Sometime later, Joe awoke from a sound sleep. He squinted groggily at the radium clock. “Two A.M. What—” He stiffened. Was it his imagination or did he hear a noise downstairs?
A muffled, scuffing step was barely audible, then there was silence. Joe sat up and listened. Clump, clump! This was followed by the creaking of a floor board!
Joe shot out of bed and roused his brother, who was awake in a flash. They stood poised at the doorway.
Scuff, scuff! Silence again.
“A prowler!” Joe whispered.
“Let’s jump him—quiet!”
With fists tightly clenched, both boys inched out into the hallway. Peering into the darkness downstairs, Frank could barely make out a tall figure starting up the stairs! Crouching forward, Frank and Joe waited, tensing their bodies like taut bowstrings.
“Now!”
Instantly the two thundered down the stairs. As Frank grabbed the shoulders of the intruder, a high scream filled the hallway.
“Eek! Stop! Help! Murder! Bandits!”
Utterly astounded, Joe darted to a wall switch. Light flooded the scene, revealing a disheveled, struggling woman wildly swinging her pocketbook.
“Stop! Let go of me—my goodness! Frank Hardy!”
“Aunt Gertrude!”
Wordless with amazement, the two boys helped Miss Hardy into an easy chair.
“Gee, Aunt Gertrude, we thought you were a prowler!” Joe said sheepishly.
“Are you all right, Aunty?” Frank gulped. “Can we get you anything?”
“Of course I’m all right!” their exasperated aunt puffed, fanning herself with a ribboned straw hat. “Through no thanks to you, Frank and Joe Hardy! A prowler—humph! Fine greeting from my two nephews after all these weeks!”
The boys apologized profusely, and Frank added, “We’re sure happy to see you home safe. We’ve been pretty worried about you.”
Joe spoke up. “Aunty, when and how did you get here? We met the Dorado tonight but you weren’t on it.”
“I should have cabled you that I wasn’t coming on that run-down old freighter,” she explained. “They wouldn’t take any more passengers than they had already booked.”
Miss Hardy had sailed instead on a North Lines passenger ship, the Capricorn, which had docked just before midnight. The ship had been due the following day but had made better time than expected. Her traveling companion, Mrs. Berter, had driven her home.
“I tried not to disturb you boys, but look what happened! I thought I was being attacked by Amazon head-hunters!”
“You pack a pretty mean pocketbook yourself, Aunty.” Frank laughed. “Did you have a good time? How was Brazil?”
“Wonderful,” replied Miss Hardy. She arose and gave the room an appraising glance, then nodded slightly, as if pleased to see no dust on the furniture.
Joe grinned. “Pretty good housekeepers, aren’t we? But we still had time for running into some mysteries.”
“Mercy! I should have known!” Aunt Gertrude pretended to disapprove of her nephews’ sleuthing, but secretly was proud of their successes.
Frank and Joe described the day’s events, concluding with the escaped stowaway. “You missed all the excitement, Aunty, by not sailing on the Dorado,” Joe added.
“Not exactly,” Miss Hardy said in a mysterious tone. “I had an adventure on shipboard myself.”
No amount of persuasion would induce her to explain further. “It’s far too late. You’ll have to wait until I’m rested.”
With that, Aunt Gertrude marched upstairs. The boys, bursting with curiosity, picked up her bags and followed.
CHAPTER III
Missing Papers
AUNT Gertrude had another surprise waiting for her when she entered the kitchen the next morning.
“Breakfast is served!” Joe’s voice rang out. She stared in astonishment as her younger nephew turned away from the stove. “Morning, Aunty! Here’s bacon. Frank will have your eggs ready in a minute.”
“Less than that!” Frank lifted a skillet from the range. He grinned. “Sizzling omelet!”
“Well, you two must be up to something,” she said as Joe pulled out her chair and she sat down. “But this is thoughtful of you,” she conceded. “You must have awakened early!”
Their aunt was customarily the first one up in the morning. Frank stifled a yawn as he served the slightly burned omelet, then winked at his brother.
