The Phantom Freighter (16 page)

He stretched his hands out and put his head and shoulders into the opening. By wriggling, he got himself all the way into the duct. Immediately the flow of cool air stopped.

Joe wormed forward an inch at a time. “If any thing goes wrong now,” he thought, “I might be trapped in here forever!”

Frank and Sparks, meanwhile, cut off from fresh air, were perspiring in their prison. Frank stood on Sparks's shoulders and whispered into the duct, “Joe, how are you going?”

But his brother could not hear him. Joe snaked along for a while until he had to rest. “Good thing I'm getting some fresh air,” he thought. “Thank goodness the ship has some modern conveniences!”

The oxygen renewed his strength and he started on again. The air-conditioning duct seemed to be endless. Another inch. Then another.

Finally he saw a dim light. Or was it only his imagination? His fingers clawed against the metal duct. Occasionally they touched a seam, giving his nails enough purchase to pull ahead.

Yes, it was some kind of light. Probably seeping through the next grill. Finally Joe reached it. He peered through into a room containing a bunk and a desk.

Joe found two nuts in the grillwork. His fingertips throbbed with pain, as little by little he turned the small nuts loose.

With a bang of his fist, the ventilator screen fell outward onto the bunk. Joe struggled to get his hands through the opening. He made it. Now his head. Could he wriggle his shoulders enough to get through? Joe felt as if his back were breaking. He emerged from the air duct like a battered butterfly struggling from a metal cocoon and fell out onto the bunk, semiconscious.

The room spun around and Joe gasped until full consciousness returned to him. What to do now? First thing was to replace the grill.

He shoved it back in place and inserted the screws lightly. Then, straining to hear any possible noise, he stepped out into the hallway. It was empty.

He moved along catlike, the palms of his hands flat against the metal wall. Presently he came to a door with a warning marked in big red letters: DANGER. STAY OUT.

“Danger to whom?” Joe thought. “Could this possibly be ‘the works' that the captain was going to deal out to the
Father Neptune?”
The boy tried the heavy handle and the door opened. He stepped inside.

“Come in, Captain,” a voice said.

Joe saw an armed guard, sitting with his back to the door. His gun was pointed at a slender, fine-looking, middle-aged man who was working over a battery of dials and switches. Joe crept up behind the guard, and dealt him a karate chop. He fell off the chair like a log.

The other man looked on in amazement. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Joe Hardy. Quick, lock the door!”

While the man followed his command, Joe briefly explained his presence and asked, “And who are you? What are you doing here?”

The man said he was Professor Elvin Rossiter, a scientist who had developed a unique repelling device. “I can't go into details on how it works,” he said. “But it will drive off anything that is propelled by a motor in action.”

“So that's it!” Joe said. “This ship is able to repel anybody chasing it!”

The man nodded and went on to explain that he had been captured and forced to set up the machine on the old freighter. “I think Captain Crowfeet's crazy,” he concluded.

“Just crazy enough to use your invention for his own nefarious purposes,” Joe replied. He added quickly, “Is it possible to get a radio message out of here?”

The inventor smiled. “I've been assembling a radio, but haven't had a chance to use it yet.” He took the front off a console next to the repeller. “Here it is. Ready for operation.”

Joe quickly sent a message to Radley. He explained what had happened and said, “Can you get a speedy sailing yacht? Ship stops anything with motors running.” He gave the latitude and longitude, then signed off.

He turned to the professor. “Thanks a million. I'm going back now. Just make believe nothing has happened.”

The guard had not yet regained consciousness. Joe propped him alongside the chair and went out the door.

Just then the man came to. “What happened?” he cried.

As Joe crept away he heard Rossiter's reply. “I think you fainted and fell off the chair.”

Joe made his way back to their prison. It had a bolt outside that could be pulled upward. Quickly Joe opened the door and slid in. He maneuvered the bolt in such a way that it would fall back in place as he shut the door with a slight bang.

“Wow!” Frank said in relief. “I thought something had happened to you!”

“I've had nothing but luck,” Joe replied, and told about Rossiter and the message he had been able to send over the radio.

“Great!” Frank exulted.

After their excitement wore off, the three fell asleep, but were awakened a few hours later by Crowfeet. He beckoned them to join him on deck.

“Ha-ha.” He chuckled. “I see you've resigned yourselves to your fate and rested calmly.”

“What's the use of resisting?” Frank said bitterly. “You're too smart for us!”

“Now you're talking sense, boy. I'm smarter than all the Hardys put together. People call my ship the phantom freighter. Good name for it, eh?”

“You said last night that we'd get along fine if we behaved ourselves,” Joe said. “Does that mean you'll let us join up with your crew?”

“I can always use strong hands,” growled Crowfeet. “We'll see.” He eyed the boys narrowly. “You're pretty clever. Caught on to my code, though in the end that's how I got you here!” He laughed uproariously.

Frank asked if the various parts of the code stood for ships and places. He was told they did. A23 meant the phantom freighter, and in combination with some other number meant a certain ship was to meet the freighter at a designated time and place.

Crowfeet gave orders that they were to be given breakfast, and later they were allowed to go on deck. The boys scanned the ocean but saw no plume of smoke or other sign of a ship.

“Not looking for the
Father Neptune
by any chance, are you?” Crowfeet said sarcastically. “Well, forget it. We're far away from her. She doesn't even know where we are.” He added, “Come here. I'll show you something!”

