Read The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge Online
Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge (9 page)
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Joe stood on his brother's shoulders and peered through one of the windows. Angan was sleeping. Deemer was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing cards with two men. Willy Teeple looked on sleepily.
As one of the workmen turned his head, Joe ducked out of sight and dropped to the ground. The Hardys pressed close to the metal wall of the trailer and listened intently. The language of the card players was interspersed with many slang words which the boys had never heard before. It certainly was not the jargon of their Bayport High School crowd! The young sleuths made mental notes of the odd expressions.
Pair of bins; oiler; half stamp; clobby joint; long nit; bath in the canal; bice; baron.
“What kind of lingo is that?” Joe whispered.
Suddenly there was
shuffling of feet and Deemer said in a loud voice, “Willy, you be the long nit tomorrow.”
shuffling of feet and Deemer said in a loud voice, “Willy, you be the long nit tomorrow.”
“They're breaking up!” Joe muttered. He and Frank hastened to their own bunks and quietly climbed in.
Next morning, as the Hardys dressed, Frank whispered to his brother, “Joe, I think I have it solved. I remember Dad speaking about convict lingo, and some of those words last night sounded like jailbird slang.”
“Good night!” Joe exclaimed. “We may be in a hornet's nest of ex-cons.”
The workday started early and the Hardys were assigned by Angan to carry planks for the carpenters who were building concrete forms to be used for the bridge's support columns. They spotted their four buddies as they passed by. Frank and Joe also noted that Willy Teeple was nowhere to be seen.
At midmorning the workmen paused for their coffee break. This gave Frank the chance he had been waiting for. He hastened to his bunk trailer, crawled beneath it, and removed the small radio. Concealing it under his shirt, Frank hurried back to Joe and slipped him the set.
“Quick!” Frank whispered. “Nobody is working on the bridge now. There's a good hiding place underneath the abutment. Contact Radley and ask him about those strange words.”
While Frank stood guard some distance away, Joe nonchalantly ambled over to the bridge. He made sure no one was looking, then ducked underneath, turned on the transmitter, and called Radley in Bayport.
After a few tense minutes of waiting, Joe got through to his father's operative. He spoke rapidly, asking about the odd vocabulary the boys had heard the night before.
“That's con language, all right,” Radley said. “Joe, be extra careful!”
Radley translated the words which Joe carefully memorized:
Joe thanked Radley and signed off. Then he thought in surprise “So that's why Willy's not on the job todayâhe's lookout for that con bunch.”
Joe secreted the short-wave radio in his clothes and started to climb out from under the bridge. Suddenly he stopped short. Nearly concealed behind an empty cement bag were three sticks of dynamite! Joe examined them gingerly. They were not as yet connected with any detonating device.
“So that's next on the gang's listâblow up the bridge!” Joe thought, picking up the sticks. Just then he heard the familiar birdcall whistle used by the Hardy boys to warn each other.
Before Joe had a chance to move, Robert Angan scrambled down the slope. He glared angrily at Joe. “So you're one of the guys making trouble for us!” Angan said, and snatched the dynamite sticks. “Where'd you get these?”
Joe pleaded innocence, explaining that he had gone under the bridge to cool off during the break and had spotted the explosives there.
“That's a great story,” the foreman snorted. He hid the dynamite sticks in his shirt so that the others would not notice them. Then he marched Joe directly to the project shack. Bond Deemer was working on some papers.
Angan produced the explosives. “Caught Jensen here with it.”
Deemer was speechless for a moment, then he stormed, “You sneak. You'll go to jail for this.”
“But I had nothing to do with this dynamite!” Joe protested. “Remember, I just started work yesterday. Somebody else put these sticks under the bridge.”
“Listen, Jensen,” Angan said, “I had you pegged for a troublemaker the minute you showed up here.”
Deemer's anger had receded. He tapped his pencil and looked thoughtfully at Joe. “We can't afford to lose men on this job. Angan, I believe the kid's telling the truth about the explosives.”
“Okay,” said Angan, pacing nervously. “It's your responsibility, Deemer. But one false move” âhe pointed at Joeâ“and you're through!”
This time Angan assigned Joe to learn to run a grader machine. “So I can keep you in sight,” he said.
Later, the foreman approached Frank. “You there, Teller!” he called. “I want you to learn how to handle a pan.” He pointed to a huge high-wheeled earth-carrying machine stopped beside the road and Angan called up to the driver, “Yancy, teach this kid how to operate it, then he can spell you.”
Frank climbed on to the monster machine, the rubber tires of which were taller than he. He found Yancy to be a bluff individual, sun-tanned, with bulging arm muscles and a broad face.
The machine started to bounce along, and Yancy readily explained its mechanics to Frank. After the machine had dropped a load of dirt by the side of the road, Yancy turned to his new assistant. “You got an easy job, kid. You must know the baron.”
