'Funny you should say that.' Mrs. Kane looked at Joe. 'There was a family stopped here the other day.
Wanted to buy some eggs. One of the little girls said they'd had a terrible scare. They'd stopped at the
old Pollitt place to have a picnic, and were scared out of their wits by moans and groans and queer
laughs from the house.'
Mr. Kane's face broke into a grin. 'The kid's imagination sure was runnin' away with itself.'
'I'm not so sure of that,' his wife disagreed. 'I think some boys were in there playing pranks.'
After Frank and Joe and their friends had left the farmhouse, they discussed the strange noises at the
Pollitt place from this new angle.
Biff frowned. 'If those ghosts are from Bayport High, they'll sure have the laugh on us,' he remarked.
'They sure will,' Chet agreed. 'I'd hate to face them on Monday.'
Frank and Joe were not convinced. After they had dropped their chums at the Morton and Hooper
homes, they discussed the day's strange and varied adventures all the way to the Hardy house.
'I'm sure that ghost business was meant to be something more than a prank,' Frank stated.
'Right,' his brother agreed. 'I just had an idea, Frank. Maybe nobody was in the house, but he could
have rigged up a tape recorder to make those sounds and a remote control to start it.
What say we go back sometime and take a look?'
'I'm with you.'
By this time the boys had turned into the long driveway of the Hardy home, a spacious, three-story
clapboard house on the corner of High and Elm streets. The large two-story garage at the rear of an
attractive garden had once been a barn.
Frank and Joe parked their motorcycles, unstrapped the telescope, and carried it to the back porch. As
they entered the kitchen, they found their mother, a pretty, sweet-faced woman, with sparkling blue eyes,
preparing supper.
'Hello, boys,' she greeted them. 'Did you have a good day? See any smugglers?'
They kissed her and Frank said, 'We have a lot to tell you and Dad.'
'He's in the study upstairs. I'll go up with you right away and we can talk while the chicken's roasting and
the potatoes baking.'
The three hurried up to the room where Mr. Hardy was busy looking in a large metal file in which he kept
important records. The detective stopped his work and listened with rapt attention as Frank and Joe
gave a detailed account of their adventures.
'We sure fell for that cry for help,' Joe explained. 'I'm sorry about the stolen eyepieces from the
telescope.'
'And I hope it wasn't damaged when I had my spill,' Frank added. He smiled wanly. 'You'll probably
want to dismiss us from your detective force.'
'Nothing of the kind,' his father said. 'But now, let's discuss what you saw through the telescope. You
said you spotted a man who climbed down the ladder of a boat and went off in a smaller one. Could he
have been this same fellow who calls himself Jones?'
'We couldn't identify him,' Joe replied, 'but he might be.'
Frank snapped his fingers. 'Yes, and he could be one of the smugglers.'
'But who threw that hand grenade at him?' Joe asked. 'Not one of his own gang, surely. And those guys
in the other speedboat-they couldn't have been Coast Guard men, even in disguise. They wouldn't use
grenades.'
'Joe's right on the second point,' Mr. Hardy agreed. 'But Jones may still be a smuggler.'
'You mean he might have done something to make his boss mad and the boss sent out a couple of men
to get him?' Joe asked.
The detective nodded. 'If this theory is right, and we can persuade Jones to talk before he either rejoins
the gang or starts trying to take revenge, then we might get him to turn state's evidence.'
The boys were excited. Both jumped from their chairs and Joe cried out eagerly, 'Let's go talk to him
right away! By morning he'll be gone!'
CHAPTER V
Pretzel Pete
'Just a minute!' Mrs. Hardy said to her sons. 'How about supper?'
'We can eat when we come back from our interview with Jones,' Joe answered. 'Mother, he may
decide to leave the farmhouse any time.'
Despairingly Mrs. Hardy returned to her husband. 'What do you think, Fenton?'
The detective gave his wife an understanding smile, then turned to Frank and Joe. 'Didn't you say Jones
was in pretty bad shape?'
'Yes, Dad,' Frank replied.
'Then I doubt very much that he'll try to leave the Kanes' home before the time he set-tomorrow
morning. I'm sure that it'll be safe for us to eat Mother's good supper and still see our man in time.'
Joe subsided, and to make his mother feel better, said with a smile, 'Guess I let this mystery go to my
brain for a minute. As a matter of fact, I have an empty space inside of me big enough to eat two
suppers!'
Mrs. Hardy tweaked an ear of her energetic son, just as she had frequently done ever since he was a
small boy. He smiled at her affectionately, then asked what he could do to help with supper.
'Well, suppose you fill the water glasses and get milk for you and Frank,' Mrs. Hardy said, as she and
Joe went downstairs together.
At the table, as often happened at meals in the Hardy home, the conversation revolved around the
mystery. Frank asked his father if he had made any progress on his part in the case concerning the
smugglers.
'Very little,' the detective replied. 'Snattman is a slippery individual. He covers his tracks well. I did find
this out, though. The law firm which is handling old Mr. Pollitt's affairs has had no luck in locating the
nephew to whom the property was left.'
'Mr. Kane said he'd heard Mr. Pollitt call his nephew a no-good,' Frank put in.
'That's just the point,' Mr. Hardy said. 'The lawyers learned from the police that he's a hoodlum and is
wanted for burglary.'
Frank whistled. 'That puts the nephew in a bad spot, doesn't it? If he shows up to claim the property,
he'll be nabbed as a criminal.'
'Exactly,' Mr. Hardy answered.
'What will become of the property?' Joe queried.
His father said he thought the executors might let the house remain vacant or they might possibly rent it.
'They could do this on a month-to-month basis. This would give added income to the estate.'
'Which wouldn't do the nephew much good if he were in jail,' Mrs. Hardy put in.
'That would depend on how long his sentence was,' her husband said. 'He may not be a dangerous
criminal. He may just have fallen into bad company and unwittingly become an accessory in some holdup
or burglary.'
'In that case,' Frank remarked, 'he may realize that he wouldn't have to stay in prison long. He may
appear to claim the property, take his punishment, and then lead a normal, law-abiding life out at his
uncle's place.'
'Well, I sincerely hope so,' Mr. Hardy replied. 'The trouble is, so often when a young man joins a group
of hoodlums or racketeers, he's blackmailed for the rest of his life, even though he tries to go straight.'
The detective smiled. 'The best way to avoid such a situation is never to get into it!'
