The Wailing Siren Mystery (15 page)

“Following you. I was spyin' on you when you found Mike's canoe.”

“Our canoe,” Frank corrected. “Go on.”

“Mike and Trippek were in Wells Hardware buying a new fish pole the day your fat friend was there,” Jezro said. “That boy sure was giving everybody an earful about his uncle's rifles. So right then and there Mike decided to swipe the truck and take everything in it.”

“Who's Trippek?” Frank interrupted.

“Tall, blond fellow.”

“Sells insect repellent?”

“He did once so he could find out about you fellows. Then I watched you guys when you came here. I marked those trees to make the trail.” He laughed. “It got you out of the way, easy enough ”

“I suppose you dug the pit to trap us,” Frank said.

“No Krack did. He didn't want nobody prowlin' around the woods. Listen here. You ought to let me go. I done you a favor. I left you a note tellin' you it was dangerous here.”

Joe gave Frank a wink. “Do you believe that? Crooks hang together. Jezro wouldn't squeal on Krack.”

“Oh, wouldn't I? Listen, boys, I'm a thief, but I don't steal things to help people make war on their own country!”

Before Frank could ask Jezro to explain his startling remark, the sound of a wailing siren filled the woods. Joe looked into the sky, half expecting to see a helicopter.

“That's from the cabin,” Jezro said. “Krack's warnin' the other men.”

Frank realized that if Krack's henchmen were near, the boys would have to hurry to uncover the loot they were seeking.

“Where are they hiding the stolen stuff, Jezro?” he asked sharply.

“I'll tell you, but you gotta let me go if I do.”

“We won't hurt you,” Joe said. “But don't try to get away, or it'll go hard with you.”

Jezro nodded and led the boys into a thicket. After he had gone a hundred yards he stopped.

“The stuff's hidden in there,” he said, pointing to a dense copse.

“I'll take a look,” Frank told his brother. “You guard Jezro.”

Frank made his way cautiously. Presently he came to an extensive clearing over which was stretched a green canvas with bushes and branches laid here and there upon it. Pulling up one edge of the camouflage, Frank uncovered a row of lights, set along the ground.

“Jeepers!” he exclaimed half-aloud. “A landing field for the helicopter.”

The solution to the wailing siren mystery was becoming clear. Stolen plane parts, engines, arms, and ammunition were being hidden in the wilderness. They were picked up by the helicopter at night and carried out to sea, where they were secretly loaded onto the yacht.

“The wailing siren is used to announce its comings and goings,” Frank concluded. “I wonder where the helicopter is now.”

Frank searched a little longer, but could find none of the equipment stolen from Chet. He hurried back to make Jezro reveal the spot. As he reached him and Joe, he noticed some bushes moving just ahead. Before he could shout a warning, three men, pistols in hand, jumped out of concealment.

“Reach for the clouds!” one of them snapped. He had blond hair and a voice that was familiar. Trippek!

“Frisk ‘em, men, and tie 'em up,” came an order from a small dark man with a limp. He was Rainy Night, the man who had left the note at the newspaper office and later had helped steal the Hardys' money from Chet.

He turned to Jezro. “As for you, you traitor, you'll get the same treatment.”

“Please, Renny, don't do this to me!” Jezro wailed. “I ain't told ‘em nothin'.”

The dark-haired man sneered. “Think that over while you're starving to death. You and your two pals here!”

The men pulled several long pieces of wire from their pockets. Standing the Hardys and Jezro against a tree, they bound them fast to the trunk.

Trippek chuckled. “Haxon would get a kick out of this!” he said.

Haxon! Frank and Joe looked at each other. The captain of the yacht!

At that moment Krack came striding out of the woods. He shot a contemptuous glance at Jezro and the boys.

“Please, please,” Jezro begged. “I was only foolin'.”

“Shut up! I'll deal with you later.” Krack turned toward the other men. “Bad luck. That's all we've had since these brats started spying on us.”

