"Perhaps he's at home now. We'll mention it to him."
But when they returned home for lunch they found that Fenton Hardy had not come back. Neither was he at home when school closed for the day; and when the Hardy boys went to bed that night there had not been the slightest word from their father nor any indication of where he had gone. In spite of the fact that they were accustomed to these sudden absences, the lads felt vaguely uneasy.
"I don't know why," said Frank next morning, "but I have a sort of feeling that everything isn't all right."
"I've been feeling that way myself. Of course, dad has often gone away from home like this without telling where he was going, and he has always turned up all right. But this time–"
"Well, we'll just have to wait and see. He knows his own business best, and it's ten chances to one we're worrying over nothing, but I have a sort of a hunch that there's a nigger in the woodpile."
Mrs. Hardy, however, was not alarmed.
"Oh, he'll walk into the house when we're least expecting him," she laughed reassuringly. "You boys are just anxious to get to work on the Snackley case. Perhaps that's what he's working on now, he'll probably come back with a lot of information."
"We'd rather he'd let us in on that," returned Joe.
"And keep you out of school! Oh, no. He doesn't mind letting you do detective work as long as it's in your spare time."
So the Hardy boys had to make the best of it. They concealed their impatience during the remainder of the week, doing their school work faithfully. The following week was the start of vacation, and the lads were deep in examinations for several days so that they had not much time to think of detective activities.
But on Friday afternoon the mystery of their father's absence took a strange turn.
They came back from school to find their mother sitting in the living room, carefully examining a note that she had evidently just received.
"Come here, boys," she said, as they came into the room. "I want you to look at this and 'tell me what you think of it."
She handed the note over to Frank.
"What is it?" he asked, quickly. "Word from dad?"
"It's supposed to be."
The Hardy boys read the note. It was written in pencil on a torn sheet of paper and the handwriting seemed to be that of Fenton Hardy. The note read:
"I won't be home for several days. Don't worry."
It was signed by the detective. That was all. There was nothing to indicate where he was, nothing to show when the note had been written.
"When did you get this?" asked Frank.
"It came in the afternoon mail. It was addressed to me, and the envelope had a Bayport postmark."
"What is there to worry about?" Joe asked. "It's better than not hearing from him at all."
"But I'm not sure that it's from him."
"Why?"
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"Your father has an arrangement with me that he would always put a secret sign beneath his signature any time he had occasion to write to me like this. He was always afraid of people forging his name to letters and notes like this and perhaps getting papers or information that they shouldn't. So we arranged this sign that he would always put beneath his name."
Frank snatched up the note again.
"And there's no sign here. Just his signature."
"It may be his signature. If it isn't, it is a very good forgery. And it may have been that he forgot to put in the secret sign, although it isn't like him to do that."
Mrs. Hardy was plainly worried.
"If he didn't write it, then who did?" asked Joe.
"Your father has many enemies. There are relatives of criminals whom he has had arrested and there are criminals who have served their terms and have been released. If there has been foul play the note might be meant to keep us from being suspicious and delay any search."
"Foul play!" exclaimed Frank. '' You don't think something has happened to dad!" he added, his face showing his alarm.
"The fact that he didn't put the secret sign underneath his name makes me anxious. What other object could any one have in sending us a note like that, if not to keep us from starting a search for him?"
"Well, whether he wrote that note or not, we will start a search for him," declared Frank firmly. "He merely said not to worry about him. He didn't order us not to look for him. If he really did write the note he can't say we were disobeying instructions. And then, the absence of the secret sign makes it all different." "I'll say we'll look for him!" cried Joe. "Vacation starts next week, and we'll have plenty of time to hunt for him."
"Wait until then, at any rate," Mrs. Hardy advised. "Perhaps he will return in the meanwhile."
But as she glanced at the note again and once more regarded the signature, strangely lacking its secret sign, her forebodings that Fenton Hardy had met with foul play increased.
CHAPTER X
The Vain Search
Fenton hardy was still missing when the summer vacation began.
There had been no word from him. Never, in all his years of detective work, had he vanished from home so completely and for such a length of time. He was an intensely considerate man and his first thought was always for his wife and boys. Occasionally it was necessary for him to leave home suddenly on trips that would keep him away for some length of time, sometimes it seemed wiser to keep the knowledge of his whereabouts to himself. But he always managed to communicate with Mrs. Hardy to assure her of his safety.
But this time, with the exception of the dubious note, there had been no such assurance. From the moment he had left the house on the morning after the kidnapping at the Kane farmhouse he had vanished as utterly as though the earth had swallowed him up.
