“It’ll be worth the trouble, Harry,” another deep voice said. “Let’s move it.”
“Sure,” the first man replied. “He’s a slippery character, Jack. Do you think we can trust him?”
The other man laughed. “There’s only one of him, brother. And there’s two of us. It’s our boat. Maybe he ought to be worrying if he can trust us!”
The hatch opened and the men climbed down the ladder. Bob and Jupe, their ears pressed tightly against the thin door, heard one of them walking forward.
An engine whined and caught. They felt a sudden jerk and a slight bump. Then they were moving smoothly on the rails.
Bob touched Jupe’s knee in the darkness. “They sound like those two skin divers. Are we going into the ocean?” he whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Jupe said softly. “There’s still not enough ballast in the dragon to keep it submerged.”
“Whew!” Bob sighed. “That’s a relief,”
The dragon moved with only a slight swaying motion to indicate its progress.
“We’re going backwards,” Jupe whispered, “into the old tunnel.”
“I know,” Bob whispered. “But why? What are they up to?”
Jupiter shrugged. “I wish I knew. Whatever it is, it sounds important.”
The dragon stopped suddenly with a lurch, and Bob and Jupe fell back, bumping against the thin wall.
The man who had been driving came back. “Okay, Harry,” his voice rasped. “It’s time to load up. Watch yourself!”
“He’d better not try any tricks on us,” the other grumbled. “Or I’ll crown him with one of those bars.”
“Yeah, sure,” the first one said. “Well, that’s the chance we’re taking. For a million bucks, it’s worth it!
Jupe and Bob stared into the darkness of the tiny compartment. One million dollars? They wondered if they had heard correctly.
The men walked away and climbed the ladder. The hatch opened, and fell back into place with a clanging sound.
Jupe tapped Bob’s shoulder. “Let’s see what they’re up to,” he whispered.
Stealthily, they opened the cupboard door.
They had taken only a few steps when they halted abruptly. A man was speaking, his voice hoarse and rasping, his words interrupted by spasms of coughing.
“Hurry it up,” he said. “I’ve taken care of the night watchman with some knockout drops. He’ll be out for a few hours. We should have the three hundred bars out of there before he wakes up.”
Bob nudged Jupe. “You were right. It’s Arthur Shelby. I recognize his voice and his cough.”
“That’s the second mystery solved,” Jupe whispered. “The mystery of the coughing dragon. Only one remains.”
“You mean this one — what they’re doing here?” Bob asked.
“The mystery of the three hundred bars,” Jupe replied. “Three hundred bars of what?”
He tapped Bob’s shoulder and moved along the dimly-lit aisle of the dragon again. Then, carefully mounting the narrow steps, he raised the hatch with his hands and peeped out.
His mouth gaped open. He was looking at a concrete wall alongside the dragon. A large hole had been drilled in it — a hole big enough for men to walk through. A man emerged from it carrying something in his arms and leaning back to balance the weight.
“Hey! This stuff weighs a ton,” he complained.
“Sure,” Shelby answered. “Why do you think you Morgans were hired — just because you have a handy boat? What this job needed was a lot of muscle power. The kind you used drilling our way into the vault. You and your brother were hired to take care of that and the loading from here to your boat.”
“Sure,” the man grunted. “I ain’t complaining. How much does each one of these things weigh?”
“About seventy pounds,” Shelby replied. “Just stack them alongside the dragon. When we’ve got the three hundred out of there, we’ll load up the dragon and head for sea.”
The husky Morgan brother put his load down and turned back to the hole in the wall. His brother came out, leaning back and breathing heavily.
“Okay, Jack,” he grunted. “Three less to go now.” He set his bars down as Shelby directed and returned to the wall and disappeared inside. Jupiter lowered the hatch.
“Mr. Shelby said each bar weighed about seventy pounds,” he whispered. “The Morgan brothers were talking about a million dollars. I think I know what those bars are. Gold!”
“Gold?” Bob exclaimed. “Where’s it coming from?”
“The large standard gold brick or bullion bar the government makes,” Jupe said, “is seventy pounds! The smaller standard gold bar weighs twenty pounds and is worth nine thousand, six hundred dollars alone! Shelby and the Morgan brothers appear to be robbing a Federal Reserve Bank!”
“Whiskers!” Bob exclaimed softly. “How much is one of those seventy pound bars worth?”
Jupe frowned, and calculated swiftly. “Approximately four hundred and eighty dollars a pound… times seventy… or — ” Jupe whistled softly “ — over thirty thousand dollars! Thirty-three thousand, six hundred dollars, to be exact!”
“Wow!” Bob exclaimed again. “And Shelby said they were taking three hundred bars!”
“I make that amount to be ten million, eighty thousand dollars,” Jupe calculated. “quite a haul.”
“That makes us witnesses to a pretty important bank robbery,” Bob whispered. “We’d better get out of here, if we want to stay alive!”
Jupe agreed, his voice husky with excitement. “The question is how — Mr. Shelby is too close to the dragon!”
He walked forward slowly, thinking. Then suddenly he darted to the head of the dragon.
Bob was right behind him, wondering if Jupe had found a new place for them to hide.
Jupe stopped so abruptly, Bob bumped into him. “Sorry,” Bob murmured, “I didn’t expect — ”
His companion raised a warning finger to his lips. He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Hold tight!” Jupe whispered fiercely. “They’ve left the ignition key in!”
Bob’s jaw gaped. “You mean — you’re going to drive it — away? Can you drive it? How will you see? There’s no windscreen.”
Jupe shrugged. “It’s worth a try. I’m sure this runs like an ordinary car, and I know how a car works. There’s a foot clutch, brake, gearshift, accelerator. And it’ll be on the tracks to the end of the tunnel,”
He dropped to the small seat. “Here goes,” Jupe called, and turned the ignition key.
The engine whined shrilly.
It whined again. Then it coughed and stopped. “It coughed, Jupe!” Bob exclaimed. “Then it wasn’t Shelby coughing.”
Jupe nodded, biting his lip. “It stalled,” he said bitterly. He turned the key again, holding it hard in the lock.
The engine whined once more. Suddenly it caught with a loud roar.
Jupe sighed, relieved. He pulled the gearshift into first and slowly eased his foot off the pedal.
The dragon bucked forward in one convulsive leap. Then it coughed and stopped. The engine was quiet.
“Stalled again!” Jupe cried bitterly. “It’s the clutch that — ”
Then he and Bob whirled. Something heavy was banging on the side of the dragon. They heard something fall against it with a loud thud. Then they heard something more ominous.
The hatch was opening.
“We should have locked it!” Bob whispered.
Jupe nodded, his eyes frightened. “I know. I’m sorry — I wasn’t thinking.”
