The boy wheeled around. Frank was pointing across the meadows on the opposite side of the road.
"What"s the matter? I can"t see anything-----"
"Wait! Look! Now-now don"t you see it?"
Joe saw a flashing gleam of light. It broke out for an instant, flickered out, shone again.
"A flickering torch!" he exclaimed.
CHAPTER IV.
BKOKEN GLa.s.s.
the Hardy boys remembered that their father had told them to be on the lookout for a flickering torch-the only clue he had uncovered so far in the mystery of the stolen government supplies!
Excitedly, they gazed into the gloom. They saw the light once again. It flickered for a moment, then disappeared.
"We"d better look into this!" Joe said, starting off.
"It"s a long walk. That light may be a mile away.""
"We"ll ride. Let"s go back and get the horses.""
They hurried to the Trumper barn, saddled the horses, and set out again. When they reached the spot from which they had seen the mysterious light, they set out across the field.
At the end of it they found a road which led toward the flickering torch. The path suddenly turned, the moon hid behind a cloud, and the boy were in darkness.
"We"ve lost the torch," said Frank in disgust.
"I see it!" cried Joe suddenly. Beyond a turn in the road ahead, a yellow gleam of light shone through the trees.
They urged their horses forward. The light gleamed again and again. But when the boys clattered around the bend in the road, the mystery was a mystery no longer.
They came upon a stretch of highway under construction. Several smudge pots stood on the newly-paved section of the road. They flickered fitfully in the darkness.
"Well," muttered Joe, disappointed, "that"s that. We came all this distance for nothing."
Frank was looking down at the smudge pots. "The first light we saw wasn"t made by one of these, I"m sure," he said. "These are flickering, but they"re not moving. That first light was higher from the ground, and it moved."
"As if someone waved it in the air?"
"Right. And it was a long, narrow light. These flames are round and squatty."
"Think we ought to ride on a little farthert" Joe asked.
"Now that we"re here, we may as well."
The boys rode past the smudge pots onto the rough right-of-way of the highway under construction. They followed it until they came to a dirt road. This led directly to the cliffs overlooking Barmet Bay.
"I think that light was over there," said Frank, so they turned the horses in that direction.
Reaching the cliffs, they reined in. Far below 36 they could hear the waves crashing against the rocky base of the embankment. Off down the bay they could see the twinkling lights of Bayport.
"End of the trail," said Frank, "and not a sign of a torchbearer. I guess we may as well go back."
They made good tune back to the paved road. Although they kept a sharp lookout, they saw no further sign of the nickering light. When they came in front of the Grable greenhouses, Frank reined in his horse.
"No sign of anyone over there," he remarked. "What do you say we walk across the field and look around?"
Joe swung out of the saddle. "That"s what we started out to do this evening. Let"s go."
he urged.
The brothers tied their horses out of sight and scrambled over a fence and through a field. Cautiously they skirted the scientist"s cottage and made their way toward the silkworm enclosures. The moon came from behind a cloud and shone eerily on the slanting gla.s.s roofs. It was well after eleven o"clock. Mr. Grable"s home was in darkness.
They proceeded slowly when they came to a fence near one of the greenhouses. They slipped through it like shadows. Silently they picked their way forward. Suddenly Frank stopped, grasped his brother"s arm.
"Listen!"
37 They halted, motionless. In the distance they could hear the rattle of a latch, the creak of hinges. From the direction of the Grable cottage they saw a flash of light. Someone had opened a door. The door closed, the light vanished.
Then the boys heard footsteps. Someone was coming from the cottage, stealthily approaching the greenhouses.
The brothers moved back into the deep shadows of a tree. In the dim light they saw a figure cross the road.
Then a brilliant beam of light stabbed the darkness. The man who had left the cottage had switched on a flashlight. Had it been directed a few yards to one side the Hardy boys would have been full in its glare. As it was, the probing beam missed them. The man came nearer-so close, that they could recognize him in the moonlight.
Archibald Jenkins I He walked very quietly. They saw the beam of his flashlight pick out the doorway of one of the large greenhouses. But the man pa.s.sed it, and went around the side of the building.
Frank moved quietly after him. Joe followed. They looked around the corner of the building and saw the flashlight some distance ahead. On tiptoe, the Hardy boys went on in pursuit.
"Do you suppose he"s only making a tour of inspection?" whispered Joe.
38 There was something about the man"s stealthy manner that aroused their distrust. Was it possible that this trusted employee, Asa Grable"s right-hand man, was at the bottom of the whole affair?
The flashlight went out. They caught a glimpse of the shadowy figure at the far end of the greenhouse. Then it disappeared----- Crash! Crash!
The noise of shattering gla.s.s broke the stillness. In the quiet night it sounded very loud.
To the Hardy boys it seemed as if part of the greenhouse might have caved in.
Someone came racing around the far corner of the greenhouse, heading straight toward them. Frank and Joe flattened themselves against the side of the building. They hoped they would not be noticed, but could see whoever was fleeing from the scene of the accident.