“Better not talk here,” Trippek advised.

Krack jerked a thumb toward the boys. “They're as good as finished, so it won't hurt if they listen in.”

“What's up?” Trippek asked, worried.

“The yacht's been boarded. Haxon sent me the message short wave.”

“Did they dump the load?”

“Just in time. Haxon said one motor accidentally fell into the ocean from the copter. The Coast Guard, even with the evidence destroyed, will keep an eye on Haxon and the yacht.”

“What's the caper now?” one of the others asked.

“To move. I wish we had brought the copter back here.”

“Where is it?”

“In the barn at Beekman's farm.”

The boys knew the secluded place on the outskirts of North Woods. It had been abandoned a long time and would serve as a perfect hiding place.

“We'll keep Fenton Hardy there until the heat is off,” Krack said, looking at the boys.

The boys were startled, but remembering the trick their prisoner Red Mike had tried to play at the Hardy house, Frank said, “You'll not catch Dad.”

Krack laughed. “Oh no? We have him now. Caught him near the wolf pen.”

“You're bluffing,” Joe said.

Krack pulled Mr. Hardy's gas gun from his belt. “Recognize this? If it had another load of gas in it, I'd let you have it.”

Perspiration broke out on the boys' foreheads. With their father captured, the outlook appeared bleak indeed. Nevertheless, Joe defiantly reminded Krack that the police would soon catch up with them.

“Thanks for reminding me of the police,” Krack said with a sneer. “Men, I'll open the wolves' pen. They'll be awake soon. If the cops come, they'll get theirs. We'll stay in the caves while the wolves take care of 'em.”

In the conversation that followed, Frank and Joe learned an amazing story of foreign intrigue which was being conducted by Renny, alias Rainy Night, whose real name was Renaldo. These men were working for a large unscrupulous foreign combine which had planned uprisings in Central America.

From what they could piece together from bits of conversation, the group had been making systematic thefts of American currency. With it they were secretly buying arms, ammunition, and plane parts or bribing dishonest factory workers to steal airplane engines and equipment.

North Woods had been chosen as a base of operations because it was so near the seacoast, yet not likely to be subject to interference. The contraband was crated here before being transported to the yacht by the helicopter.

“So the packing was the hammering we heard on the sound detector,” Joe said to Jezro.

Krack overheard the remark. “Yes,” he replied, “but our own detector warned us you were gettin' too close, so we stopped work.”

Encouraged by Krack's bragging, Frank and Joe shot questions at them. Renaldo, they learned, was a notorious South American racketeer. He had met Krack, an unprincipled animal trainer, in the underworld, and had arranged the North Woods deal with him. Krack, in turn, had found Trippek and the others.

Krack suddenly gave an uproarious laugh. “You kids got the two grand Renny dropped while he was climbing into the helicopter, but we found a way to get it back through that fat friend of yours. We paid off one of our stooges with it.”

By this time the racketeers, pleased with the impression they thought they were making on the doomed Hardy boys, answered questions freely. It was Krack and Renaldo who had kidnapped Frank and sent the carrier pigeons.

“Where did the first pigeon go?” Joe asked.

“North Carolina,” said Krack. “Brother of mine lives there.”

“Did you take the other pigeon from our garage?”

Trippek nodded, a pleased grin on his face. He seemed to be aware of the efforts the three Hardys had made to trace the home cote of the pigeons.

“Who was the woman who followed me from the post office?” Frank asked.

“A friend of mine. Good scout, too. She warned Trip when your brother showed up.”

“Was Renaldo the one who dropped the dark glasses at our house?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. When he found your father wasn't home, he decided to have one of you two kids snatched.”

“Listen here,” one of the men in the background called out. “You've told these kids enough now to hang us all.”

“They won't be around long,” Krack said confidently. “I'll turn out a couple of wolves soon as it's dark. I know that gas they got. Only knocks 'em out a few hours.”

