discuss their failure to catch up to the man, and to question why he had been
there.
'Do you think he was a thief?' Joe asked Chet. 'What would he steal?'
'Search me,' the stout boy replied. 'Let's take a look.'
'I believe he was carrying something, but I couldn't see what it was,' Frank
revealed.
The barn door had not been closed yet for the night and the boys walked in.
Chet turned on the lights and the searchers gazed around.
'Look!' Frank cried suddenly.
He pointed to the floor below the telephone extension in the barn. There lay a
man's gray wig.
'The intruder's!' Joe exclaimed.
'It sure looks so,' Frank agreed. 'And something must have scared him. In
his hurry to get away he must have dropped this.'
Frank picked up the wig and examined it carefully for a clue. 'No identifying
mark in it. Say, I have an idea,' he burst out. 'That man phoned you from
here, Chet.'
'You mean he's the one who threatened me?'
'Yes. If you know how, you can call your own telephone number from an
extension.'
'That's right.'
Chet was wagging his head. 'You mean that guy bothered to come all the
way here to use this phone to threaten me? Why?'
Both Hardys said they felt the man had not come specifically for that reason.
There was another more important one. 'We must figure it out. Chet, you
ought to be able to answer that better than anybody else. What is there, or
was there, in this barn to interest such a person?'
The stout boy scratched his head and let his eyes wander around the building.
'It wouldn't be any of the livestock,' he said slowly. 'And it couldn't be hay
or feed.' Suddenly Chet snapped his fingers. 'Maybe I have the answer.
Wait a minute, fellows.'
He disappeared from the barn and made a bee-line for the garage. Chet
hurried inside but was back in a few seconds.
'I have it!' he shouted. 'That guy came here to get the spare tire for the
jalopy.'
'The one you had is gone?' Frank asked.
Chet nodded. He suggested that perhaps the man was not too far away. He
might be on some side road changing the tire. 'Let's find out,' he urged.
Although the Hardys felt that it would be a useless search, they agreed to go
along. They got on their motorcycles, with Chet riding behind Joe. The boys
went up one road and down another, covering the territory very thoroughly.
They saw no parked car.
'Not even any evidence that a driver pulled off the road and stayed to change
a tire,' Frank remarked. 'No footprints, no tool marks, no treads.'
'That guy must have had somebody around to pick him up,' Chet concluded
with a sigh.
'Cheer up, Chet,' Frank said, as they walked back to the house. 'That
spare tire may turn out to be a clue in this case.'
When the boys entered the kitchen again, they were met with anxious
inquiries from Callie and Iola.
'What in the world were you doing-dashing out of here without a word?'
Callie asked in a shaking voice.
'Yes, what's going on? You had us frightened silly,' Iola joined in. 'First
Chet gets a threatening phone call, and then suddenly all three of you run out
of the house like madmen!'
'Calm down, girls,' Frank said soothingly. 'I saw a prowler, and we were
looking for him, but all we found was this!' He tossed the gray wig onto a
chair in the hall.
Suddenly there was a loud wail from Chet. 'My Welsh rabbit! It's been
standing so long it will be ruined!'
Iola began to giggle. 'Oh, you men!' she said. 'Do you suppose Callie and I
would let all that good cheese go to waste? We kept that Welsh rabbit at just
the right temperature and it isn't spoiled at all.'
Chet looked relieved, as he and the others took their places at the table.
Although there was a great deal of bantering during the meal, the
conversation in the main revolved around Chet's missing jalopy and the thief
who evidently wore hair disguises to suit his fancy.
Frank and Joe asked Chet if they might take along the gray wig and examine
it more thoroughly. There might be some kind of mark on it to indicate either
the maker or the owner. Chet readily agreed.
But when supper was over, Callie said to Frank with a teasing gleam in her
eyes, 'Why don't you hot-shot sleuths examine that wig now? I'd like to
watch your super-duper methods.'
'Just for that, I will,' said Frank.
He went to get the wig from the hall chair, and then laid it on the kitchen
table. From his pocket he took a small magnifying glass and carefully
examined every inch of the lining of the wig.
'Nothing here,' he said presently.
The hair was thoroughly examined and parted strand by strand to see if there
were any identifying designations on the hair piece. Frank could discover
nothing.
'I'm afraid this isn't going to help us much,' he said in disgust. 'But I'll show
it to the different wig men in town.'
As he finished speaking the telephone rang and Iola went to answer it. Chet
turned white and looked nervous. Was the caller the man who had threatened
him? And what did he want?
Presently Iola returned to the kitchen, a worried frown on her face. 'It's a
man for you, Chet. He wouldn't give his name.'
Trembling visibly, Chet walked slowly to the telephone. The others followed
and listened.
'Ye-yes, I'm Chet Morton. N-no, I haven't got my car back.'
There was a long silence, as the person on the other end of the line spoke
rapidly.
'B-but I haven't any money,' Chet said finally. •'I_ Well, okay, I'll let you
know.'
Chet hung up and wobbled to a nearby chair. The others bombarded him with
questions.
The stout boy took a deep breath, then said, 'I can get my jalopy back. But
the man wants a lot of money for the information as to where it is.'
