The Shore Road Mystery (9 page)

“I've had it,” Chet moaned softly. “Let's get out of here!”

Puzzled by the farmer's strange activity, they watched his tractor, still without lights, churn earth at a rise near the highway. After twenty minutes, the vehicle stopped. Birnham cut the motor, jumped down, and returned to his house. In a few moments the building was dark.

“What was that all about?” Chet asked. “Did Birnham know we were here and do that just to scare us?”

“If not, why this night work without lights?” said Frank.

Chet grimaced. “Nuttiest thing I've ever seen!”

Exhausted, the two boys took shifts for the remainder of the night. When nothing more had transpired by sunrise, they drove north and rejoined Joe and Biff.

They had had an uneventful night at Pembroke Road but were excited by Frank and Chet's adventure, and agreed that Birnham's actions were indeed suspicious.

Frank asked, “Did you pick up anything on the radio?”

“Nothing new,” Biff said.

He climbed into Chet's jalopy and they roared off. The brothers soon passed them on the motorcycles. The Hardys were just entering Bayport when report of a theft came over the police band.

“In Bridgewater!” Joe exclaimed. “That's not only the first theft someplace besides Shore Road, but the first time the thieves have failed! Apparently they were frightened off before they could get out of town.”

“So it was the car thieves who gassed Scratch and us,” said Frank. Another idea struck him. “Bridgewater's at the end of Pembroke Road, Joe—also, remember it's the postmark on that phony typed note from Jack!”

“Come on! Let's check on Slagel at the Excelsior!”

The Hardys cycled to the waterfront hotel, and Joe went in to inquire. When he emerged from the run-down doorway, his expression was not happy. “Slagel—or ‘James Wright'—checked out early this morning!”

The boys decided to sacrifice their treasure hunt for the day and check the hotels in Bridgewater for Slagel. First they stopped at a diner and had a quick breakfast. Afterward, they hurried to their motorcycles and started up. Just then a middle-aged man strode over to them.

“You're the Hardy boys, aren't you?” he demanded.

They nodded. “My car was stolen a week ago!” he shouted. “You and your father had a nerve giving bail money to car thieves and allowing them to escape! What are you doing to help? If my car is not recovered, I'll hold you personally responsible!” The man stormed away.

Frank was depressed. “This feeling in town worries me, Joe—not because of the ridicule or threats, but because so many people seem to be convinced that the Dodds are guilty.”

As the Hardys coasted to the corner, Joe groaned. Approaching them with a broad smirk was the dumpy figure of would-be detective Oscar Smuff.

“What ho, it's our two young sleuths!” he sang out flatly. “Any sign of your Dodd friends, the car thieves?”

Frank was too accustomed to Smuff's ways to be incensed. “We think the Dodds are innocent,” he responded.

“If you boys were smart,” Smuff went on, “you'd memorize features of all the stolen cars, like I do. I'm watching the streets.”

“For the Dodds too?” Joe asked.

Smuff nodded smugly. “Or accomplices. I think a woman is involved in the racket somewhere, and if my deductions are correct, she's got blond hair.”

He whipped out a note pad and glanced at a scribbled list. Then the “detective” looked up at a sedan stopping for a red light. Suddenly his eyes widened. “There's one of the stolen cars now!”

Frank recognized the blond woman driver as Chief Collig's wife and tried to restrain Smuff. But the self-appointed detective excitedly darted into the street and up to the sedan. Poking his head in the window, he started to accuse the woman loudly. She turned to face him indignantly.

The next moment Smuff stepped back, open-mouthed and flaming with embarrassment as he realized his mistake. By this time the light had changed and horns were blasting impatiently. Stuttering apologies, Smuff retreated rapidly, wiping his forehead. Mrs. Collig drove off and the deflated detective hastily returned to the sidewalk. He passed the grinning Hardys with a sheepish look and disappeared around a corner.

Still chuckling, Frank and Joe rode off. They passed the Birnham farm and turned down Pembroke Road on the way to Bridgewater.

“Everything seems to narrow down to this road—and now to Bridgewater,” Frank remarked. “And according to the map—some of Birnham's property touches Pembroke.”

As the brothers passed an open field, they noticed a man ahead leaning comfortably on a fence. He held a walking stick in one hand.

“Slagel!” Joe exclaimed.

“It's time we had a word with him!” Frank declared.

The Hardys rolled to a stop, hopped off, and hurried toward Slagel. He turned as if to walk away, but the boys confronted him.

“Mr. Wright—?” Frank began.

The broad-nosed, bald man wiped his sleeve across his face, drumming a cane on the fence. “What of it?” he drawled.

“We understand you worked for a Mr. Dodd—that is, when your name was Slagel.”

The man's lips tightened. “It's none of your business what I dol”

“Maybe not,” Frank said. “We just thought you might be able to give us a clue to where the Dodds might be.” He noticed Slagel's expression change to a supercilious smile.

“'Fraid I can't help you there,” said Slagel, leaning back. “Besides, why should I bother spendin' my time here with car-thief bailers. Any way, I'm doin' work for Birnham now.”

“Like stealing cars?” Joe interjected.

Slagel's face flushed. He leaned down and swung the end off his
cane. A long silver blade pointed at Joe's face!

“Beat it!” Slagel rasped viciously. “You're trespassin' on private propertyl”

More surprised than awed by the lethal sword, Joe looked at Frank. At his brother's signal, they walked back to their motorcycles. Slagel was still glaring lividly at them as they rode off in the direction of Bridgewater.

“At least we shook him up a bit.” Frank smiled. “Even if we can't find out where he's staying, we know for sure he's in league with Birnham—and not just for farm work. That sword cane didn't look very innocent.”

