The Hidden Harbor Mystery (5 page)

The trio emerged from the lighthouse and dashed down to the jetty. By this time their boat had already drifted a distance too great to swim.

“I'm sure I tied those lines tightly!” Frank declared. “They were cut—by somebody in that speedboat, I'll bet.”

“But why?” Joe burst out. “Boy, what a mess! Not only have we come way out here on a wild-goose chase, but to top it off, we're marooned!”

Chet was so dejected at this thought he could only groan again, “All our food gone!” The boys returned to the lighthouse and took stock of their situation. From every point of view it seemed desperate.

“We have one quart of drinking water in my canteen,” Chet informed them, “and one package of cookies I brought in my pocket. Oh, all that wonderful cheese, meat, and—I can't stand it!”

“No ocean-going vessels pass anywhere near here,” Frank put in glumly. “And I guess this isn't a popular spot for pleasure cruising. The water's too rough!”

“The boat owner thinks
we're
on a pleasure ride,” Joe added, “but he doesn't know where. And somehow I doubt that Cutter and his pal will advise anyone if they find out we're missing.”

Frank jumped up. “Let's go outside and see if there's anything on this island we can rig for a signal!”

All afternoon the youths explored their sea-locked prison. The island was composed of sharp, craggy rock faces with steep drops in between. The surf on the ocean side had made a network of shelving ledges and hollow caves.

At suppertime they sat down on the rocks and Chet doled out to each boy a ration of two chocolate cookies and two swallows of water. As they chewed their meager meal, staring idly at the old tower, Frank burst out:

“I know what! We always carry match packets with us when on a camping trip, so let's light the beacon tonight as a distress signal. All these old-fashioned lighthouses used acetylene beacons. If we can't make this one work, what good is the chemistry we're learning in high school?”

Eagerly Frank led the way into the lighthouse. Sure enough, in a small ground-floor room directly at the center of the tower, they found a big tank with a pipe rising up toward the light.

“But where will we get the gas for the tank?” Chet wanted to know.

At that moment Joe pried the lid off an old drum. “Here we are—calcium carbide!”

Frank explained. “Wc put some of this chemical in the tank and pour sea water over it. The chemical reaction produces acetylene gas, which burns with a bright white light.”

Already dusk was falling. They sent Chet out with a bucket for sea water. Meanwhile, Joe climbed the staircase to the beacon. There he found a big metal ring with multiple jets. Looking out one of the broad, paneless windows, he saw Chet returning with his bucket of water.

Then Joe heard the tinkering of metal far below. He took a packet of matches from his pocket and held one ready to strike.

“Okay!” came the muffled signal. “Light her!”

Crouching, Joe held his flaring match to the jets. The stiff breeze, whipping through the wide window, snuffed it out. Again and again he brought a flame over the holes, but without result. Finally, all his matches were gone. At that moment the boy heard the floor creak nearby.

As Joe turned, something lifted him up and rushed him toward the wide-open window. With a wild cry of “Help!” Joe felt himself plunging into space!

DEEP in the tower, Frank and Chet were electrified to hear a wild cry for help, and then another fainter call, which seemed to come from outside the lighthouse.

“It's Joe!” cried Frank. He sprinted up the rickety staircase so fast that the structure shook underneath him. Chet ran behind.

The two piled into the empty beacon room. For a moment Frank and Chet heard only the strong wind sweeping through and the sound of the sea breaking on the rocks below. Then came a kicking sound outside.

Frank rushed to the window. Two tanned hands clung to the sill. Over the side, in the early evening darkness, he could see Joe dangling ninety feet above the sharp rocks.

“Chet! Over here!” Frank yelled, at the same time seizing his brother's wrists. The hefty boy was at his side in a second. Together, they hauled Joe in to safety.

“Somebody—threw me—out!” the boy gasped as he sank to the floor to rest. “I managed to grab the sill.”

“Thank goodness you did,” said Frank.

Chet said in astonishment, “But there's nobody on the island!”

“Wait!” Frank signaled abruptly. “Quiet!”

Speechless, the three boys listened. The sea crashed over the rocks. The wind hummed through the room. Did they also hear creaking on the old staircase below?

Frank hurried stealthily halfway down the steps. But he neither saw nor heard anything and returned to the platform.

“You sure the wind didn't blow you out?” Chet asked Joe. “It's pretty strong.”

“No.” By now Joe had recovered from his close call. “I was grabbed and pushed through the window. No doubt about it.”

“But how could anybody have climbed the stairs without our knowing it?” Frank frowned.

“There's got to be an answer,” Joe returned. “Let's have a look at the stairs. Anybody got a flashlight?”

Chet produced a tiny one from a pocket, but it would not light. “Guess it needs new batteries,” he apologized.

Frank brought out a packet of matches and lighted their way down. When he reached the two missing steps, Frank cautiously leaned down into the open space and struck another match. A network of thick diagonal supporting beams was revealed in the flickering light.

“A risky place to hide,” he said. “But it could be done by a strong and agile person.”

“We'd better face up to it,” Joe said somberly. “We're being dogged by a dangerous enemy, and he's on this island with us!”

“Yes,” Frank agreed, swiftly piecing together recent events. “He must have been dropped off by that speedboat we saw heading away. Then he untied our boat and hid among the rocks until he heard us mention lighting the beacon.”

“You mean he slipped up to the tower ahead of us?” Chet asked.

Frank nodded. “He stayed behind these supports until Joe climbed to the beacon, then followed. He slipped down the stairs while we were pulling Joe in. That was the creaking we heard.”

