“What was he doing?” asked Detective Smuff suspiciously.
“Watching us,” Jack returned. “Seems as if half the people in the county have their eye on us since those cars were stolen. I think that chap is cured.”
“He should be,” said Smuff, gazing respectfully at Towser. “If anyone bothers you after this, let me know. Us regular detectives can’t have anyone buttin’ into our work like that.”
He glanced severely at the Hardy boys as he spoke.
“We certainly can’t,” said Joe innocently. Then, as Detective Smuff glared, he turned to his companions. “Come on, fellows. Let’s take a look through the woods on the other side of the road. We might find some trace of the cars there.”
VII
Gus Montrose
Detective Smuff walked back as far as the road with the boys, and then clambered into his car, where another detective on the Bayport force was waiting for him.
“You’re just wastin’ your time hunting through the woods,” he told the boys heavily. “A car couldn’t get down there, anyway, and we’ve hunted through there pretty thoroughly in the second place.”
“It’ll give us something to do,” Frank said cheerfully.
“Keep you out of mischief, I guess,” agreed Smuff, as though this were some consolation at any rate. He nodded to the boys and the car sped off toward Bayport.
“Dumb but good-hearted,” said Chet.
“He isn’t a bad sort,” Joe remarked. “He’s no great shakes as a detective, that’s sure, but there are lots worse.”
The boys crossed the road and struck off down a narrow trail that led through the undergrowth into the woods on the sloping land between the Shore Road and Barmet Bay. For the most part there were steep bluffs lining the bay, but at this point the declivity was more gradual.
“I think he’s right about searching down through here,” said Jack Dodd dubiously. “A car could never get down into this bush.”
“A car mightn’t but the car thieves might,” Frank pointed out. “It seems mighty queer that none of the stolen cars have been traced at either end of the Shore Road. Those automobiles stolen the other night should have been picked up in one of the three towns on the branch roads. Smuff said the thefts were discovered in plenty of time to send out warning.”
“It does seem strange. Out of so many cars, you’d imagine at least one or two would have been traced outside Bayport.”
“I have a hunch that this whole mystery begins and ends right along the Shore Road,” said Frank. “It won’t hurt to scout around and see what we can find. Maybe there’s a hidden machine shop where they alter the appearance of the autos.”
“I was reading of a case in New York City not long ago,” remarked Joe, as they pushed along. “The auto thieves got cars downtown and drove them to some place uptown. The police followed half a dozen gangsters for two weeks before they got on to their trick, which was to drive into an alleyway that looked as if it came to an end at the back of a barn. They found that a section of the side of the barn went up like a sliding door. The thieves would drive in with a stolen car. Inside the old barn was an elevator running down to a cellar. In the cellar was a machine and paint shop and five or six workmen down there could so alter a car in a few hours that the owner himself couldn’t tell his own machine.”
“Can you beat it!” exclaimed Chet. “Gee, it’s a wonder they wouldn’t work at something honest!”
Among the woods on the slope the boys wandered aimlessly. The sun cast great shafts of light through openings in the leaves above and once in a while they could catch glimpses of the blue waters of the bay in the distance.
Frank was in the lead. He was proceeding down a narrow defile in the forest when the others saw him suddenly stop and turn toward them with a finger on his lips, cautioning silence.
They remained stock-still until he beckoned to them, and then moved quietly forward, their feet making no noise in the heavy grass.
“I heard voices,” Frank whispered as they came up to him.
“Ahead?” asked his brother.
Frank nodded.
“We’ll go easy.”
He moved on cautiously and the others followed. In a few moments they heard a dull murmur of voices and smelled the unmistakable odor of a wood fire. So far they could see no one, but soon the faint trail wound around in the direction of a clearing ahead and those in the rear saw Frank crouch among the bushes, peering through the leaves.
Quietly, the others came up. The four boys gazed through the undergrowth at the scene in the grassy clearing.
Three men were seated about a small fire, over which one was holding a tin pail suspended from a green branch. They were unshaven, frowsy-headed, untidy fellows, and they sprawled on the ground in careless attitudes.
“Tramps,” whispered Chet, but Frank pressed a restraining hand on his arm.
There was one thought in the minds of the four boys—that this trio might be the automobile thieves!
“Not far from Bayport, are we?” growled one of the men.
“Not many miles farther on,” replied the man holding the branch.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever been in these parts.”
“It ain’t so bad,” volunteered the third man, lighting his pipe. “Easy pickin’s around the farmhouses. It didn’t take me ten minutes to rustle that grub tonight.”
“You did well, Bill,” said the man at the fire, glancing at a package of food near by.
“I wonder where that guy is that we met on our way in here? He gave us a funny look.”
“He minded his own business, anyway.”
“Good thing for him that he did. I don’t hold with bein’ asked questions.”
“Me neither. A good rap over the dome for anybody that wants to know too much—that’s my motto.”
“Is that mulligan ready?”
“Not
