The Disappearing Floor (16 page)

Darrow shrank back as Strang proceeded to jeer at him.

“I conned you from the start, you egghead! Did you really think I'd sink good money into this setup just so you could develop these blackout guns for national defense? And you swallowed all that junk about spies.

“What you were really doing here, Darrow, was getting us ready for the biggest jewel-theft operation in history. Those purple tear-gas grenades you cooked up were an extra bonus!”

Strang's henchmen roared with laughter. Their response spurred him to greater boasting and he answered Frank's and Joe's questions freely. The first hint that the Hardys might be on his trail had come when the boys had followed him in his car.

The ghostly screams had warned the gang that someone was prowling near their tunnel exit, so next morning they had camouflaged the tiled floor with sod and brush. In doing so, they had found the jackknife bearing Frank's name. Then later, one of the men had used the exit and had left the tiles uncovered. When Strang had found Frank's pocketknife, he thought the Hardys had seen the floor.

Knowing from newspaper accounts of their earlier cases that the boys owned a boat, Strang had ordered two of his men to sabotage it. “I figured then it was time to scare you punks off or get rid of you for good,” Strang went on. The brothers had escaped with their lives—but later, when the
Napoli
had happened to anchor near the
Seacat,
one of the gang, known as Moose, had attacked Joe in the bay.

As the Hardys had suspected, Strang had sent two of his men, Kelso and Trigger, to Chicago to pull the Spyker robbery, after telephoning a false clue to Mr. Hardy.

Strang had arranged to be aboard the chartered plane at the time of the robbery, in order to establish an alibi in case he was charged with the theft. He had arrived in Chicago in time to organize the transfer of the loot, stowing it in a secret compartment of Hirff's plane and later taking it to the Perth mansion hideout.

Kelso and Trigger had gone to Gary, Indiana, to plant the decoy getaway car, then returned to Bayport by commercial airliner.

“How did Makin happen to be at the airport the night of the robbery?” Frank asked.

“He trailed Waxie, who was waiting for me to fly in from Chicago. But he didn't wait long before Makin jumped him, and made him unlock Hirff's hangar so he could search it.

“Then he took Waxie back to the car and found the amethysts in the glove compartment. He knocked Waxie out and was going to leave him there, unconscious, as a warning that we should cut him in. But when you kids and that private eye showed up and spotted him, Makin took off. And when I came in, I had to leave the loot in Hirff's plane and take a taxi back to the mansion.”

The gang had rented the cabin at Tigers' Bight as an emergency hideout, intending to flee there in their cruiser if the police should close in. Jack Wayne had been taken there by Barney after he had contacted the
Seacat
by radio.

“What were you planning to do with Jack?” Joe asked.

“He told Hirff your dad owed him money and wouldn't pay up—so now he was sore at you Hardys and looking for some quick dough. We thought if he was telling the truth, he might tell us how much you knew. If not, we'd get rid of him fast. Barney was keeping him at the cabin till I got a chance to question him.”

After Joe had photographed the chart found in Hirff's plane, Hirff had phoned the news to Strang, and the gang had tried to snatch the film. When that move failed, Strang had radioed Barney to booby-trap the cabin and take off in
Skyhappy Sal
before the Hardys could get there.

On the Haley Building job, Kelso had learned about the delivery from a stooge in the jewelry company. Kelso had entered the building during business hours and had hidden in a washroom. Later, he had let Waxie in by the fire-escape door.

The two had sneaked downstairs to the lobby, where the watchman had been seated at his desk with his back to the stairway. They had blasted him with the ray gun.

Kelso then had tampered with the elevator and Waxie had installed duplicate fifth-floor numbers and name plates on the sixth-floor offices. Kelso had posed as Paul Tiffman to receive the diamonds from the messenger. The robbery accomplished, they had again blacked out the watchman and removed all traces of their ruse.

“How did Makin learn you were planning to pull the job?” Frank asked.

Strang chuckled. “We squeezed that out of him before we blacked him out. He was watching the mansion that day and trailed Kelso to the building. When Kelso never came out, he figured we were planning to pull a job there.”

“How about that voice I heard over your tunnel intercom?” Joe put in, to keep Strang talking.

The jewel thief laughed. “Pretty fast thinking on your part, kid—I'll hand you that much. Trigger thought Waxie had forgotten his orders and was calling for a quick fill-in.”

“Good thing I realized the guy on the line wasn't Waxie,” Trigger said. “He's a nut! Crazy about the gadgets in this place. Calling on the intercom. Pushing the floor release in that rigged-up room.”

“Maybe Waxie forgot to put the floor back in place the night we first saw it through the window,” Frank suggested, still playing for time.

