The Haunted Fort (14 page)
Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
“Like Adrian Copier!” Joe ventured. “Or a crony. I'll bet a cracker that thief is in hiding near Senandaga.”
Although disappointed at not unearthing the treasure clue, they felt encouraged by Chet's discovery, and the Hardys planned to try tracing the piece of smock.
They had just pulled up the bateau on the Millwood beach when Alex the chauffeur came running toward them, a troubled expression on his face.
“What's the matter?” asked Uncle Jim.
“Have any of you seen Mr. Davenport?”
They shook their heads. “No, we just came from the fort,” Frank answered. “Why?”
“He had me drive him to Mr. Gilman's early this afternoon,” Alex reported, worriedly fingering his cap. “Mr. Davenport was to phone me to pick him up before dinnertime. It's past that now, and I haven't heard a word!”
“Do you think something has happened to him?” Joe asked.
“I just telephoned Mr. Gilman. He told me he hasn't seen Mr. Davenport.” Alex added that the art patron had gotten out of the car on the road just before the critic's property.
“Could Gilman be lying?” Chet put in.
“Let's find out,” Joe urged.
Hastily leaving their gear outside the mansion, the boys jumped in the limousine and drove to Gilman's home. The man appeared completely bewildered. “I don't know what's going on,” he whined. “Everything is blamed on me.”
A thorough search of the grounds proved futile. There was no sign of Jefferson Davenport. Next the Hardys and Chet made inquiries in town. No one there had seen the man, nor could any of the Millwood students provide the boys with a clue.
By midnight, with still no word on the millionaire, Chet's uncle telephoned headquarters. The chief said a missing-person alarm would be sent out.
Next morning the school buzzed with the news of Mr. Davenport's disappearance. The Hardys felt that there was a strong link between it and the art thefts.
“It could be a desperate move by Copler and his gang to get information about the treasure,” Frank said. “I move we check the fort again. If that's their hideout, they may be questioning Mr. Davenport there.”
Joe and Chet agreed, and the three hurriedly took off in the bateau.
Once inside Senandaga, they searched for the millionaire. Finding no sign of him aboveground, they decided to tackle the dungeon entrances. There were two in the West and two in the North Barracks. “Let's try the north first,” said Frank. The opening was blocked by what seemed tons of rubble. The old steps were barely visible.
“How'll we ever dig through this stuff!” Chet groaned.
The boys found many of the rocks too large to be moved with shovels. In minutes their faces were covered with perspiration.
They tried the second north entrance. Here they found decayed timber poking out of the rocks. Frank and Chet lifted out a rotting door and set it against a wall.
The diggers proceeded, making a little headway.
Suddenly they heard a splintering thud. The boys whirled to see a hatchet embedded in the old door! It had narrowly missed Frank's head!
“Who threw that?” Joe yelled angrily.
“Look!” Chet quavered, pointing.
They saw, fleeing out the main gateway, a hooded black figure!
The three boys raced in pursuit.
“You two go that way!” Frank yelled, jumping into the ditch and running off to the left. Chet and Joe sped in the opposite direction.
But they circled the fort walls without spotting the ghostly figure. Back at the digging site, Joe pulled the hatchet from the door. “It's an ordinary camping type, but I'm glad we weren't in its way!”
“Who threw that?” Joe yelled angrily
Frank studied the broad blade of the ax, then took out the photostat of the fort map and spread it on the ground.
“What's up?” Joe asked curiously.
“Look at this hatchet,” Frank urged, “then at the shape of any side of the fort!”
Joe looked at the eastern rampart on the map as his brother's hand covered one of the corner bastions. “It's like a tomahawk!” he exclaimed. “It must be the clue painted by General Davenport!”
The three boys were greatly excited. “Which side of the fort is the right one, though?” Chet puzzled.
“In the painting the tomahawk was parallel to the west wall! And remember the notches on it near the end of the stock?” said Frank.
“The West Barracks!” Joe said. “The notches must refer to one of the dungeon cells! But that hatchet-throwing ghostâcould
he
know about this clue?”
he
know about this clue?”
“I doubt it,” Frank said. “He was trying to scare us out of this fort, but the joke may be on him. If we're right, he gave us a swell lead. Maybe we can find Mr. Davenport and the treasure too! Come on!”
Grabbing their shovels, the three moved over to the West Barracks, at the entrance nearest the notches shown in the picture. Spurred by renewed hope, they worked furiously.
An hour later Frank managed to wriggle through a hole they had opened in the rubble. Joe and Chet watched tensely as he lowered himself into blackness.
“It's all right!” Frank called.
The others passed the shovels down and joined Frank. Chet squeezed through with the Hardys' help. The boys switched on their flashlights and found themselves in a long, dank corridor, partially filled with debris.
A row of cells extended along the left wall. The Hardys were eager to explore and started for the nearest cell. Together, the boys inspected one dungeon after another, their rotting wood doors sagging on rusty iron hinges.
Frank and Chet were playing their lights on the floor of the fourth cell when Joe shouted behind them. “Lookâon the back wall!”
His beam focused on faint scratch marks in the stone.
The boys hurried over. Now they saw the scratches formed a definite shape: a broad blade, notched handle, and an encircling chainâidentical to the one in the Davenport painting!
“This must have been the Prisoner-Painter's cell!” Frank exclaimed.
They felt the wall with their fingers. Joe frowned. “Solid as steel,” he commented. “How about the floor?”
Frank kicked aside the remains of what had been the prisoner's cot. As his foot touched one of the floor stones, it rattled!
“Joeâa shovel!”
