The Disappearing Floor (13 page)

Before the brothers could be served dessert, Tony and Chet arrived with more exciting news.

“We found a cruiser called the
Seacat!”
Tony announced breathlessly. “It looks like the one we saw before that frogman attacked Joe!”

“Where is it now?” Frank asked.

“In one of those coves just off Shore Road,” Chet blurted out.

Aunt Gertrude sputtered indignantly as Frank and Joe hurried away without waiting for any pie à la mode. They jumped into their convertible and followed Chet's jalopy.

Dusk was falling as the four friends pulled up near the cove. An old, rather battered-looking coupé was parked among the trees.

“Must belong to someone on the cruiser,” Tony speculated. “There's nothing else around here.”

“I have an idea,” Joe said. “Let me take the convertible, Frank. Chet, you park in that next grove, and I'll meet you fellows in a few minutes down in that clump of willows on the cove.”

The others agreed, wondering what he had in mind. After Joe had made a U-turn and driven off, Chet parked his own car, then started down the hillside toward the cove with Frank and Tony.

The three boys hid among the willows and looked out across the water. The cruiser lay silently at anchor amid the deepening twilight, with a dinghy tied alongside. A faint, wavering light came through the cabin portholes.

Ten minutes went by. At last Joe joined them.

“I borrowed Dad's radio signal-sender,” he explained, “and attached it to the axle of that coupé so we can trail it.”

“Smart idea,” Frank said approvingly.

A few more minutes passed. Then the light aboard the cruiser went out. Presently a shadowy figure emerged from the cabin, but it was now too dark for the boys to make out the man's features. He glanced around furtively, then climbed into the dinghy and began rowing ashore.

“He sure acted sneaky,” Tony whispered.

“He's probably not the owner,” Frank surmised. “I'll bet he had no right to be aboard.”

The man rowed across the cove, moored the dinghy to a tree, and started up the hillside.

“He must be the person who parked that coupe,” Joe muttered excitedly.

The boys hurried back to their own cars. Joe had parked in the grove, close to Chet's jalopy. Almost instantly they heard the coupé start up, and a moment later it drove past. Joe switched on the special receiver for the radio-tailing device. A low, steady whirring wail issued from the speaker.

“Okay, let's go!” he told Frank.

The convertible swung out onto the road. Chet's jalopy followed. Frank kept his headlights dimmed and stayed a safe distance behind the coupe. It circled Bayport and turned onto the road the black sports car had taken three nights earlier. Joe traced the coupé's course by manipulating a loop antenna.

“He's going to the Perth mansion!” Joe exclaimed as a sudden fade in the radio howl announced a turn by their quarry.

The boys pulled off the road and waited a few minutes so as not to betray themselves. Then they, too, entered the dirt lane. After parking in some shrubbery, they began searching for the coupe. Frank soon spotted it standing half-hidden among some trees farther down the lane.

“Looks as though he's trying to stay undercover himself,” Tony muttered.

“I'm sure he's not one of Strang's men,” Frank agreed as Joe jotted down the license.

“How are we going to find him?” Chet asked.

“Scout around and use our eyes,” Joe replied.

The four boys started up the slope. They all swung around with a start as a bloodthirsty snarl sent their pulse rates skyrocketing. Frank had to clamp a hand over Chet's mouth to prevent the stout youth from shrieking.

“Steady, pal! That's just a mechanical spook hound—to scare off people like us.”

Chet gulped as the fiery-eyed hound snarled again.

“It just succeeded with one person!” the fat boy announced and started back down the slope. Frank calmed him and they went on. Tony and Chet waited in the shadows as Frank and Joe made their way to the house. They had just reached the porch when they heard a muffled “Ssst!” from Tony and turned.

A white phantom was moving toward the house.

“The galloping ghost!” Joe gasped.

The boys went racing toward it, but the ghostly figure detected their approach and Bed.