“Waxie forgot once too often,” Strang grunted. “Last time, I about broke a leg. Got fed up. Lucky for Waxie he scrammed when he did.”

Meanwhile, Professor Darrow had furtively plugged in his blackout invention. Suddenly he snatched it up and aimed the machine at the thieves. But Trigger saw the maneuver.

“Look out, boss!” the gangster yelled, whipping out his own ray gun to fire.

Strang jumped clear in the nick of time. But Trigger had no chance to use his own gun. The blaze of brilliance from the professor's machine paralyzed all five of Strang's henchmen.

Strang's own leap had left him momentarily off balance. The Hardys seized their chance. Frank stunned the gang boss with a hard right to the jaw. Joe wrested away his blackout gun, and in a few moments the two young sleuths had punched Strang into submission.

“It would be safer, if I blacked him out,” Professor Darrow suggested to the boys. “The rays from my device do no permanent damage. They simply affect certain brain centers and temporarily immobilize the subject until the neural circuits have time to clear themselves.”

“Maybe he has a point there,” Joe remarked to Frank with a grin. “We have no handcuffs.”

As the professor was blacking out Strang, Frank spotted car headlights through the trees surrounding the mansion. A short time later Fenton Hardy, Chief Collig, and a squad of police rushed into the house to take over. They stared in amazement when they saw the helpless members of the gang.

“Looks as though we missed the preliminaries
and
the main event,” the tall investigator remarked to Collig with a chuckle. “They're all out cold.”

The chief and his men grinned in satisfaction. “I'd say six KO's are enough of a show for any evening!” Collig quipped.

“Seven.” Joe grinned. “I think you'll find another KO in the ‘guest room.' ”

After hearing the whole story, Mr. Hardy and the chief were warm in their praise of Frank and Joe. But the boys pointed out that it was Professor Darrow who had brought victory at the last moment.

“I'm afraid you've been badly misled, Professor,” Mr. Hardy said. “Some facts you may not know are these: Strang and his men had their eye on the Perth mansion as a hideout. When you bought it, they arranged to move in with you and used the ray gun as an excuse.”

Frank added, “And Makin, in trying to worm his way into the gang, offered to rent the place. He only wanted to find out if Strang's group were just helping themselves to the mansion.”

Mr. Hardy went on, “But, Professor, you certainly turned the tables on the gang! I'm reasonably sure that any charges against you, for your part in Strang's operation, will be dropped.”

“How did you happen to get here, Dad?” Frank asked as the police were removing the prisoners.

“After I heard Tony and Chet's story, and you two failed to return, I decided it was time to blow the whistle on this setup at the mansion,” Fenton Hardy replied, throwing an arm around each of his boys.

“What I'd like to know is who rigged all those spooky alarm devices,” Joe spoke up.

Professor Darrow gave a wan smile. “I did, partly to keep off intruders and partly for my own amusement,” he explained. “It was while I was wiring them into the mansion's electrical system that I stumbled on the bedroom-study's disappearing floor and told Strang about it.”

Next day the stolen, rented motorboat was located, and the Hardys went to the hospital to see Jack Wayne, who had regained consciousness and was rapidly recovering.

“So you've wrapped up the case, eh?” the pilot said.

“Frank and Joe have,” Mr. Hardy answered. “But we all feel bad about the loss of
Skyhappy Sal.”

Jack grinned. “Don't worry. She was insured, so I'll have a new
Sal
pretty soon.”

“Dad says there'll be a good bit of reward money,” Frank put in, “and you'll get half, Jack. That should buy your new
Sal
a lot of fancy trimmings.”

“We're still curious about that interrupted radio message of yours, Jack,” said Joe. “How about spelling the whole message out for us?”

Jack thought for a moment, then asked for pencil and paper and wrote down the message as nearly as he could remember it. The boys bracketed the words which had been lost in transmission. The result read:

A few days later the stones Makin had stolen were recovered, and an expert survey of the amethyst location showed that the lode, while not highly valuable as a source of ornamental gems, was worth developing for commercial purposes. The story was repeated at the Morton farm to Tony and Chet.

“That's a break for Nyland,” Frank commented. “Joe and I had decided to use part of our share of the reward money to pay his wife's hospital bills—but now—”

“My share's going to help my folks buy a new car,” said Tony.

“You guys have no imagination,” Chet retorted.

“Listen, Chet, how about using your part to buy some detective equipment so you can help Frank and me on our next case?” Joe teased, not knowing that they would soon be called on to solve THE MYSTERY OF THE FLYING EXPRESS.

“Oh yes?” Chet retorted. “Hop over to the Bayport Soda Shop with me, and I'll show you what
I'm investing
in—a year's supply of the biggest banana splits you ever saw!”