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Prisoners underground





 

Frank fitted the key into the lock.

"Don't open that door!" screamed Aunt Gertrude. ''Get the police!''

The nurse fled to Aunt Gertrude's room and peeped out through the half-open door, ready to slam it shut at an instant's notice.

The pounding continued. Frank seized the knob, turned the key and stepped back.

Out tumbled Tom Wat, with the girl's hat down over one eye and the skirt dragging about his heels. The young man was nearly dead from excitement.

"Me aflaid of lady!" he babbled. "Muchee aflaid of lady. Lockee me up." He grabbed Frank by the sleeve.

The first shock of surprise having passed, the Hardy boys roared with laughter. Joe sat down on the floor, weak with mirth at the spectacle of the bedraggled and frightened Chinaman.

"Don't let him get away!" clamored Aunt Gertrude. "Sit on his head."

"Me muchee aflaid of lady!"

"And the lady is muchee aflaid of you, too," snorted Joe. "How on earth did they catch you, Tom?"

"Me get hungly. Me come down stailway. Lady catchee me. Lady shout, 'Whoops!' and glab me," related Tom Wat, shuddering at the recollection. "Me hide in closet. Lockee me tip then."

Explanations, of course, were in order. Frank and Joe brought their trembling guest into Aunt Gertrude's room, vastly to the alarm of that lady and Nurse Cody. Then they explained how they had smuggled Tom Wat into the house to protect him from the insidious Louie Fong.

Aunt Gertrude, her fears allayed, scolded the boys for giving her such a fright. The scare, however, had done her good. She seemed more active than she had been since she entered the house. In fact, she seemed to forget that she was supposed to be ill.

"I never heard of such a thing!" she exclaimed. "A Chinaman in the room overhead all the time. If I'd known it I'd have died! I'd have simply up and died of sheer fright."

"Such goings-on!" sniffed Nurse Cody. "Scarin' two defenceless women out of their wits."

"Look what you did to Tom Wat, though," pointed out Frank. "He's a nervous wreck. He'll never be the same again."

When the excitement had died down the boys took the Chinaman to their room. There they told him of the happenings in the laundry, of the capture and escape of Louie Fong.

Tom Wat's face became grave.

"Velly bad!" he said. "Louie Fong makee much tlouble for you."

"We must make trouble for Louie Fong before he can get started. That's the only answer," said Frank.

"How?" asked Joe.

"I have an idea. If we go back to Fong's place we may be able to learn something. If he has returned we'll get the police to round up the whole crowd. We have evidence against Louie Fong and North, as it is."

Joe shook his head.

"If Louie Fong should see us, we're certainly done for."

"We'll go in disguise."

"Tom Wat is disguised. How about us?"

"I'll go with Tom Wat–as a Chinaman."

Frank proceeded to put his idea into execution. From a drawer he removed a box of grease paints that Fenton Hardy had discarded from his collection. Joe slipped downstairs to the little room off their father's office, where Fenton Hardy kept his collection of disguises.

He returned in a few minutes with a coat, trousers, slippers and queer, flat hat.

"The very thing!" said Joe proudly. "Dad used this outfit when he was investigating the tong wars in Chinatown, back in New York."

Frank sat down in front of the mirror. Swiftly he applied the grease paint. "With the aid of Tom "Wat he soon transformed himself into a very realistic Oriental.

"Where do I come in?" asked Joe.

"You trail Wat and me," returned his brother. "If we get into difficulties you can get help for us."

Tom Wat's attire was soon straightened out, and although he had many misgivings about returning to the neighborhood of Louie Fong's place he was persuaded to join the expedition.

"All set?" said Frank. "Let's go."

They slipped out of the house and made their way toward the alley. Here, in the darkness, they discussed their plans for a moment. Then Frank and Tom Wat set out together, Joe remaining in the shadows. Presently he followed them at a respectful distance.

Louie Fong's laundry was in darkness, so they went on toward the apparently deserted store. Suddenly Frank stopped.

"Someone there already," he whispered to Tom Wat, who peered into the gloom.

Against the side of the building they saw a dark shadow. A man was prowling about beneath the windows. He advanced a pace, crouched down, appeared to be listening. Then he moved forward again, and once more stooped low.

