present Frank and Joe Hardy.”
She nodded curtly without offering her hand and looked the boys over appraisingly.
“We didn’t realize Mr. Batter was married,” Frank said. “We thought since his estate was being auctioned off—”
“No sense living in that drafty old mausoleum!” she snapped. “Just a white elephant, that’s all it is. How would I keep it up? Elias left me barely enough to live on as it is!”
“That’s why Mrs. Batte
r is eager to recover those stolen animals,” Crowell put in smoothly. “Every penny counts, you see.”
“What he means,” the widow said bluntly, “is that I have no money to waste on fancy detective agency fees. Now, you two boys are smart young fellows, I hear. How would you like to take on the job of tracking down those thieves and getting back my property for me?”
“We never charge for our services, if that’s what you mean,” Frank said. “Joe and I aren’t professional detectives.”
“Good! Then you’ll take the case. Maybe your father would even be willing to help.”
Frank smiled. “If he does, he’ll charge.” Frank was amused at the woman’s stingy eagerness to get as much work as possible free. “Besides, Dad’s tied up on another case. But my brother and I will do what we can.”
“Have you any idea why the stuffed animals were taken?” Joe asked.
Mrs. Batter’s beady green eyes glared suspiciously at the younger Hardy boy. “To sell for whatever they’d bring, I suppose. Why else?”
“But the auctioneer said the thieves first offered to buy them,” Joe reminded her. “And for a higher price than was bid.”
There was brief silence. Then Crowell cleared his throat. “Well, perhaps the thieves were collectors—or thought the animals were more valuable than they really are. At any rate, Mrs. Batter wants her property back, no matter how little it’s worth. As I said, every penny counts.” He flashed the boys a toothy smile.
“Did Mr. Batter have any friends who might know more about those animals?” Frank asked.
Mrs. Batter sniffed. “I had nothing to do with Elias’s friends—or his business affairs.”
“What was his business?” Joe inquired.
“Investments. That’s all he ever told me. They didn’t amount to much, I can tell you that!”
Driving home, Frank mused aloud, “If you ask me, Mrs. Batter knows more than she’s telling.”
Joe nodded. “I got the same impression. But where do we start on this case?”
“Remember how the thieves’ station wagon sideswiped our car and then struck a tree when they were making their getaway?”
“Sure. What about it?”
“There might be some paint flecks in the tree bark,” Frank reasoned. “And if the wagon ever had a repaint job, those particles might help us trace the garage where it was done.”
The Short-Wave Mystery Page 2