“Of course this is temporary, isn’t it, Joe?”
“You bet. We wouldn’t put one of the world’s best cooks out of a job—no sir!”
Aunt Gertrude eyed the boys suspiciously as they took their places. The two immediately besieged her with questions. “Was South America exciting?” Joe began.
“Very. And perilous,” she replied. “Full of animals, insects, spies—” She picked a piece of shell out of her omelet and sniffed.
“Aunty,” Joe coaxed, “what about this—er—adventure you had on board ship?”
Miss Hardy put down her fork. “Well, first of all,” she said, “there were those luggage thieves.”
“Luggage thieves?” Joe echoed.
“Yes. I met poor Mr. and Mrs. Taylor at a stop-over in Cayenne—the capital city of French Guiana. They’re from around here—Harper-town, and were traveling by plane. Almost the minute they arrived at the airport, all their bags were stolen. The thieves got away.”
The discussion was interrupted by the squeal of brakes outside.
“Chet!” Frank exclaimed. “He’s never up this early during vacation!” But a rap on the back door and the appearance of a plump boy with a round, freckled face affirmed the fact that the caller was the Hardys’ best friend, Chet Morton.
“Howdy, breakfasters!” he sang out. “Why, Miss Hardy, welcome home!”
“Thank you, Chester.” Aunt Gertrude smiled and invited the newcomer to join them.
“What brings you out of the sack so early?” Joe asked him.
Chet explained that he was on an errand for his father at Oak Hollow, where a housing development was nearing completion. Mr. Morton, a realtor, was handling prospective sales.
“But I sure worked up an appetite on the way,” Chet added, looking hopefully at Miss Hardy. He sniffed the aroma of toast and bacon. “Any crumbs left over?”
“Aunt Gertrude’s our guest this morning,” Frank informed him, handing over three eggs, “but you’re welcome to cook your own grub.” In a flash Chet had eggs scrambling in the pan.
Joe asked him, “Say, have you seen any stray stowaways floating around?”
“Wha-at?” Chet stared at his pals. “Oh, no! You’re not mixed up in another mystery!”
The stout boy was not fond of danger, but had often become involved with the brothers’ cases, and always proved a loyal assistant. While Chet ate, the Hardys brought him up to date.
“I’d like to track down that fellow who jumped overboard,” Joe said. “Something tells me he was trying to give us a message.”
Miss Hardy, obviously enjoying herself, continued her story. “Even stranger doings on the Capricorn, though. A man disappeared.”
“Disappeared!”
The boys waited patiently while Miss Hardy paused for a sip of coffee. Then she told of having met a very nice gentleman on the homeward trip, a Mr. Ricardo. She had not learned his first name. “He had heard of your father and asked me questions about Fenton’s latest case—even wanted to know where he was.” Miss Hardy described the man as tall, with an angular face and wearing a white suit and dark glasses.
“He was very pleasant,” she continued, “but of course I couldn’t answer his questions. Then—all of a sudden—he vanished.”
“From the ship?” Joe asked, incredulous.
“Yes. I went to say good-by to him a few hours before we docked and he was gone!”
“Maybe he was ill,” Frank suggested. “Did you try the ship’s infirmary?”
“Yes—not a sign of him. And the stewards weren’t very helpful. I�
�ll never travel North Lines again,” she added. “I only hope nothing awful happened to the poor man.”
“Sounds weird to me,” Frank mused, recalling the Dorado stowaway’s familiarity with the name Hardy. Was there any connection?
Their aunt stood up. “Before you start sleuthing, I have some work for you to do.”
“But, Aunty,” Joe protested, “we’ve already cleaned the house!”
“We’ll see about that.”
Chet chuckled as the brothers shrugged helplessly. After the dishes were rinsed and put in the washer, Chet grabbed an apple and the trio trailed Miss Hardy through the downstairs rooms. Armed with a dustcloth, she probed with eagle eyes into every corner and under the cushions of the living-room furniture.
