Scott's engine was radioactive!
Suddenly the office door slammed loudly. Footsteps could be heard coming around the building at a rapid pace.
Joe signaled to Frank, who ran toward Chet and tossed the Geiger counter to him. “Quick,” he whispered, “stash this in the car.”
As Chet darted back to the gate, Mudd came around the corner and strode up to Frank and Joe. Had he spotted the Geiger counter?
CHAPTER III
Frank Springs a Trap
“JUST a minute!” O. K. Mudd called out. “I want to talk to you!”
He walked with his jaw thrust out and his fists clenched. Coming to a halt a couple of feet away, he broke into a friendly smile.
“I didn't want you to get away before I had a chance to show you some new things,” Mudd declared. “A shipment of airplane parts came in early this morning.”
The Hardys were surprised by the man's change of demeanor.
“Oh, I know what you think,” Mudd continued. “The other day I wasn't exactly a bosom buddy of yours. Got up on the wrong side of the bed, I expect. It just wasn't my day. No hard feelings, I hope.”
“Forget it, Mr. Mudd,” Frank replied. “We weren't bothered by what happened.”
“But your brother got hurt when the airplane wing fell. How's the arm, young man?” he asked, turning to Joe.
“Bruised, but otherwise ready for a fast game of tennis,” Joe assured him.
“That accident wasn't your fault,” Mudd said. “The crane operator shouldn't have let the wing drop. Now, back to business. Do you see anything you'd like to buy?”
“There's one item we're interested in,” Joe answered. He pointed to Scott's engine.
Mudd smiled again. Rubbing the palms of his hands together, he responded, “But of course. If that's what you want, that's what you'll have. How much were you thinking of paying for this model?”
Frank promptly mentioned a ridiculously low figure.
Mudd hesitated and frowned. He looked down at the engine and then at Frank, finally flashing his smile again.
“It's yours. I admit it's battered, so I'll let it go at a sacrifice. How will you cart it away?”
“We have our car outside,” Joe said.
“I doubt that it will fit,” Mudd objected.
“Well, let's try it anyhow.” Joe went to get the convertible and rode back with Chet.
By now Frank was holding his checkbook in one hand and a pen in the other, ready to pay for their purchase.
Frank had barely written the date on the check when the boys heard a thundering rattle of heavy wheels. Startled, they turned around in time to see a junkyard truck bearing down on them. Nobody was at the wheel!
The boys leaped aside and the truck smashed into their convertible with a sickening
crunch!
Frank groaned. “It just had a new paint job!”
“Good night! What rotten luck!” Mudd declared.
Chet walked around the two vehicles, examining them with a practiced eye. “Your car isn't ruined, Frank,” he said. “But it'll sure need some repair work!”
“So will my truck,” Mudd declared. “However, I'll see that they're both fixed. My driver parked without setting the hand brake, so I'll be glad to pay up. I admit it's my responsibility.”
“We'll be without a car for a while,” Joe said glumly.
Frank shrugged. “Can't be helped.”
“No sense in getting uptight about it,” Chet declared.
“Nice of you to take the accident so calmly,” Mudd commented. He summoned a tow car and had the convertible taken to a repair shop in Beemerville. The three boys rode along.
“This job'll take a week,” said the mechanic.
“Okay, we'll leave it,” Frank told him. He opened the trunk and removed the Geiger counter, then gave the key to the mechanic.
The boys left and strolled down Beemerville's Main Street.
“What'll we do now?” Chet asked.
“Well, we still own the engine in the junkyard,” Joe observed. “And we don't want to lose track of it after all our trouble. We've got to find out why it's radioactive.”
“Let's take it now!” Frank urged. “I noticed a trucking firm down the street. We can have a pickup truck haul the engine to Bayport.”
“Sure thing,” the trucker said when they explained the assignment to him. “I haul lots of airplane parts from the junkyard. In fact, Mr. Mudd just called me about a job. It'll tie me up for an hour or so. But I can make the run down to Bayport later this afternoon.”