The three prisoners shuddered at the thought of being torn to pieces by ravening wild beasts. The sun already had set. In a few hours the woods would be cloaked in darkness, the—

“Come on!” Krack ordered. “Let's get back to the cabin. I'm going to see if I can get a coded message through to Haxon before we pull out for the islands.”

The men made sure the boys were securely bound, then disappeared. Frank and Joe struggled furiously at their bonds, but the wires would not budge. They only cut more deeply into their flesh. To keep their minds off the fate awaiting them, the brothers discussed the case with Jezro.

“What about the pigeons in the woods?” Frank asked. “Why was one shot, Jezro?”

“It wasn't supposed to be. I did that. I didn't know it was one of our birds. But I guess my shootin' days are over. We're goners now,” he added despondently.

As night descended, the man's terror grew almost to hysteria. He moaned and babbled as though losing his reason. The Hardys called back and forth, to keep up their hopes, though their spirits had never been lower. Any minute now the wolves might be released.

Suddenly a distant sound pierced the stillness. The wailing siren! The helicopter was coming! Were the gang making their getaway from their North Woods hideout?

The siren was answered by the loud blast of the one located at the gang's cabin. A few minutes later the beams of a searchlight were lighting the sky above the trees.

The boys could hear Krack and his gang coming on the run to roll up the canvas camouflage on the landing field. Presently through the trees the boys could see the lights around the rim of the clearing.

They strained to look upward as the craft hovered overhead, and watched as it gently touched the ground. As its door swung open, the smugglers rushed to meet the pilot.

To the boys' joy and amazement, they saw Fenton Hardy and several state troopers alighting from the chopper.

“Don't move, any of you!” came an order from Mr. Hardy which rang through the silent woods.

Trippek and Krack stood staring, unbelieving. Then Renaldo sprang toward the lights. If he could plunge the place into darkness, he and his friends might escape.

An officer's gun clipped a bit of foliage just above the man's head, and the leader of the gang suddenly seemed to change his mind.

Then they heard their father demanding angrily what they had done with his sons. A moment later the detective was snipping the wires that bound Joe and Frank. Then, though their arms and legs were cramped, the boys had the supreme pleasure of helping the troopers manacle the criminals and march them to the helicopter. Joe and Frank, with their father and two of the police officers, stayed behind to round up Jezro and the remaining lesser members of the gang, and to tie up the wolves. A police helicopter would return to pick them up later.

“Gosh, Dad, you came just in time!” Joe cried gleefully, when the boys had a chance to speak to him alone.

“How did you get loose?” Frank asked him,

“I was never caught.”

“What?”

“I got Saber before he got me. Then I made my way to Krack's cabin and overheard him talking to Haxon on short wave. He mentioned that the helicopter was hidden at the Beekman farm. Then I got a message through to Sam Radley, who was secretly tailing us all the time to take over if I needed him. I told him to let himself be captured by the gang, while I went to notify the troopers. I even gave him the gas gun to make Krack and his crew think it was I they had nabbed.”

“So Sam fooled them!”

“Right. Fortunately for me, Krack and Jezro didn't know what I looked like. I hurried to get help from the state troopers to raid the old barn and capture the helicopter and the pilot.”

“What about Haxon?” Frank asked.

“I notified the Coast Guard. They seized the yacht and have Haxon in the brig. Which, by the way, solves my mystery of the stolen currency and the smuggled munitions. A list of the thieves and gunrunners was found in Haxon's cabin.”

“And our mystery is solved, too,” Frank said, telling what Jezro had revealed.

The Hardys picked their way through the woods to Krack's cabin, where they found and released Sam Radley.

What the gangsters had not already told was learned from records found in a desk. Two airplane motors and other stolen equipment were found and brought out of the woods the next day

Solved, also, was one of the questions that had puzzled Frank and Joe ever since the day they had seen the airplane motor in the shack. The engines were taken apart and brought piecemeal from the house where Frank had been imprisoned. A crack mechanic, one of the gang, had reassembled the engines in the forest shack.