The Shore Road Mystery (10 page)

“Don't you dare, Joe Hardy!” Aunt Gertrude scolded.

The two women had been gone half an hour when the boys heard the front door open and a familiar voice call, “Hellol Where is Joe?”

“Dad!”

Fenton Hardy strode with concern into the living room, his face relaxing when he saw Joe sitting up. After shaking hands warmly with his sons, he asked, “You all right, Joe? Mother phoned me about your accident.”

“I'm okay, Dad.” Joe grinned.

The brothers briefed their father on what had happened to date in the mystery. When they mentioned liquid gas, the foreign grenade, and machine-gun bullets, he started to say something, then changed his mind.

“I have some hunches. If I'm right—” He stopped. “It's my opinion you're up against a highly professional operation. Promise me you'll be careful, for the Dodds' sake as well as yours.”

“How about your own case, Dad?” Frank asked.

“I'll be doing some risky undercover work in the next day or so. Sorry I can't tell you about it now, but you can reach me at the usual New York address. Meanwhile, you boys use the family car. I understand your motorcycle, Joe, is a wreck.”

Frank drove his father to the airport and came home for a light salad lunch. Mrs. Hardy apologized for the wilted lettuce. “Apparently a different farmer is supplying stores in town since the Dodds' disappearance.”

Later, Joe persuaded his mother to let the boys go out in the
Sleuth,
promising he would be quiet. At the Prito boathouse they noticed that Tony's boat was not in dock.

“If we can find Tony, he may have some leads on that strange fisherman in the black boat,” Frank said, and drove on to the Hardy boathouse.

“I'll take the wheel,” Joe volunteered. “That won't hurt my legs.”

The
Sleuth's
powerful engine droned smoothly as they cruised south to Willow Beach. Then they turned back across Barmet Bay and north.

Just past Beacon Point the boys caught sight of the
Napoli.
Waving to Tony, they drew alongside.

“Wow! What did Iola do to you?” Tony asked, looking at the bandage on Joe's head.

“Somebody handed me a line,” Joe quipped, as Frank laughed. The Hardys told Tony of the accident. He asked several questions but seemed eager to tell them something himself.

“Would you guys believe me if I told you I saw a—a huge spider—out here last night?”

Tony described a black form scampering into a crevice in a rock cliff farther up the coast.

Frank started. “We saw one too. Where exactly did
you
see the spider?”

Tony paused in thought. “On a cliff just south of that big seaside estate.”

“The Ely estate!” Joe exclaimed excitedly. “Frank, it was on that same cliff that we saw the spider-man!”

The Hardys mentioned the theft which had taken place at the estate the previous night and wondered what relation the “spider” could have to it.

“That's not all,” Tony continued. “I've been watching our fisherman friend—the one you told me about. Apparently he does some of his fishing at night. Sometimes he has one lamp on his boat, other times two. He keeps on the move up and down the coast.”

“Is he fishing?” Frank asked.

“I guess so, or else trolling. I didn't want him to catch on that I was watching and kept the
Napoli
at some distance.”

In the
Sleuth
the Hardys followed the
Napoli
north along the coast to the place where Tony had seen the “spider.” The ocean washed at the foot of a high rock cliff, atop which the Ely estate could be seen. The boys glided beneath an overhanging ledge.

“It'd take a skilled climber to scale that and steal a car,” Frank remarked, training his field glasses up the sheer wall.

Joe, meanwhile, noticed a gossamer-like pattern in the water. “Look, fellows!”

The three boys stared at the ghostly, weblike rope floating in the waves. With a pole, Frank pulled it aboard.

“It's rope netting, probably for climbing!” Frank exclaimed. “I have a hunch our spider-man is an accomplished climber—”

“And car thief!” Joe finished. “He could easily —at dusk—look like a spider.”

“But still,” Tony put in, “that can't account for the daylight thefts. Anybody swimming in or climbing a precipice like this would be seen.”