On a staging lowered over the side, two men armed with giant spray guns were directing great clouds of gray paint at the dark hull of the
Black Gull.

“Sometimes we hardly have time to let one coat dry before we have to change the color and the name again,” Crowfeet bragged. “Get our supplies from launches and never go into port.”

“You called your ship the
Falcon
once, didn't you?” asked Frank.

Crowfeet gave the Hardys a superior look. “You almost found me out while I was using that name, because the motor of that fishing launch went dead. Well, I can't tell you everything! We gotta have some secrets!”

As time dragged by and no help came, Frank and Joe began to lose hope. Perhaps their message had not been received. Then, suddenly, they noticed a white dot on the horizon. Their hearts leaped wildly. The spot soon enlarged into a snowy canvas. Closer and closer it came, until they recognized a racing sloop under full sail!

Suddenly there was a shout from Crowfeet. “What's that yacht doing out there? I don't like this. Full speed ahead!”

The phantom freighter, its name now the
Red Bird,
rattled and groaned as its speed increased.

“Say, it looks like they're chasing us!” Crowfeet yelled wildly. “My repeller! My repeller! It can't work against a sailing ship!”

He bellowed orders to the engine room. But it was no use. The big sloop soon overtook the
Red Bird.
Over the water blared a crisp command from a bullhorn:

 

“Stop your engines and lower a ladder! We're boarding you for inspection!”

“Coast Guard!” screamed Crowfeet. He ran toward his cabin for a rifle, but Frank and Joe, hitting him high and low, brought the criminal down with a bone-cracking tackle.

Crowfeet rose to his feet, dazed. A few minutes later an officer came over the side, followed by Fenton Hardy.

After a joyous reunion between the detective and his sons, Crowfeet learned how he had been outsmarted. Realizing the game was up, he gave his real name, Harry Piper, and threw himself at the mercy of the authorities with a full confession.

Crowfeet had preyed on people in many walks of life. He had even stolen inventions and kidnapped their inventors. Professor Rossiter was not the only prisoner on board. There also was a chemist who had perfected a method of aging wood and paper. Crowfeet had forced him to counterfeit old documents and letters which were then sold as collectors' items.

“I figured out how to hide the papers in cartons of compressed wool along with ampules of an illegal drug and ship them to the houses of people who were away,” Crowfeet boasted. “And if I hadn't had such stupid fools working for me, you'd never have caught me!”

“Like the two who got into a fight in a motorboat on Barmet Bay and threw a carton overboard?” remarked Joe.

Crowfeet just grunted.

“And you stole electric motors,” Frank accused.

The captain admitted that he had. He bragged of how he had outwitted Customs in smuggling thousands of dollars' worth of goods in and out of the country, including the South American cowhides which the boys had discovered in the old barn.

The Hardys also learned that one of the gang had tinkered with the gas tank and radio on Captain Harkness's boat, fearful they were going to search for the phantom freighter.

“How you kids got passage on the
Father Neptune
I'll never know,” growled Crowfeet. “But when I heard you had, I sneaked men aboard the ship to reload the cargo so it would shift.”

Klack, too, was found hiding below. The FBI would have one less wanted man to hunt for!

Mr. Hardy revealed that the captains of the
Hawk
and the
Wasp
and several others in the gang had been captured already. “James Johnson” had finally confessed his part in the scheme, saying if he had not been greedy and kept Aunt Gertrude's carton, and, with “Mrs. Harrison‘s” help, sold the contents, the Hardys would probably never have caught the gang.

The thief admitted that he had lost his good-luck medal in the Phillips's barn and that his cigarette butt might have started the fire.

Because “Mrs. Harrison” had warned Frank and Joe about the danger of going on the freighter trip, she would perhaps get a lighter sentence, as well as the man who had telephoned the Hardys, telling them that Frank was on the bungalow porch.

Contact was made with the
Father Neptune.
The worried passengers cheered when they heard the news of the boys' release and the smugglers' capture. As the phantom freighter headed toward it, Professor Rossiter came on deck and joined the Hardys.

“You don't know what this means to me,” he said. “I had given up all hope for rescue. Now if I could only find my partner, Thaddeus McClintock, with whom I worked on the repeller before—”

“McClintock!” the boys interrupted in unison.

“Why, yes,” Rossiter replied. “Do you know him?”

“He's aboard the
Father Neptune!”
Frank said.

“I'm sure he thought I stole the plans. But now ...”

When the Hardys witnessed the happy reunion of McClintock and his partner they felt well rewarded for their work.

Mr. McClintock beamed. He had been planning to ask Frank and Joe to investigate Rossiter's strange disappearance when they returned from the freighter trip. It was the mystery he had talked about.

“But now that won't be necessary,” he said. “How would you like a new car instead? Or something else?”

Frank and Joe stopped him short. “Please, sir,” Frank said, “just being able to help round up this gang and have a trip is reward enough.”

When the excitement was over, and the
Father Neptune
with McClintock's party was steadily plowing southward, the Hardys began to wonder what their next adventure would be. They had no way of knowing then that sinister forces at work in Bayport would involve them in
The Secret of Skull Mountain.

Suddenly Chet, who had been listening to them, gave a tremendous sigh. “We've had enough mystery for a while,” he said. “Let's eatl”

“Nothing better than food, is there, Chet?” Joe quipped.

“There sure is.”

“What?” Biff Hooper asked.

“That new car Frank and Joe just turned down!” Chet replied.

Gales of laughter drifted out over the sea.