“Well,” she conceded, “maybe you did touch the high spots—tsk, look at this dust!” She ran a finger along a chair leg and held it up disapprovingly. The boys exchanged grins.
“We even swept out the closets,” Frank defended himself.
Next, Miss Hardy inspected the rooms on the second floor.
A little later Frank opened the closet in his father’s room. Suddenly he stared at the suit coat which had contained the papers.
The inside pocket was empty!
Frantically the boys checked the entire closet, but the papers were not there. Aunt Gertrude said she knew nothing about them.
“Are you sure they were here?” Chet asked.
“Positive!” Frank said. “Joe and I both noticed them yesterday. Somebody else has been in this house!”
Immediately a thorough search was begun. Finding no clues to the intruder, the boys went outside.
“Whoever he was, he’s a pretty slick operator,” Joe said, “but he may have dropped something on our grounds.”
While he looked around the garage, Frank and Chet inspected the area near the house. Suddenly Frank yelled, “I’ve found something!”
The others rushed to where he was kneeling beneath a window. Frank pointed to the ground.
Several impressions were visible in the soil directly beneath the sill of a dining-room window.
“Footprints!”
“Just the front part of the soles,” Frank observed. “These marks look fresh, and neither Joe nor I was out here recently. The prowler had an easy time getting in since the window’s unlocked.”
Joe ran up to their lab over the garage and returned with a fingerprint and cast kit. Together, the three boys checked the window sill and the dining room, but the thief appeared to have left no clues.
“He must have been wearing gloves,” Frank said, recalling the man they had chased at the Micro-Eye plant. In the next instant another thought struck him. “Joe! The Dorado escapee!”
“Jimminy, I forgot all about him!”
“What do you mean?” Chet asked, puzzled.
Frank repeated the cryptic reference to “footprints.”
“You think he’s the one who stole your dad’s papers?” Chet asked.
“It’s just a guess,” Joe replied. “He’s been accused of stealing money on the freighter, and besides, he did seem to know our name.”
“But why would anyone warn us in advance if he meant to break into the house?” Frank argued. “It could have been a warning about somebody else. But it sounds crazy that he could’ve known what sort of clues that person would leave, when he had just jumped off a ship from Cayenne.”
The others watched as Joe took a moulage of the shoe tip. The Hardys were dissatisfied. “If only he had left a heel print!” Joe complained.
“It looks like about a size ten shoe,” Frank remarked, making a mental note of the distinctive cracks in the sole.
Chet shrugged. “That narrows it down to a few million men. Were your dad’s papers important?”
“We don’t know,” Joe said. “They must have been for somebody to steal them. We’ll be lucky if we can get in touch with Dad to tell him.”
They took the completed cast to the garage lab, then went to the house. Frank telephoned Sam Radley again, but was disappointed to learn that Radley had been unable to locate Mr. Hardy.
After telling the operative about the theft of the papers, Frank asked, “Shall we notify the police?”
“I’ll talk to them,” the assistant said. “If I hear from your dad, I’ll call you.”
As Frank reported the conversation to the others, the brothers became apprehensive. Had anything happened to their father?
“Well, I certainly hope not,” Aunt Gertrude said. “But don’t you worry about any more desperadoes getting into this house! I’ll be on guard!”
The boys smiled. “We’ll Ieave that to you,” said Joe, “while we pursue the mystery.”
Chet sighed. “Look, fellows, I’ll help. But first, how about you driving out to Oak Hollow with me?”
“Okay!”
The three boys piled into Chet’s jalopy and in minutes were heading toward the outskirts of Bayport. Oak Hollow was a small, shrubbed valley which had lain remote from the town’s progress for many years.
The construction of attractive, medium-priced homes there had been undertaken by the father of another close pal of the Hardys, Tony Prito. Frank and Joe had not visited the site since the early stage of development, and were interested to see the completed houses.
“When will owners be able to move in?” Joe asked as they wound up a hill road.
