While the Clock Ticked (6 page)

“Did you hear that, Chief Collig?” Frank exclaimed. “Whoever took our boat was snooping around here with it tonight, looking for a chance to steal something from one of the ships or warehouses.”

Chief Collig immediately quizzed the guard. The man replied that the
Sleuth
had lingered in the harbor for some time. The two men had come on the docks briefly. “I didn’t see ‘em leave with anything,” he concluded.

“Better check the warehouses and ships,” advised Joe.

“Good idea,” agreed the chief.

With that, he strode off the pier, and the other officers resumed their posts.

Frank turned to his brother. “I’ll walk back to the car and drive home,” he volunteered, “and bring back a new padlock for the
Sleuth.
That’ll keep the thieves from using
our
boat, anyhow. This time we won’t leave the key on the shelf.”

“Right. I’ll poke around here and see what I can dig up,” Joe proposed.

Frank Hardy knew that his father, as a detective, had found it necessary to keep a supply of all sizes of locks—types that could not be opened by ordinary skeleton keys.

When he reached home Frank saw that all the windows were dark, except for a dim light in
Aunt Gertrude’s bedroom. He let himself into the house quietly and tiptoed down to his father’s basement workshop and chose a suitable lock. Suddenly the boy was startled by a voice demanding sharply:

“And just what do you think you’re up to, young man?”

“Why—I was getting a lock, Aunt Gertrude.”

“Lock! At this unearthly hour? What for?”

“To change the lock on the
Sleuth.”

“Is that where you two were? On a boat ride? Frank Hardy, it is one-thirty in the morning!”

“I know, Auntie,” he said cheerfully as he started for the stairs. “We’ll tell you about it later. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry!” she echoed tartly. “I’ll only die of it!”

Frank grinned. “In a nutshell—thieves borrowed the
Sleuth
and took the key. We’re going to lock them out—with this!” He held up the gadget. “We’ll be home soon.”

When he arrived at the harbor, Frank parked the convertible and strode swiftly onto the pier where he had left his brother. Only a few workers were left on the dock, but he could see no sign of Joe.

Frank hurried to the end where the boat had been moored, and peered into the water. The
Sleuth
was missing, too!

CHAPTER VIII

“L
OOKING
for your buddy?”

Frank whirled to face the same steamship company guard who had spotted the
Sleuth
hovering near the docks earlier.

“Yes! He’s my brother. Have you seen him? Joe was supposed to wait for me.”

“I kind of wondered about that,” said the guard. “First he went all the way out to the edge of the pier and sat down. Just looking. All at once—about ten minutes ago—he comes running back here like crazy. Jumped in the blue-and-white boat and took off like a shot, straight out into the bay.”

“Was Joe alone?” Frank asked quickly.

“All by himself.”

“He must have seen something suspicious,” Frank decided.

At that very moment Joe Hardy was bending tensely over the steering wheel of the
Sleuth
, which was cutting along at top speed. Her prow stuck far out of the water. Great waves of spray were thrown up on both sides.

But Joe seemed unconscious of the tremendous speed of his craft. His eyes were fixed with determination upon a powerful motorboat running several hundred yards straight in front of him. Two men were seated aboard, one at the wheel, the other looking back frequently as if nervous.

Ten minutes before, as Joe had sat at the edge of the dock, legs dangling, he had noticed this same boat bobbing beside the big white hull of the
Sea Bright.
One man had already boarded the motor craft and a second was climbing toward it down the ladder of the passenger vessel.

Suddenly Joe had leaned forward with sharp interest. In the moonlight he had seen the name on the prow of the motorboat. It was the
Napoli
, which belonged to Tony Prito’s father. Joe had seen that neither of the pair in the boat was Mr. Prito or his son.

Now Joe heard a loud, whining roar, as the boat ahead picked up speed. Apparently the men realized they were being followed. The
Napoli
was showing her power.

“Come on, girl,” Joe urged his own trusty
craft affectionately. He jammed the throttle wide open. The race was on!

Skimming over the smooth surface, throwing showers of glistening white spray, neither craft could gain on the other. Dark shapes of buoys marking the harbor channel shot by them. The wet, black rocks at the harbor’s entrance came nearer and nearer, with the water of the Atlantic Ocean, lined with white crests of waves, just outside.