Tony said he had also discovered that the fisherman moored at a small inlet to the north along the coast. The
Napoli
and the
Sleuth
sped to the area.

A makeshift dock extended from a narrow crescent of sand at the base of a high bluff with a “No Trespassing” sign nailed to it. Several buoys dotted the water out from the shore.

As Frank gazed at the peaceful scene, he wondered : Could stolen cars be shipped out by sea from this beach? The possibility seemed unlikely. Not only was the water cluttered with buoys, but the only grassy slope leading down to the beach was too steep for cars to descend.

The two boats ran farther up the coast. Frank gazed at the shore through binoculars. Seeing nothing suspicious, they turned back.

They were passing along the fisherman's secluded beach when Joe's hands tensed on the wheel at an eerie sound. Something had scraped against the
Sleuth's
bottom!

“I'm going overboard to take a look!” Frank said. He stripped to his shorts, kicked off his shoes, and dived in.

The scraping sound had stopped by the time Frank was under water and he found no sign of any rocks beneath the craft. Another thought occurred to him. Had somebody intended to sabotage the
Sleuth
as he had Jack's boat? Frank could find no evidence of this on the bottom of the
Sleuth.

Climbing back into the boat, he reported this fact, then suggested they move along the coast for more sleuthing.

As they left the area, Frank watched the coast through binoculars. Suddenly he said, “Joe! Slow down! I want to get a better look at the top of that bluff!”

Through the two eyepieces, he could see a lone figure peering, through similar glasses, at the boys. As the man removed his binoculars before disappearing into the brush, Frank's recognition was instant.

Carlton Melliman!

“MELLIMAN!” Joe exclaimed.

The boys told Tony of their visit from the unctuous New York businessman.

“I wish we could trail him,” said Frank. “But we'd never catch him.”

“On whose property is that bluff?” Tony asked.

Joe referred to a map. “According to this, that beach is part of Birnham's property! He owns land on both sides of Shore Road.”

As Frank headed back to the Bayport dock area, he said, “Slagel, Birnham, a spider-man, and now Melliman—they're like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. But I think we're at least fitting some of them into place.”

Back in their crime lab, the brothers discussed the latest leads in the mystery.

“We must find out where the shipment mentioned in the telegram is to take place,” Frank declared. “It must be a load of stolen cars.”

Joe suggested the possibility of the cars being moved out of the Bayport area by truck.

“I'm thinking of Birnham's covered produce job that blocked us. It's big enough to carry two cars at a time.”

Suddenly an idea came to Frank. “When Chet and I had that narrow squeak with Birnham's tractor I noticed a truck—maybe Birnham's—heading south on Shore Road past us.”

“Let's call Chief Collig and suggest his patrols take a look inside the truck.”

“Good idea.”

The Bayport chief proved reluctant at first to conduct the search, largely because the farmer himself had been the first victim of the automobile thieves. But at length he promised to do so.

Collig mentioned that the police, too, were being flooded by letters of protest over the continuing thefts. Another car had been stolen—and recovered—in Bridgewater that morning.

“Jack Dodd's identification bracelet was found under the front seat,” he added.

“Planted, of course,” said Joe. “The poor guy.”

“We're inclined to agree,” Collig said. “We're running twenty-four-hour patrols, and, with the Bridgewater department, several roadblocks. I hope we'll have some word on your friends or their uncle soon.”

But when the chief called after receiving reports from his men, the result was a disappointment to the boys. The Birnham truck, returning from Bayport to the farm, had been halted but only empty crates had been found inside.

By suppertime Joe said he was completely recovered and suggested that they watch Pembroke Road that night.

“Joe,” said Frank, “remember your idea about the gang's decoy tactics? We may be up against the same trick at Pembroke. The postmark on that last note, tire marks near Pembroke, maybe even Slagel's moving to Bridgewater—it's just too pat. A couple of those thefts could be phonies to draw the police and us away from Shore Road!”