“That ghost must have eyes in the back of his head!” Joe muttered angrily, still running.

The specter soon disappeared from view among the trees. Frank acted on a hunch. He shortcut back to the coupé and hid among some bushes. A white figure suddenly loomed out of the darkness. It headed straight for the car and yanked open the door. Before the phantom could climb inside, Frank pounced on him!

The spook-masquerader battled wildly, but the other three boys quickly arrived on the scene and helped Frank pin him against the car.

“Pretty solid for a ghost!” Chet remarked.

“Not as solid as you,” Joe quipped. “But there's flesh under that spook costume!”

“Let's have a look at him,” Frank added, and pulled off the prowler's hood.

CHET let out a gasp of surprise as Tony shone a flashlight at the man's face. “It's that creep we picked up unconscious the other night!”

“And also the thief who stole Iola and Callie's amethyst,” Frank added.

The man cowered in the glare of Tony's beam. “Please, boys,” he whined, “I meant no harm. This ghost masquerade was just intended as a hoax. Nothing more than a joke.”

“Some joke,” Tony said dryly.

“How about stealing that amethyst?” Chet growled. “That was a joke too?”

The man's face turned pale. “No, it—it was wrong of me, tricking you with that oil smudge and snatching the stone right out of your house.” He wet his lips nervously. “But I had to have it! By rights, the stone belongs to me.”

The boys were puzzled.

“How does it ‘belong' to you?” Joe asked.

The man squirmed uncomfortably. “It doesn't matter,” he mumbled, “You'll find what you're after in my right-hand coat pocket.”

Joe reached inside the white robe. A moment later his hand emerged holding a purple stone.

“The amethyst!” Chet exclaimed. Joe turned it over to him to give back to the girls.

“You still haven't answered my brother's question,” Frank said in a cold voice. “Why did you say the amethyst belonged to you?”

The prisoner had an angry look, like that of a trapped animal. “I told you it doesn't matter!” he retorted. “I know what you boys are up to! You're trying to worm information out of me, hoping you can get all the stones for yourselves!”

“Now listen,” Frank snapped, “I don't know what you mean by that remark, but you'd better talk fast or we'll call the police! I think we should, anyhow.”

“No, no! Please!” The prisoner seemed to crumble. “I can't afford to go to jail now—there's so much to do! I can explain. I'll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“You can begin by answering Joe's question—and then tell us why you've been prowling around in that spook getup.”

“All right.” The man gulped and tried to pull himself together. “My name is Karl Nyland Jr. Years ago, my father discovered an amethyst lode somewhere near Bayport. He went to old Jerome Perth for financial backing—they even signed a partnership agreement. But that swindler, Perth, double-crossed him!”

“How so?” Frank asked.

“Perth bought the site in his own name, then kept stalling my father off—said he was waiting for a geologist's report. Finally my father got fed up. They quarreled and Perth had my father thrown out of the mansion. But first Perth taunted him. He said the partnership papers, and some amethysts my father had brought him, were kept in a place outside the mansion where anyone could get at them—but my father wouldn't be smart enough to find it.”

“Boy! Sounds as if Perth was a real snake in the grass!” Tony muttered.

“That man was evil,” Nyland declared, “but he got his just desserts. The quarrel brought on a heart attack and he died the next day.”

“Didn't the partnership papers turn up when the old man's estate was settled?” Frank asked.

“No, his lawyers claimed that no such papers, nor the amethysts, were among Perth's effects. My father kept searching secretly for a long time after that, but he never could find the hiding place.”

Joe snapped his fingers. “He must have been the ghostly figure that people thought was haunting this place!”

“Yes, he was searching here the night the nephew died,” Nyland admitted. “That's what gave him the idea of dressing as a ghost. He thought it might help to scare tenants away and keep the mansion unoccupied until he could locate the secret cache. But he never found it.”

“At least his scheme to scare people away worked,” Chet put in. “And now you've been trying the same stunt?”