Squinting through the windshield, Joe considered his strategy. The fleeing boat was a swift one. But it would doubtless turn soon, and then, he knew, the lighter, easier-to-handle
Sleuth
would have the edge. He would cut them off without trouble.

To his amazement, however, the men held straight toward the mouth of the harbor. “They know their boat is heavier,” Joe reasoned. “They’re going out to sea, hoping I’ll have to slow down or swamp among the swells!”

Already the big rocks were closing in on both sides. Ahead, the ocean waves broke with a resounding smash along the barrier. The
Napoli
veered crazily in and out among the closely placed harbor buoys.

“He doesn’t know the channel!” flashed across Joe’s mind. “He’ll tear out the bottom on those submerged rocks.” Frantically the boy sounded
three long warning blasts on his own horn.

Too late! The other boat, trying to cut round the rocky point into the Atlantic, abruptly stopped short in the water as though a brake had been applied. A harsh grinding noise reached Joe’s ears. Immediately the
Napoli’s
hull settled stern first into the deep water.

Approaching the spot, Joe slowed down the
Sleuth.
But the two men had already jumped overboard, and after swimming a few strokes, splashed to shore and scrambled to the top of the breakwater. There, for a moment, they were silhouetted against the sky: a short, burly fellow and a slender man almost a foot taller.

“That short one looks like the man who drove the limousine!” Joe exclaimed, as both men quickly scampered off the embankment and disappeared.

Carefully Joe marked the position of the sunken boat. Then he turned the
Sleuth
back toward the piers. As he pulled in, Frank hailed him in relief.

“Say! What made you take off, anyway?”

“Plenty!” Joe gasped. “Wait’ll you hear!”

The tide was coming in, and he scrambled onto the dock unaided. Breathlessly Joe poured out the story of the chase.

“And the short, burly man,” he added, “was the driver of the limousine that almost ran us down!”

“Are you sure?” Frank asked.

“He looked back and I saw his face in the moonlight,” Joe said.

“We must find Chief Collig,” Frank said. “Maybe his men can still catch them.”

Joe shook his head doubtfully. “Too easy for those fellows to lose themselves among the rocks along shore. They’re free for the moment. But I know the spot where Tony’s boat is!”

Just then Chief Collig walked onto the pier. The boys hurried over to him and described Joe’s adventure.

“We’ll salvage the
Napoli
first thing by daylight,” the chief said. “How about coming along? Meet me at the police wharf.”

The boys agreed at once and volunteered to call Tony Prito and tell him what had happened. Then Joe returned the
Sleuth
to her berth while Frank drove the car there to meet him. Together, they put the new lock on their craft.

In a short time they were both in the convertible and heading homeward through the deserted streets. A few minutes later they crawled wearily into bed.

But in a few hours the boys were up. Frank called Tony, who gasped in dismay. “The
Napoli!
That’s a crime! … Yes, I’ll go with you to see it.”

The Hardys picked him up and they rode to the police wharf.

Chief Collig was waiting for them. “Sorry about
your boat, Tony. Those thieves are getting nervier by the minute.”

“What about the Purdy place?” Joe asked him eagerly. “Did your men find anything when they searched last night?”

“Nothing,” Collig replied wryly. “No thieves, no cars, no loot.”

Just then a police boat equipped with a winch and cable for minor salvage operations came alongside the pier. The three boys and Collig clambered in, and the vessel headed for the mouth of the harbor.

Frank said, once more picking up the thread of the case, “Do you suppose Tony’s boat was stolen by the same men who were seen in our boat earlier last night?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Chief Collig answered.

“Anyhow,” Joe spoke up, “we’re pretty sure the short fellow in Tony’s boat was the man who drove the limousine, and one of the harbor thieves. Sure like to know where he and his pal are hiding out.”

By now the police boat had reached the mouth of the harbor. The officer at the wheel eyed the nearby shore warily.

“You’re lucky you didn’t stave your own boat in,” he told Joe. “The underwater rocks are really treacherous along here.”

“Don’t I know it!” Joe agreed.

