"Have you had any word from Lenny?" Frank asked Mrs. Stryker.
The woman shook her head, remarking that she had heard from no one.
"These racketeers have things fixed so he can"t let me know where he is," she said sadly. Then she added with vigor, "I thought you boys and your father were going to work on his case for me. But I ain"t heard a thing from you."
Frank and Joe told her about the kidnaping of the young intern, and how he had been forced to take care of a gunshot wound in the leg of one of the members of the gang. Mrs.
Stryker twisted her fingers nervously until they had finished.
"It was just like they did to the other doctor, wasn"t it?" she cried out at last. "Oh, I"m sure he was taking care of my Lenny."
"We"re sure too," said Frank, "and I have a hunch Lenny"ll soon be coming home to you."
"You have?" Mrs. Stryker asked eagerly. "Oh, you must know something you"re not telling me!"
The Hardy boys had to admit that they really were no closer to the solution of the mystery, but they were hopeful that certain clues they were gathering would lead them to the gang.
"But don"t let the police get my son!" Mrs. Stryker 120 pleaded. "He"s a good boy and he"s honest. He mustn"t go to jail."
"We"ll do everything we can," Joe promised her.
After Mrs. Stryker left, the boys went into conference. Aunt Gertrude insisted upon being present, and advised her nephews that the police should take care of lawbreakers, not they.
"Lenny Stryker probably did some shooting himself!" she declared.
"We certainly shan"t let anybody who should be in jail go free," Frank a.s.sured his relative.
The telephone rang, and Joe hurried into the hall to answer it. The caller was his father.
The detective listened intently as his son related the day"s happenings. He then warned Joe to be very careful, saying they probably were on the trail of some desperate men.
"Pa.s.s that along to Frank," he ordered. "And tell him there is no more dangerous or cruel fighter than a cornered criminal. Now I"ll tell you my plans."
He explained that there were only two museums within a radius of a few miles of Bayport which had not been broken into by the mysterious thieves, who apparently could enter buildings without the use of a skeleton key.
"I have good reason to believe the men are very daring, and will attempt to rob these museums, even though they must know by this time that the places will be guarded. I can"t give you the details over the telephone of what I plan to do," he went on, 121 cause the wires may be tapped. But I shall not be home tonight. Tell Mother not to worry.
See you all in the morning."
Joe repeated the conversation to his brother. They felt certain their father was going to lie in wait inside one of the museums in order to trap the thieves. Often his procedure in nabbing criminals was to allow them to commit their crimes first. This time, no doubt, Mr.
Hardy hoped to discover how the thieves got into the museums without a key or any other device known to the ordinary burglar.
The boys were still discussing their father"s telephone call when Mrs. Hardy came home, and they gave her his message. Aunt Gertrude had dinner ready, and as usual she insisted they all sit down at once to eat it.
"An old friend of yours is coming over this evening, Laura," she announced presently.
"Joe, don"t take so much gravy. It isn"t good for you."
"Who"s coming?" asked Mrs. Hardy.
"Frank, eat more slowly," Aunt Gertrude ordered. "Laura, these boys certainly are going to ruin their digestion if they stuff themselves like this."
"But, Aunty," said Frank, "we"ve just started to eat."
"That makes no difference. I know by the way you two are starting out you plan to eat enough for four people. Oh, yes," she added, "Martha Johnson is coming to call."
"I"m so glad," said Mrs. Hardy. Then, turning to 122 her sons, she explained that Miss Johnson was a school friend of hers. "She became a nurse and took care of you, Joe, when you were a baby. I haven"t seen her since."
Aunt Gertrude said Miss Johnson was on a little vacation in Bayport, and had telephoned to see if the Hardys were at home. The boys" mother could hardly wait for her old friend to come. At last the woman arrived.
"Well, well," she said, looking at Joe. "To think you once were the little baby I took care of!"
The Hardy boy blushed. He stammered something about everybody growing up, and the nurse laughed. The boys talked with Miss Johnson for a while, and then excused themselves.
After they had gone out, the three women settled themselves in the living room for a long talk. Presently the conversation became so animated and full of laughter that they failed to hear the front door open softly and a stealthy figure tiptoe in. The man who entered listened to them for several moments. Then a cunning gleam came into his eyes.
"Perfect!" he told himself. "The dame in there is a nurse, eh? That solves our problem just fine. She can take care of Lenny, and if the cops get too hot on our trail the rest of us can vamoose."
The intruder moved on to Mr. Hardy"s den. Reaching it, he went directly to the detective"s desk and tried to open the drawers. They were tightly locked. The burglar knew that if he attempted to break the desk open the women would hear him, so he turned to a filing cabinet which was not locked.
One by one, he noiselessly opened the drawers. Suddenly his eyes lighted up as he came upon a marked folder. Quickly he removed the papers from it and put them into his pocket.
At the same moment he heard Aunt Gertrude say in a loud voice, "Well, how about a gla.s.s of lemonade, Martha? I"ll go fix some."
The intruder froze to the spot. He knew the woman would pa.s.s the den. She would see him!
Like lightning the mysterious figure tiptoed across the room and opened a window screen. He dropped lightly to the ground, hiding in the shadows of some tall bushes.
CHAPTER XV.
A Disturbing Report.
frank and Joe stayed away from the house until they were sure Miss Johnson, the nurse, had left. Then they started for home.
"No more baby stuff!" Joe grinned.
"I"m so full of ice cream I could burst," Frank said with a sigh.
Joe thumped his stomach. "I feel like Chet Morton looks. If-Oh!"
