While the Clock Ticked (3 page)

Frank, Joe, and Aunt Gertrude leaned forward excitedly. “What?” Joe pressed.

“A secret room on the second floor,” the man replied. As the boys listened intently he went on, “It was built right into the middle of the house. When Mr. Purdy inherited the property, he had the hidden chamber fixed up like a bank vault, fireproof, with insulated walls and no windows. Air is provided by hidden ventilators. The only door is made of heavy steel, and is closed with a time lock.”

“But why would Mr. Purdy have wanted a room like that?” asked Joe in amazement.

“He was eccentric, remember?” Mr. Dalrymple smiled. “He didn’t trust banks. He kept all his valuables in the secret room. He used it as a kind of retreat, too. I looked for any hoard of valuables that might be hidden there, but found none. Purdy’s servant, who knew of the room, had faithfully turned over everything to the executors.

“Well,” the Hardys’ visitor confided, “I did not plan to live in the house, or use the other rooms, but I liked the hidden retreat. Many times I have to handle propositions that demand close figuring and solitary work. As soon as I discovered that secret room, I realized it would make an ideal private office. So I decided to use it.

“I moved in a small table, a typewriter, and my private files. When I left the room, I would set the
time lock, and then no one, not even myself, could get in until the appointed hour.”

“Of course,” Frank agreed. “That’s the principle of a time lock.”

The banker looked at him sharply. “What would you say if I told you that this room has been entered several times—
in my absence?”

“Is the lock reliable?” Joe questioned.

“I’m sure of it! I know these locks.”

“I’d say,” Frank deduced, “that you couldn’t have expected us to find out much about a secret room in a house we couldn’t enter.”

Mr. Dalrymple nodded his approval. “I see you’ve earned your reputation. I’ll have duplicate door and gate keys made for you.” He looked somber. “You see, there have been threats to my life!”

“Where? How?” Joe cried, springing up.

In grim silence, Mr. Dalrymple removed two small, carefully folded sheets of paper from his wallet and handed one to each boy. Joe opened his first. Written in pencil was a warning:

“You must leave this house forever or death will overtake you.”

Frank, with a puzzled expression, read the other threat:

“Death while the clock ticks!”

He looked up. “What does this mean?”

“That,” replied Mr. Dalrymple somberly, “is what I need a good detective—like your father—to find out. But there is one further point.
Where do you suppose I found those messages?”

“In the secret room with the time lock!” Frank answered promptly.

The visitor gasped. “How did you know?”

“That was the one place which would make the whole mystery a tough one,” Frank replied.

“When did you find these notes, Mr. Dalrymple?” asked Joe, undaunted.

“The first one, four days ago. The second, about eight o’clock last night. That’s why I came here this morning.” Mr. Dalrymple’s face paled. “If there
was
a man on the grounds last night, he may have come to kill me!”

Frank frowned. “At any rate, whoever wrote this note seems to know when you’re there and when you’re not. Could someone with whom you’re acquainted be out for revenge?”

“I have no enemies, so far as I know. I have always been scrupulously fair in my dealings.”

Joe tried another tack. “There’s no other way into this room, Mr. Dalrymple? Have you checked the walls? What else is in it?”

“Nothing but my things, and a fireplace. But the flue is barred, and besides, the chimney is altogether too narrow to admit a man.”

Joe suggested that the notes might have been dropped down the chimney. Mr. Dalrymple shook his head. “I found the messages on the rug in the exact center of the room.”

“Who else but you knows about the room?”
Frank put in. “Can anyone else but you operate the time lock?”

“I have told no one about the room,” the banker retorted somewhat irritably. “So nobody knows of the lock, either! Purdy’s servant is dead. It’s a fantastic story, but true.”

“We certainly want to help you,” Frank said. “For safety’s sake, why don’t you stay away from the house, until you hear from us?”

“All right. I’ll let you know when the keys are ready.”

After their new client had left, the Hardys discussed the mystery. “He’s sincere, I guess,” Joe concluded. “But the whole thing doesn’t make sense.”

“I vote we go out to the Purdy place tonight, at least for another look,” his brother said.

