The mysterious guest 2 page

That, then, was the explanation. Aunt Gertrude had fallen asleep and had been carried past her destination. She had remained on the boat until it reached Bayport on the return voyage, had come at once to the Hardy home and had gone to sleep on the couch. There was something very strange about the whole business, however. It was not at all like Aunt Gertrude to be content with sleeping on the couch, regardless of what hour she arrived. And it was quite plain that this was not the old, vigorous, stormy, scolding Aunt Gertrude of other visits. Her face was white, and she seemed tired and ill.

"I can't figure out why this chap Pebbles should tell us that story about you," said Frank. "It was all a lie from beginning to end. He said you tripped over a loose plank on the dock and hurt your ankle so you couldn't go on the boat."

"I don't know anything about any Mr. Pebbles," insisted Aunt Gertrude. "Nor any loose plank nor-nor anything. I don't feel well. There was a young man on the boat, I remember."

"Good-looking fellow in a gray suit?" asked Joe quickly.

"Yes. He wore a gray suit. He was very nice. I told him I was coming to visit my nephews. He got me a drink of water once."

"Did you talk to any other strangers?" asked Frank.

Aunt Gertrude admitted that she had. Everybody, she insisted, had been very kind to her on the boat.

"Don't ask me any more about it," she ordered. "I'm too dizzy. I don't feel well. I think I'd better go to bed. I had a terrible dream about a Chinaman. Or was it a dream? There isn't a Chinaman in the house, is there?"

"No. Of course not," said Frank.

''Then it must have been a dream. I thought I saw a Chinaman come sneaking in through the window." Aunt Gertrude shuddered. "Ah, he was an ugly brute. But it must have been a dream."

"This beats anything I ever heard of," Joe muttered. "Pebbles comes here and clears out without a word to anyone and now we find Aunt Gertrude in the house."

Their relative got to her feet.

"I'm going to bed," she muttered.

"Would you like some hot coffee, Aunt Gertrude?" asked Frank.

"I think it would do me good. Bring it upstairs to me. And bring up my suitcase, too, like a good lad."

She swayed and would have fallen had not Joe grasped her by the arm. The boys were greatly disturbed by their aunt's plight. They helped her to the second floor and put the guest room in order. Then they went down to the kitchen and made some coffee.

"Don't you think we'd better call a doctor?" suggested Frank.

"We'll wait a while. Maybe she'll feel better after she's had some breakfast."

The strange disappearance of Sidney Pebbles bothered them. They could not understand why the young man should steal away as he had done.

"Do you think he was a robber?" asked Joe suddenly.

"A robber? He didn't steal anything."

"How do we know?" demanded Joe in excitement. "We haven't looked around. That story about Aunt Gertrude may have been a ruse to get into the house. Maybe he locked himself in the telephone booth in the hope that we would ask him to stay here over night.''

The boys hurriedly made a round of the lower part of the house. They inspected the silver, they investigated the cash-box in their father's office where the household spending money was kept, yet nothing seemed to be missing. When the coffee was ready and they had brought it up to Aunt Gertrude, they took advantage of the opportunity to make a thorough search of the guest room in which Sidney Pebbles had slept.

"There are some of Dad's suits in the closet," Frank remembered. "He might have stolen them."

They opened the closet door and looked inside. Ordinarily there were three or four of Mr. Hardy's business suits hanging neatly upon their hangers. Now one of them lay in a huddle upon the floor, and the others had been disturbed. A blue coat had been replaced with a gray pair of trousers. As the boys had paid special attention to the closet the previous evening when they had been setting the room in order, they were positive that no one but Sidney Pebbles had disturbed the garments.

"So!" exclaimed Joe. "That's what he was after. But why didn't he steal the suits?"

"He wasn't after the suits," returned Frank as he turned one of the coats inside out. "Look! Those papers are gone!"

It seemed now that they had arrived at the explanation of the sudden and mysterious departure of their guest.

CHAPTER IV

THE FOOTPBTNTS

Hastily the Hardy boys examined each of the suits in the closet. They had noticed, on the previous evening, that the inside pocket of every coat had contained papers and letters. Now every pocket was empty.

"Do you know if any of the papers were important?" asked Joe.

Frank shook his head.

"I haven't the slightest idea. They looked like business letters. There might have been important papers among them."

"What's the matter?" asked Aunt Gertrude faintly.

''That fellow Pebbles went through the pockets of Dad's suits," explained Frank. "He took all the papers from them."

Aunt Gertrude sipped her coffee.

"Tell the police!" she said.