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The Hardy boys questioned many people in and around Bayport, but no one recollected having seen their father on the day in question. At the railway station they ascertained the fact that the detective had not bought a train ticket that day or any day since. The agent admitted it was barely possible that Fenton Hardy might have taken a train and paid his fare on board, but said it was not likely. Inquiries at the steamboat office brought a similar response. The detective had not been seen.
None of the local police officers remembered having seen Mr. Hardy that morning. The detective was a well-known figure in Bayport and it seemed strange that no one had seen him about the streets of the city, in spite of the fact that he had left home at an early hour. The boys questioned every one who was likely to have seen him, even to milkmen who might have been on their routes at that time, but the further they pursued their inquiries the deeper the mystery became.
One of the boys greatly interested in the disappearance of Mr. Hardy was Perry Robinson. Perry was the son of Henry Robinson, who had once gotten into difficulties over the disappearance of some valuables, as related in "The Tower Treasure." All of the Hardys had done much for the Robinson family, and the Robinsons were correspondingly grateful.
"I saw your dad on the street one day, boys," said Perry. "He waved his hand to me."
"When was that?" demanded Frank quickly.
"Oh, a day or two before you say he disappeared. Gee, fellows, I wish I could help you!" went on Perry.
"Well, keep your eyes open and if you learn anything let us know," said Joe, and to this Perry readily agreed.
Shortly after the boys had had their talk with Perry Robinson they ran into a number of their girl friends. One of these girls had likewise seen Mr. Hardy, but after considerable questioning the boys came to the conclusion that the meeting had taken place several days before their father's disappearance.
"Oh, I'm so sorry this happened," said one of the girls, and the others nodded in sympathy.
The Hardy boys extended the search beyond the city. It occurred to them that their father might have gone out to the Kane farm, and they made their way to that place. But the 'farmer and his wife said no one had called at the house since the eventful Sunday of the kidnapping.
"They've left us in peace, praise be!" declared Mrs. Kane. "No one's been near the house since those rascals went away."
The boys gave the kindly couple a description of their father, but Mr. Kane could not recollect having seen any one resembling Mr. Hardy near the farm at any time within the past week. He had been working in the fields, he said, and would probably have noticed any strangers on the road.
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So the boys returned to Bayport, puzzled and downhearted over the failure of their search. They could not imagine where Fenton Hardy could have gone if he had not been near the Kane farm.
"Something has happened to him, I'm sure," said Frank. "It isn't like dad to stay away this long without sending some word."
"Perhaps he did write that note."
"He would have explained a little more. And he would have put in the secret sign."
The fact that the Hardy boys were searching for their father gradually became known throughout Bayport, and one evening a thickset, broad-shouldered man presented himself at the front door of the Hardy home and asked for the boys. Mrs. Hardy bade him step inside and he waited in the hall, nervously twisting his cap in his hands.
When Frank and Joe came the stranger introduced himself as Sam Bates.
"I'm a truck driver," he told them. "The reason I came around to see you was because I heard you were lookin' for your father."
"Have you seen him?" asked Frank eagerly.
Sam Bates shuffled his feet and looked dubiously at the floor.
"Well, I have and I haven't, you might say," he observed. '' I did see your father quite a few days ago, but where he is now, I couldn't tell you, for I don't know.'' He was evidently not a man of gigantic intellect. He spoke slowly and painstakingly and his most obvious statements were delivered with the gravity suitable to pearls of wisdom.
"Where did you see him?"
"I'm a truck driver, see?"
"Yes, you told us that," said Frank impatiently. "But where did you see our father?"
Sam Bates was not to be hurried. He had a story to tell and he was bound to tell it.
"I'm a truck driver, see?" he repeated. "Mostly I drive just in and around Bayport, but sometimes they give me a run out to some of them villages. That's how I come to be out there that morning."
"Out where?"
"I'm comin' to that. I just forget what day it was, but I think it was about a week from last] Monday. I know it was just after Sunday because when I went home to dinner that day the wife was washin' clothes and dinner was late and I had to eat it out on the back steps anyway for the kitchen was all in a mess. You know how it is on wash day."
Sam Bates regarded them wistfully, as though hoping for some expression of sympathy and understanding. But the Hardy boys were eager for information, and impatient with the worthy truck driver's circuitous method of telling his story.
"But what has this got to do with our father?" demanded Joe.