Joe agreed, and they decided to watch only the farm that night. The boys wired their father in code about the net and Melliman, then changed into fresh sport clothes and telephoned Chet they wanted him along. They picked him up in Mr. Hardy's car, and stationed themselves beyond a rise in the road. From there they had a better view of the dirt lane leading to Birnham's farm.

Shortly after midnight, it began to rain, and the boys shivered under wet ponchos for four hours. Finally, having spotted nothing suspicious, they returned to the car and drove back toward Bayport. Chet looked longingly at an open frankfurter stand as they passed it.

“How's the diet?” Joe asked. “You've lost weight. But it'll be a phenomenon when one Chester Morton loses his appetitel”

“My spirits, not my appetite are dampened,” Chet chattered, as he huddled in the back seat with a large box of raisins. “Do you th-think Birnham, Slagel and Company are 1-laying 1-low for a wh-while?”

“Could be,” Frank said. “They may have found out we weren't at Pembroke Road tonight. Not knowing where we were, they decided to play safe.”

The sun had not yet risen as they passed the vacant Dodd farmhouse silhouetted ominously against the dawn sky.

“Frank, somebody's inside the house! I just saw a light flicker in an upstairs window!”

Applying the brakes, Frank reversed direction and drove as silently as possible down the farm road. Chet seemed disposed to stay locked inside the car but finally accompanied the others quietly around to the backyard. Above the shadowed screen porch, a slight glow was visible in Jack's second-floor bedroom.

The back door was locked. Joe tried a window. “It's open!” he whispered. He noticed Chet trembling. The stout youth swallowed.

“I'm n-not scared. Just c-cold!”

Joe preceded the others through the window, where they paused and listened. They heard the faint thump of footsteps overhead.

“Careful!” Frank whispered.

Tiptoeing, he led the way through the kitchen. They had just reached the foot of the stairs when Chet sneezed. Both Hardys winced as the raucous sound echoed through the house. The footsteps above stopped for a moment, then resumed at a rapid pace. Soon they ceased altogether. There was only silence.

Flushing and gesturing apologetically, Chet followed the brothers hurriedly up the stairs into the darkness of the hallway. Motioning Joe to guard the stairway, Frank played his flashlight into Jack Dodd's abandoned room. When the beam touched a half-open drawer, he flipped on the wall switch.

The room was empty. Frank crept down the carpeted hall, searching one by one three other rooms before returning with a shrug to the others.

Chet, his face pale with fear, was the first to break the silence. “N-nobody here. Let's go!” He started for the stairs but was beckoned back.

While Frank beamed his flashlight down the stairs to spot anyone coming up, Joe and Chet looked around Jack's room. Except for the open drawer, there seemed to be no disorder. Joe was about to open the closet door when Frank called out in a loud voice:

“I guess nobody's up here. Let's head back to the
vein of gold.”

Sensing his brother's strategy of flushing out anyone inside the closet, Joe led Chet to the hall. Turning off the lights, the three boys walked downstairs. They had just turned toward the kitchen when a deep voice came from the top of the steps.

“Excuse me, are you the Hardy boys?”

Both brothers' flashlight beams revealed a mustached man dressed in slacks and a navy-blue hooded sweater.

Joe, starting cautiously up, answered, “Yes. Are you—”

“Martin Dodd.” The man smiled. Turning on the lights, he came down and shook hands cordially with each of the boys. “I'm sorry about the cloak-and-dagger game, but I had to be careful.”

There was no doubt but that the tall, middle-aged man was the professor whose picture they had seen. He led them to a small den in the rear of the house.

“When I got word of my brother's and nephew's arrests, I knew somebody had plotted against them. I could have gone to the police but thought I might be able to find them by working undercover. And also,” he added, “because a private mystery is involved. Moreover, I didn't want any publicity because of my position at the college.”

“Then it
was
you who left the Pilgrim clue at our house!” Frank said.

“That's right. I hoped to get your father's help, but finding he was away, I decided to leave you the clue in the hope that—separately—you two or I might hit upon its solution. I couldn't chance your giving me away to the police.”