The Missing Chums/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
The Strange Letter
The engine roared as Frank Hardy opened the throttle and bore down on the helm of the Sleuth.
The grip of the current about the reef was so strong that, for a moment, it seemed that the motorboat could not fight against it. Then, slowly, the craft swung about, seemed to remain motionless for a moment, and then began to forge ahead, away from the reef.
Fighting against the force of the current, the motorboat made slow progress. Still, it was gaining ground. The boys waited tensely, as the craft struggled out of danger. Gradually, the Sleuth drew away from the reef, gradually the grip of the current relaxed. Frank cautiously nosed the boat over to the left and managed to get out of the current altogether.
The whole affair had occurred in a few seconds, but it had seemed an eternity to the boys in the boat and their chums in the other craft.
It would only have been a matter of moments before they might have been swept swiftly down onto the treacherous reef.
"That'll teach me to watch where I'm going," said Frank, as he sat back and mopped his brow.
"There was mighty near a lot more wreckage on that reef," remarked Slim soberly. "The boat wouldn't have lasted long if we'd piled up on those rocks."
"I'll say it wouldn't! I think we'd better get away from here. We'll never be able to get close enough to identify that wreckage. Might as well go on up the coast."
They drew up alongside the Napoli and, after discussing the narrow escape they had just had from being cast up on the reef, acquainted the other boys with their decision to continue the search.
"There's no use trying to get closer to that wreckage," declared Frank. "It's all in small pieces and we probably wouldn't be able to say whether it was from the Envoy or not, if we did reach it. We may as well go on up the coast and keep making inquiries at the other villages."
This plan they followed, but to no avail.
Their inquiries were fruitless. The Envoy, with Chet and Biff, seemed to have vanished into thin air. At none of the fishing villages were they able to find any one who had seen or heard of the missing motorboat. As for the wreckage on the reef, no one was found who could enlighten them. Two or three fishing boats had been wrecked during the storm, but they had met their fate farther up the coast and in each case the scene of the wreck was known to the fishermen.
"It might have been your friend's boat, and it might have been only some old wreckage washed down the coast by the storm," said one keen-eyed salt. "You'd best give up the search. If they're drowned, they're drowned, and that's all there is to it. If they were wrecked and managed to save themselves they'll make their way to the nearest village and they'll get home from there without any trouble. If you haven't found any trace of them by now there isn't much use going any further, for they would never have got this far up the coast having been seen by some of the fishermen."
The boys reluctantly agreed that his advice was sound. They turned back for Bayport.
When they returned to the city and reported that their quest had been unsuccessful they were scarcely prepared for the sensation that the news aroused. The Hoopers were frantic with anxiety, as their last hopes were dashed. The Mortons were almost stunned. They had hoped against hope that the search would bring them at least some news of the missing boys.
The local papers featured the story and the city was aroused. In every village and town along the coast, to north and south, people were discussing the mysterious disappearance of the motorboat and its human freight. Fishermen were on the lookout for any trace of the craft. The coast guards promised to do all in their power to clear up the mystery.
But, when three days more went by and there was still not the slightest solution in sight, the opinion became general that the boat had been wrecked in the storm and had gone to the bottom. The two boys were given up for lost. The Hardy boys and their chums were gradually forced to the belief that Chet and Biff had perished.
Then came an incident that temporarily drove the tragic affair from the minds of Frank and Joe, because it concerned their own home more intimately.
Aunt Gertrude had greeted them on their return with a barrage of scathing comment on their disobedience in leaving on the trip in spite of her avowed disapproval, and she expressed the greatest amazement because they had returned alive after all.
"You may thank Providence that you got back," she declared in her characteristically brusque fashion. "It was through no skill of your own, I'll be bound. Your poor mother and me were worried to death all the time you were away—gallivanting over the ocean."
Aunt Gertrude did not add that Mrs. Hardy's worries had been chiefly occasioned by her aunt's dire predictions of the certain death that awaited the boys on the search. However, her tone was modified somewhat when she realized that they had indeed been hunting for the missing chums and she made it her business to call on the Hoopers and the Mortons to condole with them, for she was a good-hearted soul in her own way—although it is to be feared that her condolences did more to add to the certainty that the boys were drowned than they served to cheer up the sorrowing parents.
The third day after the Hardy boys returned she was sorting over the morning mail, having duly taken charge of every department of the household.
