Missing Mail
The night of the graduation exercises at the Bayport high school
arrived, differing little from similar events in past years but of
profound importance to the members of the graduating class and their
parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Hardy were there, very proud of their two boys, and Mrs.
Hardy beamed with pleasure when Frank and Joe, dressed in their finest
clothes and looking very uncomfortable, stepped up to receive their
diplomas. Chet Morton was so nervous and embarrassed that he stumbled on
the way to the platform and ended by dropping the diploma when it was
handed to him.
All the girls looked their prettiest, the boys looked their handsomest,
the principal of the school excelled himself in the speech he had made
at every graduation for the past fifteen years, various prominent
citizens expressed their pride in the young people, and Callie Shaw, as
class valedictorian, won the hearts of all by her valedictory address.
There were other numbers on the program, including a violin solo by Iola
Morton, an exceedingly vigorous recitation by Biff Hooper, an accordion
solo by Tony Prito and—to cap it all—the antics of a burlesque
orchestra organized by Chet. In this, Chet was in his element, wearing a
fireman’s hat and a huge false mustache. Frank and Joe Hardy, wearing
stovepipe hats and red wigs, alternated at a bass drum; Jerry Gilroy, in
a coat that reached to his heels, performed upon a saxophone that
wouldn’t work and from which Chet produced a string of sausage at the
critical moment; Phil Cohen tortured a flute that was capable of but one
note. The burlesque orchestra assaulted the ears of the audience for
some time, with no music whatever, but with such earnestness that the
hearers were doubled up with laughter.
This was the high spot of the program, so far as the boys were
concerned, and it ended the graduation exercises. When they left the
school that night they all felt a little sad, as they knew they were
leaving it for all time, “unless,” Chet Morton said, “they invite us
back some day when we’re very famous to address the students on ‘The
Secret of Success.’”
“In the meantime,” said Frank, “what are we going to do this summer?”
“I’d like another outing,” Joe volunteered.
“Too much excitement for me,” returned Chet. “Last summer we were going
to have a nice quiet trip down the coast, and look what happened. We got
mixed up with a gang of smugglers and had no end of trouble.”
“It finished up happily enough, didn’t it?” said Frank. “Even if you did
get lost!”
“This summer, I’d like to have a nice quiet holiday in a nice quiet
cabin, with a good beach, where we can swim and loaf around and eat and
sleep and not have anything to worry about.”
“Sounds attractive,” Joe admitted. “Where are you going to find this
place, and how can we get there?”
“How about Cabin Island?” suggested Biff Hooper.
The others were thoughtful.
“You’ve had worse ideas, Biff,” said Chet Morton. “Do you think Mr.
Jefferson will let us go there?”
Frank laughed.
“Why not? Didn’t we find his missing stamp collection? Didn’t he say we
could have the use of the island and the cabin any time we wished? There
won’t be any trouble so far as that’s concerned.”
“I think an outing to Cabin Island would be the real thing,” Joe
declared. “What do you say to organizing a trip? We can take the
motorboats, use Cabin Island as our headquarters, then work out from
there so we can go wherever we wish.”
“You have a head on your shoulders,” Chet approved. “When we get tired
of camping we can go exploring. When we get tired of the motorboats we
can loaf around Cabin Island.”
“Joe and I have the summer free,” said Frank. “After that, we’ll either
go to college or go into business with our father.”
“Don’t you know yet?”
“We want to go in with dad,” said Joe promptly. “But he and mother seem
bent on having us go to college. I think we’ll have a lot of arguing
yet.”
“In the meantime, don’t let it spoil your summer,” advised Chet. “Well,
if you want to go on this outing, be sure and count me in. We can dig up
some of the other fellows and we ought to have a bang-up good time.”
“You can’t dig up many of them,” came from Joe.
“Why not? Any fellow ought to jump at a chance like that.”
“Well, some of them wouldn’t be allowed to leave home—got to work and
all that. And some are on the ball team and have to practice when they
aren’t playing a game. And Dick Roylet and his crowd are going on an
auto tour.”
“Well, we’ll get somebody—if we go,” put in Frank.
Next day when the Hardy boys told their parents about the outing they
had planned, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy glanced at one another.
“Don’t you think you had better be making your preparations for going to
college?” suggested Mr. Hardy.
“If you wait too long, perhaps you may not be able to get in,” their
mother ventured.
“Do we have to go to college?” asked Frank.
Mr. Hardy looked dubious.
“You know, your mother and I have always had that in mind for you.”
Joe groaned.
“I’ll make a rotten lawyer.”
“And I’m sure I’ll be a pretty punk doctor,” declared Frank. “Dad, won’t
you let us go into business with you? We like detective work. It’s the
only thing we’ll ever be happy at. Haven’t we done fairly well with the
cases we’ve had so far?”
