The Hooded Hawk Mystery (12 page)

“No, he didn't give his name,” the policeman said. “He was dark-skinned and seemed to be in an awful hurry.”

The Hardys were astonished. Dark-skinned man. Brown-and-white taxi. Taking the falcon during the time they were finishing breakfast. It all seemed to piece together—unfortunately. Could Mr. Delhi have taken the hawk? Had his phone call to New York prompted this? He certainly had been very much disturbed.

As Frank started to ask the policeman for a fuller description of the thief, the connection was broken. He was about to call the officer again when Joe suggested that they get it from the taxi driver, as well as information on his passenger's destination.

The boys headed for the office of the Bayport Taxi Company, a modem outfit with a fleet of radio-equipped taxis. Convinced of the importance of the Hardys' request, the dispatcher willingly contacted his various drivers.

The one they sought appeared at the office about ten minutes later. Frank explained about the missing falcon and their desire to apprehend the thief. The taxi driver's eyebrows went up.

“I remember the guy all right,” he said. “I picked him up in front of the Bayport Hotel at six-thirty this morning.

“After the man collected the falcon from a house on Elm Street,” the driver went on, “he ordered me to drive him down to a wharf on the waterfront. I was curious about why he wanted to go there at that early hour. The guy said that someone was going to pick him up in a boat.”

“Could you give us a description of this man?” Frank asked excitedly.

The taxi driver furrowed his brow for a moment, then replied, “Well, he was young and good-looking and dark-skinned, like one of them Indian rug makers down at Ahmed's place. And he had a scar on his chin. I mean a scar that really stood out—looked lighter than the rest of his skin.”

Frank exchanged glances with Joe. They both heaved a sigh of relief. The falcon thief was not Mr. Delhi after all! It must have been the Indian who had bought pigeons from Mr. Newton two years before—the impostor who had used Mr. Delhi's real name of Bhagnav!

The driver noticed the boys' amazed expressions and asked, “Does that description help you?”

“It sure does,” Frank said. “Thanks a lot. Now will you drive us to the wharf where you took this passenger? He may still be there.”

The three boys climbed into the taxi. Moments later the driver let them out on one of the wharves and promised to wait. They hurried down the length of the dock, but the dark-skinned man was not in sight. No one they questioned on the small boats at the dock had seen anyone carrying a hooded hawk.

“Looks like a dead end,” Joe declared in disappointment.

Frank agreed, but Chet tried to cheer them up, saying:

“Listen, fellows, you're due for a real break. Wait and see!”

The Hardys smiled at Chet's words of encouragement and Frank said, “We'd better go to the hotel and brief Dad on this latest development. He ought to be awake by now.”

The taxi driver took them back to Chet's jalopy, and Chet in turn drove the Hardys to pick up their car at their home. Then Joe and Frank headed for the hotel.

Mr. and Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude listened in amazement to the boys' story. When it was finished, their father leaned forward intently in his chair and reached for the telephone.

“I think we have our man,” he said as he lifted the phone and waited for the operator. “The light-colored scar on the chin is the giveaway. The description fits an Indian by the name of Nanab. He is Rahmud Ghapur's personal servant!”

 

 

 

 

TEN minutes later Mr. Hardy placed the phone in its cradle and turned to his sons. “Well, boys, the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Ghapur says that his servant Nanab quit his job very suddenly the day before yesterday and has disappeared.”

“Wow!” cried Joe, adding, “Why didn't Mr. Delhi identify him from our description. He must have seen Nanab at Ghapur's home?”

“Nanab apparently kept out of his sight on purpose,” Mr. Hardy replied. “He may have feared he might be recognized. The only relative in India that Nanab wrote to while he was in Washington was a brother whose name is Bangalore. So far as Ghapur knows, Bangalore is still in India.”

Frank said excitedly, “No, he isn't, Dad. You were away when we learned that Bangalore was the name of an Indian who jumped ship on the
Continental
while the vessel was docked in New York. That happened two years ago.”

