“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 tomorrow 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.
XI
The Cap on the Peg
Next morning the searching party set out.
Jerry Gilroy had not got over the scare he had received on the remarkable Saturday of the boys’ first visit to the house on the cliff and he did not show up. But Chet Morton and Biff Hooper appeared, with Phil Cohen and Tony Prito, two more of the Hardy boys’ chums at the Bayport high school. Chet had his motorcycle and the party left the Hardy home shortly after breakfast, each machine carrying two.
Before they left, Frank explained the situation fully to the others.
“We know that dad was last seen near the Polucca place and we have every reason to believe that he left here with the intention of searching the house. He hasn’t shown up since and no person has seen him, so there may have been foul play.”
“If there is any trace of him around the Polucca place we’ll find it,” declared Chet. “It will take a mighty lively ghost to scare us away this time.”
The three motorcycles went out of Bayport past the Tower Mansion, sped along the shore road. There was little talk among the boys. Each realized that this was not a pleasure outing but a serious mission and each recognized the importance of it. The Hardy boys had every confidence in their companions. Chet and Biff, they knew, would not be as easily frightened on this occasion, and as for Phil and Tony, they were noted at school for their fearless, at times even reckless, dispositions.
They passed the Kane farmhouse, nestling among the trees, and at last came in sight of the gloomy cliff that rose from Barmet Bay and at the summit of which perched the rambling stone house where the miser, Felix Polucca, had met his death.
“Lonely looking place, isn’t it?” remarked Phil, who was sharing Frank’s motorcycle.
“It was an ideal place for a murder. When Felix Polucca lived there, I doubt if he had more than two or three visitors in a year.”
“How did he get his food and supplies?”
“He used to drive into the city about once a week in a rattly old buggy, with a horse that must have come out of the Ark. The poor animal looked as if it hadn’t had a square meal in a lifetime. Polucca must have been a little bit crazy. How he lived alone up there all the time, nobody could