The officer throttled down and slowly approached the place that Joe indicated to him. A red harbor buoy bobbed nearby.

“I’m not going inside that marker,” announced the pilot flatly, slowing to a halt.

“Where is the
Napoli
from here, Joe?” Tony asked.

“Just the other side of the red buoy, I’m afraid.”

Around the police craft the water was clear and bluish green. Its surface was broken and dancing slightly from the effect of the waves outside the harbor. By leaning forward, the boys and Chief Collig made out a long white shape on the bottom.

“My boat! Can we get her up, Sergeant?” Tony questioned anxiously.

The second policeman assigned to the cruiser had been estimating their chances. “If we get her to the surface we can tow her in. The question is,
can
we get her to the surface? Looks pretty deep here to me. How are we going to put a line on her?”

Regretfully, the chief agreed. “You’re right. We’ll have to go back for a skin diver.”

Here Joe broke in with a suggestion. “If I go down and attach a line, can you raise her with the winch?”

“But we haven’t any diving equipment,” protested the sergeant. “Not even a face mask.”

“Faces were made before face masks,” Joe observed, grinning. Already he had kicked off his shoes. Now he was pulling his shirt over his head, revealing his tan, lithe body. “Got your line ready?”

“You Hardys sure won’t give up.” Chief Collig nodded. “Okay. Try it.”

The sergeant readied the salvage equipment. He extended the boom of his winch, then handed Joe a steel cable with a heavy steel hook at the end.

The boy was now stripped to a pair of white shorts. “I’m ready.”

“I figure it’s about twelve feet down,” the sergeant told him gravely. “There’ll be some pressure.”

“And look out for the tow,” Tony cautioned.

Joe accepted the cable. “I’ve done a lot of skin diving, and had experience with both,” he assured them. “Any special place I should attach this?”

“Loop it around something solid on the
Napoli
, then snap the hook around the cable like this,” the sergeant replied, demonstrating.

“Right.”

With the cable in one hand, Joe climbed to the rail of the launch. There he balanced for a moment as he took a series of tremendous deep breaths. Then he plunged into the water.

Those on board the launch watched anxiously,
while the pilot tried to hold the boat steady. Joe soon became an indistinct blur against the sunken white craft.

Once submerged, Joe drove himself forward with powerful kicks. He kept his hands free for the cable. He began to feel the increasing pressure, mostly on his temples and chest. Joe penetrated deeper. Finally he could touch the
Napoli.

Now he felt around it for a place to attach the cable. He moved forward and explored the front seat. There was no likely place—the steering wheel might rip out. Joe felt a pounding in his ears and he began to yearn for a breath of air. Still he groped around, feeling for something solid under the dashboard of the craft.

At this point Joe was directly under the steering wheel, the cable beneath his body. As he rolled over on his back to investigate the under part of the dashboard, the cable wound around his body. Suddenly and painfully, the cable had tightened against his flesh. The hook, that dangled from a length of cable in Joe’s hand, had caught around a slat of the floor boards.

Joe yanked at the hook, but was unable to loosen it. He thrashed to release himself from the cable. But he was bound fast under the steering wheel, twelve feet below the water’s surface!

CHAPTER IX

B
ACK
on the launch, Chief Collig, Frank, Tony, and the sergeant waited tensely.

“Hold this boat still!” Collig barked at the pilot.

“Sorry, Chief. She’s drifting.”

“The cable’s gone taut,” noted Tony. “Do you think Joe has attached it?”

“If he has, he ought to be up any second,” Frank answered hopefully.

But the glittering surface of the water gave no sign of the swimmer underneath. More seconds passed.

“Something’s wrong!”

As the words burst from Frank he, too, slipped out of his shoes and quickly stripped. In spite of anxiety for his brother, he was too wise to dive fully clothed.

Frank knifed into the cold water. With a powerful breast stroke, he swam quickly down to the
Napoli.
Almost immediately Frank spotted his brother’s legs kicking from under the dashboard, and the steel cable encircling Joe’s waist, holding him fast.

Shooting downward to the floor of the boat, Frank groped till his hand found the hook caught in the floor boards. With a tug he released it, flung away the line, grabbed Joe, and propelled him to the surface.