This suggestion, however, did not meet with the favor of the Hardy boys. When they encountered a mystery they were accustomed to making it their own. In this case, moreover, there was good reason why the police should not be called. They knew that Mr. Hardy had been working on an important case, so secret and confidential that he had never hinted at its details. It was more than possible that the missing papers might be concerned with this case. If the police were called in, the nature of the documents might become known and much of Fenton Hardy's careful work would thereby be undone.

Aunt Gertrude groaned and thrust the coffee cup aside.

"I can't drink this coffee," she said. "I don't want any breakfast."

"Don't want any breakfast!" gasped Joe. This was a sure sign that Aunt Gertrude wasn't well. She could ordinarily eat a morning meal that would suffice for two women of her size.

"No, I'm not well. Go away and leave me," she commanded pettishly. "I want to go to sleep."

Obediently the boys tiptoed out of the room. When they went downstairs Frank stepped over to the telephone.

"I'm going to tell Chet about this business," he said. "He'll never forgive us if we leave him out of it."

"He may be able to suggest something, too," replied Joe.

However, when Frank telephoned their chum he found that the plump boy was already excited over news of his own.

"I was just going to call you," he said when he heard Frank's voice on the wire. "Did you hear about the fight last night?"

"No. What happened?"

"Oh, there was a whale of a battle down on the docks," said Chet. "Regular riot. Half a dozen Chinese were mixed up in it. One of them was stabbed and had to be taken to a hospital. Another was heaved into the water and nearly drowned."

It flashed into Frank's mind that Chinamen seemed to enter this strange affair at every turn. There was the disappearance of Sam Lee, the strange conversation in the laundry, the Chinamen on the dock, the strange Chinaman who had spoken to Sidney Pebbles in the waiting room, the Chinese charm in the guest room, the evil Chinaman of Aunt Gertrude's dream. And now, this sensational battle among Chinamen on the docks.

"Was Louie Fong mixed up in the fight?"

"I don't know. I didn't hear any names. It's strange, though, that since that fellow blew into town we seem to be running into Chinamen at every turn."

"We have a little mystery of our own," said Frank.

"Mystery?" exclaimed Chet eagerly.

"You remember our guest last night?"

"Pebbles? Sure. What's happened?"

"He cleared out during the night after going through the pockets of all Dad's business suits."

Chet's whistle of amazement sounded clearly over the telephone.

"So that's the sort of lad he was! Did he take anything else?"

"Nothing, so far as we know. He left his Chinese charm behind him, by the way. But there is more to it than that. The story he told us about Aunt Gertrude was all a lie."

"What was the idea?" squeaked Chet.

"That's what we can't figure out. Aunt Gertrude was in the house when we woke up this morning. She fell asleep on the boat. I think she was doped. She has been feeling queer ever since we found her lying on the floor–"

"On the floor!"

"Sure. She fell asleep on the couch and tumbled out. She's been acting strangely–says she dreamed there was a Chinaman in the house last night–"

"Say!" exclaimed Chet. "I'm coming over to see you. I have a feeling that you are going to need me."

The receiver clicked. Chet would be on his way to the Hardy home as fast as the old roadster could carry him.

The boys had breakfast, and although they talked over the strange affair from every angle they could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. Joe was of the opinion that they should start out at once in search of Sidney Pebbles, but Frank shook his head.

"We can't leave Aunt Gertrude, in the first place," he said. "If she isn't feeling a great deal better in the next hour or so I'm going to send for the doctor. As for Pebbles, he won't go near the docks because he knows we'll go there first. We could send Chet down about boat time to look for him but I don't think the man will show up."

"I'm worried about Aunt Gertrude myself," Joe admitted. "I'm sure she must have been doped.''

"But why?"

"That's the mystery. If Pebbles merely wanted to get into the house and steal the papers he didn't have to work out such a wild scheme as that."

"I'm going to take a look around the place," said Frank, finishing his meal. "We haven't really made any search for clues."

They left the breakfast table and carefully inspected all the rooms in the lower part of the house. They found a small, muddy mark in the front hall but they agreed that it might have been left by Aunt Gertrude when she entered the house early that morning. On the bill of the living room window they found a number of tiny scratches.

"I don't remember having seen those marks before," said Joe thoughtfully.

"Neither do I. Do you think Pebbles went out through the window?"

"Why should he? The front door wasn't locked."

Frank looked out the window.

"That's interesting," he muttered.

"What do you see?"

"Look there, in the mud."

Beneath the window, in the soil left wet after the night's rain, they saw a footprint clearly outlined. It was quite distinct in the moist clay.

Frank hastened toward the back door.