“Fair enough,” Frank said. “We'll meet you at the junkyard in an hour. We haven't had lunch yet, anyway.”
Chet beamed. “Lunch! Follow me, men!”
Joe grinned. “Meaning you've spotted a likely place to stow away some grub.” The Hardys knew there was nothing Chet liked better than eating.
“I'm with you,” Frank said. “My inner man craves sustenance, too. Where shall we go?”
“An eatery down the block,” Chet said. “I noticed it while we were riding the tow truck.”
The three walked to the diner, settled into a booth, and ordered.
“Say, this chow is great!” Chet exclaimed after sampling the food on his plate. “I picked the right place!”
“Must be the best diner in Beemerville,” Joe agreed.
Frank, however, was deep in thought and hardly noticed what he was eating. “There's something going on at that junkyard,” he said gravely. “Every time we show up there we have an accident. I'm sure Mudd is the cause. But why?”
“It's strange, all right,” Joe agreed. “What's his game?”
“Well, now that I feel better,” said Chet, patting his belt buckle, “I'm ready for any of O. K.'s tricks.”
“All right,” Frank said with a grin, draining his glass. “Let's go back and load up the engine.”
“Don't forget,” Chet reminded him, “I'm here to buy a fuselage. So far you guys have had all the action.”
“Well, select what you want and the truck can take it, too,” Joe said.
They left the diner and strolled back to the junkyard. Suddenly Frank stopped, grabbed Joe by the elbow, and pointed to the pile of engines.
Scott's engine was gone!
“Maybe Mudd had it moved,” Joe said.
“We'll soon find out,” Frank answered. “I saw him in his office when we walked by the window. Let's ask him what gives.”
Mudd greeted them with an apologetic smile. “Too bad about that engine, boys,” he said. “Another customer came in about an hour ago. He bought it.”
“But you agreed to sell it to us!” Joe reminded him.
“Sure. You were ready to take our check,” Frank protested.
Mudd smirked. “I never took your check, however. So it was no deal.”
Frank shrugged helplessly.
“You see,” the junkyard owner went on in an oily tone, “this customer made a much better offer than you did. And paid cash.”
Joe winced.
“Don't worry,” Mudd went on. “I have lots of other engines, better ones, too.”
“All right,” Frank muttered. “We'll look around.”
“And I want a fuselage,” Chet said.
The boys left the office.
“Joe, while Chet's checking out fuselages, let's see if we can't find the engine from Martin Weiss's plane,” Frank suggested.
The Hardys split up and met again half an hour later. Neither had spotted anything.
“What do you make of this whole thing?” Joe asked his brother.
“Well, this much is pretty obvious,” Frank said. “Mudd removed the engine because he didn't want us to have it. In order to delay us, he had our car wrecked.”
Joe nodded. “Questions: Did he know it was Jack Scott's engine? Did he know it was radioactive? Did he see our Geiger counter and realize we knew it, too?”
“I wish we had the answers,” Frank replied. “Maybe we'll find them if we find the engine.”
Just then Chet returned, bursting with enthusiasm. “I got me a fuselage. Made a deal with Mr. Mudd. I'll pay him in installments. Makes it easier on the Chet Morton pocketbook.”
Their hired pickup swung through the gate and the boys explained that the cargo for Bayport would be a fuselage instead of an engine.
The crane lifted Chet's purchase into the back of the truck, where Chet decided to ride. Frank and Joe sat in the cab.
The driver took it slow and easy at first, edging around corners and through traffic until he made the turn onto the highway. Then he shifted into high.
Nothing was said for a while. Frank, acting on a hunch, broke the silence.
“Was the job Mudd had for you this morning a tough one?” he asked.
The driver gave him a shifty-eyed glance. “Oh, not too bad.”
“No big cargo to move?”
“Well, it wasn't a jet plane,” the driver joked without further explanation.
