Mystery of the Flying Express (16 page)

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Authors: Franklin W. Dixon

BOOK: Mystery of the Flying Express

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Sam Radley smiled. “You won't believe this, but they were issued to your Aunt Gertrude!”

The boys gaped. “You've got to be kidding!” Joe said.

“No, it's the truth,” Sam replied.

Mr. Hardy burst out laughing. “Wait till Gertrude finds out she's involved in this mystery! She won't believe it!”

“Imagine Aunty being investigated by us!” Frank said. “Boy! That's funny!”

Mr. Hardy shook his head. “My sister was quite a driver in her day,” he said. “In a ladylike way of course. She had her own car, I remember it clearly. A bright-green sedan. Washed it every other day. Come to think of it, she even got a summons once.”

“For speeding?” Joe asked.

“No. She was driving too slow on the turn-pike!”

When the laughter subsided, Mr. Hardy turned to Sam. “Tell us, Sam, how did you track down the license plates?”

“Well,” Sam Radley began, “first I tried the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. They couldn't find any record of them. They were destroyed in a fire years ago. Finally, through a friend, I located a man whose hobby is collecting discarded license plates. As a boy, he found Miss Hardy's plates in a trash can, where she had deposited them.”

“He didn't by any chance own the boathouse?” Joe prodded.

“Well, he did for a while. That was when he put the plates on the cabinet door where you saw them. He left them when he sold the place, and nobody bothered to take them down after that.”

“That's a funny twist to the mystery,” Joe said. But their next adventure,
The Clue of the Broken Blade,
was to be anything but humorous.

Frank had one last query. “You found the boathouse, didn't you, Sam?”

“Yes I did.”

“Is there a red neon sign near it?”

“Not a neon sign, but one with red incandescent bulbs which road construction companies use. A new highway is being built in that area. The warning sign is large and that's why you spotted the glow beyond the boathouse,”

“What does it say?”

Sam chuckled. “It says
End of Road.”