"I'm comin' to that, see? Give me time. Give me time. As I was sayin', I'm pretty sure it was on a Monday, for it was wash day, and the wife never washes except on Monday. I mean she never washes clothes except on Monday. She herself, why, she washes every day, of course. Anyway, it was Monday."
"That was the day dad disappeared," prompted Frank.
"You don't say! Well, I saw him that day."
"Where?"
"I'm comin' to that. As I was sayin', it was Monday, and when I went down to the garage the boss, he says to me, says he, 'Sam, I want you to run a truckload of furniture down the shore road.' So I said, 'Well, boss, I guess that's what I'm here for,' so he told me that this here load of furniture had to go to one of them farmhouses away down near the Point. So we loaded the truck and I filled her up with gas and away I went. It must have been about nine o'clock by then I guess."
"And you went down the shore road?"
"Sure. And it was a nice mornin' for drivin' too. Anyway, I went out past the Tower Mansion-you know, Hurd Applegate's place, them people you and your father got back the Tower treasure for-and I was drivin' along without a care in the world and whistlin' away, quite happy-like, when I sees that I was comin' near that haunted house up on the cliff. You know the place-where old Polucca was murdered."
"The Polucca place!"
''Yeah! "Well, anyway, I was comin' by there and I didn't drive slow either, for they say there's ghosts in that place and I ain't takin' no chance with nothin' like that, so the truck was going along at quite a clip, when what should I see but a man walkin' along the road."
"Dad!"
"Yeah, it was your father. Well, anyway, nobody ever said Sam Bates wouldn't give a guy a lift, so I slows down a bit and I says, 'Hey! D'you want a ride?' just like that, see? Then this guy turned around so I seen who it was. I didn't know until then, see? So when I seen who it was I said, 'Good day, Mr. Hardy, would you like a lift?' but he thanked me and said he was just takin' a little walk. So I drove on past him and the last I seen of him he Was walkin' along beside the road."
"Did he go down the lane to the Polucca place!"
"I dunno whether he did or not. He hadn't quite reached the lane when I seen him last. But I didn't meet him on my way back, so I don't know where he went. Matter of fact, I didn't think nothin' more of it until this mornin' when a bunch of the boys were sittin' around the garage talkin' and one of them said that you two lads had been huntin' all over the city for your old man-I mean your father- and you couldn't find him. So I says to myself, Sam, mebbe you can tell 'em somethin' they don't know.' So I just thought I'd come up." "And we're very grateful to you,'' Frank assured him. "You've given us some valuable information. We didn't know whether our father had gone out of the city or not. Now I think we'll know where to look for him."
"Ain't any chance of him nosin’ around that Polucca place, is there?" asked Bates. "It's a mighty good place to stay away from if every thin' you hear is true. It's haunted, that place is."
"Oh, that wouldn't matter to him. But I'm glad you told us about seeing him. It gives us a better idea of where to look for him."
"Well, I'm glad if I've helped any. Guess I'll be goin' now," said Sam Bates, putting on his cap. "I hope your dad shows up all right."
The Hardy boys thanked him warmly and Bates shambled away, his hands in his pockets.
Mrs. Hardy came into the hallway.
"Any news!" she asked anxiously.
"We have a clue, anyway," Frank told her. "That fellow says he saw dad on the shore road the morning he left here."
"Where was he?"
"Near the old Polucca place."
"The house on the cliff?"
Frank nodded.
Mrs. Hardy looked grave. "Surely he couldn't have gone there and disappeared!" she said.
"I can't imagine why he would go to the house on the cliff, anyway," observed Joe.
"Oh, I know now!" Mrs. Hardy exclaimed. "I had forgotten all about it. I intended to tell you boys, but somehow it slipped my mind. Now that you mention the Polucca place, I remember."
"What was it?"
"Your father discovered something about Snackley, the smuggler. It seems that Snackley was related to Felix Polucca, the miser."
"Related to him!"
"He was a cousin or nephew, or something of the sort. One of the government men told him that. So your father had an idea that Polucca must have been visited by Snackley at sometime or another and that Snackley must have got the idea of using Barmet Bay for his smuggling operations at that time."
"Whew!" exclaimed Joe. "Now we're getting on the right track. Dad must have gone up to the house on the cliff to investigate."
"Why didn't we think of searching there before! Dad put two and two together and figured that there might be some connection between the queer things that happened at the Polucca place the day we visited it and the case of that fellow Jones whom we rescued. Then, when he learned that Snackley was related to Polucca, he was sure of it. It's as clear as daylight. But what on earth could have happened to him?"
"Let's go up to the Polucca place and find out."
