The Tower Treasure (4 page)

When the boys entered the kitchen again, they were met with anxious inquiries from Callie and Iola.

“What in the world were you doing—dashing out of here without a word?” Callie asked in a shaking voice.

“Yes, what's going on? You had us frightened silly,” Iola joined in. “First Chet gets a threatening phone call, and then suddenly all three of you run out of the house like madmen!”

“Calm down, girls,” Frank said soothingly. “I saw a prowler, and we were looking for him, but all we found was this!” He tossed the gray wig onto a chair in the hall.

Suddenly there was a loud wail from Chet. “My Welsh rabbit! It's been standing so long it will be ruined!”

Iola began to giggle. “Oh, you men!” she said. “Do you suppose Callie and I would let all that good cheese go to waste? We kept that Welsh rabbit at just the right temperature and it isn't spoiled at all.”

Chet looked relieved, as he and the others took their places at the table. Although there was a great deal of bantering during the meal, the conversation in the main revolved around Chet's missing jalopy and the thief who evidently wore hair disguises to suit his fancy.

Frank and Joe asked Chet if they might take along the gray wig and examine it more thoroughly. There might be some kind of mark on it to indicate either the maker or the owner. Chet readily agreed.

But when supper was over, Callie said to Frank with a teasing gleam in her eyes, “Why don't you hot-shot sleuths examine that wig now? I'd like to watch your super-duper methods.”

“Just for that, I will,” said Frank.

He went to get the wig from the hall chair, and then laid it on the kitchen table. From his pocket he took a small magnifying glass and carefully examined every inch of the lining of the wig.

“Nothing here,” he said presently.

The hair was thoroughly examined and parted strand by strand to see if there were any identifying designations on the hair piece. Frank could discover nothing.

“I'm afraid this isn't going to help us much,” he said in disgust. “But I'll show it to the different wig men in town.”

As he finished speaking the telephone rang and Iola went to answer it. Chet turned white and looked nervous. Was the caller the man who had threatened him? And what did he want?

Presently Iola returned to the kitchen, a worried frown on her face. “It's a man for you, Chet. He wouldn't give his name.”

Trembling visibly, Chet walked slowly to the telephone. The others followed and listened.

“Ye-yes, I'm Chet Morton. N-no, I haven't got my car back.”

There was a long silence, as the person on the other end of the line spoke rapidly.

“B-but I haven't any money,” Chet said finally. “I—Well, okay, I'll let you know.”

Chet hung up and wobbled to a nearby chair. The others bombarded him with questions.

The stout boy took a deep breath, then said, “I can get my jalopy back. But the man wants a lot of money for the information as to where it is.”

“Oh, I'm glad you're going to get your car back!” Callie exclaimed.

“But I haven't got any money,” Chet groaned.

“Who's the man?” Frank demanded.

There was another long pause before Chet answered. Then, looking at the waiting group before him, he announced simply, “Smuff. Oscar Smuff!”

His listeners gasped in astonishment. This was the last thing they expected to hear. The detective was selling information as to where Chet would find his missing jalopy!

“Why, that cheap so-and-so!” Joe cried out angrily.

Chet explained that Smuff had said he was not in business for his health. He had to make a living and any information which he dug up as a detective should be properly paid for.

Frank shrugged. “I suppose Smuff has a point there. How much does he want for the information, Chet?”

“His fee is twenty-five dollars!”

“What!” the others cried out.

After a long consultation it was decided that the young people would pool their resources. Whatever sum they could collect toward the twenty-five dollars would be offered to Oscar Smuff to lead them to Chet's car.

“But make it very plain,” Frank admonished, “that if it's not your jalopy Smuff leads us to, you won't pay him one nickel.”

Chet put in a call to Smuff's home. As expected, the detective grumbled at the offer of ten dollars but finally accepted it. He said he would pick up the boys in half an hour and take them to the spot.

About this time Mr. and Mrs. Morton returned home. Chet and Iola's father was a good-looking, jolly man with his son's same general build and coloring. He was in the real-estate business in Bayport and ran the farm as a hobby.

Mrs. Morton was an older edition of her daughter Iola and just as witty and lighthearted. But when she learned what had transpired and that her son had been threatened, she was worried.

“You boys must be very careful,” Mrs. Morton advised. “From what I hear about Smuff, this red-haired thief could easily put one over on him. So watch your step!”

Chet promised that they would.

“Good luck!” Callie called out, as Smuff beeped his horn outside the door. “And don't be too late. I want to hear the news before I have to go home.”

Frank, Joe, and Chet found Smuff entirely uncommunicative about where they were going. He seemed to enjoy the role he was playing.

“I knew I'd be the one to break this case,” he boasted.

Joe could not resist the temptation of asking Smuff if he was going to lead them to the thief as well as to the car. The detective flushed in embarrassment and admitted that he did not have full details yet on this part of the mystery.

“But it won't be long before I capture that fellow,” he assured the boys. They managed to keep their faces straight and only hoped that they were not now on a wild-goose chase.

Twenty minutes later Smuff pulled into the town of Ducksworth and drove straight to a used-car lot. Stopping, he announced, “Well, here we are. Get ready to fork over that money, Chet.”

Smuff nodded to the attendant in charge, then led the boys down a long aisle past row after row of cars to where several jalopies were lined up against a rear fence. Turning left, the detective finally paused before a bright red car.

“Here you are!” said Smuff grandly, extending his right hand toward Chet. “My money, please.”

The stout boy as well as the Hardys stared at the jalopy. There was no question but that it was the same make and model as Chet's.

“The thief thought he could disguise it by painting it red,” Smuff explained.

“Is that your guess?” Frank asked quietly.

Oscar Smuff frowned. “How else could you figure it?” he asked.

