The House on the Cliff/Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXV
The Mystery Explained
The Hardy boys were the heroes of Bayport when the news of the capture of Snackley and his men spread throughout the city next day. As for Tony Prito, he was the envy of all the chums of the two lads.
"Tony had all the luck," bemoaned Chet Morton, as the boys were all sitting in the barn back of the Hardy home next afternoon. This barn, which had been fitted up as a gymnasium, was a meeting place for the lads on occasions of importance.
"We had to have a motorboat," said Frank. "Believe me, I was wishing more than once that the whole crowd was along."
"And you'll get the reward for capturing Snackley?" asked Phil Cohen.
"Not all of it. Dad gets half. Joe and I split the rest."
"You haven't any kick coming. What's going to happen to Snackley?"
"He'll probably go to the electric chair," answered Frank soberly.
"Why?"
"He murdered Felix Polucca, the miser."
"Murdered him?"
"Yes. Dad found that out in his investigations. Dad suspected all along that there was some connection between Snackley and the house on the cliff, especially when he found that Snackley and Polucca had been related. He went out to find out what he could, but the smugglers saw him and captured him."
"What about that fellow they had imprisoned in the cellar?" questioned Biff Hooper. "Didn't you say Snackley was just going to kill him when your father saved him?"
"That was the young fellow we saved in the bay that day. The young chap who told us his name was Jones. It wasn't his real name, at all. His name is Yates and he was one of the smugglers."
"Why was Snackley chasing him that day?" asked Perry Robinson.
"It seems that Yates got angry because he didn't get his full share of the money from the last smuggling trip, so he threatened to tell the police on Snackley. The smugglers locked him up, but he got away in one of the motorboats, so they chased him and ran him down. They thought to have killed him in the explosion or else drown him, but Joe and I managed to bring him ashore. We left him at the Kane farmhouse, but the smugglers came along next day and kidnapped him. They kept him prisoner in the cellar of the Polucca place after that."
"I still can't understand about those yells and shrieks we heard the first day we were out at the farmhouse," put in Phil Cohen.
"That was just to frighten us away. One of the men in the gang is a sort of half-wit and they had him posted there to frighten people off by yelling and shrieking whenever any one showed up around the place. He was the chap who stole our tools from the motorcycles," explained Frank.
"But after our visit there," added Joe, "they thought it was too dangerous and that there might be an investigation, so they put Redhead and his wife and one of their men there to pose as renters of the place."
"So there weren't any ghosts after all" exclaimed Jerry Gilroy.
"Nary a ghost," laughed Frank. "Snackley explained everything this morning in a confession. The whole gang is locked up, even to Li Chang. Yates, the young fellow they had kept prisoner so long, told the whole story first. He turned state's evidence and told how long the smuggling had been going on, how Snackley had made use of the house on the cliff after killing Polucca, how he fixed up the tunnels in the cliff—he told everything. It seems that Polacca had the smuggling idea in the first place and he spent years fixing up those caves and tunnels. When everything was ready, he called in Snackley, but Snackley didn't like to share with any one who had a right to a voice in the affair, so he killed the old man, took his money, and brought the smuggling gang in there."
"Yates told all that?"
"He told so much of it that Snackley saw there was no use bluffing any longer, so he admitted the whole story."
"Gosh!" sighed Chet. "Just my luck! I was there in time to get scared to death by that half-wit, and there in time to get bawled out and chased off the farm by Redhead and his wife, but I missed out on all the fun at the last."
"Not much fun about it," declared Joe. "It didn't seem funny to us when the smugglers caught us in the cave just as we were getting dad free."
"And it wasn't any fun hiding in that attic with the bullets coming through the floor, nineteen to the dozen," added Frank. "I thought every minute was going to be my last."
"No, I guess it wasn't any too funny then," admitted Chet. "You deserve every cent you get out of the reward."
"We'll treat the whole gang to a feed as soon as we collect," Joe promised.
"Whee!" shouted Chet, turning a handspring. "Now you're talking!"
The Hardy boys kept their word. Soon after they had received their share of the reward, which was presented to them with many glowing words and congratulations from the federal authorities who had long been trying to put Snackley behind the bars, they gave a dinner in the barn that eclipsed any similar "feed" in the history of Bayport.
"I hope the Hardy boys solve a mystery every week," said Chet, as he confronted his third dish of ice-cream. "And I hope they celebrate every success the same way."
The Hardy boys were not destined to solve a mystery every week, but it was not long before they were plunged into a maze of events which were fully as exciting as those which led to the finding of the tower treasure and those that followed their first visit to the house on the cliff. The story of their adventures will be told in the next volume of this series, called, "The Hardy Boys: The Secret of the Old Mill."
Tony Prito, conscious of the envying glances of the other lads because he had participated in the eventful climax to the mystery of the house on the cliff, scooped up the last of his ice-cream and said:
"Once I wanted my father to buy an automobile and he bought a motorboat instead. Now he wants to sell the boat and buy an automobile. Just let him try it! That boat gave me more fun in one day than I'd ever had since we came to the States."
THE END