But Mrs. Hardy interposed. Her lips were firm.
"Promise me you won't go alone."
"Why not, mother? We can look after ourselves."
"If anything has happened to your father, I don't want you to run the same risk."
"But we must go up there and look the place over again.''
"Get some of the boys to go with you."
"I guess it would be safer," agreed Joe. "We can round up a bunch of the fellows and go up there tomorrow morning. We'll search that place from top to bottom this time."
Mrs. Hardy gave her consent to this plan and the boys thereupon set out to find their chums and tell them of the proposed trip. Although two or three of the boys backed out when they learned that the destination was to be the haunted house, the majority were willing enough, and by nightfall all was in readiness for the journey."
CHAPTER XI
The Cap on the Peg
Next morning the searching party set out.
Jerry Gilroy had not got over the scare he had received on the remarkable Saturday of the boys' first visit to the house on the cliff and he did not show up. But Chet Morton and Biff Hooper appeared, with Phil Cohen and Tony Prito, two more of the Hardy boys' chums at the Bayport high school. Chet had his motorcycle and the party left the Hardy home shortly after breakfast, each machine carrying two.
Before they left, Frank explained the situation fully to the others.
"We know that dad was last seen near the Polucca place and we have every reason to believe that he left here with the intention of searching the house. He hasn't shown up since and no person has seen him, so there may have been foul play."
"If there is any trace of him around the Polucca place we'll find it,'' declared Chet. "It will take a mighty lively ghost to scare us away this time."
The three motorcycles went out of Bayport past the Tower Mansion, sped along the shore road. There was little talk among the boys. Each realized that this was not a pleasure outing but a serious mission and each recognized the importance of it. The Hardy boys had every confidence in their companions. Chet and Biff, they knew, would not be as easily frightened on this occasion, and as for Phil and Tony, they were noted at school for their fearless, at times even reckless, dispositions.
They passed the Kane farmhouse, nestling among the trees, and at last came in sight of the gloomy cliff that rose from Barmet Bay and at the summit of which perched the rambling stone house where the miser, Felix Polucca, had met his death.
"Lonely looking place, isn't it?" remarked Phil, who was sharing Frank's motorcycle.
"It was an ideal place for a murder. When Felix Polucca lived there, I doubt if he had more than two or three visitors in a year."
"How did he get his food and supplies?"
"He used to drive into the city about once a week in a rattly old buggy, with a horse that must have come out of the pArk. The poor animal looked as if it hadn't had a square meal in a lifetime. Polucca must have been a little bit crazy. How he lived alone up there all the time, nobody could understand. He worked hard enough and he made the farm pay. No one could drive a better bargain when it came to selling his hay and grain."
Phil looked with interest at the old gray house that could be seen more clearly now that they were approaching it. When they were still some distance from the lane, however, Frank brought his motorcycle to a stop and signaled to the others to do likewise.
"What's the idea?" Chet asked.
"We'd better sneak up on the place quietly. If we go any farther they'll hear the motorcycles-that is, if there is any one at the place. We'll leave them here under the trees and go ahead on foot."
The motorcycles were accordingly hidden in a clump of bushes beside the road and the six boys went on toward the lane.
"We'll separate here," Frank decided. "Three of us will take one side of the lane and the rest will take the other side. Keep to the bushes as much as possible and when we get near the house lay low for a while and watch the place. When I whistle we can come out from under cover and go on up to the house."
''That's a good plan," approved Tony. "Joe and Biff and I, we'll go on the left side of the road."
"Good. Chet and Phil and I will take the other side. Remember to keep out of sight of the house as much as possible."
The boys entered the lane, then separated according to the agreement they had made. One group plunged into the weeds and undergrowth at the edge of the lane on one side while the others pushed into the bushes at the opposite side. In a few minutes each group was lost to view and only an occasional snapping and crackling of branches indicated their presence in the heavy undergrowth that flanked the lane.
Frank advanced cautiously. The brushwood was much deeper than he had anticipated and they made slow progress, for he was desirous of creeping up on the house with as little noise as possible. The undergrowth was thick and hampered their movements. They made their way forward, step by step, keeping well in from the lane, and after about ten minutes Frank raised his hand as a warning to the others.
Through the dense thickets he had caught a glimpse of the house.
They went on cautiously until they reached the edge of the bushes and there they crouched behind the screen of leaves, peeping out at the gloomy old stone building in the clearing.
But at the first glance, an expression of surprise crossed Frank's face.
The Polucca house was evidently occupied!
