“I didn’t say anybody was pinched,” returned Smuff cautiously.
“Well,” said Frank, “this is a surprise! Won’t you tell us what it’s all about?”
Smuff shook his head. “My orders,” he explained, “was to come down here and wait for you and to tell you to come up and see the chief right away.”
“Why not let us wait until after lunch? We want to go home and eat and change our clothes.”
“Orders is orders,” insisted Smuff firmly. “The chief wants to see you right away.”
“All right,” sighed Joe. “I suppose we’ll have to go. But I wish I knew what it was all about.”
“Me, too,” rejoined his brother.
Biff, who had been tying up the boat, came forward.
“He probably wants to fire Smuff, here, and give you jobs on the detective force,” he suggested, with a grin.
Smuff glowered. “My job is good for a long time yet,” he observed pompously.
“Come on,” said Frank. “There’s no use standing here arguing about it. We’ll go with you, Smuff.”
“I have my car right here at the door,” said the detective.
“That’s service,” chirped Chet. “Biff and I will run along home. Our parents will be worrying themselves sick if we don’t show up. So long, fellows! If Smuff claps you into a cell, we’ll come and bail you out!”
Chet and Biff hastened off down the street while the Hardy boys clambered into Smuff’s car. The detective wedged himself in behind the wheel and they drove the few short blocks to police headquarters.
Here they were ushered into the private office of Chief Collig himself, a fussy little man with a vast sense of dignity. The chief was sitting at a huge desk, scanning a large number of photographs of criminals, but he stacked these to one side as Detective Smuff brought the boys in.
“Good day, Chief,” said Frank easily. “Detective Smuff, here, said you wanted to see us.”
“I did,” snapped Chief Collig.
“Well, here we are.”
“You’re wanted,” said Collig briefly.
“Wanted?” asked Frank. “What do you mean?”
“You’re wanted by the postal authorities. I have orders to place you under arrest.”
The lads were so astonished that they could scarcely speak. Under arrest? This was the last thing either had expected.
“What for?” gasped Joe. “What’s the idea?”
“You know about the airport robbery, don’t you?” demanded Chief Collig.
“Yes, we know about it. But—”
“Well, they say you did it. I have orders to arrest you both.”
XIII
Circumstantial Evidence
The Hardy boys were absolutely dumbfounded. The charge of theft seemed so absurd that they were at first tempted to laugh. But they saw that Chief Collig was in deadly earnest. His face was serious and his eyes regarded them sternly.
“The postal people have evidence against you lads,” he said. “A mail sack with about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of mail was stolen. They took out a warrant against you this morning.”
“Why, this is the craziest thing I ever heard of!” declared Frank hotly. “Us? Mixed up in that mail robbery? Why, we weren’t even near Bayport when it happened.”
“How do you know so much about when it happened?” asked the chief quickly.
“We were away down the bay all last night and we heard it over the telephone this morning.”
“Pretty good alibi,” said the chief. “And what time do you think the robbery occurred?”
“Last night.”
“Well, it didn’t happen last night. It happened yesterday afternoon, early. And you boys didn’t leave here in your motorboat until late in the afternoon. The robbery wasn’t discovered until last night. Where were you yesterday afternoon?”
“Why, we went in our roadster down to—” began Joe, but a warning kick from Frank silenced him. It would not do to tell Chief Collig that they had been in Beach Grove, seeking clues against Ducroy and his friends in the deserted cabin.
“Where did you go in your roadster?” asked Chief Collig.
“We went for a drive,” admitted Joe lamely.
“Where to?”
“Well,” said Joe, “we went down the Shore Road.”
“To the airport?”
“No.”
The chief pursed his lips. “You parked your car in Beach Grove,” he said. “I have a witness to prove it. And from there you walked through the bush to the airport.”
“We didn’t!” snapped Frank.
“Where did you go, then?”
“We just took a walk through the grove.”
“Can you prove it?” asked the chief.
“You’ll have to take our word for it, that’s all I can say.”
The chief shook his head. “I can’t take your word for it,” he returned. “The evidence against you is too strong.”
“Are you going to lock us up?” Frank asked.
“You’re under arrest. That’s my duty.”
“Won’t you let us go home first? We’d like to talk this over with our father.”
“He knows about it,” said Collig.
“But we want to see him, anyway. You come with us, Chief. We won’t try to run away.”
The chief considered this for a moment. “I guess there ain’t any harm in that,” he decided finally. He got up, put on his uniform cap, and led the way out of the office.
A department automobile was waiting at the curb and Chief Collig ordered the chauffeur to drive to the Hardy home on High Street.
“What makes you think we’re mixed up in this business?” Joe inquired. “Is it just because we were out on the Shore Road yesterday?”
The chief shook his head. “We didn’t know that until later,” he said. “After we began checking up on you two lads we found that you had been on the Shore Road.”
Frank was surprised.
“What made you check up on us? Why should you suspect us? We have never been in trouble before.”
“I know that,” returned Chief Collig. “You would never have been suspected hadn’t it been for the clues.”
“Clues?”
“There were clues found after the robbery. I think you’ll have a hard time explaining them.”
Beyond that, Chief Collig would volunteer no further information. The boys were puzzled and apprehensive. The chief’s mysterious reference to clues made their position seem more serious than they had at first imagined. Conscious though they were of their own innocence, they realized that their
