The Ghost at Skeleton Rock (4 page)
Read The Ghost at Skeleton Rock Online
Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
“You take, please. No deposit necessary.”
“Thank you,” said Chet, and the boys left the shop.
Before dropping Chet at the farm, Joe said impulsively, “Say, fellows, do you think Professor Fox could be mixed up in anything shady?”
Chet declared that the TV performer had a fine reputation, and he was sure that the man was above suspicion. Frank agreed with this.
That evening after supper Frank and Joe huddled around the study lamp in their room, with the two sets of instructions in front of them. They were identical in every way, except for the change in the Spanish wording.
“What do you make of it?” Joe asked his brother.
Frank furrowed his brow. “Might be some kind of a code. Let's compare all the word changes and see what we get.”
They had barely started on this job when the hall telephone rang. Joe took the call.
“This is Chief Collig,” came a crisp voice. “Understand you and your brother were at Biwen's Novelty Shop this afternoon when the owner got robbed.”
“That's right. In fact, we chased the holdup men.”
“Anything to do with a case your father's working on, Joe?”
“Could be, sir. We're not sure.”
“Well, if you're interested, the place was robbed again tonight. Or, anyhow, it was broken into and ransacked.”
“What! ”Joe cried out.
“Happened just about twenty minutes ago,” the chief went on. “A patrolman walking past heard some noises and figured something funny was going on. When he went to investigate, the burglars ducked out the back way.”
“Thanks for the tip, Chief,” Joe said. “Frank and I will go right over there.”
Frank was equally startled when he heard about the burglary. “I wonder if those men stole the wrong Hugo, and came back for another try!”
“Sure sounds that way,” Joe agreed, “but they must have heard Mr. Biwen say it was his last Hugo in stock.”
The two boys drove through the darkened streets of Bayport to the novelty shop on King Street. The store was ablaze with light, but no squad car stood at the scene. Apparently the police detectives had already left, but there was a patrolman on guard at the door.
The Hardys identified themselves, and Frank added, “Chief Collig just phoned us the news.”
“He called me too,” said the patrolman, and let them enter.
Mr. Biwen was busy straightening up the store. “Oh, it's you boys,” he murmured, glancing up as the door's bell tinkled.
Most of the toys, dolls, and scale models had already been neatly replaced on the shelves.
“Sorry to hear the news, Mr. Biwen,” Frank said. “Exactly what happened?”
The proprietor shrugged and sighed. “Place was ransacked but nothing taken. Dratted nuisance! Burglars twice in one day! I just can't figure it out. Still, I reckon I'm lucky it wasn't any worse.”
“Mind if we look around for clues?” Frank asked.
“Go ahead, but the police have already done so.”
As the boys poked about the store, Mr. Biwen bent down behind the counter. A moment later he stood up.
“Now that's strange,” he remarked with a puzzled frown. “Seems as though someone's been fiddling with my sales checks.”
“Sales checks!” Frank was struck by a sudden fear.
“Yes. Had 'em stashed away in order down here. Now they're all messed up.”
“Any missing?”
Mr. Biwen scratched his bald head. “Well, now, that's a mite hard to say without checking the cash-register tape.”
Frank said urgently, “Never mind the rest. Just look for the one you wrote up for our friend this afternoon. The name was MortonâChet Morton.”
“Sure, sure, I remember. Let me see.” Mr. Bivven brought out the sheaf of slips, thumbed through them several times, then looked up in surprise. “By jingo, that one's gone. Those burglars must have taken it!”
“That's what I surmised,” Frank said. “They came back to check on who had purchased other dummies lately and found out Chet had one!”
“That means Chet's in danger!” Joe said grimly. “And maybe Iola and their dad and mother!” Turning to Mr. Bivven, he asked, “May I use your phone?”
“Sure thing.”
Thoroughly alarmed by now, Joe scooped up the telephone and dialed Chet's number. At the other end of the line, he could hear a steady series of rings. But after a minute he gave up.
“No answer,” he reported to Frank. “Come on! Let's get out there fast!”
The boys dashed out of the store, leaped into the convertible, and headed for the Morton farm. Once outside of town, Frank switched on the long-range lights. The twin beams probed the darkness as they sped along.
Neither boy spoke, but both were gripped by the same fear. Was the Morton family in trouble? Why had no one answered the phone when Chet had said he would be at home?
Presently the farmhouse loomed up against the night sky. The windows were dark.
“I don't like this,” Frank said grimly.
CHAPTER V
A Startling Discovery
FRANK jammed on the brakes and the convertible lurched to a halt in the Mortons' driveway. The boys jumped out and sprinted up the front-porch steps.
As Joe rang the doorbell, Frank noticed that the front door stood slightly ajar.
“It's open!” he whispered.
Fearful of some danger, Frank and Joe cautiously entered the hall. Like all the rest of the house, the living room was shrouded in darkness. Frank, in the lead, groped for the light switch.
Joe's scalp bristled when he heard some faint, whimpering noises. The sounds were muffled and scarcely seemed human.
Frank found the light switch and clicked it on. As the room leaped into brilliance, both boys exclaimed aloud.
Chet, Iola, and Mr. and Mrs. Morton were lying on the floor, bound and gagged!
“Jumpin' catfish!” Joe gulped.
The Hardys rushed forward and quickly started to untie the victims.
“Oh, my gracious! Thank you, thank you!” Chet's mother gasped as Frank removed her gag and undid the ropes.
“Luckily none of you were harmed, Mrs. Morton,” he replied. Gently he helped her to her feet and then to the sofa.
Chet, however, was not so grateful. “I thought you fellows promised me there wouldn't be any rough stuff on this case!” he grumbled while Joe worked on a knot.