The weeds that had overgrown the yard on their last visit had been completely cleared away, the grass had been cut and the tumbledown fence had been repaired. The gate, which had been hanging by one hinge, had been fixed and the grass along the pathway had been trimmed.
A similar change had overtaken the house.
There was glass in all the windows and the boards had been removed. The front door had been repaired and the steps had been mended. Smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney.
"There must be some one living here," whispered Chet.
Frank was puzzled.
He had not heard that any one had taken the Polucca house. On account of the unenviable fame of the place it was hardly likely that a new tenant could move in without arousing considerable comment in Bayport. But this had evidently happened.
For a while the boys remained at the edge of the bushes watching the place. Then they saw a woman come out to the clothesline at the back of the house. She carried a basket of clothes, and these she began hanging up on the line. Shortly afterward a man came out, strode across the yard to the woodshed and began chopping wood.
The boys looked at one another in consternation.
They had expected to find the same sinister and deserted place they had visited previously. Instead, they had arrived on a scene of domestic peace and comfort. They could not understand it.
"Not much use staying in hiding," whispered Frank. "Let's get together and walk right up and question these people."
He gave a low whistle, then emerged from the bushes into the lane. His companions followed. In a short time they were joined by Joe and the other boys.
All were deeply puzzled by the remarkable change that had come over the Polucca place.
"This beats anything I ever heard of," declared Joe. "It looks as if some farmer has taken the place, but it's queer we hadn't heard of it. Everybody in Bayport would be talking about it if they knew some one had nerve enough to take over the Polucca farm."
"I'm not satisfied yet,'' Frank said. "We'll go up and question these people."
Accordingly, the six boys walked boldly out of the lane and across the yard. The man in the woodshed saw them first and put down his axe, staring at them with an expression of annoyance on his face. The woman at the clothesline heard their footsteps and turned, facing them, her hands upon her hips. She was hard-faced and tight-lipped, with gaunt features. She was not prepossessing and her untidy garb did not impress the boys favorably.
"What do you want?" demanded the man, emerging from the woodshed.
He was short and thin with close-cropped hair, and he was in need of a shave. His complexion was swarthy and he had narrow eyes under coarse, black brows. His manner was far from polite as he advanced upon the boys.
At the same time another man came out of the kitchen and stood on the steps. He was stout and red-haired and had a thick mustache. As he stood there in his shirt-sleeves he glared pugnaciously at the six boys.
"Yeah, what's the big idea?" he asked.
"We didn't know any one was living here," explained Frank, edging over to the kitchen door. He wanted to get a look inside the house if possible.
"Well, there is," said the red-haired man. "We're livin' here now, and I can't see that it's any of your business. What are you snooping around here for?"
"We aren't snooping," said Frank quietly. "We are looking for a man who has disappeared from Bayport."
"Humph!" grunted the woman.
"What makes you think he might be around here?" asked the red headed man.
"He was last seen in this neighborhood."
"What's his name?"
"Hardy."
"What does he look like?"
"Tall and dark. He was wearing a grey suit and a grey cap."
"Ain't been nobody around here since we moved in," said the red-headed man gruffly.
"No, we didn't see him," snapped the woman. "You boys had better go and look somewhere else."
There was nothing to be gained by arguing with the unsociable trio, so the boys started to leave. But Frank, who had edged close to the open door during the course of the conversation, had glanced into the kitchen and something had caught his eye.
It was a gray cap, hanging on a peg!
CHAPTER XII
Pointed Questions
Frank thought quickly. He must ascertain the truth!
The cap, he was almost sure, was the one his father had worn on the morning he had left home. But he wanted to look at it closely, because he knew he might be mistaken and that it would not do to make any accusations unless he were sure of his ground.
"I'm very thirsty," he said quickly. "Do you mind if I have a drink?"
Redhead and the woman looked at one another without enthusiasm. It was plain that they wished to get rid of their visitors as soon as possible. But they could not refuse such an innocent and reasonable request.
"Come into the kitchen," said Redhead grudgingly.
This was just what Frank wanted. He followed the man into the kitchen of the Polucca place. Redhead pointed to a water tap. A dipper was hanging from a nail near by.
"Go ahead," he grunted.
Frank went over to the tap and as he did so he passed the cap on the peg. He took a swift look at the cap.
He had made no mistake. It was his father's.
Then he received a shock that almost stunned him. For a second he almost stopped in his tracks, but then he recollected himself and moved mechanically on toward the tap.
He had seen bloodstains!
On the lower edge of the cap were three large stains, reddish in color. They could have been made by nothing but blood.