As he finished speaking, Radley came in, holding an envelope. He said he had been to the house and was amazed to learn of the bombing and was relieved to see that the Hardys were safe. He handed over the envelope, saying:

“I got this in the mail. When I opened it, I knew you boys would want to see it.” He held up a photograph. “It's a picture of that fellow Bangalore. The steamship line sent it.”

“Bangalore!” Mr. Hardy exclaimed. “He's Nanab's brother all right. Looks just like him, except that he has no chin scar. Good work, fellows. It certainly seems as if Bangalore is one of the ringleaders in this smuggling and kidnapping business. Nanab has probably been working with him part of the time and is now spending full time on the rackets.”

“Dad, do you think he could have been the one who intercepted Mr. Ghapur's letter to us?” Joe asked.

“No doubt of it. Unfortunately, Ghapur trusted Nanab implicitly and always confided in him. Nanab destroyed the letter, but why do you suppose he let the falcon get through to you?”

“That does seem strange,” Frank agreed. “Anyway, we know he learned all the plans and developments in the case by eavesdropping on Ghapur and Mr. Delhi.”

“There's one bright side to this whole thing,” said his father. “You boys must be much nearer a solution than you think, or I doubt that Nanab would have left his job at Ghapur's. He probably knew the net was closing around him.”

Frank and Joe, certain that part of the solution was to be found on the
Daisy K,
determined to carry through with their fishing plan. Since it was too late for the trip scheduled for that day, Frank phoned the booking office for Bayport's charter boats to find out if the
Daisy K
was going out the following morning. He was told there would be a trip.

Mr. Hardy said he would make the necessary arrangements for repairs to their home, then he must return to Washington on urgent business.

The phone rang and Joe answered. The caller was Chet, who said, “How about you fellows coming out here to live until your house is repaired? The folks say it's fine with them.”

“Sounds good, Chet. Wait till I ask Dad and Mother.”

The family agreed that the boys would find it far more enjoyable staying with Chet than living in the hotel, so Joe promptly accepted. Then, at their parents' request, Frank and Joe worked nearly all day at the bombed house storing away pictures, lamps, and other small furnishings, and moving clothes to the hotel. It was late afternoon when they arrived at the Morton farm.

“Before it gets dark today,” Frank proposed, “let's go over to the deserted hunting lodge and see if Radley has anything new to report.”

After the Hardys had deposited their luggage in the Mortons' guest room, the three boys set off for the lodge. Radley said there was no evidence that anyone had returned to the lodge and felt further watch of it was useless. He remarked that he would like to tackle the mystery from another angle.

“I've had a lot of time to think out here,” he said, “and I came up with an idea. Maybe these smugglers don't send their pigeons from a boat at all. They may be working from an island.”

“An island! Could be!” Joe replied enthusiastically. “When we get back to Chet's, let's take a look at a map to see what's northeast of here.”

“And,” said Radley, “why not let me take a plane and see if I can spot something out there.”

“Okay,” Frank agreed. “Joe and I are planning a fishing trip on the
Daisy K
early tomorrow morning. Among the three of us we may uncover something either on the sea or from the air.”

Radley and the boys walked back to the Morton home where they pored over a map.

“Hm!” said Radley. “Islands galore northeast of here. The closest ones are Shoals, Pine Haven, and Venus, but that doesn't mean they're the ones. The smugglers may be taking no chances and using an island quite a distance away. I'll look over as many as I can from the plane, though.”

That evening, after Radley had left, Frank and Joe got their fishing gear ready and tried out their disguises. Their father, an expert in that field, had taught his sons many of the techniques, and they kept all the prerequisites on hand. Hair dye, cheek pads and sideburns changed the countenance of the boys. Dyed eyebrows and a small beard for Frank completed their outfits.

Iola and Chet laughed when they saw Frank and Joe. “You look rather cute as a redhead,” Iola told Joe, who had tinted his hair a reddish brown.