“Who?” Frank could have bitten off his tongue. From that moment on, Yancy said not a word and it was all work and no talk.
Several times Frank tried to start a friendly conversation, but with no luck.
At the end of the day's work, the Hardys met beside the swift-moving stream to wash up.
Frank told his brother of Yancy's clamming up after he had asked who the baron was.
“Do you know where Yancy's bunk is, Joe?”
“Yes, in Deemer's trailer.”
“Then I think I'll do a little eavesdropping tonight,” Frank said.
An offhand exchange with the other four boys proved that they had uncovered nothing unusual during the day. Late that night Frank sidled up to Yancy's trailer and put his ear close to the door. The voices inside were subdued, but clear enough for the young sleuth to identify as Yancy's and Deemer's. The boy held his breath and listened intently, noting certain words he was sure were underworld lingo.
Frank heard Deemer mention Joe's name in connection with the discovery of the dynamite. Then Yancy spoke up. “What about this Frank Teller? I thought he was an apple, but he ain't.”
A third voice said, “I hear by the grapevine Teller did a bice.”
A cold chill went up Frank's spine. So they thought he was an ex-jailbird! “No wonder Yancy figured I knew the baron!” Frank gritted his teeth. “If only I hadn't asked âwho'?”
Suddenly there was a noise nearby. Frank ducked around the trailer and flattened himself against it as a flashlight's beam stabbed the darkness.
CHAPTER XII
The Protector
FRANK held his breath as the light flashed about near the entrance to the trailer. Then it went off. The door squeaked open and shut.
A voice from inside said, “Oh, it's you, Willy. What a layabout! Here, give me the glasses.”
“Arkitnay!” retorted Willy Teeple. Frank heard two heavy boots drop to the floor, then all grew silent. Frank waited, but no further talk came from within, so he quietly returned to his own trailer. Inside he whispered to Joe:
“First we have to prove those ex-cons are doing something crooked here. In that case, maybe the police can help us. But we're up against a tough assignment, Joe. Come on. Let's contact Radley again.”
The two boys took flashlights and slipped out of the trailer. Joe retrieved the radio set, then the Hardys cautiously made their way into the woods bordering the road.
Once out of sight of the work camp, Frank flicked his light on and off just enough to pick their way through the dense forest. Progress was slow.
“Do you think it's safe to stop now?” asked Joe.
“No. They may have a lookout this close to the trailers.”
Stumbling and groping, Frank and Joe plodded on through a stand of pine trees. Finally they came to a small clearing, where the moonlight illuminated a huge boulder. The Hardys dropped to the ground, their backs against the stone.
“Okay,” said Frank. “Let's get Radley.”
Joe turned on the transmitter, then put in the call to Bayport. No response.
Joe tried again, without results. “Did you check the batteries?” asked Frank.
“There's plenty of juice,” his brother replied.
Just then a ham operator came in strong and clear. He asked Joe where he was located.
Joe was polite, but said this was an emergency call and would the ham please sign off.
“As you say. Good luck. Over and out.”
“Whew! I hope the cons aren't listening in,” said Frank.
“If they are, we're sunk!” declared Joe. He called Radley again. This time a faint reply reached their ears among interference. Joe tuned out some of the static.
“Sam? ... This is Joe. How's Dad?”
The reply was heartening. Fenton Hardy was improving steadily! “He has intervals of lucidity,” Radley reported, “but his memory is foggy.”
The operative went on to say that X rays had shown the reason for this. “Fenton must have been hit in the back of the neck,” Radley said. “The doctors feel that his memory won't be clear for at least a week or so.”
“But he will get better!” Joe said tersely.
“Definitely.”
With a sigh of relief, Joe passed the radio to Frank, who told Sam, “I've heard more of those jailbird words. For instance, they called me an apple. What's that?”
“A swindler.” Radley chuckled. “They think you're a crook, Frank. That's good!”
“Don't tell Aunt Gertrude!” Frank grinned.
“Got a pencil and paper?” Radley asked. “I can give you a list of prison slang your father compiled.”
“Roger.”
Joe turned on his flashlight and laid it on the ground. Then, as Sam dictated, he jotted down:
Suddenly Radley was cut off.
“Ohâoh, what's up?” Joe fretted.
“Bad atmospheric conditions, probably,” Frank said. “We'd better get back.”
“Okay, swindler,” needled Joe. “We have enough words to work on.”
They started back as quietly as they could. But it was impossible to avoid stepping on twigs which snapped and cracked loudly. Frank used the light sparingly, as a precaution against being spotted.
Suddenly Joe said, “Hey, look!”
Just ahead of them lay a narrow path, which came to a fork. A right turn would lead them to the camp. The left-hand trail headed in the direction of a mountain ridge. Frank bent down and flashed his light over the ground near the path. Among the matted pine needles was a half-burned safety match.
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