"I'm going to tackle him," whispered Frank.

Stealthily he advanced until he was only a few yards away from the mysterious stranger. A quick rush and Frank had collared the fellow before he could stir from his tracks. There was a brief struggle.

"You let me be!" gasped the prisoner. "Let me alone. I ain't doing anything."

Frank bundled him back into the alley. Joe, who had heard the sounds of the struggle and thought something had gone wrong, hurried up to them. The captive struggled in vain.

"Let me go!" he demanded. "I ain't doing you any harm."

His voice was familiar. Frank swung him around and they peered at him in the dim light.

"Sidney Pebbles!" gasped Joe.

It was indeed the Sidney Pebbles whom they had met on the dock, the Sidney Pebbles who had vanished so mysteriously from their home on the night of Aunt Gertrude's arrival.

"Well," said Frank, holding the prisoner firmly. "This is a surprise. We've been looking for you, Pebbles. We've been wanting to have a talk with you ever since you left our house."

"My name isn't Pebbles. You've the wrong man," muttered the captive.

"The real Sidney Pebbles works at Lakeside," Joe told him. "You'd better talk or it will be the worse for you. What's your real name?"

"Henry Pinkerton," he muttered sullenly.

"What made you call yourself Sidney Pebbles, then?" demanded Frank.

"Because I look like him. You fellows had better let me go. You may not know it but I'm one of the best detectives in the United States. It'll be just too bad for you if the authorities find out that you've been handling Henry Pinkerton this way."

"So! You're a great detective, are you?" said Frank, who sensed that the fellow was only a pretentious braggart. "What agency do you work for?"

"Well–I don't work for anybody just yet," confessed Pinkerton. "The government and the agencies won't give a fellow a chance. They don't know how good I am. I took a correspondence course in how to be a great detective and I passed with mighty good marks, let me tell you. I'm working on this Chinese case right now and when I solve it I'll be famous."

"What Chinese case?" asked Joe, startled.

"Well, I don't rightly know what it's all about but I was at your father's office one day to see if he would give me a job and I heard him talking to Mr. North. So when he wouldn't give me a job I said to myself that I'd solve that smuggling case, whatever it was, and make a name for myself."

"So that's why you made up an excuse to get into our house?" exclaimed Frank.

"Well, I met your aunt on the boat and I found out where she was going, and I thought it was a good chance to get some inside information. She asked me to get her a drink of water so I put a couple of drops of medicine in it- harmless stuff, wouldn't hurt a fly–just to put her to sleep so she'd go past Bayport."

"Do you realize," said Frank, "that she's been ill ever since?"

"Shucks," said Pinkerton, "I didn't give her enough to hurt anybody."

"Why did you steal the papers from Dad's pockets?" snapped Joe.

"Papers?" exclaimed Pinkerton. "I didn't steal any papers. During the night I got afraid you chaps would find me out so I just sneaked away. But I didn't take anything. I'm not a thief. I'm a detective. And a rattling good one, too," he added.

"Didn't you leave footprints under our living room window?" demanded Frank incredulously.

"No. I went but the front door and down the walk."

This threw a new light on the situation. Who, then, had made those footprints!

"Well, then," said Joe, "didn't you spy on Louie Fong and Orrin North out at North's garage last night?"

"Who is Louie Fong?" replied Pinkerton blankly. ''I wasn't anywhere near Mr. North's garage."

"Weren't you prowling around this store today?" asked Frank.

"Nope," said Pinkerton. "I've never been around here before. Just thought I'd investigate the place tonight because I got a tip that someone had seen a Chinaman coming out of the place."

The boys were perplexed. By his stupid interference he had complicated the case from the beginning. They saw, then, that there was an unknown factor in the affair. Someone else had dropped the note and left the footprints beneath the window. Someone else had spied on Louie Fong and Orrin North at the garage. Someone else had been prowling about the secret meeting place in the store that day.

"You've gone and spoiled all my work," growled Pinkerton, "just when I was getting along fine. I don't see why you have to comei butting in."