“What happened?” Frank asked.
The story tumbled out in a confused babble as the whole Morton family gave the details. They had been watching a television show in their living room when two masked men burst in. The intruders had tied up the Mortons, then searched the house and made off with something tucked under one man's arm.
“I'm willing to bet they're the same ones who held up the novelty shop this afternoon,” Chet asserted. “One was a tall man and the other short. The tall guy's ears stuck out!”
Frank and Joe looked at each other in dismay. “I guess that means they took Hugo,” said Joe.
Frank nodded, then said to the Mortons, “Please check and make sure what was stolen.”
The family scattered through the rooms of the rambling farmhouse to inspect the results of the burglary. Iola was the first to report.
“I know one thing they took!” she cried out, running downstairs from her bedroom.
“What?” asked Joe.
“One of my big puppets. It looked something like Chet's new dummyâeven wore a purple turban.”
“Hot dog!” Joe snapped his fingers. “I'll bet those burglars were in such a hurry they grabbed the wrong doll!”
The boys' hopes skyrocketed, but Frank added cautiously, “Let's not count our chickens till we hear from Chet.”
The words were hardly spoken when Chet came lumbering joyfully onto the scene. He was clutching Hugo in one hand. “Look! He's still here!” Chet gloated. “I had him stowed in my closet, inside a pillowcase, and those men passed it up!”
The boys let out a whoop of triumph. Then Joe put in a wry afterthought:
“Now all we have to do is find out why those thieves were so eager to get hold of Hugo.”
While Frank telephoned a report to Chief Collig, Iola made hot cocoa for everyone. As they sat in the living room drinking it, Chet gulped down three cupfuls. Then he laid his cup and saucer aside and picked up Hugo.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” the young ventriloquist announced, “we'll forget what happened and have a quick performance to show you what's to come later on my full-time television show!”
He set the dummy on his knee and proceeded to roll its huge popeyes from side to side. Then, as he manipulated Hugo's head and jaws, Chet went into his act. Many of his gags drew laughs from his audience.
Gaining confidence, Chet launched into a long, windy speechâat the same time working Hugo's head, arms, and legs in a wildly comical manner. Leaning forward with excitement, Chet grinned at his amused audience and perched the dummy on the edge of his knee.
Suddenly he jerked Hugo's limbs a bit too hard. The dummy slid off his knee and crashed to the floor, face down, amid a sound of shattering glass!
Chet went white. “Hugo!” he wailed mournfully. “I've ruined you!”
Frank and Joe rushed forward to assay the damage. “Don't worry,” Joe consoled his friend. “It's not too bad.”
“Those big, beautiful eyesâthey're broken!” Chet groaned, kneeling on the floor.
“You can probably get new ones,” Frank assured him. Cautiously he started picking up the glassy slivers and fragments. “Gosh,” he remarked, “those eyes were even bigger than IâOh, oh!”
“What's the matter?” asked Joe as Frank broke off with a gasp of amazement.
“This stuff isn't glassâat least not all of it.”
“Then what is it?” asked Chet.
Frank's voice quivered with excitement. “This may sound crazy, but I think some of these pieces are uncut diamonds!”
“What!”
Everyone in the room jumped up in astonishment and clustered around Frank.
Everyone in the room jumped up in astonishment and clustered around Frank.
“D-did you say
diamonds?”
Chet stuttered.
diamonds?”
Chet stuttered.
“That's what they look like.” Frank held up some of the stones, which resembled tiny, greasy pebbles.
“Are you sure?” Iola asked. “They don't sparkle much!”
“Rough stones look this way before they're cut,” Frank explained. “At least that's what I've read. What do you think, Joe?”
His brother nodded. “I think you're right. And that explains the burglaries. No wonder those men were so eager to grab Hugo!”
Picking up the dummy in one hand, Joe borrowed a bobby pin from Iola and began probing into the hollow eye shells. Several more uncut diamonds came tumbling out.
“I can't believe it!” Chet exclaimed. “Any more of them?”
“No, but here's something else.”
Joe extracted a tiny, rolled-up wad of paper. When spread open, it revealed a strange printed notation:
Skeleton Rock 176
“How odd!” exclaimed Mrs. Morton, and Iola added, “It's positively spooky!”
Her father frowned uneasily. “Frank, you and Joe have had experience with this sort of thing. What do you think we should do?”
“If you don't mind, Mr. Morton, I'd like to take both the dummy and the diamonds home with us, so we can investigate them further.”
“All right, you do that!” From the tone of his voice, Chet's father sounded relieved to have the disturbing objects removed from his house before the thieves might pay a return visit.
Before leaving, Frank telephoned his father's top investigator, Sam Radley, and asked him to meet the brothers at the Hardy home.
“I'll start at once,” the detective promised.
Soon after the boys reached their house, they heard Sam's car pull into the driveway. Joe hurried to let him in.
“What's up, boys?” asked the muscular, sandy-haired detective as soon as he was seated in the living room.
Frank briefed him quickly, then showed Sam the dummy and the curious-looking stones. The detective picked up one of the gems and held it to the light. Then he took a jeweler's loupe from his pocket and scrutinized the stone carefully.
“D-did you say
diamonds?”
Chet stuttered
diamonds?”
Chet stuttered
“It's an uncut diamond, all right,” Sam announced. He examined the others. “Several carats altogether; the lot of them should be worth a good sum of money.” He advised the boys to notify Mr. Hardy about their find as soon as possible.
Joe warmed up the short-wave radio transmitter and tuned to the Hardys' special frequency for secret communications. He spoke into the mike:
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