Although Aunt Gertrude gloried in her nephews’ reputations as detectives, she was inclined to worry a great deal about the boys. Nevertheless, she grudgingly agreed to the proposed expedition.

Darkness found Frank backing the boys’ convertible out the Hardy driveway. Five minutes later they had stopped for a traffic light on the main street of Bayport.

Suddenly there was the roar of another engine, a rattle of tin, the raucous bark of an air horn. An old jalopy drew up beside the Hardys.

“Get a load of the fancy machine!” shouted a familiar voice.

The face of Tony Prito, a high school friend, grinned at them. Another pal, Jerry Gilroy, seated at the wheel of the jalopy, added, “Nothing like this old crate.”

The brothers grinned back, “Where’re you all heading?” Joe asked.

“Party, over at Chet Morton’s. Tried to get you. Your line was busy. Come on!” Tony urged.

“Can’t,” Frank called over.

“What do you mean—can’t! What are you fellows up to? Callie, Frank says he can’t come!”

Through the back window of the jalopy, Frank caught sight of the sparkling brown eyes and pretty face of his favorite date, Callie Shaw.

“Don’t give us that!” Phil Cohen, another friend, stuck his head above the old car’s roof on the other side.

“What’ll we do?” Frank asked his brother.

“Joe, Iola Morton’s expecting you!” Tony shouted coaxingly.

“We’ll go,” Joe decided. “But we can’t stay long.”

The two cars drove to the Morton farm, about a mile outside Bayport. Several other cars were parked there already. The Hardys’ friends marched the brothers into the house.

“Here they are—the sleuths themselves!” Phil
announced triumphantly, as the group entered a large room filled with young people. “Caught red-handed, trying to make a getaway!”

“What is it, another mystery?” demanded a pretty, blue-eyed girl, coming over to Joe. “You weren’t trying to get away from me, were you?” she asked teasingly.

“You know better than that, Iola!” Joe laughed. “May I have this dance?”

The couple swung into a lively step as someone started a record player. Frank danced off with Callie. In a moment the party was in full swing.

About an hour later Frank managed to nudge his brother while dancing. “Move to the French doors, and meet us on the porch,” he directed.

“You Hardys are certainly romantic,” observed Callie, as the two couples stepped onto the moonlit side porch. “Isn’t it a beautiful night?”

“We have to leave—work to do,” said Frank. “Honest, Callie and Iola, we hate to go. But we have to. We’ll explain when we can.”

“You
are
on detective business!” Iola exclaimed. She sighed. “Well, be careful. We’ll see you one of these days!”

The brothers said good-by, leaped from the porch, and ran to their car. Soon they had passed through Bayport again and were driving rapidly out along the shore onto Willow River Road.

“Don’t look now,” Joe said tensely, turning slightly in his seat, “but a car’s tailing us!”

CHAPTER IV

F
RANK
glanced in the rear-view mirror at the trailing car, which was some distance behind. “We’ll test to find out if he’s really after us.”

He braked the convertible, slowing quickly. For a moment the strange headlights rushed nearer, then dropped back. The other car
was
keeping the same speed as the Hardys were!

“Okay,” said Frank with determination. “We’ll settle this right now.” Quickly he swung off the road and stopped. The two boys sat watching, with the car top down.

An ordinary-looking sedan rolled toward them. Watching it approach, Joe caught sight of a high aerial at the back.

“Police!” he announced with a surprised laugh. In a moment the brothers were looking into the round, cheerful face of Officer Callahan of the
Bayport Police Department. The officer shook his head in mock disgust.

“I was just saying to Tomlin, here,” he remarked, “that’s a suspicious car speeding out Willow Road. So it’s you Hardys, is it? And us expecting a pair of fleeing harbor thieves!”

“Don’t think we’re any happier than you are about it,” Joe joked in return. “We thought
you
were a couple of crooks following
us.”

“Harbor thieves still busy?” Frank asked. “We met Mike DiSalvo chasing them this morning.”

“Busy!” Officer Tomlin exclaimed. “Day and night they’re busy, and not a lead on ‘em yet, except that big, black car. We’re sure they’ve given up using it now, so we have no lead. For that reason, we’re tailing everything we see on this road.”

At that moment a large, cream-colored sedan pulled around the unmarked police cruiser and roared into the country.