Noting his evasiveness, Frank decided to spring a trap on him. The Hardys' detective training had taught them that an unexpected question often did the trick with a suspect.
“Wasn't it funny about that engine?” Frank asked suddenly, looking hard at the driver.
The man became tense, his hands gripping the wheel. He caught his breath and stared down the highway as if hypnotized.
“Why would anyone want to do that with an old piece of junk?” Frank pressed the point home, watching the man intently.
The driver relaxed. “Oh, so you know about it? O. K. told me the job was a secret. All very hush-hush. He didn't let on you guys were in on the operation.”
Frank laughed loudly. So did Joe, who was backing Frank up.
“We've been in on it from the beginning,” Frank said. “Only O. K. didn't tell us in advance about shifting the engine today.”
The driver snickered. “Since you guys know so much, maybe
you
can tell me why Mudd had me drop the thing over the Marlin Crag Cliffs!”
CHAPTER IV
Boat Crash
THE Hardys were thunderstruck by the driver's story. For a few seconds there was silence.
Finally Frank remarked casually, “I guess Mr. Mudd didn't have any use for that engine.”
“It was kind of beaten up,” Joe added. “We couldn't care less what happened to it.”
“Me neither,” the driver said.
After they had driven a little more than an hour, the trucker said, “Bayport's just ahead. Where do you want me to go?”
“The Morton Farm,” Frank replied. “It's on the edge of town. Take the road to the right.”
After bumping for a couple of miles over a roughly tarred surface, they came to a mailbox marked “Morton.” The driver turned into the entranceway and braked to a halt beside the house.
Gleefully Chet jumped out of the back. He supervised while the other three lifted the fuselage off. “Right here, under this shed,” he called out. “Easy now, I don't want it damaged.”
“Your pal likes giving orders, don't he?” the driver grumbled. “Why don't he give us a hand?”
“He figures his brain is the most important part of the operation,” Frank puffed.
“You guys are hurting my feelings,” Chet said, finally grasping the fuselage. “Anybody'd think I was lazy.”
Frank and Joe laughed as they released their burden and allowed it to settle into place under the shed. Chet paid the trucker, who stepped up into the cab and set off for Beemerville.
Then Chet drove his friends to their home.
“Well, I'm glad to see you're in time for dinner!” a familiar voice greeted them.
The speaker was their Aunt Gertrude. Although extremely fond of her two nephews, she never missed an opportunity to chide them about the dangerous risks they took when working on an assignment.
“We made a special effort to be on time, Aunty,” Frank said soothingly.
“We wouldn't stand up the best cook in Bayport,” Joe chimed in.
“You're a couple of flatterers,” Miss Hardy said, laughing. She looked pleased just the same. “Your mother and I are just about to serve. Hurry up!”
Mrs. Hardy, a slim, pretty woman, greeted her sons with a hug as they sat down at the table.
After the meal Frank and Joe went to their room and discussed O. K. Mudd and his suspicious actions.
“We know the radioactive engine was dumped over the cliffs,” Frank began, “but we don't know where. That means we'll have to search along the shore.”
Joe nodded. “We can do it in the
Sleuth.”
The
Sleuth
was their powerboat. They kept it in a boathouse on Barmet Bay near their home, and used it mostly for fun. But several times the Hardys had relied on their craft in searching for criminals along the coast.
“What about the tides?” Joe asked.
Frank went to a cabinet where they stored their maritime charts. He removed one containing information about the tides of Marlin Crag, and placed it flat on the table.
“It's a pretty narrow shore,” Joe commented, leaning over his shoulder.
Frank agreed. “That means we'll have to wait for low tide. The engine might have tipped out away from the cliffs. Could be under water at high tide.”
Next morning, after a hearty breakfast of pancakes, sausage and eggs, Frank and Joe drove to the boathouse and eased the
Sleuth
out into the open water. It was a sleek craft powered by a rugged inboard motor.
Frank took the wheel. The propeller churned the water into a white froth and the powerboat roared across the bay.