"This will bear looking into," he said in evident excitement.

Joe followed, and the brothers ran outside, turning toward the side of the house. There, beneath the window, they found not one footprint but half a dozen, all leading toward the path that met the front walk.

"Footprints under the window!" exclaimed Frank Hardy wonderingly. "What do they mean?"

CHAPTER V

THE DOCTOR'S ORDERS

The Hardy boys were careful to stay well away from the footprints for fear of destroying them, but from where they stood they were able to read a fragmentary story from those telltale marks in the wet clay.

"Someone," said Frank, "came from the grass toward the window. He came very close to the window. Then the footprints show that he went away toward the front path. To get to the path he must have walked across the grass."

"Why did he go to the window?"

"Either to look inside or to climb inside."

The boys examined the part of the house beneath the window. The sill was not far from the ground and they could not determine whether or not anyone had gained entrance to their home in that manner, for there were no marks on the woodwork.

"Maybe the footprints were made by Sidney Pebbles," Joe suggested.

"We should measure them, anyway."

Joe went into the house and returned with a measuring tape, a pencil and a sheet of paper. The boys selected one of the footprints and made careful measurements. Then, on the paper, they inscribed a rough diagram of the "sample print.

"Looks like a size six shoe," said Frank in surprise. "That's quite small. Why, mine is an eight."

"That means, then," observed Joe, "that the footprints couldn't have been made by Pebbles. He was about a head taller than either of us. I don't think he has a particularly small foot."

"And yet, who else could have left those footprints? They were made after the rain stopped."

"How do you know?"

"If they had been made before the down-pour, they'd have been washed away."

While they were considering this they heard the siren of an automobile and the familiar clatter of Chet Morton's roadster. It drew up at the curb, jolted to a stop, and their fat chum vaulted over the side without the formality of opening the door. He ran across the lawn toward them.

"What's new?" he demanded. "You haven’t found Pebbles lying in his gore, have you?"

Frank gestured toward the footprints.

"Those are our only clues," he said.

"Footprints, eh?" exclaimed Chet "Good work. Feetmarks are my dish. Hmm!" He surveyed them gravely. "Well, they tell a plain story. Somebody jumped out of the upstairs window, started off toward the front walk, changed his mind and went back toward the garage. Have you looked to see if your motorcycles are stolen?"

"If he jumped out of an upstairs window," said Frank, "he must have been a butterfly. He would have sunk into mud to his ankles. And as for going to the garage, he must have walked backwards if he did."

Chet was crestfallen.

"Maybe I'm wrong," he admitted. "However, I'll bet he took a motorcycle."

Investigation of the garage, however, revealed the motorcycles and the Hardy boys' roadster safe and unharmed.

"As a detective, Chet," grinned Joe, "you'd better go and take a seat near the back of the hall."

"Well, I don't know all the facts in the case," said the fat one, quite undisturbed. "Tell me what happened."

They related the full story of the events of the morning. When Chet was told of Aunt Gertrude's dream he became vastly excited.

''There you are!" he said grandly. "There's your whole mystery in a nutshell."

"What do you mean?" asked Joe.

"It wasn't a dream. She did see a real Chinaman. He crawled through the living room window, and went upstairs to steal the papers from your father's coats. He didn't expect to find anyone in the guest room. Pebbles was there. Pebbles tackled the robber. The Chinaman throttled Pebbles, carried the body downstairs, took the corpse away and threw it into the bay. It's simple. Boy, what a ghastly crime!"

Chet was quite serious as he outlined this horrible explanation of the night's doings.

"Do you mean to say a Chinaman could murder someone in the room next to us and we wouldn't hear a sound?" chided Frank incredulously.

"I know how you fellows sleep," Chet assured them. "A Fourth of July celebration could be held in the next room and you wouldn't wake up."

"Your theory is full of holes," said Joe.

"You don't like that theory?" asked Chet cheerfully. "All right, then. Here's another. We strive to please. Pebbles got into the house to steal the papers. He took them and knew he would be suspected–"

"Naturally."

"He knew he would be suspected so he went around to the side of the house and left footprints tinder the window. Why should he leave footprints under the window when he could get out by the front door, which wasn't locked? So you would think the footprints were made by someone who didn't know the door was open. Then, when he saw Aunt Gertrude asleep in the living room he disguised himself as a Chinaman and walked back and forth until she woke up and saw him."

"That theory," scoffed Frank, "is even crazier than the first."

"Oh, well," sighed Chet, "if you don't want my help, go ahead and solve the mystery by yourselves."

At that moment the boys heard a cry from within the house.

