would be silly enough to hide them right in the house he robbed!' she said in
a tone of finality.
'We're just trying to help you,' Joe put in courteously.
'Go ahead, then,' said Miss Applegate with a sigh. 'But even if you tear the
old tower to pieces, you won't find anything. It's all foolishness.'
Frank and Joe followed Hurd Applegate through the gloomy halls and
corridors that led toward the old tower. He said he was inclined to share his
sister's opinion that the boys' search would be in vain.
'We'll make a try at it, anyway, Mr. Applegate,' Frank said.
'Don't ask me to help you. I've got a bad knee. Anyway, I just received some
new stamps this afternoon. You interrupted me when I was sorting them. I
must get back to my work.'
The man reached a corridor that was heavily covered with dust. It apparently
had not been in use for a long time and was bare and unfurnished. At the end
was a heavy door. It was unlocked, and when Mr. Applegate opened it, the
boys saw a square room. Almost in the center of it rose a flight of wooden
stairs with a heavily ornamented balustrade. The stairway twisted and turned
to the roof, five floors above. Opening from each floor was a room.
'There you are,' Mr. Applegate announced. 'Search all you want to. But
you won't find anything-of that I'm certain.'
With this parting remark he turned and hobbled back along the corridor, the
sheet of stamps still in his gnarled hand.
The Hardy boys looked at each other. 'Not very encouraging, is he?' Joe
remarked.
'He doesn't deserve to get his stuff back,' Frank declared flatly, then
shrugged. 'Let's get up into the tower and start the search.'
Frank and Joe first examined the dusty stairs carefully for footprints, but
none were to be seen.
'That seems queer,' Frank remarked. 'If Jackley was here recently you'd
think his footprints would still show. Judging by this dust, there hasn't been
anyone in the tower for at least a year.'
'Perhaps the dust collects more quickly than we think,' Joe countered. 'Or
the wind may get in here and blow it around.'
An inspection of the first floor of the old tower revealed that there was no
place where the loot could have been hidden except under the stairs. But they
found nothing there.
The boys ascended to the next floor, and entered the room to the left of the
stair well. It was as drab and bare as the one they had just left. Here again
the dust lay thick and the murky windows were almost obscured with
cobwebs. There was an atmosphere of age and decay about the entire place,
as if it had been abandoned for years.
'Nothing here,' said Frank after a quick glance around. 'On we go.'
They made their way up to the next floor. After searching this room and
under the stairway, they had to admit defeat.
The floor above was a duplicate of the first and second. It was bare and
cheerless, deep in dust. There was not the slightest sign of a hiding place, or
any indication that another human being had been in the tower for a long
time.
'Doesn't look very promising, Joe. Still, Jackley may have gone right to the
top of the tower.' The search continued without success until the boys
reached the roof. Here a trap door which swung inward led to the top of the
tower. Frank unlatched it and pulled on the door. It did not budge.
'I'll help you,' Joe offered.
Together the brothers yanked on the stubborn trap door of the old tower.
Suddenly it gave way completely, causing both boys to lose their balance.
Frank fell backward down the stairway.
Joe, with a cry, toppled over the railing into space!
Frank grabbed a spindle of the balustrade and kept himself from sliding
farther down the steps. He had seen Joe's plunge and expected the next
moment to hear a sickening thud on the floor five stories below.
'Joe!' he murmured as he pulled himself upright. 'Oh, Joe!'
To Frank's amazement, he heard no thud and now looked over the
balustrade. His brother was not lying unconscious at the bottom of the tower.
Instead, he was clinging to two spindles of the stairway on the floor below.
Frank, heaving a tremendous sigh of relief, ran down and helped pull Joe to
the safety of the steps. Both boys sat down to catch their breaths and recover
from their falls.
Finally Joe said, 'Thanks. For a second I sure thought I was going to end my
career as a detective right here!'
'I guess you can also thank our gym teacher for the tricks he taught you on
the bars,' Frank remarked. 'You must have grabbed those spindles with
flash-camera speed.'
Presently the boys turned their eyes upward. An expression halfway between
a grin and a worried frown crossed their faces.
'Mr. Applegate,' Joe remarked, 'isn't going to like hearing we ruined his
trap door.'
'No. Let's see if we can put it back in place.'
The boys climbed the stairway and examined the damage. They found that
the hinges had pulled away from rotted wood. A new piece would have to be
put in to hold the door in place.
'Before we go downstairs,' said Joe, 'let's look out on the roof. We thought
maybe the loot was hidden there. Remember?'
Frank and Joe climbed outside to a narrow, railinged walk that ran around
the four sides of the square tower. There was nothing on it.
'Our only reward for all this work is a good view of Bayport,' Frank
remarked ruefully.
Below lay the bustling little city, and to the east was Barmet Bay, its waters
sparkling in the late afternoon.
'Dad was fooled by Jackley, I guess,' Frank said slowly. 'There hasn't been
anyone in this tower for years.'
The boys gazed moodily over the city, then down at the grounds of Tower
Mansion. The many roofs of the house itself were far below, and directly
across from them rose the heavy bulk of the new tower.
'Do you think Jackley might have meant the new tower?' Joe exclaimed
suddenly.
'Dad said he specified the old one.'
'But he may have been mistaken. Even the new one looks old. Let's ask Mr.
Applegate if we may search the new tower, too.'
'It's worth trying, anyway. But I'm afraid when we tell him about the trap
