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Authors: Franklin W. Dixon

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BOOK: The Wailing Siren Mystery
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The rain had stopped, and visibility was better. The yacht was now in sight, but moving rapidly southward.
“It made a quick getaway,” Frank remarked. “Wonder where it's going.”
While Joe bailed out the boat with a large can from the locker, Frank continued his work on the motor and repaired it quickly.
“Try the starter, Joe.”
The motor roared into action. One danger was over, although it would still require skillful piloting to make the inlet.
“I'm curious about that wallet,” Joe said as they plowed along through the stormy sea.
“I think I'll count it.” Frank beamed his flashlight on the bills and thumbed through them.
“How much?” Joe asked eagerly.
“Two thousand dollars!” Frank exclaimed. “And not a mark of identification in the wallet.”
Joe grinned. “We'll have a sweet time finding the owner.”
“He might not want to be found,” Frank said slowly. “Maybe it's stolen money.”
The boys continued to speculate about the wallet until they neared the mouth of the inlet. Then conversation ceased while Joe put all his energy into the task of keeping the
Sleuth
on a straight course.
Joe took a bearing on the blinker of the entrance buoy, and in five minutes the turbulent ocean was behind them.
“Neat navigating!” Frank commented as he looked at the lights of Bayport twinkling in the distance.
When the
Sleuth
finally came to the Hardys' boathouse, Joe cut the motor. Frank leaped out and secured the line.
Two men entered the side door of the boathouse. Frank recognized them as Detective Smuff and Patrolman Con Riley of the Bayport Police Department.
“Where have you two been?” Smuff shouted.
“Why? Were you looking for us? Anything wrong at home?” Frank asked.
“No,” said Riley. “But see here, you've been lost. Didn't you know it?”
“Who sent out the alarm for us?” Frank asked.
“Your mother.”
“Lock up, Joe, while I telephone home,” Frank directed.
He ran halfway down the block to a drugstore. After telephoning Mrs. Hardy that they were safe, he hurried back to Joe. Then the boys drove home in their convertible.
Mrs. Hardy flung open the front door and hugged her sons as they came in. She was a petite woman, with a pretty face and wavy hair. Frank and Joe bent down to kiss her.
“Thank goodness you're safe!” she exclaimed.
“It was rough going for a while,” Joe said, putting an arm around his mother's shoulder. “But we ran into what may turn out to be a big mystery.”
“What was that? Another mystery?” The voice belonged to Aunt Gertrude, unmarried sister of Mr. Hardy, who lived at their home. She came bustling down the stairs. “Well, you keep out of it!”
Tall, angular Aunt Gertrude was a very energetic person. She felt that her chief mission in life was to protect her nephews from the dangers involved in their mysteries, especially when their father was away from home.
While the boys changed into dry clothes, Mrs. Hardy prepared sandwiches and milk. As they ate, Aunt Gertrude plied them with questions. They told of their strange experience during the storm —the yacht that had vanished so suddenly, the helicopter, the wailing siren, and finally the wallet.
Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude gasped in amazement. “Two thousand dollars!”
“And it fell right out of the sky with no identification,” Frank explained.
“Nothing good will come of this,” Aunt Gertrude predicted. “Get rid of it right away. Some cutthroat will come here to recover it.”
“We'll take the wallet and money to police headquarters,” Frank said.
The boys hurried to headquarters. Smuff and Riley were there, reporting to Police Chief Collig about the safe return of the Hardys.
When Smuff and Riley left, Frank handed the wallet to Collig and told about the helicopter.
The chief said he would send out a teletype notice of “a large sum of money found near Bayport,” and hope for a quick response.
Curious to hear whether the message had brought forth any claimants, Frank telephoned Collig after breakfast the next morning. There was no news.
Joe suggested to Frank that they drive to Bay port Airport. On reaching the administration building there, Frank asked the airport security chief if any pilot had mentioned losing anything from a plane the night before.