“Then there'll be yellow paint under the red,” Frank went on. “Let's take a look to make sure.”

It was evident that Smuff did not like this procedure. “So you doubt me, eh?” he asked in an unpleasant tone.

“Anybody can get fooled,” Frank told him. “Well, Chet, let's operate on this car.”

The detective stood by sullenly as Frank pulled out a penknife and began to scrape the red paint off part of the fender.

“HEY!” Oscar Smuff shouted. “You be careful with that penknife! The man who owns this place don't want you ruinin' his cars!”

Frank Hardy looked up at the detective. “I've watched my father scrape off flecks of paint many times. The way he does it, you wouldn't know anybody had made a mark.”

Smuff grunted. “But you're not your father. Easy there!”

As cautiously as possible Frank picked off flecks of the red paint in a spot where it would hardly be noticeable. Taking a flashlight from his pocket, he trained it on the spot.

Joe, leaning over his brother's shoulder, said, “There was light-blue paint under this red, not yellow.”

“Right,” Frank agreed, eying Smuff intently.

The detective reddened. “You fellows trying to tell me this isn't Chet's jalopy?” he demanded. “Well, I'm telling you it is, and I'm right!”

“Oh, we haven't said you're wrong,” Joe spoke up quickly. Secretly he was hoping that this was Chet's car, but reason told him it was not.

“We'll try another place,” Frank said, straightening up, and walking around to a fender on the opposite side.

Here, too, the test indicated that the car had been painted light blue before the red coat had been put over it.

“Well, maybe the thief put blue on and then red,” said Smuff stubbornly.

Frank grinned. “We'll go a little deeper. If the owner of this establishment objects, we'll pay for having the fenders painted.”

But though Frank went down through several layers of paint, he could not find any sign of yellow.

All this time Chet had been walking round and round the car, looking intently at it inside and out. Even before Frank announced that he was sure this was not the missing jalopy, Chet was convinced of it himself.

“The Queen had a long, thin dent in the right rear fender,” he said. “And that seat cushion by the door had a little split in it. I don't think the thief would have bothered to fix them up.”

Chet showed his keen disappointment, but he was glad that the Hardys had come along to help him prove the truth. But Smuff was not giving up the money so easily.

“You haven't proved a thing,” he said. “The man who runs this place admitted that maybe this is a stolen car. The fellow who sold it to him said he lived on a farm outside Bayport.”

The Hardys and Chet were taken aback for a moment by this information. But in a moment Frank said, “Let's go talk to the owner. We'll find out more about the person who brought this car in.”

The man who ran the used-car lot was very cooperative. He readily answered all questions the Hardys put to him. The bill of sale revealed that the former owner of the red jalopy was Melvin Schuster of Bayport.

“Why, we know him!” Frank spoke up. “He goes to Bayport High—at least, he did. He and his family moved far away. That's probably why he sold his car.”

“But Mr. Smuff said you suspected the car was stolen,” Joe put in.

The used-car lot owner smiled. “I'm afraid maybe Mr. Smuff put that idea in my head. I did say that the person seemed in an awful hurry to get rid of the car and sold it very cheap. Sometimes when that happens, we dealers are a little afraid to take the responsibility of buying a car, in case it is stolen property. But at the time Mr. Schuster came in, I thought everything was on the level and bought his jalopy.”

Frank said that he was sure everything was all right, and after the dealer described Melvin Schuster, there was no question but that he was the owner.

Smuff was completely crestfallen. Without a word he started for his own car and the boys followed. The detective did not talk on the way back to the Morton farm, and the boys, feeling rather sorry for him, spoke of matters other than the car incident.

As the Hardys and Chet walked into the Morton home, the two girls rushed forward. “Did you find it?” Iola asked eagerly.

Chet sighed. “Another one of Smuff's bluffs,” he said disgustedly. He handed back the money which his friends had given to help pay the detective.

Frank and Joe said good-by, went for their motorcycles, and took Callie home. Then they returned to their own house, showered, and went to bed.

As soon as school was over the next day, they took the gray wig and visited Schwartz's shop. The owner assured them that the hair piece had not come from his store.

“It's a very cheap one,” the man said rather disdainfully.

Frank and Joe visited Flint's and Ruben Brothers' shops as well. Neither place had sold the gray wig. Furthermore, neither of them had had a customer in many weeks who had wanted a red wig, or who was in the habit of using wigs or toupees of various colors.

“Today's sleuthing was a complete washout,” Joe reported that night to his father.

The famous detective smiled. “Don't be discouraged,” he said. “I can tell you that one bit of success makes up for a hundred false trails.”

As the boys were undressing for bed later, Frank reminded his brother that the following day was a school holiday. “That'll give us hours and hours to work on the case,” he said enthusiastically.

“What do you suggest we do?” Joe asked.

Frank shrugged. Several ideas were brought up by the brothers, but one which Joe proposed was given preference. They would get hold of a large group of their friends. On the theory that the thief could not have driven a long distance away because of the police alarm, the boys would make an extensive search in the surrounding area for Chet's jalopy.

“We'll hunt in every possible hiding place,” he stated.

Early the next morning Frank hurried to the telephone and put in one call after another to “the gang.” These included, besides Chet Morton, Allen Hooper, nicknamed Biff because of his fondness for a distant relative who was a boxer named Biff; Jerry Gilroy, Phil Cohen, and Tony Prito. All were students at Bayport High and prominent in various sports.

The five boys were eager to co-operate. They agreed to assemble at the Hardy home at nine o'clock. In the meantime, Frank and Joe would lay out a plan of action.

As soon as breakfast was over the Hardys told their father what they had in mind and asked if he had any suggestions on how they might go about their search.

“Take a map,” he said, “with our house as a radius and cut pie-shaped sections. I suggest that two boys work together.”