“All right,” agreed Joe. “But we'll have a hard time finding him at night if he's hiding out in those rocks. We have nothing but matches.”

Frank and Chet pulled out their packets, which were only partly filled.

Most of these matches were used to hunt for the fourth person who, they learned, was not inside the lighthouse.

“Only one thing for us to do,” said Frank. “We'll lock the door and bunk in the keeper's quarters. Whoever our enemy is can spend the night on the rocks! Then in the morning we'll find him.”

“Good plan,” Joe assented. “We'll take turns standing guard.”

As Frank took the first watch, Joe and Chet stretched out on the floor to sleep. At midnight Frank awakened the stout boy. Joe took the early-morning shift. There had not been a disturbing sound during the night.

At dawn the three stranded sleuths emerged from the lighthouse. A red ball of sun was coming out of the steel-gray sea. A light mist hung over the water.

“The third straight meal I've missed,” moaned Chet in a voice of genuine suffering.

Manfully, however, he handed round a breakfast of cookies and two gulps of water apiece. “Just enough for lunch and supper,” he said, and carefully stored the provisions again. “Maybe I can catch a fish later.”

“Now, let's find our enemy,” said Frank. “And stay together, so we can handle him when we do!”

All morning, as the sun rose higher, the boys combed the deep cuts and passageways in the rocks.

“How could anybody hide here?” Chet wondered.

“He couldn‘t,” Joe assured him. “I believe someone came back here in a boat and took the intruder away. Probably turned off the motor and used oars so we wouldn't hear what was going on.”

Chet now asked, “Why didn't the beacon work last night?”

“Gas didn't get up to the light,” Joe reported. “I never did smell it. Probably there's a break in the old line.”

“How about the lamps up there?” suggested Chet. He referred to a circle of oil lamps, backed by once-shiny tin reflectors, extending all around the tower platform.

“No oil,” Frank said. “Those go back to the days when this light was built—long before it was converted to acetylene.”

At that moment Joe, in his dark-blue jersey, gazed at the tower. Frank looked at his brother, then at his own maroon shirt. Finally he stared with sudden hope at Chet's white garment, which blazed with a wild, colorful design.

“Say, what are you up to?” the chunky boy asked uneasily.

“We need your shirt,” replied Joe. “It'll be a perfect distress flag.”

With a martyred air, Chet pulled off his shirt, and the Hardys rigged it on the shaft of an old broom in the lighthouse. They mounted the signal on the tower.

“So far, so good,” Joe said when they were on the ground once more. “What about a signal for tonight? Let's find something to make a fire.”

Another tour of the island turned up only a few sodden bits of driftwood. After a cheerless lunch of water and cookies, Frank and Joe went to scour the lighthouse for fuel, while Chet tried his best to snare a fish but failed.

After a time the brothers dragged out a heavy armchair with the stuffing about to burst from the seams. While they kicked this apart, Chet looked curiously at a little brick structure about the size of a dog kennel.

“Hello—an old brick oven,” he thought.

The opening had been sealed up with brick and masonry. Chet worked at the mortar with his pocketknife. It crumbled, and Chet pulled out the bricks. He peered inside.

“A tin box!” he yelled. “Treasure!”

Instantly Frank and Joe left their demolished chair and rushed over.

“There's more than treasure,” Joe said excitedly, peering in. “Look at that pile of newspapers! Now we'll get a fire going tonight!”

He yanked out a great stack of old papers, somewhat damp and moldy with age.

“What's new in the world?” quipped Chet. “Say, these are funny newspapers. No headlines.”

“ ‘The relief of General McClellan from command of the American Federal armies has been announced,' ” Joe read from one of the small-print columns. “Hey! It's all about the Civil War. These papers were published in London.”

“Our history teacher will shoot us if we burn these,” Chet objected.

“If we
don't
burn them, we may never see our history class again,” Frank reminded him. “Let's just hope we won't have to. Open that tin box, Chet.”

Using his knife, the stout boy complied. Inside was a package of papers, carefully tied with a printed note on top.

“It says these papers were saved from the
Sally Ann
, an English ship returning to America, when she was wrecked on the reef,” he announced.

“Dull stuff, probably,” commented Joe. With Chet's help, he began spreading the old newspapers in the sun to dry, weighting them with bricks from the oven.

Frank, meanwhile, leafed through the little package of documents. They were mostly shipping invoices and insurance papers for the ship's cargo. Dull stuff, as Joe had said. But then, tucked among them, a note on plain white paper caught his attention. Suddenly he leaped to his feet.

“Joe! Chet! Listen to this! It's a memo from the
Sally Ann‘
s captain to himself!”

When the other two had dashed over, astonished, Frank read the memo:

“ ‘Last voyage—my friend, Clement Blackstone, embarked with his entire family for England, from Hidden Harbor. Before sailing, Clement informed me, as his boyhood friend, that the family fortune and papers were hidden nearby, and gave me directions for finding them, in case he should never return. Memorized directions in order to avoid committing them to writing.' ”

Joe gave a whistle. “Maybe you didn't find a treasure, Chet, but you've given us a clue to one. But where's Hidden Harbor? There's nothing hidden about Larchmont's inlet.”

“Hidden Harbor,” Frank mused. “Wherever it is, the Blackstone fortune is nearby.”

Joe sighed. “If we don't get off this island, we'll never find it,” he reminded the others. “Let's spread out the rest of these papers to dry, and then get the chair stuffing out in the sun, too.”