Nyland nodded guiltily. “I received a bad electrical shock when I was searching here the other night. That's when you boys found me unconscious. Since you'd seen my face, I decided I'd better use a ghost costume as a disguise, in case you came back to look for me.”

“How come you waited so long to begin searching?” Joe inquired.

“I was a child living with relatives in another state when Perth swindled my father,” Nyland explained. “It was only recently that I ran across my father's diary and read the whole story. My wife's been very ill, and I was in debt from the hospital bills—so I decided to come to Bayport and try to find the lode and the partnership papers.”

“Sounds like a wild-goose chase,” Frank said.

The man nodded. “That's just what it's been. All I have to show are these.” The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a dozen small metal disks. Each bore a picture of a violet above a dragon's head I

“Perth's lucky pieces!” Joe exclaimed. “We found one near the mansion—you must have dropped it there!”

“Could be,” Nyland admitted.

“Do you know what the design was supposed to signify?” Frank asked.

“Not really,” Nyland said, then added ruefully, “To me, the dragon is Perth—and the violet's a symbol of the lovely purple stones he tricked my father out of.”

Joe frowned. “Was there only one copy of the partnership agreement?”

“Exactly. Perth was sly about that. My father foolishly trusted him and didn't insist on two copies being drawn up.”

“Then why wouldn't Perth simply destroy the agreement when the deed was in his name?”

“He was using it to soft-soap my father and keep him quiet—also to keep him on a string. You see, my father had made two earlier gem strikes for a mining company. Perth no doubt hoped he might make other valuable finds. And I'm sure Perth was cruel enough to keep the agreement after their quarrel—just to tantalize and torment my father.”

“You have no idea where the amethyst lode was located?” Joe asked.

Nyland shook his head dejectedly. “No, Perth owned a great deal of property, but it was all sold off after his death. And the diary didn't say. That's why I shadowed those two girls after I overhead them telling the gem-shop proprietor about finding a large amethyst. I hoped they might lead me to the lode.”

“What were you doing aboard that cruiser tonight?” Tony inquired.

Nyland shrugged. “Just a hunch. There's something strange about those people living at the mansion now. This afternoon I saw two of them in town and heard them mention the word ‘amethyst.' I thought maybe they had found the papers relating to the lode, so I shadowed one of them. He went to that boat, and after he left, I climbed aboard myself. But it was a waste of time—I found nothing.”

Nyland's shoulders sagged. Half sobbing, he began to tell the boys about his wife's illness and the debts that had made him desperate. He pleaded with them not to turn him over to the police. The Hardys, Chet, and Tony felt perplexed and embarrassed. They decided to leave the decision to Mr. Hardy.

Suddenly a light went on in an upstairs window of the mansion. Joe exclaimed, “It's the window where we spotted that man who looked like Professor Darrow! Frank, let's stay here—we may see him again!”

Frank glanced at Chet and Tony. “Dad's due in tonight. Would you two take Nyland to our house and keep him there till Dad arrives?”

“Sure. I can call my folks,” Tony replied.

“Same here. And maybe your Aunt Gertrude will make us all a snack,” Chet said hopefully.

Nyland, anxious to avoid arrest, agreed to accompany them with his hands tied and to make no trouble. All three went off in Chet's car.

“The man's odd, but I think he was telling the truth,” Frank said. “He sure sounds as if he's been under a nervous strain.”

The Hardys started back up the slope. Cautiously they began making their way through the wooded grounds toward the mansion.

Suddenly there was a weird scream from close by—then another, weaker scream, ending in the same gasped-out words they had heard before:

Frank and Joe froze. “It's only a trick,” Frank muttered as they started forward again.

They were nearing the house when both boys went cold with shock. A
glowing white figure had risen from the ground!

“We caught the spook already,” Joe whispered.

“It's a fake, Joe.... It must be a fake!” Frank stared in horrified fascination.