“Yes, you’ve done well. I’ll admit that. Still—I think I’d rather see
you go in for something else.”
“Would you want us to go in for something we wouldn’t enjoy?” said Joe.
“A person can’t be a success in his work unless he really likes it.”
“That’s true,” returned Mr. Hardy, weakening a little. “Well, I must
have time to think it over.”
Frank offered a suggestion.
“Let us go on our outing first, and by the time we come back we can
settle the whole thing. We’ll be back in plenty of time to go to
college, if you really insist that we go.”
Mrs. Hardy nodded. “I think that’s fair enough, Fenton,” she said to her
husband.
“All right, then,” agreed the detective. “We’ll let the matter rest for
the time being, and as soon as you boys return from your trip we’ll go
into it thoroughly. But you must promise to abide by my decision. I
don’t want to send you to college against your will, but I do want to do
what’s best for your future.”
“We understand that,” said the boys. “It’s for our own good. But we _do_
want to be detectives.”
Mr. Hardy smiled.
“You seem to have your minds made up, at any rate. Well, let it go at
that. Have your outing and enjoy yourselves. Then we’ll settle the whole
matter, once and for all.”
However, the lads had little time in which to proceed with their plans
for the outing. They did not see Chet Morton that afternoon and the trip
was not discussed with any of the other lads they met. Next morning, as
they were having breakfast, their father came into the dining room.
“After breakfast is over,” he said, “come into my study. I want to have
a little talk with you.”
“We’ll be there.”
When their father had gone, they fell to wondering why he wanted to see
them.
“I can’t think of any mischief we’ve been into—except breaking that
pane of glass in the garage,” said Joe.
“He wouldn’t scold us for that. I intended to put in a new pane of glass
to-day.”
“There’s something in the wind.”
They hurried through the remainder of the meal, anxious to learn the
reason for the summons. When they went into the study, Mr. Hardy was
reading a long typewritten letter which he placed to one side.
“I’ve been asked to handle a case,” he explained at once, “and I thought
maybe you could help me a little. Sometimes you hear of things that I
mightn’t learn about. This is a serious case and just now I’m trying to
make up my mind how to go about it.”
“What has happened, Dad?” asked Frank.
“I received this letter this morning from the postal authorities,
explaining the circumstances. It seems that several bags of valuable
mail have disappeared from one of the hangars at the airport near here.”
“Stolen?”
“They couldn’t have disappeared any other way. The mail, as you know, is
very carefully guarded. In this instance, the train that was to take the
mail into the city was a few minutes late and the sacks were accidently
left unguarded. When the train arrived it was found that the mail had
disappeared. The matter is being kept quiet for the time being, in the
hope that we may get a clue. But so far the whole business seems to be a
complete mystery.”
“Haven’t they any idea who stole it?” asked Joe.
“No idea at all. The only men around, so far as they know, were the
usual airport officials and pilots. Practically all of them are above
suspicion. From the looks of the case, I’m inclined to think some
outsider may have been hiding near by, watching his chance, and when he
saw the sacks left unguarded he simply seized them and cleared out.”
Frank leaned forward in excitement.
“I think we can help you a little,” he declared. “We may know something
about that very robbery.”
“Already?” exclaimed Fenton Hardy, astonished.
Frank and Joe thereupon told their father about their adventure in Beach
Grove on the day of the picnic. They told that they had seen Giles
Ducroy and his two companions near the old cabin, how they had followed
the men and listened to their conversation.
“Ducroy was trying to get these other chaps to go in with him on some
crooked deal, and they were afraid because they said it was too
dangerous,” explained Frank. “Ducroy told them they’d make ten thousand
dollars apiece out of it. Perhaps that was what he meant. He planned to
steal some of the mail bags.”
Fenton Hardy was interested.
“Certainly a suspicious conversation,” he admitted. “Still, the mail
bags weren’t worth any thirty thousand dollars, if what the post office
people tell me is correct. They were worth about two thousand dollars at
the most. Besides, Giles Ducroy is already under suspicion.”
“Has he been arrested?” asked Joe.
Fenton Hardy shook his head.
“When the theft occurred, the authorities first thought of Ducroy,
because they knew he had been discharged and was probably looking for a
chance of revenge. So their first action was to investigate his
movements on the day of the robbery.”
“And what did they find?”
“He wasn’t near Bayport at all. He was in Philadelphia—at least, he has
such an alibi.”
“Can he prove it?” asked Frank.
“He had two witnesses to prove it. So nothing could be done against
Ducroy.”
“I’d like to know who those witnesses were,” said Frank. “I don’t
believe he was in Philadelphia at all.”
The boys were openly dubious about Ducroy’s alibi.
“He’s a slick one, Dad,” declared Joe. “He may look dumb, but he’s not
as dumb as he looks.”