''Aunt Gertrude!" said Frank. "She's calling us."

Quickly they ran upstairs. The moment they entered the guest room they saw that their relative was really ill. Her face was flushed with fever and she tossed restlessly on the bed.

"I-I think you'd better get the doctor, Frank," she said feebly. "I don't feel well at all."

Frank hurried downstairs to the telephone. He called the office of the family physician, Dr. Bates, and explained the circumstances.

"I'll be right up," said the doctor.

"While they were awaiting his arrival they did what they could to make their aunt more comfortable, but it was evident that her condition was growing worse. Her mind seemed to be wandering and she spoke frequently of the Chinaman she had seen in her dream.

"Such an evil face!" she repeated again and again.

"I don't believe it was a dream at all," Chet insisted. "There was a real, live Chinaman in this house last night."

"I don't know what to make of the whole strange business," Frank confessed.

When the doctor arrived a few minutes later the boys told him how Aunt Gertrude had fallen asleep on the boat, how she had entered the house in the early hours of the morning, and how they had discovered her in the living room.

"Certainly something must have happened," he agreed. '' She was in good health when she left her home?"

"I don't think she would have started for Bayport if she hadn't been feeling well," said Frank.

The boys had said nothing about Sidney Pebbles and the affair of the missing papers.

The doctor went upstairs. He was with Aunt Gertrude for a short time and when he returned his face was grave.

"Would anyone have a motive for doping your aunt?" he asked.

"That's what has been puzzling us," said Joe. "We thought she might have been doped but we can't imagine why. She said she spoke to several strangers on the boat and that one man got her a drink of water."

"There is no doubt," said the doctor, "that she is suffering from the effects of some kind of drug. She is feeling the after-effects now. As a matter of fact, she is quite ill and she is likely to become worse. Her system couldn't stand the strain. Where are your parents?"

"They're away on a trip," Frank told him.

"Well, I'd advise you to get a nurse to look after her. I know a woman who will be glad to come here for a few days until your aunt is on her feet again. Do you want me to send her here?"

"If you think best, Doctor," said Frank.

"I do think it best," he replied seriously. The physician took out his pen and notebook and scribbled on a pad. "You can get this prescription filled at the corner drug store and it will help your aunt's condition. I'll send the nurse around right away and I'll drop in myself this evening."

"Thank you, Doctor," they said.

He left the prescription and picked up his hat.

"Can't understand it," muttered Dr. Bates. "Why anyone should go to the trouble of doping a harmless lady–it's beyond me."

"Aunt Gertrude hasn't an enemy in the world," remarked Joe.

"Well, if I were you I should try to get in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Hardy right away and ask them to come home."

"We'll do our best," they promised.

The doctor went away. Chet was nearly pop-eyed with excitement.

"Doped!" he exclaimed. ''That explains the whole business. It's as clear as mud."

"What's your theory now?" asked Frank.

Chet was solemn as he explained his newest brain-wave.

"Kidnapers!" he said. "They doped your aunt and planned to hold her for ransom."

"Why didn't they, then?" said Joe.

Chet was nonplussed.

"That," he said, "is the mystery."

"You're a lot of help," observed Frank. "If anyone drugged Aunt Gertrude with the idea of kidnaping her, then why on earth didn't they hold her? As soon as that nurse arrives I think we'll see if we can't dig up a few theories of our own."

"Why do you need more theories?" demanded Chet with great indignation. "I've given you three or four of them. All good ones, too. I tell you, I'm not appreciated here. I spend a lot of hard work on this case and all I get is the horse-laugh. What have you in the way of food? It's almost an hour since I had breakfast."

He ambled off into the kitchen, quite undisturbed by the reception his precious theories had received, and reappeared in a moment with a tremendous wedge of pie.

"I always think better when I'm eating," he explained. "I'll have some more smart ideas for you in a few minutes."

Frank got up from his chair.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go back and look at those footprints again."

CHAPTER VI

CHINESE WRITING

It was fortunate that Chet Morton was a good-natured youth, otherwise he might have gone away in a huff because his brilliant suggestions had been so casually dismissed by the Hardy boys. However, nothing ever disturbed Chet and a piece of pie was always enough to soothe his feelings. Quite as if he had never ventured a suggestion at all, he left the house with the Hardy boys and they again examined the mysterious footprints under the window.

The slice of pie was so large and Chet was so busy demolishing it, that he expressed no more theories. The boys examined the lawn carefully to see if they could find any more footprints but in this they were unsuccessful for there were no marks in the springy turf.