Archibald Jenkins whizzed past them. They could hear his heavy breathing. He was so close to the boys that they could have reached out and touched him. Obviously, he had not seen them. He scurried around the front of the greenhouse and ran toward the cottage.
"Maybe he"s going to phone the police," whispered Joe.
"And maybe he"s in cahoots with the thief and he"s clearing out before that crash brings everyone on the place."
They saw him open the cottage door, and waited to see if anyone on the place had been 39 aroused. Not a person put in an appearance.
Then the boys hurried down the path beside the greenhouse, in the direction from which Archibald Jenkins had come. There, at the back, they saw that several panes of gla.s.s were missing.
"They fell inside, that"s why no one else heard the crash,"" said Joe.
Leaning against the side of the building, with its top end against the broken framework, was a ladder. Frank did not waste time wondering how it got there. If Archibald Jenkins, who had keys to the greenhouses, chose this strange method of gaining entrance to the place, the boy wanted to know the reason why. But, on the other hand, the man had had no ladder when he first pa.s.sed the brothers a short time before. Frank swung his flashlight inside. He could see no one.
"Come on, Joe!" he said urgently. "Let"s get inside this place and look around."
He extinguished the flash, and by the light of the moon climbed up swiftly. At the top he swung himself over and dropped through the opening. The distance was only a few feet and he landed in soft earth. A moment later Joe swung down from the ladder, and dropped beside him.
"It was easier getting into this place than it"s going to be getting out of it," Joe whispered as he struck the ground.
The greenhouse was dark. The moon had 40 gone behind a cloud again. Frank was about to turn on his flashlight, when something like a gloved hand brushed against his face.
Startled, Frank leaped to one side. The ground seemed to give way beneath his feet.
He felt himself falling, and uttered a cry of alarm. The flashlight flew from his hands. He reached out frantically, trying to regain his balance. He missed, and pitched headlong into the darkness.
CHAPTER V "boots".
Fortunately, it was only a short drop. Frank landed heavily in soft earth. He lay there a moment, half-stunned.
He heard Joe calling anxiously, "What happened? Where are you? My flash won"t work."
Frank"s breath had been knocked from him by the fall, but he finally gasped, "I"m all right."
He managed to get to his knees. His groping hands encountered a flight of steps. Then he realized that he had tumbled down the entrance to a cellar. He was bruised and shaken, but otherwise unhurt.
"Don"t move, Joe," he warned his brother. "I fell into a hole."
His searching fingers encountered a metallic object. It was the lost flashlight. Frank snapped it on, got to his feet, and made his way up the steps.
"You might have broken your neck!" said Joe, greatly relieved at finding his brother safe.
"Whoever left that trap door to the cellar open------"
Again Frank felt something soft brush past his face. But this time he gave a low chuckle.
"A friendly moth!" he said. "What a difference in one"s imagination when a light is on!"
Joe suddenly remembered the broken panes of gla.s.s. "Mr. Grable"s valuable moths will escape through that hole in the roof!" he said.
"We"ll have to do something about it," replied Frank. "If there"s any way we can block that opening------"
The beam of the flashlight fell on a big brown object on the floor. It was a cardboard box.
Joe pounced on it.
"This will do the trick." He broke open the carton and tore off a section large enough to cover the spot where the gla.s.s had been broken. The boys fitted it into the framework, until the aperture was blocked entirely.
"I suppose that by this time any burglar who might have been in here is gone," remarked Frank thoughtfully.
"Just the same, we ought to look around," said Joe. "That cellarway you fell into, for instance------"
The brothers searched the entire place thoroughly, with the exception of locked closets, but found no clues to an intruder. Finally they made their way toward one of the outer doors.
Frank snapped off his flashlight.
"I hope we don"t walk into the arms of Jenkins !"" said Joe.
They paused by the door, peered out into the 43 yard. There was no sign of anyone. Mr. Grable"s cottage was in darkness.
"The coast seems clear," Frank whispered, carefully opening the door.
Br-r-r-ringgggg!
With startling suddenness, the bra.s.sy clamor of an alarm bell shattered the night silence. It broke out so abruptly that the boys jumped.
"The burglar alarm!" gasped Joe. He plunged across the threshold after Frank and slammed the door.
They had hoped the closing of the door would stop the noise, but the bell rang steadily. It created a fiendish uproar, its clang echoing from all corners of the property.
"The quicker we get away from here, the better for us," Frank cried.
They heard a yell from somewhere off in a field, then the thud of running footsteps.
"Workmen from one of the cottages, no doubt. The Hardy boys did not look back. They reached the fence, flung themselves over it, and ran to the road. They heard the clatter of the alarm bell finally die away.
"I wish there were some way to tell Mr. Grable we"re responsible," said Frank, as they reached the horses.
"We might telephone," offered Joe, and this was what they did as soon as they reached Mrs. Trumper"s.
Jenkins answered the call, and seemed unwilling to summon his employer. He finally 44 did, however. It took a full minute for Frank, speaking in a disguised voice, to make the elderly scientist understand.
"Oh, thank you, thank you," he said at last. "Everything is all right here."