Prodding with the spade, Frank levered the large slab, and the others lifted it out. Their flashlights revealed a gaping hole!
CHAPTER XIX
Dungeon Trap
“IT's not very deep.” Frank crouched. “I'll go first.”
The Hardys dropped down into the opening and beamed their lights around.
“It's a tunnel!” Joe hissed.
Behind them was a blank stone wall, but ahead stretched the low, dirt passageway. Chet lowered shovels and all three moved forward, ducking their heads.
“Easyâthis ceiling doesn't look safe,” Frank cautioned. “I don't get it. We're going west, which means the chain must be hidden outside the fort. Why?”
“Beats me,” Joe replied.
There appeared to be no turns. Farther on, they were surprised to find the tunnel angling downhill, then realized this was because of the fort ditch above.
Suddenly the trio were brought up short by a wall of dirt. Joe whispered. “Do you think it's the end, or a cave-in?”
Frank probed the sloping earth with his spade. “It looks like a cave-in, and a big one.”
The three debated about digging through the dirt barrier.
“We'll be risking another cave-in,” Frank said. “If only we knew whether or not this tunnel continues. And if it does, where to.”
“Let's chance it,” Joe urged.
The Bayport sleuths set their flashlights on the floor and began shoveling with utmost care.
Beneath its hard-packed outer layer, the dirt was loose. The boys dumped spadeful after spadeful to one side. Suddenly they stopped digging, and listened, motionless.
Stealthy footsteps were approaching!
Grabbing a flashlight, Joe swung the beam back down the passage. It fell on the face of a tall, sullen-faced youth.
“Ronnie Rush!”
“Well, I finally caught up to you three. I hitched a ride in a motorboat, and trailed you here at the fort. Did you find the gold chain?”
Ronnie, striding forward defiantly, forgot to duck. His head struck the low ceiling. A thunderous sound followed as the tunnel walls gave way.
“Look out!” Frank cried.
Ronnie leaped ahead. He and the boys went down beneath a barrage of falling earth. Choking dust filled the tunnel pocket. Joe staggered to his feet and thrust a shovel into the mass of earth. “Frank! We're cut off!”
The Hardys dug furiously, but it was no use. They were sealed in!
“There's not enough air to last the four of us even a couple of hours!” Frank warned. “So every move will have to count.”
Chet glowered at Rush, who lay stunned. “If it weren't for youâ”
“You really scored this time, Rush,” Frank agreed. “But we can't waste air arguing about it.”
“I'mâI'm sorry,” Ronnie said, contrite for the first time. “I was wrong to snoop, and steal your fort map. I had overheard Mr. Davenport and Mr. Kenyon talking about this treasure, and that you fellows were coming up here andâ”
“Conked me to get our map,” Joe finished.
Ronnie shook his head, puzzled. “No! I took the map, but I don't know anything about knocking you outâhonest!”
As the youth seemed genuinely contrite, the other boys traded glances. If he hadn't struck Joe, who had? Ronnie looked fearfully around at the enclosing walls.
“I just want to say, in case weâwe don't get out of here, Iâuhâwell, I'm really sorry about Chet's painting and allâ”
“Right now, you can be our shovel relief,” Frank said tersely.
First the boys recovered their flashlights, then dug steadily. When Chet collapsed with fatigue, Rush took up his shovel. The three lights cut bright spears through the small black space. Breathing was difficult and their clothes were drenched from exertion.
“Come on! We've got to get through!” Ronnie panted.
Seconds later, Joe's shovel pierced the barrier and a cool draft hit their hot faces.
“We've made it!” Frank shouted.
The boys clawed rapidly with their tools, cutting a wider opening. Then they ducked through single file and advanced slowly; their flashlights beamed ahead. A short distance farther on was a wall with openings to the right and left.
“I'll bet these are infiltration tunnels!” Joe exclaimed.
They entered the opening to the right, and found it littered with old French weapons, including rusty muskets and three small cannon, but as Frank feared, the tunnel ended in a solid blank wall.
The searchers hastily returned to enter the lefthand opening.
“Frank, how far out from the fort wall do you think we are?” Chet asked.
“Maybe a hundred yards west, probably to the woods. What an ingenious ideaâif Chambord ever did use this for infiltration!”
He recalled Mr. Davenport's mention of the Vauban parallel trenches, once used by attacking armies to close in on fortresses. Had Chambord reversed this idea, building these tunnels for defense ?
Fifty yards ahead, they reached another dirt wall.
“There's got to be a way out!” Frank reasoned. “Let's try the wall.”
They spread out, and with Chet holding the lights, gently probed the dry earth. Minutes later, a section fell away under Ronnie's shovel.
“Here it is!”
Carefully widening the hole just enough, they ducked quickly through and proceeded down a tunnel heading back toward the fort.
“It's parallel to the other,” Joe observed.
Presently they came to the beginning of the passagewayâa wall of dirt.
“Funny,” said Frank. “The other tunnel started from a stone wall.”
Just then Joe flashed his light above and exclaimed, “Look!”
The beam revealed a square slab of stone. Hopefully the boys pushed it up and minutes later climbed out to find themselves in another cell. Covered with grime, the companions trudged along the dungeon corridor, and picked their way through the debris outside the entrance. They emerged on the parade ground again as dusk was falling.
Suddenly Frank spotted a uniformed man standing at the fort entrance. He ran toward them.
“Alex!” Frank cried out.
“Thank goodness you're safe!” the chauffeur exclaimed. “Mr. Davenport has been found. He's with Mr. Kenyon right now!”
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