“In a week or so,” Chet replied. “This development will be great for Bayport, and Dad’s real excited about it.”
They turned down a muddy road past large construction vehicles and a row of handsome frame houses, each separated by wide, newly seeded lawns.
“Wow!” exclaimed Joe, impressed.
“And they’re not all alike,” Chet added. “I’ll show you a model.”
As the jalopy neared the end of the street, the boys were startled to hear a chopping sound, followed by the tinkle of glass!
“That sounded like a windowpane!” Joe cried out. “Hey! Look!”
Astonished, the boys saw two men in dungarees outside one of the houses. They were hacking at the wood with machetes!
“Vandals!” Chet gasped, skidding to a stop.
He and the Hardys jumped out and rushed the men. As Frank tackled one, Joe side-stepped a swinging blow and grabbed the other around the neck. But the thug threw him off. Joe lost his footing in the mud and went down on his back.
Stunned, he looked up to see an ugly face and an extended arm. Sunlight glittered off a raised machete!
CHAPTER IV
Peril in the Air
AN instant before the man swung the machete down in a vicious chop, Joe rolled aside.
Thwack! The blade crunched resoundingly into the ground.
Joe immediately kicked out at his attacker. The man dodged, but Frank and Chet grabbed him, and Joe scrambled to his feet. The next instant the man’s partner, swinging his machete, forced the three boys back.
“Come on. Let’s beat it!” he snarled.
The two vandals ran behind the house and disappeared into thick woods covering the slope. The three boys took off in pursuit. But as they emerged from the woods, a motor roared to life from around a bend in the dirt road.
“We’re too late!” Frank groaned. He pointed to automobile tire tracks and a cloud of dust.
Back at the development, the boys found Mr. Prito and two other men inspecting the damage. Jagged holes gaped in numerous windows, and splintering slashes had been made in the walls and moldings of many houses.
“The windows are easily replaceable,” Mr. Prito said, his face grim, “but repairing the other damage will take time. We’ll have to delay occupancy for weeks!”
“What a vicious trick!” Joe stormed, stepping over broken glass and fingering a huge notch in a freshly painted door.
“But why would they do it?” Chet said, equally disconsolate.
“I don’t know. The whole thing is senseless,” Mr. Prito said. “We’ll have to put on a watchman.”
“I know of no rival contractors who might be bitter at not having landed this job,” Mr. Morton said. “If this was malicious mischief, it’s pretty expensive mischief for us.”
On a hunch Frank inspected several footprints left by the thugs, but there was no similarity to the partial ones found under the window at their home. The Hardys had just climbed into Chet’s jalopy when a man’s smirking face peered in at them.
“The early bird gets the worm, eh? Any clues?”
Oscar Smuff, a plump, would-be detective, was well known to Frank and Joe. Keen on proving his ability to Chief Collig of the Bayport Police Department, he actually succeeded more in muddling cases than in solving them. Although he was meddlesome, the Hardys good-naturedly humored him.
“Nothing much yet,” Joe replied.
Smuff cocked his head knowingly. “Well, I’ll take a look around and try to clear this thing up. Call me if you need advice.”
“Oh, sure.” Joe stifled a grin.
Chet’s motor started with a whine, and the jalopy headed east from Oak Hollow.
Joe spoke up. “Now to get down to business. First, we must trace the guy who took Dad’s papers, then look for that stowaway, and—”
Chet broke in. “Okay. You two can hunt crooks. I’m off to study the clouds.”
“The clouds!” Joe echoed. “You’re kidding!”
“I am not. Listen, clouds are really interesting—and I want to learn more about them.”
The Hardys grinned. They were accustomed to their friend’s taking up one hobby after another. “But why clouds?” Joe asked.
“For weather forecasting. What else?”
Frank had a suggestion. “Say, Chet, you’ve given me an idea. Maybe we can go for a plane ride. You could study clouds, while Joe and I look at the Micro-Eye setup from the air.”
“Great!” Joe said eagerly. “Let’s see if Jack Wayne can take us.”
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