The House on the Cliff/Chapter 10
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.
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.
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 thick-set, 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 out 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." Sam 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 everythin' 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 some time 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 to-morrow 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 on the morrow.