At that moment there was a warning cry from Tom Wat. Taking no part in the conversation, he had noticed the appearance of several suspicious looking shadows in the gloom of the lane. Back of Louie Fong's laundry he thought he had seen a flash of light. Later he thought he heard a stealthy footstep. He had wanted to be certain before he informed the others. Then he had seen a man run swiftly into the lane from the rear of the store.

At that moment Tom Wat had given the alarm, but he was too late. Half a dozen figures seemed to rise out of the very ground. Frank and Joe sprang around to find themselves confronting three men who bore swiftly down upon them. Henry Pinkerton uttered a howl of fear and took to his heels. He blundered into a man who made a swing at him but missed. Tom Wat had gone scarcely three paces before a man plunged out of the darkness and brought him to the ground.

"We're trapped, Joe!" gasped Frank, as he tried to fight off the attackers.

The boys battled bravely but they were outnumbered and seized. Struggling, they were hustled out of the alley, but they could not cry out because their captors had roughly gagged them. They were rushed quickly through a doorway at the back of Louie Fong's laundry.

There was a dim light in the shop and its glow revealed the vicious faces of their captors. They had fallen into the hands of half-a-dozen Chinamen.

They were filled with dismay as they were pushed through the back room of the laundry. One of the men knelt and drew open a trapdoor. It was not the trap-door through which Frank had previously tumbled. A flight of steps led to the regions beneath.

Still struggling vainly they were hustled down into an underground chamber. A door was flung open, revealing a gloomy, dismal room beyond. Roughly, the boys were thrust inside, and the door was shut with a clang. A key grated in the lock.

They were prisoners underground. Prisoners of Louie Fong. And they knew, now that they were in the power of the merciless Chinaman, that they might never see the light of day again. Truly, as Sam Lee had said, Louie Fong was always dangerous.

Frank picked himself up from the ground and rubbed his bruises.

"Beaten!" he muttered. "Just when we thought everything was coming along our way."

Tom Wat, although his face was pale, said nothing.

Joe made a grimace of disgust.

"We stepped into a neat trap," he said. "And of course Henry Pinkerton would be the only one lucky enough to get away."

Suddenly a harsh voice broke in:

"You catchee Louie Fong, eh? Velly foolish."

There was a burst of maniacal laughter. The boys looked up. There, beyond a tiny grating in the wall, they saw the sinister yellow face of Louie Fong. His teeth were bared in a hideous grin as he gloated over their plight.

"Mellican boy dless up like Chinaboy," he said scornfully. "Mellican boy talkee Mellican talk in alley." He laughed derisively.

Frank flushed as he realized how they had been caught. Someone had been watching them as they came down the alley. Doubtless their disguises had not been penetrated at first, but when they had captured Henry Pinkerton the ruse had been discovered. Frank had forgotten that he was supposed to be a Chinaman. He had spoken in his natural tone of voice. Louie Fong's henchmen, then, had lost no time in surrounding the group and taking them prisoners.

"You might as well let us out of here, Louie Fong," Frank said, trying to show a bold front. "You won't gain anything by it."

Louie Fong cackled with laughter.

"Mebbe Fenton Ha'dy come let you out?"

"Maybe Fenton Hardy won't make it hot for you if anything happens to us," said Joe.

The Chinaman sneered.

"Two, three minute now," he said, "Fenton Ha'dy in samee fix like you."

"What do you mean?" demanded Frank, startled. "He isn't in Bayport."

"You wait," said Louie Fong. An iron shutter swiftly crashed over the grating. The Chinaman's face disappeared.

"What does he mean?" said Joe.

"He means," replied Frank dully, "that Dad is in Bayport. And coming here. The moment he enters the place he will be trapped."

"And we can't do a thing to warn him," groaned Joe.

A moment later the shutter was raised again. Once more they saw the face of Louie Fong, hi» features twisted in a diabolical smile.

"Mebbe you look–see now," he said.

They rushed to the grating as Louie Fong withdrew. Through the bars the horrified boys gazed on a strange scene.

In a low, smoky room they saw their father, Fenton Hardy. His arms were raised. On a table in front of him sat Orrin North, a revolver in his hand.

 

CHAPTER XXV

Date: 2016-05-25; view: 267; Нарушение авторских прав; Помощь в написании работы --> СЮДА...



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