“But good for puncturing tires!” Joe added, remembering the flats reported on some cars near the stolen ones.

In Bridgewater the brothers stopped at a drugstore, had lunch, then purchased a town map which also had a list of the hotels in the immediate area. They were fewer in number than those in Bayport. The Hardys checked all but two in an hour. At this point, they entered one at the east end of town. The desk clerk immediately recognized Slagel's picture.

“Yes, he checked in today. Name of Wright. He just dropped his things off, then asked directions to the telegraph office.”

Frank and Joe headed for the office a block away. Inside, a woman behind a typewriter affirmed the fact that a Slagel had sent a message out, though she was not permitted to divulge its contents.

As the boys walked away, Frank said, “Joe, sometimes when a person sends a telegram, he makes a draft of it first.” He saw a wastebasket beneath a writing counter and hurried over. It took him only a second to find a torn piece of yellow paper with Slagel's name at the bottom. When he found the second half, the boys left the office excitedly. Outside, they pieced the halves together and read the message:

The message was addressed to Carlton Melliman in New York City.

“Carlton Melliman-C. M.,” Joe mused. “Frank! He must be our mysterious visitor who wouldn't give his name. And the ‘8-cylinder' busi. ness—that cinches Slagel's connection with the Shore Road gang!”

Frank nodded. “It fits. I wonder how Melliman figures in. ‘Two friends' might refer to Mr. Dodd and Jack, which gives us only a week before—We're going to have to work fast!”

“If we only knew what this ‘shipment' is and where it's going,” Joe murmured.

The Hardys stopped at an outside phone booth and Frank dialed his home. Mrs. Hardy answered. “I'm glad you called,” she said. “Your father phoned a little while ago, and gave me a list of things for you boys to look up in his file—information to help him on his case. He's going to call back tonight at ten for your data.”

“We're on our way,” Frank assured her.

When they reached home, the brothers washed and changed, then started work. Among the items their father had requested were the first dates of manufacture of various foreign weapons and ammunition, as well as serial numbers for certain guns made abroad.

The job took most of the afternoon. The boys had almost finished when Frank exclaimed, “Joel Remember? The grenade and those machine-gun bullets were of foreign make.”

“Sure enough! You think they have a connection with Dad's arms-smuggling case?”

“Possibly, since we're pretty sure they were used by thieves.”

After supper Frank and Joe handed Mrs. Hardy the data they had compiled and asked her to relay it to their father. “We'll get back to our case now, Mother,” Joe explained. “Please give Dad our regards.”

The boys had decided to cycle along Pembroke Road. Seeing nothing suspicious, they returned to Shore Road. As they approached the intersection, the sun was setting. There was no traffic.

“Let's cruise south,” Frank proposed.

“Right.”

The young sleuths turned onto Shore Road, with Joe in the lead. Some distance along they had reached a section of the road with a sheer drop to the left and a steep rocky formation on their right, when Joe happened to glance back out to sea. He gave a start, then beckoned Frank to turn around. When they were facing north, Joe pointed toward a high shadowed rock cliff that dropped to the ocean.

The boys rode forward to get a closer look. A turn in the road made them lose sight of the figure. When their view was unobstructed, the spidery form had vanished! They watched the rock cliff a few minutes but saw nothing in the twilight.

“I'll bet that was the spider Scratch told us about,” Joe declared.

“He looked half human, half spider,” Frank remarked. “I'd sure like to know where he went. Well, let's go. It'll be dark soon.”

Frank turned around and went ahead, increasing speed, and snapped on his head lamp. Presently he noticed a slight glitter over the center of the highway. As the reflection grew nearer, alarm coursed through his body.

It was too late to stop. Frank ducked and closed his eyes, yelling as loudly as he could at the same time.
“Joe, look out!”

FRANK swerved to safety an instant before his brother's motorcycle crashed into the glistening wire. Joe flew into the air, as his vehicle twisted and smashed into a tree to which the net was tied.

“Joel” cried Frank, leaping off his cycle and running to the still form in the roadway. Joe lay unconscious, blood oozing from his head.

Both of Joe's legs were badly bruised, and Frank feared he might have suffered a concussion. Frantically Frank waved down an oncoming car. The driver offered to take Joe to Bayport Hospital. Frank followed on his motorcycle. Joe's motorcycle lay in a tangled heap of gray steel and chrome.

An hour later Frank, Mrs. Hardy, and Aunt Gertrude stood at Joe's bedside in the hospital. A physician watched Joe as he mumbled, moving his head slightly.

“He has had a nasty shock, but he should be coming out of it soon,” he reassured the others before stepping quietly from the room. “Just see that Joe gets plenty of rest in the next few days.”

After spending the night at the hospital, Joe was moved home. He had a slight limp and wore a large bandage on his head.

“How do you feel, partner?” Frank asked, as Joe rested on the living-room couch.

“A little weak.” He grinned. “But still in one piece. Who put up that wire?”

“I wish I knew, Joe, but my guess is it was the work of the car thieves. They had the wire netting ready to string across the road.”

“Was there another theft?” Joe asked.

“Yes. This time they copped one from the Ely estate during a dinner party.”

“The Ely estate! Why, that place is walled in like a fortress!”

“Right. Those thieves are bold, all right. Joe, that barrier across the road reminds me of the nylon net Callie was trapped in underwater. I have a hunch one of the thieves is a skin diver.”

Joe whistled, then grinned. “You don't think the thieves hide the stolen cars under water!”

Frank laughed. “It would be a good place! Maybe that spider-man owns an underwater garage!”

At that moment Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude came into the room, dressed to go shopping.

“Joe, promise me you'll rest,” his mother said, her face much brighter than it had been the night before.

“Except for this limp,” he said, smiling, “I feel as if I could run ten laps!”