From down the street a woman"s scream pierced the air. Frank and Joe galloped toward the spot. A moment later they heard a car speed away.
"What do you think that was?" Frank asked.
Joe shook his head. "I sure can"t figure it out. Hope n.o.body"s in trouble."
There was no evidence to indicate that anything was wrong in the neighborhood, so the boys turned into their own walk and entered the house. They had just reached the hall when there came a shriek from their father"s den.
"Aunt Gertrude!" shouted Frank, and dashed forward.
He and Joe expected to see their relative prostrate, the victim of some kind of attack.
But they found her standing in the center of the floor, unharmed.
"What"s the matter?" Frank asked her.
His aunt seemed speechless. She merely held up a key case and dangled it before her nephews" eyes. Finally she was able to stammer: "They were on this table!"
Frank and Joe looked at the table blankly, then back at their aunt. Their questioning gaze brought a sharp retort from Miss Hardy.
"Don"t you understand these are my keys, my stolen keys? How did they get here?"
The brothers suddenly understood what Miss Hardy was trying to say. "Those are the keys you thought you"d lost?" Joe asked.
Aunt Gertrude glared at the boy. "I never thought I lost them. I told you that before. What"s the matter with your memory? Those keys were stolen from me on the bus."
"Oh!" chorused her two nephews.
The boys had been quite sure Aunt Gertrude had been wrong all along; that in some way she had misplaced her key case or had lost it. Now they could see that they were mistaken.
"Well, say something!" their aunt demanded. "You claim to be detectives. How did How did these keys get here?"
126 Frank and Joe admitted they did not have the slightest idea, but on a hunch Frank went to his father"s desk. It was locked.
"The filing cabinet!" cried Joe, understanding.
The brothers had jumped to the same conclusion. A burglar!
Together the boys pulled out drawer after drawer. Although not familiar with everything in the cabinet, they immediately noticed that the sheaf of papers containing fingerprint records of the museum thieves was gone. They had seen their father put away the data in that very drawer.
"They"re gone!" cried Frank. "We"ve been robbed!"
"Now you boys are using your heads," stated Aunt Gertrude. "I could have told you all along that a burglar stole my keys on the bus, and used them to get into this house."
She went on to scold her nephews for not having been at home to nab the mysterious stranger, but they hardly paid attention to her words. Slowly an idea was evolving in their minds.
"Well, who was it?" Aunt Gertrude demanded, bringing them out of their daydreaming.
"Mike Matton," said Frank suddenly.
At once his relative demanded an explanation. Her nephew told her how Ben Whittaker"s a.s.sistant had been tampering with their back-door lock a few days before.
"Matton said he was changing the lock, but we 127 think he was trying to get in," Frank said. "Since he didn"t succeed, maybe he stole your keys and used them here tonight."
"So you admit they were stolen?" Aunt Gertrude said, eying her nephews triumphantly.
The boys had to admit this probably was the case. They wormed the information out of her that she had told the woman next to her on the bus she was Fenton Hardy"s sister.
Suddenly Joe had an idea. "I wonder if that woman"s scream had anything to do with the fellow who was in here," he said.
"You mean when he left the house he frightened her?" his brother asked.
Joe dashed to the window. The screen was dangling loose. "The crook went out this way," the boy reported. "When he ran from the side of the house, he probably scared some pa.s.ser-by."
Frank turned to his aunt. "When did Miss Johnson leave here?" he cried quickly.
"A few minutes ago. Why?" Then she added, "What has that got to do with the stolen keys?"
"Didn"t you hear a scream outside?"
"No."
Frank told her about the mysterious cry they had heard. Aunt Gertrude had not noticed it, because a moment after the nurse had left Mrs. Hardy had turned on the radio. The boys"
mother herself now appeared in the doorway. She had not heard the scream outside nor Aunt Gertrude"s shriek in the 128 house. When she was told the whole story, Mrs. Hardy became quite concerned.
"That fellow must have sneaked right past us," she said with a slight shiver. "Oh, it frightens me to think of a thief being in the house."
"It"s positively wicked," stated Aunt Gertrude. "If I had seen that fellow I would have------"
What Aunt Gertrude might have done never became known, for Frank interrupted her, asking excitedly, "Where does Miss Johnson live?"
"She"s staying at Mrs. Brown"s Guest House."
Learning that it was not far away, and that Miss Johnson had said she was going directly home, Frank requested his mother to telephone the place at once to see if the nurse had returned. Mrs. Brown, who answered the call, said her guest had not come back yet.
"When she does, will you please ask her to telephone Mrs. Hardy?" the boys" mother requested.
An hour went by, but no call came. The boys, uneasy, telephoned again. Still Miss Johnson had not returned. Frank and Joe had hoped not to worry their mother with an idea they had, but she wormed the information out of them. They were afraid Miss Johnson had been kidnaped by the thief in order to take care of Lenny Stryker!
In the morning they telephoned again to Mrs. Brown"s Guest House. The nurse had not come back.
"Oh, dear, this is dreadful!" cried Mrs. Hardy.
129 "I"m sure your theory is right, boys. No telling what has happened to Martha. What can we do?"
Her sons could think of nothing at the moment, but by the time breakfast was over they had formulated a plan of action. They would investigate thoroughly the section of Bayport which they had looked over casually the night before last. Perhaps daylight would reveal some clue to the gang"s hide-out.
"I think we ought to go down and talk to Ben Whittaker too," said Frank. "He may have heard from Mike Matton."
"Or perhaps the police can tell us something," Joe suggested.