“Here we go,” barked Callahan, as Tomlin pulled away to pursue the car. “Maybe that’s the one!”

“Good luck!” the Hardys called.

Frank and Joe now noticed that the moon had been obscured by clouds. The grounds of the nearby estates were completely dark. The air had become hot and sticky.

“It’s going to storm,” said Frank. “We’d better get going.” As though in answer to his remark, there came a faraway rumble.

The boys decided to walk to the Purdy place, since it was only a quarter of a mile away, and they would attract less attention. After switching off their parking lights and putting up the convertible’s top, the young detectives walked along the dark road. Soon they came to the high wall of the Purdy estate.

They skirted it until they reached the big wooden gate. It was open.

“Wait!” said Frank in a low voice. “We closed that gate this morning. Somebody’s been here since then and might still be around.”

“The driveway may be watched,” Joe warned. “We’d better find some other way in.”

They walked back a distance to a place where the wall was heavily overgrown.

“Shall we climb it?” Joe whispered, testing the vines with a pull.

“No. I had a look at that wall this morning. There are pieces of old jagged, broken glass all along the top. Apparently Jason Purdy didn’t like company!”

Frank grasped one of the young trees that had sprung up next to the stone fence. In a moment he had shinned up higher than the wall. The tree bent with Frank’s weight, swinging him clear of the dangerous glass. Then Frank dropped to the ground on the other side and the tree snapped back into place.

“Come ahead!” he directed Joe in a whisper.

In a moment Joe was beside Frank, crouching among the bushes along the inside of the wall. The rumble of thunder was closer now. A brief white flicker passed over the black sky, showing the bottoms of thick clouds and the big Purdy mansion off to the left.

Creeping slowly and carefully through the dark brush, no longer daring to talk to each other, the two young sleuths gained the open yard in front of the house. They halted at its edge.

By now the rumble in the sky had given way to cracking, booming thunder. A gusty wind was rushing through the leafy trees over their heads. Flickers of lightning, some bright and some faint, played across the open sky and caused weird, momentary shadows on the walls and roof of the silent mansion. The storm was about to strike.

“Listen!” Frank clutched Joe’s arm. “Sounded like someone running.”

The brothers strained their hearing to the utmost. Despite the strong wind, the thunder, and the sharp patter of raindrops hitting the leaves like a shower of pebbles, Frank and Joe could hear footsteps. Someone was running, now stepping on a dead branch, now kicking a stone.

A tall man’s silhouette crossed the open space in front of the boys and mounted the porch. There a flash of lightning revealed him, bent a little, inserting a key in the lock.

“Dalrymple!” breathed Joe in amazement.

“Are you sure? We warned him to keep away from here! Seems to be having trouble getting in.”

The man was turning the key and pulling on the knob. Finally the door opened and he went inside. Expectantly, the boys waited in the rain, which had begun to fall in a heavy rush. To their surprise, the house remained in darkness.

“Why doesn’t he turn on a light?” Joe muttered impatiently. “Is he afraid somebody will see it? He said he owned the house. Why should he care?”

“Maybe it isn’t Dalrymple.”

“Sure looked like him. I got a glimpse of his face. Same build, too. Funny we didn’t hear a car coming in. He must have gotten here before we did.”

“Well, he must know the place pretty well to move around inside without a light,” Frank observed. “Unless,” he suggested, “he has gone up to the secret room!”

“Or maybe something’s happened to him,” Joe said in concern. “The secret room was where he found those threatening messages. The person who wrote the notes might have been there waiting for him!”

Alarmed for the safety of their client, the boys started to make a rush for the house.

But Frank stopped abruptly. “Hold on!” he cautioned. “That man might
not
be Dalrymple.
He could be the person who’s been threatening him. This fellow seemed very calm as he went in. You remember how nervous Dalrymple was. Let’s wait and see.”

“Okay,” Joe agreed. “But if it
is
Dalrymple, I’d like to know what his game is.”

The boys waited by the edge of the brush while the rain, illuminated by lightning, fell in silver sheets.

“Sh!”
signaled Joe suddenly. “I heard something. Footsteps again.”

As the boys listened they were startled by a light suddenly turned on in a large room with a bay window.