"We'll have a hard time finding this fellow Pebbles," Joe declared. "As a matter of fact, I don't think Pebbles was his name at all."

"If he meant to steal Dad's papers it isn't likely that he would give us his right name," agreed Frank.

"He was using an anonymous, eh?" mumbled Chet, with his mouth full of pie.

"A what?"

"An anonymous. I mean," amended Chet hastily, "he was using a nom de plume."

"You mean an alias," said Frank.

"In plain English," said Chet, "I mean he wasn't using his right name."

"That's what I said in the first place," declared Joe.

Chet nodded.

"I quite agree with you." He ventured toward a clump of bushes along the side of the house, idly kicking aside the branches with his toe.

Suddenly he stuffed the last of the pie-crust into his mouth, uttered a gurgle of triumph and dived into the bushes.

"What now?" said Joe.

"Got it! Got it!" mumbled Chet, emerging from the bushes with something clutched in his hand. "I told you I might find something. It's a clue. And I'll bet it has your old footprints beaten all hollow."

The Hardy boys came over, curious to know what Chet had discovered. He opened his hand carefully, as if he had captured a butterfly and was afraid it would escape from his grasp.

"What is it?" asked Frank.

In Chet's hand they saw a folded fragment of paper. At first the boys were inclined to make light of the find as being an ordinary scrap of waste paper but when Chet unfolded it they regarded it with great respect.

Upon the paper, heavily inscribed in black ink, as though painted with a brush, were several Chinese characters.

"Gosh!" breathed Joe. "Chinese writing."

"Nothing else but," gloated Chet. "Now," he demanded triumphantly, "is that a clue or isn't it?"

"Maybe it's only a laundry check," said Frank dubiously. "It looks like one."

Chet was indignant.

"Now don't go turning my clue into a laundry check," he said. "That's a Chinese message. Boy, oh boy, I wish I had taken up Chinese when I was going to school. If we could only read this! I'll bet it's important."

Joe took the check and examined it carefully.

"Three collars, four shirts and a pair of socks," he translated.

Chet snatched back the slip of paper.

"Collars and socks, my neck!" he said. "It's probably a message announcing a revolution in China or something. Don't you see what it means? Why, it proves Aunt Gertrude wasn't dreaming last night. It's certain there was a Chinaman in the house. He left those footprints under the window and he dropped that message from his pocket."

"I think it may be a valuable clue, all right," admitted Frank. "We'll have to find out what it means."

Just then they saw a stout, pleasant-faced woman coming up the front walk.

"This must be the nurse," said Frank. The boys went around to the front of the house to meet her.

"Were you sent by Dr. Bates?" inquired Joe politely.

"I was," replied the woman. "My name is Mrs. Cody, and I'm a nurse. If you'll be good enough to show me into the house I'll get busy right away."

Her manner was rough but kind. Frank took the satchel and they escorted Mrs. Cody into the house.

'"If there is anything you need–" began Joe.

"I'll ask for it, never fear," concluded the nurse, as she opened her satchel and took out a uniform and a cap. "Just show me to my room and leave the house to me. I understand your folks are away."

The boys showed her upstairs, ushered her to Aunt Gertrude's room, and then departed.

"That's a relief," remarked Joe as they went downstairs. "Aunt Gertrude is in good hands, at any rate."

"So are you and Joe," reminded Chet. "You'll have to toe the mark now."

He took from his pocket the slip of paper he had found beneath the bushes.

"What are we going to do about this?"

"I wish Sam Lee hadn't gone away," said Frank. "He would have translated that for us in a second."

Joe suggested that they take the paper to Sam Lee's successor at the laundry, but the other boys did not approve of the idea.

"Take it to Louie Fong?" snorted Chet. "Not me. I don't like that rascal. He'd probably tell us something that wasn't on the note at all."

"I don't trust him myself," Frank agreed. "We'd better look around for a more dependable Chinaman."

Joe suggested that they go down to the docks. He still felt that they might be able to trace the missing Sidney Pebbles.

"Don't you remember!" he said. "Pebbles spoke to a Chinaman after he got off the boat. And there were a number of others hanging around the dock at the time. The whole affair may be connected with that fight early this morning."

"And what a fight it was!" exclaimed Chet. "If the police hadn't shown up in time there would have been corpses all over the place."

Frank asked him if the police had learned the reason for the fight but Chet said that the injured Chinaman, who had been taken to the hospital in the neighboring town of Lakeside, had refused to talk.

"They're a secretive crowd," he said, '' They like to settle their little quarrels in their own way without getting mixed up with the law. I doubt if the police will ever know just why that battle began."