On the way they met Callie Shaw and Iola Morton, two girls who were particular friends of the boys. Callie Shaw, a brown-eyed, brown-haired girl was an object of special enthusiasm with Frank, who was apt to cast an appreciative eye upon the other sex, while Iola, a plump, dark girl, a sister of Chet Morton’s, was “all right, as a girl,” in Joe’s reluctant opinion.
Chet had told his sister about the affair at the Polucca place on the previous Saturday, and she, in turn, had told Callie.
“Well, how are the ghost-hunters this morning?” asked Callie.
“Fine,” replied Frank, with a smile.
“What a brave bunch of boys you all are!” exclaimed the girl. “Running away from an empty house!”
“That house wasn’t empty!” put in Joe warmly. “I suppose you think our motorcycle tools walked away!”
“Somebody played a pretty good practical joke on you. Just wait till you get to school. Whoever played that trick will be sure to tell everybody.”
“Oh, well, we can stand it. If Chet Morton hadn’t been with us at the time I would have blamed him. It’s like one of his pet ideas.”
“He can prove an alibi this time,” said Iola. “He was right with you, and by the way he talked when he got home I think he was as badly frightened as anyone.”
But when the boys reached school they found that although news of their experience at the house on the cliff had preceded them, no one was laying claim to having originated the joke. Chet and the other boys had told of the escapade, but although they momentarily expected that some practical jester would come forward and take credit for the whole affair, nothing of the sort happened, and when noon came it was as much a mystery as ever.
“I’m beginning to think it wasn’t a joke at all,” admitted Joe, on the way home. “Believe me, if it had been a trick played on us the fellow who did it wouldn’t have lost any time coming around to have the horselaugh.”
“It was a little too well done to be a joke. I think someone started this ghost rumor just to keep people away from the Polucca place.”
“If everybody gets the same reception we got, I don’t blame ’em for staying away. What with weird yells and shrieks, with walls falling in and tool boxes being robbed, it’s a mighty active ghost they have on the job.”
“I wonder—could it have anything to do with the smugglers, Joe?”
The Hardy boys looked at one another.
“There’s a thought!” exclaimed Joe. “We had two mighty strange things happen to us on the same day. Perhaps they have something to do with each other.”
“It might be only a coincidence. But when you come to think of it, that house on the cliff would be a mighty handy hangout for smugglers if they could keep strangers away. And what better way than by starting a story that the place is haunted?”
“Gosh, I never thought of that! I wonder what dad thinks of it.”
“Perhaps he’s at home now. We’ll mention it to him.”
But when they returned home for lunch they found that Fenton Hardy had not come back. Neither was he at home when school closed for the day; and when the Hardy boys went to bed that night there had not been the slightest word from their father nor any indication of where he had gone. In spite of the fact that they were accustomed to these sudden absences, the lads felt vaguely uneasy.
“I don’t know why,” said Frank next morning, “but I have a sort of feeling that everything isn’t all right.”
“I’ve been feeling that way myself. Of course, dad has often gone away from home like this without telling where he was going, and he has always turned up all right. But this time—”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. He knows his own business best, and it’s ten chances to one we’re worrying over nothing, but I have a sort of a hunch that there’s a nigger in the woodpile.”
Mrs. Hardy, however, was not alarmed.
“Oh, he’ll walk into the house when we’re least expecting him,” she laughed reassuringly. “You boys are just anxious to get to work on the Snackley case. Perhaps that’s what he’s working on now, he’ll probably come back with a lot of information.”
“We’d rather he’d let us in on that,” returned Joe.
“And keep you out of school! Oh, no. He doesn’t mind letting you do detective work as long as it’s in your spare time.”
So the Hardy boys had to make the best of it. They concealed their impatience during the remainder of the week, doing their school work faithfully. The following week was the start of vacation, and the lads were deep in examinations for several days so that they had not much time to think of detective activities.
But on Friday afternoon the mystery of their father’s absence took a strange turn.
They came back from school to find their mother sitting in the living room, carefully examining a note that she had evidently just received.
“Come here, boys,” she said, as they came into the room. “I want you to look at this and tell me what you think of it.”
She handed the note over to Frank.
“What is it?” he asked, quickly. “Word from dad?”
“It’s supposed to be.”
The Hardy boys read the note. It was written in pencil on a torn sheet of paper and the handwriting seemed to be that of Fenton Hardy. The note read:
“I won’t be home for several days. Don’t worry.”
It was signed by the detective. That was all. There was