“Last night, you say? Nobody was up in that storm.”
“We heard a helicopter.”
“It wasn't from here,” the man said. “And no one landed during the storm.”
The boys telephoned two other airports in the vicinity and received the same answer. As the Hardys drove back to the city, Frank said:
“It's my guess the chopper was a private one.”
“That still doesn't explain why the wallet fell out,” Joe mused. “And it's pretty certain the owner wouldn't expect to recover the money from the ocean. What do you think we ought to do about it?”
“I think we should put an ad in the newspaper,” Frank replied. “Let's stop at the
News
on the way home.”
When they reached the office of the
Bayport News,
Frank filled out a form and handed it to the classified ad clerk. The advertisement read:
Found: Wallet near Bayport. Contains sum of money. Owner identify and write Q.E.D., Box 22, News Office.
“I hope this lands the real owner,” Joe said on the way home, “and not a lot of phonies.”
The boys had just finished eating lunch when they heard someone run up the front porch steps. A second later the doorbell rang frantically.
Frank opened the door. The boys' overweight friend Chet Morton raced in. From his flushed face and heaving chest it was evident that he had run a long distance.
“Frank! Joe!” he shouted. “You've got to help me quick!”
“What's the matter?”
“We've been robbed! Somebody stole our truck! All my uncle's rifles were in it!”
CHAPTER III
Telltale Tracks
 
 
 
THE Hardys learned that Chet had gone to the railroad station in the farm truck to pick up a box of high-powered rifles. The guns had been purchased by Tyler Morton, Chet's uncle and famous big-game hunter.
“Uncle Ty's coming to our place in two weeks to get his stuff for a trip to Africa,” Chet explained. “But now his plans will be ruined. His guns are gone!”
“How come? Where was the truck?” Frank asked.
Chet said he had loaded the big box onto the truck and then had driven to the Wells Hardware Store to pick up a chest of tools for his father.
“While I was at the store,” Chet continued, “I picked out a lot of camping equipment I knew we would need for our trip.” Sheepishly he added, “I picked out a dandy canoe, too.”
“Did you pay for all this stuff?” Joe queried.
“No. Charged it. I thought if you didn't like the stuff, I could return it.” Chet put his head in his hands and moaned. “If I don't get ‘em back, I'll have to pay for'em all!”
“Pretty tough,” Frank remarked. “Then what happened?”
“Everything was loaded into the back of the truck,” Chet explained. “I started to drive home. But I was hungry, so I pulled into the Pines, a roadside eating place.”
“I only had a couple of three-deckers,” the plump youth explained. “When I went outside for the truck, it—it was gone.”
“You left the keys in it?” Joe asked, frowning.
“Yes.”
“How long ago did this happen?” Frank asked. “Did you notify the police, Chet?”
“No. I came right here.”
Chet was so flustered he could not remember the license number of the truck. Frank telephoned Chief Collig what had happened. Then he ran out of the house with Chet and Joe, and took the wheel of the boys' convertible.
“We'll start from the Pines,” he said.
There was silence for a few seconds, then Joe asked, “Why did you buy all that camping stuff, Chet?”
“We were talking about a trip, weren't we?”
“Nothing was definite.”
“I know,” Chet admitted.
When they arrived at the restaurant, Chet showed the boys where the truck had been parked.
“Are these marks in the mud from your tires?” Joe asked.
Chet nodded. “Yes. They're plain enough, because those rear tires were new.”
The Hardys easily traced the tracks to the road, when they discovered that the truck had headed north.
Frank continued along the highway for nearly two miles, slowing down at each intersection to see if there were any tire marks along the soft sides of the roadway.
At a dirt crossroad Frank stopped to look at some tire prints on the left. After a careful examination, he shouted:
“I see them! But say, another car followed in the truck's tracks. Wonder if that means anything.”
Chet was not listening. “Come on!” he shouted.