Before dawn the next morning, the Hardys set out through a drizzle for the wharf where the
Daisy K
was tied up. Four other sports fishermen already were there, waiting to go aboard. Frank and Joe kept a wary eye on Captain Flont, who did not give any indication that he recognized them. In fact, he paid little attention to his passengers.

The day's fishing went along with reasonable success. All of the
Daisy K's
passengers managed to net a fair-sized catch of tuna and mackerel. Under various pretexts during the trip, both Frank and Joe wandered around the ship, but the falcon was not aboard. The boys had also made a point of trying to pick up conversations between the captain, his crew of two, and any passengers that might be in league with him, but learned nothing.

In the late afternoon, when the
Daisy K
started back for Bayport, Frank and Joe were seated inside the deckhouse as close as they dared to Captain Flont, who was at the wheel.

Suddenly, above the throbbing of the motors, they heard him say to one of his crew, “It beats me where Ragu went.”

“I'm afraid he's in trouble,” the man replied.

“It's going to be hard to take care of things at windward without him,” the captain said, then shifted the conversation to another subject.

The Hardys got up and walked out to the stem of the boat. When they were alone, Frank whispered, “Did you have the same thought I did? That it was strange for a nautical man to say ‘at windward'?”

“I sure did,” Joe replied. “If he had meant a direction, the captain would have said ‘to windward.' ”

“
Right. Windward must be a place!”

The
Daisy K
reached port just before dinner. As Frank and Joe walked along the waterfront with their day's catch of fish, they questioned sailors from other boats about Windward. No one had heard of it. Finally they headed for the hotel, deciding to have supper with the family before going to Chet's.

The young detectives, still in their disguises, turned their mackerel over to a startled bellhop and asked him to deliver them to the hotel chef. Then, learning from the desk clerk that Radley was waiting for them, they went at once to their room. The detective grinned at their disguise. While they were removing the make-up, he said:

“I flew all over the coast for about five hours, but I couldn't spot any activity that would indicate smuggling operations. I did see several deserted sections along the shores of some of the islands that would make good hideaways. Guess we'll have to investigate all of them.”

“Ever hear of a place called Windward?” Frank inquired.

“No,” Radley replied. “What about it?”

Frank repeated the conversation that he and Joe had overheard on the
Daisy K.
Radley nodded thoughtfully, then remarked:

“Let's go down to the Skippers Club. I know some of the seafaring men who stay there. Maybe one of them will be able to help us out.”

After dinner with Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude, the three went to the saltbox building near the waterfront, where many of the old-timers played cribbage, chess, and billiards in between spinning sea yarns about the good old days. Sam Radley was hailed by several of the captains. He quizzed some of them about Windward. The name meant nothing to the first half dozen he spoke to, but finally a grizzled man of the sea looked up from a game of solitaire.

“Sure, I know the place. Windward was our old-timers' name for the windside o' Venus Island,” he said. “The lee side's green an' right pretty. Folks live there. But Windward's rocky an' barren. Broken up by stretches o' pine woods here an' there.”

Radley thanked the old salt and the three left the club. Outside, Frank remarked, “That sounds like an ideal spot for smuggling operations!”

“Let's check on it right away,” Joe proposed. “Maybe we can round up some of the fellows to help us.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Frank, “Biff Hooper and Tony Prito were planning to go out to Chet's tonight. Let's put all three of them to work on the case.”

Radley was eager to go along. They stopped at a drugstore with a couple of phone booths. Joe called Chet to explain their plan to take the
Sleuth
out to Venus Island for a reconnoitering expedition.

“Sounds like a dangerous job,” said Chet, “but I'll come and bring Tony and Biff. I expect them here any minute.”

“Meet us at our boathouse,” Joe said. “And make it as soon as you can.”

Frank, meanwhile, had called the hotel from the other booth to apprise his mother of their plans. Next he put in a call to Chief Collig to tell him of their new lead and to ask if Ragu had had any visitors.