"Ha!" she exclaimed, holding a letter up to the light. "Here's a letter addressed to Fenton Hardy. Bad news in it, I'll be bound."
Aunt Gertrude could smell bad news a mile away, Frank often said.
"Bad news in it. I can tell. I dreamed about haystacks last night. Haystacks! Whenever I dream about haystacks it means bad news. I never knew it to fail. Open the letter, Laura."
"But it isn't addressed to me," objected Mrs. Hardy.
"Fiddlesticks! It's addressed to your husband, isn't it? You have as much right to open it as he has. More. It's a wife's duty to help her husband as much as she can and look after his affairs for him. Man and wife are one, aren't they? Open the letter."
Mrs. Hardy, with some misgivings, slit open the envelope and Aunt Gertrude, who was possessed of an insatiable curiosity, immediately seized the letter.
"I'll read it for you!" she offered.
"'Fenton Hardy—Bayport,'" she began. "'Dear Sir: We wish to inform you that we have—' My goodness! What's this? What's this? Gracious me!" She lapsed into unintelligible mutterings as she read the rest of the letter to herself, frequently giving vent to exclamations of surprise while her eyes widened with astonishment.
Mrs. Hardy and the boys could hardly contain their impatience until at last Aunt Gertrude laid down the letter and peered triumphantly at them over her spectacles.
"Didn't I say so?" she demanded stridently. "Didn't I say there was bad news in this letter? Didn't I tell you I dreamed of haystacks last night? Haystacks always mean bad news." She looked at the letter again. "Although for the life of me I can't imagine what the man means. Hum! Kidnapped!" She looked up suddenly at the Hardy boys and glared at them.
"You boys haven't been kidnapped lately? No. Of course not. What nonsense! Has any one tried to kidnap you?"
"No, Aunt Gertrude," said Frank, utterly mystified.
"Then," demanded Aunt Gertrude, pushing the letter across to Mrs. Hardy and folding her arms as though prepared to wait until doomsday for a satisfactory answer, "what does this letter mean?"
Mrs. Hardy picked up the letter and read it aloud, while an expression of amazement crossed her face.
"Fenton Hardy—Bayport," ran the letter. "Dear Sir: We wish to inform you that we are holding your two sons in a safe place and that we will not return them to you unless you agree to the following conditions: You must pay us the sum of $5000 as ransom, you must agree to refuse to give evidence in the Asbury Park bank robbery case, and you must further agree to give up your pursuit of our leader, Baldy Turk. These are our conditions. It will do you no good to attempt to find your sons, for we will not hesitate to put them out of the way if you attempt to discover our hiding place. Furthermore, unless you agree to what we ask, it will go hard with them. You may signify your agreement to the terms of this letter by dropping a package containing the money and a signed statement to the effect that you will drop your pursuit of Baldy Turk and that you will not give evidence against our associates in the robbery case from the 5:15 express from Bayport next Thursday afternoon as it passes the grade crossing at the North Road."
The letter was unsigned.
"What on earth does it mean?" asked Mrs. Hardy.
Frank and Joe looked at one another in astonishment. Frank reached over for the letter and examined it. The strange document was typewritten on an ordinary quality of white paper. The envelope bore the Bayport postmark, indicating that it had been mailed from the city post-office early that morning.
"It must be a practical joke of some kind," said Mrs. Hardy, in perplexity.
"Practical joke, nothing!" scoffed Aunt Gertrude shrewdly. "Did Fenton Hardy go to Chicago after some criminal?"
"He went to arrest Baldy Turk," replied Frank.
"There!" Aunt Gertrude pounded the table. "That explains the whole thing. The companions of this Baldy person sent that letter in the hope that it would bring Fenton Hardy back from Chicago by the next train."
"But the letter is addressed to Bayport."
"Certainly! Why not? They wouldn't know where to reach him in Chicago, so they sent the letter here and trusted that it would be forwarded to him. And if I hadn't been here," said Aunt Gertrude, "it very probably would have been forwarded to him. Am I right?"
"I usually forward his personal mail," admitted Mrs. Hardy.
"There! Didn't I know it? And look what would have happened. Fenton Hardy would have fallen right into the trap. He would have come back home, thinking his precious sons were kidnapped, and that would have given this Turk person time to get away. It's a blessing I was here, I tell you. I hope this will be a lesson to you, Laura Hardy. Always open your husband's mail! Always!"