They hopped into the car and followed the country road. The double tracks continued for some distance; then the boys saw only one set of tire marks.
“Now what?” Frank asked, perplexed.
Joe jumped out. Reason told him the truck had turned off, but where? There was no side road.
In a moment Joe began tearing at some bushes along the road. His trained eye had noted they were wilting; probably torn up a little while before and piled there as a screen.
“Look!” he shouted, pulling the bushes away.
A lumberman's road, which had not been used for years, forked from the dirt country road. Weeds between the logs clearly showed the two crushed trails that the wheels had made.
“Wait here,” said Joe.
He disappeared into the woods, but returned in a couple of minutes.
“I found your truck, Chet,” he said.
“Hooray!” Chet shouted. “Gee, that's super! Now Uncle Ty can go to Africa and we can take that camping trip!”
“The truck is empty!”
“Oh, no!” Chet's jaw dropped.
Frank had an idea. “I believe the driver of the other car was a pal of the truck thief. They must have known about this wood road where they could work without being seen.”
“And loaded the guns, tools, and camping stuff into the car and drove off,” Joe said. “A stolen truck's hard to get rid of, but loot isn't.”
“What about the canoe?” Frank asked.
“It could have been fastened to the roof. A lot of cars have ski racks on top, you know,” Joe replied.
Chet was distressed. A truck thief was bad enough, but going after two men with rifles in their possession was more than he had bargained for.
“I guess we'd better let the police handle this,” he said.
“What! Let those thieves get away now, when we're on their trail!” Joe protested. “I'll back the truck out,” he offered, “and then we'll go after 'em!”
With Chet's help he maneuvered the truck onto the dirt road, then trailed Frank and Chet for a mile and a half. During the ride Chet was told about the wallet the Hardys had found.
“Wow!” Chet exclaimed. “Two thousand dollars!”
Frank stopped suddenly. Joe pulled up in the truck right behind him and jumped out.
“Trail end?” he asked.
“No. But the car stopped here,” Frank replied. “See these marks?”
“You've got good eyesight to catch that,” Joe said.
The Hardys concluded that the loot might have been carried into the woods at this point. Bushes were beaten down here and there, and near the edge of a brook footprints were clearly visible. The boys searched up- and downstream, but no further trace of the thieves could be found.
“No point in going any deeper in the woods,” Frank said. “We're only guessing that the stolen stuff is here. Anyway, this is North Woods.” He winked at Joe. “You know what that means.”
Chet's eyes bulged. “You mean the place where people say they've heard wild dogs?”
“The same.” Frank nodded. “And a wild dog can be mean.”
“I don't want to meet any of 'em,” Chet said.
“Not even to get the stolen stuff back?”
“Let the police find it,” Chet advised. “And if they don't ... Say, you fellows got all that money. How about letting me have some of it to pay for the stolen rifles and everything?”
“Not on your life,” Joe replied, laughing. “It doesn't belong to us.”
Chet groaned. He realized now that it had been a mistake to order the camping equipment without the Hardys' consent. Too often in his life he had made similar mistakes and had had to pay for them with hard work, to which he was allergic.
The Hardys returned to their car. This time Chet drove the truck. Twenty minutes later they came to the intersecting macadam road, Black Horse Pike, where they lost the trail.
“We'd better report that we found the truck,” Frank said as he headed back to Bayport.
A couple of miles farther on they came to a State Police substation. Frank went in. After telling the desk sergeant of the recovery of the truck, he reported that a box of valuable big-game rifles, a set of tools, a canoe, and other camping equipment had been removed from it.
The sergeant, a tall, broad-shouldered man, frowned. “High-powered rifles are dangerous weapons in the hands of criminals,” he said. “We'll make a careful search right away.'
“Thanks,” Frank said and went outside. Then Chet said good-by to the brothers and drove off.
BOOK: The Wailing Siren Mystery
9.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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